I was silent, waiting for his next words.
Menshiki continued. “Here’s my question to you. During that hour did you ever find yourself, even for a moment, wanting to abandon me in that pit? Tempted to just leave me behind at the bottom of that dark hole?”
I couldn’t grasp what he was getting at. “Abandon you?”
Menshiki touched his right temple and rubbed it, as if checking out a scar. “This is what I mean. I was at the bottom of that pit, a little less than nine feet deep and six feet across. The ladder had been pulled up. The stones in the wall were all densely laid together, and there was no way to climb up. And the cover was on tight. In mountains like these I could yell at the top of my voice or ring the bell, but no one would ever hear me—though of course you might. In other words, I couldn’t get back to the surface on my own. If you hadn’t come back, I’d have had to stay in the pit forever. Isn’t that so?”
“That could be.”
The fingers of his right hand were still at his temple. He’d stopped rubbing. “What I’d like to know is whether during that hour the thought ever occurred to you, even for a moment, I’ll just leave that man inside the pit. Leave him the way he is. Tell me the truth, it won’t offend me.”
He took his fingers from his temple, reached for the glass of brandy, and again slowly held it up and swirled it. This time, though, he didn’t take a sip. Eyes narrowed, he inhaled the aroma and put the glass back on the table.
“That thought never occurred to me,” I answered honestly. “Even for a moment. All I thought about was that after an hour I had to take the cover off and get you out of there.”
“Really?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Well, if I had been in your position…” Menshiki said, sounding confessional. His voice was quite calm. “I’m sure I would have thought of that. I definitely would have been tempted to leave you inside that pit forever. I would have thought, This is the chance of a lifetime.”
No words came to me.
Menshiki said, “Down at the bottom of the pit that’s what I was thinking about the whole time. That if I was in your position I would definitely consider it. It’s a strange thing. You were the one on the surface and I was the one at the bottom of the pit, but all that time I was picturing me on the surface and you at the bottom.”
“But if you’d actually abandoned me in the pit I might have starved to death. I might have turned into an actual mummy, ringing a bell. You’re saying you’d be okay with that?”
“It’s just a fantasy. Or delusion, perhaps. Of course I would never actually do that. I was just imagining the scenario. Just mentally playing with the concept of death. So don’t worry. What I mean is, I find it hard to fathom that you didn’t feel the same temptation.”
I said, “Weren’t you afraid, Mr. Menshiki, being down at the bottom of that dark pit all alone? Thinking that I might be tempted to abandon you there?”
Menshiki shook his head. “No, I wasn’t afraid. Deep inside me I may have actually been hoping you would.”
“Hoping I would?” I said, surprised. “That I would leave you down in that pit?”
“Exactly.”
“In other words, you were okay with being abandoned down there?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I was okay with dying. Even I still have some attachment to this life. And starving to death or dying of lack of water aren’t the ways I’d like to go. All I wanted was to try to get closer to death, even if just a little more. I know that boundary is a very fine line.”
I thought about what he said, though I still couldn’t grasp what he meant. I casually glanced over at the Commendatore, still seated on the display shelf. His face was bereft of expression.
Menshiki went on. “When you’re locked up alone in a cramped, dark place, the most frightening thing isn’t death. The most terrifying thought is that I might have to live here forever. Once you think that, the terror makes it hard to breathe. The walls close in on you and the delusion grabs you that you’re going to be crushed. In order to survive, a person has to overcome that fear. Which means conquering yourself. And in order to do that, you need to get as close to death as you possibly can.”
“But there’s a danger to that.”
“Like when Icarus flew close to the sun. It’s not easy to know how close you can go, where that line is. You put your life at risk doing it.”
“But if you avoid approaching it, you can’t overcome fear and conquer yourself.”
“Precisely. If you can’t do that, you can’t take yourself to the next level,” Menshiki said. He seemed to be considering something. And then suddenly—at least it seemed sudden to me—he stood up, went over to the window, and looked out.
“It’s still raining a little, but not so hard. Do you mind going out on the deck? There’s something I want to show you.”
We walked up the steps from the dining room to the living room and then out to the deck. It was a large deck, with a Mediterranean tiled floor. We went over to the wooden railing and gazed out at the valley. It was like a tourist lookout, and we were afforded a view of the entire valley. A fine rain was still falling, more like mist at this point. The lights were still on in people’s homes across the valley. It was the same valley, but viewed from the opposite side like this, the scenery looked transformed.
A section of the deck was roofed over, with a chaise longue beneath it, for sunbathing or perhaps reading. Next to it was a low glass-topped table to put drinks or books on. And also a large planter with a decorative green plant, and a tall piece of equipment of some kind, covered in plastic. There was a spotlight on the wall, but it wasn’t turned on. The lights in the living room were turned down low.
“I wonder which direction my house is?” I asked Menshiki.
Menshiki pointed to the right. “It’s over there.”
I stared hard in that direction, but with the lights out and the misty rain I couldn’t locate it.
