"When he went to the studio to see it before it was completed," Dancer replied, "he said that the painting is the starting point of how we're going to create the Church of the New Man."
"Before long we'll need to have you paint another triptych for this wall, Professor," Dr. Koga said. "One that looks back happily on how the Church of the New Man was built."
"You're pretty optimistic sometimes, aren't you, Doctor?" was all Kizu could say.
"I don't know, it just makes me excited seeing people get together like this and get going," Dr. Koga said. "The enthusiasm of the religious/social movement we had at the research institute is still with me, I suppose. I know this is the exact opposite, though-I guess I was brainwashed in Izu."
"What you're saying is that Guide was quite the educator," Kizu said.
"He certainly was. But don't forget Patron's role. Sometimes he looks like he's not doing anything, but don't be fooled into thinking he's passive.
Even now that's true, right, Ikuo? In your own preparations for the summer conference, and in what the Technicians and the Quiet Women are doing, you're all working together for Patron's new church, aren't you?"
"For me, too, everything depends on how Patron wants things to de- velop," Ikuo said, sounding much older than Dr. Koga.
"I'm sure Patron has an idea of how the Technicians and Quiet Women should fit in and what roles they should play, but I'll have to admit that when I compare those two sects there're some things I just don't understand,"
Dr. Koga said. "What do you think about the secrecy the Quiet Women have in regards to the Technicians? I don't want to be one-sided in my criticism here, though; the Technicians have been having their own closed meetings to decide what tack they're going to take."
"Since last week Ms. Oyama has asked me not to attend the Quiet Women's prayer meetings," Ikuo said. "Including playing the piano. I find it encouraging, though, to see how excited they are about the conference. The Quiet Women want to meet the whole lot coming from the Kansai headquar- ters only after they're good and ready. But isn't that a natural attitude to take?
The Technicians feel the same way."
"Along with your overall preparations for the conference, I imagine that you and the Fireflies are laying out some plans of your own? " Dr. Koga asked.
"Still, I'd have to say you've been dealing fairly with both the Quiet Women and the Technicians. The Technicians trust you, at least."
"The Quiet Women trust him, too-according to Ms. Tachibana,"
Dancer put in.
"That being the case, I hope you'll reveal all the information you get to us," Dr. Koga said. "How about it, Professor Kizu? Apart from any sects in the church, wouldn't you say older fellows like us are the church elders? Not that we'll be doing anything unilateral either. We'll clear everything with the office first, of course."
"That's what I'm hoping for," Kizu replied, and then asked, "I was wondering, when you're treating Patron does he talk about whether he sees the Fireflies as-to use your terminology-a third sect in the church?"
"I think the Somersault is still critical to Patron," Dr. Koga said. "On principle he's doesn't want to undo his previous apostasy by apostatizing again.
Which means his stance toward building this new church should be quite simple, shouldn't it? This new church will be a church of the Christian God- the-Father, right? With Patron insisting he's an antichrist, there's really no outward position for him in the church.
"In building up this Church of the New Man, he's resigned to the fact that he himself is an Old Man. So for him it's actually a positive sign for the church to be run by many different sects. Competition between different sects will help it develop into a multifaceted entity. He'll be watching all this from the sidelines, but not taking a leadership role.
"Getting back to your question, Patron told me that when he and Ikuo talked, Ikuo came to an understanding of Patron's position and said he'll support Patron's relativistic way of doing things while they build up the new church. Patron told me, quite happily, that Ikuo said he wants to work so Patron can be unencumbered."
"I don't remember being so high-and-mighty in the way I phrased it,"
Ikuo said, "but basically that's what I said. I've wanted to speak with Patron for a long time, so I spoke directly to him. I have no doubt whatsoever that he was in face-to-face communication with something very special-God, if you will. I only met Patron for the first time after the Somersault, but I leel more and more sure of this every time I talk with him. But he ended up making a fool of this very transcendental partner he was so deeply tied to. And now he's building a new church, without having erased the Somersault, and I find that intriguing. So people could understand where's he coming from, he gave himself the title of antichrist. It's a refreshing attitude.
"You'd better believe that when Patron talks about this in his sermon at the summer conference, it is going to turn off those who followed him from before the Somersault. There'll be a lot of people coming from the outside, the media included, and I'll bet there'll be some reporters who'll mock him just as they did at the Somersault, calling it all antichrist syncretism or some- thing. Still, I find a reality in him as a religious figure, a reality that includes the feeling that-before much longer-he's going to find himself in a bind all over again. He's an extraordinary person. And basically I think that the Quiet Women and Technicians sense the same thing. At the summer confer- ence it'll be those people who really believe that the new church will produce New Men who will get the ball rolling. Isn't this exactly what Patron's hop- ing for?"
After Ikuo finished his deliberate explanation, Kizu felt a rush of pride.
Dr. Koga turned his deep set, darkly shaded eyes, with a glint of the impish in them, toward Kizu and said, "Your painting predicts this new relation- ship between Patron and Ikuo. I can't think of anything better to have hang- ing in our chapel!"
3
After the "miracle" of his cancer disappearing, and after having com- pleted the triptych, Kizu became aware of a harsh reality: He had a massive amount of time left to live. He still remembered how, after he was told his cancer was back, he had felt the richness of each and every moment. But what he felt now was something else again, a complete powerlessness in the face of all this newfound time. He'd felt the same thing on sleepless nights, but this was much more overwhelming. The sense of confusion hit him most in the early morning and late at night.
In the mornings, the sound of birds chirping from behind the house was enough to wake him. And at night he felt oppressed even more when he'd awake soon after going to bed. Though he knew it was a strange reaction, he found that at times like these the most appropriate attitude was to pretend he was already dead.
In the early morning all he had to do was stay in bed, half propped up, for two or three hours and wait for the first stirrings of activity in the monas- tery across the lake. The retired diplomat who'd designed his bed might have spent the early hours of each day in much the same way, he mused. When there were still four or five hours left till dawn, though, Kizu fell into a space where he couldn't just leave everything up to the passage of time.
He started going to bed early, as the church members in the Hollow were wont to do, except when he'd sat awake until late reading a critical work on Dante, donated to the junior high by the later Brother Gii, which he'd bor- rowed from Asa-san.
For times like these, when he went to bed late and woke up after sleep- ing only a short while, he kept the shutters open, of course, but also a space between the curtains so he might gaze out at the lake right after awakening.
When he woke up he'd take the conductor's baton the former diplomat had used to practice with, spread the curtains wider apart, and spend his time gazing at the chapel and monastery on the far shore.