Thus Kizu's meeting with Patron was so successful they decided that once a week Kizu would come and give Patron lectures on R. S. Thomas- something that, considering his art background, was way outside his field of expertise. As they drove home, Kizu found it strange that things had turned out the way they did, but Ikuo seemed to have expected it all along.
Kizu already had a paperback edition of Thomas's poems, the one he received in Wales, but he bought a volume of his collected works at the uni- versity co-op, along with a reference work on his poetry, and had them deliv- ered to his apartment. His own copy was filled with notes, and he wanted to present Patron with a clean and complete edition.
Instead of giving private lectures to Patron, Kizu planned just to read the poems together and discuss them, though two or three days later, when he was up far into the night, preparing, Dancer called him, and he headed off to their office despite the late hour. She explained to him that Patron's de- pression was back and he was staying up late and sleeping through the morn- ings. Kizu was led into the bedroom study; Ikuo, who'd driven him over, stayed out in the office beside Dancer and Ogi.
Kizu had selected as their first poem one from the collection Between Here and Now that was written when the poet was about the same age as Kizu and Patron: "You ask why I don't write.
But what is there to say?
The salt current swings in and out of the bay, as it has done time out of mind. How does that help?
It leaves illegible writing on the shore. If you were here, we would quarrel about it.
People file past this seascape as ignorantly as through a gallery of great art. I keep searching for meaning.
The waves are a moving staircase to climb, but in thought only.
The fall from the top is as sheer as ever. Younger I deemed truth was to come at beyond the horizon.
Older I stay still and am as far off as before. These nail-parings bore you? They explain my silence.
I wish there were as simple an explanation for the silence of God."
Patron had a lot to say about the poem. It occurred to Kizu that Patron's insomnia was due less to depression than to the recent intellectual stimula- tion that had entered his life and was cutting down on his hours of sleep.
Patron's large, moist eyes reminded Kizu of a photo he'd seen of a nocturnal marsupial from Tasmania.
'"You asf{why I don't write. I But what is there to say?' That line makes me recall a very pressing matter," Patron blurted out, for all the world like a bright yet rash child. "I've never written a thing, ever since I was young. In a way, though, I guess what I did up to the Somersault was a kind of writing.
Guide helped me in this, of course. The things I experienced in my trances I couldn't put into clear words, but I told them to Guide and he'd translate them into something intelligible.
"After the Somersault, I wasn't able to fall into any major trances, which Guide was aware of. This last half year, though, I could tell Guide wanted to say something to me, something like the first two lines of the poem. 'Why don't you fall into any trances? And why don't you tell me your visions?' But it, for instance, I were to fall into a trance now, I know I wouldn't come into con- tact with anything transcendental. Which is why I don't make the effort.
That's all I can say, if 'you asf^ why.
'"But what is there to say?'" he continued. "I'm holed up in this place as in a hideout, not looking at the tides in the bay every day. But for a long time I have been letting time flow from my heart-the movement the poet com- pares to the tides. These past ten years I've been doing nothing, merely ob- serving the flow of the tides in my own heart.
"Time… the flow of the tides move indeed. 'How does that helpT That's exactly right. 'It leaves illegible writing/ on the shore. If you were here,/we would quarrel about it.' Guide was by my side, but I never spoke to him of that writ- ing. When it flows out of my heart, what does time inscribe? Even if it could be deciphered, I know it would be meaningless. There would be nothing to quarrel about.
"But people live their lives for all they're worth, knowing nothing. I keep searching for meaning.'
' That's the truth. I didn't expect that everything would be thrilling in life. If someone accused me of just sitting on the beach, staring vacantly before me, I couldn't deny it. Sometimes when I feel in good spirits, that is still 'in thought only,' just climbing the stairs of waves.
"That's so painfully true! 'The fall from the top is as sheer/ as ever.' It's true. Every single day and night, all I've thought about is what happened ten years ago. The way I fell then, I continue to fall, moment after moment, in my mind.
"The next stanza expresses exactly how I feel right now. 'Younger I deemed truth! was to come at beyond the horizon./Older I stay still and ami as fay- off as before' What does 'these nail-parings' really point to? At any rate, here I am, sitting here blankly staring at the horizon. It's no wonder Guide got an- gry and asked why.
"This is what I should have said to him: 'They explain my silence./ I wish there were as simple/ an explanation for the silence of God! That hits it right on the head."
Patron's dark glistening eyes were no longer aimed at Kizu but were fixed steadily on an invisible companion only he could see.
The mid-October sky was threatening rain, the gloomy road beginning to lighten in the approaching dawn, as they sped toward home, Ikuo at the wheel. Kizu, meanwhile, ruminated on what Patron had said regarding Thomas's poem and his accompanying translation. 'Younger I deemed truth/ was to come at beyond the horizon,' he mused. I think that's true. Isn't that why I set out for America? And what was the result? I ended up never re- ally investigating that truth.
Ikuo got out of the car for a moment. As Kizu opened the side door next to the main entrance with the same key he used for his apartment, he heard Ikuo's voice, almost apologetically, from behind.
'I wish I could come up to my room now, but Ogi and Dancer have this plan we need to work on."
Kizu turned around and nodded.
'Yesterday, after I drove you and went back to the office," Ikuo went on› Dancer told me that Patron would like you to donate something he needs, s°mething of great value. Did you talk about this? Religious leaders might Seem unworldly, but they have a practical side too, don't they?"
Kizu suspected that Ikuo and Dancer were behind this pronouncement of Patron's. But he merely nodded again, pushed open the solid American- type steel door, and went in alone.
2
This year Kizu sensed that the seasons were changing quickly. Even on days when the morning light shone into his room above the branches of the wych elm, the position of the light was changing, no longer reaching the spot where he sunbathed in the nude.
Kizu's sunbathing, his middle-aged-man's habit, wasn't something he wanted others to see. Ikuo might be living with him and modeling in the nude, but even if Kizu often lounged nude on the sofa he never invited Ikuo to join him. Not that there were many chances to do so, with Ikuo now so busy at the office.
When he was alone, Kizu spent his time painting and preparing his readings of R. S. Thomas for Patron. He reread his note-filled paperback copy of Thomas's poems, gathered books of Thomas's prose writings, and read the theses and monographs that young Welsh scholars had written, like good con- scientious sons. He faxed the assistant in his office back in the States a request to look for these books. Coincidentally, the assistant's father happened to be an immigrant from Wales, from Thomas's own parish, in fact. Though he wasn't an Anglican but a member of a minor denomination, her father re- membered seeing Thomas, a clergyman, walking through the fields wield- ing a walking stick like some kind of sports equipment. She added a note in the package of books saying how surprised she was to find that even the Japa- nese were reading Thomas's poetry.