“I can’t see it,” I told him.
“Just a moment,” Menshiki said, and walked over to where the chaise longue was. He removed the plastic cover from the piece of equipment and carried it over. It looked like a pair of binoculars on a tripod. The binoculars weren’t big, but looked odd, different from normal ones. They were a drab olive green and the crude shape made it appear like some optical instrument for surveying. He placed this beside the railing, pointed it, and carefully focused.
“Here, take a look. This is where you live,” he said.
I squinted through the binoculars. They had a clear field of vision, with high magnification. Not your typical binoculars that you find in a store. Through the faint vale of misty rain the far-off scenery looked close enough to touch. And it definitely was the house I was living in. The terrace was there, the lounge chair I always sat in. Beyond that was the living room, and next to it, my painting studio. With the lights off I couldn’t make out the interior, though during the day you probably could. It felt strange to see (or peek into) the place where I lived.
“Don’t worry,” Menshiki said from behind me, as if reading my mind. “No need to be concerned. I don’t encroach on your privacy. I mean, I hardly ever turn these binoculars on your house. Trust me. What I want to see is something else.”
“What do you want to see?” I said. I took my eye from the binoculars, turned around, and looked at him. His face was cool, inscrutable as always. At night on the deck, though, his hair looked whiter than ever.
“I’ll show you,” Menshiki said. With a practiced hand he swung the binoculars slightly to the north and swiftly refocused. He took a step back and said, “Please take a look.”
I looked through the binoculars. In the circular field of vision I saw an elegant wooden house halfway up the mountain. A two-story building also constructed to take advantage of the slope, with a terrace facing
this direction. On a map it would be my nearest neighbor, but because of the topography there was no road linking us, so one would have to go down to the bottom of the mountain and ascend once more on a separate road to access it. Lights were on in the windows, but the curtains were drawn, and I couldn’t see inside. If the curtains were open, though, and the lights on, you would be able to see the people inside. Very possible with binoculars this powerful.
“These are NATO-issue military binoculars. They’re not sold anywhere, so it wasn’t easy to get hold of them. They’re bright, so you can make out images well even in the dark.”
I took my eyes away from the binoculars and looked at Menshiki. “This house is what you want to see?”
“Correct. But don’t get the wrong idea. I’m no voyeur.”
He glanced through the binoculars one last time, then put them and the tripod back where they were and placed the plastic cover over them.
“Let’s go inside. We don’t want to catch cold,” Menshiki said. We went back into the living room, and sat on the sofa and armchair. The ponytailed young man sidled over and asked if we’d like anything to drink, but both of us declined.
“Thank you very much for tonight,” Menshiki said to the young man. “Feel free to go now.” The young man bowed and withdrew.
The Commendatore was now seated on top of the piano. The black Steinway full grand. He looked like he preferred this spot to where he had been sitting before. The jewels on the top handle of his long sword caught the light with a proud glint.
“In that house over there,” Menshiki began, “lives the girl who may be my daughter. I like to see her, even if it’s from a distance.”
For quite some time I was speechless.
“Do you remember? What I told you about the daughter my former girlfriend had, after she married another man? That she might be mine?”
“Of course. The woman who was stung by hornets and died. Her daughter would be thirteen. Right?”
Menshiki gave a short, concise nod. “She lives in that house with her father. In that house across the valley.”
It took a while to put the myriad questions that welled up in my mind in some kind of order. Menshiki waited silently all this time, patiently waiting for my reaction.
I said, “In other words, in order to see that young girl who might be your daughter through the binoculars every day, you bought this mansion directly across the valley. You paid a lot of money and a great deal to renovate this house for that sole purpose. Is that what you’re saying?”
Menshiki said, “Yes, that’s it. This is the ideal spot to be able to observe her house. I had to get this mansion no matter what. There was no other lot around here that I could get a building permit for. And ever since, I’ve been looking for her across the valley through my binoculars, almost every day. Though I should say that the days I can’t see her far outnumber the days I can.”
“So you live alone, keeping people out as much as you can, so no one interferes with that pursuit.”
Menshiki nodded again. “That’s right. I don’t want anyone to bother me. No one to disturb things. That’s what I’m looking for. I need unlimited solitude. You’re the only other person in the world who knows this secret. It wouldn’t be good to confess this kind of delicate thing to people.”
You got that right, I thought. And this thought occurred to me as well: Then why did you just tell me?
“Then why did you just tell me?” I asked Menshiki. “Is there some special reason?”
Menshiki recrossed his legs and looked straight at me. His voice was soft. “Yes, of course there’s a reason. I have a special favor to ask of you.”
25
HOW MUCH LONELINESS THE TRUTH CAN CAUSE
“I have a special favor to ask of you,” Menshiki said.
From his tone I guessed he’d been waiting for the right moment to bring this up. And that this was the real reason he had invited me (and the Commendatore) to dinner. In order to reveal his secret and bring up this request.
“If it’s something I can help with, of course,” I said.
