Killing Commendatore

Prologue

Today when I awoke from a nap the faceless man was there before me. He was seated on the chair across from the sofa I’d been sleeping on, staring straight at me with a pair of imaginary eyes in a face that wasn’t.

The man was tall, and he was dressed the same as when I had seen him last. His face-that-wasn’t-a-face was half hidden by a wide-brimmed black hat, and he had on a long, equally dark coat.

“I came here so you could draw my portrait,” the faceless man said, after he’d made sure I was fully awake. His voice was low, toneless, flat. “You promised you would. You remember?”

“Yes, I remember. But I couldn’t draw it then because I didn’t have any paper,” I said. My voice, too, was toneless and flat. “So to make up for it I gave you a little penguin charm.”

“Yes, I brought it with me,” he said, and held out his right hand. In his hand—which was extremely long—he held a small plastic penguin, the kind you often see attached to a cell phone strap as a good-luck charm. He dropped it on top of the glass coffee table, where it landed with a small clunk.

“I’m returning this. You probably need it. This little penguin will be the charm that should protect those you love. In exchange, I want you to draw my portrait.”

I was perplexed. “I get it, but I’ve never drawn a portrait of a person without a face.”

My throat was parched.

“From what I hear, you’re an outstanding portrait artist. And there’s a first time for everything,” the faceless man said. And then he laughed. At least, I think he did. That laugh-like voice was like the empty sound of wind blowing up from deep inside a cavern.

He took off the hat that hid half of his face. Where the face should have been, there was nothing, just the slow whirl of a fog.

I stood up and retrieved a sketchbook and a soft pencil from my studio. I sat back down on the sofa, ready to draw a portrait of the man with no face. But I had no idea where to begin, or how to get started. There was only a void, and how are you supposed to give form to something that does not exist? And the milky fog that surrounded the void was continually changing shape.

“You’d better hurry,” the faceless man said. “I can’t stay here for long.”

My heart was beating dully inside my chest. I didn’t have much time. I had to hurry. But my fingers holding the pencil just hung there in midair, immobilized. It was as though everything from my wrist down into my hand were numb. There were several people I had to protect, and all I was able to do was draw pictures. Even so, there was no way I could draw him. I stared at the whirling fog. “I’m sorry, but your time’s up,” the man without a face said a little while later. From his faceless mouth, he let out a deep breath, like pale fog hovering over a river.

“Please wait. If you give me just a little more time—”

The man put his black hat back on, once again hiding half of his face. “One day I’ll visit you again. Maybe by then you’ll be able to draw me. Until then, I’ll keep this penguin charm.”

Then he vanished. Like a mist suddenly blown away by a freshening breeze, he vanished into thin air. All that remained was the unoccupied chair and the glass table. The penguin charm was gone from the tabletop.

It all seemed like a short dream. But I knew very well that it wasn’t. If this was a dream, then the world I’m living in itself must all be a dream.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to draw a portrait of nothingness. Just like another artist was able to complete a painting titled Killing Commendatore. But to do so I would need time to get to that point. I would have to have time on my side.

¹ IF THE SURFACE IS FOGGED UP

From May until early the following year, I lived on top of a mountain near the entrance to a narrow valley. Deep in the valley it rained constantly in the summer, but outside the valley it was usually sunny. This was due to the southwest wind that blew off the ocean. Moist clouds carried by the wind entered the valley, bringing rain as they made their way up the slopes. The house was built right on the boundary line, so often it would be sunny out in front while heavy rain fell in back. At first I found this disconcerting, but as I got used to it, it came to seem natural.

Low patches of clouds hung over the surrounding mountains. When the wind blew, these cloud fragments, like some wandering spirits from the past, drifted uncertainly along the surface of the mountains, as if in search of lost memories. The pure white rain, like fine snow, silently swirled around on the wind. Since the wind rarely let up, I could even get by in the summer without air conditioning.

The house itself was old and small, but the garden in back was spacious. Left to its own devices it was a riot of tall green weeds, and a family of cats made its home there. When a gardener came over to trim the grass, the cat family moved elsewhere. I imagine they felt too exposed. The family consisted of a striped mother cat and her three kittens. The mother was thin, with a stern look about her, as if life had dealt her a bad hand.

The house was on top of the mountain, and when I went out on the terrace and faced southwest, I could catch a glimpse of the ocean through the woods. From there the ocean was the size of water in a washbowl, a minuscule sliver of the huge Pacific. A real estate agent I know told me that even if you can see a tiny portion of the ocean like I could here, it made all the difference in the price of the land. Not that I cared about an ocean view. From far off, that slice of ocean was nothing more than a dull lump of lead. Why people insisted on having an ocean view was beyond me. I much preferred gazing at the surrounding mountains. The mountains on the opposite side of the valley were in constant flux, transforming with the seasons and the weather, and I never grew tired of these changes.

Back then my wife and I had dissolved our marriage, the divorce papers all signed and sealed, but afterward things happened and we ended up making a go of marriage one more time.

I can’t explain it. The cause and effect of how this all came about eluded even those of us directly involved, but if I were to sum it up in a word, it would come down to some overly trite phrase like “we reconciled.” Though the nine-month gap before the second time we married (between the dissolution of our first marriage and the beginning of our second marriage, in other words) stood there, a mouth agape like some deep canal carved out of an isthmus.

Nine months—I had no idea if this was a long period or a short period for a separation. Looking back on it later, it sometimes seemed as though it lasted forever, but then again it passed by in an instant. My impression changed depending on the day. When people photograph an object, they often put a pack of cigarettes next to it to give the viewer a sense of the object’s actual size, but the pack of cigarettes next to the images in my memory expanded and contracted, depending on my mood at the time. Like the objects and events in constant flux, or perhaps in opposition to them, what should have been a fixed yardstick inside the framework of my memory seemed instead to be in perpetual motion.

Not to imply that all my memories were haphazard, expanding and contracting at will. My life was basically placid, well adjusted, and, for the most part, rational. But those nine months were different, a period of inexplicable chaos and confusion. In all senses of the word that period was the exception, a time unlike any other in my life, as though I were a swimmer in the middle of a calm sea caught up in a mysterious whirlpool that came out of nowhere.

That may be the reason why, when I think back on that time (as you guessed, these events took place some years ago), the importance, perspective, and connections between events sometimes fluctuate, and if I take my eyes off them even for a second, the sequence I apply to them is quickly supplanted by something different. Still, here I want to do my utmost, as far as I can, to set down a systematic, logical account. Maybe it will be a wasted effort, but even so I want to cling tightly to the hypothetical yardstick I’ve managed to fashion. Like a helpless swimmer who snatches at a scrap of wood that floats his way.

When I moved into that house, the first thing I did was buy a cheap used car. I’d basically driven my previous car into the ground and had to scrap it, so I needed to get a new one. In a suburban town, especially living alone on top of a mountain, a car was a must in order to go shopping. I went to a used Toyota dealership outside Odawara and found a great deal on a Corolla station wagon. The salesman called it powder blue, though it reminded me more of a sick person’s pale complexion. It had only twenty-two thousand miles on it, but the car had been in an accident at one point so they’d drastically reduced the sticker price. I took it for a test drive, and the brakes and tires seemed good. Since I didn’t plan to drive it on the highway much, I figured it would do fine.

Masahiko Amada was the one who rented the house to me. We’d been in the same class back in art school. He was two years older, and was one of the few people I got along well with, so even after we finished college we’d occasionally get together. After we graduated he gave up on being an artist and worked for an ad agency as a graphic designer. When he heard that my wife and I had split up, and that I’d left home and had nowhere to stay, he told me the house his father owned was vacant and asked if I’d like to stay there as a kind of caretaker. His father was Tomohiko Amada, a famous painter of Japanese-style paintings. His father’s house (which had a painting studio) was in the mountains outside Odawara, and after the death of his wife he’d lived there comfortably by himself for about ten years. Recently, though, he’d been diagnosed with dementia, and had been put in a high-end nursing home in Izu Kogen. As a result, the house had been empty for several months.

“It’s up all by itself on top of a mountain, definitely not the most convenient location, but it’s a quiet place. That I guarantee for sure,” Masahiko said. “The perfect environment for painting. No distractions whatsoever.”

The rent was nominal.

“If the house is vacant, it’ll fall apart, and I’m worried about break-ins and fires. Just having someone there all the time will be a load off my mind. I know you wouldn’t feel comfortable not paying any rent, so I’ll make it cheap, on one condition: that I might have to ask you to leave on short notice.”

Fine by me. Everything I owned would fit in the trunk of a small car, and if he ever asked me to clear out, I could be gone the following day.

I moved into the house in early May, right after the Golden Week holidays. The house was a one-story, Western-style home, more like a cozy cottage, but certainly big enough for one person living alone. It was on top of a midsized mountain, surrounded by woods, and even Masahiko wasn’t sure how far the lot extended. There were large pine trees in the back garden, with thick branches that spread out in all directions. Here and there you’d find stepping stones, and there was a splendid banana plant next to a Japanese stone lantern.

Masahiko was right about it being a quiet place. But looking back on it now, I can’t say that there were “no distractions whatsoever.”

During the eight months after I broke up with my wife and lived in this valley, I slept with two other women, both of whom were married. One was younger than me, the other older. Both were students in the art class I taught.

When I sensed that the timing was right, I invited them to sleep with me (something I would normally never do, since I’m fairly timid and not at all used to that sort of thing). And they didn’t turn me down. I’m not sure why, but I had few qualms about asking them to sleep with me, and it seemed to make perfect sense at the time. I felt hardly a twinge of guilt at inviting my students to have sex with me. It seemed as ordinary as asking somebody you passed on the street for the time.

The first woman I slept with was in her late twenties. She was tall with large, dark eyes, a trim waist, and small breasts. A wide forehead, beautiful straight hair, her ears on the large side for her build. Maybe not exactly a beauty, but with such distinctive features that if you were an artist you’d want to draw her. (Actually I am an artist, so I did sketch her a number of times.) She had no children. Her husband taught history at a private high school, and he beat her. Unable to lash out at school, he took his frustrations out at home. He was careful to avoid her face, but when she was naked I saw all the bruises and scars. She hated me to see them and when she took off her clothes, she insisted on turning off the lights.

She had almost no interest in sex. Her vagina was never wet and penetration was painful for her. I made sure there was plenty of foreplay, and we used lubricant gel, but nothing made it better. The pain was terrible, and it wouldn’t stop. Sometimes she even screamed in agony.

Even so, she wanted to have sex with me. Or at least she wasn’t averse to it. Why, I wonder? Maybe she wanted to feel pain. Or was seeking the absence of pleasure. Or perhaps she was after some sort of self-punishment. People seek all kinds of things in their lives. There was one thing, though, that she wasn’t looking for. And that was intimacy.

She didn’t want to come to my house, or have me come to hers, so to have sex we always drove in my car to a love hotel near the shore. We’d meet up in the large parking lot of a chain restaurant, get to the hotel a little after one p.m., and leave before three. She always wore a large pair of sunglasses, even when it was cloudy or raining. One time, though, she didn’t show up, and she missed art class too. That was the end of our short, uneventful affair. We slept together four, maybe five times.

The other married woman I had an affair with had a happy home life. At least it didn’t seem like her family life was lacking anything. She was forty-one then (as I recall), five years older than me. She was petite, with an attractive face, and she was always well dressed. She practiced yoga every other day at a gym and had a flat, toned stomach. She drove a red Mini Cooper, a new car she’d just purchased, and on sunny days I could spot it from a distance, glinting in the sun. She had two daughters, both of whom attended a pricey private school in upscale Shonan, which the woman was a graduate of too. Her husband ran some sort of company, but I never asked her what kind of firm it was. (Naturally I didn’t want to know.)

I have no idea why she didn’t flatly turn down my brazen sexual overtures. Maybe at the time I had some special magnetism about me that pulled in her spirit as if (so to speak) it were a scrap of iron. Or maybe it had nothing to do with spirit or magnetism, and she’d simply been needing physical satisfaction outside marriage and I just happened to be the closest man around.

Whatever it was, I seemed able to provide it, openly, naturally, and she commenced sleeping with me without hesitation. The physical aspect of our relationship (not that there was any other aspect) went smoothly. We performed the act in an honest, pure way, the purity almost reaching the level of the abstract. It took me by surprise when I suddenly realized this, in the midst of our affair.

But at some point she must have come to her senses, since one gloomy early-winter morning, she called me and said, “I think we shouldn’t meet anymore. There’s no future in it.” Or something to that effect. She sounded like she was reading from a script.

And she was absolutely right. Not only was there no future in our relationship, there was no real basis for it, no there there.

Back when I was in art school I mainly painted abstracts. Abstract art is a hard thing to define, since it covers such a wide range of works. I’m not sure how to explain the form and subject matter, but I guess my definition would be “paintings that are nonfigurative images, done in an unrestrained, free manner.” I won a few awards at small exhibitions, and was even featured in some art magazines. Some of my instructors and friends praised my work and encouraged me. Not that anyone pinned his hopes on my future, but I do think I had a fair amount of talent as an artist. Most of my oil paintings were done on very large canvases and required a lot of paint, so they were expensive to create. Needless to say, the possibility of laudable people appearing, ready to purchase an unknown artist’s massive painting to hang on the wall at their home, was pretty close to zero.

Since it was impossible to make a living painting what I wanted, once I graduated, I started taking commissions for portraits to make ends meet. Paintings of so-called pillars of society—presidents of companies, influential members of various institutes, Diet members, prominent figures in various locales (there were some differences in the width of these “pillars”), all painted in a figurative way. They were looking for a realistic, dignified, staid style, totally utilitarian types of paintings to be hung on the wall in a reception area or a company president’s office. In other words, my job compelled me to paint paintings that ran totally counter to my artistic aims. I could add that I did it reluctantly, and that still wouldn’t amount to any artistic arrogance on my part.

There was a small company in Yotsuya that specialized in portrait commissions, and through an introduction by one of my art school teachers, I signed an exclusive contract with them. I wasn’t paid a fixed salary, but if I turned out enough portraits, I made plenty for a young, single man to live on. It was a modest lifestyle—I was able to rent a small apartment alongside the Seibu Kokubunji railway line, usually managed to afford three meals a day, would buy a bottle of inexpensive wine from time to time, and went out on the occasional date to see a movie. Several years went by, and I decided that I’d focus on portrait painting for a fixed period, and then, once I’d made enough to live on for a while, I’d return to the kind of paintings I really wanted to do. Portraits were just meant to pay the rent. I never planned to paint them forever.

But once I got into it, I discovered that painting typical portraits was a pretty easy job. When I was in college I’d worked part-time for a moving company, and at a convenience store, and compared to those jobs, painting portraits was, physically and emotionally, much less of a strain. Once I got the hang of it, it was just a matter of repeating the same process again and again. Before long, I was able to finish a portrait quickly. Like flying a plane on autopilot.

After I’d been rather indifferently doing this work for about a year, I learned that my portraits were gaining some acclaim. My clients were really satisfied with my work. Obviously, if customers complain about the finished portraits, then not much work will come your way, and your contract with the agency might even get terminated. Conversely, if you have a good reputation, you get more work and your fees go up with each painting. The world of portrait painting is a fairly serious profession. I was still a beginner, but I was getting more and more commissions, and could charge higher fees with each work. The agent in charge of my portfolio was impressed, and some of my clients even glowingly commented that I had a “special touch.”

I couldn’t figure out why the portraits were being received so well. I was less than enthusiastic, just trudging through one assignment after another. Truthfully, I can’t recall the face of a single person whose portrait I painted. Still, as my ultimate goal was to become a serious artist, once I took up my brush and faced a canvas I couldn’t bring myself to paint something completely worthless, no matter what type of painting it was. To do so would tarnish my sense of artistry, and show contempt for the kind of professional I was hoping to be. Even if I painted a portrait that I didn’t love, at least I never felt embarrassed about the work I’d completed. You could call it professional ethics, I suppose. For me, it was just something I felt compelled to do.

One other aspect of my portrait painting was that I insisted on following my own approach. I never used the actual person as a model. When I got a commission I would meet with the client, just the two us, to talk for an hour or so. I wouldn’t do any rough sketches at all. I would ask a lot of questions, and the client would respond. When and where were you born? What kind of family did you grow up in? I asked what kind of childhood they had, what school they attended, what sort of work they did, what kind of family they had now, how they had achieved their present position. Typical questions. I’d ask about their daily life and interests, too. Most people were happy, even enthusiastic, to talk about themselves. (Most likely no one else wanted to hear those things.) Sometimes the hour interview would stretch to two, even three hours. After this I would ask to borrow five or six casual snapshots of the person, just unposed, ordinary snapshots. And occasionally I would use my own small camera and take a few close-ups from different angles. That’s it.

Most clients seemed concerned. “Aren’t I supposed to sit still and pose for the portrait?” they’d ask. From the outset, they were resigned to enduring a long painting process. Artists—even if no one wore those silly berets anymore—were supposed to stand, brush in hand before the canvas, brow furrowed, as the model sat there, trying to sit up straight. Perfectly still. Clients were imagining the kind of scene they’d seen a million times in movies.

Instead of answering, I would ask them, “Do you want to do it that way? Being a painter’s model is hard work if you’re not used to it. You have to hold the same pose for a long time, and it’s boring and your shoulders will really ache. Of course, if that’s how you’d like to do it, I’d be happy to oblige.”

Predictably, ninety-nine percent of my clients declined. Most all of them were busy people with busy lives, or else elderly people who had retired. They all preferred, if possible, to avoid such pointless asceticism.

“Meeting you and talking together is all I need,” I would say, putting them at ease. “Whether I have a live model or not won’t affect the result at all. If you find you’re dissatisfied with the painting, I’ll be happy to do it over again.”

After this I’d spend about two weeks on the portrait (though it would take several months for the paint to fully dry). What I needed was less the actual person in front of me than my vivid memories of that person. (Having the subject present, truth be told, actually interfered with my ability to complete the portrait.) These memories were three-dimensional, and all I had to do was transfer them to canvas. I seem to have been born with that sort of powerful visual memory—a special skill, you might label it—and it was a very effective tool for me as a professional portrait artist.

It was critical to feel a sense of closeness, even just a little, toward the client. That’s why during our initial one-hour meeting I tried so hard to discover, as much as I could, some aspects of the client that I could respond to. Naturally, this was easier with some people than with others. There were some I’d never want to have a personal relationship with. But as a visitor who was with them for only a short time, in a set place, it wasn’t that hard to find one or two appealing qualities. Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within. My job was to uncover this and, if the surface is fogged up (which was more often the case), polish it with a cloth to make it shine again. Otherwise the darker side would naturally reveal itself in the portrait.

So, before I knew it, I had become an artist who specialized in portraits. And I became fairly known within this particular, rather narrow field. When I got married, I ended my exclusive contract with the company in Yotsuya, became independent, and—through an agency specializing in the art business—received individual commissions to do portraits for even higher fees. The agent in charge, a capable, ambitious person, was ten years older than me. He encouraged me to be independent and take my work even more seriously. After that point, I painted portraits of numerous people (mostly in the financial and political worlds, celebrities in some cases, though I’d never heard of most of them) and made a decent income. Not that I became a great authority in the field or anything. The world of portraiture is totally different from that of the artistic art world. And different from photography too. There are a lot of photographers specializing in portraits who are held in high esteem and whose names are well known, but you don’t find that with portrait artists. Very seldom is one of our works seen in the world at large. They aren’t featured in art magazines or hung in galleries. Instead they’re hung in reception areas somewhere, forgotten, gathering dust. If anyone happens to look at those paintings carefully (someone with time on his hands), they still aren’t about to ask about the artist’s name.

Occasionally I’ve thought of myself as a high-priced artistic prostitute. I use all the techniques at my disposal, as conscientiously as I can, in order to satisfy my client. I possess that sort of talent. I’m a professional, but that said, it doesn’t mean I mechanically follow a set procedure. I do put a certain amount of feeling into my work. My fees aren’t cheap, but my clients all pay without any complaints. The sort of people I take on as clients aren’t the kind to worry about price. People learned of my skill through word of mouth, and I had an unending line of clients, my appointment book always jam-packed. But inside me I felt no desire whatsoever. Not a shred.

I hadn’t become that sort of artist, or that type of person, because I’d wanted to. Carried along by circumstances, I’d given up doing paintings for myself. I’d married and needed to make a stable income, but that wasn’t the only reason. Honestly, I’d already lost the desire to paint for myself. I might have been using marriage as an excuse. I wasn’t young anymore, and something—like a flame burning inside me—was steadily fading away. The feeling of that flame warming me from within was receding ever further.

I should have washed my hands of that person I’d become. I should have stood up and done something about it. But I kept putting it off. And before I got around to it, the one who gave up on it all was my wife. I was thirty-six at the time.

² THEY MIGHT ALL GO TO THE MOON

“I am very sorry, but I don’t think I can live with you anymore,” my wife said in a quiet voice. Then she was silent for a long while.

This announcement took me by complete surprise. It was so unexpected I didn’t know how to respond, and I waited for her to go on. What she’d say next wasn’t going to be very upbeat—I was certain about that—but waiting for her to continue was the most I could manage.

We were seated across from each other at the kitchen table. A Sunday afternoon in the middle of March. Our sixth wedding anniversary was the middle of the following month. A cold rain had been falling since morning. The first thing I did when I heard her news was turn toward the window and check out the rain. It was a quiet, gentle rain, with hardly any wind. Still, it was the kind of rain that carried with it a chill that slowly but surely seeped into the skin. Cold like this meant that spring was still a long ways off. The orangish Tokyo Tower was visible through the misty rain. The sky was bereft of birds. All of them must have quietly sought shelter.

“I don’t want you to ask me why. Can you do that?” my wife asked.

I shook my head slightly. Neither yes nor no. I had no idea what to say, and just reflexively shook my head.

She had on a thin, light purple sweater with a wide neckline. The soft strap of her white camisole was visible beside her collarbone. It looked like some special kind of pasta used in some specific recipe.

Finally, I was able to speak. “I do have one question, though,” I said, gazing blankly at that strap. My voice was stiff, dry, and flat.

“I’ll answer, if I can.”

“Is this my fault?”

She thought this over. Then, like someone who has been underwater for a long time, she finally broke through to the surface and took a deep, slow breath.

“Not directly, no.”

“Not directly?”

“I don’t think so.”

I considered the subtle tone of her voice. Like checking the weight of an egg in my palm. “Meaning that I am, indirectly?”

She didn’t answer.

“A few days ago, just before dawn, I had a dream,” she said instead. “A very realistic dream, the kind where you can’t distinguish between what is real and what’s in your mind. And when I woke up that’s what I thought. I was certain of it, I mean. That I can’t live with you anymore.”

“What kind of dream was it?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that here.”

“Because dreams are personal?”

“I suppose.”

“Was I in the dream?” I asked.

“No, you weren’t. So in that sense, too, it’s not your fault.”

Just to make sure I got it all, I summarized what she’d just said. When I don’t know what to say I have a habit of summarizing. (A habit that, obviously, can be really irritating.)

“So, a few days ago you had a very realistic dream. And when you woke up you were certain you can’t live with me anymore. But you can’t tell me what the dream was about, since dreams are personal. Did I get that right?”

She nodded. “Yes. That’s about the size of it.”

“But that doesn’t explain a thing.”

She rested her hands on the tabletop, staring down at the inside of her coffee cup, as if an oracle was floating there and she was deciphering the message. From the look in her eyes the words must have been very symbolic and ambiguous.

My wife puts great stock in dreams. She often makes decisions based on dreams she had, or changes her decisions accordingly. But no matter how crucial you think dreams can be, you can’t just reduce six years of marriage to nothing because of one vivid dream, no matter how memorable.

“The dream was just a trigger, that’s all,” she said, as if reading my mind. “Having that dream made lots of things clear for me.”

“If you pull a trigger, a bullet will come out.”

“Excuse me?”

“A trigger is a critical part of a gun. ‘Just a trigger’ isn’t the right expression.”

She stared at me silently, as if she couldn’t understand what I was getting at. I don’t blame her. I couldn’t understand it myself.

“Are you seeing someone else?” I asked.

She nodded.

“And you’re sleeping with him?”

“Yes, and I feel bad about it.”

Maybe I should have asked her who it was, and when it had started. But I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think about those things. So I gazed again outside the window at the falling rain. Why hadn’t I noticed all this before?

“This was just one element among many,” my wife said.

I looked around the room. I’d lived there a long time, and it should have been familiar, but it had now transformed into a scene from a remote, strange land.

Just one element?

What does that mean, just one? I gave it some thought. She was having sex with some man other than me. But that was “just one element.” Then what were all the others?

“I’ll move out in a few days,” my wife said. “So you don’t need to do anything. I’m responsible, so I should be the one who leaves.”

“You already decided where you’re going to go?”

She didn’t answer, but seemed to have already decided on a place. She must have made all kinds of preparations before bringing this up with me. When I realized this, I felt helpless, as if I’d lost my footing in the darkness. Things had been steadily moving forward, and I’d been totally oblivious.

“I’ll get the divorce procedures going as quickly as I can,” my wife said, “and I’d like you to be responsive. I’m being selfish, I know.”

I turned from the rain and gazed at her. And once again it struck me. We’d lived under the same roof for six years, yet I knew next to nothing about this woman. In the same way that people stare up at the sky to see the moon every night, yet understand next to nothing about it.

“I have one request,” I ventured. “If you’ll grant me this, I’ll do whatever you say. And I’ll sign the divorce papers.”

“What is it?”

“That I’m the one who leaves here. And I do it today. I’d like you to stay behind.”

“Today?” she asked, surprised.

“The sooner the better, right?”

She thought it over. “If that’s what you want,” she said.

“It is, and that’s all I want.”

Those were my honest feelings. As long as I wasn’t left behind alone in this wretched, cruel place, in the cold March rain, I didn’t care what happened.

“And I’ll take the car with me. Are you okay with that?”

I really didn’t need to ask. The car was an old, stick-shift model a friend of mine had let me have for next to nothing back before I got married. It had well over sixty thousand miles on it. And besides, my wife didn’t even have a driver’s license.

“I’ll come back later to get my painting materials and clothes and things. Does that work for you?”

“Sure, that’s fine. By ‘later,’ how much later do you mean?”

“I have no idea,” I said. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the future. There was barely any ground left under my feet. Just remaining upright was all I could manage.

“I might not stay here all that long,” my wife said, sounding reluctant.

“Everyone might go to the moon,” I said.

She seemed not to have caught it. “Sorry?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

By seven that evening I’d stuffed my belongings into an oversized gym bag and thrown that into the trunk of my red Peugeot 205. Some changes of clothes, toiletries, a few books and diaries. A simple camping set I had always had for hiking. Sketchbooks and a set of drawing pencils. Other than these few items, I had no idea what else to take. It’s okay, I told myself, if I need anything I can buy it somewhere. While I packed the gym bag and went in and out of the apartment, she was still seated at the kitchen table. The coffee cup was still on top of the table, and she continued to stare inside it…

“I have a request, too,” she said. “Even if we break up like this, can we still be friends?”

I couldn’t grasp what she was trying to say. I’d finished tugging on my shoes, had shouldered the bag, and stood, one hand on the doorknob, to stare at her.

“Be friends?”

“I’d like to meet and talk sometimes. If possible, I mean.”

I still couldn’t understand what she meant. Be friends? Meet and talk sometimes? What would we talk about? It’s like she’d posed a riddle. What could she be trying to convey to me? That she didn’t have any bad feelings toward me? Was that it?

“I’m not sure about that,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything more to say. If I’d stood there a whole week, running this through my head, I doubt I’d have found anything more to add. So I opened the door and stepped outside.

When I left the apartment I hadn’t given any thought to what I was wearing. If I’d had on a bathrobe over pajamas, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Later on, when I looked at myself in a full-length mirror in a restroom at a drive-in, I saw I had on a sweater that I favored while working, a gaudy orange down jacket, jeans, and work boots. And an old knit cap. There were white paint stains here and there on the frayed, green, round-neck sweater. The only new item I had on were the jeans, their bright blue too conspicuous. A random collection of clothes, but not too peculiar. My one regret was not having brought a scarf.

When I pulled the car out from the parking lot underneath the apartment building, the cold March rain was still falling. The Peugeot’s wipers sounded like an old man’s raspy, hoarse cough.

I had no clue where to go, so for a while I drove aimlessly around Tokyo. At the intersection at Nishi Azabu, I drove down Gaien Boulevard toward Aoyama, turned right at Aoyama Sanchome toward Akasaka, and after a few more turns found myself in Yotsuya. I stopped at a gas station and filled up the tank. I had them check the oil and tire pressure for me, and top off the windshield washer fluid. I might be in for a very long trip. For all I knew I might even go all the way to the moon.

I paid with my credit card, and headed down the road again. A rainy Sunday night, not much traffic. I switched on an FM station, but it was all pointless chatter, a cacophony of shrill voices. Sheryl Crow’s first CD was in the CD player, and I listened to the first three songs and then turned it off.

I suddenly realized I was driving down Mejiro Boulevard. It took a while before I could figure out which direction I was going—from Waseda toward Nerima. The silence got to me and I turned on the CD again and listened to Sheryl Crow for a few more songs. And then switched it off again. The silence was too quiet, the music too noisy. Though silence was preferable, a little. The only thing that reached me was the scrape of the worn-out wipers, the endless hiss of the tires on the wet pavement.

In the midst of that silence I imagined my wife in the arms of another man.

I should have picked up on that, at least, a long time ago. So how come I didn’t think of it? We hadn’t had sex for months. Even when I tried to get her to, she’d come up with all kinds of reasons to turn me down. Actually, I think she’d lost interest in having sex for some time before that. But I’d figured it was just a stage. She must be tired from working every day, and wasn’t feeling up to it. But now I knew she was sleeping with another man. When had that started? I searched my memory. Probably four or five months ago, would be my guess. Four or five months ago would make it October or November.

But for the life of me I couldn’t recall what had happened back in October or November. I mean, I could barely recall what had happened yesterday.

I paid attention to the road—so as not to run any red lights, or get too close to the car in front of me—and mentally reviewed what had happened last fall. I thought so hard about it that it felt like the core of my brain was going to overheat. My right hand unconsciously changed gears to adjust to the flow of traffic. My left foot stepped on the clutch in time with this. I’d never been so happy that my car was a stick shift. Besides mulling over my wife’s affair, it gave me something to do to keep my hands and feet busy.

So what had happened back in October or November?

An autumn evening. I’m picturing my wife on a large bed, and some man undressing her. I thought of the straps on her white camisole. And the pink nipples that lay underneath. I didn’t want to visualize all this, but once one image came to me, I couldn’t stop. I sighed, and pulled into the parking lot of a drive-in restaurant. I rolled down the driver’s-side window, took a deep breath of the damp air outside, and slowly got my heart rate back to normal. I stepped out of the car. With my knit cap on but no umbrella I made my way through the fine drizzle and went inside the restaurant. I sat down in a booth in the back.

The restaurant was nearly empty. A waitress came over and I ordered coffee and a ham-and-cheese sandwich. As I drank the coffee I closed my eyes and calmed down. I tried my best to erase the image of my wife and another man in bed. But the vision wouldn’t leave me.

I went to the restroom, gave my hands a good scrub, and checked myself in the mirror over the sink. My eyes looked smaller than usual, and bloodshot, like a woodland animal slowly fading away from famine, gaunt and afraid. I wiped my hands and face with a thick handkerchief, then studied myself in the full-length mirror on the wall. What I saw there was an exhausted thirty-six-year-old man in a shabby, paint-spattered sweater.

As I gazed at my reflection I wondered, Where am I headed? Before that, though, the question was Where have I come to? Where is this place? No, before that even I needed to ask, Who the hell am I?

As I stared at myself in the mirror, I thought about what it would be like to paint my own portrait. Say I were to try, what sort of self would I end up painting? Would I be able to find even a shred of affection for myself? Would I be able to discover even one thing shining within me?

These questions unanswered, I returned to my seat. When I finished my coffee the waitress came over and refilled my cup. I asked her for a paper bag and put the untouched sandwich in it. I should be hungry later on. But right now I didn’t want to eat anything.

I left the drive-in, and drove down the road until I saw the sign for the entrance to the Kan-Etsu Expressway. I decided to get on the highway and head north. I had no idea what lay north, but somehow I got the sense that heading north was better than going south. I wanted to go somewhere cold and clean. More important than north or south, however, was getting away from this city.

I opened the glove compartment and found five or six CDs inside. One of them was a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet by I Musici. My wife liked to listen to it when we went on drives. An unusual setup with a double string quartet, but a beautiful melody. Mendelssohn was only sixteen when he composed the piece. My wife told me this. A child prodigy.

What were you doing when you were sixteen?

I called up the past. When I was sixteen I was crazy over a girl in my class.

Did you go out with her?

No, I barely said a word to her. I just looked at her from a distance. I wasn’t brave enough to speak up. When I went home I used to sketch her. I did quite a few drawings.

So you’ve done the same thing from way back when, my wife said, laughing.

True, I’ve done the same thing from way back when.

True, I’ve done the same thing from way back when, I said, mentally repeating the words I’d spoken to her.

I took the Sheryl Crow CD out of the player and slipped in an MJQ album. Pyramid. I listened to Milt Jackson’s pleasant, bluesy solo as I headed down the highway toward the north. I’d make the occasional stop at a service area, take a long piss, and drink a couple of cups of hot black coffee, but other than that I drove all night. I drove in the slow lane, only speeding up to pass trucks. I didn’t feel sleepy, strangely enough. It felt like I’d never be sleepy again in my whole life. And just before dawn I reached the Japan Sea coast.

In Niigata I turned right and drove north along the coast, from Yamagata to Akita Prefecture, then through Aomori into Hokkaido. I didn’t take any highways, and drove leisurely down back roads. In all senses of the word I was in no hurry. When night came I’d check in to a cheap business hotel or run-down Japanese inn, flop down on the narrow bed, and sleep. Thankfully I can fall asleep right away just about anywhere, in any type of bed.

On the morning of the second day, near Murakami City, I phoned my agent and told him I wouldn’t be able to do any portrait painting for a while. I had a few commissions I was in the middle of, but wasn’t in a place where I could do any work.

“That’s a problem, since you’ve already accepted the commissions,” the agent said, his tone harsh.

I apologized. “There’s nothing I can do about it. Could you tell the clients I got in a car accident or something? There are other artists who could take over, I’m sure.”

My agent was silent for a time. Up till now I’d never missed a deadline. He knew how seriously I took my work.

“Something came up, and I’ll be away from Tokyo for a while. I’m sorry, but in the meantime I can’t do any painting.”

“How long is ‘for a while’?”

I couldn’t answer. I switched off the cell phone, found a nearby river, parked my car on the bridge over it, and tossed that small communication device into the water. I felt sorry toward him, but I had to get him to give up on me. Have him think I’d gone to the moon or something.

In Akita I stopped at a bank, withdrew some cash, and checked my balance. There was still a decent amount in my personal account. Credit card payments were automatically deducted… For the time being I had enough to continue my trip. I wasn’t using that much each day. Gas money, nights in business hotels, that’s about the size of it.

At an outlet store outside Hakodate I purchased a simple tent and a sleeping bag. Hokkaido in early spring was still cold, so I also bought some thermal underwear. Whenever I arrived in a place, I looked for an open campground, set up my tent, and slept there, in order to save money. Hard snow still covered the ground and the nights were cold, but because I’d been spending nights in cramped, stuffy business hotel rooms I felt relieved and free inside the tent. Hard ground below, the endless sky above. Countless stars sparkling in the sky. That and nothing else.

For the next three weeks I wandered all over Hokkaido in my Peugeot. April came, but it looked like the snow wasn’t going to melt anytime soon. Still, the color of the sky visibly changed, and plants began to bud. Whenever I ran across a small town with a hot springs I’d stay in an inn there, enjoy the bath, wash my hair and shave, and have a decent meal. Even so, when I weighed myself I found I’d lost eleven pounds.

I didn’t read any newspapers or watch TV. My car radio had started acting up from the time I arrived in Hokkaido, and soon I couldn’t hear anything on it at all. I had no clue what was happening in the world at large, and didn’t care to know. I stopped once in Tomakomai and did laundry at a laundromat. While I waited for the clothes to finish I went to a nearby barbershop and got a haircut and shave. At the shop I saw the NHK news on TV for the first time in a long while. I say “saw,” but even with my eyes closed I could hear the announcer’s voice, whether I wanted to or not. From start to finish, though, the news had nothing to do with me, like events happening on some other planet. Or else some fake stories somebody had cooked up for the fun of it.

The only news story that hit home was a report on a seventy-three-year-old man in Hokkaido who’d gone mushroom gathering in the mountains and been attacked and killed by a bear. When bears wake from hibernation, the announcer said, they’re hungry and irritable and very dangerous. I slept in my tent sometimes, and when the mood struck me I took walks in the woods, so it wouldn’t have been strange if I were the one who’d been attacked. It just happened to be that old man who got attacked, and not me. But even hearing that news I felt no sympathy for the old man who’d been so cruelly butchered by a bear. No empathy came to me for the pain and fear and shock he must have experienced. I felt more sympathy for the bear. No, “sympathy” isn’t the right word, I thought. It’s more like a feeling of complicity.

Something’s wrong with me, I thought as I stared at myself in the mirror. I said this aloud, in a small voice. It’s like something’s messed up with my brain. Better not get near anyone. For the time being, at least.

Toward the latter half of April I was sick and tired of the cold, so I bid Hokkaido farewell and crossed back over to the mainland. I drove from Aomori to Iwate, from Iwate to Miyagi, along the Pacific coast. The weather got more springlike the farther south I drove. And all the while I thought about my wife. About her, and the anonymous hands caressing her this very moment in bed somewhere. I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

The first time I met my wife was just before I turned thirty. She was three years younger than me. She worked in a small architecture firm in Yotsuya, held a second-level architect certificate, and was a former high school classmate of the girl I was dating at the time. She had straight hair, wore little makeup, and had rather calm-looking features (her personality was not all that calm, but I only understood that later on). My girlfriend and I were on a date and happened to run into her at a restaurant. We were introduced, and I basically fell for her right then and there.

She wasn’t exactly a standout in terms of looks. There wasn’t anything at all wrong with her appearance, but neither was there anything about her that would turn any heads. She had long eyelashes, a thin nose, was on the small side, and her hair, which fell to her shoulder blades, was beautifully styled. (She was very particular about her hair.) On the right side of her full lips was a small mole, which moved in marvelous ways whenever her expression changed. It lent her a slightly sensual air, but again this was only if you paid close attention. Most people would see the girl I was going out with at the time as far more beautiful. But even so, one look was all it took for me to fall for her, like I’d been struck by lightning. Why? I wondered. It took a few weeks for me to figure out the reason. But then it suddenly hit me. She reminded me of my younger sister, who had died. Reminded me very clearly of her.

Not that they looked alike on the outside. If you were to compare photos of the two of them, most people would be hard-pressed to find any resemblance. Which is why at first I didn’t see the connection either. It wasn’t anything specific about her looks that made me remember my younger sister, but the way her expression changed, especially the way her eyes moved and sparkled, was amazingly like my sister’s. It was like magic or something had brought back the past, right before my very eyes.

My sister had also been three years younger than me, and had a congenital heart valve problem. She’d had numerous operations when she was little, and though they were successful, there were lingering aftereffects. Her doctors had no idea if those aftereffects would get better on their own, or cause some life-threatening issues. In the end, she died when I was fifteen. She’d just entered junior high. All her short life she’d battled those genetic defects, but never failed to be anything other than positive and upbeat. Until the very end she never grumbled or complained, and always made detailed plans for the future. That she would die so young was not something she factored into her plans. She was naturally bright, always with outstanding grades (a lot better a child than I was). She had a strong will, and always stuck to whatever she decided to do, no matter what. If she and I ever quarreled—a pretty rare occurrence—I always gave in. At the end she was terribly thin and drawn, yet her eyes remained animated, and she was still full of life.

It was my wife’s eyes, too, that drew me to her. Something I could see deep in them. When I first saw those eyes, they jolted me. Not that I was thinking that by making her mine I could restore my dead sister or anything. Even if I’d wanted to, I could imagine the only thing that would lead to was despair. What I wanted, or needed, was the spark of that positive will. That definite source of warmth needed to live. It was something I knew very well, but that was, most likely, missing in me.

I managed to get her contact info, and asked her on a date. She was surprised, of course, and hesitated. I was, after all, her friend’s boyfriend. But I kept at it. I just want to see you, and talk, I told her. Just meet and talk, that’s all. I’m not looking for anything else. We had dinner in a quiet restaurant, and talked about all kinds of things. Our conversation was a little nervous and awkward at first, but then became more animated. There was so much I wanted to know about her, and I had plenty to talk about. I found out that her birthday and my sister’s were only three days apart.

“Do you mind if I sketch you?” I asked.

“Right here?” she asked, glancing around. We were seated at the restaurant, and had just ordered dessert.

“I’ll finish before they’re back with dessert,” I said.

“Then I guess I don’t mind,” she replied doubtfully.

I took out the small sketchbook I always carried with me, and quickly sketched her face with a 2B pencil. As promised, I finished before our desserts arrived. The important part was, of course, her eyes. That’s what I wanted to draw most. Back within those eyes there was a deep world, a world beyond time.

I showed her the sketch, and she seemed to like it.

“It’s very full of life.”

“That’s because you are,” I said.

She gazed for a long time at the sketch, apparently taken with it. As if she were seeing a self she hadn’t known before.

“If you like it, I’ll give it to you.”

“I can have it?” she said.

“Of course. It’s just a quick sketch.”

“Thank you.”

After this we went on more dates, and eventually became lovers. It all happened so naturally. My girlfriend, though, was shocked that her friend stole me away. She was probably thinking that we might get married. So of course she was upset (though I doubt I ever would have married her). My wife, too, was going out with someone else at the time, and their breakup wasn’t easy either. There were other obstacles to overcome, but the upshot was that half a year later we were married. We had a small party with a handful of close friends to celebrate, and settled into a condo in Hiroo. Her uncle owned the condo and gave us a good deal on rent. I used one small room as my studio and focused on my portrait work. This was no longer just a temporary job. Now that I was married I needed a steady income, and other than portrait painting I had no means of earning a decent living. My wife commuted from our place by subway to the architecture firm in Yotsuya. And it sort of naturally came about that I was the one who took care of everyday housework, which I didn’t mind at all. I never minded doing housework, and found it a nice break from painting. At any rate it was far more pleasant to do housework than commute every day to a job and be forced to do work behind a desk.

I think for both of us our first few years of marriage were calm and fulfilling. Before long we settled into a pleasant daily rhythm. On weekends and holidays I’d take a break from painting and we’d go out. Sometimes to an art exhibition, sometimes hiking outside the city. At other times we’d just wander around town. We had intimate talks, and for both of us it was important to regularly update each other. We spoke honestly, and openly, about what was going on in our lives, exchanging opinions, sharing feelings.

For me, though, there was one thing I never opened up about to her: the fact that her eyes reminded me so much of my sister who’d died at twelve, and that that was the main reason I’d been attracted to her. Without those eyes I probably never would have tried to win her over as eagerly as I did. But I felt it was better not to tell her that, and until the very end I didn’t. That was the sole secret I kept from her. What secrets she may have kept from me—and I imagine there were some—I have no idea.

My wife’s name was Yuzu, the name of the citrus fruit used in cooking. Sometimes when we were in bed I’d call her Sudachi, a similar type of fruit, as a joke. I’d whisper this in her ear. She’d always laugh, but it upset her all the same.

“I’m not Sudachi, but Yuzu. They’re similar but not the same,” she’d insist.

When did things start to go south for us? As I drove on, from one roadside restaurant to another, one business hotel to another, randomly moving from point A to point B, I thought about this. But I couldn’t pinpoint where things had begun to go wrong. For a long time I was sure we were doing fine. Of course, like many couples, we had some issues and disagreements. Our main issue was whether or not to have children. But we still had time before we had to make a final decision. Other than that one problem (one we could postpone for the time being), we had a basically healthy marriage, on both an emotional and physical level. I was sure of that.

Why had I been so optimistic? Or so stupid? It’s like I’d been born with a blind spot, and was always missing something. And what I missed was always the most important thing of all.

In the mornings, after I saw my wife off to work, I’d focus on my painting, then after lunch would take a walk around the neighborhood, do some shopping while I was at it, and then get things ready for dinner. Two or three times a week I’d go swimming in a nearby sports club. When my wife got back we’d have a beer or some wine together. If she called me saying she had to work overtime and would grab something near the office, I’d sit by myself and have a simple dinner alone. Our six years together were mostly a repeat of those kinds of days. And I was basically okay with that.

Things were busy at the architecture firm, and she often had to work overtime. I gradually had to eat dinner alone more often. Sometimes she wouldn’t get back until nearly midnight. “Things have gotten so hectic at work,” she’d explain. One of her colleagues suddenly changed jobs, she said, and she had to pick up the slack. The firm was reluctant to hire new staff. Whenever she came home late, she was exhausted and would just take a shower and go to sleep. So the number of times we had sex went way down. Sometimes she even had to go in on days off, too, to finish her work. Of course I believed her. There wasn’t any reason not to.

But maybe she wasn’t working overtime at all. While I was eating dinner alone at home, she may have been enjoying some intimate time in a hotel bed with a new lover.

My wife was outgoing. She seemed quiet and gentle but was sharp and quick-witted, and needed situations where she could be more social and gregarious. And I wasn’t able to provide those. So Yuzu went out to eat a lot with women friends (she had lots of friends) and would go out drinking with work colleagues (she could hold her liquor better than me). And I never complained about her going out on her own and enjoying herself. In fact I might have encouraged it.

When I think about it, my younger sister and I had the same kind of relationship. I’ve always been more of a stay-at-home type, and when I got back from school I’d hole up in my room to read or draw. My sister was much more sociable and outgoing. So our everyday interests and activities didn’t overlap much. But we understood each other well, and valued each other’s special qualities. It might have been pretty unusual for an older brother and younger sister the ages we were, but we talked over lots of things together. Summer or winter, we’d climb up to the balcony upstairs where we hung our laundry, and talk forever. We loved to share funny stories, and often had each other in stitches.

I’m not saying that’s the reason why, but I felt secure about the relationship my wife and I had. I accepted my role in our marriage—as the silent, auxiliary partner—as natural, self-evident even. But maybe Yuzu didn’t. There must have been aspects of our marriage that dissatisfied her. She and my sister were, after all, different people with different personalities. And of course, I wasn’t a teenage boy anymore.

By May I was getting tired of driving day after day. And sick of the same thoughts looping endlessly around in my head. The same questions spun around in my brain, with no answers in sight. Sitting all day in the driver’s seat had given me a backache, as well. A Peugeot 205 is an economy car, and the seats weren’t exactly high quality, the suspension noticeably worn out. All the road glare I’d stared at for hours was giving me chronic eyestrain. I realized I’d been driving pretty much nonstop for over a month and half, restlessly moving from one spot to another as if something were chasing me.

I ran across a small, rustic therapeutic hot springs in the mountains near the border between Miyagi and Iwate, and decided to take a break. An obscure hot springs tucked away deep in a valley, with a small inn that locals would stay in for days to rest and recuperate. The room rate was cheap, and there was a communal kitchen where you could cook simple meals. I enjoyed soaking in the baths and sleeping as much as I wanted. I sprawled on the tatami, read, and recovered from the exhaustion of all that driving. When I got tired of reading I’d take out my sketchbook and draw. It had been a long time since I’d felt like drawing. I started off sketching flowers and trees in the garden, then drew the rabbits they kept there. Just rough pencil sketches, but people were impressed. Some asked me to draw their portraits. Fellow lodgers, and people who worked at the inn. People just passing through my life, people I’d never see again. And if they asked, I’d give them the sketches.

Time to get back to Tokyo, I told myself. Going on like this would get me nowhere. And I wanted to paint again. Not commissioned portraits, or rough sketches, but paintings I could really concentrate on, and undertake for myself. Whether this would work out or not I had no clue, but it was time to take the first step.

I’d planned to drive my Peugeot across the Tohoku region and return to Tokyo, but just before Iwaki, along Highway 6, my car breathed its last. There was a crack in the fuel line and the car wouldn’t start. I’d done hardly any maintenance on the car up till then, so I couldn’t complain when it gave out. The one lucky thing was that the car gave up the ghost right near a garage where a friendly mechanic worked. It was hard to get parts for an old Peugeot in a place like that, and would take time. Even if we repair it, the mechanic told me, it’s likely something else will soon go wrong. The fan belts looked sketchy, the brake pads were ready to go, and the suspension was nearly shot. “My advice? Put it out of its misery,” he said. The car had been with me for a month and a half on the road, and now had nearly seventy-five thousand miles on the odometer. It was sad to say goodbye to the Peugeot, but I had to leave it behind. It felt like the car had died in my stead.

To thank him for disposing of the car for me, I gave the mechanic my tent, sleeping bag, and camping equipment. I made one last sketch of the Peugeot, and then, shouldering my gym bag, boarded the Joban Line and went back to Tokyo. From the station I called Masahiko Amada and explained my situation. My marriage fell apart and I went on a trip for a while, I told him, but now I’m back in Tokyo. Do you know of any place I could stay? I asked.

I do know of a good place, he said. It’s the house my father lived in for a long time by himself. He’s in a nursing home in Izu Kogen, and the house has been unoccupied for a time. It’s furnished and has everything you’d need, so you don’t have to get anything. It’s not exactly a convenient location, but the phone works. If that sounds good, you should try it out.

That’s perfect, I told him. I couldn’t have asked for more.

And so my new life, in a new place, began.

³ JUST A PHYSICAL REFLECTION

A few days after I’d settled into my new mountaintop house outside Odawara, I got in touch with my wife. I had to call five times before I finally got through. Her job always kept her busy, and apparently she was still getting home late. Or maybe she was with someone. Not that that was my business anymore.

“Where are you now?” Yuzu asked me.

“I’ve moved into the Amadas’ house in Odawara,” I said. Briefly I explained how I came to live there.

“I called your cell phone many times,” Yuzu said.

“I don’t have the cell phone anymore,” I said. That phone might have washed into the Japan Sea by then. “I’m calling because I’d like to go pick up the rest of my things. Does that work for you?”

“You still have the key?”

“I do,” I said. I’d considered tossing the key into the river, too, but thought better of it since she might want it back. “But you don’t mind if I go into the apartment when you’re not there?”

“It’s your house too. So of course it’s okay,” she said. “But where have you been all this time?”

Traveling, I told her. I told her how I’d been driving alone, going from one cold place to the next. How the car had finally given out.

“But you’re okay, right?”

“I’m alive,” I said. “The car was the one that died.”

Yuzu was silent for a while. And then she spoke. “I had a dream the other day with you in it.”

I didn’t ask what kind of dream. I didn’t really care to know about me appearing in her dream. She didn’t say any more about it.

“I’ll leave the key when I go,” I said.

“Either way’s fine with me. Just do what you like.”

“I’ll put it in your mailbox when I leave,” I said.

There was a short pause before she spoke.

“Do you remember how you sketched my face on our first date?”

“I do.”

“I take it out sometimes and look at it. It’s really well done. I feel like I’m looking at my real self.”

“Your real self?”

“Right.”

“But don’t you see your face every morning in the mirror?”

“That’s different,” Yuzu said. “My self in the mirror is just a physical reflection.”

After I hung up I went to the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. I hadn’t looked at myself straight on like that for ages. My self in the mirror is just a physical reflection, she’d said. But to me my face in the mirror looked like a virtual fragment of my self that had been split in two. The self there was the one I hadn’t chosen. It wasn’t even a physical reflection.

In the afternoon two days later I drove my Corolla station wagon to the apartment in Hiroo, and gathered my possessions. It had been raining since morning that day, too. The underground parking lot beneath the building had its usual rainy-day odor.

I took the elevator upstairs and unlocked the door, and when I went inside for the first time in nearly two months I felt like an intruder. I’d lived there almost six years and knew every inch of the place. But I no longer was part of this scene. Dishes were stacked up in the kitchen, all dishes she had used. Laundry was drying in the bathroom, all her clothes. Inside the fridge it was all food I’d never seen before. Most were ready-made food. The milk and orange juice were different brands from what I bought. The freezer was packed with frozen food. I never bought frozen food. A lot of changes in the two months I’d been away.

I was struck by a strong urge to wash the dishes stacked up in the sink, bring in the laundry drying and fold it (and iron it if I could), and neatly rearrange the food in the fridge. But I did none of this. This was someone else’s house now. I shouldn’t poke my nose in where I didn’t belong.

My painting materials were the bulkiest possessions I had. I tossed my easel, canvas, brushes, and paints into a large cardboard box. Then turned to my clothes. I’ve never been one to need a lot of clothes. I don’t mind wearing the same clothes all the time. I don’t own a suit or necktie. Other than a thick winter coat, it all fit into one suitcase.

A few books I hadn’t read yet, and about a dozen CDs. My favorite coffee cup. Swimsuit, and goggles, and swim cap. That was about all I felt I needed. Even those I could get along without if need be.

In the bathroom my toothbrush and shaving kit were still there, as well as my lotion, sunscreen, and hair tonic. An unopened box of condoms, too. But I didn’t feel like taking all that miscellaneous stuff to my new place. She could just get rid of it.

I packed my belongings in the trunk of the car, went back to the kitchen, and boiled water in the kettle. I made tea with a tea bag, and sat at the table and drank it. I figured she wouldn’t mind. The room was perfectly still. The silence lent a faint weight to the air. As though I were sitting alone, at the bottom of the sea.

All told, I was there by myself in the apartment for about a half hour. No one came to visit, and the phone didn’t ring. The thermostat on the fridge turned off once, then turned back on once. In the midst of the silence I perked up my ears, probing what I sensed in the apartment, as if measuring the depths of the ocean with a sinker. No matter how you looked at it, it was an apartment occupied by a woman living alone. Someone busy at work who had next to no time to do any housework. Someone who took care of any errands on the weekends when she had free time. A quick visual sweep of the place showed that everything there was hers. No evidence of anyone else (hardly any evidence of me anymore, either). No man was stopping by here. That’s the impression I got. They must have seen each other elsewhere.

I can’t explain it well, but while I was in the apartment I felt like I was being watched. Like someone was observing me through a hidden camera. But that couldn’t be. My wife is a major klutz when it comes to equipment. She can’t even change the batteries in a remote control. No way could she do something as clever as setting up and operating a surveillance camera. It was just me, on edge.

Even so, while I was in the apartment I acted as if every single action of mine was being recorded. I did nothing extra, nothing untoward. I didn’t open Yuzu’s desk drawer to see what was inside. I knew that in the back of one of the drawers of her wardrobe, where she had her stockings, she kept a small diary and some important letters, but I didn’t touch them. I knew the password for her laptop (assuming she hadn’t changed it), but didn’t even open it. None of this had anything to do with me anymore. I washed the cup I’d drunk tea in, dried it with a cloth, put it back on the shelf, and turned off the lights. I went over to the window and gazed at the falling rain for a while. The orangish Tokyo Tower loomed up faintly in the distance. Then I dropped the key in the mailbox and drove back to Odawara. The trip was only an hour and a half, but it felt like I’d taken a day trip to a far-off foreign land.

The next day I called my agent. I’m back in Tokyo, I told him, and I’m really sorry, but I don’t plan to do any more portrait painting.

“You’re never going to do any more portraits? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Most likely,” I said.

He didn’t say much. No complaints, nothing in the way of advice. He knew that once I said something, I didn’t back down.

“If you ever find yourself wanting to do this work again, call me anytime,” he said at the end. “I’d welcome it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Maybe it isn’t my place to say this, but how are you planning to make a living?”

“I haven’t decided,” I admitted. “I’m by myself, so I don’t need much to live on, and I’ve got a bit of savings.”

“Will you still paint?”

“Probably. There isn’t much else I know how to do.”

“I hope it works out.”

“Thanks,” I said once more. And tagged on a question that had just occurred to me. “Is there anything I should make sure to keep in mind?”

“Something you should make sure to keep in mind?”

“In other words—how should I put it—any advice from a pro?”

He thought it over. “You’re the type of guy who takes longer than other people to be convinced of anything. But long term, I think time is on your side.”

Like the title of an old Rolling Stones song.

“One other thing: I think you really have a special talent for portraiture. An intuitive ability to get straight to the heart of the subject. Other people can’t do that. Not using that talent would be a real shame.”

“But right now painting portraits isn’t what I want to do.”

“I get that. But someday that ability will help you again. I hope it works out.”

Hope it works out, I thought. Good if time is on your side.

On the first day I visited the house in Odawara, Masahiko Amada—the son of the owner—drove me there in his Volvo. “If you like it, you can move in today,” he said.

We took the Odawara-Atsugi Road almost to the end and, when we exited, headed toward the mountains along a narrow, paved farm road. On either side, there were fields, rows of hothouses for growing vegetables, and the occasional grove of plum trees. We saw hardly any houses, and not a single traffic signal. Finally we drove up a steep, winding slope in low gear for a long time, until we came to the end and arrived at the entrance to the house. There were two stately pillars at the entrance, but no gate. And no wall, either. It seemed the owner had planned to add a gate and wall but thought better of it. Maybe halfway through he’d realized there was no need. On one of the pillars was a magnificent nameplate with AMADA on it, almost like some business sign. The house beyond was a small Western-style cottage with a faded brick chimney sticking out of the flat roof. It was a one-story house, but the roof was unexpectedly high. In my imagination I’d been taking it for granted that a famous painter of Japanese-style paintings would live in an old Japanese-style dwelling.

We parked in a spacious covered driveway by the front door, and when we opened the car doors some screeching black birds—jays, I imagine—flew off from a nearby tree branch into the sky. They seemed none too happy about us intruding on their space. The house was pretty, surrounded by woods with a variety of trees, with only the west side of the house open to a broad view of the valley.

“What do you think? Not much here, is there?”

I stood there, gazing around me. He was right, there wasn’t much there. I was impressed that his father had built a house in such isolated surroundings. He really must have wanted nothing to do with other people.

“Did you grow up here?” I asked.

“No, I’ve never lived here very long. Just came to stay over occasionally. Or visited on summer holidays when we were escaping the heat. I had school, and grew up in our house in Mejiro with my mother. When my father wasn’t working he’d come to Tokyo and live with us. Then come back here and work by himself. I went out on my own, then ten years ago my mother died, and ever since he’s been living here by himself. Like someone who’s forsaken the world.”

A middle-aged woman who lived nearby had been watching the house, and she came over to explain some things I needed to know. How the kitchen operated, how to order more propane and kerosene, where various items were kept, which days the trash was picked up and where to put it. The artist seemed to have led a very simple solitary existence, with very little equipment or appliances, so there wasn’t much for a lecture. If there’s anything else you need to know, just give me a call, the woman said (though I actually never called her, not even once).

“I’m very happy someone will be living here now,” she said. “Empty houses get dilapidated, and they’re unsafe. And when they know no one’s at home, the wild boar and monkeys get into the yard.”

“You do get the occasional wild boar or monkey around here,” Masahiko said.

“Be very careful about the wild boars,” the woman explained. “You see a lot of them in the spring around here when they root for bamboo shoots. Female boars with young are always jumpy, and dangerous. And you need to watch out for hornets, too. There’ve been people who’ve been stung and died. The hornets build nests in the plum groves.”

The central feature of the house was a fairly large living room with an open-hearth fireplace. On the southwest side of the living room was a spacious roofed-in terrace, and on the north side was a square studio. The studio was where the master had done his painting. On the east side of the living room was a compact kitchen with dining area, and a bathroom. Then a comfortable master bedroom and a slightly smaller guest bedroom. There was a writing desk in the guest bedroom. Amada seemed to enjoy reading, as the bookshelves were stuffed with old books. He seemed to have used this room as his study. For an older house, it was fairly neat and clean, and comfortable looking, though strangely enough (or perhaps not so strangely) there was not a single painting hanging on the walls. Every wall was completely bare.

As Masahiko had said, the place had most everything I’d need—furniture, electric appliances, plates and dishes, and bedding. “You don’t need to bring anything,” he’d told me, and he was right. There was plenty of firewood for the fireplace stacked up under the eaves of the shed. There was no TV in the house (Masahiko’s father, I was told, hated TV), though there was a wonderful stereo set in the living room. The speakers were huge Tannoy Autographs, the separate amplifier an original vacuum tube Marantz. And he had an extensive collection of vinyl records. At first glance there seemed to be a lot of boxed sets of opera.

“There’s no CD player here,” Masahiko told me. “He’s the sort of person who hates new devices. He only trusts things from the past. And naturally there’s not a trace of anything to do with the Internet. If you need to use it, the only choice is to use the Internet café in town.”

“I don’t have any real need for the Internet,” I told him.

“If you want to know what’s going on in the world, then the only choice is to listen to the news on the transistor radio on the shelf in the kitchen. Since we’re in the mountains the signal isn’t great, but you can at least pick up the NHK station in Shizuoka. Better than nothing, I suppose.”

“I’m not that interested in what’s going on in the world.”

“That’s fine. Sounds like you and my father would get along fine.”

“Is your father a fan of opera?” I asked.

“Yes, he paints Japanese paintings, but always liked to listen to opera while he painted. He went to the opera house a lot when he was a student in Vienna. Do you listen to opera?”

“A little.”

“I’m not into it at all. Way too long and boring for me. There are a lot of records, so feel free to listen to them as much as you’d like. My father has no need of them anymore and I know he’d be happy if you listened to them.”

“No need of them?”

“His dementia’s getting bad. Right now he doesn’t know the difference between an opera and a frying pan.”

“Vienna, you said? Did he study Japanese painting in Vienna?”

“Nobody’s that eccentric—to go all the way to Vienna to study Japanese painting. My father originally worked on Western painting. That’s why he went to study in Vienna. At the time he did very cutting-edge modern oil paintings. But after he came back to Japan he suddenly switched styles, and began painting Japanese-style. Not totally unheard of, I suppose. Going abroad awakens your own ethnic identity or something.”

“And he was very successful at it.”

Amada made a small shrug. “According to the public he was. But from a child’s perspective, he was just a grouchy old man. All he thought about was painting, and did exactly as he pleased. No trace of that now, though.”

“How old is he?”

“Ninety-two. When he was young he was apparently pretty wild. I never heard the details.”

I thanked him. “Thank you for everything. I’m really grateful. This really helps me out.”

“You like it here?”

“Yes, I’m really happy you’re letting me stay.”

“I’m glad. Though I’m hoping you and Yuzu can get back together again.”

I didn’t respond. Masahiko himself wasn’t married. I’d heard a rumor he was bisexual, though I didn’t know if it was true or not. We’d known each other for a long time, but had never spoken about it.

“Are you going to keep doing portraits?” Amada asked as we were leaving.

I explained how I’d made a clean break with portrait painting.

“Then how are you going to make a living?” Amada asked, the same thing my agent had wanted to know.

I’ll cut back on expenses and get by on my savings for a while, I replied, echoing my first answer. I also wanted to try painting whatever I wanted, something I hadn’t been able to do for ages.

“Sounds good,” Amada said. “Do what you like for a while. But would you consider teaching art part time too? There’s this arts-and-culture center near Odawara Station and they have painting classes. Most of them are for children, but they have some community art classes for adults set up as well. They teach sketching and watercolor, but not oil painting. The man who runs the school knows my father, he’s not really in it for the money. And he needs a teacher. I’m sure he’d be overjoyed if you’d help out. It doesn’t pay much, but you could make a little extra to live on. You’d only need to teach twice a week, and it shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“But I’ve never taught painting, and don’t know much about watercolors.”

“It’s simple,” he said. “You’re not training professionals. You just teach the basics. You’ll pick it up in a day. Teaching children should be good for you, too. And if you’re going to live up here all by yourself, you have to get down off the mountain a couple of times a week and be with other people, even if you don’t want to, or else you’ll go a little stir-crazy. Don’t want you ending up like The Shining.”

Masahiko screwed up his face like Jack Nicholson. He’s always been good at impressions.

I laughed. “I’ll give it a try. Whether I’ll do a good job or not, I don’t know.”

“I’ll get in touch with him and let him know,” he said.

Then Masahiko drove me to the used Toyota dealership next to the highway, where I paid cash for the Corolla station wagon. My life alone on a mountaintop in Odawara began that day. I’d been on the move for nearly two months, but now I’d take up a sedentary life. It was quite a switch.

Starting the following week, I began teaching art classes on Wednesdays and Fridays at the arts-and-culture center near Odawara Station. There was a perfunctory interview beforehand, but Masahiko’s introduction meant that I was as good as hired already. I was to teach two classes for adults, plus one for children on Fridays. I quickly got used to teaching the kids. I enjoyed seeing the paintings they did, and, as Masahiko said, it was a good stimulus for me as well. I quickly got to be friends with the children. All I did was go around the room, check on the paintings they did, give them a few words of technical advice, find good points about their paintings, and praise and encourage them. My approach was to have them paint the same subject matter several times, to instill in them the idea that the same object could appear quite different if viewed from a different angle. Just as people had many facets, so too did objects. The kids immediately picked up on how fascinating this could be.

Teaching adults was a bit more of a challenge. The students were either elderly retirees, or housewives whose children were grown and in school, and had time on their hands. As you might imagine, they weren’t as adaptable as the kids, and when I pointed out something, they didn’t easily accept my suggestions. A few of them, though, were willing to learn, and there were a couple who did some pretty appealing paintings. Whenever they asked, I gave them helpful pointers, but for the most part I let them paint however they liked. I confined myself to praising them whenever I found something nice about what they’d done. That seemed to please them. I figured it was enough for them to simply enjoy painting.

And I started sleeping with two housewives, both of whom attended the art classes and received my so-called instruction. Both my students, in other words, and incidentally both fairly decent painters. It’s hard for me to tell whether that was something permissible for a teacher—even a casual teacher like me with no proper license. I basically think mutually consenting adults having sex isn’t a problem, though certainly society might frown at this kind of relationship.

