"You really seem to be interested in what moves that group is going to make," Kizu asked. "This meeting that Patron's going to hold is his way of memorializing Guide."
"Patron announced he's starting a new movement," Ikuo said, "so after the service there's no way he can retreat back into the hell he fell into after the Somersault. Not that I understand much about this hell or anything-"
Dancer rejoined them, interrupting Ikuo, who was about to say more.
"Patron says the announcement is fine," she said to Kizu. "He told me once that when he and Guide used to be engrossed in work together they'd invari- ably argue. Guide's task, as you know, was to take from Patron what could not be put into human language and somehow make it understandable, right?
I imagine, Professor, that as you listened to the tape you struggled with the same thing."
"But what I did was different from what Guide used to do," Kizu said, "which must have been an amazingly difficult undertaking. There's a con- text behind the nuances of what Patron says that I can't quite grasp, and I'm afraid I had to content myself with writing the sort of humdrum sentences anybody can come up with."
"I was talking with Ogi about creating a home page on the Internet for our new movement," Ikuo cut in. "People could access that and listen directly to Patron's announcement. What do you think?"
"Please don't get our Innocent Youth involved in all kinds of extrane- ous work," Dancer replied, sidestepping his question. "While he's busy at the hospital and crematorium, I'd like you to take care of the business here that needs to be done. I want to pass this announcement to the media, so I'd like you to input it into the computer."
Ikuo stretched out a long muscular arm to take the loose-leaf pages and began running his eyes over them.
"Patron said it's fine the way it is."
Undeterred by the way Dancer had flared up at him, Ikuo began in- tently working under Kizu's attentive gaze. Did the tension between these two young people have its origin in their conversation during their forced march through the snow the night before? Kizu wondered.
Less than an hour later the front doorbell rang, and since Dancer and Ikuo were engrossed in their work it was left to Kizu, ensconced on the sofa, to answer it. He stepped down onto the concrete floor of the entrance, unlatched the lock Ikuo had fastened, and found Ms. Tachibana and a young woman standing just outside the front door. The snow-covered garden behind them was excessively bright. Backlit by this, the pale young woman was introduced to him by Ms. Tachibana as her friend Ms. Asuka; Ms. Asuka merely nodded her head in greeting. Ms. Tachibana continued.
"There's someone outside the main gate who says he made a TV pro- gram about Patron before the Somersault," she said. "He hasn't seen Patron in fifteen years, and asked if Patron would be willing to meet him."
The three of them went to the office and found Dancer on the phone.
She soon held the receiver out for Ikuo.
"It's Ogi," she told him. "He says a bunch of people showed up at the hospital who are causing trouble. But he doesn't want the hospital to call the police to clear them out."
Ikuo took the receiver and began to talk, and Dancer, in her unaffected way, went over to stand beside Ms. Tachibana and Ms. Asuka, and the three of them went into the kitchen. Ikuo finished his phone call and told Kizu what it was all about.
"As Dancer said, a few members of the former radical faction saw the news on the morning TV show and came to the hospital. Ogi says he doesn't know if they have any connection with the ones who killed Guide, but he doesn't think they're the ones the police are looking for. Since the former radical faction consisted of people hand-picked and trained by Guide, it's only natural, I guess, that some of them would grieve over his death. Anyway, Ogi had them wait in a corner of the hospital waiting room while he was busy taking calls and greeting other visitors. He told them someone from our of- fice would be coming in an hour and asked them to wait at a coffee shop be- tween the hospital and the subway station."
"I'd like the Professor to stay here, so you go alone, Ikuo," Dancer said, sticking her face out from the kitchen; she and the other two women had been doing something in there. "I'll go talk with the TV reporter outside."
Kizu expected Ikuo to object to Dancer's unilateral orders, but he seemed instead to accept them wholeheartedly.
"What about breakfast? Would you like something before you go?"
Ms. Tachibana said, as she too stuck her head out from the kitchen.
Ikuo picked up his down jacket and muffler from the two Windsor chairs in a corner of the office that he and Dancer had used to drape their clothes over the previous night and, unconcerned about whether they were dry or not, prepared to leave.
"I'll pick up something at the McDonald's near the station," Ikuo said.
"I've made up these expense forms, so be sure to sign one before you go,"
Dancer said, holding out the envelope. She hurried to catch up with him and walked outside to talk with the reporter, who was waiting beyond the still snow-covered gate.
After some time, Dancer returned. The TV van to be used in a live re- mote was parked at the large railroad crossing, already cleared of snow, she reported, and they'd discussed how the media crowd was to be handled and the arrangements for the afternoon. The van driver told her about traffic conditions after the snowfall, and Dancer was optimistic that the road from the hospital to the crematorium and then back to headquarters with the re- mains would be passable. Preparations for breakfast were finished. Dancer went again to help Ms. Tachibana and Ms. Asuka and then took Patron's meal and her own into his bedroom study.
Kizu was quite dazzled by these young women's brisk way of work- ing. The meal they laid out on the dining table was a kind of brunch, a word now even used in Japan, and Kizu found himself unexpectedly nostalgic for life in America. Seeing Japanese homestyle meals becoming, in an entirely natural way, so close to ones in America made him realize how long he'd been away from his homeland.
Ms. Asuka, with her round forehead and long thin eyebrows, sat across from Kizu, looking quite aloof. She was adroitly eating ham with a slice of soft-boiled egg on top, and this, too, struck Kizu as part of a new Japanese way of eating. Unexpectedly, she asked him a direct question.
"There'll be TV cameramen at Patron's press conference this afternoon, won't there? If Patron is starting up his movement again, I'd like to record his sermon on video. I mentioned this to Ogi, and he sounded out Patron. I know a press conference and a sermon are different, but when I asked Dancer if I could start filming today for practice, she said I should ask you. "
"I think it would be all right, though I'm sort of feeling my way into this new role," Kizu ventured timidly.
"If Patron is officially launching his new movement, I'd like to bring my brother with me," Ms. Tachibana said.
"I have no idea how Patron plans to develop this new movement. One thing he did say in his announcement was that it's not a reverse Somersault.
And it's clear that he's appealing to new participants like you," Kizu said.
"We're really looking forward to it," Ms. Asuka said calmly, and Ms.
Tachibana nodded in agreement.
"Ikuo and I, too, have decided to follow Patron, but honestly speaking, that's all there is to it. There's no way I could replace Guide."