Somersault (87 page)

31: The Summer Conference

1

Registration was to begin at 10
A.M
., on the first Friday in August, at the temporary office set up below the dam. Under the clear sky a line had already formed before seven. Kizu heard that by the time the official registration began, the line extended all the way to where it could be seen from the Mansion, where Mr. Soda was staying.

The temporary office was set up in the square below the dam with two red and green vertically striped tents that looked like overturned bowls. A festive summery feeling swept through the line of people, making the atmosphere all the more lively.

Ms. Asuka brought over a Fruit of the Rain Tree lunch box and soup in a paper container for Kizu and was uncharacteristically excited as she reported that by afternoon the number of registrants had topped five hundred. Events planned included the Fireflies on Friday night and their Spirit Procession on Sunday afternoon, followed by Patron’s public sermon, all of which could be seen from the bleachers set up on the newly prepared path around the lake in the Hollow. Plans for the conference were based on the number of seats there, including areas for people to stand. Sightseers from Maki Town and surrounding areas, however, were allowed free entrance without registering.

Registration cards with numbers were distributed that allowed participants free access to the dining hall in the monastery and to the chapel to view Kizu’s triptych. Having people register was a way for those who’d dropped out of the church after the Somersault to declare their intentions now that the new church was about to be launched.

The office estimated that over seven hundred people would register on the first day, and since they’d all come from far away there was a need to find lodgings beyond what had already been arranged. They checked at the Maki Town Inn and other Japanese inns that they’d originally left off their list because of the price. They also had to increase the number of shuttle buses taking people from their lodgings to the Hollow. Followers who’d arrived ahead of time helped out as volunteers at the temporary office, but the whole first day was chaotic, to say the least.

“Patron’s public sermon of course will be one of the highlights, but the small-group meetings tomorrow and the next day at the monastery, where people will talk about their sufferings over the past decade, seem quite popular as well. The Quiet Women are running those.

“Other followers who haven’t gotten in touch with us have talked with their former fellows in the church and will be holding their own independently organized small meetings,” Ms. Asuka added. “The office has to find rooms for the meetings, so we’ve asked the Farm, the Mansion, and Fushoku temple to provide space, and we’ve had to increase the number of smaller gatherings. Dancer’s been very quick to take on this task and is quite the negotiator.”

There was one more important reason that brought Ms. Asuka to walk up to Kizu’s house on the north shore of the Hollow. Among the people who registered were those with no previous or present connection with the church, she reported, but who were cancer patients or family members of those who were too ill to make the trip. They wanted to be cured by Patron—or at least have him agree to try—and also hoped to hear directly from Kizu about his miraculous experience.

It would be impossible to have Patron do anything like that while the conference was in session, and Kizu couldn’t be asked to participate in all these small-group meetings. Patron wouldn’t be participating in the press conference the following day, but could Kizu attend and say a few words? He couldn’t say no.

Ms. Asuka did everything with great enthusiasm. Undaunted by the heat, she was dressed in short-sleeved khaki work clothes and high laced shoes. She also talked about how she’d been allowed to videotape the Fireflies’ procession scheduled for that evening.

“Asa-san told me that the Fireflies are children who carry lanterns with candles in them, and other children carry extra candles, and they all climb up into the woods with some object that a soul has been transferred into, which they lay at the base of a selected tree. These small lights moving through the forest are hard to see, and it would take a lot of time, so I’d given up on trying to film it.

“But what happened was the Maki police and fire department said they wouldn’t allow children to play with fire like that, so Gii drew up a revised plan, and they were given the go-ahead. Which also made it possible to videotape it. I can really see why Ikuo expects great things of Gii!”

The twilight sky was still brightly reflected on the lake’s surface, though the woods were completely dark, when Kizu heard Dancer’s voice from speakers on the island in the middle of the lake giving an explanation of the Young Fireflies. Kizu sprayed insect repellent all over his arms and legs, turned out the houselights, and sat down in front of the open window to watch the proceedings.

