“I’m starving. And thirsty. And cold. I’m freezing,” I said. That’s all I could get out. My teeth were chattering.
Menshiki guided me through the woods, his arm wrapped around my shoulder. I was having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other—by the end, he was pulling me along. He was a lot more powerful than he looked. Those daily workouts of his were paying off.
“Do you have the key?” Menshiki asked.
“It’s under the potted plant to the right of the front door. Probably.” The “probably” was necessary. Nothing in this world could be stated with absolute certainty. I was still shaking with cold. The chattering of my teeth was so loud I could barely hear myself talk.
“You’ll be happy to hear Mariye returned home safe and sound early this afternoon,” Menshiki said. “What a relief. I got a call from Shoko about an hour ago. I’d been calling you, but no one ever picked up. That worried me, so I came over. I could hear the faint ring of a bell coming from the woods. So on a hunch, I came out and removed the tarp.”
The view opened up as we emerged from the trees. I could see Menshiki’s silver Jaguar parked demurely in front of my house. It was as spotless as ever.
“Why is your car always so beautiful?” I asked Menshiki. Not a fitting question under the circumstances, perhaps, but something I had long wanted to ask.
“I don’t know,” he said in a disinterested tone. “Maybe it’s because I wash it when I have nothing else to do. From front to back. Then once a month, a pro comes and waxes it. And my garage protects it from the elements. That’s all.”
That’s all? If my poor Toyota Corolla wagon heard that, after six months spent languishing in wind and rain, its shoulders would sag in dismay. It might even pass out.
Menshiki took the key from under the flowerpot and opened the door.
“By the way, what day of the week is it?” I asked him.
“Today? Today is Tuesday.”
“Tuesday? Are you sure?”
Menshiki double-checked his memory. “I put out the empty bottles and cans yesterday, so it must have been Monday. Therefore today is Tuesday, without a doubt.”
It had been Saturday when I had visited Tomohiko Amada’s room. So three days had passed. It wouldn’t have surprised me had it been three weeks, or three months, or even three years. I made a mental note. I rubbed my jaw with my palm. But there was no three-day stubble. Instead, my chin was smooth. What explained that?
Menshiki took me to the bath straightaway. He put me in a hot shower and brought me a fresh change of clothes. The clothes I had been wearing were tattered and filthy. I rolled them up in a ball and threw them in the garbage. There were red contusions all over my body but no visible injuries. I wasn’t bleeding.
Then he led me to the kitchen, sat me down, and slowly fed me water. By the end I had drained a big bottle of mineral water. While I was drinking he found several apples in the fridge and peeled them. I just sat there, admiring his skill with a knife. The plate of peeled apples looked beautiful, elegant even.
I ate three or four apples in all. It was a moving experience—I had never realized how delicious apples were. I wanted to thank their creator for inventing such a marvelous fruit. When I finished the apples, Menshiki dug up a carton of crackers and gave it to me. I emptied the box. The crackers were a bit soggy, but they still tasted like the best in the world. In the meantime, he boiled water, made tea, and mixed it with honey. I drank a number of cups. The tea and honey warmed me from the inside.
There wasn’t much in my fridge. It was, however, well stocked with eggs.
“How about an omelet?” Menshiki asked.
“I’d love one,” I said. I needed to fill my stomach—anything would do.
Menshiki took four eggs from the fridge, broke them in a bowl, whipped them with chopsticks, and added milk, salt, and pepper. Then he whipped them again. It was clear he knew what he was doing. Then he turned on the gas, chose a small frying pan, and melted some butter in it. He located a spatula in one of my drawers and deftly cooked the omelet.
His technique was remarkable, as I would have expected. He could have been featured on a TV cooking show. Housewives across the nation would have sighed with envy. When it came to omelets—when it came to anything, I should say—Menshiki was precise, efficient, and incredibly stylish. I could only look on in admiration. He slid the finished omelet onto a plate and gave it to me with a dollop of ketchup.
The finished omelet was so beautiful I wanted to sketch it. But instead I grabbed my knife and started eating. The omelet wasn’t just pretty to look at—it was delicious.
“This omelet is perfection,” I said.
Menshiki laughed. “Not really. I’ve made better.”
What sort of omelet could that have been? One that sprouted wings and flew from Tokyo to Osaka in under two hours?
When I had polished off the omelet, he took my plate to the sink. At last my stomach felt comfortable. Menshiki sat down across the table from me.
“Can we talk a little?” he asked me.
“Certainly,” I said.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Maybe so. But we have lots to talk about.”
Menshiki nodded. “It appears that several blanks need filling in.”
If they can be filled in, I thought.
“Actually, I stopped by Sunday afternoon,” Menshiki said. “I’d called many times but you never picked up, so I was a little worried. I got here around one.”
I nodded. I had been somewhere else around then.
“I rang the bell and Tomohiko Amada’s son came to the door. Masahiko, is that right?”