I’m not trying to excuse my actions, but at the time I really didn’t have the mental wherewithal to decide whether I was right or wrong. I was desperately clinging to a scrap of wood that had been swept away. In pitch-black darkness, not a single star, or the moon, visible in the sky. As long as I clung to that piece of wood I wouldn’t drown, but I had no clue where I was, where I was heading.

It was a couple of months after I’d moved there that I discovered Tomohiko Amada’s painting Killing Commendatore. I couldn’t know it at the time, but that one painting changed my world forever.

⁴ FROM A DISTANCE, MOST THINGS LOOK BEAUTIFUL

One sunny morning near the end of May I carried all my painting materials into the studio Mr. Amada had been using, and for the first time in what seemed like forever stood before a brand-new canvas. (Nothing of the master’s painting materials was left in the studio. I assume that Masahiko had packed them all away somewhere.) The studio was a large, square room sixteen feet on a side, with a wood floor and white walls. The floor was bare wood, with not a single rug. There was a large open window on the north side, with simple white curtains. The window on the east side was smaller, with no curtains. As elsewhere in the house, there was nothing hanging on the walls. In one corner of the room was a large porcelain sink for washing away paint. The sink must have been in long use, for its surface was dyed with a mix of different colors. Next to the sink was an old-fashioned kerosene stove, and there was a large ceiling fan. A worktable and a round wooden stool. A compact stereo set was on a built-in shelf so he could listen to opera while painting. The wind blowing in the open window carried with it the fresh fragrance of trees. This was, without doubt, a space for an artist to focus on his work. Everything you might need was here, and not one thing extra.

Now that I had this environment to work in, the feeling of wanting to paint something grew stronger, like a quiet ache. And there were no limits on the amount of time I could spend for myself. No need any longer to paint things I didn’t want to in order to earn a living, no more obligation to prepare dinner for my wife when she came home. (Not that I minded making dinner, though that didn’t change the fact that it was an obligation.) And it wasn’t just preparing meals—I had the right to stop eating altogether and starve if I felt like it. I was utterly free to do exactly what I wanted, without worrying about anybody else.

In the end, though, I couldn’t paint a thing. No matter how long I stood in front of the canvas and stared at that white, blank space, not a single idea of what to paint came to me. I had no clue where to begin, how to start. Like a novelist who has lost words, or a musician who has lost his instrument, I stood there in that bare, square studio, at a complete loss.

I’d never felt that way before, not ever. Once I faced a canvas, my mind would immediately leave the horizon of the everyday, and something would well up in my imagination. Sometimes it would be a productive image, at other times a useless illusion. But still, something would always come to me. From there, I’d latch onto it, transfer it to the canvas, and continue to develop it, letting my intuition lead the way. If I did it that way, the work completed itself. But now I couldn’t see anything that would provide the initial spark. You can have all the desire and ache inside you want, but what you really need is a concrete starting point.

I would get up early in the morning (I generally always wake before six), brew coffee in the kitchen, and then, mug in hand, pad off to the studio and sit on the stool in front of the canvas. And focus my feelings. Listen closely to the echoes in my heart, trying to grasp the image of something that had to be there. But this always ended in a fruitless retreat. I’d try concentrating for a while, then plunk down on the studio floor, lean back against the wall, and listen to a Puccini opera. (I’m not sure why, but all I seemed to listen to then was Puccini.) Turandot, La Bohème. I’d sit there, staring at the languidly rotating ceiling fan, waiting for an idea or motif to come to me. But nothing ever came. Just the early-summer sun that rose sluggishly in the sky.

What was the problem? Maybe it’s because I’d spent so many years doing portraits for a living. Maybe that diminished any natural intuition I had. Like sand slowly washed away by the tide. Somehow the flow of my life had gone off in the wrong direction. I needed time, I thought. I had to be patient. Make time be on my side. Do that, and I was sure to seize the right flow. That channel would surely come back to me. Truthfully, though, I wasn’t sure it ever would.

It was during this period, too, that I slept with the two married women. I think I was looking for some kind of inner breakthrough. Come what may, I wanted to break out of the rut I was in, and the only way for me to do so was to jolt my psyche, give it a prod (it didn’t matter what kind). Plus I’d started to tire of being alone. And it had been a long time since I’d slept with a woman.

It occurs to me now that my days back then were pretty strange. I’d wake up early, go into that small square, white-walled studio, have no ideas for what to paint as I stared at the blank canvas, then flop down on the floor and listen to Puccini. When it came to the realm of creativity, I was basically facing a pure nothingness. When Claude Debussy had writer’s block while composing an opera, he wrote, “Day after day I produce rien—nothingness.” That summer was the same for me—day after day I took part in producing nothingness. Perhaps I was quite used to facing nothingness day after day—though I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were intimate.

About twice a week in the afternoon, the second of the married women would drive to my place in her red Mini. We’d go straight to bed and make love. In the early afternoon we’d devour each other’s flesh. What this produced was, of course, not nothingness. No doubt about it, actual flesh-and-blood bodies were involved. Bodies you could actually touch with your hands, every inch, even run your lips over them. In this way, as if I’d flipped a switch on my consciousness, I began moving between an ambiguous, vague rien and a vivid, living reality. The woman said her husband hadn’t made love to her in nearly two years. He was ten years older than she was, and busy with work, never returning home until late at night. She tried many ways of enticing him, but nothing seemed to rouse his interest.

“I wonder why. I mean, you have such a lovely body,” I said.

She gave a small shrug. “We’ve been married over fifteen years and have two kids. I guess I’m no longer as fresh as I used to be.”

“You seem plenty fresh to me.”

“Thanks. Though that makes it sound like I’m being recycled or something.”

“Like recycling resources?”

“Exactly.”

“It’s a very precious resource, though,” I said. “Contributes to society, too.”

She giggled. “As long as you sort everything correctly.”

A little while later, we eagerly set out to sort out resources once more.

Truthfully I wasn’t all that drawn to her as a person at first. In that sense there was a different tone about our relationship than with the women I’d dated. She and I had almost nothing in common to talk about. There was hardly anything about our present lives, or our personal histories until then, that overlapped. I’m not generally a talkative person, so when we were together, she did most of the talking. She’d tell me personal things and I’d make the appropriate responses, giving my feedback, I guess you’d call it, though it was hardly a real conversation.

This was a first for me. With other women, I’d always been attracted to their personalities. Physical relationships came later, something that accompanied the initial appeal… That was the usual pattern. But not with her. With her the physical came first. Not that I’m complaining. When I was with her I could enjoy the act in a pure, unfettered way. And I think she could, too. She came many times as we made love, and I came many times too.

She told me this was the first time since she got married that she’d slept with another man. I had no reason to doubt her. And for me, too, this was the first time I’d slept with another woman since I got married. (No, actually there was one exception, when I shared a bed with another woman. Not that it was something I was looking for. I’ll get into that later on.)

“But my friends the same age, all of them are married but most of them are having affairs,” she said. “They talk about it a lot.”

“Recycling,” I said.

“I never imagined I’d join them.”

I gazed up at the ceiling and thought about Yuzu. Was she off somewhere, in bed with somebody?

After the woman left, I felt at loose ends. The bed still showed the hollows where she had lain. I didn’t feel like doing anything, so I lay out on a lounge chair on the terrace and killed time reading a book. All the books on Mr. Amada’s bookshelf were old, among them a few unusual novels that would be hard to get hold of these days. Works that in the past had been pretty popular but had been forgotten, read by no one. I enjoyed reading this kind of out-of-date novel. Doing so let me share—with this old man I’d never met—the feeling of being left behind by time.

As the sun set, I opened a bottle of wine (drinking wine was my one and only luxury at the time, though of course this was inexpensive wine) and listened to some old LPs. The record collection was comprised entirely of classical music, the majority of which was opera and chamber music. All of them looked like they’d been lovingly cared for, without a single scratch. During the day I listened to opera, while at night I favored Beethoven and Schubert string quartets.

Having a relationship with that older married woman, being able to hold a real live woman in my arms regularly, brought me a certain level of calm. The soft touch of a mature woman’s skin eased the pent-up emotions I’d had. At the very least, while I made love to her I was able to shelve the doubts and problems I’d been carrying around. Yet I still wasn’t able to come up with an idea of what to paint. Occasionally in bed I’d do a pencil sketch of her in the nude. Most of these were pornographic. Pictures of my cock inside her, or her sucking me off. The sketches made her blush, but she enjoyed looking at them. I imagine that if these had been photos most women wouldn’t have liked them, and would even have been disgusted with the man who made them, and on their guard. But I found that with rough sketches, if they were done well, women were actually happy to see them. Because they had the warmth of life in them—or, at least, they didn’t have a mechanical coldness. But still, no matter how well I managed these sketches, not even a fragment of an image of what I really wanted to paint came to me.

The kind of paintings I did as a student, so-called abstracts, no longer appealed to me. My heart wasn’t drawn to them anymore. Looking back on it now, I see that what I’d been wrapped up in back then was nothing more than the pursuit of form. Back when I was young, I was completely drawn to the beauty of form, and to balance. Nothing wrong with that. But in my case I didn’t reach the soulful depth that should lie beyond. Now I see it very clearly, but at the time, all I could grasp was the appeal of shape at a superficial level. Nothing really moved me. My paintings were smart but nothing more.

And now I was thirty-six. Forty was just around the corner. I felt that by the time I turned forty, I’d have to secure my own unique artistic world. Forty was a sort of watershed for people. Once you get past that age, you can’t keep going on as you were before. I still had four years to go, but I knew that those four years might flash by in an instant. Painting portraits for a living had taken me on a wide detour. Somehow I had to get time on my side once again.

While I lived in that house in the mountains I found myself wanting to know more about Tomohiko Amada. I’d never been interested in Japanese-style painting, and though I’d heard the name Tomohiko Amada, and he happened to be my friend’s father, I had no idea what kind of person he was, or what kind of paintings he did. He might be a heavyweight in the world of Japanese painting, but he had totally stayed out of the limelight, turning his back on his worldly renown, and alone, quietly—or one might say stubbornly—focused on creating his art. This was about the extent of what I knew about him.

But as I listened to his record collection on the stereo he’d left behind, borrowed his books, slept in his bed, made meals every day in his kitchen, and used his studio, I gradually became more interested in Tomohiko Amada as a person. Something close to curiosity, you could say. The path he’d taken aroused my interest—the way he’d been focused on modernist painting, traveled all the way to Vienna to study, then after returning to Japan made a sudden return to Japanese-style painting. I didn’t know the details, but in general you would think that it couldn’t have been very easy for someone who’d done Western painting for so long to shift over to Japanese-style painting. You’d need to decide to abandon all the techniques you’d spent so much time and effort mastering, and begin again from zero. Despite this, Tomohiko Amada had chosen that arduous path. There must have been a compelling reason.

One day, before my art class, I went to the Odawara city library to search out collections of Tomohiko Amada’s artwork. Probably because he was an artist living in the area, the library had three beautiful volumes of his work. One of them included some of the Western paintings he’d done in his twenties as reference material. What surprised me was that the series of Western-style paintings he’d done as a young man reminded me somewhat of the abstract paintings I’d done myself in the past. The style wasn’t specifically the same (in the prewar period he’d been heavily influenced by Cubism), yet his stance of “greedily pursuing form” in no small way had something in common with my own approach. As you might expect from someone who went on to become a first-class artist, his paintings also had much more depth and persuasive power than mine. Technically, too, there were things about them that were, simply, astounding. I imagine they must have been highly acclaimed at the time. Still, there was something missing.

I sat there in the reading room at the library and carefully examined his works for a long time. So what was it that was lacking from his work? I couldn’t pinpoint it. But if I had to give an opinion, I’d say they were paintings that weren’t really necessary. The kind of paintings that, if they disappeared somewhere forever, wouldn’t put anybody out. A cruel way of putting it, perhaps, but it’s the truth. From the present perspective, some seventy years on, I could see that quite well.

I turned the pages and followed along, in chronological order, to see how he shifted gears to become a painter of Japanese-style art. In his early period these works were still a bit awkward, imitating the methods of previous artists, but then gradually, and undeniably, he discovered his own unique style. I could see how it progressed. A bit of trial and error at times, but no hesitation. After he took up painting Japanese-style art, his works all had something unique that only he could paint, and he himself was well aware of this. He always strode confidently toward the core of that special something. No more did you get the impression, as with his Western paintings, of something missing. It was less a shift and more akin to a conversion.

Like most artists of Japanese-style paintings, at first Tomohiko Amada painted realistic scenery and flowers, but eventually (and there must have been some motive for this) he began painting scenes from ancient Japan. Some were themes from the Heian and Kamakura periods, but what he was most fond of was the Asuka period at the beginning of the seventh century, specifically the period when Prince Shotoku Taishi, the legendary regent, was alive… On his canvases he boldly, minutely, reproduced the scenery, historical events, and lives of the people of that period. Naturally he had never witnessed those scenes in reality with his own eyes. But with his inner eye he saw them, clearly and vividly. Why he chose the Asuka period, I have no idea. But that became his own special period, done in an inimitable style. And with the passage of time his technique in painting Japanese-style paintings became even more refined.

If you pay close attention you can see that from a certain point on he painted exactly what he wanted to paint. From then on his brush seemed to freely leap across the canvas. The wonderful part about his paintings was the use of blank space. Paradoxically, the best part was what was not depicted. By not painting certain things he clearly accentuated what he did want to paint. This is undoubtedly one of the areas that Japanese painting excels at. At least I’d never seen such bold use of blank space in any Western paintings. Seeing this, I could somehow understand why Tomohiko Amada converted to painting Japanese art. But what I didn’t understand was exactly when and how he made that daring conversion and put it into practice.

According to his brief biography at the end of the book, he was born in the mountainous Aso district in Kumamoto. His father was a great landowner, an influential local figure, and his family was quite affluent. He was always artistically talented and distinguished himself while still quite young. He graduated from the Tokyo Fine Arts School (later Tokyo University of the Arts), and with great expectations for his career studied abroad in Vienna from the end of 1936 to 1939. At the beginning of 1939, before World War Two began, he boarded a passenger ship from Bremen and returned to Japan. Hitler was in power during this time. Austria was annexed by Germany, the so-called Anschluss taking place in March 1938. And the young Tomohiko Amada was right there in Vienna in the midst of this turbulent period. He must have witnessed a number of historical events at that time.

So what happened to him then?

I read through a long essay in one of the collections titled “Theory of Tomohiko Amada,” only to find that almost nothing was known about his time in Vienna. The essay went into great detail about his career as a painter of Japanese-style paintings after he returned to Japan, yet there was only vague, baseless speculation about the motives and details of the conversion he must have experienced during his time in Vienna. What he had done in Vienna, and what had led him to his dramatic conversion, remained a mystery.

Tomohiko Amada returned to Japan in February 1939, and settled into a rented house in Sendagi in Tokyo. By this point he had completely abandoned Western painting. But he still received an allowance every month from his family, so he wanted for nothing. His mother, in particular, doted on her son. During this period he was, apparently, studying Japanese-style painting on his own. A number of times he tried to have established painters take him under their wing, but it never worked out. Tomohiko was, from the first, not exactly the humblest of people. Maintaining calm, friendly ties with others was not his forte. Isolation from others was a leitmotif that ran through his entire life.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japan entered an all-out war, and Amada left turbulent Tokyo and moved back to his parents’ home in Aso. As the second son, he avoided all the problems involved in succeeding to his father’s estate, and was given a small house with a maid, and lived a quiet life there pretty much isolated from the war. For better or worse, he had a congenital lung defect and thus there was no worry he would be drafted. (Though this could have been the excuse they used for the public, and his family may have worked behind the scenes to make sure he didn’t have to be a soldier.) He also avoided the severe food shortages and near starvation that plagued most Japanese citizens at the time. Living deep in the mountains of rural Japan, unless some major mistake was made he could also be pretty certain that no U.S. planes would be dropping any bombs on them. So until the surrender in 1945 he lived, holed up alone, deep in the mountains of Aso. His ties with society were severed, and he devoted himself entirely to mastering the techniques of Japanese-style painting. He didn’t display a single work during this time.

For Tomohiko Amada, after being in the spotlight as a promising painter of Western art, and then going to study in Vienna, it must have been a trying experience to maintain total silence for over six years, forgotten by the art world. But he was not the type to easily lose heart. When the long war was finally over, and as people struggled to recover from the chaos, a reborn Tomohiko Amada debuted again, this time as an up-and-coming painter in the Japanese style. One by one he displayed the works he’d completed during the war. This was the period when most artists, having painted stirring propaganda pieces, were forced to take responsibility for their actions and, under the watchful eye of the Occupation, were fairly compelled into retirement. Which is precisely why Tomohiko’s works, revealing the possibility of a revolution in Japanese painting, garnered so much attention. The times, one could say, were his ally.

There was little to say of his career after this time. Once an artist is successful, his life is often quite boring. Of course there are some artists who, once they are successful, head straight toward a colorful downfall, but Tomohiko Amada wasn’t one of them. He won countless awards over the years (though he turned down the Order of Cultural Merit award from the government, claiming it would be “distracting”) and became very famous. Over the years the price for his works rose, and most were displayed in public exhibitions. There was no end to the number of commissions, and he gained a high reputation abroad, too. Smooth sailing all around. The artist himself, though, avoided center stage, and turned down any official positions. He also refused any invitations, domestic or international. Instead he stayed holed up alone in the mountaintop house in Odawara (the house I was now living in) painting whatever he liked.

Now he was ninety-two and in a nursing home in Izu Kogen, and no longer knew the difference between an opera and a frying pan.

I shut the book of paintings and returned it to the library counter.

When the weather was good I liked to lie on a lounge chair out on the terrace after dinner and enjoy a glass of white wine. And as I gazed at the twinkling stars to the south, I would consider what lessons I might draw from Tomohiko Amada’s life. Naturally there should be a few lessons I should learn. The courage not to fear a change in one’s lifestyle, the importance of having time on your side. And above all, discovering your own uniquely creative style and themes. Not an easy thing, of course. Though if you make a living creating things, it’s something you have to accomplish no matter what. If possible, before you turn forty…

But what kind of experiences did Tomohiko Amada have in Vienna? What scenes did he witness? And most of all, what exactly made him decide to lay down his oil paintbrush forever? I pictured red-and-black Nazi swastika flags fluttering over a street in Vienna, a young Tomohiko Amada walking down that street. For some reason the season is winter. He has on a thick coat, a scarf, and a cloth cap pulled down low. His face isn’t visible. A streetcar rounds the corner and approaches in the newly falling sleet. As he walks, he exhales white breath into the air like the very embodiment of silence. The Viennese are in warm cafés, sipping coffee with a spot of rum.

I tried visualizing his later paintings of Japanese scenes in the Asuka period overlapping with this old Viennese street scene. But my imagination was unequal to the task, and I couldn’t discover any similarities between the two.

My terrace faced the narrow valley to the west, and across the way was a range of mountains about the same height as mine. And on the slopes of those mountains were a number of houses with generous space separating them, surrounded by lush greenery. To the right, diagonally across from the house I was living in, was a particularly striking modern-style house. The mountaintop house, built of white concrete and plenty of bluish tinted glass, was so elegant and luxurious the word “mansion” seemed a better term. It was built in three levels that ran along the slope. Most likely some first-rate architect had designed it. There are lots of summer homes in this area, but someone seemed to live in this house all year long, with lights on behind the windows every night. Of course it could be that the lights were on timers as a safety precaution. But I gathered otherwise, since the lights came on and turned off at different times, depending on the day. Sometimes all the lights were on at once and the windows were lit like brilliant window displays on a main street, while at other times the whole house sank back into darkness, the only light a faint glow from lanterns in the yard.

Sometimes a person would appear on the deck that faced my direction (the one that resembled the top deck of an ocean liner). At twilight I would often see the figure of whoever lived there. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The silhouette was small and usually backlit and in shadow. But from the outline of the silhouette, and the movements, my guess was that it was a man. And this person was always alone. Perhaps he didn’t have any family.

What kind of person lived in a place like that? In spare moments I tried to imagine. Did this person really live all by himself on this out-of-the-way mountaintop? What sort of work did he do? No doubt his life in that chic, glass-enclosed mansion was one of luxury and ease. He couldn’t be commuting every day to Tokyo from such an inconvenient spot. He must be living a life free of worries. But viewed from his perspective, looking at me from his side of the valley, I might appear to also be living a life of ease and leisure. From a distance, most things look beautiful.

That evening the figure appeared again. Like me, he sat, barely moving, in a chair out on the deck. As if he too was gazing at the twinkling stars, mulling over something. Thinking, no doubt, about things for which there was no answer, no matter how hard you thought about them. At least that’s how he looked to me. Everybody has something they speculate and wonder about, no matter how blessed their circumstances. I raised my wineglass a couple of inches, a secret gesture of solidarity to this person across the valley.

Naturally at the time I never imagined that this person would soon enter my life and change its direction entirely. Without him, none of the events that happened to me would have ever taken place. At the same time, if he hadn’t been there I might very well have lost my life in the darkness, with no one ever the wiser.

Our lives really do seem strange and mysterious when you look back on them. Filled with unbelievably bizarre coincidences and unpredictable, zigzagging developments. While they are unfolding, it’s hard to see anything weird about them, no matter how closely you pay attention to your surroundings. In the midst of the everyday, these things may strike you as simply ordinary things, a matter of course. They might not be logical, but time has to pass before you can see if something is logical.

Generally speaking, whether something is logical or isn’t, what’s meaningful about it are the effects. Effects are there for anyone to see, and can have a real influence. But pinpointing the cause that produced the effect isn’t easy. It’s even harder to show people something concrete that caused it, in a “Look, see?” kind of way. Of course there is a cause somewhere. Can’t be an effect without a cause. You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Like falling dominoes, one domino (cause) knocks over the adjacent domino (cause), which then knocks over the domino (cause) next to it. As this sequence continues on and on, you no longer know what was the original cause. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Or people don’t care to know. And the story comes down to “What happened was, a lot of dominoes fell over.” The story I’ll be telling here may very well follow a similar route.

In any case, the first things I want to describe—the first two dominoes I have to bring up, in other words—are the mysterious neighbor who lived on the mountaintop across the valley, and the painting titled Killing Commendatore. I’ll start with the painting.

⁵ HE HAS STOPPED BREATHING… HIS LIMBS ARE COLD

The first thing I found odd after I moved into the house was the utter lack of any paintings. Not only were none hanging on the walls, but there wasn’t a single painting of any kind even stuffed away in a shed or closet. No paintings by Tomohiko Amada, but none by any other artists either. Every wall was bare, with no traces even of nails that might have once been used to hang paintings. Artists almost always had at least some paintings around them—their own paintings, or those by other artists. Before they knew what had hit them, they’d be surrounded by all kinds of paintings, like when you endlessly shovel the snow but it keeps on piling up.

Once when I called Masahiko about something else, I happened to raise the topic. How come there’s not a painting of any kind in this house? Did somebody take them away, or there weren’t any to begin with?

“My father didn’t like keeping his own paintings around,” Masahiko said. “He’d call up his art dealers when he finished a work and leave it with them. If he wasn’t happy with a painting, he burned it in the incinerator in the yard. So it’s not so strange that there’s not a single one of his paintings there.”

“He didn’t own any paintings by other artists either?”

“He owned a handful. An old Matisse or Braque and the like. All of them small paintings he bought in Europe before the war. He got them from acquaintances, and they weren’t so expensive at the time. Now, of course, they would bring a hefty price. When he went into the nursing home I took all those paintings to an art dealer I know and let him handle them. Can’t leave them sitting there in an empty house now, can I? I imagine they’re in a special air-conditioned art storage warehouse. Apart from those, I’ve never seen any other artists’ works in the house. To tell the truth, my father didn’t much like other artists. And they didn’t like him either. A lone wolf, you might call him, or if we’re not being nice about it, a misfit.”

“Your father was in Vienna from 1936 to 1939, wasn’t he?”

“Right, he was there for about two years. I don’t know why he chose Vienna, since the artists he liked were mainly French.”

“And then he returned to Japan and suddenly switched to Japanese-style paintings,” I said. “Why do you think he made such a monumental decision? Did something unusual happen while he was abroad?”

“Hmm. It’s a mystery. My father never spoke much about his time in Vienna. Occasionally he’d talk about things nobody cared about—the Vienna zoo, or food, or the opera house. But when it came to talking about himself, he was a man of few words. And I never dared to ask him. We mostly lived apart, and rarely saw each other. He was less like a father to me than an uncle who came to visit every once in a while. When I got to junior high he seemed even more annoying, and I avoided contact with him. When I went into the art institute, too, I never consulted him about it. It’s not like our family was complicated, though it wasn’t exactly a normal family either. You get the general idea?”

“I do.”

“Anyway, my father’s memories of the past are all gone now. Or have sunk away into deep mud. He won’t answer you, no matter what you ask. He doesn’t even know who I am. Probably doesn’t even know who he is. Sometimes I think I should have asked all kinds of things before he got this way. Well, it’s too late now.”

Masahiko was silent for a time, lost in thought. “Why do you want to know that?” he finally asked. “Did something spark an interest in him?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “It’s just that, living in this house, I sense something like your father’s shadow lurking about. I also did a little research into his life at the library.”

“My father’s shadow?”

“Like a reminder of his existence, maybe.”

“Don’t you find that a little creepy?”

Over the phone I shook my head. “No. Not at all. It’s just like the presence of Tomohiko Amada is still hovering over things. Like it’s in the air.”

Masahiko was lost in thought again. “My father lived in that house for a long time, and did a lot of work there,” he said, “so maybe his presence remains. Who knows? To tell the truth, that’s why I don’t want to go near the place.”

I listened without comment.

“Like I said before,” he went on, “to me, Tomohiko Amada was basically just a grouchy old man I knew. Always holed up in his studio, painting, with a sour look on his face. He didn’t talk much, so I had no idea what was on his mind. When we were under the same roof my mom always told me, ‘Don’t bother your father when he’s working.’ I couldn’t run around or yell or anything. The world saw him as a famous artist, but to a little kid, he was simply a pain. Plus when I decided to go into art myself, having him as a father was a burden. Every time I introduced myself people would ask if I was related to Tomohiko Amada. I even thought about changing my name. I realize now he wasn’t such a bad person, really. I suppose he showed me affection in his own way. Though he wasn’t the type to show unconditional love toward a child. But that can’t be helped. Painting was always his top priority. That’s what artists are like.”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“I could never be an artist,” Masahiko said with a sigh. “That might be the only thing I learned from my father.”

“Didn’t you tell me before that when he was young he was pretty wild and did whatever he liked?”

“By the time I was big, he wasn’t like that anymore, but when he was young he played around a lot apparently. He was tall, good-looking, a young guy from a wealthy family, and a talented painter. How could women not be drawn to him? And he was certainly fond of the ladies. Rumor is that he had some affairs that his family had to pay to clear up. But my relatives said that after he returned from his time abroad, he was a different person.”

“A different person?”

“After he returned to Japan, he didn’t play around anymore, and just stayed at home focusing on his painting. And he didn’t socialize anymore. After he got back to Tokyo he was a bachelor for a long time, but once he could earn a good living painting, like the idea had just occurred to him, he suddenly and unexpectedly married a distant relative back home. For all the world like he was balancing the account book of his life or something. It was a late marriage for him. And then I was born. I have no clue if he ever played around with other women after he got married. Though I can say that he no longer made a show of having a good time.”

“Quite a change.”

“His parents were really happy, though, at how he’d changed. No more messy affairs for them to clean up. But none of our relatives could tell me what had happened to him in Vienna, or why he rejected Western painting in favor of Japanese-style art. When it came to those things my father’s mouth was clamped shut, like an oyster at the bottom of the sea.”

And even if you pried open that shell now, there would be nothing inside. I thanked Masahiko and hung up.

It was by total coincidence that I discovered the painting by Tomohiko Amada, the one with the unusual title, Killing Commendatore.

Sometimes in the middle of the night I’d hear a faint rustling sound from the attic above the bedroom. At first I thought it must be mice, or a squirrel that had found its way into the attic. But the sound was clearly not that of a rodent’s feet scurrying around. Nor that of a slithering snake. It sounded more like oil paper being crumpled up. Not loud enough to keep me from sleeping, but it did concern me that there was some unknown creature in the house. I figured it might be an animal that could cause some damage.

After searching around, I located the opening to the attic in the ceiling in the back of the guest bedroom closet. I lugged over the aluminum ladder from the storage shed and, flashlight in one hand, pushed open the cover. I timidly stuck my head through and looked around. The attic was bigger than I’d thought, and dark. A small amount of sunlight filtered in through the small vent holes on either side. I shone the flashlight around but didn’t see anything. At least nothing was moving. I took the plunge and hauled myself up into the attic.

The place smelled dusty, but not enough to bother me. The attic was apparently well ventilated and there wasn’t much dust on the floor. Several thick beams hung low on the ceiling, but as long as I avoided them I could walk around okay. I edged forward and checked both vents. Both were covered with screens so no animals could get in, but the screen on the north vent had a gap in it. Something might have knocked against it and ripped it. Or else an animal had intentionally ripped the wire to get inside. Either way, the opening was large enough for a smallish animal to easily scramble in.

I spotted the culprit I’d been hearing at night, silently settled on top of a beam in the dark. It was a small, gray horned owl. The owl’s eyes were closed and it seemed to be sleeping. I switched off my flashlight and stood away to silently observe without frightening it. I’d never seen a horned owl up close before. It looked less like an owl than like a cat with wings. It was a beautiful creature.

The owl most likely rested here during the day and then at night went out the vent hole to hunt for prey in the mountains. The sound of it going in and out must have been what woke me. No harm done. Having an owl in the attic also meant I needn’t worry about mice and snakes settling in. I figured I should just leave it be. I felt close to the little owl. Both of us just happened to be borrowing this house and sharing it. It could have the run of the attic as far as I was concerned. I enjoyed observing it for a time, then tiptoed back where I’d come from. That’s when I discovered the large wrapped package near the entrance.

One look told me it was a wrapped-up painting. About three feet in height and five feet in length, it was wrapped tightly in brown Japanese wrapping paper, with string tied several times around it. Nothing else was in the attic. The faint sunlight filtering in from the vent holes, the gray horned owl on top of a beam, the wrapped painting propped up against a wall. The combination felt magical, somehow, and captivated me.

I gingerly lifted the package. It wasn’t heavy—the weight of a painting set in a simple frame. The wrapping paper was slightly dusty. It must have been placed here, out of anyone’s sight, quite some time ago. A name tag was attached tightly with wire to the string. In blue ballpoint ink was written Killing Commendatore. The writing was done in a very careful hand. Most likely this was the title of the painting.

Naturally, I had no clue why that one painting would be hidden away in the attic. I considered what I should do. Obviously the correct thing to do would be to leave it where it was. This was Tomohiko Amada’s house, not mine, the painting clearly his possession (presumably it was one that he himself had painted), one that, for whatever reason, he had hidden away so no one would see it. That being the case, I thought I shouldn’t do anything uncalled for, and should let it continue to silently share the attic with the owl. I should just leave it be.

That made the most sense, but still I couldn’t suppress the curiosity surging up inside. The words in (what appeared to be) the title—Killing Commendatore—grabbed me. What kind of painting could it be? And why did Tomohiko Amada have to hide away this painting alone in the attic?

I picked up the painting and tested to see if it could squeeze through the opening to the attic. Logic dictated that a painting that had been brought up here shouldn’t have any problem being carried down. And there was no other entrance to the attic. But still I checked to see if it would squeeze through. As expected, it was a tight fit, but when I held it diagonally, it squeezed through the square opening. I imagined Tomohiko Amada carrying the painting up to the attic. He must have been by himself then, carrying around some secret inside him. I could vividly imagine the scene, as if I were actually witnessing it.

I don’t think Amada would be angry if he found out I’d brought the painting down from the attic. His mind was buried now in a deep maelstrom, according to his son, “unable to distinguish an opera from a frying pan.” He would never be coming back to this home. And if I left this painting in an attic with the screen over the vent hole ripped, mice and squirrels might gnaw away at it someday. Or else bugs might get to it. And if this painting really was by Tomohiko Amada, this would be a substantial loss to the art world.

I lowered the package on top of the shelf in the closet, gave a little wave to the horned owl huddled on the beam, then clambered down and quietly shut the lid to the entrance.

I didn’t unwrap the painting right away. I left that brown package propped up against the wall in the studio for several days. And I sat on the floor, gazing vaguely at it. It was hard for me to decide whether I should unwrap it or not. I mean, it belonged to somebody else, and whatever positive spin you might try to put on it, I didn’t have the right to unwrap it. If I wanted to, at least I should get permission from his son, Masahiko. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t feel like letting Masahiko know the painting existed. I felt like it was something personal, just between me and Tomohiko Amada. I can’t explain why. But that’s how I felt.

I stared at the painting (my assumption, of course, that it was actually a painting)—wrapped in Japanese paper and tied tightly with string—so hard I almost burned a hole in it, and after running the next step through my mind, over and over, I finally decided to unwrap it. It was no contest: my curiosity won out over any sense of etiquette or common sense. Whether this was the professional curiosity of an artist, or simple personal curiosity, I couldn’t say. Whatever, I just had to see what was inside. I don’t care what anyone says, I told myself. I brought over scissors, cut the tightly bound string, and peeled away the brown wrapping paper. I took my time, and did it carefully, in case I needed to rewrap it again later on.

Underneath the layers of wrapping paper was a painting in a simple frame, wrapped in a soft white cloth like bleached cotton. I gently lifted off that cloth, as carefully as if I were removing the bandages from a burn victim.

What was revealed under the white cloth was, as expected, a Japanese-style painting. A long, rectangular painting. I stood it up on a shelf, stood back a bit, and studied it.

It was Tomohiko Amada’s work, no doubt about it. Clearly done in his style and inimitable technique, with his signature bold use of space and dynamic composition. The painting depicted men and women dressed in the fashions of the Asuka period, the clothes and hairstyles of that age. But the painting startled me nonetheless. What it depicted was so violent it took my breath away.

As far as I knew, Tomohiko Amada hardly ever painted pictures that were harsh and violent. Maybe never. His paintings mostly summoned up feelings of nostalgia, gentleness, and peace. Occasionally they would take up historical events as his theme, but the people depicted in them generally faded away into the overall composition. They were shown as part of a close community in the midst of the abundant natural scenery of ancient times, esteeming harmony above all. Ego was submerged in the collective will, or absorbed into a calm fate. And the circle of life was quietly drawn closed. For Tomohiko Amada that very well may have been utopia. Over the years he continued to depict that world from all sorts of angles, all sorts of perspectives. Many called his style a “rejection of modernity” or a “return to antiquity.” Of course there were some who criticized it as escapist. In any case, after he returned to Japan from studying in Vienna he abandoned modernist oil painting, and shut himself away inside that kind of serene world, without a single word of explanation or justification.

But this painting titled Killing Commendatore was full of blood. Realistic blood flowing all over. Two men were fighting with heavy, ancient swords, in what seemed to be a duel. One of the men fighting was young, the other old. The young man had plunged his sword deep into the old man’s chest. The young man had a thin black mustache and wore tight-fitting light-greenish clothes. The old man was dressed in white and had a lush white beard. Around his neck was a necklace of beads. He had dropped his sword, which had not yet struck the ground. Blood was spewing from his chest. The tip of the sword must have pierced his aorta. The blood had soaked his white clothes, and his mouth was twisted in agony. His eyes were wide open, staring in disbelief into space. He realized he was defeated. But the real pain had yet to hit him.

For his part, the young man’s eyes were cold, fixed on his opponent. Not a sign of regret in those eyes, not a hint of confusion or fear, or a trace of agitation. Totally composed, those eyes were simply watching the impending death of another, and his own unmistakable victory. The gushing blood was nothing more than proof of that, and elicited no emotional reaction whatsoever.

Honestly, until then I had thought of Japanese-style paintings as static and formulaic, their techniques and subject matter ill-suited to the expression of strong emotion. A world that had nothing to do with me. But looking now at Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore I realized that had been nothing but prejudice on my part. In Amada’s depiction of the two men’s violent duel to the death was something that shook the viewer to the core. The man who won, the man who lost. The man who stabbed and the man who was stabbed. My heart was captured by the discrepancy. There is something very special about this painting, I thought.

There were a few other figures nearby watching the duel. One was a young woman. She had on refined, pure white clothes. Her hair was done up, with a large hair ornament. She held one hand in front of her mouth, which was slightly parted. She looked like she was about to take a deep breath and let out a scream. Her lovely eyes were wide open.

And there was another young man there. His clothes were not as splendid. Dark clothes, bereft of any ornaments, the kind of outfit designed to be easy to move around in. On his feet were plain-looking zori sandals. He looked like a servant. He had no long sword, just a short sword hanging from his waist. He was short and thickset, with a scraggly beard. In his left hand he held a kind of account book, like a clipboard that a company employee nowadays might have. His right hand was reaching out in the air as if to grab something. But it couldn’t grab anything. You couldn’t tell from the painting if he was the servant of the old man, or of the young man, or of the woman. One thing that was clear, though, was that this duel had taken place quickly, and neither the woman nor the servant had expected it to happen. Both of their faces revealed an unmistakable shock at the sudden turn of events.

The only one of the four who wasn’t surprised was the young man doing the killing. Probably nothing ever took him by surprise. He was not a born killer, and he didn’t enjoy killing. But if it served his purpose he wouldn’t hesitate to kill. He was young, burning with idealism (though of what kind I have no idea), a man overflowing with strength. And he was skilled in the art of wielding a sword. Seeing an old man past his prime dying by his hand didn’t surprise him. It was, in fact, a natural, rational act.

There was one other person there, an odd observer. The man was at the bottom left of the painting, much like a footnote in a text. His head was peeking out from a lid in the ground that he had partially pushed open. The lid was square, and made of boards. It reminded me of the attic cover in this house. The shape and size were identical. From there the man was watching the people on the surface.

A hole opening up to the surface? A square manhole? No way. They didn’t have sewers back in the Asuka period. And the duel was taking place outdoors, in an empty vacant lot. The only thing visible in the background was a pine tree, with low-hanging branches. Why would there be a hole with a cover there, in the middle of a vacant lot? It didn’t make any sense.

The man who was sticking his head out of the hole was weird looking. He had an unusually long face, like a twisted eggplant. His face was overgrown with a black beard, his hair long and tangled. He looked like some sort of vagabond or hermit who’d abandoned the world. In a way he also looked like someone who’d lost his mind. But the glint in his eyes was surprisingly sharp, insightful, even. That said, the insight there wasn’t the product of reason, but rather something induced by a sort of deviance—perhaps something akin to madness. I couldn’t tell the details of what he was wearing, since all that I could see was from the neck up. He, too, was watching the duel. But unlike the others, he showed no surprise at the turn of events. He was a mere observer of something that was supposed to take place, as if checking all the details of the incident, just to be sure. The young woman and the servant weren’t aware of the man with the long face behind them. Their eyes were riveted on the bloody duel. No one was about to turn around.

But who was this person? And why was he hiding beneath the ground back in ancient times? What was Tomohiko Amada’s purpose in deliberately including this uncanny, mysterious figure in one corner of the painting, and thus forcibly destroying the balance of the overall composition?

And why in the world was this painting given the title Killing Commendatore? True, an apparently high-ranking person was being killed in the picture. But that old man in his ancient garb certainly didn’t deserve to be called a commendatore—a knight commander. That was a title clearly from the European Middle Ages or the early modern period. There was no position like that in Japanese history. But still Tomohiko Amada gave it this strange-sounding title—Killing Commendatore. There had to be a reason.

The term “commendatore” sparked a faint memory. I’d heard the word before. I followed that trace of memory, as if tugging a thin thread toward me. I’d run across the word in a novel or drama. And it was a famous work. I knew I’d seen it somewhere…

And then it hit me. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. In the beginning of that opera was a scene, I was sure, of Killing Commendatore. I went over to the shelf of records in the living room, took out the boxed set of Don Giovanni, and read through the accompanying commentary. And sure enough, the person killed in the opening scene was the Commendatore. He didn’t have a name. He was simply listed as “Commendatore.”

The libretto was in Italian, and the old man killed in the beginning was called Il Commendatore. Whoever translated the libretto into Japanese had rendered it as kishidancho—literally, “the knight commander”—and that had become the standard term in Japanese. I had no clue what sort of rank or position the term “commendatore” referred to in reality. The commentary in a few other boxed sets didn’t elaborate. He was merely a nameless commendatore appearing in the opera with the sole function of being stabbed to death by Don Giovanni in the opening of the opera. And in the end he transformed into an ominous statue that appeared to Don Giovanni and took him down to hell.

Pretty obvious, if you think about it, I thought. The handsome young man in this painting is the rake Don Giovanni (Don Juan in Spanish) and the older man being killed is the honored knight commander. The young woman is the Commendatore’s beautiful daughter Donna Anna, the servant is Don Giovanni’s man, Leporello. What he had in his hands was the detailed list of all the women Don Giovanni had seduced up until then, a lengthy catalog of names. Don Giovanni had forced himself on Donna Anna, and when her father confronted him with this violation, they had a duel, and Don Giovanni stabbed the older man to death. It’s a famous scene. Why hadn’t I picked up on that?

Probably because Mozart’s opera and a Japanese-style painting depicting the Asuka period were so remote from each other. So of course I hadn’t been able to make the connection. But once I did, everything fell into place. Tomohiko Amada had “adapted” the world of Mozart’s opera into the Asuka period. A fascinating experiment, for sure. That, I recognized. But why was that adaptation necessary? It was so very different from his usual style of painting. And why did he tightly wrap the painting and hide it away in the attic?

And what was the significance of that figure in the bottom left, the man with the long face sticking his head out from underground? In Mozart’s Don Giovanni no one like that appeared. There must have been a reason Tomohiko Amada had added him. Also in the opera Donna Anna didn’t actually witness her father being stabbed to death. She was off asking her lover, the knight Don Ottavio, for help. By the time they got back to the scene, her father had already breathed his last. Amada had—no doubt for dramatic purposes—subtly changed the way the scene played out. But there was no way the man sticking his head out of the ground was Don Ottavio. That man’s features weren’t anything found in this world. It was impossible that this was the upright, righteous knight who could help Donna Anna.

Was he a demon from hell? Scouting out the situation in anticipation of dragging Don Giovanni down to hell? But he didn’t look like a demon or devil. A demon wouldn’t have such strangely sparkling eyes. A devil wouldn’t push a square wooden lid up and peek out. The figure more resembled a trickster who had come to intervene. “Long Face” is what I called him, for lack of a better term.

For a few weeks I just silently stared at that painting. With it in front of me, I couldn’t bring myself to do any painting of my own. I barely even felt like eating. I’d grab whatever vegetables were in the fridge, dip them in mayo, and chew on that, or else heat up a can of whatever I had on hand. That’s about the size of it. All day long I’d sit on the floor of the studio, endlessly listening to the record of Don Giovanni, staring enthralled at Killing Commendatore. When the sun set, I’d have a glass of wine.

The painting was amazing. As far as I knew, though, it wasn’t reprinted in any collection of Amada’s work, which meant no one else knew it existed. If it were made public it would no doubt become one of his best-known paintings. If they held a retrospective of his art, it wouldn’t be surprising if this was the painting used on the promotional poster. This wasn’t simply a painting that was wonderfully done, though. The painting was brimming with an extraordinary sort of energy. Anyone with even a little knowledge of art couldn’t miss that fact. There was something in this painting that appealed to the deepest part of the viewer’s heart, something suggestive that enticed the imagination to another realm.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the bearded Long Face on the left side of the painting. It felt like he’d opened the lid to invite me, personally, to the world underground. No one else, just me. I couldn’t stop thinking about what sort of realm lay beneath. Where in the world had he come from? And what did he do there? Would that lid be closed up again, or would it be left open?

As I stared at the painting I listened to that scene from Don Giovanni over and over. Act 1, scene 3, soon after the overture. And I nearly memorized the lyrics and the lines.

⁶ AT THIS POINT HE’S A FACELESS CLIENT

Summer was winding down when the call came in from my agent. It had been a while since anyone had called me. The summer heat still lingered during the day, though when the sun set the air in the mountains was chilly. The noisy clamor of the summer cicadas was slowly fading away, but now a chorus of other insects had taken their place. Unlike when I lived in the city, I was surrounded by nature now and one season freely chipped away at portions of the preceding one.

We brought each other up to date, though there wasn’t much to tell on my end.

“How’s your painting coming along?” he asked.

“Slowly but surely,” I said. This was a lie, of course. It was more than four months since I’d moved here, yet the canvas I’d prepared was still blank.

“Glad to hear it,” he said. “I’d like to see how you’re doing sometime. Maybe there’s something I can do to help out.”

“Thanks. We’ll do that sometime.”

Then he told me why he’d called. “I have a request. Are you sure you’re not willing to do one more portrait? What do you think?”

“I told you I’ve given up doing portraits.”

“I know. But the fee this time is unbelievable.”

“Unbelievable?”

“It’s amazing.”

“How amazing?”

He told me the figure. I nearly let out a whistle of surprise. “There have got to be a lot of other people besides me who specialize in portraits,” I replied calmly.

“There aren’t all that many, really, though there are a few besides you who are fairly decent.”

“Then you should ask them. With a fee like that anybody would jump at the chance.”

“The thing is, the other party specifically asked for you. That’s their condition. No one else will do.”

I shifted the phone to my left hand and scratched behind my right ear.

The agent went on. “The person saw several portraits you’ve done and was very impressed. He felt that the vitality in your paintings can’t easily be found elsewhere.”

“I don’t get it. How could an ordinary person have seen several of my portraits? It’s not like I have a one-man show at a gallery every year.”

“I really don’t know the details,” he said, sounding perplexed. “I’m just passing along what the other party told me. I told him up front that you were no longer doing portraits. I said you seemed pretty firm about it, and even if I asked you you’d most likely turn him down. But he wouldn’t give up. That’s when this figure came up.”

I mulled over the offer. Honestly, it was a tempting amount. And I felt a bit of pride that someone saw that much value in my paintings—even if it was work I’d done half mechanically for money. But the thing was, I’d sworn I’d never paint commissioned portraits again. When my wife left me it spurred me to start over again, and I couldn’t reverse my decision just because somebody was willing to shell out a pile of money.

“Why is he being so generous?” I asked.

“Even though we’re in a recession, there are still people who have so much money they don’t know what to do with it. There are a lot of people like that—ones who made a killing in online stock trading, or tech entrepreneurs. And getting a portrait done is something they can write off as a business expense.”

“Write off?”

“In their accounts a portrait isn’t included as a work of art but as office equipment.”

“Talk about heartwarming,” I said.

But even if they have tons of excess cash, and even if they can write it off as a business expense, I can’t see entrepreneurs or people who’ve made a fortune trading stocks online wanting to have their portraits painted and hung on their company walls as office equipment. Most of these are young people decked out at work in faded jeans, sneakers, worn T-shirts, and Banana Republic jackets, proud to be drinking Starbucks from a paper cup. An imposing oil portrait didn’t fit their lifestyle. But there are all kinds in the world. You can’t generalize. It’s not necessarily true that no one wants to be painted sipping Starbucks (or whatever) coffee (Fair Trade beans only, of course) from a paper cup.

“But there’s one condition,” the agent said. “The other party wants you to use the client as a live model, and paint when you’re actually together. They’ll make the time to do that.”

“But I don’t work that way.”

“I know. You meet the client but don’t have them model for you. That’s your way of working. I told them that. They said they understood but they’d like you to make an exception and paint the client live and in person. That’s the other party’s condition.”

“What’s the purpose?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a pretty odd request. Why would they insist on that? You’d think they’d be happy not to actually have to sit for the portrait.”

“I agree it’s unconventional. But it’s hard to complain about the fee.”

“I’m with you there—hard to complain about the fee,” I agreed.

“It’s all up to you. It’s not like you’re being asked to sell your soul or anything. You’re a very skilled portrait painter, and they’re counting on that skill.”

“I feel like a retired hit man in the mob,” I said. “Like I’m being asked to whack one more target.”

“Though no blood’s going to be shed. What do you say—will you do it?”

No blood’s going to be shed, I silently repeated. The painting Killing Commendatore came to mind.

“What sort of person is the one I’d paint?” I asked.

“Actually, I don’t know.”

“You don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman?”

“I don’t. I haven’t heard a thing about the sex or age or name. At this point he’s a totally faceless client. A lawyer saying he was representing the client called me. That’s the ‘other party’ I spoke with about it.”

“Do you think it’s legit?”

“I don’t see anything suspect about it. The lawyer works at a reputable firm and said they’ll transfer an advance as soon as you accept.”

Phone in hand, I sighed. “This is kind of sudden, and I don’t think I can give you an answer right away. I need time to think.”

“Understood. Think about it as long as you need. It’s not an urgent job, the other party said.”

I thanked him and hung up. I couldn’t think of anything else to do so I went to the studio, turned on the light, plunked myself down on the floor, and stared vaguely at Killing Commendatore. After a while I started to get hungry and went to the kitchen, piled a plate with Ritz Crackers and ketchup, and went back to the studio. I dipped the crackers in the ketchup and munched them as I went back to staring at the painting. Nothing about that food tasted good. It was, if anything, pretty awful. But taste wasn’t the issue. Keeping hunger at bay for a while was the priority.

That’s how much the painting drew me in, from the overall composition to the small details. It truly held me captive. After a few weeks of exhaustive gazing at the painting, I ventured closer to it to inspect each detail. What most caught my attention were the expressions on each of the five people’s faces. I did minute pencil sketches of each of them. From the Commendatore, to Don Giovanni, Donna Anna, Leporello, and Long Face. Just like a reader might carefully copy down in a notebook each word and phrase he liked in a book.

This was the first time I’d ever sketched figures from a Japanese-style painting, and it was far more difficult than I’d expected. Japanese painting emphasized lines, and tended to be more flat than three-dimensional. Symbolism was emphasized over reality. It’s inherently impossible to transfer a painting done from that perspective into the grammar of Western painting, though after much trial and error I was able to do a fairly decent job of it. Calling it “recasting” might be a bit much, but it was necessary to interpret and translate the painting in my own way. Which necessitated grasping the intent that went into the original painting. I had to come to an understanding of Tomohiko Amada, his viewpoint as an artist, and the kind of person he was. Figuratively speaking, I had to put myself in his shoes.

After I’d done this for a while, the thought struck me: maybe doing a portrait again wasn’t such a bad idea. I mean, my painting wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t even get a hint of what I should paint, or what I wanted to paint. Even if I wasn’t too keen on the job, getting my hands moving again wouldn’t be a bad thing. If I kept on like this, unable to draw a thing, I might find myself unable to paint ever again. Maybe I wouldn’t even be able to paint a portrait. The fee, of course, was also pretty tempting. My living expenses at this point were minimal, but my pay from the art classes wasn’t enough to cover them. I’d gone on that long trip, bought a used Corolla station wagon, and my savings were diminishing. So a sizable fee like the one I’d get from doing the portrait was, admittedly, very appealing.

I called my agent and told him that just this one time, I would take on the job. Naturally, he was happy to hear this.

“But if I have to paint the client in person, that means I need to travel to wherever he is,” I said.

“No need to worry about that. The other party will come to your place in Odawara.”

“To Odawara?”

“That’s right.”

“He knows where I’m living?”

“He apparently lives nearby. He even knows that you’re living in Tomohiko Amada’s place.”

This left me speechless. “That’s strange. Hardly anybody knows I’m living here. Especially that I’m in Amada’s house.”

“I didn’t know that either,” the agent said.

“Then how does that person know?”

“I have no idea. But you can find out just about anything from the Internet these days. For people who know their way around it, privacy is a thing of the past.”

“Is it just a coincidence that that person lives near me? Or was the fact that I live nearby one of the reasons he chose me?”

“That, I couldn’t say. When you meet the client, if there’s something you want to know, you can ask.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.

“So when can you start?” he asked.

“Anytime,” I said.

“All right, I’ll let them know, and get back to you,” the agent said.

After I hung up I went out to the terrace, settled into the lounge chair, and thought about how things had turned out. The more I mulled it over, the more questions I had. First off, it bothered me that the client knew I was living here, in this house. It was like I was under surveillance, with somebody watching my every move. But why would anyone have that much interest in a person like me? Plus the whole thing sounded too good to be true. The portraits I’d done were certainly well received. And I had a certain amount of confidence in them. But these were, ultimately, the kind of portraits you could find anywhere. No way could you ever call them “works of art.” And as far as the world was concerned I was a completely unknown artist. No matter how many of my paintings someone had seen and liked (not that I accepted that story at face value), would that person really shell out such an enormous fee?

A thought suddenly struck me, out of nowhere: Could the client be the husband of the woman I was having an affair with? I had no proof to go on, yet the more I thought about it the more it seemed like a real possibility. When it came to an anonymous neighbor who was interested in me, that’s all I could come up with. But why would her husband go to the trouble and expense of paying a huge fee to have his wife’s lover paint his own portrait? It didn’t add up. Unless he was some weird pervert or something.

Fine. If that’s how things are working out, then just go with the flow. If the client has some hidden agenda, just let it play out. That was a much more sensible thing to do than remaining as I was, stuck, deadlocked in the mountains. Curiosity was also a factor. What kind of person was this client? What did he want from me in exchange for the huge fee? I had to discover what motivated him.

Once I’d made up my mind I felt relieved. That night, for the first time in a while, I fell into a deep sleep right away, with no thoughts buzzing around in my head. At one point I felt like I heard the rustling of the horned owl in the middle of the night. But that might have just been a piece of a fragmentary dream.

⁷ FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, IT’S AN EASY NAME TO REMEMBER

My agent in Tokyo called a few more times, and we decided that I would meet our mystery client on Tuesday afternoon of the following week. (At that point the client’s name was still not revealed.) I had them agree to my usual procedure, wherein, on the first day, we simply met and talked together for an hour or so, before we embarked upon a drawing.

As you might imagine, painting a portrait requires the ability to accurately grasp the special features of a person’s face. But that’s not all. If it were, you’d end up with a caricature. To paint a vibrant portrait you need the skill to discover what lies at the core of the person’s face. A face is like reading a palm. More than the features you’re born with, a face is gradually formed over the passage of time, through all the experiences a person goes through, and no two faces are alike.

On Tuesday morning I straightened up the house, picked some flowers from the garden and put them in vases, moved the Killing Commendatore painting out of the studio into the guest bedroom, and wrapped it up again in brown paper. I didn’t want anyone else seeing it.

At five past one p.m. a car drove up the steep slope and parked in the covered driveway at the entrance. A heavy, brazen-sounding engine echoed, like some giant animal giving a satisfied purr from deep inside a cave. A high-powered engine. The engine shut off, and quiet again settled over the valley. The car was a silver Jaguar sports coupe. Sunlight from between the clouds reflected brightly off the long, brightly polished fenders. I’m not that into cars, so I don’t know which model this was, but my guess was that it was the latest model, the mileage in the four digits, the price twenty times what I paid for my used Corolla station wagon. Not that this surprised me. The client was, after all, willing to pay such a huge fee to have a portrait done. If he’d appeared at my door in a massive yacht, it wouldn’t have been surprising.

The person who got out of the car was a well-dressed middle-aged man. He had on dark-green sunglasses, a long-sleeved white cotton shirt (not simply white, but a pure white), and khaki chinos. His shoes were cream-colored deck shoes. He was probably a shade over five feet seven inches tall. His face had a nice, even tan. He gave off an overall fresh, clean feel. But what struck me most on this first encounter was his hair. Slightly curly and thick, it was white down to the last hair. Not gray or salt-and-pepper, but a pure white, like freshly fallen, virgin snow.

He got out of the car, closed the door (which made that special pleasant thunk expensive car doors make when you casually shut them), didn’t lock it but put the key in his trouser pocket, and strode toward my front door—all of which I watched from a gap in the curtains. The way he walked was quite lovely. Back straight, the necessary muscles all equally in play. I figured he must work out regularly, and pretty hard training at that. I stepped away from the window, sat in a chair in the living room, and waited for the front doorbell to ring. Once it did, I slowly walked to the door and opened it.

When I opened the door the man took off his sunglasses, slipped them into the breast pocket of his shirt, and without a word held out his hand. Half reflexively I held out my hand, too. He shook it. It was a firm handshake, the way Americans do it. A little too firm for me, not that it hurt or anything.

“My name is Menshiki. It’s very nice to meet you,” the man said in a clear voice. The sort of tone a lecturer would make at the beginning of his talk to test the microphone and introduce himself at the same time.

“The pleasure’s mine,” I said. “Mr. Menshiki?”

“The men is written with the character in menzeiten—the one that means ‘avoidance’—and the shiki is the character iro, for ‘color.’”

“Mr. Menshiki,” I repeated, lining the two characters up in my mind. A strange combination.

“ ‘Avoiding colors,’ is what it means,” the man said. “An unusual name. Other than my relatives I rarely run across anyone who shares it.”

“But it’s easy to remember.”

“Exactly. It’s an easy name to remember. For better or for worse.” The man smiled. He had faint stubble from his cheeks to his chin, but I don’t think he’d simply left off shaving. When he’d shaved he’d left an exact, calculated amount of stubble. Different from his hair, his beard was half black. I found it odd that only his hair was pure white.

“Please come in,” I said.

Menshiki gave a small nod, removed his shoes, and stepped inside. The way he carried himself was charming, though I could sense a bit of tension. Like some large cat taken to a new place, each movement was careful and light, his eyes darting quickly around to take in his surroundings.

“A comfortable-looking place,” he said after sitting down on the sofa. “Very relaxed and quiet.”

“Quiet it certainly is. But kind of inconvenient when you have to go shopping.”

“I would imagine for someone in your field it’s an ideal environment.”

I sat down in the chair across from him.

“I heard that you live nearby, Mr. Menshiki?”

“Yes, that’s right. It would take a while to walk here, though as the crow flies it’s actually pretty near.”

“As the crow flies,” I said, repeating his words. There was a somehow strange ring to the expression. “But how near is it, actually?”

“Close enough that if you wave your hand here you could see it.”

“You can see your house from here?”

“Exactly.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, and Menshiki asked, “Would you like to see my house?”

“If I could, yes,” I said.

“Do you mind if we go out on the terrace?”

“Please, go right ahead.”

Menshiki got up from the sofa and went straight from the living room to the terrace. He leaned out over the railing and pointed across the valley.

“You see that white concrete house over there? The one on top of the mountain, with the shiny windows?”

I was speechless. That was the house, that smart, elegant house I often looked at when I went out at sunset onto the terrace to enjoy a glass of wine. The large house that stood out from all the rest, diagonally to the right from mine.

“It’s a little far, but if you made a big wave with your hand you could say hello,” Menshiki said.

“But how did you know I was living here?” I asked, resting my hands on the railing.

He looked puzzled. He wasn’t really fazed, just displaying a puzzled look. Not that his expression seemed contrived. He’d simply wanted to throw in a pause before responding.

“One aspect of my job is gathering all kinds of information,” he said. “That’s the sort of business I’m in.”

“Is it tech related?”

“That’s right. Or more precisely, that’s also one aspect of my work.”

“But hardly anyone knows yet that I’m living here.”

Menshiki smiled. “Saying hardly anyone knows means, paradoxically, that there are some who do.”

I looked over again at that exquisite white concrete building across the valley, and once more studied the man beside me. He was, most likely, the one who appeared almost every evening on the deck of that house. When I thought of it, his shape and movements all fit that silhouette perfectly… It was hard to figure out his age. That snow-white hair made me think he must be in his late fifties or early sixties, though his skin was lustrous and tight, and wrinkle free. His deep-looking eyes had the youthful twinkle of a man in his late thirties. All of which made guessing his age a tough call. I would have accepted anything between forty-five and sixty.

Menshiki went back to the sofa in the living room, and I sat down again across from him.

“Do you mind if I ask a question?” I finally ventured.

“Ask away,” he said, beaming.

“Is there some connection between the fact that I live near your house and your decision to ask me to paint your portrait?”

A slight look of confusion came over him. And when he looked confused, several tiny wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. Charming wrinkles. His features, viewed individually, were all quite attractive—the eyes almond shaped and slightly deep set, the forehead noble and broad, the eyebrows thick and nicely defined, the nose thin and a nice size. Eyes, eyebrows, and nose that perfectly fit his smallish face. His face was a bit small, yet too broad in a way, and from a purely aesthetic viewpoint was a little imbalanced. The vertical and horizontal were out of sync, though this disparity wasn’t necessarily a defect. It’s what gave his face its distinctiveness, since it was this imbalance that conversely gave the viewer a sense of calm. If his features had been too perfectly symmetrical people might have felt a bit of antipathy, or wariness, toward him. But as it was, his ever-so-slightly unbalanced features had a calming effect on anyone meeting him for the first time. They broadcast, in a friendly way, “It’s all good, not to worry. I’m not a bad person. I don’t plan to do anything bad to you.”

The pointed, largish tips of his ears were slightly visible through his neatly trimmed hair. They conveyed a sense of freshness, of vigor, reminding me of spry little mushrooms in a forest, peeking out from among the fallen leaves on an autumn morning, just after it had rained. His mouth was broad, the thin lips neatly closed in a line, diligently prepared to, at any moment, break into a smile.

One could call him handsome. And he actually was. Yet his features rejected that sort of casual description, neatly circumventing it. His face was too lively, its movements too subtle to simply abide by that label. The expressions that rose on his features weren’t calculated, but looked more like they’d arisen naturally, spontaneously. If they weren’t, then he was quite the actor. But I got the impression that wasn’t the case.

When I observe the face of a person I’ve met for the first time, from habit I sense all sorts of things. In most cases there’s no tangible basis for how I feel. It’s nothing more than intuition. But that’s what helps me as a portrait artist—that simple intuition.

“The answer is yes, and no,” Menshiki said. His hands on his knees were wide open, palms up. He turned them over.

I said nothing, waiting for his next words.

“I do worry about who lives in the neighborhood,” Menshiki went on. “No, not worry, exactly. It’s more like I’m interested. Especially when it’s someone I see now and then across the valley.”

It’s a little too great a distance to say we actually see each other, I thought, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he had high-powered binoculars and had been secretly observing me? I kept that thought to myself. I mean, what possible reason could he have to observe a person like me?

“And I learned that you had moved in here,” Menshiki continued. “I found out you’re a professional portrait artist, and that aroused my interest enough to seek out a few of your paintings. At first I saw them on the Internet. But I wasn’t satisfied, so I went to see three actual paintings.”

That had me puzzled. “You saw the actual paintings?”

“I went to see the people who had modeled for you and asked them to let me see the portraits. They were happy to show me them. It seems like people who sit for portraits are really pleased to show them off. I got a strange sensation when I saw the actual paintings up close and compared them to the faces of the people. It’s like I couldn’t tell which one was real anymore. How should I put it? There’s something about your paintings that strikes the viewer’s heart from an unexpected angle. At first they seem like ordinary, typical portraits, but if you look carefully you see something hidden inside them.”

“Something hidden?” I asked.

“I’m not sure how to put it. Maybe the real personality?”

“Personality,” I mused. “My personality? Or the subject’s?”

“Both, probably. They’re mixed together, so elaborately intertwined they can’t be separated. It’s not something you can overlook. Even if you just glance at the paintings as you pass by, you feel like you’ve missed something, and you can’t help but come back and study them carefully. It’s that indefinable something that drew me to them.”

I was silent.

“And I had this thought: This is the person I want to paint my portrait. No matter what. I got in touch with your agent right away.”

“Through an intermediary.”

“Correct. I normally use an intermediary, a law office. It’s not that I have a guilty conscience or anything. I just like to protect my anonymity.”

“And it’s an easy name to remember.”

“Exactly,” he said, and smiled. His mouth spread wide, the tips of his ears quivered ever so slightly. “There are times when I don’t want my name to be known.”

“Still, the fee is a little too much,” I said.

“Price is always relative, determined by supply and demand. Those are basic market principles. If I want to buy something and you don’t want to sell it, the price goes up. And in the opposite case, the price goes down.”

“I understand market principles. But is it really necessary for you to go to all that length to have me paint your portrait? Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but a portrait isn’t something a person really needs.”

“True enough. It’s not something you need. But I’m also curious about what sort of portrait you’d do if you painted me. I want to find that out. You could think of it another way, namely that I’m putting a price on my own curiosity.”

“And your curiosity doesn’t come cheap.”

He smiled happily. “The purer the curiosity is, the stronger it is. And the more money it takes to satisfy it.”

“Would you care for some coffee?” I asked.

“That would be nice.”

“I made it a little while ago in the coffee maker. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine. I’ll take it black, if you don’t mind.”

I went into the kitchen, poured coffee into two cups, and carried them back out.

“I notice you have a lot of opera recordings,” Menshiki said as he drank the coffee. “You’re a big opera fan?”

“Those aren’t mine. The owner of this place left them. Thanks to them, though, I’ve listened to a lot of opera since I came here.”

“By owner you mean Tomohiko Amada?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you have a favorite?”

I gave it some thought. “These days I’ve been listening to Don Giovanni a lot. There’s a bit of a reason for that.”

“What kind of reason? I’d like to hear, if you don’t mind?”

“Well, it’s personal. Nothing important.”

“I like Don Giovanni too, and listen to it a lot,” Menshiki said. “I heard it once in a small opera house in Prague. This was back just after the fall of the communist regime.

“I’m sure you know this,” he continued, “but Don Giovanni was first performed in Prague. The theater was small, and so was the orchestra, and none of the singers were famous, yet it was a wonderful performance. They didn’t have to sing really loud like in a big opera house, and could express their feelings in a very intimate way. Impossible at the Met or La Scala. There you need a well-known singer with a booming voice. Sometimes the arias in those big opera houses remind me of acrobatics. But what operas like Mozart’s need is intimacy, like music. Don’t you think so? In that sense the performance I heard in Prague was the ideal Don Giovanni.”