Before long, as the sky was just losing its reddish tint and the chapel, monastery, and dam sank into the gloom, two groups of children, one quite young, the other junior high age, appeared in front of the reviewing stands, where they put lighted candles inside lanterns. As they descended from the stands, illuminated by the lanterns, the bobbing lights flickered on the lake’s surface, drawing a sigh of admiration from the crowds of onlookers on the darkened shores.

The two groups with their lanterns made it safely up the stairs from the dam. Just as they were about to step onto the flagstone path, though, the lantern lights disappointedly vanished. A sigh went up again from the crowd, along with laughter. A moment later, though, lights reappeared, the same lanterns as before, it seemed, on the slope in back at the same height as the chapel roof; they moved horizontally toward the east, dipping in and out of view in the thick foliage. As soon as it seemed they’d vanished completely in even denser foliage, they’d pop up a few moments later at the same height, farther along the course they were taking to the slopes of the east bank, like some persistent beast moving in the night.

Fellow Fireflies no doubt awaited them farther down the path they all followed in their morning training sessions. The leader of the whole procession, situated in a spot where he could see all the proceedings—Gii, who had crossed over to the island with its cypress tree—would signal to all the kids on the ubiquitous beepers junior high school children all carried, and have them remove the covers from their lanterns and set off once again.

Kizu was interpreting the proceedings this way when the Fireflies procession turned to the north slope and left his field of vision. He groped his way to the kitchen, opened the fridge, found a can of beer in the lighted interior, popped it, and returned to his chair. As he drank, he waited for the procession to arrive back at the dam and again make its way to the reviewing stands. Gii must have found it too simple to have them settle the soul at the base of a tree way up in the forest, everything taking place in the dark.

Even though the lanterns were far away, whenever they disappeared the dark forest and lake slipped back into monotony and the passage of time slowed down. As the crowd surrounding the lake looked up at the movement of the lanterns cutting across the north slope and descending ever lower, an occasional child’s shout could be heard, but otherwise no loud voices at all. The crowd of onlookers wasn’t just being patient, but awaited further developments with an air of great expectation.

High up on the eastern slope a cuckoo called out, and another cuckoo answered. A
kyororon-kyororon
melody of some other bird Kizu heard quite often recently—a call that reminded him of a Vivaldi guitar concerto—echoed loudly across the still lakeside.

Finally the lanterns began to ascend from the north corner of the dam. The young children holding the lights, and the junior high school pupils with them, lantern light glittering in the high water along the shore, marched on toward the reviewing stands. They turned their backs on the lake as they began to climb up the wooden stairs above the reviewing stands, and after a moment of darkness, the space above the stands was filled with the light from all the lanterns held by this crowd of children. Right above them was a banner, illuminated by their lanterns, that read: Church of the New Man.

Music came from the speakers on the island, a melody Kizu recognized as Morio’s “Ascension,” parts 1 and 2. The burst of applause of the onlookers at this display of light quickly faded out of respect for the subdued music. Lights went on in the chapel and the monastery, and the lamppost outside went on as well. It was already past nine.

2

Friday night’s Fireflies procession was a resounding success. From early Saturday morning on, the people who gathered around the Hollow were abuzz with talk of how much they’d enjoyed it.

Ogi was in charge of public relations for the conference, so he heard a lot of these opinions from people outside the church. One fiftyish man from the Old Town introduced himself, undaunted, as someone who’d been active in the movement opposing the move of the church to the Hollow, and came out with the following ambiguous words of praise:

“I asked the deputy mayor why they allowed a procession like that carrying fire over such a wide area, and he said that although it was well planned by some young guy, the important thing was that one of the young people from the fire department was in charge, so they couldn’t very well
call a halt to it! You all are very calculating in what you do, which I find rather frightening!”

