"I'll rephrase my question so a practical and bright person like your- self, Ms. Oyama, can answer directly. This is what I want to know: After the Somersault, what kind of spiritual process did the Quiet Women go through to forgive Patron and be able to rejoin him here and become part of his new church? Unless I know this, your secrecy will continue to bother me. I'd also like to ask the Technicians a similar question."
"We've managed to live our communal life for more than ten years now," Ms. Oyama replied. "As you said, at first we did hate Patron and Guide.
The power of hatred, in fact, helped bind us together. But in time we over- came those ill feelings, though I'm afraid it's beyond my ability to analyze the process of how this happened. I say this because each person conquered her feelings in a different way, consistent with how she became converted and the way she had lived her life since.
"Still, there was one impetus all the Quiet Women shared that helped them overcome their feelings of animosity. This was the information that Mrs.
Shigeno brought to us-the report that after the Somersault Patron and Guide had descended into hell. We too felt we'd been abandoned, left in a place where we were anxious and suffered. When we heard this information we thought, very naturally, that it made perfect sense. That being the case, we also clung to the hope that Patron and Guide would someday climb up out of the hell they were in and lead us in a new direction.
"Then a terrible thing happened: Guide was murdered, a truly awful event, but we received the notice of the memorial service for Guide, sent from Patron, and for the first time in ten years there was something hopeful to cling to. It was a straight path from the memorial service to this present conference from then on.
"This only means that we Quiet Women need to talk together even more. These past ten years we've been in the habit of holding some deep dis- cussions to come up with a group consensus. We're supposed to see this con- ference as former church members overcoming the Somersault to launch a new church, right? In our decade of communal living this has got to be the most critical situation we've faced.
"That's why we hold our discussions. And these discussions-of people who've lived together for ten years, sharing their pain-we like to hold in private. We really need to talk together-just us and no one else. I hope you'll allow us to do so. And when we meet by ourselves next time, I'm sure one of the topics we'll be discussing is this very question you've put to us."
"Still, though, I find it ironic that we're excluded from your discussions,"
Ms. Kajima commented.
"Once again, I ask your indulgence," Ms. Oyama replied. "The Quiet Women will be working, though, at the party being held tonight at the Farm.
So if you'd like to talk with us individually, that would be a good time to do so.
Ms. Kajima didn't pursue her questioning any further. Instead, she turned her attack to the Technicians.
"The Technicians were the elite at the Izu Research Institute, people I never met or spoke to directly. Which led to me having a one-sided view of all of you. Forgive me for saying this, but the extreme tactics of some of your colleagues pushed Patron and Guide to the wall, forcing them to do the Som- ersault. That's the view of those of us who remained in the church. And then later some of your colleagues-I'm not saying all, mind you-put Guide on trial and ended up causing his death. To us it seemed that the years after you left the church didn't change your way of thinking or your tactics one iota.
That made us disappointed and angry.
"Now, though, we find the Technicians in charge of everything at this conference for the new church. Mr. Soda, the head of the Kansai headquar- ters, discussed this with Patron and agreed to it, and since he's our leader we accept it as a fait accompli. But there are many people in the Kansai head- quarters who feel the way I do-that there's a lot going on here we can't understand. Some people say they find it outrageous. So I'd like to hear from some of the Technicians as to how they feel about this."
A piece of paper was passed to her at this point, and she sat down, and a small stir went through the audience as they speculated as to what was going on. This soon calmed down, though, as the American reporter Fred Parks, who was sitting beside Ms. Kajima, stood up and asked a question.
"I'd like to ask a follow-up if I may," he began.
His question was translated into Japanese by Mrs. Tsugane.
"As you can gather from my asking in English, I'm a foreigner, but at the time of the Somersault I was especially interested in the Izu faction that you just mentioned, because they had a plan for radical social change. Until just before the Somersault, neither Patron nor Guide seemed opposed to this and provided funding for their activities.
"Still, Patron and Guide eventually negotiated with the authorities and sold out the radical faction. I wonder how the remnants of the group, the Technicians, feel about this. How do all of you evaluate the killing of Guide and Patron's return to the church? Thank you."
4
Kizu knew only that Mr. Hanawa was a research scientist. In Mr.
Hanawa's attitude as he silently surveyed the audience, all the while taking notes at the long table, Kizu was reminded of the head of the student council in his college days, a group under the sway of the Communists. This impres- sion was reinforced when Mr. Hanawa spoke.
"It would take quite some time to discuss how we felt at the time of the Somersault, and since I don't think that's particularly relevant at this point, I'll talk about how we feel about it now, ten years down the road.
"We were completely turned inside out by Patron's Somersault, but we already knew at the time that our plans would have been a total failure. So we were betrayed by Patron and Guide through the Somersault, which was okay because it helped avoid a massive blunder, right? People might say that, but if you look at history you'll find that even in what appears to be stupid, failed insurrections, often something significant emerges. Aborted insurrec- tions, however, lead nowhere.
"Even now we wonder whether the Somersault was really the only option open to Patron. In a similar vein, we talked over what Asahara, the leader of Aum Shinrikyo, did or didn't do when the police raided his hideout at the base of Mount Fuji, and we all agreed that was Asahara's own Somersault.
"If Asahara hadn't done a Somersault, what options did he have? Assume the lotus position, back straight and eyes closed, leap out of the highest window in thtsatyan, and levitate toward Mount Fuji? If he really couldn't fly, he should have just leaped out the window and crashed to the ground. With his senior disciples already shot, the CIA or the Japanese police or religious organizations antithetical to Aum would insist on shooting Asahara-floating in a lotus position toward Mount Fuji-out of the sky. Like a single fish egg in a stormy sea, this may very well have led to a single grain hatching and a new Aum myth.
For the church that remained behind a new history would be born.
"We haven't wavered from our conclusion that the Somersault was a mistake. But we also recognize it was a mistake to have driven Guide to such a tragic death. In other words, we won't be pushing Patron anymore to take responsibility. The reason we've returned to be with Patron and help him build a new church from the ground up-and please note that we're not managing things in the Hollow; we're providing security for the Quiet Women's prayer meetings, at their request, and will be helping out at tonight's party at the Farm-is because we have great hopes for the new church and for Patron, whom we know is an outstanding, inspiring leader. We're not asking that he reverse the Somersault of a decade ago. We're hoping for a brand-new Somersault."
The next question didn't come from the reporters and TV crew occu- pying the front half of the audience but from a man, sitting with some oth- ers, apart from the ordinary participants, along the aisle on the west side of the hall. The man stood up. These people had come in late, and Kizu had seen Ogi ask the Technicians, already helping out here at the press conference, to move some extra chairs in for them.