Somersault (39 page)

“In the early period of the church, Guide was in charge of finances, and he was not inclined to accept contributions from followers who had renounced worldly possesions, which meant the church’s financial situation was unstable. It was Mrs. Shigeno who convinced Guide to accept these monetary donations, and it was through her that the church finally got on firm financial ground.”

The old woman whom Kizu had noticed before, working despite her bad legs, was dressed the same as the other women around her, though her upper body, especially with the light gray scarf she had wrapped stylishly around her neck, took a backseat to none. Being careful of her legs, she rose serenely to her feet and took the wireless microphone that Dancer brought over. Her dignified face was full of tension, but the way she started her speech was appealing.

“That introduction is a bit overblown, I’m afraid. My money was going to be taken away in taxes anyway, so it’s different from those followers who give up everything they own. Though I must admit that at my age having such a handsome young man say nice things about me isn’t a bad feeling at all!

“I do have a few things I’d like to ask about the sermon, but I don’t want to take up too much valuable time so I’ll just touch on the one basic thing I’ve been thinking about these past ten years.

“When Patron and Guide turned their Somersault, to use the names you use now, I had the feeling that I’d already experienced that before.

“This happened at the time of our defeat in World War Two—ancient history, I’m afraid, for the young people here today. I was a student in a girls’ school in a provincial town and was mobilized to work in a parachute factory. The representatives from each class were called to the main office and told that work would stop a half hour before lunchtime that day. We were to assemble with our teachers in the auditorium to listen to the radio.

“What really shocked us students was that the Emperor spoke in an entirely human voice, just like ours. This was the era when pictures of the Emperor and Empress hung like pictures of God in the chapel next to the auditorium.

“We learned about Patron and Guide’s Somersault, too, through reports in the media—which reminded me of hearing the Emperor on the radio so many years ago.

“For us members of the church, Guide was like someone special selected from congregation. But Patron was different—he was directly connected to God. During the Somersault, though, here was Patron saying that all the mystical things he’d said and done were a joke. It was less like God’s son becoming human than finding out he was, from the beginning, just an ordinary person. Wasn’t this Patron’s equivalent of the Emperor’s speech, this time not on radio but on TV, with Patron adding all these comical gestures as he renounced his divinity?

“Wanting to understand Patron’s Somersault, I took another look at the Emperor’s renunciation speech. After the Somersault the young people became quite emotional, but I was too old for that. And after giving it a lot of thought I arrived at the following conclusion.

“The Emperor certainly did renounce his divinity then, but for the people of this country, in the hearts of its citizens, he didn’t change at all, did he? It’s a long story so I’ll leave out the details, but what I ended up thinking about Patron is something similar. He announced that he’s not directly connected with God, and there’s not much we can do about that. He’ll have to live the rest of his life cut off from God, but that doesn’t affect
my
faith in him, or the faith of my companions. We are still fully prepared to follow him.

“It’s been years since I heard his sermons, but it brings back many memories. We heard rumors about how Patron and Guide were living, and it was painful to hear him speak today about the ten years he suffered in hell. How awful this must have been for Patron, alienated from God, shut up day after day with Guide, with whom he still had such strong emotional
ties. I can only imagine how ghastly this must have been. And Guide, still fallen in hell, was murdered, unable ever again to help Patron with his visions. How dreadful!

“When I think about it, isn’t Patron even now pushed into a corner, suffering every day? Though my image of him is still that of a younger man, I’m so happy he didn’t make some frivolous statement in today’s sermon about how he’d regained his connection with God. The ever-suffering Patron has returned to us and has put out the call for a new movement. After ten years of suffering, there is no better master of the church to welcome back. Patron is fine just the way he is.

“I’ve been a little outspoken, I’m afraid, but the fact is, we
were
all shaken by the Somersault. The thought has even crossed my mind that losing Guide was retribution for our unfaithfulness. But Patron’s fall and suffering have made him the perfect leader of our new church—and we mustn’t lose him. I am overjoyed to follow Patron’s new movement.”

