Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “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 Cultural 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 shorthanded 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 irresponsible, 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, including 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 something 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 Exchange 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 foundation, 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 movement. As a matter of fact, I was just mulling over what a difficult situation this is.

  “I find this absolutely fascinating! Isn’t Patron the very image of Le Treize? At least I’d like to think so. Amazingly, just when I felt this way, here you come along saying you want to work for him. I’ll do what I can to help you out.”

  5

  Ogi returned to the office from Hibiya and reported excitedly to Dancer about his conversation with the Chairman. She herself had just returned from the hospital, where she’d spent time with the still-unconscious Guide, massaging him to improve his circulation, none too good after lying so long in a hospital bed. This weekend, after tests to determine if he was able to withstand it, he would undergo an operation to prevent hydrocephalus. When he heard this, Patron had taken to his bed again.

  As Ogi reported on his meeting with the Chairman, Dancer’s attitude was noncommittal. He found it easy to talk with her—that is, until he mentioned, jokingly, the Chairman’s talk about Le Treize, which he’d omitted up till then, thinking it irrelevant. Dancer got suddenly irritated, and before he knew it things escalated to the point where she threw some fairly scathing remarks his way. Too late, he listened carefully, reflected on what she said, and realized that although he’d taken the Chairman’s story of Le Treize as so much boastful talk, Dancer saw it as part of a serious evaluation of Patron and Guide.

  “Are you really such an ineffectual person?” she asked him. “When I was a child I couldn’t stand boys like you, I couldn’t believe people could be that indecisive! You’re like one of those boys all grown up. Don’t think the name Innocent Youth that Patron and Guide gave you is entirely positive. I don’t know what to do with people like you!”

  Ogi was startled and couldn’t help asking why.

  “Don’t you get it?” Dancer went on. “What you said isn’t just weak, it’s irresponsible!”

  She wasn’t so much disappointed as angry. Ogi felt confused but also sensed that she wasn’t about to release him from the cage that surrounded him, but was tightening the rope that bound them together, showing the kind of displeasure you find only between family members. For even in a situation like this, though her voice grew ever more emphatic, he could detect a kind of trembling in her sad, whispery voice.

  “Patron is shut up inside himself, in no shape whatsoever to give directions, and even if Guide regains consciousness the chances are slim that he’ll return to normal. You’re the only one we can rely on!

  “You knew how worried I was, so you put your assignment in Sapporo on hold and flew down here. These past ten days you’ve devoted yourself to helping us, and I’m grateful. You know very well the situation we’re in, which is why you quit the foundation to work full time as a staff member in our office. When I heard you were quitting, I finally stopped worrying about you being a police spy.”

  “A police spy?” Ogi parroted.

  “Really! You’re beyond innocent. You know what happened ten years ago, right? I got this position because my father was a classmate of Guide’s in college. So it wouldn’t have been so strange that they might have thought me a police spy. But Patron and Guide welcomed me, provided me with a place to live in Tokyo, and let me develop my dancing. I’ll never forget that. I have no idea what plans they have for the future, so I don’t think I can be of much use to them as they restructure their religious movement. But I want to work for Patron. I want to be a believer.

  “This is getting kind of personal, but I wanted more than anything to continue dancing, and when I came to Tokyo without any plans it was Patron who showed me what I really want to do most. Guide, too. Neither of them have said much to me about religious matters. You’ve only seen the severe side of Guide. It might be hard for you to imagine, but when you’re a part of the peaceful relationship between the two of them, before you realize what’s happening yo
u find them leading you in new directions. Every day with them is simply amazing. I enjoy my dancing more, now, and I want to become one of Patron’s followers. But suddenly, in the middle of all this, Guide’s seriously ill.

  “With Guide unconscious and Patron in shock, all I can do is try my best to get Patron back on his feet, right? Since I have no one else to rely on, I phoned you in Sapporo and insisted that you come here, and you’ve been more of a help than I ever expected.

