Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

If I can’t escape it, then all I can do is get the facts. If this keeps up, then I’ll never get to sleep and my life will be totally upended. I decided to take the initiative and find out what was happening in the studio. A bit of anger was included in this—why did I have to go through this? And of course there was a dash of curiosity thrown in as well. I wanted to be certain, with my own eyes, what was going on here.

I got out of bed and threw on a cardigan over my pajamas. I grabbed a flashlight and went out to the front entrance. I grabbed the oak walking stick that Tomohiko Amada had left behind in an umbrella stand. A sturdy, heavy stick. I didn’t think it would be useful, but holding something in my hand bucked up my courage. I had to be ready for anything.

Needless to say, I was scared. I was barefoot, but could barely feel the floor. My body was stiff, as if every bone in my body creaked with each step. Someone must have snuck into the house. And that someone was ringing the bell. And it must be the same person who was ringing the bell at the bottom of the hole. Who—or what —that was, I couldn’t predict. Was it a mummy? Say I set foot in the studio and really did confront a mummy—a shriveled-up man the color of beef jerky—shaking the bell, how should I react? Smack him with Tomohiko Amada’s walking stick?

No way, I thought. I can’t do that. The mummy would have to be a Buddhist priest who’d mummified himself. We weren’t talking about a zombie.

Okay, so what should I do? I was still confused. Or rather, my confusion had grown worse. If I had no good way of dealing with the situation, did that mean I’d have to resign myself to sharing the house with a mummy? Putting up with that bell at the same time every night?

I suddenly thought of Menshiki. This problem had arisen because of him. Because he’d done things he shouldn’t have. Because he’d used heavy equipment to move the stone mound and uncover the mysterious hole, some unknown being had entered this house along with the bell. I thought of calling him. Despite the late hour I could picture him rushing over in his Jaguar. But I gave up the idea. I didn’t have time to wait for him to get ready and drive over. I had to do something right here , and right now . I had to make this my responsibility .

I steeled myself and stepped into the living room and turned on the light. Even with the light on, the bell kept on ringing. I could clearly hear it coming from beyond the door leading into the studio. I re-gripped the walking stick in my right hand, tiptoed across the large living room, and put my hand on the doorknob of the studio door. I took a deep breath, made up my mind, and turned the knob. As if waiting for me to do that, the second I pushed open the door, the bell stopped cold. A deep silence descended.

The studio was pitch black, and I couldn’t see a thing. I reached out to the left-hand wall, fumbled for the light switch, and snapped it on. The pendant light on the ceiling came on and the room was suddenly bathed in light. I stood, legs shoulder-width apart, walking stick in hand, ready to respond to anything, and quickly scanned the room. The tension made my throat so parched that I could hardly swallow.

No one was in the studio. No shriveled-up mummy ringing the bell. No one was there. There was the easel standing by itself in the middle of the room, with a canvas on it. In front of the easel was the old three-legged wooden stool. That was all. The studio was deserted. I couldn’t hear a single insect. There was no wind. The white curtain hung down at the window, the whole scene bathed in an unearthly silence. The walking stick was shaking, I was so tense. As it shook, the tip of the stick made an irregular click against the floor.

The bell was still on the shelf. I went over and studied it carefully. I didn’t pick the bell up, but I didn’t see anything different about it. It was the same as when I’d picked it up in the afternoon and returned it to the shelf, with no evidence of having been moved.

I sat on the stool in front of the easel and once more scanned the room, examining every inch of it. But I still didn’t see anyone. It was the same scene I was used to. The painting on the easel was the rough sketch I’d begun of The Man with the White Subaru Forester .

I glanced at the clock on the shelf. It was exactly 2 a.m. It was 1:35, as I recall, when the bell woke me up, so twenty-five minutes had passed. It didn’t feel like that much time had passed. It felt more like five or six minutes. My sense of time was messed up. Or else the passage of time itself was messed up. One of the two.

I gave up, got down from the stool, turned off the light in the studio, went out, and shut the door. I stood in front of the closed door for a while, my ears perked up, but couldn’t hear the bell anymore. I couldn’t hear anything, only the silence. Hearing silence—this was no play on words. On an isolated mountaintop, silence had a sound. I stood there before the door to the studio and listened to that sound.

Just then I noticed something on the sofa in the living room I hadn’t seen before. It was as big as a cushion or a doll. But I had no memory of putting it there. I looked closer and saw it was no cushion or doll. It was a small, living person, about two feet tall. That little person was wearing odd-looking white clothes. And he was squirming around, like he was uncomfortable in his outfit. I’d seen that ancient, traditional garb before. The kind a high-ranking person would have worn in ancient times in Japan. And it wasn’t just the clothes—I remembered the person’s face, too.

The Commendatore.

My body felt frozen. As if a fist-sized lump of ice were slowly crawling up my spine. The Commendatore from the painting Killing Commendatore was sitting on the sofa in my house—or, more precisely, Tomohiko Amada’s house—and looking straight at me. The little man was dressed exactly like in the painting, with the same face. As if he’d escaped directly from the painting.

I tried to recall where I’d put it. That’s right, I remembered, it was in the guest bedroom. Not wanting anyone visiting the house to see it, I’d wrapped it in brown washi paper and had hidden it there. If this man had escaped, then what had happened to the painting? Was it solely the Commendatore who had vanished from the canvas?

But was that possible? That a person in a picture could escape from it? Of course not. That’s impossible. Obviously. No matter what anybody might think…

I stood there, rooted to the spot, the thread of logic lost, random thoughts racing through my head as I gazed at the Commendatore on the sofa. Time temporarily stopped moving forward, shifting back and forth as if waiting for my confusion to subside. I couldn’t take my eyes off that bizarre character—all I could think was that he had somehow come from the spirit world. For his part, the Commendatore stared up at me, from the sofa. I had no words, and was silent. The shock must have done it. I was capable of nothing, other than to keep my eyes on him and breathe, my mouth slightly ajar.

The Commendatore didn’t take his eyes off me either, and he didn’t say a word. His lips were shut tight. On the sofa he flung his short legs out straight in front of him. He leaned back against the sofa, though his head didn’t reach to the top. On his feet were oddly shaped shoes. They seemed made out of black leather, the tips pointed and curled upward. At his waist he wore a long sword with a decorated shaft. A long sword, yet of a size to fit his build, so actually nearer in length to a short sword for a normal person. But a lethal weapon all the same. Assuming it was a real sword.

“A real sword it is,” the Commendatore said pleasantly, as if reading my mind. His voice carried, despite his small stature. “Affirmative! It’s small, but should you cut with it, blood will certainly come out.”