Kizu stood up at the end of his lane and watched her swim. Dr. Koga was struck by her swimming too. After four or five laps, without missing a beat, Ms. Tachibana changed over to Morio's lane. She skillfully had Morio float up, securing his body with a thin but muscular arm held around his chest up to his shoulders. Paddling with one hand and doing a scissors kick, Ms.
Tachibana carried Morio over to the side. As if they were watching the mas- terly practice rescue of a drowning man, a stir of admiration rose from the mezzanine.
3
When August rolled around, the number of people coming to visit the Hollow suddenly shot way up and Kizu hesitated to leave his house. Mostly men and women in their late thirties, these newcomers would appear at the dam like a sudden summer rain, clamber up the flagstone pathway, and dis- appear into the monastery courtyard. Then they would walk back down to the east shore down the tunnel formed by the overhanging young leaves of the cherry trees at the eastern edge of the chapel, and along the corridor that had been made there. Some of them would look up at the summer sun re- flected off the plastic globular canopy that had been attached to one side of the chapel's dome, some would gaze off toward the giant cypress in the is- land on the lake, and others would slowly make their way closer to the studio window where Kizu stood observing them.
Some of the visitors ate a light lunch looking down on the nearby tents set up in the square below the dam. Even from a distance you could make out their Fruit of the Rain Tree lunch boxes and plastic bottles of Rain Tree Water, bottled from the spring behind the chapel-evidence that the visitors had gone to the Farm first and bought lunches and water bottles at the little store run by Satchan's two adopted daughters.
According to what Ms. Asuka had heard, the majority of these visitors were believers from the Kansai headquarters. They all had their own jobs but were taking a week's vacation in order to visit this holy place and enjoy breath- ing the same air as Patron. Some of them had volunteered to work at the Farm in exchange for room and board. Others had booked rooms well in advance at the lodge where Kizu had put on his swimming demonstration, while others, unbeknownst to Kizu, who had any number of times walked along the path below it, were using the Mansion that now belonged to Mr. Soda of the Kansai headquarters. Through his long-term relationship with those in the Hollow as the builder of the chapel, Mr. Soda had purchased the Mansion, which had been slated for demolition, and rebuilt it so that it was once more livable.
Kizu had been in charge of any number of symposiums at his research institute and knew firsthand the troubles involved, so he had a vague anxiety about the summer conference. But Ms. Asuka, who started to help out at the office after the middle of July, reported to him that the participants were ex- tremely cooperative and the outlook for the conference was bright.
The believers who came early to the Hollow didn't make many demands on the church; indeed, they volunteered to help out, and at the dining hall they were allowed to use, they renewed old friendships-admittedly not very deep ones-with people they knew in the Quiet Women and were happy when they spotted faces they recognized among the Technicians.
According to Ms. Asuka, the office's efforts in organizing the confer- ence were paying off. The grounds of the elementary and junior high schools in the Old Town were being used as parking lots from Friday to Monday.
The Fireflies, organized as a security squad, were busy too, with preparations for their Spirit Festival, and didn't have the energy left over to take charge of the parking lot, so the task fell to some older youths who were continuing the local Village Association group; they too were unpaid volunteers.
The Kansai headquarters leader, Mr. Soda, arrived in the Hollow at the end of July. He invited Dr. Koga, Ms. Asuka, and Kizu for dinner at the Mansion, where he was staying during the conference. On the day of the din- ner there were none of the city folk around the dam or on the flagstone path, and in the midst of the loud buzz of cicadas and the cries of wild birds, Dr.
Koga and Asa-san appeared in the parking lot from the road leading to the prefectural highway. Rather than turn to wave to Kizu in his studio window, they looked out at the giant cypress tree, its leaves stirring with the faint breeze blowing in from the woods around the lake.
When Kizu saw the well-bred city boy Dr. Koga with a linen sports coat on, he put on a lightweight jacket himself. As a present for Mr. Soda, he took a watercolor he'd done of the view of the chapel and monastery from the north shore, put it in a frame, and left the house.
When Kizu got down to the dam, Dr. Koga and Asa-san-the latter all dressed up in a summer-weight wool skirt and navy blue blouse-were talking with one of the Technicians, who was setting up the microphones in the reviewing stands. Several of the Fireflies were sitting on the dam itself, undoing a huge coil of cable and threading it through plastic tubing to keep it waterproof. Apparently they were going to run an electric line underwater out to the island with the huge cypress.
Kizu and the others walked down to the tents, crossed over the surging waterway, and took a flagstone path that ran all around from the traditional gate in the long wall to the main house. When they arrived at the main gate, shaded by the lush overhanging leaves of the camellias, a smaller side door in a corner of the main gate was open to the inside.
With Asa-san leading the way, they ducked through the side door. On the broad concrete floor was something they'd heard about from Asa-san on the way over, a gold-and-copper alloy pipe-afuigo, as they called it-to carry smoke from the sunken hearth that now was faintly glowing. Mr. Soda was standing on the wooden floor below that and led the three of them over to the natural stone flooring, where they removed their shoes. With his pinstripe dress shirt and gray vest, all Mr. Soda needed was a coat and jacket and he'd be ready for a business meeting, though his collar was casually open.
"Hey, looks like your blood pressure's not acting up," Dr. Koga said, as if speaking to a good buddy. "So you prefer staying in the annex more than the main building? I guess this was originally a place for people to live in, wasn't it. You have a large kitchen, too. This fuigo pipe running out of the oven is nice.
"It's like a pipe in a pipe organ, don't you think? It was specially ordered, and since Former Gii named it, I've respected his wishes," Mr. Soda responded, turning to greet Kizu and Asa-san. "I'm glad you could come. Koga and I were in the same class for our first two years of college. The guys who were going on to medical school were all kind of snobbish and someone like me in engineer- ing found it hard to get along with most of them, but Koga was okay."
On the left-hand side, in the back of the concrete floor, set off at a gentle right angle, was a sink and a stove. A large man was working there, bathed in the reddish light coming in from the west window, but Mr. Soda didn't introduce him, instead leading his guests to the side around the sunken hearth.
Kizu passed the watercolor painting to Mr. Soda, who turned his stylishly crew-cut head and taut face toward it with a word of thanks. He didn't give any opinion about the painting, though, which Kizu found totally refreshing.
Mr. Soda told about how as a young man he and Dr. Koga were on the same rugby team at the Komaba campus of Tokyo University and how Koga was fast enough to break through his opponents easily but wasn't brave enough to attempt a goal and would just keep running, all bent over.
"The first one to make a touchdown in the church, though, was Koga, who was the one who invited me to join," Soda went on. "He had those troubles with his mother, and went through a terrible time until his aunt took him to see Patron."
A complex expression showed on Dr. Koga's face, but he said nothing.