  “This is what I think: Patron and Guide know I’m not very smart and don’t have even a basic knowledge of religion, and that’s why they never discussed it with me. But I know how special the two of them are, and I’ve always done my very best for them. Now you’re one of my colleagues and you know things I don’t; you can teach me a lot, and I’m looking forward to it. This may well be the chance for you to become my new mentor.”

  Dancer had never spoken so much before, but what surprised Ogi most was her final declaration. He’d been looking down as he listened to her, but now he glanced up and saw her staring right at him, mouth slightly open as usual, a steady stream of tears flowing down her cheeks. He knew he was a young man without much experience, yet at this moment Dancer struck him as even more wet behind the ears. Observing her in a detached way he never had before, he found her silly, even a bit unattractive, yet he went ahead and did something quite unexpected. Well, what else can I do? he asked himself, a generous sense of resignation coursing through him.

  Ogi wrapped his arms around Dancer’s slim yet solid neck and shoulders and drew her to him. He eased her crying face closer and kissed her thin lips.

  At first Ogi was the initiator, but then Dancer leaned forward from the edge of the armchair she was sitting in and deliberately returned his kiss; she placed her left knee on the floor, nudged Ogi back in that direction, and rested her left leg on top of his right thigh. Their long kiss continued, Dancer restlessly rubbing her firm belly against Ogi’s thigh; her fragrant breath grazed his neck for a moment. Dancer became an unexpectedly heavy weight, straining his awkwardly bent back.

  After a while she roused herself and gazed down abashedly at Ogi, lying there in an unnatural pose. “Not to worry,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but if we work together we can protect Patron!” With this she disappeared into the bathroom and then went off to Patron’s room.

  After a while Ogi sat up on the sofa and went to relieve himself in the guest toilet next to the front door. He gazed down steadily at his engorged, tormented penis. Then he picked up the hand mirror hanging by a ribbon next to the sink and examined a large blood blister that had developed inside his cheek.

  “How did that all happen? This is too much!” he said pointedly to himself.

  But a light feeling, a desire to be productive, welled up in him and he returned to the living-dining room to check out the way things were arranged in the corner where, starting today, he would work. Guide had his own residence in a separate annex and apparently did all his work there. Since Ogi would be a member of Patron’s office staff, the only place he could possibly work was here in the living room. Ogi checked out the telephone and fax, set up on a low wide partition separating the dining room from the living room. Below this was a generous amount of storage space and a bookshelf for storing fax equipment. In the east corner of the dining room was a mammoth desk twice the size of an ordinary study desk, and opening the drawers he found some brand-new disposable fountain pens, neatly sharpened soft lead pencils, and a set of thick German-made colored pencils. He’d seen Dancer seated there, busy at work.

  On the west side of the living room the bookshelf above the sofa still had plenty of space in it, and between the back of the sofa and the partition were filing cabinets and a level board that could be used as a sideboard. Next to the wall on the east side of the living room, beside the TV and VCR, slightly removed from the side facing the garden, was an oblong object with a cover over it; Ogi discovered it was a copy machine.

  “All right!” he said aloud, energy coursing through him as he stood in the middle of the living room, arms folded, surveying his surroundings. Move that desk over to the space on the east side of the living room, he thought, line up my chair and Dancer’s facing each other across the two desks, and we’ll have a nice little workstation. That would definitely be—all right!

  Ogi’s shout of joy wasn’t just because he’d figured out how to arrange his office. It was as if his renewed sexual energy, missing an outlet for its discharge, had called out. He had no idea what he’d be able to accomplish here, working on Patron’s staff, though he felt relieved to know the foundation would still be paying him something. He wouldn’t be working here as a fresh-faced new believer—it was just a job, after all—but even so he was filled with an enthusiastic desire to shout for joy. All right!