A hand bell rang out. The packed auditorium absorbed some of the sound, but with the windows closed the sound fairly snapped in the air. The row of children in front all stood up and in loud spirited voices shouted out,
“Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!”

Urged on by the hand bell, which led the chorus, the children vigorously—and without any sound of scraping chairs—sat back down as one. Leaning with his elbows on the podium and all his weight shifted onto it, Patron raised his head. His lusterless face was exhausted, his eyes teary. Even so, in a hoarse voice he spoke words of encouragement.

“I would like to say this in response to what I’ve heard. When I fell into hell, my connection with God was severed. This was part of my hell because I did the Somersault. I’ve lost my connection with God and have nothing to do with visions I might see in trances anymore, but I still find myself burning with a desire to communicate the words from the other side. So where does that leave me? The reason I quoted from the first letter of John was to answer this:
Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour
.

“As a sign that the end time is here, antichrists are popping up all over the world, and I am one of them. I am going to be building a new church, and I want you to be clear on this: I’m starting this church as one antichrist among many. Why would you follow a leader, knowing full well he’s an antichrist? With the exception of the children, it’s because you, too, are all sinners. You’re the ones who’ve destroyed God as the totality of nature and given him an incurable disease. It is for your sake, you who have committed
these sins, and for my sake, as one himself who has sinned, that Guide died in such an excruciating, horrible way.”

Patron stopped speaking. Kizu picked up now on how Dancer thrust her right arm slightly forward and made a twisting motion with her wrist. At one end of the row of children one of the older girls, her head raised high to watch Dancer intently, got the signal and rang the hand bell, and the children all stood as one and shouted out,
“Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!”

After they stopped and had returned to their seats, Patron’s voice continued over the faint reverberation. “This parade led by an antichrist will, in the end, reach the path to salvation—because this is a parade of the repentant, and even if I die a death befitting an antichrist, one more horrid even than Guide’s, your march must go on. In order that the harvest gained by Guide’s death will not be in vain, each one of us must play his part.
Hallelujah!”

The hand bell rang out once more, and the children’s voices filled the hall like a loud aria. With the exception of the reporters, all the participants joined in:
“Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!”

In the midst of this chorus, Ogi and Dancer leaped forward to grab the lectern that, together with Patron’s upper body leaning so heavily against it, seemed on the verge of tipping over, helped turn him around, and hurried him off to the elevator. Reporters who pushed forward trying to question Patron were met by a line of security guards who formed a human wall.

14: Why Patron? And Why Now?

1

An hour after the announcement that the memorial service was over, the partition between the dining hall and the lounge was back in place, the metal folding chairs piled up and stored away. Tables and chairs were returned to their original places in the lounge, where a press conference was to take place, the result of objections by representatives of the media. Some reporters were upset by Patron’s absence from the press conference, but most accepted that he was too exhausted to attend. A long table was set up beside the window that looked out on the lawn. The members of Patron’s newly announced church sat on one side, and the reporters sat across from them on the other.

Ogi and Dancer appeared first. Ikuo was still directing the security staff even at this press conference and sat off to one side, leaving enough space beside him so he could move if he needed to. One more member of the security staff was there, a fortyish man named Koga who looked, to Ogi’s eyes, a bit of an anachronism with his rigid, possibly military-trained posture. Kizu had heard from Ikuo that this man, with his lively intelligent eyes, had been the only medical doctor at the Izu research center.

Ms. Tachibana and her younger brother were there as well, as was Ms. Asuka, who, as she had done at the memorial service, stood behind the row of reporters to film the event with her handheld video camera. The group of women living communally had taken their chartered bus back home, having turned down Dancer’s request that one of them stay and take part.

The press conference began with a question from the dark-skinned reporter for the national newspaper.

