by Kenzaburo Oe
Ms. Tachibana looked straight at Ogi through egg-shaped glasses; she sounded as if she’d prepared her remarks in advance.
“When the Moosbrugger Committee was originally formed—I wasn’t yet a member then—their first guest speaker was a member of Patron’s church. He was quite a strange character, which made him perfect for the committee: so much so they dubbed him ‘Our Own Moosbrugger.’ After he heard Patron’s sermons, this man came to the outrageous conclusion that, with the world about to end, it didn’t matter what sort of terrible things you did—in fact, those acts might even be of value—and he committed a crime. He’d served his time in jail and was out at this point, and we paid him an honorarium to speak to us about his experiences. I became a member the third time he spoke to us. I think he got the nickname Our Own Moosbrugger because he appeared so many times.
“At our meetings, someone raised the idea that it would be interesting to hear from the leader of the church the man belonged to, to hear his opinion about all this. We discussed it further, and this being a time when media reports on the Somersault were still fairly fresh in people’s minds, we put two and two together and realized that the church leader on TV and the leader of Our Own Moosbrugger’s church were one and the same. Maybe from the beginning it was unrealistic to ask this former leader who’d renounced his own church to come speak to us, seeing as how it’d be difficult for him to compare the radical faction that caused him so much trouble and a person like Our Own Moosbrugger.
“Still, the committee began to make preparations for his visit, came to me for advice, and that’s how I ended up a member. The reason they came to me was that I’d talked to Ms. Asuka here, whom I’d met at the documentary film society at the center, and told her that I’d heard Patron give a sermon to a small gathering—this was before the Somersault, of course—and had been quite moved. Ms. Asuka makes films; actually, she’s making her own documentary about the main speaker at the committee, Our Own Moosbrugger. She’s a very self-assured woman and has a job that ordinary people would never think of doing, in order to earn the funds needed to finance her film. She’s the person who contributed the honorarium. At any rate, I was the one who sent the letter to Patron, using the name of the man who was the representative of the committee. You might think I thought that with Patron out of the church he might consider coming to talk with our group, but that wasn’t my motivation at all; I just wanted to meet him myself.”
“Did Patron write back?” Ogi asked.
“They waited a long long time and only now have a reply,” Mrs. Tsugane put in.
“That’s right. Over a thousand days. So—would it be possible for him to visit our group?”
“Patron’s restarting his religious activities for the first time in a decade,” Ogi said, “and he’s contacting those people who wrote to him during that time. So it might be possible.”
“If he were to come, we’d have to get our committee up and running again. Not to bother him with old tales of Our Own Moosbrugger but to listen to one of his wonderful sermons.”
“I’d like to film his sermons too, since you’ve told me, Ms. Tachibana, how powerful a figure he is.” Though her name had come up in the conversation, Ms. Asuka had remained silent, her flat face impassive in its greasepaintlike makeup. Now her remarks went immediately to the point.
Though her tone and voice were more affable than the other two women’s, Mrs. Tsugane’s next remarks brought Ogi up short.
“I understand that this Patron, as you call him, is getting back into religious activities,” she said, “but if your visit here to the Moosbrugger Committee is for the purpose of recruiting converts, we can’t allow the committee to use any of the conference rooms at the center. Outside of the meeting, of course, anyone is free to become a member.”
It finally struck Ogi, whose innocence was in keeping with the nickname his colleagues had given him, what his role had become—a religious canvasser.
“Just as when I wrote that letter,” Ms. Tachibana said, “that isn’t the reason why I want him to visit us. And I don’t think that’s where the interests of the other members lie, either.” In the overly hot central heating, strands of loose hair were plastered to her sweaty, pale forehead.
Ms. Asuka nodded in silent agreement.
“It’s just that if we’re going to have a relationship from now on,” said Mrs. Tsugane, “I need you to understand that the Culture and Sports Center is a public facility.”