He took another sip of coffee. I said nothing, observing his actions.

“I’ve had the opportunity to hear performances of Don Giovanni all over the world,” he went on. “In Vienna, Rome, Milan, London, Paris, at the Met, and even in Tokyo. With Abbado, Levine, Ozawa, Maazel, and who else?… Georges Prêtre, I believe. But the Don Giovanni I heard in Prague is the one that, strangely enough, has stayed with me. The singers and conductor weren’t people I’d ever heard of, but outside, after the performance, Prague was covered in a thick fog. There weren’t many lights back then and the streets were pitch black at night. As I wandered down the deserted cobblestone streets I suddenly ran across a bronze statue. Whose statue, I have no idea. But he was dressed as a medieval knight. The thought struck me that I should ask him out to dinner. I didn’t, of course.”

He smiled again.

“Do you often go abroad?” I asked.

“Sometimes for work I do,” he said. As if a thought occurred to him, he remained silent. I surmised that he didn’t want to talk specifics about his job.

“So, what do you think?” Menshiki asked, looking me right in the eye. “Did I pass the test? Will you paint my portrait?”

“I’m not testing you. We’re just getting together for a talk.”

“But before you begin a painting you always meet and talk with the client. I heard that if you don’t like the person, you won’t paint his portrait.”

I glanced over toward the terrace. A large crow had settled on the railing, but as if sensing my gaze, he spread his glossy wings and took off.

“I guess that’s possible, but fortunately I haven’t met anyone I don’t like yet.”

“I hope I’m not the first,” Menshiki said with a smile. His eyes, though, weren’t smiling. He was serious.

“Don’t worry. I would be more than pleased to paint your portrait.”

“That’s wonderful,” he said. He paused. “This is kind of selfish of me, but I have a little request myself.”

I looked straight at him again. “What kind of request?”

“If possible I’d like you to paint me freely, and not worry about the usual conventions involved in doing a portrait. I mean, if you want to paint a standard portrait, that’s fine. If you paint it using your usual techniques, the way you’ve painted till now, I’m all right with that. But if you do decide to try out a different approach, I’d welcome that.”

“A different approach?”

“Whatever style you like is entirely up to you. Paint it any way you like.”

“So you’re saying that, like Picasso’s painting during one period, I could put both eyes on one side of the face and you’d be okay with that?”

“If that’s how you want to paint me, I have no objections. I leave it all up to you.”

“And you’ll hang that on the wall of your office.”

“Right now I don’t have an office per se. So I’ll probably hang it in my study at home. As long as you have no objection.”

Of course I had none. All walls were the same as far I was concerned. I mulled all this over before replying.

“Mr. Menshiki, I’m grateful to you for saying that, for telling me to paint in whatever style I want. But honestly nothing specific pops into my head at the moment. You have to understand, I’m merely a portrait painter. For a long time I’ve followed a set pattern and style. Even if I’m told to remove any restrictions, to paint as freely as I want, the restrictions themselves are part of the technique. So I think it’s likely I’ll paint a standard portrait, the way I have up till now. I hope that’s all right with you?”

Menshiki held both hands wide. “Of course. Do what you think is best. The only thing I want is for you to have a totally free hand.”

“One other thing: if you’re going to pose for the portrait, I’ll need you to come to my studio a number of times and sit in a chair for quite a while. I’m sure your work keeps you quite busy, so do you think that’ll be possible?”

“I can clear my schedule anytime. I was the one, after all, who asked that you paint me from real life. I’ll come here and sit quietly in the chair as long as I can. We can have a good long talk then. You don’t mind talking?”

“No, of course not. Actually, I welcome it. To me, you’re a complete mystery. In order to paint you, I might need a little more information about you.”

Menshiki laughed and quietly shook his head. When he did so, his pure white hair softly shook, like a winter prairie blowing in the wind.

“I think you overestimate me. There’s nothing particularly mysterious about me. I don’t talk much about myself because telling all the details would bore people, that’s all.”

He smiled, the lines at his eyes deepening. A very clean, open smile. But that can’t be all, I thought. There was something hidden inside him. A secret locked away in a small box and buried deep down in the ground. Buried a long time ago, with soft green grass now growing above it. And the only person in the world who knew the location of the box was Menshiki. I couldn’t help but sense, deep within his smile, a solitude that comes from a certain sort of secret.

We talked for another twenty minutes or so, deciding when he would come here to model, and how much time he could spare. On his way out, at the front door, he once more held out his hand, quite naturally, and I took it without thinking. A firm handshake at the beginning and end of an encounter seemed to be Menshiki’s way of doing things. He slipped on his sunglasses, took the car keys from his pocket, boarded the silver Jaguar (which looked like some well-trained, slick, oversized animal), and gracefully eased down the slope, as I watched from the window. I went out on the terrace and gazed at the white house on the mountain he was heading back to.

What an unusual character, I thought. Friendly enough, not overly quiet. But it was as if he hadn’t said a single thing about himself. The most I’d learned was that he lived in that elegant house across the valley, did work that partly involved the Internet, and frequently traveled abroad. And that he was a big fan of opera. Beyond that, though, I knew very little. Whether or not he had a family, how old he was, where he was from originally, how long he’d lived on that mountain. He hadn’t even told me his first name.

And why be so insistent on me being the one to paint his portrait? I’d like to think it was because I had talent, something obvious to anyone who saw my work. Yet it was clear that this was not his sole motivation for commissioning me to do the painting. It seemed true that portraits I’d done had drawn his attention. That couldn’t be a complete lie. But I wasn’t naive enough to accept everything he told me at face value.

So—what did this man, Menshiki, want from me? What was his endgame? What sort of scenario had he prepared for me?

Even after we had talked, I still had no idea how to answer these questions. The mystery, in fact, had deepened. Why, for one thing, did he have such amazingly white hair? That kind of white wasn’t exactly normal. I recalled an Edgar Allan Poe short story in which a fisherman gets caught up in a massive whirlpool and his hair turns white overnight. Had Menshiki experienced something just as terrifying?

After the sun set, lights came on in the white concrete mansion across the valley. Bright lights, and plenty of them. It looked like the kind of house designed by a self-assured architect unconcerned about things like the electric bill. Or perhaps the client was overly afraid of the dark and requested the architect to build a house where lights could blaze from one end to the other. Either way, viewed from afar, the house looked like a luxury liner silently crossing the ocean at night.

I sprawled out on the chair on the terrace and, sipping white wine, gazed at those lights. I was half expecting Menshiki to come out on his terrace, but that evening he didn’t appear. But if he had, how should I have acted? Wave my hand in a big gesture of greeting?

I figured that, in time, my questions would be answered. That’s about all I could expect.

⁸ A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

After my Wednesday-evening art class, when I taught an adult class for about an hour, I stopped by an Internet café near Odawara Station and did a Google search for the name Menshiki. I came up empty-handed. There were lots of online articles with the character men in them, as in unten menkyo—driver’s license—and the shiki appeared in ones about partial color-blindness—shikijaku. But there didn’t seem to be any information out there in the world about a Mr. Menshiki. His statement that he took anonymity seriously seemed, indeed, to be the case. I was assuming, of course, that Menshiki was his real name, but my gut told me he wouldn’t lie about something like that. It didn’t make sense for him to tell me where he lived but not tell me his real name. And unless he had some compelling reason, it seemed to me that if he were to make up a phony name, he would choose one that was more common and didn’t stand out so much.

When I got back home I called Masahiko Amada. After chatting a bit I asked if he knew anything about the man named Menshiki who lived across the valley. I described the white concrete house on the mountain. He had a vague memory of it.

“Menshiki?” Masahiko asked. “What kind of name is that?”

“It’s written with the characters that mean ‘avoiding colors.’”

“Sounds like a Chinese ink painting.”

“But white and black are counted as colors,” I pointed out.

“In theory, I suppose…. Menshiki? I don’t think I’ve heard the name. I wouldn’t know anything about anyone living on a mountain across the valley. I mean, I don’t even know the people living on your side of the valley. Is there something going on between the two of you?”

“We sort of connected,” I said. “And I was wondering if you knew anything about him.”

“Did you check online?”

“I did a Google search but struck out.”

“How about Facebook or other social media?”

“I don’t know much about those.”

“While you were asleep with the fish in the Dragon King’s palace, like in the fairy tale, culture has forged on ahead. Not to worry—I’ll check them for you. If I find anything, I’ll give you a call.”

“Thanks.”

Masahiko was suddenly silent. On the other end of the phone it felt like he was contemplating something.

“Hold on a sec. Did you say Menshiki?” Masahiko asked.

“That’s right. Menshiki. The men in menzeiten—‘avoidance’—and the shiki in ‘color’—shikisai.”

“Menshiki…,” he said. “You know, I do remember now hearing that name before. Maybe I’m just imagining it.”

“It’s such an unusual name I’d think if you heard it once you wouldn’t forget it.”

“Agreed. Which is why maybe it’s stuck in a corner of my mind. But I can’t remember when I heard it, or in what context. It feels like when you have a small fishbone stuck in your throat.”

If you remember, let me know, I said. Will do, Masahiko promised.

I hung up and then had a light meal. While I was eating, a call came in from the married woman I was having an affair with. Do you mind if I come to your place tomorrow afternoon? she asked. No problem, I replied.

“By the way, do you know anything about a person named Menshiki?” I asked. “He lives in the neighborhood.”

“Menshiki?” she repeated. “Is that the last name?”

I explained how it was written.

“I’ve never heard of him,” she said.

“You know that white concrete house across the valley from me? He lives there.”

“I remember that house. The one you see from the terrace that really stands out.”

“That’s his house.”

“Mr. Menshiki lives there?”

“That’s right.”

“So what about him?”

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to know if you knew him or not.”

Her voice grew one tone darker. “Does that have something to do with me?”

“No, nothing to do with you.”

She sighed, as if in relief. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Probably about one thirty.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said. I hung up and finished eating.

The call from Masahiko came a little while after that.

“It seems like there are a few people with the name Menshiki in Kagawa Prefecture down in Shikoku,” Masahiko said. “Perhaps this Mr. Menshiki has roots in Kagawa. But I couldn’t find any information anywhere on a Menshiki living now around Odawara. What’s his first name?”

“He didn’t tell me. I don’t know what kind of work he does, either. Something tech related. If his lifestyle is any indication, he must be doing pretty well. That’s all I know. I don’t even know how old he is.”

“I see,” Masahiko said. “In that case, that might be the best you can do. Information is, after all, a product, and if you pay enough you can neatly cover your tracks. Even truer if the person knows a lot about technology.”

“You mean Mr. Menshiki erased his footprints?”

“Could be. I spent a lot of time online, searching through sites, and didn’t get a single hit. It’s such an eye-catching name, yet there’s not a thing online. Which is all pretty strange. I know you’re a little naive when it comes to things like this, but for someone who is fairly active in society to completely block any information about themselves and have nothing at all get out on the web—that’s no mean feat. Even information on you, and on me, is out there and available. There’s information on me I didn’t even know. If that’s true for nobodies like us, you can imagine how much harder it is for some big shot to erase their digital presence. Like it or not, that’s the world we live in. What about you? Have you checked out the information that’s out there on you?”

“No, never.”

“You should keep it that way.”

“That’s the plan,” I told him.

One aspect of my job is gathering all kinds of information. That’s the sort of business I’m in. Those were Menshiki’s own words. If he could get hold of information that easily he could probably erase it as well.

“By the way, Mr. Menshiki said he looked me up on the Internet and saw a few of my portraits there,” I said.

“And?”

“And he asked me to paint his portrait. He said he liked the portraits I’ve done.”

“But you turned him down because you’re no longer in the portrait business. Correct?”

I was silent.

“Are you telling me you didn’t?” he asked.

“Actually, I didn’t turn him down.”

“How come? Weren’t you set on not doing any more?”

“The fee is pretty hefty, that’s why. I thought it might be okay to do one more portrait.”

“For the money?”

“That’s a big reason. I’m making hardly any money anymore, and I have to think about how I’m going to make a living. My expenses right now are minimal, but still, with one thing and another the money keeps flowing out.”

“Huh. So, how much is the fee?”

I named the amount. Masahiko let out a whistle.

“Wow,” he said. “That certainly makes it worth taking on. I bet you were surprised when you heard how much he’d pay?”

“Yeah, of course I was.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but there can’t be any other odd people out there willing to pay that much for one of your paintings.”

“I know.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re not a talented artist. You do solid work, and people recognize that. I think you’re about the only one of our classmates from our art school class who’s managed to make a living doing oil paintings. What level of living we’re talking about, I have no idea, but anyway it’s admirable what you’ve accomplished. But honestly? You’re no Rembrandt, or Delacroix. Or even Andy Warhol.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“If you are, then you understand how exorbitant that fee is he’s offering, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“And just by chance he lives near you.”

“Exactly.”

“ ‘By chance’ is putting it mildly.”

I didn’t say anything.

“There might be something else to it. Didn’t that cross your mind?” he asked.

“Sure, I thought about it. But what else there could be, I have no clue.”

“So you accepted the job?”

“I did. I start the day after tomorrow.”

“Because the fee’s so good?”

“The fee’s a big part of it. But that’s not all. There are other reasons,” I said. “Honestly, I want to see how things are going to play out. See with my own eyes why he’s willing to pay so much. And if there’re really other motives at work, I want to find out what they are.”

“I see,” Masahiko said, and paused. “Well, if there are any new developments, let me know. I’m intrigued.”

Just then I recalled the horned owl.

“I forgot to mention it, but there’s a horned owl living in the attic,” I said. “A little gray horned owl that sleeps on a beam during the day. At night it goes out the vent hole and hunts. I don’t know how long it’s been here, but it seems to have roosted.”

“In the attic?”

“I heard a sound from the ceiling, so I climbed up during the day to check on it.”

“Really. I didn’t know you could access the attic.”

“There’s an opening in the closet in the guest bedroom. It’s a tight space, though. Smaller than what you might think of as an attic. But just the right size for an owl to roost in.”

“That’s a good thing, though,” Masahiko said. “With an owl there, no mice or snakes will get in. I’ve heard it’s a lucky omen to have an owl roosting in a house.”

“Maybe that lucky omen brought me that high portrait fee.”

“That would be nice if it did,” he laughed. “You know the English expression ‘a blessing in disguise’?”

“Languages aren’t my strong suit.”

“A camouflaged blessing. A blessing that’s changed appearance. At first glance it seems unfortunate, but it turns out to bring you happiness. There are things that should be the opposite, too, of course. In theory.”

In theory, I repeated to myself.

“Better keep your eyes open,” he said.

“Will do,” I said.

At one thirty the next day she came to see me, and as always we headed straight for bed. While we had sex we hardly said a word. It was raining that afternoon, an unusually heavy shower for autumn, more like a midsummer downpour. Heavy raindrops, carried on the wind, rapped against the window, and I think there were a few flashes of lightning, too. A thick bank of dark clouds passed over the valley, and when the rain let up, the mountains had taken on a darker hue. Flocks of birds that had taken shelter from the rain somewhere now twittered back and were busily hunting down insects. Right after rain was the perfect lunchtime for them. The sun shone from breaks in the clouds, making the raindrops on all the tree branches sparkle. While it had been raining we were deep into making love, and I had barely given the falling rain a second thought. And just as we were finishing, the rain abruptly stopped. Almost as if it were waiting for us.

We lay naked in bed, wrapped in a thin bedcover, talking. Mostly we talked about the grades her two daughters were getting in school. The older girl was good at school and had very good grades. She was a placid child who never caused any trouble. The younger daughter, in contrast, hated to study and would never settle down at her desk to do homework. But she was cheerful and upbeat, and quite good-looking as well. Self-assured, popular, good at sports. Maybe we should give up on having her do well at school, her mother said, and let her go into the entertainment field? I’m thinking of eventually putting her into one of those schools that train child entertainers, she said.

If you think about it, it was kind of strange. I was lying there next to a woman I’d known for only about three months, listening to her talk about her daughters, whom I’d never laid eyes on. She was even asking me my opinion on what sort of path they should take in life. And the two of us there, without a stitch on. Admittedly, though, not a bad feeling, to take a random peek into the lives of people I hardly knew. Brushing past the lives of people I would never have anything to do with. Their lives felt right before me, yet also far away. As she talked, the woman toyed with my now flaccid penis, which was slowly coming back to life.

“Have you been painting anything these days?” she asked.

“Not really,” I answered honestly.

“No creative urge welling up?”

I hesitated. “…Well, tomorrow I have to start on a commission I got.”

“You’re going to paint on commission?”

“That’s right. Have to earn some money sometimes.”

“What sort of commission?”

“A portrait.”

“Is it, by any chance, a portrait of that person you mentioned on the phone yesterday, Mr. Menshiki?”

“It is,” I said. She was so sharp at times it took me by surprise.

“And you want to know something about this Mr. Menshiki, right?”

“At this point he’s a mystery. I met him once and we talked, but I still have no idea what sort of person he is. I like to know what kind of person I’m going to paint.”

“You should just ask him directly.”

“He might not give me a straight answer,” I said. “He might only tell me what he wants me to know.”

“I could look into it for you,” she said.

“You can do that?”

“I might have an idea.”

“There were zero hits on him on the Internet.”

“The Internet doesn’t work well in the jungle,” she said. “The jungle has its own communications network. Signaling with drums, tying a message around a monkey’s neck.”

“I don’t know much about the jungle, I’m afraid.”

“When civilization’s devices don’t operate, it’s worth trying drums or a monkey.”

My penis had now grown fully erect under her soft, busy fingers. She skillfully and greedily began to use her lips and tongue, and a meaningful silence descended upon us for a while. As the birds outside chirped and went about the work of making a living, the two of us began a second round of sex.

After our long second bout of lovemaking, punctuated by an intermission, we climbed out of bed, lazily gathered our clothes from the floor, and dressed. We went out to the terrace and, sipping hot herb tea, gazed across the valley at the large white concrete house there. We sat side by side on the weathered wooden deck chairs and breathed in deeply the fresh dampness of the mountain air. Through the woods to the southwest was a small patch of sparkling ocean, a mere fragment of the enormous Pacific. The mountain slopes around were already dyed with autumn colors, minute gradations of yellow and red, with an intrusion of green from the clumps of evergreens. The mix of these vivid colors made the white concrete of Menshiki’s house stand out all the more. It was an almost obsessive white that looked like it would never be dirtied or treated with contempt by such things as wind, rain, dust, or even time itself. White is a color, too, I thought distractedly. Definitely not the lack of color. We sat there on the lounge chairs for a long time without saying a word, silence an entirely natural companion.

“Mr. Menshiki in his white mansion,” she said after a while. “Sounds like the beginning of an amusing fairy tale.”

But what awaited me was, of course, not some “amusing fairy tale.” Or a blessing in disguise, either. But by the time that became clear to me, there was no turning back.

⁹ EXCHANGING FRAGMENTS WITH EACH OTHER

On Friday at one thirty Menshiki appeared in the same Jaguar. The deep roar of the engine as it climbed the steep slope grew louder as it approached, and finally came to a stop in front of the house. As before, he shut the door of the car with the same solid sound, and removed his sunglasses and slipped them into the breast pocket of his jacket. An exact repeat of the previous visit. This time, though, he wore a white polo shirt with a blue-gray cotton jacket, cream-colored chinos, and brown leather shoes. He was so impeccably dressed that he could have been a model in a magazine, though he didn’t give the impression that it was all too perfect. It looked casual, and naturally neat. And that abundant white hair of his was, like the walls of his mansion, a pure, unadulterated white. Just as I had the first time, I watched him approach through a gap in the curtains.

The front doorbell rang and I opened it and let him in. This time he didn’t hold his hand out to shake mine. He just looked me in the eye, and gave a small smile and a brief nod of greeting. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been a bit anxious that every time we met I’d have to go through one of his firm handshakes. Once again, I showed him into the living room and had him sit on the sofa. And brought out two cups of freshly brewed coffee from the kitchen.

“I didn’t know what I should wear,” he said, sounding apologetic. “Is this outfit all right?”

“It doesn’t matter at this point. We can decide at the end how you should be dressed. A suit, or shorts and sandals, we can adjust the clothes later on however we want.”

Or show you holding a Starbucks cup, I added to myself.

“Knowing you’re going to be modeling makes you anxious. I know I won’t have to take off all my clothes, but it still makes me feel like I’m being stripped down.”

“You could be right. Models for paintings sometimes pose nude—in most cases actually nude, in some cases more metaphorically. The artist wants to view the model’s essence, meaning he has to strip away the clothed, outer appearance. To do that, of course, takes great powers of observation and a sharp intuition.”

Menshiki spread his hands on his lap and seemed to be inspecting them. He then looked up. “I heard that you don’t use a live model when you paint a portrait.”

“That’s right. I meet the subject once and have a long talk with him, but don’t have him model live for me.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“No real reason. I’ve just found, through experience, that things go more smoothly that way. When we first meet I concentrate as much as I can, trying to get a take on the subject’s looks, expressions, quirks, and tendencies, and brand those into my memory. Once I’ve done that, it’s just a question of reproducing them from memory.”

“That’s very intriguing,” Menshiki said. “So, days later you take the memory you’ve burned into your brain, rearrange all that as an image, and reproduce it as a work of art. You must have a gift to do that—to have such extraordinary visual recall.”

“I wouldn’t call it a gift, exactly. More of a skill set, I’d say.”

“Maybe that’s why, when I saw some of the portraits you’ve done, I sensed something unique in them. Compared with other standard portraits—portraits done purely as commodities. The way everything’s reproduced so vividly, you might say…”

He took a sip of coffee, took a light-cream linen handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and wiped his mouth. “But this time, unusually, you’ll be using a model—with me in front of you, in other words—as you do the portrait.”

“Exactly. At your request.”

He nodded. “Truthfully, I was curious. About how it feels to become part of a painting, right in front of your eyes. I wanted to actually experience it. Not simply have my painting done, but to experience it as a kind of exchange.”

“An exchange?”

“Between the two of us, you and me.”

I was silent. The meaning of the expression “an exchange” eluded me for a moment.

“We exchange parts of us with each other,” Menshiki explained. “I offer something of myself, and you offer something of yourself. It doesn’t have to be something valuable. It can be simple, like a kind of sign.”

“Like children exchange pretty seashells?”

“Exactly.”

I thought about this. “Sounds interesting, but the problem is I don’t have any nice seashells to offer you.”

“You’re not so comfortable doing it this way? Are you intentionally avoiding that kind of exchange? Is that why you don’t use live models? If that’s true, then I can—”

“No—that’s not it. I don’t use models because I don’t need them. That’s all. I’m not trying to avoid an interchange between people. I’ve studied painting for a long time, and have used live models more times than I can remember. If you don’t mind the drudgery of sitting still in a hard chair for hours at a time, I’m totally fine with you posing for me.”

“I don’t mind,” Menshiki said, spreading his palms up, lightly lifting them upward. “Then why don’t we commence the drudgery?”

We went into the studio. I brought over a dining room chair and had Menshiki sit in that. I let him assume whatever posture he wanted. I sat on an old wooden stool facing him (no doubt the stool Tomohiko Amada used when he painted), and started sketching with a soft pencil. I needed to decide on a basic approach of how I was going to reproduce his face on canvas.

“Is it boring to sit there? If you’d like, we could listen to some music,” I said.

“If it doesn’t bother you, I’d love to hear some music,” Menshiki said.

“Why don’t you choose something from the shelf in the living room.”

He spent about five minutes perusing the selection of records and returned with a four-disc boxed set of LPs of Georg Solti conducting a performance of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. The orchestra was the Vienna Philharmonic, the singers Régine Crespin and Yvonne Minton.

“Do you like Der Rosenkavalier?” he asked me.

“I’ve never heard it.”

“It’s an unusual opera. The plot’s critical, of course, like with all operas, but with this one even if you don’t know the plot it’s easy to give yourself over to the music and be completely enveloped by that world. The world of supreme bliss Strauss achieved at the peak of his powers. When it was first performed, people criticized it as nostalgic, unadventurous even, where in reality the music is quite progressive and uninhibited. He was influenced by Wagner, but Strauss creates his own strange, unique musical realm. Once you get into this music you can’t get enough of it. I usually prefer Karajan’s or Erich Kleiber’s version, and have never heard Solti’s. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to take this opportunity to hear it.”

“Of course. Let’s listen to it.”

He placed the record on the turntable, lowered the needle, and carefully adjusted the volume on the amp. He went back to his chair, settled into a proper pose, and concentrated on the music flowing from the speakers. I did some quick sketches in my sketchbook of his face from several angles. His face was overall nicely put together, the features distinctive enough that I didn’t find it hard to capture the unique details of each. In the space of thirty minutes I completed five sketches from different angles. But when I examined them again, I was struck by an odd, helpless feeling. My sketches had accurately captured what was distinctive about his face, yet there was nothing about them beyond the sense that they were well-done drawings. They were all oddly shallow and superficial, devoid of depth. They were no different from caricatures drawn by some street artist. I tried doing a few more sketches, with basically the same result.

For me, this was pretty unusual. I had years of experience reconstructing people’s faces in a drawing, and flattered myself that I was good at it. Whether with a pencil or a paintbrush I could almost always come up with several mental images of what I was after with no trouble. I rarely struggled to decide on the composition of a painting. But now, with Menshiki as my model, not a single image came to me.

Perhaps I was overlooking something important. I couldn’t help but think that. Maybe Menshiki was adeptly hiding it from me. Or maybe it didn’t exist in him to begin with.

When the B side of the first of the four records in Der Rosenkavalier set finished I gave up, shut my sketchbook, and laid down my pencil. I lifted the needle, took the record off the turntable, and returned it to the boxed set. I glanced at my watch and sighed.

“I’m finding it very hard to draw you,” I admitted.

He looked at me in surprise. “In what way?” he asked. “Are you saying there’s some pictorial issue with the way I look?”

I shook my head slightly. “No, it’s not that. Of course there’s nothing wrong with your face.”

“Then what’s making it hard?”

“I wish I could tell you. It just feels that way. Maybe we still haven’t exchanged enough yet, as you put it. Haven’t traded enough seashells.”

Menshiki smiled, looking a bit perplexed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

I stood up from the stool, went over to the window, and watched the birds flying over the woods.

“Mr. Menshiki, if it’s all right with you, could you give me a little more information about yourself? I know next to nothing about you.”

“Of course. I’m not trying to hide anything. No outrageous secrets or anything I’m trying to keep from you. I can tell you just about everything. What sort of information were you thinking of?”

“Well—for starters, I don’t even know your full name.”

“That’s right!” he said, looking a bit surprised. “Now that you mention it, you’re absolutely right. I was so caught up in talking I forgot to give this to you.”

He took a black leather holder from a pocket of his chinos and removed a business card. He handed me the card, and I read it. The thick white card simply read:

On the back was an address in Kanagawa Prefecture, a phone number, and an email address. That was all. No company name or title.

“The wataru in my name is the character that means ‘to cross a river,’” Menshiki said. “I don’t know why I was given that name. I’ve never had much to do with water.”

“The name Menshiki isn’t one you see very often.”

“I heard our family’s roots are in Shikoku, but I have no connection to Shikoku at all. I was born and raised in Tokyo, all my schooling was in Tokyo. And I prefer soba noodles to udon, which Shikoku is famous for.” Menshiki laughed.

“May I ask how old you are?”

“Of course. I turned fifty-four last month. How old do I look to you?”

I shook my head. “Honestly, I had no idea. That’s why I asked.”

“It must be this white hair,” he said with a smile. “People often tell me they can’t tell my age because of the white hair. You often hear about people whose hair turned white overnight because they were terrified. People often ask if that’s what happened with me, but I never had such a traumatic experience. I just tended to have a lot of white hair, ever since I was young. By the time I was in my mid-forties it was completely white. It’s weird, though, since my grandfather, father, and two older brothers are all bald. In the whole family I’m the only one who has completely white hair.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of work are you involved in?”

“I don’t mind at all. It’s just—hard to talk about.”

“If you’d rather not…”

“It’s a little embarrassing, actually,” he said. “Right now I’m not working at all. Not that I’m getting unemployment insurance or anything, but officially I’m unemployed. I spend a few hours each day online in my office in stock trading and currency exchange, though we’re not talking large amounts. More a hobby or to kill time. Training to keep my mind active. Like a pianist practices scales every day.”

Menshiki took a quiet, deep breath and recrossed his legs. “In the past I started and ran a tech-related company, but not long ago I decided to sell all my stock and step down. The buyer was a major telecommunications company. That sale meant I have enough savings to live on for a while. I used that opportunity to sell my house in Tokyo and move here. Basically, I’m retired. My savings are divided among several overseas banks, and I move those around depending on variable exchange rates, so I make a bit of a profit that way.”

“I see,” I said. “Do you have a family?”

“No family. I’ve never been married.”

“So you live in that huge house all by yourself?”

He nodded. “I do. At this point I have no household staff. I’ve lived by myself for a long time and am used to doing housework. But since it’s such a big place, I can’t clean it all myself, so I hire a cleaning service to come in once a week. Other than that, I pretty much take care of everything. What about you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been on my own less than a year. Still an amateur.”

Menshiki gave a slight nod, but didn’t ask any questions or offer any comments. “Are you close to Tomohiko Amada?” he asked.

“No, I’ve never even met him. I was with his son in art school, and through that connection he asked me if I wanted to take care of the vacant house. Some things came up in my life and I didn’t have any place to live then, so I decided to accept the offer. For the time being.”

Menshiki gave a few more small nods. “It’s not very convenient for anyone working at a regular job, but for folks like you two, I imagine it’s a wonderful environment.”

I gave a forced smile. “We might both be painters, but Tomohiko Amada and I are on totally different levels. It’s embarrassing to even be mentioned in the same breath as him.”

Menshiki raised his head and looked at me, his eyes serious. “It’s too soon to say that. You might become a well-known artist someday.”

There was nothing I could say to that, so I was silent.

“Sometimes people go through huge transformations,” Menshiki said. “They obliterate the style they’ve worked in, and out of the ruins they rise up again. Tomohiko Amada was that way. When he was young he painted Western-style work. You’ve heard about this, I’m sure?”

“I have. Before the war he was a promising young painter of Western-style art. But after he came back from studying in Vienna he changed to being a Japanese-style artist, and after the war was amazingly successful.”

“The way I see it,” Menshiki said, “there’s a point in everybody’s life where they need a major transformation. And when that time comes you have to grab it by the tail. Grab it hard, and never let go. There are some people who are able to, and others who can’t. Tomohiko Amada was one who could.”

A major transformation. The words suddenly made me think of Killing Commendatore. And the young man stabbing the Commendatore to death.

“Do you know much about Japanese-style painting?” Menshiki asked.

I shook my head. “I’m basically a layman. I attended lectures on it when I was in art school, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.”

“This is a very basic question, but how is Japanese art defined, professionally?”

“It’s not so easy to define. It’s usually taken to mean paintings done using glue and pigment and foil leaf. And done not with a paintbrush, but with a writing brush. In other words Japanese paintings are defined mainly by the materials used to paint them. The transmission of ancient, traditional techniques is one feature, though there are lots of Japanese paintings done using avant-garde techniques, and with colors, too, there is a lot of use of new materials. So the definition has steadily become increasingly vague. But as far as Tomohiko Amada’s paintings go, they’re classic Japanese art. Archetypal, you might call them. They’re done in a style that’s recognizably his own, of course. I just mean as far as techniques are concerned.”

“So you’re saying that if the definition based on materials and techniques gets vague, all you’re left with is the mental aspect, right?”

“Maybe so. But the mental aspect of Japanese paintings isn’t easily defined. They are, from the beginning, rather eclectic.”

“By eclectic you mean…?”

I searched the depths of memory and recalled what I’d learned in art history class. “The Meiji Restoration took place in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and along with other aspects of Western culture Western art also was introduced into Japan, but until then the genre of ‘Japanese painting’ didn’t actually exist. The term didn’t even exist. Just like up till then the name of the country, Japan, was hardly ever used. With the appearance of Western art from abroad, the concept of Japanese art was born as a way of asserting something that could be distinguished as standing in opposition to Western art. What had existed up until then in various forms and styles was, for the sake of simplicity, lumped together under the new name of ‘Japanese painting.’ Of course, there were some types of painting that were excluded from that and fell into decline. Chinese ink paintings, for instance. The Meiji government established and cultivated so-called Japanese painting as a kind of national art, as part of Japanese cultural identity that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Western culture—the ‘Japanese spirit’ part of the popular slogan at the time—‘Japanese Spirit with Western Learning.’ What had been everyday designs, arts and crafts designs such as paintings on folding screens and fusuma sliding doors and bowls and plates, were now set in frames and featured in art exhibitions. To put it another way, items done in a natural style as part of everyday life were now accommodated to the Western system and elevated to the status of ‘works of art.’”

I paused for a moment and studied Menshiki’s face. He seemed to be listening closely to what I said. I went on.

“Tenshin Okakura and Ernest Fenollosa were at the forefront of this movement. What happened with art could be counted as one of the amazing success stories during this period when aspects of Japanese culture were rapidly being reconfigured. A similar process was taking place in the worlds of music, literature, and thought. It must have been a pretty hectic time for Japanese back then, since they had tons of important work they had to accomplish in a very short period of time. Looking back on it now, I’d say we did a pretty clever and skillful job of it. The merging and compartmentalizing of Western aspects and non-Western aspects took place very smoothly. Maybe Japanese are intrinsically suited to that kind of process.

“So Japanese painting wasn’t clearly defined originally. You might say it was a concept based on a vague consensus. There wasn’t initially a clear division, and it only came about tangentially, when external and internal pressure created one.”

Menshiki seemed to be considering all this. “It might have been vague,” he finally said, “but this was a consensus born of necessity, right?”

“Exactly. A consensus arising out of necessity.”

“Not having a set framework was both a strength and a weakness of Japanese painting. Could we interpret it this way?”

“I think so.”

“But when we look at a painting, in most cases we have the sense whether it’s a Japanese painting or not. Right?”

“That’s right. There’s an intrinsic method used. A kind of trend, or tone. And a tacit, shared understanding. It’s hard sometimes to define it, though.”

Menshiki was silent for a while. “If a painting is non-Western, then does it have the form of a Japanese painting?”

“Not necessarily,” I replied. “In principle there are Western paintings that have a non-Western form.”

“I see,” he said. He tilted his head ever so slightly. “But if it’s a Japanese painting, then to some extent it will have a non-Western form about it. Would that be accurate?”

I gave it some thought. “Put that way, yes, you could say so. I hadn’t thought about it that way, to tell you the truth.”

“It’s self-evident, but still difficult to put into words.”

I nodded in agreement.

He paused for a moment, and then went on. “If you think about it, it’s akin to defining yourself as compared with another person. The difference is self-evident, but still difficult to verbalize. As you said, you can perhaps only understand it as a kind of tangent produced when external and internal pressure combine to create it.”

Menshiki gave a slight smile. “Fascinating,” he added in a small voice, as if to himself.

What are we talking about? I suddenly thought. An intriguing topic in its own right, but what significance did this conversation hold for him? Was it mere intellectual curiosity? Or was he testing my intellect? What was the point?

“By the way, I’m left-handed,” Menshiki said at one point, as if he’d just recalled this fact. “I don’t know if that will be helpful, but it’s another piece of information about me. If I’m told to go left or right, I always choose left. It’s become a habit.”

It was finally near three o’clock, and we set the date and time of our next session. He would come to my house in three days, on Monday at one p.m. As he did this day, we would spend two hours together in my studio, and I would attempt to sketch him again.

“I’m in no rush,” Menshiki said. “As I said in the beginning, take as much time as you need. I have all the time in the world.”

And then he left. Through the window I watched him get into his Jaguar and drive away. I picked up all the sketches I’d done of him, studied them for a time, then tossed them aside.

A terrible silence descended over the house. Now alone, it was as if the silence had become all the more weighty. I went out on the terrace and there was no wind, the air jelly-thick and chilly. It felt like it was going to rain.

I sat down on the living room sofa, reviewing the conversation Menshiki and I had had, in order. How we’d talked about posing for a portrait. About Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier. About how Menshiki had started a tech company, sold off his stock, and with the sizable profit retired young. How he lived all alone in that huge house. His first name was Wataru. Written with the character that means “to cross a river.” He’d always been a bachelor, and his hair had turned white early on. He was left-handed and was now fifty-four. How Tomohiko Amada had made a bold pivot, how one should grab opportunity by the tail and never let go. The definition of Japanese painting. And finally, about the relationship between Self and Other.

What in the world did he want from me?

And why wasn’t I able to do any decent sketches of him?

The answer was simple, really. Because I had not yet grasped what lay at the core of his being.

After talking with him I felt uneasy. Yet at the same time, my curiosity about him had grown all the stronger.

Thirty minutes later heavy drops of rain began to fall. The little birds had by then already vanished.

¹⁰ AS WE PUSH OUR WAY THROUGH THE LUSH GREEN GRASS

When I was fifteen my younger sister died. It happened very suddenly. She was twelve then, in her first year of junior high. She had been born with a congenital heart problem, but since the time she was in the upper grades of elementary school she hadn’t shown any more symptoms, and our family had felt reassured, holding out the faint hope that her life would go on, without incident. But in May of that year her heartbeat became more irregular. It was especially bad when she lay down, and she suffered many sleepless nights. She underwent tests at the university hospital, but no matter how detailed the tests the doctors couldn’t pinpoint any changes in her physical condition. The basic issue was supposed to have been resolved back when she’d had her operations, and the doctors were baffled.

“Avoid strenuous exercise, and follow a regular routine, and things should settle down soon,” the doctor said. That was probably all he could say. And he wrote out a few prescriptions for her.

But her arrhythmia didn’t settle down. As I sat across from her at the dining table I often looked at her chest and imagined the defective heart inside it. Her breasts were beginning to noticeably develop. Her heart might have problems, but her flesh continued growing nonetheless. It felt strange to see my little sister’s breasts grow by the day. Up till then she’d just been a little child, but now she’d suddenly had her first period, and her breasts were slowly starting to take shape. Yet within that tiny chest, my sister’s heart was defective. And even a specialist couldn’t pinpoint the defect. That fact alone had my brain in constant turmoil. I spent my adolescence in a state of anxiety, fearful that, at any moment, I might lose my little sister.

My parents told me to watch over her, since her body was so delicate. While we attended the same elementary school I always kept my eye on her. If need be, I was willing to risk my life to protect her and her tiny heart. Though the opportunity never presented itself.

She was on her way home from junior high one day when she collapsed and lost consciousness while climbing the stairs at Seibu Shinjuku Station. She was rushed by ambulance to the nearest emergency room. By the time I got home and then raced to the hospital, her heart had already stopped. It all happened in the blink of an eye. That morning we’d eaten breakfast together, said goodbye to each other at the front door, me going off to high school, she to junior high. And the next time I saw her she’d stopped breathing. Her large eyes were closed forever, her mouth slightly open as if she were about to say something. Her developing breasts would never grow.

The next time I saw her she was in a coffin. She was dressed in her favorite black velvet dress, with a touch of makeup, her hair neatly combed. She had on black patent-leather shoes and lay faceup in the modestly sized coffin. The dress had a white lace collar, so white it looked unnatural.

Lying there, she appeared to be peacefully sleeping. Shake her lightly and she’d wake up, it seemed. But that was an illusion. Shake her all you want, but she would never awaken again.

I didn’t want my sister’s delicate little body to be stuffed into that cramped, confining box. Her body should be laid to rest on a much more spacious place. In the middle of a meadow, for instance. We would wordlessly go to visit her, pushing aside the lush green grass as we went. The wind would slowly rustle the grass, and birds and insects would call out from all around her. The raw smell of wildflowers would fill the air, pollen swirling. When night fell, the sky above her would be dotted with countless silvery stars. In the morning a new sun would make the dew on the blades of grass sparkle like jewels. But in reality she was packed away in some ridiculous coffin. The only decorations were ominous white flowers that had been snipped by scissors and stuck in vases. The narrow room had fluorescent lighting that was drained of color. From a small speaker set into the ceiling came the artificial strains of organ music.

I couldn’t stand to see her be cremated. When the coffin lid was shut and locked, I couldn’t take it anymore and left the cremation room. I didn’t help when the family ritually placed her bones inside a vase. I went out into the crematorium courtyard and cried soundlessly by myself. During her all-too-short life, I’d never once helped my little sister, a thought that hurt me deeply.

After my sister’s death, our family changed. My father became even more taciturn, my mother even more nervous and jumpy. Basically I kept on with the same life as always. I joined the mountaineering club at school, which kept me busy, and when I wasn’t doing that I started oil painting. My art teacher recommended that I find a good instructor and really study painting. And when I finally did start attending art classes, my interest became serious. I think I was trying to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t think about my dead sister.

For a long time, I’m not sure how many years, my parents kept her room exactly as it was. Textbooks and study guides, pens, erasers, and paper clips piled on her desk, the sheets, blankets, and pillows on her bed, her laundered and folded pajamas, her junior high school uniform hanging in the closet—all untouched. The calendar on the wall still had her schedule written in her tiny writing. It was left at the month she died, as if time had frozen solid at that point. It felt as if the door would open at any moment and she’d come inside. When no one else was at home I’d sometimes go into her room, sit down on the neatly made bed, and gaze around me. But I never touched anything. I didn’t want to disturb, even a little, any of the silent little objects left behind, signs that my sister had once been among the living.

I often tried to imagine what sort of life my sister would have had if she hadn’t died at twelve. Though there was no way I could know. I couldn’t even picture how my own life would turn out, so I had no idea what her future would have held. But I knew that if only she hadn’t had a problem with one of her heart valves, she would have grown to be a capable, attractive adult. I’m sure many men would have loved her, and held her gently in their arms. But I couldn’t picture any of that in detail. For me, she was forever my little sister, three years younger, who needed my protection.

For a time after she died I drew sketches of her, over and over. Reproducing in my sketchbook, from all different angles, my memory of her face, so I wouldn’t forget it. Not that I was about to forget her face. It will remain etched in my mind until the day I die. What I sought was not to forget the face I remembered at that point in time. In order to do that, I had to give form to it by drawing. I was only fifteen then, and there was so much I didn’t know about memory, drawing, and the flow of time. But one thing I did know was that I needed to do something in order to hold on to an accurate record of my memory. Leave it alone, and it would disappear somewhere. No matter how vivid a memory, the power of time was stronger. I knew this instinctively.

I would sit alone in her room on her bed, drawing her, sketching her face over and over. I tried to reproduce onto the blank paper how she looked in my mind’s eye. I lacked experience then, and the requisite technical skill, so it wasn’t an easy process. I’d draw, rip up my effort, draw and rip up, endlessly. But now when I look at the drawings I did keep (I still treasure my sketchbook from back then), I can see that they are filled with a genuine sense of grief. They may be technically immature, but it was a sincere effort, my own soul trying to awaken my sister’s. When I looked at those sketches, I couldn’t help but cry. I’ve done countless drawings since, but never again has anything I’ve drawn brought me to tears.

There’s one other effect my sister’s death had on me—a very severe case of claustrophobia. Ever since I saw her be placed in that cramped little coffin, the lid shut and locked tight, and taken away to the crematorium, I haven’t been able to go into tight, enclosed places. For a long time I couldn’t take elevators. I’d stand in front of an elevator and all I could think about was it automatically shutting down in an earthquake, with me trapped inside that confined space. Just the thought of it was enough to send me into a choking sense of panic.

These symptoms didn’t appear right after my sister’s death. It took nearly three years for them to surface. The first time I had a panic attack was soon after I started art school, when I had a part-time job with a moving company. I was the driver’s assistant in a covered truck, loading boxes and taking them out, and one time I got mistakenly locked inside the empty cargo compartment. Work was done for the day and the driver was checking to see if anything was left behind in the cargo compartment. He forgot to make sure if anyone was still inside, and locked the door from the outside.

About two and half hours passed until the door was opened and I was able to crawl out. That whole time I was locked inside a sealed, cramped, totally dark place. It wasn’t a refrigerated truck or anything, so there were gaps where air could get in. If I’d thought about it calmly, I would have known I wouldn’t suffocate.

But still, a terrible panic had me in its grip. There was plenty of oxygen, yet no matter how deeply I breathed in, I wasn’t able to absorb it. My breathing got more and more ragged and I started hyperventilating. I felt dizzy, like I was choking, and was overwhelmed by an inexplicable panic. It’s okay, calm down, I told myself. You’ll be able to get out soon. It’s impossible to suffocate here. But logic didn’t work. The only thing in my mind was my little sister, crammed into a tiny coffin, and hauled off to the crematorium. Completely terrified, I pounded on the walls of the truck.

The truck was in the company parking lot, and all the employees, their workday done, had gone home. Nobody noticed that I wasn’t around. I pounded like crazy, but no one seemed to hear. If I was unlucky I might be shut inside until morning. At the thought of that, it felt like all my muscles were about to disintegrate.

It was the night security guard, making his rounds of the parking lot, who finally heard the noise I was making and unlocked the door. When he saw how agitated and exhausted I was, he had me lie down on the bed in the company break room. And gave me a cup of hot tea. I don’t know how long I lay there. But finally my breathing became normal again. Dawn was coming, so I thanked the guard and took the first train of the day back home. I slipped into my own bed and lay there, shaking like crazy for the longest time.

Ever since then, riding elevators has triggered the same panic. The incident must have awoken a fear that had been lurking within me. And I have little doubt this was set off by memories of my dead sister. And it wasn’t only elevators, but any enclosed space. I couldn’t even watch movies with scenes set in submarines or tanks. Just imagining myself shut inside such confined spaces—merely imagining it—made me unable to breathe. Often I had to get up and leave the theater. If a scene came on of someone shut away in a confined space, I couldn’t stand to watch. That’s why I seldom watched movies with anyone else.

One time on a trip to Hokkaido I had no choice but to stay overnight in one of those capsule hotels. My breathing became labored, and I couldn’t sleep, so I went outside and spent the night inside my car. It was early spring in Hokkaido, still quite cold, and the whole night was like a nightmare.

My wife often kidded me about my panic attacks. When we had to go to a floor high up in a building she would precede me in the elevator and would wait there, enjoying me huffing and puffing my way up sixteen or so flights of stairs. But I never explained to her why I had that phobia. I just told her I’ve always had a fear of elevators.

“Well, it might be healthier for you to walk,” she said.

I also had a feeling akin to fear about women with larger than normal breasts. I don’t know if that has anything to do with my sister, or the way her breasts were just beginning to develop when she died. Still, I’ve always been attracted to women with more modest breasts, and every time I see them, every time I touch them, I remember my sister… Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t sexually interested in my sister. I think I was just looking for a certain type of scene. A finite scene, lost and never to return.

On Saturday afternoon my hand was resting on the chest of my married lover. Her breasts weren’t particularly small, or large. Just the right size, they fit neatly into my palm. Her nipples were still hard in my hand.

She’d never come to my house on a Saturday. She always spent the weekends with her family. But that weekend her husband was on a business trip to Mumbai and her two daughters were staying over at their cousin’s house in Nasu in Tochigi. So she came to my place. And like we did on weekday afternoons, we leisurely enjoyed sex. Afterward we lay there in a lazy, indolent silence. Like always.

“Would you like to hear what the jungle grapevine turned up?” she asked.

“Jungle grapevine?” I suddenly couldn’t think of what she was talking about.

“Don’t tell me you forgot? The mystery man in the big white house across the valley. You asked me to look into this Mr. Menshiki the other day.”

“Ah, that’s right. Of course I remember.”

“I found out a little bit about him. One of my housewife friends lives near him, and she could gather some info on him. Would you like to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“Mr. Menshiki bought that house with the gorgeous view about three years ago. Another family was living in it before then. They’re the ones who built the house, but those original owners only lived there about two years. One sunny morning they suddenly packed up all their belongings and left, and Menshiki took their place. He bought the house, which was practically brand-new. How that all came about, though, nobody knows.”

“So he didn’t build the house himself,” I said.

“That’s right. He moved into a container that was already there. Like a quick-witted hermit crab.”

That was unexpected. I’d been positive he was the one who built that house. That’s how closely I’d linked his image—probably corresponding to his wonderfully white hair—with that white mansion on top of the mountain.

She continued. “Nobody knows what kind of work he does. What they do know is that he never commutes to work. He stays in his house all day, probably on his computer. His study is full of those devices. Nowadays if you know what you’re doing, you can find out most everything online. A man I know is a surgeon who works entirely from home. He’s crazy about surfing and doesn’t want to leave the ocean.”

“A surgeon can work entirely from home?”

“They send him all the images and information about the patients, which he analyzes and then creates the protocols for the operations, sends these to the on-site staff, and monitors the operations remotely, sometimes giving them advice. Sometimes he uses a remote magic hand device to actually perform operations. That kind of thing.”

“What an age we live in,” I said. “I wouldn’t like to have anyone operate on me like that.”

“I wonder if Mr. Menshiki is doing something similar,” she said. “No matter what kind of work he’s doing, he’s pulling in enough income. He lives alone most of the time in the huge house, occasionally goes on long trips. Probably trips abroad. In his house he has a home gym with lots of exercise machines, where he works out whenever he has a chance. There’s not an ounce of fat on him. He mostly prefers classical music, and has a substantial listening room. A pretty luxurious life, wouldn’t you say?”

“Where’d you get all these details?”

She laughed. “You seem to underestimate women’s information-gathering skills.”

“You could be right.”

“He has four cars altogether. Two Jaguars and a Range Rover. Plus a Mini Cooper. He seems to like British cars.”

“Mini Coopers are made by BMW these days, and I believe Jaguar was purchased by an Indian corporation. So it’s hard to call either of them British cars.”

“The Mini he drives is an older version. And whatever corporation bought Jaguar, it’s still a British car.”

“Did you find out anything else?”

“Hardly anybody ever comes to the house. Mr. Menshiki prefers solitude. He likes to be alone, likes to listen to classical music and read a lot. He’s single and well off, yet almost never brings women home. For all appearances he lives a very simple, orderly life. Makes you think he might be gay. Though there’s some evidence that points in the other direction.”

“I’m thinking you must have a well-placed source of information.”

“She’s not there now, but until not long ago he had a maid who’d come in a few times a week. She’s the one who took out the garbage, went shopping for him at the local supermarket, where there were other housewives from the neighborhood and they’d start chatting.”

“I see,” I said. “That’s how the jungle grapevine gets formed.”

“You got it. According to her, there’s a kind of forbidden chamber in the house. He instructed her never to enter it. He made it quite clear.”

“Sounds like Bluebeard’s castle.”

“Exactly. People often say that, right? That every house has a skeleton in the closet.”

That reminded me of the painting Killing Commendatore hidden away in the attic. That might be a skeleton hidden in a closet too.

She went on. “The woman never did find out what was in that mystery room. It was always locked. But anyway, that maid doesn’t work there anymore. Maybe she got fired for being a bit too talkative. He seems to be doing all the housework himself now.”

“He told me the same thing. That aside from a once-a-week cleaning service he takes care of all the household chores himself.”

“He seems very touchy about his privacy.”

“Be that as it may, but isn’t the fact that you and I meet like this spreading through your jungle grapevine?”

“I doubt it,” she said in a quiet voice. “First of all, I’m very careful that it doesn’t. And second, you’re a little different from Mr. Menshiki.”

“Meaning…,” I said, translating this into words that were easy to understand, “…that there are things about him that lend themselves to rumor, but not with me.”

“We should be thankful for that,” she said cheerily.

After my little sister died all kinds of things started to go wrong. The metalworking company my father operated went downhill, and he was so busy dealing with that he hardly ever came home. The atmosphere at home became strained. Long, heavy silences reigned over the house. It hadn’t been that way when my sister was still alive. I wanted to get away from it all, and got even more absorbed in painting as a way to escape. Eventually I decided to attend art school and major in painting. My father was dead set against it. You can’t earn a decent living painting, he argued. And I don’t have the money to help raise an artist. The two of us argued about it. My mother intervened to smooth things over, and though somehow I was able to attend art school, my father and I never did reconcile.

If only my sister hadn’t died, I sometimes thought. If she’d lived, my family would have been so much happier. Her sudden disappearance made our family fall apart. Our home became a site where people lashed out and hurt each other. I felt helpless, knowing I could never fill in the hole my sister had left behind.

I stopped drawing pictures of her. After I entered art school the things I wanted to paint were phenomena and objects that didn’t have intrinsic meaning. Abstract paintings, in other words. Things in which all sorts of meanings were encoded, where new semantic meaning arose from the interweaving of one sign and another. I plunged into a world that aimed at that type of completeness, and was able to breathe normally for the first time in forever.

Creating those kinds of paintings, though, didn’t lead to any decent jobs. I graduated, but as long as I stuck to abstract painting my father was right—I had no hope of earning any money. So in order to make a living (I’d already left my parents’ home and needed to earn money for rent and food) I was compelled to take on portrait work. By doing a conventional job, painting those utilitarian paintings, I was somehow able to survive as an artist.

And now I was about to paint a portrait of Wataru Menshiki. The Wataru Menshiki who lived in the white mansion on top of the mountain across the way. The white-haired man the neighbors had heard all sorts of rumors about, this clearly intriguing person. He had picked me out, hired me for a huge fee to paint his portrait. But what I discovered was that at this point I wasn’t even able to paint a portrait. Even that kind of conventional, utilitarian art was beyond me. I’d truly become hollow, an empty shell.

We should wordlessly go to visit her, pushing our way through the lush green grass. This random thought struck me. If we could, how truly wonderful that would be.

¹¹ THE MOONLIGHT SHONE BEAUTIFULLY ON EVERYTHING

The silence woke me. That happens sometimes. A sudden sound will cut the silence, waking a person, and sometimes a sudden silence will cut through sounds, waking you.

I shot awake and glanced over at my bedside clock. The digital display read 1:45. After a moment I remembered that it was 1:45 a.m. on Saturday night, or rather early Sunday morning. Earlier that afternoon I had spent time with my married lover in this bed. She went home before evening, I’d had a simple dinner, read for a while, and gone to sleep after ten. I’m generally a sound sleeper, and don’t wake up until the morning light wakes me. So having my sleep interrupted like that in the middle of the night was unusual.

I lay there in the darkness wondering why I’d awakened at this hour. It was a typical, quiet night. The nearly full moon was a huge round mirror floating in the sky. The scenery on earth was whitish, as if washed with lime. But nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. I half sat up and listened carefully. And finally realized something was different from usual. It was too quiet. The silence was too deep. It was a fall night, yet no insects were chirping. Since the house was built in the mountains, after sunset the insects invariably started their ear-splitting chirping, a chorus that went on until late at night. (It really surprised me to learn this, since until I lived here I always thought they only chirped early in the evening.) The sound was so piercing it made me think that insects had conquered the world. But this night, when I woke up, there was not a single screech or chirp. It was disconcerting.

Once awake, I found it hard to get back to sleep. I reluctantly crawled out of bed, and threw a light cardigan over my pajama top. I went to the kitchen, poured myself some Scotch, added a few ice cubes from the ice maker, and drank it. I went onto the terrace and gazed at the lights of the houses through the woods. Everyone seemed to be asleep, no lights on anywhere in any houses. All I saw was a scattering of tiny security lights. The area around Menshiki’s house across the valley, too, was surrounded by darkness. And like before, there were no insects chirping. Had something happened to them?

After a while I heard a sound I wasn’t used to. Or perhaps felt like I heard it. A very faint sound. If the insects had been chirping as loudly as usual I probably never would have caught it. But the profound silence that reigned allowed it to reach me, though barely. I held my breath and strained my ears. It wasn’t the chirp of any insects. Not a naturally occurring sound. It was the sound some implement or tool might make, a kind of jingling sound. The sound a bell, or something close to it, might make.

There would be a pause, then the sound. A deep silence, then that sound ringing out a few times, then deep silence once more. As if someone were patiently sending out an encoded message. But it wasn’t repeated at regular intervals. Sometimes the silence in between rings was longer, sometimes shorter. And it didn’t ring the same number of times. I couldn’t tell if their regularity was intentional or capricious. At any rate, it was such a faint sound that if I hadn’t focused and listened hard I wouldn’t have caught it. But once aware of it, in the deep silence of the middle of the night, with the moonlight so unnaturally bright, that unidentified sound irretrievably ate its way into my awareness.

I was flustered, wondering what it could be, then decided to just go outside and see. I wanted to trace the source of that mysterious sound. Someone, somewhere, was ringing something or other. I’m not bold. But going out into the dark night alone then didn’t frighten me. Curiosity won out over my fears. And the weirdly bright moonlight might have encouraged me, too.

With an oversized flashlight in my hand, I unlocked the front door and stepped outside. A single light above the entrance threw out a yellowish tint. A swarm of flying insects was drawn to that light. I stood there, ears perked up, trying to see what direction that sound was coming from. It really did sound like a bell, but not an ordinary one. It had a deeper, dull, uneven ring. Maybe it was some special percussion instrument. But what was it, and why would someone be ringing it in the middle of the night? The only residence in the vicinity was the house I was living in. If indeed someone nearby was ringing that bell, it meant they were trespassing.

I looked around to see if anything could serve as a weapon. All I had in my hand was a long cylindrical flashlight. Better than nothing. I grasped the flashlight tightly and headed toward the sound.

I turned left from the front door, which led me to a small set of stone steps. I climbed up the seven steps and entered the woods. I walked up the gentle upward-sloping path that cut through the trees, and before long came to a clearing where there was a small shrine. Masahiko had said that the shrine had been there for a very long time. He didn’t know the origins of it, but in the mid-1950s when his father had purchased the house and land from an acquaintance, the shrine already existed… On top of a flat stone was a sanctuary with a simple triangular roof—or, more accurately, a small wooden box made to look like a sanctuary. It was about two feet high and a foot and a half wide. It had originally been painted, though by now the color had mostly worn off, leaving one to imagine what it had once been. In the front was a small double door, and I had no idea what sort of offering was set up inside. I didn’t check, but probably there wasn’t anything enshrined inside. In front of the doors was an empty white ceramic pot. Rainwater had accumulated, then evaporated, over and over, leaving a number of dirty stained lines inside. Tomohiko Amada had left the shrine as it was. Not bringing his hands together in prayer as he passed it, not cleaning it, he simply let it be, swept by rain and wind. For him it must have been not a shrine, but just a plain, spare box.

“He had no interest in faith or worship or the like,” his son had explained. “He didn’t care a wit about things like divine punishment or retribution or anything. He said those were stupid superstitions, and looked down on them. It wasn’t that he was brazen about it, it’s just that he’s always held to an extremely materialist view of things.”

Masahiko had shown me the shrine the first time he took me to see the house. “You don’t find many houses these days that come with their own shrine,” he laughed, and I agreed.

“When I was a kid, though,” Masahiko went on, “it creeped me out to have that kind of weird thing on our property. So when I stayed over I avoided coming near here,” he said. “Even now, to tell the truth, I’d rather not go near it.”

I wasn’t a person who often thought in materialistic terms, but just like his father, Tomohiko Amada, having the shrine nearby didn’t bother me. People in the past set up shrines in all kinds of places, much like the little Jizo and Dosojin statues you see next to roads in the countryside. This shrine blended naturally into the scenery in the woods, and when I went on walks I often passed in front of it but never gave it much thought. I never prayed to it, or made any offerings. And I didn’t feel anything significant about having that sort of thing on the property where I was living. It was just part of the kind of scenery you’d find anywhere.

The bell-like sound seemed to be coming from near that shrine. Once I set foot in the woods, the tree branches above me blocked the moonlight and everything got suddenly darker. I carefully made my way forward, lighting the path with the flashlight. The wind would occasionally pick up, as if remembering to blow, rustling the thin layer of leaves on the ground. The woods at night felt totally different from walking there in the daytime. The place was operating under the principles at work at night, and those principles didn’t include me. That said, I didn’t feel particularly afraid. Curiosity spurred me on. I felt compelled to locate where that strange sound was coming from. I tightly gripped the heavy cylindrical flashlight, its weight calming me.

The horned owl might be in these woods somewhere, I thought. Hidden in the darkness on a branch, waiting for its prey. It would be nice if it were nearby. In a way that owl was my friend. But I didn’t hear anything that sounded like the hooting of an owl. The night birds, like the insects, were keeping quiet.

As I made my way forward, the bell-like sound became ever clearer. It continued to ring out intermittently, irregularly. The sound seemed to be coming from behind the little shrine. It sounded much closer, but was still muffled, like it was filtering out from deep inside a narrow cave. The silence between each ring had grown longer, and the number of rings was decreasing. As if the person ringing the bell had grown weak, become worn out.

The area around the shrine had been cleared and the moonlight shone beautifully on everything. Stepping silently, I walked over behind the shrine. There was a tall thicket of pampas grass and, led by the sound, I pushed my way into the thicket. There I found a small mound of square stones casually piled up, a kind of ancient burial mound. Though perhaps it was too small to be called that. At any rate, I had never noticed it was there before. I’d never gone behind the shrine, and even if I had, the mound was hidden in the midst of the pampas grass. You weren’t going to see it unless you had some reason to wade into the thicket.

I approached the mound and shone my flashlight directly upon it. The stones were old, but weren’t in their natural form, and had clearly been chiseled into squares. They had been carried up onto the mountain and piled up behind the shrine. The stones were of different sizes, most of them covered in moss. There wasn’t any visible writing or designs on them. There were twelve or thirteen stones altogether, by my count. In the past, the mound might have been taller and more orderly, but maybe an earthquake had made part of it crumble. The bell-like sound somehow seemed to be filtering out from the cracks between those stones.

I lightly rested my foot on top of the stones and searched for the source of that sound. But no matter how bright the moonlight, it was next to impossible to locate it in the dark of night. And what if I did happen to locate it? What then? I couldn’t lift these heavy stones myself.

At any rate it seemed like someone below the stone mound was ringing the bell. I was sure of it. But who? It was at this point that an enigmatic fear began to well up inside me. Instinct told me not to get any closer to the source of that sound.

I left, and with the bell ringing behind me hurried back along the path through the woods. Moonlight filtering through the branches cast a suggestive mottled pattern on my body. I emerged from the woods, rushed down the seven stone steps, got back to the house, went inside, and locked the door. I walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of whiskey straight, no ice, no water, and gulped it down. I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. I took my glass of whiskey out to the terrace.

From the terrace I could hear the bell only faintly. If I hadn’t listened carefully I wouldn’t have been able to catch it. But the point was, the sound continued. The interval of silence between each ringing of the bell was definitely lengthening. I listened to that irregular repetition for some time.

What in the world lay beneath the stones of that mound? Was there a space there, and somebody locked inside who was ringing that bell, or whatever it was? Maybe it was a signal for help. But no matter how much I thought it over, I couldn’t think of a single plausible explanation.

I might have thought about it for a long time. Or maybe it was but a moment. I had no idea. My sense of time had vanished. Glass of whiskey in hand, I sank back into the lounge chair, shuffling back and forth in the maze of consciousness. And then it hit me. The bell had stopped. Everything was enveloped in a profound silence.

I stood up, went into the bedroom, and looked at the digital clock. It was 2:31 a.m. I didn’t know the precise time the bell had started ringing, but since it had been 1:45 when I woke up, I surmised the bell had gone on ringing for at least forty-five minutes. Soon after the mysterious sound ceased, the insects began chirping again, as if probing the new silence that had arisen. As if all the insects in the mountains had been patiently waiting for the sound of that bell to stop. Holding their breath, cautiously assessing the situation.

I went back to the kitchen, rinsed out my glass, then slipped back into bed. By this time the autumn insects were a lusty chirping chorus. I should have been too worked up to sleep, but the straight whiskey did the trick and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. A long, deep sleep, bereft of dreams. When I woke again it was already bright outside the bedroom.

That day, before ten a.m., I walked out again to the little shrine in the woods. I couldn’t hear that enigmatic sound, but I wanted to study the shrine and stone mound once more in the daylight. I found a stout oak walking stick in Tomohiko Amada’s umbrella stand and took that with me. It was a sunny, pleasant morning, the clear autumn sunlight throwing the shadows of leaves across the ground. Birds with sharp bills flitted busily from one branch to another, squawking as they searched for fruit. Up above, a straight line of pitch-black crows was winging its way off somewhere.

The little shrine looked worn and shoddy in the daylight. Bathed in the bright, whitish light of the nearly full moon the shrine had looked deeply meaningful, even a bit ominous, yet now in the light of day it seemed like nothing more than a faded, seedy-looking wooden box.

I went behind the shrine, shouldered my way through the tall thicket of pampas grass, and emerged in front of the stone mound. It seemed completely transformed from the night before. What I saw before me now were merely square moss-covered stones long abandoned in the mountains. In the moonlight it had appeared like part of ancient historical ruins, covered with a mythic slime. I stood on top of the mound and perked up my ears, but couldn’t hear a thing. Other than the screech of insects and the occasional bird chirp, it was silent all around.

From far away came the bang of what I took to be a shotgun. Someone might be hunting birds in the mountains. Or else it was one of those automatic devices set up by farmers to shoot blanks to scare away sparrows, monkeys, and wild boar. Either way, the sound echoed with the feeling of autumn. The sky was high, the air slightly humid, and sounds carried well. I sat down on top of the stone mound and thought about the space that might exist beneath. Was someone really under there, ringing a bell, calling out for help? Were they like me, back when I worked for the moving company and got locked inside the truck and pounded on the side panels as hard as I could, hoping someone would rescue me? The image of someone locked up in a cramped dark space put me on edge.

After a light lunch I changed into work clothes (and by that I mean things I didn’t mind getting dirty), went into the studio, and once more tried my hand at Wataru Menshiki’s portrait. I had to dispel the image of someone shut away in an enclosed space, hoping for help, and the chronic sense of suffocation that induced in me. I had to keep my hands busy, and painting was the only solution. This time I put aside my sketchbook and pencil. They wouldn’t help, I figured. I readied my paints and paintbrushes, stood facing the canvas, and, gazing deep into that blank space, I focused on Menshiki. I stood erect, focused my concentration, and pruned away any extraneous thoughts.

