"Actually I've been thinking for a while about the scope of our group- I should add that not everyone's here today-and I thought it might be com- pared to that clump of leaves out there. Today we have this unseasonable snow, but the buds have already started to come out, haven't they, on the oaks and zelkovas? Not long ago they were just dark trunks-even the tips of the thin- nest branches looked old and withered-and it made me feel sorry, thinking that when trees get big every part of them ages.

"Once a tree starts budding, though, it takes off with such energy that the whole tree is revitalized, not just the branches but even down to the trunk.

It makes me think about whether our little group has the vigor of those buds sprouting out on the oak tree. Just to make sure, I counted them, and discov- ered there are about forty buds on every three feet of branch, which really brings home to me how small our group is. Even when the Savior's church was at its peak, if you compare it to the buds, it was made up of fewer mem- bers than the number of buds on that single oak tree. And our group is just one very small branch.

"I'm afraid I've strayed off the topic, as I often do, but as we've talked in our small group, this is how we think about what happened after the Som- ersault: Though the Savior and Prophet survived, they descended into hell.

The Prophet either stayed in hell or was killed just as he was crawling out- either way, it's a great tragedy. My husband was a classmate in medical school of the man who adopted him as an infant, so I've heard things about him from that source too. What a cruel, painiul thing to have happened… "The Savior and the Prophet fell into hell, and that was where they atoned. I can only imagine how incredibly painful it was for both of them to suffer such disgrace for ten years. When you look back on something once it's over, one's life seems to have passed by in an instant, though of course it all depends on the quality of that particular time. Having spent the last ten years living together with all of you, I feel that quite strongly.

"What do you say? How about talking to these gentlemen about our past ten years? The weekly magazines have treated us like eccentrics aban- doned by Savior and Prophet. But we have our own thoughts about life here.

Why don't we share something of them. Anybody? Ms. Takada, how about you?"

Kizu glanced around at the women listening to the old lady and came across one whose unusual features riveted his attention. Her face had a ter- rible scar, as if maybe when she was a baby she'd been slashed with a hatchet from one ear down to her cheek. More than the scar, though, one of her eyes was completely covered over by a smooth layer of skin. She looked around thirty, and as she'd been listening to the old lady speak she didn't make any attempt to hide the side of her face with the skin-covered eye. This was the Ms. Takada the old lady had named. The woman responded right away, turn- ing unflinchingly to face Kizu and the others.

"It's only natural that I felt a pain in my heart when the Savior and the Prophet did their Somersault, but in my case physically I couldn't deal with the pain; I vomited every day. Some people were concerned I was having morning sickness, though that was impossible.

"Over and over I'd go to sleep and dream that the Somersault never took place and feel relieved, only to awaken to the awful truth. This happened day after day. At first I felt as if the Savior had betrayed me. It was like being covered with ants that were biting me, but I'd been anesthetized and couldn't feel anything. But I could sense that the anesthesia would wear off and sud- denly I'd be hit by this enormous pain, which led to my vomiting all the time.

"Never once, in all my life, have I run across a person as kind as Savior was, and that's why I felt betrayed. After I joined the church, many people were kind to me, but Patron's kindness-I'm sure all of you would agree- was on a whole other level.

"This happened after my unhappy marriage broke up, soon after I re- nounced the world. The church had a house in Yokohama in a brand-new subdivision-remember?-on a high piece of land, from which you could see the ocean. A lot of times I'd gaze out absently at the ocean from the big window on the second floor where we had a meeting room. There was a large horse chestnut tree outside, too. One day Savior, who happened to be staying there, was sitting beside that big window when he called me over and told me to come closer and look deep into his eyes. He was sitting in his usual arm- chair where he liked to read, beside the window. So I knelt down in front of him and gazed into his eyes. It was the time of year when the horse chestnut's leaves were still soft, a fine clear morning when I was left in charge of clean- ing and answering the phones while everyone else was out working.

"I was afraid he was going to make a pass at me. But he said it so casu- ally I couldn't resist, and though I was wary, I went ahead and knelt in front of him. He told me to look once inside his eyes, and what I saw was this: my own face, beautiful, completely unscarred. The face of a young woman, her eyes wide open in surprise.

"Next he told me to smile, since then I'd see my own face smiling. I tried to smile, but I was so happy I burst into tears. My eyes were so full of tears I couldn't see a thing, and the thought occurred to me that since my face was reflected in his eyes like that, unscarred, that was exactly how he saw me.

"He'd encouraged me so much that when he did his Somersault and said everything he'd done and said was a joke, I couldn't accept it. He looked totally insincere when he was talking in front of the TV cameras, which may have been the way the camera caught him, but the words were defi- nitely his.

"The way he acted ridiculed us, trampled down our desire for salva- tion and all the efforts we'd made to reach it. We were suffering and unhappy and needed salvation more than anything, yet he was laughing in our faces.

On top of that, the whole world was laughing at this silly Savior and Prophet who were ridiculing their followers, which made me feel as if we were being doubly mocked. I think we all felt that way, angry at what had happened. We kept the faith, though, and felt we had to settle the score with those apostates.

Some people even gave sermons advocating revenge."

3

"I was probably angrier than anyone else, but I still couldn't forget how the Savior had used his own eyes as a mirror to show me my real face. Every time I remembered that, new rage would well up within me. Was what he'd said just a bad joke?

"As time passed, though, I calmed down, and began to think that the Somersault might have been a childish prank, without any malice behind it.

I realized how I'd been moved by him and how happy that made me. And I became convinced that the beautiful face I saw reflected in the Savior's eyes was my real face, the one my soul possessed before I was born, so I was able to forgive him and think of him with fondness. That's how I was able to keep my faith during these ten years of living together with all of you."

When Ms. Takada finished speaking, her companions surrounded her with an empathetic silence. The wife of the owner of the greenhouses, her upper body stiff, pushed up her glasses with a small calloused palm to wipe away the tears. Her husband shot her a look of rebuke and turned away. After her tears were over, the woman-as if it was her wont to speak up despite the patriarchal authority over her-cleared her throat with a little cough and broke the circle of silence.

"He wasn't hypnotizing you when you saw your beautiful face with two eyes. You were seeing your real face!"

The farm owner inclined his head, which reminded Kizu of the profile of General Nogi on playing cards he used as a child, and poked his wife's shoulder. She twisted away to avoid his hand and continued unhesitatingly.