Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

If you stare long enough deep into the bottom of a clear spring you discover a kind of lump that emits light. You can’t see it unless you look very closely. That lump soon wavers and loses shape. The more carefully you look, the more you start to wonder if it might all be an illusion. But something there is unmistakably glowing. Having done countless portraits of people, occasionally I’ll sense someone giving off that glow . Not many people have it. But this girl and Menshiki were among these rare few.

The middle-aged receptionist at the school came into the classroom to straighten up and stood beside me, admiring the drawing.

“That’s Mariye Akikawa, isn’t it,” she said at first glance. “A very nice likeness. It looks like she’s about to start moving. It’s a waste to have to erase it.”

“Thank you,” I said. I got up from my desk, picked an eraser, and completely wiped the sketch away.

The Commendatore finally made an appearance the next day (Saturday). It was the first time since Tuesday night at the dinner at Menshiki’s that he—to borrow his phrase— materialized . I was back from food shopping, in the living room reading a book, when I heard the sound of the bell tinkling from the studio. I went into the studio and found the Commendatore seated on the shelf, lightly shaking the bell next to his ear. As if making sure of the subtle sound. When he spotted me he stopped ringing the bell.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

“Negative. It has been nothing of the kind,” the Commendatore said curtly. “An Idea travels around the world in units of hundreds, thousands of years. A day or two does not count as time.”

“How did you like Mr. Menshiki’s dinner party?”

“Ah, yes, an interesting dinner that was. I could not partake of the food, of course, but did feast my eyes on it. And Menshiki is a fascinating fellow. Always thinking several steps ahead. And there is much pent up inside him.”

“He asked me to do a favor for him.”

“Affirmative.” The Commendatore gazed at the ancient bell in his hand. He did not seem interested. “I heard it all quite clearly. But it is not something that has much to do with me. It is a practical matter—a worldly matter, you could say—that is between my friends and Menshiki.”

“Is it all right if I ask a question?” I said.

The Commendatore rubbed his goatee with his palm. “Affirmative. But I do not know if I will be able to answer.”

“It’s about Tomohiko Amada’s painting Killing Commendatore . I assume you know the painting, since you borrowed one of the figures. The painting seems based on an incident in Vienna in 1938. Something Tomohiko Amada himself was involved in. Do you know anything about that?”

Arms folded, the Commendatore thought this over. Finally he narrowed his eyes and spoke.

“There are plenty of things in history that are best left in the shadows. Accurate knowledge does not improve people’s lives. The objective does not necessarily surpass the subjective, you know. Reality does not necessarily extinguish fantasy.”

“Generally speaking,” I said, “that might be so. But that painting is calling out to anyone who sees it. I get the sense that Tomohiko Amada painted it to privately capture an event that was essential to him but that he could not share with others. He changed the characters and setting to another age, and made a metaphorical confession, using his newly acquired skills in Japanese-style painting. I even get the feeling that that was the sole reason he abandoned Western painting and converted to Japanese art.”

“Cannot you just let the painting speak for itself?” the Commendatore said softly. “If that painting wants to say something, then best to let it speak. Let metaphors be metaphors, a code a code, a sieve a sieve. Is there something wrong with that?”

A sieve? But I let it go.

“No, nothing’s wrong with that,” I said. “I’d just like to know what made Tomohiko Amada paint it. It’s clear that the painting is expecting something. The picture was, without a doubt, painted for a specific purpose.”

The Commendatore continued to rub his beard with his palm as if recalling something. “Franz Kafka was quite fond of slopes,” he said. “He was drawn to all sorts of slopes. He loved to gaze at homes built on the middle of a slope. He would sit by the side of the street for hours, staring at houses built like that. He never grew tired of it and would sit there, tilting his head to one side, then straightening it up again. A kind of strange fellow. Did you know this?”

Franz Kafka and slopes?

“No, I didn’t,” I said. I’d never heard of that.

“But does knowing that make one appreciate his works more?”

I didn’t respond to his question.

“So you knew Franz Kafka, too? Personally?”

“He does not know about me personally, of course,” the Commendatore said. He chuckled, as if recalling something. This might have been the first time I’d seen him laugh out loud. Was there something about Franz Kafka to make him chuckle?

His expression returned to normal and he went on.

“The truth is a symbol, and symbols are the truth. It is best to grasp symbols the way they are. There’s no logic or facts, no pig’s belly button or ant’s balls. When people try to use a method other than the truth to follow along the path of understanding, it is like trying to use a sieve to hold water. I am telling you this for your own good. Better to give it up. Sadly, what Menshiki is doing is similar to that.”

“So no matter what, it’s a wasted effort?”

“No one can ever float something full of holes on water.”

“So what exactly is Mr. Menshiki trying to do?”

The Commendatore lightly shrugged. Charming lines formed between his eyebrows that reminded me of a young Marlon Brando. I seriously doubted the Commendatore had ever seen Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, but those lines were exactly like Marlon Brando’s. Though I had no way of knowing how far he went, when it came to referencing his appearance and features.

He said, “There is very little I can explain to my friends about Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore . That is because it is, in essence, allegory and metaphor. Allegories and metaphors are not something you should explain in words. You just grasp them and accept them.”

The Commendatore scratched behind his ear with his little finger. Just like a cat will scratch behind its ear before it rains.

“I will, however, tell my friends one thing. Nothing that is enormously significant, but tomorrow night you’ll get a phone call. A call from Menshiki. Think things over very carefully before you answer. Your answer will be the same no matter how much you think it over, but it is still best to think it over very carefully.”

“And it’s very important to let the other person know you’re thinking things over carefully, isn’t it. As a gesture.”

“Affirmative. A hard-and-fast rule in business is to never accept the first offer. Remember that, and you will never go wrong.” The Commendatore chuckled again. He seemed in an especially good mood today. “Changing topics, but I wondered, is it interesting to touch a clitoris?”

“I don’t think you touch it because it’s interesting,” I said honestly.

“From the sidelines it is hard to understand.”

“I don’t think I get it, either,” I said. So an Idea, too, doesn’t necessarily understand everything.

“About time for me to disappear,” the Commendatore said. “I have someplace else I need to go. Do not have much time.”

And with that the Commendatore vanished. A gradual, phased disappearance, like the Cheshire Cat’s. I went to the kitchen, made a simple dinner, and ate. I considered for a moment what “someplace else” an Idea would need to go to. And naturally had no clue.