"It's entirely possible," Patron replied spiritedly, turning an amused look first at Ikuo, then at Ogi.
"You take leave of reality, go over to the other side, and accept the spiri- tual, right?" Ikuo said. "How can you be stunned by hearing about what you yourself saw?"
"Maybe that's the fate involved in using language to speak and to lis- ten, especially when you're dealing with transcendental matters. There's no direct connection between the visions I see in my trances and our language on this side. If I wanted to go over to the other side permanently, all I'd have to do would be to immerse myself in experiences that have nothing to do with language on this side. Being immersed like that is how God reveals Himself; it's everything to me.
"Still, I suffer tremendously to return to this side. There wouldn't be any problems if I stayed silent after I came back, but that would be as if what I experienced on the other side never took place. Guide's the one who told me I couldn't leave it at that and encouraged me to put my experiences into words. Often when I listen to Guide retelling my experiences, though, I feel he's unearthed deeper meaning to them than I ever realized. He definitely is my guide when it comes to making this mystical world clear to me. But I do sometimes feel uncomfortable with it. That's what I mean by saying I feel stunned."
There was more they seemed to want to say, but they fell silent for a time. Ogi sensed a movement out the van window and discovered Dancer out on the porch, doing a pirouette leap-her signal that the villa had warmed up enough to come inside.
3
The living room had the very latest propane heater-a device with self- regulating temperature and a gas leak detector-as well as a wood-burning fireplace, and it was there the three young people had a breakfast of ham, bacon, eggs, and vegetable salad the next morning. Dancer put away as much as the two young men. Patron's breakfast consisted of liquid food, appropri- ate to an elderly convalescent, that Dancer had brought along from Tokyo in a thermos. Once they were free of the day-to-day routine of the office, Ogi was struck by how very simple a matter it was to satisfy Patron's worldly desires. The same, of course, could be said of Guide.
After eating, they all went out for a walk. Before they left the villa, Dancer made Patron prepare for the winter cold by wearing an overcoat over his sweater and a long muffler that trailed down to his knees. The clouds hung lower than one would expect on a high plain, and it felt like the first snow of the season was just around the corner. Ogi took Patron's arm to help him along, but Patron soon said he needed time alone to think and strode aloofly off ahead of them.
The three young people walked behind Patron, keeping their distance, Ogi first, with Ikuo and Dancer side by side after him. Ikuo had taken out a folding wheelchair from the minivan and, with the chair still folded up, pushed it along, Dancer helping him.
Dancer had recommended that they buy the wheelchair after Guide had collapsed and it looked like he wouldn't soon recover. After he left the hospi- tal, though, Guide had no need of it, and it had been stored in the outbuild- ing and then loaded into the minivan. Patron was descending the gentle slope now with a healthy stride, but coming back he'd have the uphill slope to face and might be glad to use the chair. Dancer took all possible precautions when it came to Patron's health.
"I felt closer to Guide at first, but there was something I couldn't quite grasp about him," Dancer said to Ikuo, loud enough for Ogi, two or three paces ahead, to hear. "I don't know anything about what happened more than ten years ago. I've been thinking about this since I came to live with Patron and Guide and observe them up close. Guide always seems to be urging Pa- tron to do things, but once it seems that his words and actions are actually influencing Patron's judgment and actions, he immediately pulls back. I find his hesitation hard to fathom.
"I don't have anything to base this on, but I came up with a guess. I'm not saying that Patron was led into doing the Somersault by Guide, but maybe Guide did have an influence on Patron's decision. With this talk you're plan- ning to have with Patron, didn't you say you wanted to talk without Profes- sor Kizu and Guide around? Even if Professor Kizu couldn't make the trip because of his health, I wonder if Guide didn't think it better that he not be there since you and Patron had some important things to discuss. That must be the reason he didn't come, despite that long phone call and the fact that he urged you to go ahead and talk with Patron."
"It was Guide who encouraged me to bring my main concerns directly to Patron," said Ikuo, who had been silent up to this point.
Ogi sensed something, turned around, and saw Dancer twist to turn around to face Ikuo, who was a head taller than she was. In a very sharp tone of voice she said, "You're free to voice your own concerns, but whatever Pa- tron tells you should be shared with all of us. Patron isn't going to give you a hint for you alone; he will indicate the direction all of us should be taking.
Don't forget that!"
Dancer had clearly had her say; she began to walk more quickly in order to shorten the distance between herself and Patron. Urged on, Ogi and Ikuo picked up the pace. It was a simple matter for the young men and Dancer, with her gymnastic training, to catch up with Patron. He had stopped at the side of the road where raised earth marked the boundary of the older resi- dential section of the area; across from him was a paved road and a slope run- ning downhill and, even farther down the slope, a newer residential area that he was now gazing at. Dancer may have cut her conversation with Ikuo short because she noticed where Patron was standing.
A broad deep expanse of snow-covered mountains lay before them. On this side ran the line of woods that this morning had seemed desolate; bathed in the faint sunlight, the woods now had a gentle reddish-yellow tinge. The whole scene gave the impression that both people and trees had finished their preparations for the day, fast approaching, when snow would blanket ground and woods, and the far-off mountains would become one continuous stretch of white.
As the three of them reached the bundled-up Patron, he turned grace- fully toward them in his expensive boots at the sound of Dancer's voice and she briskly helped him into the wheelchair. Standing at the tip of that old road sloping down, their backs to it, they could feel the wind whipping up the slope, carrying with it a hint of cold air from the snow-covered mountains in the distance. At this season this was an appropriate spot to end their walk, and all of them understood it was the proper time to begin pushing Patron back up the hill. With her quick, unsparing way of working, Dancer was the per- fect attendant.
4
By six it was already dark. Patron had slept during the day and then eaten dinner in bed, and Dancer urged him to stay in bed for the time being.
Their group discussion, then, began at little after seven. The young people lit the wood in the fireplace, set an armchair in front of it for Patron, and settled down directly on an electric blanket they placed on the rug. They didn't face Patron directly, and as he stared into the fireplace, they followed suit, listen- ing intently and gazing at the flames. Ikuo had used a saw to cut up some of the pine, light brown birches, and cherry trees that had toppled over in the typhoon into six-foot-long logs, but couldn't find a hatchet to chop them into smaller pieces.
"I understand Guide suggested that you talk directly with me, Ikuo,"
Patron began. "He phoned me from his annex to tell me this. The fact that he didn't come to see me directly is a sign that he has something in mind.
Professor Kizu, too, sent me a letter outlining the background to your ques- tions, that your motivation for getting close to Guide and me can be traced to a desire you've had ever since you were a young boy. He wrote that you're a young man with something very special inside, and that if talking with me is needed to bring that to the surface, he wants to do what he can to help out.