Authors: Kenzaburo Oe
“When Dr. Koga called us,” she said, “to tell us that after your gallbladder operation they had started to think you didn’t have cancer after all—they’d be running some tests, but it didn’t look like cancer—Ikuo and Gii were both in the office. Everybody was overjoyed, until Gii made some flippant remark about how he found it disappointing. ‘Why’s that?’ Ikuo shot back, the situation already getting tense because Gii is still, after all, a child. ‘When someone who’s dying from cancer shortens his life even further to work for our upcoming conference,’ Gii remarked, ‘it’s a
much
more interesting story.’ Ikuo walloped him but good on the back of his neck; the poor boy got quite a bruise. That’s why Mayumi didn’t even say hello to Ikuo today.
“The TV people must have heard about this from somewhere. One man suggested that if they got on the good side of this boy he might give them a tasty interview. Another man, a real hardliner with this affected made-for-TV voice, said that considering all the families in the country who have relatives with cancer they could really crank up the ratings. A guy from another group, a cameraman, said he wished he could get a shot of the toilet with that lump of cancer in it, and a woman reporter, a sort of geisha-with-a-brain type, knit her brow and laughed.”
“We got rid of them once, but I’ll bet they’ll be back, this time at the Hollow.”
Kizu looked concerned when Ikuo said this, so Ikuo continued.
“We’re setting up tents we borrowed from the farm down below the dam that we’ll use to register people during the summer conference. I found out from the town office that Satchan owns that land. Someday Gii will inherit it. We’ve arranged to park our car and the minivan not in the parking lot but on land that’s already been cleared. So if those reporters follow us and try to corner you, Professor, we’ll have the right to get them to leave since it’s private property. Gii came up with this strategy.”
“So you have a faxed copy of the magazine article?” Kizu asked.
“Shall I read it? I’ll skip the boring first part,” Ms. Asuka said, wasting no time.
“The doctor who performed the gallbladder operation on Professor Kizu stated that this is nothing short of a miracle, if the patient indeed had had terminal cancer as his personal physician said. He went on to say he expects to receive faxes of the CT scan and X-rays of the affected parts from the doctor who made the original diagnosis of cancer, after which he plans to make a presentation at a medical conference.
“The church leader who performed the miracle refused to make any comment. This leader, who now goes by the name of Patron, is one of the men who did a Somersault eleven years ago in the face of violence on the part of a radical faction within their church. His confidant, known as Guide, was subjected to a kangaroo trial earlier this year and ended up dead, news still fresh in our minds.
“The way a politicized radical faction planned indiscriminate terrorist acts foreshadowed what happened with Aum Shinrikyo. And now with the founder apparently able to cure terminal cancer, are we again seeing a harbinger of things to come?
“The local authorities declared that there were many opinions regarding this group of believers moving in, but from the standpoint of protecting religious freedom they had no fundamental opposition to the church.… Just as many former radicals have turned to running natural foods cooperatives and leading local environmental groups, several of these radical religious groups have switched to emphasizing healing.”
Ms. Asuka stopped reading and returned the sheaf of faxes to her lap.
“It’s better than what I expected from the headlines,” Kizu said. “Though I know you’ve only read the choicest parts. But I can’t see that Patron has changed his doctrine to emphasize healing. As he builds his Church of the New Man, I imagine that along the way he’ll heal some incurable diseases, but that’s not central to what he’s doing.”
Kizu suddenly felt exhausted, so he placed Ms. Asuka’s pillow in one corner, pulled the blanket up over his stomach, and lay down. His cancer might be gone, but his energy level was still low.
Kizu closed his eyes. Instead of relief at having avoided death, a palpable unease rolled over him as to what he was supposed to do once he returned to the Hollow. All sorts of movements were afoot now that they were moving toward the launch of the Church of the New Man. Was there a role for him to play?
Completing the triptych to be hung in the chapel: That was the main thing. After his stay in the hospital, he was again assailed by doubts that he really understood the relationship between the two figures facing each other in the middle panel. In the midst of doing preliminary drawings, something about Patron’s body—his wound exposed to view—struck him, though he hadn’t had the leisure to reflect on what it all meant.
