Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

They suddenly noticed that Dancer had come out from Patron's room and was standing at the corner of the dining room, looking down at Kizu and Ikuo.

"Patron told me again that he wants you to be Guide," she said to Kizu.

The next morning dawned clear, not a cloud in the sky. Over a foot of snow piled up in the branches and treetops, and the trees in the garden leaned over at anarchic angles. The line of potted wild plants looked like deep-dish pot pies. The layer of snow covering the ground twinkled in dead silence. The morning was still early. Kizu and Ikuo had slept in the annex, and Kizu left Ikuo there, deep in the enduring sleep of a healthy young man, and went over to the main house. Dancer was already up, planted in the chair that Ogi nor- mally used, hard at work. When she saw Kizu she reported that last night she'd recorded Patron's statement on the death of Guide. She was letting Patron sleep in and was getting things ready for what was likely to prove a busy afternoon.

The small lamp on her desk just illuminated the documents on top of it, and in contrast to the bright snow coming from the north and south sides of the garden, in this darkly shadowed interior Dancer's face looked pale and swollen. Her nostalgic little-girl-with-a-cold face at the same time showed the pain of one who's been abandoned. Kizu wondered when Patron was planning to visit the hospital and how they planned to get there if the snow prevented them from taking the car.

"Patron isn't going to the hospital," Dancer replied. "Point-blank, with- out any emotion, he said there was no need, now that Guide has passed away."

"But he will have to bid farewell to the body, won't he? Is Ogi going to bring the body back here?"

"We've made an appointment at the crematorium; Ogi will take care of everything. We'll just wait for the ashes to be brought back here. In the afternoon we'll be inundated with reporters, and Patron plans to hold a press conference. We'll all be pretty busy. Ms. Tachibana will be bringing one of her colleagues but will have to wait until the trains are running again."

"How were Guide's wife and son told?"

As if wondering how much Kizu already knew about Guide's family, Dancer assumed her typical expression, mouth slightly open, for the first time this morning.

"I think Ogi contacted them last night, before dinner," she replied.

"When we got back to the hospital, his wife and son were already there. His wife seemed to think it was very important for her to see him once before he died-even if he wasn't able to realize she was there. When the doctors were performing heart massage and ordered everyone out of the room, she insisted on staying there and did so, along with her son. When we went back into the room, she looked devastated, as if it had been her chest they'd been massaging.

"All things considered, she held up well; she kept repeating to her poor son that his father had died repentant. Ogi's supposed to escort them to the crematorium. Guide's wife wanted to go back to Boso as soon as she could and told us that though her husband had been a big man and there would be a lot of bones left after the cremation, they need only bury a small portion."

"So his wife said he died repentant, did she?" Kizu said, his voice full of regret for the bereaved family.

Dancer leaped in adroitly. "I wonder how his wife and son understood the word. Ikuo and I discussed it on the way back, whether what she said about repentance is the same thing as the term Patron uses in his teaching, or whether she meant your garden variety of repentance."

"Do you mean Guide repenting what he did to his family?" Kizu asked her. "Maybe all repentance leads in the same direction."

"When Patron heard this, he cried," Dancer said, looking at Kizu closely to gauge his reaction.

"It must be a complex thing for Patron."

"Don't be so standoffish-like it has nothing to do with you," Dancer protested mildly. "Instead, as your first task as the new Guide, would you transcribe the tape of Patron's announcement?"

Dancer leaned forward to pass him the tape, still in its Walkman, her eyes as she did so overflowing with light reflected from the snow on the north side of the house like some alien on a TV movie. Dancer had a dignity that wouldn't take no for an answer, and her obvious exhaustion-she'd only managed to grab a few hours' sleep-did nothing to diminish the energy with which she took care of the work she had to do. Still, though, she showed her concern, saying, "If you'd like to have breakfast before you get to work, I'll make it."

"No, I don't want to bother you with those kinds of chores," Kizu said, borrowing a ballpoint pen and loose-leaf notebook. "Ikuo should be up soon.

I'll ask him to fix it."

Kizu settled down in the armchair Patron had recently occupied, put on the headphone, and pushed the PLAY button on the Walkman.

Patron was muttering, so at first Kizu couldn't understand him. He was about to turn up the volume but the switch was taped over. He looked up and Dancer, who'd been watching him all the while, nodded, her eyes like melted pools of ice. She seemed to be telling him to listen to the tape as it was, until Patron's low murmur itself changed in tone.

Headphones still on, Kizu turned to look at the snowy garden outside.

The small leaves of the azalea hedge shivered under the thick layer of snow; the snow-covered stems of the withered hydrangea leaves shook with the wind. Kizu noticed one clear difference between this scene and the one that greeted him on snowy mornings back in the States. At the thick base of the winter camellia, with its large white flowers, the snow was sticking to one side only. The snow was piled up on the branches and clumps of leaves, but the wind didn't budge it. At his apartment at the university the day after it snowed, the piled-up snow, as high as the roof and the trees, would blow up in the air and swirl around in dry and powdery flakes.

Gradually, though it was still muffled and at the same volume level, he could make out what Patron was saying. As he came to the end of the tape, one phrase in particular stood out: Thy will be done.

Kizu transcribed Patron's talk on the tape into the notebook. As he did so he felt a force pushing him back, interrupting the flow of the sentences, a force that had its roots in the quiet, calm measures in which Patron spoke.

Kizu couldn't reproduce this style in writing, and he was amazed all over again at the depth and intimacy that Patron and Guide had shared. Still, Kizu managed to finish a first draft, which he tore out of the notebook and placed beside the computer where Dancer was working.

"This is pretty flat and doesn't reflect Patron's tone of voice at all," Kizu explained timidly.

Guide has died of a brain aneurysm that was deliberately brought on by those who held him captive and, for a long time, harassed him in a kangaroo trial. The people in this group who victimized him were mem- bers ot the radical faction of our church at the time, ten years ago, when we did our Somersault. Several of these people belonged to the group that actually committed subversive activities. As a result these people, includ- ing ones who were legally sanctioned, took revenge on Guide and car- ried out their lynch-mob justice.

They were trying, after a ten-year delay, to make Guide take respon- sibility for the Somersault. But the Somersault was mostly my responsi- bility, something Guide did along with me. The relationship between Guide and myself continued all the while, from when it was just the two of us training ourselves spiritually, through when we formed a church, to the time when we undertook large-scale religious activities. The Som- ersault, too, took place as part of our longtime relationship. But I took the lead. It's illogical for the radical faction to kill Guide while not pur- suing me.