Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “Still, there was one impetus all the Quiet Women shared that helped them overcome their feelings of animosity. This was the information that Mrs. Shigeno brought to us—the report that after the Somersault Patron and Guide had descended into hell. We too felt we’d been abandoned, left in a place where we were anxious and suffered. When we heard this information we thought, very naturally, that it made perfect sense. That being the case, we also clung to the hope that Patron and Guide would someday climb up out of the hell they were in and lead us in a new direction.

  “Then a terrible thing happened: Guide was murdered, a truly awful event, but we received the notice of the memorial service for Guide, sent from Patron, and for the first time in ten years there was something hopeful to cling to. It was a straight path from the memorial service to this present conference from then on.

  “This only means that we Quiet Women need to talk together even more. These past ten years we’ve been in the habit of holding some deep discussions to come up with a group consensus. We’re supposed to see this conference as former church members overcoming the Somersault to launch a new church, right? In our decade of communal living this has got to be the most critical situation we’ve faced.

  “That’s why we hold our discussions. And these discussions—of people who’ve lived together for ten years, sharing their pain—we like to hold in private. We really need to talk together—just us and no one else. I hope you’ll allow us to do so. And when we meet by ourselves next time, I’m sure one of the topics we’ll be discussing is this very question you’ve put to us.”

  “Still, though, I find it ironic that we’re excluded from your discussions,” Ms. Kajima commented.

  “Once again, I ask your indulgence,” Ms. Oyama replied. “The Quiet Women will be working, though, at the party being held tonight at the Farm. So if you’d like to talk with us individually, that would be a good time to do so.”

  Ms. Kajima didn’t pursue her questioning any further. Instead, she turned her attack to the Technicians.

  “The Technicians were the elite at the Izu Research Institute, people I never met or spoke to directly. Which led to me having a one-sided view of all of you. Forgive me for saying this, but the extreme tactics of some of your colleagues pushed Patron and Guide to the wall, forcing them to do the Somersault. That’s the view of those of us who remained in the church. And then later some of your colleagues—I’m not saying all, mind you—put Guide on trial and ended up causing his death. To us it seemed that the years after you left the church didn’t change your way of thinking or your tactics one iota. That made us disappointed and angry.

  “Now, though, we find the Technicians in charge of everything at this conference for the new church. Mr. Soda, the head of the Kansai headquarters, discussed this with Patron and agreed to it, and since he’s our leader we accept it as a fait accompli. But there are many people in the Kansai headquarters who feel the way I do—that there’s a lot going on here we can’t understand. Some people say they find it outrageous. So I’d like to hear from some of the Technicians as to how they feel about this.”

  A piece of paper was passed to her at this point, and she sat down, and a small stir went through the audience as they speculated as to what was going on. This soon calmed down, though, as the American reporter Fred Parks, who was sitting beside Ms. Kajima, stood up and asked a question.

  “I’d like to ask a follow-up if I may,” he began.

  His question was translated into Japanese by Mrs. Tsugane.

  “As you can gather from my asking in English, I’m a foreigner, but at the time of the Somersault I was especially interested in the Izu faction that you just mentioned, because they had a plan for radical social change. Until just before the Somersault, neither Patron nor Guide seemed opposed to this and provided funding for their activities.

  “Still, Patron and Guide eventually negotiated with the authorities and sold out the radical faction. I wonder how the remnants of the group, the Technicians, feel about this. How do all of you evaluate the killing of Guide and Patron’s return to the church? Thank you.”

  4

  Kizu knew only that Mr. Hanawa was a research scientist. In Mr. Hanawa’s attitude as he silently surveyed the audience, all the while taking notes at the long table, Kizu was reminded of the head of the student council in his college days, a group under the sway of the Communists. This impression was reinforced when Mr. Hanawa spoke.

  “It would take quite some time to discuss how we felt at the time of the Somersault, and since I don’t think that’s particularly relevant at this point, I’ll talk about how we feel about it now, ten years down the road.

  “We were completely turned inside out by Patron’s Somersault, but we already knew at the time that our plans would have been a total failure. So we were betrayed by Patron and Guide through the Somersault, which was okay because it helped avoid a massive blunder, right? People might say that, but if you look at history you’ll find that even in what appears to be stupid, failed insurrections, often something significant emerges. Aborted insurrections, however, lead nowhere.

  “Even now we wonder whether the Somersault was really the only option open to Patron. In a similar vein, we talked over what Asahara, the leader of Aum Shinrikyo, did or didn’t do when the police raided his hideout at the base of Mount Fuji, and we all agreed that was Asahara’s own Somersault.

  “If Asahara hadn’t done a Somersault, what options did he have? Assume the lotus position, back straight and eyes closed, leap out of the highest window in the satyan, and levitate toward Mount Fuji? If he really couldn’t fly, he should have just leaped out the window and crashed to the ground. With his senior disciples already shot, the CIA or the Japanese police or religious organizations antithetical to Aum would insist on shooting Asahara—floating in a lotus position toward Mount Fuji—out of the sky. Like a single fish egg in a stormy sea, this may very well have led to a single grain hatching and a new Aum myth. For the church that remained behind a new history would be born.

