Somersault (76 page)

That day Ogi led a group around the chapel and the monastery. The group consisted of local sake and pickle makers, as well as an environmental group organized to protect the confluence of the Kame and Maki rivers. The group also included the editor of a local magazine produced in Tokyo—a woman who was writing a piece on the former residences of a Meiji literary figure—as well as the editor of a magazine in Ehime.

Dancer took care of all the arrangements through the town hall, part of her plan to forge a good relationship with the next generation of civic leaders, the pro-growth faction. Many activities the church was involved in had helped lessen the suspicions of the townspeople: the fact that the church did not proselytize locally, the starting up of production at the Farm again after a long period of dormancy, the leadership role the church was taking with the Young Fireflies, and, most of all, Dr. Koga’s medical practice. None of this escaped Dancer’s attention.

What most interested the local authorities and businessmen was the upcoming summer conference, with church members scheduled to come from all over the country. The business leaders saw it as an excellent chance to advertise local goods and sell their farm products.

Ogi met the study group as they alighted from their minivan to view the chapel and the monastery. It surprised him that, for the short distance between the Farm and the Hollow, Ikuo volunteered to drive. The group, talking merrily among themselves, apparently mistook Ikuo for the church’s full-time driver.

As the group listened to Ogi’s explanations, the woman intellectual, the leader of the group, sounded as if she were familiar with other buildings designed by the architect of the chapel and monastery; the rest of the group seemed somehow proud of what she said. I’m not speaking about these buildings, the journalist from Matsuyama began transparently, his remarks directed at the woman, but you remember how last night at the party at the sake factory we were talking about the imbalance between the poverty of ordinary people’s homes in the provinces and the ultramodern government buildings in the same locales? The two of them chuckled to each other and exchanged knowing winks.

Ogi rode back with the group to the Farm, where they boarded cars brought up from Old Town and left; Ikuo, seated next to Ogi in the driver’s seat of the van, had been silent all along but now spoke up.

“That skinny O’live Oyl woman and those guys from Matsuyama made me want to puke! Man, am I glad I dropped out of architecture school. If the Young Fireflies had heard them there would have been hell to pay. But it does seem that after Mr. Hanawa and the other leaders of the Technicians explained to the locals how they were using the Farm’s land and equipment to revive production the Church of the Flaming Green Tree had begun, they got high marks for their efforts. With the success of food production at the Farm, people are expecting they can work with growers in Old Town and sell their products—not just in Matsuyama but in the whole Osaka–Kobe district. When people come to the summer conference from
all over Japan, it’ll be a good opportunity for the locals to gauge their reactions too.”

Ogi set out some folding chairs in the clearing where the Church of the Flaming Green Tree once erected tents and held meetings, and he and Mr. Hanawa and Ikuo sat down and talked. Ogi had only seen Mr. Hanawa in the dining hall and around, but it was obvious how close he and Ikuo had become.

“Right now in Maki Town,” Mr. Hanawa said, “one of the more expensive products is the sake the sake maker says you can freeze for ten years, thaw out, and it’ll start fermenting again—that’ll run about ten thousand yen a bottle. If you use refrigerated trucks you can deliver anywhere in Japan, so they’re thinking ahead to make this kind of product. Though I don’t imagine it’ll be easy to sell in bulk a brand of sake produced in the backwoods of Shikoku.

“What do you think about making up a gift set combining the sake with the best ham we make at the Farm and some fresh pickled vegetables? Charge maybe fifteen thousand yen a box? We could start by having Mr. Soda’s company buy them as New Year’s gifts. According to what I’ve heard, there’re quite a few manufacturers around here producing quality goods. You’ve got to connect with the right distribution system if you want to survive. We really should hook up with them.”

“The group that toured here today,” Ikuo said, “will learn about our church’s abilities at the summer conference. Come fall, and they’ll get serious about working with us.”

“I may be naive, or they wouldn’t have nicknamed me Innocent Youth,” Ogi said hesitantly, “but are you saying the local people will start cooperating with us more actively starting in the fall? So the summer conference is the first step toward opening those doors for us?”

Instead of a typical
of course, what else?
look, Ikuo turned deeply suspicious eyes toward Ogi. Ogi felt an instinctive defensive reaction welling up, but before anything developed, Mr. Hanawa intervened.

