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glanced at his watch; he should be able to make it over to thefoundation’s headquarters before it closed for the day, he thought. He didn’t have the courage to tell Dancer to turn left and take him to Shinjuku Station; instead, he just asked her to stop the car up ahead somewhere. But Dancer’s reaction was convulsively severe; she was furious. “Where do you think you’re going? You’re going to run away? You see what shape he’s in, and you want to leave me to take care of him all by myself?”
    Just before the intersection the Pajero came to a stop, horns blasting behind it; the engine had stalled, quaking like a person with something stuck in his throat. Her face downturned, barbs of hatred shooting out in all directions, Dancer struggled to get the car moving again and managed to pull onto the shoulder. Ogi realized with a start that she was crying, her shoulders under her white sweater quivering as she sobbed. Ogi didn’t know what to do, so he just sat tight, as he usually did in cases like this. Then he got out and, more horns blaring at him, eased around to the other side of the car and got in on the driver’s side. Dancer obediently moved over and, sinking back in her seat, covered her face with her lovely fingers, as Ogi started the car and moved into the traffic.
    A mere ten minutes later, though, she had pulled herself together, wiped away her tears, and faced straight ahead. In her usual whispery voice, now a bit husky, she told Ogi the following, the whole thing striking him as a bit overly logical.
When Dancer had made up her mind to leave Asahikawa for Tokyo to pursue dancing, her father introduced her to his good friend Guide, who’d been his classmate in the science department in college. Her father was aware that Guide and Patron had been founders of a religious group but saw no reason to change his opinion that Guide was a trustworthy person. Dancer had seen TV reports on the religious group and was a little anxious, but she also decided to trust Guide and moved to Tokyo. Guide and Patron gave her a room in the office where they lived—albeit an inactive office—and in return she did housework for them. Around the time they started calling her Dancer, her duties smoothly shifted over to also being their personal secretary.
    While she still lived in Hokkaido, Dancer had held her own recital, and a newspaper reporter in Sapporo had written a glowing review of it that had, in fact, been the push she needed to come to Tokyo. When she told the reporter where she was now living, he wrote to tell her that not only had Patron and Guide renounced their church, they had made their whole religious doctrine a laughingstock. They’d sold out to the authorities the radical faction in the church that had moved away from religious to political activities.
    Dancer wasn’t fazed. She didn’t care what philosophy or beliefs the two might have had or what had become of it all; instead, she cherished the warm feelings she had for these two elderly men who welcomed her into their home and allowed her the freedom to do as she pleased. And when she listened to them talk to her about religious matters—either the doctrines they’d renounced or some entirely new ideas; she had no idea which—she found herself drawn to them even more.
    At this point Dancer was still unaware that Patron used to fall into unusual, deep trances. One time Patron fell into a deep melancholy, the first time it had happened since she’d moved into their office, and those few dark days left a lasting impression on her, as did the general relief when this central figure in their lives was finally able to shake free of his melancholy. After this episode, when Patron was excitedly talking with Guide, Dancer overheard what he said as she did some ironing on the divider separating the living and dining rooms.
    “What I just went through,” Patron told Guide, “wasn’t like the trances I used to have. That’s all I’m going to say about