A white-haired man with young-looking eyes who lived in a white mansion on a mountain. He spent most of his time at home, had what appeared to be a hidden room, and owned four British cars. How had he moved when he was here? What kind of expressions did he have on his face, what was his tone of voice, what did he look at and with what sort of look in his eyes, how did he move his hands? I recalled each and every detail. It took a while, but all the fragments started to fall into place. In my mind now, a three-dimensional, organically constructed sense of the man began to come together.

With small brushstrokes I transferred the image of Menshiki that arose from this directly onto the canvas, without the usual rough sketch. The Menshiki in my mind was facing forward, face slightly tilted to the left, his eyes looking a bit in my direction. For some reason I couldn’t picture any other angle his face should be. To me, that was Wataru Menshiki. He had to have his face slightly tilted to the left. And had to have both eyes looking a bit in my direction. I’m in his field of vision. No other composition would accurately capture him.

I stepped away from the canvas and studied the simple composition I’d done, pretty much with a single brushstroke. It was just a temporary line drawing, but I could sense from that outline a budding, living organism. With that as the starting point, it would naturally expand from there. Something was reaching out a hand—but what was it?—and had flipped a switch inside me. A sort of vague sensation, as if an animal hibernating deep within me had finally recognized that the season had arrived, and was slowly brushing aside the cobwebs of sleep.

I washed the paint off the brush in the sink and lathered my hands with oil and soap. I was in no hurry. This was plenty for today. It was best to not rush the work. When Mr. Menshiki next came to see me, as a live model, I could then flesh out this outline. I had a premonition that this painting was going to be very different from any portrait I’d ever done before. And this painting required the flesh-and-blood Menshiki.

Which was very odd, I thought.

How had Menshiki known that?

In the middle of the night I suddenly shot awake again. The clock next to my bed read 1:46, almost exactly the same time as the night before. I sat up in bed, listening carefully in the dark. No insects chirping; it was silent all around. As if I were at the bottom of a deep sea. A repeat of the previous night. But now it was dark outside my window. That was the only difference from the night before. Thick clouds covered the sky, completely hiding the nearly full autumn moon.

Everything was in total silence. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Of course it wasn’t. That silence wasn’t total. When I held my breath and listened carefully I could catch the faint sound of the bell wending its way past the deep silence. In the dark of night someone was ringing that bell-like object. As on the night before, it was a fragmented, intermittent sound. And now I knew exactly where the sound was coming from. From the woods, underneath that stone mound. There was no need to check it. What I didn’t know, though, was who was ringing that bell, and to what end? I got out of bed and padded out to the terrace.

There was no wind, but a fine rain had started to fall. An invisible silent rain wetting the ground. Lights were on over in Mr. Menshiki’s mansion. From over here, across the valley, I couldn’t see what was going on inside his house, but he seemed to still be awake. It was unusual to see the lights on this late at night. As the fine drizzle wet me, I gazed at those lights, listening to the faint tinkling of the bell.

The rain started to pick up and I went back inside, but couldn’t go back to sleep, so I sat on the sofa in the living room and turned the pages of a book I’d been reading. Not a particularly difficult book, but no matter how I focused nothing registered. I was merely tracing the words from one line to the next. Still, it was better than simply sitting there listening to the bell. I guess I could have put on some music to drown out the sound, but I didn’t feel like it. I had to hear it. Because that was a sound directed at me. I understood that. And as long as I didn’t do something about it, it would no doubt go on ringing forever. Suffocating me every night, robbing me of a good night’s sleep.

I have to do something. Take some action to stop that sound. To do that, I first had to understand the meaning and purpose of that sound—of that signal that was being sent out. Why was somebody sending out from this mysterious place a signal to me every single night, and who was it? But I felt too choked, my mind too confused, for logical thought. There was no way I could handle this alone. I had to talk to somebody about it. And at this point I could only think of one person.

I went back out on the terrace and looked over at Mr. Menshiki’s mansion. Now the lights were all out, with just a glimmer of outdoor lanterns in the garden.

The bell stopped ringing at 2:29 a.m., almost the same time as the night before. Soon after the bell stopped the insects’ chirping returned. And as if nothing had happened, the autumn night was once more filled with the clamor of nature’s chorus. Everything was a repeat of the previous night.

I went back to bed and went to sleep listening to the insects. I felt confused and anxious, but like on the night before, I soon fell asleep. Plunged into a deep, dreamless sleep.

¹² LIKE THAT NAMELESS MAILMAN

Rain started falling early in the morning, and stopped before ten. Slowly, the sun began to peek out. Moist wind from the sea slowly pushed the clouds off to the north. And at one p.m., on the dot, Menshiki showed up at my place. The time signal on the radio and the front doorbell sounded at almost precisely the same moment. Many people are punctual, but seldom do you find anyone that precise. And it wasn’t that he stood in front of the door, patiently waiting for the appointed time, timing his ringing of the front doorbell with the second hand on his watch. He drove up the slope, parked in his usual spot, and headed toward the front door at his usual pace and stride, and at almost the same instant he pushed the button for the front doorbell the time signal on the radio chimed. Pretty impressive.

I showed him into the studio, and had him sit on the same dining room chair as before. I put Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier on the turntable and lowered the needle. I started at the point we’d ended up with last time. Everything was a repeat of the previous sitting. The only difference was that this time I didn’t offer him a drink, and instead had him pose for me. I had him seated on the chair, facing forward, looking to the left, his eyes slightly facing toward me. That’s what I wanted from him this time.

He followed my instructions exactly, but it still took a while until he got the position and pose right. The angle and look in his eyes wasn’t exactly the way I wanted them. The way the light struck, too, wasn’t like my mental image. I don’t usually use a model, but once I do, I tend to have a lot of demands. Menshiki very patiently followed my nagging directions. He never looked put out, never complained. I pegged him as a person experienced in putting up with all sorts of trials and difficulties.

When he finally got the pose right I said, “I’m very sorry, but try to hold that pose without moving.”

Menshiki said nothing, only his eyes indicating that he understood.

“I’ll try to finish as quickly as I can. It might be hard, but please be patient.”

Once again he nodded with his eyes. He kept his gaze still, his body unmoving, literally not moving a muscle. He did have to blink a few times, but I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. He was so still he looked like a lifelike statue. I couldn’t help but be impressed. Even professional art models find it hard to get to that point.

As Menshiki endured posing, I worked on the canvas as quickly and efficiently as I could. I concentrated, eyeing his figure, and moved my brush as my intuition dictated. I was using black paint on the white canvas, and with a single fine brushstroke fleshed out the outline of his face I’d already drawn. No time even to re-grip the brush. In a limited amount of time I had to capture the various elements that made up his face and get them down on canvas. At a certain point the process switched over to something close to autopilot. It’s important to bypass your conscious mind and get your eye and hand movements in sync. There’s no time to consciously process every single thing your gaze takes in.

This demanded a very different type of process from me compared with the numerous portraits I’d done up till then—the countless “business items” I’d leisurely painted based solely on memory and photographs. In about fifteen minutes I’d gotten him from the chest up on canvas. It was just a rough, incomplete outline, but at least I was able to capture an image that seemed to breathe a sense of vitality, one that managed to scoop out and capture the sort of internal movement that gave birth to who this person was. If this were an anatomical drawing, though, it would be just the bones and muscles, the internal part alone boldly laid bare. It needed actual flesh and skin laid on over it.

“Thank you, you’ve been very patient,” I said. “That’s enough for today. You can take it easy now.”

Menshiki smiled and relaxed his pose. He stretched his hands above him and took a deep breath. He slowly massaged his face with his fingers to loosen up the tense muscles. I stood there taking a few deep breaths. It took a while for my breathing to return to normal. I was exhausted, like a sprinter who’d just finished a race. I’d had to work speedily, with intense concentration, and with no room for compromise, something I hadn’t experienced for quite some time. I’d had to flex long-dormant muscles, and though I felt tired, it also felt good.

“Like you said, sitting for a painting is a lot harder work than I’d imagined,” Menshiki said. “When I think about you painting me, it feels like my insides are slowly being scraped away.”

“The official view in the art world is that it’s not being scraped away but rather transplanted to a different place,” I said.

“Transplanted to a more permanent, lasting place?”

“Yes, if the painting is a true work of art.”

“Like, for instance, the nameless mailman who lives on in Van Gogh’s portrait of him?”

“Exactly.”

“He probably had no idea that, well over a century later, countless people around the world would visit art museums, or look through art books, and gaze intently at his portrait.”

“I’m sure he never had a clue.”

“It was some odd painting done in a corner of a shabby country kitchen, painted by a man who, whichever way you look at it, was a little off.”

I nodded.

“It’s kind of weird,” Menshiki said. “Something that, on the face of it, shouldn’t be so lasting ends up having permanent value.”

“Not something that happens every day.”

I suddenly thought of Killing Commendatore. Through Tomohiko Amada’s hand, was the Commendatore given permanent life, even though he was stabbed to death in the painting? And who was this Commendatore anyway?

I offered Menshiki some coffee. That would be nice, he replied, and I went to the kitchen and made a fresh pot. Menshiki remained on the chair in the studio, listening to the opera record. The coffee was ready as the B side of the record came to an end, and we went into the living room to drink it.

“So, does it look like you can do a good portrait of me?” Menshiki asked as he delicately sipped his coffee.

“I’m not sure yet,” I answered honestly. “I don’t know if it will turn out well. The way I’ve painted portraits up till now has been so different from this.”

“Because you’re using an actual model this time?” Menshiki asked.

“That’s one reason, but only a part of it. I don’t know why, but it’s like I’m not able anymore to paint the sort of conventional portraits I’ve done up till now. I need a different method and procedure, but those are still out of reach. I’m still fumbling in the dark.”

“Which means you really are changing. And I’m the catalyst for that change—wouldn’t you say?”

“You may be right.”

Menshiki thought for a while before speaking. “As I told you before, it’s entirely up to you what style of painting you do. I’m a person who’s always seeking change, always in flux. And it’s not like I’m hoping you’ll paint some conventional portrait. Any style, any concept is fine. What I want is for you to depict me exactly as you see me. The methods and procedure are up to you. I’m not hoping I live on like that mailman from Arles. I’m not that ambitious. I just have a healthy curiosity to see what sort of painting will emerge from this.”

“I appreciate your saying that. I just have one request,” I said. “If I can’t come up with a satisfactory painting, then I’d like to forget the whole thing.”

“You won’t give me the painting then?”

I nodded. “I’ll return the advance, of course.”

“All right,” Menshiki said. “I’ll let you be the final judge. Though I must say I have a strong hunch it’s not going to turn out that way.”

“I hope your hunch turns out to be correct.”

Menshiki looked me in the eyes. “But even if the painting’s never completed, I’d be very happy if, in some way, I’m able to help you change. Truly.”

“By the way, Mr. Menshiki,” I said, broaching the topic a little while later, “there’s something I wanted to get your advice on. Something personal, nothing to do with the painting.”

“Of course. I’ll be happy to help if I can.”

I sighed. “It’s kind of a weird story. I might not be able to tell the whole story in the right order, so it makes sense.”

“Take your time, tell it in whatever order is easiest for you. And then we’ll consider it together. The two of us might come up with a good idea that you couldn’t come up with on your own.”

So I told him the story, start to finish. How I suddenly woke up just before two a.m. and heard a weird sound in the darkness. A faint, far-off sound that I could only catch because the insects had stopped chirping. A sound like someone ringing a bell. When I tried to trace the source, it seemed to be coming from between the cracks in a stone mound in the woods behind my house. That mysterious sound continued for some forty-five minutes, intermittently, with irregular intervals of silence between. Finally it stopped completely. The same thing happened two nights in a row—two nights ago and last night. Someone might be ringing that bell-like thing from underneath the stones. Maybe sending out a distress call. But could that be possible? I was starting to doubt my own sanity a little. Was I just imagining things?

Menshiki listened to my story without comment, and remained silent even after I finished. He’d listened intently to what I’d said, and I could tell he was thinking deeply about it.

“A fascinating story,” he said a little while later. He lightly cleared his throat. “As you said, it’s certainly out of the ordinary. I wonder… if possible, I’d like to hear the sound of that bell myself, so could I come over tonight? If you don’t mind?”

This took me by surprise. “Come all the way over here in the dead of night?”

“Of course. If I hear the bell too, that would prove you’re not hallucinating. That’s the first step. If it is an actual bell, then let’s try to locate the source, the two of us. Then we can think about what to do next.”

“True enough—”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll come over here tonight at twelve thirty. Does that work for you?”

“That’s fine, but I don’t want to put you out—”

A pleasant smile graced his lips. “Not to worry. If I can help you, nothing would make me happier. Plus, I’m a very curious person. What that bell in the middle of the night might mean, and if someone is ringing it, who that is—I’m dying to know. You feel the same way, don’t you?”

“Of course—” I said.

“Then let’s go with that. I’ll see you tonight. And there’s something else I thought of.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. I have to make sure of something first.”

Menshiki got up from the sofa and held out his right hand. I shook it. As always, a firm handshake. He looked happier than usual.

After he left I spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen cooking. Once a week I prepare all my meals. I put them in the fridge or freezer, then get by on these for the week. This was my meal-prep day. For dinner that evening I added macaroni to some boiled sausage and cabbage. Plus a tomato, avocado, and onion salad. In the evening I lay on the sofa as always, reading while listening to music. After a while I stopped reading and thought about Menshiki.

Why had he looked so happy when we said goodbye? Was he really so pleased to be able to help me out? Why? I didn’t get it. I was just a poor, unknown artist. My wife of six years had left me, I didn’t get along with my parents, had no set place to live, no assets, and was simply hanging out in a friend’s father’s house. Menshiki, in contrast (not that there was any need to make a comparison), had been successful at business at a young age, and made enough to live comfortably for the rest of his days. At least that’s what he had told me. He was good-looking, owned four British cars, and lived in luxury in a huge mountaintop mansion without, apparently, doing any real work. So why would a person like that be interested in someone like me? And why would he make time in the dead of the night to help me out?

I shook my head and went back to reading. Thinking about it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It was like trying to put together a puzzle that was missing some pieces. I could think all I wanted and never arrive at any conclusion. But I couldn’t help but think about it. I sighed, and put the book on the tabletop again, closed my eyes, and listened to the music. Schubert’s String Quartet no. 15, played by the Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet.

Since coming here, I’d listened to classical music every day, most of it German (or Austrian), since the majority of Tomohiko Amada’s record collection consisted of German classical music. His collection included the obligatory nods to Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, Vivaldi, Debussy, and Ravel, but that’s all. Since he was an opera fan there were, as you might expect, some recordings by Verdi and Puccini. But compared to the substantial lineup of German opera he didn’t seem as enthusiastic about these.

I imagined Amada had intense memories of his time studying in Vienna, which may have accounted for the deep absorption in German music. Or it could have been the opposite. Maybe his love of German music had come first, and that’s why he had chosen to study in Vienna instead of France. I had no way of knowing which had come first.

Either way, I was in no position to complain that German music was the preferred type in this house. I was a mere caretaker, and they were kind enough to let me listen to the records there. And I enjoyed listening to the music of Bach, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, and Beethoven. Not forgetting Mozart, of course. Their music was deep, amazing, and gorgeous. Up to then in my life I’d never had the opportunity to really settle down and listen to that type of music. I’d always been too busy trying to make a living, and didn’t have the wherewithal financially. So I decided that, as long as I’d been provided this wonderful opportunity, I’d listen to as much music here as I could.

After eleven I fell asleep for a while on the sofa listening to music. I might have slept for about twenty minutes. When I woke up the record was over, the arm back in its cradle, the turntable not moving. There were two players in the living room, one an automatic, the other an old-school manual type, but to play it safe—so I could fall asleep listening, in other words—I generally used the automatic. I slipped the Schubert record back in its jacket, and returned it to its designated spot on the record shelf. From the open window I could hear the clamor of insects. Since they were still making a racket, I wouldn’t be hearing the sound of the bell quite yet.

I warmed up coffee in the kitchen and munched on a few cookies. And listened intently to the noisy insect ensemble that enveloped the mountains. A little before twelve thirty I heard the Jaguar slowly making its way up the slope. As it changed direction, the pair of yellow headlights lit up the window. The engine finally cut out, and I heard the usual solid thunk as the door shut. I sat on the sofa, sipping coffee, getting my breathing under control, waiting for the front doorbell to ring.

¹³ AT THIS POINT IT’S MERELY A HYPOTHESIS

We sat in chairs in the living room, drank our coffee, and talked, killing time until that time rolled around. At first we chatted about inconsequential things, but after a curtain of silence descended on us Menshiki, a bit hesitantly, yet resolutely, asked, “Do you have any children?”

The question took me by surprise. He didn’t seem the type to ask that kind of question—especially of someone he didn’t know well. He seemed more the I-won’t-stick-my-nose-in-your-business-if-you-won’t-stick-yours-in-mine type of person. At least that’s the way I read him. But when I looked up and saw his serious expression, I knew it wasn’t an impulsive question. He’d been thinking of asking me this for a long time.

I responded. “I was married for six years, but we didn’t have any children.”

“You didn’t want any?”

“I was fine either way. But my wife didn’t want any,” I said. I didn’t, though, get into the reason she gave. Even now I’m not sure that it reflected her true feelings.

Menshiki seemed hesitant, but forged ahead. “This might sound rude, but have you ever considered that there might be another woman somewhere, other than your wife, who secretly had a child of yours?”

I looked him full in the face again. What a strange question. I rummaged around, pro forma, through a few drawers of memory, but came up empty-handed. I hadn’t had sex with all that many women until then, and even if something like that had taken place, I think I would have heard about it.

“I guess it’s possible, in theory. But realistically—commonsensically, you might say—it’s not.”

“I see,” Menshiki said. He quietly sipped his coffee, thinking deeply.

“Why do you ask?” I ventured.

He looked out the window, silent for a time. The moon was visible, not as weirdly bright as two days ago, but still plenty bright. Scattered clouds slowly wended their way from the sea toward the mountains.

Menshiki finally spoke up. “As I mentioned before, I’ve never been married. I’ve always been a bachelor. Work kept me busy all the time, that’s one reason, but it’s also because living with someone else didn’t fit my personality and lifestyle. I’m sure this sounds pretty stuck-up, but I’m the type who can only live alone. I have almost no interest in lineage or relatives. I’ve never thought I’d like to have children. There’s a personal reason for that, mostly because of my home environment when I was growing up.”

He paused, took a breath, then went on.

“But a few years ago I began to think that I might actually have a child. Or I should say, I was compelled to think that way.”

No comment from me.

“I find it strange myself that I’m opening up to you, about this kind of personal matter. I mean, we just met.” The faintest of smiles rose to Menshiki’s lips.

“I’m okay with it, as long as you are.”

Ever since I was little, for some reason people have tended to open up to me about the most unexpected topics. Maybe I have an innate ability to draw out secrets from strangers. Or maybe I just seem like a good listener, I don’t know. Either way, I don’t remember it ever working to my advantage. After people tell me their secrets, they always regret it.

“This is the first time I’ve ever told anybody this,” Menshiki said.

I nodded and waited for more. Everyone says the same thing.

Menshiki began his story. “This happened fifteen years ago, when I was going out with a woman. I was in my late thirties then, she was in her late twenties. She was a beautiful, attractive woman, extremely bright. I was serious about our relationship, though I’d made it clear to her there was no chance of us getting married. I don’t plan to ever marry anyone, I told her. I didn’t want her to have any false hopes. If she ever found someone else she wanted to marry, I would step aside without a word. She understood exactly how I felt. While we went out—for about two and half years—we got along really well. We never argued, even once. We traveled together to lots of places, and she’d often stay over at my place. She even kept a set of clothes there.”

He seemed to be contemplating something, then continued his story.

“If I were a normal person, or closer to being normal, I wouldn’t have hesitated to marry her. But—” He paused here and let out a small breath. “But the upshot was I chose the kind of life I have now, a quiet life all by myself, and she chose a healthier life for herself. In other words, she got married to another man who was closer to being normal than me.”

Until the very end, however, she didn’t disclose to him the fact that she was getting married. The last time he saw her was a week after her twenty-ninth birthday (the two of them had dined out at a restaurant in Ginza on her birthday, and later on he recalled how unusually quiet she’d been). He was working in an office in Akasaka then and she’d called him saying she wanted to see him and talk, and asked if she could see him right away. Of course, he replied. She’d never visited his workplace even once, but he hadn’t thought it odd. His office was a small place, just him and a middle-aged woman secretary. So he didn’t need to worry about anyone else if she stopped by. There had been a time when he’d managed a large company with lots of employees, but at this point he was developing a new network by himself. His usual approach was to work quietly by himself to develop a new business strategy; then, when he began implementing the plan, he would aggressively employ a broad range of talent.

It was just before five p.m. when his girlfriend showed up. They sat down together on his office sofa to talk. He’d had the secretary in the next room go home. It was his normal routine to continue working alone in the office after his secretary left for the day. Often he’d be so engrossed in his work that he’d stay all night. His idea was for the two of them to go to a nearby restaurant and have dinner, but she turned that down. I don’t have time today, she said, I have to meet somebody in Ginza.

“You said you had something you wanted to talk about,” he said.

“No, I don’t have anything to really talk about,” she said. “I just wanted to see you.”

“I’m glad you came,” he said, smiling. It had been some time since she’d spoken so openly to him. She generally spoke in a more indirect, roundabout way. He had no idea what this portended.

She moved over on the sofa and sat down in his lap. She put her arms around him and kissed him. A serious, deep kiss, tongues entwined. She reached out and undid Menshiki’s belt. She took out his already erect penis, holding it in her grasp for a time. Then she leaned forward and wrapped her mouth around it. She slowly ran the tip of her long tongue around it. Her tongue was smooth and hot.

This all came out of nowhere. She was usually more passive when it came to sex—especially oral sex—and when it came to doing it, or having things done to her, he’d always felt a slight resistance on her part. But now here she was taking the lead. What’s come over her? he wondered.

She suddenly stood up, tossed aside her expensive black pumps, briskly lowered her stockings and panties, again sat down on his lap, and now guided his penis inside her. Her vagina was wet, and moved smoothly, naturally, like some living being. The whole sequence had happened so quickly (and was so unlike her, since she was always so calm and deliberate). Before he realized it, he was deep inside her, that smooth wall completely enveloping his penis, squeezing him silently yet insistently.

This was unlike any sex he’d ever had with her. It was at once hot and cold, hard and soft. It was a strange, contradictory sensation, as if he were being simultaneously accepted and rejected. He had no idea what that meant. She straddled him, and like a person on a small boat being tossed around by the waves, moved violently up and down. Her black hair tossed about, supple as a willow branch in a strong wind. She lost control, her gasps growing ever louder. Menshiki wasn’t sure if he had locked the office door or not. He felt he had, but also that he’d forgotten to. But this wasn’t the time to go check.

“Shouldn’t we use a condom or something?” he managed to ask. She was always careful about contraception.

“It’s okay—today,” she gasped in his ear. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

Everything about her was different from usual, as if a totally different personality dormant inside her had awoken and hijacked her body and soul. Menshiki imagined that today must be some sort of special day for her. There was so much that men can’t fathom about women’s bodies.

Her movements became increasingly frenzied. There was nothing he could do but make sure not to interfere with what she desired. They neared climax. He couldn’t hold back, and ejaculated, and in time with that she let out a short screech like some foreign bird, and her womb, as if waiting for that instant, greedily absorbed his semen. A muddied image occurred to him of himself, in the darkness, being devoured by a greedy beast.

After a while she stood up, as if pushing his body aside, and silently adjusted the hem of her dress, stuffed the stockings and panties that had fallen to the floor in her handbag, and hurried off to the bathroom, bag in hand. She didn’t come out for a long time. He was beginning to get worried that something had happened to her when she finally emerged. Her clothing and hair were neatly arranged now, her makeup redone. Her usual calm smile graced her lips.

She gave Menshiki a light peck on the lips, and told him she had to go, since she was already late. And she hurried out of the office, without looking back. He could still recall the click of her pumps as she left.

That was the last time he ever saw her. All contact ceased. He’d call her, and write, but never got a response. And two months later she got married. He heard about this from a mutual friend, after the fact. The friend found it odd that Menshiki was not invited to the wedding ceremony, and, in particular, that he had no idea she was getting married. He’d always thought that Menshiki and the woman were good friends (they’d always been very discreet about their relationship, and no one else had known they were lovers). Menshiki didn’t know the man she married. He had never even heard his name. She hadn’t told Menshiki she was planning to marry, nor even hinted at it. She just disappeared from his world without a word.

That violent embrace on the sofa at his office, Menshiki realized, must have been her final, farewell act of love. Afterward he went over those events, over and over in his mind. Even after a long time had passed, those memories remained amazingly distinct and clear. The creak of the sofa, her hair whirling around her, her hot breath in his ear—it all came back to him.

So did Menshiki regret losing her? Of course not. He wasn’t the type to have regrets. He knew very well he wasn’t suited to family life. No matter how much he loved someone, he still couldn’t share his life with them. He needed solitary time every day to concentrate, and he couldn’t stand it when someone’s presence threw off his concentration. If he lived with someone he knew he would end up detesting them. Whether it was his parents, a wife, or children. He feared that above all. He wasn’t afraid of loving someone. What he feared was growing to hate someone.

For all that, he had loved her very deeply. He’d never loved any other woman so deeply, and probably never would again. “Even now there’s a special spot inside me just for her,” Menshiki said. “A very real spot. You might even call it a shrine.”

A shrine? This struck me as an odd choice of words. But for him it was likely the right way of putting it.

Menshiki ended his story there. He’d told this private tale in great detail, yet I got little sense of it being sexual. It was more like he’d read aloud from a medical report. Or maybe it really was that sort of dispassionate experience for him.

“Seven months after the wedding she gave birth to a baby girl in a hospital in Tokyo,” Menshiki continued. “Thirteen years ago. I heard about this birth much later from someone.”

Menshiki stared down at his now empty coffee cup, as if nostalgic for some past age when it had been full of hot coffee.

“And that child might possibly be my own,” he said, seemingly forcing out the words. He looked at me, like he wanted to hear my opinion.

It took me a while to grasp what he was trying to say.

“Does the timeline fit?”

“It does. It coincides perfectly. The child was born nine months after she came to my office. She must have picked the day she was most fertile to come see me and—how should I put it?—deliberately gathered my sperm. That’s my working hypothesis. From the beginning she wasn’t expecting to marry me, but had decided to have my child. I figured that’s what happened.”

“But you can’t confirm that,” I said.

“Of course. At this point it’s merely a hypothesis. But I do have a sort of basis to say this.”

“That was a pretty risky experiment for her, wasn’t it?” I pointed out. “If the blood types didn’t match it might come out that the father was someone else. Would she risk that?”

“My blood is type A. Most Japanese are A, and I think she is too. As long as they didn’t have some reason to run a full-blown DNA test, the chances are slim that the secret would come out. That much she could figure out.”

“But on the other hand, unless you ran an official DNA test you wouldn’t be able to determine if you’re the girl’s biological father or not. Right? Or else you ask her mother directly.”

Menshiki shook his head. “It’s no longer possible to ask the mother. She died seven years ago.”

“That’s terrible. She was still so young,” I said.

“She was walking in the woods and was stung by hornets and died. She was allergic to them. By the time they got her to the hospital she’d stopped breathing. Nobody knew she was so allergic to their stings. Maybe she didn’t even know herself. She left behind her husband and daughter. Her daughter is thirteen now.”

About the same age my little sister was when she died, I thought.

“And you have some sort of basis for conjecturing that this girl is your daughter. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Some time after she died I suddenly received a letter from the deceased,” Menshiki said in a quiet voice.

One day a large envelope, with a return receipt, arrived at his office from a law firm he’d never heard of. Inside was a typed two-page letter (with the letterhead of the law firm) and a light pink envelope. The letter from the law firm was signed by a lawyer. The lawyer’s letter read: Ms. **** entrusted me with this letter while she was still alive. Ms. **** left instructions with me to send this letter to you in case of her death. She added a note to the effect that the letter should be for your eyes only.

That was the gist of the lawyer’s letter. The circumstances leading to her death were described simply, in a businesslike manner. Menshiki was speechless, but finally pulled himself together and snipped open the second envelope. The letter inside was handwritten in blue ink, on four sheets of stationery. The handwriting was exquisite.

Menshiki read the letter over so many times that he memorized it all (and he recited it to me without faltering). All sorts of emotions and suggestions played back and forth through the letter—light and dark, shadow and sunlight—creating a complex, hidden picture. Like a linguistics scholar researching an ancient language no one speaks anymore, he spent years considering the possibilities concealed in the letter’s contents. Extracting each word and phrasing, recombining them, intertwining them, shifting their order. And he arrived at one conclusion alone: that the baby girl she gave birth to seven months after she got married was, he was now certain, conceived in that office, on that leather sofa, with him.

“I asked a law office I knew to investigate the daughter she left behind,” Menshiki said. “Her husband was fifteen years older than she was, worked in real estate. Or, rather, he was the son of a local landowner and managed the land and properties he’d inherited from his father. He had some other real estate holdings, too, of course, but wasn’t that ambitious when it came to expanding the business. He had enough assets to live on comfortably without working. The daughter’s name was Mariye. The husband had not remarried after his wife’s accidental death seven years ago. The husband has an unmarried younger sister who lives with them and takes care of the household. Mariye is in her first year at a local public junior high.”

“And have you met this girl, Mariye?”

Menshiki was silent as he chose his words. “I’ve seen her from a distance many times. But never spoken with her.”

“And what did you think when you saw her?”

“Did she look like me? I couldn’t say. If I think there’s a resemblance then everything about her resembles me, but if I don’t think that way then I don’t see a resemblance at all.”

“Do you have a photo of her?”

Menshiki silently shook his head. “No, I don’t. I could get one easily enough, but that’s not what I was after. What good is carrying around a photo of her in my wallet going to do? What I’m after is—”

But nothing came after this. He was silent, the quiet buried in the lively buzz of the hordes of insects outside.

“But you told me earlier, Mr. Menshiki, that you were totally uninterested in blood relations.”

“True enough. I’ve never cared about lineage. In fact, I’ve lived my life trying to avoid that as much as I could. My feelings haven’t changed. But still, I find I can’t take my eyes off this girl, Mariye. I simply can’t stop thinking about her. There’s no reason for it, but still…”

I couldn’t find the right words to say.

Menshiki continued. “I’ve never had this experience before. I’ve always been very self-controlled, even proud of it. But sometimes now I find it painful to be alone.”

I went ahead and said what was on my mind. “Mr. Menshiki, this is just a hunch on my part, but it seems like there’s something you want me to do in regard to Mariye. Or am I overthinking things?”

After a pause Menshiki nodded. “I’m not sure how I should put this—”

I realized at that instant that the clamor of insects had completely stopped. I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was just past one forty. I held a finger up to my lips, and Menshiki stopped in midsentence. And the two of us listened carefully in the still of the night.

¹⁴ BUT SOMETHING THIS STRANGE IS A FIRST

Menshiki and I stopped talking, and sat still, listening carefully. The insects had stopped chirping, just like they had two days ago, and again yesterday. In the midst of that deep silence I could again make out the tinkling of the bell. It rang a few times, with uneven periods of silence in between before ringing once again. I looked over at Menshiki, seated across from me on the sofa. I could tell he was hearing the same sound. He was frowning. He lifted up his hands on his lap, his fingers moving slightly in time to the ringing of the bell. So this wasn’t an auditory hallucination.

After listening intently to the bell for two or three minutes, Menshiki slowly rose from the sofa.

“Let’s go where that sound’s coming from,” he said drily.

I picked up my flashlight. He went outside and retrieved a large flashlight from his Jaguar. We climbed the seven steps and walked into the woods. Though not as bright as two days before, the autumn moonlight clearly lit the path for us. We walked in back of the little shrine, pushing aside pampas grass as we went, and emerged in front of the stone mound. And again we perked up our ears. No doubt about it, the sound was coming from the cracks between the stones.

Menshiki slowly circled the mound, cautiously shining his flashlight into the cracks between the stones. But nothing was out of the ordinary, just a jumble of old, moss-covered stones. He looked over at me. In the moonlight his face resembled some mask from ancient times. Perhaps my face looked the same?

“When you heard the sound before, was it coming from here?” he whispered.

“The same place,” I said. “The exact same spot.”

“It sounds like someone underneath the stones is ringing a bell,” Menshiki said.

I nodded. I felt relieved to know I wasn’t crazy, but I had to admit that the unreality of the situation had now, through Menshiki, taken on a reality, creating a slight gap in the seam of the world.

“What should we do?” I asked Menshiki.

He shone his flashlight on where the sound was coming from, his lips tight as he considered the situation. In the still of the night I could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind.

“Someone might be seeking help,” Menshiki said quietly, as if to himself.

“But who could have possibly gotten under these heavy stones?”

Menshiki shook his head. He had no idea either.

“Anyway, let’s go back to the house,” he said. He lightly touched my shoulders from behind. “At least we’ve pinpointed the source of the sound. Let’s go home and talk it over.”

We cut through the woods and came out onto the empty space in front of the house. Menshiki opened the door of his Jaguar and returned the flashlight. In its place he took out a small paper bag. We went back inside the house.

“If you have any whiskey, could I have a glass?” Menshiki asked.

“Regular Scotch okay?”

“Of course. Straight, please. With a separate glass of water, no ice.”

I went into the kitchen and took a bottle of White Label from the shelf, poured some into two glasses, and took them and some mineral water out to the living room. We sat across from each other without speaking, and drank our straight whiskey. I went back to the kitchen to get the bottle of White Label and poured him a refill. He picked up the glass but didn’t drink any. In the silence of the middle of the night, the bell continued to ring out intermittently. A small sound, but with a delicate weight one couldn’t fail to hear.

“I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my time, but something this strange is a first,” Menshiki said. “Pardon me for saying this, but when you first told me about this I only half believed you. It’s hard to believe something like this could actually happen.”

Something in that expression caught my attention. “What do you mean, could actually happen?”

Menshiki raised his head and looked me in the eyes.

“I read about this sort of thing in a book once,” he said.

“You mean hearing a bell from somewhere in the middle of the night?”

“No, what they heard was a gong, not a bell. The kind of gong they would ring along with a drum when searching for a lost child. In the old days it was a small Buddhist altar fitting that you would hit with a wooden bell hammer. You’d strike it rhythmically as you chanted sutras. In the story someone heard that kind of gong ringing out from underground in the middle of the night.”

“Was this a ghost story?”

“Closer to what’s called a tale of the mysterious. Have you ever read Ueda Akinari’s book Tales of the Spring Rain?” Menshiki asked.

I shook my head. “I read his Tales of Moonlight and Rain a long time ago. But I haven’t read that one.”

“Tales of the Spring Rain is a collection of stories Akinari wrote in his later years. Some forty years after he finished Tales of Moonlight and Rain. Compared with that book, which emphasized narrative, Tales of the Spring Rain was more an expression of Akinari’s philosophy as a man of letters. One strange story in the collection is titled ‘Fate over Two Generations.’ The main character experiences something like what you’re going through. He’s the son of a wealthy farmer. He enjoys studying, and one night he’s reading late when he hears a sound like a gong coming from underneath a rock in the corner of the garden. Thinking it odd, the next day he has people dig it up, and they find a large stone underneath. When they move that stone they find a kind of coffin with a stone lid. Inside that they discover a fleshless emaciated person, like a dried fish. With hair down to his knees. Only his hands are still moving, striking a gong with a wooden hammer. It was a Buddhist priest who long ago chose his own death in order to achieve enlightenment, and had himself buried alive in the coffin. This act was called zenjo. The mummified dead body was unearthed and enshrined in a temple. Another term for zenjo is nyujo, meaning a deep meditative practice. The man must have originally been quite a highly revered priest. As he had hoped, his soul reached nirvana, and the soul-less physical body alone continued to live on. The main character’s family had lived on this plot of land for ten generations, and this burial must have taken place before that. In other words, several centuries before.”

Menshiki ended there.

“So you’re saying the same sort of thing took place around this house?” I asked.

Menshiki shook his head. “If you think about it, it’s not possible. This was just a take on the supernatural written in the Edo period. Akinari knew that this tale had become part of folk legend and he adapted it and created the story ‘Fate over Two Generations.’ What I’m saying is, the story does have strange parallels with what we’re experiencing now.”

He lightly shook his glass of whiskey, the amber liquid quietly oscillating in his hand.

“So after he was unearthed, what happened?” I asked.

“The story took off in strange directions,” Menshiki replied, sounding hesitant to go into it. “Ueda Akinari’s worldview late in his life is deeply reflected in that story. A quite cynical view of the world, really. Akinari had a complicated background, a man who went through a lot of troubles in his life. But rather than hearing me summarize, I suggest you read the story yourself.”

Menshiki took an old book out of the paper bag he’d brought inside from the car, and handed it to me. A volume from a collection of classical Japanese literature. The book contained the entire text of Akinari’s two most famous books, Tales of Moonlight and Rain and Tales of the Spring Rain.

“When you told me what was going on here, right away I recalled this story. Just to be sure, I reread the copy I had on my shelves. I’ll give you the book. If you’d like, please take a look. It’s a short tale and doesn’t take long to read.”

I thanked him and accepted the book. “It’s all pretty strange,” I said. “Kind of unbelievable. Of course I’ll read it. But apart from all that, what am I actually supposed to do? I don’t think I can just leave things the way they are. If somebody really is buried beneath those rocks, ringing a bell or gong or whatever, sending out a call for help every night, we have to help get him out.”

Menshiki frowned. “But the two of us would never be able to move that pile of stones.”

“Should we report it to the police?”

Menshiki shook his head a few times. “The police won’t be any help. Once you report that you’re hearing a bell ringing from under stones in a woods in the middle of the night, they’re not going to take you seriously. They’ll just think you’re crazy. It could make things worse. Better not go there.”

“But if that bell keeps ringing every night, I don’t think my nerves can take it. I can’t get much sleep. All I can do is move out of this house. That sound is definitely trying to tell us something.”

Menshiki considered this. “We’ll need a professional’s help to move those rocks,” he said. “There’s a man I know pretty well who’s a local landscape designer. He’s used to moving heavy rocks in landscaping. If need be, he could arrange for a small backhoe. Then it’d be easy to move the rocks and dig a hole.”

“Okay, but I see two problems with that,” I said. “First, I’d have to get permission to do that work from the son of the owner. I can’t decide anything on my own. And second, I don’t have the funds to hire someone to do that kind of job.”

Menshiki smiled. “Don’t worry about the money. I’ll take care of that. What I mean is, that designer owes me one, and I think he’ll do it at cost. Don’t worry about that. As for Mr. Amada, why don’t you get in touch with him? If you explain the situation, I think he’ll give permission. If somebody really is shut away underneath those rocks and we just leave him to his fate, Mr. Amada will be liable for it as the property owner.”

“But to ask you, an outsider, to go to all that trouble—”

Menshiki spread his hands wide on his lap, as if catching the rain. His voice was quiet.

“I mentioned this before, but I’m a very curious person. I’d like to find out how this odd story will play out. It’s not something you run across every day. So, like I said, don’t worry about how much it’ll cost. I understand you have your own position to consider, but let me arrange everything.”

I looked Menshiki in the eye. There was a keen light there I hadn’t seen before. Those eyes told me that no matter what happened he was going to pursue it to the very end. If you don’t understand something, then stick with it until you do—that seemed to be Menshiki’s basic approach to life.

“Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow I’ll get in touch with Masahiko.”

“And I’ll contact the landscape designer,” Menshiki said. He paused. “By the way, there’s one thing I wanted to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“Do you often have these kinds of—what should I say?—paranormal experiences?”

“No,” I said. “This is a first. I’m a very ordinary person who’s lived a very ordinary life. That’s why I find it all so confusing. What about you, Mr. Menshiki?”

A faint smile rose to his lips. “I’ve had many strange experiences. I’ve seen things common sense can’t explain. But something this strange is a first.”

After this we sat there in silence, listening to the ringing of the bell.

As always the bell stopped completely a little after 2:30. And the mountains were again blasted with the buzz of insects.

“I’d best be going,” Menshiki said. “Thank you for the whiskey. I’ll get in touch soon.”

Under the moonlight Menshiki got into his glossy silver Jaguar and drove off. He gave a short wave out the open window and I waved back. After the sound of his engine had faded away down the slope, I remembered that he’d had a glass of whiskey (the second glass he hadn’t touched), but his face hadn’t turned red at all, his speech and attitude no different than if he’d drunk water. He must be able to hold his liquor. And he wasn’t driving far. It was a road that only local residents used, and at this hour there wouldn’t be any cars coming the other direction, or any pedestrians.

I went back inside, rinsed out our glasses in the kitchen sink, and went to bed. I thought about people coming with heavy equipment to move the stones behind the little shrine, and digging a hole. It was hard to picture it as real. Before that happened, I needed to read the Ueda Akinari story he’d mentioned, “Fate over Two Generations.” But I’d leave everything for tomorrow. Things would look different in the light of day. I switched off the bedside light, and to the background noise of buzzing insects, I fell asleep.

At ten a.m. I called Masahiko Amada’s office and explained the situation. I didn’t bring up Ueda Akinari, but told him how I’d had an acquaintance over to make sure that bell ringing in the middle of the night wasn’t just an auditory illusion I was having.

“That is really creepy,” Masahiko said. “But do you really believe there’s someone underneath those stones ringing a bell?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t just ignore it. I hear it every single night.”

“What will you do if, when you dig it all up, something weird emerges?”

“What do you mean, something weird?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Some mysterious thing that’s best left alone.”

“You should come at night sometime and hear that sound. If you heard it yourself you’d understand why I can’t just let it be.”

Masahiko sighed deeply on the other end of the line. “No thanks,” he said, “I’ll pass. I’ve always been a bit of a coward. I hate scary stories, anything frightening. No thanks. I’ll leave it all up to you. It’s not going to bother anyone if you move those old stones and dig a hole. Do whatever you like. Just make sure not to unearth anything weird, okay?”

“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but once I know, I’ll be in touch.”

“If it were me, I’d just wear earplugs,” Masahiko said.

After I hung up I sat in a chair in the living room and read the Ueda Akinari story. I read it first in the original classical Japanese, then in the contemporary-language version. A couple of details were different, but as Menshiki had said there was a strong resemblance between the story and what I was experiencing here. In the story the character heard the gong sounding at two o’clock in the morning, about the same time. But what I heard wasn’t a gong but a bell. In the story the buzz of insects didn’t stop. The protagonist hears the gong mixed in with the sound of the insects. But these small details aside, what I experienced was exactly the same as in the story. It left me dumbfounded, in fact, at how close the two were.

The unearthed mummy was completely dried up, just its hand doggedly moving, striking the gong. A terrifying vitality made the hand move almost mechanically. No doubt this priest gave up the ghost while reciting sutras and beating out a rhythm on the gong. The main character put clothes on the mummy and poured water on his lips. Before long he was able to eat some thin rice gruel and gradually put on flesh. Finally he recovered to the point where he looked like a normal human being. But you got no sense from him at all of a priest who had attained enlightenment. No intelligence or wisdom, and not a hint of dignity. And he had lost all memory of his former life. He couldn’t recall, even, why he’d gone underground like that for so very long. He ate meat now, and had a considerable sexual appetite. He got married, and managed to make a living doing menial work. People nicknamed him “Nyujo no Josuke”—Josuke, the meditation guy. His pathetic figure made the villagers lose all respect for Buddhism. Is this the kind of wreck you end up as, they wondered, after all the strict ascetic training he went through, risking his life in pursuit of Buddhism? They started to despise faith, and stopped going to temple. That was Ueda’s story. As Menshiki had said, the story reflected the author’s cynical worldview. It’s not merely some tale of the supernatural.

I reread the short story “Fate over Two Generations” several times and found myself utterly confused. Say we used heavy equipment to move the stones, dug up the soil, and what emerged was a bony, pathetic mummy, then how was I supposed to handle that? Would I be responsible for resuscitating him? Was it wiser, as Masahiko had advised, to not meddle, and simply plug up my ears and leave it all alone?

But even if I wanted to do that, I couldn’t simply make it go away. I would never be able to escape that sound, no matter how tightly I plugged up my ears. And say I moved somewhere else; that sound might follow me. Plus, like Menshiki, I was curious. I had to find out what lay hidden beneath those stones.

In the afternoon Menshiki called me. “Did you get Mr. Amada’s permission?”

I told him pretty much everything about my conversation with Masahiko. And how he’d told me to handle it any way I wanted.

“I’m glad,” Menshiki said. “I’ve arranged things with the landscape designer. I didn’t tell him about the mysterious sound. I just asked him to move some stones out in the woods and then dig a hole there. It was a sudden request, but his schedule happened to be free, so if you don’t mind, he’d like to come and look over the site this afternoon and start work tomorrow morning. Is it all right with you that he comes to check out the work site?”

“He can come over whenever he wants,” I said.

“After he inspects the site, he’ll arrange for the equipment he needs. The work itself should be done in a few hours. I’ll be present when they’re working,” Menshiki said.

“I’ll be there, too. When you find out what time they’ll start, let me know,” I said. “By the way,” I added, remembering, “about what we were talking about last night, before we heard that sound…”

Menshiki didn’t seem to follow. “I’m sorry, you mean—”

“It was about the thirteen-year-old girl, Mariye. You said she might be your real daughter. We were talking about her when we heard the bell, and that’s as far as we got.”

“Ah yes,” said Menshiki. “Now that you mention it, we did talk about that. I’d totally forgotten. Yes, we should talk about that again sometime. But there’s no rush. We can talk about it again once we take care of the matter at hand.”

After that I couldn’t concentrate. I tried reading, listening to music, cooking, but all I could think of was what lay beneath those ancient stones in the woods. I couldn’t shake the thought of a blackened mummy, shriveled up like a dried fish.

¹⁵ THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

Menshiki called me that night to let me know that the work would begin the next morning, Wednesday, at ten.

Wednesday morning it was drizzling off and on, but not hard enough to delay the work. It was a fine rain, and a hat or raincoat with a hood was enough. No need for an umbrella. Menshiki had on an olive-green rain hat, the kind the British might use for duck hunting. The leaves of the trees, starting to turn fall colors, took on a dull color from the nearly invisible rain that soaked them.

The workers used a flatbed truck to move in a small backhoe. A very compact piece of equipment, with a tight turning radius, made to work in confined spaces. There were four workers altogether—one backhoe operator, one foreman, and two additional workers. The shovel operator and the foreman drove the truck. They all had on matching blue rainwear, jackets and trousers, and muddy thick-soled work boots, and wore protective helmets made of heavy-duty plastic. Menshiki and the foreman were apparently acquainted, and they talked for a while, the two of them beaming, next to the little shrine. I could tell, though, that the foreman remained on his best behavior toward Menshiki.

Menshiki must have had a lot of clout to arrange for this many people and equipment in such a short time. I watched this whole process half impressed, half bewildered. I had a slight sense of resignation, too, as if everything were already out of my hands. Like when I was a child and the little kids would be playing some game and bigger kids would come around and take over. I remembered that feeling.

They started the operation by using shovels and some material and boards to create a flat foothold for the backhoe to move, and then they began to actually remove the stones. The backhoe soon trampled down the thicket of pampas grass surrounding the mound. Menshiki and I stood to one side watching as they lifted the stones from the mound one by one and moved them to a spot a little ways away. There wasn’t anything special about the operation. Probably the same sort of operation that takes place every day, all around the world. The workers looked ordinary too, like they were matter-of-factly following procedures they’d done a thousand times. Occasionally the backhoe operator would stop and call out in a loud voice to the foreman, but it didn’t seem like there was any problem. They just exchanged a few words, and he didn’t switch off the engine.

But I couldn’t calmly watch the operation. Each time one of the square stones was removed, my anxiety only deepened. It was like some dark secret that I’d hidden away for years was being revealed, layer by layer, by the powerful, insistent tip of that machine. The problem lay in the fact that even I didn’t know what secret I was hiding. Several times I felt I had to get them to stop the operation. Bringing in some large machinery like this backhoe couldn’t be the solution. As Masahiko had told me on the phone, all “mysterious things” should be left buried. I was seized by the urge to grab Menshiki’s arm and shout, “Let’s stop this! Put the stones back where they were.”

But of course I couldn’t do that. The decision had been made and the work begun. Several other people were already involved. A not-insubstantial sum of money was changing hands (the amount was unclear, but I assumed Menshiki was footing the bill). We couldn’t just stop at this point. The work continued, beyond my will.

As if he knew what I was going through, at a certain point Menshiki came over beside me and lightly patted me on the shoulder.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said in a calm voice. “It’s going smoothly. It’ll all be finished soon.”

I nodded in silence.

Before noon all the stones had been moved. The ancient stones that had been piled in a jumble in a crumbling mound were now piled up in a neat, official-looking pyramid a little ways away. The fine drizzle silently fell on the pile. Even after removing all those stones, though, the ground hadn’t appeared. Below the stones lay more stone. These stones were flat and had been methodically laid out there like a square stone flooring. The whole thing was about six feet on each side.

“I wonder why it’s like that,” the foreman said after coming over to where Menshiki was. “I was sure that the stones were just piled up on top of the ground. But they weren’t. There seems to be an open space underneath that stone slab. I inserted a thin metal rod into a gap and it went down pretty far. Not sure yet how deep it goes, though.”

Menshiki and I gingerly tried standing on top of the freshly uncovered slab. The stones were darkly wet and slippery in spots. Though they’d been artificially cut and evened up over time, the edges had become more rounded off, with gaps between the stones. The nightly sound of the bell must have filtered out through those gaps. And air could probably get in through those too. I crouched down and stared through a gap inside, but it was pitch black and I couldn’t make out a thing.

“Maybe they used flagstones to cover up an ancient well. Though for a well, its diameter is a bit big,” the foreman said.

“Can you remove these flagstones?” Menshiki asked.

The foreman shrugged. “I’m not sure. We hadn’t planned on this. It’ll make things a little complicated, but I think we can manage it. Using a crane would be our best bet, but we’d never get one in here. Each stone doesn’t look that heavy. And there’s a gap between them, so with a little ingenuity I think we can manage with the backhoe. We’re coming up on our lunch break, so I’ll work out a good plan then and we’ll get to work in the afternoon.”

Menshiki and I went back to the house and had a light lunch. In the kitchen I threw together some simple ham, lettuce, and pickle sandwiches and we went out on the terrace to eat as we watched the rain.

“This whole operation is delaying what we should be working on, finishing the portrait,” I said.

Menshiki shook his head. “There’s no rush with the portrait. Our first priority is solving this weird matter. Then you can get back to work on the painting.”

Did this man seriously want his portrait painted? I couldn’t help but wonder. This doubt had been smoldering in a corner of my mind from the very start. Did he seriously want me to paint his portrait? Wasn’t he just using the portrait as a mere pretext, and had some other reason for getting to know me?

But what could it be? I couldn’t figure it out. Was his goal unearthing what was under those stones? This didn’t make sense. He hadn’t known about them. That was something unforeseen that only came up after we started on the portrait. Still, he seemed overly enthusiastic about digging them up. And he was shelling out quite a bit of money for the operation, even though it had nothing to do with him.

As I was mulling over all this Menshiki asked, “Did you read the story ‘Fate over Two Generations’?”

“I did,” I told him.

“What did you think? A very strange tale, isn’t it?” he said.

“It certainly is,” I said.

Menshiki looked at me for a while, then said, “To tell the truth, that story has tugged at me for a long time. It’s one of the reasons this discovery has aroused my interest.”

I took a sip of coffee and wiped my mouth with a paper napkin. Two crows, cawing at each other, winged their way across the valley, undeterred by the rain. Wet by the rain, their wings would only grow a deeper black.

“I don’t know much about Buddhism,” I said to Menshiki, “so I don’t understand all the details, but doesn’t a priest doing a voluntary burial—this nyujo—mean he chooses to go into a coffin and die?”

“Exactly. Nyujo originally means ‘attaining enlightenment,’ so they have the term ikinyujo—‘living nyujo’—to distinguish the two. They make a stone-lined underground chamber and insert a bamboo pipe to allow in air. Before a priest does nyujo he maintains a fruitarian diet for a set time so his body won’t putrefy but will become nicely mummified.”

“Fruitarian?”

“Just eating grasses and nuts and berries. They eat no cooked foods whatsoever, starting with grains. In other words, a radical elimination of all fats and moisture from the body. Changing the makeup of the body so it can easily mummify. And after purifying his body, the priest goes underground. In the darkness there the priest fasts and recites sutras, hitting a gong in time to that. Or ringing a bell. And people can hear the sound of that gong or bell through the vent hole. But at some point the sounds stop. That’s the sign that he’s breathed his last. And over a period of time the body gradually turns into a mummy. The custom is to unearth the body after three years and three months.”

“Why would they do that?”

“So the priests could practice austerity to the point of becoming self-mummified. Doing that allows them to reach enlightenment and to arrive at a realm beyond life and death. This also connects up with mankind’s salvation. So-called Nirvana. The unearthed enlightened monk, the mummy, is kept at a temple, and through praying to it people are saved.”

“In reality it’s a kind of suicide.”

Menshiki nodded. “Which is why in the Meiji period the practice of self-burial was outlawed. People who helped in the process could be arrested for aiding and abetting suicide. The truth is, though, priests continued to follow the practice in secret. That’s why there may be quite a few cases of priests being buried but never unearthed by anyone.”

“Are you thinking that stone mound is the remains of a secret burial of that kind?”

Menshiki shook his head. “We won’t know until we actually remove the stones. But it’s possible. There’s no bamboo tube there, but the way it’s constructed, air could get in through the gaps, and you can hear sounds from inside too.”

“And you’re saying that someone is still alive underneath those stones and is ringing a gong or bell every night?”

Menshiki shook his head again. “That obviously doesn’t make any sense.”

“Reaching Nirvana—is that different from merely dying?”

“It is. I’m not all that familiar with Buddhist doctrine, but as far as I understand, Nirvana is found beyond life and death. You could see it as the idea that even if the flesh dies and disappears, the soul goes over to a place beyond life and death. Worldly flesh is nothing more than a temporary dwelling.”

“Even if a priest were, through burial alive, to reach Nirvana, is it possible for him to rejoin his physical body?”

Menshiki said nothing and looked at me for a while. He took a bite of his ham sandwich, and a sip of coffee.

“What you’re saying is—”

“I didn’t hear that sound until four or five days ago,” I said. “I’m certain of that. If the sound had been there I would have noticed. Even if it was small, it’s not the kind of sound I would have missed. I only started hearing it a few days ago. What I mean is, even if there’s somebody underneath those stones, that person hasn’t been ringing the bell for a long time.”

Menshiki returned his coffee cup to the saucer and studied the pattern on the cup. “Have you seen a real mummified priest?” he finally said.

I shook my head.

“I’ve seen several. When I was young I traveled around Yamagata Prefecture on my own and saw a few that were preserved in temples there. For some reason there are a lot of these mummified priests in the Tohoku region, especially in Yamagata. Honestly, they’re not very nice to look at. Maybe it’s my lack of faith, but I didn’t feel very grateful when I saw them. Small, brown, all shriveled up. I probably shouldn’t say this, but the color and texture reminded me of beef jerky. The physical body really is nothing more than a fleeting, empty abode. That, at least, is what these mummies teach us. We may do our utmost, but at best we end up as no more than beef jerky.”

He picked up the ham sandwich he’d been eating and gazed at it intently for a moment. As if he were seeing a ham sandwich for the first time in his life.

He went on. “At any rate, let’s wait till after lunch for them to move those stones. Then we’ll know more, whether we want to or not.”

We went back to the site in the woods just after one fifteen. The crew had finished lunch and were hard at work. The two workmen put wedge-like metal implements in the gaps between the stones, and the backhoe used a rope to pull those and raise the stones. The workmen then attached ropes to the dug-up stones, and the shovel hauled these up. It was time consuming, but one by one the stones were steadily unearthed and moved off to the side.

Menshiki and the foreman were deep in conversation about something for a while, but then he came back to join me.

“As they thought, the stones aren’t all that thick. Looks like they’ll be able to remove them,” he explained. “There seems to be a lattice-shaped lid underneath all the stones. They don’t know what it’s made of, but that lid supported the stones. After they remove all the stones on top they’ll need to take off that lid. They don’t know yet if they can. It’s impossible to guess what lies beneath that. It’ll take a while for them to remove all the stones, and once they’ve made more progress they’ll call us, so they said they’d like us to wait in the house. If you don’t mind, let’s do that. Standing around here isn’t going to help.”

We walked back home. I should have used the extra time to continue work on the portrait, but I didn’t feel I’d be able to concentrate on painting. The operation out in the woods had me on edge. The six-foot-square stone flooring that had emerged from underneath the mound of crumbling old stones. The solid lattice lid. And the space that seemed to lie below it. I couldn’t erase these images from my mind. Menshiki was right. Until we settled this matter we wouldn’t be able to move forward on anything else.

“Do you mind if I listen to music while we wait?” Menshiki asked.

“Not at all,” I said. “Play whatever record you’d like. I’ll be in the kitchen preparing some food.”

He chose a recording of Mozart. A sonata for piano and violin. The Tannoy Autograph speakers weren’t very showy, but gave out a deep, steady sound. The perfect speakers for classical music, especially for listening to vinyl records of chamber music. As you might expect of old speakers, they were well suited to a vacuum-tube amp. The pianist was Georg Szell, the violinist Rafael Druian. Menshiki sat on the sofa, eyes closed, and gave himself over to the music. I listened to it from a little ways off, making tomato sauce. I’d bought a lot of tomatoes and had some left over and wanted to make some sauce before they went bad.

I boiled water in a large pan, parboiled the tomatoes and removed the skins, cut them with a knife, removed the seeds, crushed them, put them in a large skillet, added garlic, and simmered it all with olive oil, let it cook well. I carefully removed any scum on the surface. Back when I was married I often made sauce like this. It takes time and effort, but basically it’s an easy process. While my wife was at work I’d stand alone in the kitchen, listening to music on a CD while I made it. I liked to cook while listening to old jazz. Thelonious Monk was a particular favorite. Monk’s Music was my favorite of his albums. Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane played on it, with amazing solos. But I have to admit that making sauce while listening to Mozart’s chamber music wasn’t bad either.

It was only a short while ago that I’d been cooking tomato sauce in the afternoon while enjoying Monk’s unique offbeat melodies and chords (it was only half a year ago that my wife and I had dissolved our marriage), but it felt like something that had taken place ages ago. A trivial historical episode a generation ago that only a handful of people still remembered. I suddenly wondered how my wife was. Was she living with another man now? Or was she still living by herself in that apartment in Hiroo? Either way, at this time of day she would be at work at the architectural firm. For her, how much of a difference was there between her life when I was there, and her life now without me? And how much interest did she have in that difference? I was sort of half thinking about all this. Did she have the same feeling, that our days spent together seemed like something from the distant past?

The record was over, the needle making a popping sound as it spun in the final groove, and when I went to the living room I found Menshiki asleep on the sofa, arms folded, leaning over slightly to one side. I lifted the needle up from the spinning disc and switched off the turntable. Even when the steady click of the needle stopped, Menshiki continued to sleep. He must have been very tired. He was faintly snoring. I left him where he was. I returned to the kitchen, shut off the gas under the skillet, and drank a big glass of water. I still had time on my hands, so I began to fry some onions.

When the phone rang Menshiki was already awake. He was in the bathroom, washing his face with soap and gargling. The call was from the foreman at the work site, so I handed the phone to Menshiki. He said a few words, and then said that we would be right over. He handed the phone back.

“They’re almost done,” he said.

Outside it had stopped raining. Clouds still covered the sky, but it was lighter out now. The weather seemed to be steadily improving. We hurried up the steps and through the woods. Behind the little shrine the four men were standing around a hole, staring down into it. The backhoe’s engine was off, nothing was moving, the woods strangely hushed.

The stones had been neatly removed, exposing the hole below. The square lattice lid had been taken off too, and laid to one side. It was a thick, heavy-looking wooden cover. Old, but not rotted at all. After that the circular stone-lined room below was visible. It was under six feet in diameter, about eight feet deep, and was enclosed by a stone wall. The floor seemed to be dirt. Not a single blade of grass grew there. The stone room was completely empty. No one there calling for help, no beef jerky mummy. Just a bell-like object lying on the ground. Actually less like a bell than some ancient musical instrument with a stack of tiny cymbals. A wooden handle was attached, about six inches long. The foreman shone a floodlight down on it.

“Was this all that was in there?” Menshiki asked him.

“Yes, that’s it,” the foreman said. “Like you asked, we left it just as we found it, after we took off the stones and lid. We haven’t touched a thing.”

“That’s strange,” Menshiki said, as if to himself. “So there really wasn’t anything else at all?”

“I called you right after we lifted off the lid. I haven’t been down inside. This is exactly the way it was when we uncovered it,” the foreman said.

“Of course,” Menshiki said, in a dry voice.

“It might have been a well originally,” the foreman said. “It looks like it was filled in, leaving the hole. But it’s too wide for a well, and the stone wall around it is so elaborately constructed. It couldn’t have been easy to build. I suppose they must have had some important purpose in mind to construct something that took this much time and effort.”

“Can I go down and check it out?” Menshiki asked the foreman.

The foreman was a little unsure. With a hard face, he said, “I think I should go down first. Just in case. If it’s all clear, then you can climb on down. Does that sound good?”

“Of course,” Menshiki said. “Let’s do that.”

One of the workmen brought over a folding metal ladder from the truck, opened it up, and lowered it down. The foreman put on his safety helmet and climbed down the eight feet to the dirt floor. He looked around him for a while. He gazed up, then shone his flashlight on the stone wall and the floor, closely checking everything. He carefully observed the bell-like object that lay on the dirt floor. He didn’t touch it, though, just observed it. He rubbed the soles of his work boots a few times against the dirt floor, kicking his heel against it. He took a few deep breaths, smelling the air. He was only in the hole for about five or six minutes, then slowly clambered up the ladder to ground level.

“It doesn’t seem dangerous. The air’s good, and there aren’t any weird bugs or anything. And the footing is solid. You can go down now if you’d like,” he said.

Menshiki removed his rainwear to make it easier to move around, and in his flannel shirt and chinos, he hung his flashlight by a strap around his neck and climbed down the metal ladder. We watched in silence as he descended. The foreman shone the floodlight below Menshiki’s feet. Menshiki stood still at the bottom of the hole for a while, waiting, then reached out and touched the stone wall, and crouched down to check out what the dirt floor felt like. He picked up the bell-like object on the ground, shone his flashlight on it, and gazed at it. Then he shook it a few times. When he did, it was unmistakably the same bell sound I’d heard. No doubt about it. In the middle of the night someone had been ringing it here. But that someone was no longer here. Only the bell was left behind. As he studied the bell Menshiki shook his head a few times, evidently puzzled. Then he carefully studied the surrounding wall again, as if looking for a secret entrance and exit. But he found nothing of the sort. He looked up at us at ground level. He seemed totally confused.

He stepped onto the ladder and held out the bell toward me. I bent over and took it from him. A dampness penetrated deep into the ancient wooden handle. As Menshiki had done, I tried shaking it a few times. It sounded louder and clearer than I’d expected. I didn’t know what it was made of, but the metal portion wasn’t damaged at all. It was dirty, for sure, but not at all rusted. I couldn’t figure out how it had remained rust-free despite being underground in damp soil for years.

“What is that?” the foreman asked me. He was in his mid-forties, short but with a sturdy build. Suntanned, with a bit of stubble on his face.

“I’m not sure. Maybe some kind of Buddhist implement or something,” I said. “Whatever it is, it’s certainly from ancient times.”

“Is this what you were looking for?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, we were expecting something else.”

“At any rate, it’s a strange place,” the foreman said. “I can’t explain it, but there’s a mysterious feeling about it. Who would make this kind of place, I wonder—and why? This was a long time ago, and it must have been quite a task to haul the stones all the way up the mountain and stack them up.”

I didn’t say anything.

Menshiki finally climbed up out of the hole. He called the foreman over to his side, and they talked for a long time. I stood there, bell in hand, next to the hole. I pondered climbing down into this stone-lined chamber, but then thought better of it. I wasn’t as hesitant as Masahiko, but I did decide it was better not to do anything uncalled for. If things could be left alone, the smart thing might be to do so. I placed the bell, for the time being, in front of the little shrine, and wiped my palm on my pants a couple of times.

Menshiki ambled over. “We’ll have them do a more thorough examination of that stone-lined chamber,” he said. “At first glance it looks like just a hole, but I’ll have them check it all out from one end to the other. They might discover something. Though I sort of doubt it.” He looked at the bell I’d placed in front of the shrine. “It’s odd that this bell’s the only thing left. Since someone had to be inside there in the middle of the night ringing the bell.”

“Maybe the bell was ringing by itself,” I ventured.

Menshiki smiled. “An interesting theory, but I doubt it. For whatever purpose, someone was sending out a message from down inside that hole. A message to you, or maybe to us. Or to people in general. But whoever it was has vanished like smoke. Or else slipped away from there.”

“Slipped away?”

“Slipped right past us.”

I couldn’t understand what he was getting at.

“Because the soul isn’t something you can see,” Menshiki said.

“You believe in the existence of the soul?”

“Do you?”

I didn’t have a good answer.

“I believe that it’s not necessary to believe in the soul’s existence. But turn that around and you come to the belief that there’s no need to not believe in its existence. A kind of roundabout way of putting it, but do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“Sort of,” I said.

