"They'll all work together," Ikuo said, "to help prepare for the summer conference. I imagine Gii will consider afterward whether or not to reorga- nize them… First the news got out about Patron's Sacred Wound, plus a sense that the Church of the New Man was finally organized. And now come reports that your cancer, Professor, has disappeared. People way beyond our little valley are starting to show an interest in our church."
Their car headed up the increasingly treacherous and windy slope, the foliage on the hillside across the deep valley now a luxuriant dark hazy green.
The large greenhouses on the slope, as well as the remains of the local con- struction projects, all had a calm, antique look to them. Kizu felt he was re- turning to an imposing and stable land.
"The news that my cancer, or what all the doctors thought was cancer, has disappeared was in a weekly magazine, apparently. Have people also been talking about it in the Hollow and in Maki Town?"
"There's nothing we can do about that," Ikuo said.
"While we were checking you out of the hospital, Ikuo went over to a large stationery store to have a copy of the magazine article faxed from a friend in Tokyo," Ms. Asuka said, turning around in the passenger seat. She'd put a pillow and blanket on the backseat and told Kizu to lie down if he felt tired.
"I ate alone in the hospital cafeteria," she went on. "At the next table was a group from one of the afternoon talk shows who'd come to do a story on you, Professor. I couldn't believe some of the things they were saying. They were even talking about how Ikuo had hit Gii."
Ikuo shifted in the driver's seat, his body language sending out a mes- sage to cease and desist, but strong-willed Ms. Asuka, not about to be deterred by any man trying to restrain her, brushed this aside.
"When Dr. Koga called us," she said, "to tell us that after your gallblad- der 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 situ- ation already getting tense because Gii is still, after all, a child. 'When some- one 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 rela- tives 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 pri- vate 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 ex- pects 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 terror- ist 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 regard- ing this group of believers moving in, but from the standpoint of pro- tecting 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 pal- pable unease rolled over him as to what he was supposed to do once he re- turned 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 chapeclass="underline" 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 man- made 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.