Killing Commendatore

³³ I LIKE THINGS I CAN SEE AS MUCH AS THINGS I CAN’T

Sunday was another fine clear day. No wind to speak of, and the fall colors in the valley sparkling in the sunlight. Small white-breasted birds hopped from one branch to the next, deftly pecking the red berries. I sat on the terrace, soaking it all in. Nature grants its beauty to us all, drawing no line between rich and poor. Like time—no, scratch that, time could be a different story. Money may help us buy a little extra of that.

The bright blue Toyota Prius rolled up the slope to my door at ten on the dot. Shoko Akikawa was decked out in a thin beige turtleneck and snug-fitting slacks of pale green. Around her neck, a modest gold chain gave off a muted glow. As on her past visit, her hair was perfectly done. When it swayed I could catch a glimpse of the lovely line of her neck. Today, though, she had a leather bag, not a purse, slung over her shoulder. She wore brown loafers. It was a casual outfit, yet she had clearly spent time choosing each piece. And the swell of her breasts was very attractive too. I had the inside scoop from her niece that “no padding” was involved. I felt quite drawn to those breasts—in a purely aesthetic way, of course.

Mariye was dressed in straight-cut faded blue jeans and white Converse sneakers, a 180-degree turnaround from the formality of her first visit. Her jeans had holes in them (strategically placed, of course). She had on the sort of plaid shirt a lumberjack might wear in the woods, with a thin gray windbreaker draped over her shoulders. Underneath the shirt, as before, her chest was flat. And, just as before, she had a sour expression on her face. Like a cat whose dish has been whisked away halfway through its meal.

Just as I’d done the previous week, I went into the kitchen, made a pot of tea, and brought it to the living room. Then I showed them the three dessan I had made.

Shoko seemed to like them. “They’re all so full of life,” she exclaimed. “So much more like Mariye than photographs.”

“Can I keep them?” Mariye asked.

“Sure,” I answered. “Once your portrait is finished. I may need them until then.”

Her aunt looked worried. “Really? Aren’t you being too—…”

“Not at all,” I said. “They’re of no use to me once the portrait’s done.”

“Will you use one of these dessan for your underdrawing?” Mariye asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “I did them just to get a three-dimensional feel for who you are. The you who I put on canvas will be altogether different.”

“Can you tell what that’s going to look like?”

“No, not yet. The two of us still have to figure that one out.”

“Figure out how I look three-dimensionally?” Mariye asked.

“That’s right. A painting is a flat surface, but it still has to have three dimensions. Do you follow me?”

Mariye frowned. I guessed she might somehow associate the word “three-dimensional” with her flat chest. In fact, she shot a glance at the curves beneath her aunt’s thin sweater before looking at me.

“How can somebody learn to draw this well?” Mariye asked.

“You mean like these dessan?”

She nodded. “Yeah, like dessan, croquis, things like that.”

“It’s all practice. The more you practice the better you get.”

“I think there are a lot of people,” she said, “who don’t improve, no matter how much they practice.”

She sure hit that one on the head. I had attended art school, but loads of my classmates couldn’t paint their way out of a paper bag. However we thrash about, we are all thrown in one direction or another by our natural talent, or lack of it. That’s a basic truth we all have to learn to live with.

“Fair enough, but you still have to practice. If you don’t, any gifts or talents you do have won’t emerge where people can see them.”

Shoko gave an emphatic nod. Mariye looked dubious.

“You want to learn to paint well, correct?” I asked her.

Mariye nodded. “I like things I can see as much as things I can’t,” she said.

I looked in her eyes. A light was shining there. I wasn’t sure I understood exactly what she meant. But that inner light was drawing me in.

“What a strange thing to say,” Shoko said. “Like you were speaking in riddles.”

Mariye didn’t respond, just studied her hands. When she did look up a short while later, the light was gone. It had only been there a moment.

Mariye and I went to the studio. Shoko had already pulled out the same thick paperback—at least, it looked identical to the one she had brought the previous week—and settled down on the sofa to read. She seemed totally engrossed in the book. I was even more curious than before as to what it might be, but I didn’t ask.

Mariye and I sat across from each other about six feet apart, just as we had the last time. The only difference was that now I had an easel and canvas in front of me. No paints or brush, though—my hands were empty. My eyes hopped back and forth, from Mariye to the canvas to Mariye again. All the while, the question of how best to portray her “three-dimensionally” was running through my mind. I needed a story of some sort to work from. It wasn’t enough to just look at the person I happened to be painting. Nothing good could result from that. The portrait might be a passable likeness, but no more. To turn out a true portrait, I had to discover the story that must be painted. Only that could get the ball rolling.

We sat there for some time, me on the stool, Mariye on a straight-backed chair, as I studied her face. She stared back at me without blinking, never averting her eyes. She didn’t look defiant so much as ready to stand her ground. Her pretty, almost doll-like, appearance sent people the wrong signal—at her core, she had a strong sense of herself, and her own unshakable way of doing things. Once she’d drawn a straight line, good luck getting her to bend it.

There was something in Mariye’s eyes that reminded me of Menshiki, though I had to look closely to see it. I had felt the similarity before, but it still surprised me. Their gaze had a strange radiance—“a frozen flame” was the phrase that leapt to mind. That flame had warmth, but at the same time, it was cool and collected. Like a rare jewel whose glow came from deep within. That light expressed naked yearning when projected outside. Focused inward, it strove for completion. These two sides were equally strong, and at perpetual war with each other.

Did Menshiki’s revelation that his blood might be running through Mariye’s veins influence me? Perhaps that had led me to unconsciously link the two of them together.

Whatever the case, I had to transfer that glow in her eyes to the canvas, to capture how special it was. The core element in her expression, the thing that cut through her modulated exterior. Yet I still hadn’t located the context that made such a transfer possible. If I failed, that warm light would come across as an icy jewel, nothing more. Where was the heat coming from, and where was it headed? I had to find out.

I sat there for fifteen minutes, gazing at her face, then at the canvas and back again, before finally giving up. I pushed the easel aside and took a few slow, deep breaths.

“Let’s talk,” I said.

“Um, sure,” she answered. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to know more about you. If that’s okay.”

“Like?”

“Well, what sort of person is your father?”

Mariye gave a small smirk. “I don’t know him very well.”

“You don’t talk?”

“We hardly see each other.”

“Because he’s busy with work?”

“I don’t know anything about his work,” Mariye said. “I don’t think he cares about me that much.”

“Doesn’t care?”

“That’s why he handed me over to my aunt to raise.”

I took a pass on that one.

“How about your mother—can you remember her? You were six when she passed away, right?”

“I can only remember her in patches.”

“What do you mean, in patches?”

“My mom disappeared all of a sudden. I was too little to understand what dying meant, so I didn’t really know what had happened. She was there and then she just wasn’t. Like smoke.”

Mariye was quiet for a moment.

“It happened so quickly, and I couldn’t understand the reason,” she said at last. “That’s why I can’t remember much about that part of my life, like right before and after her death.”

“You must have been pretty confused.”

“It’s like there’s this high wall that divides when she was with me and when she was gone. I can’t connect the two parts together.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “Do you get what I mean?”

“I think so,” I said. “My sister died when she was twelve. I told you that before, right?”

Mariye nodded.

“She was born with a defective valve in her heart. She had a big operation, and everything was supposed to be okay, but for some reason there was still a problem. So she lived with a time bomb ticking inside her body. As a result, everyone in our family was more or less prepared for the worst. Her death didn’t hit us like a bolt from the blue, like when your mother was stung by hornets.”

“A bolt…?”

“A bolt from the blue,” I said. “A bolt of lightning that strikes from a cloudless sky. Something sudden and unexpected.”

“A bolt from the blue,” she said. “What characters is it written with?”

“The ‘blue’ is written with characters for ‘blue sky.’ ‘Bolt’ is really complicated—I can’t write it myself. In fact, I’ve never written it. If you’re curious, you should look it up in a dictionary when you get back home.”

“A bolt from the blue,” she repeated. She seemed to be storing the phrase in her mental filing cabinet.

“At any rate,” I went on, “we all had an idea what might happen. When it actually did, though—when she had a sudden heart attack and died, all in one day—our preparations didn’t make a bit of difference. Her death paralyzed me. And not just me, my whole family.”

“Did something change inside you after that?”

“Yes, completely. Both inside and outside. Time didn’t pass as it had before—it flowed differently. And, like you said, I had a problem connecting how things were before her death with the way they were after.”

Mariye stared at me without speaking for a full ten seconds. “Your sister meant a lot to you, didn’t she?” she said at last.

“Yes,” I nodded. “She did.”

Mariye studied her lap for a moment. “It’s because my memory is blocked,” she said, looking up, “that I have trouble recalling my mom. The kind of person she was, her face, the things she said to me. My dad doesn’t talk much about her either.”

All I knew about Mariye’s mother was the blow-by-blow account Menshiki had given me of the last time they had had sex. It had been on his office couch—the moment of Mariye’s conception, perhaps—and it was violent. Not a big help at the moment.

“You must remember something, even if it’s not much. After all, you lived with her till you were six.”

“Just the smell.”

“The smell of her body?”

“No, the smell of rain.”

“Rain?”

“It was raining then. So hard I could hear the drops hit the ground. But my mother was walking outside without an umbrella. So we walked through the rain together, holding hands. I think it was summer.”

“A summer shower, then?”

“I guess so. The pavement was hot from the sun, so it gave off that smell. That’s what I remember. We were high in the mountains, on some kind of observation deck. And my mother was singing a song.”

“What kind of song?”

“I can’t remember the melody. But I do remember some of the words. They were like, ‘The sun’s shining on a big green field across the river, but it’s been raining on this side for so long.’ Have you ever heard a song like that?”

It didn’t ring a bell. “No,” I replied. “I don’t think so.”

Mariye gave a little shrug. “I’ve asked different people, but no one knows it. I wonder why. Do you think maybe I made it up in my head?”

“Maybe she invented it there on the spot. For you.”

Mariye looked up at me and smiled. “I never thought about it like that before. If that’s true—it’s pretty cool.”

I think it was the first time I’d seen her smile. It was as if a ray of sunlight had shot through a crack in an overcast sky to illuminate one special spot. It was that kind of smile.

“Could you recognize the place if you went there again?” I asked. “Back to that same observation deck in the mountains?”

“Maybe,” Mariye said. “I’m not sure, but maybe.”

“I think it’s pretty cool that you carry that scene inside you.”

Mariye just nodded.

After that, we just sat back and listened to the birds chirping. The autumn sky outside the window was perfectly clear. Not a wisp of cloud anywhere. We were each in our own inner world, pursuing our own random thoughts.

It was Mariye who broke the silence. “Why’s that painting facing the wrong way?” she asked.

She was pointing at my oil painting (to be more precise, my attempted painting) of the man with the white Subaru Forester. The canvas was sitting on the floor, turned to the wall so that I wouldn’t have to look at it.

“I’m trying to paint a certain man. It’s a work in progress, but it’s not progressing right now.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure. I’ve just started it, though. I have a long way to go.”

I turned the canvas around and placed it on the easel. Mariye got up from her chair, walked over, and stood before it with her arms folded. The sharp gleam in her eyes had returned. Her lips were set in a straight line.

I had used three colors—red, green, and black—but still hadn’t given the man a distinct shape. My initial charcoal sketch was now totally obscured. He refused to be fleshed out any further, to have more color added to his form. But I knew he was there. I had grasped the essence of who he was. He was like a fish caught in a net. I had been trying to pull him out of the depths, and he was fighting me at every turn. At that point in our tug of war I had set the painting aside.

“This is where you stopped?” Mariye asked.

“That’s right. I couldn’t find a way to push it past this stage.”

“It looks pretty finished to me,” she murmured.

I stood next to her and looked at the painting again from her angle. Could she really see the man lurking there in the darkness?

“You mean I don’t need to add anything more?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think you should just leave it like this.”

I swallowed. She was echoing what the man with the white Subaru Forester had said almost word for word. Leave the painting alone. Don’t touch it again.

“Why do you think that?” I pressed.

Mariye didn’t answer right away. Instead, she studied the painting some more. She unfolded her arms and pressed her hands to her cheeks. As if they were hot, and she was trying to cool them.

“This painting is more than powerful enough as it is,” she said at last.

“More than powerful enough?”

“I think so.”

“You mean a not so good kind of power?”

Mariye didn’t answer. Her hands were still pressed to her cheeks.

“Do you know the man in the painting well?”

I shook my head. “No, to tell the truth he’s a complete stranger. I ran across him a while back. In a faraway town when I was on a long trip. We never talked, so I don’t know his name.”

“I can’t tell if the power is good or not. Maybe it could be either good or bad, depending on the situation. You know, like the way we see things changes depending on where we’re standing.”

“And you don’t think I should let that power come to the surface, right?”

She looked me in the eye. “Suppose you did and it turned out to be a not so good thing, what would you do? What if it tried to grab you?”

She was right. If it turned out to be a not so good thing, or indeed an evil thing, and it reached for me, what would I do then?

I took the canvas from the easel and set it back down on the floor, facing the wall. The moment its surface was hidden, the tension in the studio released its grip. It was a tangible sensation.

Perhaps I should pack it up and shut it away in the attic, I thought. Just as Tomohiko Amada had stashed Killing Commendatore there, to make sure no one could see it.

“All right, so then what do you think of that painting?” I asked, pointing to Killing Commendatore hanging on the wall.

“I like it,” Mariye said immediately. “Who did it?”

“It was painted by Tomohiko Amada, the man who owns this house.”

“It’s calling out to me. Like a caged bird crying to be set free. That’s the feeling I get.”

I looked at her. “Bird? What kind of bird?”

“I don’t know what kind of bird. Or what kind of cage. Or what they look like. It’s just my feeling. I think maybe this painting’s a little too difficult for me.”

“You’re not the only one. It’s too difficult for me, too. But I’m sure you’re right. There is a cry in this painting, a plea that the artist desperately wanted people to hear. I react the same way you do. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what that plea is.”

“Someone is murdering someone else. Out of passion.”

“Exactly. The young man has plunged a knife into the older man’s chest, exactly as he planned. The man being murdered can’t believe what’s happening. The others are in total shock at what’s taking place before their eyes.”

“Can there be a proper murder?”

I thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. It depends how you define ‘proper’ and ‘improper.’ Many people regard the death penalty as a proper form of murder.” Or assassination, I thought.

Mariye took a moment to respond. “It’s funny, a man’s being killed, and his blood is flying all over the place, but it’s not depressing. It’s like the painting is trying to take me someplace else. Someplace where things like ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ don’t matter.”

I didn’t pick up a brush that day. Instead, Mariye and I sat there in the bright studio talking about whatever crossed our minds. I kept a close eye on her, though, filing each expression and mannerism away in my mind. That stock of memories would become the flesh and blood of the portrait I wanted to paint.

“You didn’t draw anything today,” Mariye commented.

“There are days like this,” I said. “Time steals some things, but it gives us back others. Making time our ally is an important part of our work.”

Mariye said nothing, just studied my eyes. As if she was peering into a house, her face pressed against the window. She was contemplating the meaning of time.

When the chimes rang as always at noon, Mariye and I moved from the studio to the living room. Shoko Akikawa was sitting on the sofa, wearing her black-rimmed glasses, reading her paperback. She was so deep in the book it was hard to tell if she was breathing.

“What are you reading?” I asked, unable to bear the suspense any longer.

“If I told you what it was,” she said with a smile, marking her spot and closing the book, “it would jinx it. For some reason, every time I tell someone what I’m reading, I’m unable to finish. Something unexpected happens, and I have to break off partway through. It’s strange, but it’s true. So I’ve made it my policy not to reveal the title to anyone. I’d love to tell you about the book once I’m done, though.”

“No worries. I’m quite happy to wait until you’re finished. I could see how much you’re enjoying it, so I got curious.”

“It’s a fascinating book. Once I get into it I can’t stop. That’s why I’ve decided to read it only when I’m here. This way, two hours pass before I know it.”

“My aunt reads tons of books,” Mariye chimed in.

“I don’t have that much to do these days,” her aunt said. “So books are how I get by.”

“Do you have a job?” I asked.

She removed her glasses and gently massaged the crease between her eyebrows. “I volunteer at our local library once a week. I used to work at a private medical college in Tokyo. I was secretary to the president there. But I gave it up when I moved here.”

“That was when Mariye’s mother passed away, wasn’t it?”

“At the time, I thought it would just be temporary. That I would stay only until things got sorted out. But once I started living with Mariye it became hard to leave. So I’ve been here ever since. Of course, if my brother remarried, I would move back to the city.”

“I’d go with you if that happened,” Mariye said.

Shoko smiled politely but didn’t say anything.

“Why don’t you stay for lunch?” I asked the two of them. “I can whip up a pasta and salad in no time.”

Shoko hesitated, as I knew she would, but Mariye seemed excited by the idea.

“Why not?” she told her aunt. “Dad isn’t home.”

“It’s really no problem,” I said. “I’ve got lots of sauce already made, so it’s no more trouble to cook for three than for one.”

“Are you sure?” Shoko said, looking doubtful.

“Of course. Please do stay. I eat alone all the time. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day. I’d like to share a meal with others for a change.”

Mariye looked at her aunt.

“Well, in that case we’ll take you up on your kind invitation,” Shoko said. “You’re quite sure we’re not imposing?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Please make yourself at home.”

The three of us moved to the dining area. They sat at the table, while I prepared the meal. I set the water to boil, warmed the asparagus-and-bacon sauce in a pan, and threw together a quick salad of lettuce, tomato, onion, and green peppers. When the water boiled, I tossed in the pasta and diced some parsley while it cooked. I took the iced tea from the fridge and filled three glasses. Mariye and her aunt watched me bustle about as if witnessing a rare and strange event. Shoko asked if there was something she could do. No, I replied, she should just relax—I had everything under control.

“You seem so at home in the kitchen,” she said, impressed.

“That’s because I do this every day.”

I don’t mind cooking at all. In fact, I’ve always liked working with my hands. Cooking, simple carpentry, bicycle repair, yard work. I’m useless when it comes to abstract, mathematical thought. Mental games like chess and puzzles are just too taxing for my simple brain.

We sat down at the table and began to eat. A carefree lunch on a sunny Sunday afternoon in autumn. And Shoko was a perfect lunchtime companion. She was gracious and witty, full of things to talk about and with a great sense of humor. Her table manners were elegant, yet there was nothing pretentious about her. I could tell she came from a good family and had attended the most expensive schools. Mariye left all the talking to her aunt and concentrated on her meal. Later, Shoko asked for my recipe for the sauce.

We had almost finished our lunch when the front doorbell gave a cheerful ring. It was no surprise to me, for just a moment earlier I thought I had heard the deep purr of a Jaguar engine. That sound—the polar opposite of the whisper of the Toyota Prius—had registered in that narrow layer between my conscious and unconscious minds. So it was hardly a “bolt from the blue” when the bell chimed.

“Excuse me for a second,” I said, rising from my chair and putting my napkin down. Leaving the two of them at the table, I went to the front door. What would happen now? I didn’t have a clue.

³⁴ COULDN’T RECALL THE LAST TIME I CHECKED MY TIRES’ AIR PRESSURE

I opened the door, and there stood Menshiki.

He was wearing a white button-down shirt, a fancy wool vest with an intricate pattern, and a bluish-gray tweed jacket. His chinos were a light mustard color, his suede shoes brown. A coordinated and comfortable outfit, as always. His white hair glowed in the autumn sun. The silver Jaguar was behind him, parked next to the blue Toyota Prius. Side by side, the two cars resembled someone with crooked teeth laughing with his mouth wide open.

I gestured for him to enter. He was so tense his face looked frozen, like a plastered wall only half dry. Needless to say, I had never seen him like this before. He was always so cool, holding himself in check with his feelings packed out of sight. He had been that way even after an hour entombed in a pitch-black pit. Yet now he was as white as a sheet.

“Do you mind if I come in?” he said.

“Of course not,” I answered. “We’re almost through with lunch. So do come in.”

“I really don’t want to interrupt your meal,” he said, glancing at his watch in what seemed a reflex motion. He stared at it for a long time, his face blank. As if he had a quarrel with how the second hand was moving.

“We’ll be done soon,” I said again. “It’s a very basic meal. Let’s have coffee together afterward. Please wait in the living room. I’ll make the introductions there.”

Menshiki shook his head. “Introductions might be premature at this stage. I stopped by assuming they’d already left. I wasn’t planning to meet them. But I saw an unfamiliar car parked in front and wasn’t sure what to do, so I—”

“You came at the perfect time,” I said, cutting him off. “Nothing could be more natural. Just leave everything to me.”

Menshiki nodded and began to take off his shoes. Yet for some reason he seemed to have forgotten how. I waited until he had struggled through the procedure and showed him into the living room. He’d been there several times before, yet he stared at the room as though it was his first visit.

“Please wait here,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Just sit down and relax. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”

I left Menshiki sitting there by himself—though it worried me a bit—and went back to the dining area. Shoko and Mariye had finished their meal in my absence. Their forks rested on empty plates.

“Do you have a visitor?” Shoko asked in a worried voice.

“Yes, but it’s all right. Someone from the neighborhood just happened to stop by. I asked him to wait in the living room. We’re on friendly terms, so there’s no need for formality. I’ll just finish my meal first.”

I ate what remained of my lunch. Then I brewed a pot of coffee while the two women cleaned up the dishes.

“Shall we have our coffee in the living room?” I asked Shoko.

“But won’t we be intruding on you and your guest?”

I shook my head no. “Not in the slightest. It’s a stroke of luck—this way, I can introduce you to each other. He lives on top of the slope on the other side of the valley, so I doubt you’ve ever met.”

“What is his name?”

“Menshiki. It’s written with the characters for ‘avoidance’ and ‘color.’ ‘Avoiding colors,’ in other words.”

“What an unusual name!” Shoko exclaimed. “I’ve never heard anyone mention a Mr. Menshiki before. The addresses of people across the valley are close to ours, but there’s little coming and going between the two sides.”

We placed the pot of coffee, four cups, and some milk and sugar on a tray and carried it out to the living room. To my surprise, Menshiki was nowhere to be seen. The room was deserted. He wasn’t on the terrace, either. And I doubted he was in the bathroom.

“Where did he disappear to?” I said to no one in particular.

“Was he here earlier?” Shoko asked.

“Until a few minutes ago.”

His suede shoes were gone from the entranceway. I slipped on my sandals and opened the front door. The silver Jaguar was parked exactly where he had left it. So he hadn’t returned home. The sun reflecting off the Jaguar’s windows made it impossible to tell if anyone was inside. I walked over to check. Menshiki was sitting in the driver’s seat, rummaging around for something. I tapped on the window, and he rolled it down. He looked lost.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I want to check the air pressure in my tires, but I can’t find the gauge. It should be in the glove compartment, but it’s gone.”

“Is there some kind of rush?”

“No, not really. I was sitting there in your living room when it started to bother me. Couldn’t recall the last time I checked.”

“So there’s no trouble with them?”

“No, nothing in particular. They seem normal.”

“Then why don’t you forget about the tires for now and come back in? The coffee is made, and two people are waiting.”

“Waiting for me?” he said in a hoarse voice. “Are they waiting for me?”

“Yes, I told them I’d introduce you.”

“Oh dear,” he said.

“Why oh dear?”

“Because I’m not ready for introductions yet. Not emotionally prepared.”

He had the baffled, fearful look of someone ordered to jump from the sixteenth floor of a burning building to a net that looked the size of a drink coaster.

“You should come,” I said, not mincing words. “It’s really not a big deal.”

Menshiki nodded and got out, closing the car door behind him. He started to lock it before realizing how unnecessary that was (what thief would stray up here?), so he stuffed the key in the pocket of his chinos.

Shoko and Mariye were waiting in the living room. They rose to greet us as we entered. My introductions were simple and straightforward. A common human courtesy.

“Mr. Menshiki has also modeled for me. I painted his portrait. He happens to live nearby, and we’ve been friends since we met.”

“I understand you live on the other side of the valley. Have you been there long?” Shoko inquired.

Menshiki blanched at the mention of his home. “Yes, I’ve been living there for a few years. Let’s see, how many is it now—three years perhaps? Or is it four?”

He turned to me as if for confirmation, but I didn’t respond.

“Can we see your home from here?” Shoko asked.

“Yes,” Menshiki said. “But it’s really nothing to brag about,” he added. “It’s awfully out of the way.”

“It’s the same on this side,” Shoko said affably. “Simple shopping is a major expedition. Cell phone service and radios are hit-or-miss. And the road is terribly steep. When the snow is thick, it gets so slippery I’m afraid to take the car out. Luckily, it doesn’t happen that often—just once, five years ago.”

“You’re right,” Menshiki said. “It rarely snows here. It has to do with the warmth of the wind coming off the ocean. The ocean exerts a powerful influence on our climate. You see…”

“In any case,” I broke in, “we should be thankful it snows so rarely here.” I feared he was about to launch into a lecture on the structure and effects of the warm sea currents along the coast of Japan—that’s how wound up he was.

Mariye was looking back and forth at her aunt and Menshiki throughout this exchange. She seemed to have formed no opinion about Menshiki as of yet. Menshiki, for his part, acted as though Mariye wasn’t there, focusing on her aunt as though bewitched.

“Mariye here is letting me paint her portrait,” I said to him. “I asked her to model for me.”

“I drive her here every Sunday morning,” Shoko said. “It’s not far as the crow flies—from your eyes to your nose, you might say—but the road twists and turns so much we have to take the car.”

Menshiki finally turned to look at Mariye Akikawa. But his eyes didn’t focus on any part of her face—they buzzed about nervously like a fly in winter, searching for a place to land. Yet they never seemed to find one.

“These are what I’ve drawn so far,” I said, coming to his aid. I handed him my sketchbook. “I haven’t started painting yet—we’ve just wrapped up the preliminary stage.”

Menshiki stared at the three dessan for a long time, devouring them with his eyes. As if the drawings of Mariye somehow meant more to him than Mariye herself. This wasn’t true, of course—he simply couldn’t bring himself to face her. The dessan were a substitute, nothing more. It was the first time he had been close to her, and he was having a hard time controlling his feelings. Mariye, for her part, regarded the floundering Menshiki as though he were some kind of strange animal.

“They’re superb,” Menshiki said. He turned to Shoko. “Each is so full of life. He’s really captured her!”

“I totally agree,” she said, beaming.

“All the same, Mariye is a very difficult subject,” I said to Menshiki. “Painting her is a challenge. Her expression is constantly changing, so it takes time to grasp what’s at the core. That’s why I haven’t gotten around to the actual painting stage yet.”

“Difficult?” Menshiki said. He looked at Mariye a second time, squinting as though dazzled by her light.

“The three dessan should show very different expressions,” I said. “The slightest facial movement radically transforms the whole atmosphere. When I paint her portrait, I have to get past those superficial differences to grasp the essence of her personality. Otherwise, I’d be conveying only part of the whole.”

“I see,” Menshiki said, dutifully impressed. He looked back and forth between the three sketches and Mariye, comparing them. In the process, his face, which had been so pale, began to regain some of its color. Red dots popped up at first, then the dots grew to blotches the size of ping-pong balls, then baseballs, until in the end his whole face had turned rosy. Mariye watched him, fascinated, but her aunt politely turned away. I grabbed the coffee pot and poured myself another cup.

I felt I had to break the silence. “I’m thinking of starting the actual portrait next week. You know, on canvas with real paint,” I said to no one in particular.

“Do you have a clear image what it will look like?” asked Shoko.

“Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “I won’t know in any concrete way until I’m sitting in front of the canvas with a brush in my hand. Hopefully, the inspiration will hit me then.”

“You painted Mr. Menshiki’s picture as well, didn’t you?” Shoko asked me.

“Yes, last month.”

“It’s a beautiful portrait,” Menshiki said emphatically. “The paint has to dry a bit more before it can be framed, but it’s hanging on the wall of my study. I’m not sure ‘portrait’ does it justice, though. It’s a painting of me, but of something other than me, too. I don’t know how to put it—I guess you could say it has depth. I never get tired of looking at it.”

“You say it’s you, yet it’s not you at the same time?” Shoko asked.

“I mean it’s a step beyond your typical portrait—it’s deeper, more profound.”

“I want to see it,” Mariye said. They were the first words she had spoken since we had moved to the living room.

“But Mariye… you shouldn’t invite yourself into someone’s—”

“That’s perfectly all right!” Menshiki said, cutting off her aunt’s rebuke as if with a sharp hatchet. His tone was so jarring that we all—including Menshiki himself—were stunned.

“Please do come take a look,” he continued after a moment’s regrouping. “It’s so rare for me to meet someone from the neighborhood. I live alone, so you needn’t worry about disturbing anyone. Any time at all would be fine.”

Menshiki’s face was even redder by the time he finished. It appeared that we hadn’t been the only ones shocked by the urgency in his voice.

“Do you like paintings?” Menshiki asked, this time directing his question to Mariye. His voice was back to normal.

Mariye gave a small nod.

“If it’s all right with you, why don’t I stop by again at this time next Sunday?” Menshiki said. “I could escort you to my home and we could all look at the painting together.”

“But we shouldn’t inconvenience you—” Shoko said.

“I want to see the painting!” Mariye was firm.

In the end it was agreed that Menshiki would come to pick up the two of them the following Sunday afternoon. I was invited too, but I declined, citing an important errand. The last thing I wanted was to get sucked in any deeper. From now on, let those who were involved look after things. I would remain the outsider, however the situation turned out. I would be the mediator, nothing more—though even that had not been my intention.

Menshiki and I accompanied the beautiful aunt and her niece outside to give them a proper send-off. Shoko looked for some time at the silver Jaguar parked next to her Prius. Like a dog lover appraising another person’s dog.

“This is the latest model, isn’t it?” she asked Menshiki.

“Yes, this is their newest coupe on the market,” he answered. “Do you like cars?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that my late father drove a Jaguar sedan. I used to sit next to him, and every so often he’d let me hold the wheel. The Jaguar hood ornament takes me back to those times. Was it an XJ6? It had four round headlights, I think. And an inline six-cylinder 4.2-liter engine.”

“That is the III series, I believe. A truly beautiful model.”

“My father drove that car for ages, so he must have really liked it. Although he complained about the terrible mileage. And it had one minor malfunction after the other.”

“That model in particular is a real gas guzzler. And the wiring was probably faulty. The electrical system has always been the Jaguar’s Achilles’ heel. But if it’s running smoothly, and if you don’t mind shelling out for gas, you can’t beat a Jaguar. For driving comfort and handling, no other car matches it—it’s got a charm all its own. Most people, though, are really turned off by things like gas consumption and mechanical glitches, which is why the Toyota Prius is the one flying off the lots.”

“I didn’t buy this car,” Shoko said, as if by way of apology, gesturing toward her Prius. “My brother bought it for me because it’s safe and easy to drive, and gentle on the environment.”

“The Prius is an excellent car,” Menshiki said. “I’ve thought of buying one myself.”

Was he kidding? Menshiki behind the wheel of a Toyota Prius was as hard to picture as a leopard ordering a salade Niçoise.

“This is very rude of me,” Shoko said, peering into the Jaguar’s interior, “but would it be all right if I sat in it for a minute? I just want to try out the driver’s seat.”

“Of course,” Menshiki answered. He coughed lightly, as if to bring his voice under control. “Sit there as long as you like. Take it for a spin if you wish.”

I was flabbergasted by how interested she was in Menshiki’s Jaguar. On the surface she was so cool and poised, not my image of a car person at all. Yet her eyes were shining when she climbed into the driver’s seat. She snuggled into the cream-colored leather upholstery, studied the dashboard with care, and took the steering wheel in both hands. Then she placed her left hand on the gearshift. Menshiki took the car key from his pocket and passed it to her through the window.

“Turn it on if you like.”

Shoko took the key, inserted it into the ignition next to the wheel, and rotated it clockwise. Instantly, the great feline awoke. She sat there entranced for a moment, listening to the deep purr of the engine.

“I remember this sound well,” she said.

“It’s a 4.2-liter V8 engine. Your father’s XJ6 had six cylinders, and the number of valves and the compression ratio were different too, but they may well sound alike. Both are sinful, though—they squander fossil fuel like there’s no tomorrow. Jaguars haven’t changed a bit on that score.”

Shoko flipped on the right-turn signal. I heard a cheerful clicking sound.

“This really brings back memories.”

Menshiki smiled. “Only a Jaguar’s turn signal sounds like this. It’s unlike that of any other automobile.”

“When I was young, I secretly practiced on the XJ6 to get my driver’s license,” she said. “The first time I drove another car I was totally confused—the parking brake wasn’t where I expected. I had no idea what to do.”

“I know just what you mean,” Menshiki grinned. “The Brits are fussy about the funniest things.”

“I think the interior smells a bit different than my father’s car, though.”

“Sadly, you’re right. For a variety of reasons, Jaguar can’t use the exact same materials on its newer models. The smell changed after 2002, when Connolly Leather stopped supplying their upholstery. In fact, the Connolly company went out of business at that point.”

“How too bad. I loved that smell. I connect it to the smell of my father.”

“To tell the truth,” Menshiki said hesitantly, “I own another Jaguar as well, an older model. It may well have the same odor as your father’s car.”

“Is it an XJ6?”

“No, it’s an E type.”

“Does that mean it’s a convertible?”

“Correct. It’s a Series 1 roadster, made back in the mid-sixties. It still runs well, though. It’s also equipped with a six-cylinder 4.2-liter engine. An original two-seater. The top has been replaced, of course, so it’s not exactly in mint condition.”

Most of this flew over my head—I know nothing about cars—but Menshiki’s words seemed to have made a deep impression on Shoko. They clearly shared an interest, and a fairly specialized interest at that, in Jaguars. That made me feel a little calmer. No longer did I have to think up topics to help them through their first meeting. Mariye’s boredom was palpable, though—she seemed even less into cars than me.

Shoko got out of the Jaguar, shut the car door, and handed the key to Menshiki, who returned it to the pocket of his chinos. Then she and Mariye got in the blue Prius. Menshiki closed the door after Mariye. I was struck by the different thunk it made as it closed, nothing like the Jaguar. In this world, what we think of as a single sound can have so many permutations. Just as we know, from one note struck on the open string of a double bass, whether it’s Charlie Mingus or Ray Brown.

“So we’ll meet again next Sunday,” Menshiki said.

Shoko gave Menshiki a big smile, took the steering wheel, and drove off. Menshiki and I waited until the squat rear of the Toyota Prius was out of sight before returning to the house. We sat in the living room sipping cold coffee. Neither of us spoke for some time. Menshiki looked exhausted. Like a long-distance runner who had just crossed the finish line.

“She’s a beautiful girl,” I said at last. “Mariye, I mean.”

“You’re right. She’ll be even prettier when she grows up,” Menshiki said. His mind seemed elsewhere.

“What did you think, seeing her up close?” I asked.

Menshiki smiled an uncomfortable smile. “I didn’t get a very good look, to tell the truth. I was too nervous.”

“But you must have seen something.”

“Of course,” he said, nodding. He paused for a long moment. “What did you think?” he asked at last, his eyes serious.

“What do you mean, what do I think?”

Menshiki’s face flushed again. “Do you see any similarity between Mariye’s features and mine? As an artist who has painted people’s portraits for many years, I’m interested in your professional opinion.”

I shook my head no. “You’re right, I’m trained to take quick note of people’s facial characteristics. But that doesn’t mean I can tell whose child is whose. Some parents and children don’t look alike at all, while total strangers can appear almost identical.”

Menshiki gave a long, deep sigh. It sounded wrenched from his entire body. He rubbed his palms together.

“I’m not asking for a definitive judgment. I’m just asking for your personal impressions. Even the most trivial ones. I’d like to know if you noticed something, anything at all.”

I thought for a moment. “As far as facial structure goes, I don’t see much concrete similarity. But your eyes do have something in common. In fact, it startles me every so often.”

He looked at me, his thin lips pressed together. “You’re saying there’s something similar in our eyes?”

“Maybe it’s because they reflect your true feelings. Curiosity, enthusiasm, surprise, suspicion, reluctance—I can see those subtle emotions in both your eyes and hers. Your faces aren’t all that expressive, but your eyes really are the windows to your hearts. Most people are the opposite. Their faces are expressive, but their eyes aren’t nearly so lively.”

Menshiki appeared surprised. “Is that how my eyes look to you?”

I nodded.

“I was never aware of that.”

“You couldn’t control it if you tried. Maybe it’s because your feelings are on such a tight leash that your eyes are so expressive. It’s not that obvious, though—you have to pay really, really close attention to read them. Most people wouldn’t notice.”

“But you can.”

“Reading faces is my profession.”

Menshiki considered that for a minute. “So she and I have that in common. But you still can’t tell if we’re father and daughter, right?”

“I do have certain impressions when I look at people, and I value those. But artistic impressions and objective reality are separate things. Impressions don’t prove anything. They’re like a butterfly in the wind—totally useless. But how about you? Did you feel anything special?”

He shook his head several times. “I couldn’t tell anything in one brief meeting. I need to see her more. I have to get used to being around her first.”

He shook his head again, this time more slowly. He plunged his hands into his jacket pockets as though searching for something, then pulled them out again. As though he’d forgotten what he was looking for.

“No, maybe it’s not the number of times,” he went on. “It could be the more we meet the more confused I’ll get, the farther from any conclusion. It’s possible she’s my daughter, but then it’s possible she isn’t. But either way makes no difference to me. Her presence alone allows me to consider that possibility, to physically experience that hypothesis. When that happens, I feel fresh blood coursing through my body. Maybe I’ve never understood the true meaning of being alive until now.”

I held my peace. What could I say about the feelings he was experiencing, or about his definition of being alive? Menshiki glanced at his thin, expensive-looking wristwatch and awkwardly struggled to his feet from the sofa.

“I owe you my thanks. I couldn’t have done a thing if you hadn’t given me a push.”

With these few words he stumbled toward the door, struggled a bit to put on his shoes, and stepped outside. From the door, I watched him climb in his car and drive away. When his Jaguar was out of sight, the peaceful quiet of a Sunday afternoon enfolded me once again.

The clock said a little after two p.m. I was dead tired. I pulled an old blanket from the closet, lay on the sofa, and slept with it tucked over me. It was past three when I awoke. The angle of the sunlight in the room had shifted somewhat. What a strange day! I couldn’t be sure if I had moved forward or fallen behind, or if I was just circling over the same spot. My sense of direction had gone haywire. There was Shoko and Mariye, and then there was Menshiki. Each had a special magnetism. And I had landed smack in the middle of it all. Lacking any magnetism of my own to speak of.

However exhausted I might feel, though, Sunday was far from over. The hands of the clock had only just passed three. The sun was still in the sky. Loads of time remained before a new day dawned and Sunday became a thing of the past. Yet I didn’t feel like doing anything. I had taken a nap, but my head was muddled. It felt like a ball of yarn had been crammed into the back of a narrow desk drawer, and now the drawer wouldn’t close properly. Maybe this was the sort of day I should check the air pressure in my tires. Anyone feeling this blah should be able to rouse himself to do that much.

Come to think of it, though, I had never checked the air pressure myself. Whenever a gas station attendant said that the air in my tires “looked a little low,” I always asked him to take care of it. Which means I don’t own an air pressure gauge. In fact, I don’t even know what one looks like. If it fits in a glove compartment, it can’t be all that big. Nor so expensive as to require monthly payments. Maybe I should buy one, just to see.

When it began to get dark, I went to the kitchen, cracked open a can of beer, and began preparing dinner. In the oven, I broiled a piece of yellowtail that I’d marinated in sake lees, then sliced pickles, made a cucumber-and-seaweed salad with vinegar, and fixed some miso soup with radishes and deep-fried tofu. Then I sat down and ate my silent meal. There was no one there to talk to, and nothing in particular I could think of to talk about. Just when I was finishing my simple, solitary dinner, the front doorbell rang. There seemed to be a conspiracy afoot to interrupt me toward the end of every meal.

So this day hasn’t ended after all, I thought. I had the premonition it would be a long Sunday. I got up from the table and walked slowly to the door.

³⁵ YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST LEFT THAT PLACE ALONE

I walked slowly to the door. Who could possibly be ringing the bell? Had a car pulled up in front without my knowledge? The dining area was toward the rear of the house, but it was a quiet night, so I should have heard the crunch of gravel and the rumble of an engine. Even the vaunted “silent” hybrid engine of a Prius. Still, my ears had picked up nothing.

No one would climb such a long, steep slope on foot at night on a lark. The road was unlit, and deserted. My house had been plopped down on top of an isolated mountain, with no neighbors close by.

For a moment, I thought it might be the Commendatore. But that didn’t make much sense. I mean, he could come and go whenever he wanted, so why ring the bell?

I unlocked and opened the door without bothering to check who it was. Mariye Akikawa was standing there. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn that afternoon, only now a thin navy-blue down jacket covered her windbreaker. Naturally, it got chillier once the sun was down. She had a Cleveland Indians cap on her head (why Cleveland?) and a large flashlight in her right hand.

“Can I come in?” she asked. There was no “Good evening,” no “Sorry for the surprise visit.”

“Sure,” I said. “Come on in.” That was it. My mental desk drawer wasn’t closing properly yet. That ball of yarn was still jammed in there.

I showed her into the dining room.

“I’m still eating dinner. Mind if I finish?” I said.

She nodded silently. She was free of all the tiresome social graces—they meant nothing to her.

“Want some tea?” I asked.

She nodded again. She took off her down jacket, removed her cap, and straightened her hair. I set the kettle to boil, and put some green tea in a small teapot. I wanted a cup of tea myself.

With her elbows on the table, Mariye watched me polish off the broiled yellowtail, miso soup, and salad as if she had come across something very strange. She could have been sitting on a rock in the jungle, watching a python swallow a baby badger.

“I marinated the yellowtail myself,” I explained, breaking the silence. “It keeps a lot longer that way.”

She didn’t respond. I couldn’t tell if my words had reached her or not. “Immanuel Kant was a man of punctual habits,” I said. “So punctual that people set their clocks by when he passed on his strolls.”

Absolutely meaningless, of course. I just wanted to see how she’d react to something so totally random. If she was really listening or not. Again, no response. The silence around us only deepened further. Immanuel Kant continued strolling through the streets of Königsberg, leading his regulated and taciturn life. His last words were “This is good” (Es ist gut). Some people can live like that.

I finished dinner and carried the dishes to the sink. Then I made tea. I returned with the teapot and two cups. Mariye sat there at the table watching me throughout. She was eyeballing me intently—like a historian meticulously checking the footnotes of a text.

“You didn’t come by car, did you?” I asked.

At last she opened her mouth. “I walked,” she said.

“All the way from your house, by yourself?”

“Uh-huh.”

I waited for her to go on. But she didn’t. We sat there across from each other at the table for a while without speaking. I’m pretty good at long silences, though. No accident I’m holed up by myself on top of a mountain.

“There’s a secret passageway,” Mariye said at last. “It’s a long way by car, but not far if you take the passageway.”

“I’ve walked all over this area but I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“You don’t know how to look,” she shot back. “You really have to pay attention to find it. It’s well hidden.”

“You hid it, right?”

She nodded. “I’ve lived here since I was small. The whole mountain is my playground. I know every part of it.”

“So the passageway is really well concealed.”

She gave another firm nod.

“And you used it to come here.”

“Uh-huh.”

I sighed. “Have you had dinner?”

“I ate already.”

“What did you eat?”

“My aunt isn’t a very good cook,” the girl said. Not a real answer to my question—it was clear she wanted to let the matter drop. Maybe she didn’t want to recall what she’d eaten for dinner.

“Does your aunt know you came here by yourself?”

Mariye didn’t reply. Her lips were set in a straight line. I chose to answer my own question.

“Of course she doesn’t. What responsible adult would let a thirteen-year-old girl wander the mountains after dark? Right?”

There followed another period of silence.

“She’s not aware of the passageway?”

Mariye shook her head several times. So her aunt didn’t know.

“And you’re the only one who knows about it?”

Mariye nodded several times.

“In any event,” I said, “given where you live, once you left the passageway you probably went through the woods and past an old shrine to get here. Right?”

Mariye nodded again. “I know that shrine. And I know that someone used a big machine to dig up the pile of rocks behind it.”

“Did you watch?”

Mariye shook her head. “I didn’t see them digging. I was at school that day. But I saw the tracks. The ground was covered with them. Why did you do it?”

“I had reasons.”

“What kind of reasons?”

“If I tried to explain from the beginning it would take too long,” I said. So I didn’t try. The last thing I wanted was for her to find out that Menshiki was involved.

“It was wrong to dig it up like that,” Mariye said, abruptly.

“Why do you say that?”

She gave what looked like a shrug. “You should have just left that place alone. Everyone else did.”

“Everyone else?”

“It’s been there like forever, but no one touched it until now.”

The girl was right, I thought. Perhaps we shouldn’t have touched it. Perhaps we should have behaved like “everyone else” had. It was too late to change that now, though. The stones had been moved, the pit exposed, the Commendatore set free.

“Were you the one who removed the lid?” I asked. “Let me guess: you looked inside, then you replaced the boards and the stones that held them down. Am I right?”

Mariye raised her head and looked me straight in the eye. As if to say: How did you know?

“The rocks on the lid had been rearranged. My visual memory is pretty good, always has been. I could see the difference right away.”

“Wow,” she murmured, impressed.

“But the hole was empty. Nothing but darkness and damp air, right?”

“A ladder was there too.”

“You didn’t climb down it, did you?”

Mariye shook her head vigorously. As if to say: No way!

“And now,” I said, “you’ve come here at this time of night for a particular reason, haven’t you? I mean, this isn’t just a social visit, is it.”

“A social visit?”

“You know, an ‘I happened to be in the neighborhood so I thought I’d stop by’ kind of thing.”

She thought for a moment before shaking her head. “No, it’s not ‘a social visit.’”

“Then what is it?” I asked. “I’m more than happy to have you visit me, but if your aunt or your father found out, it could lead to a bizarre misunderstanding.”

“What kind of misunderstanding?”

“There are all sorts of misunderstandings in this world,” I said. “Some go far beyond what you and I can imagine. In this case, it could make it impossible for me to paint your portrait. That would bother me a lot. Wouldn’t it bother you?”

“My aunt won’t find out,” she said emphatically. “I go to my room after dinner and she never follows me. It’s like an agreement we have. I leave through my window and no one knows. No one’s ever caught on.”

“So you’ve been walking the mountain at night for a long time?”

Mariye nodded.

“Isn’t it scary all by yourself after dark?”

“Other things are a lot scarier.”

“Like what, for example?”

Mariye shrugged her shoulders slightly but said nothing.

“Your aunt may not be a problem, but how about your father?”

“He’s not back yet.”

“Even though today’s Sunday?”

Mariye didn’t answer. I guessed she wanted to avoid talking about her father.

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry,” she said. “No one knows when I leave the house. Even if they found out I’d never give your name.”

“All right then, I’ll stop worrying,” I said. “But why did you come here tonight of all nights?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Like what?”

Mariye picked up her cup and took a sip of hot tea. She looked warily around the room as if to make sure no one would overhear. Of course nobody was there but the two of us. That is, unless the Commendatore had returned and was listening in. I looked around as well. But the Commendatore wasn’t there. If he was, he hadn’t assumed bodily form.

“Your friend who showed up this afternoon, the guy with the pretty white hair,” she said. “What was his name? It was kind of weird.”

“Menshiki.”

“That’s right, Mr. Menshiki.”

“He’s not really a friend. I met him just a short while ago.”

“Whatever.”

“So what is it about Mr. Menshiki?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “I think,” she said, lowering her voice, “that man is hiding something. In his heart.”

“What sort of thing?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t believe he showed up this afternoon by accident, like he said. I think he came for a very specific purpose.”

“What purpose is that?” I asked, a little shocked by how observant she was.

She fixed me with her gaze. “I’m not sure. Don’t you know?”

“I have no idea,” I lied, praying that Mariye wouldn’t see through my deception. I have never been a good liar. When I lie it’s written on my face. But there was no way I could tell her the truth.

“For real?”

“For real,” I said. “I had no idea he would show up today.”

Mariye seemed to buy my story. Menshiki had not told me he would be coming, and his sudden visit had taken me by surprise. So I wasn’t really lying after all.

“His eyes are weird,” Mariye said.

“Weird in what way?”

“It’s like he’s always scheming about something. Like the wolf in ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ When the wolf dresses up like the grandmother and lies in bed, you can tell it’s him by his eyes.”

Like the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood”?

“So you had an adverse reaction to Mr. Menshiki, right?”

“Adverse reaction?”

“A negative impression. A feeling he might harm you.”

“Adverse reaction,” she said. She seemed to be storing the phrase in her mental filing cabinet. Alongside “a bolt from the blue,” no doubt.

“It’s not like that,” Mariye said. “I don’t think he’s planning anything bad. I just think Mr. Menshiki with the pretty white hair is hiding something.”

“And you sense it, right?”

Mariye nodded. “That’s why I came to see you. I thought you might be able to tell me more about him.”

“Does your aunt feel the same way?” I asked, trying to deflect her question.

“No,” she answered, tilting her head to one side. “That’s not what she’s like. She seldom has an adverse reaction to people. And I think she’s interested in him. He’s a bit older, but he’s handsome and well dressed and I guess very rich and living all by himself…”

“So you think she’s taken to him?”

“I guess so. She really lit up when she talked to him. Her face, and her voice—it got higher. She wasn’t like usual. I bet he felt the change too.”

I said nothing, just poured us both a fresh cup of tea. I took a sip.

Mariye seemed to be turning something over in her mind. “I wonder, how did he know we were going to be here today?” she asked. “Did you tell him?”

“I don’t think Mr. Menshiki came planning to meet your aunt.” I chose my words with care, hoping to avoid another lie. “In fact, he tried to leave when he realized the two of you were here, but I talked him into staying. He happened to stop by when your aunt happened to be here, and when he saw her he got interested. Your aunt is a very attractive woman, you know.”

Mariye didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t push the issue any further. She just sat there frowning, elbows on the table.

“In any case, the two of you are going to visit his home next Sunday,” I said.

Mariye nodded. “Yes, to see your portrait of him. My aunt seems to be really looking forward to it. To paying Mr. Menshiki a visit, I mean.”

“I don’t blame her for getting excited,” I said. “After all, she’s living in the mountains with no other people around. Not like in the city, where she’d have opportunities to meet all sorts of men.”

Mariye pressed her lips together for a moment.

“My aunt used to have a boyfriend,” she said, as if letting me in on a big secret. “A man she saw for a really long time. When she was a secretary in Tokyo. But a lot of things happened, and in the end they broke up. It hurt her a lot. Then my mother died, and she came to look after me. She didn’t tell me any of this, of course.”

“I don’t think she’s seeing anyone now, is she?”

Mariye shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“So you’re a little concerned that your aunt is interested in Mr. Menshiki, and that she may be experiencing the first stirrings of something. So you came to talk to me about it. Is that right?”

“Tell me, do you think he’s trying to seduce her?”

“Seduce her?”

“I mean, that he isn’t serious?”

“There’s no way for me to tell,” I said. “I don’t know Mr. Menshiki that well. They just met this afternoon, so nothing has happened between them yet. When two people’s feelings are involved like this, things can change in subtle ways. What begins as a small feeling can grow into something really big, or the opposite can happen.”

“But I have a kind of hunch this time,” she asserted.

I sensed that I should believe her “kind of hunch,” baseless though it was. For I had a similar kind of hunch.

“So you’re worried something could occur that might harm your aunt psychologically,” I said.

Mariye gave a quick nod. “My aunt’s not a very cautious person, and she’s not used to being hurt.”

“It sounds like you’re the one looking after her, and not the other way around,” I said.

“In a way,” Mariye said seriously.

“How about you, then? Are you used to being hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Mariye said. “At least I’m not about to fall in love.”

“You will someday, though.”

“But not now. Not until my chest gets a little bigger anyway.”

“That may happen sooner than you expect.”

Mariye made a wry face. I guessed she didn’t believe me.

I felt a seed of doubt sprout in my own chest. Would Menshiki draw close to Shoko Akikawa to establish a firm connection with Mariye?

After all, he had said to me, I couldn’t tell anything in one brief meeting. I need to see her more.

Shoko would be an important intermediary—through her, Menshiki could see Mariye on a regular basis. After all, she was the one looking after the girl. To a greater or lesser extent, therefore, Menshiki had to place Shoko under his thumb. That shouldn’t be too hard for a man of Menshiki’s talents. Not child’s play, perhaps, but close to it. I didn’t like to think that Menshiki was harboring a plan of that sort. Yet perhaps the Commendatore had been right, and he was a man who couldn’t help fabricating some scheme or other. From what I had seen, however, he wasn’t that cunning.

“Mr. Menshiki’s house is really impressive,” I said to Mariye. “You may or may not like it, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”

“Have you been there?”

“Only once. I went there for dinner.”

“It’s on the other side of the valley?”

“Right across from us.”

“Can you see it from here?”

I pretended to think for a moment. “Yes, but it’s far away, of course.”

“Show me.”

I led her to the terrace and pointed out Menshiki’s mansion on top of the mountain across the valley. Bathed in the light from the garden lanterns, the building floated white in the distance like an elegant ocean liner sailing the night sea. Several of the windows were also lit up. The lights burning there were small and unobtrusive.

“That enormous white house?” Mariye exclaimed in surprise. She stared at me for a moment. Then, wordlessly, she turned back to the distant mansion.

“I can see it from my house, too,” she said eventually. “The angle’s a bit different, though. I’ve always wondered who would live in a place like that.”

“It does stand out, that’s for sure,” I said. “Anyway, that’s Mr. Menshiki’s home.”

Mariye spent a long time leaning over the railing looking at the house. A handful of stars twinkled above its roof. There was no wind, and a small, sharp-edged cloud hung there motionless. Like a paper cutout nailed to a plywood backdrop in a play. Each time the girl moved her head, her straight black hair glittered in the moonlight.

“Does Mr. Menshiki really live there all by himself?” Mariye asked, turning to me.

“Yes, he does. All alone, in that big house.”

“And he’s not married?”

“He told me he has never married.”

“What kind of work does he do?”

“I’m not sure. Something connected to the information business, he said. Maybe having to do with tech. He doesn’t have a regular job right now, though. He lives on the money he made from selling his old business, and from stock dividends and so forth. I don’t know the details.”

“So he doesn’t work?” Mariye said, wrinkling her forehead.

“That’s what he said. Seldom leaves his home, apparently.”

He might well be standing on his terrace, watching the two of us through his high-powered binoculars just as we were watching him. What would run through his mind if he saw us standing side by side like this?

“You’d better head home,” I told Mariye. “It’s getting late.”

“Besides asking about Mr. Menshiki,” she said softly, as if confiding something, “I wanted to tell you I’m really happy that you’re painting my picture. I can’t wait to see it.”

“I hope it turns out well,” I said. Her words moved me more than a little. It was strange how much this girl opened up when painting was involved.

I walked her to the door. Mariye put on her tight-fitting down jacket and crammed her Indians cap down over her head. Now she looked like a boy.

“Shall I walk with you partway?” I asked.

“I’m fine. I know the path.”

“See you next Sunday, then.”

But instead of leaving, she paused for a moment with her hand on the doorframe.

“One thing bothers me,” she said. “It’s that bell.”

“The bell?”

“I thought I heard it ringing on my way here. The same kind of jingling sound that the bell in your studio made.”

I was at a loss for words. Mariye’s eyes were on my face.

“Where was it exactly?” I asked.

“In the woods. It came from behind the shrine.”

I listened to the dark. But I heard no bell. I heard no sound at all. Just the quiet of the night.

“Weren’t you scared?” I asked.

Mariye shook her head. “If I leave it alone, there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Wait here just a second,” I told Mariye. I ran back to the studio. The bell was not where I had left it. It had vanished from the shelf.

³⁶ WHAT I WANT IS NOT TO HAVE TO DISCUSS THE RULES OF THE GAME

After seeing Mariye off, I went into the studio, turned on all the lights, and combed every inch of the room. But the old bell was nowhere to be found. It had vanished from sight.

When had I last seen it? The previous Sunday, on her first visit, Mariye had taken the bell down and shaken it. Then she had returned it to the shelf. I remembered that. But had I laid eyes on the bell since? I couldn’t recall. I had hardly set foot in the studio all week. Not once had I picked up my brush. The Man with the White Subaru Forester had stalled, and I hadn’t yet started Mariye’s portrait. I was what you might call “between paintings.”

Then, without my knowledge, the bell had disappeared.

But Mariye had heard it ringing behind the shrine when she passed through the woods. Could someone have returned it to the pit? Should I rush there now, see if I could hear the bell with my own ears?

Yet the prospect of hurrying off into the dark woods alone didn’t appeal to me. Too many surprises in one day had worn me out. Whatever one might say, I had more than filled my quota of “unforeseen events.”

I went into the kitchen, pulled out the ice tray, plunked a few cubes in a glass, and doused them with whiskey. It was only eight thirty. Had Mariye safely navigated the woods and returned home through her passageway? I felt sure she had. No need for me to worry. This mountain had been her playground since she was small, she had said. And she was a lot tougher than she looked.

I took my time working my way through two glasses of Scotch, munched a few crackers, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. For all I knew, I might be roused in the middle of the night by a ringing bell. Around two a.m., as before. Nothing much I could do about that. If it happened, I would deal with it then. But nothing happened. As far as I knew, anyway. I slept like a log until half past six the next morning.

When I awoke, it was raining outside. A chilly rain, signaling the approach of winter. Quiet and persistent. It reminded me of the rain that had been falling that day in March when my wife announced that our marriage was over. I hadn’t faced her as she spoke. For the most part, I had looked out the window at the rain.

After breakfast, I put on my vinyl poncho and rain hat (both purchased on my trip, at a sporting-goods store in Hakodate) and walked into the woods. I didn’t take an umbrella. I circled the shrine and removed half the boards covering the pit. I made a careful search with my flashlight, but it was empty. No bell, and no sign of the Commendatore. Just to make sure, I decided to descend the metal ladder to check. I had never entered the pit before. The rungs sagged and gave an ominous creak with each step down. In the end, however, I found nothing. It was just an uninhabited hole in the ground. Perfectly round, it might have been a well were it not so wide. Had its builders intended to draw water from it, they would have made its circumference much smaller. And the construction of the wall was too intricate. It was just as the landscaper had said.

I stood in the pit for some time, lost in thought. I didn’t feel trapped since I could see a cleanly severed half-moon of sky above. I flicked off my flashlight, leaned my back against the damp, dark stone wall, and closed my eyes as the rain pattered overhead. Something was running through my mind, but I couldn’t grasp what it was. One thought would link to another, which in turn would link to still another thought. That chain was bizarre somehow, though I couldn’t say exactly why. It was as if I had been swallowed by the act of thinking, if that makes sense.

The pit was thinking too, I could tell. It was alive—I could feel it breathing. My thoughts and those of the pit were like trees grown together: our roots joined in the dark, our sap intermingled. In this condition, self and other blended like the paints on my palette, their borders ever more indistinct.

At a certain point, it felt as though the walls of the pit were beginning to close in. My heart made a dry sound as it expanded and contracted in my chest. I felt I could hear its valves open and close. The sensation chilled me, as if I were approaching the realm of the dead. That world didn’t strike me as altogether unpleasant, but it was not yet my time to enter.

I returned to my senses with a start. I untangled myself from my train of thought, which had run on without me, then flicked on my flashlight and looked around. The ladder was still where it had been. The sky above my head was the same. I breathed a sigh of relief. For all I knew, the sky could have vanished and the ladder disappeared. Anything could happen in this place.

With great care, I climbed from the pit one rung at a time. Only when I had emerged and was standing on the wet ground did my breathing finally return to normal. It took even longer to get my heartbeat under control. I peered down into the pit one last time. With my flashlight, I illuminated every inch of the dirt floor. But it was just a normal, everyday kind of pit. It was not breathing or thinking, nor were its walls closing in. It just sat there in silence, absorbing the chilly mid-November rain.

I moved the boards back into place and set the rocks on top. I arranged them with care, making sure that they were exactly as they had been before. That way I would know if someone moved them. Then I stuck my rain hat back on my head and walked home along the same path I had come on.

As I walked through the woods, I wondered where the Commendatore had gone. I hadn’t seen him for at least two weeks. Strangely, I missed having him around. Without realizing it, I had come to feel a certain kinship with the two-foot man with the tiny sword at his side, despite his odd way of speaking, his voyeurism when my girlfriend and I were making love, and the fact that I had no clear idea what he was. I hoped nothing bad had happened to him.

When I got home, I went straight to the studio, sat down on the ancient wooden stool (the stool Tomohiko Amada must have used when he was working), and studied Killing Commendatore hanging there on the wall. I often did that when I wasn’t sure what to do—in fact, I studied it endlessly. It was a painting I never tired of, no matter how often I looked at it. It should have been displayed in a museum as a prized example of Japanese art, but instead, it graced the wall of this small studio, and I was the only one who could enjoy it. Before me, it had been hidden in the attic, unseen by anyone.

It’s calling out to me, Mariye had said. Like a caged bird crying to be set free.

The more I studied the painting the more I realized Mariye had hit the nail square on the head—something was desperately struggling to escape that enclosed space. It longed for a place less confined, for freedom. It was the strength of that will that gave the painting its impact. Whether we understood the meaning of the bird and the cage or not.

I felt the urge to paint something that day. Powerfully. I could feel it mounting within me. Like the evening tide coming in. It was still too early, though, to work on Mariye’s portrait. That could wait until next Sunday. And I didn’t feel like going back to The Man with the White Subaru Forester either. As Mariye had pointed out, a dangerous force lurked beneath its surface.

A new canvas sat on the easel, ready for Mariye’s portrait. I sat on the stool studying it for a long time. Yet nothing came to me—no image of what to paint. The blank stayed blank. What should be my subject matter? After a while, at last, the answer rose to my mind.

I stepped away from the easel and took out my big sketchbook. Then I sat on the floor, crossed my legs, leaned back against the wall, and began to draw a chamber of stone in pencil. Not my usual soft pencil but a much harder one. It was a sketch of the strange pit we had found under the pile of rocks in the woods. I had just come from there, so it was fresh in my mind, and I rendered it in as much detail as possible. I drew the intricately fitted wall of stones. I drew the ground around the pit, and the beautiful pattern of the wet fallen leaves. The stand of pampas grass that had once hidden the pit lay flattened by the backhoe.

As I sketched, the eerie sensation that I was merging with the pit returned. It wanted me to draw it. Accurately, and in great detail. In response, my hand moved without conscious guidance. It was a pure act of creation, and it brought with it a kind of joy. When I returned to my senses, I realized that a length of time had passed (I had no idea how much), and that the page in my notebook was covered with pencil lines.

I went to the kitchen, gulped down several glasses of cold water, reheated the coffee, and carried a cup back to the studio. I placed the open sketchbook on the easel and sat down to take a second look, this time from farther away. There was the pit in the woods, in realistic detail. It looked somehow alive. Even more alive than the real thing. I got off the stool and examined it up close, then studied it again from a different angle. Only then did it hit me how much it looked like a woman’s genitals. The clump of pampas grass flattened by the backhoe resembled her pubic hair to a T.

I shook my head and smiled a wry smile. I mean, how Freudian can you get? I imagined some egghead critic fulminating on the drawing’s psychological implications: “This black, gaping hole, so reminiscent of a woman’s solitary genitalia, must be understood functionally, as a symbolic representation of the artist’s memories and unconscious desires.” Or something of the sort. Seriously!

Yet try as I might, I couldn’t get the connection between the strange circular pit in the woods and a woman’s sex out of my head. So when the phone rang a short while later, I had a hunch it would be my married girlfriend.

And it was.

“Hi,” she said. “Some free time just opened up, and I was wondering if I might stop by.”

I glanced at my watch. “Sounds good. Let’s have lunch together.”

“I’ll pick up something simple on the way,” she said.

“Great idea. I’ve been working since morning, so I haven’t prepared anything.”

She ended the call. I made the bed, picked my clothes up off the floor, folded them, and returned them to the chest of drawers. I washed the breakfast dishes in the sink and put them away.

Then I went to the living room, placed my usual record—Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Georg Solti—on the turntable, and read on the sofa while I waited for her to arrive. What kind of book was Shoko Akikawa reading, I wondered? What could have so captivated her?

My girlfriend showed up at twelve fifteen. Her red Mini pulled up in front of my house and she got out, a paper bag from the grocery store in her arms. Although a quiet rain was still falling, she carried no umbrella. Wearing a yellow vinyl raincoat with a hood, she walked quickly to my door. I met her there, took the bag, and brought it to the kitchen. She removed the raincoat, exposing the brilliant green turtleneck underneath. Beneath the sweater were two very attractive bulges. Her breasts weren’t as large as Shoko’s, but they suited me just fine.

“Have you been at it all morning?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not a commission. I felt like drawing, so I came up with something on my own, just for fun.”

“Just passing the time, huh?”

“Yeah, a bit like that.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not all that much.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Why don’t we eat afterward, then?”

“Fine by me,” I said.

“You were awfully passionate today. Is there a special reason?” she asked. It was afterward, and we were lying in bed.

“I wonder,” I said. What I might have said was, maybe it was because I spent the whole morning madly sketching a strange six-foot-wide hole in the ground and, partway through, my mind made a connection between the hole and a woman’s vagina, which must have turned me on… But I couldn’t.

“It was because I haven’t seen you for so long,” I said instead.

“You’re sweet,” she said, tracing a line on my chest with her fingertips. “But be honest—sometimes don’t you want a younger woman?”

“No, I’ve never thought about that.”

“Really?”

“Not once,” I said. I was being truthful. Our sexual relationship was pure pleasure for me, and I had no desire to seek out anyone else. (My desire for Yuzu, of course, was of a wholly different order.)

I decided not to tell her about Mariye Akikawa. If she learned that a beautiful thirteen-year-old girl was modeling for me, it would only spark her jealousy. It seemed a woman at any age—thirteen, forty-one, you name it—felt she was facing a delicate time in her life. This was one thing my modest experience with the opposite sex had taught me.

“Still,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s strange, the way women and men hook up?”

“Strange in what way?”

“I mean, look at us. We haven’t known each other that long, yet here we are lying together naked, making love like this. Completely vulnerable, with no sense of shame. Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“Maybe you’re right,” I murmured.

“Try to think of it as a game. Maybe not only that, but a kind of game all the same. Otherwise what I’m saying won’t make any sense.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” I said.

“A game has to have rules, right?”

“Yeah, you need those.”

“Baseball, soccer, all the sports have a thick rule book, right, where the rules are written down to the tiniest detail, and then umpires and players have to memorize them all. Without that, the game can’t take place. Isn’t that so?”

“You’re absolutely right.”

She paused, waiting for the image to sink in.

“So what I’m trying to say is, have we ever sat down and discussed the rules of this game that we’re playing? Have we?”

I thought for a moment. “Possibly not,” I said finally.

“Yet despite that, we are playing the game by a set of hypothetical rules. Right?”

“When you put it that way, I guess you have a point.”

“So this is what I think,” she said. “I’m playing the game according to my set of rules. And you’re playing according to yours. The two of us instinctively respect each other’s rules. As long as the two sets don’t conflict and mess things up, we can go on like this without a hitch. Don’t you agree?”

I considered what she had said. “Maybe you’re right. We basically respect each other’s rules.”

“But you know, I think there’s something even more important than respect and trust. And that’s etiquette.”

“Etiquette?”

“Etiquette’s big.”

“You may be right there,” I agreed.

“If all those things—trust, respect, etiquette—stop functioning, the rules clash and the game breaks down. Then we either suspend the game and come up with a new set of rules we can both follow, or we end it and leave the playing field. The big question then would be which of those two routes we decide to follow.”

