Then I went to the living room, placed my usual record—Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Georg Solti—on the turntable, and read on the sofa while I waited for her to arrive. What kind of book was Shoko Akikawa reading, I wondered? What could have so captivated her?
My girlfriend showed up at twelve fifteen. Her red Mini pulled up in front of my house and she got out, a paper bag from the grocery store in her arms. Although a quiet rain was still falling, she carried no umbrella. Wearing a yellow vinyl raincoat with a hood, she walked quickly to my door. I met her there, took the bag, and brought it to the kitchen. She removed the raincoat, exposing the brilliant green turtleneck underneath. Beneath the sweater were two very attractive bulges. Her breasts weren’t as large as Shoko’s, but they suited me just fine.
“Have you been at it all morning?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not a commission. I felt like drawing, so I came up with something on my own, just for fun.”
“Just passing the time, huh?”
“Yeah, a bit like that.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not all that much.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Why don’t we eat afterward, then?”
“Fine by me,” I said.
* * *
—
“You were awfully passionate today. Is there a special reason?” she asked. It was afterward, and we were lying in bed.
“I wonder,” I said. What I might have said was, maybe it was because I spent the whole morning madly sketching a strange six-foot-wide hole in the ground and, partway through, my mind made a connection between the hole and a woman’s vagina, which must have turned me on…But I couldn’t.
“It was because I haven’t seen you for so long,” I said instead.
“You’re sweet,” she said, tracing a line on my chest with her fingertips. “But be honest—sometimes don’t you want a younger woman?”
“No, I’ve never thought about that.”
“Really?”
“Not once,” I said. I was being truthful. Our sexual relationship was pure pleasure for me, and I had no desire to seek out anyone else. (My desire for Yuzu, of course, was of a wholly different order.)
I decided not to tell her about Mariye Akikawa. If she learned that a beautiful thirteen-year-old girl was modeling for me, it would only spark her jealousy. It seemed a woman at any age—thirteen, forty-one, you name it—felt she was facing a delicate time in her life. This was one thing my modest experience with the opposite sex had taught me.
“Still,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s strange, the way women and men hook up?”
“Strange in what way?”
“I mean, look at us. We haven’t known each other that long, yet here we are lying together naked, making love like this. Completely vulnerable, with no sense of shame. Don’t you think it’s weird?”
“Maybe you’re right,” I murmured.
“Try to think of it as a game. Maybe not only that, but a kind of game all the same. Otherwise what I’m saying won’t make any sense.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” I said.
“A game has to have rules, right?”
“Yeah, you need those.”
“Baseball, soccer, all the sports have a thick rule book, right, where the rules are written down to the tiniest detail, and then umpires and players have to memorize them all. Without that, the game can’t take place. Isn’t that so?”
“You’re absolutely right.”
She paused, waiting for the image to sink in.
“So what I’m trying to say is, have we ever sat down and discussed the rules of this game that we’re playing? Have we?”
I thought for a moment. “Possibly not,” I said finally.
“Yet despite that, we are playing the game by a set of hypothetical rules. Right?”
“When you put it that way, I guess you have a point.”
“So this is what I think,” she said. “I’m playing the game according to my set of rules. And you’re playing according to yours. The two of us instinctively respect each other’s rules. As long as the two sets don’t conflict and mess things up, we can go on like this without a hitch. Don’t you agree?”
I considered what she had said. “Maybe you’re right. We basically respect each other’s rules.”
“But you know, I think there’s something even more important than respect and trust. And that’s etiquette.”
“Etiquette?”
“Etiquette’s big.”
“You may be right there,” I agreed.
“If all those things—trust, respect, etiquette—stop functioning, the rules clash and the game breaks down. Then we either suspend the game and come up with a new set of rules we can both follow, or we end it and leave the playing field. The big question then would be which of those two routes we decide to follow.”
That was precisely what had happened to my marriage. I had called a halt to the game and walked off the field. On that cold and rainy Sunday afternoon in March.
“So are you suggesting that we should talk out the rules of our relationship?”
“You don’t get what I’m saying at all,” she said, shaking her head. “What I want is not to have to discuss the rules of the game. That’s why I’m able to be naked with you like this. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not a bit,” I said.
“So that leaves us with trust and respect. And most of all etiquette.”
“And most of all etiquette,” I repeated.
She reached down and squeezed a part of my body.
“It’s getting hard again,” she whispered in my ear.
“Maybe that’s because today is Monday,” I said.
“What does Monday have to do with it?”
“Or maybe because it’s raining. Or winter is coming. Or we’re starting to see migrating birds. Or there’s a bumper crop of mushrooms this year. Or my cup is a sixteenth full of water. Or the shape of your breasts under your green sweater turns me on.”
She giggled. My answer appeared to have done the trick.
* * *
—
Menshiki called that evening. He thanked me for the day before.