“I know you’re concerned about what the Quiet Women might be preparing to do. After the Technicians were barred from their meetings, you went there to play the piano, didn’t you, Ikuo? And you said things were pretty tense. The summer conference is the top priority for the Quiet Women. They’re not thinking about fall or anything beyond.

“A little self-criticism here, but in the final days of their activities in Izu the Technicians drove Patron into a corner as he agonized over how to keep the church from self-destructing—which resulted in the Somersault. The Technicians didn’t learn a thing; they went ahead and killed Guide. So I can’t just sit back idly in regards to what the Quiet Women are up to.

“Now that Patron’s awakened from his long hibernation, for our part, we have to work steadily, starting in the fall, to build his new church: the Church of the New Man.”

Ikuo studied Ogi as he listened to Mr. Hanawa. Thin clouds covered the sky, and the pale light brought out Ikuo’s high cheekbones and deep eye sockets in stark comic-book fashion.

Once he opened his mouth, Ikuo’s words were measured. “The Quiet Women are on fire after Patron’s announcement, but I don’t think they’ve settled on a definite program. According to Dancer, Asa-san and Ms. Tachibana have misgivings. Since the Quiet Women lived so long in an isolated environment, it’s understandable that their sermons tend to be narrow and obsessive. But we’ve also got to give them credit, as a group of women who’ve gone through a lot.”

“Well, if you put it that way,” Mr. Hanawa said, “the Technicians are a closed-off, self-righteous sect too. That’s something they’ll have to be aware of as they participate in the construction of the new church. They’ll have to let Patron’s intentions seep into their consciousness and get feedback from the entire body of the church; otherwise it’ll have been pointless for Patron and all of us to have come to live in this place.… At any rate, until Patron points us in the right direction in his sermon at the summer conference, we need to concentrate on building up the farm as our economic base. I’d appreciate it if you’d let the office staff know this.”

“The Quiet Women aren’t here right now to defend themselves,” Ikuo said, “so let’s be fair when we discuss them. I’d like the office staff and the Technicians not to be too eager to interfere as they formulate their program. I really hope
all
the groups gathered here will do their own thing. Otherwise, the summer conference will be a complete bore.”

“Not that you’re Napoleon at Moscow or anything, Ikuo, but you do tend to set up camp on the high ground and watch the battle develop—with your private little army. Is that how you consolidate an overall strategy?”

“That’s what Patron wants me to do,” Ikuo replied.

“But you’re the one who someday will protest against Patron, right? You’re Jonah, as the Young Fireflies call you.”

“If I can make a request about
your
strategy, Mr. Hanawa, I’d just like you not to lynch Patron at the summer meeting. That’s all I ask.”

“That would be totally boring!” Mr. Hanawa answered.

In the west corner of the broad rectangular grounds, a refrigerated meat truck pulled up in front of the processing plant next to the dorm where the majority of the Technicians lived. Mr. Hanawa looked over at the truck and, with an easy dignity, brought their conversation to a halt.

“The only thing we’re interested in is Patron’s plan for the Church of the New Man,” he said. “Some of the Technicians are laying everything on the line for that.” And giving Ogi a short wave of the hand, Mr. Hanawa rushed off to join his fellows in white work clothes at the processing plant.

4

“Would you come with me now to see the Young Fireflies?” Ikuo asked Ogi. “Some of the leaders among them—I don’t want you to hear what they have to say secondhand, from me, but have them talk directly to you, as a member of the office staff.”

Ikuo strode ahead, not waiting for a reply. The two of them cut south across the clearing, toward the Farm, which jutted out among the trees on what looked like a peninsula, the slopes steadily getting steeper. Huge poplars and equally large weeping willows lined the path as they descended. On a rise far away, thin poplar branches jostled one another and angled inward, and the leaves of the willows sparkled like gold leaf in the sunlight. The poplars and willows were no doubt leftovers of a windbreak for the Farm set up near the ridge line.

Following the road as it twisted down through the wet broad-leafed forest, they came upon a stand of natural oaks and headed toward a house with a brick-colored slate roof where Mayumi, the dyer, lived and worked. Along the way Ikuo told Ogi how the Fireflies were planning a performance at the summer conference, with Mayumi in charge of the costumes.

