Somersault by Kenzaburō Ōe Page A

“It was like looking at your painting; her eyes were still like faded India ink, her mouth still open as if that were the correct way to breathe.”
    “Ha! She does seem to like to keep her mouth open, doesn’t she. And her eyes!” Kizu said, as if ever the artist, continuing the sketch. “When they look at you they turn even darker.”
    “I also had a feeling of déjà vu, as if I knew exactly how she would turn out when she grew up.”
    Kizu understood exactly what he meant. Déjà vu neatly summed up his own feelings when he met Ikuo again and discovered he was the young boy from so long ago.
    “She’s definitely unique, isn’t she?” Kizu said. “I knew that the first time we talked on the phone. Her job—her lifestyle choice, I guess you’d say—is pretty extraordinary, too.”
    “Do you think she believes in the new teachings of that old leader who did a Somersault?” Ikuo asked. “For the sake of her dance, even though he hasn’t restarted his religious movement yet?”
    “Are you going to accept her challenge and go meet this Patron?”
    “I haven’t really thought about it,” Ikuo said. “First of all, I really don’t know much about this Somersault.”
    “Shall I give a little lecture, then, based on what I know from The New York Times? The media over here treated the leaders’ recantation entirely as a scandal, and I think that’s what you remember. The Times correspondent, though, was really fascinated by the story. The religious group had been founded by two middle-aged men. One of them formulated their basic doctrine based on his mystical experiences. Over time he refined this. The second man’s job was verbal expression of the mystical experiences the first man had. He was also the one who took care of the day-to-day running of the church.
    “The Times correspondent reported on their church for a year. He got to know the two leaders well; he’s the one, in fact, who dubbed them Patron and Guide. I imagine he used these names because calling them Savior and Prophet would have provoked some serious negative reactions from his American readers. After the Somersault the two of them adopted these names themselves; they weren’t fond of their earlier names, anyway.
    “Anyhow, just around the time the correspondent was wrapping up his reporting, the Somersault incident occurred. What happened was that the two leaders negotiated with the authorities to inform on some potentially dangerous activities of a radical faction within their church.
    “It was on a much smaller scale than Aum Shinrikyo, but the research facility they owned in Izu became the focal point of the radical faction’s activities, the cornerstone of which was their plan to occupy a nuclear power plant. One of the people at the research center had a PhD in physics. Theywanted to turn a nuclear plant into an atomic bomb to force the leaders’ teachings on all Japanese, or at least to preach the need for universal repentance now that the end of the world was drawing near. Or maybe by blowing up two or three nuclear plants they felt they could make everyone experience how very near the end of the world was. Their entire plan for repentance was based on this. Radical political groups all have the same basic idea, don’t they—pushing the country into crisis? But here the target was nuclear power plants. From the beginning this was an apocalyptic teaching.
    “The church’s leaders found they couldn’t suppress the radical faction that had sprung up among them, so they went to the police. Sensing this might happen, the radical faction dispersed throughout the country. No one knew when or where they might attack a nuclear plant. At this point the leaders asked to hold a press conference. They indicated ahead of time what they planned to do and asked for full-scale coverage. I’m sure the authorities helped out in this as well.
    “The first leader—Patron, as he’s called now—sat in front of the cameras on live TV