Mrs. Tsugane said something next that, in one stroke, clarified the vaguely familiar feeling Ogi’d had ever since he met her; her face, too, was filled with a bright, wistful smile.
“When you were still a fresh-faced boy, Mr. Ogi, I sometimes saw you at your family’s summer cottage in the Nasu Plateau. I tried to be friendly toward you, and according to your sister-in-law you liked me, too. . . and now look at you—grown into a wonderful young man.”
After Ogi arrived back at his apartment, one station beyond the office at Seijo on the Odakyu Line, and began preparing dinner, the vivid memories Mrs. Tsugane’s remarks revived in him suddenly hit home. In the summer after his first year of high school, at their summer cottage in the Nasu Plateau, Ogi’s whole family, from his father—head of the medical department at a public university—on down, were friends with a designer of hospital furniture who often came to stay with them. This year the man brought along his young wife Mrs. Tsugane. Her family had a summer home in the same area, and she and her husband were friends of Ogi’s brother and sister-in-law. Ogi wasn’t part of the two young couples’ activities, since he was younger.
One day, when the young couples had changed into swimsuits at the house and gone to a nearby heated pool, Ogi went into the rest room connected to the bath and discovered the designer’s wife’s discarded white tank top, soft denim skirt, and a pair of panties with a flowery watercolor design in a laundry hamper. Seized by a sudden impulse, Ogi stuffed the skimpy pair of panties in his pocket. That night he easily slipped the panties—two pieces of cloth connected by bits of elastic—onto his skinny body, and slept with them on, enveloped in a warm comfortable feeling, as if once more he were a happy baby. The next day, though, feelings of remorse clutched at him, and knowing that this panty thievery would not go unnoticed, he returned alone to Tokyo.
Every summer after that, Ogi begged off going to the summer cottage, saying he was busy with extracurricular activities.
2
When Ogi told her about the Moosbrugger Committee’s proposal, Dancer said that while it might be possible for Patron to visit the committee, she wanted to wait before she broached the topic. For the time being, Patron had to concentrate on his discussions concerning their new plans with Guide, who had quickly recovered and had been released from the hospital. Ogi, always meticulous when it came to their office work, wanted to get in touch with the Culture and Sports Center to let them know not to expect a quick reply. But he had another, more emotional, motive for calling: Mrs. Tsugane’s voice on the phone, he had to admit, gave him a tingly feeling all over.
“I think you should get in touch with Ms. Tachibana directly,” Mrs. Tsugane told him, and gave him the telephone number; Ms. Tachibana worked in the library of a Jesuit university in Yotsuya.
“She’s a very capable woman,” Mrs. Tsugane went on, “and has been living for a long time with her handicapped younger brother. She isn’t doing this as an act of self-sacrifice but because she feels it’s the best way she and her brother can become more independent. Ms. Asuka is also a free spirit, with her own special way of putting that freedom into practice. As Ms. Tachibana implied, Ms. Asuka is involved in adult entertainment, saving up the funds she needs to make her own films.… They’re such opposites it makes me wonder how they’ve come to rely on each other so much as members of the committee.…
“Well, now that you know all this background, I’m sure you’ll find plenty to talk about. After you do I’d like you to come see me. You do owe me something, right? Ha!”
> Ogi got in touch that day with Ms. Tachibana’s office, and they met the following day, after she finished work, outside the side gate to the university. They sat down for a talk on a bank that overlooked a moat, amid a line of cherry trees whose leaves had turned.
Ms. Tachibana had on a white and navy blue suit too subdued for her age, and, in contrast to her introspective demeanor, she strode toward him with firm, determined steps.
Ogi began by explaining to her about the young woman they all called Dancer, how she took care of Patron’s daily needs and was responsible for many of the activities they had planned for the future, and then he gave her the message Dancer had asked him to relay. He apologized for his ambivalent reply the other day. Ms. Tachibana wasn’t interested in talking about the Moosbrugger Committee, but wanted to explain why it was important for her, as an individual, to meet with Patron. Ogi readily agreed. Despite his youth, he was an excellent listener.