That was precisely what had happened to my marriage. I had called a halt to the game and walked off the field. On that cold and rainy Sunday afternoon in March.

“So are you suggesting that we should talk out the rules of our relationship?”

“You don’t get what I’m saying at all,” she said, shaking her head. “What I want is not to have to discuss the rules of the game. That’s why I’m able to be naked with you like this. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not a bit,” I said.

“So that leaves us with trust and respect. And most of all etiquette.”

“And most of all etiquette,” I repeated.

She reached down and squeezed a part of my body.

“It’s getting hard again,” she whispered in my ear.

“Maybe that’s because today is Monday,” I said.

“What does Monday have to do with it?”

“Or maybe because it’s raining. Or winter is coming. Or we’re starting to see migrating birds. Or there’s a bumper crop of mushrooms this year. Or my cup is a sixteenth full of water. Or the shape of your breasts under your green sweater turns me on.”

She giggled. My answer appeared to have done the trick.

Menshiki called that evening. He thanked me for the day before.

I had done nothing worthy of his gratitude, I replied. All I had done was introduce him to two people. What developed after that, and how, had nothing to do with me—in that sense, I was a mere outsider. And I would like to keep it that way (though I had a premonition things might not work out so conveniently).

“Actually, I’m calling about something else,” Menshiki said once the pleasantries were over. “I’ve received some new information about Tomohiko Amada.”

So he was continuing his investigation. He might not be doing it himself, but arranging for such detailed work was certainly costing him a lot. Menshiki was a man who poured money into anything he thought necessary, sparing no expense. But why, and to what degree, was tracking down Tomohiko Amada’s experiences in Vienna necessary to him? I didn’t have a clue.

“What we’ve turned up may not have a direct connection with Amada’s stay in Vienna,” Menshiki went on. “But it overlaps with that time, and it’s clear that it had a huge personal impact on him. So I thought you would like to hear about it.”

“It overlapped with that time?”

“As I told you before, Tomohiko Amada returned to Japan from Vienna in early 1939. On paper, he was deported, but in fact he was rescued by the Gestapo. Officials from the foreign ministries of Japan and Nazi Germany had met in secret, and agreed that he be extradited but not charged with any crime. The failed assassination attempt had taken place in 1938, but it was linked to two other important events of that year: the Anschluss—Hitler’s annexation of Austria—and Kristallnacht. The Anschluss took place in March, and Kristallnacht in November. Once they occurred, the brutality of Hitler’s plan was obvious to everyone. Austria was firmly installed as a part of the Nazi war effort. An inextricable cog in the machine. Hoping to block this flow of events, students organized an underground resistance movement, and in the same year, Tomohiko Amada was arrested for his role in the assassination plot. Get the picture?”

“In a general sort of way, yes,” I said.

“Do you like history?”

“I’m no expert, but I love books that deal with history,” I said.

“A number of important events were taking place in Japan that year as well. Fatal, irrevocable events, which led to eventual disaster. Does anything spring to mind?”

I dusted off my store of historical knowledge, so long untouched. What had taken place in 1938? In Europe, the Spanish Civil War had intensified. German Condor bombers had flattened Guernica. But in Japan…?

“Did the Marco Polo Bridge Incident take place that year?” I asked.

“That was the year before,” Menshiki said. “On July 7, 1937. With the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the war between China and Japan went into full swing. Then in December of that year, another serious event took place.”

What had happened in December of 1937?

“The fall of Nanjing?” I asked.

“That’s right. What’s known today as the Nanjing Massacre. After a hard-fought battle, Japanese troops occupied the city, and many people were killed. Some died in the fighting, others after the fighting ended. The Japanese army lacked the means to keep prisoners, so they killed the Chinese soldiers who surrendered as well as thousands of civilians. Historians disagree on exactly how many died, but no one can deny that a massive number of noncombatants were sucked into the conflict and lost their lives. Some say 400,000, others 100,000. But what difference is there really between 400,000 lives and 100,000?”

He had me on that one.

“So Nanjing fell in December, and many were killed. But what does that have to do with what happened to Tomohiko Amada in Vienna?” I asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Menshiki said. “The Anti-Comintern Pact was signed by Japan and Germany in November of 1936, cementing their alliance, but Vienna and Nanjing were so far apart it’s doubtful much news about Japan’s war in China was getting through to Vienna. In fact, however, Tomohiko Amada’s younger brother, Tsuguhiko, had been part of the assault on Nanjing as a private in the Japanese army. He had been drafted and assigned to one of the units fighting there. He was twenty, and a full-time student at the Tokyo Music School, now the Faculty of Music at the Tokyo University of the Arts. He studied the piano.”

“That’s strange,” I said. “To my knowledge, full-time university students were exempt from the draft at that time.”

“You’re absolutely right. Full-time students were given a deferment until graduation. Yet for some reason Tsuguhiko was drafted and sent to China. In any case, he was inducted in June of 1937 and spent the next twelve months as a private second-class in the army. He was living in Tokyo, but his birth was registered in Kumamoto, so he was assigned to the 6th Division based there. That much is documented. After basic training, he was sent to China, and participated in the December assault on Nanjing. He was demobilized in June of the following year, and was expected to return to the conservatory.”

I waited for Menshiki to continue.

“Not long after his discharge, however, Tsuguhiko Amada took his own life. He slit his wrists with a razor in the attic of the family home, which was where they found him. Right around the end of summer.”

Slit his wrists in the attic?

“If it was toward the end of summer in 1938… then Tomohiko was still an exchange student in Vienna when his brother Tsuguhiko slit his wrists, right?”

“That’s correct. He didn’t return home for the funeral. Commercial air travel was still in its infancy. You could only travel between Austria and Japan by rail and ship. There was no way he could have made it back in time.”

“Are you suggesting that there’s a connection between Tomohiko’s involvement in the failed assassination and his brother’s suicide? They seem to have happened almost simultaneously.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Menshiki said. “That’s in the realm of conjecture. What I’m reporting to you now are the facts our investigation was able to uncover.”

“Did Tomohiko Amada have any other siblings?”

“There was an older brother. Tomohiko was the second son. Tsuguhiko was the third and last. The manner of his death was concealed, though, to protect the family’s honor. Kumamoto’s 6th Division was celebrated as a band of fearless warriors. If word had gotten out that their son had returned from the battlefield bathed in glory only to turn around and kill himself, they could not have faced the world. Still, as you know, rumors have a way of spreading.”

I thanked Menshiki for updating me. Though what the new information meant in concrete terms escaped me.

“I’m planning to dig a bit deeper into this,” he said. “I’ll let you know if we turn up something more.”

“Please do.”

“So then I’ll stop by next Sunday shortly after noon,” Menshiki said. “I’ll drive the Akikawas over to my place. To show them your painting. That’s okay with you, right?”

“Of course. The painting is yours now. You’re free to show it or not to whomever you like.”

Menshiki paused. As if searching for just the right words. “To tell you the honest truth,” he said. “Sometimes I’m very envious of you.” There was resignation in his voice.

Envious? Of me?

What could he possibly be talking about? Why would Menshiki envy me? It made no sense. He had everything, while I had nothing to my name.

“What could you possibly be envious about?” I asked.

“I see you as the kind of person who doesn’t really envy anyone. Am I right?”

I thought for a moment before replying. “You have a point. I don’t think I’ve ever envied another person.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say.”

All the same, I don’t have Yuzu, I thought. She had left me for the arms of another man. There were times I felt abandoned at the edge of the world. Yet even then I felt no envy toward that other man. Did that make me strange?

After our phone call, I sat on the sofa and thought about Tomohiko Amada’s brother slitting his wrists in the attic. It wasn’t the attic of this house, that was for sure. Tomohiko had bought this place after the war. No, Tsuguhiko Amada had committed suicide in the attic of their family home. In Aso, no doubt. Nevertheless, the brother’s death and the painting Killing Commendatore might be connected by that dark, secret room above the ceiling. Sure, it might have been pure coincidence. Or perhaps Tomohiko had his brother in mind when he hid the painting in the attic here. Still, why was Tsuguhiko compelled to take his own life so soon after returning from the front? After all, he had survived the bloody conflict in China and come home with all his limbs intact.

I picked up the phone and dialed Masahiko’s number.

“Let’s get together in Tokyo,” I said. “I have to visit the art supply shop soon to stock up on paints. Maybe we could meet and talk then.”

“Sure thing,” he said, checking his schedule. Thursday just after noon was best for him, so we arranged to have lunch together.

“The art supply store in Yotsuya, correct?”

“That’s the one. I’ve got to pick up fresh canvases, too, and I’m running out of linseed oil. It’ll be quite a load, so I’ll take the car.”

“There’s a quiet restaurant not far from my office. We could have a nice relaxed chat over lunch.”

“By the way,” I said, “divorce papers from Yuzu came in the mail, so I signed and returned them. It looks like our divorce will become official pretty soon.”

“Is that so,” Masahiko said in a subdued voice.

“What can you do? It was just a matter of time.”

“Still, from where I stand it’s a real shame. You guys seemed like such a good match.”

“It was great as long as things were going well,” I said. Just like an old-model Jaguar. A wonderful ride until the problems start.

“So what will you do now?”

“No big changes. Just keep on as I am for the time being. Can’t think of what else to do.”

“Are you painting?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple of paintings I’m working on. Not sure what will happen with them, but at least I’m at it.”

“That’s the way to go.” Masahiko hesitated before adding, “I’m glad you called. There’s something I want to discuss with you as well.”

“Something good?”

“It’s just the facts—I can’t say if they’re good or bad.”

“Does it have to do with Yuzu?”

“It’s hard to talk about over the phone.”

“Okay, on Thursday then.”

I ended the call and walked out to the terrace. The rain had stopped, and the cool night air was clear and bracing. I could see stars peeping from the cracks between the clouds. They looked like scattered crystals of ice. Hard crystals, millions of years old, never melting. Hard to their very core. Across the valley, Menshiki’s house glimmered in the cool light of its lanterns.

As I looked at his house, I thought of trust, respect, and etiquette. Especially etiquette. As I expected, though, none of those thoughts led me to any definite conclusions.

³⁷ EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING

It turned out to be a long haul from my mountaintop perch on the outskirts of Odawara to downtown Tokyo. I took several wrong turns en route, which ate up a lot of time. My old used car had no navigation system or electronic pass for the highway tolls. (I guess I should have been grateful it came with a cup holder!) It took me ages to find the Odawara-Atsugi Road, and when I moved from the Tomei Expressway onto the Metropolitan Expressway it was jammed, so I opted to get off at the Shibuya exit and drive to Yotsuya via Aoyama Avenue. Even the city roads were crowded, though—just choosing the correct lane was a huge pain in the ass. Parking the car wasn’t easy, either. It seems as if, year after year, the world becomes a more difficult place to live.

By the time I picked up what I needed at the art supply store, loaded it into the trunk, drove to Masahiko Amada’s office in Aoyama, and found a parking spot, I was exhausted. I felt like the country mouse visiting his city cousin. When I reached his office it was past one by my watch, which meant I was more than a half hour late.

I asked the receptionist to call Masahiko. He came right down. I apologized for being so tardy.

“Don’t worry about it,” he laughed. “My office can adjust, and so can the restaurant.”

Masahiko took me to an Italian place in the neighborhood, located in the basement of a small building. Masahiko was obviously well known there, for no sooner had they seen his face than we were guided to a private room in the back. It was very quiet: the sound of voices did not reach us and no music was playing. A quite passable landscape painting hung on the wall. It showed a white lighthouse on a green peninsula under a blue sky. Super-ordinary scene, sure, but done well enough to let the viewer think, “Hey, that place might be nice to check out.”

Masahiko ordered a glass of white wine, while I asked for Perrier.

“I’ve got to drive back after this,” I explained. “It’s quite a trek.”

“No kidding,” said Masahiko. “Still, it’s a heck of a lot better than Hayama or Zushi. I lived in Hayama once, and driving back and forth to Tokyo in the summer was awful. The whole route was jammed with people heading to the ocean from the city. A round trip was a half day’s work. Compared to that, driving in from Odawara is nothing.”

The menus arrived and we ordered the prix fixe lunch: prosciutto as appetizer followed by asparagus salad and spaghetti with Japanese lobster.

“So you finally decided to do some serious painting,” Masahiko said.

“Well, I’m living alone now, and I don’t need commissions to get by. Maybe that’s why the urge to paint my own stuff hit me.”

Masahiko nodded. “Everything has a bright side,” he said. “The top of even the blackest, thickest cloud shines like silver.”

“Yeah, but getting up there to see it is no picnic.”

“I was speaking more theoretically,” Masahiko said.

“I think living on top of a mountain may be affecting me too. It’s the perfect spot to focus on my art.”

“Yeah, when no one’s there to distract you and it’s that quiet, you can really concentrate. A more normal person might get a bit lonely, but I figured you’re the kind of guy who can handle it.”

The door opened and the appetizer was brought in. We fell quiet as the plates were laid out.

“I think the studio has a lot to do with it as well,” I said once the waiter had gone. “There’s something about being in that room that makes me want to paint. At times it feels like the center of the whole house.”

“If the house were human, it’d be the heart, perhaps.”

“Yeah, or the consciousness.”

“Body and Mind,” Masahiko said in English. “To tell the truth, though, it’s hard for me to spend time in his studio. His smell has sunk in too deep. I can still feel him in the air. When I was a boy, he’d isolate himself in that room almost all day, painting away without a word to anyone. It was his sanctum, off-limits to a kid like me. I tend to steer clear of the studio when I’m there, even now. You should be careful too.”

“Be careful? Why?”

“So you don’t become possessed by his spirit. It’s a strong one.”

“Spirit?”

“Maybe ‘psychic energy’ is a better term. Or ‘flow of being.’ His is intense enough to sweep you away. At any rate, when someone like him spends a long time in a particular place, it soaks in his aura. Like particles of smell.”

“And that’s what could possess me?”

“Maybe ‘possessed’ isn’t the best way to put it. ‘Absorb his influence,’ perhaps? It’s like he invested that room with some special power.”

“I wonder. I’m only looking after his home, and I never met him. So maybe it won’t weigh on me as much.”

“You’re probably right,” Masahiko said. He took a sip of white wine. “Being related to him may make me more sensitive to those things. And if it turns out that his ‘aura’ inspires you in your work, so much the better.”

“So how’s he doing these days?”

“Nothing in particular is wrong with him. He’s past ninety, so I can’t say he’s the picture of health, and his mind is confused, but he can still manage to get around with a cane, his appetite’s fine, and his eyes and teeth are in good shape. You know, his teeth are better than mine—never had a cavity!”

“How bad is his memory? Can he recall anything?”

“Not a whole lot. He doesn’t recognize me. He’s lost the concept of family, of father and son. Even the distinction between himself and other people may have blurred. Still, maybe it’s easier when those things are swept away, and you don’t have to think about them anymore.”

I sipped my slender glass of Perrier and nodded. So Tomohiko Amada had forgotten even his son’s face. Memories of student days in Vienna must have set sail for the far shore of forgetfulness some time ago.

“All the same, what I called his ‘flow of being’ is still strong,” Masahiko said, as if in wonder. “It’s strange: he remembers almost nothing, but his will is the same as always. It’s obvious when you look at him. That psychic power is what makes him who he is. I feel a bit guilty sometimes that I didn’t inherit that temperament, but there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re all born with different abilities. Being linked to someone by blood doesn’t mean you have similar gifts.”

I looked in his face. It was rare to see Masahiko bare his true feelings.

“It must be awfully hard to have such a famous father,” I said. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like. My dad was nothing special, just a small businessman.”

“There are some benefits to having a famous father, but there are times that it really sucks. I think the latter are a bit more frequent, actually. You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with that. You’re free to be who you want.”

“You look like the one with a free life.”

“In a sense,” Masahiko said. He turned his wineglass around in his hand. “But in another sense, no.”

Masahiko possessed a keen artistic sensibility of his own. He had taken a job with a medium-sized ad agency after finishing school. By now, his salary had increased, and he looked for all the world like a bachelor enjoying everything city life had to offer. I had no way of knowing if that was true, however.

“I was hoping to ask you a few things about your father,” I said, broaching the reason for my visit.

“What sort of things? You know, I really don’t know that much about him.”

“I heard that he had a younger brother named Tsuguhiko.”

“Yeah, that’s true. That would be my uncle, I guess. But he died a long time ago. Before Pearl Harbor.”

“I heard he committed suicide.”

A shadow passed across Masahiko’s face. “That’s supposed to be a family secret, but it happened so long ago, and part of it’s public knowledge now anyway. So I guess it’s okay to tell you. He cut his wrists with a razor. He was only twenty.”

“What made him do it?”

“Why do you want to know something like that?”

“I’ve been trying to learn more about your father. I stumbled across your uncle’s story when I was looking through some documents.”

“You want to learn more about my father?”

“I wanted to learn more about his paintings, but as I looked at his career I became more and more interested in his personal life. I’d like to know the kind of man he was.”

Masahiko studied my face from across the table. “All right,” he said. “You’ve taken an interest in my father’s life. There may be some significance in that. Living in that house has created some sort of bond between the two of you.”

He took a swallow of white wine before launching into his story.

“My uncle, Tsuguhiko Amada, was a student at the Tokyo Music School back then. A talented pianist, they say. He loved Chopin and Debussy, and high hopes were held for his future. Forgive me for sounding arrogant, but artistic talent seems to run in our family. To varying degrees, of course. However, in the midst of his studies my uncle was drafted. He should have received a student deferment, but his papers had been mishandled when he enrolled in the conservatory. If those forms had been properly filed, he could have put off military service until graduation, and probably avoided it altogether. My grandfather was a big landowner in the area, and influential in political circles. But there was a slip-up in the paperwork. It came as a great shock to my uncle. But once the system grinds into motion there’s not a whole lot anyone can do to stop it. Protest was futile: the army grabbed him, gave him his basic training in Japan, and then loaded him onto a troop transport and shipped him off to Hangzhou. At the time, his elder brother Tomohiko—in other words, my father—was studying painting under a famous artist in Vienna.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Everyone knew that my uncle wasn’t cut out for the rugged life of a soldier or the carnage of the battlefield—he was a high-strung young man, and physically weak. To make matters worse, the young men of southern Kyushu who made up the 6th Division were a rough group, known for their violence. My father agonized over the news that his brother had been drafted and sent off to war. My father was egotistic and highly competitive, a typical second son, but his younger brother was shy and retiring, the somewhat pampered baby of the family. As a pianist, he had to be careful to protect his hands. Even as a child, my father learned to look out for his little brother, who was three years younger, and shield him from the outside world. It became second nature to him—he was his brother’s protector. But all he could do in faraway Vienna was sit and fret. The only information he got came in his brother’s letters from the front.

“Of course those letters were strictly censored, but the two brothers were so close that the elder could read the younger’s feelings between the lines. Moreover, the true meaning of those lines was skillfully camouflaged, so only he could figure it out. My uncle’s regiment had fought their way from Shanghai to Nanjing, engaging in fierce battles in the towns and cities en route, and leaving a trail of murder and plunder in their wake. Those bloody events left my high-strung uncle with deep emotional scars.

“One of my uncle’s letters described a beautiful pipe organ they had come across in a church in occupied Nanjing. It had survived the fighting in perfect shape. For some unfathomable reason, though, the long description of the organ that followed had been inked out. What military secrets could an organ in a Christian church possibly have compromised? The standards used by the censor attached to their regiment were impossible to fathom. As a matter of fact, it was common for him to black out the most innocuous and unthreatening passages of a letter while overlooking the parts that really might have put troops at risk. As a consequence, my father was left in the dark as to whether his brother had been able to play that organ or not.

“Uncle Tsuguhiko’s year in the army ended in June of 1938,” Masahiko continued. “Although he had arranged to reenter the conservatory right after his return, he went back to Kyushu instead and committed suicide in the attic of the family home. He sharpened a straight razor to a fine edge and slit his wrists. It must have taken tremendous resolve for a pianist to do that to his hands. I mean, if he had survived, he might never have been able to play again, right? They found him in a pool of blood. The fact that he had killed himself was kept a deep, dark secret. To the world, the official cause of death was heart failure or something like that.

“In fact, though, it was clear to everyone why Uncle Tsuguhiko had taken his own life—his war experience had ruined his nerves, and wrecked him psychologically. I mean, here was a delicate young man of twenty, whose entire world was playing the piano, thrown into the bloodbath of the Nanjing campaign, surrounded by heaps of corpses. Today we talk about post-traumatic stress disorder, but that phrase—even that concept—was unknown then. In that deeply militaristic society, people like my uncle were dismissed as lacking courage, or patriotism, or strength of character. In wartime Japan, such ‘weakness’ was neither understood nor accepted. So the family buried what had happened, as evidence of their shame.”

“Did he leave a suicide note?” I asked.

“Yes, they found a personal testament in his desk drawer. It was quite long, closer to a memoir, really. In it, Uncle Tsuguhiko recorded his war experiences in excruciating detail. The only people who saw it were his parents—my grandparents, in other words—his eldest brother, and my father. When my father returned from Vienna and read it, he burned it while the other three watched.”

I waited for him to go on.

“My father kept his lips sealed about what that testament contained,” Masahiko continued. “It was the family’s darkest secret: to use a metaphor, it was nailed shut, weighted with heavy stones, and sent to the bottom of the ocean. However, my father did tell me the gist of what was in it once, when he was drunk. I was in grade school, and it was the first time I learned that I had an uncle who committed suicide. To this day, I have no idea whether it was the alcohol that loosened my father’s lips, or if he figured that I had to hear the story at some point.”

Our salad plates were cleared, replaced by the spaghetti with Japanese lobster.

Masahiko took his fork and stared at it for a moment. As if inspecting an implement used for some special task.

“Hey man,” he said. “This isn’t really something I want to talk about when I’m eating.”

“No problem. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what, for example.”

“Something as far removed from your uncle’s testament as possible.”

So we talked golf as we ate our spaghetti. Of course, I had never played the game. No one around me had either. I didn’t even know the rules. Masahiko, however, had taken it up in order to play with the people he did business with. And to get back into some kind of shape after years of inactivity. He had purchased a set of clubs, and spent his weekends on the golf course.

“You may not know this,” he told me, “but golf is the oddest game you can imagine. As weird as it gets. You could say it’s a sport unto itself. Yet I’m not even sure if it can be called a true sport. The funny thing is, once you get used to its weirdness you can’t go back.”

Masahiko went on and on about the strangeness of golf, telling me one off-the-wall story after another. A great conversationalist, he made our lunch extremely entertaining. We laughed together as we hadn’t in ages.

Our plates were cleared away and coffee was brought in, although Masahiko opted for another glass of white wine.

“Anyway, back to my uncle’s suicide letter,” he said, his voice abruptly serious. “According to my father, Uncle Tsuguhiko wrote about being forced to behead a Chinese prisoner. He described it in painful detail. Of course, a common soldier like him didn’t carry a sword. In fact, he had never touched a sword up to that point. I mean, he was a pianist, right? He could read a complex musical score, but wielding an executioner’s sword was beyond him. But his commanding officer handed him one and ordered, ‘Chop off his head!’ The prisoner wasn’t in uniform and had no weapon when he was picked up. Nor was he a young man. He claimed he was a civilian, not a soldier. But the army was grabbing any likely men they could find and dragging them in to be killed. If your palms were callused, you were deemed a peasant and might be released. If they were soft, however, it was assumed that you were a soldier who’d tossed his uniform to pass as a civilian, and you were summarily executed. Arguing the sentence was a waste of breath. The method of execution was either being gutted by a bayonet or decapitated by a sword. If a machine gun unit was in the area, prisoners might be lined up in a row and shot, but there was a general reluctance to ‘waste’ ammunition that way—bullets were always in short supply—so bayonets and swords were used. The bodies were collected and dumped in the Yangtze River, where they fed the many catfish who lived there. I don’t know if it’s fact or fiction, but it was said that some grew as big as ponies on that diet.

“My uncle took the sword from the officer, a young second lieutenant who had just completed officer training school, and prepared to cut off the prisoner’s head. Of course, he didn’t want to do it. But it was unthinkable to refuse an order. Not something corrected by a simple reprimand. An order from an officer in Japan’s Imperial Army was an order from the Emperor himself. My uncle’s hands were shaking. He wasn’t a strong man, and to make matters worse it was a crummy, mass-produced sword. The human neck isn’t that easy to sever. His attempt failed. Blood sprayed everywhere, the prisoner thrashed about—it was gruesome.”

Masahiko shook his head. I sipped my coffee.

“When it was finally over my uncle started puking. When there was nothing left he puked gastric juice, and when that was gone he puked air. His comrades ridiculed him. The officer called him a ‘pitiful excuse for a soldier’ and kicked him hard in the side with his army boots. No one sympathized. Instead, he was ordered to decapitate two more prisoners. This was for practice, to help him become accustomed to cutting off people’s heads. A soldier’s rite of passage, it was thought. Participating in such carnage made a man a ‘true warrior.’ But my uncle was never meant to be a warrior in the first place. He wasn’t put on this earth for that. He was born to make beautiful music, to perform Chopin and Debussy. Not to chop the heads off other human beings.”

“Are some people born to chop off heads?” I asked.

Masahiko shook his head again. “I can’t answer that. But I do know there must be quite a few who are able to get used to it. People can become accustomed to almost anything, especially when they’re pushed to the limit. It may become surprisingly easy then.”

“Or when they’re given justification for their actions.”

“You’re right there,” Masahiko said. “In most cases, they’re provided with some justification for what they do. I’m not confident that I’d be any different, to tell the truth. I might not be strong enough to stand up and say no if I were thrown into a system as violent as the military, even if I knew the order was horribly wrong or inhuman.”

I thought of myself. Would I be any different if I were in his uncle’s shoes? The image of the strange woman I had spent the night with in the port town in Miyagi popped into my head. The young woman who had handed me the belt of her bathrobe and asked me to strangle her in the middle of sex. I still remembered how the belt felt wrapped tight around my hands. Probably I would never forget.

“Uncle Tsuguhiko couldn’t refuse his superior’s order,” Masahiko said. “He lacked the guts to do that. Yet later he was able to sharpen a razor and use it to kill himself. In that sense, I don’t think he was weak at all. Only by taking his own life was my uncle able to recover his humanity.”

“The news must have been a terrible shock to your father in Vienna.”

“That hardly needs saying,” Masahiko replied.

“I’ve heard that your father got caught up in some political events in Vienna that got him deported back to Japan. Did those have any connection to his brother’s suicide?”

Masahiko folded his arms and frowned. “It’s hard for me to say. You see, my father never said a word about what happened.”

“What I heard was that your father fell in love with a girl who belonged to a resistance organization, and that she was involved in a failed assassination attempt.”

“Yes, I know about that. Apparently she was an Austrian student at the university, and they were planning to get married. But when the plot came to light, she was arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. She probably died there. My father was arrested by the Gestapo and forcibly repatriated as an ‘undesirable alien’ in early 1939. Of course, this didn’t come from my father but from someone in the family—a credible source.”

“Do you think someone somewhere prevented your father from speaking about what had happened in Vienna?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s true. I’m sure authorities on both sides—Japan and Germany—laid down the law in no uncertain terms when they arranged his deportation. He knew he had to keep his mouth shut—that was the price he paid for saving his own neck. But I don’t think he wanted to talk about those events, either. Otherwise he wouldn’t have remained so close-mouthed when the war ended and the threat was gone.”

Masahiko paused for a moment before continuing.

“I think it’s entirely possible that Uncle Tsuguhiko’s suicide played a role in my father’s involvement in the anti-Nazi resistance in Vienna. The Munich Conference removed the threat of war for the time being, but it also strengthened the Berlin-Tokyo axis, and set the world moving in an even more dangerous direction. My guess is that my father was determined to try to put the brakes on that movement. He was a man who prized freedom above all else. Fascism and militarism ran against everything he believed. The death of his younger brother could only have strengthened those convictions.”

“Do we know anything more?”

“My father never talked to anyone about his life. He did no interviews with the media, and left nothing written down for posterity. He was like someone who walks backward, erasing his own footsteps with a broom.”

“He kept his silence as a painter too, didn’t he,” I said. “He exhibited none of his work from the time he returned from Vienna to the end of the war.”

“Yeah, eight years in total, from 1939 until 1947. All that time, he stayed as far removed as possible from what we might call ‘artistic circles.’ He couldn’t stand that crowd anyway, and their ‘nationalist art’ glorifying the war effort made him like them even less. Lucky for him, his family was well off, so he didn’t have to worry about getting by. And, thankfully, he wasn’t drafted to be a soldier during the war. In any case, once the postwar chaos had settled down, Tomohiko Amada reemerged, having metamorphosed into a purely Japanese-style painter. He had jettisoned his old style and adopted a totally new one.”

“And thus was born a legend.”

“That’s right,” Masahiko said. “The rest is legend.” He waved his hand, as if shooing something away. As if the legend were a mote in the air, interfering with his breathing.

“As I hear you tell the story,” I said, “I begin to think your father’s student days in Vienna cast a shadow over his whole life. Whatever the exact circumstances may have been.”

Masahiko nodded. “Yeah, I think that too. Those events changed the course of his life in a drastic way. The failure of the assassination plot must have led to a number of dreadful things. Things too horrible to speak of.”

“Still, we don’t know the details.”

“No, we don’t. I didn’t know them growing up, and it’s an even bigger riddle now. The man in question can’t have a clue either.”

Perhaps, I thought. People can forget what they should remember, and remember what by all rights and purposes they should forget. Especially when death approaches.

Masahiko polished off his second glass of white wine and glanced at his watch. He gave a slight frown.

“I’ve got to head back to the office,” he said.

“Wasn’t there something you wanted to tell me?” I asked, suddenly remembering.

He rapped his knuckles on the tabletop as if to echo my feeling. “You’re right,” he said. “There is something. But we spent all our time talking about my father. It’ll have to be next time. It’s nothing that urgent.”

I looked at his face again as we were about to get up. “Why are you being so open with me?” I asked. “Showing me the skeletons in your family’s closet.”

He spread his hands on the table and thought for a minute. He scratched his ear.

“Let’s see. For one thing, I’m getting a little tired carrying these ‘family skeletons’ around all by myself. Maybe I wanted to share them with someone. Someone who has nothing to gain from them, and who’ll keep his mouth shut. In that sense, you’re an ideal person to unburden myself to. Also, to tell the truth I’m feeling a little guilty where you’re concerned, so this may be my way of trying to pay you back.”

“Guilty?” I burst out. “In what way?”

Masahiko half closed his eyes. “I’d intended to tell you about that,” he said. “But there’s no more time today. My next appointment is one I can’t miss. Let’s meet again soon. Then we can talk all we want.”

Masahiko paid the tab. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This much I can write off.” I accepted with gratitude.

After that, I drove the Corolla station wagon back to Odawara. By the time I parked the dusty old heap in front of the house, the sun had almost reached the ridge of the western mountains. A large flock of cawing crows was winging across the valley, heading to their nests.

³⁸ HE COULD NEVER BE A DOLPHIN

By the time Sunday rolled around, I had a pretty good idea how to attack the canvas I’d set aside for Mariye Akikawa’s portrait. I still wasn’t sure exactly what form the painting would take. But I did know how I should begin. Those first steps—which brush to use, what color, the direction of the first stroke—had come to me out of nowhere: they had gained a foothold in my mind and, bit by bit, taken on a tangible reality of their own. I loved this process.

It was a chilly morning. The kind of morning that heralds the coming of winter. I brewed coffee, ate a simple breakfast, went to the studio, laid out what I needed to paint, and then stood before my easel, which held the empty canvas. In front of the canvas, however, sat my sketchbook, open to the detailed pencil drawing I had done of the pit in the woods. I had tossed it off several mornings earlier without giving it much thought. I had even forgotten I had drawn it.

Nevertheless, the longer I stood there facing the drawing, the more it sucked me in. The mysterious stone chamber in the woods, the secret opening. The sodden earth, the patchwork of fallen leaves. The sunlight filtering through the branches. As my imagination filled in the penciled sketch, I began to see it as a colorful painting. I could breathe in the air of the place, smell the grass, hear the birds singing.

The pit I had drawn with such precision in my big sketchbook was beckoning me, luring me toward something—or was it somewhere? The pit was demanding that I paint it. I seldom thought of painting landscapes. I mean, I’d done virtually nothing but portraits for nearly ten years. But maybe a landscape painting wasn’t such a bad idea. The Pit in the Woods. This pencil sketch could be a first step in that direction.

I removed my sketchbook and closed it. The unblemished white canvas remained on the easel. The canvas that would soon be graced by my portrait of Mariye.

At a few minutes before ten, as before, the blue Toyota Prius rolled silently up the slope. The doors opened, and Mariye and her aunt Shoko stepped out. Shoko Akikawa was wearing a long, dark-gray herringbone jacket, a light-gray wool skirt, and patterned black stockings. Wrapped around her neck was a bright Missoni scarf. A chic late-fall outfit. Mariye was dressed much like before: a baggy varsity jacket, a windbreaker, jeans with holes in them, and dark-blue Converse sneakers. Her head was bare. The air was chilly, and a thin blanket of clouds covered the sky.

After a simple exchange of greetings, Shoko curled up on the sofa and, once again, immersed herself in her thick paperback. Mariye and I left her there and went into the studio. I sat on the same wooden stool, Mariye on the same simple straight-backed chair. Six feet or so separated us. Mariye took off her jacket, folded it, and laid it next to her chair. Then she removed her windbreaker. Underneath was a blue short-sleeved T-shirt and, beneath that, a gray long-sleeved T-shirt. Her chest was as flat as ever. She ran her fingers through her straight black hair.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked. There was an old-fashioned kerosene space heater in the studio, but it was unlit.

Mariye gave a slight shake of her head. As if to say No, not particularly.

“I’ll start painting today,” I said. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s enough if you just sit there. You can leave the rest to me.”

“I can’t not do anything,” she said, looking me straight in the eye.

“What does that mean?” I asked, my hands on my knees.

“Like, I’m living and breathing and thinking all kinds of stuff.”

“Of course,” I said. “Please, breathe as much as you want and think as many thoughts as you can. All I meant was, there’s nothing special you have to do. I just want you to be yourself.”

Yet Mariye continued to stare straight at me. As if my explanation was too simple to swallow.

“But I want to do something,” she said.

“Like what?”

“I want to help you paint.”

“I appreciate that, but what do you mean exactly? Help me in what way?”

“Mentally, of course.”

“I see,” I said. Yet I couldn’t think of anything specific she could do “mentally” to help.

“I’d like to see things as you see them,” she said. “Look at myself through your eyes while you’re painting me. I think I’d understand myself better if I did that. And you’d probably understand me better, too.”

“I’d love that,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“It might get pretty scary sometimes.”

“Knowing more about yourself, you mean?”

Mariye nodded. “If you want to know yourself better you have to bring in something different from someplace else.”

“Are you saying you can’t know yourself unless you add a third-person perspective?”

“A third-person perspective?”

“In other words,” I explained, “to understand the relationship between A and B you might need C, a third point of view. What we call ‘triangulation.’”

Mariye thought for a moment. “Maybe,” she said with a shrug.

“Are you saying that what you bring in might be scary, depending on the situation?”

Mariye nodded.

“Have you had that scary feeling before?”

Mariye didn’t respond.

“If I can draw you the right way, maybe you’ll be able to see yourself through my eyes,” I said. “If all goes well, of course.”

“That’s why we need pictures.”

“You’re right—that’s why we need pictures. Or literature, or music, or anything of that sort.”

If all goes well, I said to myself.

“So let’s get started,” I said to Mariye. Looking at her face, I started mixing the brown for the underdrawing. Then I selected the first brush I would use on the painting.

The work progressed slowly but smoothly. The painting would show her from the waist up. She was a beautiful girl, but beauty wasn’t what I was after. Instead, I had to find what was hidden beneath the surface. What underlay her personality—what allowed it to subsist. I had to find that something and bring it to the canvas. It didn’t have to be pretty. Sometimes it might even be ugly. In either case, though, I had to know her well enough to discover what that something was. Not through words or logic, but as a singular form, a composite of light and shadow.

I concentrated on layering lines and color on the canvas. Rapidly at times, at other times with painstaking care. Mariye sat, unmoving, on the straight-backed chair, her expression never wavering. She had mustered her willpower, I sensed, and was sustaining it for as long as necessary. I could feel her strength. “I can’t not do anything,” she had said. And indeed, she was doing something. To help me, most likely. An unmistakable current of some kind was flowing between this thirteen-year-old girl and myself.

I recalled my sister’s hands. She had taken my hand in hers when we entered the chilly darkness of the wind cave on Mt. Fuji. Her hand was small and warm—yet her fingers were surprisingly strong. A definite life force connected us. Each was giving something to the other, and at the same moment receiving something. It was an exchange limited to a particular time and place. It was bound to fade and disappear. But the memory remained. Memory can give warmth to time. And art can—when it goes well—give shape to that memory, even fix it in history. Much as Van Gogh inscribed the figure of a country mailman on our collective memory so well that he lives on, even today.

For the next two hours, we focused on our respective jobs without exchanging a word.

Thinning the paint with linseed oil, I began by roughing in her form in a single color. That would be the portrait’s underdrawing. Mariye sat quietly in the chair, continuing to be herself. At noon, as they did every day, chimes rang in the distance, announcing that our time was up. I put down my palette and paintbrush, straightened my back, and stretched. Only then did I realize how tired I was. I took a deep breath to break my concentration, whereupon Mariye finally let her body relax.

The monochrome outline of Mariye’s head and shoulders was there on the canvas before me. This was the structure upon which the portrait would be built. It was skeletal, but at its core was the source of the heat that made her who she was. That was still hidden, but if I could grasp its general location I would be able to make adjustments further down the line. Then all that would be left was fleshing out the skeleton.

Mariye didn’t ask anything about what I had painted, nor did she ask to see it. I said little on my part, as well. I was just too worn out. We left the studio together and moved to the living room without a word. Shoko was still absorbed in her paperback. She marked her spot, closed the book, removed her black-rimmed reading glasses, and looked up at us. I could see that she was a bit alarmed. Our fatigue must have been written on our faces.

“Did it go all right?” she asked in a slightly worried tone.

“We’re only partway through the process, but we’re right on schedule.”

“That’s so good to hear,” she said. “Would you mind if I made some nice hot tea? I’ve already set the water to boil. And I know where you keep the tea leaves.”

Taken somewhat aback, I glanced down at her. Her lips were curved in a refined smile.

“I fear I’m being a poor host, but yes, that would be wonderful,” I said. I was dying for some hot tea, but getting up and going to the kitchen to boil water was beyond me. I was exhausted. It had been ages since I’d gotten so tired painting. It felt good, though.

Shoko returned to the living room ten minutes later with three cups and a pot on a tray. We sat there quietly, each drinking our black tea. Mariye hadn’t uttered a word since we left the studio. Every so often she’d reach up to push the hair back from her forehead. She had put her heavy jacket on again. As if she needed it to protect her from something.

The three of us sat there politely sipping our tea (not one of us slurped) and enjoying the lazy flow of the Sunday afternoon. No one spoke. The silence was easy and unforced, as if in accordance with the laws of nature. At a certain point, I heard a familiar sound, like waves on a distant shore, a listless and reluctant, yet somehow obligatory, lapping. Soon, however, the sound took on the unmistakable rhythm of a well-tuned engine. An eight-cylinder, 4.2-liter engine with power to spare burning (most elegantly, of course) high-octane fossil fuel. I got up from my chair, went to the window, and watched the approach of the silver car through a crack in the curtain.

Menshiki was wearing a lime-green cardigan over a cream-colored shirt. His pants were gray wool. They were clean and wrinkle-free, as if just back from the cleaners. None of his clothes appeared to be new—they all looked comfortably worn. That made them seem even cleaner. His hair, as always, was a glowing white. It seemed impervious to the seasons and the weather. I guessed that in summer or in winter, on sunny or cloudy days, its radiance would never fade. Only its tone would vary.

Menshiki got out of the car, closed the door, and looked up at the cloudy sky. He thought about the weather for a moment (at least that’s how it looked to me), composed himself, and walked slowly to the front door. Then he rang the doorbell. Slowly and deliberately, like a poet selecting the precise word for a crucial passage. However you looked at it, though, it was just a common old doorbell.

I opened the door and showed Menshiki into the living room. Smiling, he greeted the two women. Shoko rose to welcome him. Mariye remained on the sofa, twirling her hair. She barely glanced his way. At my bidding, we all sat down. Would you like some tea, I asked Menshiki. Please don’t bother, he replied, shaking his head several times and waving his hand in refusal.

“How is your work going?” he asked me.

Moving along as usual, I replied.

“Modeling is tiring, isn’t it?” Menshiki asked Mariye. I couldn’t remember him addressing her while looking her in the eye before. His tone was still a bit tense, but today at least he wasn’t paling or blushing in her presence. His face looked almost normal. He was doing a good job controlling his emotions. I bet he’d been training hard to pull that off.

Mariye didn’t answer. She seemed to mumble something, but it was entirely inaudible. Her hands were clasped tightly on her knees.

“You know she really looks forward to coming here Sunday mornings,” Shoko remarked, breaking the silence.

“Modeling is hard work,” I said, doing my humble best to back her up. “Mariye is doing a great job.”

“I served as a model here for a while,” Menshiki said. “I found it odd somehow. There were times it felt like my soul was being stolen from me.” He laughed.

“It’s not like that at all,” Mariye said, in what was little more than a whisper.

The three of us turned in her direction.

Shoko looked as though she had popped something she shouldn’t have into her mouth and bitten down on it. Menshiki’s face registered unadulterated curiosity. I remained, as ever, the impartial observer.

“What do you mean?” asked Menshiki.

“Nothing’s being stolen from me,” Mariye said in a monotone. “I’m giving something, and I’m getting something in return.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Menshiki said quietly. He seemed impressed. “I was being too simplistic. There has to be an exchange. Artistic creation can never be a one-way street.”

Mariye was silent, her eyes fixed on the teapot on the table. She looked like a lone night heron motionless on the shore, glaring at the water’s surface for hours on end. The teapot was simple white ceramic, the kind you can find anywhere. It was old (Tomohiko Amada had used it), and eminently practical, but apart from a small chip on the rim, nothing about it warranted close examination. Mariye just needed something to stare at right then.

The room fell silent. Like a blank, white billboard.

Artistic creation, I thought to myself. Those words had a pull to them that drew all the silence in the vicinity into a single spot. Like air filling a vacuum. No, more like a vacuum sucking up all the air.

“If you’re coming to my house,” Menshiki said gingerly, facing Shoko, “then perhaps we should go in my car. I’ll bring you back here afterward. The backseat is a bit cramped, but the drive is so full of twists and turns—you’ll find this much easier.”

“Of course,” Shoko said at once. “We’ll ride in your car.”

Mariye’s eyes were still on the white teapot. She seemed deep in thought. Of course, I had no idea what was on her mind, or in her heart. I had no idea what the three of them would do for lunch, either. But Menshiki was smart. He had it all planned—there was no need for me to sweat the details.

Shoko sat in the passenger seat, while Mariye settled in the back. Adults in front, kids in back. The natural way of the world—no prior consultation necessary. I watched from my front door as the car slipped down the slope and out of sight. I went back into the house, took the teacups and teapot into the kitchen, and washed them.

When I finished, I placed Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier on the turntable, stretched out on the sofa, and listened. Der Rosenkavalier had become my fallback when I had nothing else to do. A habit implanted in me by Menshiki. The music was somehow addictive, as he had warned. An uninterrupted stream of emotion. Musical instruments in colorful profusion. It was Strauss who boasted, “I can describe anything in music, even a common broom.” Maybe he didn’t say “broom”—it could have been something else. At any rate, there was something painterly about his music. Though what I was aiming for in my painting was very different.

When I opened my eyes a while later, there was the Commendatore. He was sitting in the leather easy chair across from me wearing the same Asuka-period clothing, his sword still on his hip. Perched on the chair, his two-foot frame looked quite demure.

“It’s been a while,” I said. My voice sounded strained and forced, as if coming from somewhere else. “How have you been?”

“As I have told my friends in the past, time is a concept foreign to Ideas,” he said in a small but clear voice. “ ‘A while’ thus lies outside my understanding.”

“It’s a customary phrase. Please don’t let it bother you.”

“I cannot fathom ‘customary’ either.”

Fair enough. Where there is no “time” there can be no “custom.” I stood up and walked to the stereo, lifted the needle, and returned the record to its sleeve.

“As you may have surmised,” the Commendatore said, reading my mind, “in a realm where time flows freely in both directions such things as customs cannot exist.”

“Don’t Ideas require an energy source of some kind?” I asked him. The question had been puzzling me for some time.

“It is a thorny question,” the Commendatore answered, frowning dramatically. “All beings require energy—to be brought into this world and to survive. It is a principle that holds true throughout the universe.”

“So what you’re saying is, Ideas have to have a source of energy too. Right? In accordance with the universal principle.”

“Affirmative! It is an undisputed fact. Universal law binds us one and all—there can be no exceptions. Ideas are felicitous insofar as we possess no form of our own. We materialize when others become aware of us—only then do we take shape. Though that shape is but a borrowed thing, for the sake of convenience.”

“So then Ideas can’t exist unless people are cognizant of them.”

The Commendatore closed one eye and pointed his right index finger in the air. “And what principle can be deduced from that, my friends?”

It took a long moment to wrap my head around that one. The Commendatore waited patiently.

“This is what I think,” I said at last. “Ideas take their energy from the perceptions of others.”

“Affirmative!” the Commendatore said cheerfully. He nodded several times. “You have a good head on your shoulders. Ideas cannot exist outside the perceptions of others—those perceptions are our sole source of energy.”

“So then if I think, ‘The Commendatore doesn’t exist,’ you cease to exist. Right?”

“Negative! In theory, you have a point,” the Commendatore said. “But only in theory. In reality, that is quite unrealistic. One is hard put to will oneself to cease thinking about a given matter. Namely, to determine to ‘stop thinking’ about something is itself a thought—as long as one follows that path, that something continues to exist. In the end, to stop thinking about something means to stop thinking about stopping thinking.”

“In other words,” I said, “it’s impossible for people to escape Ideas unless they lose either their memory or their interest in Ideas.”

“Truly, dolphins have that power,” the Commendatore said.

“Dolphins?”

“Dolphins have the power to put the right or left half of their brain to sleep. Did my friends not know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Affirmative! It is why dolphins have so little time for Ideas. It is why they stopped evolving, too. We Ideas tried our hardest, but I am sad to say that all of our efforts led nowhere. It was such a promising species, too. Proportionate to their size, they had the biggest brains of all the mammals until humankind reached its full development.”

“So then you managed to establish a rewarding relationship with humans?”

“It is a known fact that, unlike the dolphin brain, the brain of the human species runs along a single track. Hence, an Idea that enters such a brain cannot be easily brushed aside. That allows us to draw energy therein, and thus sustain ourselves.”

“Like parasites,” I said.

“Nonsense!” said the Commendatore, wagging his finger like a schoolmaster scolding his wards. “When I say ‘drawing energy,’ I mean the tiniest amount. A shred so infinitesimal the members of my friends’ species are unaware. Too small to affect health, or hinder lives in any way.”

“But you told me that Ideas possess nothing like morality. Ideas are an entirely neutral concept, neither good nor bad. It all depends on how humans use them. In which case Ideas can have a beneficial effect in some cases, and a negative effect in others. Isn’t that so?”

“E = mc² is neutral in itself, yet that Idea led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Then the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In reality. Is that what you are trying to say, my friends?”

I nodded.

“My heart bleeds for you—figuratively, of course; we Ideas have no bodies, and hence no hearts. But then again, my friends, all is caveat emptor in this universe.”

“What?”

“The Latin for ‘buyer beware.’ To wit, a vendor is not responsible for how the buyer uses his wares. Can a shopkeeper determine what manner of man will wear the suit hanging in his window?”

“That argument sounds pretty fishy to me.”

“E = mc² gave birth to the atomic bomb, but by the same token it spawned a host of good things as well.”

“Like what, for instance?”

The Commendatore thought about this for a moment. He seemed to be having trouble coming up with a good example, however, for he said nothing, just vigorously rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. Then again, perhaps he simply saw no point in pursuing the discussion any further.

“By the way,” I asked, suddenly remembering. “Do you have any inkling where the bell in the studio disappeared to?”

“Bell?” the Commendatore asked, looking up. “What bell?”

“The old bell you were ringing at the bottom of the pit. I put it on the shelf in the studio, but when I looked the other day it was gone.”

The Commendatore shook his head in an emphatic no. “Oh, that bell. Negative! I have not laid hands on it recently.”

“So who do you think might have taken it?”

“How should I know?”

“Whoever it was has started ringing it somewhere.”

“Hmm. It is nothing to do with me. I have no use for it anymore. The bell was never mine alone. It belongs to the place, to be shared by everyone. So if it has disappeared, there must be a reason. No need to worry—it will show up sooner or later. Just wait.”

“The bell belongs to the place?” I said. “You mean it belongs to the pit?”

“By the way,” he said, not answering my question. “If my friends are waiting for Shoko and Mariye’s return, it will not happen soon. At least not until nightfall.”

“And do you think Menshiki has something up his sleeve?” I asked my final question.

“Affirmative! Menshiki has an ulterior motive for everything. Never wastes a move, that fellow. It is the only way he knows. Using both sides of his brain, all the time. He could never be a dolphin.”

The Commendatore’s form faded little by little, and then, like mist on a windless midwinter morning, it thinned and spread until it was completely gone. All that sat facing me now was an old empty armchair. His absence was so absolute, so profound, I had trouble believing that, until a moment earlier, he had been there at all. Perhaps I had been sitting across from empty space, nothing more. Perhaps I had only been talking to myself.

As the Commendatore had predicted, Menshiki’s silver Jaguar took a long time to show up. The two beautiful ladies seemed in no rush to leave his home. I stepped onto my terrace and looked across the valley at the white house. But I could spot no one. To kill time, I went inside and started preparing dinner. I made soup stock, parboiled the vegetables, and froze what I would not be using. I kept myself busy doing whatever I could think of, but when I finished, I still had time on my hands. I returned to the living room, put Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier back on the turntable, stretched out on the sofa, and read a book.

Shoko was charmed by Menshiki. That much was certain. She looked at him differently than she looked at me. Her eyes shone. He was a most attractive middle-aged man, to say the least. A handsome and wealthy bachelor, well dressed and well mannered, a man who lived in the mountains in a huge mansion with four English automobiles stored in its garage. It was no mystery why so many women in this world might find him charming (to the same degree they might find me less than desirable). Yet it was equally certain that Mariye had a deep distrust of Menshiki. She was a girl of keen instincts. Perhaps she had intuitively divined that he was concealing the reasons for his behavior. Thus she maintained a careful distance. At least that was how it appeared to me.

What was going to happen? I was naturally curious, yet at the same time I had vague misgivings. My curiosity and those misgivings were therefore in direct opposition. Like an incoming tide meeting the outgoing current at the mouth of a river.

It was shortly after five thirty when Menshiki’s Jaguar made its way back up the slope. As the Commendatore had predicted, it was already dark outside.

³⁹ A CAMOUFLAGED CONTAINER, DESIGNED FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE

The Jaguar eased to a stop in front of my house, and Menshiki emerged. He walked around the car to open the door for Mariye and Shoko Akikawa, lowering the passenger seat so that Mariye could climb out of the back. The girl and the woman got into the blue Prius. Shoko rolled down the window and politely thanked Menshiki (Mariye, of course, turned the other way). Then the two drove home without stopping by to say hello. Menshiki watched them until they were out of sight, took a moment to (I assumed) recalibrate his mind and adjust his expression, and walked to my front door.

“I know it’s late, but do you mind if I drop in for a few minutes?” he asked rather shyly.

“Sure, please do. I’m not busy right now,” I said, showing him in.

We went to the living room; he sat on the sofa, while I sat in the easy chair that the Commendatore had just vacated. I thought I could feel the Commendatore’s shrill voice still reverberating in the air.

“Thank you so much for today,” Menshiki said to me. “I owe you a lot.”

No thanks were necessary, I said. I really hadn’t done anything.

“But if it hadn’t been for your portrait—indeed, if it hadn’t been for you, period—this chance would have passed me by. I would never have met Mariye face-to-face, never come this close to her. Everything has hinged on you—you’re like the base of a folding fan. I’m concerned that you may not be enjoying that role, however.”

“Nothing could make me happier than helping you out like this,” I said. “But I must confess, it’s hard to figure out how much is accidental and how much is planned. That part of it does bother me.”

Menshiki thought for a moment. “You may not believe this,” he said, nodding, “but I didn’t plan any of this. Maybe it’s not all pure coincidence, but almost everything has unfolded quite naturally.”

“So I’m the catalyst that happened to set those events in motion? Has that been my role?” I inquired.

“Catalyst? Yes, maybe you could say that.”

“To tell the truth, though, I feel more like a Trojan horse.”

Menshiki looked up at me, as if squinting into a bright light. “What do you mean?”

“You know, the hollow wooden horse the Greeks built. They hid their warriors inside and presented it as a gift to the clueless Trojans, who dragged it inside their fortress. A camouflaged container, designed for a specific purpose.”

Menshiki took a moment to respond. “In other words,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “you think I may have exploited you, used you as a kind of Trojan horse? To get close to Mariye?”

“At the risk of offending you, I do feel a little that way.”

Menshiki narrowed his eyes, and the corners of his mouth curled in the beginnings of a smile.

“I guess that can’t be helped. But as I just said, this has been a series of unexpected coincidences. To be honest, I like you. My affection for you is personal, and very natural. I don’t find myself liking many people, so when it does happen I try to take it seriously. I would never exploit you for my sole convenience. I know I can be selfish, but I’d like to think that I’m able to draw a line between friendship and self-interest. You’re not being used as a Trojan horse—not now, not ever. So please don’t worry.”

He didn’t seem to be making this up—his words had the ring of truth.

“So did you have a chance to show them the painting?” I asked. “My portrait of you in your study?”

“Of course. That’s why they came in the first place. They loved it. Though Mariye didn’t say anything. She’s a girl of few words, as you know. But I could tell how strongly she felt. It showed in her face. She stood in front of the portrait for a very long time. Just stood there, not speaking or moving.”

In fact, I couldn’t remember the portrait very well, though I had finished it only a few weeks before. That was my pattern—the moment I launched into a new painting, the one I had just finished slipped from my mind. Only a vague and general image remained. I did retain a physical memory, however, of the sense of achievement I got from working on it. That palpable sensation meant more to me than the completed work.

“Their visit sure lasted a long time,” I said.

Menshiki gave an embarrassed shrug. “After they’d seen your painting, I gave them a light lunch and showed them around. A tour of my house and the grounds. Shoko seemed interested, you see. The time flew by.”

“I bet they were impressed.”

“Shoko was, I think,” Menshiki said. “Especially by my Jaguar XKE. But Mariye didn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t like my house. Or maybe she’s not interested in houses in general.”

I guessed she probably couldn’t care less.

“Did you have a chance to talk to her?” I asked.

Menshiki shook his head no. “She opened her mouth two or three times at most. And what she said was almost meaningless. She generally ignores me.”

I kept quiet. I had no special thoughts on the matter, but I could picture the scene. Whenever he tried to start a conversation with Mariye, she would clam up, just mumble a word or two. Once Mariye made up her mind not to speak, trying to reach her was like ladling water onto a parched desert.

Menshiki picked up an ornament from the table, a glossy ceramic snail, and inspected it from a variety of angles. The snail had been one of the very few decorative objects left in the house. Probably a piece of Dresden china. The size of a smallish egg. Purchased long ago, perhaps, by Tomohiko Amada himself. Menshiki gingerly returned the snail to the table. Then he raised his head and looked across at me.

“I guess it will take her a while to get used to me,” he said, as if addressing himself. “I mean, we’ve only just met. She’s a quiet child to begin with, and thirteen is said to be a difficult age, the beginning of puberty. All the same, being with her in the same room, breathing the same air—it was a precious experience, priceless really.”

“So then your feeling hasn’t changed?”

Menshiki’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What feeling do you mean?”

“That you don’t care to know if Mariye is your child.”

“No, that hasn’t changed a bit,” Menshiki said without hesitation. He chewed his lip for a moment before continuing. “It’s hard to explain. But when she’s near, and I look at her face and watch her move, this odd feeling comes over me. The sense that somehow my life up to now may have been wasted. That I no longer understand the purpose of my existence, the reason I’m here. As if values I’d thought were certain were turning out to be not so certain after all.”

“And for you these sorts of feelings are extremely odd, am I right?” For me, they were par for the course.

“That’s right. I’ve never experienced them before.”

“And they started after spending several hours with Mariye?”

“Yes. You must think I’m some kind of idiot.”

I shook my head no. “Not at all. I felt the same way when I hit puberty and met a girl I liked.”

Menshiki gave a small smile. There was something rueful in it. “That’s when the pointlessness of all my accomplishments and successes, and all the money I’ve accumulated, hit me. That I’m no more than an expedient and transitory vehicle meant to pass a set of genes on to someone else. What other function do I serve? Beyond that, I’m just a clod of earth.”

“A clod of earth.” I tried saying the words. They had a strange ring.

“To tell the truth, I was down in the pit when that realization hit me. Remember, that pit we uncovered behind the shrine, underneath the pile of rocks?”

“How could I forget?”

“If you’d felt like it, you could have abandoned me there. Without food and water, my body would have shriveled and returned to the soil. I would have been no more than a clod of earth in the end.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent.

“It’s enough for me,” Menshiki said, “that the possibility exists that Mariye and I are related by blood. I feel no compulsion to find out if it’s true or not. That mere possibility has sent a beam of light into my life—now I can look at myself in a new way.”

“I think I understand,” I said. “Maybe not every step in your reasoning, but the way you feel. What I don’t get is what you’re expecting from Mariye. In concrete terms.”

“It’s not that I haven’t given that question any thought,” Menshiki said. He looked down at his hands. They were beautiful hands, with long fingers. “People devote a lot of energy to thinking about things. Whether they want to or not. Yet in the end we all just have to wait—only time can tell how events play out. The answers lie ahead.”

I remained quiet. I had no clear idea what he had in mind, and no compelling desire to find out. Were I to know, my position might become even more difficult.

“I’ve heard Mariye is much more forthcoming with you,” Menshiki said after a long pause. “That’s what Shoko said, at least.”

“That’s probably true,” I said cautiously. “We seem to be able to talk quite naturally when we’re in the studio.”

Of course, I didn’t tell him that Mariye had come to visit me from the adjoining mountain through a hidden passageway. That was our secret.

“Do you think it’s because she’s gotten comfortable with you? Or because she feels some personal connection?”

“The girl is fascinated by painting, maybe artistic expression in general,” I explained. “If a painting is involved, there are occasions—not always, mind you—when she’s quite comfortable talking. She’s not a typical child, that’s for sure. When I taught her at the community center, she didn’t speak much to the other kids.”

“So she doesn’t get along with children her own age?”

“Maybe. Her aunt says she doesn’t make many friends at school.”

Menshiki pondered that for a moment.

“She opens up with Shoko to some extent, I guess,” he said.

“So it seems. From what I’ve heard, she’s much closer to her aunt than she is to her father.”

Menshiki merely nodded. His silence seemed charged with implication.

“What sort of man is her father?” I asked him. “Have you checked?”

Menshiki looked to the side and narrowed his eyes. “He was fifteen years older than she was,” he finally said. “By ‘she’ I mean his late wife.”

Of course, “late wife” meant Menshiki’s former lover.

“I don’t know how they got together, or why they married. I have no interest in those things,” he said. “Whatever the case, though, it’s clear he loved his wife dearly. Her death was a terrible shock. They say he was a changed man after that.”

According to Menshiki, the Akikawas were a big landowning family in the area (much as Tomohiko Amada’s family was in Kyushu). Although they had lost nearly half of their property in the land reform that followed World War Two, they retained many assets, enough that the family could get along comfortably on the income they produced. Yoshinobu Akikawa, Mariye’s father, was the first of two children and the only son, so when his father passed away at an early age he became the head of the family. He built a house for himself at the top of the mountain they owned, and set up an office in one of their buildings in Odawara. From that office, he managed the family properties in the city and its environs: several commercial and apartment buildings, and a number of rental houses and lots. He also dabbled in real estate. In other words, while he kept the business going, he made no attempt to broaden its scale. The core of his enterprise consisted of looking after the family’s assets when the need arose.

Yoshinobu married late in life. He was in his mid-forties when he tied the knot, and his daughter (Mariye) was born the following year. Then, six years later, his wife was stung to death. It was early spring, and she had been walking alone through a big plum grove they owned when she was attacked by a swarm of large hornets. Her death hit him hard. To wipe away anything that could remind him of the tragedy, as soon as the funeral was over he hired men to raze the plum trees, and yank their roots from the earth. What was left was a dreary and barren plot of land. It had been a beautiful grove, so its destruction was painful for many. Moreover, for generations those living nearby had been permitted to pick a portion of the abundant fruit to make pickled plums and plum wine. As a result, Yoshinobu Akikawa’s barbaric act of retaliation deprived many local residents of one of the small pleasures they could look forward to each year. Still, it was his mountain, the plum grove was his, and no one could fail to understand his fury—at the hornets and the trees. As a consequence, those complaints were never voiced in public.

Yoshinobu Akikawa turned into a rather morose man after his wife’s death. He hadn’t been particularly social or gregarious to begin with, and now his introverted side only grew stronger. His interest in spiritual things deepened, and he became involved with a religious sect whose name was unknown to me. It is said that at one point he spent some time in India. At great personal expense, he built a grand hall for the sect’s use on the outskirts of town, where he began spending much of his time. It’s not clear exactly what takes place there. But it appears that a daily regimen of stringent religious “austerities” and the study of reincarnation helped him find a new purpose in life after his wife’s death.

These activities reduced his involvement in the business, but his duties hadn’t been all that demanding in the first place. There were three longtime employees more than capable of managing things when the boss failed to show up. His visits home became more infrequent. When he did return it was usually just to sleep. His relationship with his only daughter had, for some reason, grown more distant after his wife’s death. Perhaps she reminded him of his dead wife. Or perhaps he had never really cared for children. In any case, as a result the child never really took to her father. The responsibility for looking after Mariye went to his younger sister, Shoko. She had taken leave from her job as secretary for the president of a medical college in Tokyo and moved to the house atop the mountain near Odawara on what she expected to be a temporary break to look after the child. In the end, though, the arrangement became permanent. Perhaps she came to love the girl. Or perhaps she couldn’t stand idly by when her little niece needed her so much.

Having reached that point in his account, Menshiki stopped to touch his fingers to his lips.

“Do you happen to have any whiskey in the house?” he asked.

“There’s about a half a bottle of single malt,” I said.

“I don’t want to impose, but could I have some? On the rocks.”

“My pleasure. But aren’t you driving?”

“I’ll call a cab,” he said. “No point in losing my license.”

I went to the kitchen and came back with a whiskey bottle, a ceramic bowl of ice, and two glasses. In the meantime, Menshiki put the record of Der Rosenkavalier that I had been listening to on the turntable. We sat back and listened to the lush strains of Richard Strauss as we sipped our whiskey.

“Are you a devotee of single malt?” Menshiki asked.

“No, this was a gift. A friend brought it. Sure tastes good, though.”

“I have a bottle of rare Scotch at home that a friend in Scotland sent to me. A single malt from the island of Islay. It’s from a cask sealed by the Prince of Wales himself on his visit to the distillery there. I’ll bring it on my next visit.”

“You needn’t make such a fuss on my account,” I said.

“There’s a small island near Islay called Jura,” he said. “Have you heard of it?”

“No,” I replied.

“It’s practically uninhabited. More deer than people. Lots of other wildlife, too—rabbits, pheasants, seals. And one very old distillery. There’s a spring of freshwater nearby, just perfect for making whiskey. If you mix the single malt with that water, the flavor is absolutely amazing. You can’t find it anywhere else.”

“It sounds delicious,” I said.

“Jura is also known as the place where George Orwell wrote 1984. Orwell rented a small house on the northern end of the island, really the middle of nowhere, but the winter took a terrible toll on his body. It was a primitive place, with none of the modern amenities. I guess he needed that kind of Spartan environment to write. I spent a week on that island myself. Huddled next to the fireplace each night, drinking that marvelous whiskey.”

“Why did you spend a whole week in such an out-of-the-way place all by yourself?”

“Business,” Menshiki said simply. He smiled.

Apparently, he wasn’t going to let me in on what sort of business was involved. And I had no particular desire to find out.

“I really needed a drink today,” he said. “To settle myself down. That’s why I’m imposing on you like this. I’ll come and pick up my car tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course, I don’t mind at all.”

We sat there awhile without talking.

“Do you mind if I ask something personal?” Menshiki broke the silence. “I hope you won’t take offense.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not a guy who gets offended. I’ll answer you if I can.”

“You’ve been married, correct?”

I nodded. “Yes, I was married. As a matter of fact, I just mailed off the divorce papers, signed and sealed. So I’m not sure if I’m officially married now or not. Still, it’s safe to say that I was married. For six years.”

Menshiki was studying the ice cubes in his glass as if deep in thought.

“Sorry to pry,” he said. “But do you have any regrets about the way your marriage ended?”

I took another sip of whiskey. “How does one say ‘buyer beware’ in Latin?” I asked.

“ ‘Caveat emptor,’” Menshiki said without hesitation.

“I have a hard time remembering how to say it. But I know what it means.”

Menshiki laughed.

“Sure, I have regrets,” I replied. “But even if I could go back and rectify one of my mistakes, I doubt it would change the outcome.”

“Do you think there’s something in you that’s impervious to change, something that became a stumbling block in your marriage?”

“Perhaps it’s my lack of something impervious to change that was the stumbling block.”

“But you have the desire to paint. That must be closely connected to your appetite for life.”

“There may be something I have to get past first before I can really get started with my painting, though. That’s my feeling, anyway.”

“We all have ordeals we must face,” Menshiki said. “It’s through them that we find a new direction in our lives. The more grueling the ordeal, the more it can help us down the road.”

“As long as it doesn’t grind us into the ground.”

Menshiki smiled. He had finished his questions about my divorce.

I brought a jar of olives in from the kitchen to accompany our drinks. We nibbled on them while sipping our whiskey. When the record finished, Menshiki flipped it over. Georg Solti continued conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

Menshiki has an ulterior motive for everything. Never wastes a move, that fellow. It is the only way he knows.

If the Commendatore was correct, what move was Menshiki making—or about to make—now? I hadn’t a clue. Perhaps he was holding back for the moment, waiting for his opportunity. He said that he had “no intention” of exploiting me. Probably he was speaking the truth. Yet intentions were, in the end, just intentions. He was a savvy guy who had managed to survive and thrive in the most cutting-edge sector of the business world. If he was harboring an ulterior motive, even if it was dormant now, it would be next to impossible for me to avoid getting sucked in.

“You’re thirty-six years old, right?” Menshiki said out of the blue.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“That’s the best age.”

I didn’t see it that way at all. But I didn’t say so.

“I’m fifty-four. Too old to be fighting on the front lines in the business I was in, but still a little too young to be considered a legend. That’s why you see me dawdling around like this.”

“Some become legends in their youth, though.”

“Sure, there are a few. But there’s no great merit in that. In fact, it could be a real nightmare. Once you’re considered a legend, you can only trace the pattern of your rise for the rest of your life. I can’t think of anything more boring than that.”

“Don’t you ever get bored?”

Menshiki smiled. “I can’t remember ever being bored. I’ve been too busy.”

I could only shake my head in admiration.

“How about you?” he asked. “Have you ever been bored?”

“Of course. It happens a lot. In my case, however, boredom is an indispensable part of life.”

“Don’t you find it painful?”

“I guess I’ve gotten used to it. So it doesn’t feel like pain.”

