Somersault (61 page)

“It’s past the season for it, but when the new leaves are sprouting and the flowers are in bloom it’s a remarkable sight. Over there are beeches and oaks. And just up the river a little way when the
kojii
flowers are in full bloom, a shiny golden light-green, they’re absolutely magnificent. Behind the chapel it’s all one line of dark green, right? Those are Chinese hawthorns, and the
place where they come together with the
kojii
is beautiful. The temperature’s cooler than by the river, and it’s in the shade for a long time, so the flowers were in full bloom until a short while ago.”

As Kizu obediently listened to her, he looked around the expanse of broad-leafed trees, and up at the cypress and cedars beginning to be shaded with an indigo that, to him, was as pleasant as the throng of young leaves. From the bright cloudy sky a layer descended—snow or fog, it was hard to tell—the tips of the pillars of fog at the top of the forest rising to touch the darker layer, the tops of this lower layer visibly blending with the cloudy sky and forming a contrast with the forest below.

“Gii formed the Fireflies in order to work out his concept of creating a community independent of the outside world, didn’t he?” Ikuo ventured.

“Yes, but these long-distance trucks run day and night down that highway, with no connection whatsoever to production and consumption in this valley. And as long as that continues, the bypass to the highway won’t be closed to traffic like this old bridge was. Gii’s not the sort to amuse himself with the impossible. ‘My daydreams aren’t real,’ he told me once.”

Feeling snubbed, Ikuo turned his dark face toward the river’s surface, from which fog was also rising. For her part, sensing distrust of what she’d just said in his attitude, Mayumi continued seriously.

“Still, Gii has a concept of what the future holds and insists that there
is
a sense of reality to it. When he says that, the only thing I can say is
No way!
to put a damper on it.

“The kind of future Gii envisions is one in which the outside world has died out and the world constructed by the Fireflies is all that survives. This goes way beyond the notion of closing down the highway, but I can tell you he’s dead serious about it!

“Gii’s mother, Satchan, and I go way back. When she and Gii’s father were running the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, one of their supporters was a woman pianist who also worked in international exchanges of various sorts. In a storage shed at the Farm, Gii ran across a Bach CD of a Russian pianist whom the woman had invited to Japan at one time.

“Gii was moved by the performance, but he got a hint for his concept from a poem the pianist wrote. Particularly the line
Perhaps the world has already passed away
. Listen to the Italian concerto, Gii said, the second movement, the andante, and that’s how he began conceiving his unique vision of the future.

“Since the world has died, the people living in it are, of course, dead themselves. They’re just pretending to be alive, Gii says. But sometimes, very rarely, you’ll run across someone who is truly alive, like this Russian pianist,
who stands opposed to the
already dead
world. Gii decided that in the future he wants to act the same way—as someone alive in an already dead world.”

“I’ve felt the same thing,” Kizu said, “that there are two coexisting worlds, one already dead, the other living. The two worlds overlap, and the world we know is a mix of the living and the dead.”

“I don’t really understand it myself,” Mayumi said, “but when you consider the way the future might turn out, it’s not good for the dead to have too much influence on those who should be living in the future. I heard from Gii that tomorrow the Fireflies will be meeting with the leader of your church. That’s had me a bit concerned, which is why I wanted to talk with you.”

Mayumi stopped speaking, rested her arms against the white mica-flecked railing of the bridge, and then spoke in a changed tone of voice.

“When the fog rises from the forest and merges with the descending clouds like that, it means rain’s on the way. You may not be able to walk back to the Hollow in time. I apologize for having kept you.”

3

The rain continued until the next morning. Ikuo got up early with Kizu, seemingly concerned about the Fireflies’ dawn march through the forest. During breakfast, undeterred by the chilly damp air coming in from outside, he opened the window facing the lake, trying to catch the moment when the shift in wind direction would carry the sound of the Fireflies’ movements their way.

After they cleared away the breakfast dishes, Ikuo came over to Kizu, who was back in bed reading, and told him he wanted to meet up with the Fireflies when they emerged out of the forest at the crossroads and give them a ride to the monastery.

