Coming from the city, Ms. Asuka found it amusing that this little local com- munity made an exception for Gii, though she was also, naturally enough, worried. As Gii walked into the room, her voice could be heard from be- hind him.
"Don't forget what Asa-san told you. Remember that council member who said if he gets on the bad side of you and your friends, the adults who have a weakness for children won't support him in the election? It scares me to imagine what you'll be like when you grow up."
"If I do grow up," Gii said pointedly. "My mother apparently told Asa-san not to let me become too attached to Ikuo," he went on to tell Kizu and the others as he came into the bedroom. "But she isn't very logical most of the time."
"Asa-san's logic is fine," Ikuo scolded.
Despite the scolding, Ikuo motioned Gii over to the seat vacated by Asa-san and turned to speak with Kizu, ignoring Gii in a relaxed guys-only way.
"Early this morning," Ikuo began, "I went to check out the extension to the piggery they're building at the Farm. They've had to build it in the high- est spot around because of the foul odor, and with the rain I wasn't sure our little truck would make it up the slope. Right after I got there, one of their leaders, Mr. Hanawa, who accompanied those of us who came by train, asked me a question. I was impressed then by how attentive he seemed, but he also is a bit uncompromising, the way he won't say a word to the Fireflies, for instance, even when he has them help out."
Gii nodded in agreement.
"What he asked me," Ikuo went on, "was this: 'Why is Patron so spe- cial to you? Here you are, building a barn for pigs up on the top of a ridge, but is he really worth all this?'
'How about you?' I shot back, and he said that they've long seen Patron as their intermediary with God and they don't rec- ognize the Somersault as valid.
" 'The first time you met Patron,' he said, 'was after the Somersault, when he wasn't having any deep trances and was just an ordinary person, and even after you moved here with him all he's done is give these evasive, fuzzy ser- mons. So where is the charisma to rouse people to a new faith? Except for the Sacred Wound…'
"As I listened to Mr. Hanawa's questions," Ikuo said, "it struck me that maybe he thinks I'm a spy. All I could do, I figured, was tell him the truth.
'"When I was a child,' I told him, 'I heard a voice that had to be that of God. And when I was fourteen I definitely heard God's voice, though my reaction to it left something to be desired. And when I was sixteen I thought now I would respond to it, and I did something that couldn't be undone.
"'But now I don't think I really heard God's voice when I was sixteen; I've never heard it since. Perhaps this was for the best, since I was able to go on without it, but with graduation from college at hand, and my life's work set out in front of me, I sensed that I couldn't go on any more. If I didn't return to the call I heard at fourteen, my life would be a sham.
'"When I awakened to this, I struggled with the idea, but I had no way of making the voice of God appear again. Established churches and cults were no help to me in my quest. Either they kicked me out or laughed at me, or else I was the one to wash my hands of them.
'"Just by chance, I ran across Patron and Guide, and here I am. I came here because I have the hope that Patron-connected to God until the Som- ersault-will be, to borrow your words, the intermediary for me with God.
If it doesn't work out, it wasn't meant to be. But for me there's no other choice.
'"I'm particularly drawn to the way Patron-all by himself-cut off the pipeline connecting him and God. For the past ten years all he's done is suf- fer, as much as it's humanly possible to suffer. Sometimes I think maybe this suffering has taken shape as his Sacred Wound.'
"Once I'd finished saying all this, Mr. Hanawa asked me another ques- tion. 'After the so-called Somersault, Patron apparently didn't have any deep trances that brought him face-to-face with God. But from the beginning we didn't accept the Somersault. We're confident that before long Patron will become the mediator for God once more. We base this on our long experi- ence living in the church. But how do you know,' he asked me, 'that the voice of God that Patron might transmit to you, and the voice of God you heard when you were a child telling you to do something that couldn't be undone, are really one and the same?'
'"I learned that from all of you,' I answered. 'When you pray, you Tech- nicians always have religious texts from a lot of different religions with you; sometimes you even quote from books by scientists-in your case, Mr. Hanawa, it was a mathematics book, wasn't it? Dr. Koga told me that this stems from your conviction that, quite simply, God is one.
"'I feel exactly the same way. They're all one and the same: the God whose call messed me up as a child, Patron and Guide's God whom they made a fool of and yet clung to as they suffered. And the God that Jonah debated thousands of years ago.'"
"How did Mr. Hanawa react? And the Technicians?" Kizu asked.
"They just laughed."
"Damn them!" Gii said angrily.
Ignoring this, Ikuo went on. "If they don't kick me out as a spy, the preparations for the summer conference should go smoothly. I just hope the Quiet Women see things the same way."
That evening, as she served dinner, Ms. Asuka butted in, something she rarely did. "I think Ikuo went into such detail about his conversation with the Tech- nicians because he wanted to educate Gii," she said. "I think he's quite con- siderate in that way. Mr. Hanawa might be too, for all we know."
"When Ikuo came to work for Patron at the Tokyo office," Kizu said, "and even when he moved here, I don't think he knew what it was he sought from Patron. It was still taking shape within him. He gets worked up; that's why he talks so much."
"But if you go to the dining hall," Ms. Asuka said, "you'll find out it's not just Ikuo who's excited. It's like everyone's a smoldering fire. Patron's wound was what started it all, though your symptoms, too, Professor, were a factor. There's a palpable urgency in the air.
"Asa-san seemed tense too, today, when she came to see me. She had told me that the first thing she wanted to talk to you about, Professor, was her worries over the Quiet Women. I think you need to talk one-on-one with Patron about this excitement that's taken hold of the Hollow. I've just moved here, so everything is quite strange to me, but I agree with Asa-san. There's something about it I just don't like."
Ms. Asuka looked down as she refilled Kizu's coffee cup on the tray, and as she did so her profile, now cleansed of the greasepaintlike make-up she used in her former life, looked graceful. Her usual smile was missing as well, the smile that downplayed whatever she'd just said.
"I'm afraid I don't have the strength to make it over to the south shore,"
Kizu said.
"Then let's have Patron come over here. When I pressed Dancer about when Patron would be posing for you again, she said it all depended on your condition."
"Have you been able to meet with Patron directly?" Kizu asked.
"I'm sure people will think I'm a hopelessly pushy woman, but I asked permission through Dancer and was allowed to videotape Patron's Sacred Wound. It was my first job since I came here. On the tape, Patron is naked from the waist up and Morio is wiping the wound with gauze that has a peni- cillin ointment on it. The outlines of the Sacred Wound are quite distinct, kind of a kitschy color, and the whole thing's quite wonderful. As I filmed I was able to talk with Patron and learned something surprising. I thought he'd already started the new church, but he said he hasn't yet."
"Since we moved to the Hollow, Patron's said quite a lot about the new church, though," Kizu said. "The Technicians are busy with their own work, the Quiet Women are getting deeper into the sort of prayer meetings that have Asa-san worried, and I must admit I interpreted all this activity in the same way as you-that the new church had already been established."