In this region’s folklore, the legendary figures were unique characters. Among the area’s traditional events was what was called the Spirit Festival, performed for souls that had not yet reached their final resting place. The participants dressed as spirits, slightly larger than life size, and formed a procession that wended its way from the woods down into the valley. Except for some small props, the special dolls and costumes they used would be burned on the shores of the Kame River and created anew the next year. As with the Young Fireflies, the Spirit Festival had been discontinued, but the young people were planning to revive the custom as an attraction at the upcoming summer conference.

At Mayumi’s pine-log-and-earthen-mortar entrance, a dyeing kettle lay beside the door on the narrow landing. Just as Ikuo and Ogi arrived, the grass-colored front door opened up as if waiting for them, and a woman with an egg-shaped head and a halo of hair leaned out.

“Gii and the others haven’t come back yet. Would you mind coming in through the veranda?” she asked.

Ikuo, shoes on, climbed up onto the narrow veranda that jutted out toward the steep slope down to the mountain stream, and Ogi followed after. The veranda stretched to the southwest corner of the house; below it was an uncut lawn and, far below a sheer cliff, a branch of the Kame River.

Ikuo and Ogi went inside. The house was small, but the room facing the veranda had the generous feeling of a craftsman’s workshop. A loom was set up in the back, with a bolt of indigo cloth in the process of being woven.

In the corner opposite the loom, Mayumi stood at her sink and stove, preparing tea, wearing a T-shirt and long canvas apron, a thoughtful look in her round eyes. Ogi noticed some photos behind Plexiglass that dotted the pine board walls. One sepia photo, when he took a good look at it, showed a house next to a round bayberry tree and the open interior of a second-floor room where two naked women—one of whom looked like a young boy, her breasts small—lay on a blanket sunning themselves.

Mayumi brought over a tray with herb tea to Ikuo, who was sitting at a low table leafing through a sketchbook that lay there.

“These sketches look like they’re for the Spirit Festival,” Ikuo said to her. “I like this one—is he the spirit of the trees or of the forests? I can’t tell. The one covered with twigs and leaves.”

“They’re not finished yet,” Mayumi replied. “The one that looks like he should have been born a tree is the spirit called Gii. In this region a person who is equally eccentric is given the name Gii. Right now it’s our tender young leader who goes by that name.”

Ogi had Ikuo pass the sketches over to him. One of them was of a very unusual-looking person, part old man and part toddler taking his first steps; the cocoon-shaped figure was covered from head to toe in twigs and small branches.

“Gii likes the idea of dressing up like that. I’m sure he’ll play the role of the spirit.”

“I was imagining he’d play the role of the founder of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree,” Ogi said. “When Asa-san came to the office to explain about the Spirit Festival, I heard that that spirit was the very newest one.”

Mayumi looked at Ogi for the first time with any interest.

“Do you see on the next page the spirit with wounds on his head and chest and blood flowing down?” she asked. “In a wheelchair? That’s the founder, Brother Gii, who closed the church and was about to go out on a world missionary trip when he was stoned to death. Gii feels it’s too simplistic, too cartoony.”

“Gii must view his father as a very complex figure,” Ikuo said. “Most people in this region don’t seem to believe that Gii’s mother is Satchan and that his father is Brother Gii.”

Noticing that Ogi wasn’t quite following them, Ikuo pointed to the photo Ogi had been wondering about. “Those women in that voyeuristic photo are Satchan, when she was younger, and Mayumi. You see that thing between Satchan’s legs? She has male genitals, as well as a woman’s, and is able to give birth. Actually, when she was young she was raised as a boy.”

Hesitating, Ogi looked again at the photograph, and Mayumi immediately lost interest in him, turning her attention back to Ikuo.

“Gii’s unwillingness to see his father reduced to some simplistic image is the same way he feels about the faith of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree. He doesn’t want to trivialize the doubts the local people have about his mother. Whenever I read the transcripts of Brother Gii’s sermons, he starts out with the Old Testament, the New Testament, or early Buddhist scripture, and so on, but he always takes off from there in his own direction and ends up emphasizing God and mystical experience. Don’t you think Brother Gii and Patron have something in common? After his Somersault didn’t you hate how the weekly magazines reduced Patron to a comic-book figure?”