Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

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.

“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.”

“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?”