Menshiki gazed into my eyes, and then spoke. “More than something you can help with, it’s something only you can help with.”
I was suddenly dying for a cigarette. When I got married I used that as the incentive to stop smoking, and in the nearly seven years since, I hadn’t smoked a single cigarette. It was tough quitting—I’d been a pretty heavy smoker—but nowadays I never had the urge. But at that instant, for the first time in forever, I thought about how great it would be to have a cigarette between my lips and light it. I could hear the scratch of the match.
“What could that possibly be?” I asked. Not that I particularly wanted to know—I’d prefer to get by not knowing—but the way the conversation was going, I had to ask.
“Well, I’d like you to paint her portrait,” Menshiki said.
In my head I had to dismantle the context of his words, then reassemble it all. Though it was a very simple context.
“You mean you want me to paint the portrait of this girl who may be your daughter.”
Menshiki nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I want you to do. And not from a photograph, but actually have her pose for you and paint the picture with her as the model. Have her come to your studio, like when you painted me. That’s my only condition. How you paint her is up to you—do it any way you want. I promise I won’t have any other requests later on.”
I was at a loss for words. Several questions immediately occurred to me, and I asked the first one that came to mind. “But how can I convince the girl to do that? I might be her neighbor, but I can’t very well just suggest to a young girl I don’t know that I want to paint your portrait, so would you model for me?”
“No, of course not. That would make her suspicious for sure.”
“Then do you have any good ideas?”
Menshiki looked at me for a time, then, like quietly opening a door and tiptoeing into a back room of a house, he slowly opened his mouth. “Actually, you already know her. And she knows you very well.”
“I already know her?”
“You do. Her name is Mariye—Mariye Akikawa. Aki—the character for ‘autumn’—and kawa, ‘river.’ Mariye is spelled out in hiragana. You do know her, right?”
Mariye Akikawa. I’d heard the name before, but it felt like some temporary obstruction was keeping me from putting name and face together. Finally the pieces fell into place.
I said, “Mariye Akikawa is in my children’s art class in Odawara, isn’t she?”
Menshiki nodded. “That’s right. Exactly. You’re her painting teacher.”
Mariye Akikawa was a small, quiet thirteen-year-old girl in the children’s art class I taught. The class was for elementary school children, and as a junior high student, she was the eldest, but she was so reserved she didn’t stand out at all, even though she was with the younger children. She always sat in a corner, trying to stay under the radar. I remembered her because something about her reminded me of my late sister, and she was about the same age as my sister when she passed away.
Mariye Akikawa hardly ever spoke in class. If I said something to her she just nodded, with barely a word in response. When she absolutely had to say something, she spoke it in such a small voice I often had to ask her to repeat herself. She seemed tense, unable to look me straight in the eye. But she loved painting, and the expression in her eyes radically transformed whenever she held a brush and was working on a canvas. Her gaze became focused, her eyes filled with an intense gleam. And her paintings were quite appealing. Not skilled, exactly, but eye-catching. Her use of colors was especially unique. All in all, a curious sort of girl.
Her glossy black hair fell straight down, her features as lovely as a doll’s. So beautiful, in fact, when you looked at her whole face, there was the sense of it being detached from rea
lity. Her features were objectively attractive, but most people would hesitate to label her beautiful. Something—perhaps that special raw, unpolished aspect that certain young girls exude in adolescence—interfered with the flow of beauty that should have been there. But someday that blockage might be removed and she would turn into a truly lovely girl. That was still a ways off, though. Now that I thought of it, my sister’s features were similar in that way. I often used to think she didn’t appear as beautiful as I knew she could be.
“So Mariye Akikawa might be your real daughter. And she lives in the house across the valley,” I said. “And I’m to paint a portrait with her as model. That’s what you’re asking?”
“I’d prefer to see it as a request, rather than that I’m commissioning the work. And if you’re okay with it, once the painting is finished I’d like to buy it and hang it on the wall in this house. That’s what I want. Or rather what I’m requesting.”
Still, there was something about all this I couldn’t quite swallow. I had a faint apprehension that things wouldn’t simply end there.
“And that’s it? That’s all you want?” I asked.
Menshiki slowly inhaled and breathed out. “Honestly, there’s one other thing I’d like you to do.”
“Which is—?”
“A very small thing.” His voice was quiet, but with a certain force behind it. “When she’s sitting for the portrait, I’d like to visit you. Make it seem like I just happened to stop by. Once is enough. And it can be for just a short time, I don’t mind. Just let me be in the same room as her, and breathe the same air. I won’t ask for anything more. And I can assure you I won’t do anything to get in your way.”
I thought about it. And the more I did, the more uncomfortable I felt. I’ve never been cut out to act as an intermediary. I don’t enjoy getting caught up in the flow of somebody else’s strong emotions—no matter what emotions they might be. The role didn’t suit me. But the fact was that I also wanted to do something for Menshiki. I had to think carefully about my reply.
Killing Commendatore Page 31
