Somersault (95 page)

“Before this could occur, though, Guide was killed. Truthfully, I only made up my mind to rebuild the church after this happened. With Guide gone, I announced the rebuilding of the church to all of you—for all the world like one of those little birds giving out a scared, flustered screech.

“But having done the Somersault, and now without Guide by my side, would I really be able to lead the church? It was Yonah who made me push aside my hesitancy. This was the calling I got from him, to be the one who made a fool of God, the one who, still protesting against him, could continue to be a mediator. After Guide was murdered, I was searching for a new Guide. Professor Kizu, Morio, and our young Yonah himself may all have been new Guides. That being the case, the triptych in the chapel is the most suitable painting for our church.

“Well, I don’t have much more time. I’ve told you my story up to this point, but the story from this point on will be told by all of
you
. Launching the new church means its can’t just be a continuation of the same old story. We need a story that’s entirely
new
. The Quiet Women are hoping I’ll do a backward Somersault. Yonah was anticipating a Somersault that went even farther forward, done by another Lord who would make a fool of God. But even if that weren’t as boring as going backward, I wouldn’t do it. Even if I were trying to pretend to be another Lord, the Sacred Wound in the painting has now vanished from my body. I imagine that Yonah no longer has the illusion of setting me up as another Lord.

“So now I want to deliver my message as a person who can only stand on his own, who isn’t the puppet of any sect or individual. All I can do is put the finishing touches on the launching of our new church, the Church of the New Man.

“At the end of the sermon it may confuse and anger some of you if I suddenly add a scatological comment, but even those of you without good hearing or sense of smell will detect—as sort of a basso continuo to my speech—the sound and smell of a group of women unable to hold back their farts and diarrhea, lending an earthy sort of foundation to my philosophy. I don’t want these poor but wonderful women to have to hold back any longer, so their very human sounds will blend with Morio’s music that points toward a pure ascension to heaven.

“Fireflies, you may begin your ceremony of returning the Spirits to the forest. I will pray now that the Old Man is sloughed off. With the end time upon us, I call on all of you to repent and to embark on becoming New
Men. Finally, I leave you with the words of a foreign author, his earnest prayer for New Men:
Three cheers for Karamazov!”

Right as Patron’s sermon drew to a close—the moment when, clearly pressed for time he added this sudden prankish comment that threw his listeners off—one after another, clumsy-looking women, obviously in too much of a hurry to remove the barricades at the front entrance of the chapel, leaped out of the low open windows on the lake side of the chapel. As soon as they hit the ground some of them, either having sprained their ankles or just drained of energy, squatted there like hens. Of those who didn’t, others sprinted straight for the temporary toilets set up on the eastern slope. Most of them, though, raced off to the dark thickets and shrubs. From the stands, where a stir went through the perplexed spectators, a call rang out, chorusing Patron’s final words.

“Three cheers for Karamazov! Three cheers for Karamazov! Three cheers for Karamazov!”

Morio’s piano piece “Ascending,
Part One
” spilled out from the speakers on either side of the stands and on the island.

The bare lightbulbs hanging down from the grandstands illuminated Ikuo’s thick features as he stood up beside Dancer. The rest of his massive head, like a darkly shaded bull’s, swayed violently, catching Ogi’s attention.

Dancer was pushing something onto the back of Ikuo’s left hand, which hung down straight. A gust of wind shook a hanging light that briefly lit up what it was: a box of matches. Ogi could tell that the matchbox, soon sunk again in darkness, was being forced on Ikuo. Holding one end of the matchbox, Dancer was twisting the other end onto the back of Ikuo’s hand. At the same time she stretched up on tiptoes toward that massive black head, whispering something.…

As the bare lightbulb lit them up again, the back of Ikuo’s left hand still didn’t budge, but finally he reached out with his right hand and snatched the matchbox away. He then set off for a boat lying in the shadow of the Japanese-style boats floating beside the stairs filled with dark water. The boat rolled as Ikuo got on board, and one of the Fireflies quickly shoved off and set the oars.