A new personal issue had also been raised. The excitingly charged sexual relationship between Ikuo and himself—a man who didn’t have long to live—was now reduced to nothing more than a senile old man, who might hang around forever, infatuated by a young man’s charms.…
The car bounced over a rough spot of road, which roused Kizu from his gloomy thoughts. He had a bitter taste in his mouth. After rattling around for a while, he was fully awake and he gazed out the window of the car, as it rolled to a stop at the clearing below the dam, at a huge wing jutting up above the manmade lake, blotting out the summer sky. This was the reviewing stand for the summer conference, a symmetrical structure projecting out to the edge of the lake. Something in the scene brought back memories of long ago.
4
That evening, at twilight, Kizu had an early dinner, a habit acquired in the hospital, sat down in an armchair by the window to enjoy the cool breeze, and gazed out at the Hollow, with its expectant air of activity as the summer conference approached.
One level below the stone wall surrounding the chapel and monastery on the south shore, the path leading to the edge of the lake had been trimmed clear of bushes and summer grasses and now lay exposed. Identical wooden stands had been constructed there and on the east and north shores of the lake—the bleachers for the summer conference. Even the path that led to Kizu’s residence, running straight east from the point where it narrowed and went uphill, was under construction.
Now, though, as Kizu gazed out at the scene there was no heavy construction going on, just a placid view of men putting the final touches to the work. The sun was already down, but a line of cirrocumulus clouds had begun to spread quickly over the clear sky, their thin folds aglow in the gentle evening light and reflected in the perfectly still surface of the lake.
Hearing that Kizu was to be on the six o’clock Matsuyama evening news, Ms. Asuka had brought over a TV set for them to watch. Earlier, while Kizu had been watching the grandstands with their fragrant scent of freshly cut timber as they made their way up to the dam from the open space set up for the tents, Gii and his minivan had done their best to keep back the taxi that had been tailing them. So the TV crews hadn’t been able to interview Kizu directly and had to content themselves with scenes of Kizu at the dam, apparently taken out of the taxi window.
From the way the announcer spoke, it appeared that this coverage of the “miracle man” whose cancer had completely disappeared had already been broadcast a few times. Kizu was shocked at how unsteady he appeared, standing there. He was also surprised by the film of him making his way through the crowds at the hospital, how very sad his slack, lined face and neck looked.
He remembered how, as a child, he’d thought it one of the mysteries of life how the faces of old people normally had a sad, depressed expression. Now that face was
his
, and he couldn’t bear to look.
Ms. Asuka’s dinner schedule was reversed now; she took her own meal at the dining hall
after
returning Kizu’s dishes. This evening as she ate she was told that Patron would be paying Kizu a visit that evening between seven and eight. Though a deep exhaustion still had Kizu in its grip, he had slept soundly all afternoon, thanks to the dry air of the woods, and now stayed in bed to await Patron’s visit.
When Kizu had arrived back at his house on the north shore he sensed the same woody fragrance he’d smelled at the dam. He thought at first this was because the window facing the Hollow was open, but actually the wood smell came from a newly constructed additional room just off the kitchen. The canvas partition that had separated the sickroom from the studio was gone. Ms. Asuka didn’t stride into the kitchen as briskly as she had before, but after she changed her clothes she reported the news about the visit.
“The doctor who performed the gallbladder operation didn’t hesitate to say that there wasn’t any cancer,” Kizu said, “and did these thorough tests. It’s only been a week since the construction started? It’s amazing they could add on this extra room by the time I came home.”
“The day after you went into the hospital, the Technicians’ carpentry team came over. Patron had them start work because he was expecting great things of you, Professor, in the Church of the New Man. Some people say Patron foresaw all of this. Still, though, when we heard the news that you didn’t have cancer, Patron was the only one with a strangely pained look on his face.”