Menshiki picked up the bell from where I’d placed it in front of the shrine. He held it out and rang it several times. “A priest probably breathed his last there, underground, ringing this bell and chanting sutras. All alone, shut away in the pitch-black darkness, that heavy lid in place, in the bottom of a sealed well. And most likely all in secret. I have no idea what sort of priest he was. A respectable priest, or merely some fanatic. Either way, someone constructed a stone tumulus on top of it. I don’t know what happened after that, but people then completely forgot he’d been voluntarily buried under here. Then a big earthquake occurred at some point, and the mound collapsed until it was just a pile of stones. It could have been during the Kanto earthquake of 1923, since certain areas around Odawara suffered real damage back then. And everything was swallowed up into oblivion.”

“If that’s true, then where did the priest who died there—the mummy, I mean—disappear to?”

Menshiki shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe at some point someone dug up the hole and took him away.”

“To do that they’d have to move all these stones and then pile them up again,” I said. “And then who was ringing the bell yesterday in the middle of the night?”

Menshiki shook his head again, and smiled faintly. “Good grief. We used all this equipment to move the stones and open up the chamber, and in the end all we found out for sure is that we don’t know a single thing. All we managed to get was an old bell.”

They examined the stone chamber thoroughly, and merely determined that there were no hidden devices anywhere. This was merely a round hole, lined with a stone wall, 8.2 feet deep with a diameter of 5.9 feet (they made precise measurements). Finally, they loaded the backhoe up onto the truck bed, and the workers collected all their tools and left. All that remained was the open hole and the metal ladder. The foreman was kind enough to leave it behind. They also laid several thick boards on top of the hole so no one would fall into it by mistake. They left some heavy stones on top to weigh the boards down so they wouldn’t blow away in a strong wind. The wooden lattice cover was too heavy to lift, so they left it on the ground nearby and covered it with a plastic tarp.

Before they left, Menshiki told the foreman not to mention this operation to anyone. It had archaeological significance, and he wanted, he said, to keep it from the public until the time was right to announce the find.

“Understood,” the foreman said with a serious expression. “We’ll leave it all here. And I’ll warn the others not to say anything about it.”

After the workers and heavy machinery had left and the mountains were blanketed in their usual stillness again, the dug-up area looked like skin after a major operation, shabby and pitiful. The formerly vigorous clump of pampas grass had been trampled down beyond recognition, the ruts left by the backhoe like stitches left behind in the dark, damp soil. The rain had cleared up completely, though the sky was still covered by an unbroken layer of monotonously gray clouds.

When I looked at the pile of stones now stacked up on another piece of ground, I couldn’t help but think, We should never have done this. We should have left them the way they were. On the other hand, though, the indisputable fact was that it was something we had to do. I couldn’t go on listening to that strange sound night after night. But if I hadn’t met Menshiki, I never would have had the means to dig up that hole. It was only because he had arranged for the workers, and had paid for the whole thing—I had no clue how much it cost—that the operation had been possible.

But meeting Menshiki and, as a result, having this large-scale excavation take place—was it really all just coincidence? Had it all just fallen together by chance? Weren’t things just a little too convenient? Hadn’t the scenario been all planned out in advance? With all these unanswered doubts, I went with Menshiki to the house. He carried the bell we’d unearthed. He never let go of it the whole time we were walking. As if trying to read, from the touch of it, some kind of message.

As soon as we got back inside Menshiki asked, “Where should I put this bell?”

Where indeed? I had no idea. For the time being, I decided to place it in the studio. Having that weird object under the same roof didn’t sit well with me, but that said, I couldn’t just toss it outside. It was, no doubt, a valuable Buddhist implement, imbued with a certain soulfulness, so I couldn’t just neglect it. I decided to put it in the sort of neutral zone of the studio, which felt like a separate annex. I cleared a space on the long, narrow shelf used for painting materials and placed it there. Next to the large mug used to hold brushes, it even looked like some specialized painting tool.

“What a strange day,” Menshiki said.

“I’m sorry you had to use up your entire day for this,” I said.

“No, don’t apologize. It’s been very interesting,” Menshiki said. “And this isn’t the end of it, I would imagine.”

Menshiki had an odd look on his face, as if gazing far away.

“Meaning something else is going to happen?” I asked.

Menshiki chose his words carefully. “I can’t explain it well, but I get the feeling that this is only the beginning.”

“Only the beginning?”

He held his palms upward. “I’m not sure, of course. Maybe that’ll be it, and we’ll just be left thinking what a strange day that was. That would probably be the best outcome. But nothing’s been resolved. The same questions remain. And these are very important questions. That’s why I have a hunch that something else is going to happen.”

“Something connected to that stone-lined chamber?”

Menshiki gazed outside for a moment before he spoke. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s just a hunch.”

And of course it turned out as he’d felt—or predicted—it might. Like he said, that day was only the beginning.

¹⁶ A RELATIVELY GOOD DAY

That night I had trouble sleeping. I was anxious whether the bell I’d left in the studio would start ringing in the middle of the night. If it did, then what would I do? Pull the covers up over my head and pretend not to hear anything until the next morning? Or take my flashlight and go to the studio to check it out? And what would I find there?

Unable to decide how I should react, I lay in bed reading. But even after two a.m. the bell hadn’t rung. All I heard was the usual drone of insects. As I read my book I checked the clock next to my bed every five minutes. When the digital display read 2:30 I finally breathed a sigh of relief. The bell wouldn’t be ringing tonight, I figured. I closed the book, turned out the bedside light, and went to sleep.

The next morning when I woke up before seven, the first thing I did was go check on the bell. It was as I’d left it the night before, on the shelf. Brilliant sunlight illuminated the mountains, and the crows were in the midst of their usual noisy morning routine. In the light of day the bell didn’t look ominous at all. It was nothing more than a simple, well-used Buddhist implement from the past.

I went back to the kitchen, brewed coffee in the coffee maker, and drank it. Heated up a scone that had gotten hard in the toaster and ate it. Then went out to the terrace, breathed in the morning air, leaned against the railing, and looked over at Menshiki’s house across the valley. The large tinted windows glistened in the morning sun. Probably one of the tasks included in the once-per-week cleaning service was to clean all the windows. The glass was always clean and shiny. I looked over there for a while, but Menshiki didn’t appear. We still hadn’t yet reached the point where we waved at each other across the valley.

At ten thirty I drove my car to the supermarket to buy groceries. I came back, put them away, and made a simple lunch, a tofu and tomato salad with a rice ball. After I ate, I had some strong green tea. Then I lay down on the sofa and listened to a Schubert string quartet. It was a beautiful piece. According to the liner notes on the jacket, when it was first performed there was quite a backlash among listeners, who felt it was “too radical.” I don’t know what part was radical, but something about it must have offended the old-fashioned people of that time.

As one side of the record ended I suddenly got very sleepy, so I pulled a blanket over me and slept for while on the sofa. A short but deep sleep, probably about twenty minutes. It felt like I had a few dreams, but when I woke up I couldn’t remember them. Those kinds of dreams—the kind where all sorts of unrelated fragments are mixed together. Each fragment has a certain gravitas, but by intertwining they canceled each other out.

I went to the fridge and drank some cold mineral water straight from the bottle and managed to chase away the dregs of sleep that remained like scraps of clouds in the corners of my body. I felt a renewed awareness of the reality that I was living, alone, in the mountains. I lived here by myself. Some sort of fate had brought me to this special place. I remembered the bell. In the weird stone chamber deep in the woods, who in the world had been ringing that bell? And where on earth was that person now?

By the time I had changed into my painting outfit, gone into the studio, and stood looking at Menshiki’s portrait, it was past two p.m. Normally I worked in the morning. From eight to noon was the time I could focus best on painting. I liked the sort of domestic quiet at those times. After moving to the mountains I’d grown fond of the brilliant and pure air that the teeming nature around me provided. Working at the same time in the same place each day has always held a special meaning for me. Repetition created a certain rhythm. But this day, partly because I hadn’t slept well the night before, I spent the morning without accomplishing anything. Which is why I went to the studio in the afternoon.

I sat on my round work stool, arms folded, and from a distance of some six feet gazed at the painting I’d begun. I’d started by using a thin brush to outline Menshiki’s face, then with him modeling before me for fifteen minutes also used black paint to flesh this out. This was just a rough framework at this point, though it gave rise to a productive flow. A flow that had its source in Wataru Menshiki. This was what I needed most.

As I stared hard at this black-and-white framework, an image of a color I should add came to me. The idea sprang up suddenly, all on its own. The color was like that of a tree with its green leaves dully dyed by rain. I mixed several colors together and created what I wanted on my palette. After much trial and error, I finally arrived at what I’d pictured and, without really thinking, added the color to the line drawing I’d done. I had no idea myself what sort of painting would emerge from this, though I did know that that color was going to be a vital grounding for the work. Gradually this painting was beginning to stray far afield from the format of a typical portrait. But even if it doesn’t turn out as a portrait, I told myself, that was okay. As long as there was a set flow, all I could do was go with it. What I wanted now was to paint what I wanted to paint, the way I wanted to paint it (something Menshiki wanted as well). I could think about the next step later on.

I was simply following ideas that sprang up naturally inside me, with no plan or goal. Like a child, not watching his step, chasing some unusual butterfly fluttering across a field. After adding this color to the canvas I set my palette and brush down, again sat down on the stool six feet away, and studied the painting straight on. This is indeed the right color, I decided. The kind of green found in a forest wet by the rain. I nodded several times to myself. This was the kind of feeling toward a painting I hadn’t experienced for ages. Yes—this was it. This was the color I’d wanted. Or maybe the color the framework itself had been seeking. With this color as the base, I mixed some peripheral, variant colors, adding variation and depth to the painting.

And as I gazed at the image I’d done, the next color leaped up at me. Orange. Not just a simple orange, but a flaming orange, a color that had both a strong vitality and also a premonition of decay. Like a fruit slowly rotting away. Creating this color was much more of a challenge than the green. It wasn’t simply a color, but had to be connected with a specific emotion, an emotion entwined with fate, but in its own way firm, unfluctuating. Making a color like that was no easy task, of course, but in the end I managed. I took out a new brush and ran it over the surface of the canvas. In places I used a knife, too. Not thinking was the priority. I tried to turn off my mind, decisively adding this color to the composition. As I painted, details of reality almost totally vanished from my mind. The sound of the bell, that gaping stone tomb, my ex-wife sleeping with some other man, my married girlfriend, the art classes I taught, the future—I thought of none of it. I didn’t even think of Menshiki. What I was painting had, of course, started out as his portrait, but by this point my mind was even clear of the thought of his face. Menshiki was nothing more than a starting point. What I was doing was painting for me, for my sake alone.

I don’t remember how much time passed. By the time I looked around, the room had gotten dim. The autumn sun had disappeared behind the western mountains, yet I was so engrossed in my work I’d forgotten to switch on a light. I looked at the canvas and saw five colors there already. Color on top of color, and more color on top of that. In one section the colors were subtly mixed, in another part one color overwhelmed another and prevailed over it.

I turned on the ceiling light, sat down again on the stool, and looked at the painting. I knew the painting was incomplete. There was a wild outburst to it, a type of violence that had propelled me forward. A wildness I had not seen in some time. But something was still missing, a core element to control and quell that raw throng, an idea to bring emotion under control. But I needed more time to discover that. That torrent of color had to rest. That would be a job for tomorrow and beyond, when I could return to it under a fresh, bright light. The passage of the right amount of time would show me what was needed. I had to wait for it, like waiting patiently for the phone to ring. And in order to wait that patiently, I had to put my faith in time. I had to believe that time was on my side.

Seated on the stool, I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. In the autumn twilight I could clearly sense something within me changing. As if the structure of my body had unraveled, then was being recombined in a different way. But why here, and why now? Did meeting the enigmatic Menshiki and taking on his portrait commission result in this sort of internal transformation? Or had uncovering the weird underground chamber, and being led there by the sound of the bell, acted as a stimulus to my spirit? Or was it that I’d merely reached an unrelated turning point in my life? No matter which explanation I went with, there didn’t seem to be any basis for it.

“It feels like this is just the beginning,” Menshiki had said as we parted. Had I stepped into this beginning he’d spoken about? At any rate, I’d been so worked up by the act of painting in a way I hadn’t in years, so absorbed in creating, that I’d literally forgotten the passage of time. As I stowed away my materials, my skin had a feverish flush that felt good.

As I straightened up, the bell on the shelf caught my eye. I picked it up and tried ringing it a couple of times. The familiar sound rang out clearly in the studio. The middle-of-the-night sound that made me anxious. Somehow, though, it didn’t frighten me anymore. I merely wondered why such an ancient bell could still make such a clear sound. I put the bell back where it had been, switched off the light, and shut the door to the studio. Back in the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of white wine and sipped it as I prepared dinner.

Just before nine p.m. a call came in from Menshiki.

“How were things last night?” he asked. “Did you hear the bell?”

I’d stayed up until two thirty but hadn’t heard the bell at all, I told him. It was a very quiet night.

“Glad to hear it. Since then has anything unusual happened around you?”

“Nothing particularly unusual, no,” I replied.

“That’s good. I hope it continues that way,” Menshiki said. A moment later he added, “Would it be all right for me to stop by tomorrow morning? I’d really like to take another good look at the stone chamber if I could. It’s a fascinating place.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “I have no plans for tomorrow morning.”

“Then I’ll see you around eleven.”

“Looking forward to it,” I said.

“By the way, was today a good day for you?” Menshiki asked.

Was today a good day for me? It sounded like a sentence that had been translated mechanically by computer software.

“A relatively good day,” I replied, puzzled for a moment. “At least, nothing bad happened. The weather was good, overall a pleasant day. What about you, Mr. Menshiki? Was today a good day for you?”

“It was a day when one good thing happened, and so did one not-so-good thing,” Menshiki replied. “The scale is still swinging, unable to decide which one was heavier—the good or the bad.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I stayed silent.

Menshiki went on. “Sadly, I’m not an artist like you. I live in the business world. The information business, in particular. In that world the only information that has exchange value is that which can be quantified. So I have the habit of always quantifying the good and the bad. If the good outweighs the bad even by a little, that means it’s a good day, even if something bad happened. At least numerically.”

I still had no idea what he was getting at. So I kept my mouth closed.

“By unearthing that underground chamber like we did yesterday, we must have lost something, and gained something. What did we lose, and what did we gain? That’s what concerns me.”

He seemed to be waiting for me to reply.

“I don’t think we gained anything you could quantify,” I said after giving it some thought. “At least right now. The only thing we got was that old Buddhist bell. But that probably doesn’t have any actual value. It doesn’t have any provenance, and isn’t some unique antique. On the other hand, what was lost can be clearly quantified. Before long, you’ll be getting a bill from the landscaper, I imagine.”

Menshiki chuckled. “It’s not that expensive. Don’t worry about it. What concerns me is that we haven’t yet taken from there the thing we need to take.”

“The thing we need to take? What’s that?”

Menshiki cleared his throat. “As I said, I’m no artist. I have a certain amount of intuition, but unfortunately I don’t have the means to make it concrete. No matter how keen that intuition might be, I still can’t turn it into art. I don’t have the talent.”

I was silent, waiting for what came next.

“Which is why I’ve always pursued quantification as a substitute for an artistic, universal representation. In order to live properly, people need a central axis. Don’t you think so? In my case, by quantifying intuition, or something like intuition, through a unique system, I’ve been able to enjoy a degree of worldly success. And according to my intuition…” he said, and was silent for a time. A very dense silence. “According to my intuition, we should have got hold of something from digging up that underground chamber.”

“Like what?”

He shook his head. Or at least it seemed that way to me from the other end of the phone line. “I still don’t know. But I think we have to know. We need to combine our intuition, allow it to pass through your ability to express things in concrete form, and my ability to quantify them.”

I still couldn’t really grasp what he was getting at. What was this man talking about?

“Let’s see each other again tomorrow at eleven,” Menshiki said. And quietly hung up.

Soon after he’d hung up, I got a call from my married girlfriend. I was a little surprised. It wasn’t often that she’d get in touch at this time of night.

“Can I see you tomorrow around noon?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, but I have an appointment tomorrow. I made it just a little while ago.”

“Not another woman, I hope?”

“No. It’s with Mr. Menshiki. I’m painting his portrait.”

“You’re painting his portrait,” she repeated. “Then the day after tomorrow?”

“The day after tomorrow’s totally free.”

“Great. Is early afternoon okay?”

“Of course. But it’s Saturday.”

“I’ll manage it.”

“Did something happen?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“You don’t often call me at this time of day.”

She made a small sound at the back of her throat, as if making a minor adjustment in her breathing. “I’m in my car now, by myself. I’m calling from my cell.”

“What are you doing in the car all alone?”

“I just wanted to be by myself in the car, so that’s where I am. Housewives sometimes do these things. Is that a problem?”

“No problem. No problem at all.”

She sighed, the kind of sigh that condensed a variety of sighs into one. And then she said, “I wish you were here with me. And that we could do it from behind. I don’t need any foreplay. I’m so wet you could slip right inside. I want you to pound me, hard and fast.”

“Sounds good to me. But a Mini is too small inside to pound you hard like that.”

“Don’t expect too much.”

“Let’s figure out a way.”

“I want you to knead my breast with your left hand and rub my clit with your right.”

“What should my right foot be doing? I could manage to use it to adjust the car stereo. You don’t mind a little Tony Bennett?”

“I’m not joking here. I’m totally serious.”

“I know. My bad. Serious. Got it,” I said. “Tell me, what are you wearing right now?”

“You want to know what clothes I’m wearing?” she asked enticingly.

“I do. My procedure might change depending on what you have on.”

Over the phone she gave me a detailed rundown on the clothes she had on. It always surprised me, the variety of clothes mature women wore. Orally, she took these off, one by one.

“So, did that get you hard?” she asked.

“Like a hammer,” I said.

“You could pound a nail?”

“You bet.”

There are hammers in the world that need to pound in nails, and nails that need to be pounded by hammers. Now who said that? Nietzsche? Or was it Schopenhauer? Or maybe nobody said it.

Over the phone line, we entwined bodies in a way that felt so real. Phone sex was definitely a first for me, with her—or with anyone, for that matter. Her descriptions were so detailed, so arousing, that these imaginary sex acts were, in part, more sensual than what we could do with our actual bodies. Words can sometimes be so direct, sometimes so erotically suggestive. At the end of this exchange, I unexpectedly climaxed. And she seemed to have an orgasm as well.

We said nothing, catching our breath.

“I’ll see you Saturday, then,” she said after she seemed to have pulled herself together. “I have something to tell you about our Mr. Menshiki, too.”

“You got some new information?”

“A bit of new information I gathered through the jungle grapevine. But I’ll wait to see you to tell you. While we’re probably doing something naughty.”

“You going home now?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’d better be getting back.”

“Drive carefully.”

“Right. I need to take care. I’m still sort of shuddering down there.”

I stepped into the shower and used soap to clean my penis. I changed into pajamas, threw on a cardigan, and with a glass of cheap white wine in hand went out onto the terrace and gazed off in the direction of Menshiki’s house. The lights were still on in his massive, pure-white mansion across the valley. The lights seemed to be on all over the house. What he was doing over there (most likely) all by himself, I had no idea. Seated at the computer, perhaps, engaged once more in quantifying intuition.

“A relatively good day,” I said to myself.

And an odd day at that. What kind of day tomorrow would bring I had no clue. Suddenly I remembered the horned owl up in the attic. Was today a good day for it, too? Then I recalled that for horned owls, the day was now only beginning. During the day they slept in dark places. And come night, they set out to the woods in search of prey. That was a question a horned owl should be asked early in the morning. The question of “Was today a good day?”

I went to bed, read a book for a while, then turned off the light at ten thirty and went to sleep. Since I slept, without waking even once, until just before six the next morning, I imagine that the bell didn’t ring during the middle of the night.

¹⁷ HOW COULD I MISS SOMETHING THAT IMPORTANT?

I never could forget the last words my wife said when I left our home: “Even if we break up like this, can we still be friends? If possible, I mean.” At the time (and for a long time after), I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say, what she was hoping for. I was confused, as if I’d put some totally tasteless food into my mouth. The best I could say was, “Well, who knows.” And those were the last words I said to her face-to-face. Pretty pathetic, as final words go.

Even after we broke up, it felt like my wife and I were still connected by a single living tube. An invisible tube, but one that was still beating slightly, sending something like hot blood traveling back and forth between our two souls. I still had that sort of organic sensation. But before long, that tube would be severed. And if it was bound to be cut sometime, I needed to drain the life from that faint line connecting us. If the life was drained from it, and it shriveled up like a mummy, the pain of it being severed by a sharp knife would be that much more bearable. To do so, I needed to forget about Yuzu, as soon as I could, as much as I could. That’s why I never tried to contact her. After I came back from my trip and went to pick up some belongings back at the apartment, I did call her once. I needed to get all my painting materials I’d left behind. That was the only conversation I had with Yuzu after we broke up, and it didn’t last long.

We officially dissolved our marriage, and I couldn’t contemplate the thought of us remaining friends. We’d shared so many things during our six years of marriage. A lot of time, emotions, words and silence, lots of confusion and lots of decisions, lots of promises and lots of resignation, lots of pleasure, lots of boredom. Naturally each of us must have had inner secrets, but we even managed to find a way to share the sense of having something hidden from the other. With us there was a gravitas of place that only the passage of time can nurture. We did a good job of accommodating our bodies to that sort of gravity, maintaining a delicate balance. We had our own special local rules that we lived by. And there was no way we could get rid of all that history, jettison the gravitational balance and local rules, and live simply as good friends.

I understood that very well. That’s the conclusion I came to after thinking about it during that lengthy trip. I invariably came to the same conclusion: it was best to keep Yuzu at a distance and break off contact. That made the most sense. And that’s what I did.

And for her part Yuzu didn’t contact me either. Not a single phone call, not one letter. Even though she was the one who said she wanted to remain friends. That hurt far more than I’d expected. Or more precisely, what hurt me was actually me, myself. In the midst of that continuing, unsettled silence my feelings, like a heavy pendulum, a razor-sharp blade, made wide swings between one extreme to the other. That arc of emotions left fresh wounds in my skin. And I had only one way of forgetting the pain. And that was, of course, by painting.

Sunlight filtered in silently through the studio window. From time to time a gentle breeze rustled the white curtains. The room had an autumn-morning scent. After coming to live on the mountain I’d grown sensitive to the changes in smells from one season to another. Back when I lived in the city I’d hardly ever noticed those.

I sat on the stool, and gazed for a long time at the portrait of Menshiki I’d begun. This was the way I always began work, reevaluating with new eyes the work I’d done the previous day. Only then could I pick up my brush.

Not bad, I thought. Not bad at all. The colors I’d created completely enveloped the original framework of Menshiki I’d done. The outline of him in black paint was hidden now behind those colors. Though concealed, I could still make it out. I would have to once more bring that outline into relief. Transform a hint into a statement.

There was no guarantee, of course, that the painting would ever be complete. It was still inchoate, something missing. Something that should be there was appealing to the nonvalidity of absence. And that missing element was rapping on the glass window separating presence and absence. I could make out its wordless cry.

Focusing so hard on the painting had made me thirsty, so I went into the kitchen and drank a large glass of orange juice. I relaxed my shoulders, stretched both arms high above my head, took a deep breath, and exhaled. I went back to the studio and sat down on the stool and studied the painting. Refreshed, I focused again. But something was different from before. The angle I was looking at the painting from was clearly not the same as it had been a few minutes before.

I got down from the stool and checked its location. It was in a slightly different spot from when I’d left the studio earlier. The stool had clearly been moved. But how? When I’d gotten down from the stool, I hadn’t moved it. That I was sure of. I’d gotten down gingerly in order not to move the stool, and when I’d come back I’d also been careful not to move it when I sat down. I remembered these details because I’m very sensitive about the position and angle I view paintings from. I have a set position and angle that I always use, and like batters who are very particular about their stance in the batter’s box, it bothers me to no end if things are off, even by a fraction.

But now the stool was eighteen inches away from where it had been, the angle that much changed. All I could think was that while I’d been in the kitchen drinking orange juice and taking deep breaths, someone had moved the stool. Someone had gone into the studio, sat on the stool to look at the painting, then got down from the stool before I came back, and silently slipped out of the room. And that’s when—whether intentionally or it just worked out that way—they moved the stool. But I’d been out of the studio at most five or six minutes. Who in the world would go out of their way to do something like that—and why? Or had the stool moved on its own?

My memory must be messed up. I’d moved the stool but forgotten that I had. That’s all I could think. Maybe I was spending too much time alone. The order of events in my memory was getting muddled.

I left the stool in the spot where I’d found it—in other words, a spot twenty inches away from where it had been, and at a different angle. I sat down on it and studied Menshiki’s portrait from that position. What I saw was a slightly different painting. It was the same painting, of course, but it looked ever so different. The way the light struck it was not the same as before, and the texture of the paint, too, looked changed. There was something decidedly animated and alive in the painting. But also something still lacking. The direction of that lack, though, wasn’t the same as before.

So what was different about it? I brought my focus to bear on the painting. The difference must be speaking to me, trying to tell me something. I had to discover what was being hinted at by the difference. I took a piece of white chalk and marked the position of the three legs of the stool on the floor (location A). Then I moved the stool back twenty inches to the side to its original position (location B), and marked that, too, with chalk. I moved back and forth between the two positions, studying the one painting from the different angles.

Menshiki was still in both paintings, but I noticed that his appearance was strangely different depending on the two angles. It was as if two different personalities coexisted within him. Yet both versions of Menshiki were missing something. That shared lack unified both the A and B versions of Menshiki. I had to discover what it was, as if it were triangulated between position A, position B, and myself. What could that shared absence be? Was it something that had form, or something formless? If the latter, then how was I to give it form?

Not an easy thing to do, now is it, someone said.

I clearly heard that voice. Not a loud voice, but one that carried. Nothing vague about it. Not high, not low. And it sounded like it was right next to my ear.

I involuntarily gulped and, still seated on the stool, slowly gazed around me. I couldn’t see anyone else there, of course. The clear morning light filled the floor like pools of water. The window was open, and from far off I could faintly hear the melody played by a garbage truck. It was playing “Annie Laurie” (why the garbage trucks in Odawara played a Scottish folk song was a mystery to me). Beyond that, I couldn’t hear a thing.

Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe it was my own voice I was hearing, a voice welling up from my unconscious. But what I’d heard sounded odd. Not an easy thing to do, now, is it? Even unconsciously, I wouldn’t talk to myself like that.

I took a deep breath and from my perch on the stool again looked at the painting, focusing my attention on the work. It must have just been my imagination.

Is it not obvious? someone now said. The voice was right beside my ear.

Obvious? I asked myself. What’s so obvious?

What you must discover, can you not see, is what it is about Mr. Menshiki that is not present here, someone said. As before, a clear voice. A voice with no echo, like it was recorded in an anechoic chamber. Each sound clear as crystal. And like an embodied concept, it had no natural inflection.

I looked around again. This time I got down from the stool and went to check in the living room. I checked every room, but nobody else was in the house. The only other creature there was the horned owl in the attic. The horned owl, of course, couldn’t talk. And the front door was locked.

First the stool moving on its own, and now this weird voice. A voice from heaven? Or my own voice? Or the voice of some anonymous third party? Something was clearly wrong with my mind. Ever since I had started hearing that bell, I’d begun having doubts about whether my brain was functioning normally. With the bell, at least, Menshiki had been there and had heard the same sound, which proved that it wasn’t an auditory hallucination. My hearing was working fine. Okay, so what could this mysterious voice be?

I sat back down on the stool and looked at the painting.

What you must discover, can you see, is what Mr. Menshiki has that is not here. Sounded like a riddle. Like a wise bird deep in the forest showing lost children the way home. What Menshiki has that is not here—what could that be?

It took a long time. The clock silently, regularly, ticked away the minutes, the pool of light from the small east-facing window silently shifted. Colorful, agile little birds flew onto the branches of a willow, gracefully searched for something, then flew away with a twitter. White clouds, like round slates, floated over the sky in a row. A single silver plane flew toward the sparkling sea. A four-engine propeller SDF plane, on antisubmarine patrol. Keeping their ears and eyes sharp and watchful, making the latent manifest, was their daily job. I listened as the engine drew closer and then flew away.

And finally, a single fact struck me. Literally as plain as day. Why had I forgotten this? What Menshiki had that my portrait of him did not—it was all clear to me now. His white hair. That beautiful white hair, as pure white as newly fallen snow. Menshiki without that white hair was unimaginable. How could I miss something that important?

I leaped up from the stool, went to my paint box and gathered up the white paint, picked a brush, and, without thinking, thickly, vigorously spread it on the canvas. I used a knife too, even my fingertip at one point. For fifteen minutes I painted, then stood back from the canvas, sat down on the stool, and checked out my work.

And there, before me, was Menshiki the person. Without a doubt, he was in the painting now. His personality—no matter what that was made up of—was integrated, manifested in the painting. I had no handle on the person named Wataru Menshiki, and knew barely a thing about him. But as an artist I had captured him on canvas, as a synthesized image, as a single, indivisible package. Alive and breathing within the painting. Even the riddles about him were present.

Still, no matter how you looked at it, this was no portrait. I’d succeeded (at least I felt I had) in artistically bringing the presence of Wataru Menshiki into relief on canvas. But the goal wasn’t to depict his outer appearance. That wasn’t the goal at all. That was the big difference between this work and a portrait. What I’d created was, at heart, a painting I’d done for my own sake.

I couldn’t predict if Menshiki would accept this painting as his portrait. It might be light-years away from the kind of painting he’d been expecting. He’d told me to paint it any way I liked, and didn’t have any special requests about the style it was done in. But just possibly, there might be some element in the painting, something negative, that he himself didn’t want to recognize. Not that I could do anything about that now. Whether he liked the painting or not, it was already out of my hands, beyond my will.

Seated on the stool, I kept staring at the portrait for nearly another half hour. I had painted it, that much I knew, but the end product outstripped the bounds of any logic or understanding I possessed. How had I painted something like that? I couldn’t even recall now. I stared dumbfounded at the painting, my feelings swinging from intimacy to total alienation. But one thing was sure—the colors and form were perfect.

Maybe I was on the verge of finding an exit, I thought. Finally able to pass through the thick wall that stood in my way. But still, things had only begun. I had only just managed to grasp a kind of clue as to how to proceed. I would have to be extremely careful. Telling myself this, I went over to the sink and methodically cleaned the paint from the brushes and painting knife. I washed my hands with oil and soap. Then I went to the kitchen and drank several glasses of water. I was parched.

All well and good, but who had moved the stool in the studio? (It had most definitely been moved.) And who had spoken in my ear in that strange voice? (I had clearly heard the voice.) And who had suggested to me what was missing from the painting? (A suggestion that had clearly been effective.)

In all likelihood it was me—I’d done this myself. I’d unconsciously moved the stool, and given myself the suggestion about how to proceed. In a strange, roundabout way I must have freely intertwined my conscious and subconscious… I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Though of course this couldn’t be the case.

At eleven, I was seated on a straight-backed chair, sipping hot tea and randomly mulling over things, when Menshiki’s silver Jaguar drove up. I’d been so wrapped up in painting that the appointment we’d made the day before had completely slipped my mind. Not to mention the auditory illusion, or the voice I must have imagined.

Menshiki? Why is he here?

“I’d really like to take a good look at the stone chamber again if I could,” Menshiki had said over the phone. As I listened to the now familiar growl of the V8 engine come to a halt, it all came back to me.

¹⁸ CURIOSITY DIDN’T JUST KILL THE CAT

I went outside to greet Menshiki. It was the first time I’d done so. I didn’t have any particular reason, it just turned out that way. I wanted to get outside, stretch my legs, breathe some fresh air.

Those round slate-shaped clouds still floated in the sky. Lots of these clouds formed far off in the sea, then were slowly carried on the southwest wind, one by one, toward the mountains. Did those beautiful, perfect circles form naturally, not from any practical design? It was a mystery. For a meteorologist maybe it was no mystery at all, but it was for me. Living on this mountaintop, I found myself attracted to all sorts of natural wonders.

Menshiki had on a collared dark-red sweater, light and elegant. And well-worn jeans, so light blue they looked ready to fade away. The jeans were straight leg, made of soft material. To me (and I might be overthinking things) he always seemed to intentionally wear colors that made his white hair stand out. This dark-red sweater went very well with his white hair. His hair always was at just the right length. I had no idea how he kept it that way, but it was never any longer or shorter than it was right now.

“I’d like to go and look into the pit right away, if it’s okay with you?” Menshiki asked. “See if anything’s changed.”

“Okay by me,” I said. I hadn’t been back, either, in the woods since that day. I wanted to see how things were, too.

“Sorry to bother you, but could you bring me the bell?” Menshiki asked.

I went inside, took down the ancient bell from the studio shelf, and returned.

Menshiki took a large flashlight from the trunk of his Jaguar and hung it from a strap around his neck. He set off for the woods, me tagging along. The woods seemed even a deeper color than before. In this season, every day brought changes to the mountains. Some trees were redder, others dyed a deeper yellow, and some stayed forever green. The combination was truly beautiful. Menshiki, though, didn’t seem to care.

“I looked into the background of this land a little,” he said while he walked. “Who owned it up till now, what it was used for, that sort of thing.”

“Did you find out something?”

Menshiki shook his head. “No, next to nothing. I was expecting that it might have been some religious site, but according to what I found that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t find out any background as to why there would be a small shrine and stone tumulus here. It was apparently just an ordinary piece of mountainous land. Then it was partly cleared and a house was built. Tomohiko Amada purchased the land along with the house in 1955. Prior to that, a politician had used it as a mountain retreat. You probably haven’t heard of him, but he held a Cabinet position back before the war. After the war he essentially lived in retirement. I couldn’t trace back who owned the place before that.”

“It’s a little strange that a politician would go to the trouble of having a vacation home in such a remote place.”

“A lot of politicians had retreats here back then. Prince Fumimaro Konoe, prime minister just before World War Two, had a summer retreat just a couple of mountains over from here. It’s on the way to Hakone and Atami, and must have been a perfect spot for people to gather for secret talks. It’s hard to keep it secret when VIPs get together in Tokyo.”

We moved the thick boards that lay covering the hole.

“I’m going to go down inside,” Menshiki said. “Would you wait for me?”

“I’ll be here,” I said.

Menshiki climbed down the mental ladder the contractor had left for us. The ladder creaked a bit with each step. I watched him from above. When he got to the bottom he took the flashlight from around his neck, switched it on, and carefully checked his surroundings. He rubbed the stone wall, and pounded his fist against it.

“This wall is solidly made, and pretty intricate,” Menshiki said, looking up at me. “I don’t think it’s just some well that’s been filled in halfway. If it was a well, it would just be a lot of stones piled up on top of each other. They wouldn’t have done such a meticulous job.”

“You think it was built for some other purpose?”

Menshiki shook his head, indicating that he had no idea. “Anyway, the wall is made so you can’t easily climb out. There aren’t any spaces to get a foothold. The hole’s less than nine feet deep, but scrambling to the top wouldn’t be an easy feat.”

“You mean it was built that way, to be hard to climb up?”

Menshiki shook his head again. He didn’t know. No clue.

“I’d like you to do something for me,” Menshiki said.

“What would that be?”

“Would it be an imposition for you to pull up the ladder, and put the cover on tight so no light gets in?”

That left me speechless.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry,” Menshiki said. “I’d like to experience what it’s like to be shut up here, in the bottom of the dark pit, by myself. No plans to turn into a mummy yet, though.”

“How long do you plan to be down there?”

“When I want to get out, I’ll ring the bell. When you hear the bell, take off the cover and lower down the ladder. If an hour passes without you hearing the bell, come and remove the cover. I don’t plan to be down here over an hour. Please don’t forget that I’m down here. If you did forget, I really would turn into a mummy.”

“The mummy hunter becomes a mummy.”

Menshiki laughed. “Exactly.”

“There’s no way I’ll forget. But are you sure it’s okay, doing that?”

“I’m curious. I’d like to try sitting for a while at the bottom of a dark pit. I’ll give you the flashlight. And you can hand me the bell.”

He climbed halfway up the ladder and held out the flashlight for me. I took it, and held out the bell. He took the bell and gave it a little shake. It rang out clearly.

“But if—just supposing—I were attacked by vicious hornets on the way and fell unconscious, or even died, then you might never be able to get out of here. You never know what’s going to happen in this world.”

“Curiosity always involves risk. You can’t satisfy your curiosity without accepting some risk. Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat.”

“I’ll be back in an hour,” I said.

“Watch out for the hornets,” Menshiki said.

“And you take care down there in the dark.”

Menshiki didn’t reply, and just looked up at me, as if trying to decipher some meaning in my expression as I gazed down at him. There was some kind of vagueness in his eyes, like he was straining to focus on my face, but couldn’t. It was an uncertain expression, not at all like him. Then, as if reconsidering things, he sat down on the ground and leaned against the curved stone wall. He looked up and raised his hand a little. All set, he was telling me. I yanked up the ladder, pulled the thick boards over so they completely covered up the hole, and set some heavy stones on top of that. A small amount of light might filter in through narrow cracks between the boards, though inside the hole should be dark enough. I thought about calling out to Menshiki from on top of the cover, but thought better of it. What he wanted was solitude and silence.

I went back home, boiled water, and made tea. I sat on the sofa and picked up where I’d left off in a book. I couldn’t focus on reading, though, since my ears were alert for the sound of the bell. Every five minutes I checked my watch, and imagined Menshiki, alone in the bottom of that dark hole. What an odd person, I thought. He uses his own money to hire a landscape contractor, who uses heavy equipment to move that pile of stones and open up the entrance to that hole. And now Menshiki was confined there, all by himself. Or rather, deliberately shut away in there at his own request.

Whatever, I thought. Whatever necessity or intentions motivated it (assuming there was some kind of necessity or intention), that was Menshiki’s problem, and I could leave it all up to him. I was an unthinking actor in someone else’s plan. I gave up reading the book, lay down on the sofa, closed my eyes, but of course didn’t fall asleep. This was no time to be sleeping.

An hour passed without the bell ringing. Or maybe I’d somehow missed the sound. Either way, it was time to get that cover off. I got up off the sofa, slipped on my shoes, and went outside and into the woods. I was a bit apprehensive that hornets or a wild boar might appear, but neither did. Just some tiny birds, Japanese white-eyes, flitted right past me. I walked through the woods and went around behind the shrine. I removed the heavy stones and took off just one of the boards.

“Mr. Menshiki!” I called out into the gap. But there was no response. What I could see of the hole from the gap was pitch dark, and I couldn’t make out his figure there.

“Mr. Menshiki!” I called again. But again no answer. I was getting worried. Maybe he’d vanished, like the mummy that should have been there had vanished. I knew it wasn’t logically possible, but still I was seriously concerned.

I quickly removed another board, and then another. Finally the sunlight reached to the bottom of the pit. And I could see Menshiki’s outline seated there.

“Mr. Menshiki, are you okay?” I asked, relieved.

He looked up, as if finally coming to, and gave a small nod. He covered his face with his hands, as if the light was too bright.

“I’m fine,” he answered quietly. “I’d just like to stay here for a little longer. It’ll take time for my eyes to adjust to the light.”

“It’s been exactly an hour. If you’d like to stay there longer I could put the cover on again.”

Menshiki shook his head. “No, this is enough. I’m okay now. I can’t stay any longer here. It might be too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous?”

“I’ll explain later,” Menshiki said. He stroked his face hard with both hands, as if rubbing something away from his skin.

Five minutes later he slowly got to his feet and clambered up the metal ladder I’d let down. Once again at ground level he brushed the dirt off his pants and looked up at the sky with narrowed eyes. The blue autumn sky was visible through the tree branches. For a long time he gazed lovingly at the sky. We lined up the boards and covered the hole as before, so no one would accidentally fall into it. Then we put the heavy stones on top. I memorized the position of the stones, so I’d know if anyone moved them. The ladder we left inside the pit.

“I didn’t hear the bell,” I said as we walked along.

Menshiki shook his head. “I didn’t shake it.”

That’s all he said, so I didn’t ask anything more.

We walked out of the woods and headed home. Menshiki took the lead as we walked and I followed behind. Without a word he put the flashlight back in the trunk of the Jaguar. We then sat down in the living room and drank hot coffee. Menshiki still hadn’t said a thing. He seemed preoccupied. Not that he wore a serious expression or anything, but his mind was clearly in a place far away. A place, no doubt, where only he was allowed to be. I didn’t bother him, and let him be. Just like Doctor Watson used to do with Sherlock Holmes.

During this time I mentally went over my schedule. That evening I had to drive down the mountain to teach my classes at the local arts-and-culture center near Odawara Station. I’d look over paintings students had done and give them advice. This was the day when I had back-to-back children’s and adults’ classes. This was just about the only opportunity I had to see and speak with living people. Without those classes I’d probably live like a hermit up here in the mountains, and if I went on living all alone, I’d likely start to lose my mind, just as Masahiko said.

Which is why I should have been thankful for the chance to come in contact with the real world. But truth be told, I found it hard to feel that way. The people I met in the classroom were less living beings than mere shadows crossing my path. I smiled at each one of them, called them by name, and critiqued their paintings. No, critique isn’t the right term. I just praised them. I’d find some good component to each painting—if there wasn’t, I’d make up something—and praise them for a job well done.

So I had a pretty good reputation as a teacher. According to the owner of the school, many of the students liked me. I hadn’t expected that. I’d never once thought I was suited to teaching. But I didn’t really care. It was all the same to me whether people liked me or didn’t. I just wanted things to go smoothly in the classroom, without any hitches, so I could repay Masahiko for his kindness.

I’m not saying every person felt like a shadow to me. I’d started seeing two of my students. And after starting a sexual relationship with me, the two women both dropped out of my art class. They must have found it awkward. And I did feel some responsibility for that.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’d see the second girlfriend, the older married woman. We’d hold each other in bed and make love. So she was not just a passing shadow, but an actual presence with a three-dimensional body. Or perhaps a passing shadow with a three-dimensional body. I couldn’t decide which.

Menshiki called my name, and I came back to the present with a start. I’d been completely lost in thought, too.

“About the portrait,” Menshiki said.

I looked at him. His usual cool expression was back on his face. A handsome face, always calm and thoughtful, the kind that relaxed others.

“If you need me to pose for you, I wouldn’t mind doing it now,” he said. “Continue from where we left off, maybe? I’m always ready.”

I looked at him for a while. Pose? It finally dawned on me—he was talking about the portrait. I looked down, took a sip of the coffee, which had cooled down, and after gathering my thoughts, put the cup back on the saucer. A small, dry clatter reached my ears. I looked up, faced Menshiki, and spoke.

“I’m very sorry, but today I have to go teach at the arts-and-culture center.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Menshiki said. He glanced at his watch. “I’d totally forgotten. You teach art at the school near Odawara Station, don’t you. Do you need to leave soon?”

“I’m okay, I still have time,” I said. “And there’s something I need to talk with you about.”

“And what would that be?”

“Truthfully, the painting is already finished. In a sense.”

Menshiki frowned ever so slightly. He looked straight at me, as if checking out something deep inside my eyes.

“By painting, you mean my portrait?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s wonderful,” Menshiki said. A slight smile came to his face. “Really wonderful. But what did you mean by ‘in a sense’?”

“It’s hard to explain. I’ve never been good at explaining things.”

“Take your time and tell it to me the way you’d like to,” Menshiki said. “I’ll sit here and listen.”

I brought the fingers of both of my hands together on my lap.

Silence descended as I chose my words, the kind of silence that makes you hear the passing of time. Time passed very slowly on top of the mountain.

“I got the commission from you,” I said, “and did the painting with you as model. But to tell the truth, it’s not a portrait, no matter how you look at it. All I can say is it’s a work done with you as model. I can’t say how much value it has, as an artwork, or as a commodity. All I know for sure is it’s a work I had to paint. Beyond that I’m clueless. Truthfully, I’m pretty confused. Until things become clearer to me it might be best to keep the painting here and not give it to you. I’d like to return the advance you paid. And I am extremely sorry for having used so much of your valuable time.”

“In what way is it—not a portrait?” Menshiki asked, choosing his words deliberately.

“Up till now I’ve made my living as a professional portrait painter. Essentially in portraits you paint the subject the way he wishes to be portrayed. The subject is the client, and if he doesn’t like the finished work it’s entirely possible he might tell you, ‘I’m not going to pay money for this.’ So I try not to depict any negative aspects of the person. I pick only the good aspects, emphasize those, and try to make the subject appear in as good a light as I can. In that sense, in most cases it’s hard to call portraits works of art. Someone like Rembrandt being the exception, of course. But in this case, I didn’t think about you as I painted, but only about myself. To put it another way, I prioritized the ego of the artist—myself—over you, the subject.”

“Not a problem,” Menshiki said, smiling. “I’m actually happy to hear it. I told you I didn’t have any requests, and wanted you to paint it any way you liked.”

“I know. I remember it well. What I’m concerned about is less how the painting turned out and more about what I painted there. I put my own desires first, so much that I might have painted something I shouldn’t have. That’s what I’m worried about.”

Menshiki observed my face for a time, and then spoke. “You might have painted something inside me that you shouldn’t have. And you’re worried about that. Do I have that right?”

“That’s it,” I said. “Since all I thought of was myself, I loosened the restraints that should have been in place.”

And maybe extracted something from inside you that I shouldn’t have, I was about to say, but thought better of it. I kept those words inside.

Menshiki mulled over what I’d said.

“Interesting,” he finally said, sounding like he meant it. “A very intriguing way of looking at things.”

I was silent.

“I think my self-restraint is pretty strong,” Menshiki said. “I have a lot of self-control, I mean.”

“I know,” I said.

Menshiki lightly pressed his temple with his fingers, and smiled. “So that painting is finished, you’re saying? That portrait of me?”

I nodded. “I feel it’s finished.”

“That’s wonderful,” Menshiki said. “Can you show me the painting? After I’ve actually seen it, the two of us can discuss how to proceed. Does that sound all right?”

“Of course,” I said.

I led Menshiki to the studio. He stood about six feet in front of the easel, arms folded, and stared at the painting. There was the portrait that he’d posed for. No, less a portrait than what you might call an image that formed when a mass of paint hit the canvas. The white hair was a violent burst of pure white. At first glance it didn’t look like a face. What should be found in a face was hidden behind a mass of color. Yet beyond any doubt, the reality of Menshiki the person was present. Or at least I thought so.

He stood there, unmoving, gazing at the painting for the longest time. Literally not moving a muscle. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing or not. I stood a little ways away by the window, observing him. I wondered how much time passed. It seemed almost forever. As he observed the painting, his face was totally devoid of expression. His eyes were glazed, flat, clouded, like a still puddle reflecting a cloudy sky. The eyes of someone who wanted to keep others at a distance. I couldn’t guess what he might be thinking, deep in his heart.

Then, like when a magician claps his hands to bring a person out of a hypnotic spell, he stood up straight and trembled slightly. His expression returned, as did the light in his eyes. He slowly walked over to me, held out his right hand, and rested it on my shoulder.

“Amazing,” he said. “Truly outstanding. I don’t know what to say. This is exactly the painting I was hoping for.”

I could tell from his eyes that he was saying how he honestly felt. He was truly impressed, and moved, by my painting.

“The painting expresses me perfectly,” Menshiki said. “This is a portrait in the real sense of the word. You didn’t make any mistake. You did exactly what you should have.”

His hand was still resting on my shoulder. It was just resting there, yet I could feel a special power radiating from it.

“But what did you do to discover this painting?” Menshiki asked me.

“Discover?”

“It was you who did this painting, of course. You created it through your own power. But you also discovered it. You found this image buried within you and drew it out. You unearthed it, in a way. Don’t you think so?”

I suppose so, I thought. Of course I moved my hands, and followed my will in painting it. I was the one who chose the paints, the one who used brushes, knives, and fingers to paint the colors onto the canvas. But looked at from a different angle, maybe all I’d done was use Menshiki as a catalyst to locate something buried inside me and dig it up. Just like the heavy equipment that moved aside the rock mound behind the little shrine, lifted off the heavy lattice cover, and unearthed that odd stone-lined chamber. I couldn’t help but see an affinity between these two similar operations that took place in tandem. Everything that had happened had started with Menshiki’s appearance, and the ringing of the bell in the middle of the night.

Menshiki said, “It’s like an earthquake deep under the sea. In an unseen world, a place where light doesn’t reach, in the realm of the unconscious. In other words, a major transformation is taking place. It reaches the surface, where it sets off a series of reactions and eventually takes form where we can see it with our own eyes. I’m no artist, but I can grasp the basic idea behind that process. Outstanding ideas in the business world, too, emerge through a similar series of stages. The best ideas are thoughts that appear, unbidden, from out of the dark.”

Menshiki once more stood before the painting and stepped closer to examine the surface. Like someone reading a detailed map, he studiously checked out each and every detail. He stepped back nine feet, and with narrowed eyes gazed at the work as a whole. His face wore an expression close to ecstasy. He reminded me of a carnivorous raptor about to latch onto its prey. But what was the prey? Was it my painting, or me myself? Or something else? I had no idea. But soon, like mist hovering over the surface of a river at dawn, that strange expression like ecstasy faded, then vanished. To be filled in by his usual affable, thoughtful expression.

He said, “Generally I avoid saying anything that smacks of self-praise, but honestly I feel kind of proud to know that I didn’t misjudge things. I have no artistic talent myself, and have nothing to do with creating original works, but I do know outstanding art when I see it. At least I flatter myself that I do.”

Somehow I couldn’t easily accept what Menshiki was telling me, or feel happy to hear it. It may have been those sharp, raptor-like eyes that bothered me.

“So you like the painting?” I asked again to make sure.

“That goes without saying. This is truly a valuable painting. I’m overjoyed that you came up with such a powerful work using me as the model, as the motif. And of course it goes without saying that as the one who commissioned the painting, I’ll take it. Assuming that’s all right with you?”

“Yes. It’s just that I—”

Menshiki held up a hand to cut me off. “So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to invite you to my house to celebrate its completion. Would that be all right? It will be, like the old expression, a cozy little get-together. As long as this isn’t any trouble for you, that is.”

“None at all, but you really don’t need to do this. You’ve done so much already—”

“But I’d really like to. I’d like the two of us to celebrate the completion of the painting. So won’t you join me for dinner at my place? Nothing fancy, just a simple little dinner, just the two of us. Apart from the cook and bartender, of course.”

“Cook and bartender?”

“There’s a French restaurant I like near Hayakawa harbor. I’ll have the cook and bartender over on their regular day off. He’s a great chef. He uses the freshest fish and comes up with some very original recipes. Actually, for quite some time I’ve been wanting to invite you over, and have been making preparations. But with the painting done, the timing couldn’t be better.”

It was hard to keep the surprise from showing on my face. I had no idea how much it would cost to arrange something like that, but for Menshiki, it must be a regular occurrence. Or at least something he was accustomed to arranging…

Menshiki said, “How would four days from now be? Tuesday evening. If that’s good for you, I’ll set it up.”

“I don’t have any particular plans then,” I said.

“Tuesday it is, then,” he said. “Also, could I take the painting home with me now? I’d like to have it nicely framed and hanging on the wall by the time you come over, if that’s possible.”

“Mr. Menshiki, do you really see your face within this painting?” I asked again.

“Of course I do,” Menshiki said, giving me a wondering look. “Of course I can see my face in the painting. Very distinctly. What else is depicted here?”

“I see,” I said. What else could I say? “You’re the one who commissioned the work, so if you like the painting, it’s already yours. Please do what you’d like with it. The thing is, the paint isn’t dry yet, so be extremely careful when you carry it. And I think it’s better to wait a little longer before framing it. Best to let it dry for about two weeks before doing that.”

“I understand. I’ll handle it carefully. And I’ll wait to have it framed.”

At the front door he held out his hand and we shook hands for the first time in a while. A satisfied smile rose to his face.

“I’ll see you Tuesday, then. I’ll send a car over around six.”

“By the way, you aren’t inviting the mummy?” I asked Menshiki. I don’t know why I said that. The mummy just suddenly popped into my head, and I couldn’t help myself.

Menshiki looked at me searchingly. “Mummy? What do you mean?”

“The mummy that should have been in that chamber. The one that must have been ringing the bell every night, and disappeared, leaving the bell behind. The monk who practiced austerity to the point of being mummified. I was thinking maybe he wanted to be invited to your place. Like the statue of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni.”

Menshiki thought about this, and a cheerful smile came over him as if he finally got it. “I see! Just like Don Giovanni invited the statue of the Commendatore, you’re wondering how would it be if I invited the mummy to our dinner?”

“Exactly. It might be karma, too.”

“Sounds good. Fine with me. It’s a celebration, after all. If the mummy would care to join us, I will be happy to issue the invitation. Sounds like we’ll have a pleasant evening. But what should we have for dessert?” He smiled happily. “The problem is, we can’t see him. Makes it hard to invite him.”

“Indeed,” I said. “But the visible is not the only reality. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Menshiki gingerly carried the painting outside. He took an old blanket from the trunk, laid it on the passenger seat, and placed the painting down on top so as not to smear the paint. Then he used some thin rope and two cardboard boxes to secure the painting so it wouldn’t move around. It was all cleverly done. He always seemed to carry around a variety of tools and things in his trunk.

“Yes, what you said may be exactly right,” Menshiki suddenly murmured as he was leaving. He rested both hands on the leather-covered steering wheel and looked straight up at me.

“What I said?”

“That sometimes in life we can’t grasp the boundary between reality and unreality. That boundary always seems to be shifting. As if the border between countries shifts from one day to the next depending on their mood. We need to pay close attention to that movement, otherwise we won’t know which side we’re on. That’s what I meant when I said it might be dangerous for me to remain inside that pit any longer.”

I didn’t know how to respond, and Menshiki didn’t go any further. He waved to me out the window, revving the V8 engine so it rumbled pleasantly, and he and the still-not-dry portrait vanished from sight.

¹⁹ CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING BEHIND ME?

At one p.m. on Saturday afternoon my girlfriend drove over in her red Mini. I went out to greet her when she arrived. She had on green sunglasses and a light-gray jacket over a simple beige dress.

“You want to do it in the car? Or do you prefer the bed?” I asked.

“Don’t be silly,” she laughed.

“Doing it in the car doesn’t sound so bad. Figuring out how to manage it in a cramped space.”

“Someday soon.”

We sat in the living room and drank tea. I told her about how I’d just managed to finish the portrait (or portrait-like painting) of Menshiki I’d been struggling with. And how it was totally different from any of the portraits I’d done professionally. Her interest seemed piqued.

“Can I see the painting?”

I shook my head. “You’re a day late. I wanted to get your opinion on it, but Mr. Menshiki already took it home. The paint wasn’t completely dry yet, but it seemed like he wanted to take possession as soon as he could. He seemed worried somebody else might take it away.”

“So he liked it.”

“He said he did, and I don’t have any reason to doubt him.”

“The painting’s successfully completed, and the person who commissioned it likes it. So all’s well that ends well?”

“I guess,” I said. “And I’m happy with it. I’ve never done that type of painting before, and I think it’s opened up some new possibilities.”

“A new style of portrait?”

“I’m not sure. This time, I arrived at that method by using Mr. Menshiki as my model. But maybe it’s just coincidence that it was the framework of a portrait that proved to be the entranceway to that. I don’t know if the same method would be valid if I tried it again. This might have been a special case. Having Mr. Menshiki as my model may have exerted a special power. But the important thing is I’m dying to do some serious painting now.”

“Well, congratulations on finishing the painting.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll also be receiving a fairly hefty payment.”

“The munificent Mr. Menshiki,” she said.

“And he invited me over to his place to celebrate the painting. Tuesday evening, we’ll have dinner together.”

I told her about the dinner that was planned. Nothing about inviting the mummy, though. A dinner for two, with a professional cook and bartender.

“So you’ll finally set foot in that chalk-white mansion, won’t you,” she said, sounding impressed. “The mysterious mansion of the man of mystery. I’m so curious. Make sure to keep your eyes open, and observe what kind of place it is.”

“As much as my eyes can take in.”

“And remember exactly what sort of food was served.”

“Will do,” I said. “You know, the other day you mentioned getting new information about Mr. Menshiki.”

“That’s right. Through the jungle grapevine.”

“What kind of information?”

She looked a little confused. She picked up her cup and took a sip of tea. “Let’s talk about that later,” she said. “There’s something I’d like to do before that.”

“Something you’d like to do?”

“Something I hesitate to put into words.”

We moved from the living room into the bedroom. Like always.

During the six years I lived my first married life with Yuzu (my former marriage, is what it might best be called), I never had a sexual relationship with any other women, not even once. Not that the opportunity didn’t present itself, but during that period I was much more interested in living a peaceful life with my wife than seeking greener pastures elsewhere. And as far as sex was concerned, regular lovemaking with Yuzu more than satisfied me.

But then at a certain point, out of the blue (to me at least) she announced that she couldn’t live with me any longer. An unshakable conclusion, no room for negotiation or compromise. I was shaken, with no clue how to respond. Left speechless. But I did understand one thing: I can’t stay here anymore.

So I threw some belongings into my old Peugeot 205 and set off on an aimless journey. For a month and a half at the beginning of spring I wandered through northern Japan—Tohoku and Hokkaido—where it was still cold. Until my car finally broke down for good. Every night on the trip I remembered Yuzu’s body. Every single detail. How she’d react when I touched certain spots, what sort of cry she made. I didn’t want to remember this, but I couldn’t help it. Occasionally, as I traced those memories, I’d ejaculate. Another thing I didn’t particularly want to do.

But during that long trip I only slept with one actual woman. A truly weird turn of events ended with me spending the night with a young woman I’d never seen before. Not that it was something I was looking for.

This was in a small town in Miyagi Prefecture along the coast. As I recall, it was near the border with Iwate, but I was on the move then and had passed through a number of towns that all blurred into one. My mind wasn’t in a place where I could remember their names. I do recall that it had a big fishing harbor. Though most of the towns in that region had harbors. And I remember how everywhere I went the smell of diesel oil and fish tagged along.

On the outskirts of town, near the highway, was a chain restaurant, and I was eating dinner there by myself. It was about eight p.m. Shrimp curry and house salad. There were only a handful of other customers. I was in a table next to the window, reading a paperback book while I ate, when a young woman abruptly sat down across from me. No hesitation, no asking permission, without a word she sat down onto the vinyl-covered seat like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I looked up, surprised. Of course I didn’t recognize her. It was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on her. It was all so sudden I didn’t know what to think. There were any number of unoccupied tables, and no reason for her to share mine. Maybe that’s how they did things in this town? I put down my fork, wiped my mouth with the paper napkin, and gazed at her, bewildered.

“Pretend like you know me,” the girl said. “Like we were meeting up here.” Her voice was, if anything, a bit husky. Or maybe tension made a voice temporarily hoarse. I detected a slight Tohoku accent.

I put the bookmark in my book and shut it. The woman seemed to be in her mid-twenties. She had on a white blouse with a round collar and a navy-blue cardigan. Neither one very expensive looking, or very fashionable. Ordinary clothes, like what you’d wear when you went shopping at the local supermarket. Her hair was black, cut short, with bangs falling to her forehead. She had on hardly any makeup. On her lap was a black cloth shoulder bag.

There was nothing special about her face. Pleasant enough features, but they didn’t leave a strong impression. The kind of face that, if you saw her on the street, you’d forget as soon as you passed by. Her thin lips were taut, and she was breathing through her nose. Her breathing was a bit ragged, the nostrils expanding a tiny bit, then contracting. A small nose, out of balance with the size of her mouth. As if the person molding her out of clay halfway through and decided to scrape some off the nose.

“You understand? Pretend like you know me,” she repeated. “Don’t look so surprised.”

“Okay,” I answered, not knowing what was going on.

“Just keep on eating,” she said. “And pretend to be talking to me like we know each other?”

“What about?”

“You’re from Tokyo?”

I nodded. I picked up my fork and ate a mini tomato. Then drank some water.

“I could tell by the way you talk,” the woman said. “But why are you here?”

“Just passing through,” I said.

A waitress in a ginger-colored uniform came over, lugging a thick menu. The waitress had mammoth breasts, the buttons on her uniform ready to burst. The girl across from me didn’t take the menu. She didn’t even glance at the waitress. Staring straight at me she just said, “Coffee and cheesecake.” Like she was giving me the order. The waitress nodded without a word. Still lugging the menu, she left.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” I asked.

She didn’t respond. She just stared at me, like she was evaluating my face.

“Can you see anything behind me? Is anybody there?” the woman asked.

I looked behind her. Just ordinary people eating in an ordinary way. No new customers had come in.

“Nothing. Nobody’s there,” I said.

“Keep an eye out for a little longer,” she said. “Tell me if you see anything. Keep on talking like nothing’s happened.”

Our table looked out on the parking lot. I could see my decrepit, dusty little old Peugeot parked there. There were two other cars. A small silver compact, and a tall black minivan. The minivan looked new. They’d both been parked there for a while. No new cars had driven in. The woman must have walked. Or else someone gave her a ride here.

“Just passing through?” the woman asked.

“That’s right.”

“Are you on a trip?”

“You could say that,” I said.

“What kind of book are you reading?”

I showed her the book. It was Ogai Mori’s Abe Ichizoku, a samurai tale written over a hundred years before.

“Abe Ichizoku,” she intoned. She handed the book back. “How come you’re reading such an old book?”

“It was in the lounge of a youth hostel I stayed at in Aomori not long ago. I leafed through it, thought it was interesting, and took it with me. In exchange, I left a couple of books I’d finished reading.”

“I’ve never read Abe Ichizoku. Is it interesting?”

I’d read it once and was rereading it. The story was pretty interesting, but I couldn’t figure out why, and from what sort of stance, Ogai had written it, or felt compelled to write that kind of tale. But explaining that would take too long. This wasn’t a book club. And this woman was just bringing up random topics so our conversation seemed natural (or at least so that it looked that way to the people around us).

“It’s worth reading,” I said.

“So what sort of work?” she asked.

“You mean the novel?”

She frowned. “No. I don’t care about that. I mean you. What kind of work do you do for a living?”

“I paint pictures,” I said.

“You’re an artist,” she said.

“You could say that.”

“What sort of paintings?”

“Portraits,” I said.

“By portraits you mean those paintings you see hanging on the wall in the president’s office in companies? The ones where big shots look all full of themselves?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s your specialty?”

I nodded.

She said no more about painting. She might have lost interest. Most people in the world, unless they’re the ones being painted, have zero interest in portraits.

Right then the automatic door at the entrance slid open and a tall, middle-aged man came in. He had on a black leather jacket and a black golf cap with a golf company’s logo on it. He stood at the entrance, gave the whole diner a once-over, chose a table two over from ours, and sat down, facing us. He took off his cap, finger-combed his hair a couple of times, and carefully studied the menu the busty waitress brought over. His hair was cut short, and had some white mixed in. He was thin, with dark, suntanned skin. His forehead was lined with a series of deep, wavy wrinkles.

“A man just came in,” I told her.

“What does he look like?”

I gave her a quick description.

“Can you draw him?” she asked.

“You mean a likeness?”

“Yes. You’re an artist, aren’t you?”

I took a memo pad from my pocket, and, using a mechanical pencil, quickly sketched the man. Even added some shading. While I drew it I didn’t need to glance over at him. I have the ability to grasp the features of a person quickly and etch them into my memory. I passed the drawing across the table to her. She took it, and stared at it, eyes narrowed, for a long time, like a bank teller examining dubious handwriting on a check. Finally she laid the memo page on the table.

“You’re really good at drawing,” she said, looking at me. She sounded genuinely impressed.

“It’s what I do,” I said. “So, do you know this man?”

She didn’t reply, just shook her head. Her lips tight, her expression unchanged. She folded the drawing up twice, and stuffed it away in her shoulder bag. I couldn’t figure out why she would keep something like that. She should have just crumpled it up and thrown it away.

“I don’t know him,” she said.

“But you’re being followed by him. Is that what’s going on?”

She didn’t reply.

The same waitress brought over her coffee and cheesecake. The woman kept quiet until the waitress had left. She sliced a bite of the cheesecake with her fork, then pushed it from side to side on the plate. Like a hockey player practicing on the ice before a game. She finally put the piece in her mouth and, expressionless, chewed slowly. Once she finished it she poured a hint of cream into her coffee and took a sip. She nudged the plate with the cheesecake to one side, as if it was no longer needed.

A white SUV had joined the cars in the parking lot. A stocky, tall car, with solid-looking tires. Apparently driven by the man who’d just come in. He’d parked the car facing in, not backing into the spot as was more usual. On the cover of the spare tire attached to the luggage compartment were the words SUBARU FORESTER. I finished my shrimp curry. The waitress came over to take away the plate, and I ordered coffee.

“Have you been traveling for a long time?” the woman asked.

“It’ll be a long trip,” I said.

“Is it fun to travel?”

I’m not traveling for fun, is how I should have answered. But that would have made things long and complicated.

“Sort of,” I answered.

She stared at me, like studying some rare animal. “You sure are a man of few words.”

It depends on who I’m talking with, is how I should have answered. But going there would have also made things long and complicated.

The coffee came, and I drank some. It tasted like coffee, but it wasn’t all that good. But at least it was coffee, and piping hot. After this no other customers came in. The salt-and-pepper-haired man in the leather jacket, in a voice that carried, ordered a Salisbury steak and rice.

A string-section version of “Fool on the Hill” came over the sound system. Did John Lennon write that song, or Paul McCartney? I couldn’t remember. Probably Lennon. This kind of random thought rattled around in my head. I had no idea what else I should think about.

“Did you come here by car?”

“Um.”

“What kind of car?”

“A red Peugeot.”

“What district is the license plate?”

“Shinagawa,” I said.

Hearing that, she frowned, as if she had a bad memory associated with a red Peugeot with Shinagawa plates. She tugged down the sleeves of her cardigan and checked that the buttons on her white shirt were done all the way up. She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Let’s go,” she suddenly said.

