Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

Led by this middle-aged woman who seemed to glide as she walked, Ogi and Dancer followed along a narrow path overgrown with bushes that kept snagging their umbrellas, finally arriving at a lone house on the north slope. The house looked to have just been cleaned that morning. They didn't need to take towels out of the Boston bags they'd brought by car to dry their wet heads and shoulders, since freshly laundered towels awaited them in the laundry area.

For a prefab building the house was well built and was outfitted in nicely coordinated gray and light brown furniture and carpeting. Dancer took the room on the west side, with a bed and desk. Ogi was given the living room, which was across from a short corridor and had a small attached kitchen. Asa- san explained to them about the chaise longue Ogi decided to use for a bed, built in the woodworking shop of the former church, a wooden-framed af- fair carved with flowers and birds and covered with a cloth mat. No doubt urged on by Asa-san, Mr. Matsuo had gone out of his way on the trip up to the Hollow to stop by a small market so they could pick up enough food for dinner and the next morning's breakfast.

When the two of them were alone and had finished unpacking, Dancer invited Ogi into her room. She'd opened the shutter and curtain facing the lake, had half opened the window to let in some fresh air, and was sitting on top of the covers on her bed. This bed, set out from the western corner beside the window, apparently had also been designed for the owner of the house by the church's woodworking shop. It too was built in European folk style, a little too short to be an adult's bed, angled so one was sitting up slightly in bed. Dancer rested her elbows on the flat frame of the bed. She motioned to Ogi, and he crossed to the desk on the north side of the room and pulled over the chair to sit beside her.

The surface of the lake had turned a muddy brown in the rain. Right before them lay the island, the giant cypress rising from a small meadow like some gigantic bonsai plant lashed by rain, the cloud of fog covering its upper branches having descended closer to the ground than when they'd last looked upon it. The low fog hanging over the surface of the lake had crept up the slope on the east bank, where a stand of mountain cherry trees was surrounded by broad-leafed trees, and advanced up the north slope as well. The Hollow was wrapped in silence, but every detail, along with the sound of the rain and wind, seemed in motion. The wind fluttering the branches and leaves of the giant cypress sounded almost like an entire small forest. This sound filtered in the crack of the window, along with cold-damp air. It was only four in the afternoon, but already traces of a deepening twilight had begun to fill the Hollow, itself like the bottom of a pot.

"When a huge tree like that burned up, it must have been scarier than if a house was on fire, even if no one perished in the flames," Dancer said, as if she'd been silently mulling over Asa-san's words.

Seen from the north side of the lake, the giant cypress looked like a small bush that had been hit with a flamethrower, the surface of its trunk up to ten or twelve feet completely carbonized, just thick branches like black tusks remaining, with a wet cluster of small green branches sticking out around them. Though Ogi couldn't really picture the tree burning, just looking at the clash between the inky black and dark green made his chest tighten.

"I don't think this was a happy place for someone to live. Do you sup- pose the former diplomat who lived here died in this bed?"

Dancer's face was ashen as she said this. She looked sleepy. Ogi stood up and reached past her shoulder to shut the window. The outline of the chapel to the southeast was vague in the rain, and a darker gray than when seen up close, the whole structure looming up against the backdrop of the foggy forest.

"I know Patron's decided to build a new church here," she said, "but I have no idea what he actually plans to do. You have some idea, though, don't you?"

"I know about as much as you do," Ogi said.

"You're in charge of sorting out all the information coming from the headquarters."

"But I'm not bound to Patron through faith, remember."

"Professor Kizu says the same thing," Dancer said. "But both of you are very important people to him."

"And so are you-for a lot longer time than me."

"Compared to Dr. Koga's group, though, I'm practically a newcomer. I didn't come to be with Patron originally out of any faith. You knew that, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't," Ogi exclaimed, in surprise, ever the innocent youth. "I've never heard that!"

"I suppose only Guide knew the truth. I did tell Professor Kizu and Ikuo about it… but I can say it again…"

As one condition of being allowed to live on her own when she went to Tokyo to study modern dance, Dancer's father made her drop by to see an old friend of his who was to be her guarantor, and then to visit him occasion- ally whenever she needed advice. This friend was a classmate of her father's when they were in the science department at the university, and soon after she arrived in Tokyo, Dancer went to see him. The person turned out to be Guide, who was living in seclusion with Patron after the Somersault.

Dancer had a hard time at first figuring out what sort of person Guide was, but he not only took her under his wing as guarantor and mentor but helped her find a place to live in Tokyo and even guaranteed a small income, having her do odd jobs in the office in their residence in Seijo. They had a woman who made their meals and did other tasks, but she quit after half a year and Dancer took on the job of running the household. Her dance les- sons were just three afternoons a week in Shimokitazawa, so she had no trouble coping with both her studies and her work. After she graduated from her dance program she couldn't find a job in her field, so while she prepared for her own private performances she worked as Patron and Guide's personal secretary. In the beginning, at least, the office work hadn't kept her too busy.

"You started living in that house even though you didn't know the two of them that well?" Ogi asked. "Pretty courageous of you."

"I trusted Guide, since he was my father's friend. I didn't know the first thing about living in Tokyo, but I felt as long as I followed Guide's instructions I'd have nothing to worry about… They hadn't yet built the annex, so the three of us lived in the main house. I stayed in the room by the front entrance that you used for a while. I could lock the door, and there was a window opening to the outside, so I figured if need be I could make a quick getaway."

"You really were on your guard, weren't you?" Ogi commented.

"I wasn't afraid or anything. In addition to the dance club, in high school I was a sprinter and middle-distance runner. Even now I'm a decent runner."

"Don't worry, I'm not about to assault you here," Ogi said, naively offended.

"At first I thought that Guide must be Patron's parole officer, keeping an eye on him. There was something about Patron that just wasn't right. The first time I saw him, he reminded me of freshly unearthed beetle larva. He had skin like yellow paper stretched over soft-looking flesh, his movements were slow and lethargic, and he spoke in a small voice in a kind of disjointed way. It felt like Guide was raising some weird creature, and I was his assis- tant keeper.

"Before long I found out that Patron and Guide were former leaders of a religious organization who'd done a Somersault. In magazines they have those features-right?-like WHERE ARE THEY NOW? stories. A freelance reporter writ- ing one of those came to our place but Guide, if not Patron, saw him coming and refused to open the door, so he ambushed me when I went out shopping.