“I was once a student at this university,” Ms. Tachibana began, “and a little more than ten years ago, just before the Somersault, when my brother and I were still living with our parents, an acquaintance invited me to a small gathering where Patron spoke.
“I wasn’t a believer at the time, and though his sermon really moved me, it didn’t convert me. At any rate, I’d become friends with the mother of a mentally challenged child who worked at the same welfare office where I took my brother, and she was the one who took me to the gathering. This mother wasn’t a believer either.
“Life wasn’t easy for me then, because of my brother. He could only use a few words, and has the cognitive ability of a four- or five-year-old, his motor skills about the same. But he has perfect pitch and composes music. He’d already begun composing at the time. Once there was a concert at the Welfare Center and the volunteer pianist advised me to send copies of my brother’s compositions to a famous composer, which I did right away. The composer wrote back, saying the melodies were exquisite, and also sent me a copy of a book he wrote. I brought the book with me. Here’s what it says.”
Ms. Tachibana took out a small hardcover book from her oversized handbag. Ogi motioned her over to some concrete seats shaped like tree stumps.
When one thinks, it’s impossible to escape the agency of language. Even when one thinks in the medium of sound, there’s an inevitable connection with language. In my case, in order to form a framework in which my thoughts can be clearly expressed in the overall structure of my music and also in the details, I find it necessary to verify things in language. And I leave it up to a decision of the senses. I discover the themes of my music, too, through this sort of process. It has nothing to do with a poetic mood or anything like it.
“This made me think my brother’s music has limitations. It’s like there’s a bar set up very low, and the music can’t get over that hurdle. Perhaps the composer didn’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me that directly, and that’s why he sent me his book.
“My brother lies on the floor of our apartment, in our public housing apartment, and writes his compositions on music sheets. When he makes a mistake he erases it and then writes down the right notes. It’s as if he already has the music in his head and just needs to get the notes down on paper.
“He can’t explain in words what kind of music he’s trying to compose, and I doubt he’s even thinking in words when he does compose. As the composer put it, he’s unable to verify things in language.
“I started thinking about the limits of my brother’s music, and I became quite sad and depressed as I realized what a dead end it was. I was feeling so down the woman I knew at the Welfare Center took me to hear Patron’s sermon.
“It took place long ago, but I still remember it well; it was as if his sermon reached out and grabbed me right where I live.
“I took notes on his sermon in my notebook here; it was based on the words of a seventeenth-century philosopher:
God revealed himself in Christ and in Christ’s spirit, not following the words and images the prophets had given.
When the true spirit of things is grasped, apart from words and images, then and only then are they truly understood.… Christ actually, and completely, grasped this revelation.
“As I listened to him read each sentence aloud and then comment on it, I couldn’t contain myself. I had to ask a question. The meeting was held in a small shop converted into a residence, which because of rising land prices was about to be sold; fifteen or sixteen believers filled this dim room near the entrance, and we were seated just behind them. I raised my hand, leaned forward, and nearly shouted out my question. ‘Sir,’ I asked, ‘I don’t know anything about this special person named Christ, but could this be applied instead to someone else—say, an unfortunate person? A person who doesn’t even know he’s unfortunate and has a pure heart? Is it possible that God could reveal himself directly, not through words, but through music?’
“After I said this, Patron wove his way on unsteady legs through the narrow space between the people sitting in front and came and held my hand and whispered to me, ‘That’s exactly right!’ I was still a young girl, and those words stayed in my heart. I felt as if my body and heart were filled with light.”
