* * *
—
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 f
irm. 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.
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