  “We haven’t wavered from our conclusion that the Somersault was a mistake. But we also recognize it was a mistake to have driven Guide to such a tragic death. In other words, we won’t be pushing Patron anymore to take responsibility. The reason we’ve returned to be with Patron and help him build a new church from the ground up—and please note that we’re not managing things in the Hollow; we’re providing security for the Quiet Women’s prayer meetings, at their request, and will be helping out at tonight’s party at the Farm—is because we have great hopes for the new church and for Patron, whom we know is an outstanding, inspiring leader. We’re not asking that he reverse the Somersault of a decade ago. We’re hoping for a brand-new Somersault.”

  The next question didn’t come from the reporters and TV crew occupying the front half of the audience but from a man, sitting with some others, apart from the ordinary participants, along the aisle on the west side of the hall. The man stood up. These people had come in late, and Kizu had seen Ogi ask the Technicians, already helping out here at the press conference, to move some extra chairs in for them.

  The middle-aged man who wanted to speak had a deeply lined, receding forehead, a penetrating look, and a very poor complexion. He was very low key, with a hoarse, muttering way of speaking; Kizu realized it had been some time since he’d met a Japanese person like this. The question, it turned out, was directed to him.

  “The questions I’d like to ask may have nothing to do with the launching of the new church,” the man said. “Still, I hope very much that you’ll understand why I have to ask them. Professor Kizu, did you come back to Japan because you heard that the Founder had the power to cure cancer? Did you not get any modern medical treatment because the Founder instructed you not to? How did the Founder treat you, and how long was it before it started to take effect? My next question is best directed at the Founder himself: Is this treatment also available to people outside the church?”

  Ogi passed alon
g a piece of paper with these questions all neatly printed out. Up till now the church members responding to questions had relied on the notes they were taking.

  “I don’t know if this will help you or not, but I’ll tell you about my experience,” Kizu began. “While I was living in America, a professor of medicine in my institute told me he suspected I had cancer. He recommended a complete examination and said he himself would do the pathology. I resigned myself to this being what I’d been fearing, a recurrence of cancer, and using the sabbatical leave I had coming I scurried off to Japan.

  “Five years ago I had an operation for colon cancer. And this last year and a half I haven’t been feeling well. Seven years ago my older brother, who also had had colon cancer surgery, found it had spread to his liver, and two years later he passed away. When I came back to Japan to see him before he died, he told me about the symptoms, and they were the same symptoms I was having, so I resigned myself to suffering the same fate. Still, I didn’t go into the hospital for all those tests, because I remembered all too clearly how awful the ones they’d run on me before had been, the abdominal artery contrast test and all the rest.

  “My U.S. specialist had referred me to a clinic in Tokyo, and I consulted with the doctor there about how to deal with the disease as it progressed, particularly how to deal with the pain. After doing a CT scan, this doctor concurred with my own assessment of my condition. I thought a biopsy was pointless so I refused to have it done. And when we moved here, the Tokyo doctor passed along all his information to Dr. Koga, who was traveling with me.

  “After that, on two separate occasions the pain became so unbearable that the second time they put me in the Red Cross Hospital and removed my gallbladder. I thought the cancer had spread—only to be told that it never was cancer to begin with, which reminded me that I’d never had another biopsy done after the first operation. The doctor at the Red Cross Hospital told me the pain must have been from gallstones and not from any recurrence of cancer. But looking at the symptoms my late brother had, there was definitely a reason for me to think the cancer had recurred and I didn’t have long to live. Even now, after doubting it many times, I always come back to that belief.

  “Since I moved here I’ve been living communally with Patron—the Founder, as you call him. I’d met him—and Guide—about a year before in Toyko, and we’d had a number of chances to talk. After we moved here our relationship has gotten closer and Patron modeled for my painting. Still, I never felt he was intentionally treating me. I remember once he told me he’d take responsibility for my physical condition, but he never did anything that made me feel he was consciously working on it, and I can’t say that Patron is prepared to treat anyone, either those in the church or those outside. Even so, to answer your question, I feel I did have a recurrence of cancer, which is now cured. And I’ve found myself believing that moving here and becoming closer to Patron had an effect on what has happened to me.”

  Kizu stopped speaking, and though he thought nothing he’d said was very well put, the man who’d asked the questions and those around him unexpectedly broke into applause. And then, from beside them, standing because there weren’t enough seats, an elderly man, slightly built, but whose chest under a dark blue shirt was unusually muscular, spoke out loudly without waiting to be called on.

  “I don’t have one of those tickets you need to ask a question, but I’m a blacksmith and farmer from the outskirts, and I think people from outside might not fully understand what Professor Kizu’s saying unless I add something!”

  Ogi went over quickly to have a few words with this man who, although it wasn’t yet noon, was obviously a bit tipsy. He didn’t make him leave but made it quite clear that certain guidelines had to be followed.