I had done nothing worthy of his gratitude, I replied. All I had done was introduce him to two people. What developed after that, and how, had nothing to do with me—in that sense, I was a mere outsider. And I would like to keep it that way (though I had a premonition things might not work out so conveniently).
“Actually, I’m calling about something else,” Menshiki said once the pleasantries were over. “I’ve received some new information about Tomohiko Amada.”
So he was continuing his investigation. He might not be doing it himself, but arranging for such detailed work was certainly costing him a lot. Menshiki was a man who poured money into anything he thought necessary, sparing no expense. But why, and to what degree, was tracking down Tomohiko Amada’s experiences in Vienna necessary to him? I didn’t have a clue.
“What we’ve turned up may not have a direct connection with Amada’s stay in Vienna,” Menshiki went on. “But it overlaps with that time, and it’s clear that it had a huge personal impact on him. So I thought you would like to hear about it.”
“It overlapped with that time?”
“As I told you before, Tomohiko Amada returned to Japan from Vienna in early 1939. On paper, he was deported, but in fact he was rescued by the Gestapo. Officials from the foreign ministries of Japan and Nazi Germany had met in secret, and agreed that he be extradited but not charged with any crime. The failed assassination attempt had taken place in 1938, but it was linked to two other important events of that year: the Anschluss—Hitler’s annexation of Austria—and Kristallnacht. The Anschluss took place in March, and Kristallnacht in November. Once
they occurred, the brutality of Hitler’s plan was obvious to everyone. Austria was firmly installed as a part of the Nazi war effort. An inextricable cog in the machine. Hoping to block this flow of events, students organized an underground resistance movement, and in the same year, Tomohiko Amada was arrested for his role in the assassination plot. Get the picture?”
“In a general sort of way, yes,” I said.
“Do you like history?”
“I’m no expert, but I love books that deal with history,” I said.
“A number of important events were taking place in Japan that year as well. Fatal, irrevocable events, which led to eventual disaster. Does anything spring to mind?”
I dusted off my store of historical knowledge, so long untouched. What had taken place in 1938? In Europe, the Spanish Civil War had intensified. German Condor bombers had flattened Guernica. But in Japan…?
“Did the Marco Polo Bridge Incident take place that year?” I asked.
“That was the year before,” Menshiki said. “On July 7, 1937. With the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the war between China and Japan went into full swing. Then in December of that year, another serious event took place.”
What had happened in December of 1937?
“The fall of Nanjing?” I asked.
“That’s right. What’s known today as the Nanjing Massacre. After a hard-fought battle, Japanese troops occupied the city, and many people were killed. Some died in the fighting, others after the fighting ended. The Japanese army lacked the means to keep prisoners, so they killed the Chinese soldiers who surrendered as well as thousands of civilians. Historians disagree on exactly how many died, but no one can deny that a massive number of noncombatants were sucked into the conflict and lost their lives. Some say 400,000, others 100,000. But what difference is there really between 400,000 lives and 100,000?”
He had me on that one.
“So Nanjing fell in December, and many were killed. But what does that have to do with what happened to Tomohiko Amada in Vienna?” I asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Menshiki said. “The Anti-Comintern Pact was signed by Japan and Germany in November of 1936, cementing their alliance, but Vienna and Nanjing were so far apart it’s doubtful much news about Japan’s war in China was getting through to Vienna. In fact, however, Tomohiko Amada’s younger brother, Tsuguhiko, had been part of the assault on Nanjing as a private in the Japanese army. He had been drafted and assigned to one of the units fighting there. He was twenty, and a full-time student at the Tokyo Music School, now the Faculty of Music at the Tokyo University of the Arts. He studied the piano.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “To my knowledge, full-time university students were exempt from the draft at that time.”
“You’re absolutely right. Full-time students were given a deferment until graduation. Yet for some reason Tsuguhiko was drafted and sent to China. In any case, he was inducted in June of 1937 and spent the next twelve months as a private second-class in the army. He was living in Tokyo, but his birth was registered in Kumamoto, so he was assigned to the 6th Division based there. That much is documented. After basic training, he was sent to China, and participated in the December assault on Nanjing. He was demobilized in June of the following year, and was expected to return to the conservatory.”
I waited for Menshiki to continue.
“Not long after his discharge, however, Tsuguhiko Amada took his own life. He slit his wrists with a razor in the attic of the family home, which was where they found him. Right around the end of summer.”
Slit his wrists in the attic?
“If it was toward the end of summer in 1938…then Tomohiko was still an exchange student in Vienna when his brother Tsuguhiko slit his wrists, right?”
“That’s correct. He didn’t return home for the funeral. Commercial air travel was still in its infancy. You could only travel between Austria and Japan by rail and ship. There was no way he could have made it back in time.”
“Are you suggesting that there’s a connection between Tomohiko’s involvement in the failed assassination and his brother’s suicide? They seem to have happened almost simultaneously.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Menshiki said. “That’s in the realm of conjecture. What I’m reporting to you now are the facts our investigation was able to uncover.”
“Did Tomohiko Amada have any other siblings?”