On Saturday at 9
A.M
. a press conference was held in the dining hall of the monastery for all reporters, including foreign correspondents. Dancer got in touch with Ogi, underscoring her desire for all the leaders of the church, with the exception of Patron, to attend. Dancer herself would be busy at the office, responding to faxes and e-mails and anything unexpected that arose, and wouldn’t be able to participate.

Ogi was to be the emcee at the press conference. The church representatives all sat together, their backs to the window looking out on the lake. Ogi was in the middle, Kizu on his right, and next to him was Ikuo, thin and haggard, who sat with his chair pushed back a little. He looked as if he wasn’t planning to make any comments but, if need be, was ready to help out.

Next to Ikuo sat Dr. Koga and Mr. Hanawa of the Technicians, while on Ogi’s left sat Mr. Soda, Ms. Oyama of the Quiet Women, and finally Gii. Before the press conference began, Ms. Oyama was speaking with Mr. Soda in a low voice, but Kizu could catch what she said. Mr. Soda’s reply was to the question of the canceling of the Quiet Women’s children’s participation as a group. The women had been looking forward to spending the summer vacation with their children, but with the unexpected problems in finding lodging for all the conference participants, they’d decided at their prayer meeting to give up the idea of having their children join them.

One of the people attending the press conference was Fred Parks, the reporter for the New York newspaper who’d originally told Kizu about the modern buildings in the Shikoku woods. In order to keep reporting from Tokyo, Fred was now a freelance journalist and had expanded his areas beyond the architecture and art fields.

The middle-aged woman Fred had hired as an interpreter turned out to be Ogi’s old friend Mrs. Tsugane. Ogi was surprised to see her, but tracing back the connection it made sense that she was here. Ms. Asuka, official videographer of the summer conference, had invited members of the Moosbrugger Committee, and Mrs. Tsugane had answered the call. But since Ms. Asuka already had two assistants handling lighting and sound, Mrs. Tsugane had to find work elsewhere and had replied to a notice on the bulletin board in the monastery courtyard from a reporter seeking an interpreter. Since Ogi had last seen her, she’d divorced her architect husband, and she thought this would be a good opportunity to make some money to cover her traveling expenses.

Just before the press conference started, as Ogi settled down in his emcee’s chair, a letter arrived for him, the envelope written on the Japanese
washi
paper that was a specialty of the Old Town, decorated with a woodblock print. The letter read:

After not having seen you for so long, I’m so very pleased to see you’re doing well. I’m with a foreigner here to check out the local legends. I’m looking forward to the Spirit Procession today. I understand that if you go deep into the woods on the north side of the valley there’s a place called Sheath. In the local legends they say that’s another word for vagina. As the name implies, when young men and women go in there they can’t help but give in to sexual passion. Putting aside the question of whether I’m young enough to belong there, what do you say? It’s been a while. Why don’t we give our passions a run for their money? I was divorced not long ago, so any moral issue that might restrain you has vanished. I have some free time before Patron’s public sermon.

You Know Who.

The press conference began, the opening question coming from a female reporter, a third-generation Japanese named Karen Sato from the
Los Angeles Times
who was also helping a TV team with its coverage. She was in her mid-twenties, and her question was directed to Kizu.

“Professor, since you’ve given lectures on cross-cultural symbolism, there’s something I’d like to ask you,” Ms. Sato said, in rapid-fire English, relying too much on what the publicity pamphlet said about Kizu’s background and his abilities in English. (Ikuo, who had sat beside Kizu for this very reason, could tell how nonplussed he was and explained basically what the woman had asked. Kizu was typical of his generation in that he could speak English but often had trouble catching what others said.)

“I heard that the children carrying the
chochin
lanterns last night,” the woman continued, “went up into the woods carrying the souls of the dead. And that these souls return to the valley and enter the bodies of newborn babies. The souls, in other words, in a Neoplatonic way, travel back and forth between the profane world of the valley and the spiritual world of the mountains. But if the souls keep on doing this over and over, it reminds one of Buddhist transmigration. So do you interpret it, Professor, from a western or an oriental viewpoint?”