“I bet that’s because painting is so central to your existence. That’s your core—your passion to create is born out of what you call boredom. Without that core, I’m sure you’d find boredom unendurable.”

“So you’re not working these days, are you?”

“That’s right, I’m basically retired. I do a little computer trading on the stock markets, as I’ve told you, but that’s not out of necessity. It’s more like a game, a form of mental discipline.”

“And you live in that big house all by yourself.”

“Correct.”

“And you still never get bored?”

Menshiki shook his head. “I have so many things to occupy my mind. Books I should read, music I should listen to. Data to gather, sort, and analyze. I’m used to staying active—it’s a daily habit. I work out too, and when I need a change of pace, I practice the piano. And there’s housework, of course. I haven’t time to be bored.”

“Don’t you ever worry about growing old? About becoming a lonely old man?”

“No question, I will age,” Menshiki said. “My body will decline, and I’ll probably grow more and more solitary. But I’m not there yet. I have an idea what it will be like. But I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t believe something until he’s seen it. So I have to wait until it’s sitting right in front of me. I’m not especially afraid of aging. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I am a little curious.”

Menshiki slowly swirled the whiskey in his glass.

“How about you?” he asked, looking me in the eye. “Are you afraid of getting old?”

“I was married for six years, and it didn’t turn out so well. I didn’t paint a single painting for myself during all that time. I guess people would say I squandered those years. After all, I was turning out one painting after another of a sort I don’t especially like. Yet, in a way, maybe I was fortunate to have gone through that. That’s how I feel these days.”

“I think I understand what you’re trying to say. That there’s a time in life when you have to discard your ego. Is that it?”

Perhaps, I thought. But maybe in my case it simply took me that long to discover what I’d been lugging around all that time. Had I dragged Yuzu along on that pointless, roundabout journey?

Am I afraid of growing old? I wondered to myself. Did I dread the advent of old age?

“I still have a hard time imagining it,” I said. “It may sound foolish for a man in his mid-thirties to say this, but I feel as if my life is just beginning.”

“That’s not foolish at all,” Menshiki said, smiling. “You’re probably right—you’re just getting started.”

“You mentioned genes a few minutes ago,” I said. “That you felt you’re just a vehicle receiving a set of genes from one generation and transmitting it to the next. And beyond that duty, you’re no more than a clod of earth. Right?”

Menshiki nodded. “That’s what I said.”

“But you don’t find being a clod of earth particularly frightening, do you?”

“I may be a clod of earth,” Menshiki said, laughing, “but as clods go I’m pretty good. It may sound conceited, but I think I may even be a superior clod. I’ve been blessed with certain abilities. Those have limits, I know, but they’re abilities nonetheless. That’s why I go all out in whatever I do. I want to stretch myself as far as I can, to see what I’m capable of. I have no time to be bored. That’s the best way I know of keeping fear and emptiness at arm’s length.”

We drank until almost eight o’clock, at which point the bottle ran out. Menshiki stood up to leave.

“I should be on my way,” he said. “I’ve imposed on you for too long.”

I called for a taxi. “Tomohiko Amada’s house” was all it took to identify our location. He was a famous man. The dispatcher said it would be fifteen minutes. I thanked him and hung up.

Menshiki used that time to tell me something.

“I told you earlier that Mariye’s father had become deeply involved in a religious sect, didn’t I?” he began.

I nodded.

“Well, it turns out that it’s one of the new religions, and a shady one at that. I checked online and found out they’ve got a really bad track record. A number of civil suits have been filed against them. Their so-called doctrine is a pile of rubbish unworthy of the name ‘religion.’ Of course, Mr. Akikawa is free to subscribe to whatever beliefs he likes. That goes without saying. But he has sunk quite a lot of money into this group. His money, company money. He had considerable wealth in the beginning, was able to manage on the monthly rents he collected. But there was a clear limit to how much he could withdraw without selling property and other assets. Now he’s way past that limit—he’s sold a lot of those. Clearly, an unhealthy situation. Like an octopus trying to survive by devouring its own legs.”

“Are you saying he’s being preyed on by that cult?”

“Exactly. He’s a real pigeon. When a group like that squeezes you, they take everything they can get. Right down to the last drop. Forgive me for saying so, but Mr. Akikawa’s privileged upbringing may make him more vulnerable to that kind of thing.”

“So you’re concerned about this situation.”

Menshiki sighed. “It’s Mr. Akikawa’s responsibility how he ends up. He’s a mature adult, aware of his actions. It’s not so simple for his family, though—they have no idea what’s going on. Not that my worrying about them will make a bit of difference.”

“The study of reincarnation,” I said.

“It’s a fascinating hypothesis,” Menshiki said. He quietly shook his head.

The taxi finally arrived. Before getting in, he offered a most courteous thanks. His complexion and his decorum were a constant, no matter how much he drank.

⁴⁰ I COULD NOT MISTAKE THE FACE

After Menshiki left, I brushed my teeth, climbed into bed, and fell asleep immediately. I drop off in no time at all under normal circumstances, and whiskey only accentuates that tendency.

In the middle of the night, however, a loud sound jolted me awake. I think the sound was real. Possibly, though, it took place in my dream. Its source could have been my own unconscious. Whatever its origins, it was a huge crash, as though an earthquake had struck. The impact lifted me into the air. That part was real, for sure, not a dream or a product of my imagination. I had been fast asleep, and now, an instant later, I was on the verge of tumbling from my bed, my mind on high alert.

According to the clock on the bedside table, it was past two. The time of night when the bell had usually rung. But I could not hear a bell. With winter approaching, there were no insect voices. A deep hush had fallen over the house. Outside, thick, dark clouds covered the sky. If I listened hard enough, I could hear the wind.

I felt for the lamp, switched it on, and slipped a sweater over my pajamas. I would take a quick look around the house. Something very strange had happened, or so it seemed. Had a wild boar crashed through one of the windows? Or had a small meteorite hit the roof? Probably not, but it was still a good idea to make sure. I was, after all, the caretaker of the house. And I would have a hard time falling back to sleep if I didn’t find out. The crash had left me wide awake, my heart pounding.

I walked through the house flicking on lights, checking room by room. As far as I could tell, nothing was out of place. All was in order. It wasn’t a big house, so I would have noticed if something was amiss. When I finished my inspection, I headed to the studio. I stepped through the door connecting it to the living room and reached for the wall switch. But some thing stopped me. Don’t turn on the light, the thing whispered in my ear. In a small but clear voice. Better to leave it dark. Following its instructions, I removed my hand from the switch and closed the door behind me without a sound. Quieting my own breathing, I peered into the darkened studio.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I became aware that someone else was in the room. The signs were unmistakable. And that someone was sitting on the wooden stool that I used when I was painting. At first, I thought it was the Commendatore. That he had materialized and returned. But this person was much bigger. The silhouette looming in the dark was that of a tall, gaunt man. The Commendatore was two feet tall, if that, but this man was close to six feet in height. He was sitting somewhat hunched over, as tall people often do. And not moving at all.

I didn’t move either as I stood there looking at his back, with my own back pressed against the doorframe and my left hand near the light switch, just in case. There in the dark, in the middle of the night, we were frozen, like two statues. For some reason, I wasn’t scared. My breathing was shallow and the sound of my heartbeat was hard and dry. But I felt no fear. Someone I had never seen before had come barging into my house in the middle of the night. For all I knew, it could have been a burglar. Or perhaps a ghost. Either should have frightened me. Yet for some reason, I felt neither danger nor dread.

Perhaps all the strange happenings I had been experiencing—starting with the appearance of the Commendatore—had made me immune to such weirdness. Yet there was more to it than that. What was the mysterious intruder doing there in the studio so late at night? My curiosity trumped my fear. He seemed to be lost in thought. Or maybe he was staring hard at something. The intensity of his focus was obvious, even to an observer. He had no idea that I had entered the room. Or, perhaps, my presence was beneath his notice.

I tried to quiet my breathing and control the pounding of my heart against my ribs as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. After a while, I began to realize what he was regarding with such ferocity. It was something hanging on the opposite wall. Which meant it had to be Tomohiko Amada’s painting Killing Commendatore. He was sitting stock-still on the wooden stool, bent slightly forward, staring at that painting. His hands were on his knees.

At last the dark clouds covering the sky began to part, and a shaft of moonlight entered the room. It was as if an ancient tombstone had been bathed in pure, silent water, baring the secrets carved on its surface. Then the darkness returned. But only for a short time. The clouds parted again, and a pale blue light filled the room for a full ten seconds. Now, at last, I could determine the identity of the person on the stool.

His white hair fell to his shoulders. It had been uncombed for some time, for wisps jutted in every direction. Judging from his bearing, he was quite old. And withered, like a dead tree. Once, he must have had a powerful and manly physique. But now he was skeletal, wasted by age and possibly illness. That much I could tell.

His face was so emaciated it took me a while to figure out who he was. But there, in the hushed moonlight, I finally realized. I had seen only a few photographs, yet I could not mistake the face. The profile of his aquiline nose and the powerful physical aura were undeniable proof. Though the night was cold, sweat streamed from my armpits. My heart pounded even faster and harder. It seemed impossible to believe, but there was no room for doubt.

The old man was Tomohiko Amada, the artist who had created the painting. Tomohiko Amada had returned to his studio.

⁴¹ ONLY AS LONG AS I DIDN’T TURN AROUND

It couldn’t be the flesh-and-blood Tomohiko Amada. That “real” Tomohiko Amada was confined to a nursing home in Izu Kogen. He suffered from advanced dementia and seldom left his bed. There was no way he could have come that far under his own steam. What I was looking at, therefore, could only be his ghost. Yet as far as I knew, Amada was still alive. Which meant I was looking at his “living spirit.” Of course, he could have drawn his last breath just moments earlier. In which case, this would indeed be his ghost.

Whichever the case, this was no hallucination. It was far too real, too dense, for that. It projected an unmistakable humanity and the workings of a conscious mind. Tomohiko Amada had, through some special agency, returned to his studio, and was sitting on his stool regarding his painting Killing Commendatore. He was staring straight at it—his eyes seemed to cut through the dark. He was indifferent to my presence. I doubt he even realized I was in the room.

As the clouds rolled by, the moonlight through the window came and went, allowing me brief glimpses of his silhouette. He was sitting so I could see his profile, and wearing what could have been an old bathrobe or nightgown. His feet were bare. No stockings, no slippers. Disheveled white hair, jaw covered with a white grizzle. A haggard face, but clear and penetrating eyes.

I wasn’t afraid so much as bewildered. The scene before me defied common sense. My hand hovered near the light switch on the wall. I had no intention of turning it on—I was just frozen in that posture. I didn’t want to disturb Tomohiko Amada—be he ghost or phantasm—in any way. This studio was his proper place. Where he truly belonged. I was the intruder, with no right to interfere in whatever he wanted to do.

I waited until my breath calmed down and my body relaxed, then quietly backed out of the studio. I eased the door shut. Tomohiko Amada remained motionless on his stool throughout. Had I tripped over the table and sent the vase crashing to the floor, though, I doubt he would have noticed. His concentration was that fierce. The moon had broken through the clouds again, illuminating his skeletal frame. That last image engraved itself in my mind—embraced by the delicate shadows of night, that silhouette seemed to distill his entire life. You must never forget this, I told myself. I had to preserve in my memory what my eyes had seen, in all its detail.

I sat at the dining room table and drank glass after glass of mineral water. I really wanted a shot of whiskey, but the bottle was empty. Menshiki and I had drained it the previous evening. No other liquor was left in the house. There were a few bottles of beer in the fridge, but they wouldn’t do the trick.

It was past four a.m. when sleep finally came calling. Until then, I just sat at the table while one thought after another passed through my head. I was too keyed up to be capable of any kind of action. All I could do was close my eyes and let my mind wander. Nothing cohered. For several hours, I followed those fragmented, meandering thoughts. Like a kitten chasing its tail.

When I grew tired, I mentally called up the image of Tomohiko Amada that I had seen mere hours before. To ensure its accuracy, I sketched it in my mind. I opened my imaginary sketchbook, pulled out my imaginary pencil, and drew the old man’s silhouette. This was something I often did when I had time to spare. Actual paper and pencil weren’t necessary. In fact, it was easier without them. Mathematicians go through a similar process, I imagine, when they picture a formula on an imaginary blackboard. Someday I might commit what I had seen to canvas.

I didn’t really want to check the studio again. Of course, I was curious. Was Tomohiko Amada—or, more likely, his double—still there? Still sitting on his stool with his eyes riveted on Killing Commendatore? Sure, the possibility intrigued me. I had encountered a most rare and precious event, had seen it with my own eyes. Might it provide the key—several keys, actually—to help unravel the secrets of Tomohiko Amada’s life?

All the same, I didn’t want to interfere with what he was doing. He had come so far, transcending space and reason, to reexamine his Killing Commendatore, poring over it to find—what? He had to have sacrificed much of his dwindling store of energy just to make it here. Drained his life force. Yet something had compelled him to return to the painting one last time, at whatever cost. To study it to his heart’s content.

When I opened my eyes it was already past ten o’clock. Rare for an early bird like me. I washed my face, brewed coffee, and ate breakfast. For some reason, I was famished. I ate nearly double my usual amount. Three slices of toast, two boiled eggs, and a tomato salad. Not to mention two big cups of coffee.

I checked the studio after breakfast just to be sure, but of course Tomohiko Amada was gone. What remained was the empty, silent room in the morning. An easel with a canvas (my painting of Mariye Akikawa), a round stool in front of it, and the straight-backed chair Mariye used when she posed for me. Killing Commendatore hanging on the wall. The bell still missing from the shelf. The sky over the valley blue, the air cold and crystal clear. The piercing calls of birds, awaiting winter’s arrival.

I picked up the phone and called Masahiko’s office. His voice was sleepy, though it was almost noon. A clear case of the Monday-morning blahs. After our hellos, I casually inquired about his father. I wanted to know if he had died, and if the apparition I had seen was his ghost. If Tomohiko Amada had passed away the night before, surely his son would have been notified.

“How’s your father?” I asked.

“I went to see him a few days ago. His mind has passed the point of no return, I’m afraid, but he’s all right physically, I guess. At least he doesn’t look like he’s at death’s door.”

So Tomohiko Amada was still alive. What I had seen wasn’t a ghost. It was the fleeting embodiment of a living person’s will.

“It’s a strange question, I know, but have you noticed anything unusual about your father recently?”

“My father?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you want to know that all of a sudden?”

I followed the script I had prepared. “To tell the truth, I had this weird dream last night where your father visited this place. I bumped into him while he was here. It felt very real. Real enough to make me jump out of bed. That’s why I wondered if something had happened to him.”

“Wow,” he said. “That’s wild. What was my father doing while he was there?”

“He just sat on the stool in the studio.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s it. Nothing but that.”

“By stool you mean that old three-legged chair, the round one?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Masahiko thought for a moment.

“Maybe he is reaching the end,” he said in a flat voice. “They say that in our last hours, our spirit returns to where we feel we’ve left something undone. From what I know of my father, that would be the studio.”

“But from what you’ve told me, he has no memory left.”

“Yes, memory in the conventional sense, anyway. But his spirit’s still there. His brain just can’t access it any longer. The circuit’s broken—his mind isn’t connected. But his spirit remains, behind the scenes. It’s probably the same as ever.”

“That makes sense,” I said.

“Weren’t you scared?”

“By the dream?”

“Yeah. I mean it sounds awfully real.”

“No, I wasn’t afraid. But it did feel very strange. Like the man himself was right there.”

“Maybe it really was him,” Masahiko said.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t let on that Tomohiko Amada had likely returned specifically to view Killing Commendatore (actually, I might have invited him—had I not unwrapped the painting, he might not have shown up). If I told his son, I would have had to explain the whole story, from the moment I stumbled across the painting in the attic to when I opened it without permission and, even more blatantly, chose to hang it on the studio wall. I knew I would have to let Masahiko know eventually, but I didn’t want to raise the issue at this juncture.

“Anyway,” he said, “last time we met I mentioned there was a matter I needed to talk to you about? But we didn’t have enough time then. Remember?”

“Yeah.”

“So why don’t I stop by one of these days and fill you in. Okay?”

“This house is yours, you know. Come whenever you like.”

“How about this weekend? I’m thinking of visiting my father in Izu Kogen, so I could stop by on my trip back. It’s right on the way.”

I told him he was welcome anytime except Wednesday and Friday nights and Sunday morning. My art class was on Wednesday and Friday and Mariye’s sitting was on Sunday.

He figured he’d be able to make it Saturday night. “I’ll let you know beforehand,” he said.

After our phone call, I went into the studio and sat on the stool. The wooden stool that Tomohiko Amada had occupied the night before. As soon as I sat down, it hit me—this stool was no longer mine. No, the long years Tomohiko Amada had spent sitting on it painting made it his, now and forever. To the uninformed, it looked like no more than an old dinged-up, three-legged chair, but it was infused with his will. I had borrowed it without permission, that was all.

I sat there and studied Killing Commendatore on the wall, as I had done countless times before. It rewarded multiple viewings—its depth allowed for so many different ways of looking at it. This time, though, I felt I wanted to inspect it from an entirely new angle. What was there that had made Tomohiko Amada return to it at the end of his life, to see it one last time?

I spent a long time sitting there, just studying the painting. I chose the same position, the same angle, even adopted the same posture that Tomohiko Amada’s living spirit or alter ego had taken the night before, and tried to focus on it with the same intense concentration. Yet I couldn’t find that something I had previously missed.

When I grew tired of thinking, I went outside. Menshiki’s silver Jaguar was still parked in front of my house, at a slight remove from my Toyota Corolla station wagon. It had been sitting there all night, waiting quietly for its master’s return, like an intelligent, well-trained pet.

I strolled on past the house, musing about Killing Commendatore in a vague sort of way. Walking the little path through the woods, I had the distinct impression that someone was spying on me from behind. As if Long Face had pushed up the square lid of his hole and was secretly observing me from the corner of the painting. I whipped around and looked back. But nothing was to be seen. No hole in the ground, no Long Face. Just a deserted leaf-strewn path wending through the quiet woods. This pattern repeated itself a number of times. But each time I spun around no one was there.

Then again, it might well be that the hole and Long Face were there only as long as I didn’t turn around. Perhaps they could tell when I was about to look back, and hid themselves at that moment. Like a child playing a game.

I passed through the woods to the very end of the path, the first time I’d gone that far. I figured the entrance to Mariye’s secret passageway had to be nearby. Yet I couldn’t locate it. “You really have to pay attention to find it,” she had said, and it did seem to be well camouflaged. In any case, she had taken the passageway after dark to reach my place from the adjoining mountain, alone and on foot. Past the thickets and through the woods.

The path came to an abrupt end at a small, circular clearing. The overhanging trees thinned out, so I could see pieces of sky. I found a flat stone bathed in a small pool of light, sat down, and looked through the tree trunks at the valley below. I imagined that at any minute Mariye might pop up out of her secret passageway, wherever that was. But of course no one appeared. My only companions were birds, who hopped from limb to limb and then flew off again. They moved about in pairs, each chirping loudly to let the other know where they were. I had once read an article describing how certain birds mate for life, and how when one died, the survivor spent the rest of their days alone. It goes without saying that they never had to sign and seal official divorce papers sent by certified mail from a lawyer’s office.

A truck selling fresh produce passed in the distance, its driver listlessly broadcasting his wares over its loudspeaker. No sooner was his voice out of earshot than there was a loud rustle in the bushes nearby. What was it? It didn’t sound human. A wild animal was more likely. For a scary second I thought it might be a wild boar (boars and hornets were the most dangerous things in the area), but then the sound abruptly stopped.

I stood up and started walking back to the house. When I passed the small shrine I checked the pit, just to make sure. The planks were in place, the stone weights neatly arranged on top. They hadn’t been moved, as far as I could tell. Fallen leaves covered the boards. They had lost their bright colors and turned sodden in the rain. So young and fresh in spring, their quiet death had come now, in late autumn.

As I stared at the planks, I began to feel that Long Face might poke his elongated, eggplant-shaped head out of the pit at any minute. But the planks didn’t budge. Obviously. Long Face’s hole was square, not round, and was smaller and more personal in scale. Moreover, this hole was home to the Commendatore, not Long Face. Or at least home to the Idea that had borrowed the Commendatore’s form. It had been the Commendatore that had rung the bell to call me here, and had made me open the pit.

Everything started with this pit. After Menshiki and I had pried open the lid with a backhoe, strange things had started happening one after another. Then again, it might have all begun when I had found Killing Commendatore in the attic and removed it from its packaging. That was the correct sequence. Or perhaps the two events acted in tandem. Killing Commendatore could have been what called the Idea to the house. The appearance of the Commendatore could have been my reward for liberating the painting. Try as I might, I couldn’t tell what was the cause, and what was the result.

Menshiki’s Jaguar was gone when I got back to the house. He had probably come by taxi to pick it up. Or else sent one of the people who worked for him to collect it. Whichever the case, my mud-spattered Toyota Corolla was left there, parked forlornly outside my front door. Menshiki had been right—I should check the tires one of these days, though I hadn’t bought an air pressure gauge and probably never would.

I went to the kitchen to start making lunch, but no sooner had I picked up a knife than I realized I was no longer ravenously hungry. Instead, I was very sleepy. I got a blanket, stretched out on the living room sofa, and promptly drifted off. I had a dream, a short one. It was clear and very vivid. But I couldn’t remember anything about it. Just that it was clear and vivid. It felt as though a fragment of real life had slipped into my sleeping mind by mistake. Then the moment I awoke, it fled like a quick-footed animal, leaving no trace behind.

⁴² IF IT BREAKS WHEN YOU DROP IT, IT’S AN EGG

The next week flew by. I spent my mornings focused on my painting, and my afternoons reading, taking walks, and doing whatever housework needed to be done. One day blended into the next. My girlfriend showed up on Wednesday and we spent the afternoon making love. The constant creaking of my old bed really cracked her up.

“It’s going to fall to pieces before long,” she predicted during a pause in our exertions. “There’ll be nothing left but splinters—we won’t be able to tell if they’re wood or pretzel sticks.”

“Maybe we should try to make love more quietly.”

“Maybe Captain Ahab should have hunted sardines,” she said.

I thought about that for a moment. “Are you saying some things in this world can’t be changed?”

“Kind of.”

A short time later, we were back on the rolling seas, in pursuit of the great white whale. Some things really can’t be changed so easily.

Each day, I worked a little on Mariye Akikawa’s portrait. My initial sketch had established the skeleton, and now I was filling it out. I tried combining various colors to come up with the right tone for the background. Her face had to sit naturally over that foundation. These tasks tided me over as I waited for her next visit to the studio on Sunday. Some parts of my job were carried out while the model was present, while other preparatory work had to be done before the model’s arrival. I loved both. I could take my time mulling over the various elements, and experiment to find just the right color, just the right style. I enjoyed the hands-on nature of this work, and the challenge of creating an environment from which the subject would spring to life.

While preparing Mariye’s portrait, I began working on a different canvas—a painting of the pit behind the shrine. The pit had etched itself in my mind with such force that I didn’t need it in front of me. I painted the scene in minute detail. The style was purely realistic, the viewpoint objective. I avoided objective representation in my art (except, of course, the portraits that were my “day job”), but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. When I wanted to, I could paint so precisely that the result could be mistaken for a photograph. I used that hyperrealistic style occasionally to change my mood, or refresh the fundamentals of my craft. I never showed those paintings to anyone, though—they were for my private enjoyment, nothing more.

In this way, the pit in the woods began to appear before me, more vivid and alive with each passing day. A mysterious round aperture half covered by thick planks. This was the pit that had given birth to the Commendatore. There were no human figures in the painting, however, just a black hole. Fallen leaves covered the earth surrounding it. A scene of perfect tranquility. Yet it felt as if someone (or something) might come crawling out of that hole any minute. The longer I pictured the scene, the stronger that premonition grew. Looking at it made my spine tingle, although I was the one who had painted it.

I worked like this every day, spending all morning alone in the studio. Palette and brush in hand, I moved back and forth between A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa and The Pit in the Woods—two more different paintings would be hard to imagine—as the mood struck me. I applied myself to the canvases while sitting on the same stool Tomohiko Amada had occupied in the dead of night the previous Sunday. Perhaps because my focus was so great, the dense presence I had felt the next morning had at some point disappeared. The old stool was once again a mere piece of furniture, there for my use. It seemed that Tomohiko Amada had gone back to where he belonged.

There were nights that week when I opened the studio door a crack to peek inside. But no one was ever there. Not Tomohiko Amada, not the Commendatore. Just an old stool parked in front of two easels. The moon cast its dim light over the objects in the room. All was quiet. Killing Commendatore hung on one wall. My unfinished work, The Man with the White Subaru Forester, was turned around so no one could see it. The two paintings I was working on, A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa and The Pit in the Woods, sat side by side on two easels. The smell of oil paint, turpentine, and poppyseed oil hung in the air. It never left, no matter how long the windows were left open. It was a special aroma, one I breathed every day, and would probably go on breathing for the rest of my life. I inhaled the air of the studio as if to confirm its presence, then quietly closed the door.

Masahiko called Friday night to say he was coming the next afternoon. He’d buy fresh fish from the market nearby, so I needn’t worry about dinner. I could look forward to a special treat.

“Anything more I should bring?” he asked. “I can pick up what you want on my way.”

“Can’t think of anything,” I answered. Then I remembered. “Now that you mention it, I’m out of whiskey. A friend and I polished off what you brought last time. Could you pick up another bottle? Any brand is okay.”

“I like Chivas myself. Would that do?”

“You bet,” I said. Masahiko had always been picky about food and drink. I was a different story. I ate and drank whatever was put in front of me.

When our phone call ended, I went to the studio, took Killing Commendatore down from the wall, carried it to my bedroom, and covered it. It wouldn’t do to have Tomohiko Amada’s son see the painting his father had hidden in the attic. For the time being, at least.

Now a visitor to the studio would see only A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa and The Pit in the Woods. I stood there looking back and forth at the two works in progress, comparing them. An image rose to my mind: I could see Mariye walking behind the shrine to the pit. I had a distinct sense that something might begin then. The lid was half open. The darkness was calling. Was Long Face there waiting for her? Or the Commendatore?

Could these two paintings be connected in some way?

Since moving to this house, I had been painting almost nonstop. I had completed Menshiki’s portrait on commission, then started The Man with the White Subaru Forester (brought to a halt when I had just begun to add color), and now was working on A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa and The Pit in the Woods in tandem. It struck me that the four paintings might fit together to form the beginning of a story of some kind.

Then again, perhaps I was documenting the story through my painting. That’s what it felt like, anyway. Had someone given me the role or the right to be that chronicler? If so, who? Why was I chosen, of all people?

Masahiko’s black Volvo station wagon came trundling up the slope shortly before four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. He loved the toughness and reliability of those old boxy cars. He’d driven this one seemingly forever, put a ton of miles on it, yet showed no inclination to trade it in for a new one. On this occasion, he brought along the special carving knife he used for fish. As always, it was razor sharp. In my kitchen, he used it to prepare the large, fresh sea bream he had just bought in Itoh. Masahiko had always been good with his hands, a man of many talents. Without a wasted motion, he filleted the fish, sliced the flesh into sashimi, and boiled the bones for broth. He lightly grilled the skin to nibble on with our drinks. I just stood there, enjoying the show. Who knows, he might have been a famous chef had he taken that route.

“Actually, it’s best to let sashimi sit a day until the flesh softens and the flavor comes out, but what the hell,” he said, deftly plying the knife. “You can handle it, right?”

“No problem—I’m not picky,” I said.

“You can eat any leftovers tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

“Hey, do you mind if I crash here tonight?” Masahiko asked. “I’d like to stay the evening so we can hang out and drink without feeling rushed. Drinking and driving is no good, right? I can sleep on the sofa in the living room.”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s your house, after all. Stay as long as you like.”

“Are you sure some woman won’t show up in the middle of the night?”

“No plans as of now,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Okay, then I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to crash on the sofa—there’s a bed in the guest room.”

“No, I prefer the sofa. It’s a lot more comfortable than it looks. Slept like a baby on it back in the old days.”

He pulled out a bottle of Chivas Regal, cut the seal, and opened it. I brought ice from the refrigerator and two glasses. The gurgle of whiskey pouring into the glass was music to my ears. Like an old friend opening his heart to me. We sipped the whiskey as we finished preparing dinner.

“It’s been a hell of a long time since you and I drank like this,” Masahiko said.

“It sure feels that way. I remember us putting back a lot.”

“I put back a lot, you mean,” he said. “You never drank that much.”

I laughed. “Maybe not from your point of view, but it was a lot for me.”

I never got totally drunk. I always fell asleep first. But he was a different kind of drinker. Once he settled in for the long haul, he went all the way.

We sat across from each other at the table, sipping whiskey and eating the seafood. For starters, we shared the eight raw oysters he had bought with the sea bream. Then we dug into the sashimi. It was a bit too firm, as he had predicted, but it was delicious nonetheless, especially with the whiskey. By the end, we had polished it all off. We were already pretty full. The only other food was the crispy fish skin, small chunks of wasabi mixed with sake lees, and a dish of tofu. We topped off the meal with the soup he had prepared.

“I haven’t had a feast like this in ages,” I said.

“You can’t eat like this in Tokyo,” he said. “Living around here wouldn’t be half bad. Fresh fish anytime.”

“I bet you’d find life here boring eventually, though.”

“Are you bored?”

“Am I? I guess I’ve never found boredom that painful. And besides, there’s quite a lot going on here.”

That was for sure. I had met Menshiki soon after my arrival in early summer, we had dug up the pit behind the shrine, then the Commendatore had made his appearance, and finally Mariye Akikawa and her aunt Shoko had entered my life. I had a girlfriend, a housewife in her sexual prime, who came to comfort me. Tomohiko Amada’s living spirit had paid me a visit. There was hardly time to be bored.

“I might not be bored here either,” Masahiko said. “Did you know I used to be into surfing? I rode the waves all up and down this coast.”

That was news to me, I told him. He’d never mentioned it before.

“I’ve been thinking of leaving Tokyo, of going back to that kind of life. I’d check out the ocean when I woke up, then grab my board and head out if the surf was up.”

The idea of that kind of life left me cold.

“What about your job?” I asked.

“I only need to go to Tokyo twice a week to take care of business. Most of my work is done on computer anyway, so it wouldn’t be that hard to live outside the city. The world’s changing, right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

He looked at me in amazement. “This is the twenty-first century, man. Haven’t you heard?”

“I’ve heard talk.”

After dinner, we moved to the living room to continue drinking. Autumn was almost over, but it wasn’t so cold that we needed to light a fire.

“So then, how’s your father doing these days?” I asked.

Masahiko let out a small sigh. “Same as always. His mind is shot. Can’t tell the difference between his balls and a pair of eggs.”

“If it breaks when you drop it, it’s an egg,” I said.

He laughed. “People are strange creatures, aren’t they? I mean, my father was as solid as a rock until just a few years ago. Mind as clear as the night sky in winter. To an almost disgusting degree. And now his memory is like a black hole. This dark, unfathomable hole that popped up out of nowhere in the middle of the cosmos.”

Masahiko shook his head.

“Who was it that said, ‘The greatest surprise in life is old age’?” he asked.

I couldn’t help him with that one. I’d never heard the saying. But it was probably true. Old age must be an even bigger shock than death. Far beyond what we can imagine. The day someone tells you that you’re flat-out useless, that your existence is irrelevant—biologically (and socially)—in this world.

“So tell me about this dream you had of my father,” Masahiko asked me. “Was it really as lifelike as you said?”

“Yeah, so lifelike it hardly seemed a dream.”

“And he was in the studio?”

I took him to the studio.

“Your father was sitting there,” I said, pointing to the stool in the middle of the room.

Masahiko walked over to the stool. “Just sitting?” he asked, placing his palm on its seat.

“That’s right. He wasn’t doing anything.”

In fact, his father had been staring at Killing Commendatore on the wall, but I didn’t tell him that.

“My father loved this stool,” he said. “It was just a common old thing, but he never got rid of it. He sat on it to paint, and to think.”

“It’s relaxing to sit on,” I said. “You’d be surprised.”

Masahiko stood there with his hand on the stool, lost in thought. But he didn’t sit down. After a minute, he turned his attention to the two canvases facing it. A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa and The Pit in the Woods, my two works in progress. He examined them slowly and carefully, like a doctor looking for a trace of shadow on a patient’s X-ray.

“These are great,” he said. “Really interesting.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes, both. When you place them side by side like this, you feel a strange kind of movement between them. Their styles are totally different, but you get a sense they’re somehow linked.”

I nodded. I’d been thinking the same thing for a few days, in a vague sort of way.

“It seems to me that, little by little, you’re finding a new direction,” he went on. “Like you’ve finally emerged from a deep forest. You should take this really seriously, old friend.”

He raised his glass and took a swallow of whiskey. The ice cubes tinkled.

I felt an urge to show Masahiko his father’s Killing Commendatore. What would he have to say about it? His comments might provide a valuable clue. But I suppressed the impulse. Something was holding me back.

It’s still too early, it said. Still too early.

We left the studio and went back to the living room. The wind had picked up—through the window I could see thick clouds edging their way north. The moon was hidden from view.

“So about what brought me here,” Masahiko said, not wasting any more time. He seemed to be steeling himself for what he was about to say.

“It sounds like something that’s not easy to discuss,” I said.

“You’re right, it’s hard. Quite hard, in fact.”

“But it’s something that I need to know.”

Masahiko rubbed his hands together. Like a man preparing to lift a heavy object.

“It’s about Yuzu,” he said, cutting to the chase. “She and I have met up a number of times. Before you left this spring, and afterward, too. She calls me when she wants to talk, and then we meet somewhere. She asked me not to tell you. I hated hiding it from you, but, well, I promised her.”

I nodded. “It’s important to keep our promises.”

“Yuzu and I were friends too, you know.”

“I know,” I said. Masahiko put great stock in friendship. It could be a weakness of his.

“She had another man. Apart from you, that is.”

“I know that too. Now, at least.”

He nodded. “It started about six months before you walked out. Their relationship, that is. It hurts me to tell you this, but the guy is someone I know. A colleague of mine at work.”

I let out a small sigh. “I imagine he’s really handsome, right?”

“Yeah, you got it. Classic features. An agency scouted him in high school, and he modeled part-time for a while. He’s that good-looking. And, well, it seems that I was the one who introduced them.”

I didn’t say anything.

“At least that’s how it worked out,” Masahiko said.

“Yuzu always had a thing for handsome men. It was almost pathological. She knew it too.”

“You’re not bad-looking yourself,” he said.

“Thanks, man. Now I can sleep better tonight.”

We didn’t speak for a time. Finally, he broke the silence.

“Anyway, he’s a really good-looking guy. A nice guy, too. I know this doesn’t help you very much, but he’s not violent, or a womanizer, or vain about his looks. He’s not that type.”

“That’s nice to hear,” I said. My voice was tinged with sarcasm, though I hadn’t meant it to sound that way.

“It all started in September a year ago,” Masahiko said. “He and I were out together when we bumped into Yuzu, and since it was about noon, the three of us stopped for lunch nearby. Believe me, I had absolutely no idea things would turn out this way. He’s five years younger than she is.”

“So the two of them didn’t waste much time.”

Masahiko gave a small shrug. Things must have progressed very quickly indeed.

“The guy talked to me about what was going on,” he said. “Your wife did as well. It put me in a very difficult position.”

I kept quiet. Anything I said would just make me look foolish.

Masahiko was silent for a moment. Then he spoke. “The fact is, Yuzu is pregnant.”

I was speechless for a moment. “Yuzu? Pregnant?”

“Yeah, seven months gone already.”

“She did it on purpose?”

“I don’t know,” Masahiko said, shaking his head. “But she’s planning to have the baby. After seven months there’s not much choice, is there.”

“She always told me she wasn’t ready for kids.”

He winced slightly. “There’s no chance the child could be yours, is there?” he said, looking into his glass.

I did a quick mental calculation. “No. I don’t know the legal side of it, but biologically the chances are zero. I left eight months ago, and we haven’t seen each other since.”

“That’s good,” Masahiko said. “At any rate, she asked me to tell you she’s going to have a baby. And that it shouldn’t cause you any problems.”

“But then why tell me at all?”

He shook his head. “I guess she’s informing you out of courtesy.”

I said nothing. Out of courtesy?

“I’ve been waiting for the chance to apologize for all this. I knew what was going on between Yuzu and my colleague, and I kept it from you. It was inexcusable. Under any circumstances.”

“Then was letting me stay in this house your way of making amends?”

“Not at all—there’s no connection between that and Yuzu. My father lived and painted in this house for a great many years. I figured you could keep that tradition alive. It’s not something I could have asked anybody else, not like that at all.”

Again, I said nothing. He sounded sincere.

“In any case,” Masahiko continued, “you signed and sealed the divorce papers you received and sent them back to Yuzu, right?”

“More precisely, to her lawyer. So our divorce should be official by now. I guess those two will choose a date for their own wedding now that’s taken care of.”

And go on to have a happy marriage. A tall, handsome man, a small child, and little Yuzu. The three of them strolling happily through the park on a sunny Sunday morning. Heartwarming.

Masahiko added some ice and poured us more whiskey. He took a swig from his glass.

I went out to the terrace and looked across the valley at Menshiki’s white house. Lights were on in some of the windows. What was Menshiki doing at this minute? What was he thinking about?

The night air was chilly. The leafless branches quivered in the wind. I went back to the living room and sat down.

“Can you forgive me?”

“It’s not like you meant to hurt me,” I said, shaking my head.

“I for one am sorry it turned out this way. You and Yuzu looked so well matched, and you seemed happy together. It’s sad that it fell apart.”

“You drop them both—the one that breaks is the egg,” I said.

Masahiko laughed weakly. “So how are things now? Is there a woman in your life?”

“Yeah, there’s someone.”

“But not the same as Yuzu?”

“It’s different. I’ve been looking for the same thing in women my whole life. Whatever that is, Yuzu had it.”

“And you can’t find that in anyone else?”

“Not so far,” I said, shaking my head again.

“You have my sympathy,” Masahiko said. “So what is it exactly that you’ve been looking for?”

“It’s hard to put into words. I feel as if I lost track of something along the way, and have been searching for it ever since. Don’t you think that’s how everyone falls in love?”

“I don’t think you can say ‘everyone,’” he said with a slight frown. “You may actually be in the minority. But if you can’t find the right words, why not paint it? You are an artist, after all.”

“If you can’t say it, paint it. That’s easy to say. Not so easy to do, though.”

“But it may be important to try, don’t you think?”

“And perhaps Captain Ahab should have set out after sardines.”

Masahiko laughed. “Sure, from a safety standpoint. But that’s not how art is born.”

“Hey, give me a break. Mention art, and the conversation comes to a screeching halt.”

“Looks like we need some more whiskey,” he said, shaking his head. He poured us another drink.

“I can’t drink too much. I’ve got to work tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow. Today is all we have right now,” Masahiko said.

I found this idea strangely compelling.

“Can I ask you a favor?” I said to Masahiko. Our conversation was wrapping up, and we were about to get ready for bed. The hands on the clock pointed to a little before eleven.

“Sure, anything at all.”

“I’d like to meet your father. Could you take me with you the next time you go to Izu?”

Masahiko regarded me as he might a strange animal. “You want to meet my father?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all. But my father’s in no shape to talk to you. He’s quite incoherent. His mind is chaotic—a mud swamp, really. So if you have any expectations—if you’re hoping to gain some insight into the person known as Tomohiko Amada—you’ll only be disappointed.”

“No, I’m not expecting anything like that. I just want to take one good look at him, that’s all.”

“But why?”

I took a breath and looked around the room. “I’ve been living in this house for six months now,” I said. “Sitting on the stool he sat on, painting in his studio. Eating off his dishes, listening to his records. I feel his presence all over the place. That’s why I have to meet the flesh-and-blood Tomohiko Amada. Once is enough. It doesn’t matter a bit if we can’t talk to each other.”

“Then it’s all right,” Masahiko said, seemingly persuaded. “He won’t be thrilled to see you, but he won’t be ticked off either. He can’t tell one person from another, you see. So there’s no problem if you come along. I plan to visit the nursing home again pretty soon. According to the doctor, he doesn’t have much longer—the end could come at any time. So join me on my next visit, if you’re free.”

I brought a spare blanket, pillow, and futon and made up a bed on the sofa in the living room. I looked around the room to make sure the Commendatore wasn’t there. If Masahiko woke up in the middle of the night and saw him—two feet tall and dressed in ancient Asuka garb—he’d freak out. He’d figure he had become a real alcoholic.

Besides the Commendatore, there was The Man with the White Subaru Forester to worry about. I had turned the painting around so no one could see it. Still, I had no idea what strangeness might happen without my knowledge in the middle of the night.

So I wasn’t kidding when I wished Masahiko a sound sleep.

I gave him a spare pair of pajamas to wear. He and I were more or less the same size, so there was no problem with the fit. He took off his clothes, put on the pajamas, and climbed under the bedding I had laid out. The air in the room was a bit chilly, but he looked snug and warm under the covers.

“You’re sure you’re not angry?” he asked before I left.

“No, I’m not angry,” I answered.

“It must hurt a little, though.”

“Maybe a little.” I had the right to be a little hurt, I thought.

“But the cup is still one-sixteenth full.”

“You’ve got it there,” I said.

I turned off the living room light and retired to my bedroom. Before long I had fallen asleep, together with my slightly wounded feelings.

⁴³ IT COULDN’T END LIKE ANY OTHER DREAM

When I woke it was already light outside. Thin gray clouds covered the sky from end to end, but the sun’s benevolent rays still quietly filtered through. It was not quite seven.

I washed my face, turned on the coffee maker, and went to check the living room. Wrapped in blankets, Masahiko was fast asleep on the sofa. He appeared unlikely to wake up any time soon. The almost empty bottle of Chivas Regal sat on the table. I managed to tidy up the bottle and glasses without disturbing him.

I must have drunk quite a lot the night before, but I wasn’t a bit hungover. My mind was as sharp as it was every morning. No heartburn, either. I’ve never had a hangover in my life. Why, I don’t know. Probably it’s just the way I was born. One night’s sleep and all traces of alcohol vanish from my system, however much I drink. I eat breakfast and I’m ready to go.

I toasted two slices of bread, fried two eggs, and ate them while listening to the news and weather on the radio. The stock market was fluctuating wildly, a new parliamentary scandal had been uncovered, and a terrorist bombing in the Middle East had killed and wounded many people. Nothing to brighten my day. Yet none of these events was likely to affect my immediate circumstances. For now, at least, they were limited to distant places and people I had never met. I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do. The weather forecast promised nothing new either. Not a particularly gorgeous day, but not particularly awful either. Overcast, but no rain. Maybe not, anyway. But the forecasters and media types were clever—they never used vague words like “maybe.” No, they stuck with convenient terms for which no one could be held accountable, like “probability of precipitation.”

When the news and weather ended, I turned off the radio and cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Then I sat down again at the table, drank a second cup of coffee, and thought. Most people would have used that time to read the Sunday paper, but I didn’t subscribe. So I just sipped my coffee, looked at the magnificent willow tree outside the window, and thought.

First, I thought about my wife, who, I had been told, was about to give birth. Then it hit me—she wasn’t my wife any longer. No connection between us remained. Not contractual, not personal. From where she stood, I was now in all likelihood a virtual stranger, a person of no special consequence. It felt weird. Until a few months ago we had eaten breakfast together, shared the same soap and towel, walked around naked in front of each other, slept in the same bed. Now our lives bore no relationship to each other.

As I followed this train of thought, gradually I began to feel a stranger to myself as well. I placed my hands on the table and studied them for a while. These were my hands, no doubt. Right and left a symmetrical pair. I used these hands to paint, to cook, to eat, sometimes to caress a woman’s body. But this morning, for some reason, they didn’t look like my hands at all. They had become a stranger’s hands—the palms, the backs, the fingernails.

I quit studying my hands. And thinking about the woman who had formerly been my wife. I got up from the table and went to the bath, where I removed my pajamas and took a hot shower. I carefully washed my hair and shaved in the bathroom sink. When I finished, I thought about the baby Yuzu was about to have—the baby who was not my child—again. I didn’t want to, but there was nothing I could do about it.

She was about seven months pregnant. Seven months ago had been the second half of April. Where was I then, and what was I doing? I had left home and set out on a long, solitary trip in mid-March, driving my antique Peugeot 205 more or less at random all across Hokkaido and northeastern Japan. By the time my trip ended and I returned to Tokyo it was already early May. In late April I had crossed over from Hokkaido to Aomori in northern Honshu on the ferry that ran from Hakodate to Oma on the Shimokita Peninsula.

I pulled the simple diary I had kept out of a desk drawer and checked. At that time I had been traveling in the mountains of Aomori, far from the sea. Although it was well into the second half of April, it was still cold, and snow was everywhere. Why on earth had I chosen such a cold place? I couldn’t remember the precise location, but I did recall a small, almost deserted lakefront hotel where I had stayed for a few days. It was an unprepossessing old building made of concrete, where they offered simple (but not bad) meals and amazingly cheap rates. There was even a small outdoor hot springs bath in a corner of the garden that was available twenty-four hours a day. The hotel had just reopened for the spring season, and I was practically the only guest.

For some reason, my recollections of that trip were vague. All I recorded in the notebook I used as a diary were the names of the places I visited, where I stayed, what I ate, the distance I had driven, and how much I spent. It was a brief, very hit-and-miss record. I could find no mention of my thoughts and feelings, or anything else along those lines. I guess there was nothing to write about. One day just flowed into another, with no distinction between them. I had jotted down the names of the places, but couldn’t remember much about any of them. Many times, even their names had been left out. Looking back, I could only recall that feeling of repetition: the same scenery day after day, the same food, the same weather (“cold” and “not so cold” were my only categories).

The little sketchbook I had carried did a better job of bringing the trip back to life. (I carried no camera, so I hadn’t taken a single photograph. Instead, I had sketched.) Even so, there weren’t that many sketches to look at. When I had spare time, I had just whipped off simple drawings of what was before my eyes with an old pencil or ballpoint pen. Flowers and plants on the roadside, dogs and cats, mountain peaks, things like that. Now and then I would sketch someone I met along the way, but I almost always gave those pictures to whomever I had drawn.

Beneath the diary entry for April 19 I had written the words “Dream last night.” That was all. I had been staying at the small lakefront hotel on that date. The words were underlined with a thick pencil. It must have been a special kind of dream to warrant such emphasis. It took me a while to remember what the dream had been about. When the memory returned, though, it arrived all at once.

The dream had come to me shortly before dawn that day. It was vivid, and very erotic.

In the dream I was back in the apartment in Hiroo. The one Yuzu and I had shared for six years. There was a bed, and my wife was sleeping in it. I was looking down at her from the ceiling. In other words, I was hovering above her. I didn’t find that at all out of the ordinary. In fact, the me in the dream found floating in the air to be perfectly normal. Nothing unnatural about it. Of course, I had no idea I was dreaming. What was happening felt totally real.

Quietly, so as not to wake Yuzu, I descended from the ceiling to stand at the foot of the bed. I was sexually aroused, powerfully so. I hadn’t made love to her for ages. Bit by bit, I peeled back the quilt covering her. She was fast asleep (had she taken a sleeping pill before retiring?) and showed no signs of waking up, even when I removed the quilt. She never even twitched. This made me more daring. Taking my time, I slipped off her pajama bottoms, then her panties. Her pajamas were a pale blue, her tiny cotton panties pure white. Still she did not wake. There was no resistance, no sound.

I gently parted her legs and caressed her vagina with my finger. It was warm and wet, and opened to my touch. As if it had been waiting for me. I couldn’t stand it any longer—I slipped my erect penis inside. Or, from another angle, that part of her actively swallowed my penis, immersing it in what felt like warm butter. Yuzu did not open her eyes, but she sighed and let out a small moan. As if she had been impatient for this to happen. Her nipples were as hard as cherry pits when I touched them.

She might be deep in a dream, I thought. If she was dreaming of someone, though, it was surely not me. For a long while now she had resisted sex with me. Whatever dream she might be having, though, whoever she was mistaking me for, it was too late to turn back, for I was already inside her. It could be a terrible shock if she woke up in the midst of the act and saw who it was. She might well be furious. If that were to happen, I would deal with it then. Now all I could do was take it to the limit. My desire raged like a river through a broken dam, carrying me along.

At the beginning, I moved my penis slowly, trying not to arouse her so much as to wake her up, but, naturally, the pace quickened as I went on. I could tell from the way her body welcomed me that she wanted me to be more forceful. Soon, though, I reached the moment of climax. I wanted to remain inside her, but I couldn’t control myself any longer. It had been ages since we had last had sex, and, though asleep, she was responding to our lovemaking with more passion than ever before.

My ejaculation was violent, and repeated. Again and again, semen poured from me, overflowing her vagina, turning the sheets sticky. There was nothing I could do to make it stop. If it continued, I worried, I would be completely emptied out. Yuzu slept deeply through it all without making a sound, her breathing even. Her sex, though, had contracted around mine, and would not let go. As if it had an unshakable will of its own and was determined to wring every last drop from my body.

I woke up at this point. I had indeed ejaculated. My underwear was drenched in semen. I quickly slipped it off to avoid soiling the bed, carried it to the sink, and washed it. Then I went out through the hotel’s back door to bathe in the hot springs. As the bath was entirely exposed to the elements, with no ceiling or walls, I was freezing by the time I reached it. Once I got in, however, the water warmed me to the core.

I soaked there alone in the predawn hush, listening to the water drip as steam melted the ice, replaying the dream over and over in my head. The memory was so vivid and physical it didn’t feel like a dream at all. I had actually visited the Hiroo apartment and had actually made love to Yuzu—that was the only way I could think about it. My hands remembered the touch of her silky skin and my penis could still feel her vagina. It had clung to my penis, had embraced it with a violent passion (true, Yuzu may have mistaken me for someone else, but it was me nonetheless). She had wrung me out, taking every last drop of my semen for her own.

I could not help but feel a kind of shame for having such a dream (if dream indeed it was). After all, I had raped my own wife in my imagination. I had undressed and entered her while she was sleeping, without her consent. In the eyes of the law, a man who does that to a woman—even his wife—is guilty of sexual assault. In that sense, my conduct was far from praiseworthy. Still, objectively speaking, it was a dream. Something experienced in sleep. I had not created it on purpose. I had not written the script.

Yet in it I had played out my truest hopes and desires. There was no question on that score. Had I been placed in a similar situation in real life—not in a dream—I might well have acted the same. I might have stripped and forcibly entered her. I wanted Yuzu’s body, longed to penetrate it. I was possessed by that desire. I had been able to realize it in exaggerated form in my dream (conversely, only in a dream could it have been realized).

As I continued on my solitary journey, this “real” erotic dream provided me with a provisional kind of happiness. You might say it buoyed me up. By recalling it, I could feel that I was a living creature organically connected to the world. Linked to my surroundings not through logical or conceptual thought, but carnally, through my body.

At the same time, though, the thought that someone else—some other man—was actually enjoying Yuzu as I had in my dream was agony. That someone was caressing her stiffened nipples, removing her tiny white panties, and thrusting himself into her until he came, again and again. When I imagined that, it felt as though I were torn and bleeding inside. Nothing (as far as I could remember) had ever made me feel that way before.

That was the strange dream I had experienced shortly before dawn on April 19. Noted in my diary as “Dream last night” and thickly underlined in pencil.

It was right around that time that Yuzu had conceived. Of course, the precise date could not be known. But it would not be odd if it were that day.

The similarity between my situation and the story Menshiki had told me was striking. The difference was that he had made love to a flesh-and-blood woman on his office sofa in reality. That had not taken place in a dream. And it had been right around then that she had conceived. Immediately thereafter she had married a man of substantial means, and had subsequently given birth to Mariye. Menshiki’s belief that Mariye might be his child therefore had a basis in fact. It was a long shot, perhaps, but at least it was possible. My lovemaking with Yuzu, on the other hand, had taken place in a dream. I was in the mountains of Aomori, while Yuzu was (probably) in the heart of Tokyo. Thus her child could not possibly be mine. That was the only logical conclusion. The odds were not low, they were zero. If, that is, one was thinking logically.

But my dream was too vivid to be so easily dismissed on logical grounds. Moreover, the pleasure I had felt during our lovemaking was greater, and far more memorable, than at any time during our six years of marriage. When I came again and again inside her, the fuses in my brain seemed to have all blown at once, melting what had been distinct layers of reality into a single heavy, turbid mass. As in the primal chaos of the earth.

So graphic an occurrence must have consequences—it couldn’t end like any other dream. I felt that strongly. It had to be connected to something. To have some sort of impact on the present.

Masahiko woke up shortly before nine. He padded into the dining room in his pajamas and drank a cup of hot black coffee. No breakfast, thanks, he said—just coffee, if you don’t mind. There were bags under his eyes.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, rubbing his eyelids. “I’ve had much worse hangovers. This is mild.”

“Why don’t you stick around for a while?” I said.

“Don’t you have a guest coming?”

“That’s at ten. There’s still time. And there’s no problem if you’re here when they arrive. I’ll introduce you. They’re both very attractive.”

“Both? I thought there was just one model.”

“Her aunt is her chaperone.”

“Her chaperone? So they still do things the old-fashioned way in this neck of the woods? Like in a Jane Austen novel. They don’t wear corsets and ride in a horse-drawn carriage, do they?”

“Not a horse-drawn carriage. A Toyota Prius. And no corsets. When I’m painting the girl, the aunt sits in the living room and reads for the whole two hours. ‘Aunt’ makes her sound old, though—she’s pretty young.”

“What sort of books is she into?”

“I don’t know. I asked, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

“No kidding,” he said. “Oh yeah, speaking of books, remember the character in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, the guy who shoots himself with a pistol just to prove how free he is? What’s his name? I figured you might know.”

“Kirillov,” I said.

“That’s right, Kirillov. I’ve been trying to remember, but it keeps slipping my mind.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“No special reason,” Masahiko said, shaking his head. “He popped into my head, and when I tried to recall his name, I couldn’t. It’s been bugging me. Like a fish bone caught in my throat. But man, those Russians. They come up with the weirdest ideas, don’t they?”

“There are lots of characters in Dostoevsky who do crazy things just to prove that they are free people, unconstrained by God and society. Though looking at Russia back then, maybe they weren’t so crazy after all.”

“Then how about you?” Masahiko asked. “You and Yuzu are formally divorced, which means you’re now a lawfully unwedded man. So what comes next? Even if it wasn’t your choice, freedom is still freedom, right? Why not run out and do something crazy, now that you have the opportunity?”

I laughed. “I’m not planning anything at present. Sure, I may be free for the moment, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got to go out and prove it to the world, does it?”

“So that’s how you look at it,” Masahiko said in a disappointed tone. “But hey, you’re a painter, right? An artist. Artists flaunt the rules left and right—they make a great show of it. But you’ve always walked the straight and narrow. The path of reason, I guess. So why not let loose now, throw off the restraints and do something wild?”

“Like murdering an old moneylender with an axe?”

“Yeah, that might work.”

“Or falling for a prostitute with a heart of gold?”

“Even better.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “But you know, it seems to me that reality itself has a screw loose somewhere. That’s why I try to keep at least myself in line as much as possible.”

“Well, I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” Masahiko said resignedly.

It’s more than just “one way of looking at it,” I wanted to tell him. Indeed, it felt like everything around me was becoming unscrewed—that reality was losing its grip. If I lost my grip too, then the craziness would get completely out of hand. But I couldn’t tell Masahiko the whole story at this stage of the game.

“At any rate, I’ve got to be going,” he said. “I’d love to meet the two women, but I’ve got work waiting for me back in Tokyo.”

Masahiko finished his coffee, got dressed, and drove off in his boxy jet-black Volvo. Baggy eyes and all. “Glad we finally had a chance to talk,” were his parting words.

One thing that morning completely stumped me. Masahiko’s knife, the one he’d brought to prepare the fish, had gone missing. It had been carefully washed, and neither of us remembered touching it afterward, but we searched the kitchen high and low and still couldn’t find it.

“Forget it,” he said. “It’s probably out for a walk. Grab it for me when it comes back. I’ll pick it up on my next visit—I don’t use it all that often.”

I’ll keep looking, I told him.

I checked my watch once the Volvo was out of sight. The Akikawas would be showing up before long. I removed the bedding from the living room sofa, and flung the windows wide open to let fresh air in. The sky was still faintly overcast and gray. There was no wind.

I took Killing Commendatore from my bedroom and hung it back where it had been on the studio wall. Then I sat down on the stool to examine the painting one more time. Red blood still gushed from the Commendatore’s chest, while Long Face’s sharp eyes still glittered in the lower left-hand corner of the canvas. Nothing had changed.

Even as I studied Killing Commendatore, though, I couldn’t erase Yuzu from my mind. It had been no dream, of that much I felt sure. I had truly visited our apartment that night. I was as sure of that as I was that Tomohiko Amada had visited the studio several days before. Like him, I had overcome the laws of physics by some means to make my way to our Hiroo apartment, penetrate her, and discharge my semen inside her body. People can accomplish anything, I thought, if they want it badly enough. There are channels through which reality can become unreal. Or unreality can enter the realm of the real. If we desire it that strongly. Deep in our heart. But that didn’t mean that we were free. It might demonstrate quite the opposite.

If I had the chance, I wanted to ask Yuzu if she had experienced a similar dream in late April of this year. If she had dreamed shortly before dawn that I had come to ravish her while she was fast asleep (or else somehow deprived her of her freedom). In other words, was my dream something I alone experienced, or was it a two-way street? That’s what I wanted to confirm. Yet if the dream was one we had shared, wouldn’t she view me as sinister, a villain? Could such a presence exist within me? I hated to think of myself in that way.

Was I free? As far as I was concerned, the question was wholly irrelevant. What I needed now more than anything was a firm reality to hold on to. A solid foundation on which to stand. Not the sort of freedom that allowed me to rape my own wife in my dreams.

⁴⁴ THE TRAITS THAT MAKE A PERSON WHO THEY ARE

Mariye didn’t speak that morning. She just sat there, the perfect model, in the simple straight-backed chair, and gazed at me as if at some distant landscape. Since my stool was taller than her chair, she was looking up at a slight angle. I made no special attempt to talk to her. There was nothing I had to say, nor did I feel any particular need. So I plied my brush across the canvas in silence.

I was painting Mariye’s portrait, yet I could sense elements of my dead sister Komi and my former wife Yuzu creeping into the work. This wasn’t intentional—they worked their way in quite naturally. Perhaps I was searching within Mariye for reminders of those two women, so important to me, whom I had lost. I couldn’t say if this was healthy or not. But that was the only way I could paint at the time. No, to say “at the time” is off the mark. When I thought about it, I had operated like this from the very beginning. Giving form to what eluded me in reality. Inscribing secret signals only I could decipher.

Whatever the case, I was able to push Mariye’s portrait forward with relative ease. Step by step, it moved steadily toward completion. Like a river, it followed the contours of the land, pooling in the hollows until it overflowed the final barrier to stream unobstructed to the sea. I could feel it circulate through my body, like blood.

“Can I come visit you later,” Mariye said in a small voice just before we finished our morning’s work. The lack of inflection made it sound like an assertion, but it was a clear question.

“You mean through your secret passageway?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mind at all, but around what time?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I don’t think you should come after dark,” I said. “You can never tell what’s in these mountains at night.”

All sorts of weird things could be lurking out there: the Commendatore, Long Face, the man with the white Subaru Forester, Tomohiko Amada’s living spirit. Even the incubus that was my sexual alter ego. Yes, depending on the circumstances, I might turn into one of those sinister creatures that prowled the night. The thought gave me a chill.

“I’ll try to come before dark,” Mariye said. “I want to talk to you about something. Just the two of us.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

We wrapped up for the day not long after the noon-hour chimes sounded.

Shoko was sitting on the sofa, once again focused on her reading. She appeared to have almost finished the thick paperback. Taking off her glasses, she noted her place with a bookmark and looked up at us.

“We made good progress today,” I told her. “One or two more sessions and we should be done. I’m sorry to be taking so much of your time.”

Shoko smiled. It was a beautiful smile. “Not at all,” she answered. “Mariye seems to enjoy sitting for you, and I so look forward to seeing the finished portrait. And this sofa is the perfect place to read. I’m never bored in the slightest. In fact, it’s a welcome change of pace for me to come here—I always feel better afterward.”

I wanted to ask her how their visit to Menshiki’s house had gone the previous Sunday. Had his fine mansion impressed her? What had she thought of him as a person? But asking questions like that would have been a breach of etiquette—I had to wait for her to raise the subject first.

Once again, Shoko had dressed for the occasion. It was most definitely not what a regular person would put on to visit a neighbor on a Sunday morning. A perfectly pressed camel hair skirt, a fancy white silk blouse with a big ribbon, and a dark blue-gray jacket with a gold pin adorning the collar. The pin had a jewel embedded in it, which I took to be a real diamond. The whole outfit seemed rather too fashionable to wear behind the wheel of a Toyota Prius. But who was I to say? Toyota’s director of marketing would likely have a very different opinion.

Mariye was dressed as usual. The same old varsity jacket, her hole-studded jeans, and a pair of white sneakers even dirtier than the ones she usually wore (the backs of these were stomped flat).

When they were heading out the door, Mariye looked back and gave me a wink, a secret sign that said “See you later.” I flashed a quick smile in response.

When Shoko and Mariye had gone, I went to the living room, lay down on the sofa, and slept. I had no appetite, so I skipped lunch. It was a brief nap, about thirty minutes, deep and dreamless. I was grateful for that. It was more than a little scary to think what I might do in my dreams, and even scarier to think what I might become.

My mood that Sunday afternoon was as unfocused as the weather. It was a quiet, slightly overcast day with no wind to speak of. I read a little, listened to a little music, cooked a little, but nothing helped me work out my feelings. It promised to be one of those afternoons where nothing gets resolved. Giving up, I ran a hot bath, got in, and soaked for a long time. I tried to remember the names of the characters in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed. I was able to come up with seven, including Kirillov. For some reason, since my high school days I’ve had a knack for memorizing lengthy Russian names. Maybe now was a good opportunity to go back and reread The Possessed. I was free, with time on my hands and nothing that had to be done. The perfect conditions for reading long Russian classics.

I thought about Yuzu some more. Her belly would probably be showing after seven months. I pictured how that would look. What would she be doing now? What would she be thinking? Was she happy? Of course, I had no way to know any of those things.

Perhaps it was as Masahiko had said. Perhaps, like a nineteenth-century Russian intellectual, I should do something out-and-out crazy just to prove I was a free man. But what? Something like… spend an hour shut up at the bottom of a pitch-black pit? That was what Menshiki had done. True, his actions might not fit the category “out-and-out crazy.” But they were definitely beyond the pale, to put it mildly.

It was after four when Mariye showed up. The doorbell rang, I opened the door, and there she was. She slipped through the half-open door like a wisp of cloud and looked around warily.

“No one’s here.”

“Nobody’s here, that’s true,” I said.

“Someone was here yesterday.”

That was a question. “Yes, a friend of mine stayed over,” I said.

“A man.”

“Yes, a man. A male friend. But how did you know?”

“There was an old car I’d never seen before parked in front of your house. It looked like a black box.”

That would be Masahiko’s ancient Volvo station wagon, what he called his “Swedish lunch box.” Convenient for hauling reindeer carcasses.

“So you came yesterday.”

Mariye nodded. It appeared that she was using her passageway to come and check on the house whenever she had time. She’d probably been doing this since long before my arrival. After all, it was her playground. Or “hunting ground” might be more accurate. I was just someone who had chanced to move in. In which case, could she have come face-to-face with Tomohiko Amada at some point? I had to ask her about that sometime.

I led her into the living room. We sat down together, she on the sofa, me in the armchair. I offered her something to drink, but she said no.

“The guy who stayed over is a friend from my college days,” I said.

“A good friend?”

“I think so,” I said. “In fact, he may be the only person I can call a true friend.”

Such a good friend that he could introduce his colleague to my wife and keep me in the dark when they started sleeping together—a situation that had led to my just concluded divorce—without casting a cloud over our relationship. To call us friends would hardly be stretching the truth.

“Do you have any good friends?” I asked her.

Mariye didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t bat an eye, just acted as if she hadn’t heard what I’d said. I guessed it was something I shouldn’t have asked.

“Mr. Menshiki isn’t a good friend of yours,” she said. I knew it was a question, though her intonation was flat. Do you mean Mr. Menshiki isn’t a good friend of yours? was what she meant.

“As I’ve told you,” I said, “I haven’t known Mr. Menshiki long enough to call him a real friend. I started talking with him after I moved here, and that was only six months ago. It takes longer than that for people to become close. Still, he strikes me as a very interesting person.”

“Interesting.”

“How can I explain? His disposition strikes me as a little different than the average guy. Maybe more than a little, actually. He’s not an easy person to figure out.”

“Disposition.”

“Personality. The traits that make a person who they are.”

Mariye stared at me for a while. As if selecting the exact words she ought to use.

“He can see my home from his deck—it’s right across the valley.”

It took me a moment to respond to that. “Yes, you’re right. That’s the lay of the land. But he can see my house just as clearly. Not yours alone.”

“Still, I think that man is spying on us.”

“What do you mean, spying on you?”

“He’s got something like a pair of big binoculars on the terrace, though he hides them with a cover. They’re on a kind of tripod. He can see us really clearly if he uses those.”

So the girl found him out, I thought. Watchful, observant. Eyes that missed nothing of importance.

“So you think that Mr. Menshiki has been observing you through those binoculars?”

Mariye gave a terse nod.

I took a deep breath, then let it out. “Still, that’s just a guess on your part, right? They don’t necessarily mean he’s peeking into your house. He could be observing the moon and stars.”

Mariye’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’ve had this feeling like I’m being watched,” she said. “For a while. But I didn’t know who was watching me, or from where. But now I know. It’s that person, for sure.”

I took another long, slow breath. Mariye’s supposition was on the money. Menshiki was watching her through his high-powered military binoculars on a nightly basis. Yet to my knowledge—and this was not to defend Menshiki—his motives for being a peeping Tom were far from nefarious. He just wanted to see the girl. This beautiful thirteen-year-old girl who might be his biological daughter. For that reason, and that reason alone, he had purchased the mansion on the other side of the valley. Wresting it from the family living there and booting them out. Yet I couldn’t reveal that to Mariye.

“Let’s say you’re right,” I said. “But then what’s his motive? Why is he so fixated on your home?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he has a crush on my aunt.”

“Has a crush on your aunt?”

She gave a brief shrug of her shoulders.

Mariye couldn’t imagine she was the target. She hadn’t yet reached the stage where she could see herself as an object of male desire. I found it strange, yet I didn’t dare call her version of events into question. If that was how she read the situation, better perhaps to let it ride.

“I think Mr. Menshiki is hiding something,” Mariye said.

“What, for example?”

“My aunt is seeing Mr. Menshiki,” she said, not answering my question. “They met twice this week.” Her tone suggested that she was passing on highly sensitive state secrets.

“On dates?”

“I think she went to his house.”

“Alone?”

“She left a little after noon and didn’t return until late.”

“But you can’t be sure she went to Mr. Menshiki’s, can you?”

“I can tell,” she said.

“How can you tell?”

“My aunt doesn’t leave the house that much,” she said. “Sure, she’ll volunteer at the library or go shopping, but then she doesn’t take a long shower, or paint her nails, or put on perfume and her fanciest underwear.”

“You really have sharp eyes, don’t you,” I said, impressed. “You see everything. But are you sure the man she’s meeting is Mr. Menshiki? Couldn’t it be someone else?”

