Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

Having set up his residence in the Hollow, Patron decided to meet within the week with the widow of the founder of the defunct church who had trans- ferred the chapel to them. With so many new people coming from the out- side to live in the area, the question of securing enough food for all of them had become a pressing matter, and as one practical step toward solving this, Asa-san introduced the widow, Satchan, the owner of the Farm, to Patron.

Asa-san had been hoping that Patron would talk to Mr. Matsuo, her- self, and others who had been connected with the Church of the Flaming Green Tree about the new church he planned to start here. The people of Maki Town, too, had expressed the same hope, and now that the church had actu- ally begun moving in, they again proposed such a meeting to Asa-san, who was acting as intermediary between the church and the town government.

One practical issue soon arose. The group in Maki Town opposing Patron had already published a broadside revealing that the former radical faction would be participating in Patron's restarted religious movement and that one of the leaders of this faction, Mr. Hanawa, would be living here with his colleagues to help Dr. Koga. What's more-and this was the critical point- the town would be hiring Dr. Koga to run the clinic in the Old Town. As before, objections sprang up among the town leaders that the former radical faction, the one the newspapers had accused of the death of Guide, was going to be moving into the Hollow.

These issues would normally have been discussed by the mayor and Patron, but Patron was asked beforehand to talk in an informal town hall meeting with local citizens.

Asa-san, who had already convinced Ogi that she was a person who held considerable sway locally, as well as someone who didn't beat around the bush when it came to formulating plans, proposed that Patron first meet with Satchan, and Patron agreed. Dancer took advantage of this opportunity to ask Ogi to seek a more detailed explanation than they'd heard before as to how the former radical faction was to be dealt with.

What worried Ogi most was that the widow of the founder of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree might not like it if internal affairs of the church were discussed with local people-especially in the chapel. But Satchan agreed to attend, as long as Asa-san and Mr. Matsuo were also there, and for the first time in a long while entered the chapel that her church had once owned. Town officials had also wanted to attend, but Asa-san had been able to limit their attendance to just a few of the more influential members.

"How do you feel about the religion you've created, leading people to salvation- and about your own salvation?" Satchan asked, to start off the meeting.

"Well," replied Patron, recoiling somewhat, "didn't you and your late husband also found a church?"

"Satchan merely wants to ask an honest question of someone who is involved in a similar movement-and in the same place, no less," Asa-san explained encouragingly.

"I don't feel so much that I'm continuing some teachings of the founder of our church," Satchan explained in a softer tone. "I spend more time con- sidering how my husband felt about things himself, as a flesh-and-blood human being. I believe he tried to lead his followers to salvation, but when I remember how he died I wonder whether he cared about his own salvation at all. I've been pondering this for quite some time."

Patron clearly relaxed when he heard this. He also seemed to show in- terest in this earnest individualistic woman, well into her middle years.

"Before I did the now-infamous Somersault," Patron said, "when I was quite involved in religious activities, I don't think I really seriously consid- ered my own salvation either. It was after I fell into hell that the question of my salvation became a pressing matter. When you lead a religious organiza- tion, you soon become terribly busy, rushing around like crazy all the time. I had no time to consider whether I was saved, or wasn't saved, or even whether I would reach salvation in the end or not. What I wanted most was to lead the suffering young people who came to us for salvation. I actually groped for ways to push them in that direction.

"What I know from my own experience-and this is the same both at the beginning of the church and when it was at its height-is that there was indeed a way for the suffering people who came to our church to find the salvation they sought. All of them were proceeding toward their own salva- tion. The greater their awareness that they were not yet saved, the greater their conviction that they were on the path to salvation, despite the difficulties they might encounter. In fact, it was the very awareness that they hadn't yet reached salvation that accelerated their faith.

"As I've thought about my own salvation, or my image of salvation in the ten years since the Somersault, my ideas have become simplified-boiled down to a single mathematical formula, if you will. When a person thinks about death or is actually facing death, if he's convinced that his life and death are fine the way they are, isn't he saved?

"In my new church, my followers should be able to say, when they think about death or are actually staring down death, Let's go! Hallelujah! is another way of putting it. The basic orientation of my movement is to lead people gently in that direction. In order to do that, though, one has to truly repent.

As long as one has a true awareness that the end of the world is near, this can be accomplished.

"The new church's religious movement I've been contemplating is that simple-that naive, even. What I want to convey to you is that in the ten years since the Somersault this is the kind of simplicity, naive, unadorned, and stripped of anything extraneous, that has occupied my mind."

"The Savior of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, that's what we called my husband," Satchan said, "if the Savior were alive now, I think he might not see what you've said as so simple or naive. Quite frankly, he wasn't very educated when it came to religious ideas, yet he was possessed by spiri- tual matters and in that sense was an unfortunate person. He was still a sort of lackadaisical savior when his old enemies stoned him to death.

"He was called Savior like you were, but he wasn't the ultimate Savior.

He believed that until the advent of the ultimate Savior there would be count- less saviors, that when the final Savior appeared all other saviors, being linked with him, would-in the end-become real saviors. He gave a sermon on this, here in this chapel… "He recognized himself as a sort of lukewarm savior, one of those countless lackadaisical saviors… That's the sort of thinking he wanted to believe in. Fifteen years after his death, I've grown more sympathetic to that view.

"If I understand your remarks correctly, putting my own spin on them, since I believe my husband's one of the ones who will be tied with the real Savior, I know that even when I'm on the verge of death I'll feel saved. The details of my own personal history would surprise you, but I would like to second what you say, as far as my own life is concerned. Let's go! Though I have the feeling that when I'm actually on my deathbed and say that, there won't be anyone around to hear me."

"There is a God," Patron said, "a God who is the whole of nature, who encompasses everything, your spirit and body included. Even these ideas that have arisen from your unusual life were already included in the principles that God created tor the world."

From the moment that Satchan entered the chapel where Ogi and the others were waiting, and sat down in the row of chairs lined up beside the podium facing Patron, every church member was impressed. She was a beau- tiful woman, but something about her also gave the impression of a mild- featured man. She was also quite tall for a Japanese woman. Her curly hair, mixed with white, fell in a natural way on both sides of her prominent fore- head. Her face had not the slightest trace of fat. In the way she looked straight at Patron as she spoke to him, you could sense an independent tough-minded spirit but also a clear open-mindedness brought about by her experience.