“Yes, Masahiko Amada. An old friend. He owns this house, and he’s got a key so he can get in when I’m not here.”
“He was—how should I put this—very worried about you. He said the two of you were visiting his father’s room in the nursing home last Saturday when all of a sudden, you disappeared.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“He said you vanished into thin air while he was out of the room making a phone call. The nursing home is in Izu Kogen, so the nearest station is too far to reach on foot. But there were no signs that anyone had called a taxi. And the receptionist and the security guard hadn’t seen you leave, either. Masahiko called your home later, but no one answered. He was so alarmed that he drove all the way here to check. He was concerned about your safety. Worried something bad had happened to you.”
I sighed. “I’ll try to explain things to Masahiko. His father’s in bad shape, and I only added to his worries. How is his father, by the way? Did he say anything?”
“It seems he’s been in a coma. Hasn’t regained consciousness at all. His son has taken a room near the home. He was on his way back to Tokyo when he stopped by here.”
“I should call him right away,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s true,” Menshiki said, placing his hands on the table. “But first I think you need to come up with a coherent story about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing the past few days. Including an explanation of how you disappeared from the nursing home. No one’s going to buy it if you tell them you just woke up and found yourself back here.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But how about you? Can you buy my story?”
Menshiki thought for a moment. His brow was puckered, as if he was having trouble deciding what to say. “I’ve always been a man who thought along rational lines,” he said at last. “That’s how I was trained. To be honest, though, I can’t be logical where the pit behind the shrine is concerned. Anything could happen there and it wouldn’t feel strange in the least. Spending an hour inside the pit brought that home all the more. That place is more than just a hole in the ground. But I doubt anyone who hasn’t experienced it could understand.”
I c
ouldn’t find the right words to respond, so I stayed silent.
“I think you should take the position ‘I don’t remember anything’ and then stick with it,” Menshiki said. “I don’t know how many people will believe you, but from what I can see, that’s your only option.”
I nodded. Yes, that could well be my only option.
“There are some things that can’t be explained in this life,” Menshiki went on, “and some others that probably shouldn’t be explained. Especially when putting them into words ignores what is most crucial.”
“You’ve experienced that, correct?”
“Of course,” Menshiki said with a small smile. “More than once.”
I drained what was left in my teacup.
“So Mariye wasn’t hurt at all?” I asked.
“She was muddy and scratched up, but had no serious injuries. Not much more than a skinned knee. Just like you.”
Just like me? “Where was she these past few days?”
Menshiki looked perplexed. “I’m pretty much in the dark about that, too. What I do know is that she returned home a short while ago. Dirty and banged up. That’s all I was told. Shoko was in such a state she couldn’t explain much over the phone. You should probably ask her yourself when things have settled down. Or, if possible, ask Mariye directly.”
I nodded. “You’re right. I’ll do that.”
“Don’t you think you should get some sleep?” Menshiki asked.
No sooner had these words left his mouth than sleepiness hit me. I had slept deeply while I was in the pit (at least I think I had), but now I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Yes, you’re right. I think I’ll go lie down,” I said, looking at the backs of his clasped hands, perfectly aligned on the table.
“Have a good sleep. That’s what you need right now. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t think of anything. But thanks.”
“Then I’ll take off. Please don’t hesitate to call me for whatever reason. I should be at home for the next little while.” He slowly rose to his feet. “Thank goodness Mariye got home safely. And that I was able to help you out of a tough spot. To tell the truth, I haven’t had much sleep these days either. So I think I’ll go home and rest.”
With that he left. As always, I heard the solid thunk of his car door slamming shut, and the engine starting up. I waited until the car was out of earshot before heading for bed. When my head hit the pillow, I remembered the old bell (I had left it and the flashlight in the pit!) for a split second. Then I descended into a deep sleep.
57
SOMETHING I HAVE TO DO EVENTUALLY
I awoke at two fifteen. Again surrounded by total darkness. For a split second, I was under the illusion that I was still in the pit, but I realized my mistake right away. There was a clear difference between the darkness here and there. Above ground, there was always a vestige of light, even on the blackest night. Not like underground, where no light could enter. It may have been two fifteen, but the sun was still in the sky, albeit on the other side of the planet. That was the size of it.
I turned on the light, went to the bathroom, and drank glass after glass of cold water. The house was hushed. Too hushed, in fact. I listened carefully, but could hear nothing. No breeze. No insect voices, since it was winter. No night birds. No bell. Come to think of it, I had first heard the bell ringing at precisely this time of night. The time when events outside the normal are most likely to occur.
I was no longer sleepy. I was wide awake. Draping a sweater over my pajamas, I headed for the studio. I hadn’t set foot in there since returning home. And I was concerned about the paintings I had left. Especially Killing Commendatore. Menshiki had said that Masahiko had visited the house in my absence. If he had gone into the studio, he might have stumbled upon it. He would have known right away that it was his father’s work. Fortunately, however, I had covered it. I’d worried about leaving it exposed, so I had taken it down from the wall and wrapped a sheet around it to hide it from inquisitive eyes. If the sheet hadn’t been removed, Masahiko ought not to have seen it.