Mariye narrowed her eyes at me. She gave a small shake of her head. As in, Do you think I’m that stupid? After all, under the circumstances it was unlikely to be anyone but Menshiki. And Mariye was anything but stupid.

“So your aunt spends quite a bit of time at Mr. Menshiki’s house, just the two of them together.”

Mariye nodded.

“And the two of them—how should I put this?—are engaged in what we might call a very intimate relationship.”

She nodded again. “Yes, a very intimate relationship,” she said, her cheeks turning a faint pink.

“But you’re in school all day. Not at home. So how can you know these things?”

“I can tell. I can tell that much from a woman’s face.”

But I couldn’t tell. Yuzu had carried on an extended affair while we were living together, and I was clueless. Looking back, I should have been able to figure out that much. How could a thirteen-year-old girl pick up on something I couldn’t that quickly?

“So things really moved fast between those two, didn’t they,” I said.

“My aunt’s no dummy—there’s nothing wrong with her head. But her heart has a weak spot. And Mr. Menshiki is stronger than normal people. A lot stronger—she’s no match for him.”

She’s probably right, I thought. Menshiki did have some special power. Once he made his move, it would be almost impossible for an average person to resist. Myself included. I doubted he would find it difficult to make a woman his, if that was his goal.

“So you’re worried about your aunt, right? That Mr. Menshiki is using her for some reason.”

Mariye swept her hair back with her hand, exposing her ear. It was small and white, and its shape was lovely. She nodded.

“But it’s not that easy to stop a relationship of this sort once it’s gotten started,” I said.

Not that easy at all, I said to myself. It would move forward, crushing everything in its path, like the Hindus’ great wheel of karma. There could be no turning back.

“That’s why I had to talk to you,” Mariye said. Then she looked me square in the eye.

When it began to get dark, I took my flashlight and walked Mariye almost as far as her passageway. She said she had to be home by dinner. They usually ate around seven.

She had come to ask me for advice. Yet I hadn’t been able to offer anything useful. All I could tell her was to wait and see how things developed. I knew Menshiki and Shoko might be having sex, but they were two unmarried and consenting adults. What was I supposed to do? Sure, I had some background information, but I couldn’t reveal it, not to Mariye, and not to her aunt. That meant that I couldn’t give useful advice to anyone. I was like a boxer trying to fight with his best arm tied behind his back.

Mariye and I walked side by side through the woods, hardly exchanging a word. We had gone partway along the path when she reached down and took my hand. Her hand was small, but its grip was unexpectedly firm. I was surprised at first, but then I had often walked this way with my sister, so it didn’t put me off. Instead, it felt normal, a kind of return to my youth.

Mariye’s hand was very smooth to the touch. Warm but not at all sweaty. She must have been thinking about something, for her hand squeezed mine and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed, depending, I guess, on what she was thinking. My sister had done the same thing back in the old days.

When we reached the shrine, she let go of my hand and, without a word, circled around to the back. I followed her.

The pampas grass still bore the tread marks of the backhoe. Within lay the silent pit. Its cover was made of sturdy boards, weighted down by a row of stones. I shone my flashlight on them to confirm that they hadn’t been moved. They hadn’t.

“Is it okay if I look in?” Mariye asked me.

“Just look.”

“Just look,” Mariye said.

I set some of the stones to the side and removed one of the boards. Mariye knelt and peered through the opening. I trained the flashlight on the floor of the pit. Of course, nobody was there. Only a metal ladder leaning against the wall. If one so chose, one could use it to climb down and then back up again. It would be next to impossible to get out without the ladder, although the pit was less than nine feet deep. The walls were just too smooth and slick to be scaled.

Holding her hair back with one hand, Mariye stared inside the pit for a long time. Intently, as if searching for something in the dark. I had no idea what was down there to capture her attention.

“Who built this?” she asked, looking up at last.

“I don’t know. At first I thought it might be a well, but now I’m not so sure. I mean, who would dig a well in such an out-of-the-way place? Anyway, it looks very old. And it’s very well put together. It must have taken a long time to build.”

Mariye looked at me steadily without saying anything.

“This area has been your playground for quite a while, hasn’t it?” I said.

She nodded.

“But you didn’t know this pit was behind the shrine until recently.”

She shook her head. No, she hadn’t known.

“You found it and opened it, didn’t you?” she asked.

“That’s right, I may have been the one who discovered it. I didn’t know it was a pit, but I figured something had to be under that pile of rocks. The person who arranged for the rocks to be moved and the pit to be opened, though, was Mr. Menshiki.” I wanted to let her in on this much, at least. It was better to be honest.

A bird cried in the trees. It was a sharp, piercing call, as if to warn its fellow creatures. I looked up but couldn’t catch sight of it. All I could see were the layered branches of the leafless trees. And beyond those the evening sky of approaching winter, flat, expressionless, and gray.

Mariye winced slightly. But she didn’t respond.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “I felt as if the pit was demanding that someone open it. And that I had been bidden to perform that task.”

“Bidden?”

“Invited. Called upon to.”

She looked up at me. “It wanted you to open it?”

“Yes.”

“This pit asked you to open it?”

“It could have been anyone, perhaps. Maybe I just happened to be around.”

“But it was Mr. Menshiki who actually did it.”

“Yes. I brought him here. I couldn’t have uncovered it without him. The rocks were too heavy to move by hand, and I didn’t have the cash to bring in heavy equipment. It was a fortunate coincidence.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have done it,” she said after a moment’s thought. “I think I told you that before.”

“So you think I should have left it as it was?”

Mariye didn’t answer immediately. She stood up and brushed the dirt off the knees of her jeans. Not once but several times. She and I replaced the board, and the stones that held it down. Once again, I committed their location to memory.

“Yes, I think so,” she said at last, lightly rubbing her palms against each other.

“I think this place may have had some kind of religious background. There might be legends or stories connected to it.”

Mariye shook her head. She didn’t know of any. “Maybe my father knows something.”

The whole area had been owned by her father’s family since before the Meiji period. The adjoining mountain was also in their hands. He might have a good idea of what the pit and shrine meant.

“Could you ask him?”

Mariye winced slightly. “I’ll try,” she said in a small voice. She hesitated. “If I have a chance.”

“It would be a big help if we knew who built it when, and for what purpose.”

“Maybe they shut up something inside, and put heavy stones on top to make sure it didn’t get out,” she offered.

“So you think maybe they heaped on the stones to prevent whatever it was from escaping, and then built the little shrine to ward off its curse?”

“Maybe.”

“And then we went and pried it open anyway.”

Mariye gave a small shrug.

I accompanied her to where the woods ended. She’d go on from there by herself, she said. The darkness was no problem—she knew the way. She wanted no one to see the passage that led to her home. It was a shortcut that she alone should know. So I turned back, leaving her there. Only a glimmer of light remained in the sky. The cold blackness was descending.

The same bird made the same piercing call when I passed before the shrine. This time, though, I didn’t look up. I headed straight home, leaving the shrine behind. As I prepared dinner I sipped a glass of Chivas Regal and water. There was only enough left in the bottle for one more drink. The night was deathly silent. As if the clouds were absorbing every living sound.

You shouldn’t have opened the pit.

Perhaps Mariye was right. I should have steered clear of the pit. It seemed that everything I did these days was off the mark.

I imagined Menshiki making love to Shoko. The two of them naked, entwined on a big bed in a room somewhere in that sprawling white mansion. That event was taking place in another world, of course, one that bore no connection to me. Yet the thought of the two of them together left me bereft. As if I were standing in a station watching a long, empty train pass by.

Finally, I fell asleep and my Sunday ended. A deep dreamless sleep, undisturbed by anyone.

⁴⁵ SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN

Of the two paintings I was working on, The Pit in the Woods was the one I knocked off first. It was Friday afternoon when I finished it. Paintings are strange things: as they near the end they acquire their own will, their own viewpoint, even their own powers of speech. They tell the artist when they are done (at least that’s the way it works for me). A spectator to the process—if one is present—can’t tell the difference between a painting in process and a completed painting, for the line is virtually invisible to the naked eye. But the artist knows. He or she can hear the painting say, Hands off, I’m done. The artist has only to heed that voice.

So it was with The Pit in the Woods. At a certain point, it announced itself finished and refused my brush. Like a sexually satisfied woman. I took the canvas from the easel and leaned it against the wall. Then I sat down on the floor and regarded it at length. My painting of a half-covered hole in the ground.

I couldn’t pin down my motive for painting it, or its meaning. It had just grabbed me. I couldn’t come up with anything beyond that. These things happen. When something strikes me in that way—a landscape, an object, a person—I pick up my brush and am off to the races. No meaning, no motive. I just go where my gut tells me, pure and simple.

But wait, I thought. This time was different. This wasn’t mere impulse. Something had demanded that I paint this painting. Urgently. That was why I had finished it so quickly—whatever it was, that demand had fired me up, sent me to my easel, and propelled me forward, like a hand on my back. Or maybe the pit was the agent, pushing me to draw its portrait, leaving me to guess its motive. In the same way that Menshiki, likely in pursuit of some larger plan, had enlisted me to paint his portrait.

Judged in a fair and objective way, the painting wasn’t bad. I couldn’t tell whether it could be called a work of art or not. (Not to make excuses, but I hadn’t begun with that goal in mind.) From the standpoint of pure technique, though, it was a success. The composition was flawless, and I had captured both the light streaming through the trees and the colors of the fallen leaves. It was realistic right down to its tiniest detail, yet, nevertheless, a mysterious, symbolic aura hovered over it.

As I sat there staring at the finished work, a feeling came over me, what might be called a premonition of impending movement. On the surface at least, it was just as its title said: a landscape painting of the pit in the woods. It was so accurate, in fact, that “reproduction” might be closer to the truth. As someone who had been developing his craft, however imperfectly, for so long, I had the artistic skill to reproduce an exact likeness of the scene on canvas. I had not painted the scene so much as I had documented it.

Nevertheless, that premonition was there. Something was about to take place within that landscape. The painting was telling me that. Then I realized. What I had been trying to get across, or what that something had been trying to get me to paint, was precisely that premonition, those signs.

Sitting there on the floor, I straightened my back and looked at the painting anew.

What was about to happen? Was someone or something about to come crawling out from the darkness that lay beneath the half-open cover? Or, conversely, was someone about to climb down into the hole? Though I looked long and hard, I couldn’t guess what would take place. I only knew some sort of movement was about to occur. The strength of my premonition left no doubt.

Why did the pit so badly want me to paint it? To try to tell me something? To warn me? It was a game of riddles. So many riddles, and not a single answer. I wanted to show the painting to Mariye and hear what she had to say. Maybe she could see what I couldn’t.

Friday was the day I taught drawing near Odawara Station. Mariye was one of the students, so she would be there. Perhaps I could have a word with her afterward. I hopped in my car and headed to town.

There was still plenty of time when I arrived, so I parked and went to get my customary cup of coffee. No gleaming, functional Starbucks for me—my coffee shop was untouched by time, a back-alley spot run by a man on the cusp of old age who served a jet-black, muddy brew in a cup that weighed a ton. Jazz from a former era played on the ancient speakers. Billie Holiday, Clifford Brown, and other classics. As I still had time to spare when I finished my coffee, I wandered down the shopping street. I was low on coffee filters, so I bought a pack. I found a used-record store, and browsed through their old LPs. I realized I hadn’t listened to anything other than classical music for a very long time. Tomohiko Amada’s shelves contained no other kinds of records. If I listened to the radio, it was only to catch the news and weather on the AM dial (my location meant almost no FM reception).

I had left my records and CDs—not that there were a lot of them—in the Hiroo apartment. It would have been painful to sort out which books and records belonged to Yuzu and which to me. Impossible, really. Who did Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline belong to? How about the Doors album with “Alabama Song” on it? What difference did it make who had shelled out the money? We’d shared the same music for a period of time, lived our life together listening to it. Even if we had been able to divide the records, we could never have separated the memories attached to them. I had to leave them all behind.

I looked for Nashville Skyline and the first album by the Doors, but couldn’t find either. They may have been available on CD, but I wanted to hear them on an old-style phonograph. There was no CD player in Tomohiko Amada’s house anyway. And no cassette deck. Just a couple of record players. Tomohiko Amada likely had no interest in new technology. He’d probably never come within six feet of a microwave oven.

In the end, I bought two records. Bruce Springsteen’s The River and a collection of duets by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. Both were old favorites of mine. At some point in my life, I had given up on new music. Instead, I listened to the old stuff over and over again. Books were the same. I reread books from my past, often more than once, but ignored books that had just come out. Somewhere along the way, time seemed to have come to a screeching halt.

Perhaps time really had stopped. Then again, maybe it kept nudging forward despite the fact that evolution, or anything resembling it, had ended. Like a restaurant approaching closing time that has stopped taking orders. And I was the only one who hadn’t figured it out.

The shop assistant put the two records in a bag, and I paid. Then I went to a nearby liquor store to buy some whiskey. I wasn’t sure what to get, but finally settled on Chivas Regal. It was a little more expensive, but would be a big hit with Masahiko the next time he stopped by.

My starting time for class was approaching, so I stashed the records, coffee filters, and whiskey in my car and entered the building where classes were held. The kids were first, starting at five o’clock. Mariye was part of that group. But I couldn’t spot her. This was a first. She was passionate about the class, had never skipped it before, as far as I knew. Her absence unsettled me. I found it somehow alarming, even threatening. Was she all right? Was she ill, or had something unexpected happened to her?

Nevertheless, I carried on as though nothing was wrong, assigning simple exercises, offering comments on each child’s drawing, giving advice. When class ended, the children went home and the adult class began. It too passed without incident. I exchanged good-natured pleasantries with the people there (hardly my strong point, but I can do it when required). After that, I had a brief meeting with the workshop organizer about future plans. He had no idea why Mariye was absent. There had been no word from her family.

After work, I went to a nearby noodle shop and ate a hot bowl of tempura soba. This too was my weekly habit. Always the same shop, and always tempura soba. One of life’s little pleasures. Then I drove back to my house on the mountain. It was almost nine when I arrived.

I couldn’t tell if anyone had tried to contact me while I was gone, for there was no answering machine (such a “clever” device probably numbered among Tomohiko Amada’s bêtes noires). I gave the simple, old-fashioned telephone a long look, but it didn’t speak. It just sat there, in black silence.

I had a long soak in a hot bath. Then I poured what was left of the original bottle of Chivas Regal into a glass, added two ice cubes from the fridge, and took the drink to the living room, where I sipped it while listening to one of the records I had just bought. At first, it seemed somehow inappropriate to be playing anything other than classical in my mountaintop domicile. The air in the room had been conditioned to that type of music for a very long time. Still, I was playing my music, so that now, song by song, a familiarity overcame the feeling of inappropriateness. As I listened, I could feel my body start to relax. I must have been tense without being aware of it.

The A side of the Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway record had ended and the first song on the B side (“For All We Know,” a really cool performance) had just begun when the phone rang. The clock said 10:30. Who on earth would be calling me so late? I didn’t want to answer. Yet the ring sounded urgent. I put down my glass, rose from the sofa, lifted the needle off the record, and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” It was Shoko Akikawa.

I greeted her.

“I’m so terribly sorry to be phoning this late,” she said. I had never heard her sound so anxious. “But I needed to ask you something. Mariye didn’t show up at art class today, did she?”

No, I replied, she didn’t. The question was a strange one. Normally, Mariye came straight from school (the public junior high in the area) in her uniform. When class ended, her aunt picked her up in the car, and the two went home together. That pattern never varied.

“I haven’t seen Mariye anywhere,” Shoko said.

“Haven’t seen her?”

“She’s missing.”

“Since what time?” I asked.

“Since this morning, when she left for school. I offered to drive her to the station, but she said she’d walk. She likes walking. Much more than riding in the car. So I give her a lift when she’s running late, but otherwise she walks down the hill to the bus stop and takes the bus to the station. This morning she left the house at seven thirty, as usual.”

Shoko said all this in a single breath, then stopped. I could hear her trying to control her breathing. I used the pause to put what she had just told me into some kind of order.

“Today is Friday,” Shoko continued. “When school lets out on Fridays, she goes directly to art class. And then I pick her up afterward. But today Mariye said she’d take the bus home instead. So I didn’t go. When she says something like that, it’s pointless to argue. But she still gets back by seven or seven thirty. Then she has dinner. But tonight, it turned to eight and then eight thirty and she still hadn’t returned. So I called the center and asked whether she had come to class or not. They checked and said she hadn’t shown up. That’s when I got really worried. Now it’s ten thirty and she’s still not back. I’ve heard nothing. That’s why I’m calling you—I thought perhaps you might know something.”

“I haven’t a clue where she is,” I said. “I was rather surprised when I showed up for class and Mariye wasn’t there. She’s never skipped before.”

Shoko gave a deep sigh. “My brother’s not back yet. I don’t know when to expect him—he hasn’t contacted me. I’m not sure if he’ll return tonight or not. I’m here all alone, and I don’t know what to do.”

“She was wearing her school uniform when she left this morning, correct?”

“Yes, she left in her uniform, with a bag over her shoulder. The same as always. A blazer and skirt. I don’t know if she ever made it to school, though. It’s late, so there’s no way to check. But I’m quite sure she got there. The school contacts us if there’s an unexplained absence. She was carrying enough money for a single day’s expenses, no more. I make her take a cell phone just in case, but it’s been shut off all day. She doesn’t like cell phones. She’ll use hers to call me, but she usually keeps it off the rest of the time. I’ve warned her about that over and over, begged her not to turn it off, explained that we may need to reach her if something important comes up, but she doesn’t—”

“Has this ever happened before? Her coming home late?”

“This is the first time, really. Mariye is very dependable. She has no close friends she hangs out with, and once she’s agreed to do something, she follows through, even though she doesn’t like school all that much. She won a prize for perfect attendance in elementary school. She always comes straight home after school. She never loiters along the way.”

Mariye’s aunt was clearly in the dark about her nighttime forays.

“Was there anything she said or did this morning that was out of the ordinary?”

“No, nothing. It was a regular morning. The same as always. She drinks a glass of warm milk, eats a slice of toast, and heads out the door. Every day is identical. I made her breakfast today as I usually do. She didn’t say a great deal. But that’s normal. She can talk a blue streak once she gets started, but most of the time, you can’t get much out of her.”

I was beginning to worry. It was almost eleven at night, and it was pitch dark outside. The moon was hiding behind the clouds. What on earth had happened to Mariye Akikawa?

“I’ll wait one more hour. If Mariye still hasn’t contacted me by then, I’ll call the police,” Shoko said.

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “And let me know if there’s anything I can do. Any time is all right—please don’t hesitate, no matter how late it is.”

Shoko thanked me and hung up. I drained what was left of the whiskey and washed the glass in the sink.

After that I went to the studio. I turned on all the lights and stood there in the bright room, taking another lingering look at my unfinished Portrait of Mariye Akikawa on the easel. It was close to done—only a little work remained. It showed a version of what a quiet thirteen-year-old girl would ideally look like. Yet there were other elements too, aspects of her that could not be seen, that made her who she was. What I was attempting in all my painting—though not, of course, in the portraits I did on commission—was to try to capture those things which lay outside my field of vision and communicate their message in a different form. Mariye was, in that sense, a most fascinating subject. There was just so much that was hidden, like a trompe l’oeil. And now as of this morning she herself had disappeared. As if swallowed by that very trompe l’oeil.

I turned to look again at The Pit in the Woods leaning against the wall. I had just completed it that afternoon. I could feel that painting calling out to me too, though in another way, and from a different direction, than A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa.

Something is about to happen. I felt this again as I looked at the landscape. Until that afternoon it had been a premonition of sorts, but now it was encroaching on reality. The movement was already under way. Mariye’s disappearance and the pit in the woods were linked in some way. I could sense it. By finishing the painting I had set the gears in motion. And Mariye’s vanishing act was the likely result.

Yet I could tell Shoko none of this. All that would do was confuse her even more.

I went back to the kitchen and rinsed the whiskey taste from my mouth with several glasses of water. When that was done, I picked up the phone and called Menshiki. I called three times before he picked up. I detected a slight edge to his voice, as if he were waiting for an important call. That it was me on the line seemed to surprise him. It only took a second, though, for the edge to disappear and the voice to turn cool and collected, as always.

“I’m very sorry to call so late,” I said.

“Not at all. I stay up late, and I’ve got plenty of time. I’m always happy to hear your voice.”

Skipping the normal pleasantries, I gave him a brief report of Mariye’s disappearance. The girl had left home for school in the morning but hadn’t returned. Nor had she shown up at my painting class. The news seemed to throw Menshiki for a loop. He took a moment to reply.

“And you have no idea where she might have gone, right?” he asked me.

“None at all,” I replied. “It came out of left field. How about you?”

“I have no idea either, of course. She barely says a word to me.”

There was no anger or regret in his voice. He was simply relating the way she treated him.

“That’s just how she is—she’s like that with everybody,” I said. “But Shoko is at her wit’s end. Mariye’s father isn’t home either, so she’s all alone and unsure what to do.”

Menshiki paused again. It was rare to see him at a loss for words—in fact, I had never witnessed it before.

“Is there anything I can do?” he said at last.

“I know it’s sudden,” I said, “but is there any chance you could drop by now?”

“To your home?”

“Yes. There’s something in this connection that I need to talk to you about.”

Menshiki took a moment to respond. “All right,” he said. “I’ll leave right away.”

“Are you sure you don’t have to take care of a matter there first?”

“It’s not big enough to call a ‘matter.’ It’s just a trivial thing,” he said. He cleared his throat. He seemed to be checking his watch. “I can be there in about fifteen minutes.”

When the phone call ended, I got ready to go out. I laid out a sweater and my leather jacket, and placed the big flashlight within easy reach. Then I sat on the sofa and waited for the purr of Menshiki’s Jaguar rolling up the hill.

⁴⁶ PEOPLE ARE POWERLESS BEFORE A STURDY, TOWERING WALL

Menshiki arrived at eleven twenty. The moment I heard his Jaguar, I slipped on my leather jacket and headed out the door. He stepped from the car wearing a padded, dark-blue windbreaker, narrow-cut black jeans, and leather sneakers. A light scarf was draped around his neck. His mane of white hair glowed in the dark.

“If it’s okay, I’d like you to come with me to check out the pit in the woods,” I said.

“Of course,” Menshiki said. “Do you think it’s connected to Mariye’s disappearance?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ve had a premonition for a while that something bad was going to happen. Something connected to that pit.”

Menshiki asked no more questions after that. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go take a look.”

He opened the trunk of his Jaguar and pulled out what looked like a lantern. Then he closed the trunk and set off with me toward the woods. Neither moon nor stars were out, so it was very dark. There was no wind.

“Sorry to ask you to venture out so late,” I said. “But it seemed safer to have you come along. If something went wrong, I might not be able to handle it alone.”

He patted my arm. As though to encourage me. “It’s no trouble at all—I’m happy to do what I can.”

We picked our way through the trees, shining the flashlight and lantern on our feet to avoid tripping over the roots. The only sound was the crunch of dry leaves underfoot. Otherwise it was dead silent. I sensed the animals of the woods silently watching us from their hiding places. The dark depths of midnight give rise to illusions like that. Had someone seen us, they might have mistaken us for a pair of grave robbers on their way to ransack a tomb.

“There’s just one thing I’d like to ask,” Menshiki said.

“What’s that?”

“Why do you think Mariye’s disappearance and the pit might be connected?”

I explained that she and I had visited the pit together not long before. That she had already known about its existence. That the whole area was her playground. That nothing happened here without her knowledge. Then I told him what she had said: You should have left the place as it was. You should never have opened it up.

“When she stood in front of the pit she seemed to have experienced something,” I said. “A special feeling… I guess you could call it spiritual.”

“And she was drawn to it?”

“Yes. She was leery, but at the same time something about the pit was drawing her in. That’s why I worry it might have played a role. That she might be down there, unable to get out.”

Menshiki thought for a moment. “Did you tell her aunt this?” he asked. “Does Shoko know?”

“No, I haven’t said anything yet. If I mentioned the pit to her, I’d have to go back to the beginning. To how we opened it, and why you were involved. It would turn into a very long story, and I doubt I could explain myself very well.”

“Yes, it would cause her a lot of needless worry.”

“It would be even more awkward if the police got involved. If they grew interested in the pit.”

Menshiki looked at me. “Are they investigating already?”

“She hadn’t contacted them yet when I talked to her. But she could have put in a search request by now. After all, it’s getting pretty late.”

Menshiki nodded several times. “Yes, it’s only natural. It’s almost midnight, and a thirteen-year-old girl hasn’t come home. No one knows where she’s gone. What can her family do but call the cops?”

I could tell from his tone that Menshiki wasn’t too thrilled that the police would be entering the picture.

“Let’s keep the pit between ourselves if we can,” he said. “The fewer people know, the better. Otherwise we could run into problems.” I agreed.

The biggest problem for me was the Commendatore. It was almost impossible to explain the significance of the pit without bringing him—as an Idea, no less—into the mix. Yes, as Menshiki said, mentioning the pit would only make things worse. (And even if I did reveal the existence of the Commendatore, who would believe me? They’d just question my sanity.)

We emerged from the trees in front of the small shrine and circled around to the back. Stepping across the clump of pampas grass, whose plumes still lay cruelly flattened by the backhoe’s treads, we arrived at the pit. The first thing we did was shine our lights on the boards covering the hole and the row of stones that held them down. I checked the placement of the stones. The change was subtle, but I could tell they had been moved. Someone had come after Mariye and me, removed the stones and several boards, and then, when they left, tried to return everything to its original position. My eyes could spot that slight difference.

“Someone moved the stones,” I said. “There are signs that the pit has been opened.”

Menshiki glanced at me. “Do you think it was Mariye?” he asked.

“I wonder. It’s not a place anyone would stumble upon, and apart from you and me, she’s the only one who knows about it. So the chances are good it was Mariye.”

The Commendatore knew about the pit, of course. After all, that was where he had come from. Yet in the end he was an Idea. He had no fixed shape. He wouldn’t have had to move those heavy stones if he wanted to go back inside.

We removed the stones and took the boards away. Once again, the hole was exposed. It was perfectly round and not quite six feet across, but it looked bigger now, and blacker, too. I imagined that the darkness was what created the illusion.

Menshiki and I leaned over the hole and directed our lights inside. No one was there. There was nothing at all. Just that empty cylindrical space surrounded by the same stone wall. There was one difference, however. The ladder had vanished. The collapsible metal ladder that the landscaper had considerately left behind after moving the pile of boulders. I had last seen it leaning against the wall of the pit.

“Where did the ladder go?” I wondered out loud.

It didn’t take us long to find it lying on its side some distance away in a stand of pampas grass that the backhoe hadn’t flattened. Someone had taken it from the hole and chucked it there. It wasn’t heavy, so moving it required no great strength. We returned the ladder to the hole and leaned it back against the wall.

“I’m going down to take a look,” Menshiki said. “Maybe I’ll find something.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been down there before.”

Menshiki descended the ladder with ease, lantern in hand.

“By the way, do you know the height of the Berlin Wall?” he asked as he descended.

“No.”

“Ten feet,” he said looking up at me. “It varied depending on the location, but that was the standard height. A little taller than this hole is deep. It was about a hundred miles long, too. I saw it with my own eyes. When Berlin was still divided into East and West. A pitiful sight.”

When Menshiki reached the bottom, he inspected the pit in the light from his lantern. Even then, though, he kept on talking to me.

“Walls were originally erected to protect people. From external enemies, storms, and floods. Sometimes, though, they were used to keep people in. People are powerless before a sturdy, towering wall. Visually and psychologically. Some walls were constructed for that specific purpose.”

Menshiki broke off at that point. Holding his lantern aloft, he examined every inch of the wall and the ground. Intently and carefully, like an archaeologist poring over the inner sanctum of an Egyptian pyramid. His lantern was stronger than my flashlight, so it illuminated a much wider area. He seemed to have found something on the floor of the pit, for he knelt down and examined it closely. I couldn’t make it out from above, though. Menshiki said nothing. Whatever it was, it must have been very small. He stood up, wrapped it in his handkerchief, and deposited it in the pocket of his windbreaker. He looked up at me.

“I’m coming out,” he said, raising his lantern into the air.

“Did you find something?” I asked.

Menshiki didn’t answer. Carefully, he ascended the ladder. Each rung gave a dull creak under his weight. I kept close watch, my flashlight trained on him. The vantage point made me realize how well his daily routine had trained his body. Not a motion was wasted. Each muscle played its role perfectly. When he was back on the ground he gave a big stretch and then brushed the dirt from his trousers with care. Not that there was much to brush off.

“You can feel how intimidating the height of those walls is from down there. You really feel powerless. I saw something similar in Palestine a while ago. Israel erected a twenty-five-foot concrete wall there, with high-voltage wires running along the top. That wall is almost three hundred miles long. I guess the Israelis figured ten feet was too low, but that’s enough to do the job.”

He set the lantern down. Now the ground around our feet was illuminated.

“Come to think of it, the walls of the solitary cells in Tokyo prison measure about ten feet as well,” Menshiki said. “I don’t know why they made them so high. All you had to look at were those blank walls, day after day. Nothing else to lay your eyes on. No pictures or anything like that, of course. Just those damned walls. You start feeling like you’ve been thrown into a pit.”

I listened in silence.

“I did some time in that place a while back. I haven’t told you about that, have I?”

“No, you haven’t.” My girlfriend had told me he had spent time in prison, but of course I didn’t mention that.

“I figure I should be the one to tell you. You know how gossips love to twist facts to spice up their stories. So it’s better if I give it to you straight. It’s not pretty, but this might be a good time to tell you. In passing, so to speak. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Tell me.”

“I’m not making excuses,” he said after a moment’s pause, “but I’ve done nothing to feel guilty about. I’ve tried my hand at many things in my life. Borne many risks. Still, I’m not stupid, and I am cautious by nature, so I’ve always been careful to avoid anything illegal. I know where to draw the line. In this case, though, I happened to take on a partner who was careless. Because of him, I suffered a great deal. That experience taught me never to join forces with anyone again. To take responsibility for myself and no one else.”

“What were you charged with?”

“Insider trading and tax evasion. What they call ‘economic crimes.’ I was indicted and tried, but in the end they found me not guilty. All the same, the investigation was grueling, and I spent a pretty long time in prison. They found one reason after another to keep me locked up. I was in there for so long that now being surrounded by walls makes me a little nostalgic. As I said, I had done nothing to warrant punishment. My hands were clean. But the prosecutors had already concocted their scenario, and in it, I was guilty as sin. They had no desire to go back and rewrite it. That’s how bureaucracies work. It’s practically impossible to change something once it’s been decided. Going against the current means that someone, somewhere down the line, has to take responsibility. As a result, I spent a long time in solitary.”

“How long?”

“Four hundred and thirty-five days,” Menshiki said, as if it were nothing. “A number I’ll never forget, no matter how long I live.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine what spending that much time in solitary meant.

“Have you ever been confined in a small space for a long time?” Menshiki asked me.

“No,” I said. My experience being locked in the back of the moving van had given me a bad case of claustrophobia. Now I couldn’t even ride in an elevator. I’d fall apart if I were confined as he had been.

“I learned how to endure it,” Menshiki said. “I spent the days training myself. In the process, I learned several foreign languages. Spanish, Turkish, and Chinese. They limit how many books you can keep in solitary, but those restrictions don’t apply to dictionaries. In that sense, it’s the ideal place to study languages. I’m blessed with good powers of concentration, so when I was focused on a language I could forget the walls. There’s a bright side to everything.”

Even the darkest, thickest cloud shines silver when viewed from above.

Menshiki continued. “What terrified me was the thought of earthquake and fire. Trapped like that, I could never have escaped. Imagining myself crushed or burned to death in that tiny space scared me so much sometimes I couldn’t breathe. That was the one fear I couldn’t overcome. It woke me up some nights.”

“But you got through it.”

“Of course. I’d be damned if I’d let those bastards beat me. Or let their system grind me down. If I had signed the papers they laid in front of me, I could have walked out of my cell and returned to the world. But signing them would have meant my utter defeat. I would have admitted to crimes I hadn’t committed. So I decided to treat the experience as an ordeal sent from above, an opportunity to test my strength.”

“Did you think about your time in prison when you spent that hour alone down in the pit?”

“Yes. I need to return to that experience once in a while—it’s my starting point, so to speak. Where the person I am today was formed. It’s easy to get soft when life is comfortable.”

What a peculiar guy, I thought again. How would another person react to treatment that harsh—wouldn’t they try to forget it as soon as possible?

As if remembering, Menshiki reached into the pocket of his windbreaker and pulled out something wrapped in a handkerchief.

“I found this at the bottom of the pit,” he said. He unfolded the handkerchief, took out a small plastic object, and handed it to me.

I examined it under my flashlight. It was a black-and-white penguin, barely half an inch long, with a tiny black strap attached to it. The kind of thing that schoolgirls like to attach to their cell phones and schoolbags. It was clean and looked quite new.

“It wasn’t there the first time I went into the pit,” Menshiki said. “I’m sure of that.”

“So it must have been dropped by someone afterward, when they were down there.”

“I wonder. It looks like a cell phone ornament. And the strap isn’t broken. So someone had to unhook it first. Doesn’t that suggest it wasn’t dropped—that whoever left it did so intentionally?”

“You mean they entered the pit just to leave it there?”

“Or dropped it down from above.”

“Why would anyone do that?” I asked.

Menshiki shook his head. As if he couldn’t understand either. “It’s possible that whoever it was left it as a charm or talisman. That’s just a guess, though.”

“You mean Mariye?”

“Probably. After all, it’s doubtful anyone else was near the pit.”

“So she left it as a kind of charm?”

Menshiki shook his head again. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to read a thirteen-year-old girl—their minds can come up with all sorts of stuff, can’t they?”

I looked again at the tiny penguin in my hand. Now it struck me as a charm or amulet of some kind. An aura of innocence clung to it.

“Then who pulled out the ladder and dragged it over there? What was the reason for that?” I said.

Menshiki shook his head again. He had no idea either.

“Anyway,” I said, “let’s call Shoko when we get back and find out if Mariye has a penguin charm on her cell phone. She should know one way or the other.”

“You hold on to the penguin for now,” Menshiki said. I nodded and put it in my trouser pocket.

We replaced the boards, leaving the ladder resting against the wall of the pit. When we put the stones back I registered their exact positions in my mind. Then we headed home through the woods along the same path we had come on. I glanced at my watch—it was already past midnight. We said nothing, just shone our lights on our feet. We were both lost in thought.

As soon as we got back, Menshiki went to his Jaguar, opened the big trunk, and placed the lantern inside. Then he shut the trunk and, as if finally allowing himself to relax, leaned against it and looked up at the sky. The black sky in which nothing was visible.

“Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes?” he said. “It’d be hard for me to relax at home.”

“By all means. I don’t think I can sleep yet either.”

Menshiki’s eyes were still fixed on the sky. He seemed lost in thought.

“I can’t explain why,” I said, “but I can’t get rid of this feeling that something bad is happening to Mariye. And that she’s nearby.”

“But not in the pit, right?”

“I guess not.”

“What kind of bad thing?” Menshiki asked.

“That I don’t know. But I feel she’s in some kind of physical danger.”

“And that the danger is lurking somewhere close to here, right?”

“Right,” I said. “Near here. And it bothers me that the ladder was removed from the pit. Who took it, and why did they hide it in the grass? What does it all mean?”

Menshiki stood up and gave me another pat on the shoulder. “You’re right. I don’t know either. But worrying about it won’t get us anywhere. Let’s go inside.”

⁴⁷ “IT IS NOW FRIDAY, IS IT NOT?”

The moment we walked in the house I threw off my leather jacket and called Shoko. She picked up on the third ring.

“Anything new?” I asked.

“Mariye still hasn’t called.” I could hear her struggling to breathe normally.

“Have you contacted the police?”

“No, not yet. It still feels too early somehow. I keep thinking she’ll come wandering in the door…”

I described the plastic penguin we had found at the bottom of the pit. Without detailing how we’d found it, I asked if Mariye carried such an object with her.

“Yes, Mariye had a penguin attached to her cell phone. It was a penguin, I’m sure… yes. A penguin. Without doubt. A tiny plastic figurine. She got it in a donut shop. It came free with her order, but she treasured it. As if it were a kind of protective charm.”

“And she carried her phone wherever she went, correct?”

“Yes. It was turned off most of the time, but she always had it with her, yes. She didn’t receive calls, but occasionally she’d call to let me know when something came up.” Shoko paused for a moment. “Did you find it somewhere?”

I struggled to come up with an answer. If I told the truth, I’d have to tell her about the pit in the woods. If the police got involved, I would have to explain it to them as well—in a way they could swallow. Since the penguin was something she carried, they would comb the pit, even search the whole woods for further evidence. I would get the third degree, and Menshiki’s past would be brought into it. I couldn’t see how any of that would help. As Menshiki had said, it would just complicate things.

“I found it in the studio,” I said. I hated to lie, but I had to. “When I was sweeping the floor. I thought that it might be Mariye’s.”

“Yes, it’s hers. I’m sure,” said the girl’s aunt. “But then what should I do? Should I call the police?”

“Have you heard from your brother—I mean, Mariye’s father?”

“No, I haven’t been able to reach him,” she said hesitantly. “I have no idea where he is. He’s not someone who follows a regular schedule—I’m never sure if he’s coming home or not.”

The situation sounded complicated, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. I simply told her to inform the police of Mariye’s disappearance. It was after midnight, and the date had changed. It was possible that Mariye had been in some kind of accident. She said she’d call them right away.

“So Mariye still isn’t answering her cell phone?”

“No, she isn’t answering, though I’ve called her many times. It seems to be turned off. Or the batteries are dead. One or the other.”

“She left this morning for school, and she’s been missing ever since. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“Which means she should be in her school uniform, correct?”

“Yes, she should be. A navy-blue blazer and vest, a white blouse, a knee-length plaid skirt, white socks, and black loafers. Oh, and a plastic shoulder bag with the school’s name and emblem on it. She wasn’t wearing a coat.”

“Didn’t she have another bag for her art supplies?”

“She keeps that in her locker at school. She uses it when they have art class, and then takes it to your class on Fridays. She doesn’t bring it from home.”

That was the outfit she always wore to my class—blue jacket, white blouse, tartan plaid skirt, plastic shoulder bag, and a white canvas bag with her paints and brushes. I could picture her perfectly.

“Was she carrying anything else?”

“No, not today. So I doubt she was going very far.”

“Please call me if you hear anything,” I said. “Any time of the day or night.”

She said she would.

I hung up the phone.

Menshiki was standing beside me throughout this conversation. Only after I put down the phone did he shed his windbreaker. Underneath was a black V-neck sweater.

“So the penguin was Mariye’s after all,” Menshiki said.

“Seems so.”

“In which case, it’s likely that she went into the pit at some point—we don’t know when—and left her treasured penguin there. That’s what we have so far.”

“So you think she left it there on purpose, as a protective talisman.”

“Probably.”

“But if that’s so, who or what was it protecting?”

Menshiki shook his head. “I’m not sure. But it was clearly her lucky charm. So she must have left it behind for a reason. People don’t part with things they value so easily.”

“Unless it’s to protect something they value more than themselves.”

“For example?” Menshiki said.

Neither of us could answer that one.

We sat there in silence. Slowly but surely, the hands of the clock inched ahead. Each tick pushed the world that much further forward. Outside the window stretched a vast darkness. Nothing moved there. It seemed nothing could.

I suddenly recalled what the Commendatore had said about the missing bell. “The bell was never mine alone. It belonged to the place, to be shared by everyone. So if it disappeared there must have been a reason for it.”

Belonged to the place?

“Just maybe Mariye didn’t leave this penguin in the pit. Couldn’t the pit be connected to some other location? Perhaps it isn’t a sealed-off space but a conduit of some kind. If that’s the case, it might be able to summon all sorts of things.”

That is what I had been thinking, but said aloud it sounded ludicrous. The Commendatore might have understood. But not anyone from this world.

A deep silence settled over the room.

“So what could the bottom of the pit be connected to?” Menshiki said at last, as if addressing himself. “Remember, not so long ago I spent an hour alone down there. In the dark, without a light or a ladder. I tried to use the silence to focus my mind. To extinguish my physical existence and become pure consciousness. I figured if I could do that, I could transcend those stone walls and go wherever I liked. I used to try the same sort of thing when I was in solitary. But I couldn’t find a way out of the pit. In the end, those walls allowed me no escape.”

Perhaps the pit chose whom it wanted, I thought. The Commendatore had come to me when he left the pit. Chosen me as his lodgings, so to speak. Mariye too might have been chosen. But the pit hadn’t chosen Menshiki—for whatever reason.

“In any case,” I said, “we’re agreed—we won’t tell the police about the pit. At this stage, anyway. Still, we’re clearly concealing evidence if we keep our mouths shut about finding the penguin there. If they find that out, we could be in a sticky position.”

Menshiki thought for a moment. “So we’ll keep our lips sealed—that’s all there is to it!” he said at last. “You found it on your studio floor. We’ll go with that.”

“Maybe one of us should be with Shoko,” I said. “She’s home by herself with no idea what to do. Lost and confused. She’s heard nothing from Mariye’s father. Doesn’t she need someone there?”

Menshiki furrowed his brow. “I’m in no position to do that,” he said at last, shaking his head. “Her brother and I are total strangers, so if he came back…”

Menshiki lapsed into silence.

I had nothing to say either.

Menshiki sat there, lightly drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa. Whatever he was thinking brought a slight flush to his cheeks.

“Would you mind if I stayed a little longer?” he asked a while later. “Shoko may try to get in touch with us.”

“By all means, please do,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be going to bed any time soon. Stay as long as you like. You can sleep here too. I’ll lay out some bedding for you.”

Menshiki said he might take me up on my offer.

“Shall I make coffee?” I asked.

“Sounds good,” Menshiki said.

I went to the kitchen, ground the beans, and started the coffee maker. When the coffee was ready, I took it out to the living room. Then Menshiki and I drank it together.

“I think I’ll build a fire,” I said. The room had grown markedly colder once midnight passed. It was already December. An appropriate time for the first fire of the season.

I filled the cast-iron grate in the fireplace with the small stack of firewood I had set aside in the corner of the living room. Then I inserted paper under the grate and lit a match. The wood appeared to be dry, for it caught right away. I was worried that the fireplace might back up—Masahiko had said it was set to go, but you never knew until you used it. A bird could have nested in the chimney. Fortunately, however, it worked beautifully. We moved our chairs in front of the fireplace and sat there in the warmth.

“Nothing beats a wood fire,” Menshiki said.

I thought of offering him some whiskey but changed my mind. Tonight we should stay sober. Who knows, we might have to drive somewhere. So we listened to records and watched the flames dance. Menshiki selected a Beethoven violin sonata and put it on the turntable. Georg Kulenkampff on violin, with Wilhelm Kempff on piano. Perfect music for an early-winter night before a fire. It was hard to enjoy it, though, with Mariye out there shivering in the cold.

Shoko called half an hour later. Her brother had just come home and had already contacted the police. They would be there any moment to investigate. (The Akikawas were an old and wealthy family in the area, so the possibility that it was a kidnapping was making them move quickly.) There was no word from Mariye, and calling her cell phone still didn’t work. They had contacted every likely person they could think of (there weren’t that many) with no luck. No one knew where Mariye had gone.

“Let’s hope she’s all right,” I said. I asked her to let me know if there was any progress, and hung up the phone.

We sat before the fire and listened to another record. Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto. Menshiki plucked that off the shelf as well. It was the first time I had heard it. We sat there side by side as it played, watching the fire and thinking our solitary thoughts.

At one thirty, I suddenly grew terribly sleepy. I could barely keep my eyes open. I’ve always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, so late nights are hard on me.

“Go ahead and turn in,” Menshiki said, looking directly at me. “Shoko may call again, so I’ll stay up a while longer. I don’t need much sleep. I can skip a night without any problem. Always been that way. So please don’t worry about me. I’ll keep the fire burning. I can watch it while I listen to music. Do you mind?”

Of course not, I said. I brought in another load of firewood from the shed outside the kitchen and stacked it next to the fireplace. More than enough, I thought, to last until morning.

“Well then, I’m off to bed,” I said to Menshiki.

“Sleep tight,” he answered. “Let’s rotate. I’ll probably sleep for a bit around daybreak. Could you lend me a blanket or something?”

I went and got the blanket Masahiko had used, a down duvet, and a pillow, and arranged them on the sofa. Menshiki thanked me.

“I have whiskey if you’d like some,” I added.

Menshiki gave a brusque shake of his head. “No, no alcohol for me tonight. We don’t know what could happen.”

“If you get hungry, please help yourself to the food in the fridge. There’s not much, but there’s crackers and cheese at least.”

“Thanks,” Menshiki said.

Leaving him there, I retired to my room. I slipped under the covers, flicked off the bedside light, and tried to go to sleep. Yet sleep didn’t come. I was exhausted, but a tiny bug was whirring in my brain. This happens sometimes. I gave up, switched the light back on, and got out of bed.

“What might be the problem, my friends?” the Commendatore said. “You cannot sleep?”

I looked around the room. There he was, sitting on the windowsill, clad in the same white garment. Strange pointy-toed shoes, a miniature sword by his side. His hair neatly tied back. As always, a perfect replica of the Commendatore who was stabbed to death in Tomohiko Amada’s painting.

“You’re right, I can’t sleep,” I said.

“There is indeed a great deal happening these days,” said the Commendatore. “No wonder people struggle so to drift off, to no avail.”

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it,” I said.

“I cannot attest to that. I think I told my friends before, but ‘long time’ is lost on us Ideas. We cannot fathom ‘It’s been a long time,’ or ‘Sorry not to have written in so long.’”

“Still, your timing is perfect. There’s something I need to ask you.”

“And what, then, is the question?”

“Mariye Akikawa went missing this morning, and everyone is out looking for her. Where on earth could she have gone?”

The Commendatore cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment.

“As my friends know,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “the human realm is ruled by three elements: time, space, and probability. Ideas, by contrast, must remain independent of all three. I cannot, therefore, concern myself with matters of the sort that my friends have just described.”

“I can’t entirely follow you—is the problem that you can’t foresee the outcome?”

The Commendatore didn’t answer.

“Or is it that you know, but can’t tell me?”

The Commendatore narrowed his eyes in thought. “I am not evading responsibility—Ideas have our own constraints.”

I stiffened my back and looked him square in the face.

“Let’s get things straight. I must save Mariye Akikawa. She may be in great danger, and needing my help. She has likely wandered into a place from which she cannot escape. That’s the feeling I get, anyway. Still, I’m at a loss how to find her. And I think her disappearance is linked in some way to the pit in the woods. I can’t give you a rational explanation, but I’m quite sure there’s a connection. Now, you spent a very long time confined in that same hole. I have no idea what led you to be shut up there. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the case, Menshiki and I brought in heavy equipment, moved the pile of boulders, and opened the pit. We set you free. That’s true, isn’t it? Thanks to us, you are now able to move throughout time and space, with no restriction. Appear and disappear as you like. You can even watch me making love to my girlfriend. All this is as I say, isn’t it?”

“Affirmative, my friends. Affirmative!”

“I’m not demanding that you tell me precisely how Mariye can be saved. I’m not asking the impossible—I can see that the world of Ideas has its own restrictions. But can’t you give me a hint? After all I’ve done for you, don’t you think you owe me at least that much?”

The Commendatore gave a deep sigh.

“An indirect, roundabout hint is enough. I’m not trying to accomplish anything earthshaking here, like putting a stop to ethnic cleansing or global warming, or saving the African elephant. All I’m trying to do is find one thirteen-year-old girl who’s likely caught somewhere, in some small, dark place, and return her to this world.”

The Commendatore sat there for a long time lost in thought, his arms folded. He seemed to be having second thoughts.

“Affirmative, my friends,” he said, with resignation. “When you speak in such a fashion, there is not much I can do. I will give my friends but a single hint. Yet be warned—several sacrifices may be required. Are you willing nonetheless?”

“What sort of sacrifices?”

“I cannot speak much of that yet. But they will be inevitable. Metaphorically speaking, there will be blood. That is an inevitable fact. What sorts of sacrifices are involved should grow clearer as time passes. Someone may have to risk his life.”

“I don’t care. Give me the hint.”

“Affirmative!” the Commendatore said. “It is now Friday, is it not?”

I checked my bedside clock. “Yes, it’s still Friday. No, wait a minute, it’s Saturday already.”

“On Saturday morning, before noon, my friends will receive a phone call,” the Commendatore said. “For an invitation somewhere. No matter the circumstances, my friends must not decline that invitation. Do you understand?”

I mechanically repeated what he had just said. “Someone will call me this morning and invite me somewhere. I must not decline.”

“Hold those words close,” said the Commendatore. “For it is the only hint I am able to share. It traverses the narrow line that divides ‘public’ and ‘private’ parlance.”

With those final words, the Commendatore began to fade away. Before I knew it, his form had disappeared from the window ledge.

I turned off the bedside lamp and this time fell asleep with relative ease. The whir of insect wings in my head was gone. A moment before I went under, I imagined Menshiki sitting in front of the fire, absorbed in his thoughts. I guessed he would keep the fire burning all night. I had no idea what those thoughts might be, of course. He was a strange man. But it went without saying that his life was bounded by time, space, and probability. Like everyone else’s in this world. None of us could escape those constraints, as long as we lived. Each of us was enclosed by sturdy walls that stretched high in the air, surrounding us on all sides. Probably.

“Someone will call me this morning and invite me somewhere. I must not decline.” I parroted the Commendatore’s words one more time in my head. Then I slept.

⁴⁸ THE SPANIARDS SIMPLY COULDN’T NAVIGATE THE ANGRY SEAS OFF THE IRISH COAST

I woke shortly after five. It was still dark outside. I slipped a cardigan over my pajamas and went to check the living room. Menshiki was sleeping on the sofa. He hadn’t been asleep for long—the fire was out but the room was still warm. The stack of firewood had shrunk. He was sleeping peacefully on his side, breathing quietly with the duvet draped over his body. Not snoring at all. His manners governed even the way he slept. The room seemed to be holding its breath so as not to disturb him.

Leaving him there, I went into the kitchen and brewed coffee. I made some toast as well. Then I carried the toast and coffee into the dining area and sat there, munching and sipping, as I read my book. It was about the Spanish Armada. About the unfolding of the brutal conflict upon which Queen Elizabeth and Philip II had staked the fortunes of their nations. Why did I feel compelled to read an account of that late-sixteenth-century sea battle off the coast of Great Britain at that particular moment? All I knew was that, once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. It was an old book I had found on Tomohiko Amada’s shelf.

While standard accounts claim that faulty strategy caused the Armada’s decimation by the English fleet, a defeat that changed the course of history, this book argued that most of the damage was caused not by direct fire from English cannon (volleys by both sides, it appeared, missed their targets to fall harmlessly into the ocean), but by shipwreck. Accustomed to the calm waters of the Mediterranean, the Spaniards simply couldn’t navigate the angry seas off the Irish coast, and thus ran vessel after vessel against the dark reefs.

As I followed the sad fate of the Spanish navy and sipped my second cup of black coffee, the sky gradually brightened in the east. It was Saturday morning.

Someone will phone you, my friends, this morning, and invite you somewhere. You must not decline.

I mentally repeated what the Commendatore had told me. Then I looked at the phone. It preserved its silence. But it would ring at some point, I was sure of that. The Commendatore was not one to lie. All I could do was be patient and wait.

I thought of Mariye. I wanted to call her aunt to find out if she was safe, but it was still too early. I should wait until seven o’clock at least. Her aunt would contact me if Mariye was found. She knew how worried I was. No word from her meant no progress. So I sat at the dining table reading about the invincible Armada and, when I tired of reading, staring at the phone. But the phone maintained its silence.

I called Shoko shortly after seven. She answered immediately. As if she had been sitting beside the phone, waiting for it to ring.

“We haven’t heard from her. She’s still missing,” she said right away. She sounded as if she’d had little (or maybe no) sleep. Fatigue filled her voice.

“Are the police looking?” I asked.

“Yes, two officers came last night. We gave them photographs of Mariye, described what she was wearing… We explained that she isn’t the kind of girl who would run away or stay out late partying. They spread the word, and by now I’m sure it’s been broadcast to all the precincts. I’ve asked them not to make the search public yet, of course.”

“But nothing so far, correct?”

“That’s right, no leads up to this point. I’m sure they’re working very hard on it, though.”

I did my best to console her and asked her to let me know the moment something did turn up. She promised she would.

When our call ended, Menshiki had already risen and was scrubbing his face in the bathroom sink. After brushing his teeth with the toothbrush I had set aside for him, he sat across from me at the dining room table and drank his black coffee. I offered him toast, but he declined. Sleeping on the sofa had mussed his luxuriant hair a bit more than usual, but then his “usual” was super neat. The man sitting there was the same coolheaded, well-groomed guy as always.

I related my conversation with Shoko. “This is just my gut feeling,” he said when I finished, “but I doubt the police will be very much help.”

“Why is that?”

“Mariye is no typical teenager, and her disappearance is no typical disappearance. I don’t think she was kidnapped, either. That means the usual police methods are likely to hit a wall.”

I didn’t offer an opinion. But I figured he was right. We had been given an equation with multiple functions but almost no solid numbers. To make any progress, we had to nail down as many numbers as possible.

“Shall we go take another look at the pit?” I asked. “Who knows—there might be some change.”

“Let’s go,” Menshiki said.

We were operating under the tacit assumption that nothing else was to be done. I knew that the phone could ring, and that Shoko Akikawa or the person behind the “invitation” the Commendatore had mentioned might be on the other end. But I was pretty sure neither would call this early. Call it a vague premonition on my part.

We put on our jackets and headed out. It was a sunny day. A southwesterly wind had swept away the cloud cover of the previous night, leaving behind a sky almost unnaturally high and transparent. Indeed, when I raised my eyes to the sky, I had the feeling that up and down had been reversed, and that I was peering down into a spring of clear water. I could hear the faint drone of a long train running along a faraway track. When the air was like this, you could pick up distant sounds on the wind with great clarity. That’s the sort of morning it was.

Without exchanging a word, we cut through the woods and around the little shrine. The plank cover of the pit was exactly as we had left it the night before. Nor had the stones holding it down been moved. When we took off the boards, the ladder was still leaning against the wall, its position unchanged. No one was in the pit. This time, Menshiki didn’t offer to go down to search the floor. The bright sunlight made that unnecessary—we could see that nothing had changed. The pit looked altogether different in the light of day than it had at night. There was nothing at all unsettling about it.

We replaced the lid and rearranged the stones that held it down. Then we walked back through the woods. In front of my house, Menshiki’s spotless silver Jaguar sat reticently beside my dusty, unpretentious Toyota Corolla.

When he reached his car, Menshiki came to a halt. “I think I’ll head home,” he said. “I’ll just be in your way if I presume on your hospitality any longer, and there’s nothing I can do now anyway. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. Please go home and rest. I’ll let you know right away if there’s any change.”

“Today is Saturday, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. It’s Saturday.”

Menshiki reached into his windbreaker pocket and pulled out his key. He stood there staring at it for a moment, thinking. Trying to make his mind up about something, perhaps. I waited for him to reach a conclusion.

“There’s one thing I should probably tell you,” he said at last.

I leaned on the door of my Corolla as he figured out what to say.

“It’s actually quite personal, so I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate, but then I thought perhaps I should, for courtesy’s sake. I don’t want to cause any needless misunderstandings… Anyway, the thing is, Shoko and I have become—what’s the correct word?—quite intimately involved.”

“You mean you and she are lovers?” I asked, cutting to the chase.

“Exactly,” Menshiki replied after a moment’s pause. I thought I saw a faint blush rise to his cheeks. “You may think it quite hasty.”

“No, the speed isn’t the problem.”

“That’s correct,” Menshiki acknowledged. “The speed is not the problem.”

“The problem is—” I began.

“My motives, you were going to say. Am I correct?”

I didn’t respond. Yet it was clear that my silence meant yes.

“You should know,” he said, “that none of this was planned from the beginning. It was an entirely natural development. In fact, it happened without me being conscious of it. You may find that hard to believe, of course.”

I sighed. Then I spoke frankly. “All I know is that if you started with that plan in mind, it would have been pretty easy to carry out. I’m not being sarcastic, either.”

“You’re probably right,” Menshiki said. “I recognize that. Easy, or at least not all that difficult. Perhaps. But that’s not how it was.”

“So are you saying that you met Shoko Akikawa for the first time and fell in love right off the bat, or something like that?”

Menshiki pursed his lips as if embarrassed. “Fell in love? No, I can’t make that claim. To be honest, the last time I fell in love—I think that’s probably what it was—was ages ago. I can’t even remember what it was like. But I can say with confidence that I find myself powerfully attracted to Shoko, as a man is attracted to a woman.”

“Leaving Mariye out of the picture?”

“That’s hard to know. Mariye was the reason for our first meeting, after all. But had Mariye never existed, I think I still would have been attracted to her aunt.”

I wondered about that. Would a man whose mind was as complicated as Menshiki’s be so “powerfully attracted” to a woman as simple and easygoing as Shoko Akikawa? Still, I was in no position to judge. The workings of the human heart are impossible to predict. Especially when sex is involved.

“I understand,” I said. “At any rate, thank you for speaking so honestly. Honesty is always best, I think.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“To tell you the truth, Mariye already knew. That you and Shoko had begun that sort of relationship. In fact, she came to talk to me about it. A few days ago.”

The news seemed to catch Menshiki by surprise.

“She’s a perceptive child,” he said. “We tried our best not to let her find out.”

“Yes, a very perceptive child. But she didn’t find out from you. It was the things her aunt said and did that tipped her off.”

Shoko was a well-brought-up, intelligent woman, but while she could conceal her feelings to a degree, her mask was bound to slip sooner or later. Menshiki was aware of that, no question.

“If that’s the case… do you think Mariye’s disappearance is connected to her discovery of our relationship?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell for sure. But I can tell you that you and Shoko ought to talk through everything together. She’s beside herself with worry, and she’s confused. She must be in need of your encouragement and support. Urgently in need.”

“You’re right. I’ll contact her the minute I get home.”

Menshiki wasn’t finished. Something else appeared to be on his mind.

He sighed. “To tell the truth, I don’t think I’ve fallen in love. I’m not cut out for that. Haven’t been from the beginning. I don’t know why I feel as I do. Would I have been so attracted to Shoko if not for Mariye? The connection between the two of them isn’t clear to me at all.”

I said nothing.

“But I swear I didn’t plan any of it in advance. Can you believe me?”

“Mr. Menshiki,” I said. “I can’t explain why, but I think you’re an honest man at heart.”

“Thank you,” he said. The corners of his mouth edged upward. It was a somewhat uncomfortable smile, but not an altogether unhappy one.

“Can I go on being honest?” he said.

“Of course.”

“Sometimes I think I’m empty,” he confessed. The smile still lingered on his lips.

“Empty?”

“Hollow inside. I know it sounds arrogant, but I’ve always operated on the assumption that I was a lot brighter and more capable than other people. More perceptive and discerning, with greater powers of judgment. Physically stronger, too. I figured I could succeed at whatever I turned my mind to. And I did. Put my hands on whatever I wanted to possess. Being locked up in Tokyo prison was a clear setback, of course, but I considered that an exception to the rule. When I was young, I saw no limits to what I could achieve. I thought I could attain a state close to perfection. Climb and climb until I reached a height where I could gaze down on everyone else. But when I passed fifty, I looked at myself in the mirror and discovered nothing but emptiness. A zero. What T. S. Eliot called a ‘straw man.’”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“My whole life may have been a mistake up till now,” Menshiki went on. “I feel that way sometimes. That I took a wrong turn somewhere. That nothing I’ve done has any real meaning. That’s why I told you I often find myself envying you.”

“Envying what, for example?”

“You have the strength to wish for what you cannot have. While I have only wished for those things I can possess.”

I assumed he was talking about Mariye. She was the one thing that had evaded his grasp. Yet there wasn’t much I could say about that.

Menshiki slowly got into his car. Then he rolled down the window, said goodbye, and drove off. When his car was out of sight I went back into the house. It was just past eight.

The telephone rang at shortly after ten. The call was from Masahiko.

“I know it’s sudden,” he said, “but I’m on my way to Izu to see my father. Would you like to come along? You mentioned the other day that you’d like to meet him.”

Someone will phone my friends tomorrow morning and invite you somewhere. You must not decline.

“That’s great. I’d love to go.”

“I just got on the Tokyo-Nagoya Expressway. I’m at the Kohoku parking area now. I think it’ll take me about an hour to reach you. I’ll pick you up and we can drive to Izu Kogen.”

“Did something happen to your father?”

“Yeah, the nursing home called. Seems he’s taken a turn for the worse. So I’m going to check on him. I’m more or less free today anyway.”

“Are you sure it’s all right if I go along? Aren’t times like this for family only?”

“Don’t worry. It’s perfectly okay. No other relatives will be there, so the more the merrier.” He hung up.

I put down the phone and scanned the room. Was the Commendatore around? But he was nowhere to be seen. Prophecy dispensed, he had disappeared. Probably to a realm where the dictates of time, space, and probability did not apply. Nevertheless, there had been a morning phone call, and I had been invited somewhere. So far, at least, that prophecy had been accurate. It bothered me to leave with Mariye still unaccounted for, but I couldn’t do much about that. The Commendatore had instructed me, “No matter the circumstances, my friends must not decline that invitation.” I could leave Shoko in Menshiki’s hands. After all, she was his responsibility, to some extent.

I sat back in the easy chair in the living room and resumed the story of the invincible Armada as I waited for Masahiko. Almost all the Spanish soldiers and seamen who had managed to escape their shipwrecked vessels and crawl onto the shores of Ireland more dead than alive were murdered by those who lived along the coast. The poverty-stricken locals had slaughtered them for their possessions. It had been the Spaniards’ hope that, as fellow Catholics, the Irish might show them mercy, but they were out of luck. Religious solidarity was no match for the fear of starvation. Sadly, the Spanish ship carrying the war chest holding the gold and silver intended to buy off England’s powerful nobility sank as well. No one knew where all that wealth had gone.

It was shortly before eleven in the morning when Masahiko’s old black Volvo pulled up in front of my house. I was still thinking about all those gold coins lying at the bottom of the sea as I threw on my leather jacket and headed out the door.

The route Masahiko chose took us from the Hakone Turnpike to the Izu Skyline highway and then down from the Amagi highlands to Izu. He explained that this way would be faster—that the weekend meant the coastal roads would be jammed—but nevertheless our route was crowded with people out on excursions. The leaf-viewing season had not yet ended, and many of those on the road were weekenders unfamiliar with mountain driving, so the trip took a lot longer than expected.

“Is your father really in bad shape?” I asked.

“He’s not long for this world, that’s for sure,” Masahiko said lightly. “A matter of days, to be more precise. Age has whittled him down to almost nothing. He has trouble eating, and pneumonia is a constant threat. But the patient’s orders are that under no circumstances are IV lines and feeding tubes to be used. In other words, he demands that he be allowed to go quietly once he can no longer eat. He arranged this with his lawyer when he was still mentally competent, signed the forms and everything. So there will be no interventions. That means he could go at any time.”

“So I guess you have to be prepared for the worst.”

“That’s about right.”

“It must be rough.”

“Hey, it’s a big deal when someone dies. I can hardly complain.”

The old Volvo was equipped with a tape deck, and the glove compartment was stuffed with cassettes. Masahiko stuck his hand in, grabbed one, and inserted it without checking to see what it was. It turned out to be a collection of hits from the 1980s. Duran Duran, Huey Lewis, and so on. When ABC’s “The Look of Love” came on, I turned to him.

“Sure feels like time has stopped in this car,” I said.

“I don’t like CDs. They’re too shiny—they’d scare crows away if I hung them outside my house, but they’re hardly something to listen to music on. The sound is tinny and the mixing is unnatural. Having no A and B sides is a drag too. That’s why I still drive this car—so I can listen to my cassettes. Newer models don’t have tape decks, right? Everyone thinks I’m nuts. But I’m stuck. I have a huge collection of songs I recorded off the radio and I don’t want them to go to waste.”

“Man, I never thought I’d hear ABC’s ‘Look of Love’ again in this lifetime.”

“Don’t you think it’s amazing?” Masahiko said, casting me a quizzical glance.

We went on talking about the music of the eighties, songs we’d heard on the radio, as we tooled through the mountains of Hakone. The blue slopes of Mt. Fuji loomed around each curve.

“You and your dad are quite a pair,” I said. “The father listens only to records, and the son is stuck on cassettes.”

“You should talk. You’re just as behind the times. Worse than us, maybe. I mean, you don’t even have a cell phone. And you hardly ever go online, right? I’ve always got my cell phone with me, and anything I need to know, I Google. I design stuff on my Mac at work. Socially, I’m light-years ahead of you.”

Bertie Higgins’s rendition of “Key Largo” came on. An interesting selection indeed for a guy claiming to be socially evolved.

“Are you seeing anyone these days?” I asked, changing the subject.

“You mean, like a woman?”

“Yeah.”

Masahiko gave a small shrug. “I can’t say it’s going all that well. As usual. And things have gotten even rockier since I made this weird breakthrough.”

“What kind of breakthrough?”

“That the right and left sides of a woman’s face don’t match up. Did you know that?”

“People aren’t perfectly symmetrical,” I said. “Whether it’s breasts or balls, the size and shape of the two sides are always going to be different. Every artist knows that much. That lack of symmetry is one of the things that makes the human form so interesting.”

Masahiko shook his head several times without taking his eyes off the road. “Of course I know that. But what I’m saying is a little different. I’m talking about personality, not form.”

I waited for him to go on.

“About two months ago, I took a photo of this woman I was seeing with a digital camera. A close-up of her face from the front. I put it on the big office computer. Then I managed to divide the screen down the middle and look at the two halves of her face separately. Removing the right half to look at the left, and vice versa… You get the idea, right?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“That’s when I realized that her left side and her right side looked like two separate people. Like Two-Face, the bad guy in Batman.”

“I missed that one.”

“You should watch it sometime. It’s pretty good. Anyway, it freaked me out a bit. I should have left things alone at that point, but I went ahead and tried reversing each side to make a composite face. That way, I could double the right side to create a complete face, and do the same with the left side. Computers make that sort of stuff easy. What I was left with was images of what could only be seen as two women with two totally distinct personalities. It shocked me. I mean, there were actually two women inside every woman I met. Have you ever looked at women that way?”

“Nope,” I said.

“I tested my idea on several other women. Took head shots and created left- and right-side composites on the computer. That made it even clearer. That women literally have two faces. Once I knew that, I found I couldn’t figure out women at all. For example, if I was with a woman and we were having sex, I didn’t know if it was her right side or her left that I was embracing. If it was the right side, then where had the left side gone—what was it doing, and what was it thinking?—and if it was the left side, then what was the right side thinking? Once I reached that point, things got really messy. Get what I’m saying?”

“Not completely, but I can see that it must be messy.”

“You bet. Really messy.”

“Did you try it on men’s faces?”

“Yeah, I did. But it didn’t work the same way. The only drastic changes were with women’s faces.”

“Maybe you should go see a psychologist or therapist about this,” I said.

Masahiko sighed. “You know, I’ve always believed myself to be a totally normal sort of guy.”

“That could be a dangerous belief.”

“To believe that I’m normal?”

“I think it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote that one should never trust people who claim they’re normal. It’s in one of his novels.”

Masahiko thought about that for a moment. “So even a commonplace man is irreplaceable?”

“I guess that’s another way of putting it.”

Masahiko thought for a while, his hands on the steering wheel.

“At any rate,” he said, “could you try it just once and see?”

“You know I’ve been a portrait painter for a long time. So I think I’m more skilled than most when it comes to examining faces. You could even say I’m an expert at it. But I’ve never thought that the difference between the right and left sides reflected a disparity in personality. Not once.”

