Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

Mariye stared at me without speaking for a full ten seconds. “Your sister meant a lot to you, didn’t she?” she said at last.

“Yes,” I nodded. “She did.”

Mariye studied her lap for a moment. “It’s because my memory is blocked,” she said, looking up, “that I have trouble recalling my mom. The kind of person she was, her face, the things she said to me. My dad doesn’t talk much about her either.”

All I knew about Mariye’s mother was the blow-by-blow account Menshiki had given me of the last time they had had sex. It had been on his office couch—the moment of Mariye’s conception, perhaps—and it was violent. Not a big help at the moment.

“You must remember something, even if it’s not much. After all, you lived with her till you were six.”

“Just the smell.”

“The smell of her body?”

“No, the smell of rain.”

“Rain?”

“It was raining then. So hard I could hear the drops hit the ground. But my mother was walking outside without an umbrella. So we walked through the rain together, holding hands. I think it was summer.”

“A summer shower, then?”

“I guess so. The pavement was hot from the sun, so it gave off that smell. That’s what I remember. We were high in the mountains, on some kind of observation deck. And my mother was singing a song.”

“What kind of song?”

“I can’t remember the melody. But I do remember some of the words. They were like, ‘The sun’s shining on a big green field across the river, but it’s been raining on this side for so long.’ Have you ever heard a song like that?”

It didn’t ring a bell. “No,” I replied. “I don’t think so.”

Mariye gave a little shrug. “I’ve asked different people, but no one knows it. I wonder why. Do you think maybe I made it up in my head?”

“Maybe she invented it there on the spot. For you.”

Mariye looked up at me and smiled. “I never thought about it like that before. If that’s true—it’s pretty cool.”

I think it was the first time I’d seen her smile. It was as if a ray of sunlight had shot through a crack in an overcast sky to illuminate one special spot. It was that kind of smile.

“Could you recognize the place if you went there again?” I asked. “Back to that same observation deck in the mountains?”

“Maybe,” Mariye said. “I’m not sure, but maybe.”

“I think it’s pretty cool that you carry that scene inside you.”

Mariye just nodded.

After that, we just sat back and listened to the birds chirping. The autumn sky outside the window was perfectly clear. Not a wisp of cloud anywhere. We were each in our own inner world, pursuing our own random thoughts.

It was Mariye who broke the silence. “Why’s that painting facing the wrong way?” she asked.

She was pointing at my oil painting (to be more precise, my attempted painting) of the man with the white Subaru Forester. The canvas was sitting on the floor, turned to the wall so that I wouldn’t have to look at it.

“I’m trying to paint a certain man. It’s a work in progress, but it’s not progressing right now.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure. I’ve just started it, though. I have a long way to go.”

I turned the canvas around and placed it on the easel. Mariye got up from her chair, walked over, and stood before it with her arms folded. The sharp gleam in her eyes had returned. Her lips were set in a straight line.

I had used three colors—red, green, and black—but still hadn’t given the man a distinct shape. My initial charcoal sketch was now totally obscured. He refused to be fleshed out any further, to have more color added to his form. But I knew he was there. I had grasped the essence of who he was. He was like a fish caught in a net. I had been trying to pull him out of the depths, and he was fighting me at every turn. At that point in our tug of war I had set the painting aside.

“This is where you stopped?” Mariye asked.

“That’s right. I couldn’t find a way to push it past this stage.”

“It looks pretty finished to me,” she murmured.

I stood next to her and looked at the painting again from her angle. Could she really see the man lurking there in the darkness?

“You mean I don’t need to add anything more?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think you should just leave it like this.”

I swallowed. She was echoing what the man with the white Subaru Forester had said almost word for word. Leave the painting alone. Don’t touch it again.

“Why do you think that?” I pressed.

Mariye didn’t answer right away. Instead, she studied the painting some more. She unfolded her arms and pressed her hands to her cheeks. As if they were hot, and she was trying to cool them.

“This painting is more than powerful enough as it is,” she said at last.

“More than powerful enough?”

“I think so.”

“You mean a not so good kind of power?”

Mariye didn’t answer. Her hands were still pressed to her cheeks.

“Do you know the man in the painting well?”

I shook my head. “No, to tell the truth he’s a complete stranger. I ran across him a while back. In a faraway town when I was on a long trip. We never talked, so I don’t know his name.”

“I can’t tell if the power is good or not. Maybe it could be either good or bad, depending on the situation. You know, like the way we see things changes depending on where we’re standing.”

“And you don’t think I should let that power come to the surface, right?”

She looked me in the eye. “Suppose you did and it turned out to be a not so good thing , what would you do? What if it tried to grab you?”

She was right. If it turned out to be a not so good thing , or indeed an evil thing , and it reached for me, what would I do then?

I took the canvas from the easel and set it back down on the floor, facing the wall. The moment its surface was hidden, the tension in the studio released its grip. It was a tangible sensation.

Perhaps I should pack it up and shut it away in the attic, I thought. Just as Tomohiko Amada had stashed Killing Commendatore there, to make sure no one could see it.

“All right, so then what do you think of that painting?” I asked, pointing to Killing Commendatore hanging on the wall.

“I like it,” Mariye said immediately. “Who did it?”

“It was painted by Tomohiko Amada, the man who owns this house.”

“It’s calling out to me. Like a caged bird crying to be set free. That’s the feeling I get.”

I looked at her. “Bird? What kind of bird?”

“I don’t know what kind of bird. Or what kind of cage. Or what they look like. It’s just my feeling. I think maybe this painting’s a little too difficult for me.”

“You’re not the only one. It’s too difficult for me, too. But I’m sure you’re right. There is a cry in this painting, a plea that the artist desperately wanted people to hear. I react the same way you do. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what that plea is.”

“Someone is murdering someone else. Out of passion.”

“Exactly. The young man has plunged a knife into the older man’s chest, exactly as he planned. The man being murdered can’t believe what’s happening. The others are in total shock at what’s taking place before their eyes.”

“Can there be a proper murder?”

I thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. It depends how you define ‘proper’ and ‘improper.’ Many people regard the death penalty as a proper form of murder.” Or assassination, I thought.

Mariye took a moment to respond. “It’s funny, a man’s being killed, and his blood is flying all over the place, but it’s not depressing. It’s like the painting is trying to take me someplace else. Someplace where things like ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ don’t matter.”