  6

  Without rearranging any of the office equipment, Ogi moved the office desk by himself, figured out how he and Dancer would both sit, checked the electrical outlets, and adjusted the height of his chair. He brought a rag and a bucket of water from the kitchen and cleaned the unused desk and shelves, generally getting his new workplace in order. As he did, the unkempt garden with its flowering dogwoods, camellias, and magnolias grew darker as the June twilight came on. The limpid blue sky stayed light for the longest time. Finished with his straightening up and with no work to do yet in the newly settled office, he sat on the side of the sofa nearer the garden, lost in thought, gazing out the window at the gathering gloom. Dancer suddenly appeared from the dark corridor. She had changed into a sleeveless linen shirt and a long light-colored skirt. With her hair pulled back, she reminded Ogi of an attractive Chinese girl he’d seen once in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

  “Patron would like to talk with you,” she said, her voice hard; Ogi understood she wanted him to act as if nothing had happened. Ever resigned, he played along. He realized that for the last two hours he’d been enjoying the afterglow of those lips and tongue, the movement of that belly.

  Dancer waited for him to stand up, switched on the light in the corridor, and deftly explained things to him.

  “We’ll tell him about your conversation with the Chairman. If there’s something you’d like to add, be sure to make it short. Patron may have some questions for you.... By the way, you’ve done a good job of arranging your workstation.”

  The drapery with its design of groves of trees was half drawn, and a faint lustrous golden light shone through the lace curtains against the glass; in the western side of the room, at a what looked like a small ornamental desk, Patron’s heavy form sat at an angle. On top of the desk were some envelopes—too small for mailing letters—and Patron, half turned in their direction, held a fountain pen in his pudgy fingers. The light wasn’t conducive to writing letters, though.

  Dancer and Ogi couldn’t find any chairs to sit on, so they stood together facing Patron. Patron’s face still looked swollen, but he seemed to have recovered from his earlier emotional turmoil as Ogi reported on how he’d changed jobs, unable to resist touching on what the Chairman had told him about Balzac. Just as it had with Dancer, this brought on an irritable reaction.

  “I can’t believe Le Treize was such a simplistic idea. I think the Chairman has his own preconception about it,” Patron said, inclining his overly large head and casting a gloomy look at Ogi. “For someone like him who’s lived such a focused life, no matter how imaginative the notion he’s always got to bring it back down to earth. I’m flattered that he thought of Guide and me when he came up with these ideas, though I can’t imagine how what we’ve done or are about to do might correspond to some modern-day Thirteen. What do you think, Ogi?”

  Ogi understood that Patron’s question to him was nothing more than a rhetorical device he used when delivering a sermon, but he went ahead and replied. Although he was not a particularly voluble person, it was Ogi’s nature that once he had something to say, he didn’t hold back.

  “The foundation holds regular conferences, one of which y
ou attended, as you recall,” Ogi said. “I used to be in charge of making the arrangements. The members included such people as the French ambassador, chairmen of large corporations, advisers to banks and brokerage firms, even a novelist who’d won the Order of Cultural Merit—to put it bluntly, all people whose careers in their respective fields are basically drawing to a close.

  “There was some discussion about making you a member, and they decided to invite you once as a guest. Ever since the time I escorted you to the Kansai research facility, the Chairman has recommended you to the conference. Being a clever group of men, they did not oppose having you participate one time. To tell the truth, though, some of them acted as if they were receiving a jester into their midst. Several of the members’ secretaries reported happily to me later that their bosses enjoyed your talk enormously. These secretaries also asked me, in their employers’ stead, whether it was true that you and Guide had actually severed all ties with your church, or whether that was merely a diversionary tactic aimed at the upcoming trials.

  “In other words, from the very beginning it’s been just a pipe dream for those movers and shakers to join forces with an eccentric such as yourself. They’re cautious people; they were just amusing themselves at your expense. Even if you had become a member, as soon as they knew you were about to begin leading a new religious movement you can be sure they’d have voted you out.”

  Patron listened carefully. Instead of adding a comment, though, he wound up their conversation by directing Ogi and Dancer to undertake a new job. The two young people withdrew and began preparing a late dinner. In the kitchen next to the dining room, they took out what was available in the refrigerator and set to work.