We were to assemble with our teachers in the auditorium to listen to the radio.
"What really shocked us students was that the Emperor spoke in an entirely human voice, just like ours. This was the era when pictures of the Emperor and Empress hung like pictures of God in the chapel next to the auditorium.
"We learned about Patron and Guide's Somersault, too, through reports in the media-which reminded me of hearing the Emperor on the radio so many years ago.
"For us members of the church, Guide was like someone special selected from congregation. But Patron was different-he was directly connected to God. During the Somersault, though, here was Patron saying that all the mystical things he'd said and done were a joke. It was less like God's son becoming human than finding out he was, from the beginning, just an ordi- nary person. Wasn't this Patron's equivalent of the Emperor's speech, this time not on radio but on TV, with Patron adding all these comical gestures as he renounced his divinity?
"Wanting to understand Patron's Somersault, I took another look at the Emperor's renunciation speech. After the Somersault the young people be- came quite emotional, but I was too old for that. And after giving it a lot of thought I arrived at the following conclusion.
"The Emperor certainly did renounce his divinity then, but for the people of this country, in the hearts of its citizens, he didn't change at all, did he? It's a long story so I'll leave out the details, but what I ended up thinking about Patron is something similar. He announced that he's not directly con- nected with God, and there's not much we can do about that. He'll have to live the rest of his life cut off from God, but that doesn't affect my faith in him, or the faith of my companions. We are still fully prepared to follow him.
"It's been years since I heard his sermons, but it brings back many memories. We heard rumors about how Patron and Guide were living, and it was painful to hear him speak today about the ten years he suffered in hell. How awful this must have been for Patron, alienated from God, shut up day after day with Guide, with whom he still had such strong emotional ties. I can only imagine how ghastly this must have been. And Guide, still fallen in hell, was murdered, unable ever again to help Patron with his vi- sions. How dreadful!
"When I think about it, isn't Patron even now pushed into a corner, suffering every day? Though my image of him is still that of a younger man, I'm so happy he didn't make some frivolous statement in today's sermon about how he'd regained his connection with God. The ever-suffering Patron has returned to us and has put out the call for a new movement. After ten years of suffering, there is no better master of the church to welcome back. Patron is fine just the way he is.
"I've been a little outspoken, I'm afraid, but the fact is, we were all shaken by the Somersault. The thought has even crossed my mind that losing Guide was retribution for our unfaithfulness. But Patron's fall and suffering have made him the perfect leader of our new church-and we mustn't lose him. I am overjoyed to follow Patron's new movement."
A hand bell rang out. The packed auditorium absorbed some of the sound, but with the windows closed the sound fairly snapped in the air. The row of children in front all stood up and in loud spirited voices shouted out, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!"
Urged on by the hand bell, which led the chorus, the children vigor- ously-and without any sound of scraping chairs-sat back down as one.
Leaning with his elbows on the podium and all his weight shifted onto it, Patron raised his head. His lusterless face was exhausted, his eyes teary. Even so, in a hoarse voice he spoke words of encouragement.
"I would like to say this in response to what I've heard. When I fell into hell, my connection with God was severed. This was part of my hell because I did the Somersault. I've lost my connection with God and have nothing to do with visions I might see in trances anymore, but I still find myself burning with a desire to communicate the words from the other side. So where does that leave me? The reason I quoted from the first letter of John was to an- swer this: Dear children, this is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.
"As a sign that the end time is here, antichrists are popping up all over the world, and I am one of them. I am going to be building a new church, and I want you to be clear on this: I'm starting this church as one antichrist among many. Why would you follow a leader, knowing full well he's an antichrist? With the exception of the children, it's because you, too, are all sinners. You're the ones who've destroyed God as the totality of nature and given him an incurable disease. It is for your sake, you who have committed these sins, and for my sake, as one himself who has sinned, that Guide died in such an excruciating, horrible way."
Patron stopped speaking. Kizu picked up now on how Dancer thrust her right arm slightly forward and made a twisting motion with her wrist.
At one end of the row of children one of the older girls, her head raised high to watch Dancer intently, got the signal and rang the hand bell, and the chil- dren all stood as one and shouted out, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!"
After they stopped and had returned to their seats, Patron's voice contin- ued over the faint reverberation. "This parade led by an antichrist will, in the end, reach the path to salvation-because this is a parade of the repentant, and even if I die a death befitting an antichrist, one more horrid even than Guide's, your march must go on. In order that the harvest gained by Guide's death will not be in vain, each one of us must play his part. Hallelujah!"
The hand bell rang out once more, and the children's voices filled the hall like a loud aria. With the exception of the reporters, all the participants joined in: "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!"
In the midst of this chorus, Ogi and Dancer leaped forward to grab the lectern that, together with Patron's upper body leaning so heavily against it, seemed on the verge of tipping over, helped turn him around, and hurried him off to the elevator. Reporters who pushed forward trying to question Patron were met by a line of security guards who formed a human wall.
14: WHY PATRON? AND WHY NOW?
1
An hour after the announcement that the memorial service was over, the partition between the dining hall and the lounge was back in place, the metal folding chairs piled up and stored away. Tables and chairs were re- turned to their original places in the lounge, where a press conference was to take place, the result of objections by representatives of the media. Some re- porters were upset by Patron's absence from the press conference, but most accepted that he was too exhausted to attend. A long table was set up beside the window that looked out on the lawn. The members of Patron's newly announced church sat on one side, and the reporters sat across from them on the other.
Ogi and Dancer appeared first. Ikuo was still directing the security staff even at this press conference and sat off to one side, leaving enough space beside him so he could move if he needed to. One more member of the secu- rity staff was there, a fortyish man named Koga who looked, to Ogi's eyes, a bit of an anachronism with his rigid, possibly military-trained posture. Kizu had heard from Ikuo that this man, with his lively intelligent eyes, had been the only medical doctor at the Izu research center.