Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"He'd go over to the other side, and make a connection with God quite smoothly, but those mystical experiences were, for Patron, such a trial that it was painful to be beside him and see how much it took out of him. My role was to transmit the experiences he described in that condition, and I became his closest companion.

"Once he overcame his exhaustion, though, he'd begin to consider God on his own. This was the other extreme-the fact that he didn't think of God in personified terms-which again led to suffering. I said to him, 'But you've come face-to-face with God, haven't you? You go over to the other side, and you receive your visions from something that can only be called God. Never once as I've worked as your translator have I doubted that.' But Patron was unable to agree with my words of encouragement.

"Patron enters a deep trance where he's swept away to the other side and, through this experience that's completely out of his hands, he's with God. But once he returns to this side and his mind and spirit are back under his control and he regains his identity, he insists that the personified God he'd pictured all these years is not the way things really are. And I think he suffers mightily because of it.

"Before long Patron began to think the following ideas, which formed his basic teachings before the Somersault. 'God is in the world. If that weren't true,' he explained, 'the whole world would be as scattered and pointless as the pain you feel tells you it is. Imagine another Earth existing on the outer reaches of the solar system,' he said, 'or maybe beyond the Milky Way. A world where God does not exist. Everything on that planet is in pieces, so much so that even if human beings appeared and evolved, they wouldn't be able to maintain their civilization for many centuries. Human beings would be scat- tered and die out, and the world would be bereft of people. Whether this is a kind of wilderness-as-hell or a paradise for creatures other than man, I don't know… '"On our planet, mankind hasn't self-destructed but somehow contin- ues to cling precariously to life. Somehow or other order is maintained, and it's hard to deny that this is because of God's presence. Millions of people- Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists-have personified this God, but I don't see God this way. Though I do want to construct a theory about this God who most definitely does exist.' This is what Patron said.

'"Wide awake on this side,' Patron continued, 'I want to find out exactly what it is I confront when I go over to the other side. Once I get a clear picture of this, the world shouldn't be in pieces for me anymore. Since this convic- tion that the world is not in pieces is something I've created on this side, with my eyes open, I can feel relieved about it. Once I can grasp that sense of relief, my awakened spirit can put in proper perspective the God I see in my vi- sions-and this should lead to a deep and profound sense of spiritual peace I can experience in both worlds. But if I die before I can attain that peace, then I'll be torn between the two worlds and my disintegrated body and soul will flutter down into the abyss.'

"Patron was so open to me, I believed everything he said. And I was certain that someday, through this man who himself would be saved, I would reach salvation too. But I also considered at times what it would be like if I didn't reach salvation through him, and intimations of that fright- ening thought made me shudder. Patron seemed to struggle with the idea of the need for salvation in an incomparably deeper way than I ever did. One thing I was sure of, though, was this: Apart from his intercession, I could never be saved."

As these memories of what Guide had told him came back in snatches, Ogi once again had a sense of what had woken him up. Ah, he thought, this is what I felt earlier. He opened his eyes to the dark purplish gloom and turned on the hard flat bed to face the man-made lake.

Later on, when he reviewed the order of events in his mind, he was cer- tain this is how it happened, but soon after he turned in the direction of what he sensed, in a sky that was so jet black he hadn't closed the curtains before he went to bed, far off in the still-falling rain, he saw it happen. A large light lemon-yellow disc floated up, at the top of which were five shining hemi- spheres. The lower part was a giant black upright pillar in which were three shining rectangular doors. It was as if a UFO had flown though the vast dark- ness and suddenly come to a halt.

Ahí Ogi heard a voice call out, something halfway between a sigh and a shriek.

The cry came from Dancer's room… so this wasn't just some illusion he alone was seeing! Ogi looked hard into the gloom and saw the glowing saucer and the pillar with its bright doors open soon shut in the rocklike darkness.

I believe God is in this world too, Ogi thought, half asleep, but not a personified God who has the facial features of any particular race-a God instead who would appear like this structure, built of light and darkness. Ogi knew, though, that in the morning he wouldn't be able to regain this total understanding he now had, and that he wouldn't speak of it to Dancer. And certainly not to Patron.

After it grew light out and Ogi had awakened again, he lay still in his wooden box of a bed, waiting for time to pass. The night before, he and Dancer had talked until late and had made do with just a light dinner of ham and let- tuce sandwiches. They'd found the sandwiches at a local market, and though the place didn't seem to have many customers Dancer declared the ham to be fantastic and showed a great deal of interest in the people who produced it lo- cally. That was all they ate, washed down by some milk, so now, in the morn- ing, Ogi didn't feel any special need to use the toilet. He also hesitated to use the bathroom before Dancer had a chance to.

Ogi gazed up from his bed at the foliage of the stand of Japanese oaks that cut off his view of the broad sky. From the window on the lake side, there were overly luxuriant pomegranates and camellias bursting with leaves as far as the eye could see. The trees were covered with young leaves, bright green against the cloudless sky; only the places where the leaves overlapped were dark green, like a multilayered watercolor. A childhood memory came to him-from a school outing, perhaps, he couldn't recall exactly-of lying down like this and gazing up at tree branches from this angle.

Soon the whole area was filled with a cloud of soft fist-sized little lumps descending from the sky and letting out high-pitched screeches: a flock of wild birds. Two or three of the birds, like puffy little white balls, hung upside down on the tips of the slender branches of the Japanese oaks. Before long, in search of bugs to eat, the flock flew off to another corner of the slope, and a profound silence returned.

After a while, the same shout he'd heard last night came from the next room. Ogi sat up in bed, ready to meet the intruder. Dancer came in. She had on green pajamas, and her mouth was open wider than usual.

"There's fresh blood! Just below the window!" Dancer said to Ogi reproachfully.

Ogi had slept in his underwear. He wrapped the light bedcover around his waist before going over to the window and shoving open the heavy single pane. And as he looked out, he too was taken aback. From the western edge of the house a pellucid stream seemed to meander over the grass and flow into the lake. From the stone apron where the stream turned, a red belt seeped upward toward them. Ogi took a breath and, after realizing what he was see- ing, said, "They're lake crabs that've floated up because of all the rain last night."

Dancer looked back at him with a look of disgust, then took her turn looking out the window.