Kizu was listening to the voices of the cicadas and, interspersed, the calls of birds as they echoed, a split second later, off the surface of the lake—all part of something vast that converged on the forest and spilled down from it. Soon he heard the sound of music, amplified through a speaker though still subdued: two or three short piano pieces; he wasn’t familiar with the melody, though the chords and accompaniment were pleasant enough.
While the foothills surrounding the Hollow still echoed with the music, Ms. Asuka gracefully appeared from the kitchen to explain.
“Every time Patron leaves his residence, they use piano music to let people in the church know. It’s one of Morio’s compositions. When they hear that music, people who have things they want to ask Patron leave their work or meditation and come out looking for him. He’s left his residence now and I imagine, since someone has stopped to talk with him in the courtyard of the monastery, it’ll be another thirty minutes before he arrives. Shall I turn on the light?”
“He can see this window as he comes here, so if we turn on the light it might appear we’re rushing him,” Kizu said. “Let’s leave it off until he arrives. Patron seems to be really enthused about the activities of his Church of the New Man, doesn’t he?”
“He’s leading a more formal lifestyle now, as befits the leader of a church,” Ms. Asuka replied. “You’ll see soon enough when they get to the top of the dam. Morio waits on Patron like a page—or a court jester, if you will—and Gii has organized a squad to guard him.”
A clump of people moved out of the monastery courtyard, went up to the dam, and passed through the reviewing stands, their faces unclear in the gathering gloom as they approached. Morio fluttered around next to Patron, who looked a bit unsteady on his feet, and they were both surrounded by young men walking with measured, determined steps.
Keeping up with these trained strides must have been difficult, but the bodyguards looked fairly relaxed, and Kizu imagined that if, for instance, Morio were to fall into the lake, they’d be able to effect a well-organized rescue.
Watching the little band until it turned into the newly reconditioned path leading to the north shore, Kizu retreated from the window. How should he best greet Patron? Should he thank him for using his spiritual powers to rid him of cancer?
Honestly, though, Kizu didn’t feel he could attribute the disappearance of his cancer to anything Patron did. Once it was gone, even the pain that had held his entire being in its crushing grip was hard to remember as something real. Similarly, though the doctor who declared he didn’t have cancer didn’t say it had disappeared, right now that seemed like a reasonable way to think about it.
As they heard Patron and his group approaching up the slope, Ms. Asuka opened the window to catch the cool breeze, switched on the light, and went to the front door, taking care that mosquitoes and other flying insects didn’t invade the house through cracks in the shutters.
Patron and Morio came in and Ms. Asuka called to the young bodyguards to do likewise, but they were determined to remain outside. As Kizu greeted them from where he sat in an armchair from the bedroom in the large room, now one big studio, Morio called out
“Ah!”
in a loud voice.
“What’s the matter, Morio? Don’t be rude, now,” Patron said reprovingly.
From behind Patron, Morio put his right arm on Patron’s shoulder and half hid behind him, held his left hand in front of his face, and said in a pitiful voice, “
Ah! Ah!
He’s supposed to be dead!”
With Morio leaning on him, Patron swayed a bit and turned his now somewhat thinner and less conspicuous double chin toward Kizu. His eyes, with their heavy folds at the outer corners, might look weak at first, but Kizu could detect a thorough egocentrism at work in them that was calm and yet concealed deeper currents of emotion.
“In the sermon I gave telling how you recovered and returned to the Hollow,” Patron said, “I said you’d died once and been reborn. I also said that because of this, in your body with its
new
life dwelling in it, it was only natural for the cancer of your
old
life to disappear without a trace. Morio was quite moved by this. He likes to paint mental pictures of what life is like in heaven, and he came up with the vision of the soul first taking the form of a simple grouping of sounds. I think that led to the notion of a more concrete vision of
something
—not a person exactly—that’s walking the earth.”
Patron removed Morio’s arm from his shoulder. Then, holding his quaking companion, he turned to Ms. Asuka.
“Bring a chair and place it beside the desk next to the wall on the north side. Do that and he’ll calm down. Morio, you need to pull yourself together, okay? So be brave.” He watched Morio carefully.