“There was an older brother. Tomohiko was the second son. Tsuguhiko was the third and last. The manner of his death was concealed, though, to protect the family’s honor. Kumamoto’s 6th Division was celebrated as a band of fearless warriors. If word had gotten out that their son had returned from the battlefield bathed in glory only to turn around and kill himself, they could not have faced the world. Still, as you know, rumors have a way of spreading.”
I thanked Menshiki for updating me. Though what the new information meant in concrete terms escaped me.
“I’m planning to dig a bit deeper into this,” he said. “I’ll let you know if we turn up something more.”
“Please do.”
“So then I’ll stop by next Sunday shortly after noon,” Menshiki said. “I’ll drive the Akikawas over to my place. To show them your painting. That’s okay with you, right?”
“Of course. The painting is yours now. You’re free to show it or not to whomever you like.”
Menshiki paused. As if searching for just the right words. “To tell you the honest truth,” he said. “Sometimes I’m very envious of you.” There was resignation in his voice.
Envious? Of me?
What could he possibly be talking about? Why would Menshiki envy me? It made no sense. He had everything, while I had nothing to my name.
“What could you possibly be envious about?” I asked.
“I see you as the kind of person who doesn’t really envy anyone. Am I right?”
I thought for a moment before replying. “You have a point. I don’t think I’ve ever envied another person.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say.”
All the same, I don’t have Yuzu, I thought. She had left me for the arms of another man. There were times I felt abandoned at the edge of the world. Yet even then I felt no envy toward that other man. Did that make me strange?
* * *
—
After our phone call, I sat on the sofa and thought about Tomohiko Amada’s brother slitting his wrists in the attic. It wasn’t the attic of this house, that was for sure. Tomohiko had bought this place after the war. No, Tsuguhiko Amada had committed suicide in the attic of their family home. In Aso, no doubt. Nevertheless, the brother’s death and the painting Killing Commendatore might be connected by that dark, secret room above the ceiling. Sure, it might have been pure coincidence. Or perhaps Tomohiko had his brother in mind when he hid the painting in the attic here. Still, why was Tsuguhiko compelled to take his own life so soon after returning from the front? After all, he had survived the bloody conflict in China and come home with all his limbs intact.
I picked up the phone and dialed Masahiko’s number.
“Let’s get together in Tokyo,” I said. “I have to visit the art supply shop soon to stock up on paints. Maybe we could meet and talk then.”
“Sure thing,” he said, checking his schedule. Thursday just after noon was best for him, so we arranged to have lunch together.
“The art supply store in Yotsuya, correct?”
“That’s the one. I’ve got to pick up fresh canvases, too, and I’m running out of linseed oil. It’ll be quite a load, so I’ll take the car.”
“There’s a quiet restaurant not far from my office. We could have a nice relaxed chat over lunch.”
“By the way,” I said, “divorce papers from Yuzu came in the mail, so I signed and returned them. It looks like our divorce will become official pretty soon.�
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“Is that so,” Masahiko said in a subdued voice.
“What can you do? It was just a matter of time.”
“Still, from where I stand it’s a real shame. You guys seemed like such a good match.”
“It was great as long as things were going well,” I said. Just like an old-model Jaguar. A wonderful ride until the problems start.
“So what will you do now?”
“No big changes. Just keep on as I am for the time being. Can’t think of what else to do.”
“Are you painting?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a couple of paintings I’m working on. Not sure what will happen with them, but at least I’m at it.”
“That’s the way to go.” Masahiko hesitated before adding, “I’m glad you called. There’s something I want to discuss with you as well.”
“Something good?”
“It’s just the facts—I can’t say if they’re good or bad.”
“Does it have to do with Yuzu?”
“It’s hard to talk about over the phone.”
“Okay, on Thursday then.”
I ended the call and walked out to the terrace. The rain had stopped, and the cool night air was clear and bracing. I could see stars peeping from the cracks between the clouds. They looked like scattered crystals of ice. Hard crystals, millions of years old, never melting. Hard to their very core. Across the valley, Menshiki’s house glimmered in the cool light of its lanterns.
As I looked at his house, I thought of trust, respect, and etiquette. Especially etiquette. As I expected, though, none of those thoughts led me to any definite conclusions.
37
EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING
It turned out to be a long haul from my mountaintop perch on the outskirts of Odawara to downtown Tokyo. I took several wrong turns en route, which ate up a lot of time. My old used car had no navigation system or electronic pass for the highway tolls. (I guess I should have been grateful it came with a cup holder!) It took me ages to find the Odawara-Atsugi Road, and when I moved from the Tomei Expressway onto the Metropolitan Expressway it was jammed, so I opted to get off at the Shibuya exit and drive to Yotsuya via Aoyama Avenue. Even the city roads were crowded, though—just choosing the correct lane was a huge pain in the ass. Parking the car wasn’t easy, either. It seems as if, year after year, the world becomes a more difficult place to live.
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