matter more, but she didn’t. Instead she looked at Ikuo with interest and said calmly, “I’d say you didn’t meet me again just out of nostalgia for something that happened fifteen years ago. I think you’re seriously checking out Patron and Guide. How about visiting our office as a next step? Meeting Guide’s out of the question now, but I’d be happy to introduce you to Patron. I know I’m repeating myself, but he’s gone through so many trying experiences that I can’t be too careful.”
2
Ikuo and Kizu stood under the eaves of the restaurant, the zelkova tree dripping copiously, and said goodbye to the girl. She flipped open her umbrella, and the two men ran out into the pouring rain and made a dash for the nearby parking lot. If Kizu had been alone he would have had one of the waiters bring his car around, but he decided to keep pace with his young companion’s way of doing things.
“It seems to me that having a religious leader’s office in a residential area like this might make the residents upset enough to force him out—not the old-time residents, maybe, but the nouveau riche. But she seems pretty carefree.”
Ikuo said this as they drove past a crowded intersection, hemmed in by a bank on one side and a train station on the other, and caught sight of the girl and her practiced dancer’s gait.
“Maybe it’s because they’re not holding any religious activities there now,” Kizu speculated. “She said they were in the planning stages of a new movement. When this so-called Patron and Guide were involved in the scandal where they apostatized, they did have their headquarters downtown, as I recall. I remember reading about it in The New York Times . After they renounced their faith they must have wanted a quiet place to live. They call it an office, but apparently it’s also their residence.”
Two days before—to the kidding of his apartment’s super, who chided him for his pointless faithfulness to the American economy—Kizu had purchased a brand-new Ford Mustang, the same car he drove in the States, and had promised to let Ikuo do the driving, but since he wasn’t used to a steering wheel on the left, today Kizu took the wheel. Besides, Kizu figured that part of Ikuo’s forwardness at lunch was the wine talking.
As they headed toward Shibuya, Kizu asked Ikuo about something he hadn’t quite understood during his conversation with the girl.
“As I explained earlier, Ikuo, I really do believe you’ve been thinking about the end of the world ever since you were a child. And that what happened fifteen years ago is not unrelated to that.
“What strikes me as odd, though, is that you don’t seem to recall much about the Somersault incident ten years ago. I read about it in the papers in the United States, so it must have been big news in Japan. The Times said it was widely reported on Japanese TV, and that Patron’s remarks on television also played a major role.”
“At the time it was called the Church of the Savior and the Prophet,” Ikuo said. “I realized today when I was talking with that girl that I heard about it through the media.”
“Then why didn’t you put out feelers, as you put it, to that church? Because it wasn’t that well known before the leaders’ renunciation?”
“For me, at least, it wasn’t,” Ikuo said. “I first heard of it when the leaders publicly announced they weren’t saviors or prophets after all, and everything they’d preached was a bunch of bull. I watched the reports afterward that made fun of them and just felt contempt for people who’d do what they did. I really wanted to know what mankind should do, faced with the end of the world, and—I don’t know—perhaps I felt betrayed.”
Kizu glanced at Ikuo’s face. His tone of voice indeed contained a hint of a grudge.
“So what about the young lady? Seeing her after fifteen years—”
“I was surprised she was just as I remembered her,” Ikuo said, his voice now calm.
2
Ikuo and Kizu stood under the eaves of the restaurant, the zelkova tree dripping copiously, and said goodbye to the girl. She flipped open her umbrella, and the two men ran out into the pouring rain and made a dash for the nearby parking lot. If Kizu had been alone he would have had one of the waiters bring his car around, but he decided to keep pace with his young companion’s way of doing things.
“It seems to me that having a religious leader’s office in a residential area like this might make the residents upset enough to force him out—not the old-time residents, maybe, but the nouveau riche. But she seems pretty carefree.”
Ikuo said this as they drove past a crowded intersection, hemmed in by a bank on one side and a train station on the other, and caught sight of the girl and her practiced dancer’s gait.
“Maybe it’s because they’re not holding any religious activities there now,” Kizu speculated. “She said they were in the planning stages of a new movement. When this so-called Patron and Guide were involved in the scandal where they apostatized, they did have their headquarters downtown, as I recall. I remember reading about it in The New York Times . After they renounced their faith they must have wanted a quiet place to live. They call it an office, but apparently it’s also their residence.”
Two days before—to the kidding of his apartment’s super, who chided him for his pointless faithfulness to the American economy—Kizu had purchased a brand-new Ford Mustang, the same car he drove in the States, and had promised to let Ikuo do the driving, but since he wasn’t used to a steering wheel on the left, today Kizu took the wheel. Besides, Kizu figured that part of Ikuo’s forwardness at lunch was the wine talking.
As they headed toward Shibuya, Kizu asked Ikuo about something he hadn’t quite understood during his conversation with the girl.
“As I explained earlier, Ikuo, I really do believe you’ve been thinking about the end of the world ever since you were a child. And that what happened fifteen years ago is not unrelated to that.
“What strikes me as odd, though, is that you don’t seem to recall much about the Somersault incident ten years ago. I read about it in the papers in the United States, so it must have been big news in Japan. The Times said it was widely reported on Japanese TV, and that Patron’s remarks on television also played a major role.”
“At the time it was called the Church of the Savior and the Prophet,” Ikuo said. “I realized today when I was talking with that girl that I heard about it through the media.”
“Then why didn’t you put out feelers, as you put it, to that church? Because it wasn’t that well known before the leaders’ renunciation?”
“For me, at least, it wasn’t,” Ikuo said. “I first heard of it when the leaders publicly announced they weren’t saviors or prophets after all, and everything they’d preached was a bunch of bull. I watched the reports afterward that made fun of them and just felt contempt for people who’d do what they did. I really wanted to know what mankind should do, faced with the end of the world, and—I don’t know—perhaps I felt betrayed.”
Kizu glanced at Ikuo’s face. His tone of voice indeed contained a hint of a grudge.
“So what about the young lady? Seeing her after fifteen years—”
“I was surprised she was just as I remembered her,” Ikuo said, his voice now calm.
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