"It was my job to help Mr. Schmidt out of his clothes and bathe him.
But on my way there I spied a long, solid-looking poker leaning up against the high side of the fireplace.
"At the same instant, I remembered the voice I'd heard two years be- fore, a voice from outside of me insisting, Do it! Why had I forgotten that up till now? At the time I heard that voice I lacked the courage to carry out to the bitter end what it badgered me to do, and I tried to escape.
"But I knew it was okay now, I remembered it clearly. I wouldn't for- get. There was no need to hurry. Just take your time and carry it out. I left the poker in front of the fireplace where I could reach it in the dark and set off for the bathroom, passing the glum-looking young man on his way out.
"One of the questions I was asked by those professors at the Viennese hospital was whether or not I'd soiled my pants when I hit Mr. Schmidt on the back of the head with the poker. The Austrian professor who'd lived in the United States a long time was the one who asked me this, and seeing that I hesitated to answer, the other professor, the Japanese one, translated the ques- tion into Japanese. His face was red, whether from anger or embarrassment I don't know, but he made sure I understood that by soiling my pants I was being asked not whether I'd lost control of my bowels but whether I'd ejaculated.
"The two adults standing there together asking me this looked to me like a pair of fools. I felt this way because I was filled with that high-voltage electricity, something I now know is connected to the spiritual, and I was cunning enough to take them by surprise with my response. I managed an answer that took the wind out of their sails and made them look silly to boot.
'"Since Mr. Schmidt didn't have his hand inside my pants when I clubbed him,' I said, 'no-I didn't soil my underwear.'
"I said this directly in English, and it was the Austrian professor's turn to blush."
3
"I undressed Mr. Schmidt and carried him to the bathtub-no big deal, considering how I was built at sixteen-helped him control his limbs as he bathed, dressed him in a gown, and carried him to the bedroom. I helped him change into pajamas. Then, as I hung up his dressing gown in the closet I took the belt and tied it around my head like a Japanese hachimakj, something I'd never done before. I went back to the darkened sitting room and picked up the poker, which was three feet long, longer than the one I'd used before.
"I shook my head to clear it of the excess electricity buzzing around inside and awaited the sound of that voice. Do it! Could I hear it? My head buzzed even more, like the echo of a far-off memory. Do it, do it! I rubbed my sweaty palm against the hachimakj, adjusted my grip on the poker, and went into the bedroom.
"I wasn't sure, but I thought that maybe if I started to do it the buzzing would stop, and everything would become that one voice I'd heard before.
But as I swung the poker I wasn't listening. The next time I thought about that voice was when the two professors were quizzing me. Since this time I really had done it, I felt like I'd become that voice. At the same time, though, I suppressed the thought that maybe I hadn't actually heard anything at all.
"Years passed, and I was in my third year in the university architecture department. In order to graduate I had to either present my own original design or write a thesis on an existing structure. I never had any problems with math or architecture theory, but when I arrived at this stage I realized I didn't know the first thing about critiquing buildings.
"I racked my brain, trying to understand why I was basically empty inside, when the events of Salzburg and Vienna popped into my head-not the murder itself so much as the way I lied to the doctors in the hospital and how they bought it so easily. Little by little, I felt this was canceling out the incident that had preceded it.
"Glibly lying day after day had turned me into a poor little youth, a vic- tim of sexual harassment who had lashed out in self-defense. Setting myself up as a passive child who normally would not have done what he did, I was let off the hook legally. But to arrive at this point I had to set aside everything I'd experi- enced up till then, meager as it was. Helped along by the adults, who were try- ing to make everything consistent, I fit myself right into the ad hoc mold they'd created. And that's how I've lived ever since. Now I have to bring forth what is uniquely mine. But is it any wonder I'm stifled, unable to do anything?
"Once I realized this, it bothered me that I wasn't able to screw up my courage and face things head-on. And each time I felt about to do that I couldn't help but be conscious of what it was that was holding me back.
"When I was fourteen I'd heard it loud and clear, no mistake about it, a voice urging me to act; the same voice had me commit murder at sixteen. But this deception I'd pulled in Vienna made me lose sight of the source of that voice. When I started to think about it, I understood that it wasn't at four- teen that I first heard that voice, but as an infant. This was a voice I knew before I was even born.
"I used this as an opportunity to drop out of college. I gave my profes- sors and parents some hackneyed yet honest excuse that there were things I needed to do in order to recover. What I needed to recover though, was that voice, one more time.
"Wandering all over Japan, putting everything I had into a search for the source of that voice, I ended up getting nowhere. But during this long journey I happened to meet you, Professor. I knew right away that you were the illustrator of The Book of Jonah for children. I'd read that book before I was fourteen. I was entranced by Jonah's features and his hair, but it wasn't just that he was handsome. At fourteen and sixteen I convinced myself that I was like Jonah, hearing a voice telling me to act.
"One other thing connected with my meeting you I find very signifi- cant-the fact that after I started modeling for you we began a homosexual relationship. After the affair with Mr. Schmidt I never did that sort of thing again. It's quite extraordinary to run across a person like you, Professor, someone willing to spend the rest of his life so that eventually I can do what it is I want to do, even though I haven't revealed to you what that is.
"Other things sprang out of our relationship too. You helped me recall the way I'd crushed that plastic city model I'd made as a child. I was able to remember how even at that time I'd heard that voice. And I could meet up again with one other player in this incident-Dancer-and through her a path opened up that led me straight to Patron.
"Patron is important to me because his trances put him face-to-face with God. He didn't willfully open up this pipeline to God. This relationship appears when he falls into a trance that's more like a horrible attack. And Patron was driven to shut off that pipeline to God himself.
"Patron announced that the visions of the other side he'd so long trans- mitted were all just a prank. I think it's true what they say of him, that he made a fool of God. But he still continued to suffer, so much that his inner spiritual wounds became physical ones. Guide was tortured to death by his former comrades, but Patron continues to suffer, with no relief in sight.
"As long as I follow Patron, I know that someday that voice-the one I answered only vaguely, the mere memory of which made me do something totally irreversible and from which, afterward, I ran away as fast as I could- will come to me again.
"Patron has moved to this region now in order to start a new church movement, and his followers have prepared buildings, waiting with bated breath for his next move. I was fortunate enough to come here with you, Pro- fessor. Knowing that your cancer is back, you've chosen this as your place to die. And something has taken place to reinforce the truth of that idea.