Dancer slowly moved backward to where Ogi stood. With a fierce look, she watched the boat set off. The darkened island was lit up by a floodlight from the stands. The floodlight lit up the Spirit dolls piled up on the wooden framework surrounding the giant cypress, particularly the conspicuously larger papier-mâché figure of Guide.

The doll that Patron was wearing above the grandstands, where he had now finished speaking, was closer, but strangely enough seemed smaller than the one on the island.

Ogi realized he’d forgotten the order of the program. Was Patron supposed to remain standing with the costume on by the grandstands, or was Ogi supposed to take him behind the curtain and have him rest on a chair there? Dancer leaned over to whisper, so close to him that her skull banged his temple.

“Go ahead and do it!
I told him,” she said in a strong voice, like some angry young girl. “You’re always bragging about how you’ll do it if you hear the voice telling you to. Can’t you hear the voice now saying
Do it?
That’s what I told him! Even if you don’t hear the voice, afterward you can always claim you did! That’s exactly what I told him!”

Led by the floodlight, the thousand people surrounding the lake fixed their eyes on the island, their attention turning from the slapstick confusion still going on around the chapel to the papier-mâché Spirits that were about to go up in flames. No one wanted to miss this, the finale of the summer conference. Everyone anticipated that Patron, still above the grandstands, would once more call out in response to the conflagration.

The Firefly manning the oars in Ikuo’s bow rowed strongly, the prow of the boat running up onto the shoreline of the island, a meadow inundated with water. The rower stepped into the water up to his knees and held the boat steady. Ikuo plunged decisively out of the boat and with the momentum of the landing ran toward the giant cypress, his head bent forward. He came face-to-face with the giant doll of Guide, standing behind the bamboo ladder and the wood frame it was leaning against.

“Isn’t he telling you to
Do it?
Up on the frame of the cypress.
Do it!”
Dancer’s hot breath brushed Ogi’s cheek.

“That’s not what’s supposed to happen, is it?” Ogi responded, holding his rising anger in check.

“Do it! Do it!”
Dancer said vehemently, ignoring Ogi’s protest.

Morio’s piano music had changed to “Ascending,
Part Two
” and then went back to
Part One
. It wasn’t a simple tape loop but the recording of a performance that played the music in that order. The massive body of the skillful performer of this music now clumsily approached the wooden frame. Before long this dark figure, his large head hanging down, slowly began to move. Finally he took something out of his pants pocket—Ogi knew it was the matchbox—and laid it on a low wooden bar on the wood frame.

Then, as if he’d forgotten something, he quickly retraced his steps. Even before the Firefly standing in the dark water could pull the boat closer, the dark figure stepped into the water and almost collapsed into the boat, the Firefly shoving off the edge with both hands. As the boat rowed back, the dark figure on board sat there unmoving, like some bulky cargo.

A moment later two more dark figures stood up at the water’s edge on the chapel side on the island. Water dripped from both of them. One of them supported the other as the figure struggled to walk in the soft sand. The two figures stood side by side in front of the wooden frame around the cypress. The upright slim figure looked around a bit—Ogi realized it was Ms. Tachibana—and reached out a thin arm to the wooden bar on the frame. A match flared, and the wavering flame reached out toward the papier-mâché Guide that draped down from the lower level of the frame.

As soon as the flames lapped up the lower edge of the frame, a wide swath of red flames raced up to the wild hair of the doll’s head. All at once a round of applause rose up from the broad circle of onlookers surrounding the Hollow, drowning out the piano music. The larger of the two shadows turned to face the grandstands and gave a respectful bow as if it were a performer on a stage acknowledging the audience. The applause roared up cheerily, and the flames made small exploding sounds as they covered the entire wooden frame.

At the grandstands, the boat passed around the Japanese boats to arrive at the inundated steps, and Ikuo walked up them alone. Dancer ran up to him with such force she almost sent him falling back into the water.

“Murderer! Did you hear the voice telling you,
Do it?”
Dancer cursed him, slamming her body into his.

