Gnostic heretical beliefs arose about the nature of the soul and the body, as well as heretical opinions about angels.
"Now that I think of it," Mrs. Shigeno said, "it does make sense for people like Patron and Guide, who basically have a syncretic view of religion, to be interested in the letter to the Ephesians. Patron can insist that Morio marked these spots in the dark, but that Bible was the one Guide was con- stantly reading, so I suspect these pages, ones he came back to over and over, naturally fell open. I have a feeling Patron senses that too, which is why he places such emphasis on them."
Ogi merely listened in silence, but Dancer voiced her opinion in no uncertain terms.
"Unless I have some time to read these passages carefully and digest them," she said, "Ogi and Ikuo are going to be miles ahead of me. Still, I feel energized somehow, knowing that Patron is taking positive steps to rebuild the church. No matter what, I've decided to follow him, but I am a little worried about how we're going to build the church in this new setting. I'm really happy, though, that the day is approaching when he'll reveal our fu- ture plan of action."
"If that turns out to be the day you find true faith, it'll be a happy day indeed," Mrs. Shigeno said. "The first happy event of Patron's Church of the New Man."
After Mrs. Shigeno left the office, Dancer turned to Ogi.
"Mrs. Shigeno is shrewd enough to see that my working in the office here and following Patron like some groupie doesn't add up to real faith. She might look like some sweet old lady, but don't let looks deceive you-with all the struggles she's weathered before she became a member of Patron's church, and after his Somersault-there's a lot more to her than meets the eye."
Mrs. Shigeno had rather casually used the term Church of the New Man, and Dancer and Ogi soon realized that she'd wanted to test their reaction to the name, already the Quiet Women's expression of choice.
With this pronouncement of Patron's, the meetings of the Quiet Women began to take on a different character. They'd always allowed the Techni- cians and the Young Fireflies to participate freely and join in their prayers, but now they limited attendance to their own members. Still, Ikuo and Morio and Ms. Tachibana, who was close to the Quiet Women, were also permitted to attend.
The rainy season had once again set in when Ms. Tachibana showed up in the chilly dim office to report on one of the meetings. At the morning prayer meeting, she said, Mrs. Shigeno had repeatedly used the term Church of the New Man in her sermon. Ms. Tachibana was unclear whether this was a new idea Patron was pushing or was something limited to the Quiet Women; at any rate, she took copious notes.
First, she reported, Mrs. Shigeno read aloud one of the passages from Ephesians that Patron had discovered with Morio's help: "Is this way Christ's purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
"As a member of the Church of the New Man," Mrs. Shigeno had said, "I've begun to see this passage in a new light. It's so simple I don't need to interpret it, but it's saying that on the cross Christ created a new man out of the two. In building his Church of the New Man, Patron must be consider- ing the cross as the place where he is heading too. Now that the end of the age is approaching, he has decided to take up his own cross. That's the idea he's building on, the cornerstone of his new church. He will mount the cross as an antichrist and in so doing will show us how to confront the end of the world. After his Somersault-a trying time for all of us-Patron de- scended into hell and returned to move forward. Now it's up to us to define the roles we should play in the new church and move forward ourselves.
Hallelujah!"
Ms. Tachibana's thin-skinned oval face had lost its luster, as if she were suddenly preoccupied by some gloomy thought. She didn't put her thoughts directly into words but circled around what really bothered her.
"Mrs. Shigeno also told Morio she'd like Ikuo to perform his composi- tion, and he did. Morio and I were quite moved. But afterward, during prayer time, Mai was sitting right beside me and I couldn't concentrate. I was con- cerned about all the talk about the children we'd left behind when we moved here joining us during the summer conference… I worked for many years at a girls' school affiliated with a university, which might account for how I feel when I think of the children like Mai I saw at Guide's memorial service.
I can't help but fear that something terrible is going to happen. Will the chil- dren get caught up in some disaster? I have no idea what kind of disaster, but all the same I worry about it."
Ms. Tachibana looked at Dancer and Ogi, her normally pale cheeks turning a livid rose red with her violent emotions; she said nothing more and abruptly left the office.
Dancer tried to go back to her work, but she was too upset to continue.
Before long she turned to Ogi, himself unable to concentrate, and said angrily, "Ogi, don't you think Ms. Tachibana contradicted herself? She said she was moved by Morio's music after Mrs. Shigeno's sermon, the theme of which is the ascension to heaven at the end of the world. Yet she saw the children's participation in this heavenly ascent as unhappy, as being caught up in a disaster."
"How is that unnatural?" Ogi replied. "Even if what she says seems contradictory, if somebody sees children getting caught up in mass suicide as a disaster, to me that's a healthy attitude. Though she never put it in such bald terms. People like Ms. Tachibana have their feet on the ground. If things ever get out of hand, you can count on her to put a halt to it."
"You really think Ms. Tachibana would stand up like that?" Dancer asked. "Morio might be mentally handicapped, a child, really, but he's already quite grown up. He wouldn't get involved in anything dangerous connected with the children. Mrs. Shigeno is certainly a sophisticated woman, but don't underestimate Ms. Tachibana and Morio-they're more complex than meets the eye. Personally, on an emotional level I can't relate to either Mrs. Shigeno or Ms. Tachibana. So until Patron defines the role of the Church of the New Man, at least while you're in this office I'll thank you not to use such careless terms as mass suicide. "
3
The next day that the rain let up, the temperature, rising since morn- ing, had such energy to it that the soft leaves of the oaks and camellias- pruned under the direction of the former junior high school principal-wilted in the sunlight.
That day Ogi led a group around the chapel and the monastery. The group consisted of local sake and pickle makers, as well as an environmen- tal group organized to protect the confluence of the Kame and Maki rivers.
The group also included the editor of a local magazine produced in Tokyo- a woman who was writing a piece on the former residences of a Meiji literary figure-as well as the editor of a magazine in Ehime.
Dancer took care of all the arrangements through the town hall, part of her plan to forge a good relationship with the next generation of civic lead- ers, the pro-growth faction. Many activities the church was involved in had helped lessen the suspicions of the townspeople: the fact that the church did not proselytize locally, the starting up of production at the Farm again after a long period of dormancy, the leadership role the church was taking with the Young Fireflies, and, most of all, Dr. Koga's medical practice. None of this escaped Dancer's attention.