“Last month at the press conference with Patron, quite frankly I felt it strange to see Dr. Koga there, since he was on the side that was at odds with Patron and Guide over the Somersault. Not that I’m saying he had anything to do with Guide’s death, mind you! At any rate, I’m happy he’s able to join this question-and-answer session. The first thing I’d like to ask is whether the people on the security staff today, in other words the former radical faction, have reached a reconciliation with Patron’s church?”

Dr. Koga gazed at the questioner with a youthful expression that belied his years—though before he replied, his eyes clouded for just a moment and a solemn look came over his face.

“You’ve called us the
former
radical faction, and it was you in the media who originally dubbed us the
radical faction
,” Dr. Koga said, in a sonorous voice. “As I wanted to say at the time, it wasn’t as if we just went off on our own and created a sect. We all worked at our research under Guide’s supervision at the facility provided for us. Before long the entire research center was unified as the cutting edge of Patron’s teachings. And our activities began to confirm this. You asked whether we’ve reconciled with Patron’s church. Well, right now I think of Patron and the church as separate entities. The headquarters of the church exists in Kansai, and this church is active as a religious corporation. If there’s going to be a reconciliation with the church,
Patron
should be the one seeking it.

“Some of you just laughed at this, but I think that shows you don’t know much about the Somersault ten years ago. Patron and Guide
did
turn a Somersault. To say that the motivation for the Somersault lay in the activities of the so-called radical faction is a one-sided, solely political view. I reserve comment, but probably most people see it this way.

“It was Patron and Guide who announced the Somersault and left the church. Those of us in the church had our beliefs ridiculed and were abandoned by the founder. But in the sermon that he gave to eulogize Guide today, Patron reached out to all believers. That’s how I see it, and frankly I was quite moved by his words.”

“True, Patron did say he wants to make peace with you,” the reporter said, “and you accept that, which seems auspicious. Does this mean, then, that Guide was executed because he didn’t accept a reconciliation?”

“Calling it an execution isn’t correct,” Dr. Koga shot back. “I wasn’t there until the very end, but as a doctor I think I know more about what happened than you do. In his sermon a short while ago Patron used the term
murdered
, and I understand his feelings, but it’s an overly sentimental view. It’s flat-out inaccurate. I’m confident that the charges will be dropped. And I expect the media to make a full apology.

“This is what really happened. Putting together all we’d been thinking about over the last ten years, we asked Guide whether he could make a fresh start together with us. Guide was willing to discuss it, but in the deliberations that followed we couldn’t reach an agreement. And while this was happening my understanding is that an accident took place.”

The reporter wanted to pursue this further but a woman beside him with a classic oval face interrupted with a question for the doctor. “Patron announced that he will restart his movement and has made up with you people in the former radical faction. He also told us he is one of the antichrists. What I’d like to make sure I understand is how you feel about the violent adventurism of the former radical faction?”

“If we put the two together,” Dr. Koga said, “Patron’s being the antichrist and the violent adventurism you spoke of, that would make for one terrible misfortune, certainly. That’s what you’re implying, right? You have to understand, though, that even with the
former
radical faction, violence and destruction were never the goals. We were using our own means to make society aware that the human race had to atone for its sins. The time of trial at the end time was fast approaching, and no matter how the Almighty’s will might manifest itself, we wanted to help make that will come true by repenting. That’s what inspired us.

“The so-called radical faction’s designs were destroyed by the Somersault of the two leaders who had provided us with our basic vision. Despite being betrayed and abandoned, though, the faction deepened its understanding of the Somersault and their thinking and has stayed together to this very day. And now Patron, who has suffered more than we have—something we understood more about in our talk with Guide—is starting this new movement that we have great hopes for. As for this term
antichrist
, I don’t think Patron wants us to interpret it as an evil figure who will cause confusion and disaster at the end time; rather it should be viewed as part of the painful, hard look he’s taken of himself.