“Patron’s going to hold a meeting with the Fireflies today while they all eat lunch. I’m sure they’ll be soaked after being in the woods and if they go back home to change they’ll keep Patron waiting. I’d like to have them clean up in the monastery’s communal bath and dry their clothes in the dryer there. Then they can start right at noon.”

“There aren’t many opportunities to hear Patron directly,” Kizu said, “so I suppose there’ll be a lot of people, won’t there? I think I’m going to go a little early.”

“Everyone’s planning to take their lunch trays over to the chapel. Thanks in advance for helping out.”

When Kizu followed Ikuo’s directions and took his tray over to the chapel it was still a while before the meeting was to start, but everyone had already taken their seats. The chairs were set in two facing rows. Seated in the row on the lake side of the chapel were Patron, Dancer, and Ogi, Ms. Tachibana and her brother, and Dr. Koga, who was able to get away from the clinic only during the noon hour. The seat beside Ikuo was left vacant for Kizu. Twenty of the Fireflies were in the other row, already eating lunch, their carefree upbringing reflected in their physiques. Surrounding them all were the Technicians, as well as all the Quiet Women who weren’t on kitchen duty. The whole scene was quite lively.

Ikuo, seated beside Kizu, had already devoured his lunch and didn’t introduce Kizu to the Fireflies, but Kizu could tell they already knew who he was. The Fireflies looked very different from young boys Kizu had seen in Tokyo. These boys were all dressed alike, in jeans or soft cotton trousers and T-shirts, and they all looked well scrubbed after their communal bath.

The Fireflies kept their movements and conversation to a minimum as they wolfed down their meals. They weren’t the only ones making short work of their food; the people in Kizu’s row of seats were nearly done with theirs, and as the Quiet Women in charge of the meal went around handing out tea in disposable cups, Kizu had just about figured out which of the young men was Gii. He was seated in the middle of their group, and in the way he moved his shoulders and hands and in the timing of his little inclinations of the head, Kizu could understand the charm Ikuo had described.

Soon the church members, too, had finished their meals, and everyone waited for Morio and Kizu to finish. Meanwhile, several of the Quiet Women gathered all the dishes of the church office staff and the Technicians onto trays and carried them out to the dining hall. Ikuo motioned to the young men not to take their trays out but to stack them instead in a corner of the church. Time was of the essence, and he wanted to get the meeting under way as soon as possible.

“We planned on having a private meeting today between Patron and the Young Fireflies,” Ikuo said, “but since there were so many in the church who wanted to attend, and there’s no need to keep any of this a secret, the meeting has grown to include all these other folks too. I discussed with Patron how we should proceed, and he said he’d like the Fireflies to ask him whatever they want. I think it would be best to have Gii represent the Fireflies in asking questions. First Patron has a few words he’d like to say, and if he asks any questions I’d like Gii to be the one to answer them. Just follow the same procedures we’ve used in our own meetings.”

As Ikuo sat down, Gii stood up, the eyes of all the boys suddenly riveted on him. Gii had a high forehead but not the type of hairline you’d expect to recede when he got older, dark eyebrows, and a sharply etched nose. Apart from a slightly pronounced jaw, his tanned face overall had a classic look. With hardly an ounce of extra flesh on him, he had the sharp yet lovable look of a dog just out of puppyhood. But as he stood there, tensely waiting Patron’s words, the whites of his eyes glistening like porcelain, there was a childish, fragile feel to him.

“Ikuo wants me to answer questions from the Fireflies, but first I hope you’ll indulge me by letting me ask some questions of my own,” Patron said, still seated, returning Gii’s gaze. “How did you come to make the Fireflies? You might very well want to ask us why we came here to make a church, but first I’d like you to answer me.”

Gii’s face showed a boyish bashfulness and a bit of pluck, for what both he and his companions wanted was straight talk, not beating around the bush.

“It might be a little unexpected to start off answering this way, but the basic reason we made the Fireflies and the reason you have this building are the same—the declining birthrate in Maki Town.

