Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

After this, Dancer began to pay close attention to Patron and Guide's conversations, she told Ogi, and even now, when they weren't engaged in religious activities, just working in their office helped her find the kind of happiness a true believer must feel. But now, just when she sensed that Patron was about to revive his religious activities for the first time in a decade, Guide collapses with a brain aneurysm and loses consciousness, and Patron goes into shock. Other than myself and Guide, who's ill, she told him, you're the one person who's closest to Patron. How can you abandon him and go back to your job?

Ogi would never forget the strange event that took place when he had introduced Patron to the chairman of the board of directors of the founda- tion he worked for. As the two men exchanged business cards, Patron hit the Chairman sharply on top of the head. The Chairman had Caucasian-like skin, and after receiving this blow to his right temple, most likely the first time in his more than seventy years that someone had hit him on the head, his large, oxen eyes looked on the verge of tears. As for the perpetrator of this blow, he himself maintained a stolid wooden expression.

On this particular day, Ogi had accompanied Patron to the Kansai area factory of the pharmaceutical company that was the Chairman's main busi- ness. It was autumn, and as they left the Osaka Station and headed out of the city, they followed a course that took them through a tunnel dug out at the hase of the mountain pass that formed a shortcut connecting two parts of the old highway. The autumn foliage was magnificent. Patron was already clothed for winter, dressed in an overcoat with a rounded collar, buttoned all the way to his throat, and a pear-shaped fedora, altogether like a dubious mutation of the Tohoku poet Kenji Miyazawa.

The factory and research facility were housed in a chalkstone building in the midst of rustic surroundings. As you went inside from the imposing façade there was a large entrance hall, and below the vaulted ceiling an ancient-looking marble statue of Hermes. The jovial Chairman came out to greet them. Patron was barely able to mumble a greeting, and right after this came the startling blow to the head. Afterward Ogi read a book translated into Japanese about the god Hermes and found out that he was both the god of medicine-fitting for the research center of a pharmaceutical company- and also the god of commerce, as well as a Trickster symbol. These memo- ries came back to him now that he'd decided to leave the International Cultural Exchange Foundation to work for Patron's religious organization and was on his way to report to the Chairman, who was attending a meeting at the headquarters of the foundation.

Ogi was ushered into the waiting room next to the large conference room and cautioned by the head of operations of the pharmaceutical company that the Chairman could spare five minutes and no more. The Chairman strode in robustly, clad in a navy blue suit and yellow necktie, shooed away this underling, and sank his sturdy frame into an armchair.

"Well, let's take our time, shall we?" he began. "That's why I had you come in. I have to report to Dr. Ogi, after all." (Ogi's father, a medical doctor, had business connections with this company.) "I hope your father's well? I haven't seen him since last year at the ceremony when he won that interna- tional prize."

"Thank you for asking. I think he's well, though it's probably been longer than that since I've seen him myself," Ogi replied, a bit nervously.

He hoped to avoid having the conversation turn to the troubles between himself and his father, especially since there was a different, more pressing question he needed to solve. "Through my work with the International Cul- tural Exchange Foundation, mostly work in Japan I've been involved with," he went on, "I've begun to have dealings with a man I know you are aware of, called Patron. Just as Patron was beginning to firm up plans for a new movement, something terrible's happened and he's found himself short- handed and asked me to help out. I'm not a follower of the man, and I don't know much about the troubles that took place ten years ago involving Patron, his colleague-the one who's fallen ill now-and the church he led up to that point, but after discussing things with Patron and his secretary, I decided that I want to do what I can. I know the foundation will view this as irrespon- sible, but that's what I'd really like to do. My father helped pave the way for me to work here, and you were generous enough to accept me, and I'd like to be the one to report directly to him about my decision."

Ogi paused. The atmosphere between them had changed suddenly. Ogi was sure he had no way of convincing the Chairman to understand his views, yet something about his vague arguments seemed to take hold of the older man. The appointed five minutes had passed, and his head of operations opened the heavy oak door leading into the reception-sized conference room and stuck his head in, only to be directed by the Chairman in a loud voice to tell the other executives to wait. He then told Ogi something quite unexpected.

Befitting the longtime industrialist he was, the Chairman quickly dealt with the business matters at hand. He accepted Ogi's resignation from the main company, which had had him on loan to the foundation. Ogi would not receive any severance pay, the Chairman said, but he wanted Ogi to continue to work as a liaison between himself and Patron. Since Ogi would become one of Patron's men, the Chairman made arrangements to continue to pay him a part-timer's salary.

"Now that's settled, I'd like to ask you something. Have you ever read Balzac? Balzac's not exactly in fashion here-it's been twenty years or more, I believe, since a publisher put out his collected works--but if you've read much of him, I'm sure you've run across the notion of Le Treize. I read this myself a long time ago. The idea behind Le Treize is that there's a group of thirteen powerful men who control France during one generation, includ- ing the underworld.

"When I was young I was fascinated by the idea. I wanted to form my own Japanese Treize, with myself as the head. Of course, that was a mere pipe dream. Now that I've reached my present age, though, when I look back at what I've accomplished I see the shadow of Le Treize behind it all. Or some- thing like it. At one time I was one of the main backers of a veteran politician who became prime minister and is still head of the most powerful political faction. Before Japan opened up diplomatic relations with China, I helped some of the more ambitious and resourceful politicians and business leaders of both countries carry on actual trade. And the International Cultural Ex- change Foundation that you've worked for, with its emphasis on the medical field-by not sparing any funds to back the most outstanding talent from China and France -reflects the deep influence of Le Treize.

These are of course unconscious influences, and I never actually thought to create my own group. Now, through the auspices of the founda- tion, we've made this personal connection with Patron. Whenever I think of him, I feel a wave of nostalgia. I've never met anyone like him before, which makes it contradictory to speak of nostalgia, I suppose, but what I mean is I get the same sort of feeling from him as when I read Balzac and imagined my very own Treize.

"Just when I was considering all this, I received a communication from the foundation's secretary, saying you'd grown closer to Patron and had been sloughing off your work for the foundation. She had so many complaints I had to check into things myself. I've confirmed what you told me-that Patron's right-hand man has collapsed, and that he plans to start a new move- ment. As a matter of fact, I was just mulling over what a difficult situation this is.