I walked in and flipped on the wall switch. The studio was dead quiet as well. Needless to say, no one was there. Not the Commendatore, not Tomohiko Amada. I was all alone.
Killing Commendatore was where I had left it on the floor, the sheet still in place. It didn’t seem that anyone had touched it. I couldn’t be sure, of course. But nothing suggested otherwise. I unwrapped the painting. It looked the same as always. There was the Commendatore. And Don Giovanni, who had run him through with his sword. And the shocked servant, Leporello. And the beautiful Donna Anna, covering her mouth in astonishment. And in the lower left-hand corner of the painting, poking his head through the square opening, the creepy-looking Long Face.
In truth, I had been harboring some misgivings. Might the painting have been altered by the series of events in which I had played a part? Long Face deleted from the scene, for example, because I had shut the lid? Or the Commendatore killed, not with a sword, but with a carving knife? Yet search as I might, I could find nothing changed. Long Face still poked his grotesque face out of his hole, the raised lid in one hand. His saucer eyes still surveyed the scene. The Commendatore was still impaled on a long sword, blood spewing from his heart. The painting remained a perfectly composed work of art. I admired it for a while, then put the sheet back over it.
I turned to look at the two paintings I was working on. They sat side by side on two easels. One, The Pit in the Woods, was wider than it was tall. The other, A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa, was taller than it was wide. I looked at them carefully. Both were exactly as I had left them. Nothing had been changed. One was finished, while the other awaited a final go-around.
Then I turned The Man with the White Subaru Forester, which had been facing the wall, sat on the floor, and took another good look at it. The man with the white Subaru Forester stared back at me from behind the thick layers of paint, which I had applied with my palette knife in several colors. He had no concrete shape, but I could see him there nonetheless. He was looking straight at me with the piercing eyes of a nocturnal bird of prey, his face empty of expression. He was dead set against the completion of his portrait—the exposure of his true form to the world. Against being hauled from the dark into the light.
But I was determined to reveal who he was. I had to drag him out into full view. However much he might resist. The time might not yet have come. But when it did, I had to be ready to follow through.
I returned to A Portrait of Mariye Akikawa. It was far enough along that I didn’t need Mariye to model for me anymore. Only a series of final, technical operations remained. Then the portrait would be basically done. I thought it might turn out to be my most accomplished work to date. At the very least, it would capture the freshness of that beautiful thirteen-year-old girl. I was confident of that. But I knew I would never take those last steps. By leaving it unfinished I was shielding something within her, even though I didn’t know what that something was. That much was clear.
* * *
—
I needed to look after a few things right away. I had to call Shoko and hear the full story of Mariye’s return. I had to call Yuzu and tell her I wanted to see her to talk things out, as I’d resolved at the bottom of the pit. That it was time for us to meet. Then, of course, I had to talk to Masahiko. To explain how it was that I had vanished suddenly from his father’s room at the nursing home, and tell him where I had been for the three days I was missing and unaccounted for (though what I would say—what was possible to say—escaped me).
Clearly, I couldn’t call any of them now. I had to wait for a more appropriate time. That would come in due course—assuming, that is, that time was behaving normally. I drank a glass of warm milk that I heated on the stove and nibbled some biscuits as I sat and looked out the window.
It was pitch black outside. No stars were out. Daybreak was still a while off. It was the time of year when nights were the longest.
How should I pass the time? The proper thing would be to climb back into bed. But I wasn’t at all sleepy. I didn’t feel like reading or working. With nothing better to do, I decided to run a bath. While the bathtub was filling, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.
Why had it been necessary to pass through that underground world? To make that trip, I had been forced to kill the Commendatore with my own hands. He had sacrificed his life, and I had been compelled to endure one ordeal after another in a world of darkness. There had to have been a reason. The underground realm was full of unmistakable danger, and real fear. Down there, the most outlandish occurrences weren’t strange at all. By successfully navigating that realm, I seemed to have freed Mariye from somewhere. At least she had returned home safely. As the Commendatore had foretold. But what connected my experiences underground and her safe return? Were they somehow parallel?
Perhaps the river water I had ingested was an important piece of the puzzle. It could have altered something in me. I felt that at an intuitive and physical level, though it made no rational sense. Thanks to that change, I had passed through a tunnel clearly too small for my body. Cheered on by Donna Anna and Komi, I had managed to overcome my deep-rooted claustrophobia. No, Donna Anna and Komi could have been a single entity, Donna Anna at one moment, Komi at the next. Together, perhaps, they had shielded me from the dark powers, and protected Mariye Akikawa at the same time.
But where had Mariye been confined? Had she been confined in the first place? When I had given her penguin charm (though “given” didn’t really cover it) to the faceless man, had I harmed her? Or, conversely, had the charm in some shape or form protected her in the end?
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