Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

Seated on the stool, I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. In the autumn twilight I could clearly sense something within me changing. As if the structure of my body had unraveled, then was being recombined in a different way. But why here , and why now ? Did meeting the enigmatic Menshiki and taking on his portrait commission result in this sort of internal transformation? Or had uncovering the weird underground chamber, and being led there by the sound of the bell, acted as a stimulus to my spirit? Or was it that I’d merely reached an unrelated turning point in my life? No matter which explanation I went with, there didn’t seem to be any basis for it.

“It feels like this is just the beginning,” Menshiki had said as we parted. Had I stepped into this beginning he’d spoken about? At any rate, I’d been so worked up by the act of painting in a way I hadn’t in years, so absorbed in creating, that I’d literally forgotten the passage of time. As I stowed away my materials, my skin had a feverish flush that felt good.

As I straightened up, the bell on the shelf caught my eye. I picked it up and tried ringing it a couple of times. The familiar sound rang out clearly in the studio. The middle-of-the-night sound that made me anxious. Somehow, though, it didn’t frighten me anymore. I merely wondered why such an ancient bell could still make such a clear sound. I put the bell back where it had been, switched off the light, and shut the door to the studio. Back in the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of white wine and sipped it as I prepared dinner.

Just before nine p.m. a call came in from Menshiki.

“How were things last night?” he asked. “Did you hear the bell?”

I’d stayed up until two thirty but hadn’t heard the bell at all, I told him. It was a very quiet night.

“Glad to hear it. Since then has anything unusual happened around you?”

“Nothing particularly unusual, no,” I replied.

“That’s good. I hope it continues that way,” Menshiki said. A moment later he added, “Would it be all right for me to stop by tomorrow morning? I’d really like to take another good look at the stone chamber if I could. It’s a fascinating place.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “I have no plans for tomorrow morning.”

“Then I’ll see you around eleven.”

“Looking forward to it,” I said.

“By the way, was today a good day for you?” Menshiki asked.

Was today a good day for me? It sounded like a sentence that had been translated mechanically by computer software.

“A relatively good day,” I replied, puzzled for a moment. “At least, nothing bad happened. The weather was good, overall a pleasant day. What about you, Mr. Menshiki? Was today a good day for you?”

“It was a day when one good thing happened, and so did one not-so-good thing,” Menshiki replied. “The scale is still swinging, unable to decide which one was heavier—the good or the bad.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I stayed silent.

Menshiki went on. “Sadly, I’m not an artist like you. I live in the business world. The information business, in particular. In that world the only information that has exchange value is that which can be quantified. So I have the habit of always quantifying the good and the bad. If the good outweighs the bad even by a little, that means it’s a good day, even if something bad happened. At least numerically.”

I still had no idea what he was getting at. So I kept my mouth closed.

“By unearthing that underground chamber like we did yesterday, we must have lost something, and gained something. What did we lose, and what did we gain? That’s what concerns me.”

He seemed to be waiting for me to reply.

“I don’t think we gained anything you could quantify,” I said after giving it some thought. “At least right now. The only thing we got was that old Buddhist bell. But that probably doesn’t have any actual value. It doesn’t have any provenance, and isn’t some unique antique. On the other hand, what was lost can be clearly quantified. Before long, you’ll be getting a bill from the landscaper, I imagine.”

Menshiki chuckled. “It’s not that expensive. Don’t worry about it. What concerns me is that we haven’t yet taken from there the thing we need to take .”

“The thing we need to take? What’s that?”

Menshiki cleared his throat. “As I said, I’m no artist. I have a certain amount of intuition, but unfortunately I don’t have the means to make it concrete. No matter how keen that intuition might be, I still can’t turn it into art. I don’t have the talent.”

I was silent, waiting for what came next.

“Which is why I’ve always pursued quantification as a substitute for an artistic, universal representation. In order to live properly, people need a central axis. Don’t you think so? In my case, by quantifying intuition, or something like intuition, through a unique system, I’ve been able to enjoy a degree of worldly success. And according to my intuition…” he said, and was silent for a time. A very dense silence. “According to my intuition, we should have got hold of something from digging up that underground chamber.”

“Like what?”

He shook his head. Or at least it seemed that way to me from the other end of the phone line. “I still don’t know. But I think we have to know. We need to combine our intuition, allow it to pass through your ability to express things in concrete form, and my ability to quantify them.”

I still couldn’t really grasp what he was getting at. What was this man talking about?

“Let’s see each other again tomorrow at eleven,” Menshiki said. And quietly hung up.

Soon after he’d hung up, I got a call from my married girlfriend. I was a little surprised. It wasn’t often that she’d get in touch at this time of night.

“Can I see you tomorrow around noon?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, but I have an appointment tomorrow. I made it just a little while ago.”

“Not another woman, I hope?”

“No. It’s with Mr. Menshiki. I’m painting his portrait.”

“You’re painting his portrait,” she repeated. “Then the day after tomorrow?”

“The day after tomorrow’s totally free.”

“Great. Is early afternoon okay?”

“Of course. But it’s Saturday.”

“I’ll manage it.”

“Did something happen?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“You don’t often call me at this time of day.”

She made a small sound at the back of her throat, as if making a minor adjustment in her breathing. “I’m in my car now, by myself. I’m calling from my cell.”

“What are you doing in the car all alone?”

“I just wanted to be by myself in the car, so that’s where I am. Housewives sometimes do these things. Is that a problem?”

“No problem. No problem at all.”

She sighed, the kind of sigh that condensed a variety of sighs into one. And then she said, “I wish you were here with me. And that we could do it from behind. I don’t need any foreplay. I’m so wet you could slip right inside. I want you to pound me, hard and fast.”

“Sounds good to me. But a Mini is too small inside to pound you hard like that.”

“Don’t expect too much.”

“Let’s figure out a way.”

“I want you to knead my breast with your left hand and rub my clit with your right.”

“What should my right foot be doing? I could manage to use it to adjust the car stereo. You don’t mind a little Tony Bennett?”

“I’m not joking here. I’m totally serious.”

“I know. My bad. Serious. Got it,” I said. “Tell me, what are you wearing right now?”