Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

Shoko got out of the Jaguar, shut the car door, and handed the key to Menshiki, who returned it to the pocket of his chinos. Then she and Mariye got in the blue Prius. Menshiki closed the door after Mariye. I was struck by the different thunk it made as it closed, nothing like the Jaguar. In this world, what we think of as a single sound can have so many permutations. Just as we know, from one note struck on the open string of a double bass, whether it’s Charlie Mingus or Ray Brown.

“So we’ll meet again next Sunday,” Menshiki said.

Shoko gave Menshiki a big smile, took the steering wheel, and drove off. Menshiki and I waited until the squat rear of the Toyota Prius was out of sight before returning to the house. We sat in the living room sipping cold coffee. Neither of us spoke for some time. Menshiki looked exhausted. Like a long-distance runner who had just crossed the finish line.

“She’s a beautiful girl,” I said at last. “Mariye, I mean.”

“You’re right. She’ll be even prettier when she grows up,” Menshiki said. His mind seemed elsewhere.

“What did you think, seeing her up close?” I asked.

Menshiki smiled an uncomfortable smile. “I didn’t get a very good look, to tell the truth. I was too nervous.”

“But you must have seen something.”

“Of course,” he said, nodding. He paused for a long moment. “What did you think?” he asked at last, his eyes serious.

“What do you mean, what do I think?”

Menshiki’s face flushed again. “Do you see any similarity between Mariye’s features and mine? As an artist who has painted people’s portraits for many years, I’m interested in your professional opinion.”

I shook my head no. “You’re right, I’m trained to take quick note of people’s facial characteristics. But that doesn’t mean I can tell whose child is whose. Some parents and children don’t look alike at all, while total strangers can appear almost identical.”

Menshiki gave a long, deep sigh. It sounded wrenched from his entire body. He rubbed his palms together.

“I’m not asking for a definitive judgment. I’m just asking for your personal impressions . Even the most trivial ones. I’d like to know if you noticed something, anything at all.”

I thought for a moment. “As far as facial structure goes, I don’t see much concrete similarity. But your eyes do have something in common. In fact, it startles me every so often.”

He looked at me, his thin lips pressed together. “You’re saying there’s something similar in our eyes?”

“Maybe it’s because they reflect your true feelings. Curiosity, enthusiasm, surprise, suspicion, reluctance—I can see those subtle emotions in both your eyes and hers. Your faces aren’t all that expressive, but your eyes really are the windows to your hearts. Most people are the opposite. Their faces are expressive, but their eyes aren’t nearly so lively.”

Menshiki appeared surprised. “Is that how my eyes look to you?”

I nodded.

“I was never aware of that.”

“You couldn’t control it if you tried. Maybe it’s because your feelings are on such a tight leash that your eyes are so expressive. It’s not that obvious, though—you have to pay really, really close attention to read them. Most people wouldn’t notice.”

“But you can.”

“Reading faces is my profession.”

Menshiki considered that for a minute. “So she and I have that in common. But you still can’t tell if we’re father and daughter, right?”

“I do have certain impressions when I look at people, and I value those. But artistic impressions and objective reality are separate things. Impressions don’t prove anything. They’re like a butterfly in the wind—totally useless. But how about you? Did you feel anything special?”

He shook his head several times. “I couldn’t tell anything in one brief meeting. I need to see her more. I have to get used to being around her first.”

He shook his head again, this time more slowly. He plunged his hands into his jacket pockets as though searching for something, then pulled them out again. As though he’d forgotten what he was looking for.

“No, maybe it’s not the number of times,” he went on. “It could be the more we meet the more confused I’ll get, the farther from any conclusion. It’s possible she’s my daughter, but then it’s possible she isn’t. But either way makes no difference to me. Her presence alone allows me to consider that possibility, to physically experience that hypothesis. When that happens, I feel fresh blood coursing through my body. Maybe I’ve never understood the true meaning of being alive until now.”

I held my peace. What could I say about the feelings he was experiencing, or about his definition of being alive? Menshiki glanced at his thin, expensive-looking wristwatch and awkwardly struggled to his feet from the sofa.

“I owe you my thanks. I couldn’t have done a thing if you hadn’t given me a push.”

With these few words he stumbled toward the door, struggled a bit to put on his shoes, and stepped outside. From the door, I watched him climb in his car and drive away. When his Jaguar was out of sight, the peaceful quiet of a Sunday afternoon enfolded me once again.

The clock said a little after two p.m. I was dead tired. I pulled an old blanket from the closet, lay on the sofa, and slept with it tucked over me. It was past three when I awoke. The angle of the sunlight in the room had shifted somewhat. What a strange day! I couldn’t be sure if I had moved forward or fallen behind, or if I was just circling over the same spot. My sense of direction had gone haywire. There was Shoko and Mariye, and then there was Menshiki. Each had a special magnetism. And I had landed smack in the middle of it all. Lacking any magnetism of my own to speak of.

However exhausted I might feel, though, Sunday was far from over. The hands of the clock had only just passed three. The sun was still in the sky. Loads of time remained before a new day dawned and Sunday became a thing of the past. Yet I didn’t feel like doing anything. I had taken a nap, but my head was muddled. It felt like a ball of yarn had been crammed into the back of a narrow desk drawer, and now the drawer wouldn’t close properly. Maybe this was the sort of day I should check the air pressure in my tires. Anyone feeling this blah should be able to rouse himself to do that much.

Come to think of it, though, I had never checked the air pressure myself. Whenever a gas station attendant said that the air in my tires “looked a little low,” I always asked him to take care of it. Which means I don’t own an air pressure gauge. In fact, I don’t even know what one looks like. If it fits in a glove compartment, it can’t be all that big. Nor so expensive as to require monthly payments. Maybe I should buy one, just to see.

When it began to get dark, I went to the kitchen, cracked open a can of beer, and began preparing dinner. In the oven, I broiled a piece of yellowtail that I’d marinated in sake lees, then sliced pickles, made a cucumber-and-seaweed salad with vinegar, and fixed some miso soup with radishes and deep-fried tofu. Then I sat down and ate my silent meal. There was no one there to talk to, and nothing in particular I could think of to talk about. Just when I was finishing my simple, solitary dinner, the front doorbell rang. There seemed to be a conspiracy afoot to interrupt me toward the end of every meal.

So this day hasn’t ended after all, I thought. I had the premonition it would be a long Sunday. I got up from the table and walked slowly to the door.

Iwalked slowly to the door. Who could possibly be ringing the bell? Had a car pulled up in front without my knowledge? The dining area was toward the rear of the house, but it was a quiet night, so I should have heard the crunch of gravel and the rumble of an engine. Even the vaunted “silent” hybrid engine of a Prius. Still, my ears had picked up nothing.