Харуки Мураками - Killing Commendatore

Mariye shrugged her shoulders slightly but said nothing.

“Your aunt may not be a problem, but how about your father?”

“He’s not back yet.”

“Even though today’s Sunday?”

Mariye didn’t answer. I guessed she wanted to avoid talking about her father.

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry,” she said. “No one knows when I leave the house. Even if they found out I’d never give your name.”

“All right then, I’ll stop worrying,” I said. “But why did you come here tonight of all nights?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Like what?”

Mariye picked up her cup and took a sip of hot tea. She looked warily around the room as if to make sure no one would overhear. Of course nobody was there but the two of us. That is, unless the Commendatore had returned and was listening in. I looked around as well. But the Commendatore wasn’t there. If he was, he hadn’t assumed bodily form.

“Your friend who showed up this afternoon, the guy with the pretty white hair,” she said. “What was his name? It was kind of weird.”

“Menshiki.”

“That’s right, Mr. Menshiki.”

“He’s not really a friend. I met him just a short while ago.”

“Whatever.”

“So what is it about Mr. Menshiki?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “I think,” she said, lowering her voice, “that man is hiding something. In his heart.”

“What sort of thing?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t believe he showed up this afternoon by accident, like he said. I think he came for a very specific purpose.”

“What purpose is that?” I asked, a little shocked by how observant she was.

She fixed me with her gaze. “I’m not sure. Don’t you know?”

“I have no idea,” I lied, praying that Mariye wouldn’t see through my deception. I have never been a good liar. When I lie it’s written on my face. But there was no way I could tell her the truth.

“For real?”

“For real,” I said. “I had no idea he would show up today.”

Mariye seemed to buy my story. Menshiki had not told me he would be coming, and his sudden visit had taken me by surprise. So I wasn’t really lying after all.

“His eyes are weird,” Mariye said.

“Weird in what way?”

“It’s like he’s always scheming about something. Like the wolf in ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ When the wolf dresses up like the grandmother and lies in bed, you can tell it’s him by his eyes.”

Like the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood”?

“So you had an adverse reaction to Mr. Menshiki, right?”

“Adverse reaction?”

“A negative impression. A feeling he might harm you.”

“Adverse reaction,” she said. She seemed to be storing the phrase in her mental filing cabinet. Alongside “a bolt from the blue,” no doubt.

“It’s not like that,” Mariye said. “I don’t think he’s planning anything bad. I just think Mr. Menshiki with the pretty white hair is hiding something.”

“And you sense it, right?”

Mariye nodded. “That’s why I came to see you. I thought you might be able to tell me more about him.”

“Does your aunt feel the same way?” I asked, trying to deflect her question.

“No,” she answered, tilting her head to one side. “That’s not what she’s like. She seldom has an adverse reaction to people. And I think she’s interested in him. He’s a bit older, but he’s handsome and well dressed and I guess very rich and living all by himself…”

“So you think she’s taken to him?”

“I guess so. She really lit up when she talked to him. Her face, and her voice—it got higher. She wasn’t like usual. I bet he felt the change too.”

I said nothing, just poured us both a fresh cup of tea. I took a sip.

Mariye seemed to be turning something over in her mind. “I wonder, how did he know we were going to be here today?” she asked. “Did you tell him?”

“I don’t think Mr. Menshiki came planning to meet your aunt.” I chose my words with care, hoping to avoid another lie. “In fact, he tried to leave when he realized the two of you were here, but I talked him into staying. He happened to stop by when your aunt happened to be here, and when he saw her he got interested. Your aunt is a very attractive woman, you know.”

Mariye didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t push the issue any further. She just sat there frowning, elbows on the table.

“In any case, the two of you are going to visit his home next Sunday,” I said.

Mariye nodded. “Yes, to see your portrait of him. My aunt seems to be really looking forward to it. To paying Mr. Menshiki a visit, I mean.”

“I don’t blame her for getting excited,” I said. “After all, she’s living in the mountains with no other people around. Not like in the city, where she’d have opportunities to meet all sorts of men.”

Mariye pressed her lips together for a moment.

“My aunt used to have a boyfriend,” she said, as if letting me in on a big secret. “A man she saw for a really long time. When she was a secretary in Tokyo. But a lot of things happened, and in the end they broke up. It hurt her a lot. Then my mother died, and she came to look after me. She didn’t tell me any of this, of course.”

“I don’t think she’s seeing anyone now, is she?”

Mariye shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“So you’re a little concerned that your aunt is interested in Mr. Menshiki, and that she may be experiencing the first stirrings of something. So you came to talk to me about it. Is that right?”

“Tell me, do you think he’s trying to seduce her?”

“Seduce her?”

“I mean, that he isn’t serious?”

“There’s no way for me to tell,” I said. “I don’t know Mr. Menshiki that well. They just met this afternoon, so nothing has happened between them yet. When two people’s feelings are involved like this, things can change in subtle ways. What begins as a small feeling can grow into something really big, or the opposite can happen.”

“But I have a kind of hunch this time,” she asserted.

I sensed that I should believe her “kind of hunch,” baseless though it was. For I had a similar kind of hunch.

“So you’re worried something could occur that might harm your aunt psychologically,” I said.

Mariye gave a quick nod. “My aunt’s not a very cautious person, and she’s not used to being hurt.”

“It sounds like you’re the one looking after her, and not the other way around,” I said.

“In a way,” Mariye said seriously.

“How about you, then? Are you used to being hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Mariye said. “At least I’m not about to fall in love.”

“You will someday, though.”

“But not now. Not until my chest gets a little bigger anyway.”

“That may happen sooner than you expect.”

Mariye made a wry face. I guessed she didn’t believe me.

I felt a seed of doubt sprout in my own chest. Would Menshiki draw close to Shoko Akikawa to establish a firm connection with Mariye?

After all, he had said to me, I couldn’t tell anything in one brief meeting. I need to see her more.

Shoko would be an important intermediary—through her, Menshiki could see Mariye on a regular basis. After all, she was the one looking after the girl. To a greater or lesser extent, therefore, Menshiki had to place Shoko under his thumb. That shouldn’t be too hard for a man of Menshiki’s talents. Not child’s play, perhaps, but close to it. I didn’t like to think that Menshiki was harboring a plan of that sort. Yet perhaps the Commendatore had been right, and he was a man who couldn’t help fabricating some scheme or other. From what I had seen, however, he wasn’t that cunning.