The music played for Part One of the Spirit Festival was captivating, with its exaggerated changes of rhythm, but there'd been some capricious disparities that Morio, with his sensitive ears, couldn't stand. (During Part One of the Spirit Festival, innocent young Ogi, too, had heard the music loud and clear as he and Mrs. Tsugane were trysting deep in the forest.) Ever since the incident, two days ago, Morio had been upset and didn't seem able to re- cover. Ms. Tachibana said that during Part Two of the Spirit Festival she was going to make him lie down in Patron's bedroom, ear plugs in place. Right after Part Two was finished. Patron would begin his sermon, but by that time it would be impossible lor them to push their way through the dense crowds to get to their reserved seats.
Even after the rain cleared up it still wasn't very hot, and the evening was pleasant. Just before Part Two of the Spirit Festival was to begin, Asa-san and her husband, the former junior high principal, had planted themselves in the special roped-off seating, where Ms. Tachibana and Morio would normally be, and the principal was explaining to Ogi about the music used in the Spirit Festival. The rhythm was the same you'd find in boat dances in fishing vil- lages along the Shikoku coast and on the islands of the Inland Sea, he said, which lent credence to the legend that the pioneers who settled this land had rebuilt the boats that used to sail down the Maki and Kame rivers to the sea and used them to sail upstream.
Since he'd left the office untended during his afternoon R and R, Ogi was busy until Part Two of the Spirit Festival began. With the Quiet Women using the chapel exclusively after 7 P.M. on this, the last day of the conference, he was inundated with one complaint after another.
The conference participants were planning to enjoy watching Part Two of the Spirit Festival from the seats set up on the path that circled the lake and then listen to Patron's sermon. After that, some of them complained, shouldn't all the believers be given equal access to the chapel for prayer?
Another complaint came from a group that had been lined up in the court- yard, talking and waiting their turn to view the triptych, when the Techni- cians roughly pushed ahead of them.
Ogi also had to listen to one well-intentioned report. When Mr. Matsuo of the Fushoku temple heard that Ogi hadn't seen Part One of the Spirit Festival, he described the whole thing to him from start to finish. Mr. Matsuo was in charge of lending out dolls, costumes, and props to the participants from his own temple and the Mishima Shrine, and he'd observed every detail.
Just as the Fireflies procession had been changed to a course running through the forest surrounding the lake on three sides, the procession in Part One of the Spirit Festival that started at 3 P.M. was also a revised performance.
They took the path the Fireflies had run down from the western heights, cut across the northern slope to arrive at the eastern slope, and then came down the glen to arrive beside the chapel on the western slope. They then passed right in front of the spectators and went up to the dam. Once they'd climbed up to the grandstands, they descended again to the dam and the performance came to a conclusion, the participants disappearing off in the direction of the Mansion.
Those who'd dressed as Spirits were now waiting in the Mansion for Part Two to begin. The Fireflies transporting the good Spirits would, fol- lowing the legend, go clockwise up the forest. And the bad Spirits, again following the legend-since they were ominous souls who had met untimely deaths-would descend in counterclockwise fashion. The Fireflies who would be playing the Spirits had done their homework.
Mr. Matsuo went on to describe each of the Spirits in detail, in particu- lar the one called He Who Destroys, the person who first settled this area, and his woman companion, also a gigantic figure, named Oshikome. And the giant named Shirime-"Butthole Eye," literally-an ostracized figure who, as his named implied, had a single eye looking out from between his buttocks.
These were the Spirits handed down as myths, while the Spirits recorded in history included Meisuke-san, the one who led a peasant rebellion and was executed; a postwar woman in the village named Jin who, because of Okura disease, weighed 300 pounds; then Former Brother Gii; and last New Brother Gii, who founded the Church of the Flaming Green Tree. The papier-mâché dolls this year were particularly well made. The brand-new doll of Guide was especially impressive.
Part Two of the Spirit Festival began at 7 P.M., right after the Quiet Women, ignoring all the protests, locked themselves in the chapel. In the Hollow, the twilight forest was dark, the sky alone painfully bright.
As the procession set off from the Mansion, the rhythm started up that had pained Morio earlier-dan! dan-dan! dan! dan-dan! beat out on gongs and drums of different sizes-and as the musical part of the procession leading the way made its way up to the dam, the flutes, which had been out of sync, played in a lovely unison.
The musicians were dressed in ancient kagura court-musician costumes with headgear-green and yellow, red and silver-and coronets on their heads. Their feet, though, were in canvas shoes, and the faces of the boys looked familiar. When they got to the grandstands they went beside them, lined up in a crescent shape, and continued the performance.
Next, the Spirits came up the dam, each half again larger than life size.
Eye holes and breathing holes were cut out of the chest area of each of the papier-mâché dolls. Clothes were put on over this, and some of the dolls car- ried spears and swords. Mr. Matsuo didn't explain why, but Ogi could guess the stories behind them.
After a while the Spirits, which had appeared at the dam in groups of three, passed in front of the grandstands, each with a unique way of walking that was part of the performance, and came down to the reserved special seat- ing. Western-style boats and Japanese boats used in river fishing had come up beside the highest step, which was submerged in water, leading down from the dam. The Fireflies reached out to steady the boats, as the Spirits climbed aboard, and then got in too, pushed off with poles from the dam, and rowed over to the island. Several bare lightbulbs were lit around the giant cypress, which was surrounded by its wooden frame, but they weren't enough to illu- minate the tree. In the midst of that dim light the Spirits took off their papier- mâché coverings. Using the bamboo ladder, they carried up the papier-mâché and laid it on both sides of the upper and lower levels. The former Spirits, now young men in T-shirts and jeans, returned to the water's edge and were rowed back to the dam.
Now a gloomy pall settled over the events. The music filtering down from above the stands was growing monotonous and lonely and, even worse, boring. Finally, though, a papier-mâché figure of Guide appeared, remark- ably larger than any of the previous dolls, dressed in the clothes of a South- ern European farm woman, and a cheerful stir swept through the onlookers once more. This Spirit, gesticulating in an exaggerated manner, was rowed out alone to the island.
Right after this, a papier-mâché figure of Guide, somewhat smaller than the one on the island, appeared in the grandstands where the musical proces- sion had made its exit. Some of the Fireflies brought a microphone over to where that figure was standing. Another mike had been set up right in front of the papier-mâché figure standing in the middle of the top level of the wooden frame on the island. The Spirit of Guide at the grandstands lifted the microphone up to his chest and stepped forward. He thrust out his chest and the stir among the crowd quieted down.
It was quite an unexpected entrance, but the thousand or so people sur- rounding the Hollow quieted down. This was Patron, dressed up as Guide, about to begin his keynote sermon. Speakers on either side of the stands and on poles on the island carried Patron's voice to his rapt audience.