“But almost all the subjects you painted were men, correct?”

Masahiko had a point. I’d never been commissioned to paint a woman. For whatever reason, my portraits were all of men. The only exception was Mariye Akikawa, and she was more child than woman. And I hadn’t finished her portrait, either.

“Men and women are different,” Masahiko insisted. “Completely.”

“So then let me ask you,” I said. “Are you claiming this personality difference on the right and left sides applies to almost all women?”

“Yeah, that’s my conclusion.”

“So then do you find yourself attracted to one side or the other? Or do you find you like both sides less?”

Masahiko pondered this question for a moment. “No,” he said at last. “That’s not how it works. It’s not that I prefer one side to the other. That I find one side cheerful and the other gloomy, or that one side is prettier. The problem is at another level: it’s simply that the two sides are different. It’s that sheer fact that shakes me up. Sometimes it scares me.”

“It sounds to me like a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder,” I said.

“It sounds like that to me too,” Masahiko said. “Just listening to myself. But it’s the truth. I ask you, just check it out for yourself.”

I promised him I would. But I had no intention of following through. That could only add to my troubles. My life was messy enough as it was.

Then we talked about Tomohiko Amada. About Tomohiko Amada in Vienna.

“My father said he heard Richard Strauss conduct one of Beethoven’s symphonies,” Masahiko said. “With the Vienna Philharmonic, of course. He said it was out of this world. That’s one of the few stories he told me about his days in Vienna.”

“What else did he say about his time there?”

“Nothing at all remarkable. He mentioned the food, the drink, the music. Stuff like that. He really loved music, you know. That was all he talked about. He never mentioned painting or politics or things of that sort. Or women either.”

Masahiko paused before continuing.

“Maybe someone should write my father’s biography. It could be a really interesting book. But the reality is, no one will ever take a shot at it. Why? Because there’s hardly any personal information out there. My father had no friends, his family members were virtual strangers—he just spent his time shut away by himself on a mountain, painting. His only acquaintances, if you could call them that, were a handful of art dealers. He hardly spoke to anyone. He wrote no letters. So if someone did try to write his biography, they’d have almost nothing to work with. It’s not just that there are a few holes in his life story, it’s that his life is riddled with them. Think of Swiss cheese with more holes than cheese.”

“All he’s leaving behind is his work.”

“You’re right, his paintings and almost nothing else. That’s probably the way he wanted it.”

“And you. You’re a part of his legacy too,” I said.

“Me?” Masahiko looked at me in surprise. Then he turned back to the road. “You’re right there. If I stop to think of it, I’m part of his legacy too. Not a particularly shining part, though.”

“But irreplaceable.”

“True enough. Run of the mill, but nonetheless irreplaceable,” Masahiko said. “You know what I think sometimes? That you should have been Tomohiko Amada’s son. If that were the case, things would have gone so much more smoothly.”

“Give me a break!” I said with a laugh. “No one was fit for that role!”

“Maybe not,” Masahiko said. “But you might have been his spiritual successor, if you can call it that. You’re a lot more qualified in that area than I am—that’s my gut feeling anyway.”

Killing Commendatore popped into my mind. Was that painting something I had “inherited” from Tomohiko Amada? Had he led me to that attic room to discover it? Was he using it to demand something of me?

Deborah Harry was singing “French Kissin’ in the USA” on the car stereo. It was hard to think of less appropriate background music for our conversation.

“I guess it must have been tough having a father like Tomohiko Amada,” I said bluntly.

“I reached a point years ago where I had to make a clean break and move on with my life,” Masahiko said. “Once I had done that, it wasn’t as hard on me as everyone thought. I make a living from art as well, but the scale of my father’s talent and the scale of mine are so dramatically different. When the gap is that huge, it stops being a problem. My father’s fame as an artist doesn’t hurt anymore. What hurts is the kind of human being he was, the fact that until the very end, he never opened up to me, his own son. That he didn’t pass a single bit of information about himself on to me.”

“So he showed nothing of his inner world, even to you?”

“Not a glimpse. His attitude was: ‘I gave you half my DNA, so what more do you want? The rest is up to you.’ But a relationship is based on more than DNA. Right? I never asked him to act as my guide through life. I didn’t demand that. But it still should have been possible to have something like a father-son conversation once in a while. He could have filled me in just a little on what he had experienced, what he thought. Even bits and pieces would have helped.”

I listened quietly to what he had to say.

When we stopped at a long red light, Masahiko took off his dark Ray-Ban sunglasses and wiped them with his handkerchief.

“My guess,” he said, turning in my direction, “is that my father is hiding heavy secrets of some kind, personal secrets he has borne entirely alone and intends to take with him when he drifts from this world. It’s like there’s this metal safe in his heart where he stored them. He locked them all in there, and then he either threw the key away or hid it somewhere. Now he can’t remember where he stashed it.”

In that case, the unsolved riddle of what had taken place in Vienna in 1938 would be buried in darkness. Then again, perhaps Killing Commendatore itself was the hidden key. The idea struck me all of a sudden. Were that true, it would explain why, at the end of his life, Tomohiko’s living spirit had returned to his mountaintop to confirm the painting’s existence.

I swiveled around to look in the backseat. Just maybe, the Commendatore was sitting there. But the seat was empty.

“Is something wrong?” Masahiko said, glancing behind him.

“No, nothing at all,” I said.

When the light turned green, he stepped on the accelerator.

⁴⁹ FILLED WITH JUST AS MANY DEATHS

On our way to check in on his father, we stopped at a roadside restaurant so that Masahiko could use the toilet. We were shown to a table next to the window, where we ordered coffee. As it was already noon, I ordered a roast beef sandwich, too. Masahiko asked for the same thing. Then he headed for the men’s room. While he was gone I stared blankly out the window. The parking lot was packed with cars. Most had come with families. The number of minivans really stood out. All minivans look identical to me. Like cans of tasteless biscuits. There was an observation deck at the end of the lot where people were using small digital cameras and cell phones to snap photos of Mt. Fuji, which towered right in front of them. It’s dumb, I know, but I’ve never really gotten comfortable with phones taking pictures. I’m even less cool with cameras making phone calls.

While I was sitting there looking at nothing in particular, a white Subaru Forester turned off the road and into the lot. I don’t know much about cars (and the Subaru Forester is hardly distinctive), but I could tell at a glance that it was the model the man with the white Subaru Forester had been driving. It trolled up and down the rows before finally nosing into an empty space. Sure enough, the logo on the spare-tire cover read SUBARU FORESTER. It appeared to be the same model as the car I had seen in the little seaside town in Miyagi Prefecture. I couldn’t make out the license plate, but the more I looked, the more I was sure it was the same car I had seen that spring. Not just the same model. I mean the exact same car.

My visual memory is sharper than most—and more durable. As a result, I could tell that the stains and other markings were strikingly similar to those of that car as I remembered it. I could hardly breathe. But just when I was straining to identify the driver as he stepped out, a large tour bus pulled into the lot and blocked my view. Unable to move past the jam of cars, it just sat there. I jumped up and hurried out of the restaurant. I rushed around the bus, which had stopped dead in its tracks, and approached the spot where the white Subaru Forester was parked. But the car was empty. Its driver had gone off somewhere. He might be in the restaurant, or perhaps was taking pictures on the observation deck. I scanned the area but couldn’t spot the man with the white Subaru Forester anywhere. Of course, the driver could have been someone else.

I checked the license plate. Sure enough, it read “Miyagi Prefecture.” On the rear bumper was a sticker with a picture of a marlin on it. It was the same car, no question. That man had come here. A chill ran down my spine. I decided to search for him. I wanted to see his face one more time. To figure out why I couldn’t finish his portrait. Perhaps I had overlooked something basic about him. First, though, I memorized the license plate number. It might prove useful. Then again, it might be of no use at all.

I walked around the parking lot, keeping an eye out for someone who resembled him. I checked the observation deck. But the man with the white Subaru Forester was nowhere to be seen. A man of middle age, deeply tanned, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut. On the tall side. When last seen, wearing a battered black leather jacket and a Yonex golf cap. I had whipped off a quick sketch on my memo pad and shown it to the young woman sitting across from me. “You’re really good at drawing!” she had enthused.

Once I was sure no one matching his description was outside, I looked inside the restaurant. I circled the place, but he was nowhere to be seen. The seats were almost full. Masahiko was back at our table, drinking his coffee. The sandwiches hadn’t shown up yet.

“Where’d you disappear to?” he asked me.

“I thought I saw someone I knew. So I went outside to check.”

“Did you find them?”

“No. Probably a case of mistaken identity,” I said.

After that, I kept a close eye on the white Subaru Forester outside. Yet if the man in question did come back, what should I do? Go out and talk to him? Tell him I was sure I had bumped into him twice this past spring in a small coastal town in Miyagi? Is that so? Well, I don’t remember you, he’d probably shoot back.

Well then, why are you following me? I would ask. What are you talking about? he would reply. Why the hell would I be tailing someone I don’t even know? End of conversation.

In any event, the driver of the white Subaru Forester never went back to his car. It just sat there in the lot, short and squat, silently awaiting its owner’s return. We finished our sandwiches and coffee, but he still hadn’t shown.

“We’d better be going,” Masahiko said, glancing at his watch. “We don’t have a whole lot of time.” He picked up his Ray-Bans from the table.

We stood, paid the bill, and walked out. Then we climbed into the Volvo and drove out of the jammed parking lot. I wanted to wait for the man with the white Subaru Forester to return, but meeting Masahiko’s father had to be my top priority. The Commendatore had driven home that message with absolute clarity: My friends will be invited somewhere. You must not decline that invitation.

I was left with the fact that the man with the white Subaru Forester had shown up once again. He had known where to find me and had made it clear that he was there. His intent was obvious. His appearance could be no accident. Nor, of course, was the tour bus that had hidden him from view.

To reach the facility where Tomohiko Amada was being cared for, we had to leave the Izu Skyline and drive down a long, winding road. The area had recently been turned into a summer retreat for city folk: we passed stylish coffee shops, fancy inns built to resemble log cabins, stands selling local produce, and small museums aimed at passing tourists. Each time we went around a curve, I gripped the door handle and thought of the man with the white Subaru Forester. Something was blocking me from finishing his portrait. A key element, something that made him who he was, had escaped me. A missing piece of the puzzle, as it were. This was new for me. I always gathered together everything I knew I would need before I started a portrait. In the case of the man with the white Subaru Forester, though, I had not been able to do that. Probably the man himself was standing in my way. He didn’t like having his portrait painted, for whatever reason. In fact, he seemed dead set against it.

At a certain point, the Volvo turned off the road and passed through a big, open steel gate. The gate was marked only by a very small sign. Someone could easily drive right by if they weren’t paying attention. It appeared to be an institution that didn’t feel compelled to announce its presence to the world. Masahiko stopped at the small guardhouse beside the gate and gave his name and the name of the resident he was visiting to the uniformed security guard on duty. The guard made a phone call to confirm the resident’s identity. Once through the gate, we entered a dense grove of trees. Most were tall evergreens, which cast a chilly shadow. We drove up the freshly paved road to the circle set atop the rise, where cars could be parked. A bed of ornamental cabbages surrounding a circle of bright red flowers sat at the center. The flowers were being tended with care.

Masahiko drove to the far end of the circle and parked his car in one of the visitor spots. Two other cars had preceded us. A white Honda minivan and a dark blue Audi sedan. Both were sparkling new—between them his Volvo looked like an aged workhorse. Masahiko, however, didn’t seem to mind a bit (his Bananarama cassette tape took clear precedence). Below, the Pacific Ocean gleamed dully in the early-winter sun. A few midsized fishing vessels were plying its waters. A small humped island sat just offshore, and beyond it the Manazuru Peninsula. The hands of my watch pointed to 1:45.

We got out of the car and walked toward the entrance. The building looked quite new. It was a clean and stylish concrete structure, yet nothing was distinctive about it. Perhaps the architect who designed it lacked imaginative oomph. Or else the client, considering its function, had demanded that the building be as simple and conservative as possible. It was three stories high, and quite square—a structure made up entirely of straight lines. The blueprints could have been drawn up with a single ruler. The ground floor was mainly glass, to create as bright an impression as possible. Jutting out from the front of the building was a large wooden balcony with about a dozen deck chairs, but it was winter, so no one would be sunbathing, however bright and pleasant the day. The cafeteria had glass walls that soared from floor to ceiling. I could see five or six people inside, all well along in years, from the look of them. Two were in wheelchairs. I couldn’t tell what they were doing. Perhaps watching television on the big screen on the wall. They weren’t playing leapfrog, that’s for sure.

Masahiko walked through the entranceway and up to a young woman stationed at the front desk. She was round-cheeked and friendly, with beautiful long black hair. A name tag was affixed to her dark blue blazer. She seemed to know Masahiko by sight, for the two of them chatted for a few minutes. I stood a short distance away and waited for them to finish. A large vase sat in the entranceway, overflowing with a lavish assortment of fresh flowers, arranged, I assumed, by an ikebana expert. At a certain point, Masahiko signed the guest register with a pen and, consulting his watch, added the precise time. He left the desk and walked over to me, hands in pockets.

“My father’s condition seems to have stabilized,” he said. “Apparently, he was coughing all morning and very short of breath, so they worried that he was developing pneumonia. But they got his cough under control a short while ago, and now he’s fast asleep.”

“Is it really okay for me to go in with you?”

“Of course,” Masahiko said. “You came all this way to see him, didn’t you?”

He and I took the elevator to the third floor. The corridor there was also simple and conservative. Decoration kept to a bare minimum. The one exception, as if by way of concession, was a row of oil paintings hanging on the long, white wall. All were coastal landscapes. They seemed to be a series by a single artist, who had painted spots along the same stretch of coast from a number of angles. They weren’t especially well done, but at least the artist had been generous in his use of paint, and I could applaud the way his paintings disrupted the strict minimalism of the architecture. The rubber soles of my shoes squeaked ostentatiously on the smooth linoleum floor. A little old white-haired lady in a wheelchair pushed by a male attendant passed us in the corridor. She stared straight ahead, her gaze so fixed and rigid it did not even flicker when we went by. As if she was determined not to lose sight of a crucial sign suspended in the air before her.

Tomohiko Amada was in a big room at the very end of the corridor. The name card on the door had been left blank. Most likely to protect his privacy. He was, after all, famous. The room was the size of a small hotel suite, with a basic set of living room furniture in addition to the bed. A folded wheelchair rested against the bed’s foot. A large southeast-facing window looked out over the Pacific Ocean. It was a magnificent, unobstructed view. A hotel room with a view like that would cost an arm and a leg. No paintings hung on the walls. Just a mirror and a round clock. A medium-sized vase filled with purple cut flowers sat on the table. There was no odor at all. Not of a sick old person, nor of medicine, nor of flowers, nor of sun-drenched curtains. Nothing. That’s what surprised me most—the room’s utter lack of smell. It was so striking I thought something had happened to my nose. How could odor be erased so completely?

Tomohiko Amada was fast asleep near the window, oblivious to the view outside. He slept on his back facing the ceiling, his eyes tightly shut. Bushy white eyebrows overhung his aged eyelids like a natural canopy. Deep wrinkles furrowed his forehead. His quilt was pulled up to his neck—I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. If he was, they were extremely shallow breaths.

I knew right away that this was the mysterious old man who had visited my studio. I had seen him for only a moment or two in the shifting moonlight, but the shape of his head and his wild, white hair left no doubt: it had been Tomohiko Amada. The fact didn’t surprise me in the least. It had been clear all along.

“He’s dead to the world,” Masahiko said to me. “We’ll just have to wait for him to wake up. If he wakes up, that is.”

“All the same, it’s a blessing that he’s sleeping peacefully,” I said. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It said five minutes before two. I suddenly thought of Menshiki. Had he called Shoko Akikawa? Had there been any developments in Mariye’s case? Right now, however, I had to focus on Tomohiko Amada.

Masahiko and I sat across from each other on matching chairs, sipping the canned coffee we had bought from the vending machine in the corridor, while we waited for Tomohiko Amada to wake up. In the meantime, Masahiko told me a few things about Yuzu. That her pregnancy was progressing nicely. That her due date was sometime in the first half of January. That her handsome boyfriend was thrilled about becoming a father.

“The only problem—from his perspective, anyway—is that she seems to have no intention of marrying him,” Masahiko said.

“Huh?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. “You mean she plans to be a single mom?”

“Yuzu intends to have the baby. But she doesn’t want to marry the father, or live with him, or share custody of the child… that seems to be the story. He can’t figure out what’s going on. He assumed they’d be properly married once the divorce was final, but she completely rejected his proposal.”

I thought about that for a moment. The more I thought, though, the more confused I got.

“I can’t wrap my head around it,” I said. “Yuzu always said she didn’t want kids. Whenever I said I thought the time was right, she said it was still too early. So why does she want a child so badly now?”

“Maybe she didn’t plan on a baby, but changed her mind once she got pregnant. Women can do that, you know.”

“Still, it’ll be tough to look after the child all by herself. Hard to hang on to her job, for one thing. So why not marry him? He is the child’s father, right?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t understand either. He thought they were getting along just great. And he was happy a child was coming. That’s why he’s so confused. He asked me about it, but I’m stumped too.”

“Have you talked to Yuzu directly?” I inquired.

Masahiko frowned. “To tell you the truth, I’m trying hard not to get too sucked in. I like Yuzu, but he’s my colleague at work. And of course you and I have been friends for ages. I’m in a tough spot. The more I become involved, the less I know what to do.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I always enjoyed seeing the two of you together—you seemed like such a happy couple,” Masahiko said, looking perplexed.

“You said that before.”

“Yeah, maybe I did,” Masahiko said. “But it’s the truth.”

After that, we sat there without speaking, looking at the clock on the wall, or the ocean outside the window. Tomohiko Amada lay on his back in a deep sleep, not moving a muscle. He was so still, in fact, that I worried whether he was alive or not. No one else seemed concerned, though, so I figured his stillness was normal.

Watching him lying there, I tried to imagine how he might have looked as a young exchange student in Vienna. But of course I couldn’t. This was an old man with furrowed skin and white hair, experiencing the slow but steady annihilation of his physical existence. All of us are, without exception, born to die, and now he was face-to-face with that final stage.

“Aren’t you planning to contact Yuzu?” Masahiko asked me.

“Not at present, no,” I said, shaking my head.

“I think it might be a good idea for you two to get together and talk things over. Have a good heart-to-heart, so to speak.”

“Our formal divorce proceedings were handled through our lawyers. That’s the way Yuzu wanted it. Now she’s about to give birth to another man’s child. Whether she wants to marry him or not is her problem. I’m in no position to say anything about it. So what exactly are the things we should talk over?”

“Don’t you want to know what’s going on?”

I shook my head no. “I don’t want to know any more than I have to. It’s not like what took place didn’t hurt.”

“Of course,” Masahiko said.

All the same, to be honest there were times I couldn’t tell if I had been hurt or not. Did I really have the right? I wasn’t clear enough about things to know. Of course, people can’t help feeling hurt in certain situations, whether they have the right to or not.

“The guy is a colleague of mine,” Masahiko said after a pause. “He’s a serious guy, hard worker, good personality.”

“Yeah, and handsome, too.”

“True. Women love him. Only natural, I guess. Sure wish they flocked to me like that. But he has this tendency that always left us all shaking our heads.”

I waited for him to go on.

“You see, we’ve never been able to figure out why he’s chosen the women he has. I mean, he always has lots of women to pick from, and yet he comes up with these losers. I’m not talking about Yuzu, of course. She’s probably the first good choice he’s made. But the women before her were real disasters. I still can’t figure it out.”

He shook his head, remembering those women.

“He almost got married a few years back. They’d printed the invitations, reserved the venue for the ceremony, and were heading off to Fiji or someplace like that for their honeymoon. He’d gotten leave from work, bought the airplane tickets. The bride-to-be wasn’t at all attractive. When he introduced us, I remember being shocked by how homely she was. Of course, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but from what I could see, her personality was nothing special, either. Yet for some reason he was head over heels in love. Anyway, they seemed poorly matched. Everyone who knew them felt that way, though no one said so. Then, just before the wedding, she skipped out. In other words, it was the woman who split. I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad for him, but all the same it blew my mind.”

“Was there some kind of reason?”

“Not that I know of. I felt sorry for the guy, so I never asked. But I don’t think he ever understood why she did what she did. I mean she just ran. Couldn’t stand the thought of marrying him. Something must have bothered her.”

“So what’s the point of your story?”

“The point is,” Masahiko said, “it still may be possible for you and Yuzu to get back together. Assuming that’s what you want, of course.”

“But she’s about to have another man’s child.”

“Yeah, I can see that might be a problem.”

We fell silent again.

Tomohiko Amada woke up shortly before three. His body twitched at first. Then he took a deep breath—I could see the quilt over his chest rise and fall. Masahiko stood and went to his father’s bedside. He looked down on his face. The old man’s eyes slowly opened. His bushy white eyebrows quivered in the air.

Masahiko took a slender glass funnel cup from the bedside table and moistened his father’s lips. He mopped the corners of his mouth with a piece of what looked like gauze. His father wanted more, so he repeated the process several times. He seemed comfortable with the job—it appeared that he had done it many times before. The old man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with each swallow. Only when I saw that movement was I sure he was still alive.

“Father,” Masahiko said, pointing at me. “This is the guy who moved into the Odawara house. He’s a painter who’s working in your studio. He’s a friend of mine from college. He’s not too bright, and his beautiful wife ran out on him, but he’s still a great artist.”

It wasn’t clear how much Masahiko’s father comprehended. But he slowly turned his head in my direction as if following his son’s finger. His face was blank. He seemed to be looking at something, but that something carried no particular meaning for him. Nevertheless, I thought I could detect a surprisingly clear and lucid light deep within those bleary eyes. That light seemed to be biding its time, waiting for that which might hold real significance. At least that was my impression.

“I doubt he understands a word I say,” Masahiko said. “But his doctor instructed us to talk to him in a free and natural way, as if he was able to follow. No one knows how much he’s picking up anyway. So I talk to him normally. That’s easier for me too. Now you say something. The way you usually talk.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Amada,” I said. I told him my name. “Your son has been kind enough to let me live in your home in Odawara.”

Tomohiko Amada was looking at me, but his expression hadn’t changed. Masahiko gestured: Just keep talking—anything is okay.

“I’m an oil painter,” I went on. “I specialized in portraits for a long time, but I gave that up and now I paint my own stuff. I still accept occasional commissions for portraits, though. The human face fascinates me, I guess. Masahiko and I have been friends since art school.”

Tomohiko Amada’s eyes were still pointed in my direction. They were coated by a thin membrane, a kind of layered lace curtain hanging between life and death. What sat behind the curtain would fade from view as the layers increased, until finally the last, heavy curtain would fall.

“I love your house,” I said. “My work is steadily progressing. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been listening to your records. Masahiko told me that was all right. You have a great collection. I enjoy the operas especially. Oh yes, and recently I went up and looked in the attic.”

I thought I saw a sparkle in his eyes when I said the word “attic.” It was just a quick flash—no one would have noticed it unless they were paying attention. But I was keeping close watch. Thus I didn’t miss it. Clearly, “attic” had a charge that caused some part of his memory to kick in.

“A horned owl has moved into the attic,” I went on. “I kept hearing these rustling sounds at night. I thought it was a rat, so I went up to check during the day. And there the owl was, sitting under the beams. It’s a beautiful bird. The screen on the air vent has a hole, so it can go in and out at will. The attic makes a perfect daytime hideout for a horned owl, don’t you think?”

The eyes were still fixed on me. As if waiting to hear more.

“Horned owls don’t cause any damage,” Masahiko put in. “In fact, they’re said to bring good luck.”

“I love the bird,” I added. “And the attic is a fascinating place too.”

Tomohiko Amada stared at me from the bed, not moving a muscle. His breathing had turned shallow again. That thin membrane still coated his eyes, but the secret light within seemed to have brightened.

I wanted to talk more about the attic, but Masahiko was beside me, so there was no way I could bring up what I had found there. It would only prick Masahiko’s curiosity. So I let the topic hang in the air while Tomohiko Amada and I stared into each other’s eyes.

I chose my words with care. “The attic suits owls, but it might suit paintings too. It could be a perfect place to store them. Japanese-style paintings, especially—they’re really tricky to preserve. Attics aren’t damp like basements—they’re well ventilated, and you don’t have to worry about sunlight. Of course, there’s always the danger of wind and rain getting in, but if you wrap it up carefully enough a painting should keep for quite a while up there.”

“You know, I’ve never even looked in the attic,” Masahiko said. “Dusty places creep me out.”

I was watching Tomohiko Amada’s face. His gaze was fixed on me as well. I felt him trying to construct a coherent line of thought. Owl, attic, stored paintings… these familiar words all needed to be strung together. In his current state, this was no easy thing. No easy thing at all. Like trying to pick through a labyrinth blindfolded. But I sensed that making those connections was important to him. Extremely important. I stood by quietly watching him concentrate on that urgent yet solitary task.

I considered bringing up the shrine in the woods, and the strange pit behind it. To describe to him the steps that had led to it being opened, and the shape of its interior. But I changed my mind. I shouldn’t give him too much to think about at one time. His level of awareness was so diminished that even one topic placed a heavy burden on his shoulders. What little he had left hung by a single, easily severed thread.

“Would you like more water?” Masahiko asked, funnel cup in hand. But his father didn’t react. It was as if he hadn’t heard his son’s question. Masahiko drew nearer and asked again, but when his father still didn’t respond, he gave up. The son was invisible in his father’s eyes.

“Dad seems to have taken a real shine to you,” Masahiko marveled. “He can’t stop looking at you. It’s been quite a while since anyone or anything held his interest like this.”

I continued to look into Tomohiko Amada’s eyes.

“It’s strange. When I talk to him he won’t turn to me, no matter what I say, but in your case he won’t turn away. His eyes are riveted on you.”

I couldn’t help notice a mild envy in Masahiko’s voice. He wanted his father to see him. That had probably been a common theme in his life, ever since childhood.

“Maybe he smells paint on me,” I said. “The smell may be triggering his memories.”

“You’re right, that could be it. Come to think of it, it’s been ages since I touched actual paint.”

Regret no longer tinged his words. He was back to being the same old easygoing Masahiko. Just then, his cell phone began buzzing on the table.

Masahiko looked up with a start. “Damn, I forgot to turn the thing off. Cell phones are against the rules in this place. I’ll have to go outside. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not,” I said.

Masahiko picked up the cell phone and walked to the door. “This may take a while,” he said, checking the caller’s name on his screen. “Please talk to my father while I’m gone.”

He was already whispering into the phone as he left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Tomohiko Amada and I were now alone. His eyes remained fixed on my face. No doubt he was struggling to figure out who I was. Feeling a bit suffocated, I circled the foot of his bed and went to the southeast-facing window. Bringing my face close to the glass, I looked out at the wide expanse of ocean. The horizon seemed to be pushing up against the sky. I followed the line where the sky met the water from end to end. No human being could draw a line so beautiful, whatever ruler they might use. Below that long, straight line, countless lives were thriving. The world was filled with so many lives, and just as many deaths.

Something else had entered the room—I felt its presence. I turned around and, sure enough, Tomohiko Amada and I were no longer alone.

“Affirmative, my friends. The two of you are alone no more,” said the Commendatore.

⁵⁰ IT WILL INVOLVE ORDEAL AND SACRIFICE

“Affirmative, my friends. The two of you are alone no more,” said the Commendatore.

The Commendatore was sitting on the same upholstered chair that Masahiko had occupied a moment earlier. He hadn’t changed a bit: same getup, same hairstyle, same sword, same tiny physique. I stared at him without saying anything.

“The friend of my friends will not return anytime soon,” the Commendatore said, raising his right forefinger as though to pierce the sky. “His phone call promises to be a long one. So please do not worry. Instead, converse with Tomohiko Amada for as long as you desire. There are questions that my friends would like to ask him, are there not? How many he can answer, however, is a matter for debate.”

“Did you send Masahiko away?”

“Certainly not,” the Commendatore said. “I fear my friends have overestimated my powers. They are of a lesser sort. But company men are always at someone’s beck and call. Those poor men have no weekends.”

“Have you been here the whole time? Did you come with us in the car?”

The Commendatore shook his head. “Negative. It is a dreadfully long way from Odawara, and I am prone to carsickness.”

“But still you came. Though you weren’t invited, correct?”

“Affirmative! I was not invited. Technically, at least. But I was needed. There is a fine line between being invited and being needed, my friends. But leaving that aside, this time it was Tomohiko Amada who needed me. And I thought I could be of use to my friends as well.”

“Of use to me?”

“Indeed. I am somewhat beholden to you, my friends. You freed me from that place beneath the ground. It was thanks to you that I was able to rejoin the world as an Idea. As my friends asserted. So it is only proper that I repay that debt. Even Ideas can fathom the import of moral obligation.”

Moral obligation?

“Oh well, never mind. Something like that,” the Commendatore said, reading my mind. “In any case, my friends wish with all your heart to track down Mariye Akikawa and bring her back from the other side. Affirmative?”

I nodded. Yes, that was true.

“Do you know where she is?” I asked.

“Indeed, I met her not long ago.”

“Met her?”

“We exchanged a few words.”

“Then please tell me where she is.”

“I know, but cannot speak.”

“You cannot say?”

“I do not have the right.”

“But you just said that you came here today to help me.”

“Affirmative, I said that.”

“But still you can’t tell me where Mariye is?”

The Commendatore shook his head. “That is not my role. I am most regretful.”

“Then whose role is it?”

The Commendatore pointed his right forefinger directly at me. “It is your role, my friends. You, yourself. My friends must tell yourself where Mariye Akikawa is. It is the only path that leads to her.”

“I have to tell myself?” I said. “But I haven’t the faintest idea where she is.”

The Commendatore gave a long sigh. “My friends know. But my friends do not yet know that they know.”

“That sounds like a circular argument to me.”

“Negative! It is not circular. My friends will know in due course. In a place that is not here.”

Now it was my turn to let out a sigh.

“Please tell me one thing. Was Mariye kidnapped? Or did she wander off on her own?”

“That is something my friends can only know after my friends have found her and brought her back to this world.”

“Is she in great danger?”

The Commendatore shook his head. “Determining what constitutes great danger is a role that humans, not Ideas, must play. If my friends truly wish to bring her back, however, my friends must find the road and move quickly.”

Find the road? What road was he talking about? I looked at the Commendatore for a moment. It was as though he was playing a riddle game. Assuming his riddles had answers, that is.

“So what is it that you are offering me by way of assistance?”

“What I can do for my friends,” the Commendatore said, “is to send you to a place wherein my friends encounter yourself. But that is not as easy as it may sound. It will involve considerable sacrifice, and an excruciating ordeal. More specifically, the sacrifice will be made by the Idea, while the ordeal will be endured by my friends. Do I have your approval?”

What could I say? I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

“So what is it exactly that I have to do?”

“It is simple,” the Commendatore said. “My friends must slay me.”

⁵¹ NOW IS THE TIME

“It is simple,” the Commendatore said. “My friends must slay me.”

“Slay you?” I said.

“Slay me, as in Killing Commendatore—let the painting be your model.”

“I should slay you with a sword—is that what you mean?”

“Precisely. As luck would have it, I happen to have a sword with me. It is the real thing—as I told my friends once before, if it cuts you, then you will bleed. It is not full-sized, but I am not full-sized either, so it should suffice.”

I stood at the foot of the bed facing the Commendatore. I wanted to say something but had no idea what it should be. So I just stood there, rooted to the spot. Tomohiko Amada was staring in the Commendatore’s direction too, from where he lay stretched out on the bed. Whether he could make him out or not was another story. The Commendatore was able to choose who could see him, and who couldn’t.

At last I pulled myself together enough to pose a question. “If I kill you with that sword, will I learn where Mariye Akikawa is?”

“Negative. Not exactly. First, my friends must dispose of me. Wipe me off the face of this earth. A chain of events will follow that could well lead my friends to the girl’s location.”

I struggled to decipher what he meant.

“I’m not sure what sort of chain of events you’re talking about, but can I be certain they will lead me in the direction you anticipate? Even if I kill you, there’s no guarantee. In which case, yours would be a pointless death.”

The Commendatore raised one eyebrow and stared at me. Now he looked like Lee Marvin in Point Blank. Super cool. There wasn’t the ghost of a chance that the Commendatore had seen Point Blank, of course.

“Affirmative! It is as my friends say. Maybe the chain of events will not flow so smoothly in reality. Maybe my hypothesis is based on mere supposition and conjecture. Just maybe, there are too many maybes. But there is no alternative. There is not the luxury of choice.”

“So if I kill you, will you be dead to me? Will you vanish from my sight forever?”

“Affirmative! As far as my friends are concerned, I shall be dead and gone. One of the countless deaths an Idea must undergo.”

“Isn’t there a danger that the world itself will be altered when an Idea is killed?”

“How could it be otherwise?” the Commendatore said. Again, he raised one eyebrow, Lee Marvin–style. “What would be the meaning of a world that did not change when an Idea was extinguished? Can an Idea be so insignificant?”

“But you think I should still kill you, even though the world would be altered as a result.”

“My friends set me free. And now my friends must kill me. Should my friends fail in that task, the circle would remain open. And a circle once opened must then be closed. There are no other options.”

I looked at Tomohiko Amada, lying on the bed. His eyes seemed to be trained on the chair where the Commendatore was sitting.

“Can Mr. Amada see you?”

“It is about now that he should be seeing me,” the Commendatore said. “And hearing our voices too. A few moments hence, he will begin to grasp the import of our discourse. He is marshaling all his remaining strength to that end.”

“What do you think he was trying to convey in Killing Commendatore?”

“That is not for me to say. My friends should ask the artist,” the Commendatore said. “Since he is right before you.”

I sat back down in my chair and drew close to the man stretched out on the bed.

“Mr. Amada, I found the painting you stored in the attic. I am quite sure you meant to hide it. You would not have wrapped it so thoroughly had you planned to show it to anyone. But I unwrapped it. I know that may displease you, but my curiosity got the better of me. And once I discovered how superb Killing Commendatore was, I couldn’t let it out of my sight. It is a great painting. One of your best, no question. At this moment, almost no one knows of its existence. Even Masahiko hasn’t seen it yet. A thirteen-year-old girl named Mariye Akikawa has, though. And she went missing yesterday.”

The Commendatore raised his hand. “Please, let him rest. His brain is easily overtaxed—it cannot handle more than this at one time.”

I stopped talking and studied Tomohiko Amada’s face. I couldn’t tell how much had sunk in. His face was still expressionless. But when I looked more closely I could see a glitter in the depths of his eyes. Like the glint of a sharp penknife at the bottom of a deep spring.

I began talking again, this time with frequent pauses. “My question is, what was your purpose in painting that picture? Its subject matter, its structure, and its style are so different from your other works. It makes me think you were using it to communicate a very personal message. What is the painting’s underlying meaning? Who is killing whom? Who is the Commendatore? Who is the murderer Don Giovanni? And who is that mysterious bearded fellow with the long face poking his head out of the ground in the lower left-hand corner?”

The Commendatore raised his hand again. I drew up short.

“Enough questions,” he said. “It will take a while for those to permeate.”

“Will he be able to answer? Does he have enough strength left?”

“No,” the Commendatore said, shaking his head. “I doubt my friends will obtain answers. He does not have the energy for that.”

“Then why did you have me ask?”

“What my friends imparted were not questions, but information. That my friends had found Killing Commendatore in the attic, that its existence was known to my friends. It is the first step. Everything begins from there.”

“Then what is the second step?”

“When my friends slay me, of course. It is the second step.”

“And is there a third step?”

“There should be, of course.”

“Then what is it?”

“Have you still not yet figured this out, my friends?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“By reenacting the allegory contained within that painting, we shall lure Long Face into the open. Into this room. By dragging him out, my friends shall win back Mariye Akikawa.”

I was speechless. What world had I stepped into? There seemed no rhyme or reason to it.

“It is a hard thing, without question,” the Commendatore intoned. “Yet there is no alternative. Hence my friends must dispatch me now, without further ado.”

We waited for the information I had given Tomohiko Amada to complete its journey to his brain. That took some time. Meanwhile, I tried to put to rest some of my doubts by peppering the Commendatore with questions.

“Why,” I asked, “did Tomohiko Amada remain silent about what had happened in Vienna even after the war had ended? I mean, no one was standing in his way at that point.”

“The woman he loved was brutally executed by the Nazis,” the Commendatore answered. “Slowly tortured to death. Their comrades were slain in a similar fashion. In the end, their plot was a wretched failure. Only through the offices of the Japanese and German governments did he barely escape with his life. The experience savaged him. He had been arrested and detained by the Gestapo for two months. They subjected him to extreme torture. Their violence was unspeakable, but they took care not to kill him, nor to leave any physical scars. Yet their sadism left his nerves in tatters—and as a result, something within him was extinguished. Placed under the strictest orders, he bowed to the inevitable and remained silent. Then he was forcibly repatriated to Japan.”

“Not long before,” I said, “Tomohiko Amada’s younger brother had taken his own life, probably because of the trauma of his own war experience. He had been part of the Nanjing Massacre, and committed suicide right after his discharge from the army. Correct?”

“Affirmative. Tomohiko Amada lost many loved ones in the whirlpool of those years. He himself was sorely damaged. As a result, his anger and grief put down deep roots. The hopeless, impotent realization that, no matter what he did, he could not stand against the torrent of history. As the sole survivor, he must also have felt an immense guilt. Hence he never spoke a word of what happened in Vienna, even after the gag was removed. It is as though he was unable to speak.”

I looked at Tomohiko Amada’s face. But I could detect no reaction as yet. I couldn’t tell if he heard us or not.

I spoke. “Then at some point—we don’t know exactly when—he created Killing Commendatore. An allegorical painting that expressed all he could not say. He put everything into it. A brilliant tour de force.”

“He took that which he had been unable to accomplish in reality,” the Commendatore said, “and gave it another form. What we might call ‘camouflaged expression.’ Not of what had in fact happened, but of what should have happened.”

“Nevertheless, he bundled the painting up tight and hid it in the attic, out of public view,” I said. “Although he had radically transformed the events, they were still too raw to reveal. Is that what you mean?”

“Precisely. It distills the pure essence of his living spirit. Then, one day, my friends happened upon it.”

“So are you saying all of this began when I brought the painting out into the light? Is that what you meant by ‘opening the circle’?”

The Commendatore said nothing, just extended his hands palms up.

Not long after, we noticed Tomohiko Amada’s face turning pink. (The Commendatore and I had been watching him closely for any change.) At the same time, as if in response, the small, mysterious light that had been flickering deep in his eyes began to rise slowly to the surface. Like an ascending deep-sea diver gauging the effects of the water pressure on his body. The veil covering Amada’s eyes also lifted, until, finally, both were wide open. The person lying before us was no longer a frail, desiccated old man on the verge of death. Instead, he was someone whose eyes brimmed with a determination to hang on to this world as long as he could.

“He is gathering his remaining strength,” the Commendatore said to me. “Recovering as much of his conscious mind as he is able. But the more he regains mentally, the greater the physical torment. His body has been secreting a special substance to blot out that pain. It is thanks to the existence of such a substance that people can die in peace, not in agony. When consciousness returns, so does the pain. Nevertheless, he is trying to recover as much as he can. This is a mission he must fulfill here and now, however great the suffering.”

As if to reinforce the Commendatore’s words, Tomohiko Amada’s face began to contort with agony. Age and infirmity had eaten away at his body until it was ready to shut down—he could feel that now. There was no way to avoid it. The end of his allotted time was fast approaching. It was painful to watch him suffer. Instead of calling him back, I might better have let him die a peaceful, painless death in a semiconscious haze.

“But he chose this way himself,” the Commendatore said, again reading my mind. “It is painful to witness, but beyond our control.”

“Won’t Masahiko be returning soon?” I asked the Commendatore.

“Negative. Not for some time,” he said with a small shake of his head. “His call was work related, something important. He will be gone a considerable time.”

Tomohiko’s eyes were wide open. They had been sunk within their wrinkled sockets, but now his eyeballs protruded like a person leaning out of a window. His breathing was deeper, and more ragged. It rasped as it passed in and out of his throat. And he was staring straight at the Commendatore. There was no doubt. The Commendatore was visible to him. Amazement was written in his face. He couldn’t believe what was sitting in front of him. How could a figure produced by his imagination appear before him in reality?

“Negative, that is not the case,” the Commendatore said. “What he sees and what my friends see are completely different.”

“You mean you don’t look the same way to him?”

“My friends, keep in mind that I am an Idea. My form changes depending on the person and the situation.”

“Then how do you look to Mr. Amada?”

“That is something even I do not know. I am like a mirror that reflects what is in a person’s heart. Nothing more.”

“But you assumed this form for me on purpose, didn’t you? Choosing to appear as the Commendatore?”

“To be precise, I did not choose this form. Cause and effect are hard to separate here. Because I took the form of the Commendatore, a sequence of events was set in motion. But at the same time, my form is the necessary consequence of that very sequence. It is hard to explain using the concept of time that governs the world you live in, my friends, but it might be summed up as: All these events have been determined beforehand.”

“If an Idea is a mirror, then is Tomohiko Amada now seeing what he wishes to see?”

“Negative! He is seeing what he must see,” the Commendatore corrected me. “It may be excruciating. Yet he must look. Now, at the end of his life.”

I examined Tomohiko Amada’s face again. Mixed with the amazement, I could discern an intense loathing. And almost unendurable torment. The return to consciousness carried with it not only the agony of the flesh. It brought with it the agony of the soul.

“He is squeezing out every last ounce of strength to ascertain who I am. Despite the pain. He is striving to return to his twenties.”

Tomohiko Amada’s face had turned a fiery red. Hot blood coursed through his veins. His thin, dry lips trembled, he gasped violently. His long, skeletal fingers clutched at the sheets.

“Stop dithering, my friends, and kill me now, while his mind is whole,” the Commendatore said. “The quicker, the better. He may not be able to hold himself together much longer.”

The Commendatore drew his sword from its scabbard. It was just eight inches long, but it looked very sharp indeed. Despite its dimensions, it was a weapon capable of ending a person’s life.

“Stab me with this,” the Commendatore said. “We shall re-create the scene from Killing Commendatore. But hurry. There is no time to dawdle.”

I looked back and forth from the Commendatore to Tomohiko Amada, struggling to make up my mind. All I could be remotely sure of was that Tomohiko Amada was in desperate need, and the Commendatore’s resolve was firm. I alone wallowed in indecision, caught between the two of them.

I felt the rush of owl wings, and heard a bell ring in the dark.

Everything was connected somewhere.

“Affirmative! Everything is connected somewhere,” said the Commendatore. “And my friends cannot escape that connection, however my friends may try. So steel yourself, and kill me. There is no room for guilt. Tomohiko Amada needs your help. By slaying me, my friends can save him. Make happen here what should have happened in the past. Now is the time. Only my friends can grant him salvation before he breathes his last.”

I rose from my chair and strode to where the Commendatore was seated. I took his unsheathed sword in hand. I was past the point of determining what was just and unjust. In a world outside space and time, all dualities—before and after, up and down—ceased to exist. In such a world, I could no longer perceive myself as myself. I and myself were being torn apart.

The instant I took the sword in hand, however, I realized its handle was too small. It was a miniature sword for a tiny hand. There was simply no way could I kill the Commendatore with it, however keen its blade. The realization brought with it a sense of relief.

“The sword is too small. I can’t grip it,” I said to the Commendatore.

“That is a shame,” he said with a sigh. “Well, there is nothing to be done. We must use something else, although that means diverging further from the painting.”

“Something else?”

The Commendatore pointed to a small chest of drawers in the corner of the room. “Look inside the top drawer.”

I went to the chest and slid open the uppermost drawer.

“Within is a knife for filleting fish,” the Commendatore said.

Sure enough, a knife lay atop a small stack of neatly folded washcloths. The knife that Masahiko had used to prepare the sea bream he had brought to my home. An eight-inch blade honed to a razor’s edge. Masahiko always kept his tools in perfect shape. This knife was no exception.

“Now take that knife and plunge it into my chest,” said the Commendatore. “Sword or knife, what is the difference. We can still reenact the scene in Killing Commendatore. But we must make haste. There is little time.”

I took the knife in hand. It was as heavy as stone. The tip of the blade shone cold and white in the light streaming from the window. The knife had vanished from my kitchen and come to wait for me here, in the chest of drawers. Masahiko had sharpened the blade, as it turned out, for the sake of his own father. There seemed no way to avoid my fate.

I still couldn’t come to a decision. Nevertheless, I stepped behind the Commendatore’s chair, gripping the knife tightly in my right hand. From his bed, Tomohiko Amada stared at us with eyes as big as saucers. As if watching history unfold before his eyes. His mouth was open, exposing his yellowed teeth and whitish tongue, a tongue that lolled in his mouth as though trying to form words. Words this world would never hear.

“My friends do not have a violent bone in your body,” the Commendatore said, as if to admonish me. “It is obvious. My friends are not built to kill. But sometimes people must act against their nature, to rescue something important or for some greater purpose. Now is one of those times. So kill me! I am not big, as my friends can see, and I will not resist. I am merely an Idea. Just insert the tip of the knife into my heart. What could be more straightforward?”

The Commendatore pointed his tiny index finger at the spot where his heart was. But the thought of that heart inevitably recalled my sister’s. I could remember her operation as if it were yesterday. How delicate and difficult it had been. Saving a malfunctioning heart was a formidable task. It required a team of specialists and gallons of blood. Yet destroying a heart was so easy.

“Such thinking will get us nowhere,” the Commendatore said. “If my friends wish to save Mariye Akikawa, then do the deed. Even if my friends do not want to. Trust me. Jettison all feelings, and close your mind. But not your eyes. My friends must keep them open.”

I stepped behind the Commendatore and raised the knife. But I couldn’t bring it down. Sure, it might be only one of a thousand deaths for an Idea, but it was still extinguishing a life as far as I was concerned. Was this not the same order the young lieutenant had given Tsuguhiko Amada in Nanjing?

“Negative! It is not the same,” said the Commendatore. “My friends are doing this at my behest. It is I who am asking my friends to kill me. So that I may be reborn. Be strong. Close the circle at once.”

I closed my eyes and thought of the girl I had throttled in the love hotel in Miyagi. Of course, she and I had been pretending. I had squeezed her throat gently, so as not to kill her. I had been unable to do it long enough to satisfy her. Had I continued, I might indeed have strangled her to death. On the bed of that love hotel, I had glimpsed the deep rage within myself for the first time. It had churned in my chest like blood-soaked mud, pushing me closer and closer to real murder.

I know where you were and what you were doing, the man had said.

“All right, now bring it down,” the Commendatore said. “I know my friends can do it. Remember, my friends will not be killing me. My friends will be slaying your evil father. The blood of your evil father shall soak into the earth.”

My evil father?

Where did that come from?

“Who is the evil father of my friends?” the Commendatore said, reading my mind. “I believe your path crossed with his not long ago. Am I mistaken?”

Do not paint my portrait any further, the man had said. He had pointed his finger at me from within the dark mirror. It had pierced my chest like the tip of a sharp sword.

Spurred by that pain, I reflexively closed my heart and opened my eyes wide. I cleared all thought from my mind (as Don Giovanni had done in Killing Commendatore), buried my emotions, made my face a blank mask, and brought the knife down with all my might. The sharp blade entered the Commendatore’s tiny chest precisely where he had pointed. I felt the living flesh resist. But the Commendatore himself made no attempt to fend off the blow. His fingers clutched at the air, but apart from that he did not react. Still, the body he inhabited did all that it could to avoid its looming extinction. The Commendatore was an Idea, but his body was not. An Idea may have borrowed it for its own purposes, but that body would not meekly submit to death. It possessed its own rationale. I had to overcome that resistance through brute force, severing its life at the roots. “Kill me,” the Commendatore had said. But I was actually dispatching another someone’s body.

I wanted to drop the knife, drop everything, and run from the room. But the Commendatore’s words echoed in my ears. “If my friends wish to save Mariye Akikawa, then do the deed. Even if my friends do not want to.”

So I pushed the blade even farther into the Commendatore’s heart. If you’re stabbing someone to death, there’s no halfway. The tip of the knife emerged from his back—I had run him through. His white garment was dyed crimson. My hands were drenched in blood. But the blood did not spew into the air as it did in Killing Commendatore. This is an illusion, I tried to convince myself. I was murdering a mere phantom. My act was purely symbolic.

Yet I knew I was fooling myself. Perhaps the act was symbolic. But it was no phantom that I was killing. Without question, my victim was made of flesh and blood. It may have been barely two feet tall, a fabrication created by Tomohiko Amada’s brush, but its life force was unexpectedly strong. The point of my blade had broken the skin and several ribs on its way to the heart, then passed through to the back of the chair. No way that was an illusion.

Tomohiko Amada’s eyes were open even wider now, riveted on the scene unfolding before him. My murder of the Commendatore. No, for him it must have been the murder of someone else. Who was he seeing? The Nazi official whose assassination he had helped plot in Vienna? The young lieutenant who had given his brother a Japanese sword and ordered him to behead three Chinese prisoners in Nanjing? Or that evil something, something more fundamental, that lay at the root of those events? I could only guess. I could not read the expression on Tomohiko Amada’s face. Though his mouth gaped open, his lips were motionless. Only his tongue continued its futile quest to form words of some kind.

At last, the strength left the Commendatore’s neck and arms. His whole body went slack, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. I responded by pushing the knife even farther into his heart. All movement in the room came to a standstill; the scene was now a frozen tableau. It stayed that way for a long time.

Tomohiko Amada was the first to move. Once the Commendatore had lost consciousness and collapsed, the strength to focus his mind evaporated. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. Slowly and solemnly, like lowering the shutters. As if to confirm: Now I have seen what I needed to see. His mouth was still open, but his lolling tongue was tucked out of sight. Only his yellow teeth were visible, like a ramshackle fence circling an empty house. His face was free of pain. The torment had passed. He looked peaceful and relaxed. I guessed he was back in the twilight world, where thought and pain did not exist. I was happy for him.

I finally relaxed my arm and drew the blade from the Commendatore’s body. Blood spewed from the wound. Exactly as in Killing Commendatore. The Commendatore himself spilled lifelessly into the chair. His eyes were open, his mouth contorted in agony. His ten tiny fingers clawed the air. Dark blood pooled around his feet. He was dead. How much blood had come from that tiny body!

Thus did the Commendatore—or the Idea that had taken his form—meet his end. Tomohiko Amada had sunk back into his deep sleep. Standing next to the Commendatore’s body, Masahiko’s bloody knife in my right hand, I was the only conscious person left in the room. My labored breathing should have been the only sound. Should have been. But something was moving. I sensed it as much as I heard it, to my alarm. Keep your ears open, the Commendatore had told me. I did as he had instructed.

Something is in the room. I could hear it moving. Bloody knife in hand, I stood frozen like a statue, scanning the room, searching for the source of the sound. Out of the corner of one eye, I spotted something near the far wall.

Long Face was there.

Killing the Commendatore had lured Long Face into this world.

⁵² THE MAN IN THE ORANGE CONE HAT

The scene in the room now matched the lower left-hand corner of Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore. Long Face had poked his head out of a hole, and was raising its square cover with one hand as he peeked at what was taking place. His hair was long and tangled, and a thick black beard covered much of his face. His elongated head was shaped like a Japanese eggplant, narrow with a jutting chin and bulging eyes. The bridge of his nose was flat. For some reason, his lips glistened like a piece of fruit. His body was small but well proportioned, as if a normal person had been shrunk in size. Just as the Commendatore made you think of a scaled-down copy of a human being.

The big difference between the Long Face in Killing Commendatore and here was his expression—now he looked stunned as he stared at the lifeless body of the Commendatore. His mouth gaped in disbelief. How long had he been watching us? I had no idea. I had been so focused on snuffing out the Commendatore’s life, and gauging Tomohiko Amada’s reaction to his death, that I had been oblivious to the odd-looking man in the corner of the room. Yet I bet he hadn’t missed a thing. After all, that was the scene in Killing Commendatore.

Long Face remained completely still, there in the corner of our tableau. As if assigned a fixed position. I moved slightly to see how he would respond. But Long Face didn’t react. He maintained the same position he had in the painting—one hand holding up the square lid, his eyes round as he gawked at the slain Commendatore. He didn’t even blink.

As the tension drained from my body, I moved from my own assigned position. I edged cautiously toward Long Face, deadening my footsteps like a cat, the bloody knife in one hand. I could not let him slip back underground. To save Mariye Akikawa, the Commendatore had given his life to re-create the scene in the painting, and drawn Long Face out into the open. I must not allow that sacrifice to be in vain.

Yet how could I wrest from Long Face what I needed to know about Mariye? I was at a loss. Who or what was Long Face? How was his presence linked to Mariye’s disappearance? What the Commendatore had told me was more riddle than information. One thing was clear, though: I had to get my hands on him. I could figure the rest out later.

The lid that Long Face was holding was about two feet square, made of the same lime-green linoleum as the rest of the floor. When closed, it would blend in perfectly, perhaps even disappear altogether.

Long Face did not move a muscle as I approached. He seemed rooted to the spot. Like a cat in the headlights. Or maybe he was just fulfilling his designated role—to maintain the composition of the painting for as long as possible. Whichever, it was lucky for me. Otherwise, he would have sensed me behind him and slipped back underground for good. Once the lid had been closed, I doubted it would open again.

I crept behind him, softly laid down the knife, and snatched his collar with both hands. He was wearing drab, snug-fitting clothes. Work clothes, from the look of it. Clearly different from the fine cloth of the Commendatore’s garments. These looked rough to the touch and were covered in patches.

Jolted from his trance, Long Face thrashed about, desperately attempting to flee down his hole. I held tight to his collar. There was no way I was going to let him escape. I gathered my strength and tried to yank him all the way out. He fought back, grabbing the sides of the hole with both hands. He was much stronger than I’d anticipated. He even tried to bite my arm. What could I do—I slammed his eggplant-shaped head against the corner of the opening. Then I did it again, this time more violently. The second blow knocked him out cold. I could feel his body go limp. At last I could drag him out into the light.

Long Face was a little bigger than the Commendatore. Two and a half feet tall was my guess. He was wearing what a farmer might have worn in the fields, or a manservant sweeping the yard. A stiff, rough jacket over baggy work pants cinched at the ankles. His belt was a thick piece of rope. He wore no shoes, and his soles were thickly callused and stained black with dirt. His long hair showed no sign of having been recently washed or combed. Half his face was covered by a black beard. The other half was a sickly white. Nothing about him looked clean, yet, strangely, his body had no odor.

Based on appearance, I figured the Commendatore belonged to the aristocracy of his time, while Long Face was lower-class. Perhaps he was dressed the way commoners did back then. Or maybe Tomohiko Amada had imagined, This is how people might have dressed in the Asuka period. Historical accuracy, however, was beside the point. What I needed to do was squeeze from this man with the strange face any information that would lead me to Mariye.

I rolled Long Face over onto his stomach and tied his hands behind him with the belt of a bathrobe hanging close by. Then I dragged his motionless body to the center of the room. Because of his size, he wasn’t very heavy. About the weight of a medium-sized dog. I grabbed a curtain tie and bound one of his legs to the bed. Now he had no way to flee.

Stretched out unconscious in the bright afternoon light, Long Face just looked pitiful. Gone was the weirdness that had alarmed me when he had poked his head up out of his hole, observing events with those glittering eyes. I could find nothing sinister about him. He didn’t look bright enough to be evil. Instead, he looked honest in a dull-witted sort of way. And timid, too. Not like someone who concocted plans and made decisions, but, rather, the type who meekly followed his superiors’ orders.

Tomohiko Amada was still stretched out on the bed, his eyes closed. He was completely still. I couldn’t tell, looking at him, if he was alive or dead. I leaned down and put my ear less than an inch from his mouth. His breathing was faint, like a distant surf. He wasn’t dead yet, just sleeping on the floor of his twilight world. I felt relieved. I didn’t like the idea of Masahiko returning from his phone call to find that his father had died in his absence. Tomohiko’s face, as he lay on his side, looked far more peaceful and satisfied than before. Maybe witnessing the slaying of the Commendatore (or someone else he wished to see killed) had put some of his painful memories to rest.

The Commendatore was slumped in his cloth chair. His eyes were wide open, and I could see his tiny tongue curled behind his parted lips. Blood was still seeping from the wound in his chest, but the flow was weaker than before. His right hand flopped lifelessly when I took it. Although his skin retained some warmth, it felt remote and somehow detached. The kind of detachment life acquires as it moves steadily toward its own end. I felt like straightening his limbs and placing him in a proper-sized coffin, one made for a small child. I would lay the coffin in the pit behind the shrine, where no one could bother him again. But all I could do now was gently close his eyes.

I sat in the chair and watched Long Face on the floor as I waited for him to regain his senses. Outside the window, the broad Pacific sparkled. A few fishing boats were still plying the waters. I could see the sleek fuselage of an airplane shining in the sun as it slowly made its way south. A four-prop plane with an antenna jutting up from its tail—probably an antisubmarine aircraft from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force base in Atsugi. Some of us were quietly going about our business on a Saturday afternoon. I, for one, was in a sunlit room in an upscale nursing home, having just slain the Commendatore and fished out and tied up Long Face in my quest to find a beautiful thirteen-year-old girl. It takes all kinds, I guess.

Long Face didn’t regain consciousness for some time. I checked my watch again.

What would Masahiko think if he came back now? The Commendatore in a pool of blood, Long Face bound and unconscious on the floor. Both in the unfamiliar garb of an ancient time, neither standing even three feet tall. Tomohiko Amada comatose on the bed, a faint but satisfied smile (if that’s what it was) on his lips. A square, black hole gaping in a corner of the room. How could I explain what had led to this scene?

Of course, Masahiko didn’t come back. He was tied up in a work-related phone call of great importance, as the Commendatore had said. He would be dealing with it for some time yet. Everything had been arranged in advance. No one would bother us. I sat on the chair, eyeing the unconscious Long Face. I had whacked his head pretty hard on the edge of the hole, but it shouldn’t take him that long to come to. He’d have a fair-sized lump on his head, that’s all.

At last, Long Face woke up. He twisted and turned a bit on the floor, and uttered a few incomprehensible words. Then, slowly, he opened his eyes a crack. Like a child looking at something scary—something he didn’t want to see, but must.

I went and knelt beside him.

“There’s very little time,” I said, looking down at him. “I need you to tell me where I can find Mariye Akikawa. If you do, I’ll untie you, and you can go back.”

I pointed to the square hole in the corner. The lid was still raised. I couldn’t tell if he understood what I was saying or not. But I decided to keep talking. All I could do was give it a shot.

Long Face violently shook his head back and forth several times. I couldn’t tell if he was saying that he didn’t know anything, or that my language was foreign to him.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you,” I said. “You saw me stab the Commendatore, I bet. Well, there’s no big difference between one murder and two.”

I pressed the bloody blade of my knife against his dirty throat. I thought of the fishermen and the pilot of the southbound airplane. We all have jobs we have to do. And this was mine. I wasn’t going to kill him, of course, but the knife was real, and very sharp. Long Face quivered in fear.

“Wait!” he gasped in a husky voice. “Stay your hand.”

His way of speaking was strange, but I could understand him. I eased off on the knife.

“Where is Mariye Akikawa?” I pressed him. “Come on, spit it out!”

“No, sir, I do not know. I swear it.”

I studied his eyes. They were big and easy to read. He seemed to be telling the truth.

“All right then, tell me, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“I am enjoined to verify and record these events. I do only what I am told to do. You have my word.”

“Why must you verify them?”

“Because I was so bidden. I know nothing beyond that.”

“So what on earth are you? Another kind of Idea?”

“Goodness no! I am a Metaphor, nothing more.”

“A Metaphor?”

“Yes. A mere Metaphor. Used to link two things together. So please, untie my bonds, please, I beseech you.”

I was getting confused. “If you are as you say, then give me a metaphor now, off the top of your head.”

“I am the most humble and lowly form of Metaphor, sir. I cannot devise anything of quality.”

“A metaphor of any kind is all right—it doesn’t have to be brilliant.”

“He was someone who stood out,” he said after a moment’s pause, “like a man wearing an orange cone hat in a packed commuter train.”

Not an impressive metaphor, to be sure. In fact, not really a metaphor at all.

“That’s a simile, not a metaphor,” I pointed out.

“A million pardons,” he said, sweat pouring from his forehead. “Let me try again. ‘He lived as though he were wearing an orange cone hat in a crowded train.’”

“That makes no sense. It’s still not a true metaphor. Your story doesn’t hold. I’ll just have to kill you.”

Long Face’s lips trembled with fear. His beard may have been manly, but he was short on guts.

“My sincerest apologies, sir. I am yet but an apprentice. I cannot think of a witty example. Forgive me. But I assure you that I am the genuine article, a true Metaphor.”

“Then who is your superior—who commands you?”

“I have no superior, per se. Well, perhaps I do, but I have never laid eyes on him. I only follow orders—acting as a link between phenomena and language. Like a helpless jellyfish adrift on the ocean. So please do not kill me. I implore you.”

“I can spare your life,” I said, my knife still on his throat. “But only if you agree to guide me to where you came from.”

“That is something I cannot do,” Long Face said in a firm voice. It was the first time he had used that tone. “The road I took to get here is the Path of Metaphor. It is different for each one who traverses it. It is not a single road. Thus I cannot guide you, sir, on your way.”

“Let me get this straight. I must follow this path alone, and I must discover it for myself—is that what you’re saying?”

Long Face nodded vigorously. “The Path of Metaphor is rife with perils. Should a mortal like you stray from the path even once, you could find yourself in danger. And there are Double Metaphors everywhere.”

“Double Metaphors?”

Long Face shuddered with fear. “Yes, Double Metaphors lurking in the darkness. The most vile and dangerous of creatures.”

“It’s all the same to me,” I said. “I’m already mixed up in a whole lot of craziness. So it’s no skin off my nose if the craziness grows or shrinks. I killed the Commendatore with my own hands. I don’t want his death to be in vain.”

“I see I have no choice. So let me offer you a word of warning before you set out.”

“What kind of warning?”

“Take a light of some kind with you. You will pass through many dark places on your way. You will come across a river. It is a metaphorical river, but the water is very real. It is cold and deep, and the current is strong. You cannot cross without a boat. You will find a boat at the ferrying spot.”

“How about after I cross the river—what should I do then?”

Long Face rolled his bulging eyes. “The world that awaits you on the other side, like this one, is subject to the principle of connectivity. You will have to see for yourself.”

I checked Tomohiko Amada’s bedside table. Sure enough, a flashlight was there. A facility like this one was sure to store one in each room in case of fire or earthquake. I flicked it on. The light was strong. The batteries weren’t dead. I slipped on my leather jacket, which I had draped over a chair, and started for the hole in the corner, flashlight in hand.

“Please, sir,” Long Face begged. “Will you not loosen my bonds? I fear what may transpire should I be left in this state.”

“If you’re a true Metaphor, untying yourself should be easy. Aren’t Concepts and Ideas and others like you able to move through space and time?”

“No, you overrate me. I am blessed with no such marvelous powers. Concepts and Ideas are Metaphors of a much higher order.”

“Like those with orange cone hats?”

Long Face looked stricken. “Please do not mock me, sir. My feelings can be hurt too, you know.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to untie his hands and feet. I had bound them so tightly they took time to undo. Now that we had talked, he didn’t appear to be such a bad fellow. True, he didn’t know where Mariye was, but he had volunteered other information. I doubted that he would interfere or cause me any harm if I untied him. And I certainly couldn’t leave him bound and trussed where he was. Should anyone find him like that, it would only make things worse. When I finished, he sat there for a moment, rubbing his chafed wrists with his tiny hands. Then he felt his forehead. It appeared a lump had already sprouted.

“Thank you, sir. Now I can return to my world.”

“Go ahead,” I said, gesturing to the hole in the corner. “I’ll follow later.”

“I shall now make my departure. Please ensure that the lid is securely closed when you follow. Otherwise, someone might trip and fall in. Or grow curious and climb down. Then I would be held responsible.”

“Understood. I will make sure it’s closed.”

Long Face trotted to the hole and climbed inside. Then his head and shoulders popped up again. His saucer eyes had an eerie glow. As they did in Killing Commendatore.

“I wish you a safe journey,” Long Face said to me. “I hope you can find What’s-her-name. Was it Komichi?”

“No, her name isn’t Komichi,” I said. A chill ran down my spine. My throat turned to sandpaper. I couldn’t speak for a moment. “The name was Mariye Akikawa. Do you know something about Komichi?”

“No, I know nothing at all.” Long Face seemed to realize that he’d let drop something he shouldn’t. “The name just slipped into my clumsy metaphorical brain. A simple mistake. Forgive me, please, sir.”

Long Face vanished down the hole. Like smoke in the wind.

I stood there for a moment, plastic flashlight in hand. Komichi? How could my sister’s name come up here, of all places? Could she be connected to this strangeness? But I had no time to ponder that question. I switched the flashlight on and entered the hole, feetfirst. It was dark below, and there seemed to be a long path sloping downward. That was odd, too, come to think of it. The room was on the third floor, so the second floor should be directly beneath. I trained the flashlight on the path, but couldn’t make out where it led. I lowered the rest of my body inside and closed the lid tight behind me. Now everything was black.

The darkness was so complete that my five senses were useless. As if the links between my body and my mind had been severed, and no information was passing between them. It was the strangest feeling. As if I were no longer myself. Nevertheless, I had to go on.

“If my friends wish to save Mariye Akikawa, then do the deed.”

Those had been the Commendatore’s words. He had made the sacrifice. Now it was my turn to face the ordeal. I had to push forward. With the flashlight my only ally, I stepped down into the inky blackness of the Path of Metaphor.

⁵³ MAYBE A FIREPLACE POKER

The blackness enfolding me was so thick, so complete, it seemed to have a will of its own. It felt like walking on the ocean floor, where not even a particle of light could penetrate. Only the yellow beam of my flashlight connected me to the world, and barely, at that. The passageway descended at a steady angle. The surface beneath my feet was hard and smooth—it felt like walking down a tunnel bored into solid rock. The ceiling was so low I had to stoop to keep from hitting my head. The air was chilly and odorless, and the total lack of smell disturbed me. Perhaps even the air was different here than above ground.

How long would my flashlight hold out? Its beam was strong and steady for now, but when the batteries failed (as they would eventually) I would be stranded in the dark. And if I were to believe Long Face, dangerous Double Metaphors were lurking out there, ready to pounce.

The palm of my hand that held the flashlight was sweaty from the tension. My heartbeat was a dull, hard thump. It sounded threatening, like a drumbeat would to someone lost in the jungle. Long Face had warned me: “Take a light of some kind with you. You will pass through many dark places on your way.” So not everything in this passageway was pitch black. I wished it would brighten soon. I wished too that the ceiling would rise. I had always felt panicky in dark, constricted spaces. If this continued for much longer, I would soon have trouble breathing.

To calm myself, I tried to focus on other things. I needed to find something, anything, to occupy my mind. What popped into my head was an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich. Why a grilled cheese sandwich? Go figure. That’s what came up first, for whatever reason. Perfectly melted cheese on a square of beautifully browned toast. Sitting on a pure white plate. So real I could reach out and touch it. And beside it a cup of piping-hot coffee. Coffee as black as a moonless night. A window opening onto a tall willow, on whose supple branches a small flock of chirping birds perched precariously, like a troupe of tightrope walkers. Everything at an immeasurable distance from where I was now.