“The Church of the Flaming Green Tree built this chapel, and right afterward the church was dissolved and the building was supposed to be donated to the junior high. The town council decided that the land where the monastery is now was to be made into new classrooms. But foreseeing that the number of children going on to junior high would decrease, the council abandoned the plan. Your church expressed an interest, and it was a convenient out.

“Since long ago in this region, second and third sons went off to the cities to find work. Because the birthrate is now low, most of us are only children and have ended up living at home. That being the case, we decided to find a positive reason for staying here. Every one of us agrees with that. And that’s how the Fireflies began. Could we ask some questions now?”

Patron nodded silently.

“While we were out training this morning, we discussed what we should ask you. Most of the requests were along the lines of having you tell us in simple terms what it means to believe in God. We hope you won’t yell at us and just say that’s a childish question—something you can’t explain in simple terms—but we’d still like to hear what you have to say.”

Dancer, mouth characteristically ajar, turned her gaze to the space above the Fireflies. The overlapping new green leaves in the oblong window on the forest side of the concrete wall were, until a moment ago, clearly visible, but
now they were darkly shaded, meaning that the treetops were gleaming brightly. A faint smile came to her lips. Kizu wondered whether she found Gii’s innocence amusing but decided that wasn’t the case. As one might expect of Patron, he neither made light of Gii’s question nor did he try to sidestep it.

“As you all know,” Patron said, “I’m a person who’s done a Somersault. I’m not the kind of person, then, who can very well use
God
and
belief
in the same sentence. However, based on long experience I can say that even if God is completely out of the picture, one can still speak of belief. This gets a little tricky, but belief involves viewing oneself
vertically
, not just thinking along a horizontal axis.

“You’ve seen satellites being launched on TV, right? Just as the rocket goes
whoosh!
up into the sky, your thoughts rise to be the central axis around which you live. Climbing straight down a deep root is another way of looking at it. They’re both the same thing.”

Patron was silent and bent forward slowly, as if pondering his own remarks.

In contrast to the ruddy faces of the young men, the skin around Patron’s eyes flushed in his otherwise round white face, a sign that he was excitedly concentrating, as well as irritated that he wasn’t able to explain things as simply as they wanted. Kizu was fascinated by Patron’s words, something he shared with the Quiet Women, at least the ones in his field of vision.

“Before the Somersault they say you often went into deep trances,” Gii said, “and that you’d have these terrible visions. But that once you woke up and tried to tell what you saw, you couldn’t do it alone.”

“That’s correct. As I’m sure Ikuo has told you, that’s exactly right,” Patron replied.

“We understand that your helper was Guide.”

“Yes. It was like two people running a three-legged race. But now he’s dead.”

“So do you plan to train a new interpreter?”

“If only I could, that would be wonderful,” Patron said with a frank sadness, his tone appealing, but different from before. “Problem is, since the Somersault I haven’t had any deep trances.”

“They say that by doing the Somersault you made a fool out of God.”

Patron knit his brows together in a rather feminine way at this and took a deep breath. Kizu could feel the tension, not only in the Quiet Women but in the Technicians as well.

“That’s right. My Somersault made a fool of the God I’d been connected to through my trances. It’s quite okay to say that. Afterward Guide and I fell into the pit of hell, and that’s where Guide died. It’s not entirely clear to me whether I’ve managed to rise up out of there myself.”

“So you mean this is hell?” Gii asked. The Fireflies let go with a burst of laughter to release the tension.

Kizu listened to Gii’s typical adolescent laugh. Patron, a blank look on his face, gazed around at the laughing young men, for all the world like some plump dull pigeon.

4

“Patron’s been very honest in what he’s been saying,” Dancer said, taking it on herself to break the silence that followed the laughter. This was directed less at Patron than at the others, her voice loud enough for the Quiet Women and all the Technicians to hear. “But maybe this is something hard for young people to understand.”

“Patron
has
been saying what the Fireflies wanted to hear,” Ikuo answered back.