Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

“I’ve got to talk to you about something,” she said, skipping the pleasantries.

“Fine, let’s talk,” I said.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, phone to my ear. The clouds outside were starting to break up, and the early-winter sun was peeking through the gaps. The weather at least was improving. From the sound of it, though, what she had to say wasn’t going to be all that pleasant.

“I think it’s best if we don’t see each other again,” she said. “It’s too bad, but…”

Her tone was flat and dispassionate. I couldn’t tell if she really felt it was too bad or not.

“There are a number of reasons,” she said.

“A number of reasons,” I echoed.

“To begin with, I think my husband is catching on. He’s noticed some signs.”

“Signs,” I repeated.

“Women leave certain signs in situations like this. Like they start paying more attention to their makeup and their clothes, or change their perfume, or start a serious diet. I’ve tried to be careful, but even so.”

“I see.”

“The main thing is, we can’t go on like this.”

“Like this,” I repeated.

“With no future. No hope of resolution.”

She had it there. Our relationship had no “future,” no “hope of resolution.” The risks were too large if we continued as we were. I didn’t have all that much to lose, but she had a family and two teenage daughters attending private school.

“There’s more,” she went on. “I’m having a serious problem with my daughter. The older one.”

Her elder daughter. If I remembered correctly, she was the obedient child who never talked back to her parents and got good grades.

“A serious problem?”

“She can’t get out of bed in the morning.”

“Can’t get out of bed?”

“Hey, will you please stop repeating everything I say?”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “But what is her specific problem? She can’t get out of bed?”

“That’s right. It’s been going on for about two weeks. She doesn’t try to get up. She doesn’t go to school. She just lies in bed in her pajamas all day. Doesn’t answer when spoken to. I take food to her, but she barely touches it.”

“Has she seen a counselor?”

“Of course,” she said. “There’s a school counselor. No help at all.”

I thought for a minute. But there was nothing I could say. I’d never even met the girl.

“So that’s why I can’t see you,” she said.

“Because you have to stay home and look after her?”

“There’s that. But that’s not all.”

She didn’t go on, but I understood how she felt. She was terrified, and blaming herself as a mother for our affair.

“It’s really too bad,” I said.

“It’s fine for you to say that, but it’s even worse for me.”

She could be right, I thought.

“There’s one last thing I wanted to tell you,” she said. She took a quick, deep breath.

“What’s that?”

“I think you can become a really good artist. Even better than now.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That gives me some confidence.”

“Goodbye.”

“Take care,” I said.

When our phone call ended, I went to the living room, stretched out on the sofa, and thought about her as I looked at the ceiling. We had been together so many times, yet never had I thought of painting her portrait. Somehow, that feeling had never arisen. Instead I had sketched her over and over again. In a small sketchbook with a thick pencil, so quickly I hardly removed pencil from paper. In most she was naked, and posing lewdly. Spreading her legs to show her vagina, for example. Or I sketched her in the act of making love. Simple drawings but still very real. And very vulgar. She loved looking at them.

“You’re really good at drawing naughty pictures, huh? You toss them off, but they’re super dirty.”

“It’s just for fun,” I said.

I drew her again and again, then threw the drawings away. Someone might see them, and it didn’t make sense to keep them. Still, maybe I should have secretly held on to at least one. To prove to myself she had really existed.

I got up slowly from the sofa. The day was only beginning. There were many conversations ahead.

Icalled Shoko Akikawa. It was just after nine thirty. A time when most people are already up and about. But no one picked up the phone. It rang on and on until the answering machine kicked in. We’re sorry, but we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave your message after the tone … I left no message. She must be scrambling to deal with her niece’s disappearance and sudden return. I kept calling at intervals, but no one answered.

I thought of calling Yuzu after that, but I didn’t want to bother her while she was working. I could call during her lunch break. With luck, I would get to have a brief talk with her. It wasn’t like our conversation would be a long one. I would simply ask if we could meet sometime soon—that was the gist of it. A yes-or-no question. If the answer was yes, we would set a date and a place to meet. If it was no, that was that.

Then, with a heavy heart, I called Masahiko. He picked up right away. He let out a huge sigh when he heard my voice.

“Are you home now?” he asked.

I told him I was.

“Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”

Sure, I said. He called fifteen minutes later. He seemed to be using his cell phone on the roof of an office building, or someplace like that.

“Where the hell have you been?” he said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “You disappeared from my father’s room without a word—no one knew where you were. I drove all the way to Odawara looking for you.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“When did you get home?”

“Last night.”

“So you were traipsing around from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday night? Where did you go?”

“To be honest, I have no memory of where I was or what I was doing,” I lied.

“So you just woke up and found yourself back home—is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“For real? Are you serious?”

“There’s no other way to explain it.”

“Sorry, man. I can’t buy it. Sounds fake to me.”

“Come on, you’ve seen this sort of thing in movies and novels.”

“Give me a break. Whenever they pull that amnesia bit I turn off the TV. It’s so contrived.”

“Alfred Hitchcock used it.”

“You mean Spellbound ? That’s one of his second-rate films,” Masahiko said. “So tell me what really happened.”

“I don’t know myself at this point. Like there are these fragments floating around, and I can’t figure out how to piece them together. Maybe my memory will return in stages. I’ll let you know if that happens. But I can’t tell you anything right now. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a little longer.”

Masahiko paused to digest what I had just said. “All right then, let’s call it amnesia for now,” he said in a resigned voice. “I gather your story doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol or a mental breakdown or a femme fatale or abduction by aliens or anything along those lines.”

“No. Nothing illegal or contrary to public morals.”

“Public morals be damned,” Masahiko said. “But clue me in on one thing, would you?”

“What’s that?”

“How did you manage to slip out of the nursing home Saturday afternoon? They keep a really strict eye on who comes and goes. A number of famous people are staying there, so they’re paranoid about leaks. They’ve got a receptionist stationed at the entrance, a guard on-site twenty-four seven, and security cameras. All the same, you managed to vanish in broad daylight without being spotted or caught on film. How?”