"The best way to answer is, once again, to begin by talking about Guide.
When I asked him to take on the job of Prophet, I didn't have a clear sense of myself as Savior. It was only after I forced him into the role of Prophet that he began to see my trances as mystical experiences and convinced me that I could use them to lead him and other people.
"Ever since I was a certain age I knew I couldn't avoid having these experiences. Over time they jolted me out of the everyday. Every time I had a mystical experience I suffered and was worn out, though afterward I felt totally energized. After I returned to this side, I was driven to tell people what I'd seen over there. Before Guide was with me I experimented with all sorts of ways to do this, but no one took me seriously, except for the predictions I made after I reluctantly starting earning a living as a fortune-teller.
"Soon I'd fall into depression again and begin to regret the stupid things I was doing. As I became more and more depressed, I had a premonition that when I hit bottom I'd be thrust into another mystical experience. So I real- ized depression wasn't going to make me kill myself.
"I was repeating this cycle over and over when I first met Guide. A true man of science, no doubt he was eager to uncover this fortune-teller as a fraud.
But the scene I saw in the trance portrayed-quite accurately, it turned out- his wife and autistic son.
"Since he was a scientist, Guide placed a high value on the scientific method and believed the only valid theory was one that grew out of this. He studied my trances with great inquisitiveness and soon experienced one of my deep trances. He made a distinction between the two kinds and concentrated on the more intense ones, with their visions I couldn't comprehend yet couldn't let slip away.
"Guide wasn't the kind of person to be satisfied with a halfhearted re- sponse, so I felt cornered and for the first time got serious about these visions myself. He took care of me when I had my trances, and I did my best to tell him the visions that remained like echoes in my mind. As if I had no other choice, I talked for about an hour, and gradually the roles of speaker and lis- tener were reversed. He connected the fragments of my vision and began talk- ing to me, convincing me that yes, indeed, what he was saying was what I saw in my trance.
"Since he could describe what I saw in my visions, I began to rely on him more and more. I would fall into one of these painful trances and have a vision, and during its aftereffects, when my psyche was still half destroyed, I'd blurt out some nonsense. He helped me link up the person I became in moments like that with the person I was after I'd recovered. I felt I could pull together the shattered personality I'd believed to be lost for over a decade.
"As I said a while ago, right after my trances I was always worked up.
I had to tell people what I'd seen. I knew what I said was mostly nonsense, but I just had to say something. And then I'd deeply regret having spoken and become depressed. Still, through that process I couldn't deny the mystical experiences I had. It was all so unspeakably painful.
"The difference now was that after I awoke from a trance and recov- ered from the unsettled emotional state that always followed, I had a patient listener who would put my scattered words in order. He gave meaning to the disaster that had ruined half my life, and through his help I discovered a new whole sense of self. What he made whole was me, the Savior, whether false or genuine. That was how it began."
Patron's monologue came to a halt. A long but not unnatural silence descended on them. With all other sounds absorbed by the falling snow, the sound of the gate outside being pushed open suddenly rang out loud and clear.
Dancer came into the living room, surrounded by the cold iron smell of the snow she'd brushed off at the entrance. Silently, she looked reprovingly at Patron and, ignoring Kizu, walked over to the armchair.
"I'll talk with you after you've gone to your room," she said, nimbly getting Patron up.
Kizu watched her propel Patron into his bedroom study, a clump of snow clinging to her skirt. Ikuo, coming in a moment later, plopped down without a word in the chair facing away from the dining room, the one at a right angle to the sofa. The scent Kizu sniffed out from his large body was the metallic smell of snow Dancer had brought with her, overlaid with sweat.
Ikuo held Kizu's questioning gaze and nodded gravely, his expression show- ing small signs both of a deep exhaustion and a renewed vigor.
"I see… He's gone. That is really a shame," was all Kizu could mus- ter. "So the two of you walked back all the way in the snow?"
"The train was stopped at Kyodo so we walked from there. Dancer's done so much serious training she barely broke a sweat. Ogi stayed at the hospital to deal with the police and make funeral arrangements. The news- papers seem to have caught wind of it, and reporters have been snooping around the night reception desk. I thought it would be a pain to have phone calls coming in here so I switched the office phone over to fax when we left- which is why we couldn't call you-and came back instead. Dancer in par- ticular wanted to report directly to Patron."
Dancer had led Patron into the back, as if scolding a child for staying up too late, but now no voices could be heard. Kizu fixed his gaze on the carved vine-covered clock on the wall, which hung next to the watercolor he'd pre- sented to Patron. It was already past three.
"When people die… even if it's from illness, it's a terrible thing," Ikuo said. "Guide may have been brain dead, just an object, but when I saw him sweep aside his IV tube and sit up halfway in bed to vomit, trying not to soil his bed, I knew this wasn't just some inanimate thing."
They suddenly noticed that Dancer had come out from Patron's room and was standing at the corner of the dining room, looking down at Kizu and Ikuo.
"Patron told me again that he wants you to be Guide," she said to Kizu.
3
The next morning dawned clear, not a cloud in the sky. Over a foot of snow piled up in the branches and treetops, and the trees in the garden leaned over at anarchic angles. The line of potted wild plants looked like deep-dish pot pies. The layer of snow covering the ground twinkled in dead silence. The morning was still early. Kizu and Ikuo had slept in the annex, and Kizu left Ikuo there, deep in the enduring sleep of a healthy young man, and went over to the main house. Dancer was already up, planted in the chair that Ogi nor- mally used, hard at work. When she saw Kizu she reported that last night she'd recorded Patron's statement on the death of Guide. She was letting Patron sleep in and was getting things ready for what was likely to prove a busy afternoon.
The small lamp on her desk just illuminated the documents on top of it, and in contrast to the bright snow coming from the north and south sides of the garden, in this darkly shadowed interior Dancer's face looked pale and swollen. Her nostalgic little-girl-with-a-cold face at the same time showed the pain of one who's been abandoned. Kizu wondered when Patron was planning to visit the hospital and how they planned to get there if the snow prevented them from taking the car.
"Patron isn't going to the hospital," Dancer replied. "Point-blank, with- out any emotion, he said there was no need, now that Guide has passed away."
"But he will have to bid farewell to the body, won't he? Is Ogi going to bring the body back here?"
"We've made an appointment at the crematorium; Ogi will take care of everything. We'll just wait for the ashes to be brought back here. In the afternoon we'll be inundated with reporters, and Patron plans to hold a press conference. We'll all be pretty busy. Ms. Tachibana will be bringing one of her colleagues but will have to wait until the trains are running again."