Then, for some reason, I thought of the opera Der Rosenkavalier. I would listen to it as I sipped my coffee and nibbled my grilled cheese sandwich. That jet-black vinyl disk, released by Decca Records in Great Britain. I placed the heavy record on the turntable and gently lowered the needle. Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. The music elegant, intricate. When Richard Strauss had boasted he could describe even a broom musically, he was in his heyday. But was it a broom? I still couldn’t remember. Perhaps it was an umbrella, or then again maybe a fireplace poker. In any case, how could one describe a broom in music? Or a hot grilled cheese sandwich, or someone’s callused feet, or the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Could music really depict those things?

Richard Strauss conducted the same orchestra in prewar Vienna. (Was it before the Anschluss? After?) The program on this given day was Beethoven’s 7th, a resolute yet quiet and well-groomed symphony, squeezed between its bright, uninhibited older sister (the 6th) and its bashful and beautiful younger sister (the 8th). A youthful Tomohiko Amada was in attendance. A pretty young woman sat beside him. Most likely, he was in love with her.

I imagined the city of Vienna on that day. The waltzes, the sweet Sacher tortes, the red-and-black swastikas fluttering from the roofs.

I could feel my thoughts veering off in a pointless direction. Or, more accurately perhaps, in a directionless direction. Yet I was powerless to rein them in. They were no longer under my control. It’s no simple matter to hold on to your mind in total blackness. Your thoughts become a tree of riddles whose branches trail off into the dark. (A metaphor.) Nevertheless, I had to focus on something to hold myself together. Any old something would do. Otherwise, I would start to hyperventilate.

One absurdity after another sauntered through my mind as I pushed down the endless slope. The passageway was as straight as an arrow, with no bends or forks. However far I walked, nothing changed—not the height of the ceiling, or the depth of the darkness, or the quality of the air, or the angle of the slope. My sense of time was foggy, but based on how long I had been walking, I must have been deep underground. Yet in the end, that “depth” had to be a fabrication. After all, I had entered this tunnel from the third floor of a building. The darkness too had to be fabricated. Everything was either concept or metaphor, nothing more. That’s what I told myself, anyway. The problem was that the darkness enfolding me was real darkness, the depth pressing down on me real depth.

Just when my neck and back were firing off warning signals about my hunched-over posture, a dim light appeared ahead. Then came a series of twists and turns. With each, my surroundings grew a little brighter, as if the night sky was giving way to day. Now I could make out where I was. I switched off my flashlight to conserve the batteries.

It was growing light, but still I smelled nothing, heard nothing. Then, at last, the cramped passage abruptly ended, and I stepped out into the open. Yet I could see no sky above me, only what looked like a milky-white ceiling, far overheard. A pale glow covered everything, as if the world was lit by a host of luminous insects. It felt odd. Yet it was a relief to say goodbye to the darkness, and to be able to walk upright again. I could relax a bit.

Outside the tunnel, the ground was rough underfoot. There was no path, only a barren, rocky plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. The downward slope had ended, and I was walking up a gentle rise. I picked my way forward, unsure of my direction. I checked my watch, but its hands held no meaning. One glance told me that much. In fact, nothing I carried—key ring, wallet, driver’s license, loose change, handkerchief—promised to be of any use at all.

The incline grew steeper and steeper. After a while, I was literally crawling up the slope on my hands and knees. If I could only reach the top, then maybe I could see where I was. I pushed on without pausing to catch my breath. The only sound was the sound I was making, and even that seemed artificial, not like real sound at all. There was nothing alive that I could see. Not a tree, not a clump of grass, not a solitary bird. Not even a puff of wind. Only I moved—all else was still. It was as if time itself had come to a halt.

I finally reached the top of the rise. I could see in all directions from there, as I had anticipated. Yet my view was limited. For there was a whitish mist that hung over everything. All I could make out was what amounted to a lifeless wasteland, a craggy, barren wilderness that stretched in every direction. There was no true sky, just that milky-white ceiling. I felt like an astronaut who had crashed, and landed on an uninhabited planet. Well, at least there was some light, and air that I could breathe. I should be grateful for those.

I could find no sign of life. Finally, though, I was able to make out a faint sound. I thought it might be a hallucination at first, or possibly coming from my own body. Yet it gradually became clear that the noise was continuous, and caused by some kind of natural phenomenon. In fact, it sounded like flowing water. Perhaps it was the river that Long Face had spoken of. Bathed in the pale light, I picked my way down the bumpy slope in the direction of the sound.

The sound of water made me terribly thirsty. Come to think of it, I had been walking a very long time with nothing to drink. Yet I had been so anxious that water had never crossed my mind. Now I craved it desperately. But was the water in that river—if that was where the sound was coming from—drinkable? It might be thick with mud, or filled with dangerous toxins. Or perhaps it was metaphorical water, which my hands could not scoop up. Oh well, I would find out when I got there.

The noise grew louder and clearer as I went along. It sounded like a fast-flowing river, tumbling through rocks. Yet I still could not see it. As I headed toward the sound, the ground on both sides of me rose until I was walking between two rock walls about thirty feet in height. The path cut between those towering cliffs, though its serpentine twists and turns made it impossible to know what lay ahead. It was not a man-made trail. Rather, it appeared to have been fashioned by the forces of nature. From what I could tell, the river lay at its end.

I hurried along the walled path. I passed no tree, no blade of grass. Not a living thing. The silent cliffs were all that I could see. A sterile, monochrome world. It was as if an artist had lost interest in painting a landscape, and had abandoned it before adding the colors. I could barely hear my own footsteps. The rocks seemed to absorb sound.

At a certain point the path, which had been flat for the most part, began to slope upward again. It took some time, but at last I reached the crest, which ran like a spine along the top of the cliffs. When I leaned forward, I could see the river. Now the rush of water was even more audible.

The river was not especially wide. Maybe fifteen or twenty feet across. But its current was swift. I couldn’t tell its depth. Judging from the whitecaps it sent up here and there, boulders and other hidden obstacles lay beneath the surface. The river carved a straight line through the rocky terrain. I crossed the ridge and headed down the slope in its direction.

When I reached the river, and saw it rushing past from right to left, I felt much better. At the very least, a large quantity of water was on the move. It had originated somewhere and was flowing somewhere else, following the contours of the land. In a place where nothing stirred, and no wind blew, the sound of rushing water reverberated around me. No, this world was not wholly absent of motion. That fact alone gave me some comfort.

The moment I reached the river, I knelt on the bank and scooped up water in my cupped hands. It was pleasantly cold. The river seemed snow-fed. Its water was crystal clear and appeared pure. Of course, I couldn’t tell by looking at it if it was safe to drink. It might contain a deadly poison. Or bacteria that would ravage my body.

I sniffed the water in my hands. It had no odor (that is, if my sense of smell was still functioning). I took a sip. It had no flavor (that is, if I hadn’t lost my sense of taste). I braced myself and swallowed deeply. I was too thirsty to resist, whatever the consequences. The water was indeed entirely tasteless and odorless. It might be real or fabricated, but thankfully, it would quench my thirst.

I knelt there, blissfully gulping mouthful after mouthful. I was thirstier than I had realized. Yet it was strange somehow to drink water lacking in taste and odor. Cold water when we are thirsty is delicious more than anything else. Our body sucks it in greedily. Our cells rejoice, our muscles regain their strength. Yet drinking the water from this river brought none of those feelings. It did no more than quench my thirst at a simple, physical level.

When I had drunk my fill, I stood up and looked at my surroundings one more time. Long Face had said that there would be a boat landing somewhere along the riverbank. That one of the boats could ferry me to the other side. There I would (probably) find information relating to Mariye Akikawa’s whereabouts. But I could see nothing that looked like a landing, either upstream or downstream. I would have to search for it. A boat was crucial. Fording the river unaided was too dangerous. “The water is cold and deep, and the current is strong. You cannot cross without a boat,” Long Face had told me. But which way should I turn to find that boat? Upriver or downriver? I had to choose one or the other.

Then I remembered Menshiki’s given name, “Wataru,” written with the kanji for traversing water. “The wataru in my name is the character that means ‘to cross a river,’” Menshiki had said, when he introduced himself. “I don’t know why I was given that name. I’ve never had much to do with water.” A short while later he had added, “By the way, I’m left-handed. If I’m told to go left or right, I always choose left. It’s become a habit.”

It was a random comment quite disconnected to what we were talking about—I couldn’t figure out why he would blurt out something like that. Which is probably why it stuck in my mind.

Maybe his comment had no special significance. It could have been mere happenstance. Yet (according to Long Face) this was a land built upon the conjunction of phenomena and expression. I ought to be able to handle the happenstance of any hints that came in my direction. I stood before the river and made up my mind. I would go left. If I took the unconscious tip that “colorless” Menshiki had provided and followed the tasteless, odorless river downstream, it might provide a further hint of some sort. Then again, it might not.

As I walked along the riverbank, I wondered what, if anything, lived in the water. It didn’t seem likely anything did. I couldn’t confirm this, of course. Nevertheless, I could see no signs of life. What organism would live in water that had neither taste nor odor? The river appeared wholly concentrated on its own identity. “I am river,” it said. “I am that which flows.” Certainly it possessed the form of a river, but beyond that state of being there was nothing. Not a thing floated on its surface, not a twig, not a blade of grass. It was simply a great quantity of water cutting across the land.

I pushed on through that boundless, cottony mist. It gently resisted me as I moved, like a filmy curtain of white lace. After a while, my gut began to react to the water I had drunk. It didn’t feel unpleasant or ominous, but neither was it cause for rejoicing. A neutral feeling, whose true nature eluded my understanding. I felt I was being somehow changed, as if I were no longer the same person. It was a strange sensation. Could the water be turning me into someone physically adapted to this world?

For some reason, though, I was able to stay calm. I thought, optimistically, that there could be no real harm. My optimism had no firm basis. Nevertheless, I had passed without mishap through the narrow pitch-black passageway. With neither map nor compass, I had crossed a rocky wilderness to find this river. I had quenched my thirst with its water. I had avoided a close encounter with a lurking Double Metaphor. Dumb luck? Or perhaps it was predetermined. Whichever the case, I was heading in a good direction. So I thought. Or at least so I tried to convince myself.

Finally, a vague shape appeared through the haze. It was not a natural object—its straight lines meant it had to be human-made. As I drew nearer I saw that it was a boat landing. A small wooden jetty extending from the shore. Turning left had been the correct decision. Then again, it was possible that, in a world governed by connectivity, things would shift to accommodate whatever action I chose. Apparently, Menshiki’s unconscious hint had helped steer me through to this point.

I could see the figure of a man, shrouded in the mist. He was tall. In fact, after the tiny Commendatore and Long Face, he looked like a giant. He was standing very still at the end of the jetty, as if lost in thought, leaning against some kind of dark machine. The swift-flowing river bubbled over his feet. He was the first human being I had encountered in this land. Or human-shaped being, perhaps. I approached him with trepidation.

I couldn’t see him clearly, so I took a chance and called out, “Hello!” through that cottony veil. But there was no reply. He just adjusted his posture slightly. I could see his dark silhouette shift in the mist. Perhaps my voice hadn’t reached him. The sound of the river might have blotted it out. Or the air in these parts might not carry sound very well.

“Hello!” I said again, moving somewhat closer. In a louder voice this time. Still, he didn’t speak. All I could hear was the unbroken rush of water. Perhaps he couldn’t understand what I was saying.

“I can hear you. And I do understand,” he said, as if reading my mind. His voice was deep and low, befitting his height. But it was also flat, utterly devoid of feeling. Just as the river was devoid of odor and taste.

⁵⁴ ETERNITY IS A VERY LONG TIME

The tall man standing before me had no face. He did have a head, of course. It sat on his shoulders in a normal way. But the head lacked a face. Where a face should have been was blank. A milky blankness, like pale smoke. His voice emerged from within that emptiness like wind from a deep cavern.

The man was wearing what looked like a dark raincoat. The coat ended just short of the ground, so I could see the tips of his boots peeking out. Its buttons were fastened up to his neck. It was as if there was a storm on the horizon, and he had dressed for it.

I stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to speak. From a distance, he had reminded me of the man with the white Subaru Forester, or Tomohiko Amada the night he had visited my studio. Or again, the young man who slayed the Commendatore with his sword in Killing Commendatore. All were similarly tall. A closer look, however, told me he was none of them. He was just the faceless man. A broad-brimmed black hat was pulled low over his eyes. The brim half concealed the milky emptiness.

“I can hear you. And I do understand,” he repeated. I didn’t see his lips move, of course. He had none.

“Is this the boat landing?” I asked.

“Yes,” the faceless man replied. “This is the boat landing. Only from here can one cross the river.”

“I must travel to the other side.”

“As must all.”

“Do many come?”

The man did not reply. My question was sucked into the void. There followed an interminable silence.

“What is on the other side?” I asked. The white mist over the river concealed the far shore.

I could feel the faceless man studying my face from within the emptiness. “What is on the other side depends on what you are seeking. It is different for everyone.”

“I am trying to locate the whereabouts of a young girl named Mariye Akikawa.”

“So that is what you seek on the other side, correct?”

“Yes. That is what I seek. That is why I have come.”

“And how was it, then, that you were able to find the entrance?”

“I killed an Idea that had taken the form of the Commendatore. I killed him with a carving knife in a nursing home in Izu Kogen. I did so with his permission. His death summoned Long Face, the Metaphor who opened the hole to the underground passageway. I forced him to let me in.”

The man fixed his empty countenance on me for some time. He didn’t speak. Had he understood me or not? I couldn’t tell.

“Was there blood?”

“A great deal,” I answered.

“Actual blood, I take it.”

“So it seemed.”

“Look at your hands.”

I looked. But no trace of blood remained. Perhaps it had been washed away when I drank from the river. There ought to have been a lot, though.

“No matter,” the faceless man said. “I have a boat, and I will ferry you across. But there is one condition.”

I waited to be told what that might be.

“You must pay me an appropriate fee. That is the rule.”

“And if I can’t pay, am I unable to cross to the far shore?”

“Yes. You would have to remain here for eternity. The river is cold and deep, and the current is strong. And eternity is a very long time. That is no figure of speech, I assure you.”

“But I have nothing to pay you with.”

“Show me what is in your pockets,” the faceless man said, in a quiet voice.

I emptied my jacket and pants pockets. My wallet containing slightly less than 20,000 yen. My credit card, my bank card, my driver’s license, and a gas station discount coupon. My key ring with three keys on it. A cream-colored handkerchief and a disposable ballpoint pen. Five or six coins. And that was it. Minus the flashlight, of course.

The faceless man shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I see nothing that can pay for your passage. Money has no meaning here. Don’t you have something else?”

I had nothing more in my possession. A cheap watch was on my left wrist, but time had no value here either.

“If you give me paper, I can portray your likeness. My skill as a painter is the only other thing I carry with me.”

The faceless man laughed. At least I think he did. A faint trill echoed in the emptiness.

“In the first place, I have no face. How can you sketch the likeness of a man with no face? Can you draw a void?”

“I am a professional,” I said. “I have no need of a face to draw your portrait.”

I wasn’t at all sure I could pull it off. But I figured it was worth a shot.

“I would be most interested to see what you come up with,” the faceless man said. “Unfortunately there is no paper in these parts.”

I looked down at the ground. Perhaps I could scratch something on its surface with a stick. But it was solid rock. I shook my head.

“Are you certain that is all you carry with you?”

I carefully searched a second time. The pockets of my leather jacket were empty. Completely. I did find something small tucked in the bottom of one of my jeans pockets, though. A tiny plastic penguin. Menshiki had picked it up from the floor of the pit and given it to me. It had an even tinier strap, which Mariye had used to fasten it to her cell phone. It was her lucky charm. Somehow, it had fallen into the pit.

“Show me what is in your hand,” the faceless man said.

I opened my hand, revealing the figurine.

The faceless man stared at it with empty eyes.

“This will do,” he said after a moment. “I will accept this as payment.”

Should I hand it over or not? It was Mariye’s precious lucky charm, after all. It wasn’t mine. Could I just give it away? What if something bad happened to her as a result?

But I had no choice. If I failed to turn it over, I would never reach the opposite shore, and if I didn’t reach the shore, then I would never find Mariye. The Commendatore’s death would have been in vain.

“I will give you the penguin as my fare of passage,” I said. “Please take me to the other side of the river.”

The faceless man nodded. “The day may come when you can draw my likeness,” he said. “If that day arrives, I will return the penguin to you.”

The faceless man strode to the end of the wooden jetty and stepped down into the small boat moored there. It was a rectangular vessel, shaped like a pastry box. Barely six feet long and narrow, and made of heavy wooden boards. I doubted it could carry many passengers at a time. There was a thick mast in the middle of the boat, at the top of which stood a metal ring about four inches in diameter. A sturdy rope was threaded through that ring. The rope stretched across the river to the far shore in a straight line—it barely sagged at all. It appeared that the boat ran back and forth along that rope, which kept it from being swept away by the swift current. The boat looked as if it had been in use for ages. It had no visible means of propulsion, or even a proper prow. It was just a shallow wooden box floating on the water.

I followed the faceless man into the boat and seated myself on the horizontal plank that ran from side to side. He leaned against the thick mast with his eyes closed, as if waiting for something. Neither of us spoke. After a few minutes, as if it had made up its own mind, the boat began its slow departure. I had no idea what was propelling us, but we were moving silently toward the far shore. There was no sound of an engine, nor of any other machinery. All I could hear was the steady slapping of water against the hull. We moved at roughly the pace of someone walking. Our boat was dashed from side to side by the current, but the sturdy rope prevented us from being washed downstream. It was just as the faceless man had said—no one could cross the river without a boat. He leaned calmly against the mast, unperturbed even when it felt like our craft might capsize.

“Will I be able to find Mariye Akikawa when we reach the other side?” I asked, when we were about halfway across.

“I am here to ferry you across the river,” the faceless man said. “To help you navigate the interstice between presence and absence. After that, it’s up to you—my job is done.”

Not long after, we hit the jetty on the far shore with a small bump. The faceless man’s posture, however, did not change. He leaned against the mast, as if confirming some sort of internal process. When that was done, he expelled a great, empty breath and stepped up onto the jetty. I followed him out of the boat. The jetty and the winch-like mechanism attached to it were the same as those on the opposite bank. So similar, in fact, it felt as if we had made a round-trip, and ended back where we started. That feeling disappeared, however, the moment I stepped onshore. For the ground on this side was normal earth, not solid rock.

“You must proceed alone from here,” the faceless man announced.

“But I don’t know which path to take. Or which direction to go.”

“Such things are inconsequential here,” came the rumble from the milky void. “You have drunk from the river, have you not? Now each of your actions will generate an equivalent response, in accordance with the principle of connectivity. Such is the place you have come to.”

With these words, the faceless man adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, turned on his heel, and walked back to his boat. Once he was aboard, it returned as it had come, following the rope to the other side. Slow and sure, like a well-trained animal. The faceless man and the boat were one as they vanished into the mist.

I decided to leave the jetty behind and walk downstream along the bank. I could have gone in any direction, but it seemed best to follow the river. That way, there was water to drink when I got thirsty. A short while later, I turned to look back at the jetty, but it was already cloaked in white mist. As though it had never existed.

The farther I walked, the wider the river became, and the gentler the current. There were no more whitecaps, and the sound of rushing water had practically disappeared. Why hadn’t they put the pier here, instead of where the flow was so swift? True, the distance would have been greater, but the crossing would have been so much easier where the water was calm. All the same, this world probably operated according to its own principles, its own way of thinking. Even greater danger might lurk beneath the placid surface.

I searched my pockets. Sure enough, the penguin was gone. That the protective charm had been lost (most likely for all eternity) was hardly reassuring. Perhaps I had made the wrong choice. Yet what other option did I have? I could only hope Mariye would be all right without it. At this point, hope was all I had.

I made my way along the riverbank, the flashlight from Tomohiko Amada’s bedside in one hand. I kept it turned off. This dusky world was not so dim as to require a light. I could see where I was walking, and for about twelve or fifteen feet ahead. The river flowed to my left, slow and silent. Once in a while, I could glimpse the far shore through the haze.

The farther on I pushed, the more the ground beneath my feet came to resemble a path. Not a well-defined path, yet something that fulfilled the function of a path. There were vague signs that people had passed this way before. Gradually, the path was leading me away from the river. At a certain point, I drew up short. Should I stick to the river? Or allow this presumed path to take me in another direction?

After some thought, I elected to follow the path and leave the river behind. I had a feeling it would lead me somewhere. Now each of your actions will generate an equivalent response, in accordance with the principle of connectivity, the ferryman had said. This path could well be an example. I decided to follow the plausible suggestion, if that’s what it was, that had been presented to me.

The farther I moved from the river, the more the path turned uphill. Eventually, I realized I could no longer hear the rush of water. The slope was easy and the path almost straight, so my steps fell into a steady rhythm. The mist was melting away, but the light remained pale and somewhat opaque. There was no way to tell what lay ahead. I kept my eyes on my feet, and my breathing regular and systematic.

How long had I been walking? I had lost all sense of time. All sense of direction, too. And the thoughts running through my head were distracting me. I had so much to figure out, yet my thoughts had become so terribly fragmented. When I tried to focus on one thought, a new thought would appear to gulp it down, and my mind would careen in the wrong direction. Each time, I lost track of what I had just been thinking about.

I was so distracted, in fact, that I almost bumped right into that. I tripped on something, and raised my eyes as I was regaining my balance. In that instant, the air around me was transformed—I could feel it on my skin. I snapped back to reality. An enormous black mass loomed directly ahead. My jaw dropped in surprise. What was it? It took a moment to register that a huge forest stood in my path. It had materialized without warning in a terrain that, until that point, had had no vegetation, not a single leaf or blade of grass. No mystery, then, why I was so shocked.

It was a forest—no question there. A tangle of branches with thick leaves that formed a solid wall. Within the forest was darkness. More accurate than forest, perhaps, might have been “sea of trees.” I stood before it and listened, but could hear nothing. No birdsongs, no branches rustling in the wind. A complete absence of sound.

I was afraid to step inside the forest. Instinctively. The trees were too dense, the darkness inside too deep. I had no way to gauge the scale, or how far the path would continue. It might well split into a labyrinth of side trails. If I got lost in that maze, my chances of escaping were practically zero. Still, I had no other real options. The path I had chosen headed straight into the forest (or, more accurately, was sucked into it, like train tracks are sucked into a tunnel). It made no sense, having come this far, to turn around and head back to the river. Who knows, the river might not even be there anymore. No, I had made my choice, and now I had to live with it. I would press on, at whatever cost.

Mustering my courage, I stepped into the trees. It was impossible to tell the time of day—it could have been dawn, or midday, or evening. The half-light never seemed to vary, no matter how much time passed. Then again, time might not exist in this world. In which case, this dusk could persist, day in and day out, forever.

Sure enough, it was dark inside. The layered branches above my head blocked out almost all light. Yet I left my flashlight off. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see enough to walk, and I didn’t want to waste the batteries. I plunged through the forest, trying hard to empty my mind. Any thoughts would likely lead me to an even darker place. The path continued its gentle rise. All I could hear were my own footsteps, and those were more and more faint, as if their sound was slowly being sucked away. I hoped my thirst wouldn’t return. By this time, the river would be far indeed. No chance of heading back for a drink, however thirsty I got.

How long did I walk? The forest was deep and dark, the view unchanging. The light never changed, either. My footsteps were all I could hear, and barely at that. The air was tasteless and odorless, as always. Thick trees walled both sides of the path. I could see nothing else. Did anything live here? Perhaps not. I had noticed no birds or insects.

Yet I could feel something watching me—the sensation was clear and very unpleasant. Sharp eyes were being trained in my direction from behind the wall of foliage. Every movement I made was under surveillance. My skin burned, as if under a magnifying glass in the sun. What was I doing there? they demanded. This was their domain, and I was a lone invader. Yet I never actually saw any of those eyes. I may have imagined them. Fear and suspicion can fashion eyes in the dark.

Then again, Mariye had felt Menshiki’s eyes on her from across a valley, and through a telescope, no less. She had guessed that someone was keeping constant watch on her. And she was right. Those eyes were no fantasy.

Nevertheless, I decided to dismiss the eyes I felt scrutinizing me. There was no way that they were real. They had to be hallucinations, created by my fears. I needed to think that way. I had to make it through the great forest (though its actual size was a mystery). While retaining as much of my sanity as possible.

Luckily, there were no side trails. Thus I wasn’t forced to make a choice that might take me into a maze that led nowhere. No thorny thickets blocked my way. All I had to do was push forward along a single path.

I couldn’t tell how long I had been walking, yet I didn’t feel especially tired. Perhaps I was under too much stress to register fatigue. Just when my legs were getting a little heavy, however, I spied a yellow point of light in the distance. At first, I thought it was a firefly. But I was mistaken. The light didn’t move, or flicker on and off. Its fixed position suggested that it was human-made. The farther I went, little by little, the light grew larger and brighter. There could be no doubt. I was approaching something.

Was it something good, or something bad? Would it help or harm me? Whichever, I was out of options. For better or for worse, I had to find out what that light was. If I didn’t have the guts to do that, I never should have embarked on this journey in the first place. Step by step, I advanced toward the light.

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared before me, the forest ended. The trees that had lined the path on both sides vanished, and before I knew it, I had stepped out into a broad clearing. The clearing was the shape of a half-moon, and perfectly level. Now I could see the sky once more, and view my surroundings in that dusky light. Directly across from me rose a sheer cliff, and at the base of that cliff was the open mouth of a dark cave. The yellow light I had been following streamed directly from that opening.

The gloomy sea of trees was behind me, the towering cliff (much too steep for me to climb) straight ahead. The mouth of the cave opened directly before me. I looked up at the sky a second time, then around at my surroundings. Nothing looked like a path. My next move had to be to enter the cave—there was no alternative. Before going in, I took several deep breaths, to brace myself. By moving forward, I would generate a new reality in accordance with the principle of connectivity. So the faceless man had said. I would navigate the interstice between presence and absence. I could only entrust myself to his words.

Warily, I stepped into the cave. Then it struck me—I had been here before. I knew this cave by sight. The air inside was familiar, too. Memories came flooding back. The wind cave on Mt. Fuji. The cave where our young uncle had taken Komichi and me during our summer break, back when we were kids. She had slipped into a narrow side tunnel and disappeared for a long while. I had been scared to death that she was gone for good. Had she been sucked into an underground maze for all eternity?

Eternity is a very long time, the faceless man had said.

I walked slowly through the cave toward the yellow light, deadening my footsteps and trying to quiet my pounding heart. I rounded a corner, and there it was: the source of the light. An old lantern with a black metal rim, the sort that coal miners once carried, hanging on a thick nail driven into the stone wall. A fat candle burned inside the lantern.

Lantern, I thought. The word had come up not long before. It was part of the name of the anti-Nazi underground student organization that Tomohiko Amada was presumed to have joined. Things seemed to be converging.

A woman was standing beneath the lantern. I didn’t see her at first because she was so tiny. Less than two feet tall. Her black hair was coiled atop her head in a neat bun, and she wore a white gown from some ancient time. Its elegance was apparent at a glance. Another character lifted from Killing Commendatore. The beautiful maiden who looks on in horror, her hand over her mouth, as the Commendatore is slain. In Mozart’s Don Giovanni, she is Donna Anna. The daughter of the Commendatore.

Magnified by the light of the lantern, her sharp black shadow trembled on the wall of the cave.

“I have been awaiting you,” the miniature Donna Anna said.

⁵⁵ A CLEAR CONTRAVENTION OF BASIC PRINCIPLES

“I have been awaiting you,” said Donna Anna. She was tiny, but her voice was clear and bright.

Nothing could have surprised me by that point. It even seemed natural for her to be there waiting for me. She was a beautiful woman, with an innate elegance, and the way she spoke had a majestic ring. She might be only two feet tall, but she clearly had that special something that could captivate a man.

“I will be your guide,” she said to me. “Please be so kind as to take that lantern.”

I unhooked the lantern from the wall. I didn’t know who had put it there, so far beyond her reach. Its circular metal handle allowed it to be hung on a nail or carried by hand.

“You were waiting for me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “For a very long time.”

Could she be another form of Metaphor? I hesitated to pose such a bold question.

“Do you live in these parts?”

“Live here?” she said, casting a dubious glance in my direction. “No, I am here to meet you. And I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by ‘these parts.’”

I gave up asking questions after that. She was Donna Anna, and she had been waiting for me.

She wore the same sort of ancient garb as the Commendatore. In her case, a white garment, most likely made of fine silk. Draped in layers over the top half of her body, with loose-fitting pantaloons below. Though her shape was therefore hidden, I guessed she was slender but strong. Her small black shoes were fashioned of leather of some kind.

“Then let us commence,” Donna Anna said to me. “Not much time remains. The path is narrowing as we speak. Please follow me. And be so good as to hold the lantern.”

I followed in her wake, holding the lantern above her head. She walked toward the back of the cave with quick, practiced steps. The candle’s flame fluttered as we moved, casting a dancing mosaic of shadows on the pitted walls.

“This looks like a wind cave on Mt. Fuji that I once visited,” I said. “Is that possible?”

“All that is here looks like something,” Donna Anna declaimed without turning around. As though she were addressing the darkness ahead.

“Do you mean to say nothing here is the real thing?”

“No one can tell what is or is not the real thing,” she stated flatly. “All that we see is a product of connectivity. Light here is a metaphor for shadow, shadow a metaphor for light. You know this already, I believe.”

I didn’t think I knew, at least not all that well, but I refrained from inquiring further. That could only lead to more knotty abstractions.

The cave grew narrower the farther back we went. The roof became lower too, so that I had to stoop as I walked. Just as I had done in the Mt. Fuji wind cave. Finally, Donna Anna drew to a halt and turned to face me. Her small, flashing eyes stared up into mine.

“I can guide you this far. Now you must take the lead. I will follow, but only to a certain point. After that, you are on your own.”

Take the lead? I shook my head in disbelief—from what I could see, we had reached the very back of the cave. A dark stone wall blocked our way. I passed the lantern across its face. But it appeared that we had hit a dead end.

“It seems we can’t go any farther,” I said.

“Please look again. There should be an opening in the corner to your left,” Donna Anna said.

I shone the lantern on that section of the cave wall once more. When I stuck my head out and looked more closely, I could make out a dark depression on the far side of a large boulder. I squeezed myself between the wall and the boulder to inspect it. It certainly did appear to be an opening. I remembered my sister slipping into an even narrower crack.

I turned back to Donna Anna.

“You must enter there,” the two-foot-tall woman said.

I looked at her lovely face, wondering what to say. On the wall, her elongated shadow flickered in the lantern’s yellow light.

“I am fully aware,” she said, “that you have been terrified of small, dark places all your life. In such places, you can no longer breathe normally. I am correct, am I not? Nevertheless, you must force yourself to enter. Only in such a manner can you grasp that which you seek.”

“Where does this opening lead?”

“I do not know. The destination is something you yourself must determine by following your own heart.”

“But fear is in my heart as well,” I said. “That’s what worries me. That my fear will distort what I see and push me in the wrong direction.”

“Once again, it is you who determines the path. You are the one who chose the proper route to reach this world. You paid a great price for that, and have crossed the river by boat. You cannot turn back now.”

I looked again at the opening. I shuddered to think I would have to crawl into that dark, cramped tunnel. Yet that was what I had to do. She was right—I couldn’t turn back now. I placed the lantern on the ground and took the flashlight from my pocket. A lantern would be much too cumbersome in that tiny space.

“Believe in yourself,” Donna Anna said, her voice small but penetrating. “You have drunk from the river, have you not?”

“Yes, I was very thirsty.”

“It is good that you did so,” Donna Anna said. “That river flows along the interstice between presence and absence. It is filled with hidden possibilities that only the finest metaphors can bring to the surface. Just as a great poet can use one scene to bring another new, unknown vista into view. It should be obvious, but the best metaphors make the best poems. Take good care not to avert your eyes from the new, unknown vistas you will encounter.”

Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore might be seen as one such “unknown vista.” Like a great poem, the painting was a perfect metaphor, one that launched a new reality into the world.

I switched on the flashlight and checked its beam. It was bright and unwavering. The batteries should last for some time yet. I removed my leather jacket. It was too bulky to fit into such a tight space. That left me wearing a light sweater and jeans. The cave wasn’t especially cold, but neither was it all that warm.

Bracing myself, I crouched until I was almost on all fours and squeezed headfirst into the opening. Inside I found what appeared to be a tunnel sunk into solid rock. It was smooth to the touch, as if worn by water over the course of many years. There were almost no jagged or protruding edges. As a result, despite its narrowness, I was able to progress more easily than I had expected. The rock was cool and slightly damp. I inched forward on my stomach like a worm, the flashlight illuminating my way. I figured that the tunnel must have functioned as a waterway at some point in the past.

The tunnel was about two feet high and three feet across. Crawling was the only option. It looked like it would go on forever, a dark, natural pipe that expanded and contracted by small degrees. Sometimes it curved to the side. At other times it sloped up or down. Thankfully, though, there were no abrupt rises or falls. Then it hit me. If this was an underground conduit, water could flood the tunnel at any moment, and I would surely drown. My legs stopped moving, paralyzed by fear.

I wanted to turn around and go back the way I had come. But it was impossible to reverse course in such a cramped space. The tunnel seemed to have grown even narrower. Crawling backward to where I had begun was out of the question. Terror engulfed me. I was literally nailed to the spot. I couldn’t move forward, and I couldn’t retreat. Every cell in my body cried out for fresh air. Forsaken by light, I felt powerless and alone.

“Do not stop. You must push on.” Donna Anna’s command was irrefutable. I couldn’t tell if I was hearing things or if she was really behind me, urging me on.

“I can’t move,” I gasped, squeezing out the words. “And I can’t breathe.”

“Make fast your heart,” said Donna Anna. “Do not let it flounder. Should that happen, you will surely fall prey to a Double Metaphor.”

“What are Double Metaphors?” I asked.

“You should know the answer to that already.”

“I should know?”

“That is because they are within you,” said Donna Anna. “They grab hold of your true thoughts and feelings and devour them one after another, fattening themselves. That is what Double Metaphors are. They have been dwelling in the depths of your psyche since ancient times.”

Unbidden, the man with the white Subaru Forester entered my mind. I didn’t want him there. But there was no way around it. It was he who had pushed me to throttle that young woman, forcing me to look into the darkness of my own heart. He had reappeared more than once, to make sure I would remember that darkness.

I know where you were and what you were doing, he was announcing to me. Of course he knew everything. Because he lived inside me.

My heart was in chaos. I closed my eyes and tried to anchor it, to hold it in one place. I ground my teeth with the effort. But how should I go about securing my heart? Where was its true location, anyway? I looked within myself, searching one place after another. But it didn’t turn up. Where could it be?

“Your true heart lives in your memory. It is nourished by the images it contains—that’s how it lives,” a woman said. This time, however, it was not Donna Anna speaking. It was Komi. My sister, dead at age twelve.

“Search your memory,” said that dear voice. “Find something concrete. Something you can touch.”

“Komi?” I said.

There was no answer.

“Komi, where are you?” I said.

Still no reply.

There in the dark, I searched my memory. Like rummaging through an old duffel bag. But it seemed to have been emptied. I couldn’t even recall exactly what memory was.

“Turn off your light and listen to the wind,” Komi said.

I switched off the flashlight. But I couldn’t hear the wind, though I tried. All I could make out was the restless pounding of my heart, a screen door banging in a gale.

“Listen to the wind,” Komi repeated.

Once again, I held my breath and focused. This time, I could hear, lying beyond my heartbeat, a faint humming. A wind seemed to be blowing somewhere far away. A wisp of a breeze brushed my face. Air was entering the tunnel ahead. Air I could smell. The unmistakable odor of damp soil. The first odor I had encountered since setting foot in this Land of Metaphor. The tunnel was leading somewhere. To a place I could smell. In short, to the real world.

“All right then, on you go,” said Donna Anna. “There isn’t much time left.”

With my flashlight turned off, I crawled on into the blackness. As I moved forward, I tried to draw even the slightest whiff of that real air into my lungs.

“Komi?” I asked again.

There was no answer.

I ransacked my store of memories. Komi and I had raised a pet cat. A smart black tomcat. We named it Koyasu, though why we gave it that name escapes me. Komi had picked it up as a kitten on her way home from school. One day, however, it disappeared. We scoured our neighborhood looking for it. We stopped countless people and showed them Koyasu’s photograph. But in the end the cat never turned up.

I crawled on, the image of the black cat vivid in my mind. I tried to imagine my sister and me together, searching for it. I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of the cat at the end of the dark tunnel. I pricked my ears to hear its mewing. The black cat was solid and concrete, something I could touch. I could feel its fur, its warmth, the firmness of its body—even hear it purr—as if it were yesterday.

“That’s right,” Komi said. “Just keep remembering like that.”

I know where you were and what you were doing, the man with the white Subaru Forester called out of nowhere. He wore a black leather jacket and a golf cap with the Yonex logo. His voice was hoarse from the sea wind. Caught by surprise, I recoiled in fear.

I tried to find my memories of the cat. To draw the fragrance of damp earth into my lungs. I seemed to recall that smell from somewhere. From a time not so far away. But I couldn’t remember, try as I might. Where had it been? As I struggled to recall, once again, my memories began to fade away.

Strangle me with this, the girl had said. Her pink tongue peeked out at me from between her lips. The belt of her bathrobe lay beside her pillow, ready to be used. Her pubic hair glistened like grass in the rain.

“Come on,” Komi urged me. “Call up a favorite memory. Hurry!”

I tried to bring back the black cat. But Koyasu was gone. Why couldn’t I remember him? Perhaps the darkness had snatched him away while I was distracted. Its power had devoured him. I had to come up with something else, and fast. I had the horrid sense that the tunnel was tightening around me. It seemed alive. There is not much time, Donna Anna had said. Cold sweat trickled from my armpits.

“Come on now, remember something,” Komi’s voice said behind me. “Something you can physically touch. Something you can draw.”

Like a drowning man clutching a buoy, I latched onto my old Peugeot 205. My little French car. I remembered the feeling of the steering wheel as I toured northeastern Japan and Hokkaido. It felt like ages ago, yet I could still hear the rattle of that primitive four-cylinder engine, and the way the clutch growled when I shifted from second into third. For a month and a half, the car had been my constant comrade, my only friend. Now it was probably sitting in a scrap yard somewhere.

The tunnel was definitely narrowing. My head kept banging against the roof. I reached for the flashlight.

“Do not turn on the light,” Donna Anna commanded.

“But I can’t see where I’m going.”

“You must not see,” she said. “Not with your eyes.”

“The hole is closing in. If I go on I won’t be able to move.”

There was no answer.

“I can’t go any farther,” I said. “What should I do?”

Again no answer.

I could no longer hear Donna Anna and Komi. I sensed they were gone. All that remained was a deep silence.

The tunnel continued to shrink, making it even harder for me to advance. Panic was setting in. My limbs felt paralyzed—just drawing a breath was growing difficult. A voice whispered in my ear. You are trapped, it said. This is your coffin. You cannot move forward. You cannot move backward. You will lie buried here forever. Forsaken by humanity, in this dark and narrow tomb.

I sensed something approaching from behind. A flattish thing, crawling toward me through the dark. It wasn’t Donna Anna, nor was it Komi. In fact, it wasn’t human. I could hear the scraping of its many feet and its ragged breathing. It stopped when it reached me. There followed a few moments of silence. It seemed to be holding its breath, planning its next move. Then something cold and slimy touched my bare ankle. The end of a long tentacle, it seemed. Sheer terror coursed up my back.

Could this be a Double Metaphor? That which stemmed from the darkness within me?

I know where you were and what you were doing.

I couldn’t recall a thing. Not the black cat, not the Peugeot 205, not the Commendatore—everything was gone. My memory had been wiped clean a second time.

I squirmed and twisted, frantically trying to escape the tentacle. The tunnel had contracted even farther—I could barely move. I was trying to force myself into a space smaller than my body. That was a clear contravention of basic principles. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was physically impossible.

Nevertheless, I kept on thrusting, pushing myself forward. As Donna Anna had said, this was the path I had chosen, and it was too late to choose another. The Commendatore had died to make my quest possible. I had stabbed him with my own hands. His body had sunk in a pool of blood. I couldn’t allow him to die for nothing. And the owner of that clammy tentacle was trying to get me in its grips.

Rallying my spirits, I pressed on. I could feel my sweater unravel as it caught and tore on the rock. I awkwardly squirmed ahead, loosening my joints like an escape artist slipping his bonds. My pace was no faster than that of a caterpillar. The narrow tunnel was squeezing me like a giant vise. My bones and muscles screamed. The slimy tentacle slithered farther up my ankle. Soon it would cover me, as I lay there in the impenetrable dark, unable to move. I would no longer be the person I was.

Jettisoning all reason, I mustered what strength I had left and forced myself into the ever-narrowing space. Every part of my body shrieked in pain. Yet I had to push forward, whatever the consequences. Even if I had to dislocate every joint. However agonizing that would be. For everything around me was the product of connectivity. Nothing was absolute. Pain was a metaphor. The tentacle clutching my leg was a metaphor. All was relative. Light was shadow, shadow was light. I had no choice but to believe. What else could I do?

The tunnel ended without warning, spitting me out like a clump of grass from a clogged drainpipe. I flew through the air, utterly defenseless. There was no time to think. I must have fallen at least six feet before I hit the ground. Luckily, it wasn’t solid rock, but relatively soft earth. I curled and rolled as I fell, tucking in my head to protect it from the impact. A judo move, done without thinking. I whacked my shoulder and hip on landing, but I barely felt it.

Darkness surrounded me. And my flashlight was gone. I seemed to have dropped it when I tumbled out. I remained on all fours, not moving. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t think anything. I was only aware, and barely at that, of a growing pain in my joints. Every tendon, every bone wailed in protest at what it had been put through during my escape.

Yes—I had escaped that dreadful tunnel! The realization hit me at last. I could still feel the eerie tentacle sliding over my ankle. I was grateful to have eluded that thing, whatever it was.

But then, where was I now?

There was no breeze. But there was smell. The odor I had caught a whiff of in the tunnel was everywhere. I couldn’t recall where I had encountered it before. Nevertheless, this place was dead quiet. Not a sound anywhere.

I needed to find my flashlight. I carefully searched the ground where I had fallen. On all fours, in a widening circle. The earth was moist. I was scared that I might touch something creepy in the dark, but there was nothing, not even a pebble. Just ground so perfectly flat it must have been leveled by human hands.

After a long search, I finally found the flashlight lying about three feet from where I had landed. The moment my hand touched its plastic casing was one of the happiest of my life.

But I didn’t switch it on right away. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a number of deep breaths. As if I were patiently unraveling a stubborn knot. My breathing slowed. My heartbeat did, too, and my muscles began to return to normal. I slowly exhaled the last deep breath and switched on the flashlight. Its yellow light raced through the darkness. But I couldn’t look yet. My eyes had grown too used to the dark—the tiniest light made my head split with pain.

I shielded my eyes with one hand until I could open my fingers enough to peer through the cracks. From what I could see, I had landed on the floor of a circular-shaped room. A room of modest size, with walls of stone. I shone the flashlight above my head. The room had a ceiling. No, not exactly that. Something more like a lid. No light seeped through.

I realized where I was: in the pit in the woods, behind the little shrine. I had crawled into the tunnel in Donna Anna’s cave and tumbled out onto the floor of this stone chamber. I was in a real pit in the real world. I had no idea how that could have happened. But it had. I was back at the beginning, so to speak. But why was there no light? The lid was made of wooden boards. There were cracks between those boards, through which some light should enter. Yet none did.

I was stumped.

At least I knew where I was. The smell was a dead giveaway. Why had it taken me so long to figure out? I carefully examined my surroundings with my flashlight. The metal ladder that should have been standing there was gone. Someone must have pulled it out and carted it off. Which meant there was no means of escape.

What I found strange—it should have been strange, I guess—was that I could find no trace of the opening, no matter how hard I looked. I had exited the narrow tunnel and fallen onto the floor of this pit. Like a newborn baby pushed out in midair. Yet I couldn’t find the aperture. It was as if it had closed after it spit me out.

Eventually, the flashlight’s beam illuminated an object on the ground. Something I recognized. It was the old bell the Commendatore had rung—hearing it had led me to discover the pit. Everything had begun with this bell. I had left it on the shelf in the studio—then at some point it had vanished. I picked it up and examined it under the flashlight. It had an old wooden handle. There could be no doubt—it was that bell.

I stared at it for some time, trying to understand. Had someone brought it back? Had it returned under its own power? The Commendatore had told me the bell belonged to the pit. What did that mean—belonged to the pit? But I was too tired to figure out the principles that might explain what was taking place. And there was no pillar of logic I could lean on.

I sat down, back against the stone wall, and switched off the flashlight. I had to figure out how to escape from this pit. I didn’t need light for that. And it was important to conserve the batteries.

So what should I do now?

⁵⁶ IT APPEARS THAT SEVERAL BLANKS NEED FILLING IN

A number of things made no sense. Most troubling of all was the total absence of light. Someone had sealed the pit’s opening. But who would do such a thing, and why?

I prayed that someone (whoever it was) hadn’t piled boulders on top of the lid, returning it to how it had been in the beginning. That would mean my chances of getting out were practically zero.

A thought struck me—I clicked on the flashlight and checked my watch. It read 4:32. The second hand was circling the face, doing its job. Time was passing, no doubt about it. At least I was back where time flowed at a set pace, and in a single direction.

Yet what was time, when you got right down to it? We measured its passage with the hands of a clock for convenience’s sake. But was that appropriate? Did time really flow in such a steady and linear way? Couldn’t this be a mistaken way of thinking, an error of major proportions?

I clicked off the flashlight and, with a long sigh, returned to absolute darkness. Enough pondering time. Enough pondering space. Thinking about stuff like that led nowhere. It only added to my stress. I had to think about things that were concrete, things I could see and touch.

So I thought about Yuzu. She was certainly something I could see with my eyes and touch with my hands (if I was ever given that opportunity again). Now she was pregnant. This coming January, the child—not my child, but that of some other man—would be born. That situation continued without my involvement, in a place far removed from me. A new life with which I had no connection would enter this world. Yuzu had asked nothing of me. So why was she refusing to marry the father? I couldn’t figure it out. If she planned to be a single mother, odds were she’d have to quit her job at the architectural firm. I doubted that a small business like that could extend a lengthy maternity leave to a new mother.

I could find no convincing answers to these questions, though I tried. I was stumped. And the darkness made me feel even more powerless.

If I ever got out of this pit, I would put aside my hesitations and go see Yuzu. No question about it, I was hurt when she left me for someone else. It angered me, too (although it took me a very long time to realize that). But why carry around my resentments for the rest of my life? I would go meet her and we could talk things out. I needed to know, from Yuzu herself, what she was thinking, and what she wanted. Before it was too late. Once I made that decision, I felt a little easier. If she wanted to be friends, well, maybe I could give it a shot. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, at least. Perhaps we could resolve things that way. If I managed to get out of the pit, that is.

After this I fell asleep. I had shed my leather jacket before entering the tunnel (what fate lay in store for that jacket of mine?), and the cold was starting to get to me. The thin sweater I had on over my T-shirt had been so shredded by the walls of the tunnel that it was a sweater in name only. Moreover, I had returned to the real world from the Land of Metaphor. In other words, I was back where time and temperature played their proper roles. Yet my need for sleep won out. I drifted off, sitting there on the ground, leaning against the hard stone wall. It was a pure sleep, free of dream or deception. A solitary sleep beyond anyone’s reach, like the Spanish gold resting on the floor of the Irish Sea.

It was still pitch black when I woke up. I couldn’t see my finger when I waved it in front of my face. The darkness blotted out the line between sleep and wakefulness as well. Where did one end and the other begin, and which side was I on? I dragged out my bag of memories and began flipping through them, as if counting a stack of gold coins: the black cat that had been our pet; my old Peugeot 205; Menshiki’s white mansion; the record Der Rosenkavalier; the plastic penguin. I was able to call up memories of each, in great detail. My mind was working okay—the Double Metaphor hadn’t devoured it. It’s just that I had been in total darkness for so long that I was having trouble drawing a line between the world of sleep and the waking world.

I switched on the flashlight, covered it with my hand, and read my watch in the light leaking between my fingers: 1:18. Last time I looked, it was 4:32. Could I have been sleeping in such an uncomfortable position for nine hours? That was hard to believe. If that were true, I should be a lot stiffer. It seemed more reasonable to assume that, unbeknownst to me, time had traveled backward three hours. But I couldn’t be certain either way. Being immersed in the dark for so long had obliterated my sense of time.

In any case, the cold had grown more penetrating. And I had to pee. Badly. Resigning myself, I shuffled to the other side of the pit and let it all out. It was a long pee that the ground quickly absorbed. A faint smell of ammonia lingered, but only for a moment. Once the need to pee had been taken care of, hunger stepped in to take its place. By slow and steady degrees, it seemed, my body was readapting to the real world. Perhaps the effects of the water I had drunk from the River of Metaphor were wearing off.

I had to get out of the pit as soon as possible. I felt that more urgently now. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t take long to starve to death. Human beings can only sustain life if provided with food and water—that was a basic rule of the real world. And my present location had neither. All I had was air (though the lid was closed, air seemed to be leaking in from somewhere). Air, love, and ideals were important, no argument there, but you couldn’t survive on them alone.

I pulled myself off the ground and attempted to scale the pit’s smooth stone wall. I tried from a number of spots, but, as I expected, it was a waste of energy. The wall was less than nine feet high, but it was straight up and down, with nothing at all to grab onto. It would take superhuman ability to climb, and even if I reached the top, there was still that heavy lid to deal with. I would need a solid foothold to push that aside.

I sat back down, resigned. Only one option presented itself. I could ring the bell. As the Commendatore had done. But there was one big difference between the Commendatore and me. He was an Idea, while I was a flesh-and-blood human being. An Idea never felt hunger, while I did. An Idea wouldn’t starve to death, whereas I would, relatively quickly. The Commendatore could ring the bell for a hundred years (though the concept of time was foreign to him) and not get tired, while my limit without food and water was probably three or four days. After that, I wouldn’t have the strength, though the bell was light.

So I began ringing the bell there in the dark. There was nothing else to do. Of course I could call out for help. But the pit was in the middle of a deserted woods. Since the woods was the private property of the Amada family, under normal circumstances there would be no one around. To make matters worse, the cover of the pit had been sealed tight. I could shout at the top of my lungs and no one would hear. My voice would just grow hoarse, and I would become even thirstier. At least shaking the bell was better than nothing.

Moreover, there was something out of the ordinary about the bell’s ring. It seemed to have some special power. In physical terms, it wasn’t very loud. Yet I had heard it from my distant bed in the middle of the night. The autumn insects had fallen silent the moment they heard that ringing. As if commanded to stop their racket.

So I sat there at the bottom of the pit, my back against the stone wall, and rang the bell. I shook my wrist from side to side and emptied my mind as best I could. When I got tired, I took a break and then started again. As the Commendatore had done before me. It wasn’t hard to clear my mind. When I listened to the bell I felt, quite naturally, that I didn’t have to think about anything else. The ringing sounded different in the dark than in the light. I’m pretty sure that difference was real. I was stuck in a black hole with no way out, but as long as I was shaking the bell, I felt neither fear nor anxiety. I could forget cold and hunger, as well. For the most part, I could even set aside my need to analyze what was taking place. This was a welcome change, as you can imagine.

When I tired of ringing the bell, I dozed off leaning against the stone wall. When I awoke, I switched on the flashlight and checked my watch. Time, I discovered, was behaving in a very haphazard manner. Of course, this may have had more to do with me than the watch. No question there. But that haphazardness was fine with me. I just went on mindlessly ringing the bell, then falling asleep, then waking up to ring the bell again. An endless repetition. With the repetition, my consciousness grew ever more thin and rarified.

Not a single sound made its way into the pit. I couldn’t hear the birds, or the wind. What could explain that? This was supposed to be the real world. I was back in a place where people felt hunger, and the need to pee. The real world ought to be filled with all kinds of noises.

I had no idea how much time had passed. I had given up checking my watch. The passing of days made even less sense than the passage of minutes and hours. How could it be otherwise in a place that lacked day and night? Not just time, either—I was losing contact with my own self. My body had become a stranger to me. I was finding it harder and harder to understand what my physical existence meant. Or perhaps I didn’t care to understand. All I could do was keep ringing that bell. Until my wrist was almost numb.

After what felt like an eternity (or after time had surged and ebbed like waves pounding the shore), and my hunger became unbearable, finally I heard something above my head. It sounded as if someone had grabbed hold of a corner of the world and was trying to peel back its skin. But the sound didn’t strike my ear as real. I mean, how could anyone do that? And if they succeeded, what would follow? A fresh new world, or an endless nothing? In truth, though, I didn’t care one way or the other. The final result would probably be more or less the same.

There in the dark, I closed my eyes and waited for the peeling of the world to conclude. But the world wasn’t to be peeled so easily, it seemed, and the din only mounted. Maybe it was real, after all. An actual object undergoing a process that produced an actual physical sound. Steeling myself, I opened my eyes and looked up. I trained the beam of my flashlight on the ceiling. Someone was up there making an awful racket. I didn’t know why, but it was an ear-splitting grinding noise.

I couldn’t tell if the sound threatened me, or was being made on my behalf. Whichever the case, I just sat there at the bottom of the pit shaking my bell, waiting to see how things would turn out. At last, a thin sheet of light shot through a crack between the boards and into the pit. Like the broad, sharp blade of a guillotine gliding through a mass of gelatin, it swept down through the darkness to land on my ankle. I dropped the bell and covered my face to protect my eyes.

Next, one of the boards was moved to the side and even more sunlight flooded in. Though my eyes were closed and my palms were pressed against them, I could feel the darkness turn to light. Then new air flowed in from above. It was fresh and cold, and filled with the fragrance of early winter. I loved that smell. I remembered how I had felt as a child wrapping a scarf around my neck on the first cold morning of the year. The softness of the wool against my skin.

Someone was calling my name from the top of the pit. At least, it seemed to be my name. I had forgotten I had one. Names possessed no meaning in the world where I had been for so long.

It took me a while to connect the someone calling my name with Wataru Menshiki. I shouted back. But no words emerged. All I could produce was a sort of growl, a signal that I was still alive. I wasn’t sure my voice was strong enough to reach him, but at least I could hear it. The strange, harsh call of some imaginary beast.

“Are you all right?” Menshiki called down.

“Menshiki?”

“Yes, it’s me,” Menshiki said. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m all right,” I said. My voice had returned. “I think,” I added.

“How long have you been down there?”

“I don’t know. It just happened.”

“Can you climb the ladder if I lower it to you?”

“I think so,” I said. Probably.

“Wait just a minute. I’ll go get it.”

My eyes began to adjust to the sunlight as I waited. I still couldn’t open them all the way, but at least I didn’t have to cover them with my hands. As luck would have it, it wasn’t that bright. I could tell it was daytime, but the sky was probably blanketed with clouds. Or else dusk was approaching. At last, I heard the metal ladder being lowered.

“Please give me a little more time,” I said. “My eyes aren’t used to the light, so I have to be careful.”

“Of course, take all the time you want,” said Menshiki.

“Why was the pit so dark? There was no light at all.”

“I covered it two days ago. It looked like someone had been monkeying with the lid, so I brought a heavy tarp from my house and tied it down with metal pegs and twine so it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t want a child to slip and fall in. I checked first to be sure no one was inside. It was empty then, I’m sure of it.”

It made perfect sense. Menshiki had covered the lid. That’s why it had been so dark.

“There were no signs that anyone had tampered with the tarp. It was just as I left it. So how did you get in? I don’t understand,” Menshiki said.

“I don’t understand either,” I said. “It just happened.”

There was nothing more I could tell him. And I had no intention of trying to explain, either.

“Shall I come down?” Menshiki asked.

“No, please stay where you are. I’ll come up.”

I could keep my eyes half open now. Mysterious images were churning behind them, but at least my mind was functioning. I lined up the ladder against the wall, put my foot on the lowest rung, and tried to push myself up. But my legs were weak. They didn’t feel like my legs at all. Still, I was able to gingerly climb up the ladder, one rung at a time. The air grew fresher the closer I got to the surface. I could hear birds chirping.

When I reached the top, Menshiki took my wrist in an iron grip and pulled me out. He was much stronger than I expected. Strong enough that I gave myself over to his hands without a second thought. Gratitude was all I felt. Out of the hole, I flopped onto my back and looked up at the dim sky. Sure enough, it was covered by gray clouds. I couldn’t tell the time of day. Tiny pellets of rain struck my cheeks and forehead. I found the irregular way they landed on my face exhilarating. I had never realized what a blessing rain could be. It was so full of life. Even the first cold rain of winter.

“I’m starving. And thirsty. And cold. I’m freezing,” I said. That’s all I could get out. My teeth were chattering.

Menshiki guided me through the woods, his arm wrapped around my shoulder. I was having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other—by the end, he was pulling me along. He was a lot more powerful than he looked. Those daily workouts of his were paying off.

“Do you have the key?” Menshiki asked.

“It’s under the potted plant to the right of the front door. Probably.” The “probably” was necessary. Nothing in this world could be stated with absolute certainty. I was still shaking with cold. The chattering of my teeth was so loud I could barely hear myself talk.

“You’ll be happy to hear Mariye returned home safe and sound early this afternoon,” Menshiki said. “What a relief. I got a call from Shoko about an hour ago. I’d been calling you, but no one ever picked up. That worried me, so I came over. I could hear the faint ring of a bell coming from the woods. So on a hunch, I came out and removed the tarp.”

The view opened up as we emerged from the trees. I could see Menshiki’s silver Jaguar parked demurely in front of my house. It was as spotless as ever.

“Why is your car always so beautiful?” I asked Menshiki. Not a fitting question under the circumstances, perhaps, but something I had long wanted to ask.

“I don’t know,” he said in a disinterested tone. “Maybe it’s because I wash it when I have nothing else to do. From front to back. Then once a month, a pro comes and waxes it. And my garage protects it from the elements. That’s all.”

That’s all? If my poor Toyota Corolla wagon heard that, after six months spent languishing in wind and rain, its shoulders would sag in dismay. It might even pass out.

Menshiki took the key from under the flowerpot and opened the door.

“By the way, what day of the week is it?” I asked him.

“Today? Today is Tuesday.”

“Tuesday? Are you sure?”

Menshiki double-checked his memory. “I put out the empty bottles and cans yesterday, so it must have been Monday. Therefore today is Tuesday, without a doubt.”

It had been Saturday when I had visited Tomohiko Amada’s room. So three days had passed. It wouldn’t have surprised me had it been three weeks, or three months, or even three years. I made a mental note. I rubbed my jaw with my palm. But there was no three-day stubble. Instead, my chin was smooth. What explained that?

Menshiki took me to the bath straightaway. He put me in a hot shower and brought me a fresh change of clothes. The clothes I had been wearing were tattered and filthy. I rolled them up in a ball and threw them in the garbage. There were red contusions all over my body but no visible injuries. I wasn’t bleeding.

Then he led me to the kitchen, sat me down, and slowly fed me water. By the end I had drained a big bottle of mineral water. While I was drinking he found several apples in the fridge and peeled them. I just sat there, admiring his skill with a knife. The plate of peeled apples looked beautiful, elegant even.

I ate three or four apples in all. It was a moving experience—I had never realized how delicious apples were. I wanted to thank their creator for inventing such a marvelous fruit. When I finished the apples, Menshiki dug up a carton of crackers and gave it to me. I emptied the box. The crackers were a bit soggy, but they still tasted like the best in the world. In the meantime, he boiled water, made tea, and mixed it with honey. I drank a number of cups. The tea and honey warmed me from the inside.

There wasn’t much in my fridge. It was, however, well stocked with eggs.

“How about an omelet?” Menshiki asked.

“I’d love one,” I said. I needed to fill my stomach—anything would do.

Menshiki took four eggs from the fridge, broke them in a bowl, whipped them with chopsticks, and added milk, salt, and pepper. Then he whipped them again. It was clear he knew what he was doing. Then he turned on the gas, chose a small frying pan, and melted some butter in it. He located a spatula in one of my drawers and deftly cooked the omelet.

His technique was remarkable, as I would have expected. He could have been featured on a TV cooking show. Housewives across the nation would have sighed with envy. When it came to omelets—when it came to anything, I should say—Menshiki was precise, efficient, and incredibly stylish. I could only look on in admiration. He slid the finished omelet onto a plate and gave it to me with a dollop of ketchup.

The finished omelet was so beautiful I wanted to sketch it. But instead I grabbed my knife and started eating. The omelet wasn’t just pretty to look at—it was delicious.

“This omelet is perfection,” I said.

Menshiki laughed. “Not really. I’ve made better.”

What sort of omelet could that have been? One that sprouted wings and flew from Tokyo to Osaka in under two hours?

When I had polished off the omelet, he took my plate to the sink. At last my stomach felt comfortable. Menshiki sat down across the table from me.

“Can we talk a little?” he asked me.

“Certainly,” I said.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Maybe so. But we have lots to talk about.”

Menshiki nodded. “It appears that several blanks need filling in.”

If they can be filled in, I thought.

“Actually, I stopped by Sunday afternoon,” Menshiki said. “I’d called many times but you never picked up, so I was a little worried. I got here around one.”

I nodded. I had been somewhere else around then.

“I rang the bell and Tomohiko Amada’s son came to the door. Masahiko, is that right?”

“Yes, Masahiko Amada. An old friend. He owns this house, and he’s got a key so he can get in when I’m not here.”

“He was—how should I put this—very worried about you. He said the two of you were visiting his father’s room in the nursing home last Saturday when all of a sudden, you disappeared.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“He said you vanished into thin air while he was out of the room making a phone call. The nursing home is in Izu Kogen, so the nearest station is too far to reach on foot. But there were no signs that anyone had called a taxi. And the receptionist and the security guard hadn’t seen you leave, either. Masahiko called your home later, but no one answered. He was so alarmed that he drove all the way here to check. He was concerned about your safety. Worried something bad had happened to you.”

I sighed. “I’ll try to explain things to Masahiko. His father’s in bad shape, and I only added to his worries. How is his father, by the way? Did he say anything?”

“It seems he’s been in a coma. Hasn’t regained consciousness at all. His son has taken a room near the home. He was on his way back to Tokyo when he stopped by here.”

“I should call him right away,” I said, shaking my head.

“That’s true,” Menshiki said, placing his hands on the table. “But first I think you need to come up with a coherent story about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing the past few days. Including an explanation of how you disappeared from the nursing home. No one’s going to buy it if you tell them you just woke up and found yourself back here.”

“You’re right,” I said. “But how about you? Can you buy my story?”

Menshiki thought for a moment. His brow was puckered, as if he was having trouble deciding what to say. “I’ve always been a man who thought along rational lines,” he said at last. “That’s how I was trained. To be honest, though, I can’t be logical where the pit behind the shrine is concerned. Anything could happen there and it wouldn’t feel strange in the least. Spending an hour inside the pit brought that home all the more. That place is more than just a hole in the ground. But I doubt anyone who hasn’t experienced it could understand.”

I couldn’t find the right words to respond, so I stayed silent.

“I think you should take the position ‘I don’t remember anything’ and then stick with it,” Menshiki said. “I don’t know how many people will believe you, but from what I can see, that’s your only option.”

I nodded. Yes, that could well be my only option.

“There are some things that can’t be explained in this life,” Menshiki went on, “and some others that probably shouldn’t be explained. Especially when putting them into words ignores what is most crucial.”

“You’ve experienced that, correct?”

“Of course,” Menshiki said with a small smile. “More than once.”

I drained what was left in my teacup.

“So Mariye wasn’t hurt at all?” I asked.

“She was muddy and scratched up, but had no serious injuries. Not much more than a skinned knee. Just like you.”

Just like me? “Where was she these past few days?”

Menshiki looked perplexed. “I’m pretty much in the dark about that, too. What I do know is that she returned home a short while ago. Dirty and banged up. That’s all I was told. Shoko was in such a state she couldn’t explain much over the phone. You should probably ask her yourself when things have settled down. Or, if possible, ask Mariye directly.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I’ll do that.”

“Don’t you think you should get some sleep?” Menshiki asked.

No sooner had these words left his mouth than sleepiness hit me. I had slept deeply while I was in the pit (at least I think I had), but now I could barely keep my eyes open.

“Yes, you’re right. I think I’ll go lie down,” I said, looking at the backs of his clasped hands, perfectly aligned on the table.

“Have a good sleep. That’s what you need right now. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t think of anything. But thanks.”

“Then I’ll take off. Please don’t hesitate to call me for whatever reason. I should be at home for the next little while.” He slowly rose to his feet. “Thank goodness Mariye got home safely. And that I was able to help you out of a tough spot. To tell the truth, I haven’t had much sleep these days either. So I think I’ll go home and rest.”

With that he left. As always, I heard the solid thunk of his car door slamming shut, and the engine starting up. I waited until the car was out of earshot before heading for bed. When my head hit the pillow, I remembered the old bell (I had left it and the flashlight in the pit!) for a split second. Then I descended into a deep sleep.

⁵⁷ SOMETHING I HAVE TO DO EVENTUALLY

I awoke at two fifteen. Again surrounded by total darkness. For a split second, I was under the illusion that I was still in the pit, but I realized my mistake right away. There was a clear difference between the darkness here and there. Above ground, there was always a vestige of light, even on the blackest night. Not like underground, where no light could enter. It may have been two fifteen, but the sun was still in the sky, albeit on the other side of the planet. That was the size of it.

I turned on the light, went to the bathroom, and drank glass after glass of cold water. The house was hushed. Too hushed, in fact. I listened carefully, but could hear nothing. No breeze. No insect voices, since it was winter. No night birds. No bell. Come to think of it, I had first heard the bell ringing at precisely this time of night. The time when events outside the normal are most likely to occur.

I was no longer sleepy. I was wide awake. Draping a sweater over my pajamas, I headed for the studio. I hadn’t set foot in there since returning home. And I was concerned about the paintings I had left. Especially Killing Commendatore. Menshiki had said that Masahiko had visited the house in my absence. If he had gone into the studio, he might have stumbled upon it. He would have known right away that it was his father’s work. Fortunately, however, I had covered it. I’d worried about leaving it exposed, so I had taken it down from the wall and wrapped a sheet around it to hide it from inquisitive eyes. If the sheet hadn’t been removed, Masahiko ought not to have seen it.

I walked in and flipped on the wall switch. The studio was dead quiet as well. Needless to say, no one was there. Not the Commendatore, not Tomohiko Amada. I was all alone.

Killing Commendatore was where I had left it on the floor, the sheet still in place. It didn’t seem that anyone had touched it. I couldn’t be sure, of course. But nothing suggested otherwise. I unwrapped the painting. It looked the same as always. There was the Commendatore. And Don Giovanni, who had run him through with his sword. And the shocked servant, Leporello. And the beautiful Donna Anna, covering her mouth in astonishment. And in the lower left-hand corner of the painting, poking his head through the square opening, the creepy-looking Long Face.

In truth, I had been harboring some misgivings. Might the painting have been altered by the series of events in which I had played a part? Long Face deleted from the scene, for example, because I had shut the lid? Or the Commendatore killed, not with a sword, but with a carving knife? Yet search as I might, I could find nothing changed. Long Face still poked his grotesque face out of his hole, the raised lid in one hand. His saucer eyes still surveyed the scene. The Commendatore was still impaled on a long sword, blood spewing from his heart. The painting remained a perfectly composed work of art. I admired it for a while, then put the sheet back over it.

I turned to look at the two paintings I was working on. They sat side by side on two easels. One, The Pit in the Woods, was wider than it was tall. The other, A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa, was taller than it was wide. I looked at them carefully. Both were exactly as I had left them. Nothing had been changed. One was finished, while the other awaited a final go-around.

