"Somersault" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oe Kenzaburo)

1: A HUNDRED YEARS

1

Young Ogi's new acquaintances had recently dubbed him the Innocent Youth, an appellation he didn't really mind, seeing that these people, except for the young girl, were nearly his father's age. The girl, he knew at a glance, was far less innocent than himself. Ogi recalled reading about the two elderly men-Patron and Guide, as they were called-in the newspaper some ten years before; they were central characters in a scandalous religious incident they called a Somersault. From Ogi's perspective, then, they were not only participants in an episode from the past but also men still in the prime of life- though reports of the incident a decade before had portrayed them as getting on in years.

The two men's unusual names came about in the following way. At the time of the incident, when the two severed their ties with the religious organization they led, The New York Times had substituted these playful names, and the two men decided to adopt them. Later on, they created a similarly playful name for the young girl who assisted them in their life together, christening her Dancer.

When Ogi first found out that the two men had maintained a strict silence in the years following the incident, he was deeply impressed. Other than the minimum connections needed to survive, they'd lived in total isolation from the outside world. Ogi was further amazed at Patron's enormous energy, despite the fact that he was the older of the two and wasn't so physically robust. Patron spent his days tucked away from society yet in high spirits, as if surrounded by matters of the utmost urgency. But Ogi had also caught a glimpse of the deep depression to which he was prone.

For his part, Guide was always calm and self-possessed and was clearly, even to an outsider, Patron's valued companion. When the two of them con- versed they reminded Ogi, straining to come up with an appropriate metaphor from his limited reading, of Kanzan and Jittoku, the legendary Tang dynasty monks. Peeking in on their amiable chats, Ogi inevitably found Dancer already with them, and after dealing with the two men became part of his regular job, he saw something unnatural, even irritating, in the way the girl related to these two elderly men. All these emotions vanished, how- ever, when Dancer revealed to Ogi her mother's dream that her daughter study education at the university in Asahikawa where her father taught science and become a middle school or high school teacher in Hokkaido. If I'd listened to her, Dancer told him, my life would have been very different. I never would have experienced the fulfilling days I've spent with these two men, who are, in every sense of the words, my true Patron-in the sense of teacher-and Guide. Ogi had to agree with her assessment. There was in- deed something special in the relationship between this young woman and the two older men.

Employing another youthful metaphor gleaned from his scanty read- ing experience, Ogi saw these two men in their fifties as a pair of grizzled sailors pulling into port after a grand ocean voyage. The image was prosaic, yet it had a sense of reality, despite the fact that placid, chubby little Patron and tall, muscular, hawk-profiled Guide wouldn't strike anyone as fellow sailors on a ship. Once this metaphor came to mind, though, Ogi tried it out on Dancer. Her reply left him flustered.

"Patron and Guide haven't yet made landfall but are still in the midst of a gigantic storm," Dancer replied. "In the not-too-distant future, as the waves and wind build up higher, even you will begin to see the gale and the down- pour. Until then, I suggest you find a safe harbor where you can take shelter."

"What about you?" Ogi asked.

"I'll hitch my star to the captain and the chief navigator," the girl said, nearly whispering, her mouth slightly open, her moist pink tongue visible.

Despite what this physical description might imply, there was a simple reason why Ogi did not at first feel entirely comfortable with Dancer. Granted she had a unique personality and was young and pretty enough to attract most young men. Viewed from a different angle, her habit of antagonizing him might very well be part of her charm.

Her voice and the way she spoke, as if she were whispering secrets, were alluring, her slim, lithe body right up next to you, as if she wanted to hold you close and start dancing. That intimate voice, though, was rarely restrained from adding some sharp, critical comment.

For innocent young Ogi, the combination of Dancer's whispery way of speaking and the way her mouth always seemed half open-which oddly enough didn't make her come across as dull; indeed, it appeared to him merely as a punctuation mark in an otherwise intelligent and alert expression-wasn't something he could view dispassionately.