Ikuo still didn't give up trying to speak directly to Patron. "I was still basically a child," he said, "when I saw the whole Somersault affair on TV.
Your announcement seemed like one more in a long string of jokes. This was right after Chernobyl, and I remember being upset, thinking it was absolutely insane to intentionally try to cause an accident like that. But I was also agi- tated by the thought that God had told the radical faction to Do it."
"If it was really God telling the radical faction to act, they wouldn't have collapsed so easily," Dancer said, not giving Patron a chance to respond. "With the information that Patron and Guide gave the authorities at the time of their Somersault, the radical faction's shock troops were arrested on their way to the nuclear power facility at Mount Fuji and their intentions for the plant came to light; the authorities, though, downplayed the scale of what they were plan- ning. Once power was brought to bear on the situation, in other words, the whole thing was treated as a farce. Guide told me that since it would have been too much for the government to admit the existence of a sophisticated plan to blow up nuclear power plants, they treated it as a crude, childish idea as a way of defusing any concerns the public might have. And what was par- ticularly effective in this effort to downplay and mock the plans-as you are well aware, Ikuo--was Patron and Guide's Somersault, that comical TV performance."
As Ogi saw it, Ikuo's question to Patron was at the heart of what really concerned the young man. He didn't think Patron, having undertaken this short trip to the cottage, could very well refuse to answer, nor could he un- derstand why Dancer insisted so strongly on blocking Patron's reply. Ogi was just about to summon up his courage and tell Dancer to let them hear what Patron had to say when the phone rang.
The phone was in the dining room, next to the spacious living room with its fireplace; to keep the heat in during the winter the glass door between the two rooms was kept closed. The ringing startled them. It was not yet 9 P.M., but all the surrounding houses were shut up and the silence of the high plain was more like the middle of the night. Ogi stood up to answer the phone and noticed that Patron looked particularly tense.
The caller wasn't unexpected-Ms. Tachibana, who was taking care of things back at the office-but what she had to say was. Several former mem- bers of the church were scheduled to visit Guide that evening, and he'd told Ms. Tachibana not to prepare any meal for them but to just serve tea; if they showed up after she went home she should lay out the tea things before leav- ing. He also told her that if Dancer called on their way to Nasu Plateau, Ms. Tachibana wasn't to say anything about Guide's having visitors.
The visitors didn't come while Ms. Tachibana was at the office, so she went ahead and followed the recipes Dancer left her and made dinner for Guide, whose diet had been restricted ever since he fell ill. After arranging the dinner on the dining table, Ms. Tachibana left to return to the college town where her brother was waiting in their apartment. Around eight o'clock she began to worry about the visitors and phoned the annex to tell Guide to leave the dirty cups and dishes for her to wash later, but there was no response. She called the office in the main building, but still no answer. She was so worried she thought she would go back to Seijo, despite the late hour.
Ogi hesitated to report what Ms. Tachibana had told him where Patron could overhear it. Patron-pressed to respond to Ikuo-was still excited in a cold, melancholy way. He didn't ask Ogi about the call but was obviously preoccupied with some unfortunate things that could happen, or might have already happened, to Guide. Patron watched silently as Ikuo rearranged the remaining logs in the fireplace.
It was impossible now to continue their discussion, so Ogi just waited for another phone call as Dancer gave Patron some sleeping pills and tranquilizers and went with him to his bedroom. Ikuo was dissatisfied, of course, at having to cut their conversation short, but since Patron had not fully recovered from his physical and emotional exhaustion, there was nothing they could do.
Dancer had her hands full taking care of Patron, so it was left to Ogi to get Ikuo's bedding ready in the second-floor bedroom. The heat of the fire- place didn't reach this room, and it was as cold as Tokyo in the middle of the winter. "You'll be fine if you use an electric blanket," Ogi told him, but Ikuo still seemed preoccupied after his discussion with Patron had fallen apart, and a bit suspicious of Ogi's practical advice.
Ogi went downstairs, banked the fire with ashes, and was getting his own futon ready on the floor when Dancer appeared and asked him to wake up Ikuo. Patron insisted on continuing his earlier talk with Ikuo in his bed- room, and wouldn't hear otherwise.
Dancer obviously wasn't too happy about it but did as Patron asked.
While they waited for Ikuo to dress and join them downstairs in front of the fireplace, she whispered to Ogi, "Patron was trying to get to sleep, but he seems upset, not just about Guide but about painful memories that our earlier talk brought to mind. He said tonight he wanted to finish talking about all the things he was going to say to Ikuo.
"I told him the medicine was going to take effect and tried to persuade him to wait until tomorrow morning. If Ikuo looks like he's going to start debating him, please caution him not to, okay? I'll be right beside you."
'Are you planning to censor his questions and give answers in Patron's place?" Ikuo asked, entering the room in time to hear Dancer's last words.
The fire had burned down to embers and the only light was that filter- ing in from the dining room; Ikuo's face was darkly flushed and his rough reaction was enough to make Dancer wince.
"Well, then, would you go with him instead of me, Ogi?" Dancer asked, in an edgy, teary voice. "If he doesn't find Patron's answers to his liking and starts to get violent, there's nothing I'd be able to do. I'll wait by the phone."
Ogi led Ikuo into the master bedroom. The room was large, Western style, with a high bed that Ogi's mother had said was just like one she'd seen in a photo of an American farmhouse in an interior design magazine. Both the overhead lights and the nightstand lamp were turned off. In the glow of an electric space heater set up at the foot of the bed, the two young men could make out an old chest of drawers but no chairs for them to sit on. They had to stand looking down at Patron, whose head was resting on the high pillows, and couldn't even tell if his eyes were open. Ogi thought optimistically that he was asleep, but he wasn't. Soon, eyes closed, he began to speak, his words to Ikuo quite thoughtful.
"Professor Kizu told me in his letter that he was surprised when he heard you say that you heard the voice of God when you were a teenager, that ever since then you've been waiting to hear God's voice again, and that right now you want me to act as intermediary so the voice of God will speak to you again."
Patron's voice was different from his earlier eloquent sermonizing tone; his tone was unclear, his tongue slurred, the words seemingly pushed up from deep inside his throat. Ogi was favorably impressed, though, that despite his poor physical and emotional state and his worries over Guide, Patron was bent on fulfilling his promise to Ikuo. On the same wavelength, Ikuo responded in an entirely natural tone of voice.