Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

“A comfortable-looking place,” he said after sitting down on the sofa. “Very relaxed and quiet.”

“Quiet it certainly is. But kind of inconvenient when you have to go shopping.”

“I would imagine for someone in your field it’s an ideal environment.”

I sat down in the chair across from him.

“I heard that you live nearby, Mr. Menshiki?”

“Yes, that’s right. It would take a while to walk here, though as the crow flies it’s actually pretty near.”

“As the crow flies,” I said, repeating his words. There was a somehow strange ring to the expression. “But how near is it, actually?”

“Close enough that if you wave your hand here you could see it.”

“You can see your house from here?”

“Exactly.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, and Menshiki asked, “Would you like to see my house?”

“If I could, yes,” I said.

“Do you mind if we go out on the terrace?”

“Please, go right ahead.”

Menshiki got up from the sofa and went straight from the living room to the terrace. He leaned out over the railing and pointed across the valley.

“You see that white concrete house over there? The one on top of the mountain, with the shiny windows?”

I was speechless. That was the house, that smart, elegant house I often looked at when I went out at sunset onto the terrace to enjoy a glass of wine. The large house that stood out from all the rest, diagonally to the right from mine.

“It’s a little far, but if you made a big wave with your hand you could say hello,” Menshiki said.

“But how did you know I was living here?” I asked, resting my hands on the railing.

He looked puzzled. He wasn’t really fazed, just displaying a puzzled look. Not that his expression seemed contrived. He’d simply wanted to throw in a pause before responding.

“One aspect of my job is gathering all kinds of information,” he said. “That’s the sort of business I’m in.”

“Is it tech related?”

“That’s right. Or more precisely, that’s also one aspect of my work.”

“But hardly anyone knows yet that I’m living here.”

Menshiki smiled. “Saying hardly anyone knows means, paradoxically, that there are some who do .”

I looked over again at that exquisite white concrete building across the valley, and once more studied the man beside me. He was, most likely, the one who appeared almost every evening on the deck of that house. When I thought of it, his shape and movements all fit that silhouette perfectly… It was hard to figure out his age. That snow-white hair made me think he must be in his late fifties or early sixties, though his skin was lustrous and tight, and wrinkle free. His deep-looking eyes had the youthful twinkle of a man in his late thirties. All of which made guessing his age a tough call. I would have accepted anything between forty-five and sixty.

Menshiki went back to the sofa in the living room, and I sat down again across from him.

“Do you mind if I ask a question?” I finally ventured.

“Ask away,” he said, beaming.

“Is there some connection between the fact that I live near your house and your decision to ask me to paint your portrait?”

A slight look of confusion came over him. And when he looked confused, several tiny wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. Charming wrinkles. His features, viewed individually, were all quite attractive—the eyes almond shaped and slightly deep set, the forehead noble and broad, the eyebrows thick and nicely defined, the nose thin and a nice size. Eyes, eyebrows, and nose that perfectly fit his smallish face. His face was a bit small, yet too broad in a way, and from a purely aesthetic viewpoint was a little imbalanced. The vertical and horizontal were out of sync, though this disparity wasn’t necessarily a defect. It’s what gave his face its distinctiveness, since it was this imbalance that conversely gave the viewer a sense of calm. If his features had been too perfectly symmetrical people might have felt a bit of antipathy, or wariness, toward him. But as it was, his ever-so-slightly unbalanced features had a calming effect on anyone meeting him for the first time. They broadcast, in a friendly way, “It’s all good, not to worry. I’m not a bad person. I don’t plan to do anything bad to you.”

The pointed, largish tips of his ears were slightly visible through his neatly trimmed hair. They conveyed a sense of freshness, of vigor, reminding me of spry little mushrooms in a forest, peeking out from among the fallen leaves on an autumn morning, just after it had rained. His mouth was broad, the thin lips neatly closed in a line, diligently prepared to, at any moment, break into a smile.

One could call him handsome. And he actually was. Yet his features rejected that sort of casual description, neatly circumventing it. His face was too lively, its movements too subtle to simply abide by that label. The expressions that rose on his features weren’t calculated, but looked more like they’d arisen naturally, spontaneously. If they weren’t, then he was quite the actor. But I got the impression that wasn’t the case.

When I observe the face of a person I’ve met for the first time, from habit I sense all sorts of things. In most cases there’s no tangible basis for how I feel. It’s nothing more than intuition. But that’s what helps me as a portrait artist—that simple intuition .

“The answer is yes, and no,” Menshiki said. His hands on his knees were wide open, palms up. He turned them over.

I said nothing, waiting for his next words.

“I do worry about who lives in the neighborhood,” Menshiki went on. “No, not worry, exactly. It’s more like I’m interested . Especially when it’s someone I see now and then across the valley.”

It’s a little too great a distance to say we actually see each other, I thought, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he had high-powered binoculars and had been secretly observing me? I kept that thought to myself. I mean, what possible reason could he have to observe a person like me ?

“And I learned that you had moved in here,” Menshiki continued. “I found out you’re a professional portrait artist, and that aroused my interest enough to seek out a few of your paintings. At first I saw them on the Internet. But I wasn’t satisfied, so I went to see three actual paintings.”

That had me puzzled. “You saw the actual paintings?”

“I went to see the people who had modeled for you and asked them to let me see the portraits. They were happy to show me them. It seems like people who sit for portraits are really pleased to show them off. I got a strange sensation when I saw the actual paintings up close and compared them to the faces of the people. It’s like I couldn’t tell which one was real anymore. How should I put it? There’s something about your paintings that strikes the viewer’s heart from an unexpected angle. At first they seem like ordinary, typical portraits, but if you look carefully you see something hidden inside them.”

“Something hidden?” I asked.

“I’m not sure how to put it. Maybe the real personality?”

“Personality,” I mused. “ My personality? Or the subject’s ?”

“Both, probably. They’re mixed together, so elaborately intertwined they can’t be separated. It’s not something you can overlook. Even if you just glance at the paintings as you pass by, you feel like you’ve missed something, and you can’t help but come back and study them carefully. It’s that indefinable something that drew me to them.”

I was silent.

“And I had this thought: This is the person I want to paint my portrait. No matter what. I got in touch with your agent right away.”