The same rush of excitement he felt the first time he and Ikuo had sex. His throat felt parched.
Kizu took out the sheets he'd gotten back from the laundry and made up the bed. He went in to take a shower himself, passing Ikuo, who was wear- ing a dressing gown as he came out of the bathroom. But how should he bring it up to Ikuo? He racked his brain as he thoughtlessly scrubbed himself too hard and felt his body tighten with pain. Since the clear signs of cancer had appeared, Kizu had been careful about touching his belly, but now he'd forgotten.
Broaching the subject turned out to be easier than he had thought. "Let's try something a little different this time," Kizu said in an experienced tone, half playfully, and Ikuo, as casually as a chess player making a necessary stra- tegic move, said that he'd already had a bit of experience playing the man, if that's what Kizu wanted.
With an eager movement out oí keeping with his age, Kizu flipped him- self over on his belly and, as Naomi had done, propped himself up on his chin and shoulders as he added some spit and pulled aside the folds of his buttocks.
Ikuo struggled to penetrate, and Kizu felt a sharp pain that nearly made him cry out, but all for naught. Kizu remembered how it felt when, as he stroked the milky, flushed skin of Naomi's buttocks, he playfully had inserted first one finger and then a second as he roughly spread her sphincter. But he couldn't tell Ikuo to do the same, and he didn't have the nerve to do it himself.
Finally, as if the energy level he'd strained to keep up proved too much, Ikuo collapsed. Kizu sat up and noticed tears forming in Ikuo's large, sunken eyes. Kizu took Ikuo's still-engorged penis in his mouth to console it for all its struggles, but Ikuo remained passive and couldn't come.
After Ikuo went home, Kizu thought about the tears in Ikuo's eyes and how he'd instinctively turned away to try to hide them. What kind of tears were those? As he and Ikuo had talked that day he tried not to worry about the new situation with his cancer. With Patron's new movement beginning, he'd have to talk with Ikuo about his illness, now that it had taken a sudden turn for the worse, but it didn't seem fair to bring it up just as he was attempt- ing to get their sexual relationship to enter a new phase.
Kizu wondered whether the sexual behavior of an old man, uncon- cerned with appearances, might not, in the eyes of someone much younger, go beyond the ugly and comical to arouse feelings of pity and sorrow. But late that night, as he once again climbed into bed and touched a wide, wet spot on the sheets, the thought struck him that he had been so hard on the young man he had made him cry. Shocked, Kizu tried to brush the thought aside.
3
Kizu was the type, once he started something, to persist-his character molded by his experiences in America, where he often felt terribly isolated and found that once he gave up, things got even worse-and he wasn't about to get discouraged by a couple of failed experiments. A motivating factor behind his persistence, Kizu was well aware, was the jealousy aroused in him when Ikuo revealed that he'd played the man before. As one failure followed another, this jealousy for some unknown past rival turned into a burning rage.
As a far-off memory, Kizu recalled reading Plato's words to the effect that human beings cannot hold two different emotions within them at the same time. This idea served to protect the emotions that-at the conscious level-he'd already prevented from making a comeback: the fear that his strong jealousy of Ikuo would accelerate the spread of the cancer within him, and his regret at having run from the advice he'd received in America to have himself get a thorough examination.
Dancer phoned him, asking him, if it was possible, to come over to dis- cuss something with Patron. Recently Kizu had caught a ride two or three times with Ikuo when he went back to the office, but each time he found everyone rushing around like mad and had left without speaking with Patron.
Today, though, as he entered Patron's bedroom study, he spied a plan of the buildings in Shikoku that Dancer had prepared. As was his wont, though they hadn't seen each other since the memorial service, Patron didn't greet Kizu; instead, he seemed to be watching him closely. Finally Patron spoke up, explaining how he wanted to move his office to the building in the woods shown in the plan and start his church there. Kizu mentioned he'd heard from the newspaper reporter that the buildings were unusual modern structures and were being taken care of very thoroughly-but Patron cut him short.
"After they purchased these buildings, the followers apparently took turns staying in them for short periods of time," Patron said, "and things went smoothly between the people from the Kansai headquarters and the local people. Which isn't to say that if we move there to build our church there won't be friction. We need to understand this before we begin, and I think as Ikuo said the first step is to have an organized vanguard group of followers move to Shikoku. I'd planned to start the new movement with people who contacted me after the Somersault, but what Ogi's done will eventually be of use."
Patron went on to explain what Kizu was aware of how the Kansai head- quarters had directed his attention to this woods surrounded by mountains and how things had developed since then.
"The Kansai headquarters, which essentially means the whole church that's been active till now, has proposed to give these buildings over to me in order for me to build a new church. While Guide and I were in hell and com- pletely unproductive, the Kansai headquarters built up quite a sound finan- cial base. Sometimes I even wonder whether it's right to accept all they've accomplished."
"If the church will again be centered around you and these people will be absorbed into it," Kizu said, "their proposal makes perfect sense. You might even say that after your Somersault the Kansai headquarters anticipated a day like this and prepared accordingly."
"I imagine that to them my actions in the Somersault must have seemed pretty shallow."
"But when you look at all the groups that have been able to maintain themselves independently," Kizu said, "the Kansai headquarters, the women's commune, and the former Izu radical faction, that must mean your teach- ings had an underlying and enduring strength."
"But Guide and I completely denied those teachings. And I'm not about to reverse my position."
"When I listen to you I get the impression you want to reach out first of all to the followers you abandoned. What with all those fights the local gov- ernment had to get Aum Shinrikyo to evacuate their satyan, I imagine our job from now on won't be easy."
"Indeed it won't," Patron said, a glint in his eye. "Can I ask you, too, Professor, to move to our new headquarters in Shikoku?"
"Ikuo is very enthusiastic about your plan for the church and, as I've told you, I go where he goes."
Still looking Kizu straight in the eye, Patron said, "Of course, I'll also be counting on you to be the new Guide. Anyway, the reason I asked you to come over today is that Dancer feels anxious. She thinks you've changed some- how. Now that I see you myself I see something's troubling you. I haven't asked Ikuo about this, but I feel there's something going on with you physi- cally that isn't encouraging."
Kizu was surprised, but at the same time he found this completely natu- ral. "At the beginning of this month I started to show some clear symptoms," he began. "And I had a specialist confirm what I thought. It's not at a stage where an operation would help much, and actually I left America because I didn't feel like having one. It's terminal cancer. My doctor was very sympa- thetic to my viewpoint and said he'll help me control the pain so I can remain active on my own.
"As time goes on it'll be harder and harder for me to be the Guide, but as long as I'm not a burden, I want nothing more than to help Ikuo. At my checkup I wasn't given a definite amount of time I have left, but I'm count- ing on a year."