Then I turned The Man with the White Subaru Forester, which had been facing the wall, sat on the floor, and took another good look at it. The man with the white Subaru Forester stared back at me from behind the thick layers of paint, which I had applied with my palette knife in several colors. He had no concrete shape, but I could see him there nonetheless. He was looking straight at me with the piercing eyes of a nocturnal bird of prey, his face empty of expression. He was dead set against the completion of his portrait—the exposure of his true form to the world. Against being hauled from the dark into the light.

But I was determined to reveal who he was. I had to drag him out into full view. However much he might resist. The time might not yet have come. But when it did, I had to be ready to follow through.

I returned to A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa. It was far enough along that I didn’t need Mariye to model for me anymore. Only a series of final, technical operations remained. Then the portrait would be basically done. I thought it might turn out to be my most accomplished work to date. At the very least, it would capture the freshness of that beautiful thirteen-year-old girl. I was confident of that. But I knew I would never take those last steps. By leaving it unfinished I was shielding something within her, even though I didn’t know what that something was. That much was clear.

I needed to look after a few things right away. I had to call Shoko and hear the full story of Mariye’s return. I had to call Yuzu and tell her I wanted to see her to talk things out, as I’d resolved at the bottom of the pit. That it was time for us to meet. Then, of course, I had to talk to Masahiko. To explain how it was that I had vanished suddenly from his father’s room at the nursing home, and tell him where I had been for the three days I was missing and unaccounted for (though what I would say—what was possible to say—escaped me).

Clearly, I couldn’t call any of them now. I had to wait for a more appropriate time. That would come in due course—assuming, that is, that time was behaving normally. I drank a glass of warm milk that I heated on the stove and nibbled some biscuits as I sat and looked out the window. It was pitch black outside. No stars were out. Daybreak was still a while off. It was the time of year when nights were the longest.

How should I pass the time? The proper thing would be to climb back into bed. But I wasn’t at all sleepy. I didn’t feel like reading or working. With nothing better to do, I decided to run a bath. While the bathtub was filling, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.

Why had it been necessary to pass through that underground world? To make that trip, I had been forced to kill the Commendatore with my own hands. He had sacrificed his life, and I had been compelled to endure one ordeal after another in a world of darkness. There had to have been a reason. The underground realm was full of unmistakable danger, and real fear. Down there, the most outlandish occurrences weren’t strange at all. By successfully navigating that realm, I seemed to have freed Mariye from somewhere. At least she had returned home safely. As the Commendatore had foretold. But what connected my experiences underground and her safe return? Were they somehow parallel?

Perhaps the river water I had ingested was an important piece of the puzzle. It could have altered something in me. I felt that at an intuitive and physical level, though it made no rational sense. Thanks to that change, I had passed through a tunnel clearly too small for my body. Cheered on by Donna Anna and Komi, I had managed to overcome my deep-rooted claustrophobia. No, Donna Anna and Komi could have been a single entity, Donna Anna at one moment, Komi at the next. Together, perhaps, they had shielded me from the dark powers, and protected Mariye Akikawa at the same time.

But where had Mariye been confined? Had she been confined in the first place? When I had given her penguin charm (though “given” didn’t really cover it) to the faceless man, had I harmed her? Or, conversely, had the charm in some shape or form protected her in the end?

The questions only mounted.

Perhaps I would understand the events of the past few days better once I met Mariye in person. I would have to wait. True, things might be no clearer even after we talked. Mariye might recall nothing. Or she might remember, but (like me) be unwilling to share her story.

At any rate, I had to see her once more in this real world, and have a good long talk. We needed to share our stories about what had happened to us. If at all possible.

But was this the real world?

I looked around. So much was familiar. The breeze through the window carried a familiar smell, the sounds outside were familiar sounds.

Just because it looked like the real world at first glance, however, didn’t mean that was necessarily the case. It might be no more than my assumption. I might well have descended through one hole in Izu and traveled the underworld only to be spit out three days later through the wrong hole in the mountains of Odawara. There was no guarantee that the world I had left and the world I had returned to were one and the same.

I rose from the sofa, stripped off my clothes, and stepped into the bathroom. Once again, I soaped and scrubbed every inch of my body. I thoroughly washed my hair. I brushed my teeth, swabbed my ears with cotton, trimmed my nails. I shaved (though there wasn’t much beard to shave). I put on another set of clean underwear. A freshly ironed white cotton shirt and a pair of khaki pants with a sharp crease. I strove to make myself look as acceptable as I could to the real world. But the night still hadn’t ended. Outside was pitch black. So black I felt morning might never arrive, not for all eternity.

But morning did come. I brewed some fresh coffee and made some buttered toast. The fridge was almost bare. Two eggs, some sour milk, and a few limp vegetables. I made a mental note to go shopping later.

I was washing the coffee cup when it struck me that I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in some time. How long had it been? I couldn’t count the exact number of days without checking my calendar. But I knew quite a while had passed. So many things had been going on—a number of them literally not in this world—that I hadn’t noticed her failure to contact me.

Why was that? She called me at least twice every week. “How’s it going?” she would say. I couldn’t call her, though. She couldn’t give me her cell phone number, and I didn’t use email. When I wanted to see her, I had to wait for her call.

Sure enough, my girlfriend did call around nine that morning, when she was still in the back of my mind.

“I’ve got to talk to you about something,” she said, skipping the pleasantries.

“Fine, let’s talk,” I said.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, phone to my ear. The clouds outside were starting to break up, and the early-winter sun was peeking through the gaps. The weather at least was improving. From the sound of it, though, what she had to say wasn’t going to be all that pleasant.

“I think it’s best if we don’t see each other again,” she said. “It’s too bad, but…”

Her tone was flat and dispassionate. I couldn’t tell if she really felt it was too bad or not.

“There are a number of reasons,” she said.

“A number of reasons,” I echoed.

“To begin with, I think my husband is catching on. He’s noticed some signs.”

“Signs,” I repeated.

“Women leave certain signs in situations like this. Like they start paying more attention to their makeup and their clothes, or change their perfume, or start a serious diet. I’ve tried to be careful, but even so.”

“I see.”

“The main thing is, we can’t go on like this.”

“Like this,” I repeated.

“With no future. No hope of resolution.”

She had it there. Our relationship had no “future,” no “hope of resolution.” The risks were too large if we continued as we were. I didn’t have all that much to lose, but she had a family and two teenage daughters attending private school.

“There’s more,” she went on. “I’m having a serious problem with my daughter. The older one.”

Her elder daughter. If I remembered correctly, she was the obedient child who never talked back to her parents and got good grades.

“A serious problem?”

“She can’t get out of bed in the morning.”

“Can’t get out of bed?”

“Hey, will you please stop repeating everything I say?”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “But what is her specific problem? She can’t get out of bed?”

“That’s right. It’s been going on for about two weeks. She doesn’t try to get up. She doesn’t go to school. She just lies in bed in her pajamas all day. Doesn’t answer when spoken to. I take food to her, but she barely touches it.”

“Has she seen a counselor?”

“Of course,” she said. “There’s a school counselor. No help at all.”

I thought for a minute. But there was nothing I could say. I’d never even met the girl.

“So that’s why I can’t see you,” she said.

“Because you have to stay home and look after her?”

“There’s that. But that’s not all.”

She didn’t go on, but I understood how she felt. She was terrified, and blaming herself as a mother for our affair.

“It’s really too bad,” I said.

“It’s fine for you to say that, but it’s even worse for me.”

She could be right, I thought.

“There’s one last thing I wanted to tell you,” she said. She took a quick, deep breath.

“What’s that?”

“I think you can become a really good artist. Even better than now.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That gives me some confidence.”

“Goodbye.”

“Take care,” I said.

When our phone call ended, I went to the living room, stretched out on the sofa, and thought about her as I looked at the ceiling. We had been together so many times, yet never had I thought of painting her portrait. Somehow, that feeling had never arisen. Instead I had sketched her over and over again. In a small sketchbook with a thick pencil, so quickly I hardly removed pencil from paper. In most she was naked, and posing lewdly. Spreading her legs to show her vagina, for example. Or I sketched her in the act of making love. Simple drawings but still very real. And very vulgar. She loved looking at them.

“You’re really good at drawing naughty pictures, huh? You toss them off, but they’re super dirty.”

“It’s just for fun,” I said.

I drew her again and again, then threw the drawings away. Someone might see them, and it didn’t make sense to keep them. Still, maybe I should have secretly held on to at least one. To prove to myself she had really existed.

I got up slowly from the sofa. The day was only beginning. There were many conversations ahead.

⁵⁸ LIKE HEARING ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL CANALS OF MARS

I called Shoko Akikawa. It was just after nine thirty. A time when most people are already up and about. But no one picked up the phone. It rang on and on until the answering machine kicked in. We’re sorry, but we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave your message after the tone… I left no message. She must be scrambling to deal with her niece’s disappearance and sudden return. I kept calling at intervals, but no one answered.

I thought of calling Yuzu after that, but I didn’t want to bother her while she was working. I could call during her lunch break. With luck, I would get to have a brief talk with her. It wasn’t like our conversation would be a long one. I would simply ask if we could meet sometime soon—that was the gist of it. A yes-or-no question. If the answer was yes, we would set a date and a place to meet. If it was no, that was that.

Then, with a heavy heart, I called Masahiko. He picked up right away. He let out a huge sigh when he heard my voice.

“Are you home now?” he asked.

I told him I was.

“Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”

Sure, I said. He called fifteen minutes later. He seemed to be using his cell phone on the roof of an office building, or someplace like that.

“Where the hell have you been?” he said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “You disappeared from my father’s room without a word—no one knew where you were. I drove all the way to Odawara looking for you.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“When did you get home?”

“Last night.”

“So you were traipsing around from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday night? Where did you go?”

“To be honest, I have no memory of where I was or what I was doing,” I lied.

“So you just woke up and found yourself back home—is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“For real? Are you serious?”

“There’s no other way to explain it.”

“Sorry, man. I can’t buy it. Sounds fake to me.”

“Come on, you’ve seen this sort of thing in movies and novels.”

“Give me a break. Whenever they pull that amnesia bit I turn off the TV. It’s so contrived.”

“Alfred Hitchcock used it.”

“You mean Spellbound? That’s one of his second-rate films,” Masahiko said. “So tell me what really happened.”

“I don’t know myself at this point. Like there are these fragments floating around, and I can’t figure out how to piece them together. Maybe my memory will return in stages. I’ll let you know if that happens. But I can’t tell you anything right now. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a little longer.”

Masahiko paused to digest what I had just said. “All right then, let’s call it amnesia for now,” he said in a resigned voice. “I gather your story doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol or a mental breakdown or a femme fatale or abduction by aliens or anything along those lines.”

“No. Nothing illegal or contrary to public morals.”

“Public morals be damned,” Masahiko said. “But clue me in on one thing, would you?”

“What’s that?”

“How did you manage to slip out of the nursing home Saturday afternoon? They keep a really strict eye on who comes and goes. A number of famous people are staying there, so they’re paranoid about leaks. They’ve got a receptionist stationed at the entrance, a guard on-site twenty-four seven, and security cameras. All the same, you managed to vanish in broad daylight without being spotted or caught on film. How?”

“There’s a secret passage,” I said.

“Secret passage?”

“An exit no one knows about.”

“How did you find that? It was your first time there.”

“Your father let me know. Or I should say, he gave me a hint. In a very indirect way.”

“My father?” Masahiko said. “You must be kidding. His mind’s as mushy as boiled cauliflower these days.”

“That’s one of the things I can’t explain.”

“What to do,” Masahiko said with a sigh. “If it were anyone else I’d say, ‘Cut the crap.’ But it’s you, so I guess I have to put up with it. Put up with this crazy, no-good bum who spends his whole life painting.”

“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, how’s your father doing?”

“When I got back to the room after my phone call, you were nowhere to be seen and Dad was unconscious and barely breathing. I panicked, man. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I couldn’t help blaming you anyway.”

“I really am sorry,” I said. I wasn’t kidding, either. Still, I felt a wave of relief that there was no trace of the Commendatore’s body, or of the pool of blood on the floor.

“Yeah, you should be sorry. Anyway, I rented a room nearby to be with him, but his breathing stabilized and his condition improved slightly, so I came back to Tokyo the next afternoon. Work was piling up. I’m heading back this weekend, though.”

“It’s hard on you.”

“There’s nothing to be done. Like I told you, dying is a major undertaking. It’s the person dying who has it hardest, though, so I really can’t complain.”

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

“No, there’s nothing,” Masahiko said. “But it would help if you didn’t dump any more problems on me… Oh yeah, I almost forgot. When I was at your house on my way back to Tokyo your friend Menshiki stopped by. The handsome, white-haired guy in the snazzy silver Jaguar.”

“Yes, I met him after that. He said you were there, and that you and he had talked.”

“Just a few words at your doorstep. He seemed like an interesting guy.”

“A very interesting guy,” I said, putting it mildly.

“What does he do?”

“Not much of anything. He’s so loaded he doesn’t have to work. He trades stocks and plays the currency market online, but it’s more like a hobby for him, a profitable way to kill time.”

“That’s really cool,” Masahiko said, impressed. “It’s like hearing about the beautiful canals of Mars. Where Martians row gondolas with golden oars. While imbibing honeyed tobacco through their ears. Warms my heart just hearing about it… Oh yeah, while we’re at it, did you ever find the knife I left at your place?”

“Sorry, but no, I haven’t come across it,” I said. “I don’t have a clue where it went. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Don’t sweat it. It probably had a bout of amnesia, just like you. It’ll wander back before too long.”

“Probably,” I said. So the knife hadn’t remained in Tomohiko Amada’s room either. It had vanished somewhere, just like the Commendatore’s corpse and the pool of blood. It might show up here, though, as Masahiko had said.

Our conversation ended there. We vowed to get together again soon and hung up.

After that, I drove my dusty old Corolla station wagon down the mountain to the shopping plaza. I went to the supermarket, where I toured the aisles with the neighborhood housewives. From the looks on their faces, they weren’t thrilled by their morning shopping. Not a whole lot of excitement in their lives. No ferryboat rides in the Land of Metaphor, that’s for sure.

I tossed what I needed—meat, fish, vegetables, milk, tofu, the whole lot—into my shopping cart and paid at the register. I saved five yen by bringing my own bag. Then I went to a discount liquor store and bought a twenty-four pack of Sapporo. Back home, I arranged most of what I had purchased in the fridge, including six cans of beer. I wrapped what needed to be frozen in plastic and stuck it in the freezer. I set a big pot of water on the stove and parboiled the asparagus and broccoli for salads. I boiled a few eggs, too. In the process, I managed to kill most of the morning. Nevertheless, there was still time to spare. I considered following Menshiki’s example and washing my car, then realized it would get dirty again in no time flat, and tossed the idea. Parboiling vegetables was much more productive.

I called Yuzu’s architectural firm shortly after noon. Actually, I wanted to wait until my feelings had settled down before talking to her, but at the same time I didn’t want to delay acting on what I had decided in the darkness of the pit, even for a single day. Otherwise, something might cause my feelings to change. Yet the receiver weighed a ton in my hand. A cheerful-sounding young woman answered. I gave her my name, and asked to talk to Yuzu.

“Are you her husband?” she chirped.

Yes, I replied. To be precise I wasn’t, of course, but there was no reason to go into details over the phone.

“Please hold on,” she said.

I waited for quite a long time. I had nothing in particular to do, so I stood there leaning on the kitchen counter, receiver to my ear, biding my time until Yuzu came to the phone. A big black crow passed right in front of the window. Its glossy feathers gleamed in the sunlight.

“Hello,” said Yuzu.

We exchanged a simple greeting. I had no idea how a just-divorced couple was supposed to address each other, how much distance was appropriate. So I kept it as brief and conventional as possible. How have you been? I’ve been fine. And you? Like a summer shower, our words were sucked up the moment they struck the parched soil of reality.

I mustered my courage. “I thought we should get together and talk about a number of things face-to-face,” I said.

“What sorts of things are you talking about?” Yuzu asked. I hadn’t expected that response (why hadn’t I?), so I was at a loss for words. What did I mean by “things”?

“I… I haven’t thought it through that far,” I stammered.

“But you want to talk about a number of things, correct?”

“That’s right. It occurred to me that we ended up like this without ever having talked.”

She thought for a moment. “To tell the truth,” she said, “I’m pregnant. I’m happy to see you, but don’t be shocked to see how big my belly’s grown.”

“I know. Masahiko told me. He said you asked him to.”

“That I did,” she said.

“I don’t know how big you’ve gotten, but I’d like to see you in any case. If it’s not too much of an imposition.”

“Can you wait a moment?” she asked.

I waited. She appeared to be leafing through her appointment book. Meanwhile, I tried hard to remember what kind of songs the Go-Go’s sang. I doubted they were as good as Masahiko had claimed, but then maybe he was right, and my view was perverse.

“Next Monday evening is good for me,” Yuzu said.

I did the calculation in my head. Today was Wednesday. So Monday was five days away. The day Menshiki took his empty bottles and cans to the pickup spot. A day I didn’t have to teach drawing in town. That meant I was free—no need to check my schedule. What did Menshiki wear when he took out his garbage, I wondered.

“It’s good for me too,” I said. “Just give me a time and place and I’ll be there.”

She named a coffee shop not far from the Shinjuku Gyoen-mae Station. The name brought back memories. It was not far from her office, and we had met there often when we were still living together as a married couple. After she finished work, usually before we went out someplace for dinner. There was a little oyster bar a short distance away, which offered fresh oysters at a reasonable price. She loved eating their small oysters loaded with horseradish, and washed down with chilled Chablis. Was the restaurant still in the same spot?

“Can we meet there shortly after six?”

I said that’d be fine.

“I’ll try not to be late.”

“That’s all right. I’ll wait.”

“Okay, see you then,” she said, and hung up.

I stared at the receiver in my hand for a moment. So I would see Yuzu again. My estranged wife, soon to bear another man’s child. The place and time had been set. Our conversation had gone without a hitch. Yet had I done the right thing? I wasn’t at all sure. The receiver still weighed heavy in my hand. Like a phone built back in the Stone Age.

When it came down to it, though, could anything be completely correct, or completely incorrect? We lived in a world where rain might fall thirty percent, or seventy percent, of the time. Truth was probably no different. There could be thirty percent or seventy percent truth. Crows had it a lot easier. For them, it was either raining or not raining, one or the other. Percentages never crossed their minds.

Talking to Yuzu had left me at loose ends. I sat in the dining room for an hour, mostly looking at the clock on the wall. I would see her on Monday and we would talk about “a number of things.” We hadn’t seen each other since March. It had been a chilly Sunday afternoon then, rain quietly falling. Now she was seven months pregnant. A major change in her life. I, on the other hand, was still just me. True, I had drunk the water of the Land of Metaphor only a few days earlier, and had crossed the river that divided presence and absence, but I wasn’t sure if the experience had changed me or not.

Finally, I called Shoko again. But no one came to the phone. Instead it switched to the answering machine. I gave up and sat down on the sofa. I had made all my calls, and nothing more needed to be done. I hadn’t set foot in the studio in what felt like ages, and part of me wanted to get back to my easel, but I couldn’t think of anything in particular that I wanted to paint.

I put Bruce Springsteen’s The River on the turntable. Then I lay on the sofa, closed my eyes, and listened. When the A side of the first LP had finished, I turned it over and listened to the B side. Albums like The River have to be heard in this fashion. After “Independence Day” wraps up the A side, you take the record in both hands, turn it over, and carefully lower the stylus. “Hungry Heart” fills the room. What was the point of listening to The River any other way? In my personal opinion, when CDs strung together the sides of records like The River, they spoiled the experience. The same was true of Rubber Soul and Pet Sounds. Great music should be presented in its proper form. And listened to in a proper manner.

Whatever the case, the E Street Band’s performance was a knockout. The band revved up the singer, and the singer inspired the band. As I zoned in on the music, I could feel my worries fading.

I was lifting the needle from the first record when I realized that, perhaps, I should give Menshiki a call. We hadn’t spoken since the day before, when he had rescued me from the pit. Yet somehow I didn’t really feel like it. This happened on occasion. He was a fascinating guy, but there were times I really didn’t want to talk to him. The gap between us was vast. Why should that be? At any rate, I didn’t feel like hearing his voice at that particular moment.

So I gave up. I’d call him later. After all, the day had just begun. I put the second record of The River on the stereo. But just when I was settling back to listen to “Cadillac Ranch” (“All gonna meet down at the Cadillac Ranch”), the telephone rang. I lifted the needle and went into the dining room to answer it. I figured it was Menshiki. As it turned out, it was Shoko.

“Have you been trying to reach me this morning?” she began.

That’s right, I replied, I had tried on several occasions. “I heard yesterday from Mr. Menshiki that Mariye had returned home, so I wondered how she was.”

“Yes, she came back safe and sound. Yesterday afternoon. I called you a number of times to let you know but there was no answer, so I tried contacting Mr. Menshiki. Did you go somewhere?”

“Yes, I had to look after urgent business some distance from here. I got back last night. I wanted to contact you earlier, but there was no phone where I was, and I don’t carry a cell phone,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Mariye returned all by herself yesterday afternoon, covered in mud. But no serious injuries, thank goodness.”

“Where was she all that time?”

“We don’t know yet,” she said in a hushed voice. As if afraid that her phone was tapped. “Mariye won’t tell us what happened. We had filed a missing person’s report, so the police came and asked her all sorts of questions, but she wouldn’t tell them anything. Not a single word. So they gave up and left, saying that they’d come back when she’d had more time to recover. That at least she had made it home, and that she was safe. But she won’t tell either her father or me anything. You know how stubborn she can be.”

“But she was covered in mud, correct?”

“Yes, her whole body. Her school uniform was torn up too, and her arms and legs were scratched. We didn’t have to take her to the hospital, though—none of her injuries was that serious.”

Just like me, I thought. Muddy, clothing in tatters. Could we have wormed our way back to this world through the same narrow tunnel?

“And she won’t speak?” I asked.

“No, not a single word since she came home. Not just words, either—she hasn’t made a sound. As if someone had stolen her tongue.”

“Do you think some kind of trauma might have left her in shock? Taken away her voice?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think she’s made up her mind not to say anything, a vow of silence, if you will. She’s done this kind of thing before. When she’s furious about something, for example. Once she’s made up her mind like this she tends to stick to it—that’s the sort of child she is.”

“There’s no question of criminal acts, right? Like kidnapping, or unlawful confinement?”

“I can’t tell. The police say they’ll come back to ask more questions once she’s had a chance to calm down, so maybe we’ll find out then,” Shoko said. “But I do have a favor to ask, if it’s not too much of an imposition.”

“What might that be?”

“Would you try to talk to her? Just the two of you? There may be things she’ll only open up to you about. She might reveal more about what happened if you’re there.”

I stood there with the receiver in my right hand, considering her suggestion. If Mariye and I were alone together, what was there to discuss? I couldn’t begin to imagine. I had my own riddles to unravel and she (most likely) had hers. If we laid one set of riddles over the other, what answers could possibly emerge? Still, I had to see her. There were things we had to talk about.

“Of course. I’d be happy to,” I said. “Where would you like me to go?”

“Oh no, please let us come to you, as always. I think that’s best. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“No, that’s fine with me,” I said. “I’m free all day. Please come when it’s convenient for you.”

“Would it be all right if we came now? She’s home from school today. If she’s willing, of course.”

“Please tell her she doesn’t have to talk. That there are things on my end that I’d like to tell her,” I said.

“Very well. I’ll tell her exactly that. I’m dreadfully sorry to keep imposing on you like this,” said the beautiful aunt. Then she quietly hung up the phone.

The phone rang again twenty minutes later. It was Shoko.

“We’ll be coming at three o’clock,” she said. “Mariye has said she’s willing. Well, she gave a small nod, is more accurate.”

I said I would expect them at three.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t understand what’s going on, or what I should be doing.”

I wanted to tell her I felt the same way, but I didn’t. That’s not the response she was seeking.

“I’ll do what I can. I can’t be sure if it will work, but I’ll try my best,” I said. Then I hung up.

I stole a look around the room as I put down the receiver. On the off chance that the Commendatore might be in the vicinity. But he was nowhere to be seen. I missed him. The way he looked, and his odd way of speaking. But I would never lay eyes on him again. With my own hand, I had driven a knife through his tiny heart. The razor-sharp carving knife Masahiko had brought to my house. All for the purpose of rescuing Mariye from someplace. I had to find out where that someplace was.

⁵⁹ UNTIL DEATH SEPARATED US

Before Mariye arrived, I took another look at her portrait, so close to done. I could picture exactly what it would look like if I ever finished it. Sad to say, though, I never would. There was no way around that. I had no good explanation for why I couldn’t complete the painting. No logical argument. Just the strong feeling that it had to be that way. The reason, I expected, would reveal itself in stages. What was clear now was that I was fighting a very dangerous opponent. I had to be on my toes every second.

I went out to the terrace, sat in a deck chair, and stared across the valley at Menshiki’s white mansion. Handsome, colorless Menshiki, he of the white hair. “We only talked for a moment at your door, but he seemed like an interesting guy,” Masahiko had said. “A very interesting guy,” I had corrected him. At this stage of the game, though, I would have to say a very, very, very interesting guy.

A few minutes before three, the familiar blue Toyota Prius rolled up the slope and parked in its usual spot in front of my house. The engine stopped, the driver’s door opened, and Shoko Akikawa got out. Most elegantly, pivoting in her seat, knees tight together. A moment later, Mariye emerged from the passenger’s seat. Most reluctantly, her movements slow and sluggish. The morning clouds had sailed off somewhere, and the sky was the clear blue of early winter. The soft hair of the two women danced in the cold wind coming off the mountain. Mariye brushed the hair from her eyes in an impatient gesture.

Mariye was in a skirt, unusual for her. A wool skirt of navy blue, it reached her knees. Beneath was a pair of dark blue tights. Her white blouse was covered by a cashmere V-neck sweater. The sweater was a deep purple, the color of grapes. Her shoes were dark brown loafers. In that outfit, Mariye looked like a well-brought-up child from a well-off family, a healthy, pretty, utterly conventional girl. You could see nothing eccentric about her. Just that her chest was almost flat.

Shoko was wearing snug light-gray slacks. Gleaming black low-heeled shoes. A long white cardigan, fixed with a belt around her waist. Her breasts stood out proudly beneath the cardigan. She was carrying a black purse made of what looked like enamel. The sort women commonly carry, though their contents have always mystified me. Mariye appeared a bit at a loss with no pockets to plunge her hands into.

They were so different in age and stage of maturity, this young aunt and her niece, yet both were so lovely. I observed their approach through the parted curtains. When they walked side by side, the world brightened a little. As when Christmas and New Year’s arrive in tandem each year.

The doorbell chimed, and I went to open the door. Shoko greeted me politely, and I ushered them inside. Mariye said nothing. Her lips were set in a straight line, as if someone had stitched them together. She was a strong-willed girl. Once she made up her mind about something, she never backed down.

As before, I led them to the living room. Shoko launched into a string of apologies, but I cut her off. This was no time for social niceties.

“If you don’t mind, could you leave Mariye and me alone for a while?” I said, getting straight to the point. “I think that’s best. Please come back in about two hours. Would that be possible?”

“Oh, well, certainly,” the young aunt said. She seemed a little flustered. “If it’s all right with Mariye, then it’s all right with me.”

Mariye gave a slight nod. It was all right with her.

Shoko Akikawa consulted her small silver watch.

“Then I’ll come back at five o’clock. I’ll be waiting at home, so please call if you need anything.”

I told her we would.

Looking worried, Shoko paused uncertainly, clutching her black purse. Then she appeared to make up her mind, for she took a deep breath, smiled a bright smile, and left. There was the sound of the Prius’s engine starting (I couldn’t really hear it, but I assume it did), and the car disappeared down the slope. Mariye and I were left alone in the house.

The girl sat on the sofa and looked down at her lap, her lips still set in a stubborn line and her knees pressed together. Her pleated blouse was neatly ironed.

A deep silence followed. Finally, I spoke up.

“You don’t have to say a word,” I began. “You can stay quiet as long as you want. So try to relax. I’ll do the talking—all you have to do is listen. All right?”

Mariye raised her eyes and looked at me. But she didn’t speak. Nor did she nod or shake her head. She merely stared in my direction. Her face showed no emotion. I felt as if I were gazing at the full moon in winter. Perhaps she had made her heart like the moon for the time being. An icy mass of rock floating in the sky.

“First, I need your help with something,” I said. “Can you come with me?”

I rose and headed to the studio. A moment later she got up and followed. The room was chilly, so I lit the kerosene stove. When I pulled back the curtains, the mountainside was bright in the sun. Mariye’s portrait-in-progress was sitting on an easel, close to finished. She glanced at it but then quickly looked away, as if she had glimpsed something she shouldn’t have.

I crouched down, removed the cloth I had draped over Killing Commendatore, and hung the painting on the wall. I asked Mariye to sit on the stool to observe it more closely.

“You’ve seen this painting before, right?”

Mariye gave a small nod.

“It’s called Killing Commendatore. At least that’s what was written on its wrapping. It’s one of Tomohiko Amada’s most perfect works, though we don’t know exactly when he painted it. It’s beautifully composed and masterfully drawn. Each character is fully realized and utterly convincing.”

I paused for a moment, waiting for my words to sink in.

“Yet this painting was wrapped up and closeted away in the attic of this house,” I went on, “where no one would ever see it. When I stumbled upon it and brought it downstairs, it had been gathering dust for a very long time. Apart from the artist, you and I are probably the only people who have ever looked at it. Your aunt could have too on your first visit, but for some reason it didn’t catch her eye. I don’t know what made Tomohiko Amada hide it in the attic. It’s such a brilliant work, one of his true masterpieces, so why would he keep it from the world?”

Mariye didn’t respond. She sat on the stool, her eyes fixed on Killing Commendatore.

I continued. “As if on cue, weird things have happened one after another since I stumbled on this painting. First, Mr. Menshiki went out of his way to make my acquaintance.”

Mariye nodded slightly.

“Then I uncovered that strange hole behind the shrine in the woods. I heard a bell ringing in the middle of the night and traced it to that spot. It was coming from beneath a pile of stones. They couldn’t be moved by hand—they were too big and too heavy. So Menshiki arranged for a landscaper to come in with his backhoe. I didn’t understand why Menshiki would go to such lengths, and I still don’t. At any rate, the stones were moved at great cost of time and money. Underneath them was a hole. A round pit about six feet across, made of smaller stones tightly set together in a perfect circle. Who built it, and for what purpose, is a mystery. Of course you know about the pit.”

Mariye nodded.

“The Commendatore came out of that opened pit. This guy.”

I went up to the painting and pointed to the figure. Mariye looked at him. But her expression didn’t change.

“He looked exactly the same as you see here, same face, same clothes. But he was only two feet tall. Very compact. And with a peculiar way of speaking. For some reason, I seem to be the only person able to see him. He called himself an ‘Idea.’ And said he had been stuck in that pit. In other words, Mr. Menshiki and I had set him free. Do you get what he meant by ‘Idea’?”

Mariye shook her head no.

“It’s hard for me, too. The way I understand it, an idea is a type of concept. But not all concepts are ideas. Love, for example, is not an idea. But ideas are what make love possible. Without ideas, love cannot exist. This discussion can go on forever, though. And to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure of the correct definitions. Anyway, an idea is a concept, and concepts have no physical shape. They are pure abstractions. Nevertheless, this Idea temporarily borrowed the form of the Commendatore in the painting to make itself visible to me. Do you follow me so far?”

“Pretty much,” Mariye broke her silence for the first time. “I met him too.”

“You did?” I exclaimed. I looked at her in stunned silence. Then I recalled what the Commendatore had said to me in the Izu nursing home. I met her not long ago, he had told me. We exchanged a few words.

“So you met the Commendatore too.”

Mariye nodded.

“When? Where?”

“At Mr. Menshiki’s,” she said.

“What did he say?”

Mariye clamped her lips together again. To signal, it seemed, that she didn’t want to talk any more for the moment. I didn’t push her further.

“Other characters in this painting have appeared as well,” I said. “For example, the man in the lower left-hand corner of the painting, the bearded guy with the strangely shaped face. Right here.”

I pointed to Long Face.

“I call him ‘Long Face,’ and he’s a weird one, all right. He’s about two and a half feet tall. He slipped out from the painting too—I caught him holding up the cover of his hole just as he is doing here, and he helped me reach the underground world. I had to get a bit rough, though, before he gave me directions.”

Mariye looked at Long Face for some time. But she didn’t say anything.

I continued. “I walked through that dim world, climbing hills, crossing a rapid river, until I met the pretty young woman you see right here. This person. I call her ‘Donna Anna,’ after the character in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. She’s also very small. She led me to a tunnel in the back of a cave. Then she and my dead sister helped me worm my way through to where it ended. If they hadn’t cheered me on I never would have made it—I’d have been trapped in the underworld forever. My hunch—though of course it’s pure guesswork—is that Donna Anna in this painting may be the young woman Tomohiko Amada loved when he was a student in Vienna. She was executed as a political prisoner seventy years ago.”

Mariye looked at Donna Anna in the painting. Her face still as impassive as the white winter moon.

Then again, Donna Anna could have been Mariye’s mother, stung to death by a swarm of hornets. Perhaps she was the one who had protected Mariye. Depending on who was looking at her, Donna Anna might embody many things. Of course, I didn’t say this out loud.

“Then we have this man here,” I said. I turned the painting leaning against the wall around so we could see its front. It was my portrait in progress, The Man with the White Subaru Forester. On the surface, it was just thick layers of paint, three colors in all. Behind those layers, though, was the Subaru Forester guy. I could see him. Though other people couldn’t.

“I showed you this before, didn’t I?”

Mariye gave a firm nod, but said nothing.

“You told me it was finished as it was.”

Mariye nodded again.

“I call the person portrayed here—or the person I must eventually portray—‘the man with the white Subaru Forester.’ I ran across him in a small coastal village in Miyagi Prefecture. Our paths crossed twice. In a very mysterious and meaningful way. I have no idea what sort of person he is. I don’t even know his name. But a moment came when I realized I had to paint him. I was compelled to. I started painting him from memory, but had to stop when I reached a certain point. So I painted over him like this.”

Mariye’s lips were still set in a straight line.

Then she shook her head from side to side.

“That man is really scary,” she said.

“That man?” I said. I followed her eyes. They were fixed on The Man with the White Subaru Forester. “Do you mean the painting? Or the man?”

She gave another firm nod. Despite her fear, she seemed unable to look away.

“Can you see him?”

She nodded. “I can see him behind the paint. He’s standing there looking at me. Wearing a black cap.”

I turned it around and set it back, face against the wall.

“You have the ability to see the man with the Subaru Forester standing there. Most people don’t,” I said. “But I think it’s better if you don’t look at him anymore. There’s probably no need at this stage.”

Mariye nodded as if in agreement.

“I don’t know if the man with the white Subaru Forester is of this world or not. It’s possible that someone, or something, merely borrowed his form. In the same way an Idea borrowed the form of the Commendatore. Or it could be that I saw part of myself reflected in him. But when I was surrounded by real darkness, it was no mere reflection, believe me. It was a tangible, living, moving thing. The people in that land call it a ‘Double Metaphor.’ I do plan to finish the painting someday. But not yet—it’s still too early. And too dangerous. Some things shouldn’t be recklessly dragged into the light. But I may not be…”

Mariye was looking straight at me without saying a word. I found it difficult to continue.

“Anyway, thanks to the help of many people, I was somehow able to cross the underworld and squeeze through a narrow, black tunnel to make my way back to this world. At virtually the same moment, you were freed from somewhere. I can’t believe that was a mere stroke of luck. On Friday, you disappeared somewhere for four days. Then on Saturday I disappeared for three days. On Tuesday, we both returned. There has to be a connection. My guess is that the Commendatore connected us. And now he’s gone from this world. He fulfilled his role and moved on. Only you and I are left. We’re the only ones who can close the circle. Do you believe what I’m saying?”

Mariye nodded.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. Why I asked to talk to you alone.”

Mariye’s eyes were trained on my face.

“No one else would believe me,” I went on, “even if I told the truth. They’d think I was nuts. I mean the story just doesn’t fly—it’s too far removed from reality—though I figured you’d believe me. And then I’d have to show them Killing Commendatore. Without that painting, nothing I said would make sense. But I don’t want anyone else to see it. Only you.”

Mariye kept looking at me. She didn’t speak. But I could see the sparkle slowly returning to her eyes.

“Tomohiko Amada invested everything, all of himself, in this painting. It’s filled with his emotion. As though he painted it with his own blood and flesh. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime work of art. He did it for himself, but also for those who were no longer of this world, a kind of requiem to their memory. To purify the blood they had shed.”

“Requiem?”

“A work to bring peace to the spirits of the dead and heal their wounds. That’s why he didn’t expose it to public view. The critical reception, the accolades, the financial rewards—they had no meaning. He wanted none of those things for this painting. It was enough for him to know that he had created it, and that it existed somewhere. Even if it was wrapped up in paper and hidden in an attic where no one would ever see it. I want to respect his feelings.”

The room was quiet for a while.

“You’ve played around here since you were small, right? Using that secret passageway of yours. Isn’t that so?”

Mariye nodded.

“Did you ever meet Tomohiko Amada?”

“I saw the old guy. But I never talked to him. I just hid and looked at him from far away. When he was painting. I mean, I was trespassing, right?”

I nodded. The image was all too real. Mariye in the shrubbery, peeking into the studio. Tomohiko Amada on his stool, intently wielding his brush. The thought that he was being observed a million miles from his mind.

“You asked me to help you with something,” Mariye said.

“So I did. There’s one thing,” I said. “I’d like you to help me wrap up these two paintings and hide them in the attic where no one can see them. Killing Commendatore and The Man with the White Subaru Forester. I don’t think we need them right now. That’s where I could use your help.”

Mariye nodded but didn’t say anything. Truth be told, this was a task I really didn’t want to do alone. More than help, I needed someone to act as observer and witness. Someone tight-lipped, whom I could trust to share the secret.

I went to the kitchen and got some twine and a utility knife. Then Mariye and I packed up Killing Commendatore. We wrapped it carefully in the same brown washi, the traditional Japanese paper it had been in before, bound it with twine, draped it in a white cloth, and then tied it again. Firmly, to make it difficult for anyone to unwrap. The thick paint on The Man with the White Subaru Forester wasn’t quite dry, so we wrapped it more loosely. Then we carried the two paintings to the closet of the guest bedroom. I climbed to the top of the stepladder, raised the trap door to the attic (much like Long Face had pushed up the square lid to his hole, come to think of it), and climbed up. The air was chilly there, but a pleasant kind of chilly. Mariye handed the paintings up to me. Killing Commendatore went first, followed by The Man with the White Subaru Forester. I leaned them next to each other against the wall.

All of a sudden, I sensed I had company. I gulped. Someone was there—I could feel a presence. Then I saw the horned owl. Probably the same owl I had seen the first time. The night bird was perched on the same beam as before, still as a statue. He didn’t seem particularly concerned when I moved in his direction. Also like the first time.

“Hey. Come up and see something,” I whispered to Mariye. “Something very cool. Try not to make any noise.”

Looking curious, Mariye mounted the ladder and crawled through the opening into the attic. I pulled her up the last step with both hands. The floor of the attic was covered with a fine white dust, but she didn’t show any concern that it would get on her wool skirt. I sat down and pointed out the horned owl to her. She knelt beside me and looked at the bird, entranced. It was very beautiful. Like a cat that had sprouted wings. “It’s been living here the whole while,” I whispered to her. “It goes out to hunt in the forest in the evening, and flies back in the morning to sleep. That’s its entrance there.”

I pointed at the air vent with the hole in its screen. Mariye nodded. I could hear the faint sound of her breathing.

We sat there side by side without speaking, looking at the owl. Showing little interest in us, the owl sat there quietly, a model of discretion. The owl and I had a tacit understanding that we would share the house. One of us was active during the day, the other at night—in that way, the domain of consciousness was shared equally, half and half.

Mariye reached over and took my hand in hers. Her head came to rest on my shoulder. I gently squeezed her hand back. Komi and I had spent long hours together like this. We were close as brother and sister. Our feelings had flowed back and forth in a very natural way. Until death separated us.

I could feel the tension drain from Mariye’s body. Little by little, that part of her that had become so rigid was beginning to unclench. I stroked her head on my shoulder. Her soft, straight hair. When my hand touched her cheek, I realized she was crying. The tears were so warm it felt as if blood was spilling from her heart. I continued to hold her like that. The girl had needed to cry. But she hadn’t been able to. Probably for a very long time. The horned owl and I kept watch over her as she wept.

The rays of the afternoon sun angled through the hole in the broken vent. White dust and silence surrounded us, nothing more. Dust and silence that seemed to have been passed down from antiquity. We could hear no wind. On his beam, the horned owl mutely preserved the wisdom of the forest. A wisdom also bequeathed from the distant past.

Mariye wept for a long time. She made no sound, but the trembling of her body told me she was still crying. I kept stroking her hair. As if she and I were heading upstream along the river of time.

⁶⁰ IF THAT PERSON HAD PRETTY LONG ARMS

“I was at Mr. Menshiki’s house,” Mariye said. “The whole four days.” She had stopped crying, and was talking again.

She and I were in the studio. Mariye was perched on the round stool, her knees touching as they peeked out from beneath her skirt. I was leaning on the windowsill. I could see how pretty her legs were. Her bulky tights couldn’t hide that. When she matured a bit more, those legs would attract the gaze of many men. By then, her chest would have filled out too. Now, however, she was just a lost and confused girl, wavering on the threshold of adulthood.

“You were at Mr. Menshiki’s?” I asked. “I’m not sure I understand. Can you fill me in a little?”

“I needed to know more about him, so I went to his house. I had to find out why he was watching our home through those binoculars every night. I think he bought the big house across the valley just to do that. To spy on us. I couldn’t understand why he would do something like that. I mean, it was so not normal. I thought there had to be some kind of reason.”

“So you went to pay him a visit?”

Mariye shook her head no. “I didn’t pay him a visit. I snuck in. Secretly. And then I couldn’t get out.”

“You snuck in?”

“Yes, like a burglar. I didn’t plan it like that, though.”

When her morning classes ended on Friday, Mariye slipped out the back door of the school. If a student was unexpectedly absent in the morning, the school called their family. But no phone call was made when a student missed his or her afternoon classes. There was no clear reason for this policy—that’s just the way things were done. Mariye had never skipped out before, so she figured if she got caught she could talk her way out of trouble. She hopped on a bus and got off close to where she lived. But instead of heading home, she turned up the opposite slope, toward Menshiki’s house.

At first, Mariye had no intention of sneaking in. The idea never crossed her mind. Yet she wasn’t planning to ring Menshiki’s doorbell and invite herself in, either. The fact was, she went there with no plan in mind. She was simply drawn to the white mansion like a metal filing to a powerful magnet. She couldn’t solve the mystery of Menshiki’s behavior merely by standing outside his wall. She knew that much. Yet she couldn’t stifle her curiosity. Her legs carried her to his gate under their own volition.

It was a very long climb. When she turned and looked back, she could see the ocean sparkling between the mountains. His house was surrounded by a high wall with a sturdy electrically operated gate positioned at the entrance. Security cameras were set on each side. One of the gate’s pillars had a security company’s logo stuck to it. She had to approach with care. She hid behind some bushes and took stock of the situation. She could spot no movement, either inside or outside the house. No one entered or left, and no noise of any kind came from within.

After wasting half an hour hanging around with nothing to do, she had given up and was preparing to leave when she saw a van roll up the hill. A minivan, from a parcel delivery service. It stopped in front of the gate, a door opened, and a uniformed young man jumped out, clipboard in hand. He walked to the gate and rang the bell. There was a brief exchange with someone over the intercom. When the big wooden gate started to slowly swing in, the young man hurried back to his van and drove inside.

Mariye had no time to think things through. The moment the van entered, she leapt from the bushes and sprinted as fast as she could through the closing gate. It was pretty close, but she managed to slip through a split second before it shut. The security cameras might have picked her up. But no one came out to challenge her. Dogs, though, were a scarier proposition. A guard dog might be prowling the grounds. She hadn’t considered that before racing in. The instant the gate closed behind her, though, the possibility occurred to her. A property this extensive could easily have a Doberman or a German shepherd running loose. A big dog like that would be a problem. Mariye was afraid of dogs. But as luck would have it, none appeared. She heard no barking, either. Now that she thought of it, there had been no talk of a dog when she and her aunt had paid their visit.

Having made her way inside the wall, she hid behind some shrubs and appraised her situation. Her throat was dry. I stole in here like a burglar, she thought. I’m breaking the law—this is trespassing, no doubt about it. The cameras have recorded proof of my guilt.

Had she made the right move? She wasn’t sure. When she had seen the delivery van pass through the gate, her response had been automatic. She’d had no time to consider the possible consequences. Now’s my one and only chance, she’d thought, and acted on the spur of the moment. Her body had moved before her mind clicked in. Yet for some reason, even now, she had no second thoughts.

From her hiding place she saw the delivery van roll back up the driveway. Once again, the gate slowly swung open and the van passed through. If she was going to leave, now was the time. Just run out before the gate closed. Return to the world of safety. She wouldn’t be a criminal. But she didn’t move. Instead, she remained there, hidden in the shadows, and watched the gate close again. Intently biting her lower lip.

She waited there for precisely ten minutes, measuring the time on her small Casio G-Shock watch. When the ten minutes were up, she emerged from the shrubbery. Bending low so the cameras would have difficulty spotting her, she hurried down the gentle slope toward the front door of the house. It was two thirty.

What if Menshiki discovered her? She thought about that for a moment. Well, she decided, if that happened she’d wriggle out of it somehow. Menshiki seemed to have a keen interest (or something like that) in her. So if she told him she’d just come to say hi and, seeing the gate open, had walked in, and made it all seem like a kid’s game, he would trust her. He wants to believe in something, she thought, so he’ll swallow what I say. The problem was, where did his “keen interest” come from, and did he have good intentions, or was he dangerous?

The front door of the mansion was around the bend, at the bottom of the sloping driveway. There was a bell beside the door. Needless to say, she didn’t push it. Instead, she moved clockwise around the building, hiding behind trees and shrubs, hugging the concrete wall and giving the roundabout where guests parked a wide berth. A two-car garage sat to the left of the entranceway. Its door was rolled down and locked. A little farther on sat a stylish little building that looked like a cottage. That must be the guesthouse, she thought. Beyond that was a tennis court. She had never seen a home with a tennis court before. Who did Mr. Menshiki play tennis with? The court, however, appeared to have been long ignored. It had no net, its all-weather surface was strewn with leaves, and the white lines were so faded they were almost invisible.

All the windows facing the mountainside were small and tightly shuttered, so nothing inside could be seen. As before, the house was absolutely quiet. No barking dogs. From time to time she could hear birds chirping high in the trees, but that was all. At the back of the house was another garage. Also with space for two cars. It seemed to have been added after the house was built. Menshiki sure could store an awful lot of cars!

The slope behind the house had been turned into a large Japanese-style garden. She could see a descending flight of steps, and below that a path weaving through a number of large rocks. The azalea bushes were pruned to perfection, the pine branches overhead an array of bright greens. What looked like an arbor lay just beyond. A reclining chair where one could stretch out and read sat under the arbor. Beside it was a coffee table. Lanterns and lights were scattered here and there.

Mariye worked her way around the house to the back. The house’s broad deck looked from there out over the valley. She had walked out onto that deck on her first visit. It was from there that Menshiki kept watch on her home. The second she set foot on it she knew that was true. She felt it in her bones.

Mariye squinted as she looked over at her home. It was right across from her. So close it seemed a person could reach out and touch it (if that person had pretty long arms, that is). From this vantage point, the house looked utterly defenseless. At the time it was built, there had been no homes on this side of the valley. Only recently (though more than ten years ago) had building restrictions been eased and houses erected on this slope. That was why, when her home was designed, no attempt had been made to shield it from those across the way. That made it a sitting duck for prying eyes. A high-powered telescope or even a pair of good binoculars would give one a clear view of what was going on inside. The window to her bedroom was a perfect example. To be sure, she was a cautious girl. She always closed the curtain before taking off her clothes. But that didn’t mean there were no unguarded moments. What had Menshiki seen?

Mariye descended the outside steps to the next floor where the study was, but the windows were shuttered there too. She couldn’t peek in at all. So she kept walking down to the lowest level. Most of that floor was occupied by a large utility area. She could see a washing machine, a place for an ironing board, a room that seemed to be set aside for a live-in maid, and, on the far end, a sizable gym containing five or six exercise machines. Unlike the tennis court, these appeared to be well used. They all looked clean and well oiled. A heavy punching bag hung from the ceiling. Compared with the upper floors, this floor was less tightly guarded. Many of the windows lacked curtains, so she could peer inside. Nevertheless, both the windows and the sliding glass doors were securely locked from within. Here too the security company had pasted their stickers to scare off intruders. An alarm would sound in their offices if anyone tried to force their way in.

The mansion was huge. She found it impossible to believe that a single person could inhabit such a big space. It must be a lonely life. The concrete walls were thick, and every precaution had been taken to block anyone from gaining entry. True, there was no guard dog (maybe he didn’t like dogs either), but apart from that every antiburglar device under the sun had been employed.

What should be her next step? Nothing came to mind. There was no way to get inside, and no way to breach the wall to get out. Menshiki was home, she knew that. He had pushed the button that opened the gate and taken delivery of the parcel. And he lived there by himself. Once a week, a cleaning service came, but apart from that the house was off-limits to outsiders. That was his basic principle—he had told them that on their visit.

Since she couldn’t gain access to the house, she had to find a place to hide outside. If she kept poking around she might locate a likely spot. After a long search, she finally came across what seemed to be a small storage shed at the far corner of the garden. The door was unlocked. Inside were a bunch of garden tools and stacked bags of fertilizer. She slipped in and sat down on the bags. The shed was far from inviting. But at least the security cameras wouldn’t find her here. And it was unlikely anyone would show up. Sooner or later, things would change. All she could do was wait.

Although she was stuck in one place, she felt full of energy. After her shower that morning, she had noticed swellings on her chest in the mirror. It was an exciting development. Of course, she might be deluding herself. It could just be wishful thinking. She had inspected her chest from a number of angles, and touched it with her hands. There did seem to be two soft protuberances that had not been there before. Her nipples were still tiny (a far cry from her aunt’s, which resembled olive pits), but there was a hint they might be about to sprout.

Mariye passed her time in the storage shed thinking about her budding breasts. She pictured how they might look when they grew. What would it feel like to live your life with really big ones? She imagined strapping on the kind of underwire bra her aunt used. That day was still miles away, however. After all, her periods had only begun that spring.

She was a little thirsty, but she could bear that. She consulted her chunky G-Shock watch. It was five minutes past three. Her painting class was on Fridays, but she’d been planning to skip that anyway. She hadn’t brought her bag of painting supplies with her. Yet her aunt was sure to worry if she didn’t get home by dinnertime. She could come up with a good excuse later.

She seemed to have fallen asleep. It was hard to believe that she could have slept in this place, and under these circumstances. Yet she had managed to drop off without realizing it. It hadn’t been for very long. Ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe less. But a deep sleep, nonetheless. She was disoriented when she awoke, her mind at loose ends. For a moment she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. It seemed she had been dreaming. A vague dream, something to do with full breasts and milk chocolate. Her mouth was filled with saliva. Then it hit her. I snuck into Menshiki’s, she remembered, and now I’m hiding in his storage shed.

A noise had roused her. A repetitive, mechanical noise. To be more precise, a garage door clattering open. The door of the garage near the entrance. Menshiki was probably in his car and about to head off somewhere. Mariye hurried from the shed and ran around to the front, making as little sound as possible. When the door was fully open the clattering stopped. She heard a car start up, and then the front of Menshiki’s silver Jaguar slowly emerged. Menshiki was sitting in the driver’s seat. The driver’s window was down, and his pure white hair glowed in the afternoon sun. She watched from behind the shrubbery.

Had Menshiki looked to his right, he could have glimpsed her there in the shadows. The shrubs were too small to provide full cover. But his eyes were trained straight ahead. Hands on the wheel, he seemed lost in thought. The Jaguar moved up the driveway, passed around the curve, and disappeared. The remote control–activated metal door began to clatter down again. The second before it closed, Mariye raced from her hiding place and slipped under the door. Like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Another reflex action. Without really thinking, she had decided to gain access to the house through the garage. The automatic door hesitated when it sensed her slide underneath, then resumed its descent until it was tightly shut.

Another car was in the garage. A stylish blue convertible with a beige hood, the sports car her aunt had admired on their previous visit. Mariye couldn’t care less about cars, so she’d barely glanced at it then. It had a very long nose, and, here too, the Jaguar crest. Even someone who knew as little about cars as Mariye could tell it was worth a lot of money. A collector’s piece, in all likelihood.

A person could pass into the house through a door in the garage. She tried the knob with some trepidation, but it turned easily. She sighed with relief. Few people would lock a door like that during the day, but Menshiki was such a cautious man she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps something had been on his mind to make him forget. She’d been lucky.

She walked through the door and into the house. Should she take her shoes off or keep them on? In the end, she decided to carry them with her. Leaving them on the doorstep didn’t seem like a good option. The house was hushed when she entered. As if everything in it was holding its breath. Menshiki was gone, and she was positive no one else was there. I’m alone in this huge house, she thought. For the next little while, I am free to go wherever, and do whatever, I want.

Menshiki had given them a basic guided tour on their first visit. She remembered it well enough. The general layout was fixed in her head. She entered the big living room that took up almost the entire first floor. From there, one could go out to the broad deck through a sliding glass door. She hesitated, though. Menshiki might have activated the security system before leaving. If he had, an alarm would go off when she tried to slide it open. A light would flash in the agency’s office. They would phone the house to check. A password would be necessary to end the alert. Mariye stood before the sliding door, black loafers in hand, pondering the situation.

Finally, she reached the conclusion that Menshiki hadn’t set the alarm. The fact that he had left the inner door in the garage unlocked suggested that he wasn’t heading off on a long trip. Odds were he had gone shopping, or was running some sort of errand. Mariye made up her mind. She unlocked the door, slid it open, and waited to see what would happen. No alarm went off, and the security agency did not phone. She heaved a sigh of relief (had security guards found her there she couldn’t have joked her way out of it) and stepped out onto the deck. Putting down her shoes, she went over to the binoculars and removed their plastic cover. They were too heavy to hold, so she tried balancing them on the railing, but that didn’t work very well. Looking around, she noticed what looked like a stand leaning against the wall. It resembled a camera tripod and was the same olive color as the binoculars. The binoculars could be screwed onto the stand. She stuck them together, pulled up the low metal stool left nearby, sat down, and looked through them. Now using the binoculars was easy. Moreover, they were positioned so that she couldn’t be observed from the other side of the valley. This had to be how Menshiki spent much of his time.

She was shocked at how clearly the inside of her house could be seen. Everything was a notch brighter—one of the binoculars’ special features, she assumed. Some of the curtains in the rooms facing the valley hadn’t been drawn. The view within was so distinct she felt she could reach out and touch what she was looking at. A vase of flowers, for example, or even a magazine on the table. Her aunt should be home at this hour. But she couldn’t locate her anywhere.

It was weird to look inside her own house from such a distance, and in such naked detail. It felt as if she had become one of the dead (how was unclear) and now was viewing her home from their vantage point. She had belonged there for so long, yet it was hers no more. She knew it so intimately but could never go back. It was a strange, dissociated sensation.

She trained the binoculars on her own room. It faced in her direction, but the curtain was drawn. Shut tight, without a crack. Her familiar curtain, with its orange pattern. The orange bleached by the sun. She couldn’t see behind it. But her shadow was probably visible at night, when the light was on. How visible, though, could only be known after dark. Mariye panned across the house, looking for her aunt. She ought to be there. But she was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was preparing dinner in the kitchen in the back. Or resting in her room. Wherever she was, she wasn’t visible from this angle.

Mariye felt a powerful urge to go back to that house. Right away. She longed to sit in her familiar chair at the dining room table and sip hot tea in her very own cup. To watch her aunt preparing dinner in the kitchen. How wonderful that would be, she thought. Until that point, she had never imagined missing her home this way. Not for a second. To her, the house had always been an ugly, barren monstrosity. She had hated living there. In fact, she was impatient for the day when she was old enough to move into her own place, one that suited her. Yet now, looking at its interior from the other side of the valley through the clear lens, she wanted to return at any cost. It was where she belonged. Where she would be protected.

Just then she heard a faint droning sound. Prying her eyes from the binoculars, she saw something black circling above her. A large bee with a long body, probably a hornet. The kind of hostile, aggressive hornet with a sharp stinger that had killed her mother. Mariye ran back into the house, forcefully slid the door shut, and locked it. The hornet buzzed around the door for a while, as if to pen her in. It struck the glass several times, then finally gave up and flew away. Mariye gave a great sigh of relief. Her heart was pounding, her breathing ragged. Nothing scared her more than hornets. Her father had lectured her time and again how dangerous they were. Mariye had looked at many photographs so that she knew exactly how they looked. In the process, she had conceived the terrifying idea that she, like her mother, would be stung to death. She might well have the same allergic reaction. One couldn’t escape death, but it should come later—she wanted to know what it felt like to have full breasts and a woman’s nipples at least once before she died. It would really suck if hornets killed her before she had that chance.

It was better to stay in the house a while, for safety’s sake. That savage insect would still be flying about. Moreover, it appeared to be targeting her. She decided to search inside the mansion and forget about going outside for the time being.

Her first step was to tour the sprawling living room. She could see no particular change since her first visit. There was the big Steinway grand piano. A small stack of musical scores was piled on top of it. A Bach invention, a Mozart sonata, one of Chopin’s études, that sort of thing. Nothing that required advanced technical skill. Still, being able to play them at all was impressive. Mariye could tell that much. She had taken piano lessons when she was younger. (She hadn’t gone very far—art was what had grabbed her.)

A number of books were scattered on the coffee table’s marble top. Judging from the bookmarks stuck in them, all were in the process of being read. One was on philosophy, one was historical, and two were novels (one of which was in English). She recognized none of the titles and had heard of none of the authors’ names. She flipped through several, but they weren’t her thing. The master of the house loved difficult books and classical music. Between those pursuits, he looked into her home across the valley through high-powered binoculars.

Was he just a perv? Or was there a logical reason or purpose for his behavior? Did he have the hots for her aunt? Or for her? Or for both of them? (Was such a thing possible?)

Next she went to take a look at the lower levels. First she made her way to Menshiki’s study. His portrait hung on the wall. She stood in the middle of the room and studied it for a moment. Of course, she had seen it before (that had been the purpose of their first visit). This time, though, the longer she looked at it, the more it felt as if Menshiki were there with her. So she turned away from the painting. Trying her best to ignore it, she went over to inspect his desk. There was a state-of-the-art Apple desktop computer, but she didn’t switch it on. She knew without trying that it was secured. There would be no way she could gain access. Not much else was on the desk. There was a deskpad calendar with almost nothing written on it. Just a few incomprehensible symbols and numbers here and there. He would have input his daily schedule into the computer, and then shared it with his other devices. All would be locked. Mr. Menshiki was a cautious man. He would leave no traces.

The other things on the desk were the sort of work-related materials you would expect to find in anyone’s study. The pencils were all of the same length, and sharpened to a fine point. Paper clips were arranged according to size. The white memo pad waited patiently for someone to write on it. The digital clock faithfully clicked off the time. The desk was in such perfect order it was frightening. Unless he’s a well-made android, Mariye thought to herself, something sure is funny about Mr. Menshiki.

As she expected, every desk drawer was locked. That was only natural. No way he would neglect securing them. The study held little else that she wanted to see. She had no special interest in the shelves of books, or the CD collection, or the new, obviously expensive stereo system. Those did no more than reflect his range of tastes. They didn’t help her understand who he was as a person. They had no connection to the secret he was (most likely) concealing.

Mariye left the study and walked down the dim hallway, checking the rooms as she went. All were unlocked. None had been included in the house tour. She and her aunt had only been shown the living room, the study, the dining room, and the kitchen (she had also used the guest bathroom on the first floor). Mariye opened the doors to these unknown rooms one by one. The first was Menshiki’s bedroom. As the so-called master bedroom (she assumed), it was very big. It had a walk-in closet and a private bathroom. Its large bed was neatly turned out, with a quilted duvet. Since there was no live-in maid, she assumed Menshiki had made the bed. If so, its neatness didn’t surprise her. A pair of plain dark brown pajamas lay next to the pillow, also neatly folded. A number of prints hung on the wall. A set by a single artist, from the looks of it. A half-read book rested on the bedside table. He certainly was an avid reader. The window faced the valley, but it wasn’t very large and its blinds had been drawn.

She opened the door to the big walk-in closet. Rows of clothes were hanging there. Lots of jackets and blazers, but not many suits. Not many neckties, either. She guessed he seldom needed to dress for formal occasions. All the shirts had plastic covers, and appeared to have just come back from the cleaners. Shoes and sneakers were lined up on shelves in neat rows. Coats of varied thicknesses occupied another part of the closet. Everything in the closet was looked after with care and reflected the good taste of its owner. Indeed, the whole closet could have been featured as it was in a menswear magazine. There were not too many clothes, nor too few. Moderation governed everything.

His drawers contained socks, handkerchiefs, and underwear. All were pressed and folded, and arranged in perfect order. There were more drawers for his jeans, polo shirts, sweatshirts, and so forth. One large drawer had been entirely given over to a colorful array of beautiful sweaters. None had patterns. Yet Mariye could find nothing in any of these drawers to help her unravel Menshiki’s secret. Everything was immaculate and divided according to its function. Not a speck of dust was on the floor, and all the picture frames were level on the walls.

Mariye did reach one clear conclusion about Menshiki, however: this man would be impossible to live with. No normal person could meet his standard. Her aunt was something of a neat freak, but even she wasn’t this meticulous.

The next door opened onto what appeared to be the guest room. It had a double bed, made up and ready to be used. A writing desk and office chair sat near the window. There was also a small television set. But there was no sign that anyone had ever slept there—the room felt as if it had been forsaken for eternity. Mr. Menshiki was not in the habit of entertaining guests, it seemed. Instead, this room was apparently to be used in emergencies (though she couldn’t imagine what those might be).

The room next door was more like a storeroom. It had no furniture, and at least ten cardboard boxes were stacked on the green carpet. Judging by their weight, they contained documents. Each had a label, with markings in ballpoint pen. All were carefully sealed with tape. Mariye imagined they were filled with work-related documents. Those might contain important secrets. But they were business secrets, not the sort of thing that she was after.

None of these rooms was locked. Though their windows faced the valley, their blinds were closed. No one was there to delight in the bright sunlight and the majestic view. They were dimly lit and smelled of abandonment.

The fourth room fascinated her. Not so much the room itself, though. The furnishings were sparse—just a single straight-backed chair and a small, plain wooden table. No pictures graced the bare walls. Without decoration of any kind, it felt barren and empty. A room no one ever used. Yet when she checked the walk-in closet, she found an assortment of women’s clothes hanging there. Not a huge number. But everything a woman would need, more or less, for a stay of several days. Mariye guessed the clothes had been set aside for someone who came to visit Menshiki on a regular basis. She scowled. Did her aunt know a woman like that was in the picture?

She quickly realized her mistake, however. The clothes were all out of style, designs from a different era. The dresses and skirts and blouses sported name brands, and were very fashionable and expensive, but not the sort that women wore these days. Mariye wasn’t that up-to-date on current trends, but even she could tell that much. They had probably been in style before she was born. And all were permeated with the smell of mothballs. It appeared that the clothes had been hanging there for quite some time. They were being well looked after, though. She saw no moth holes. And the colors hadn’t faded, which meant that care had been taken not to expose them to extreme heat or cold. The dresses were size 5. That indicated that the woman was about five feet tall. And very slender, looking at the skirts. She wore a size 5 shoe.

An assortment of women’s undergarments, socks, and nightgowns were stored in the closet drawers. All were in plastic bags to ward off dust. She pulled a few out to examine. The bras were a 32C. Mariye pictured the shape of the breasts they had held. Slightly smaller than her aunt’s, she estimated (it was impossible to guess the shape of the nipples, of course). The panties were dainty and elegant. Some were on the sexy side. All in all, they spoke of a woman of some means, who shopped in lingerie boutiques while savoring the thought of embracing the man she loved. They were made of silk and lace and had to be washed by hand in lukewarm water. Not the sort of panties one wore to weed the garden. Here too the odor of mothballs was strong. She folded the panties up carefully, returned them to the plastic bag, and put it back in the drawer.

This was the wardrobe of a woman whom Menshiki had been seeing some time before—fifteen or twenty years ago, most likely. That was the conclusion Mariye drew. Then something had happened that caused the woman to leave her stylish clothes—her size 5 dresses, size 5 shoes, and 32C bras—behind. She had never come back. Why would she have left such an expensive collection behind? If they had separated for some reason, wouldn’t the normal thing have been to take the clothes with her? Mariye couldn’t figure it out. Moreover, Menshiki had preserved that small collection with such care. Like the river sprites of the Rhine, who took pains to preserve their legendary gold for posterity. He probably visited this room on occasion to look at the clothes and take them in his hands. When the seasons changed, he would replace the mothballs (she couldn’t imagine him letting anyone else do this).

Where was that woman today? Perhaps she had married another man. Or died of illness, or in some kind of accident. Nevertheless, he held her in his memory, even now.

(Of course, Mariye had no way of knowing that woman was her mother, and I could find no compelling reason to tell her. That right, I thought, belonged to Menshiki alone.)

Mariye pondered this new knowledge. Should she think more generously of a man who had treasured the memory of a woman for so long? Or was the fact that he had preserved her clothing with such care a little creepy?

Mariye was still thinking this through when, all at once, she heard the garage door clattering up. Menshiki had come home. She had been so absorbed in the clothes that she hadn’t heard the front gate open, or the car in the driveway. She had to get away as quickly as possible. She needed to find a safe place to hide. Then she realized. Something of vital importance. Panic grabbed her.

She had forgotten her shoes on the deck. And the binoculars were out of their case and attached to their stand. The hornet had scared her so much that she had fled into the house without covering her tracks. Everything was out in the open. When Menshiki went out to the deck and saw those things (as he would sooner or later), he would know right away that someone had invaded his home in his absence. The black loafers would tell him that the invader was a girl. Menshiki was no dummy. It wouldn’t take long for him to figure out it was Mariye. He would comb the house, searching every nook and cranny, until he found her hiding place. It would be child’s play for him.

There wasn’t time enough to run outside up to the deck, collect her shoes, and put the binoculars back where they belonged. She was certain to bump into Menshiki somewhere along the way. She couldn’t think of a next step. Her heart pounded, her breathing became labored, her limbs froze with fear.

The car engine stopped and the garage door started clattering shut. Any minute now Menshiki would enter the house. What should she do? What should she… Her mind was a blank. She sat on the floor, her head in her hands and her eyes squeezed shut.

“It is best to remain where you are,” someone said.

Was she hearing things? No, she wasn’t. Pulling herself together, she opened her eyes. There was a little old man no more than two feet tall, perched on a low chest of drawers. His salt-and-pepper hair was tied in a bun on top of his head. He wore white garments from a bygone age and carried a tiny sword at his waist. Naturally, she thought she was hallucinating. Her panic was making her imagine things that weren’t there.

“No, this is no hallucination,” the little old man said in a small but resonant voice. “I am the Commendatore. And I am here to aid my young friends.”

⁶¹ I HAVE TO BE A BRAVE, SMART GIRL

“This is no hallucination,” the Commendatore repeated. “There are sundry opinions as to whether I exist, but a hallucination I am not. I have come to aid my friends. You are in need of aid, are you not?”

