Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

As he got closer he noticed that the children were gazing at a line of ants in the corner of the box. Very different from the usual overbearing attitude of kids who haven't quite decided whether or not to squash a bug, tormenting it until they did, these children showed an unexpected reverence for small living creatures.

The children didn't seem on their guard at the approach of these two strangers, nor did they show any friendly interest. The older children espe- cially seemed to be purposely ignoring them. After a while Ikuo rested his hands on the horizontal bar, too low for him, and pulled himself upright on it. He tucked in his legs, pushed his elbows tight against his chest, and slowly rotated around the bar five or six times. The younger children looked at him with open admiration. Kizu, too, found himself looking with appreciative eyes at Ikuo, from his thighs to the tips of his feet, as he held his body stationary, stretched out vertically upside down. Beyond Ikuo's upside-down body, Kizu caught sight of flower petals fluttering down from the tops of hills; looking more carefully, he saw they were wet snowflakes.

Kizu remembered the scene from his hotel window high above the New York streets, snow vanishing in the air. Sometimes he wondered what he'd been thinking about that morning. Now that he considered it again, he felt that maybe he'd made this journey here to the countryside to grope for some meaningful clue. If the snow across the ocean had been a sign, this out-of- season snow here in Japan must be one too. The children were now looking up at the snowy sky. The older children stood off to one side in a clump, but even the younger kids standing close by were calm and well mannered. All of them looked entirely relaxed as they gazed up at the swirling snow.

Ikuo silently lowered himself from the bar-his controlled landing as casual as the attitude of the children-and he and Kizu walked back toward the car, leaving the children behind, all gazing up at the snowy sky, some of the older children whispering among themselves.

"Boy, oh, boy," Ikuo murmured.

Kizu knew he didn't mean the unexpected snow. Ikuo felt oppressed by the children's natural dignity. Kizu was about to express his agreement when they found, standing next to their car and waiting for them, oblivious to the snow, a short, solidly built middle-aged woman. Continuing their own conversation was out of the question.

Kizu surmised that it was one of the children's mothers, a representa- tive of this commune that, while he'd only caught a glimpse of it, was obvi- ously quite tidy and organized, who'd come out to challenge these suspicious- looking intruders.

Kizu didn't catch sight of anyone looking out the line of first- or second- story windows of the schoolhouse, glass windows whose gleaming well- polished look contrasted with the old window frames, but apparently the report of their presence had spread among the residents. As Kizu and Ikuo walked on against the blustery wind and snow, the woman stood there at a corner they had to turn. She'd been looking down until they approached, but now, quite suddenly, she spoke out in a charged, emotional voice.

"This is a private road. The land was originally donated to the town by my husband's grandfather, and after the school closed it was sold. I'm paying taxes on it. And I can't have you parking your car here."

"I'm very sorry," Kizu said. "I thought it was a public road."

"If it were a public road there'd be even more reason not to park!" the woman said vehemently. With stubby fingers she brushed away the snow- flakes that clung to her curly reddish-brown hair and her flushed face. "I saw you watching the children. If you try to take any photographs, my husband says he's going to come over; he's been watching you from the farm.

Rubberneckers and the media have stopped coming here, and the mothers and children don't want to be bothered. But now you TV people come trying to stir things up! Why can't you leave us alone? We've never bothered the people in this neighborhood. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion, you know!"

Kizu was finally able to get a word in edgewise. "So you share the same beliefs?"

With a look that was neither surprise nor fear, the woman stared directly at him for the first time. "What? Don't come around making false accusations!

I've lived here most of my life-why would I adopt the religion of people who're just temporary residents?"

The woman sputtered to a halt, and Kizu himself was so flustered Ikuo intervened.

"The Professor and I are working for the gentleman who used to be the leader of this little community. We're not connected with any TV station or weekly magazine. Their former leader is concerned about what kind of life the group has been living after they became independent of the church. We just came to observe, not to bother anyone."

"By former leader, you mean the one who did the Somersault? These women aren't angry about that anymore. There are some profound reasons for this, apparently, though I have no idea what… So he's worried about them, is he?"

Her words were somewhat feeble now. Apparently a basically kind- hearted person, she seemed to regret having scolded these people who had come from so far away, and shook her lightly snow-covered head to get her pluck back.

"Well, if that's the case, with this unexpected snow and all, why don't you just rest here for a while? This is a private road, so your car will be fine!

They're packing lilies in boxes inside the greenhouse. Maybe you'd like to take a look?"

She seemed so apologetic it would have been rude to turn down her sug- gestion. Kizu hadn't planned to stay, but he looked at the woman, her skin roughened by gooseflesh, and nodded, so she hurried ahead. By the time they arrived at the greenhouse closest to the road, the children in the sandbox who'd been gazing up at the snow had formed a line and were quietly filing toward the building.

The old woman went in a step ahead of them, past what looked like the door of a warehouse, and Kizu and Ikuo followed, brushing the already melt- ing snowflakes from their heads, chests, and shoulders. The children stood at one corner of the greenhouse in swirling snow that was coming down harder than ever. If they'd been seeking shelter from the snow, the only place to find it around the greenhouse, a structure made of thick metal piping covered with tough tentlike plastic sheeting, was under the eaves at the entrance. The chil- dren, though, didn't seem to have come over in order to get out of the snow. As he watched them standing there through the steadily falling snow, their expres- sions and even the outlines of their faces now blurred, a slight sense of the un- earthly was added to Kizu's earlier impression. Ikuo, too, had to look away.

They went inside the greenhouse, only slightly warmer than outside, and found that they had to walk quite some distance to where the packing operation was under way, watching their step as they moved through a maze of obstacles. All sorts of objects, large and small, were arbitrarily piled up on the path. They stumbled over what at first appeared to be small empty boxes but turned out to be as heavy as bricks. On both sides of the path the equip- ment required to grow the plants wasn't just laid out flat; they bumped their heads and shoulders on various pipes. For outsiders it was a veritable laby- rinth. Kizu found himself concerned, too, about the strange little line of chil- dren who followed their movements through the three-tiered window in the plastic covering the greenhouse.

People were working in the greenhouse in a clearing cut out of the long line of cultivated plants. Hemmed in on both sides by equipment, some twenty women were seated, busy at work, on top of a platform covered with mats.