She drank a half glass of water and stood up. She left her coffee, only one sip taken, and cheesecake, only one bite taken, on the tabletop. Like the remains after a terrible natural disaster.

Not knowing where we were going, I stood up after her, took the bill from the table, and paid at the register. The woman’s order was included, but she didn’t say a word of thanks, or make a move to pay her share.

As we left, the man with the salt-and-pepper hair was eating his Salisbury steak, seemingly bored by it all. He looked up and glanced in our direction, but that was all. He looked down at his plate again and went on eating, with knife and fork, his face expressionless. The woman didn’t look at him at all.

As we passed by the white Subaru Forester, a bumper sticker on it with a picture of a fish caught my eye. Probably a marlin. Of course, I had no idea why he had to have a sticker with a marlin on it on his car. Maybe he worked in the fishing industry, or was a fisherman.

The woman didn’t tell me where we were going. She sat in the passenger seat and gave me clipped directions. She seemed to know the roads. She must have been from that town, or else had lived there a long time. I drove the Peugeot where she told me to go. We drove along the highway for a while out of town and came to a love hotel with a gaudy neon sign. I parked there as directed and cut the engine.

“I’m staying here tonight,” she announced. “I can’t go home. Come with me.”

“But I’m staying in another place tonight,” I said. “I’ve already checked in and put my luggage in the room.”

“Where?”

I gave the name of a small business hotel near the railway station.

“This place is a lot better than that cheap place,” she said. “Your room there must be shabby and no bigger than a closet.”

Right she was. A shabby room the size of a closet was an apt description.

“And they don’t like women checking in by themselves here. They’re on guard against prostitutes. So come with me.”

Well, at least she’s not a hooker, I thought.

At the front desk I paid in advance for one night (again, no word of thanks from her) and got the key. Once in the room she filled up the bathtub, switched on the TV, and adjusted the lighting. The bathtub was spacious. It was definitely a lot more comfortable than the business hotel. She seemed to have come here—or someplace like it—many times before. She sat on the bed and took off her cardigan. Then removed her white blouse and her wraparound skirt. And took off her stockings. She had on very simple white panties. They weren’t particularly new. The kind your ordinary housewife would wear when she went shopping at the neighborhood supermarket. She neatly reached behind her and unhooked her bra, folded it, and set it next to a pillow. Her breasts weren’t particularly big, or particularly small.

“Come over here,” she said to me. “Since we’re in a place like this, let’s have sex.”

That was the one and only sexual experience of my whole long trip (or wanderings). Wilder sex than I’d expected. She had four orgasms in total, every single one genuine, if you can believe it. I came twice, but oddly enough didn’t feel much pleasure. It was like while I was doing it with her, my mind was elsewhere.

“I’m thinking maybe it’s been a long time since you had sex?” she asked me.

“Several months,” I answered honestly.

“I can tell,” she said. “But how come? You can’t be that unpopular with women.”

“There’s a whole bunch of reasons.”

“You poor thing,” she said, and gently stroked my neck. “You poor thing.”

You poor thing, I thought, repeating the words to myself. Put that way I really did feel like I was a person to be pitied. In an unknown town, in some random place, with no clue what was going on, naked in bed with a woman whose name I didn’t even know.

We had a few beers from the fridge, in between rounds. It was about one a.m. when we finally slept. When I woke up the next morning she was nowhere to be seen. She left no note or anything behind. I was alone in the overly huge bed. My watch showed seven thirty, and it was light outside. I opened the curtain and saw the highway running alongside the ocean. Huge refrigerated trucks transporting fresh fish roared up and down the road. The world is full of lonely things, but not many could be lonelier than waking up alone in the morning in a love hotel.

A thought suddenly struck me, and I hurriedly checked my wallet in my pants pocket. Everything was still there. Cash, credit cards, ATM card, license, everything. I breathed a sigh of relief. If my wallet had been gone I would have freaked. These sorts of things did happen, and I needed to be careful.

She must have left early in the morning, while I was sound asleep. But how had she gotten back to town (or back to where she lived)? Had she walked, or called a taxi? Not that it made any difference to me. Pointless speculation.

I returned the room key at the front desk, paid for the beers we’d drunk, and drove the Peugeot back to town. I needed to get the luggage I’d left at the business hotel near the station, and pay for the one night. Along the way into town I passed by the chain restaurant I’d gone to the night before. I stopped and ate breakfast there. I was starving, and was dying for some coffee. Just before I pulled into the parking lot I saw the white Subaru Forester. Parked nose in, with that marlin bumper sticker. The same Subaru Forester from the night before. The only difference was where it was parked. Which made sense. No one spent the whole night in a place like that.

I went inside the restaurant. As before, hardly any customers. Like I expected, the same man from last night was at a table, eating breakfast. The same table as the night before, wearing the same black leather jacket. Like last night, the same black golf cap with the Yonex logo resting on the tabletop. The only difference from last night was the folded morning newspaper on top of the table. A plate of toast and scrambled eggs was in front of him. It was probably just served, steam still rising from the coffee. As I passed him, the man glanced up and looked me in the face. His eyes were even sharper and colder than the night before. There was a sense of criticism in them, or at least that’s what it felt like.

I know exactly where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, he seemed to be telling me.

That’s the whole story of what happened to me in that small town along the seacoast in Miyagi. Even now I have no idea what that woman, with her petite nose and perfect teeth, wanted from me. And it was never clear to me if that middle-aged guy with the white Subaru Forester was really following her, or if she was running from him. Whatever was going on, I happened to be there, and through an odd series of events spent the night in a garish love hotel with a woman I’d just met, and had a one-night stand, the wildest sex I’d ever had. But I still can’t recall the name of the town.

“Could I get a glass of water?” my married girlfriend said. She’d just woken up from a short postcoital nap.

It was early afternoon, and we were in bed. While she slept I stared at the ceiling and recalled the events in that small fishing town. It was only a half a year before, but it seemed like events from the distant past.

I went to the kitchen, poured mineral water into a large glass, and returned to bed. She drank down half of it in a single gulp.

“Now, about Mr. Menshiki,” she said, placing the glass on the nightstand.

“Mr. Menshiki?”

“The new information I got about Mr. Menshiki,” she said. “What I said I’d tell you later?”

“Your jungle grapevine.”

“Right,” she said, and drank more water. “According to my sources, your friend Mr. Menshiki spent quite a long time in Tokyo Prison.”

I sat up and looked at her. “Tokyo Prison?”

“Yeah, the one in Kosuge.”

“For what crime?”

“I don’t know the details, but I imagine it had something to do with money. Tax evasion, money laundering, insider trading—something of that sort, or perhaps all of them. He was imprisoned six or seven years ago. Did Mr. Menshiki tell you what kind of work he does?”

“He said it was dealing with tech, and information,” I said. “He started a company, and some years ago sold the stock for a high price. He’s living now on the capital gains.”

“ ‘Dealing with information’ is a pretty vague way of describing it. Nowadays there’re hardly any jobs not connected with information.”

“Who told you about him being in prison?”

“A friend of mine whose husband’s in finance. But I don’t know how much of that information is true. Someone heard it from someone, and passed it along to someone else. You know how it is. But from what I can make of it, it doesn’t seem groundless.”

“If he was in Tokyo Prison that means that he was put there by the Tokyo district prosecutor.”

“In the end they found him not guilty, is what I heard,” she said. “Still, he was in detention for a long time, and had to endure a very intense investigation. They extended his incarceration a number of times, and wouldn’t grant bail.”

“But he won in court.”

“That’s right. He was prosecuted, but wasn’t given a jail sentence. He apparently remained totally silent during the investigation.”

“My understanding is that the Tokyo district prosecutors are the cream of the crop,” I said. “A proud lot. Once they set their sights on someone, they have solid evidence before they arrest them and charge them. Their win rate in court is really high. So the investigation they did while he was in detention couldn’t have been half-baked. Most people break down under that kind of scrutiny, and sign whatever the prosecutors want them to. Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to stay silent under that kind of pressure.”

“Still, that’s what Mr. Menshiki did. He must have a strong will and a sharp mind.”

Menshiki wasn’t your average person, that was for sure… A strong will and a sharp mind were indeed part of his repertoire.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” I said. “Whether it is for tax evasion or money laundering or whatever, once the Tokyo district prosecutor arrests you, it’s reported on in the newspapers. And with an unusual name like Menshiki, I would remember the case. I used to be a pretty avid reader of newspapers.”

“I don’t know about that. There’s one other thing—I mentioned it before—but he bought that mountaintop mansion three years ago. Almost forcing the owners to sell. Other people were living there then, and they had no intention at all of selling the house they’d just built. But Mr. Menshiki offered them money—or maybe pressured them in some other way—and drove them out. And then he moved in, like some mean-spirited hermit crab.”

“Hermit crabs don’t drive away what’s living in a shell. They just quietly take over the leftover shell of a dead shellfish.”

“But there must be some hermit crabs that are mean.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, trying to avoid a debate over the ecology of hermit crabs. “If what you’re saying is true, why would Mr. Menshiki insist so strongly that it had to be that house? So much so that he drove the residents out and took over? That must have taken a lot of money and effort. And that mansion is really too gaudy, too conspicuous, to suit him. It’s a wonderful house, for sure, but I just don’t think it fits his tastes.”

“Plus it’s too big. He doesn’t have a maid, lives alone, hardly ever has guests over. There’s no need to live in such a huge place.”

She drank the rest of the water.

“There must be some special reason why it had to be that house,” she went on. “I have no idea why, though.”

“Anyway, he’s invited me over to his place on Tuesday. Once I actually visit I might learn more.”

“Make sure you check out the secret locked room, the one like Bluebeard’s castle.”

“I’ll remember to,” I said.

“For the time being, things have worked out well.”

“Meaning—?”

“You finished the painting, Mr. Menshiki liked it, and you got a hefty payment for it.”

“I guess so,” I said. “I guess it did work out. I’m relieved.”

“Felicitations, maestro,” she said.

It was no lie to say that I felt relieved. It was true that I’d finished the painting. And true that Menshiki had liked it. And also true that I was happy with the painting. And equally true that this resulted in a nice, healthy amount of money coming my way. For all that, though, I couldn’t feel totally pleased with the way things had worked out. So much around me was still up in the air, left as is, with no clues to follow. The more I wanted to simplify my life, the more disjointed it seemed to become.

As if searching for clues, I almost unconsciously reached out to hold my girlfriend. Her body felt soft, and warm. And damp with sweat.

I know exactly where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, the man with the white Subaru Forester said.

²⁰ THE MOMENT WHEN EXISTENCE AND NONEXISTENCE COALESCE

The next morning I woke up at five thirty. It was Sunday morning. It was still pitch dark outside. After a simple breakfast in the kitchen I changed into work clothes and went into the studio. As the eastern sky grew brighter, I switched off the light, threw open the window, and let chilly, fresh morning air into the room. I took out a fresh canvas and set it on the easel. The chirping of birds filtered in through the open window. The rain during the night had thoroughly soaked the trees. The rain had stopped just a while before, bright gaps in the clouds showing. I sat down on the stool, and, sipping hot black coffee from a mug, stared at the empty canvas before me.

I’ve always enjoyed this time, early in the morning, gazing intently at a pure white canvas. “Canvas Zen” is my term for it. Nothing is painted there yet, but it’s more than a simple blank space. Hidden on that white canvas is what must eventually emerge. As I look more closely, I discover various possibilities, which congeal into a perfect clue as to how to proceed. That’s the moment I really enjoy. The moment when existence and nonexistence coalesce.

But on this day I knew from the beginning what I would be painting. Emerging from this canvas would be a portrait of the middle-aged man with the white Subaru Forester. Up to this moment the man had been patiently waiting, inside me, to be painted. And I had to paint his portrait not for anyone else (not by commission, not to earn a living) but for myself. Just as I had painted Menshiki’s portrait, in order to make visible his reason for being—or at least the meaning it had for me—I had to paint him in my own way. I’m not sure why. But it had to be done.

I closed my eyes and called to mind the figure of the man with the white Subaru Forester. I could distinctly recall the minutest details of his features. Early that second day he’d looked straight at me from his seat in the restaurant. The morning paper on the tabletop was folded, white steam rising from his cup of coffee. The bright morning light shining in the large window, the restaurant filled with the clatter of cheap tableware. That whole scene came back in every detail. And in the midst of that scene the man’s face began to show some expression.

I know exactly where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, his eyes told me.

This time I began with a rough draft. I stood up, grabbed a stick of charcoal, and stood before the canvas. On the blank space I created the spot where the man’s face would go. With no plan, without thinking, I drew in a single vertical line. A single line, the focal point from which everything else would emerge. What would emerge was the face of a thin, suntanned man, deep wrinkles on his forehead. Thin, piercing eyes. Eyes used to staring at the far-off horizon. Eyes dyed the color of the sky and sea. Hair cut short, dotted with white. My guess, a taciturn, long-suffering man.

Around that central line I used charcoal to add a few supplementary lines, so the outlines of the man’s face would appear. I stepped back to look at the lines I’d done, made a few corrections, and added some new lines. What was important was believing in myself. Believing in the power of the lines, in the power of the space the lines divided. I wasn’t speaking, but letting the lines and spaces speak. Once the lines and spaces began conversing, then color would finally start to speak. And the flat would gradually transform into the three-dimensional. What I had to do was encourage them all, lend them a hand. And more than anything, not get in their way.

I kept working until ten thirty. The sun had made a slow crawl to the midpoint in the sky, the gray clouds had broken into thin strands, driven away one after another beyond the mountains. No longer did water drip from the tips of the tree branches. I stepped back and examined the rough sketch I’d done from various angles. What I saw was the face of the man I’d remembered. Or rather the framework that should abide in that face. But there were a few too many lines. I needed to do some trimming. Subtraction was the order of the day. But that was for tomorrow. Best to end this day’s work here.

I put down the now shorter stick of charcoal, and washed my smudged hands in the sink. As I dried my hands with a towel, my eyes came to rest on the bell on the shelf in front of me, and I picked it up. I shook it, and the sound was terribly light, dry, and outdated. I couldn’t believe it was an enigmatic Buddhist implement that had been underground for ages. It sounded so different from what I’d heard in the middle of the night. No doubt the pitch black and stillness had added to the depth and clarity of the sound, and made it carry farther.

The question of who could possibly have been ringing that bell in the middle of the night remained an unsolved mystery. Though someone must have been down in the hole every night ringing it (sending out what had to be some kind of message), whoever it was had vanished. When we uncovered the hole, all that was there was this bell. The whole thing was baffling. I placed the bell back on the shelf.

After lunch I went outside and into the woods out back. I had on a thick gray hooded windbreaker, and paint-stained sweatpants. I followed the damp path to the small shrine, and walked around behind it. The thick board cover over the hole was piled with fallen leaves of different colors and shapes. Leaves soaked by last night’s rain. Since Menshiki and I had visited two days before, no one else seemed to have touched the cover. I wanted to make sure of that. I sat down on the damp stones, and, listening to the calls of birds overhead, I gazed for a while at where the hole was.

In the silence of the woods it felt like I could hear the passage of time, of life passing by. One person leaves, another appears. A thought flits away and another takes its place. One image bids farewell and another one appears on the scene. As the days piled up, I wore out, too, and was remade. Nothing stayed still. And time was lost. Behind me, time became dead grains of sand, which one after another gave way and vanished. I just sat there in front of the hole, listening to the sound of time dying.

What would it feel like to sit at the bottom of that hole, all alone, I wondered. Being shut away by oneself in a cramped dark space. Menshiki had even given up his flashlight and the ladder. Without the ladder, without someone’s help (specifically mine) it would be nearly impossible to escape from there. Why did he have to go to the trouble of putting himself into such a predicament? Did being down in that dark hole remind him of his solitary time behind bars in Tokyo Prison? There was no way I could know that, of course. Menshiki lived his own life, in his own way.

I could say only one thing for sure. I would never be able to do that. Nothing scared me more than dark, confined spaces. Put me in a place like that, and I wouldn’t be able to breathe, I’d be so terrified. Even so, I was drawn to that hole. Drawn very strongly. So much so it felt like the hole was beckoning to me.

I sat next to the hole for a good half hour. Then I stood up and walked home through the sunlight that filtered down through the trees.

After two p.m. I had a call from Masahiko Amada. He had an errand to run near Odawara and wondered if he might drop by. Of course, I told him. I hadn’t seen him in a while. He drove up just before three. He brought a bottle of single-malt whiskey as a present. I thanked him. Good timing, since I’d almost run out of whiskey. As always he was stylishly dressed, neatly shaved, wearing glasses I’d seen before, with shell-rimmed frames. He looked nearly the same as he had in the past, though admittedly his hairline was beating a slow-motion retreat.

We sat in the living room and caught up. I told him how the landscapers had used heavy equipment to dig up the stone mound. How after that, a hole just under six feet in diameter had emerged. Nine feet deep, surrounded by a stone wall. A heavy lattice cover was over it, and when that was removed, all we found was an old Buddhist implement like a bell. He listened intently as I told him the story. But he didn’t say he wanted to see the hole. Or the bell.

“After that I take it you didn’t hear the bell at night?”

“I don’t hear it anymore,” I said.

“That’s great,” he said, sounding a bit relieved. “I can’t handle those kind of spooky things. I try to avoid them at all costs.”

“Let sleeping dogs lie?”

“Exactly,” Masahiko said. “I leave that hole up to you. Do whatever you like.”

I told him how now, for the first time in what seemed like forever, I had the urge to paint. How ever since I finished Menshiki’s portrait two days ago, it was like some blockage had been removed. I felt like I was discovering a new, original style, using portraits as a motif. I’d started the painting as a portrait, but what had eventually emerged was far from a conventional likeness. Even so, it was in essence still a portrait.

Masahiko wanted to see Menshiki’s portrait, but when I told him I’d already given it to him, he was disappointed.

“But the paint can’t be dry yet, can it?”

“He said he’d make sure it dries properly,” I said. “He seemed eager to have the painting as quickly as possible. I don’t know, maybe he was worried I might change my mind and not give it to him.”

“Hmm,” Masahiko said, impressed. “Do you have any new work, then?”

“I started on something this morning,” I said. “But it’s still just a charcoal sketch, so even if you saw it, it wouldn’t mean anything.”

“That’s okay. Would you mind showing it to me?”

I took him into the studio and showed him the sketch for The Man with the White Subaru Forester. It was just a rough sketch in charcoal, but Masahiko stood in front of the easel, arms folded, a hard look on his face.

“Interesting,” he said a little later, squeezing the words out between his teeth.

I was silent.

“It’s hard to tell how it’s going to develop, but it certainly does look like someone’s portrait. Like the root of a portrait. A root buried deep in the ground.” He was silent for a time.

“In a very deep, dark place,” he went on. “And this man—it is a man, right?—is angry about something? What is he blaming?”

“You got me. I haven’t got that far.”

“You haven’t got that far,” Masahiko repeated in a monotone. “But there really is a deep anger and sadness here. And he can’t spit it out. The anger is swirling around inside him.”

In college Masahiko was in the oil painting department, though to be blunt about it, he wasn’t known as a great painter. He was skilled enough, but his work lacked depth, something he himself admitted. He was, however, blessed with the skill of being able to instantly evaluate other people’s paintings. So whenever I felt stuck doing one of my own paintings, I’d ask his opinion. His advice was always accurate and impartial, as well as practical. And thankfully he had no sense of jealousy or rivalry. I guess this was part of his personality, something he was born with. I always could believe what he told me. He never minced words, but had no ulterior motives, so oddly enough even when his criticism was pretty scathing, I never felt upset.

“When you finish this painting, before you give it to anyone else, could you let me take a look at it, even just for a minute?” he asked, eyes never leaving the painting.

“Sure,” I said. “No one commissioned me to do this. I’m just painting it for myself. I don’t plan to turn it over to anyone.”

“You want to do your own painting now, right?”

“Seems that way.”

“It’s a portrait of sorts, but not a formal portrait.”

I nodded. “You could put it that way, I suppose.”

“You might be… discovering a new destination for yourself.”

“I’d like to think so,” I said.

“I saw Yuzu the other day,” Masahiko said as he was leaving. “Happened to bump into her, and we talked for a half hour or so.”

I nodded but said nothing. I had no idea what I should say, or how I should react.

“She seemed fine. We didn’t talk about you much. It was like we both wanted to avoid the topic. You get it, that feeling? But at the end she did ask about you. What you’re doing, that kind of thing. I told her you were painting. I don’t know what kind of paintings, I said, but I said you’re holed up on a mountaintop and painting something.”

“I’m alive, at least,” I said.

Masahiko seemed to want to say something more about Yuzu but thought better of it, and clammed up. Yuzu had always liked him and had apparently gone to him for advice. Probably things that had to do with the two of us. Just like I often went to him for advice about paintings. But Masahiko didn’t tell me anything. He was that kind of guy. People often sought his advice, but he kept it all inside. Like rain running down a gutter and into a rainwater tank. It doesn’t leave there, doesn’t spill over the sides. He probably adjusted the amount of water inside as needed.

Masahiko didn’t seem to ask anyone else for advice about his own troubles. He must have had plenty, as the son of a famous artist who went to art school but wasn’t blessed with much talent as an artist. There must have been things he wanted to talk over. I’ve known him for a long time, but I don’t recall ever hearing him complain about anything, even once. That’s the type of man he was.

“Yuzu had a lover, I think,” I went ahead and said. “During the last part of our marriage she stopped having sex with me. I should have known something was going on.”

It was the first time I’d confessed this to anyone. I had kept it all inside until this moment.

“I see,” was all Masahiko said.

“But you already knew that much, didn’t you?”

He didn’t respond.

“Am I wrong?” I asked again.

“There are things people are better off not knowing. That’s all I can say.”

“But whether you know it or not, it ends up the same. Sooner or later, suddenly or not suddenly, with a loud knock or a soft one, that’s the only difference.”

Masahiko sighed. “Yeah. You might be right. Whether you knew about it or not, the end result is the same. But still, there are things I can’t talk about.”

I was silent.

“No matter how things end up, everything has both a good and bad side. I’m sure breaking up with Yuzu was hard on you. And I feel for you. I really do. But because of that you’ve finally begun painting what you want to paint. You’ve discovered your own style. A kind of silver lining, wouldn’t you say?”

Maybe he was right. If I hadn’t split up with Yuzu—I mean, if Yuzu hadn’t left me—I’d probably still be painting run-of-the-mill portraits to make a living. But that wasn’t a choice I made myself. That’s the important point.

“Try to look on the bright side,” Masahiko said as he was leaving. “This might sound like dumb advice, but if you’re going to walk down a road, it’s better to walk down the sunny side, right?”

“And the cup still has one-sixteenth of the water left.”

Masahiko laughed. “I like your sense of humor.”

I hadn’t said it to be humorous, but didn’t comment.

Masahiko was silent for a time, and then spoke up. “Do you still love Yuzu?”

“I know I have to forget her, but my heart’s still clinging to her and won’t let go. That’s just the way it is.”

“You don’t plan to sleep with other women?”

“Even if I did, Yuzu would always come between me and the other woman.”

“That’s a problem,” he said. He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. He really did look perplexed.

He got in his car and prepared to drive away.

“Thanks for the whiskey,” I said. It was not yet five p.m. but the sky was pretty dark. The season when the night gets longer with each passing day.

“Actually, I wanted to have a drink with you,” he said, “but I’m driving. Someday soon let’s go out and do some serious drinking together. It’s been ages.”

“We’ll do it soon,” I said.

There are things people are better off not knowing, Masahiko had said. Maybe so. There are probably things people are better off not hearing, as well. But they can’t go forever without hearing them. When the time comes, even if they stop their ears up tight, the air will vibrate and invade a person’s heart. You can’t prevent it. If you don’t like it, then the only solution is to live in a vacuum.

It was the middle of the night when I woke up. I fumbled for the light next to my bed and looked at the clock. The digital readout showed 1:35. I could hear the bell ringing. That bell, no mistake. I sat up and listened to where the sound was coming from.

The bell started ringing again. Someone was ringing it in the middle of the night—and it was much louder, much clearer than ever.

²¹ IT’S SMALL, BUT SHOULD YOU CUT WITH IT, BLOOD WILL CERTAINLY COME OUT

I sat upright in bed, and in the dark of night I held my breath and listened to the sound of the bell. Where could the sound be coming from? It was louder than before, and clearer. No doubt about it. And it was coming from an entirely new direction.

The bell was ringing inside this house. I could come to no other conclusion. And from a jumble of memories came the recollection that the bell had been resting on a shelf in my studio for a few days. After we uncovered that hole I’d put the bell there myself.

The sound of the bell was coming from the studio.

Absolutely no doubt.

But what should I do? I was shaken, and scared. Something truly weird was taking place inside this house, under the same roof. It was the middle of the night, in an isolated house in the mountains, and I was all alone. I couldn’t help but be afraid. When I thought about it later, I think my confusion surpassed my fear at that point. The human brain is probably constructed that way. All the emotions and feelings you have are mobilized to blunt, or mitigate, fear and distress. Like at a fire, where every single container that can hold water is put to use.

I tried to gather my thoughts and figure out what to do. One choice was to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep. The method Masahiko advocated, to ignore the inexplicable. Switch your mind off, see nothing, hear nothing. The problem was, there was no way I could go back to sleep. Even if I put my head under the covers, stopped up my ears, and switched off my mind, there was no way I could ignore the bell when it rang out this clearly. Because it was ringing inside this very house.

As always, the bell rang intermittently a few times, then came a short silence, then the bell rang out again. The silence in between was never uniform, each time a little shorter or longer than before. There was a strange human feel to that lack of uniformity. The bell wasn’t ringing by itself. No device was being used to ring it. Someone was holding it and ringing it. It was sending out a message.

If I can’t escape it, then all I can do is get the facts. If this keeps up, then I’ll never get to sleep and my life will be totally upended. I decided to take the initiative and find out what was happening in the studio. A bit of anger was included in this—why did I have to go through this? And of course there was a dash of curiosity thrown in as well. I wanted to be certain, with my own eyes, what was going on here.

I got out of bed and threw on a cardigan over my pajamas. I grabbed a flashlight and went out to the front entrance. I grabbed the oak walking stick that Tomohiko Amada had left behind in an umbrella stand. A sturdy, heavy stick. I didn’t think it would be useful, but holding something in my hand bucked up my courage. I had to be ready for anything.

Needless to say, I was scared. I was barefoot, but could barely feel the floor. My body was stiff, as if every bone in my body creaked with each step. Someone must have snuck into the house. And that someone was ringing the bell. And it must be the same person who was ringing the bell at the bottom of the hole. Who—or what—that was, I couldn’t predict. Was it a mummy? Say I set foot in the studio and really did confront a mummy—a shriveled-up man the color of beef jerky—shaking the bell, how should I react? Smack him with Tomohiko Amada’s walking stick?

No way, I thought. I can’t do that. The mummy would have to be a Buddhist priest who’d mummified himself. We weren’t talking about a zombie.

Okay, so what should I do? I was still confused. Or rather, my confusion had grown worse. If I had no good way of dealing with the situation, did that mean I’d have to resign myself to sharing the house with a mummy? Putting up with that bell at the same time every night?

I suddenly thought of Menshiki. This problem had arisen because of him. Because he’d done things he shouldn’t have. Because he’d used heavy equipment to move the stone mound and uncover the mysterious hole, some unknown being had entered this house along with the bell. I thought of calling him. Despite the late hour I could picture him rushing over in his Jaguar. But I gave up the idea. I didn’t have time to wait for him to get ready and drive over. I had to do something right here, and right now. I had to make this my responsibility.

I steeled myself and stepped into the living room and turned on the light. Even with the light on, the bell kept on ringing. I could clearly hear it coming from beyond the door leading into the studio. I re-gripped the walking stick in my right hand, tiptoed across the large living room, and put my hand on the doorknob of the studio door. I took a deep breath, made up my mind, and turned the knob. As if waiting for me to do that, the second I pushed open the door, the bell stopped cold. A deep silence descended.

The studio was pitch black, and I couldn’t see a thing. I reached out to the left-hand wall, fumbled for the light switch, and snapped it on. The pendant light on the ceiling came on and the room was suddenly bathed in light. I stood, legs shoulder-width apart, walking stick in hand, ready to respond to anything, and quickly scanned the room. The tension made my throat so parched that I could hardly swallow.

No one was in the studio. No shriveled-up mummy ringing the bell. No one was there. There was the easel standing by itself in the middle of the room, with a canvas on it. In front of the easel was the old three-legged wooden stool. That was all. The studio was deserted. I couldn’t hear a single insect. There was no wind. The white curtain hung down at the window, the whole scene bathed in an unearthly silence. The walking stick was shaking, I was so tense. As it shook, the tip of the stick made an irregular click against the floor.

The bell was still on the shelf. I went over and studied it carefully. I didn’t pick the bell up, but I didn’t see anything different about it. It was the same as when I’d picked it up in the afternoon and returned it to the shelf, with no evidence of having been moved.

I sat on the stool in front of the easel and once more scanned the room, examining every inch of it. But I still didn’t see anyone. It was the same scene I was used to. The painting on the easel was the rough sketch I’d begun of The Man with the White Subaru Forester.

I glanced at the clock on the shelf. It was exactly 2 a.m. It was 1:35, as I recall, when the bell woke me up, so twenty-five minutes had passed. It didn’t feel like that much time had passed. It felt more like five or six minutes. My sense of time was messed up. Or else the passage of time itself was messed up. One of the two.

I gave up, got down from the stool, turned off the light in the studio, went out, and shut the door. I stood in front of the closed door for a while, my ears perked up, but couldn’t hear the bell anymore. I couldn’t hear anything, only the silence. Hearing silence—this was no play on words. On an isolated mountaintop, silence had a sound. I stood there before the door to the studio and listened to that sound.

Just then I noticed something on the sofa in the living room I hadn’t seen before. It was as big as a cushion or a doll. But I had no memory of putting it there. I looked closer and saw it was no cushion or doll. It was a small, living person, about two feet tall. That little person was wearing odd-looking white clothes. And he was squirming around, like he was uncomfortable in his outfit. I’d seen that ancient, traditional garb before. The kind a high-ranking person would have worn in ancient times in Japan. And it wasn’t just the clothes—I remembered the person’s face, too.

The Commendatore.

My body felt frozen. As if a fist-sized lump of ice were slowly crawling up my spine. The Commendatore from the painting Killing Commendatore was sitting on the sofa in my house—or, more precisely, Tomohiko Amada’s house—and looking straight at me. The little man was dressed exactly like in the painting, with the same face. As if he’d escaped directly from the painting.

I tried to recall where I’d put it. That’s right, I remembered, it was in the guest bedroom. Not wanting anyone visiting the house to see it, I’d wrapped it in brown washi paper and had hidden it there. If this man had escaped, then what had happened to the painting? Was it solely the Commendatore who had vanished from the canvas?

But was that possible? That a person in a picture could escape from it? Of course not. That’s impossible. Obviously. No matter what anybody might think…

I stood there, rooted to the spot, the thread of logic lost, random thoughts racing through my head as I gazed at the Commendatore on the sofa. Time temporarily stopped moving forward, shifting back and forth as if waiting for my confusion to subside. I couldn’t take my eyes off that bizarre character—all I could think was that he had somehow come from the spirit world. For his part, the Commendatore stared up at me, from the sofa. I had no words, and was silent. The shock must have done it. I was capable of nothing, other than to keep my eyes on him and breathe, my mouth slightly ajar.

The Commendatore didn’t take his eyes off me either, and he didn’t say a word. His lips were shut tight. On the sofa he flung his short legs out straight in front of him. He leaned back against the sofa, though his head didn’t reach to the top. On his feet were oddly shaped shoes. They seemed made out of black leather, the tips pointed and curled upward. At his waist he wore a long sword with a decorated shaft. A long sword, yet of a size to fit his build, so actually nearer in length to a short sword for a normal person. But a lethal weapon all the same. Assuming it was a real sword.

“A real sword it is,” the Commendatore said pleasantly, as if reading my mind. His voice carried, despite his small stature. “Affirmative! It’s small, but should you cut with it, blood will certainly come out.”

Even with this new information, I remained silent. No words came. My first thought was, Oh, so he can talk? My next thought was that he sure had an odd way of speaking. It was not the way ordinary people would speak. But then again, the little two-foot Commendatore was in no way ordinary. So whatever his manner of speech, it shouldn’t be surprising.

“In Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore, it is indeed me who is impaled by a sword and dies a pitiful death,” the Commendatore said. “As my friends are well aware. But have I any wounds that you can see? Negative! No wounds at all. It would be a bother for me to traipse around bleeding, and it would certainly annoy my friends as well. What with blood messing up the carpet and furniture and whatnot. So I left out the stab wound. The one who took the killing out of Killing Commendatore, that’s me. Affirmative! If you need a name for me, my friends can call me the Commendatore.”

The way the Commendatore spoke was odd, but he wasn’t a poor speaker. In fact he was actually pretty talkative. But I still couldn’t get a single word out. Reality and unreality still hadn’t come to a mutual understanding inside me.

“Perhaps you will put that stick down?” the Commendatore said. “It is not as though we are about to embark upon a duel…”

I looked at my right hand. It was still clutching Amada’s walking stick tightly. I let it go… The oak stick made a dull clunk as it struck the carpet.

“It is not like I escaped from the painting,” the Commendatore said, again reading my mind. “Negative! That painting—a fascinating one, by the way—remains intact. The Commendatore is still in the process of being stabbed to death. A huge amount of blood continues to flow from his heart. All I have done is borrow his shape for a while. I need some sort of shape in order to speak with my friends. So for the sake of convenience, I borrowed his form. Is that acceptable to my friends?”

Still not a peep from me.

“Not that anybody really cares. Mr. Amada has gone on to a hazy, peaceful world, and the Commendatore is not trademarked. If I had appeared as Mickey Mouse or Pocahontas, the Walt Disney Company would be only too happy to slap me with a huge lawsuit, but if I am the Commendatore, I think we are safe, my friends.”

The Commendatore’s shoulders shook as he laughed merrily.

“I would have been okay as a mummy, but if I’d appeared as a mummy all of a sudden in the middle of the night, I am aware that my friends might have been bothered. To see a man all shriveled up like a hunk of beef jerky, ringing a bell in the middle of the night—that would certainly give most people a heart attack.”

I nodded almost automatically. True enough—a commendatore was much preferable to a mummy. If he’d been a mummy I might really have had a heart attack. But running across Mickey Mouse or Pocahontas ringing a bell in the dark would have been pretty creepy too. A commendatore dressed in Asuka-period costume probably was a better choice.

“Are you a kind of spirit?” I ventured to ask. My voice was hard and hoarse, like a convalescent’s.

“An excellent question,” the Commendatore said. He held up a tiny white index finger. “An excellent question indeed, my friends. What am I? I am now, for the time being, the Commendatore. Nothing other than the Commendatore. But this form is but temporary. I do not know what I will be next. What am I to begin with? Or I could say, what are you, my friends? My friends have your own appearance, but what are you to begin with? If you were asked that same question, my friends might indeed be confused, I imagine. It is the same thing with me.”

“Can you assume any form you like?” I asked.

“No, it is not that simple. The forms I can take are quite limited. I can’t take any form I want. There is a limit to the wardrobe. I cannot take on a form unless there is a necessity for it. And the form I could choose now was this pint-sized commendatore. I had to be this small because of the way he was painted. But this attire is highly unpleasant to wear, I am afraid.”

He began squirming around in his white costume.

“To return to the pressing question that my friends have pondered—am I a spirit? No, it is nothing like that. I am no spirit. I am just an Idea. A spirit is basically supernaturally free, which I am not. I live under all sorts of restrictions.”

I had plenty of questions. Or rather, I should have had. But for some reason I couldn’t think of a single one. Why did he address me as “my friends”? But that was trivial, not worth asking about. Maybe in the world of an Idea there was no second-person singular.

“I have so many kinds of detailed limitations,” the Commendatore said. “For instance, I can only take on form for a limited number of hours each day. I prefer the somewhat dubious middle of the night, so mostly shape-shift between one thirty and two thirty a.m. It’s too tiring to do it during the day. When I don’t have form I take it easy, as a formless Idea, here and there. Like the horned owl in the attic. Also, I cannot go where I am not invited. Whereas when my friends opened the pit and took out the bell for me, I was able to enter this house.”

“So you were stuck at the bottom of the pit all this time?” I asked. My voice had improved, but was still a bit hoarse.

“I could not say. I do not have memory, in the exact sense of the term. Though my being stuck in the pit is a fact. I was in the pit and could not escape. But it did not feel inconvenient to me, being shut up in there. I could be stuck in a cramped dark hole for tens of thousands of years and not feel any distress. I am grateful to my friends for getting me out of there. Being free is much more interesting than not being free, needless to say. I am also grateful to that Mr. Menshiki. Without his efforts, the hole never would have been opened up.”

I nodded. “That’s exactly right.”

“I think I must have sensed it. The possibility that the pit would be exhumed, I mean. And must have thought this: The time has come.”

“So it was you who began to ring the bell in the middle of the night?”

“Precisely. And the pit was opened. And Mr. Menshiki very kindly invited me to his dinner party.”

I nodded again. It was true that Menshiki had invited the Commendatore—though he’d used the word “mummy”—to dinner on Tuesday. Following the example of Don Giovanni’s dinner invitation to the bronze statue of Il Commendatore. To him it was probably a bit of a joke. But this was no longer a joke.

“I never take any food,” the Commendatore said. “And I do not drink, either. No digestive organs, you see. ’Tis boring if you think about it, since he has gone to the trouble of preparing such a feast. But still I went ahead and accepted. It is not often that an Idea is invited by someone for dinner.”

These were the Commendatore’s last words that night. He suddenly grew silent and quietly shut both eyes, as if slipping into a meditative state. With his eyes closed, the Commendatore’s features took on a contemplative look. His body, too, was completely still. His whole form began to fade, the outline becoming indistinct. And a few seconds later he totally vanished. Reflexively I glanced at the clock. Two fifteen a.m. Most likely his materialization had reached its time limit.

I went over to the sofa and touched the spot where the Commendatore had sat. My hand felt nothing. No warmth, no depression. No evidence at all that anyone had sat there. Ideas most likely had no body heat or weight. That figure was a mere image and nothing more. I sat down next to where he’d been, took a deep breath, and rubbed my face hard.

It felt like it had taken place in a dream. I must have been having a long, very vivid dream. Or maybe this world now was an extension of the dream, one I was shut up inside. But I knew this was no dream. This might not be real, but it wasn’t a dream either. Menshiki and I had released the Commendatore—or an Idea taking the appearance of the Commendatore—from the bottom of that strange pit. And that Commendatore—like the horned owl in the attic—had come to inhabit this house. I had no clue what that meant. Or what it would lead to.

I stood up, retrieved Tomohiko Amada’s walking stick I’d dropped on the floor, turned off the light in the living room, and returned to my bedroom. It was quiet all around, not a single sound. I took off my cardigan, slipped back into my bed in my pajamas, and lay there thinking about what I should do now. The Commendatore planned to go to Menshiki’s house on Tuesday, since Menshiki had invited him to dinner. And what would happen there? The more I thought about it, the more wobbly my brain became, my mind like a dining table with uneven legs.

But before long I grew overpoweringly sleepy. Like every function of my brain was mobilizing to put me to sleep, to pluck me by force from an incoherent, confused reality. And I couldn’t resist. Before long I fell asleep. Just before I fell asleep, I thought of the horned owl. How was he doing?

My friends must go to sleep now. It felt like the Commendatore murmured this into my ear.

But that must have been part of a dream.

²² THE INVITATION IS STILL OPEN

The next day was Monday. When I woke up the digital clock showed 6:35. I sat up in bed, and reviewed the middle-of-the-night happenings in the studio. The bell ringing, the miniature Commendatore, the strange conversation with him. I wanted to believe it was all a dream. I’d had a very long, real dream—that’s all it was. In the light of morning, that’s the only way I could see it. I clearly remembered everything that had taken place, and the more I reviewed each and every detail, the more it felt like something that had happened light-years away from reality.

But no matter how hard I tried to see it all as a dream, I knew that it wasn’t. This might not have been real, but it wasn’t a dream. I didn’t know what it was, but at any rate it wasn’t a dream. It was something altogether different.

I got out of bed, removed the washi paper wrapping from Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore, and carried the painting into the studio. I hung it on the wall, then sat on the stool and studied the painting. Like the Commendatore had said the previous night, nothing about the painting had changed. The Commendatore hadn’t escaped from the painting into this world. Like always, the Commendatore was still there, stabbed in the chest, blood pouring out of his heart as he died. He looked up in the air, his mouth open in a grimace, groaning in agony. His hairstyle, the clothes he wore, the long sword he held, even the strange black shoes, were exactly those of the Commendatore who’d appeared here last night. No, to put it in the correct order—chronologically speaking—naturally last night’s Commendatore had minutely copied the appearance of the Commendatore in the painting.

It was astounding that the fictional figure that Tomohiko Amada had painted with a Japanese paintbrush and pigment had taken on real form and appeared in reality (or something like reality), moving around under its own willpower in three-dimensional form. But as I stared at the painting, this phenomenon began to seem less and less impossible. That’s how vivid and alive Tomohiko Amada’s rendering was. The longer I looked at the painting, the less clear was the threshold between reality and unreality, flat and solid, substance and image. Like Van Gogh’s mailman, who, the longer you looked, seemed to take on a life of his own. Same with the crows that he painted—nothing but rough black lines, but they really did seem to be soaring through the sky. As I gazed at Killing Commendatore I was struck once again with admiration for Amada’s gift and craftsmanship as an artist. No doubt that the Commendatore (or Idea, I should say) was equally struck by how amazing and powerful the painting was, and that was why he had “borrowed” the appearance of the Commendatore. Like a hermit crab chooses the prettiest and most sturdy shell to live in.

I studied Killing Commendatore for some ten minutes, then went into the kitchen, brewed coffee, and, while listening to the regular news broadcast on the radio, had a simple breakfast. The news was meaningless. Or what I should say is that almost none of the news those days held any meaning for me. Still, listening to the seven a.m. news each day had become part of my routine. It might be a problem if the world was on the brink of destruction and I was the only person unaware of it.

I finished breakfast, and after confirming that that earth, despite all its various troubles, was still spinning away, I headed back to the studio, mug in hand. I drew back the curtain to let in some fresh air, then stood before the canvas and went back to work on my painting. Whether the Commendatore’s appearance was real or not, whether he showed up at Menshiki’s dinner or not, all I could do in the meantime was focus on the work at hand.

I called to mind the figure of the middle-aged man with the white Subaru Forester. On his table in the restaurant had been a car key with the Subaru logo, a heap of toast, scrambled eggs, and sausage on a plate. Ketchup (red) and mustard (yellow) containers sat alongside. Knife and fork were lined up on the table. He’d yet to start eating. Morning light shone on the whole tableau. As I passed him, the man raised his suntanned face and stared at me.

I know exactly where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, he was informing me. I recognized that heavy, dispassionate light abiding in his eyes. A light I may have seen somewhere else, though when or where I couldn’t say.

I was completing that figure and that wordless message in the form of a painting. I started out using a crust of bread as an eraser to get rid of any excess lines from the charcoal framework I’d sketched the day before. After removing all that I could, I again added some lines in black to the black lines that remained. This process took an hour and a half. What emerged on the canvas was (so to speak) a mummified image of the man who drove the white Subaru Forester. The flesh pruned away, the skin dried up like beef jerky, a figure shrunken one whole size. This was depicted through the rough black charcoal lines alone. Just a preliminary sketch, but I could imagine how it linked up with the full painting to come.

“Nicely done,” the Commendatore said.

I spun around. The Commendatore was seated on the shelf near the window, facing me, his silhouette distinctly backlit in the morning light. He had on the same ancient white clothes and the same long sword downsized to fit his height. This is no dream. Of course it isn’t, I told myself.

“I am no dream, I can tell you. Negative. Of course,” the Commendatore said, once again reading my thoughts. “I am closer to wakefulness than dream.”

I said nothing. From my perch on the stool I gazed at his silhouette.

“I think I said this last night, but it is pretty exhausting for me to materialize when it is bright out like this,” the Commendatore said. “But I wanted to watch my friends painting just this once. So I took the liberty of observing while you worked. I hope this does not offend you?”

I had no answer to this either. Whether it offended me or not, how was a real person supposed to reason with an Idea?

Not waiting for my response (or maybe taking what was in my mind as my response), the Commendatore continued. “You are quite a talented painter. Stroke by stroke, the essence of that man is coming out on that canvas.”

“Do you know something about him?” I asked, surprised.

“Affirmative,” the Commendatore said. “Of course I do.”

“Then could you tell me something about him? What kind of person he is, what work he does, what he’s doing now?”

“I wonder,” the Commendatore said, slightly inclining his head, a hard look coming over his face. When he made that sort of expression he looked like a goblin. Or like Edward G. Robinson from an old gangster movie. Who knows, maybe the Commendatore had “borrowed” that expression from Edward G. Robinson. That wouldn’t be impossible.

“There are things in the world my friends are better off not knowing,” the Commendatore said, the Edward G. Robinson look plastered on his face.

The same thing Masahiko Amada had said the other day, I recalled. There are things people are better off not knowing.

“In other words, you won’t tell me the things I’m better off not knowing,” I said.

“Affirmative. Even if you hear it from me, the truth is that my friends already know it.”

I was silent.

“As my friends paint that picture, you will be subjectively giving form to what my friends already comprehend. Think of Thelonious Monk. Thelonious Monk did not get those unusual chords as a result of logic or theory. He opened his eyes wide, and scooped those chords out from the darkness of his consciousness. What is important is not creating something out of nothing. What my friends need to do is discover the right thing from what is already there.”

So he knew about Thelonious Monk.

“Affirmative! And of course I know Edward whatchamacallit, too,” the Commendatore said, grabbing hold of my thoughts.

“No matter,” the Commendatore continued. “Ah, there is one thing I must raise at this point, as a matter of courtesy. It is about your lovely girlfriend… Right, the married woman who drives a red car. Apologies, but I have been watching all you have been doing here. What you all enjoy doing in bed after you take off your clothes.”

I stared at him without a word. What we enjoy doing in bed… To borrow her words for it, what one hesitates to mention.

“But you really should not mind. My apologies, but an Idea watches everything that happens. I cannot choose what I watch. But there is nothing to worry about, at all. Sex, radio exercise routines, chimney sweeping, it is all the same to me. Nothing that interesting to see. I just watch.”

“There’s no notion of privacy in the world of an Idea?”

“Affirmative,” the Commendatore said, rather proudly. “Not a speck of that. So if my friends do not mind, then that is all we need to say. So, are you okay with it?”

I shook my head slightly again. How about it? Was it possible to focus while having sex if you knew somebody else was watching the whole time? Could you call up a healthy sexual desire if you knew you were being observed?

“I have a question for you,” I said.

“I would be happy to answer if I can,” the Commendatore said.

“Tomorrow, on Tuesday, I’m invited to dinner at Mr. Menshiki’s. And you’re invited as well. Mr. Menshiki used the expression “inviting a mummy,” which actually means you. Since at that point you hadn’t yet appeared as the Commendatore.”

“That does not matter. If I decide to be a mummy, I can do that in a flash.”

“No, stay as you are,” I said hurriedly. “I would appreciate it if you stay the way you are.”

“I will accompany you to Menshiki’s house. You will be able to see me, but Menshiki will not. So it does not matter if I am a mummy or a commendatore. Though there is one thing I would like my friends to do.”

“And what would that be?”

“My friends should call Menshiki now and make sure the invitation for Tuesday night is still open. When you do, make sure to say, ‘It will not be a mummy coming with me that day, but the Commendatore. Would that still be all right?’ As I mentioned, I cannot set foot in a place unless I have been invited. The other party needs to invite me, in some form or other say ‘Please, come on in.’ Once I have been invited, then I can go whenever I feel like it. For this house, that bell over there acted as a substitute invitation.”

“I see,” I said. The one thing I couldn’t have was him turning into a mummy. “I’ll call Mr. Menshiki, see if the invitation is still on, and tell him I’d like him to revise the guest list from mummy to Commendatore.”

“Affirmative. I would be grateful. Receiving an invitation to a dinner party is quite unexpected.”

“I have another question,” I said. “Weren’t you originally a priest who undertook certain death austerities? A priest who voluntarily was buried underground, stopped eating and drinking, and chanted the sutras until you passed away? Didn’t you die in the pit while you continued to ring the bell, and eventually turned into a mummy?”

“Hmm,” the Commendatore said, and shook his head a little. “Unclear. I can’t say, really. At a certain point I became a pure Idea. But I have no linear memory of what I was before that, where I was or what I did.”

The Commendatore was silent, staring fixedly into space.

“Anyway, I have to disappear soon,” the Commendatore said in a quiet, slightly hoarse voice. “The time during which I can materialize is nearly over. The morning is not my time. Darkness is my friend. A vacuum is my breath. I must be saying goodbye soon. So, thank you in advance for calling Mr. Menshiki.”

As if meditating, the Commendatore closed his eyes. His lips were tightly sealed, his fingers locked together, as he steadily grew fainter and then disappeared. Just like the night before. Like fleeting smoke, he silently vanished in the air. In the bright morning sunshine, all that was left was me and the painting I’d started. The outline of the man with the white Subaru Forester glaring at me.

I know exactly where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.

After noon I called Menshiki. I realized this was the first time I’d ever phoned his home. He was the one who always called me. He picked up after six rings.

“I’m glad you called,” he said. “I was just about to call you. But I didn’t want to bother you while you’re working, so was waiting until the afternoon. I remember you mainly work in the morning.”

“I just finished for the day,” I said.

“Is it going well?” Menshiki asked.

“Yes, I started a new painting. Though I’ve barely begun.”

“That’s wonderful. I’m so glad to hear it. By the way, I hung the portrait you painted on the wall of my study, not yet framed. I’m letting it dry there. Even without a frame it looks wonderful.”

“About tomorrow…,” I said.

“I’ll send a car to pick you up at six,” he said. “The same car will take you back. It’ll just be the two of us, so you don’t need to dress up, or bring a gift or anything. Please just come as you are.”

“There’s one thing I wanted to check with you.”

“Yes?”

“The other day you said you wouldn’t mind having a mummy join us for dinner, right?”

“I did say that, yes. I remember.”

“Is that invitation still open?”

Menshiki considered this for a moment and then gave a cheery laugh. “Of course it is. I meant what I said. The invitation is still open.”

“Something happened and the mummy won’t be able to come, but instead the Commendatore says he’d like to. Is it all right to invite the Commendatore?”

“Of course,” Menshiki said without hesitation. “Like Don Giovanni invited the statue to dinner, I would be pleased to have the Commendatore come to dinner in my humble abode. But unlike Don Giovanni in the opera, I haven’t done anything so bad that I deserve to be thrown into hell. At least I don’t think I have. After dinner I’m not going to be pulled into hell or anything, I hope?”

“That won’t happen,” I replied. Though honestly I wasn’t all that confident. I couldn’t predict anymore what was going to happen next.

“Good. I’m not ready for hell quite yet,” Menshiki said cheerily. As you might expect, he was taking it all as a clever joke. “One question, though. As a dead person, Don Giovanni’s Commendatore wasn’t able to eat earthly food, but what about this Commendatore? Should I prepare food for him? Or does he not take any worldly food?”

“There’s no need to prepare food for him. He doesn’t eat or drink. But it wouldn’t be a problem if you set a place for him.”

“Because he’s basically a spiritual being?”

“I believe so.” An Idea and a spirit were a little different, I thought, but I didn’t want to get into it.

“I’m fine with that,” Menshiki said. “I’ll make sure the Commendatore has his own seat at the table. It’s an unexpected pleasure to be able to invite the famous Commendatore to dinner in my humble home. It’s too bad, though, that he won’t be able to sample the food. We’ll have some delicious wine as well.”

I thanked Menshiki.

“Until tomorrow, then,” Menshiki said, and hung up.

That night, the bell didn’t ring. The Commendatore must have been tired out from materializing during the day (and answering my questions). Or maybe he no longer felt the need to summon me to the studio. At any rate, I slept a deep, dreamless sleep until morning.

The next morning as I painted in the studio the Commendatore didn’t make an appearance. So for two hours, I was able to forget everything and focus on painting. The first thing I did that day was paint over the outline, like spreading a thick slab of butter on toast.

I started with a deep red, an edgy, offbeat green, and a grayish black. These were the colors the man wanted. It took a while to mix the right colors. As I went through this process I put on the record of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. With that music playing, it felt like the Commendatore would appear behind me at any minute, though he didn’t.

That day, Tuesday, the Commendatore, like the horned owl up in the attic, maintained a deep silence. But that didn’t bother me particularly. As a flesh-and-blood person, I couldn’t worry about an Idea. Ideas had their own way of doing things. And I had my own life. I focused on completing The Man with the White Subaru Forester. Whether I was in the studio or out, standing before the canvas or not, the image of the painting was never far from my mind.

According to the radio weather report, there was supposed to be heavy rain that night in the Kanto-Tokai region. And off to the west the weather was indeed taking a turn for the worse. In southern Kyushu torrential rains had made rivers overflow, and people living in low-lying areas had had to evacuate. People in higher areas were warned to watch out for landslides.

A dinner party on a night when it’s going to be pouring, I thought.

I thought of that dark hole in the middle of the woods. That weird stone-lined little chamber that Menshiki and I had exposed to the light of day when we moved the heavy rocks of the mound. I pictured myself sitting alone at the bottom of that pitch-dark hole listening to rain pounding on the wooden cover. I’m shut up inside that hole, unable to escape. The ladder’s been taken away, the heavy cover shut tight right above me. And everyone in the world has completely forgotten I’ve been left behind. Or perhaps they think I’m long dead. But I am still alive. Lonely, but still breathing. All I can hear is the downpour. There’s no light. Not a single ray reaches me. The stone wall I’m leaning against is damply cold. It’s the middle of the night. All sorts of bugs might ooze their way out.

As this scene took shape in my mind, I gradually found it hard to breathe. I went out to the terrace, leaned against the railing, slowly breathed in the fresh air through my nose, and slowly exhaled through my mouth. As always, I counted the number of breaths and repeated this process at regular intervals. After repeating this for a while, I was able to breathe normally again. The twilight sky was covered in heavy, leaden clouds. The rain was getting closer.

Menshiki’s white mansion appeared faintly across the valley. This evening that’s where I’ll be having dinner, I thought. Menshiki, me, and the famous Commendatore—three of us seated around the dining table.

Affirmative. That is real blood I’m talking about, you know, the Commendatore whispered in my ear.

²³ THEY ALL REALLY EXIST

When I was thirteen and my little sister was ten, the two of us traveled by ourselves to Yamanashi Prefecture during summer vacation. Our mother’s brother worked in a research lab at a university in Yamanashi and we went to stay with him. This was the first trip we kids had taken by ourselves. My sister was feeling relatively good then, so our parents gave us permission to travel alone.

Our uncle was single (and still is single, even now), and had just turned thirty, I think, at that time. He was doing gene research (and still is), was very quiet and kind of unworldly, though a very open, straightforward person. He loved reading and knew everything about nature. He enjoyed taking walks in the mountains more than anything, which, he said, was why he had taken a university job in rural, mountainous Yamanashi. My sister and I liked our uncle a lot.

Backpacks in tow, we boarded an express train at Shinjuku Station bound for Matsumoto, and got off at Kofu. Our uncle came to pick us up at Kofu Station. He was spectacularly tall, and even in the crowded station, we spotted him right away. He was renting a small house in Kofu along with a friend of his, but his roommate was abroad so we were given our own room to sleep in. We stayed in that house for one week. And almost every day we took walks with our uncle in the nearby mountains. He taught us the names of all kinds of flowers and insects. We cherished our memories of that summer.

One day we hiked a bit farther than usual and visited a wind cave near Mt. Fuji. Among the numerous wind caves around Mt. Fuji there was one in particular that was fairly large. Our uncle told us about how these holes were formed. The caves were made of basalt, so inside you heard hardly any echoes at all, he said. Even in the summer the temperature remained low inside, so in the past people would store ice they’d cut in winter inside the caves. He explained the distinction between the two types of holes: fuketsu, the larger ones that were big enough for people to go into, and kaza-ana, the smaller ones that people couldn’t enter. Both terms were alternate readings of the same Chinese characters meaning “wind” and “hole.” Our uncle seemed to know everything.

At the large wind hole, you paid an entrance fee and went inside. Our uncle didn’t go with us. He’d been there numerous times, plus he was so tall and the ceiling of the cave so low, he’d end up with a backache. It’s not dangerous, he said, so you two go on ahead. I’ll stay by the entrance and read a book. At the entrance the person in charge handed us each a flashlight and put yellow plastic helmets on us. There were lights on the ceiling of the cave, but it was still pretty dark inside. The deeper we went inside the cave, the lower the ceiling got. No wonder our lanky uncle had bowed out.

My kid sister and I shone the flashlights at our feet as we went. It was midsummer outside but inside the cave it was chilly. It was ninety degrees Fahrenheit outside, but inside it was under fifty. Following our uncle’s advice, we were both wearing thick windbreakers we’d brought along. My sister held my hand tightly, either wanting me to protect her, or else hoping to protect me, one or the other (or maybe she just didn’t want to get separated). The whole time we were inside the cave that small, warm hand was in mine. The only other visitors were a middle-aged couple. But they soon left, and it was just the two of us.

My little sister’s name was Komichi, but everyone in the family called her Komi. Her friends called her Micchi or Micchan. As far as I know, no one called her by her full name, Komichi. She was a small, slim girl. She had straight black hair, neatly cut just above her shoulders. Her eyes were big for the size of her face (with large pupils), which made her resemble a fairy. That day she wore a white T-shirt, faded jeans, and pink sneakers.

After we’d made our way deeper into the cave my sister discovered a small side cave a little ways off from the prescribed path. Its mouth was hidden in the shadows of the rocks. She was very interested in that little cave. “Don’t you think it looks like Alice’s rabbit hole?” she asked me.

My sister was a big fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. I don’t know how many times she had me read the book to her. Must have been at least a hundred. She had been able to read since she was little, but she liked me to read that book aloud to her. She’d memorized the story, but each time I read it, she still got excited. Her favorite part was the Lobster Quadrille. Even now I remember that part, word for word.

“No rabbit, though,” I said.

“I’m going to peek inside,” she said.

“Be careful,” I said.

It really was a narrow hole (close to a kaza-ana, in my uncle’s definition), but my little sister was able to slip through it with no trouble. Her upper half was inside, just the bottom half of her legs sticking out. She seemed to be shining her flashlight inside the hole. Then she slowly edged out backward.

“It gets really deep in back,” she reported. “The floor drops off sharply. Just like Alice’s rabbit hole. I’m going to check out the far end.”

“No, don’t do it. It’s too dangerous,” I said.

“It’s okay. I’m small and I can get out okay.”

She took off her windbreaker, so that she was wearing just her T-shirt, and handed the jacket to me along with her helmet. Before I could get in a word of protest, she’d wriggled into the cave, flashlight in hand. In an instant she’d vanished.

A long time passed, but she still didn’t come out. I couldn’t hear a sound.

“Komi,” I called into the hole. “Komi! Are you okay?”

There was no answer. Without any echo my voice was sucked right up into the darkness. I was starting to get concerned. She might be stuck inside the hole, unable to more forward or back. Or maybe she had had a convulsion inside the hole and lost consciousness. If that had happened I wouldn’t be able to help her. All kinds of terrible scenarios ran through my head, and I felt choked by the darkness surrounding me.

If my little sister really did disappear in the hole, never to return to this world again, how would I ever explain that to my parents? Should I run and tell my uncle, waiting outside the entrance? Or should I sit tight and wait for her to emerge? I crouched down and peered into that hole. But the beam from my flashlight didn’t reach far. It was a tiny hole, and the darkness inside was overwhelming.

“Komi,” I called out again. No response. “Komi,” I called more loudly. Still no answer. A wave of cold chilled me to the core. I might lose my sister forever. She might have been sucked into Alice’s hole and vanished. Into the world of the Mock Turtle, the Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts. A place where worldly logic didn’t apply. No matter what, we never should have come here.

But finally my sister did return. She didn’t back out like before, but crawled out headfirst. First her black hair appeared from the hole, then her shoulders and arms. She wriggled out her waist, and finally her pink sneakers emerged. She stood in front of me, without a word, stretched, slowly took a deep breath, and brushed the dirt off her jeans.

My heart was still pounding. I reached out and straightened her disheveled hair. I couldn’t quite make it out in the weak light inside the cave, but there seemed to be dirt and dust and other debris clinging to her white T-shirt. I put the windbreaker on her. And handed back her yellow helmet.

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” I said, hugging her to me.

“Were you worried?”

“A lot.”

She grabbed my hand tightly again. And in an excited voice she said, “I managed to squeeze through the narrow part, and then deeper in it suddenly got lower, and down from there it was like a small room. A round room, like a ball. The ceiling’s round, the walls are round, and the floor too. And it was so, so silent there, like you could search the whole world and never find any place that silent. Like I was at the bottom of an ocean, in a hollow going even deeper. I turned off the flashlight and it was pitch dark, but I didn’t feel scared or lonely. That room was a special place that only I’m allowed into. A room just for me. No one else can get there. You can’t go in either.”

“ ’Cause I’m too big.”

My little sister bobbed her head. “Right. You’ve gotten too big to get in. And what’s really amazing about that place is that it’s darker than anything could ever be. So dark that when you turn off the flashlight it feels like you can grab the darkness with your hands. And when you’re there in the dark by yourself, it’s like your body is gradually coming apart and disappearing. But since it’s dark you can’t see it happen. You don’t know if you still have a body or not. But even if, say, my body completely disappeared, I’d still remain there. Like the Cheshire Cat’s grin remaining after he vanished. Pretty weird, huh? But when I was there I didn’t think it was weird at all. I wanted to stay there forever, but I thought you’d be worried, so I came out.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. She was so worked up it seemed as if she was going to go on talking forever, and I had to put a stop to that. “I can’t breathe well in here.”

“Are you okay?” my sister asked, worried.

“I’m okay. I just want to go outside.”

Holding hands, we headed for the exit.

“Do you know?” my sister said in a small voice as we walked so no one else would hear (though there wasn’t anyone else around). “Alice really existed. It wasn’t made up, it was real. The March Hare, the Walrus, the Cheshire Cat, the Playing Card soldiers—they all really exist.”

“Maybe so,” I said.

We emerged from the wind hole, back to the bright real world. There was a thin layer of clouds in the sky that afternoon, but I remember how strong the sunlight seemed. The screech of the cicadas was overpowering, like a violent squall drowning everything out. My uncle was seated on a bench near the entrance, absorbed in a book. When he saw us, he grinned and stood up.

Two years later, my sister died. And was put in a tiny coffin and cremated. I was fifteen, and she was twelve. While she was being cremated I went off, apart from the rest of the family, sat on a bench in the courtyard of the crematorium, and remembered what had happened in that wind hole. The weight of time as I waited by that small cave for my little sister to come out, the thickness of the darkness enveloping me, the chill I felt to my core. Her black hair emerging from the hole, then her shoulders. All the random dirt and dust stuck to her white T-shirt.

At that time a thought struck me: that maybe even before the doctor at the hospital officially pronounced her dead two years later, her life had already been snatched from her while she was deep inside that cave. I was actually convinced of it. She’d already been lost within that hole, and left this world, but I, mistakenly thinking she was still alive, had put her on the train with me and taken her back to Tokyo. Holding her hand tightly. And we’d lived as brother and sister for two more years. But that was nothing more than a fleeting grace period. Two years later, death had crawled out of that cave to grab hold of my sister’s soul. As if time was up, it was necessary to pay for what had been lent, and the owner had come to take back what was his.

At any rate now, at thirty-six, I realized again that what my little sister had confided to me in a quiet voice in that wind hole was indeed true. Alice really does exist in the world. The March Hare, the Walrus, the Cheshire Cat—they all really exist. And the Commendatore too, of course.

The weather report was off the mark and we didn’t have a rainstorm. Just after five a very light rain began—so fine that you could hardly tell if it was falling or not—and continued till the next morning. Right at six p.m. a large, shiny black sedan slowly made its way up the slope. It reminded me of a hearse, but of course it wasn’t one, but the limousine Menshiki had sent for me. A Nissan Infiniti. The driver, in black uniform and hat, alighted from the car and, umbrella in one hand, came over to the front door and rang the bell. I opened the door and he took off his hat and made sure of my name. I left the house and got into the car. I declined the umbrella. It wasn’t raining hard enough for one. The driver opened the rear door for me. Once I was inside, he closed it with a solid thunk (a little different from the sound of Menshiki’s Jaguar). I wore a black, light, round-necked sweater, gray herringbone jacket, dark-gray wool trousers, and black suede shoes. The most formal outfit I owned. At least it didn’t have paint stains.

Even after the limo came, the Commendatore still hadn’t appeared. And I hadn’t heard his voice. So I had no way of making sure he’d remembered the invitation from Menshiki. But he must have. He’d been looking forward to it so much there was no way he’d forgotten.

But I worried for nothing. Soon after the car had set off, I suddenly found the Commendatore, with a nonchalant look on his face, seated beside me. He was dressed in his usual white outfit (looking like it had just come from the cleaners, without a single stain), with the jewel-encrusted long sword at his waist. He was, as always, about two feet high. The whiteness and purity of his clothes stood out even more against the black leather seats of the Infiniti. He stared straight ahead, his arms folded.

“Do not say anything to me,” the Commendatore said, as if reminding me. “My friends can see me, but others cannot. My friends can hear me, but others cannot. If you talk to something that cannot be seen, people will think you are very strange. Affirmative? Nod, please, if you understand.”