  “Okay, I get it!” the man said. “I’ll cut to the chase. My son Kaji died of lung cancer and a brain tumor. At one point, though, Brother Gii, who built the chapel in the Hollow, used his touch to heal my son’s liver cancer. The doctor at the Red Cross Hospital said the cancer had shrunk an incredible amount.

  “I believe there’s a power in the Hollow that raises people up who have a healing touch and draws them in from elsewhere. Wasn’t it this power of the land that brought out the Founder’s healing power? In this new church, too, you should make this healing power available to all those suffering from cancer! From his grave I’m sure Kaji would want this.”

  The man who asked the first questions, not paying any heed to this second man, interrupted. “We’re really counting on the sermon tomorrow. But if at all possible, either before or after the party today, can we meet with Patron? We’ve all come a long way, hoping we could.” And he bowed his head, as did the tipsy blacksmith-cum-farmer whose pronouncements had been cut short.

  That was the end of the press conference, and in the stir as the reporters, TV crews, and participants all stood up, the American reporter, Fred Parks, who was accompanied by Mrs. Tsugane, came over to the long table where Kizu was still seated.

  “I think it’s very wise the way you’ve allowed the interested parties to debate the internal issues of the church in front of foreign reporters,” Parks said. “I’ve attended Aum press conferences, and they never let any problems they might be having among themselves see the light of day.”

  “That’s right, Fred,” Kizu replied. “Our church is different from both Aum Shinrikyo and from your country’s insistence on sticking to principles no matter what.”

  “Those cancer patients are so sad,” Fred said. “It struck me that maybe you never had cancer to begin with. If that’s the case, you’re one sly fellow—sitting there with a straight face like one big billboard for the church.”

  While the two of them were talking in English, Mrs. Tsugane tilted her newly permed head toward Ogi and whispered something. Kizu had wanted to ask Ikuo if there was anything he could do to help out between the afternoon program and the evening party at the Farm, but Ikuo had disappeared while Kizu was talking with Fred.

  After Mrs. Tsugane left the dining hall with Fred, Kizu went over to where Ogi was standing with Dancer—who’d come in near the end of the press conference—facing the window on the lake side, deep in conversation. Despite their intense tête-à-tête, Ogi saw Kizu, turned around to him, and said, “Would you talk with Dr. Koga for us? He has a problem the office can’t deal with.”

  Ogi was so tense as he said this it made Kizu turn to look around him. With a worried look, Dancer glanced up at Kizu but didn’t say anything and looked away. As Kizu walked over to where Dr. Koga stood, surrounded by cancer patients, and others who were no doubt family members, Dr. Koga cut off his talk with them and made his way out of the crowd toward him. Kizu had never seen such a serious expression before on Dr. Koga’s well-formed features.

  Ogi went out ahead of them. In the courtyard between the two buildings of the monastery there were enormous mobs of people, not just those leaving the press conference but other participants, talking in groups, strolling the grounds. Kizu and the others headed toward the chapel. The necks and arms of everyone they passed were sweating profusely. Dr. Koga, too, walking just in front of Kizu, kept wiping his neck with a soiled handkerchief. The sunlight was dazzling, and the clamor of cicadas poured down on them from behind Patron’s residence.

  Ogi unlocked the door to the office, let the two of them in, told them to lock the door behind him, and left.

  Dr. Koga cut across the first room to the room nearest the lake, and was standing by the fax machine, a pile of faxes beside it, about to reach out for them automatically when he stopped short and fixed an unsmiling gaze on Kizu.

  “Ever since he saw the Fireflies last night, Patron’s been quite frightened and not himself. Ikuo restrained him and calmed him down, but Patron’s quite strong and gave him a hard time. And that’s not all.”

  5

  Dr. Koga explained that the night before, as the Fireflies were performing, Ikuo had visited Patron to show him the plan for enlivening Patron’s sermon on the final
day.

  A ceaseless line of people, headed toward the chapel and back, was passing in front of Patron’s house, and the constant stir had Morio on edge. Two Fireflies stood guard outside the front door, which stood about five yards up a slope from the courtyard, and with people posing one after another in front for souvenir photographs, the normally unflappable Ms. Tachibana, too, was uneasy.

  Patron spent quite some time preparing for his sermon on the final day. He wasn’t scheduled to appear at any other functions until then, but at that time he would be speaking in front of an expected crowd of some one thousand people, seven hundred registered participants plus casual visitors from Maki Town and its surroundings. Even during the heyday of the church before the Somersault, Patron had only spoken to such a large crowd a handful of times.

  The plan that Ikuo brought over to discuss with Patron was a proposal he’d received from Gii’s mother by way of Gii. Satchan was grateful to Ikuo for taking the Fireflies under his wing and helping them expand to the point where adults in Maki Town approved of the group. She was also allowing the church to use the cypress island in the Hollow, land she owned, in their conference and had made the church a proposition.

  The giant tree, half destroyed, was awful to look at, even though new leaves appeared on it every year. The cypress was the remains of what happened when Brother Gii, planning to dissolve the Church of the Flaming Green Tree and leave the area with his wife, Satchan, burned down the tree in place of the chapel. The next morning, as Brother Gii set off with a small group of pilgrims, he was stoned to death by attackers.