"If they were just after revenge, why did they wait ten years? And why target Guide instead of Patron, the one really responsible for the Somersault?
Didn't the cruel laughter we heard when Guide refused to let members of the former radical faction participate in Patron's new movement ring with the sound of their despair?
"I beg of you, Patron. Please give the people who killed Guide-who felt driven into a corner, full of despair, and who never intended to kill him- a chance to repent. Only one person can do that: you."
Ikuo stood up, walked over to Patron, and knelt before him. He spoke in a sorrowful, youthful voice.
"Patron, please. Tell me and those people what God says. No matter what it is, tell us what God really wants. I've talked with them, and I know they're hoping for the same thing I am."
Ogi watched as Patron reached out a hand, as if to lay it on Ikuo's head or shoulder, but halted in midair. In this noncommittal stance, Patron spoke to Ikuo.
"In order to do that, I first have to regain the power to hear God's voice.
And without Guide's help! Only if I'm able to do that will I be able to trans- mit anything of any consequence. At present all I can do is seek to have all the members of the former radical faction, the ones you were in touch with at the time of the memorial service, join our church here in its new home. And to have this communicated to them. I think Dr. Koga would agree with this."
Ikuo looked moved by Patron's words, but Dancer was indignant. Be- fore either of them could say anything, though, Kizu spoke up.
"Patron, among this group you're thinking of having join the movement are the people who held Guide prisoner and tortured him, the ones who made him collapse and die. The main two perpetrators are in custody, but the ones who surrounded them and Guide didn't lift a finger to stop it, did they? I find what Dancer says very convincing."
"I want even the two who are in jail to return to the church as soon as they're released," Patron said. "That's what I hope for. Isn't it precisely be- cause they're the ones who killed Guide that they must return to us?" Patron opened his dark eyes wide, looking even more like a bird as he fixed them on Kizu.
"Guide didn't deserve what they did to him. The power of the state is judging their guilt on one level, and revealed in the light of the new church we are creating, they are covered in the vile and abominable sin of their actions.
But we couldn't be happier, could we, if, as these souls lift their faces from the dark abyss, the light reflected in their eyes is the light of our church?"
Patron stood up and bid the kneeling Ikuo to stand up as well. Ogi watched with a softened heart as Patron grew calm and gentle as he turned to Dancer. As everyone else rose, the woman named Satchan, widow of the founder of the church that had arisen here only to disappear, addressed Patron.
"I feel I understand what you mean when you keep saying you've been in hell for the last decade," she said. "I think about how wonderful it would be if my husband, who created the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, could have returned once more-as you have done. Ever since our church broke up, a handful of friends and I have kept running the Farm, and since most of the land and equipment has been dormant it would make me very happy if you could find a use for it."
Patron didn't respond aloud, but he bowed his head respectfully to her.
Morio, though, who had been sitting beside Ms. Tachibana and paying close attention to the conversation, walked over to stand between Patron and Satchan and began applauding, as enthusiastically as if applauding a violin soloist and her piano accompanist on an outstanding performance. That sound, with its gentle feeling of oneness, washed over everyone and rever- berated throughout the chapel.
20: THE QUIET WOMEN
1
After the meeting, Kizu was still worried about how the people of Maki Town would receive the church members. When he went to the teachers' office of the junior high school to consult with them about the art school he wanted to open, he couldn't help but raise these concerns after the prelimi- nary pleasantries were over.
"It's strange for me to try to speak objectively about this, since I'm one of those who moved here with the new church, but I'm quite surprised at how readily the townspeople have accepted the idea of our followers-including the former so-called radical faction-coming here. I would have anticipated a stubborn conservative opposition, but everyone seems quite flexible."
The junior high art teacher was cautiously silent, but Asa-san, who'd accompanied Kizu, spoke up confidently.
"The people here don't have the generosity to debate with those who oppose them in order to arrive at a compromise. But don't you find the same thing happening in cities? The reason the town authorities and the group op- posing you have basically consented is because Ogi was so efficient in passing around a list of names and explaining about the people who'll be coming here.
If I'm correct, there'll be one men's group and one women's group. The men's group is the one you speak of. There are twenty-five people altogether, and though it's true they're members of the former radical faction, its core will be a level-headed group led by Dr. Koga. Dancer said that after Guide's death the more proactive group washed its hands of the church and wouldn't respond even if Patron invited them to join. The other group coming is a woman's group called the Quiet Women, as I recall. Why would anybody oppose them?
"Even so, after our meeting in the chapel the head of the town council told me that once this initial move is complete he wants to hold on-the-spot inspections. I told him in no uncertain terms that inspections would violate human rights. Just yesterday in the Old Town, the antichurch faction pasted up new handbills and announced excitedly how they'd won a victory by ex- cluding the more extreme elements in the church from moving in, but that they mustn't let down their guard."
Kizu questioned Ikuo once more about this and was told that with Patron's lenient policy they expected a variety of people to join them. But when they sent out inquiries, many people turned them down.
"Maybe this is a good-sized group to start out with," Kizu said, encour- aging the depressed Ikuo. "Even if it stays small, it's important to have the more moderate people involved."
"The local authorities say they want to keep a watch over any radical elements in the church," Ikuo said, "but I'm more worried about the oppo- site-that now we've finally started to get things rolling the church will turn into an old ladies' club."
Ikuo's sarcastic remarks may have been a bit exaggerated, but they weren't unfounded. Though they might be hiding some militant attitudes, the first former radical members that were coming were, it was fair to say, a group that was completely into repentance at the end of the world. Rather than theoretical researchers, they were made up of the older experimental scientists who, even at the Izu Research Institute, had dubbed themselves the Technicians.
As for the old ladies' club, as Ikuo called them, actually he wasn't too far off the mark. It was made up of about half of the women Kizu had visited in their commune along the Odakyu Line, and though they had lived together with their children there, only the women would be moving to this new loca- tion. When he heard that the women would be occupying the monastery that surrounded the inner garden, Kizu had naively assumed that this was a tem- porary arrangement until the children joined them. But that wasn't the case.
Kizu had a chance to talk directly with the women in the church's new office, set up in the annex to the chapel, built outside the cylindrical building itself but separate from the monastery. That afternoon, after he'd finished having an early lunch in the cafeteria-which they'd constructed by tearing down the walls between three smaller rooms-Kizu popped his head into the office, expecting to find Ikuo but finding Ogi and Dancer instead, welcom- ing some women Kizu remembered seeing before.