Probably no one else heard that besides Ogi, who’d come running after her. Now a different kind of stir swept through the crowd, mixed in with screams here and there, and the stir rose even louder. Seeing that Dancer was being restrained, Ogi turned to look back at the island, where the surprisingly high flames illuminated, at the base of the wooden frame, which itself was ablaze, the two shadowy figures from before crouched down, hugging each other, their free hands held up to shield their faces from the flames.

The papier-mâché Guide on top of the burning frame seemed to leap and, together with the other dolls around it, went up in flames. The fire now reached to the cypress branches piled there, to the luxuriant leaves of the smaller branches; then even the thick trunk of the tree, like a pillar rising up through all that was piled around it, began to burn.

In the midst of new screams, the mass piled up on the upper level that covered the wooden frame collapsed in a shower of sparks onto the two prostrate figures. In the reddish glow of the flames things collapsed one after another. Shouts and crying voices rose up. The roar of the flames was rivaled by the sound of the wind rising up from them; the entire area around the lake was like a strangely clamorous festival.

Like the agitated crowd around him, Ogi’s eyes were riveted on the flaming giant cypress, but he sensed some disturbance, spun around, and saw the Technicians’ security detail grab the person wearing the papier-mâché figure of Guide and roughly rip off the disguise. Gii emerged from it, dressed in T-shirt and jeans. The young man was limp and dripping sweat as if a bucket of water had been poured over him.

An even greater scream went up as the papier-mâché Guide on the island fell to the ground from the blazing frame and bounced up, and out of the wreckage appeared a human body.

Epilogue: The Everlasting Year

1

Young Ogi, accompanied by the American newspaper reporter Fred Parks and Mrs. Tsugane, visited Maki Town for the first time in more than a year. In the intervening time Ogi had married Mrs. Tsugane, so it was strange to keep calling him by his old appellation, though that’s what he planned to go by with everyone in the Hollow. The three of them landed at the Matsuyama airport, transferred to the express train, and by the time they got off at Maki Station a December snow was steadily falling, something Ogi had never experienced in Tokyo. The man-made forests that made up most of the mountain ranges surrounding the Maki basin looked as if a brush had been used to sweep polishing powder over the blue-black earth. Despite the heavy snow the air was filled with the approach of a gentle twilight. Snow had piled up in the square in front of the station, and the roads leading out from that spot were already covered in white, with not much traffic at that time of day. No taxis were waiting outside the station.

They’d called ahead from the Matsuyama airport to say they’d be taking the last express train of the day, and since no one was there to greet them Ogi considered phoning again. He wasn’t at all sure, though, whether at this time of day Dancer would still be working in the office next to the chapel. She’d gotten married too, to Ikuo, and was now in overall charge of running the Church of the New Man. It was windy as well as snowing, and Fred, who wore only an old trench coat, was grumbling about the cold.

Before long a brand-new Nissan President luxury sedan went past the prefectural road and then turned back toward them. The car scattered newly fallen snow in the intersection in front of the square as it made a wide detour
back, coming to a halt in front of the windswept station exit where Ogi and the others were waiting with their luggage.

Mr. Matsuo of the Fushokuji temple opened the driver’s door and leaned out to greet them. Then he said, emphatically, “This looks like it’ll be the first major snowfall we’ve had in some time. Even if it weren’t snowing so much, taxis don’t like to drive to the Old Town. With the recession they’ve cut back the number of cabs, plus the drivers are still a little bit shy about picking up foreigners. I’m not saying they’re prejudiced or anything, it’s just that they can’t speak English.”

Mr. Matsuo got out of the car, dressed in a dark navy-blue jacket, and darted about, helping first Mrs. Tsugane and then Fred into the backseat; he stowed their luggage in the trunk and motioned to Ogi to sit in front. The passenger seat, like all the other seats, was quite plush.

“Weren’t you on your way downriver?” Ogi asked hesitantly.

“I was supposed to attend a meeting of the River Conservancy group at the sake manufacturer’s place. With the Fireflies busy running the Farm, the Village Association group and I have taken over these duties. But with all this snow, it might be smarter to skip the meeting, don’t you think?”