I nodded slightly one time. The Commendatore bobbed his head in response, and afterward sat there silently, his arms folded.

It was dark out. The crows had already withdrawn to their mountain roosts. The Infiniti slowly descended the slope, drove down the road in the valley, and came to a steep slope. It wasn’t that long a distance (we were just going to the other side of a narrow valley, after all), but the road was narrow, with plenty of curves. The type of road a driver of a large sedan would not be happy to navigate. The type of road more suited to a four-wheel-drive military vehicle. But the driver’s expression didn’t change a bit as he calmly handled the car, and we arrived safely at Menshiki’s mansion.

The mansion was surrounded by a high white wall, with a solid gate in front. Large wooden double doors painted a dark brown. Like the castle gate in an Akira Kurosawa film set in the Middle Ages. The kind that would look good with a couple of arrows embedded in it. The inside was completely hidden from view. Next to the gate was a plate with the house number, but no nameplate. Probably no need to have one. If someone was going to go to the trouble of coming all the way up to the top of this mountain, they would automatically know this was Menshiki’s mansion. The area around the gate was brightly lit by mercury lamps. The driver got out, rang the bell, and spoke for a moment with someone on the intercom. Then he got back in his seat and waited for the gate to open remotely. There were two movable security cameras, one on each side of the gate.

The double doors slowly opened inward, and the driver entered, proceeding leisurely down the curving road on the grounds. The road was a gentle downward slope. I heard the doors close behind us—a heavy sound, as if informing us that there was no return to the world from which we had come. Pine trees lined both sides of the road, all neatly trimmed. The branches were beautifully arranged, like bonsai, and careful measures were obviously taken to keep them from getting any disease. Along the road was also a trim hedge of azaleas. Beyond this there were Japanese roses, and a clump of camellias. The house might be new, but the trees and plants all seemed to have been there since long ago. All of these were beautifully illuminated by garden lanterns.

The road ended in a circular asphalt-covered driveway. As soon as the driver parked, he leaped out the driver’s side and opened the back door for me. I looked beside me but didn’t see the Commendatore. But I wasn’t particularly surprised, and didn’t mind. He had his own patterns of behavior.

The taillights of the Infiniti politely and gracefully disappeared into the twilight darkness, leaving me standing there alone. Seen from the front like this, the house looked much cozier and less imposing than I’d expected. When I’d looked at it from across the valley it seemed like an overbearing, gaudy structure. Perhaps the impression changed depending on the angle. The front gate was at the highest point of the mountain, and then, descending the slope, the house was built as if to deliberately make use of the angle of inclination of the land.

On either side of the front door were two old stone statues, a pair of the komainu guardian dog figures found in Shinto shrines. On pedestals as well. They might actually have been real komainu brought over from somewhere. There were plantings of azaleas at the entrance, too. In May the place must be pretty colorful.

As I slowly walked toward the front door, it opened from inside and Menshiki appeared. He had on a dark-green cardigan over a white button-down shirt, and cream-colored chinos. His pure white hair was, as always, neatly combed and arranged naturally. It felt strange to see Menshiki welcoming me to his own house. I’d always seen Menshiki when he roared up to my house in his Jaguar.

He invited me in and closed the front door. The entrance foyer was spacious and nearly square, with a high ceiling. A squash court could fit inside. The indirect lighting on the wall pleasantly lit the room, and on top of a large octagonal parquet table in the middle of the foyer was a large flower vase, Ming dynasty by the look of it, overflowing with a fresh flower arrangement. A mix of three different types of large flowers (I don’t know much about plants so don’t know the names). Probably he’d had them specially arranged just for this evening. A frugal college student could manage to live for a month on what Menshiki probably paid the florist. At least I could have, back when I was a student. There were no windows in the foyer, just a skylight in the ceiling. The floor was well-polished marble.

The living room was down three wide steps, and though not quite big enough for a soccer field was definitely large enough for a tennis court. The southeast side was all tinted glass, with a large deck outside. It was dark, so I couldn’t tell if you could see the ocean from here, but I imagine you could. On the opposite wall was an open fireplace. It wasn’t the cold season yet so there was no fire lit, but firewood was neatly stacked up beside it, so a fire could be started at any time. I don’t know who had stacked it up, but it was placed so beautifully it looked like a work of art in itself. There was a mantelpiece above the fireplace, with a row of old Meissen figurines.

The living room floor was also marble, but covered with a variety of rugs. Antique Persian rugs, with such exquisite patterns and colors they looked less like practical objects than artistic handicrafts. I hesitated to step on them. There were several low tables and a scattering of flower vases, all full of fresh flowers. Each vase looked like a valuable antique. It was all in nice taste, and expensive. Here’s hoping we don’t have a big earthquake, was my thought.

The ceiling was high, the lighting subdued. Refined indirect lighting on the walls, a few floor lamps, and reading lamps on the tables. At the back of the room was a black grand piano. I’d never seen a Steinway concert grand piano in a room like this, one that made it seem smaller than it was. On top of the piano was a metronome and sheet music. Perhaps Menshiki played. Or maybe he invited Maurizio Pollini over for dinner every once in a while.

Overall, though, the room was modestly decorated, and I felt relieved. There was nothing excessive, but it didn’t have an empty feeling. A comfortable room, despite the size. There was a certain sense of warmth about it, you might say. Half a dozen tasteful paintings graced the walls, all modestly displayed. One of them looked like a real Léger, but I could have been mistaken.

Menshiki motioned me to a large brown leather sofa. He sat on a matching easy chair across from me. The sofa was extremely comfortable, neither too hard nor too soft. The kind of sofa that naturally adjusted to whoever sat on it. Of course if you think about it (not that it was something one had to think about), Menshiki wasn’t about to put an uncomfortable sofa in his living room.

As if he’d been waiting for us to get settled, as soon as we did, a man glided in from somewhere. A stunningly handsome young man. He wasn’t so tall, but was slim and had a refined bearing about him. His skin was evenly tanned, with lustrous hair done up in a ponytail. He would look good at the beach, in surfing shorts, carrying a shortboard, though today he was dressed in a clean white shirt and black bow tie. A pleasant smile played about his lips.

“Would you care for a cocktail?” he asked me. ““Please order whatever you’d like.”

“I’ll have a Balalaika,” I said, after considering it for a few seconds. Not that I really wanted a Balalaika, but I wanted to test the young bartender to see if he really could make any kind of drink.

“I’ll have the same,” Menshiki said.

The young man smiled pleasantly and soundlessly withdrew.

I glanced at the spot next to me on the sofa but didn’t see the Commendatore. But he had to be here somewhere in the house. He’d ridden with me in the car up to the house, and had come along with me.

“Is something the matter?” Menshiki asked me. He’d followed my glance.

“No, just admiring your gorgeous house.”

“It’s a little too much, don’t you think?” Menshiki said, a smile rising to his face.

“No, it’s much more serene than I imagined,” I answered honestly. “From a distance it does look a bit luxurious. Like a luxury cruise ship on the ocean. But inside it’s surprisingly relaxed. My impression’s completely changed.”

Menshiki listened and nodded. “I’m happy to hear that, but it took quite a lot of work to get it to that point. I bought the house already built, and when I purchased it, it was pretty gaudy. Flashy, you might say. A man who ran a big-box store built it. The extremes of bad taste of the nouveau riche, you could say, and not my style at all. So I did a huge renovation after I bought it. Which took a lot of time, effort, and money.”

As if remembering all that work, Menshiki looked down and sighed. It really must not have suited his taste at all.

“Wouldn’t it have been a lot cheaper to build your own house?” I asked.

Menshiki smiled, his white teeth peeking from between his lips. “You’re absolutely right. That would have been the sensible thing to do. But I had my own reasons. Reasons why it had to be this house and no other.”

I waited for the story to go on, but it didn’t.

“Wasn’t the Commendatore supposed to be with you tonight?” Menshiki asked.

“I think he’ll be along later,” I said. “We were together on the trip up to your house and then he suddenly vanished. I think he must be taking a tour of your house. You don’t mind, do you?”

Menshiki spread his hands wide. “Of course. Of course I don’t mind. He’s welcome to look around as much as he likes.”

The young man from before appeared, carrying two cocktails on a silver tray. The cocktail glasses were exquisitely cut crystal. Baccarat, would be my guess. They glittered in the light from the floor lamp. Next to them was a Koimari ceramic plate with slices of various cheeses and cashews. There were small monogrammed linen napkins and a set of silver knives and forks. Everything well thought out.

Menshiki and I picked up our cocktail glasses and made a toast. He toasted the completion of his portrait, and I thanked him. We lightly put our lips to the rim of the glasses. A Balalaika is made of one part each of vodka, Cointreau, and lemon juice. A simple concoction, but unless it’s as bitingly freezing as the North Pole, it doesn’t taste good. If somebody who doesn’t have the right touch mixes it, it ends up tasting diluted, watery. This Balalaika was amazingly delicious, with an almost perfect bite to it.

“This is delicious,” I said, impressed.

“He’s quite good,” Menshiki said lightly.

Of course he is, I thought. Menshiki wasn’t about to hire a bad bartender. And of course he had Cointreau on hand, antique crystal glasses, and a Koimari serving plate.

As we sipped our cocktails and munched on some nuts, we talked about various topics. Mainly about my painting. He asked what I was working on now and I explained. I told him I was working on a portrait of a man whose name and background I knew nothing about, someone I had encountered in a distant town.

“A portrait?” Menshiki asked, sounding surprised.

“A portrait, but not a typical commercial portrait. More of an abstract-style portrait, one in which I let my imagination run free. But the motif is definitely a portrait. You might say it’s the foundation of the painting.”

“Like when you painted my portrait?”

“Exactly. Though this time I wasn’t commissioned. It’s something I decided to paint on my own.”

Menshiki considered this. “Maybe my portrait inspired you to be more creative?”

“No doubt. Though I’m only at the point where my creativity is finally starting to kick in.”

Menshiki took another soundless sip of his cocktail, with what I took to be a satisfied gleam deep in his eyes.

“Nothing could make me happier,” he said. “The fact that I may have been of help to you, that is. If you don’t mind, could I see that new painting when it’s finished?”

“I’d be happy to show it to you, provided I’m happy with the result.”

I looked over at the grand piano in a corner of the room. “Do you play piano, Mr. Menshiki? That’s a beautiful instrument.”

Menshiki nodded slightly. “I’m not good, but I do play a little. I took piano lessons as a child. Five or six years from the time I entered elementary school until I graduated. Then I got busy with schoolwork and quit taking lessons. I wish I hadn’t, but the piano lessons had worn me out. So my fingers don’t move the way I’d like them to, but I’m good at reading sheet music. I play some simple pieces every once in a while just for my own amusement, for a change of pace. I’m not good enough to play for other people, and I never touch the keys when other people are here.”

I went ahead and asked a question I’d been wanting to ask for a long time. “Doesn’t it feel a little too spacious for you, living in such a big house all by yourself?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Menshiki replied immediately. “Not at all. I’ve always preferred being by myself. Consider the cerebral cortex for a moment. Humans are provided with a wonderfully precise and efficient cerebral cortex. But normally we use, at most, less than ten percent of it. We’ve been divinely provided with this amazing, highly efficient organ, but sadly we haven’t the ability to use it completely. You could compare it to a four-person family living in a magnificent, grand mansion but using only one small room. All the other rooms are unused and neglected. When you think that way, it’s not so unnatural that I live in this house by myself.”

“When you put it that way, I suppose it makes sense,” I said. It was an interesting analogy.

Menshiki rolled a few cashews around in his hand for a moment and then spoke. “That highly efficient cerebral cortex might seem wasted at first, but without it we wouldn’t be able to think abstract thoughts, or enter the realm of the metaphysical. Even though we use but a small part of it, the cerebral cortex has that capacity. If we could use all the rest of it, what would we be capable of, I wonder. Isn’t it fascinating to consider?”

“But in exchange for that efficient brain—the price we paid for that magnificent mansion, in other words—mankind had to neglect all kinds of basic abilities. Right?”

“Exactly,” Menshiki said. “Even without abstract thought or metaphysical theorizing, just standing on two legs and using clubs gave mankind more than enough skill to win the race for survival on earth. These other abilities aren’t that necessary. And in exchange for our hyper-capable cerebral cortexes, of necessity we have to give up lots of other physical abilities. For example, dogs have a sense of smell several thousand times better than humans, and a sense of hearing tens of times better. But we’re able to amass complex hypotheses. We’re able to compare and contrast the cosmos and the microcosmos, and appreciate Van Gogh and Mozart. We can read Proust—if you want to, that is—and collect Koimari porcelain and Persian rugs. Not something a dog can do.”

“Marcel Proust used a sense of smell inferior to that of a dog’s to write his lengthy novel.”

Menshiki laughed. “That he did. I’m just speaking in generalities.”

“The question then is whether or not an idea can be treated as an autonomous entity or not, right?”

“Exactly.”

Exactly, the Commendatore whispered into my ear. But following his earlier warning, I didn’t look around me.

After this, Menshiki led me into his study. There were broad stairs that led out of the living room, and we took them to the floor below. Somehow these stairs seemed more than stairs, and part of the habitable space in the house. We went down the hallway past several bedrooms (I didn’t count how many, but maybe one of them was the locked “Bluebeard’s secret room” my girlfriend spoke of), and at the end was the study. It wasn’t an especially big room, but of course, it wasn’t cramped either. Built to be just the right amount of space. There were few windows in the study, just long, narrow windows like skylights near the ceiling on one wall. All that was visible from the windows were pine branches and the sky visible through the branches. (The room didn’t seem to particularly require sunlight or a view.) Without many windows, the walls were that much bigger. One wall was floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases, one section of which was for a shelf for CDs. The bookshelves were packed with books of all sizes. There was a wooden stepladder to reach the books on the upper shelves. All the books seemed to have been used at one time or another. It was clear that this was a practical collection used by a devoted reader, not decorative bookshelves.

A large office desk faced away from one wall, with two computers on top, a desktop model and a laptop. There were a couple of cups holding pens and pencils, and a neat pile of paperwork. On another wall was a beautiful, expensive-looking stereo set, and on the opposite wall, facing directly across from the desk, sat a pair of tall, narrow speakers. They were about my height (five feet eight), the cases made of high-quality mahogany. An Art Deco armchair for reading and listening to music was in the middle of the room, and next to it a stainless-steel standing lamp for reading. I imagined that Menshiki spent a large part of his days alone in this room.

My portrait of Menshiki was hanging on the wall, at about eye level, exactly between the two speakers. Bare, not yet framed. It looked like a natural part of the room, as if it had been hanging there for a long time. A painting I’d basically created in one intense sitting, yet in this study that uninhibited aspect of it felt, strangely enough, neatly contained. The unique feeling of the place comfortably stilled the painting’s plunge-ahead vigor. And unmistakably concealed within that painting was Menshiki’s face. To me, in fact, it looked like Menshiki himself was contained within.

I had most definitely painted that painting, but once it had left my hands and become Menshiki’s possession, hanging on his study wall, it had transformed into something beyond my reach. Now it was Menshiki’s painting, not mine. Even if I tried to comprehend something within it, like a slippery, nimble fish the painting would slip out of my hands. Like a woman who’d once been mine but was now someone else’s.

“What do you think? Doesn’t it fit this room perfectly?”

Menshiki was referring to the painting, of course. I nodded without a word.

“I tried putting it in lots of different rooms. But in the end I knew this was the best room and the perfect spot for it. The amount of space, the way the light hits it, the whole atmosphere is perfect. What I enjoy most is gazing at the picture from that reading chair.”

“Could I give it a try?” I said, pointing to the reading chair.

“Of course. Go right ahead.”

I sat down on that leather chair, leaned back into the gentle curve it inscribed, and rested my legs on the ottoman. I brought my hands together on my chest and once more gazed at the painting. As Menshiki said, this was the ideal spot from which to appreciate it. Seen from that chair (a chair so comfortable it left nothing to be desired), my painting hanging on the wall in front of me had a quiet, calm persuasiveness that took me by surprise. It looked like almost a completely different work from when it was in my studio, as if it had acquired, since coming here, its rightful life force. Or something like that. And at the same time it seemed to have severed any contact with me, its creator.

Menshiki used a remote control to turn on some music at just the right low volume. A Schubert string quartet I was familiar with. Composition D804. The sound coming out of those speakers was clear, fine-grained, refined, and elegant. Compared with the sound from the speakers in Tomohiko Amada’s home, which had a simpler, unadorned tone, it seemed like different music altogether.

Suddenly the Commendatore was in the room. He was seated on the stepladder in front of the bookshelves, his arms folded, looking at my painting. When I glanced at him he shook his head slightly, signaling that I shouldn’t look at him. I returned my gaze to the painting.

“Thank you very much,” I said to Menshiki as I rose from the chair. “That’s the perfect place to hang it.”

Menshiki beamed and shook his head. “No, I should be the one thanking you. Now that it’s found a home here, I’m liking it more and more. When I look at it, I feel like I’m standing in front of… a special mirror. I’m inside there, but that’s not me, entirely. It’s a little different me. When I stare at it for a while, a strange feeling comes over me.”

As he listened to the Schubert, Menshiki again turned his attention to a silent appraisal of the painting. The Commendatore, still seated on the stepladder, likewise gazed at the painting with narrowed eyes, as if teasingly imitating him (though I doubt that was his intention).

Menshiki glanced over at the clock on the wall. “Let’s go to the dining room. Dinner should be just about ready. I do hope the Commendatore shows up.”

I looked at the stepladder. The Commendatore was no longer there.

“I think he’s already here,” I said.

“I’m glad,” Menshiki said, sounding relieved. He touched the remote control and stopped the Schubert. “There’s a place prepared for him, of course. It’s really a shame, though, that he won’t be able to enjoy eating the meal.”

Menshiki explained that on the floor below where we were currently seated, there was a storehouse, a laundry room, and a gym. The gym was outfitted with all sorts of workout equipment. It had a sound system so he could enjoy music while he exercised. Once a week a trainer came and led him through strength-training exercises. There was also an efficiency-sized residence for a live-in maid. It had a simple kitchen and small bathroom, though nobody was using it at present. There used to be a small indoor pool, but it wasn’t very practical and took a lot of upkeep, so he had had it filled in and made into a greenhouse. Someday he might build a two-lane twenty-five-meter lap pool, he said. If I do, he said, I’d love for you to come over and swim. That would be wonderful, I said.

We headed to the dining room.

²⁴ MERELY GATHERING RAW DATA

The dining room was on the same floor as the study. The kitchen was in back of it. The dining room was a long room, with a large, long table in the middle. The oak table was about four inches thick, and big enough for ten people. A solid table that would look good hosting a banquet for Robin Hood and his men. But it was simply the two of us, Menshiki and myself, not a merry band of outlaws. A place was set for the Commendatore, but he wasn’t there. A place mat, silverware, and an empty glass were ready for him, but they were just for show. A courtesy to indicate that was his place.

Like in the living room, one long wall was entirely glass. It looked out over the mountain range beyond the valley. Just as I could see Menshiki’s house from mine, my house should be visible from his. The house I lived in, though, was nowhere as big as Menshiki’s mansion, and it was a wooden building whose subdued color didn’t stand out, so in the dark I couldn’t make out where it was. There weren’t many homes built here, but in each of the houses that dotted the mountains there were clearly lights on inside. It was dinnertime. People were with their families at the dinner table, about to enjoy a hot meal. I could sense that slight warmth in those lights.

In contrast, on the other side of the valley, Menshiki, I, and the Commendatore were seated at that large table, about to begin an eccentric, formal dinner party. Outside a fine rain continued to silently fall. But there was almost no wind, and it was a typically hushed autumn night. I looked out the window and thought again about the hole. About the lonely stone-lined chamber behind the little shrine. Even as we sat here the hole was there, dark and dank. Memories of that scene brought a special chill to me, deep inside.

“I found this table while traveling in Italy,” Menshiki said after I’d complimented it. He didn’t sound like he was bragging, simply stating facts. “I ran across it in a furniture store in Lucca, purchased it, and had it shipped here. It’s so heavy it was quite a task to transport it.”

“Do you go abroad very often?”

His lips twisted up a bit, then relaxed. “I used to. Part business, part pleasure. Not so many opportunities to do so these days. I’m doing a different sort of work now. Plus I no longer like to go out much anymore. Most of the time I’m here.”

To indicate more clearly what he meant by “here,” he motioned toward the house with his hand. I expected him to add more about this change in his work, but that’s all he said. As always, he didn’t seem eager to say much about his work, and I didn’t press him about it.

“I thought we’d start with some well-chilled champagne, if that’s all right with you. You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I’ll leave it all up to you.”

Menshiki made a faint motion, and the ponytailed young man came over and poured cold champagne into long narrow flutes. Pleasant little bubbles fizzed up in the glasses, so light and thin they seemed made of high-quality paper. We toasted each other across the table. Then Menshiki respectfully lifted his glass to the unoccupied seat for the Commendatore.

“Thank you so much for coming, Commendatore,” he said.

There was, naturally, no reply from the Commendatore.

As he enjoyed the champagne, Menshiki talked about opera. About how, on a trip to Sicily, he saw a spectacular performance of Verdi’s Ernani at the Catania opera house. The person seated next to him sang along with the performers, all the while snacking on mandarin oranges. And how he’d had some amazing champagne there.

The Commendatore finally made an appearance in the dining room, though not at the seat at the table prepared for him. Given his short stature, he would have only come up to nose level, hidden by the table. Instead he plunked himself down on a kind of display shelf diagonally behind Menshiki. He was about five feet off the floor, lightly swinging his feet clad in those oddly shaped black shoes. I raised my glass slightly to him so that Menshiki wouldn’t see. As expected, the Commendatore acted as if he didn’t notice.

The meal was served at this point. There was an open serving slot between the kitchen and the dining room and the bow-tied, ponytailed young man brought each dish placed there one by one to our table. For a first course, we had a beautiful dish of organic vegetables and fresh isaki fish. Accompanied by white wine. The ponytailed young man uncorked the bottle as carefully as if he were an explosives expert handling a land mine. No explanation of what kind of wine it was or where it was from, though of course it was superb. Menshiki wasn’t about to serve a less-than-perfect wine.

After that we were served a salad of lotus root, calamari, and white beans. Then a sea turtle soup. The fish dish was monkfish.

“It’s a bit early in the season for it, but I heard that down at the harbor they got hold of some excellent monkfish,” Menshiki said. The fish was certainly fresh and amazing. Firm texture, a refined sweetness, but still a clean aftertaste. Lightly steamed, then served with (what I took to be) a tarragon sauce.

Next came thick venison steaks. There was again an explanation of the special sauce, but it was so full of specialized terms I couldn’t remember half of it. At any rate, a wonderfully fragrant sauce.

The ponytailed young man poured red wine into our glasses. Menshiki explained that the bottle had been opened an hour before and decanted.

“It’s breathed nicely, and it should be just the peak time to drink it.”

I knew nothing about aerating wine, but it had a deep flavor. When your tongue first encountered it, then when you held it in your mouth, and finally when you drank it down, the flavor was different each time. It was like a mysterious woman whose beauty changes slightly depending on the angle and light. The wine left a pleasant aftertaste.

“It’s Bordeaux,” Menshiki said. “I won’t sing its praises. Just know it’s a Bordeaux.”

“It’s the kind of wine that once you started listing its good points, you’d have a long list.”

Menshiki smiled. Pleasant wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. “You’re exactly right. It would be very long if you listed its merits. But I don’t particularly like to do that with wines. I’m not good at enumerating the merits of things, no matter what they are. It’s just a delicious wine—that’s enough, right?”

I had no objections to that.

All this time the Commendatore watched us drinking and eating from his perch on the display shelf. He sat there, unmoving, diligently observing the scene there down to the smallest detail, but didn’t seem to have any reaction to what he was seeing. Like he told me once, he merely observes. He doesn’t judge, or have any partiality toward it. He’s merely gathering raw data.

This might be how he observed me and my girlfriend making love in bed in the afternoons. The thought unsettled me. He’d told me that watching people have sex was for him no different from watching morning radio exercise routines or someone sweeping a chimney. And that might very well be the case. But the fact remained that it was disconcerting to think of being observed.

An hour and a half later, Menshiki and I finally arrived at dessert (a soufflé) and espresso. A long but fulfilling journey. For the first time, the chef came out of the kitchen and over to the dining table. A tall man, in a white chef’s outfit. In his mid-thirties would be my guess, with a sparse black beard. He greeted me politely.

“The food was amazing,” I told him. “I’ve hardly ever had anything so delicious.”

Those were my honest feelings. I still couldn’t believe that a chef who made such exquisite dishes ran a small, unknown French restaurant near the harbor in Odawara.

“Thank you very much,” he said, smiling brightly. “Mr. Menshiki’s always been very kind to me.”

He bowed and returned to the kitchen.

“I wonder if the Commendatore was satisfied, too?” Menshiki said after the chef had left, a concerned look on his face. He didn’t appear to be playacting. He seemed genuinely concerned.

“I’m sure he is,” I replied with a straight face. “It’s a shame, of course, that he couldn’t enjoy the fabulous meal, but he must have enjoyed the atmosphere.”

“I do hope so.”

Of course I enjoyed it, the Commendatore whispered in my ear.

Menshiki suggested an after-dinner drink, but I declined. I was so full I really couldn’t manage anything else. He had a brandy.

“There was something that I wanted to ask you,” Menshiki said as he slowly swirled the brandy in the oversized glass. “It’s an odd question, and I hope you’re not offended.”

“Feel free to ask me anything.”

He took a small sip of brandy, tasting it. Then quietly laid his glass on the table.

“It’s about the pit in the woods,” Menshiki said. “The other day I spent about an hour in that stone chamber. No flashlight, seated alone at the bottom of the pit. The cover was on top, and rocks on top of that to hold it down. And I told you, ‘Please come back in an hour and get me out of here.’ Correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Why do you think I did that?”

“I have no idea,” I answered honestly.

“I needed to do that,” Menshiki said. “I can’t explain it, but sometimes I need to do that. Be left all alone in a cramped, dark, completely silent space.”

I was silent, waiting for his next words.

Menshiki continued. “Here’s my question to you. During that hour did you ever find yourself, even for a moment, wanting to abandon me in that pit? Tempted to just leave me behind at the bottom of that dark hole?”

I couldn’t grasp what he was getting at. “Abandon you?”

Menshiki touched his right temple and rubbed it, as if checking out a scar. “This is what I mean. I was at the bottom of that pit, a little less than nine feet deep and six feet across. The ladder had been pulled up. The stones in the wall were all densely laid together, and there was no way to climb up. And the cover was on tight. In mountains like these I could yell at the top of my voice or ring the bell, but no one would ever hear me—though of course you might. In other words, I couldn’t get back to the surface on my own. If you hadn’t come back, I’d have had to stay in the pit forever. Isn’t that so?”

“That could be.”

The fingers of his right hand were still at his temple. He’d stopped rubbing. “What I’d like to know is whether during that hour the thought ever occurred to you, even for a moment, I’ll just leave that man inside the pit. Leave him the way he is. Tell me the truth, it won’t offend me.”

He took his fingers from his temple, reached for the glass of brandy, and again slowly held it up and swirled it. This time, though, he didn’t take a sip. Eyes narrowed, he inhaled the aroma and put the glass back on the table.

“That thought never occurred to me,” I answered honestly. “Even for a moment. All I thought about was that after an hour I had to take the cover off and get you out of there.”

“Really?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Well, if I had been in your position…” Menshiki said, sounding confessional. His voice was quite calm. “I’m sure I would have thought of that. I definitely would have been tempted to leave you inside that pit forever. I would have thought, This is the chance of a lifetime.”

No words came to me.

Menshiki said, “Down at the bottom of the pit that’s what I was thinking about the whole time. That if I was in your position I would definitely consider it. It’s a strange thing. You were the one on the surface and I was the one at the bottom of the pit, but all that time I was picturing me on the surface and you at the bottom.”

“But if you’d actually abandoned me in the pit I might have starved to death. I might have turned into an actual mummy, ringing a bell. You’re saying you’d be okay with that?”

“It’s just a fantasy. Or delusion, perhaps. Of course I would never actually do that. I was just imagining the scenario. Just mentally playing with the concept of death. So don’t worry. What I mean is, I find it hard to fathom that you didn’t feel the same temptation.”

I said, “Weren’t you afraid, Mr. Menshiki, being down at the bottom of that dark pit all alone? Thinking that I might be tempted to abandon you there?”

Menshiki shook his head. “No, I wasn’t afraid. Deep inside me I may have actually been hoping you would.”

“Hoping I would?” I said, surprised. “That I would leave you down in that pit?”

“Exactly.”

“In other words, you were okay with being abandoned down there?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I was okay with dying. Even I still have some attachment to this life. And starving to death or dying of lack of water aren’t the ways I’d like to go. All I wanted was to try to get closer to death, even if just a little more. I know that boundary is a very fine line.”

I thought about what he said, though I still couldn’t grasp what he meant. I casually glanced over at the Commendatore, still seated on the display shelf. His face was bereft of expression.

Menshiki went on. “When you’re locked up alone in a cramped, dark place, the most frightening thing isn’t death. The most terrifying thought is that I might have to live here forever. Once you think that, the terror makes it hard to breathe. The walls close in on you and the delusion grabs you that you’re going to be crushed. In order to survive, a person has to overcome that fear. Which means conquering yourself. And in order to do that, you need to get as close to death as you possibly can.”

“But there’s a danger to that.”

“Like when Icarus flew close to the sun. It’s not easy to know how close you can go, where that line is. You put your life at risk doing it.”

“But if you avoid approaching it, you can’t overcome fear and conquer yourself.”

“Precisely. If you can’t do that, you can’t take yourself to the next level,” Menshiki said. He seemed to be considering something. And then suddenly—at least it seemed sudden to me—he stood up, went over to the window, and looked out.

“It’s still raining a little, but not so hard. Do you mind going out on the deck? There’s something I want to show you.”

We walked up the steps from the dining room to the living room and then out to the deck. It was a large deck, with a Mediterranean tiled floor. We went over to the wooden railing and gazed out at the valley. It was like a tourist lookout, and we were afforded a view of the entire valley. A fine rain was still falling, more like mist at this point. The lights were still on in people’s homes across the valley. It was the same valley, but viewed from the opposite side like this, the scenery looked transformed.

A section of the deck was roofed over, with a chaise longue beneath it, for sunbathing or perhaps reading. Next to it was a low glass-topped table to put drinks or books on. And also a large planter with a decorative green plant, and a tall piece of equipment of some kind, covered in plastic. There was a spotlight on the wall, but it wasn’t turned on. The lights in the living room were turned down low.

“I wonder which direction my house is?” I asked Menshiki.

Menshiki pointed to the right. “It’s over there.”

I stared hard in that direction, but with the lights out and the misty rain I couldn’t locate it.

“I can’t see it,” I told him.

“Just a moment,” Menshiki said, and walked over to where the chaise longue was. He removed the plastic cover from the piece of equipment and carried it over. It looked like a pair of binoculars on a tripod. The binoculars weren’t big, but looked odd, different from normal ones. They were a drab olive green and the crude shape made it appear like some optical instrument for surveying. He placed this beside the railing, pointed it, and carefully focused.

“Here, take a look. This is where you live,” he said.

I squinted through the binoculars. They had a clear field of vision, with high magnification. Not your typical binoculars that you find in a store. Through the faint vale of misty rain the far-off scenery looked close enough to touch. And it definitely was the house I was living in. The terrace was there, the lounge chair I always sat in. Beyond that was the living room, and next to it, my painting studio. With the lights off I couldn’t make out the interior, though during the day you probably could. It felt strange to see (or peek into) the place where I lived.

“Don’t worry,” Menshiki said from behind me, as if reading my mind. “No need to be concerned. I don’t encroach on your privacy. I mean, I hardly ever turn these binoculars on your house. Trust me. What I want to see is something else.”

“What do you want to see?” I said. I took my eye from the binoculars, turned around, and looked at him. His face was cool, inscrutable as always. At night on the deck, though, his hair looked whiter than ever.

“I’ll show you,” Menshiki said. With a practiced hand he swung the binoculars slightly to the north and swiftly refocused. He took a step back and said, “Please take a look.”

I looked through the binoculars. In the circular field of vision I saw an elegant wooden house halfway up the mountain. A two-story building also constructed to take advantage of the slope, with a terrace facing this direction. On a map it would be my nearest neighbor, but because of the topography there was no road linking us, so one would have to go down to the bottom of the mountain and ascend once more on a separate road to access it. Lights were on in the windows, but the curtains were drawn, and I couldn’t see inside. If the curtains were open, though, and the lights on, you would be able to see the people inside. Very possible with binoculars this powerful.

“These are NATO-issue military binoculars. They’re not sold anywhere, so it wasn’t easy to get hold of them. They’re bright, so you can make out images well even in the dark.”

I took my eyes away from the binoculars and looked at Menshiki. “This house is what you want to see?”

“Correct. But don’t get the wrong idea. I’m no voyeur.”

He glanced through the binoculars one last time, then put them and the tripod back where they were and placed the plastic cover over them.

“Let’s go inside. We don’t want to catch cold,” Menshiki said. We went back into the living room, and sat on the sofa and armchair. The ponytailed young man sidled over and asked if we’d like anything to drink, but both of us declined.

“Thank you very much for tonight,” Menshiki said to the young man. “Feel free to go now.” The young man bowed and withdrew.

The Commendatore was now seated on top of the piano. The black Steinway full grand. He looked like he preferred this spot to where he had been sitting before. The jewels on the top handle of his long sword caught the light with a proud glint.

“In that house over there,” Menshiki began, “lives the girl who may be my daughter. I like to see her, even if it’s from a distance.”

For quite some time I was speechless.

“Do you remember? What I told you about the daughter my former girlfriend had, after she married another man? That she might be mine?”

“Of course. The woman who was stung by hornets and died. Her daughter would be thirteen. Right?”

Menshiki gave a short, concise nod. “She lives in that house with her father. In that house across the valley.”

It took a while to put the myriad questions that welled up in my mind in some kind of order. Menshiki waited silently all this time, patiently waiting for my reaction.

I said, “In other words, in order to see that young girl who might be your daughter through the binoculars every day, you bought this mansion directly across the valley. You paid a lot of money and a great deal to renovate this house for that sole purpose. Is that what you’re saying?”

Menshiki said, “Yes, that’s it. This is the ideal spot to be able to observe her house. I had to get this mansion no matter what. There was no other lot around here that I could get a building permit for. And ever since, I’ve been looking for her across the valley through my binoculars, almost every day. Though I should say that the days I can’t see her far outnumber the days I can.”

“So you live alone, keeping people out as much as you can, so no one interferes with that pursuit.”

Menshiki nodded again. “That’s right. I don’t want anyone to bother me. No one to disturb things. That’s what I’m looking for. I need unlimited solitude. You’re the only other person in the world who knows this secret. It wouldn’t be good to confess this kind of delicate thing to people.”

You got that right, I thought. And this thought occurred to me as well: Then why did you just tell me?

“Then why did you just tell me?” I asked Menshiki. “Is there some special reason?”

Menshiki recrossed his legs and looked straight at me. His voice was soft. “Yes, of course there’s a reason. I have a special favor to ask of you.”

²⁵ HOW MUCH LONELINESS THE TRUTH CAN CAUSE

“I have a special favor to ask of you,” Menshiki said.

From his tone I guessed he’d been waiting for the right moment to bring this up. And that this was the real reason he had invited me (and the Commendatore) to dinner. In order to reveal his secret and bring up this request.

“If it’s something I can help with, of course,” I said.

Menshiki gazed into my eyes, and then spoke. “More than something you can help with, it’s something only you can help with.”

I was suddenly dying for a cigarette. When I got married I used that as the incentive to stop smoking, and in the nearly seven years since, I hadn’t smoked a single cigarette. It was tough quitting—I’d been a pretty heavy smoker—but nowadays I never had the urge. But at that instant, for the first time in forever, I thought about how great it would be to have a cigarette between my lips and light it. I could hear the scratch of the match.

“What could that possibly be?” I asked. Not that I particularly wanted to know—I’d prefer to get by not knowing—but the way the conversation was going, I had to ask.

“Well, I’d like you to paint her portrait,” Menshiki said.

In my head I had to dismantle the context of his words, then reassemble it all. Though it was a very simple context.

“You mean you want me to paint the portrait of this girl who may be your daughter.”

Menshiki nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I want you to do. And not from a photograph, but actually have her pose for you and paint the picture with her as the model. Have her come to your studio, like when you painted me. That’s my only condition. How you paint her is up to you—do it any way you want. I promise I won’t have any other requests later on.”

I was at a loss for words. Several questions immediately occurred to me, and I asked the first one that came to mind. “But how can I convince the girl to do that? I might be her neighbor, but I can’t very well just suggest to a young girl I don’t know that I want to paint your portrait, so would you model for me?”

“No, of course not. That would make her suspicious for sure.”

“Then do you have any good ideas?”

Menshiki looked at me for a time, then, like quietly opening a door and tiptoeing into a back room of a house, he slowly opened his mouth. “Actually, you already know her. And she knows you very well.”

“I already know her?”

“You do. Her name is Mariye—Mariye Akikawa. Aki—the character for ‘autumn’—and kawa, ‘river.’ Mariye is spelled out in hiragana. You do know her, right?”

Mariye Akikawa. I’d heard the name before, but it felt like some temporary obstruction was keeping me from putting name and face together. Finally the pieces fell into place.

I said, “Mariye Akikawa is in my children’s art class in Odawara, isn’t she?”

Menshiki nodded. “That’s right. Exactly. You’re her painting teacher.”

Mariye Akikawa was a small, quiet thirteen-year-old girl in the children’s art class I taught. The class was for elementary school children, and as a junior high student, she was the eldest, but she was so reserved she didn’t stand out at all, even though she was with the younger children. She always sat in a corner, trying to stay under the radar. I remembered her because something about her reminded me of my late sister, and she was about the same age as my sister when she passed away.

Mariye Akikawa hardly ever spoke in class. If I said something to her she just nodded, with barely a word in response. When she absolutely had to say something, she spoke it in such a small voice I often had to ask her to repeat herself. She seemed tense, unable to look me straight in the eye. But she loved painting, and the expression in her eyes radically transformed whenever she held a brush and was working on a canvas. Her gaze became focused, her eyes filled with an intense gleam. And her paintings were quite appealing. Not skilled, exactly, but eye-catching. Her use of colors was especially unique. All in all, a curious sort of girl.

Her glossy black hair fell straight down, her features as lovely as a doll’s. So beautiful, in fact, when you looked at her whole face, there was the sense of it being detached from reality. Her features were objectively attractive, but most people would hesitate to label her beautiful. Something—perhaps that special raw, unpolished aspect that certain young girls exude in adolescence—interfered with the flow of beauty that should have been there. But someday that blockage might be removed and she would turn into a truly lovely girl. That was still a ways off, though. Now that I thought of it, my sister’s features were similar in that way. I often used to think she didn’t appear as beautiful as I knew she could be.

“So Mariye Akikawa might be your real daughter. And she lives in the house across the valley,” I said. “And I’m to paint a portrait with her as model. That’s what you’re asking?”

“I’d prefer to see it as a request, rather than that I’m commissioning the work. And if you’re okay with it, once the painting is finished I’d like to buy it and hang it on the wall in this house. That’s what I want. Or rather what I’m requesting.”

Still, there was something about all this I couldn’t quite swallow. I had a faint apprehension that things wouldn’t simply end there.

“And that’s it? That’s all you want?” I asked.

Menshiki slowly inhaled and breathed out. “Honestly, there’s one other thing I’d like you to do.”

“Which is—?”

“A very small thing.” His voice was quiet, but with a certain force behind it. “When she’s sitting for the portrait, I’d like to visit you. Make it seem like I just happened to stop by. Once is enough. And it can be for just a short time, I don’t mind. Just let me be in the same room as her, and breathe the same air. I won’t ask for anything more. And I can assure you I won’t do anything to get in your way.”

I thought about it. And the more I did, the more uncomfortable I felt. I’ve never been cut out to act as an intermediary. I don’t enjoy getting caught up in the flow of somebody else’s strong emotions—no matter what emotions they might be. The role didn’t suit me. But the fact was that I also wanted to do something for Menshiki. I had to think carefully about my reply.

“We can talk about that later on,” I said. “The first thing is whether or not Mariye will agree to sit for the painting. That’s the first step. She’s a very quiet girl, like a bashful cat. She might not want to model. Or else her parents might not give permission. They don’t really know my background, so they’ll be pretty wary, I would imagine.”

“I know Mr. Matsushima very well, the man who runs the arts-and-culture center,” Menshiki said coolly. “And I’m also, coincidentally, an investor, a financial supporter of the school. I think if Mr. Matsushima puts in a good word, things will go smoothly. You’re an upright person, an artist with a solid career, and if he recommends you, I think it will assuage any concerns that her parents might have.”

He’s already got it all mapped out, I thought. He’s already anticipated what might happen, like the opening moves of a game of go. Nothing coincidental about it.

Menshiki went on. “Mariye Akikawa’s unmarried aunt takes care of her. Her father’s younger sister. I believe I mentioned this before, but after Mariye’s mother died, this aunt came to live with them and has been like a mother to Mariye. Her father is too busy with work to be very involved. So as long as the aunt is persuaded, things should work out fine. Once she agrees to have Mariye model, I would expect the aunt to accompany her to your house as her guardian. There’s no way she’d allow a young girl to go by herself to the house of a man living alone.”

“But will she really give permission for Mariye to model?”

“Let me handle that. As long as you agree to paint her portrait, I’ll take care of any other practical issues that come up.”

I had little doubt he’d be able to “take care of” any of these other “practical issues.” That was his forte. But was it good for me to get so deeply involved in those problems—all these complex interpersonal relations? Didn’t Menshiki have his own plans and intentions that went beyond what he was revealing to me?

“Can I be totally honest with you?” I said. “Maybe it isn’t my place to say this, but I’d like you to hear me out.”

“Of course. Say whatever you want.”

“Isn’t it better, before you put this plan into action, that you determine whether or not Mariye Akikawa really is your child? If you find out she isn’t, then there’s no need to go to all this trouble. It might not be easy, but there has to be a way. I think if anyone could discover that, you could. Even if I paint her portrait, and it’s hanging next to yours, that’s not going to solve anything.”

Menshiki paused before replying. “If I wanted to scientifically determine if Mariye Akikawa is related by blood to me, I could. It might take some effort, but it’s not impossible. The thing is—I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because whether she’s my child or not isn’t a determining factor.”

I gazed at him, mouth shut. He shook his head, his abundant white hair waving, like it was fluttering in the breeze. When he spoke, his voice was calm, like he was explaining to some large, intelligent dog how to conjugate simple verbs.

“I’m not saying either way is fine. It’s just that I don’t feel like determining the facts. Maybe Mariye Akikawa is my biological child. And maybe she isn’t. But what if I do determine that she’s my real child—then what? I announce to her that I’m her real father? Try to get custody? I can’t do that.”

Menshiki shook his head again, rubbing his hands together on his lap like it was a cold night and he was warming himself before a fireplace. He continued.

“Mariye Akikawa is living a peaceful life in that house with her father and her aunt. Yes, her mother died, but the family—despite some issues her father has—is relatively healthy and functional. She’s close to her aunt. She’s made a life for herself. If I suddenly appear on the scene announcing that I’m her real father, even if I could prove it scientifically, will that solve anything? The truth will actually confuse things. And it’s not going to make anyone happy. Including me.”

“So you’d prefer to keep things the way they are, rather than let the truth come out.”

Menshiki spread his hands on his lap. “In a word, yes. It took some time for me to arrive at that conclusion, but my feelings are firm. I plan to live the rest of my life holding on to the possibility that Mariye Akikawa is my real child. Watching, from a distance, as she grows up. That’s enough. Even if I knew for sure she was my child, that wouldn’t make me happy. The sense of loss would be all the more painful. And if I knew she wasn’t my child, that would, in a different sense, also deepen the sense of loss. Or maybe crush me. Either way there’s no happy result. Can you follow what I’m trying to say?”

“I think so. At least in theory. But if I were in your position, I’d want to know the truth. Theory aside, it’s natural for people to want to know the truth.”

Menshiki smiled. “You’re still young, so that’s why you say that. When you get to be my age, you’ll understand how I feel. How much loneliness the truth can cause sometimes.”

“So what you’re after is not to know the unmitigated truth, but to hang her portrait on your wall, gaze at it every day, and ponder the possibilities. Are you sure that’s enough?”

Menshiki nodded. “It is. Instead of a stable truth, I choose unstable possibilities. I choose to surrender myself to that instability. Do you think that’s unnatural?”

I did indeed. Or at least I didn’t see it as natural. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it unhealthy, though. But that was Menshiki’s problem, not mine.

I glanced over at the Commendatore seated on top of the Steinway. Our eyes met. He raised both index fingers upward and spread them apart, as if to say, Let’s put that answer on hold. Then he pointed with his right index finger to a watch on his left wrist. Of course the Commendatore wasn’t wearing a watch. He was just pointing to where one would be. And of course what that meant was, We should be leaving soon. The Commendatore’s advice to me, as well as a warning. I decided to heed it.

“Could I have a little time to get back to you on this? It’s a delicate matter, and I need time to consider it.”

Menshiki held up his hands from his lap. “Of course. Consider it as long as you’d like. I’m not trying to rush you. I know I may be asking too much.”

I stood up and thanked him for the dinner.

“Ah, there’s one thing I forgot to tell you,” Menshiki said, as if suddenly remembering. “It’s about Tomohiko Amada. We talked earlier, didn’t we, about how he’d studied abroad, in Austria? About how, just before World War Two broke out, he rushed back home?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I researched it a bit. I’m interested, too, in what was behind all that. It happened a long time ago, and I don’t have all the facts, but there were rumors then of some sort of scandal.”

“A scandal?”

“That’s right. Amada was apparently caught up in an aborted assassination attempt in Vienna. It turned into a political crisis, and the Japanese embassy in Berlin got involved and secreted him back to Japan. According to certain rumors. This was right after the Anschluss. You know about the Anschluss, I assume?”

“That was when Germany annexed Austria in 1938.”

“Correct. Hitler incorporated Austria into Germany. There was a lot of chaos, and the Nazis finally took over all of Austria pretty much by force, and the nation of Austria vanished. This was in March 1938. The place was in turmoil, and in the confusion of the moment a lot of people were murdered. Assassinated, or murdered and made to look like suicides. Or else sent to concentration camps. It was during this time that Tomohiko Amada studied in Vienna. Rumor had it that he fell in love with an Austrian woman and got mixed up with an underground resistance group comprised largely of college students, who plotted to assassinate a high-ranking Nazi official. Not the sort of thing either the German government or the Japanese government would condone, for they’d signed a mutual defense pact only a year and a half before this, and the relationship between the two countries was growing closer all the time. Both were dead set on avoiding anything that would hinder their pact. Though Tomohiko Amada was still young, he had already made a name for himself as an artist in Japan, and his father was a large landowner, a locally politically influential person. A person like that couldn’t just be secretly blotted out.”

“So Tomohiko Amada was sent back to Japan?”

“Correct. Rescued is more like it. Thanks to the political considerations of higher-ups, he narrowly escaped getting killed. If the Gestapo had gotten hold of him under suspicion of something that serious—even if they hadn’t had any clear-cut evidence—that would have been the end of him.”

“But the assassination didn’t happen?”

“No, it was abortive. There was an informant in the group, and the plan was leaked to the Gestapo. There was a wholesale arrest of the members.”

“There would have been a real uproar if they’d gone through with it.”

“The strange thing is, there was no talk of it at the time,” Menshiki said. “There were whispers about a scandal, but there doesn’t seem to be any public record of it. For various reasons, it was covered up.”

So the Commendatore in the painting Killing Commendatore might represent that Nazi official. The painting might be a hypothetical depiction of the assassination that never actually happened in Vienna in 1938. Amada and his lover were connected with this plot, and then it was discovered by the authorities. The two of them were torn apart, and the woman most likely killed. And after he returned to Japan Amada transferred that horrific experience in Vienna onto the very symbolic canvas of a Japanese-style painting. Adapting it, in other words, into a scene from the Asuka period, set over a thousand years ago. Killing Commendatore was a painting Tomohiko Amada painted for himself alone. He felt compelled for his own sake to paint it to preserve that awful, bloody memory from his youth. Which is precisely why he never made the painting public, why he wrapped it up tightly and hid it away in the attic.

Perhaps that incident in Vienna was one reason he made a clean break with his career as an artist of Western paintings and converted to Japanese-style painting. He might have wanted to decisively separate himself from the self he used to be.

“How did you find out about all this?” I asked.

“It didn’t take a lot of effort on my part. I asked an organization run by an acquaintance to investigate it for me. But it happened such a long time ago, and they can’t be held responsible for how much of it is really true. They did check with multiple sources, though, so I think the information can basically be trusted.”

“Tomohiko Amada had an Austrian lover. She was a member of an underground resistance group. And he was involved in that assassination plot.”

Menshiki inclined his head a bit and then spoke. “If that’s true, then it’s a pretty dramatic series of events. But most of the people involved are dead by now, so there’s no way for us to really know what happened. Facts have a tendency to get embellished, too. At any rate, though, it’s pretty melodramatic.”

“No one knows how deeply he was involved in that plot?”

“No. We don’t know. I’ve just given it my own dramatic touch. Amada was deported from Vienna, bid his lover farewell—or maybe wasn’t even able to do that—was put on a ship in Bremen, and returned to Japan. During the war he remained silent, holed up in rural Aso, then debuted as a painter of Japanese-style paintings soon after the end of the war. Which took people by complete surprise. Another pretty dramatic development.”

Thus ended the story of Tomohiko Amada.

The same black Infiniti I’d arrived in was quietly awaiting me in front of the house. A faint drizzle was still intermittently falling, the air wet and chilly. The season when you needed a coat was just around the corner.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Menshiki said. “My thanks, too, to the Commendatore.”

It is I who should be doing the thanking, the Commendatore murmured in my ear. His voice, of course, was only for me to hear. I thanked Menshiki once more for dinner. It was an amazing meal, I said. I couldn’t be more satisfied. The Commendatore seemed grateful as well.

“I hope bringing up all of those boring details after dinner didn’t spoil the evening,” Menshiki said.

“Not at all. But about your request: I need some time to think about it.”

“Of course.”

“It takes me time to consider things.”

“It’s the same for me,” Menshiki said. “My motto is: Thinking three times is better than two. And if time allows, thinking four times is better than three.”

The driver had the rear door open, waiting. I got inside. The Commendatore should have boarded at the same time, though I didn’t see him. The car started up the asphalt slope, drove out the open gate, then proceeded slowly down the mountain. Once the white mansion disappeared from view, everything that happened that night seemed like part of a dream. It was getting harder to distinguish what was normal from what was not, what was real and what was not.

What you can see is real, the Commendatore whispered in my ear. What you need to do is open your eyes wide and look at it. You can judge it later on.

Even with my eyes wide open, there could be many things I was overlooking, I thought. I may have actually murmured this aloud, since the chauffeur shot me a glance in the rearview mirror. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat. And thought this: How wonderful it would be to put off judging things forever.

I got home a little before ten p.m. I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, changed into pajamas, slid into bed, and fell right asleep. Predictably, I had a million dreams, all of them strange, disconcerting. Swastika flags flying over the streets of Vienna, a huge passenger ship easing out of Bremen harbor, a brass band playing on the pier, Bluebeard’s unopened room, Menshiki playing the Steinway.

²⁶ THE COMPOSITION COULDN’T BE IMPROVED

Two days later I got a call from my agent in Tokyo. They’d received the transfer of funds from Mr. Menshiki, the payment for the painting, and after taking the agent’s fee out of it the rest had been deposited into my bank account. When I heard the total amount I was astonished. It was much higher than what I’d originally heard.

“The finished painting was better than he’d anticipated, so he added a bonus. There was a message from Mr. Menshiki requesting that you accept this as a token of his gratitude,” my agent said.

I groaned faintly, but no words would come.

“I haven’t seen the actual painting, though Mr. Menshiki attached a photo. From the photo, at least, it looks like an amazing work. Something that goes beyond the boundaries of portrait painting, yet remains a convincing portrait.”

I thanked him and hung up.

A little while later my girlfriend called. Did I mind if she came over tomorrow morning? That would be fine, I told her. Friday was when I taught art class, but I’d have enough time to make it.

“Did you have dinner at Mr. Menshiki’s place?” she asked.

“Yes, a really excellent meal.”

“Did it taste good?”

“It was amazing. The wine was great, too, and the food was outstanding.”

“What was the house like inside?”

“Beautiful,” I said. “It’d take me half a day to describe it all.”

“Could you tell me all about it when I see you?”

“Before? Or after?”

“After’s good,” she said simply.

After I hung up the phone, I went into the studio and looked at Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore. I’d seen it so many times, but now, after what Menshiki told me, it took on a strangely graphic reality. This was not simply some historical picture of a past event, reproduced in an old-fashioned format. It felt—from the expressions and movements of each of the four characters (excluding Long Face)—like you could read their reactions to the situation. The young man piercing the Commendatore with his long sword was perfectly expressionless. He’d shut away his heart, hiding his emotions. In the Commendatore’s face, one could read the agony as his chest was stabbed, but also a sense of pure surprise, the sense of How could this possibly be happening? The young woman watching this take place (in the opera, this character is Donna Anna) was torn apart by violently conflicting emotions. Her lovely face was contorted in anguish, her lovely white hand held to her mouth. The stocky man, a servant by the look of him (Leporello), was gasping for breath, gazing up at the sky. His hand was stretched out as if trying to reach something.

The organization was perfect. The composition couldn’t be improved. It was a superb, polished arrangement. Each character maintained a vivid dynamism in their actions, instantaneously frozen in time. And now I saw the events of the aborted assassination that may have occurred in 1938 Vienna overlaying the painting. The Commendatore was dressed not in Asuka period costume but in a Nazi uniform. Maybe the black uniform of the SS. And in his chest was a saber or perhaps a dagger. Perhaps the one stabbing him was Tomohiko Amada himself. And who was the woman gasping nearby? Was this Amada’s Austrian lover? And what was it that was rending her heart in two like that?

I sat on the stool, gazing for a long time at Killing Commendatore. My imagination could come up with all sorts of allegories and messages contained therein, but these were, in the final analysis, nothing more than unsubstantiated hypotheses. The background—what I took as background, that is—that Menshiki had talked about was not historical fact, but nothing more than rumor. Or else just a melodrama. Everything remained on the level of perhaps.

A thought suddenly struck me: I wish my sister were here.

If Komi were with me, I’d tell her everything that had happened, and she’d listen quietly, adding an occasional short question. Even with an incomprehensible, mixed-up story like this, I doubt she’d frown or show any surprise. Her calm, thoughtful expression wouldn’t change. And after I finished, she’d pause, then give me some useful advice. Ever since we were little we’d had that kind of interaction. But I realized now she’d never come to me for advice. As far as I could recall, that had never happened. Why? Maybe she didn’t have any major emotional issues? Or maybe she’d decided asking me for advice wasn’t going to help? Maybe both, or half of each.

But even if she had been healthy and hadn’t died at twelve, the intimate brother-sister relationship we had shared might not have lasted. Komi might have ended up marrying some boring guy, gone to live in a town far away, been run ragged by everyday life, exhausted by raising children, lost her sparkle, and no longer retained the energy to give me advice. No one could say how our lives would have worked out.

The problems my wife and I had had might have stemmed from me unconsciously wanting Yuzu to stand in for Komi. That was never my intention, of course, but now that I thought of it, ever since I lost my sister I may have been seeking, somewhere inside me, a substitute partner I could lean on whenever I was struggling. Needless to say, though, Yuzu wasn’t Komi. Their positions, and roles, were vastly different. And so was the history we’d shared.

As I thought about this, I remembered the visit I’d made to Yuzu’s parents’ home in Kinuta in Setagaya in Tokyo, before we got married.

Yuzu’s father was the branch manager of a large bank. His son—Yuzu’s older brother—was also a banker, and worked for the same bank. Both were graduates of the elite economics department of Tokyo University. There seemed to be a lot of bankers in her family. I wanted to marry Yuzu (and of course she wanted to marry me, too), and the visit was for me to convey my intentions to her parents. Any way you looked at it, it was hard to call the half-hour interview I had with her father a friendly visit. I was an unknown artist who worked part-time painting portraits and didn’t make what could be called a regular income. A guy with little in the way of future prospects. Not at all the sort of man a top banker like her father would view favorably. I’d anticipated this ahead of time and was dead set on not losing my cool no matter what he said, or how much criticism he heaped upon me. And I was basically the kind of person who could put up with a lot.

Yet as I listened to her father’s long-winded sermon, a kind of physical revulsion welled up in me, and I lost it. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up. I stood up before he’d finished and said, I’m sorry, but I need to use the bathroom. I knelt down in front of the toilet bowl, trying to vomit up the contents of my stomach. But I couldn’t vomit. Because there was hardly anything in my stomach. Even the gastric juices wouldn’t come out. I took some deep breaths and calmed down. I gargled with water to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth, wiped the sweat from my face with a handkerchief, and went back to the living room.

“Are you all right?” Yuzu asked, looking concerned. I must have looked awful.

“A successful marriage is up to the people involved, but I can tell you, this one won’t last long. Four, five years at the most.” These were her father’s parting words to me that day. (I didn’t respond.) His spiteful words stayed with me, a kind of curse that remained for a long time to come.

Her parents never did agree to our marriage, but we went ahead and registered it, and officially became a married couple. By this time, I had very little contact with my own parents. Yuzu and I didn’t have a wedding ceremony. Our friends rented a small place and held a simple party to celebrate, but that was it. (The person who did the most to make that happen was Masahiko, who was always good at taking care of others.) Despite the inauspicious beginning, we were happy. At least for the first few years, we were definitely happy together. For four or five years, we had no problems between us. But then, like a huge cruising ship in the middle of the ocean turning its rudder, there was a gradual change. I still don’t know why. I can’t even pinpoint when things began to move in a different direction. What she hoped for in marriage, and what I was looking for, must have been different, and that gap only grew more pronounced over time. And then, before I knew it, she was seeing another man. In the end our marriage only lasted some six years.

I imagine that when her father learned that our marriage had failed, he’d chuckled to himself and thought, I told you so. (Though we had stayed together a year or two beyond what he’d predicted.) It must have pleased him no end that Yuzu had left me. After we’d broken up, had Yuzu reconciled with her family? I had no way of knowing, and didn’t really want to know, at that point. This was her business, not mine. But still her father’s curse continued to hang over me. Even now, I sensed the vague weight of its presence. I’d been hurt, more than I cared to admit, and had bled. Like the pierced heart of the Commendatore in Tomohiko Amada’s painting.

Late afternoon came on, and with it, the early-autumn twilight. The sky turned dark in the twinkling of an eye, the glossy black crows squawking their way across the valley, heading for their roosts. I went out on the terrace, leaned against the railing, and gazed over at Menshiki’s house across the way. Several mercury lights were on in his garden, the whiteness of the house rising up in the dusk. I pictured Menshiki out there every night, searching through his high-powered binoculars for Mariye Akikawa. He’d purchased that white house, almost by force, for the sole purpose of doing that. Spent a huge amount of money, made a great deal of effort, all for an overly large house that didn’t suit his tastes.

And strangely enough (at least to me it felt strange), I’d begun to feel a closeness to Menshiki, a closeness I’d never felt to anyone before. An affinity—no, a sense of solidarity, really. In a sense, we were very similar—that’s what I thought. The two of us were motivated not by what we had got hold of, or were trying to get, but by what we’d lost, what we did not now have. I can’t say I understood his actions. They were beyond my comprehension. But I could understand what had spurred him on.

I went to the kitchen, took the single malt that Masahiko had given me, and poured a glass on the rocks. I carried the drink out to the living room sofa and selected a record of a Schubert string quartet from Tomohiko Amada’s collection, and put it on the turntable. A piece titled “Rosamunde.” The same music that had been playing in Menshiki’s study. I listened to the music, occasionally clinking the ice in my glass.

The Commendatore never showed up that day. Maybe, like the horned owl, he was quietly resting up in the attic. Even Ideas needed some time off. I didn’t do any painting that day, either. I needed some time off as well.

I raised my glass to the Commendatore.

²⁷ EVEN THOUGH YOU REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE

When my girlfriend came over I told her all about the dinner party at Menshiki’s. Leaving out, of course, any mention of Mariye Akikawa, the high-powered binoculars, and the Commendatore having secretly accompanied me. What I described was the dinner menu, the way the rooms were laid out in the house, the kind of furniture—safe subjects. We were in bed, completely naked, after making love for about a half hour. At first it was hard to relax, knowing that the Commendatore must be observing us, but as we got into it, I forgot all about him. If he wanted to watch, let him.

Like a rabid sports fan is dying to know how his favorite team scored in the game the night before, my girlfriend panted over every detail of the dishes we had at dinner. I painstakingly went over the details, as far as I could remember them, from the hors d’oeuvres to dessert, from the wine to the coffee. Even the tableware. I’ve always been blessed with great visual recall. If I focus on something, even a trivial thing, I can recall the minutest details, even after time has passed. I could reproduce the special features of every dish that was served, as if I were doing a quick sketch. She listened to my descriptions, a spellbound look in her eyes, at times actually gulping back her desire.

“Sounds amazing,” she said dreamily. “Someday I’d love to have a wonderful meal like that.”

“To tell the truth, though, I don’t remember much of what it tasted like,” I said.

“You don’t remember how the food tasted? But you liked it, right?”

“Yes. It was delicious. That much I remember. But I can’t recall the flavors, can’t explain it in words.”

“Even though you remember exactly what it looked like?”

“I could reproduce exactly what it looked like. I’m a painter—it’s what I do. But I can’t explain what went into it. Maybe a writer would be able to describe the flavors.”

“Weird,” she said. “So even when we do this together, you could paint a painting of it later on, but you wouldn’t be able to reproduce the feeling in words?”

I gathered my thoughts. “You’re talking about sexual pleasure?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. You may be right. But I think describing the flavor of a dish is harder than describing sexual pleasure.”

“So what you’re saying,” she said, in a voice as chilly as an early-winter nightfall, “is that the taste of the dishes Mr. Menshiki served you is more exquisite, and deeper, than the sexual pleasure I provide?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I said hurriedly. “It’s not a comparison of the quality of the two, but a question of the degree of difficulty of explaining them. In a technical sense.”

“All right,” she said. “What I give you isn’t so bad, is it? In a technical sense?”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s amazing. In a technical sense, and all other senses, so amazing I couldn’t paint it.”

Truthfully the physical pleasure she provided me left nothing to be desired. Up till then I’d had sexual relationships with a number of women—not so many I could brag about it—but her vagina was more exquisite, more wondrously varied, than any other I’d ever known. And it was a deplorable thing that it had lain there, unused, for so many years. When I told her this, she didn’t look as dissatisfied as you might have thought.

“Really?”

“Really.”

She looked at me, dubiously, then seemed to take me at my word.

“So, did he show you the garage?” she asked.

“The garage?”

“His legendary garage with its four British cars.”

“No, I didn’t see it,” I said. “It’s such a huge place, and I didn’t get a chance to see the garage.”

“Hm,” she said. “You didn’t ask him if he really does own a Jaguar XK-E?”

“No. I didn’t think of it. I mean, I’m not really into cars.”

“You’re happy with a used Corolla station wagon?”

“You got it.”

“I’d love to be able to touch a Jaguar XK-E sometime. It’s such a gorgeous car. I’ve been in love with that car ever since I saw it in a film with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole when I was a child. Peter O’Toole was driving a bright, shiny Jaguar E. Now what color was it? Yellow, as I recall.”

Her thoughts drifted to that sports car she’d seen as a young girl, while what came to my mind was that Subaru Forester. The white Subaru parked in the parking lot on the edge of that tiny town along the coast in Miyagi. Not a particularly attractive vehicle. A typical small SUV, a squat little utilitarian machine. I doubt there’d be many people who would unconsciously feel like touching it. Unlike with a Jaguar XK-E.

“So you didn’t get to see the greenhouse or the gym either?” she asked me. She was talking about Menshiki’s house again.

“No such luck. Didn’t get to see the greenhouse, the gym, or the laundry room, the maid’s quarters, the kitchen, or the spacious walk-in closet, or the game room with the billiard table. He didn’t show them to me.”

That evening Menshiki had an important matter he had to talk with me about. He was far too preoccupied to give me a leisurely tour of the house.

“Does he really have a huge walk-in closet, and a game room with a billiard table?”

“I don’t know. I’m just guessing. It wouldn’t be strange if he did, though.”

“He didn’t show you any of the other rooms besides the study?”

“Yeah. It’s not like I’m interested in interior design. What he showed me were the foyer, the living room, the study, and the dining room.”

“You didn’t try to spot Bluebeard’s secret chamber?”

“Didn’t have the chance to. And I wasn’t about to ask Menshiki, ‘By the way, where is the famous Bluebeard’s secret chamber?’”

She shook her head a few times, clicking her tongue in frustration. “I tell you, that’s what’s wrong with men. Don’t you have any curiosity? If it were me, I’d want to see every nook and cranny.”

“The things men and women are curious about must be different.”

“It seems like it,” she said, resigned to it. “But that’s okay. I should be happy to have gotten a lot of new info about the interior of Mr. Menshiki’s house.”

I was getting increasingly uneasy. “Getting information is one thing, but it wouldn’t be good if this got out to others. Through your jungle grapevine…”

“It’s all right. No need for you to worry about every little thing,” she said cheerily.

She took my hand and guided it to her clitoris. In this way, our two spheres of curiosity once more significantly overlapped. I still had time before I had to go teach. At that point I thought I heard the bell in the studio faintly ringing, but I was probably just hearing things.

