Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

Patron held his heavy-looking head upright, took a deep breath, and then spoke.

"I want you to paint a picture of me too. I have a hunch that it will con- vey something very important."

Patron's eyes-the pupils distinctly separate from both top and bottom lids-looked straight at Kizu. He nodded once and answered the question Kizu had posed earlier.

"I want you to do the opposite of what Guide used to do. Guide fulfilled his role of Prophet by having me relate the future. But with our Somersault we denied all that. We made the doctrine of interpreting my visions one big joke, and the two of us unhesitatingly apostatized. For Guide and me, our Somersault was the truth. And the ten years of hell that followed were not meant to erase this. Quite the opposite: The truth of our Somersault was etched into us, which is the very reason that, even though he was interrogated by the former radical faction to the point where he suffered mightily, bursting a blood vessel, Guide did not denounce our Somersault. And then he died. You under- stand, then, another reason why I can't do another Somersault? This is why I said Guide's death legitimized me.

"I've told you, Professor, much more about Guide than I've ever told anyone else. And about the Somersault and our descent into hell. I've done this so you can record them. The same holds true for the new movement I'm about to launch. Put in these terms, don't you think the term historian makes sense here? My hope for you as an artist is for much more than this, actu- ally… Anyway, that's what I wanted to tell you."

As Kizu was leaving the room, Patron's solemn expression softened so unexpectedly it was almost comical. "I didn't know you were so attached to Ikuo. He's quite a special young man, and if his charm has led you to us, I'd say he's already made a major contribution to our church!"

Kizu felt, anew, that he was seeing Patron's complex nature, something he had to be on guard for. Dancer, passing him as he went out of the room, had obviously heard Patron's words, her mouth, with its pearlescent luster, open even wider than usual as she gazed steadily at Kizu. Kizu turned around once more and saw a satisfied look on Patron's face.

The next day when Kizu broached the subject of going back to the United States, Ikuo exploded. These days Kizu had found something humor- ous in Ikuo's face, with its prominent cheekbones, but his words now brought out only anger and malice in the young man.

"How can you do that?" Ikuo barked out. "You're going to abandon us and run away-now, when we're on the verge of beginning something new and important? How can you just hightail it to America and put an end to us?"

Kizu was startled, but he didn't feel like responding emotionally.

Despite how busy he'd become, he was well aware that his physical ailments and deep exhaustion had fenced him in, pushing him away from the young man.

"Of course, I'd like you to come with me if you can get away from the office," he explained. "You don't need to get a visa these days… But I know you're busy arranging for the memorial service.

"I'm planning to put all my affairs in order in the States and come back again to Japan. It's also the time of year when they're making the schedule for the next academic year. After that I plan to return to Tokyo and devote myself to Patron's church. I think it's best if I resign from the university. It could be a major problem for the university if one of their tenured professors helped lead a religious organization in Japan.

"I'm going to settle my estate, have a lawyer divide my wife and children's portion, take care of the taxes and everything else; the balance I'll transfer to the church. Since I'll be a part of Patron's new religious movement, this strikes me as the proper way to handle my affairs. With all the things to take care of, I imagine it will take me about ten days. At my age, jet lag really hits you hard, but I feel I have to get going."

Ikuo was dumbfounded. He couldn't even manage an apology. The area around his eyes reddened, and he withdrew without a word to begin prepar- ing dinner with the ingredients Kizu had purchased. Every once in a while the kitchen was utterly silent, Ikuo undoubtedly pausing in his cooking to ponder what he'd heard, and Kizu felt sorry about the young man's depressed and troubled feelings. Meanwhile, until Ikuo called him to the dinner table he had set in the kitchen, Kizu packed for his round trip to the United States.

The meal Ikuo made consisted of a mound of french fries with steaks, a vegetable salad, and canned minestrone. That was all, but Kizu happily enjoyed the meal, knowing how carefully Ikuo had prepared it. Ikuo remained silent, sitting across from him as they ate, his puffy eyes turned downward.

Kizu felt bad about how upset he looked. That night, still without a word, Ikuo performed his sexual services so completely that Kizu forgot all about his illness and exhaustion. In each and every thing Ikuo did, though, Kizu could catch a glimpse of someone who was voluntarily prostituting himself.

Returning to his university in New Jersey, Kizu was confronted with some- thing else unexpected: The female head of his research institute announced he'd been accused of sexual harassment.

A year before his sabbatical, one of the students in Kizu's fall seminar was a woman exchange student from Japan who had an unusually confrontational attitude. Kizu became really aware of her when, as they were approaching the end of the fall term without her having said anything of substance in the semi- nar, he asked her if she might make a presentation at their next class. He asked this in front of the mailboxes at the institute's office where he ran across her; one of his colleagues was right beside them, using the copy machine. She re- plied in English in a loud voice, as Kizu noticed a moment too late, so that the American professor wouldn't misunderstand their discussion.

"I'm an auditor in your class, Professor, so I'm not obliged to write re- ports or make presentations. Please don't mistake me for one of your lazy students!"

The young woman was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, of medium height but well built, someone who-at least from the perspective of Kizu's genera- tion-represented a completely new type of Japanese. Her face, though, with its dark hair, pouty little lips, and Fuji-shaped brow, was definitely old school.

Kizu had published a paper once in the university bulletin on women's faces in ukjyoe prints, classifying them as unassuming plain types and demoness types, and he was once again drawn to this woman and her classic features.

The next semester she didn't sign up for Kizu's seminar, but one day when there was still snow on the campus she showed up at his office dur- ing lunch break; she explained that one of the male students was bothering her, which is why she couldn't attend his seminar, but she had some of her own artwork in her apartment that she'd like to show him, she said, invit- ing him with a modesty quite unlike her previous outburst. Kizu happened to be free that afternoon, so he went with her in her Citroën to her place, where she lived with a roommate; Kizu was surprised to find it was an apartment in the center of town, outfitted with a concierge. The living room and kitchen weren't so big, but on the ceiling of her bedroom was a tem- pera painting in arabesque style of flowers and birds she'd done herself, which meant that even if she hadn't purchased the apartment she was liv- ing there under a long-term lease. Her roommate was out on a date until late, so Kizu enjoyed the chirashizushi she prepared for him and looked over several tableaus. These also depicted birds and flowers. Kizu sat on the cloth- covered sofa while the young woman sat in front of him on the floor, hold- ing the paintings she wanted to show him, dressed in a black wool outfit with a short skirt that revealed her fleshy thighs, though he pretended not to notice.