Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

“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.

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.