Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"When Guide brought this petition to me from Izu, it was still sealed.

My eyesight is bad, so when I opened it I had Guide read it aloud. When he finished reading it Guide averted his eyes with a noncommittal look, a look that bored into me nonetheless. It troubled me that Guide, who had created the research institute and who'd spoken of the trust he felt for these young people and how much he was looking forward to their future, would be so noncommittal when he transmitted this ardent petition. These young people were pressing me to come to a decision, yet Guide kept a cool distance from things, waiting for me to speak. It felt worse than being isolated and alone- it was like I'd been completely abandoned.

"Okay! I thought, coming to a decision. There wasn't any solid basis for my decision, just a voice deep inside me saying that now was not the time to let the chance slip by, that I had to take the leap if I didn't want to be lackadaisical for the rest of my life. And I followed this voice. I said this to Guide: 'Isn't the One who summons me each time to my trances waiting to hear from me about the appeals in this petition? Up till now I've never posed any questions on the other side about what our church should be doing, the reason being that, as the church grew, so did my sense of responsibility toward the lives of the members on this side. Also it was my personal re- sponsibility to follow the call that I hear on the other side, no matter how far beyond our ordinary logic it goes. Listening to that call made me start this religious movement in the first place. But with so many followers now, in order to lead the church I have to give priority to the logic of our world.

I have a responsibility to do that.

'"But one of the things I always awaken to on the other side is the fact that the logic of this world is meaningless. As the leader of the church-and as mediator between this side and the other-I have to carry out this role to the full, not letting the pipeline between the two sides clog up.

'"Next time I have a deep trance, though,' I told Guide, 'I'm going to grab this petition by the neck, drag it along with me, and ask that very question: What does God want us to do? No matter how terrible the reply is, I'm going to bring that vision back with me. And you'd better steel yourself to translate it. I won't be controlled by the logic of our world. The next time a sign is gouged out in my soul as a fresh wound in my trance, I'm not going to equivocate. That's got to be the only way out of the split I've suffered for so long.'

"Guide took me seriously, but there was still something opaque about his reactions. Blast it all! I thought. This is the first delusion I have to over- come through my own decision. As long as this delusion remains within me, my comrade who supports me in the faith will never be free. I have to over- come this for Guide's sake too, I told myself.

"And so I waited for a deep trance to take hold of me. At the time, I went into a trance about once a month. Once I started to wait, though, four weeks passed, then five, and finally eight weeks. Nothing. This brought home to me once more that the trances came to me from the other side, they weren't something I could initiate.

"I was frantic. Irritated that so much time had passed without a reply, the members of the research institute who'd written the petition said they wanted to send a representative to headquarters. Before that, Guide said he needed to talk with them and went off to Izu. That night I pretended that a major trance had taken hold of me. I managed such an enthusiastic perfor- mance that the person taking care of me reported to Guide that my trance this time was so deep and violent that afterward he was afraid I'd be weaker than I had ever been before. The next day Guide hurried back to be by my side. And as I always did, I began to speak, so that Guide would be able to translate the visions I had on the other side.

"At the time I didn't think about how I was deceiving Guide. I just thought I was having the same kind of trance I'd had for years, only now I'd been able to make it happen on my own. And actually I exhausted my spiri- tual strength doing that. I spent the time during my false trance thinking I was standing in front of the Almighty I faced whenever I went over to the other side, asking a question and listening carefully to the response. And I was convinced I could hear the answer.

"I'd always received messages from the other side, so I was all set to lis- ten. What I heard was a response I'd made up myself, but as I listened to it I didn't consider it different from my usual visions. Wasn't this the very first response from the other side that I'd consciously extracted? If the vision I re- ceived in this way ran counter to the will of the other side, I thought, surely I would be properly punished.

"If I'm transmitting as Your word my own vision that runs counter to Your will, I prayed, then kill me. Separate me from the pain of being torn apart and turn me into a handful of dust. I can't continue as the leader of over a thousand people in such a lackadaisical state. It's easy for You, isn't it, to make my weakened heart have an attack? I am creating Your vision with my own will, but I am doing it believing in You, heart and soul. Have pity on me! No matter how it may turn out, please give me Your power.

"As I prayed like this, I pretended to have a vision and mumbled some things, which Guide translated as this: "I am standing at a point where I can see the "oneness" overflowing from the Beginning. I'm seeing this together with the young Izu researchers. Once more the entire world is flowing back to that original 'Oneness.' Thinly of it as the oppo- site of the Big Bang. As the "implosion " of the whole world on this "oneness. " Help us with this infinitely huge, infinitely swift movement. God awaits a truly spon- taneous call, one in response to His own call. Your call has reached God, and God's answer has come back. Now is the time-the time for the battle of repentance at the end of the world.

"'If you fear you won't be able to hear God's answer, concentrate on your own question. Every single perception you have within yourselves is already within God. Our calls to God are already within Him, the way we receive His message, the way each of us reacts to it-they too are already within Him. Hallelujah!'

"Guide transmitted this to the Izu Research Institute as the answer that God gave me, and the expectant young people there abandoned their various projects and flung themselves into preparation for the end time. In this world where the unrepentant oppress the repentant, they arrayed themselves for the final battle."

"This is how the group of young people, later clubbed the radical fac- tion by the press, took over the leadership of the Izu Research Institute," Pa- tron continued. "Guide reported to me on their activities, but I never tried to alter their course or force them to slow down. If what the radical faction was doing was wrong, I imagined I would have another vision, like the ones I always had-a real vision-telling me to put a stop to them. But that never happened.

"So what kind of preparations did these young scientists and techni- cians make for the battle for repentance? They were generally divided into those working on physics and those working on chemistry. My vision en- couraged the ones on the physics side. The term implosion coincided with the concept of the manipulation of nuclear materials to create a chain reac- tion. Led by a specialist named Mr. Omuro, they turned their attention to building a device, capable of being transported by a small number of people, that would transform a nuclear power plant into a nuclear bomb. The chem- istry researchers were to give logistical backup. Of course, all of this was aborted by the Somersault.