Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

While Ogi stood there, unresponsive, Dancer got up and bustled briskly about the room. From the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp, somewhere over near the wall, she fetched a chair, one lower than a normal chair and the same height as the bed; next to that she placed a cushion for her own use. Ogi sat down in the chair, legs straight out in front of him; he smelled a powdery leather odor as Dancer plopped her rump down on the cushion.

This way the two of them were on the same level as Patron, who was leaning in their direction.

Ogi glanced over at Dancer, her half-open mouth glistening faintly in the light, then turned his gaze to Patron, waiting expectantly for his tearful voice to resume its tale of woe. There had to be a special reason why Dancer chose him to be her partner here, he thought, trying to compose himself.

In the west corner of the bedroom/study, just outside the curtain and the glass door, there was the movement of some large beast. That had to be where the doghouse was. The Saint Bernard's restless stirrings overlapped in Ogi's mind with Patron's black spacy eyes, and once again the image came to him of that sleety night, man and dog in identical rainwear, out for a walk.

Patron didn't say anything more that night; he fell asleep, and Dancer told Ogi-who ended up spending the night-to go back to the living room.

When the housekeeper they'd hired after Guide fell ill arrived the next morn- ing, Ogi left with Dancer to visit Guide in the university hospital in Shinjuku.

Seated behind the wheel of her Mitsubishi Pajero, glaring down on the road as if she were driving a tank, Dancer was a fearless driver. She handled the car like the agile danseuse she was, with a no-nonsense approach to ma- neuvering it through the maze of city streets.

Until they came out onto Koshu Boulevard, Dancer carefully chose one back road after another, avoiding traffic jams. The highway might take even more time, she said, almost making Ogi carsick each time she skill- fully changed lanes. She added, in a burst oí self-criticism, "Of course, this might save us ten minutes at most."

Dancer told him that after their talk Patron had slept soundly the whole night but was still in shock about what had happened to Guide. She said noth- ing more about Guide's condition, perhaps feeling she'd already discussed it enough when she called Ogi in Sapporo. Again Ogi sensed Dancer's matter- of-fact style. There was something about her lithe body and childlike expres- sion with its half-open mouth that made Ogi feel he had to be on his guard, yet her way of speaking was still whispery and vague. Beyond this, though, he sensed a strong reliable core. Even in a business setting, Ogi found it hard to maintain a proper reserve. Once negotiations began, he quickly took an interest in the person he was dealing with, making a real attempt to under- stand the other's point of view. All of which might support Dancer's calling him Innocent Youth, even though they still didn't know each other all that well. Ogi could equally well be labeled just a straightforward, affable young man. Sometimes, though, he would puzzle his listeners by abruptly denying what they said; this would happen when he decided, while listening in all sincerity, that what he was hearing was a waste of time.

Sitting in the car beside Dancer, listening to her whispery voice, Ogi knew that never once had anything she said been a waste of time. Never once had she upset him with a vapid repetition of the obvious.

Dancer dropped him off at the reception desk of the hospital, parked quickly in the lot in front, and eagerly tripped back inside. In her white Lycra sweater and narrow pair of pink trousers, she radiated youthful efficiency; Ogi wasn't surprised to see she already had on a visitor's badge. Getting the badges was such a simple matter it made him worry about how secure the hospital was. Ten years ago Patron and Guide, the latter now lying helpless in a hospital bed, were the focus of a major dispute within the ranks of their church, and the matter still remained unresolved.

They rode the elevator to the intensive care unit on the fifth floor, where the door opened inward after Dancer, her efficiency unfailing, used a phone high on the wall beside the entrance to phone for permission to enter.

Once inside the ICU they washed their hands with a liquid disinfec- tant soap, Dancer instructing Ogi not to wipe his hands on anything. Follow- ing her lead, Ogi held his hands in front of him, watching as the volatile soap dried before his very eyes; they came to a second set of automatic doors and entered the inner recesses of the ICU. On the floor was a three-yard strip of sticky tape spanning the width of the hallway, and again, following Dancer, Ogi stepped heavily on the strip, letting it grab his shoes. He was a large fly caught on a huge piece of flypaper, a typically shallow metaphor he came up with as the grip on his shoes tightened.

They passed by the nurses' station and, in the first of the row of private rooms, ran across a depleted, dejected patient clad in a robe lying there star- ing vacantly into space. Ogi understood quickly this wasn't Guide's room, but it was still a shock. Guide's room turned out to be a large one at the end of the corridor, a room with three or four beds partitioned off with white curtains; Guide lay in the nearest one, even worse off than the patient Ogi'd just seen.

He was hooked up to IV tubes, and a larger pleated tube was joined to an artificial respirator, his arms and legs restrained by sturdy rope. An electric monitoring system the size of a medium-sized TV was set up at the head of the bed, with green, red, and yellow lines flashing parabolas across the screen.

Even lying flat, Guide was obviously a big-boned man; the bed was a bit too short for him. His head was covered with a white hood, his eyes were closed, and the upper lid of his closed right eye was darkly congested with blood. His breathing was labored, hence the respirator tube running out of his mouth. His magnificently sturdy face was red, like an overly robust child's.

A nurse led Dancer and Ogi to his bedside, briefly checked the drip on the IV, and left without a word. As soon as she was gone, Dancer, standing with Ogi alongside the bed, where Guide's rough legs stuck out beyond the blanket, swiftly occupied the spot the nurse had vacated. She began rubbing Guide, from one shoulder, the top of which was outside his robe, down to his muscular chest.

"His nostrils are nicely formed, don't you think? He was able to breathe on his own until yesterday. And he had enough strength to kick off his cov- ers… They've intentionally lowered his body temperature. Touch his hand and see; it's strange how cold it is."

Ogi did as she asked. The hand was far colder than his own. It didn't possess the strength to squeeze back, but its heft and feeling still made him feel like Guide was moving it.

Dancer stroked all of Guide's exposed skin so intently that it seemed like she might crush the tubes strung out of him. Leaning over the bed, she cast an upward glance at Ogi, disappointed, it seemed, that he hadn't denied her obser- vation. Then, as if to lift her own spirits before she strode off to the nursing sta- tion, Dancer said, "I'm going to find the physician in charge and get the latest update. You stay here, and if Guide comes around, be gentle with him, okay?

If he were to regain consciousness surrounded by people he doesn't know well, he might have a fit and burst another blood vessel. And that would be the end."

Left alone, Ogi's mind wandered. Whenever Ogi had looked in on the three of them-Dancer, Patron, and Guide-Dancer always seemed to be paying sole attention to Patron and was even cold to Guide. With Guide, too, you could detect an occasional sense of reverence toward Patron, but when- ever Dancer tried to enter the scene he unhesitatingly ignored Patron's wishes and shooed her away. But now that Guide had collapsed, wasn't there a dis- tinctly sexual undertone in the way she caressed his skin?