As if to calm the tide of excitement, Ms. Tachibana was silent for a time, staring at the black trunks of the cherry trees in front of her. Ogi turned his gaze not on the shadows of the cherry leaves but toward the deep-hued autumn foliage of the mistletoe, even now turning darker as night approached. So even a woman like this, he thought, a serious, modest person who calmly goes about doing her own job and living her own life, was encouraged by Patron. And now, even ten years after the Somersault, that emotion still remains alive inside her.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” she went on, “but if Patron can come to the Moosbrugger Committee, I want to bring my brother along as a kind of test—to see whether Patron would reveal God in him, directly, without words or images. In the past, when my brother listened to music, you could see light filling his body and heart. That was when my parents were still alive. But now he’s more like an old man; his head droops. I want him to meet Patron and be filled again with light, the way he used to be. Wouldn’t that be a sign of God’s revelation? I know my idea is a little wild, but after all the trouble you’ve gone through I just had to tell you. I’m sorry to have kept you so long—I appreciate your listening to me.”
“No, I’m the one who should thank you,” Ogi said. “I’m glad to hear that Patron has such power, even after the Somersault. Once his plans crystallize, you can expect a letter from him.”
Ms. Tachibana nodded and stood up, made a slight bow, and walked off alone down the stone pathway in the direction of the Yotsuya Station. Ogi could imagine her taking walks here during her lunch break, with an invariably gloomy, serious look on her face. With her stolid way of walking, which took one’s attention away from her features or manners, she disappeared down the path, her heels clicking against the stone paving.
So that he wouldn’t seem to be following her, Ogi had set off in the opposite direction, down the path through the cherry trees. The farther he went the darker it became, and the only way he could reach the paved road lined with streetlights was to stray off the path and head toward the grassy slope. The moment he stepped off the path that sloped down through the trees, a thick branch of a cherry tree raked across his eyes and nose.
Holding his face, he plopped down on the withered lawn and grumbled a complaint directed less at his own pain than at something beyond.
“Why do there have to be so many unhappy people in the world? No wonder someone like this self-styled Patron of Humanity appears. What in the world is happening to life on this planet?”
3
When Dancer asked Ogi to report on his progress in contacting people, he submitted a revised name list to her, but he decided to approach Patron directly about Ms. Tachibana.
“Do you happen to recall,” he asked Patron, “a small gathering about ten ye
ars ago when a young girl, whose younger brother was mentally challenged, asked you a question? She wasn’t one of the followers of the church. This girl, still in her teens at the time, listened to your sermon and said her whole body was filled with light.”
Patron’s pensive face, which looked like it was covered with a thin sheen of oil, came alive, the color rising.
“I do remember that,” he said, his voice so suddenly transformed that Ogi nearly regretted his words, thinking they’d been too much of a shock. “The girl told me her body and heart were filled with light, and I could see that her skin, even the part covered by her clothes, was glowing.”
Ogi recalled Ms. Tachibana’s forehead, perfect for the kind of crown that adorned a Girls’ Day doll, her tiny lips and chin. An image of her face as a youngster—not a particularly attractive girl—flashed through Ogi’s mind. And of light flooding through her thin, pale skin from within.
“That woman belongs to a group called the Moosbrugger Committee, which is on our list. In fact, she’s the one who wrote to you. She wants to invite you to visit them. Before things become too busy with your new activities, would it be possible to fit a short meeting with the members of the committee into your schedule? She said she wanted to bring her mentally challenged brother along, too.”
Ogi made up his mind to report to Ms. Tachibana that, although Patron couldn’t make a firm commitment at this time, he did get the feeling he was leaning in that direction. The university library was closed, though, for a Founder’s Day holiday. He phoned Mrs. Tsugane, and she told him her husband had received an award given in northern Europe for his designs for improved furniture for elderly patients. He was in Europe now to attend the awards ceremony, and she was bored and asked Ogi to come over to see her. She had something she wanted to talk with him about, she added. Her voice had a force in it that couldn’t be denied, so Ogi agreed to meet her Saturday afternoon at the entrance to the Culture and Sports Center.