Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

“You want to know what clothes I’m wearing?” she asked enticingly.

“I do. My procedure might change depending on what you have on.”

Over the phone she gave me a detailed rundown on the clothes she had on. It always surprised me, the variety of clothes mature women wore. Orally, she took these off, one by one.

“So, did that get you hard?” she asked.

“Like a hammer,” I said.

“You could pound a nail?”

“You bet.”

There are hammers in the world that need to pound in nails, and nails that need to be pounded by hammers. Now who said that? Nietzsche? Or was it Schopenhauer? Or maybe nobody said it.

Over the phone line, we entwined bodies in a way that felt so real. Phone sex was definitely a first for me, with her—or with anyone, for that matter. Her descriptions were so detailed, so arousing, that these imaginary sex acts were, in part, more sensual than what we could do with our actual bodies. Words can sometimes be so direct, sometimes so erotically suggestive. At the end of this exchange, I unexpectedly climaxed. And she seemed to have an orgasm as well.

We said nothing, catching our breath.

“I’ll see you Saturday, then,” she said after she seemed to have pulled herself together. “I have something to tell you about our Mr. Menshiki, too.”

“You got some new information?”

“A bit of new information I gathered through the jungle grapevine. But I’ll wait to see you to tell you. While we’re probably doing something naughty.”

“You going home now?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’d better be getting back.”

“Drive carefully.”

“Right. I need to take care. I’m still sort of shuddering down there.”

I stepped into the shower and used soap to clean my penis. I changed into pajamas, threw on a cardigan, and with a glass of cheap white wine in hand went out onto the terrace and gazed off in the direction of Menshiki’s house. The lights were still on in his massive, pure-white mansion across the valley. The lights seemed to be on all over the house. What he was doing over there (most likely) all by himself, I had no idea. Seated at the computer, perhaps, engaged once more in quantifying intuition.

“A relatively good day,” I said to myself.

And an odd day at that. What kind of day tomorrow would bring I had no clue. Suddenly I remembered the horned owl up in the attic. Was today a good day for it, too? Then I recalled that for horned owls, the day was now only beginning. During the day they slept in dark places. And come night, they set out to the woods in search of prey. That was a question a horned owl should be asked early in the morning. The question of “Was today a good day?”

I went to bed, read a book for a while, then turned off the light at ten thirty and went to sleep. Since I slept, without waking even once, until just before six the next morning, I imagine that the bell didn’t ring during the middle of the night.

Inever could forget the last words my wife said when I left our home: “Even if we break up like this, can we still be friends? If possible, I mean.” At the time (and for a long time after), I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say, what she was hoping for. I was confused, as if I’d put some totally tasteless food into my mouth. The best I could say was, “Well, who knows.” And those were the last words I said to her face-to-face. Pretty pathetic, as final words go.

Even after we broke up, it felt like my wife and I were still connected by a single living tube. An invisible tube, but one that was still beating slightly, sending something like hot blood traveling back and forth between our two souls. I still had that sort of organic sensation. But before long, that tube would be severed. And if it was bound to be cut sometime, I needed to drain the life from that faint line connecting us. If the life was drained from it, and it shriveled up like a mummy, the pain of it being severed by a sharp knife would be that much more bearable. To do so, I needed to forget about Yuzu, as soon as I could, as much as I could. That’s why I never tried to contact her. After I came back from my trip and went to pick up some belongings back at the apartment, I did call her once. I needed to get all my painting materials I’d left behind. That was the only conversation I had with Yuzu after we broke up, and it didn’t last long.

We officially dissolved our marriage, and I couldn’t contemplate the thought of us remaining friends. We’d shared so many things during our six years of marriage. A lot of time, emotions, words and silence, lots of confusion and lots of decisions, lots of promises and lots of resignation, lots of pleasure, lots of boredom. Naturally each of us must have had inner secrets, but we even managed to find a way to share the sense of having something hidden from the other. With us there was a gravitas of place that only the passage of time can nurture. We did a good job of accommodating our bodies to that sort of gravity, maintaining a delicate balance. We had our own special local rules that we lived by. And there was no way we could get rid of all that history, jettison the gravitational balance and local rules, and live simply as good friends .

I understood that very well. That’s the conclusion I came to after thinking about it during that lengthy trip. I invariably came to the same conclusion: it was best to keep Yuzu at a distance and break off contact. That made the most sense. And that’s what I did.

And for her part Yuzu didn’t contact me either. Not a single phone call, not one letter. Even though she was the one who said she wanted to remain friends . That hurt far more than I’d expected. Or more precisely, what hurt me was actually me , myself. In the midst of that continuing, unsettled silence my feelings, like a heavy pendulum, a razor-sharp blade, made wide swings between one extreme to the other. That arc of emotions left fresh wounds in my skin. And I had only one way of forgetting the pain. And that was, of course, by painting.

Sunlight filtered in silently through the studio window. From time to time a gentle breeze rustled the white curtains. The room had an autumn-morning scent. After coming to live on the mountain I’d grown sensitive to the changes in smells from one season to another. Back when I lived in the city I’d hardly ever noticed those.

I sat on the stool, and gazed for a long time at the portrait of Menshiki I’d begun. This was the way I always began work, reevaluating with new eyes the work I’d done the previous day. Only then could I pick up my brush.

Not bad, I thought. Not bad at all. The colors I’d created completely enveloped the original framework of Menshiki I’d done. The outline of him in black paint was hidden now behind those colors. Though concealed, I could still make it out. I would have to once more bring that outline into relief. Transform a hint into a statement.

There was no guarantee, of course, that the painting would ever be complete. It was still inchoate, something missing. Something that should be there was appealing to the nonvalidity of absence. And that missing element was rapping on the glass window separating presence and absence. I could make out its wordless cry.

Focusing so hard on the painting had made me thirsty, so I went into the kitchen and drank a large glass of orange juice. I relaxed my shoulders, stretched both arms high above my head, took a deep breath, and exhaled. I went back to the studio and sat down on the stool and studied the painting. Refreshed, I focused again. But something was different from before. The angle I was looking at the painting from was clearly not the same as it had been a few minutes before.