Killing Commendatore

by Haruki Murakami

  “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 To
mohiko 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.”