After she drove away in the red Mini just before three, I went into the studio, and picked up the bell from the shelf. I couldn’t see anything different about it. It had just been quietly lying there. I looked around, but the Commendatore was nowhere to be seen.

I went over to the canvas, sat down on the stool, and gazed at the portrait of the man with the white Subaru Forester that I’d begun. I wanted to consider the direction I should take it in now. But here I made an unexpected discovery.

The painting was already complete.

Needless to say, the painting was still unfinished. I had a few ideas I planned to incorporate into it. At this point the painting was nothing more than a rough prototype of the man’s face done with the three colors I’d mixed, the colors riotously slapped on over the rough charcoal sketch. In my eyes, of course, I could detect the ideal form of The Man with the White Subaru Forester. His face was there in the painting in a latent, trompe l’oeil type of way. But this was only visible to me. It was, at this point, only the foundation for a painting. Merely the hint and suggestion of things to come. But that man—the person I had been trying to paint from memory—was already satisfied with his taciturn form presented there. And maybe dead set against his likeness being made any clearer than it was now.

Don’t you touch anything, the man was saying—or maybe commanding—from the canvas. Don’t you add a single thing more.

The painting was complete as is, incomplete. The man actually existed, completely, in that inchoate form. A contradiction in terms, but there was no other way to describe it. And that man’s hidden form looked out to me from the canvas as if signaling some hard-and-fast idea. Trying hard to get me to understand something. But I still had no idea what that was. This man is alive, I felt. Actually alive and moving.

The paint on the picture was still wet, but I took the canvas down from the easel, turned it facing away, and propped it up against the studio wall, careful not to get paint on the wall. It was harder and harder for me to stand seeing the painting. There was something ominous about it—something I shouldn’t know about.

Hovering around the painting was the air of a fishing port. In that air was a mix of smells—the smell of the tide, of fish scales, of diesel engines, of fishing boats. Flocks of birds were screeching, slowly circling on the strong wind. The black golf cap of a middle-aged man who’d probably never played a round of golf in his life. The darkly tanned face, the stringy nape of the neck, the short-clipped hair mixed with gray. The well-used leather jacket. The clatter of knives and forks in the restaurant—that impersonal sound found at chain restaurants around the world. And the white Subaru Forester quietly parked in the lot out front. The sticker of a marlin on the rear bumper.

“Hit me,” the woman had said in the middle of sex. Her fingernails were digging deep into my back. There was a strong smell of sweat. I did as she asked, smacking her face with an open hand.

“Not like that. Don’t hold back, hit me harder,” the woman said, shaking her head violently. “Harder, much harder. Really hit me. I don’t care if there’s a bruise. Hard enough so my nose bleeds.”

I had no desire to hit her. I never had those kind of violent tendencies. Hardly any at all. But she was seriously hoping I would seriously hit her. What she needed was real pain. So I reluctantly hit her again, a little harder this time. Hard enough to leave a red mark on her. Every time I struck her, her flesh squeezed my penis like a vise. Like a starving animal pouncing on some food.

“Would you choke me a little?” she whispered a little while later. “Use this.”

The sound seemed to be coming from another realm. She pulled out a white bathrobe belt from under her pillow. She’d had it there, ready to use.

I refused. I could never do something like that. It was too dangerous. Mess up, and she could die.

“Just pretend,” she pleaded, gasping. “You don’t need to really choke me, just pretend like you are. Wrap this around my neck and tighten it a little.”

I couldn’t refuse.

The impersonal clatter of silverware in a chain restaurant.

I shook my head, trying to drive away those memories. It was an incident I didn’t care to recall, a memory I’d like to throw away and never have again. But the feel of that bathrobe belt lingered in my hands. The way her neck felt, too. For whatever reason, these stayed with me.

And this man knew. Where I’d been the night before, what I’d done. What I’d been thinking.

What should I do with this painting? Keep it here in the studio, turned toward the wall? Even turned around like that, it still made me uneasy. The only other place to keep it was the attic. The same place Tomohiko Amada had hidden away Killing Commendatore. The place to hide away what was in your heart.

In my mind, the words I’d spoken aloud came back to me.

I could reproduce exactly what it looked like. I’m a painter—it’s what I do. But I can’t explain what went into it.

All sorts of things I couldn’t explain were insidiously grabbing hold of me. Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore that I’d discovered in the attic, the strange bell left behind inside the gaping stone chamber in the woods, the Idea that appeared to me in the guise of the Commendatore, and the middle-aged man with the white Subaru Forester. And that odd white-haired person who lived across the valley. Menshiki seemed to be enlisting me into some kind of plan he had in mind.

The whirlpool swirling around me was gradually picking up speed. And there was no way for me to turn back. It was too late. That whirlpool was totally soundless. And that weird silence had me scared.

²⁸ FRANZ KAFKA WAS QUITE FOND OF SLOPES

That evening I taught a children’s art class. The assignment that day was to do rough sketches of people. The children worked in pairs, selecting the type of drawing instruments they wanted from the ones the school had prepared ahead of time (charcoal or various types of soft pencils), and took turns sketching each other in their notebooks. They were limited to fifteen minutes per drawing (I used a kitchen timer to accurately time them). They were supposed to use an eraser as little as they could, and limit themselves to one sheet of paper, if possible.

One by one the children then came to the front of the class, showed us their sketches, and got feedback from the other children. It was a small class, and the atmosphere was congenial. Afterward I went forward and taught them some simple techniques for rough sketches. I explained in general the difference between croquis—rough sketches—and dessan. A dessan is more of a blueprint for a painting, and requires a certain accuracy. Compared with that, a croquis is a free first impression. You get an impression in your mind and trace the rough outline of it before it disappears. More than accuracy, croquis require balance and speed. Many famous painters actually weren’t very skilled at doing croquis. I’ve always prided myself on being good at drawing these kind of quick sketches.

Finally I chose one of the children to model for me and did a rough sketch of her on the blackboard in white chalk, to show them an actual example. Wow! You’re so fast! It looks just like her! the children called out, impressed. One of a teacher’s important duties is to get children to be genuinely impressed.

Next, I had them change partners and do another croquis, and the second time they were much improved. They absorbed knowledge quickly. This time, the instructor was impressed. Of course some of them were better than others, but that didn’t matter. What I was teaching them was less how to draw than a way to view the world.

On this day I selected Mariye Akikawa (intentionally, of course) to serve as model when I drew an example. I did a simple sketch of her from the waist up on the blackboard. It wasn’t exactly a croquis, though the elements were the same. I finished quickly, in three minutes. I wanted to use the class to test what kind of painting I could do of her. What I discovered in doing this was that, as a model for a painting, she had a lot of unique possibilities hidden away inside.

I’d never really consciously observed her before, but now, looking at her carefully as the subject of a drawing, I found her face far more intriguing than my original vague impression. It wasn’t just that she had lovely features. She was, indeed, a beautiful girl, but a closer observation showed a kind of imbalance at work. And behind that unstable expression there was a latent energy, like some agile animal lurking in the tall grass.

I wanted to see if I could capture that impression, but it was next to impossible to do that in three minutes, in chalk on a blackboard. Basically impossible, I should say. I needed more time to observe her face and dissect all the elements. And I had to know more about this young girl.

I left the chalk sketch of her on the blackboard, and after the children had all left, I stayed behind, arms folded, studying the sketch. I tried to determine if there was anything of Menshiki in her features. But I couldn’t decide. I could detect a resemblance in certain features, in others not so much—it could go either way. But if I had to give one feature it would be the eyes, a shared look in their eyes. The distinctive way their eyes would flash for an instant.

If you stare long enough deep into the bottom of a clear spring you discover a kind of lump that emits light. You can’t see it unless you look very closely. That lump soon wavers and loses shape. The more carefully you look, the more you start to wonder if it might all be an illusion. But something there is unmistakably glowing. Having done countless portraits of people, occasionally I’ll sense someone giving off that glow. Not many people have it. But this girl and Menshiki were among these rare few.

The middle-aged receptionist at the school came into the classroom to straighten up and stood beside me, admiring the drawing.

“That’s Mariye Akikawa, isn’t it,” she said at first glance. “A very nice likeness. It looks like she’s about to start moving. It’s a waste to have to erase it.”

“Thank you,” I said. I got up from my desk, picked an eraser, and completely wiped the sketch away.

The Commendatore finally made an appearance the next day (Saturday). It was the first time since Tuesday night at the dinner at Menshiki’s that he—to borrow his phrase—materialized. I was back from food shopping, in the living room reading a book, when I heard the sound of the bell tinkling from the studio. I went into the studio and found the Commendatore seated on the shelf, lightly shaking the bell next to his ear. As if making sure of the subtle sound. When he spotted me he stopped ringing the bell.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

“Negative. It has been nothing of the kind,” the Commendatore said curtly. “An Idea travels around the world in units of hundreds, thousands of years. A day or two does not count as time.”

“How did you like Mr. Menshiki’s dinner party?”

“Ah, yes, an interesting dinner that was. I could not partake of the food, of course, but did feast my eyes on it. And Menshiki is a fascinating fellow. Always thinking several steps ahead. And there is much pent up inside him.”

“He asked me to do a favor for him.”

“Affirmative.” The Commendatore gazed at the ancient bell in his hand. He did not seem interested. “I heard it all quite clearly. But it is not something that has much to do with me. It is a practical matter—a worldly matter, you could say—that is between my friends and Menshiki.”

“Is it all right if I ask a question?” I said.

The Commendatore rubbed his goatee with his palm. “Affirmative. But I do not know if I will be able to answer.”

“It’s about Tomohiko Amada’s painting Killing Commendatore. I assume you know the painting, since you borrowed one of the figures. The painting seems based on an incident in Vienna in 1938. Something Tomohiko Amada himself was involved in. Do you know anything about that?”

Arms folded, the Commendatore thought this over. Finally he narrowed his eyes and spoke.

“There are plenty of things in history that are best left in the shadows. Accurate knowledge does not improve people’s lives. The objective does not necessarily surpass the subjective, you know. Reality does not necessarily extinguish fantasy.”

“Generally speaking,” I said, “that might be so. But that painting is calling out to anyone who sees it. I get the sense that Tomohiko Amada painted it to privately capture an event that was essential to him but that he could not share with others. He changed the characters and setting to another age, and made a metaphorical confession, using his newly acquired skills in Japanese-style painting. I even get the feeling that that was the sole reason he abandoned Western painting and converted to Japanese art.”

“Cannot you just let the painting speak for itself?” the Commendatore said softly. “If that painting wants to say something, then best to let it speak. Let metaphors be metaphors, a code a code, a sieve a sieve. Is there something wrong with that?”

A sieve? But I let it go.

“No, nothing’s wrong with that,” I said. “I’d just like to know what made Tomohiko Amada paint it. It’s clear that the painting is expecting something. The picture was, without a doubt, painted for a specific purpose.”

The Commendatore continued to rub his beard with his palm as if recalling something. “Franz Kafka was quite fond of slopes,” he said. “He was drawn to all sorts of slopes. He loved to gaze at homes built on the middle of a slope. He would sit by the side of the street for hours, staring at houses built like that. He never grew tired of it and would sit there, tilting his head to one side, then straightening it up again. A kind of strange fellow. Did you know this?”

Franz Kafka and slopes?

“No, I didn’t,” I said. I’d never heard of that.

“But does knowing that make one appreciate his works more?”

I didn’t respond to his question.

“So you knew Franz Kafka, too? Personally?”

“He does not know about me personally, of course,” the Commendatore said. He chuckled, as if recalling something. This might have been the first time I’d seen him laugh out loud. Was there something about Franz Kafka to make him chuckle?

His expression returned to normal and he went on.

“The truth is a symbol, and symbols are the truth. It is best to grasp symbols the way they are. There’s no logic or facts, no pig’s belly button or ant’s balls. When people try to use a method other than the truth to follow along the path of understanding, it is like trying to use a sieve to hold water. I am telling you this for your own good. Better to give it up. Sadly, what Menshiki is doing is similar to that.”

“So no matter what, it’s a wasted effort?”

“No one can ever float something full of holes on water.”

“So what exactly is Mr. Menshiki trying to do?”

The Commendatore lightly shrugged. Charming lines formed between his eyebrows that reminded me of a young Marlon Brando. I seriously doubted the Commendatore had ever seen Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, but those lines were exactly like Marlon Brando’s. Though I had no way of knowing how far he went, when it came to referencing his appearance and features.

He said, “There is very little I can explain to my friends about Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore. That is because it is, in essence, allegory and metaphor. Allegories and metaphors are not something you should explain in words. You just grasp them and accept them.”

The Commendatore scratched behind his ear with his little finger. Just like a cat will scratch behind its ear before it rains.

“I will, however, tell my friends one thing. Nothing that is enormously significant, but tomorrow night you’ll get a phone call. A call from Menshiki. Think things over very carefully before you answer. Your answer will be the same no matter how much you think it over, but it is still best to think it over very carefully.”

“And it’s very important to let the other person know you’re thinking things over carefully, isn’t it. As a gesture.”

“Affirmative. A hard-and-fast rule in business is to never accept the first offer. Remember that, and you will never go wrong.” The Commendatore chuckled again. He seemed in an especially good mood today. “Changing topics, but I wondered, is it interesting to touch a clitoris?”

“I don’t think you touch it because it’s interesting,” I said honestly.

“From the sidelines it is hard to understand.”

“I don’t think I get it, either,” I said. So an Idea, too, doesn’t necessarily understand everything.

“About time for me to disappear,” the Commendatore said. “I have someplace else I need to go. Do not have much time.”

And with that the Commendatore vanished. A gradual, phased disappearance, like the Cheshire Cat’s. I went to the kitchen, made a simple dinner, and ate. I considered for a moment what “someplace else” an Idea would need to go to. And naturally had no clue.

Like the Commendatore had prophesized, at just past eight the following evening, I got a phone call from Menshiki.

I thanked him again for the dinner party. The food was amazing, I said. It was nothing, he replied. I want to thank you, Menshiki said, for letting me have such an enjoyable time. I also thanked him for the payment for the portrait, which was way more than we’d agreed to. Please don’t worry about it, Menshiki said modestly. That’s only to be expected, for such a wonderful painting. Once we’d finished all these polite exchanges there was a moment of silence.

“By the way, about Mariye Akikawa,” Menshiki began, as casually as if discussing the weather. “You remember the other day when I asked if you would have her model for a painting?”

“Of course I remember.”

“Yesterday I asked Mariye—actually Mr. Matsushima, the owner of the arts-and-culture center, asked her aunt—if it might be possible—and she agreed to model.”

“I see,” I said.

“So all the pieces are in place, if you’ll agree to paint the portrait.”

“But Mr. Menshiki, isn’t Mr. Matsushima a bit suspicious that you’re involved in this?”

“I’ve been very careful, so no need to worry. He sees me as acting as your patron of sorts. I hope you’re not offended…”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “But I’m surprised Mariye Akikawa agreed. She’s so quiet and docile, and strikes me as a timid girl.”

“Honestly, her aunt didn’t like the idea at first. She felt nothing good could come from modeling for a painting. I’m sorry if this offends you, as an artist.”

“No, most people would feel that way.”

“But Mariye herself seemed quite interested in modeling for the painting. She said if you’d paint her she’d be happy to pose. She’s the one who persuaded her aunt to agree.”

Why, I wondered? Was there some connection with the sketch of her I did on the blackboard? I didn’t venture to bring this up with Menshiki.

“Things have worked out perfectly, haven’t they?” Menshiki said.

I thought it over. Was this really the perfect way for things to go? Menshiki seemed to be waiting for my opinion.

“Could you tell me more about how this would unfold?”

Menshiki said, “It’s very simple. You’re looking for a model for a painting. And you think that Mariye Akikawa, from your art class, would be perfect. So you had the owner of the arts-and-culture center, Mr. Matsushima, sound out the girl’s guardian, her aunt. That’s the story. Mr. Matsushima personally recommended you. Said you have a sterling character, are an enthusiastic teacher, that you’re a talented artist with a promising future. I don’t appear anywhere in this. I made sure my name didn’t come up. Naturally she’ll be clothed when she models, and her aunt will accompany her. And you’ll finish the sessions by noon. Those are the conditions they laid down. What do you think?”

Following the Commendatore’s advice (“Always turn down first offers”), I put on the brakes.

“I don’t have any problem with the conditions, but can I have a bit more time to think about this?”

“Of course,” Menshiki said calmly. “Think about it as much as you’d like. I’m not trying to rush you. Obviously you’re the one who would paint the picture, and if you don’t feel like doing it, that’s the end of it. I just wanted to let you know that everything’s all set, as far as I’m concerned. One more thing, perhaps a little off topic, but I’m planning to pay you fully for the painting.”

Things are really moving along here, I thought. Everything’s evolving amazingly quickly and smoothly, like a ball rolling down a slope… I pictured Franz Kafka seated halfway down the slope, watching the ball roll by. I needed to be cautious.

“Can you give me two days?” I asked. “I should be able to give you an answer then.”

“That’s fine. I’ll call you again in two days,” Menshiki said.

We ended the call.

Truth be told, I really didn’t need two days to give a reply. I’d already made up my mind. I was dying to paint Mariye Akikawa’s portrait. Even if someone tried to stop me, I’d take on the task. The only reason for asking for two extra days was that I didn’t want anyone else to dictate the pace of events. I needed to stop and take a deep breath, something instinct—and the Commendatore—had taught me.

It is like trying to use a sieve to hold water, the Commendatore said. No one ever can float something full of holes on water.

His words hinted at something, something to come.

²⁹ ANY UNNATURAL ELEMENTS

I spent those two days gazing, back and forth, at the two paintings in my studio—Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore and my own painting of the man with the white Subaru Forester. Killing Commendatore was hanging now on the white wall of the studio. The Man with the White Subaru Forester was in a corner of the studio facing the wall (only when I wanted to look at it did I return it to the easel). Other than gaze at those paintings, I killed time reading books, listening to music, cooking, cleaning, weeding the garden, taking walks nearby. I didn’t feel like taking up my paintbrush. The Commendatore didn’t appear, and maintained his silence.

As I hiked the mountain roads nearby, I tried to find a place from which I could view Mariye Akikawa’s house. But I could never find it. When I saw it from Menshiki’s house, I gathered it wasn’t far from me, but the topography obstructed my view. As I hiked through the woods I unconsciously was on the lookout for hornets.

What I rediscovered, spending two days gazing at the paintings, was that my feelings were spot on. Killing Commendatore wanted me to break its “code,” and The Man with the White Subaru Forester wanted the artist (namely me) to not make any more revisions. And both of these appeals were very strong—at least I felt them strongly—and I had to obey. I left The Man with the White Subaru Forester as it was (though I did try to fathom the basis for why it wanted to be left as is), and struggled to decipher Killing Commendatore. But both paintings were enveloped in an enigma, as hard as a walnut shell, and I couldn’t find the means to crack the shell open.

Without the upcoming portrait of Mariye Akikawa to deal with, I might very well have spent my days, ad infinitum, gazing back and forth between these paintings. But in the evening of the second day Menshiki called, and for the time being, at least, the spell was broken.

“Did you make a decision?” Menshiki said, after we’d greeted each other. He was, of course, asking about painting Mariye Akikawa’s portrait.

“I’ll accept the offer,” I replied. “But I do have one condition.”

“Which is?”

“I can’t predict what kind of painting it will turn out to be. I can’t know what style I’ll paint it in until Mariye is actually here and I actually begin. If no good ideas come to me, I might not finish. Or it might be finished, but I might not like it. Or you might not like it. So I’d like to do it spontaneously, not because you commissioned it, or because you suggested I do it.”

A momentary pause, then Menshiki said, probingly, “In other words, if you’re not satisfied with the finished painting it won’t end up mine, under any circumstances. Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s a possibility. Anyway, I’d like to be the one who decides what to do with the painting. That’s my condition.”

Menshiki gave it some thought before he spoke. “The only thing I can do, I think, is agree. If not accepting that condition means you won’t paint it.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“So you want to be more free artistically, not bound by the painting being on commission by me, or having any suggestions from me, is that it? Or is the financial aspect the issue?”

“A little bit of both. But what’s really important is that I want to do it all more naturally.”

“Naturally?”

“I want to get rid of any unnatural elements, as much as I can.”

“Meaning…,” Menshiki said. His voice had grown a little hard. “That there’s something unnatural in my asking you to paint Mariye’s portrait?”

It is like trying to use a sieve to hold water, the Commendatore said. No one can ever float something full of holes on water.

I said, “What I mean is, with this painting I’d like to be on an equal footing with you, not in a relationship that’s mixed up with questions of individual interests. I’m sorry if this sounds rude.”

“No, it’s not rude at all. It’s only natural for people to be on an equal footing. Feel free to say anything you’d like to me.”

“In other words, I’d like to paint the portrait of Mariye Akikawa as a spontaneous act, not one that you had a hand in. Unless I do that, I might not come up with any good ideas about how to paint her. That sort of thing might be a shackle, visible or otherwise.”

Menshiki thought about this. “I understand completely,” he finally said. “Let’s forget about it being a commission. And please forget that I mentioned payment. That was me being overeager, I’m afraid. We can revisit the question of what to do with the painting once it’s finished and you show it to me. Of course I’ll honor your desires as the artist above all. But how about the other request I had? Do you remember?”

“About you casually stopping by my studio while Mariye is modeling for me?”

“Correct.”

I thought it over. “I have no problem with that. I’m acquainted with you, you live in the neighborhood, and just happened to drop by while out for a Sunday stroll. And we just chat for a while. That strikes me as completely natural.”

Menshiki seemed relieved. “I’d be very grateful if you’d arrange it. I’ll make sure not to get in the way. So can I plan things so that Mariye comes over to your place this Sunday morning, and you’ll paint her portrait? Actually Mr. Matsushima will act as intermediary and arrange things between you and the Akikawas.”

“That would be fine. Go ahead and set it up. We’ll plan on the two of them coming over on Sunday morning at ten, and Mariye will sit for the portrait. I’ll be sure to finish up by twelve. It’ll take several weeks to finish. Maybe five or six. That’s about the size of it.”

“I’ll be in touch once everything’s set.”

We’d finished discussing all we needed to.

“Ah, yes,” he said, as if suddenly remembering. “I found out a few more things about Tomohiko Amada’s time in Vienna. I told you that the failed assassination attempt he was involved in took place right about the time of the Anschluss, but actually it was in the early fall of 1938. About half a year after the Anschluss, in other words. You know the facts about the Anschluss, right?”

“Not in much detail.”

“On March 12, 1938, the Wehrmacht smashed across the border with Austria, invaded the country, and soon gained control of Vienna. They threatened President Miklas and made him designate Seyss-Inquart, head of the Austrian Nazi Party, as prime minister. Hitler came to Vienna two days later. On April tenth there was a national referendum, a vote on whether Austria should be annexed by Germany. On the surface it was a free, secret ballot, but the Nazis rigged things so any voter would have to be pretty courageous to vote nein. The vote was 99.75 percent ja for the annexation. That’s how Austria as a nation vanished, reduced to being a part of Germany. Have you ever been to Vienna?”

I’d never been out of the country, let alone to Vienna. I’d never even had a passport.

“Vienna’s like no other city in the world,” Menshiki said. “You sense it even after being there for a short time. Vienna’s different from Germany. The air’s different, the people are different. Same with the food and the music. It’s a special place for people to enjoy themselves, to love the arts. But back then Vienna was in total chaos, a brutal storm blowing violently through it. And it was exactly this period of upheaval in Vienna that Tomohiko Amada lived through. The Nazis behaved themselves until the national referendum, but after that they revealed their true, brutal nature. The first thing Hitler did after the Anschluss was build the Mauthausen concentration camp in northern Austria. It took only a few weeks to complete it. Building it was the Nazis’ top priority. In a short space of time, tens of thousands of political prisoners were arrested and shipped off to the camp. Most of those sent to Mauthausen were so-called incorrigible political prisoners or antisocial elements. So their treatment was especially cruel. Lots of people were executed there, or died doing harsh physical labor in the quarries. The label “incorrigible” meant that once you were thrown into that camp, you’d never come out alive. Many anti-Nazi activists weren’t sent to the camp, but were tortured and murdered during interrogation, their fate covered up. The aborted assassination attempt that Tomohiko Amada was involved in took place during this chaotic period following the Anschluss.”

I listened to Menshiki’s story without comment.

“But as I mentioned before, there’s no public record at all of any abortive assassination attempt on any Nazi VIP from the summer to fall of 1938. Which is pretty strange, if you think about it. If such a plot had really existed, Hitler and Goebbels would have spread the news far and wide and used it for political purposes. Like they did with Kristallnacht. You know about Kristallnacht, right?”

“The basic facts, yes,” I said. I’d seen a movie once that dealt with it. “A German embassy official in Paris was shot and killed by an anti-Nazi Jew, and the Nazis used that as an excuse for fomenting anti-Jewish riots throughout Germany. Lots of businesses run by Jews were destroyed, and quite a few people were murdered. The name comes from the way that the glass from the shattered shop windows glittered like crystals.”

“Exactly. That was in November 1938. The German government announced it as spontaneous rioting, when in reality the Nazi government, with Goebbels leading the way, used the assassination to systematically plan this brutality. The assassin, Herschel Grynszpan, carried out the act to protest the cruel treatment of his family as Jews back in Germany. At first he planned to assassinate the German ambassador, but when he couldn’t, he instead shot one of the embassy staff who just happened to be there. Ironically, Vom Rath, the staff member he shot, was under surveillance by authorities for anti-Nazi sympathies. At any rate, if there had been a plot at the time to assassinate a Nazi official in Vienna, a similar campaign would definitely have taken place. They would have used it as an excuse to increase the suppression of anti-Nazi forces. At least, they wouldn’t have quietly covered up the incident.”

“Was there some reason they didn’t want it made public?”

“It seems a fact that the incident did take place. Most of the people involved were Viennese college students, and they were all arrested and either executed or murdered. To seal their lips about the plot. One theory is that one of the resistance members was the daughter of a high-ranking Nazi official, and that’s why they kept it under wraps. But the facts aren’t clear. After the war there was some testimony given about it, but this was all circumstantial evidence, and it’s unsure whether any of it is reliable. By the way, the resistance group’s name was Candela. In Latin it means a candle shining in the darkness underground. The Japanese word for lantern—kantera—derives from this.”

“If all those involved in the plot were killed, that means the only survivor is Tomohiko Amada?”

“It does seem that way. Just before the end of the war, the Reich Main Security Office ordered that all secret documents relating to the incident be burned, and the plot was lost to the darkness of history. It would be nice if we could question Tomohiko Amada about the details of what took place, but that would be pretty difficult now.”

It would, I said. Up till now Tomohiko Amada had never spoken of the incident, and his memory had now sunk deep into the thick mud of oblivion.

I thanked Menshiki and hung up.

Even while his memory was still solid, Tomohiko Amada had maintained a firm silence about the incident. He must have had some private reasons for why he couldn’t talk about it. Or perhaps when he left the country the authorities had forced him to agree to never speak of it. In place of maintaining a lifelong silence, though, he’d left the painting Killing Commendatore. He’d entrusted that painting with the truth he was forbidden to ever speak about, and his feelings about what had occurred.

The next evening Menshiki called again. Mariye Akikawa would be coming to my house the following Sunday at ten a.m., he reported. As he’d mentioned, her aunt would be accompanying her. Menshiki wouldn’t be there that first day.

“I’ll come by after some time has passed, after she’s gotten used to posing for you. I’m sure she’ll be nervous at first, and it’s better that I don’t bother you,” he said.

His voice was a little unsteady. That tone put me on edge as well.

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” I replied.

“Come to think of it, though, I might be the one who’s the most nervous,” Menshiki said after a little hesitation, sounding as if he were revealing a secret. “I think I said this before, but I’ve never been near Mariye Akikawa, not even once. I’ve only seen her from a distance.”

“But if you wanted to get close to her, you could have created an opportunity to do so.”

“Yes, of course. If I’d wanted to I could have made any number of opportunities.”

“But you didn’t. Why not?”

Uncharacteristically, Menshiki took time to choose his words. He said, “I couldn’t predict how I’d feel, or what I’d say, if I was close to her. That’s why I’ve intentionally stayed away. I’ve been satisfied with being on the other side of the valley, secretly watching her from a distance with high-powered binoculars. Is that a warped way of thinking?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “But I do find it a bit odd. But now you’ve decided to actually meet her at my house. Why?”

Menshiki was silent for a time, and then spoke. “That’s because you’re here, and can act as an intermediary.”

“Me?” I said in surprise. “Why me? Not to be rude or anything, but you hardly know me. And I don’t know you well either. We only met about a month ago. We live across the valley from each other, but our lifestyles couldn’t be more different. So why did you trust me that much? And tell me your secrets? You don’t seem the type to give away your inner feelings so easily.”

“Exactly. Once I have a secret I lock it away in a safe and swallow the key. I don’t seek advice from others or reveal things to them.”

“Then how come—I’m not sure how to put this—you’ve confided in me?”

Menshiki was silent for a time. “It’s hard to explain, but I got the feeling the first day I met you that it’s all right to let my guard down. Call it intuition. And that feeling only grew stronger after I saw my portrait. I decided, This is a trustworthy person. Someone who would accept my way of seeing things, my way of thinking. Even if I have a slightly odd and twisted way of seeing and thinking.”

A slightly odd and twisted way of seeing and thinking, I thought.

“I’m really happy you’d say that,” I said. “But I don’t think I understand you as a person. You go way beyond the scope of my comprehension. Frankly, many things about you simply surprise me. Sometimes I’m at a loss for words.”

“But you never try to judge me. Am I right?”

That was true, now that he’d said it. I’d never tried to apply some standard to judge Menshiki’s words and actions. I didn’t praise them, and didn’t criticize them. They simply left me, as I’d said, at a loss for words.

“You might be right,” I admitted.

“And you remember when I went down to the bottom of that hole? When I was down there by myself for an hour?”

“Of course.”

“It never even occurred to you to leave me there forever, in that dark, dank hole. Right?”

“True. But that sort of idea wouldn’t occur to a normal person.”

“Are you sure about that?”

What could I say? I couldn’t imagine what lay deep in other people’s minds.

“I have another request,” Menshiki said.

“And what is that?”

“It’s about next Sunday, when Mariye and her aunt come to your place,” Menshiki said. “I’d like to watch your house then with my binoculars, if you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind,” I said. I mean, the Commendatore had watched my girlfriend and me, right beside us, when we’d had sex. Having someone watch my terrace from afar wasn’t about to faze me now.

“I thought it’d be best to tell you in advance,” Menshiki said, as if excusing himself.

I was impressed all over again how strangely honest he was. We finished talking and hung up the phone. I’d been holding the phone tightly against me, and the spot above my ear ached.

The next morning I received a certified letter. I signed the receipt the mailman held out for me, and got a large envelope. Getting it didn’t exactly make me feel cheerful. My experience is that certified mail is never good news.

And as expected, the mail was from a law office in Tokyo, and inside were two sets of divorce papers. There was also a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The only thing accompanying the forms was a letter with businesslike instructions from the lawyer. It said that all I needed to do was read over the forms, check them, and, if I didn’t have any objections, sign and seal one set and send it back. If there are any points that you’re uncertain about, the letter said, feel free to contact the attorney in charge. I glanced through the forms, filled in the date, signed them, and affixed my seal. I didn’t particularly have any points that were uncertain. Neither of us had any financial obligations toward the other, no estate worth dividing up, no children to fight a custody battle over. A very simple, easy-to-understand divorce. Divorce 101, you could say. Two lives had overlapped into one, and six years later had split apart again, that was it. I slipped the documents inside the return envelope and put the envelope on top of the dining room table. Tomorrow when I went to town to teach my art class all I’d need to do was toss it inside the mailbox in front of the station.

That whole afternoon I sort of half-gazed at the envelope on the table, and gradually came to feel like the entire weight of six years of married life was crammed inside that envelope. All that time—time tinged with all kinds of memories and emotions—was stuffed inside an ordinary business envelope, gradually suffocating to death. I felt a weight pressing down on my chest, and my breathing grew ragged. I picked up the envelope, took it to the studio, and placed it on the shelf, next to the dingy ancient bell. I shut the studio door, returned to the kitchen, poured a glass of the whiskey Masahiko had given me, and drank it. My rule was not to drink while it was still light out, but I figured it was okay sometimes. The kitchen was totally still and silent. No wind outside, no sound of cars. Not even any birds chirping.

I had no particular problem about getting divorced. For all intents and purposes we already were divorced. And I had no emotional hang-up about signing and sealing the official documents. If that’s what she wanted, fine. It was a legal formality, nothing more.

But when it came to why, and how, things had turned out this way, the sequence of events was beyond me. I understood, of course, that over time, and as circumstances changed, a couple could grow closer, or move apart. Changes in a person’s feelings aren’t regulated by custom, logic, or the law. They’re fluid, unstable, free to spread their wings and fly away. Like migratory birds have no concept of borders between countries.

But these were all just generalizations, and I couldn’t easily grasp the individual case here—that this woman, Yuzu, refused to love this man, me, and chose instead to be loved by someone else. It felt terribly absurd, a horribly ugly way to be treated. There wasn’t any anger involved (I think). I mean, what was I supposed to be angry with? What I was feeling was a fundamental numbness. The numbness your heart automatically activates to lessen the awful pain when you want somebody desperately and they reject you. A kind of emotional morphine.

I couldn’t easily forget Yuzu. I still wanted her. But say she were living in a place across the valley from my house, and say I owned a pair of high-powered binoculars—would I really try to peer into her daily life through those lenses? I sincerely doubted it. What I mean is, in the first place I wouldn’t pick that sort of place to live in. It would be like building a torture rack just for me.

The whiskey did its job and I went to bed before eight and fell asleep. At one thirty a.m. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. It was a long, lonely haul until dawn. I didn’t read, didn’t listen to music, just sat on the sofa in the living room blankly staring out into the empty, dark space. All sorts of thoughts swirled through my head. Most of which I shouldn’t have thought about.

I wish the Commendatore were with me, I thought. I wish we could talk about something together. Anything. The topic didn’t matter. Just hearing his voice would be enough.

But the Commendatore was nowhere to be seen. And I had no way to summon him.

³⁰ IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE PERSON

The next afternoon I mailed the divorce papers I’d signed and sealed. I didn’t include any letter. I simply tossed the stamped return envelope with the documents into the mailbox in front of the station. Just having that envelope out of the house felt like a burden had been lifted. I had no idea what legal route these documents would take next. Not that it mattered. They could follow whatever path they liked.

And Sunday morning, just before ten, Mariye Akikawa came to my house. A bright-blue Toyota Prius climbed the slope with barely a sound and came to a stop near my front door. In the bright Sunday sunlight, the car sparkled, grandly, vibrantly. Like it was brand-new, just unwrapped. A lot of different cars had found their way to my place recently—Menshiki’s silver Jaguar, my girlfriend’s red Mini, the chauffeur-driven black Infiniti that Menshiki had sent for me, Masahiko’s old black Volvo, and now the blue Toyota Prius that belonged to Mariye Akikawa’s aunt. And of course my own Toyota Corolla station wagon (covered with dust for so long I couldn’t recall what the original color had been). I imagine people have all sorts of reasons for choosing the car they drive, and of course I had no clue why Mariye’s aunt had chosen a blue Toyota Prius. It looked less like a car than a giant vacuum cleaner.

The quiet Prius engine shut off, and the surroundings grew that much quieter. The doors opened, and Mariye Akikawa and the woman I took to be her aunt got out. The aunt looked young, though early forties would have been my guess. She had on dark sunglasses and a gray cardigan over a simple light-blue dress. She carried a shiny black handbag and had on low, dark-gray shoes. Good shoes for driving. She shut her door, removed the sunglasses, and put them in her handbag. Her hair fell to her shoulders and was neatly curled (though not with the excessive perfection of someone just emerged from a hair salon). No accessories, other than a gold brooch on her collar.

Mariye had on a black cotton sweater and a brown, knee-length wool skirt. I’d only seen her in her school uniform up till then, and she seemed different. Side by side they looked like a mother and child from a refined, elegant household. Though I knew from Menshiki that they weren’t actually mother and child.

As always I observed them through a gap in the curtain. And when the bell rang I went to the entrance and opened the front door.

Mariye’s aunt had a very tranquil, calm way of speaking. She had lovely features. Not the kind of beautiful woman that would turn heads, but neat, regular features. A natural, subdued smile graced her lips, like the pale moon at dawn. She was carrying a box of cookies as a present. I was the one who had asked to have Mariye model for me, so there was no reason for her to bring me anything, but she was probably the type of person who’d had it drummed into her since she was little that when you visit someone’s house you always should bring along a present. So I simply thanked her and accepted it, and showed the two of them into the living room.

“Our house isn’t so far from here, a stone’s throw, really, but when you drive it’s a roundabout road to get here,” the aunt said. (Her name was Shoko Akikawa, she told me, the sho written with the character that meant a traditional Japanese pan flute.) “I knew of course that this was Tomohiko Amada’s house, but this is the first time I’ve ever been up here even though we live next door.”

“I’ve been living here, taking care of the place, since this spring,” I explained.

“Yes, I heard. I’m glad it turned out we’re neighbors. I look forward to getting to know you better.”

Shoko bowed deeply and thanked me for teaching Mariye. “My niece really enjoys going to the school, thanks to you,” she said.

“I wouldn’t say I’m exactly teaching her,” I said. “Basically I just enjoy drawing together with all the pupils.”

“But I understand you’re a very skilled instructor. I’ve heard many people say that.”

That I found hard to believe, but I made no comment, letting these words of praise pass unremarked. Shoko was raised well, a woman who put a premium on social niceties.

Seated side by side like this, the first thing anyone would notice about Mariye Akikawa and her aunt is that their features didn’t resemble each other in the slightest. From a little ways off they seemed a well-matched mother and child, but up close it was hard to find anything in common in their appearance. Mariye had lovely features, too, and Shoko Akikawa was without doubt quite attractive, but their features were poles apart. If Shoko Akikawa’s features were aiming at gaining a wonderful balance, Mariye Akikawa’s aimed at destroying equilibrium, demolishing a set framework. If Shoko Akikawa aimed at a gentle, overarching harmony and stability, Mariye Akikawa sought an asymmetrical friction. Still, one could sense from the mood between them that despite all this they had a warm, healthy relationship. In a sense they were more relaxed around each other than a real mother and daughter. They seemed to maintain a comfortable distance. At least that’s the impression I got.

Of course I knew nothing about why a woman like Shoko, beautiful and refined, was still single, and put up with living far off in the hills like this in her older brother’s home. Perhaps she’d had a lover, a mountain climber who’d perished in an attempt to reach the summit of Mt. Everest by the most arduous route, and had pledged to remain single forever, cherishing beautiful memories of her lover in her heart. Or perhaps she was having a long-term affair with a charming married man. In any event, it wasn’t my business.

Shoko walked over to the windows on the west side and gazed with great interest at the view of the valley from there.

“It’s the same mountain we see from our place, but this is a slightly different angle and it doesn’t look the same at all,” she said, sounding impressed.

Menshiki’s huge white mansion glittered on top of that mountain (and he was probably over there watching my house now through his binoculars). How did that mansion appear from her house? I wanted to ask, but it seemed risky to broach that topic right off the bat. It was hard to tell what that might lead to.

Wanting to steer clear of that, I quickly led them into the studio.

“This is where I’ll have Mariye model for me,” I said to them.

“This must be where Tomohiko Amada did his painting,” Shoko said, gazing with great interest around the studio.

“I believe so,” I said.

“There’s a different feeling here, even from the rest of your house. Don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure. Living here day to day, I don’t really get that sense.”

“What do you think, Mari-chan?” Shoko asked Mariye. “Don’t you find there’s an unusual sort of feeling to the room?”

Mariye was busy looking around the studio and didn’t reply. She probably hadn’t heard her aunt’s question. I wanted to hear her reply as well.

“While the two of you are working here, I’ll wait in the living room, if that’s all right?” Shoko asked.

“It’s all up to Mariye. The most important thing is creating an environment where she can feel relaxed. Whether you stay here or not, either way is fine with me.”

“I don’t want Auntie to be here,” Mariye said, the first time she’d opened her mouth that day. She spoke quietly, but it was a terse announcement with no room for negotiation.

“That’s fine. I’ll do as you’d prefer. I figured that’s how it would be, so I brought a book to read,” Shoko replied calmly, not bothered by her niece’s stern tone. She was probably used to that sort of exchange.

Mariye completely ignored what her aunt said, and crouched down a bit, gazing steadily at Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore hanging on the wall. The look in her eyes as she studied this rectangular Japanese painting was intense. She examined each and every detail of the painting, as if etching every element of it in her memory. Come to think of it (I thought), this might be the first time anyone else had ever laid eyes on this painting. It had totally slipped my mind to move the painting somewhere out of sight. Too late now, I thought.

“Do you like that painting?” I asked the girl.

Mariye didn’t reply. She was concentrating so much on the painting that she didn’t hear my voice. Or did she hear it but was just ignoring me?

“I’m sorry. She really goes her own way sometimes,” Shoko said, interceding. “She focuses so hard sometimes she blocks out everything else. She’s always been that way. With books and music, paintings and movies.”

I don’t know why, but neither Shoko nor Mariye asked whether the painting was by Tomohiko Amada, so I didn’t venture to explain. And of course I didn’t tell them the title, Killing Commendatore, either. I wasn’t too worried that they’d both seen the painting. Neither one probably would notice that this was a special work not included in Amada’s oeuvre. Things would be different if Menshiki or Masahiko spotted it.

I let Mariye examine Killing Commendatore to her heart’s content. I went to the kitchen, boiled water, and made tea. I put cups and the teapot on a tray and carried it to the living room. I added the cookies Shoko had brought as a gift. Shoko and I sat on chairs in the living room and sipped tea while chatting about life in the mountains, the weather in the valley, etc. This kind of relaxed conversation was necessary before I began to work in earnest.

Mariye kept studying Killing Commendatore by herself for a while, then finally, like a very curious cat, slowly made her way around the studio, picking things up and checking them out along the way. Brushes, tubes of paint, a canvas, and even the old bell that had been exhumed from underground. She held the bell and shook it a few times. It made its usual light jingling sound.

“How come there’s an old bell here?” Mariye, facing a blank space, didn’t seem to be addressing her question to anyone in particular. She was asking me, of course.

“The bell came nearby, from out of the ground,” I said. “I just happened across it. I think it’s connected with Buddhism somehow. Like a priest would ring it as he recited sutras.”

She rang it again next to her ear. “Kind of a strange sound,” she commented.

Once more I was impressed that such a faint sound could have reached out from underground in the woods and found me in the house. Maybe there was some special way of shaking it.

“You shouldn’t touch someone else’s things without permission,” Shoko Akikawa cautioned her niece.

“I don’t mind,” I said. “It’s not valuable.”

Mariye seemed to quickly lose interest in the bell. She returned it to the shelf, plunked down on the stool in the middle of the room, and gazed at the scenery out the window.

“If you don’t mind, I was thinking of starting,” I said.

“All right, then I’ll stay here and read,” Shoko said, an elegant smile rising to her lips. From her black bag she took out a thick paperback with a bookstore’s paper cover. I left her there, went into the studio, and shut the door between it and the living room. Mariye and I were alone in the room.

I had Mariye sit in a dining room chair, one with a backrest. And I sat on my usual stool. We were about six feet apart.

“Could you sit there for a while for me? You can sit however you’d like. As long as you don’t change your position too much, it’s okay to move around. No need to sit completely still.”

“Is it okay for me to talk while you’re painting?” Mariye asked probingly.

“No problem at all,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

“That drawing of me you did the other day was great.”

“The one in chalk on the blackboard?”

“Too bad it got erased.”

I laughed. “Can’t keep it on the blackboard forever. But if you like that kind of thing I can do as many as you want. It’s simple.”

She didn’t reply.

I picked up a thick pencil and used it as a kind of ruler to measure the various elements of her facial features. Different from a croquis, when drawing a dessan you need to take time and make sure you have an accurate grasp of the model’s features. No matter what kind of painting it ends up being.

“I think you have a real talent for drawing,” Mariye said after a period of silence, as if remembering.

“Thank you,” I said. “Hearing that gives me courage.”

“You need courage?”

“Sure I do. Everybody needs to have courage.”

I picked up a large sketchbook and opened it.

“I’m going to sketch dessan of you today. I enjoy painting with oils directly on a blank canvas, but today I’ll stick to drawing detailed dessan. That way I can gradually understand the kind of person you are.”

“Understand me?”

“Drawing someone means understanding and interpreting another person. Not with words, but with lines, shapes, and colors.”

“I wish I could understand myself,” Mariye said.

“I feel the same way,” I agreed. “I wish I could understand myself, too. But it’s not easy. That’s why I paint.”

Using a pencil, I quickly sketched her face and figure from the waist up. How to transfer her depth to a flat medium was critical. And how to transplant her subtle movements to something static—that too was vital. A dessan sketch determines the outline of those.

“My breasts are really small, don’t you think?” Mariye asked, out of nowhere.

“I wonder,” I said.

“They’re like bread that didn’t rise.”

I laughed. “You’ve just started junior high. I’m sure they’ll get bigger. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t even really need a bra. The other girls in my class all wear bras.”

Certainly it was hard to see any development through her sweater. “If it really bothers you, you could always pad your bra,” I said.

“You want me to?”

“Either way’s fine with me. It’s not like I’m painting you to capture your breasts. You should do whatever you like.”

“But don’t men like women with big breasts?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “When my younger sister was about your age, her breasts were small too. But that didn’t seem to bother her.”

“Maybe it bothered her, but she just didn’t mention it.”

“Could be,” I said. But I don’t think that bothered Komi. She had other things to worry about.

“Did your sister’s breasts get bigger after that?”

My hand continued to move the pencil swiftly across the page. I didn’t respond to her question. Mariye watched my hand glide along the paper.

“Did her breasts get bigger after that?” Mariye asked again.

“No, they didn’t,” I finally gave up and answered. “My sister died the year she entered junior high. She was only twelve.”

Mariye didn’t say anything for a while.

“Don’t you think my aunt’s really beautiful?” Mariye said, abruptly changing subjects.

“Yes, she’s a very lovely person.”

“Are you single?”

“Ah—nearly,” I responded. Once that envelope arrived at the law office it’d be completely.

“Would you like to go on a date with her?”

“That would be nice.”

“She has big breasts, too.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“And they’re really nicely shaped. We bathe together sometimes, so I know.”

I looked at Mariye’s face again. “Do you get along well with your aunt?”

“We fight sometimes,” she said.

“About what?”

“All kinds of things. When we have a difference of opinion, or when she makes me mad.”

“You’re an unusual girl,” I said. “You’re quite different from when you’re in art class. I got the impression you were very quiet.”

“In places where I don’t want to talk, I don’t,” she said simply. “Am I talking too much? Would it be better if I stayed quiet?”

“No, not at all. I like talking. Feel free to talk as much as you like.”

Of course I welcomed a lively conversation. I wasn’t about to stay totally silent for nearly two hours and just paint.

“I can’t help thinking about my breasts,” Mariye said after a while. “That’s all I think about, pretty much. Is that weird?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “You’re at that age. When I was your age all I thought about was my penis. Whether it was shaped funny, or was too small, whether it was working wrong.”

“What about now?”

“You’re asking what I think about my penis now?”

“Yeah.”

I thought about it. “I don’t give it much thought. It’s pretty ordinary, I guess, and hasn’t given me any problems.”

“Do women admire it?”

“Occasionally there might be one who does. But that might just be flattery. Like when people praise paintings.”

Mariye pondered this for a while. Finally she said, “You may be a little strange.”

“Really?”

“Normal men don’t talk like that. Even my father doesn’t say things like that to me.”

“I doubt fathers in normal families want to talk about penises with their daughters,” I said. All the while my hand continued to move busily over the paper.

“At what age do nipples get bigger?” Mariye asked.

“I’m not really sure. Since I’m a guy. I’d say it really depends on the person.”

“Did you have a girlfriend when you were a kid?”

“I had my first girlfriend when I was seventeen. A girl in the same class in high school.”

“What high school?”

I told her the name of a public high school in Toshima, in Tokyo. Outside of people who lived in Toshima, probably no one had ever heard of it.

“Did you like school?”

I shook my head. “Not particularly.”

“Did you ever see that girlfriend’s nipples?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She showed them to me.”

“How big were they?”

I remembered the girl’s nipples. “They weren’t especially small, or big. Normal size, I guess.”

“Did she pad her bra?”

I tried to recall the bra my girlfriend had worn back then. All I had was a very vague memory of it. What I did recall was how much trouble I had slipping my hand behind her and unhooking it. “No, I don’t think she padded it.”

“What’s she doing now?”

What was she doing now? “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her for a long time. I imagine she’s married, maybe with some children.”

“How come you don’t see her?”

“The last time I saw her, she said she never wanted to see me again.”

Mariye frowned. “Was this because there was something wrong with you?”

“I guess,” I said. Of course the problem lay with me. No room for doubt there.

Actually, I’d recently had two dreams about this high school girlfriend. In one dream we were strolling along a river on a summer’s evening. I tried to kiss her, but her long black hair formed a curtain in front of her face and my lips couldn’t touch hers. In the dream she was still seventeen, but I had already turned thirty-six, something I suddenly noticed. And that’s when I woke up. It was such a vivid dream. I could still feel her hair on my lips. Before this, I hadn’t thought about her for years.

“How much younger than you was your younger sister?” Mariye said, again suddenly changing topics.

“Three years younger.”

“You said she died when she was twelve?”

“That’s right.”

“So that would make you fifteen then.”

“Right. I was fifteen. I’d just started high school. And she’d just started junior high. Just like you.”

Now that I thought about it, Komi was now twenty-four years younger than me. Since she’d died, every year the age gap only increased between us.

“I was six when my mother died,” Mariye said. “She got stung by hornets. When she was walking in the mountains nearby.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said.

“She had an allergy to hornet stings. They took her by ambulance to the hospital but she was already in shock and went into cardiac arrest.”

“Your aunt moved in with you after that?”

“Yeah,” Mariye said. “She’s my father’s younger sister. I wish I’d had an older brother. A brother three years older.”

I finished up the first dessan and began a second. I wanted to draw her from several angles. This first day I planned to devote just to sketches.

“Did you ever fight with your sister?” she asked.

“No, I don’t recall ever fighting.”

“So you got along well?”

“I suppose so. I never considered whether we did or not.”

“What does ‘nearly single’ mean?” Mariye asked, again shifting subjects.

“I’ll soon be officially divorced,” I said. “We’re in the midst of handling all the paperwork, so that’s why it’s ‘nearly.’”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t get divorce. Nobody I know has ever divorced.”

“I don’t get it either. I mean, it’s the first time I ever got divorced.”

“What does it feel like?”

“A bit bizarre, I guess. Like you’re walking along as always, sure you’re on the right path, when the path suddenly vanishes, and you’re facing an empty space, no sense of direction, no clue where to go, and you just keep trudging along. That’s what it feels like.”

“How long were you married?”

“About six years.”

“How old is your wife?”

“She’s three years younger.” Just a coincidence, but the same age difference as with my sister.

“Do you think you wasted those six years?”

I thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to think it was all for nothing. We had a lot of good times, too.”

“Does your wife think so too?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’d hope she would, of course.”

“You didn’t ask her?”

“No. If I have a chance, maybe I will sometime.”

Silence reigned between us for a while. I focused on the dessan, and Mariye Akikawa was lost in serious thought—thoughts about the size of nipples, perhaps, or divorce, or hornets, or maybe something else entirely. Eyes narrowed, lips tight, both hands tightly holding her knees. She’d shifted into that mode, apparently, as I was capturing her earnest expression on the white page of my sketchbook.

Every day, exactly at noon, I could hear a chime from down the mountain. Ringing from some government office, or maybe a school, to announce the time. When I heard it now, I glanced at the clock and finished drawing. I’d managed to complete three dessan during this first session. All of them pretty interesting compositions, each one hinting at something to come. Not bad for a day’s work.

Mariye Akikawa had sat on the chair in the studio, posing for me, for over an hour and a half. For the first day, that was enough. For someone not used to it—especially an active, growing child—posing for a painting wasn’t easy.

Shoko Akikawa had put on black-framed glasses and was seated on the living room sofa absorbed in reading her paperback. When I came in she took off the glasses and stowed the paperback in her bag. The glasses made her look quite intellectual.

“We’re all finished for the day,” I said. “If it’s all right, could you come again the same day next week?”

“Yes, of course,” Shoko said. “It feels really nice to read here. Maybe because the sofa’s so comfortable?”

“You don’t mind?” I asked Mariye.

Mariye nodded silently. I don’t mind, it meant. In front of her aunt she was totally changed, and had become taciturn again. Maybe she didn’t like when the three of us were together.

They got into their blue Toyota Prius and drove away. I saw them off at the front door. Shoko, sunglasses on, reached a hand out the window and gave a few short waves goodbye. A small, pale hand. I raised my hand in reply. Mariye tucked in her chin and stared straight ahead. Once the car had disappeared from view down the slope, I went back inside. The house seemed suddenly barren. Like something that should be there wasn’t anymore.

An odd pair, I thought, as I stared at the teacups still on the table. There was something peculiar about them. But what, exactly?

I remembered Menshiki. Maybe I should have taken Mariye out on the terrace so he could get a good look at her through his binoculars. But then I rethought that. Why did I have to go out of my way to do that, when he hadn’t even asked me to?

Other opportunities would present themselves. No need to rush. Probably.

³¹ MAYBE A LITTLE TOO PERFECT

That night I got a call from Menshiki. The clock showed that it was past nine. He apologized for calling so late. Something silly came up and I couldn’t get free until now, he said. I’m not going to bed for a while, I said, so don’t worry about the time.

“So how did things go today? Did it work out well?” he asked.

“It did. I completed a few dessan of Mariye. The two of them will be coming over the same time next Sunday.”

“I’m glad,” Menshiki said. “By the way, was the aunt favorably disposed toward you?”

Favorably disposed? What a strange way of putting it.

I said, “Yes, she seems like a very nice woman. I don’t know if ‘favorably disposed’ is the right term, but she didn’t seem particularly wary.”

I summed up what had taken place that morning. Menshiki listened with what seemed like bated breath, apparently trying to absorb as much detailed information as he could. Other than a couple of questions, he hardly said a word, and just listened intently. What sort of clothes the two had on, how they had arrived. How they appeared, what they’d said. And how I’d gone about sketching Mariye Akikawa. I told Menshiki all this, piece by piece. I didn’t, though, delve into Mariye’s obsession with the size of her breasts. That was best kept between us.

“It might be a little early, then, for me to show up next week?” Menshiki asked me.

“It’s up to you. I can’t say. I don’t have a problem if you come over next week.”

On the other end of the line Menshiki was silent. “I’ll have to think about it. It’s kind of delicate.”

“Take your time. It’s going to take a while to finish the painting, and there should be plenty of opportunities. Next week, or the week after that—either way’s fine with me.”

I’d never seen Menshiki so hesitant before. Quickly decisive and never wavering—that was the Menshiki I knew.

I was thinking of asking him if he’d been watching my house with his binoculars this morning. Whether he’d been able to observe Mariye and her aunt. But I thought better of it. As long as he didn’t bring it up, it seemed smarter not to mention that topic. Even if the place under surveillance was the house I was living in.

Menshiki thanked me again. “I’m really sorry to ask you to go to all this trouble for me.”

I said, “I’m not doing anything for your sake. I’m simply doing a painting of Mariye Akikawa. I’m painting it because I want to. I thought that’s how we decided things were going to be. Both the private and public reasons for it. So there’s no reason for you to thank me.”

“Still, I’m very grateful,” Menshiki said quietly. “In a lot of ways.”

I didn’t really understand what he meant by “a lot of ways,” but didn’t ask. It was getting late. We said a quick goodbye and hung up. But after I put the phone down, it suddenly occurred to me that Menshiki might be spending a long, sleepless night tonight. I could sense the tension in his voice. He probably had lots of things on his mind.

Not much happened that week. The Commendatore didn’t make an appearance, and my girlfriend didn’t get in touch. A very quiet week altogether. Autumn steadily deepened around me. The sky opened up, the air clear and crisp, the clouds like beautiful white brushstrokes.

I often studied the three dessan I’d done of Mariye. The different poses, the different angles. I found them fascinating, and suggestive. Though from the beginning I hadn’t planned to choose one of them to use as the preliminary design for the painting. The point of doing those three sketches, as she herself had said, was so I could understand the totality of this girl. To internally assimilate her.

I looked at those three dessan over and over again, intently focusing, trying to construct a concrete picture of the girl in my mind. As I did this, I got the distinct sense of Mariye Akikawa’s figure and that of my sister getting mixed into one. Was this appropriate? I couldn’t say. But the spirits of these two young girls nearly the same age were already, somewhere—probably in some deep internal recesses I shouldn’t access—blended and combined. I could no longer unravel those two intertwined spirits.

That Thursday I received a letter from my wife. This was the first time since I’d left home in March that she’d gotten in touch. My name and address and hers were written on the envelope in her familiar, beautiful, steady handwriting. She was still using my last name, I saw. Maybe it was more convenient, somehow, until the divorce became official, to continue to use her husband’s last name.

I used scissors to neatly snip open the envelope. Inside was a postcard with a photo of a polar bear standing on top of an iceberg. On the card she’d written a simple message thanking me for signing the divorce papers and mailing them back so quickly.

I reread the letter many times, straining to decipher the feelings hidden behind those lines. But I couldn’t detect any implied emotion or intention. She just seemed to be transmitting the clearly stated message that the words conveyed.

One other thing I didn’t understand was why it had taken her so long to prepare the divorce papers. It’s not that much trouble to get them ready. And she must have wanted to dissolve our relationship as fast as possible. Even so, half a year had passed since I’d left our house. What had she been doing all that time? What had been going through her mind?

I gazed at the postcard with the polar bear, but couldn’t read any intentions in that either. Why a polar bear from the North Pole? She probably just happened to have the polar bear card on hand and used it. Most likely that’s the case, I figured. Or was she suggesting that my future was like that of the polar bear, stuck on a tiny iceberg, directionless, carried away by the whims of the current? No—that was reading too much into it.

I tossed the card into the envelope and put it inside the top drawer of my desk. Once I shut the drawer it felt like things had progressed one step forward. Like with a click the scale had moved one line up. Not that this was my doing. Someone, something, had prepared this new stage in my stead, and I was simply going along with the program.

I recalled how on Sunday I’d talked to Mariye Akikawa about life after divorce.

Like you’re walking along as always, sure you’re on the right path, when the path suddenly vanishes, and you’re facing an empty space, no sense of direction, no clue where to go, and you just keep trudging along. That’s what it feels like.

A directionless ocean current, a road to nowhere, it didn’t matter much. They were both the same. Just metaphors. I was experiencing the real thing, and being swallowed up by reality. If I had that, who needs a metaphor?

If I could, I wanted to write a letter to Yuzu to explain the situation I found myself in now. I didn’t think I could write something vague like I’m managing to get by, nothing to report. Far from it. My honest sense was there was too much to report. But if I started writing about every single thing that had happened to me since I started living here, it would spin out of control. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t explain well to myself what was happening. At least I knew I couldn’t find a consistent, logical context in which to explain it all.

So I decided not to write back to Yuzu. If I did start writing there were only two ways to go: either explain everything that had taken place (ignoring logic and consistency), or write nothing. I chose the latter. In a sense I really was the lonely polar bear left behind to drift on an iceberg. Not a single mailbox as far as the eye could see. A polar bear has no way to send a letter, now does he.

I remember very well when Yuzu and I first met, and started dating.

On our first date we had dinner, talked about all kinds of things, and she seemed to like me. She said I could see her again. From the first our minds seemed to inexplicably click. Simply put, we seemed a good match.

But it took some time before I actually became her lover. Yuzu had another man she’d been seeing for two years. Not that she was head over heels in love with him.

“He’s really handsome. Though a bit boring sometimes,” she said.

Very handsome but boring… There was no one I knew like that, so I couldn’t picture that type of person. What came to mind was a dish of food that looked delicious but ended up tasting bland. Would anyone be happy with that kind of food?

“I’ve always had a weakness for good-looking men,” she said, as if making a confession. “Whenever I meet a handsome man it’s like my brain goes out the window. I know that’s a problem, but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t get over that. That might be my biggest weakness.”

“A chronic disease,” I said.

She nodded. “That could be. An incurable disorder. A chronic disease.”

“Not exactly great news for me,” I said. Handsome features weren’t my strongest selling point.

She didn’t deny that, and just laughed happily. At least she didn’t seem bored when we were together. She had a lot to say, and laughed a lot.

So I waited patiently for things to not work out between her and this handsome boyfriend. (He wasn’t merely good-looking, but had graduated from a top university and had a high-paying job at a top corporation. I bet he and Yuzu’s father got along famously.) All this time she and I talked over all sorts of things, went to all sorts of places. We got to understand each other better. We kissed, held each other, but didn’t have sex. Having a physical relationship with several partners at the same time wasn’t her style. “I’m a bit old-fashioned that way,” she said. So all I could do was bide my time.

This went on for about half a year. For me, it felt like eternity. Sometimes I just wanted to give up. But I managed to hang in there, convinced that someday soon she would be mine.

And finally she and her handsome boyfriend broke up (at least I think they broke up—she never said a word about it, so it was conjecture on my part), and she chose me—not much to look at, not much of a breadwinner—as her lover. Soon after we decided to get married.

I remember very well the first time we made love. We’d gone to stay at a small hot-springs town in the country, and spent our first night together there. Everything went really well. Almost perfect, you could even say. Maybe a little too perfect. Her skin was soft and pale, and silky smooth. The somewhat slick hot mineral water of the hot springs bath, combined with the pale glow of the early-autumn moonlight, may have contributed to the beauty and smoothness of her skin. I held her naked body for the first time, went inside her, she moaned quietly in my ear, and dug her nails hard into my back. The autumn insects were in full chorus then, too. A cool mountain stream burbled in the background. I made a firm pledge to myself then: Never, ever, let this woman go. This may have been the most sublime moment of my life up till then. Finally making Yuzu mine.

After I got the short letter from Yuzu I thought about her for a long time. About when we’d first met, that autumn night when we first made love. About how my feelings for her had basically never changed, from the first moment up to the present. Even now I didn’t want to lose her. That much was clear to me. I’d signed and sealed the divorce papers, but that didn’t change things. No matter how I felt about it, though, the fact was that she’d suddenly left me. Gone far away—probably very far away—where even the most powerful binoculars couldn’t afford me a glimpse of her.

Somewhere, while I was oblivious to it, she must have found a new, handsome lover. As always, her brain went out the window. I should have picked up on this when she started refusing to sleep with me. Having a physical relationship with several partners at the same time wasn’t her style. If only I’d thought about it, I soon would have realized that.

A chronic disease, I thought. A serious illness with no prospects for a cure. A physical inclination that doesn’t respond to reason.

That night (a rainy Thursday night) I had a long, dark dream.

In that small seaside town in Miyagi I was driving the white Subaru Forester (it was now my car). I had on an old black leather jacket, and a black golf cap with a Yonex logo. I was tall, deeply suntanned, my salt-and-pepper hair short and stiff. In other words, I was the man with the white Subaru Forester. I was stealthily following my wife and the small car (a red Peugeot 205) the man she was having an affair with was driving. We were on the highway that ran along the coast. I saw the two of them go into a tacky love hotel on the outskirts of town. The next day I came up behind my wife and strangled her with a narrow, white belt from a bathrobe. I was used to physical labor and had powerful arms. And as I strangled her with all my might, I screamed something. I couldn’t hear what I’d yelled out—a meaningless roar of pure rage. A horrific rage I’d never experienced before had control over my mind and body. White spittle flew as I roared out.

As she desperately gasped for air, I saw my wife’s temples convulse a little. I saw her pink tongue ball up and twist inside her mouth. Blue veins rose up on her skin like an invisible-ink map. I smelled my own sweat. An unpleasant smell I’d never smelled before rose up from my body like steam from a hot springs. It reminded me of the stink of some hairy beast.

Don’t you dare paint me, I ordered myself. I violently thrust out an index finger at myself in the mirror on the wall. Don’t paint me anymore!

And there I snapped awake.

I knew now what had frightened me most in bed in that love hotel in the seaside town. Deep in my heart I feared that in the last instant I really would have strangled to death that girl (the young girl whose name I didn’t even know). “You can just pretend,” she said. But it might not have ended with just that. It might not have ended with just pretend. And the reason for that lay inside me.

I wish I could understand myself, too. But it’s not easy.

This is what I’d told Mariye Akikawa. I remembered this as I wiped the sweat away with a towel.

The rain let up on Friday morning, the sky turning beautifully sunny. I hadn’t slept well, felt worked up, and to calm down went for an hour’s walk around the neighborhood later in the morning. I went into the woods, walked behind the little shrine, and checked out the hole for the first time in a long while. It was November now and the wind was much colder than before. The ground was covered with damp, fallen leaves. The hole was, as before, tightly covered over with several boards. Many-colored leaves had piled up on the boards, and there were several heavy stones to hold the boards down. But the way the stones were lined up seemed a little different from when I’d last seen them. Nearly the same, yet ever so slightly positioned differently.

I didn’t worry about it. There wouldn’t be anyone else other than Menshiki and me who would tramp all the way out here. I pulled away one of the boards and peered down inside, but no one was there. The ladder was leaned up against the wall like before. Like always, that dark, stone-lined chamber lay there, deep and silent, at my feet. I put the board back on top and placed the stone back where it had been.

It didn’t bother me, either, that the Commendatore hadn’t appeared for a good two weeks. Like he said, an Idea has a lot of business to attend to. Business that transcended time and space.

The following Sunday finally came. A lot of things happened that day. It turned out to be a very hectic day.

³² HIS SKILLS WERE IN GREAT DEMAND