"When a huge tree like that burned up, it must have been scarier than if a house was on fire, even if no one perished in the flames," Dancer said, as if she'd been silently mulling over Asa-san's words.
Seen from the north side of the lake, the giant cypress looked like a small bush that had been hit with a flamethrower, the surface of its trunk up to ten or twelve feet completely carbonized, just thick branches like black tusks remaining, with a wet cluster of small green branches sticking out around them. Though Ogi couldn't really picture the tree burning, just looking at the clash between the inky black and dark green made his chest tighten.
"I don't think this was a happy place for someone to live. Do you sup- pose the former diplomat who lived here died in this bed?"
Dancer's face was ashen as she said this. She looked sleepy. Ogi stood up and reached past her shoulder to shut the window. The outline of the chapel to the southeast was vague in the rain, and a darker gray than when seen up close, the whole structure looming up against the backdrop of the foggy forest.
"I know Patron's decided to build a new church here," she said, "but I have no idea what he actually plans to do. You have some idea, though, don't you?"
"I know about as much as you do," Ogi said.
"You're in charge of sorting out all the information coming from the headquarters."
"But I'm not bound to Patron through faith, remember."
"Professor Kizu says the same thing," Dancer said. "But both of you are very important people to him."
"And so are you-for a lot longer time than me."
"Compared to Dr. Koga's group, though, I'm practically a newcomer. I didn't come to be with Patron originally out of any faith. You knew that, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't," Ogi exclaimed, in surprise, ever the innocent youth. "I've never heard that!"
"I suppose only Guide knew the truth. I did tell Professor Kizu and Ikuo about it… but I can say it again…"
As one condition of being allowed to live on her own when she went to Tokyo to study modern dance, Dancer's father made her drop by to see an old friend of his who was to be her guarantor, and then to visit him occasion- ally whenever she needed advice. This friend was a classmate of her father's when they were in the science department at the university, and soon after she arrived in Tokyo, Dancer went to see him. The person turned out to be Guide, who was living in seclusion with Patron after the Somersault.
Dancer had a hard time at first figuring out what sort of person Guide was, but he not only took her under his wing as guarantor and mentor but helped her find a place to live in Tokyo and even guaranteed a small income, having her do odd jobs in the office in their residence in Seijo. They had a woman who made their meals and did other tasks, but she quit after half a year and Dancer took on the job of running the household. Her dance les- sons were just three afternoons a week in Shimokitazawa, so she had no trouble coping with both her studies and her work. After she graduated from her dance program she couldn't find a job in her field, so while she prepared for her own private performances she worked as Patron and Guide's personal secretary. In the beginning, at least, the office work hadn't kept her too busy.
"You started living in that house even though you didn't know the two of them that well?" Ogi asked. "Pretty courageous of you."
"I trusted Guide, since he was my father's friend. I didn't know the first thing about living in Tokyo, but I felt as long as I followed Guide's instructions I'd have nothing to worry about… They hadn't yet built the annex, so the three of us lived in the main house. I stayed in the room by the front entrance that you used for a while. I could lock the door, and there was a window opening to the outside, so I figured if need be I could make a quick getaway."
"You really were on your guard, weren't you?" Ogi commented.
"I wasn't afraid or anything. In addition to the dance club, in high school I was a sprinter and middle-distance runner. Even now I'm a decent runner."
"Don't worry, I'm not about to assault you here," Ogi said, naively offended.
"At first I thought that Guide must be Patron's parole officer, keeping an eye on him. There was something about Patron that just wasn't right. The first time I saw him, he reminded me of freshly unearthed beetle larva. He had skin like yellow paper stretched over soft-looking flesh, his movements were slow and lethargic, and he spoke in a small voice in a kind of disjointed way. It felt like Guide was raising some weird creature, and I was his assis- tant keeper.
"Before long I found out that Patron and Guide were former leaders of a religious organization who'd done a Somersault. In magazines they have those features-right?-like WHERE ARE THEY NOW? stories. A freelance reporter writ- ing one of those came to our place but Guide, if not Patron, saw him coming and refused to open the door, so he ambushed me when I went out shopping.
The reporter hardly let me get a word in edgewise, with all his questions. I just remember, out of a childish sense of justice, believing it was wrong of the founder and his top executive to have abandoned their followers.
"I worried a lot about what they'd done, and late one night I went to Guide to ask him about it. I think I was afraid to ask Patron directly. I was still young and kind of unstable, emotionally. Guide fdled me in. I'm sure he's told you things about Patron too, and as you know he doesn't talk about something until he's come to a conclusion about it himself. Talking to an ig- norant young thing like me was like pruning off all the branches, laying bare the trunk. Guide told me that Patron has mystical experiences… in other words, he journeys to the other side, talks directly with God or else has a vision from God, and then returns.
'"And I try to put these visions into intelligible language,' he said, 'not an easy job. Our reports regarding these mystical experiences have become our church's gospel. It's been through this process that we've constructed our faith.
'"The church movement that developed in this way gradually started to look outward, toward the world outside, and when this became a major component of what we were, Patron began to have doubts about whether our gospel was really giving people a true picture of God's visions. What's more, at this point some of the young people in the church began preparing to take action, and we had to stop them. It became necessary for us to publicly announce, in as dramatic a fashion as possible, that our gospel was wrong.
That is when we performed our Somersault. Using TV to announce it proved a great success. Through the Somersault, our church and the beliefs of our followers became a national laughingstock. All those who viewed the broad- cast must have had a good laugh. Patron and I survived, living on as we had, not without some pain. I'm sure you've sensed this?'
"Guide opened his heart to me when he told me this," Dancer concluded.
"I decided, no matter what, I wanted to follow Patron, and for the first time I realized I was starting to believe in him."
4
When Ogi woke up in the middle of the night, the first thought that came to him was the naive notion that hell must be as pitch black as this. An utterly gentle, quiet hell. Not completely without sound, though, for the lake and the hills were still enveloped in rain, but it was weaker than before. At first Ogi thought his bed was narrow, but when he stretched out it supported his back nicely and made him feel secure. As he lay on this wooden box and listened to the rain, it was as if the rain had cut off all his surroundings and was slicing through his body and into an abyss below his bed.