“My friends” referred to her, Mariye assumed. She nodded. His manner of speech was strange indeed, but what he said was true. She needed help, no question there.

“My friends cannot retrieve your shoes from the deck,” the Commendatore said. “And it is best to forget the binoculars as well. But quell your fears. I will strive my utmost to ensure that Menshiki does not go there. For the time being, at least. Once the sun sets, however, I cannot prevent him. When darkness falls, he will venture out to watch the home of my friends. This is his custom. We must fix the problem before that happens. Can my friends understand the import of my words?”

Mariye could only nod. Somehow, she did understand.

“My friends must hide in this closet awhile,” said the Commendatore. “Be as quiet as a mouse. Give no sign that you are here. When the time is propitious I will let you know. Until then, do not move or make a sound. No matter what happens. Do my friends understand?”

Mariye nodded again. Was this a dream? Could he be an elf or sprite of some kind?

“I am neither dream nor sprite,” the Commendatore read her thoughts. “I am an Idea, and thus lack shape of my own. It would be very inconvenient if my friends could not see me, so I have taken the form of the Commendatore for the time being.”

Idea, the Commendatore… Mariye repeated the words in her mind without voicing them. He can tell what I am thinking. Then she remembered. He was a figure in that very wide Japanese-style painting by Tomohiko Amada that she had seen in his studio. Somehow he had slipped out of the painting and come here. That explained his tiny size.

“Affirmative,” the Commendatore said. “I am borrowing the form of that character. The Commendatore—I myself do not know his significance. But I am called by that sobriquet now. Wait here in silence. I will come for my friends at the proper time. Do not fear. These raiments will shelter you.”

These raiments will shelter me? What did that mean? But he did not respond to her unspoken question. A moment later he was gone. Vanished into thin air, like vapor.

Mariye did as the Commendatore said. She quieted her breathing and didn’t move a muscle. Menshiki was home—she had heard him enter the house. He seemed to have been shopping, for she could make out the rustle of paper bags. Her breathing almost stopped when his slippered feet padded slowly past the room where she was hiding.

The closet door was a Venetian blind, so some light seeped upward through the slats. But only a tiny bit. The closet would grow very dark when the daylight faded. She could see only the carpeted floor through the cracks. The closet was cramped, and filled with the sharp odor of mothballs. With walls on all sides, there was nowhere to hide. And no way to escape. The lack of an escape route scared her to death.

The Commendatore had promised to come and get her when the right time came. She had no choice but to believe him. He had said, “These raiments will shelter you,” too. He must have meant the clothes there in the closet. Old clothes worn by some unknown woman, likely before Mariye was even born. How could they protect her? She reached out and stroked a dress with a flower pattern. The pink cloth was soft to the touch. She let her fingertips linger for a while. She couldn’t explain why, but there was something comforting about it.

I bet this dress would fit, Mariye thought. Its owner wasn’t that much bigger than me. I can wear a size 5. Of course my chest hasn’t filled out yet, so I’d have to figure a way to conceal that. But I could wear most of these clothes if I wanted to, or if I had to for some reason. The thought made her heart skip a beat.

Time was passing. Slowly but surely, the room was growing darker. Evening was approaching, minute by minute. She looked at her watch. But she couldn’t read it in the gloom. She pressed a button and the face lit up. It was almost four thirty. The sun would be going down soon. The days were getting shorter. And when night did come, Menshiki would head out to the deck. It would take him but a second to realize that someone had invaded his home. She had to find some way to deal with the shoes and binoculars before that happened.

Mariye waited impatiently for the Commendatore to arrive, her heart in her mouth. Yet he never did. Perhaps there had been some kind of hitch. Menshiki might have left him no opening. She hadn’t a clue how extensive the actual powers of a person—or an Idea—like the Commendatore were, in fact, or how far she could depend on him. Yet he was her only hope. She had nowhere else to turn. Mariye sat holding her knees on the floor of the closet, staring through the slats at the carpet. From time to time she reached up to stroke the flowery dress. As though it were a lifeline of some kind.

When the room had grown quite dark, she heard footsteps in the hall a second time. Once again, they were slow and soft. The footsteps came to an abrupt halt in front of the room where she was hiding. As if whoever it was had sniffed out something. A moment later she heard the door open. There could be no doubt. Her heart froze in her mouth. Then she heard the person (Menshiki, she presumed—no one else was in the house) step inside and gently close the door behind him. It clicked shut. The man is in the room. For sure. Like her, he held his breath and listened carefully, trying to pick up the slightest sign. She could tell. But the man did not turn on the light. Instead he carried out his search in the dark. Why? Anyone else would have switched on the light the moment they came in. It baffled her.

Mariye stared at the floor through the slats. If he came close enough, his toes would come into view. She couldn’t see them yet. Yet his presence felt very real. It was definitely a man. Moreover, that man (it had to be Menshiki!) was staring at the closet door in the dark. He had picked up signs of something. Something different than usual. Next he would open the door. It couldn’t be otherwise. It would be easy, since of course it wasn’t locked. All he had to do was reach out, grab the knob, and pull.

The footsteps drew even closer. Fear gripped her. Cold sweat dripped from her armpits. I should never have come, she thought. I should have stayed home like a good girl. In my dear home across the valley. There is something really scary about this place. Something I should never have approached so recklessly. Some kind of consciousness operated here. The hornets were a part of it. Now she was within arm’s reach of that something. She could see the toe of a slipper through the blinds. She could tell that the slipper was brown and made of leather, but it was too dark to see anything more.

Mariye instinctively reached up and grabbed the dress. The size 5 dress with the flower pattern. Please help me! Protect me! she prayed.

The man stood in front of the closet’s double doors for some time. He didn’t make a sound. She couldn’t even hear him breathe. Still as a stone statue, he stood there gauging the situation. The silence grew heavier, the dark more impenetrable. She huddled on the floor, quivering. Her teeth chattered faintly. Mariye longed to shut her eyes and ears. To put her mind in a totally different place. But she didn’t. She somehow knew how dangerous that would be. She must never give in to fear, however great. Never abandon her senses. Never stop thinking. With her ears pricked and her eyes fastened on the toes of the leather slippers, she fiercely clutched the hem of the soft pink dress.

The clothes would protect her. The whole wardrobe was her ally. The size 5 dresses, the size 5 shoes, the 32C bras—they would enfold her in a cloak of invisibility. I am not here, she told herself. I am not here.

How much time passed? She had no way of knowing. Time was no longer uniform, nor did it flow in sequence. Nevertheless, a fixed period seemed to have elapsed. At one point, the man had been on the verge of opening the door. Mariye felt that strongly. She braced herself. When it opened he would see her. She would see him. Then what? She had no clue. Perhaps it’s not Menshiki at all—the thought popped into her head. But then who could it be?

Yet the man never opened the door. After some hesitation, he pulled back his hand and moved away. Why had he changed his mind at the last minute? Something must have held him back. He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. The room was empty again. For certain. It was no ruse. She was alone. She was certain of that. Mariye closed her eyes and expelled all the air she had been holding in a great sigh.

Her heart was still pounding. Like a tom-tom—that’s how a novelist might describe it. What was a tom-tom, anyway? She had no clear picture. She had been in great peril. At the very last moment, however, something had intervened to protect her. Even so, this place was too dangerous—that much was obvious. Whoever it was, that someone had sensed her presence. Beyond a doubt. She couldn’t hide in this room forever. This time, she had squeaked through. Next time she might not be so lucky.

She kept waiting. The room grew even darker. But she didn’t make a sound. She was fearful, she was anxious, but she persevered. The Commendatore would not forget her. She believed what he had told her. She had no other options—she had to rely on the little guy with the funny way of talking.

Then, before she knew it, the Commendatore was there.

“My friends must leave immediately,” he whispered. “Now, at this very moment. Wake up, it is now time.”

Mariye was at a loss. It was hard to stand up. When she imagined leaving the closet she was assaulted by a new fear. Even greater dangers might await her in the world outside.

“Menshiki is in the shower,” the Commendatore said. “You know what a clean person he is. So he should linger there awhile. But he will come out by and by. This is the one and only chance that my friends will have. Make haste!”

Marshaling her strength, Mariye pulled herself to her feet. She pushed the door of the closet open. The room was dark and empty. Before she stepped out, she turned to take one last look at the clothes hanging there. She inhaled the smell of mothballs. She might never see these clothes again. For some reason, they had become so close to her, so dear.

“My friends must go now,” said the Commendatore. “There is not much time. Go into the hallway and turn left.”

With her bag over her shoulder, Mariye walked out the door and down the corridor. She ran up the stairs, cut across the big living room, and slid open the glass door to the deck terrace. The hornet might still be around. Or he might have retired for the night. He could be the kind of insect that wasn’t fazed by the dark. But she couldn’t dwell on that now. She stepped out, unscrewed the binoculars from their stand, and returned them to their plastic cover. She folded the stand and leaned it back against the wall. Her nerves made her hands fumble, so it took longer than she had expected. Then she picked her black loafers up off the deck. All the while, the Commendatore sat on the stool and watched her. The hornet never showed itself. To Mariye’s great relief.

“Well done,” said the Commendatore, with a nod. “Now go back inside, shut the door, and descend the stairs to the very bottom.”

Down two flights of stairs? That would mean plunging into the depths of the house. Wasn’t she trying to escape?

“There is no chance of escaping now,” the Commendatore said, reading her mind. He shook his head from side to side. “The gate is strictly barred. My friends are constrained to hide a while longer. I beseech you to listen.”

Mariye had no choice but to believe the Commendatore. She hurried through the living room and down the two flights of stairs.

The maid’s room was at the bottom. Beside it was the laundry room and next to that a storeroom. At the end of the hallway was the gym with its row of exercise machines. The Commendatore pointed to the maid’s room.

“This is your hiding place,” he said. “Menshiki seldom ventures into that room. He descends once a day to do his laundry and to exercise, but he almost never enters there. It is unlikely he will find my friends, should you remain quiet. The room has a sink and a refrigerator. In case of earthquake, an ample store of food and mineral water has been set aside. So my friends will not starve. There is enough to live in relative safety for a number of days.”

A number of days? Mariye asked (albeit without speaking) incredulously, her shoes in hand. I must remain here that long?

“Affirmative. It is a shame, but my friends are obliged to stay here for such a time,” the Commendatore said, shaking his tiny head. “This house is kept under tight guard. In more than one way. This is a fact I cannot alter. An Idea’s powers are limited, I am sad to say.”

“How long will I have to stay here?” Mariye asked in a small voice. “I have to go home soon. My aunt will worry about me. If I’m missing too long, she’ll have to report it to the police. Then there’ll be a real mess.”

The Commendatore shook his head. “A million pardons, but this is outside my control. My friends must wait here.”

“Is Mr. Menshiki dangerous?”

“A very hard question to answer,” the Commendatore said. He made an exaggerated frown. “Menshiki himself is not an evil man. He is a decent sort, one could say, with abilities that exceed those of most people. There is even a hint of nobility in him, if one looks hard enough. Yet there is a gap in his heart, an empty space that attracts the abnormal and the dangerous. It is there that the problem lies.”

Mariye wasn’t clear what all of this meant, of course. The abnormal?

“Who was the person standing outside the closet door?” she asked. “Was that Menshiki?”

“It was Menshiki, but at the same time it was not Menshiki.”

“Is he aware of any of this?”

“Most likely,” the Commendatore said. “Most likely. But there is nothing he can do about it.”

The abnormal and the dangerous? Perhaps the hornet she had seen was one of the forms those things took, Mariye thought.

“Affirmative. Beware of those hornets. They are most virulent creatures,” the Commendatore read her mind.

“Virulent?”

“They have the power to kill my friends,” the Commendatore explained. “For now, my friends have no choice but to stay here. Do not go outside.”

“Virulent,” Mariye repeated in her mind. The word sure had a sinister ring.

Mariye opened the door of the maid’s room and went in. It was little larger than Menshiki’s bedroom closet. There was a kitchenette with a fridge, a hot plate, a small microwave oven, and a sink and faucet. There was also a bed and a tiny bathroom. The bed was bare, but there were blankets, quilts, and a pillow on the shelf, and a simple table and chair for meals. Only a single chair, though. A small window faced the valley. She could look out across it through a crack in the curtain.

“It is best to make as little noise as possible,” the Commendatore said. “Do my friends understand?”

Mariye nodded.

“You are a brave girl, my friends,” said the Commendatore. “A touch reckless, perhaps, but brave nonetheless. It is an admirable quality. But while you are here, you must be very alert. Never be caught off guard. This is no ordinary place. Sinister things are skulking out there that could cause you harm.”

“Skulking?”

“Prowling about, in short.”

Mariye nodded. In what way was this “no ordinary place,” and what sort of sinister things were skulking? She wanted to know, but couldn’t think how to ask. Where to begin? There was just so much she couldn’t understand.

“I may not be able to come again,” the Commendatore said, as if imparting a secret. “There is another place I must go, and another task I must look after. A very important task, if I may say. So I fear I cannot help my friends any further. Hereafter, my friends must manage on your own.”

“But how can I escape this place by myself?”

The Commendatore narrowed his eyes and looked squarely at Mariye. “Be sure your ears are open and your eyes are peeled. And keep your wits about you. It is the only way. Then you will know when the right moment comes. As in, ‘Aha, now is the time!’ You are a brave, smart girl, my friends. Just stay alert.”

Mariye nodded. I have to be a brave, smart girl, she thought.

“I wish my friends all the very best,” the Commendatore said, encouraging her. Then, as if by afterthought, “And worry not, my friends. Your chest will soon fill out.”

“Enough to fill a C-cup bra?”

The Commendatore gave an embarrassed shrug. “I fear I am a mere Idea. I know not how the undergarments of women are measured. But all the same, I can assure you that your breasts will grow. No need to worry. Time is the remedy for your concerns. It is the key for all things that possess form. True, time does not last forever, but as long as you have it, it is remarkably efficacious. So look forward to the future, my friends!”

“Thank you,” Mariye said. It was certainly good to hear. She needed every bit of support to be the brave girl she knew she had to be.

Then the Commendatore vanished. Again, like vapor into thin air. The silence around her deepened the moment he was gone. The thought that she might never see him again left her sad and lonely. I have no one to rely on now, she thought. She sprawled out on the bare mattress and stared at the ceiling. It was low, and made of white plasterboard. In its exact center was a fluorescent light. But of course she couldn’t turn it on. That was a definite no-brainer.

How long would she be stuck in this room? It was almost dinnertime. If she wasn’t home by seven thirty, her aunt would call the arts-and-culture center. They would inform her that she’d been absent that day. The thought hurt. Her aunt would be hysterical, terrified that something bad had happened to her. Somehow, she needed to let her know she was all right. Then she remembered—there was a cell phone in the pocket of her school blazer. She had left it turned off.

She pulled it out and switched it on. The words “Low Battery” flashed on the screen. A split second later the screen went black. Her phone was dead. She could hardly blame the phone: she hadn’t used it in ages (she seldom needed it in her daily life, and had little interest in—or affection for—cell phones), so no surprise the battery was drained.

She heaved a sigh. She should have recharged it once in a while at least. Just in case something happened. But there was no use crying over spilt milk. She stuck the cell phone back in her blazer pocket. But something had caught her attention, and she pulled it out again. The plastic penguin attached to it was gone! It had been her lucky charm since she had won it on points at a donut shop. The strap must have broken. But where on earth could she have dropped it? It was hard to imagine. She hardly ever took it out of her pocket.

At first, she felt uneasy without her lucky charm. Then she thought some more. Her own carelessness was probably to blame for losing it. But a new kind of talisman had appeared in its place—that closetful of clothes—and those clothes had protected her. And that little man with the funny way of talking, the Commendatore, had led her to this place. So something, she thought, is still looking out for me. No need to mope about the missing penguin.

Mariye wasn’t carrying much. Wallet, handkerchief, change purse, house key, and a half a pack of Cool Mint gum—that was about it. Her shoulder bag contained pencils and pens and a few school textbooks. None were likely to be very useful.

She slipped out of the maid’s room and went to check the storage room. As the Commendatore had said, it was stocked with provisions in case of earthquake. The ground was comparatively stable in this mountainous part of Odawara, so an earthquake shouldn’t be that serious. The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 had devastated the city of Odawara, but here in the hills, the damage had been relatively minor (she’d done a summer project in grade school on the impact of the earthquake on the Odawara region). Nevertheless, it would be very difficult afterward to get food and water way up here. Thus Menshiki had taken pains to stock up on both. His caution knew no bounds.

She selected two bottles of mineral water, a box of crackers, and a bar of chocolate and carried them back to her room. She was pretty sure Menshiki wouldn’t miss such a small amount. However meticulous he might be, he wouldn’t keep tabs on how many bottles he had stored. The water was necessary because she didn’t want to turn on the tap in her room if at all possible. That would make the pipes in the house gurgle. It is best to make as little noise as possible, the Commendatore had said. She had to be careful.

Mariye returned to the maid’s room and locked the door from the inside. In a sense, it was a useless gesture, since Menshiki had keys to all the rooms in the house. Yet it might earn her a little time. At the very least, it eased her mind a bit.

She wasn’t hungry at all, but she ate a few crackers and drank some of the water just to check. The crackers were mediocre, as was the water. She checked the labels—neither had reached its best-before date. I’m okay, she thought. I won’t starve.

Outside was now completely dark. She pulled the curtain back a little farther and looked across the valley. She could see her house. She couldn’t see what was going on inside without the binoculars, but she could tell lights were burning in some of the rooms. If she looked hard, she might be able to observe someone moving around. Her aunt was there, freaking out, she was sure, because she hadn’t come home. Wasn’t there a way to call her? Menshiki must have a phone somewhere. All she had to do was say, “Please don’t worry. I’m all right,” and hang up. If she kept it short, Menshiki probably wouldn’t find out. But her room had no phone, nor had she seen one in that part of the house.

Could she escape under cover of darkness? Find a ladder somewhere and scale the wall to freedom? She recalled seeing a fold-up ladder in the garden shed. Then she recalled the Commendatore’s words: This place is kept under tight guard. In more than one way. She was pretty sure that “tight guard” didn’t refer to the security company’s alarm system alone.

I should believe the Commendatore, Mariye thought. This is no normal place. Many things are lurking about. I have to be super cautious. Super patient. This is no time to be rash or willful. I should sit back and wait for the right opportunity, like the Commendatore said.

You will know when the right moment comes. As in, “Aha, now is the time!” You are a brave, smart girl, my friends. Just stay alert.

That’s right, I have to be a brave, smart girl. Survive all this in good shape and then watch my breasts get bigger and bigger.

So she thought as she lay there on the bare mattress. All around was growing darker. She could tell that darkness of a different order was about to arrive.

⁶² ONE CAN STUMBLE INTO A LABYRINTH

Time followed its own principles, paying no heed to her thoughts. She lay there on the bare mattress in her little room, watching it sluggishly shuffle past. She had nothing else to do. It would be nice to have a book to read, she thought. But there were no books at hand, and even if there had been she couldn’t switch on the light. All she could do was lie there in the dark. She had found flashlights and spare batteries in the storeroom but had decided to use those as little as possible.

The night deepened, and she fell asleep. She was nervous and apprehensive in such an unfamiliar place, and she wanted to stay awake, but at a certain point fatigue overcame her and she dropped off. She simply couldn’t keep her eyes open. The coverless bed was cold, so she took a quilt and blankets from the closet, wrapped herself up in them like a Swiss Roll, and closed her eyes. There was no space heater in the room, and she couldn’t use the central system for obvious reasons.

(A note here on the time frame: Menshiki would have left to visit me while Mariye was asleep. He stayed over and went back the following morning. In other words, he wasn’t at home that night. The house was empty. But Mariye had no way of knowing that.)

Mariye woke up once that night to use the bathroom, but didn’t flush the toilet. During the day was one thing, but in the still, wee hours of the morning the sound of running water could attract attention. Menshiki was without question a cautious and meticulous individual. He would notice even the slightest change. So why risk discovery?

Her watch said two in the morning. Saturday morning, that was. Friday had passed. When she peeped through the curtain she could see her home across the valley. The lights in the living room were blazing. It was after midnight and she still hadn’t returned, so the people there—at night that would mean her father and her aunt—were unable to sleep. I’ve done an awful thing, Mariye thought. She even felt sorry for her father (very rare for her). I shouldn’t have been so reckless—it wasn’t my intention. This is what I get for acting so impulsively.

Yet whatever her regrets, however much she might blame herself, she couldn’t transport herself across the valley. She was not a crow. She couldn’t sprout wings and fly through the air. Nor could she disappear and reappear like the Commendatore. She was confined within her still-growing body, and shackled by time and space. Hers was a clumsy, awkward existence. Look at her chest—as flat as a board. Her breasts still pancakes that had failed to rise.

Naturally, Mariye was scared alone there in the dark. Her powerlessness pained her. She wished the Commendatore were there. She had so many things to ask him. Whether he answered them or not, at least she would have someone to talk to. To be sure, his way of speaking was odd, somewhat different from modern Japanese, but she could still understand his general meaning. But he might never come back. “There is another place I must go, and another task I must look after,” he had told her. She was desolate to have lost him, perhaps forever.

From outside the window came the resonant cry of a night bird. It sounded like an owl, perhaps a horned owl. They were cloistered in the dark forests, honing their wisdom. I must be as wise as they are, she thought. Be a smart, brave girl. But sleep overtook her a second time. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Pulling the bedding around her once again, she lay down on the mattress and closed her eyes. It was a deep and dreamless sleep. When she woke up it was already growing light outside. Her watch said half past six.

The world was welcoming a new Saturday.

Mariye spent all that day holed up in the maid’s room. In place of breakfast, she had more crackers, a few chocolates, and mineral water. She crept into the gym and borrowed several issues from a small mountain of Japanese editions of National Geographic. She guessed Menshiki read them when he was working out on his exercise bike, since they were stained here and there with what appeared to be his sweat. She read through them several times. There were articles on the habitat of the Alaskan wolf, the mysteries of the rising and ebbing of the tides, the life of the Inuit, and the gradual shrinking of the Amazon rain forest. Not Mariye’s usual reading material by any means, but now, with nothing else to look at, she read them over and over until she had them practically memorized. She bored holes in the illustrations with her eyes.

When she tired of reading, she napped. On occasion, she looked through the curtain at her home across the valley. I wish I had that telescope now, she thought. Then I’d really be able to see inside, even watch people moving around. She wanted to be back inside her room with the orange curtains. Scrub every inch of her body in a nice hot bath, change into fresh pajamas, and curl up in her warm bed with her cat.

Just after nine in the morning, she heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. The footsteps of a man in slippers. Menshiki, most likely. His way of walking was somehow distinctive. She wanted to peek through the keyhole, but the door didn’t have one. She huddled over her knees in a corner of the room, her body rigid. Escape would be impossible if he opened the door and came in. The Commendatore had said that shouldn’t happen, and she had taken him at his word. But nothing was a hundred percent sure thing in this world. Making herself as invisible as possible, she thought of the clothes in the closet and prayed, Don’t let anything happen to me. Her throat was as dry as cotton.

Menshiki seemed to have brought down his dirty laundry. He probably washed a day’s worth of clothes at this time each morning. He tossed them in, added detergent, set the timer and mode, and turned the washer on. She could tell by listening that his movements were practiced. She was surprised how well she could hear. The washer began to churn. Menshiki then moved to the gym and began working out on his exercise machines. That seemed to be his ritual—to work out while his clothes were spinning in the washer. While listening to classical music. She could hear strains of Baroque music coming from the speakers attached to the gym’s ceiling. It sounded like Bach, or Handel, or Vivaldi. Mariye didn’t know much about classical music, though, so it could have been any one of those three.

Mariye spent a full hour with her ears tuned to the churn of the washer, the systematic whirring of the exercise machines, and the music of either Bach, Handel, or Vivaldi. It was a nerve-wracking hour. True, Menshiki probably wouldn’t notice that his pile of National Geographics was short a few issues, or that his stash of crackers and chocolate in the storeroom was shrinking bit by bit. She had taken only a tiny fraction of what he had laid away. Nevertheless, there was no telling what might happen. She had to guard against carelessness. To stay on her toes.

Eventually, a buzzer went off and the washer stopped. Menshiki walked slowly back to the laundry room, took the clothes from the washer, put them in the dryer, and turned it on. The dryer began to turn. Satisfied that all was in order, Menshiki ambled up the stairs. It appeared that his workout had ended. Now he would probably take a long shower.

Mariye closed her eyes and sighed with relief. Menshiki would likely come back down in an hour or so. To remove his clothes from the dryer. Yet the most dangerous period had passed. At least it felt that way. He hadn’t sensed her hiding there in the room. Hadn’t felt her presence at all. She could breathe more freely now.

Then who had it been in front of the closet? The Commendatore had said it was Menshiki, but then again it wasn’t him at all. What had that meant? She couldn’t understand what he had been trying to say. It was just too difficult for her. Whatever the case, that someone had been able to tell that she (or at least a person) was in the closet. They had sensed her there, no doubt. Yet, for some reason, that someone was unable to open the closet door. What could that reason have been? Had that assembly of beautiful old clothes really protected her?

She longed to ask the Commendatore. But he had gone off somewhere. There was no one left who could explain things to her.

Menshiki did not set foot outside the house all that Saturday. As far as she knew, the garage door hadn’t opened, nor had a car engine started up. He had come down to pick up his laundry, and then walked slowly back up the stairs. That was it. No one had visited the house at the top of the hill where the road came to an end. No parcels or registered documents had been delivered. The doorbell had remained silent. She had heard the telephone ring twice. The ring was faint and distant, but she could still make it out. It was picked up on the second ring the first time, and the third ring the time after that (that was how she knew Menshiki was in the house). The town garbage truck crawled up the slope to the melody of “Annie Laurie” and then crawled back down again (Saturday was garbage pickup day). Otherwise, she heard no sounds. The house was perfectly still.

The morning passed, afternoon rolled on, and soon evening was drawing near.

(A second note on the time frame: While Mariye was hiding in the maid’s tiny room, I killed the Commendatore in the Izu nursing home, tied up Long Face, and descended into the underworld.)

But she never found the perfect time to escape. She had to be patient and wait for “the right moment,” the Commendatore had told her. You will know when the right moment comes. As in, “Aha, now is the time!”

However, the “right moment” never came. Mariye grew more and more tired of waiting. Patience was not her strength. How long, she wondered, must I stay holed up here?

Menshiki began playing the piano not long before nightfall. Apparently, he kept the living room window open when he practiced, so Mariye could hear the music in her hiding place. It sounded like Mozart. One of his sonatas, in a major key. She had noticed the score on the piano. Menshiki ran through the slow-paced movement, then went back to repeat several sections, adjusting his fingering until he was satisfied. It was difficult, though, and he seemed to be having trouble balancing the sound. For the most part, Mozart’s sonatas aren’t all that hard, but a pianist who tries to master one can stumble into a labyrinth. That labyrinth, however, didn’t seem to faze Menshiki in the least. Mariye listened to him patiently walk back and forth over the thorny passages. He practiced that way for about an hour. At the end, he closed the lid with a bang. She sensed he was frustrated. But not all that much. Rather, it was a moderate, elegant frustration. Even when he was alone (or at least, when he thought he was alone) in his sprawling mansion, he kept a tight rein on his feelings.

What followed was a repeat of the previous day. The sun set, the sky darkened, and the crows flew cawing back to their nests in the mountains. One by one, the lights of the houses across the valley went on. The Akikawas’ lights did too, and stayed lit even after midnight. Those lights signaled to Mariye just how worried her family was. At least it felt that way to her. It hurt not to be able to ease their pain.

In stark contrast, not a single light went on at Tomohiko Amada’s house (in short, the house I inhabited). To all appearances, it looked abandoned. Night came, yet it remained black. It seemed that no one was home. Mariye thought it strange. Where had her teacher gone? Did he know that she was missing?

At a certain hour, sleep again attacked Mariye. The sandman showed no mercy. Shivering in her school blazer, she wrapped herself in blankets and quilts and closed her eyes. I wish my cat were here, she thought as she drifted off. For some reason, her cat—it was a she—seldom mewed or yowled. She only purred. Mariye could have kept her with her without fear of discovery. But of course she wasn’t there. Mariye was all alone. In a small pitch-black room with no means of escape.

Sunday morning dawned. When Mariye opened her eyes it was still quite dark. Her watch said before six. The days were getting shorter. Rain was falling outside. A hushed, winter rain. She didn’t realize it was raining until she noticed water dripping off the branches. The air in the room was chilly and damp. If only she had a sweater, she thought. All she was wearing under her blazer was a thin knitted vest, a cotton blouse, and beneath that a T-shirt. An outfit for a warm afternoon. A wool sweater would sure come in handy.

Then she remembered—she’d seen a sweater in that closet. An off-white cashmere that looked nice and warm. She could trot up the stairs and get it. Put it under her blazer, and she’d be warm as toast. But slipping out the door and climbing the stairs was just too dangerous. Especially to that room. She had to make do with what she had on. After all, this cold wasn’t unbearable. Nothing like the brutal cold the Inuit had to deal with. This was the outskirts of Odawara, in early December.

Yet the rainy winter morning chilled her to the bone. She could feel the icy damp seep into her body. So Mariye closed her eyes and turned her thoughts to Hawaii instead. When she was small, she and her aunt, and her aunt’s old school friend, had visited Hawaii. They rented a small surfboard for her on the beach at Waikiki, and she played in the waves—when she tired of that, she basked in the sun on the white sand. It was so warm, and so harmonious. High above her, the fronds of the palms swayed in the trade winds. White clouds sailed out to sea. She lay there and sipped a glass of lemonade, so cold her temples hurt. Mariye remembered the trip in detail. Would she ever see a place like that again? She’d give anything for that chance.

Once again, a little after nine, Menshiki came padding down the stairs in his slippers. The washer started, the classical music kicked in (this time it sounded like a Brahms symphony), and the rhythm of the exercise machines began. This lasted a full hour. A perfect repeat of the day before. Only the composer was different. The master of the house was certainly a creature of habit. He transferred the laundry from the washer to the dryer, and returned exactly an hour later to pick it up. He didn’t come downstairs after that, and showed no interest at all in the maid’s room.

(Another note on the time frame: Menshiki went to my home that afternoon, where he bumped into Masahiko and they had a brief conversation. For some reason, though, Mariye was again unaware that he had left the house.)

Menshiki’s unwavering routine was useful to Mariye. She could prepare herself emotionally, and plan her movements in advance. Unexpected events would have made it much harder on her nerves. She had grown familiar with Menshiki’s pattern, and adapted herself to it. He almost never went out (at least to her knowledge). He worked in his study, washed his own clothes, cooked his own meals, and, in the evening, sat down in front of his Steinway and practiced. Sometimes there was a phone call, but those were infrequent. She could count them on her fingers. For some reason, he didn’t seem to like phones all that much. He appeared to take care of his work-related communications—she had no idea how extensive they were—on the computer in his study.

Menshiki took care of the basic cleaning, but once a week he had a cleaning service come to him. Mariye remembered him mentioning that on their previous visit. I don’t mind doing it myself, he had said. Cleaning can cheer me up, just like cooking. But it was clearly beyond him to keep such a big house tidy on his own. Thus the need for professional help. He had said he left the house for half a day when they came. What day of the week would it be? Maybe that’s when I can make my getaway, Mariye thought. People will be bringing equipment, so the gate should be opening and closing as their vehicles come and go. Menshiki should be absent. So getting out might not be all that hard. That could be my one and only chance.

Yet there was no sign that the cleaners were coming. Monday was much the same as Sunday. Menshiki was making good progress with Mozart: his mistakes were fewer, and the whole piece was coming together musically. He was a careful and patient man. Once he set a goal, he stuck to it. Mariye had to admit she was impressed. Even if he could make it through without a hitch, though, how pleasing would his Mozart be to the ear? Listening to what was coming from upstairs, she had her doubts.

She was surviving on crackers, chocolate, and mineral water. She also polished off an energy bar full of nuts. And a can of tuna fish. Since she had no toothbrush, she brushed her teeth with mineral water, using her finger. She read issue after issue of the Japanese version of National Geographic. In the process, she learned about a number of further topics: the man-eating tigers of Bengal; the lemurs of Madagascar; the shifting topography of the Grand Canyon; natural-gas extraction in Siberia; the life expectancy of the penguins of Antarctica; the world of the highland nomads of Afghanistan; the grueling initiation rituals of New Guinean youth. She learned the basics about AIDS, and Ebola. Such miscellaneous information about nature might prove useful one day. Then again, it might be entirely useless. Whatever the case, no other books were on hand. She devoured back issues of National Geographic like there was no tomorrow.

Once in a while, she would slip her hand under her T-shirt to check the status of her breasts. But they didn’t appear to be growing at all. If anything, they seemed to be getting smaller. She was also concerned about her period. According to her calculations, the next was due in about ten days. She had found nothing related to that condition in the storeroom. (Plenty of toilet paper was stockpiled in case of earthquake, but no sanitary napkins or tampons. It seemed that women and their needs didn’t register with the owner of the house.) She’d be in big trouble if it started while she was in hiding. Probably, though, she would have escaped by then. Probably. It was hard to imagine putting up with another ten days of this.

The cleaners finally showed up on Tuesday morning. She could hear the lively chatter of women in the upper garden as they unloaded equipment from the back of their van. Menshiki had not done his laundry that morning, nor performed his exercise routine. In fact, he hadn’t come downstairs at all. She had wondered if this could be why (Menshiki wouldn’t change his daily schedule without a reason), and, sure enough, it was as she had guessed. Menshiki had probably driven his Jaguar out the gate at the same moment the cleaners’ big van pulled in.

Mariye rushed to tidy up the maid’s room. She gathered the empty water bottles and cracker packets and put them in a garbage bag, which she set out in a visible place. The cleaners would look after it. She neatly folded the blanket and quilt and returned them to the closet. She took care to erase every trace of her presence. Now no one could tell that someone had been living there for days. Then she slung her bag over her shoulder and crept up the stairs. Timing her moves, she darted through the hallway without attracting the cleaners’ attention. Her heart pounded at the thought of the dangers of that room. At the same time, though, she missed the clothes hanging in its closet. She wanted to go back for one last look. Touch them with her hands. But there was no time for that. She had to hurry.

She slipped through the front door undetected, and ran up the curved driveway. The gate had been left open, as she had anticipated. It made no sense for anyone working there to open and close it each time they passed through. Her face as she stepped out onto the road was a picture of normality.

Should I really be able to leave this easily? she thought outside the gate. Shouldn’t I have to pay a higher price? Go through some sort of painful rite of passage, like the teenage tribesmen of New Guinea? Endure a ritual like that as a badge of courage? Those thoughts did not linger, however. They were dwarfed by the liberation she felt at having made her getaway.

The day was overcast, with low-lying clouds that threatened cold rain at any minute. But Mariye’s face was raised to the sky. As if she were on the beach at Waikiki, gazing up at the swaying palm trees. She took several deep breaths, giddy with her good fortune. I am free, she thought. My feet will take me anywhere I want to go. My nights spent trembling in the dark are over. That fact alone made her grateful to be alive. It had been only four days, but now the world appeared so fresh, each tree, every blade of grass charged with such wonderful vitality. She found the smell of the wind exhilarating.

Yet this was no time to dawdle. Menshiki could have forgotten something and come driving back at any time. I should get away from here, she thought, and fast. Adopting what she hoped was a nonchalant expression, Mariye tried to smooth her wrinkled school uniform (she had been sleeping in it for days) and straighten her hair to avoid arousing suspicion as she trotted down the mountain.

At the foot of the slope, she turned up the road on the other side. But she did not take her usual route home—rather, she headed for my place. She had something in mind. But the house was empty. She rang the bell repeatedly, but no one came to the door.

Giving up, she went around to the back and took the path through the woods to the pit behind the little shrine. Now, however, a blue plastic sheet covered the pit. The sheet hadn’t been there before. It was held firmly in place by cords attached to stakes driven into the ground. Stone weights were lined up on top. It was no longer possible to peek inside. In her absence, someone—who, she didn’t know—had sealed it. Probably they considered it a safety hazard. She stood in front of the pit and listened for a while. But she heard nothing.

(My note: The fact she didn’t hear the bell could have meant that I hadn’t arrived yet. Or possibly that I had fallen asleep.)

Cold drops of rain began to fall. I should go home, she thought. My family is worried about me. But how could she explain the last four days? She had to think of something. She couldn’t let on that she had been hiding at Menshiki’s all that time—that was out of the question. It would create an even bigger mess. The police had probably been notified of her disappearance. If they knew that she had broken into Menshiki’s home, she’d be charged with trespassing. She would be punished.

What if she claimed that she had fallen into the pit by accident, and had been unable to get out for four days? That only when her teacher—me, in other words—came by was she able to climb to safety. Mariye had expected me to play along with this scenario. But I hadn’t been home, and the pit’s opening had been secured with a plastic tarp. Thus her plan fell through. (Had that scenario unfolded, I would have had to explain to the police why Menshiki and I had brought in heavy equipment to uncover the pit, which might have led to even thornier problems.)

Claiming temporary amnesia was the only other story she could think of. Nothing else came to mind. She would say that those four days were a blank. That she couldn’t remember a thing. That when she came to, she was lying alone on the mountain. She would stick with that—there was no other way. She had seen a TV show that hinged on that idea. She wasn’t sure if people would swallow an excuse like that. The police and her family would grill her. They might send her to a psychiatrist or counselor of some kind. Even so, a claim of amnesia was the only option. She would have to mess up her hair, splatter mud on her legs and arms, and add a few scattered cuts and bruises to make it look as if she had spent all that time in the mountains. It would be an act she would have to carry through to the very end.

And in fact that was what she did. It was hardly a masterful performance, but she could come up with no alternative.

This was what Mariye revealed to me. She had just finished her account when Shoko Akikawa returned. I heard her Toyota Prius pull up in front of my house.

“I think you should keep quiet about what really happened,” I said to Mariye. “Don’t tell anyone but me. It will be our secret.”

“Of course,” Mariye said. “Of course I won’t tell anyone. Even if I did, they wouldn’t believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“Does this mean the circle is closed?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe not all the way. But I think we can rest easy. The dangerous part is over.”

“The virulent part.”

“That’s right,” I said. “The virulent part.”

Mariye studied my face for a full ten seconds. “The Commendatore,” she said in a small voice. “He really exists.”

“That’s right,” I replied. “He really does.” And I killed him with these hands. Really. But of course I couldn’t tell her that.

Mariye gave a single nod. I knew she would keep our secret. It was a secret we would share forever.

I wished I could have told Mariye that the clothes that had protected her from that something had been worn by her late mother before she married. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the right. Neither did the Commendatore. There was but one person in the world who did, and that was Menshiki. But he would never exercise it.

We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose.

⁶³ BUT IT’S NOT WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

Mariye and I had a secret. An important secret shared by the two of us alone. I described my time in the underworld, and she told me exactly what had happened to her at Menshiki’s mansion. We wrapped up the two paintings, Killing Commendatore and The Man with the White Subaru Forester, as tightly as we could and stored them in the attic of Tomohiko Amada’s house. Nobody else knew about that, either. The owl did, of course, but it wasn’t going to talk. It would hold our secret in perfect silence.

Mariye came to visit from time to time (she hid it from her aunt, using her secret passageway). We put our heads together to try to figure out what our experiences had in common, comparing the timelines right down to the smallest detail.

At first, I worried that Shoko would suspect that Mariye’s four-day disappearance and my three-day “long-distance trip” were somehow related, but the idea seems never to have entered her head. Nor did the police direct their attention to that coincidence. They were ignorant of the passageway, so they dismissed my home as just another house on the next ridge over. Since I did not number among the Akikawas’ “neighbors,” they never came to interview me. Nor did it appear that Shoko had told them I was painting Mariye’s portrait. She probably didn’t see it as relevant. Had the police put Mariye’s absence and my trip together, I could have been placed in a delicate situation.

I never completed my portrait of Mariye Akikawa. It was almost done, but I feared where finishing it might lead. Menshiki, for one, would move heaven and earth to put his hands on it. That much was clear, no matter what he might say to the contrary. I had no intention, however, of letting him install the painting in his private “sanctuary.” That could be dangerous. So in the end I left it unfinished. Mariye, however, loved the painting (“It shows how I think these days,” was how she put it), and wanted to keep it near her if possible. So I readily gave it to her in its unfinished state (along with the three sketches I had promised earlier).

“I think it’s cool,” Mariye said. “It’s a work in progress, and I’m a work in progress too, now and forever.”

“None of us are ever finished. Everyone is always a work in progress.”

“How about Mr. Menshiki?” Mariye asked. “He looks very finished to me.”

“I think he’s a work in progress too,” I said.

Menshiki was far from being a completed human being. From what I could tell, anyway. That is why, night after night, under cloak of darkness, he reached out to Mariye Akikawa across the valley on his high-powered binoculars. He couldn’t help himself. That secret allowed him to maintain some sort of personal equilibrium. It was for him the equivalent of the long balancing pole that tightrope walkers carry.

Of course, Mariye was aware that Menshiki was peeking into her house. But she never revealed it to anyone (apart from me). She never told her aunt. What possessed him to do something like that? It mystified her. Yet for some reason she didn’t feel like pursuing it any further. All she did was keep her curtain closed. The sun-bleached orange curtain stayed tightly shut at all times. She also made sure that the light in her room was off when she changed for bed at night. Elsewhere in the house, however, his voyeurism didn’t bother her. Sometimes she even thought she enjoyed it. Perhaps she found some meaning in the fact that she alone knew what was going on.

According to Mariye, Shoko and Menshiki were still seeing each other. Her aunt would jump in the car and drive off to his house once or twice a week. Their relationship appeared to be sexual (Mariye hinted at this in a very roundabout way). Her young aunt never said where she was going, but Mariye knew. When she came back, her complexion was rosier than usual. In any case—whatever the nature of that peculiar void within Menshiki—Mariye was powerless to interfere in their affair. She could only let them continue on as they were. All she wished was not to be drawn into whatever was going on between the two of them. That she be allowed to stand at a safe distance, outside the whirlpool of their relationship.

I doubted that she could pull that off. Without realizing it, she would be sucked in sooner or later, to a greater or lesser degree. From the periphery, unavoidably toward the center. Menshiki was wooing Shoko Akikawa, but always with Mariye in mind. Whether he had planned it all from the start or not, he couldn’t help himself—that’s the kind of man he was. And, like it or not, I had brought them together. He had met Shoko in this house. That’s what he had wanted. And when Menshiki wanted something, the guy knew how to put his hands on it.

Mariye wasn’t sure what Menshiki would do with that closetful of shoes and size 5 dresses. She guessed he would keep them—whether they were stored in that closet or in another place. However his relationship with Shoko Akikawa turned out, he wouldn’t be able to discard them, or burn them. That was because the wardrobe had become a part of his psyche. The clothes would be forever enshrined within his spiritual sanctuary.

I decided to quit teaching my painting class near Odawara Station. “I’m sorry, but I need to focus on my art,” was how I put it to the director. He took it in stride. “It’s a shame,” he said. “Everyone says you’re a wonderful teacher.” His words didn’t sound altogether false, either. I thanked him, and promised to stick it out till year’s end. By then, he had located a good replacement, a retired high school art instructor in her mid-sixties. She struck me as a very nice woman, with eyes that resembled those of an elephant.

Menshiki called from time to time. No practical matter was ever involved—we just chatted. Each time he would ask if there had been any change in the pit behind the shrine, and each time I would tell him no, there hadn’t. That was the honest truth. The blue plastic sheet was still stretched across the opening. I went to check sometimes when I was out for a walk, but never saw any sign that it had been tampered with. The stones holding it down hadn’t been moved either. There were no more strange or suspicious events connected to the pit. I never heard the bell in the middle of the night, nor did the Commendatore (or anything else) emerge from it. It was just a big hole sitting quietly in the middle of the woods. The clump of tall pampas grass flattened by the backhoe was growing back, concealing the area around the pit once again.

As far as Menshiki knew, I had been in the pit the whole time I was missing. True, he couldn’t explain how I had gotten inside. Yet he had found me there—that was an indisputable fact. As a result, he never connected Mariye’s disappearance and mine. He could only see the overlap of the two events as some kind of strange coincidence.

Discreetly, I probed to see if he had an inkling that someone had been hiding in his house for four days. But he had seen no telltale signs. He was wholly in the dark. In which case, whoever had been standing outside the closet in the forbidden chamber was most likely not him. But then who had it been?

Although Menshiki called, he no longer came by for visits. Perhaps he no longer needed to hang out now that Shoko was in his grasp. Or maybe he had lost interest in me. Or both. It didn’t matter to me one way or the other (though there were times I missed the sound of his Jaguar V8 purring up the slope).

Nevertheless, the occasional phone calls (always before eight in the evening) suggested that Menshiki felt we should stay connected in some way. Perhaps the fact that he had revealed to me that he might be Mariye’s biological father weighed on his mind to some extent. I don’t think he worried that I would blurt it out—to either Mariye or Shoko Akikawa—somewhere down the line. He was sure I would guard his secret. He could read me well enough to know that, like he could read all people. Yet it was so foreign to Menshiki to have bared his heart to anyone, whoever they might be. He had an iron will, but maybe even he found it exhausting to keep secrets to himself all the time. He must have really needed me on his side when he made his confession. And I had struck him as relatively harmless.

Whether or not he had exploited me from the beginning, however, I still owed him my gratitude. It was he who had rescued me from the pit. Had he not come along, if he hadn’t lowered the ladder and then yanked me up to the surface, I would have become a dried-up corpse. In a sense, then, Menshiki and I had each placed our lives in the other’s hands. That meant that our accounts were even.

Menshiki just nodded when I told him that I had given A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa to Mariye in its unfinished state. I guess he no longer needed the painting that much, though he had commissioned it. Or he saw no meaning in an unfinished work. Or his mind was on other things.

A few days after Menshiki and I had this conversation, I put a simple frame on The Pit in the Woods, placed the painting in the trunk of my Corolla, and took it to his house. This was the last time we would meet face-to-face.

“This is for saving my life. Please accept it,” I said.

He seemed to like the painting a lot. (I thought it was pretty good myself.) He offered to pay me for it, but I turned him down. I had received too much money from him as it stood. There was no need for further obligations on either side. We had become neighbors who lived across the valley from each other, no more, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Tomohiko Amada passed away the Saturday of the week I was rescued from the pit. He had been in a coma for three days, and in the end his heart simply stopped beating. It shut down quietly and naturally, like a locomotive pulling into the last station. Masahiko was by his side throughout. He called me soon after.

“He went peacefully,” he said. “That’s the way I would like to go. I thought I could even detect a smile.”

“A smile?” I asked.

“Maybe it wasn’t a true smile, strictly speaking. But that’s the way it looked. To me, anyway.”

“I’m very sorry about your father,” I said, choosing my words, “but I’m glad he went peacefully.”

“He was semiconscious until midweek, but he didn’t seem to want to leave any parting words,” Masahiko said. “I guess he had no regrets—he lived his ninety years to the fullest, doing what he wanted to do.”

You’re wrong, I thought. He had regrets. In fact, he bore a very heavy burden. Yet only he knew what that burden was. Now there was no one left who knew, and it would remain like that forever.

“I’m afraid I’ll be out of touch for a while,” Masahiko said. “Dad was famous in his own way, which means I have to take care of all kinds of things. I’m the son and heir, so I can’t say no. Let’s get together and talk after things have settled down a little.”

I thanked him for taking the trouble to let me know, and we hung up.

Tomohiko Amada’s death cast an even deeper hush over my home. But that was only natural. He had lived there for a long time, after all. I shared the house with that silence for several days. It was intense, but not unpleasant. You could call it a pure silence, in that it was not connected to anything else. A chain of events had come to an end. That’s how it felt, anyway. It was the kind of hush that comes when matters of major importance are finally resolved.

One night about two weeks after Tomohiko Amada’s death, Mariye came to talk to me, stealing to my house in secret like a cautious cat. She didn’t stay very long. Her family was keeping close watch on her, so she didn’t have the freedom to come and go that she had enjoyed before.

“My breasts seem to be getting bigger,” she said. “My aunt and I went shopping for a bra. The stores carry something called a ‘beginner’s bra.’ Did you know that?”

No, I said, I didn’t. I glanced at her chest but saw nothing new beneath her green Shetland sweater.

“I don’t see much difference,” I said.

“That’s because the padding is thin. If it were any thicker, people would see the change right away and think you stuffed something inside. So you start thin and then work up from there. It’s more complicated than I thought.”

Mariye told me that a female police officer had questioned her at length about where she had been those four days. The questioning had been gentle most of the time, yet on occasion the woman had become very firm. But Mariye had stuck with her story: she could remember only that she’d been roaming the mountain and had gotten lost. The rest was a complete blank. She thought she’d survived on the mineral water and chocolate she always carried in her schoolbag. That was all she would say. Otherwise, she kept her mouth clamped shut. She was good at keeping quiet. Once the police were sure that she had not been kidnapped and held for ransom, they took her to a hospital to have her cuts and bruises examined. They wanted to know if she had been sexually abused in any way. When it was clear that no abuse had taken place, the police lost interest. She was just another runaway kid who had gone missing for a couple of days. Hardly a rare occurrence.

Mariye threw away everything she had been wearing during that time: her dark blue blazer, checked skirt, white blouse, knitted vest, loafers—everything. She bought a whole new set of school clothes to replace them. She wanted to start fresh. Then she went back to her life as if nothing had happened. The only difference was that she quit attending the painting class (she was too old for the children’s class anyway). She hung my (unfinished) portrait of her on her wall.

It was hard to imagine what kind of woman she would grow up to be. Girls of that age can change in the blink of an eye, physically and emotionally. I might not even be able to recognize her in a few years. I was thus very happy to have painted her picture (unfinished though it was) as she was at thirteen, freezing her image in time. In this real world of ours, after all, nothing remains the same forever.

I called my former agent in Tokyo and told him I wanted to go back to portrait painting. He couldn’t have been happier. They were always short of skilled artists.

“But you told me you were through with the business, didn’t you?” he said.

“I changed my mind,” I answered. Why exactly, I didn’t say. He didn’t ask, either.

I wanted to live without thinking about anything for a while, to let my hands move on their own, churning out normal, “commercial” portraits one after the other. In the process, I could gain some financial stability. I didn’t know how long I could keep that up. I couldn’t predict the future. But for the time being, at least, that’s what I wanted. To use my hard-won skills without calling up any complicated thoughts. To avoid getting mixed up with Ideas, or Metaphors, or anything along those lines. To keep a safe distance from the messy private affairs of the wealthy, mysterious man who lived across the valley. Not to be dragged into any more dark tunnels for having brought hidden masterpieces into the light. More than anything, that’s what I desired.

I met Yuzu. We talked over coffee and Perrier at a café not far from her office. Her belly wasn’t as big as I had imagined.

“You’re not planning to marry the father?” I asked her right off the bat.

She shook her head. “No, not at the present time.”

“Why?”

“I just feel that’s for the best.”

“But you plan to have the child, right?”

She gave a little nod. “Of course. Can’t turn back now.”

“Are you living with him?”

“No, I’m not. Since you left I’ve lived alone.”

“How come?”

“For one thing, we’re not divorced yet.”

“But I sent you the divorce papers a while ago, signed and sealed. So I assumed we were already divorced.”

Yuzu was quiet for a moment. “To be honest, I never submitted them,” she said at last. “I couldn’t somehow, so I let them sit. You and I have been legally married all this time. That means the baby will legally be your child, whether we get divorced or not. You won’t bear any responsibility for it, of course.”

I couldn’t grasp what she meant. “But biologically speaking, the baby is his, correct?”

Yuzu looked me in the eye. “It’s not that simple,” she said at last.

“What do you mean?”

“How can I put this? I’m not a hundred percent certain the baby is his.”

Now it was my turn to look her in the eye. “Are you saying you don’t know who got you pregnant?”

She nodded. I don’t know.

“But it’s not what you’re thinking,” she said. “I wasn’t sleeping around. I can only have a sexual relationship with one man at a time. That’s why I stopped sleeping with you. Right?”

I nodded.

“I felt sorry for you, though.”

I nodded again.

“But I was careful to use protection with him. I didn’t want a child. You know how I felt. I was ultra-cautious about those things. And yet I got pregnant, just like that.”

“There can always be slipups, no matter how careful we try to be.”

“Women know when something like that happens,” Yuzu said, shaking her head. “We have a sixth sense that tells us. I don’t think men have it.”

Of course, I didn’t.

“At any rate, you’re planning to have the baby,” I said.

Yuzu nodded.

“But you never wanted one. At least as long as we were together.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I didn’t want one with you. I didn’t want one with anybody.”

“And yet now you’re going to go ahead and bring a child into the world without knowing who the father is. Why didn’t you have an abortion? You could have done so earlier.”

“I thought about it, of course. And part of me wanted one.”

“But you didn’t.”

“This is how I think these days,” Yuzu said. “This is my life, sure, but in the end almost all that happens in it may be decided arbitrarily, quite apart from me. In other words, although I may presume I have free will, in fact I may not be making any of the major decisions that affect me. I’ve come to think my pregnancy is an example of that.”

I listened to her without saying anything.

“I know this sounds fatalistic, but it’s what I have truly come to feel. Honestly and deeply. So then I thought, if that’s how things work, why not have the child and raise it on my own. See it through, and find out what happens. That’s come to seem terribly important.”

“There’s just one thing I need to ask,” I said, diving in.

“What is it?”

“It’s a simple question, one that requires a mere yes or no. I won’t say anything more.”

“No problem. Ask away.”

“Can I return to you—would you take me back?”

Her brow furrowed slightly. She looked me hard in the face for a moment. “Do you mean you wish to live once more as husband and wife?”

“If that’s possible.”

“I’d like that,” she said quietly. There was no hesitation in her voice. “You are still my husband, and your room is as you left it. You can come back anytime you wish.”

“Are you still seeing the other man?” I inquired.

Yuzu quietly shook her head. “No, that’s over.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to allow him parental rights—that’s the main reason.”

I said nothing.

“It seems to have come as a great shock to him. Only natural, I guess,” she said. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands.

“But you would allow me?”

She rested her hands on the table and once again looked at me closely.

“You’ve changed a little, haven’t you? Your features, or maybe your expression?”

“I don’t know how I look, but I have learned a few things, I think.”

“I may have learned a few things myself.”

I picked up my cup and drained what was left of my coffee.

“Masahiko’s father just passed away,” I said, “so he’s got a lot to deal with right now. When things have settled down for him, I’ll pack my bags and return to our apartment in Hiroo, probably sometime early in the New Year. Assuming that’s all right with you, of course.”

She studied my face. As if gazing at a landscape she had missed for a very long time. Finally, she reached across the table and gently covered my hand with hers.

“I’d like to give it another try,” she said. “In fact, I’ve been thinking that for a while.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” I said.

“I don’t know if it will work out or not.”

“I don’t know either. But it’s worth a shot.”

“I’m about to have a baby without knowing who the father is. Is that going to be all right with you?”

“I don’t have a problem with that,” I said. “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but there’s a possibility that I could be the baby’s father—potentially. That’s my feeling, anyway. I could have somehow gotten you pregnant, mentally, from a distance. As a concept, using a special route.”

“As a concept?”

“That’s one hypothesis.”

Yuzu considered that for a minute. “If that’s true,” she said, “then that’s one heck of a hypothesis.”

“Perhaps nothing can be certain in this world,” I said. “But at least we can believe in something.”

She smiled. That was the end of our conversation that day. She took the subway home, while I climbed into my dusty old Toyota Corolla station wagon and drove back to my home on the mountain.

⁶⁴ AS A FORM OF GRACE

It was several years after I moved back in with my wife that, on March 11, a huge earthquake devastated northeastern Japan. I sat in front of the television as, one after another, coastal villages and towns from Iwate all the way down to Miyagi were laid to waste before my eyes. That was the very same region I had driven through in my old Peugeot 205. I had encountered the man with the white Subaru Forester in one of those towns. Yet now all I could see were the remains of communities leveled by a tsunami that had fallen on them like some giant beast, leaving nothing in its wake but drowned wreckage. Try as I might, I could find no visible connection to that town. Since I couldn’t remember the name of the place, I had no way of learning how much damage it had suffered, or how it had been changed.

I couldn’t bring myself to do anything—I just sat staring at the TV screen for days on end in stunned silence. I was transfixed. I prayed to find something, anything, connected to my memories. If I failed, I feared, something stored within me, something very important, would be lost for good, carried off to some distant, unknown place. I wanted to hop in my car and drive to the stricken region. See for myself what had survived the disaster. That was out of the question, of course. The main roads had been torn to pieces, which meant that towns and villages were cut off from the world. Electricity, gas, water—all lifelines had been severed. Farther south, on the coast of Fukushima (where I had abandoned my Peugeot when it gave up the ghost), several nuclear reactors were in meltdown. It was impossible to venture into that part of the country.

I had not been a happy man when I had traveled there. It had been a lonely, painful, thoroughly wretched period in my life. I think I was lost in a number of ways. Nevertheless, the trip had allowed me to spend time among unfamiliar people, and witness their lives. I had not imagined then how valuable that would turn out to be. In the process—usually unconsciously—I had discarded some things and picked up others. By the time I passed through all those places I had become a somewhat different person.

I thought of The Man with the White Subaru Forester hidden in the attic of the Odawara house. Had that man—whether he belonged to the real world or not—still been living in the same town when disaster struck? What about the skinny young woman with whom I had spent that strange night. Had they and the other inhabitants been able to escape the earthquake and tsunami? Were they still alive? What was the fate of the love hotel and the roadside restaurant?

When five o’clock came around, I would go to pick up our daughter at the nursery school. This was my designated role (my wife having gone back to work at the architectural firm). On an adult’s legs, the school was a ten-minute walk away. Then the two of us would slowly stroll home, hand in hand. If the weather was good, we would stop by a park on the way to sit on a bench and watch the neighborhood dogs pass by. Our daughter wanted a little dog of her own, but no pets were permitted in our apartment building, so she had to make do with looking at them in the park. Every so often, someone would let her pet their small, unthreatening dog.

Our daughter’s name was Muro. Yuzu had chosen it. She had seen the name in a dream shortly before the baby was born. In the dream, she had been in a large Japanese-style room that looked out over a spacious and beautiful garden. There was a low, old-fashioned writing desk, and on top of that a sheet of white paper. On the paper a single character, 室 (Muro), had been written in bright black ink. The calligraphy was magnificent. That was Yuzu’s dream. It stayed stuck in her mind even after she awoke. Thus, she decided, Muro had to be the baby’s name. I was fine with that, of course. After all, she was the one having the baby. The idea that the calligrapher might be Tomohiko Amada popped into my head. But that was just a passing thought. When you came right down to it, it was only a dream, nothing more.

I was happy the child was a girl. I had grown up with my younger sister Komi, so I found it relaxing to have a little girl around. It felt as natural as could be. I was happy, too, that she came into this world with her name already settled. Names are important, whatever one might say.

When we got home, Muro and I watched the news together. I tried to shield her from shots of towns being swallowed by the tsunami. I thought the images were too disturbing for a young child. I was quick to cover her eyes when they came on the screen.

“Why, Daddy?” Muro asked me.

“Because you’re still too young.”

“But it’s real, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. It’s really happening somewhere far from here. But just because it’s real doesn’t mean you have to see it.”

Muro thought about that for a while. But of course she couldn’t wrap her head around what I had said. She couldn’t understand tsunamis and earthquakes yet, or the meaning of death. All the same, I blocked her vision whenever the tsunami appeared on the screen. Understanding something and seeing it are two different things.

One time, I saw the man with the white Subaru Forester on TV. Or at least I thought I did. They were shooting a large fishing vessel stranded on a bluff some distance from shore, and he was standing nearby. Like an elephant keeper beside an elephant that had outlived its usefulness. But that shot was quickly followed by another. I couldn’t be sure if it was really the man with the white Subaru Forester or not. But to me the tall fellow in the black windbreaker and black cap with a Yonex logo could be no one else.

His image came and went. There was only a brief second before the camera angle shifted.

Besides watching news about the earthquake, I painted “commercial” portraits on commission to shore up our finances. It was something I could do without thinking—when I sat before the canvas, my hands moved almost automatically. I had been seeking just that sort of life. And that’s what people had been seeking from me. The work provided a steady income. I needed that too. I had a family to take into account.

Two months after the earthquake, my old home in Odawara burned down. The house on the mountain where Tomohiko Amada had spent half his life. Masahiko called with the news. He had been tearing his hair out over how to look after it once I had left, and it turned out his fears were well founded. It had caught fire just before dawn at the end of the May holidays, and although firemen had rushed to the scene, the old wooden structure had almost burned to the ground by the time they arrived (the fire trucks had trouble navigating the steep and twisting road). Luckily, it had rained the night before, so flames hadn’t spread to the surrounding trees. The fire department investigated, but to no avail. It might have been an electrical short circuit, but then again it could have been arson.

The first thing that came to mind when I heard the news was Killing Commendatore. It must have been incinerated along with the house. Same with The Man with the White Subaru Forester. And the record collection. Had the owl in the attic managed to escape?

Killing Commendatore was without a doubt one of Tomohiko Amada’s best works, its demise a great loss to Japan’s art world. Yet only a few people had laid eyes on it. Just Mariye Akikawa and me. Shoko Akikawa, very briefly. Its creator, Tomohiko Amada, of course. After that, possibly no one. Now it was gone forever, swallowed by the flames. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was somehow to blame. Shouldn’t I have made public Tomohiko Amada’s hidden masterpiece? Instead, I had bundled it up and stuck it back in the attic. Now it was just a pile of ashes. (I had carefully copied the characters who appeared in it in my sketchbook, all that remained of Killing Commendatore.) As a self-respecting artist myself, the idea pained me. The painting was so wonderful, I thought. Perhaps I had committed a crime against art itself.

Yet it also struck me that it might have been a work that had to be lost. Tomohiko Amada had poured just too much of his passion, his soul, into it for it to be exposed to public view. It was filled with his spirit. Thus, although it was a superb painting, it possessed some sort of vicious power—it could summon things from the other side. By discovering it, I had set a cycle of some kind in motion. Dragging a painting like that out into the light could well have been a big mistake. Wasn’t that what the artist himself had thought? Wasn’t that why he had hidden it in the attic, away from view? If so, then I had respected his wishes. Whichever the case, it had been lost to the flames, and there was no way anyone could turn back time to recover it.

I didn’t regret the loss of The Man with the White Subaru Forester for a moment. I knew I would tackle that subject again in the future. By then, though, I would have become a more resolute man, and an artist of greater integrity. When it came time to create my own art again, I should be able to paint The Man with the White Subaru Forester from a whole new angle. Perhaps that work would become my own Killing Commendatore. If that happened, it would be the greatest legacy I could receive from Tomohiko Amada.

Mariye called me right after the fire, and we talked for half an hour about the little old house it had left in ashes. That house had been important to her. Not so much the building, perhaps, as the world it encompassed, and the time when it was an essential part of her life. That would include Tomohiko Amada, back in the days when he still lived there. Whenever she saw him, the painter was always immersed in his work. From Mariye’s experience, an artist was someone who holed up for days painting in his studio. She had watched Amada through the window of that house. Now it was gone, and she had lost that world forever. I shared her sadness. That house held deep meaning for me as well, though I had lived there less than eight months.

At the end of our call, Mariye told me that her breasts were much bigger than before. By now, she was in her second year of high school. I had not seen her once since my departure. Our relationship consisted of an occasional phone call. I didn’t particularly want to revisit the house, nor had I any compelling reason to go there. It was always Mariye who called me.

“They haven’t filled out yet, but they’re definitely growing,” she whispered confidentially. It took me a while to register what she was talking about.

“Just as the Commendatore prophesied,” she said.

That’s wonderful, I said. I considered asking if she had a boyfriend, but decided against it.

Her aunt was still seeing Menshiki. She had revealed that to Mariye at some point. That they were very close indeed. And that they might get married before too long.

“Would you live with us if that happened?” her aunt had asked.

Mariye had pretended she hadn’t heard. She was good at that.

I found the idea a bit unsettling. “Are you intending to live with Mr. Menshiki?” I asked her.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “But I’m not so sure.”

Not so sure?

“I thought you had some pretty bad memories of his house,” I said, my bafflement showing.

“All of that happened when I was a kid. It seems so long ago. And there’s no way I’m going to live alone with my father.”

So long ago?

It felt like yesterday to me. When I said that to Mariye, though, she didn’t respond. Perhaps she wanted to forget those days, and what had taken place then. Or maybe she already had. Now that she was older, she might even have started to develop an interest in Menshiki, however slight. Maybe she had come to see something special in him, a blood tie of some sort.

“I really want to see what happened to that closetful of clothes,” Mariye said.

“That room attracts you, doesn’t it?”

“That’s because those clothes protected me,” she said. “But who knows, I may live on my own when I go to college.”

Sounds good to me, I said.

“So what’s the situation with the pit behind the shrine?” I asked.

“No change,” Mariye replied. “The blue plastic sheet’s still on it, even after the fire. Leaves will cover it eventually. Then maybe no one will know it’s even there.”

The little old bell would be lying on the floor of the pit. Together with the flashlight I had taken from Tomohiko Amada’s room at the nursing home.

“Have you seen the Commendatore?” I asked.

“No, not once. It’s hard to believe he really existed.”

“He did, all right,” I said. “You’d better believe it.”

All the same, I figured that, little by little, that realm would disappear from Mariye’s mind. Her life would grow busier and more complicated as she moved into her late teens. She would no longer have time to consider crazy things like Ideas and Metaphors.

Every so often, I found myself wondering about the plastic penguin. I had given it to the faceless man as payment for ferrying me across the river. There had been no alternative, given the swiftness of the current. I could only pray that little penguin was watching over Mariye from somewhere—probably as it shuttled back and forth between presence and absence.

I still can’t be sure about the identity of Muro’s father. A DNA test would tell me, but I have no desire to know the result. Perhaps we’ll find out somewhere along the way. The truth may be revealed. But what meaning would that “truth” carry? Muro is my child in the legal sense, and I love her deeply. I treasure the time we spend together. I couldn’t care less who her biological father is or isn’t. The question is inconsequential. It can change nothing.

I went to Yuzu in a dream as I wandered from town to town in northeastern Japan. I made love to her while she was asleep, stealing into her dream and impregnating her, so that nine months and a few days later she bore a child. I love this idea (although I hold it in secret). That child’s father is me as Idea, or perhaps me as Metaphor. Just as the Commendatore visited me, or as Donna Anna guided me through the dark, so did I, in some alternate world, deposit my seed in Yuzu’s womb.

But I will not become like Menshiki. He has built his life by balancing the possibility that Mariye Akikawa is his child with the possibility that she isn’t. It is through the subtle and unending oscillation between those two poles that he seeks to find the meaning of his own existence. I have no need, though, to challenge my life in such a troublesome (or, at the least, unnatural) way. That is because I am endowed with the capacity to believe. I believe in all honesty that something will appear to guide me through the darkest and narrowest tunnel, or across the most desolate plain. That’s what I learned from the strange events I experienced while living in that mountaintop house on the outskirts of Odawara.

Killing Commendatore may have been lost forever in the flames that hour before dawn, yet its beauty and power live within me even now. I can call up the images of the Commendatore, Donna Anna, the faceless man, and the rest with perfect clarity. They look so tangible, so real, I feel as though I could reach out and touch them. Contemplating them affords me perfect tranquility, as though I were watching raindrops fall on the surface of a broad reservoir. That soundless rain will fall forever in my heart.

I will probably live the rest of my life in their company. My little daughter Muro is their gift to me. A form of grace. I am convinced of this.

“The Commendatore was truly there,” I say to Muro as she lies sleeping. “You’d better believe it.”