“That’s all?”
“That’s it. Nothing but that.”
“By stool you mean that old three-legged chair, the round one?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
Masahiko thought for a moment.
“Maybe he is reaching the end,” he said in a flat voice. “They say that in our last hours, our spirit returns to where we feel we’ve left something undone. From what I know of my father, that would be the studio.”
“But from what you’ve told me, he has no memory left.”
“Yes, memory in the conventional sense, anyway. But his spirit’s still there. His brain just can’t access it any longer. The circuit’s broken—his mind isn’t connected. But his spirit remains, behind the scenes. It’s probably the same as ever.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“Weren’t you scared?”
“By the dream?”
“Yeah. I mean it sounds awfully real.”
“No, I wasn’t afraid. But it did feel very strange. Like the man himself was right there.”
“Maybe it really was him,” Masahiko said.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t let on that Tomohiko Amada had likely returned specifically to view Killing Commendatore (actually, I might have invited him—had I not unwrapped the painting, he might not have shown up). If I told his son, I would have had to explain the whole story, from the moment I stumbled across the painting in the attic to when I opened it without permission and, even more blatantly, chose to hang it on the studio wall. I knew I would have to let Masahiko know eventually, but I didn’t want to raise the issue at this juncture.
“Anyway,” he said, “last time we met I mentioned there was a matter I needed to talk to you about? But we didn’t have enough time then. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“So why don’t I stop by one of these days and fill you in. Okay?”
“This house is yours, you know. Come whenever you like.”
“How about this weekend? I’m thinking of visiting my father in Izu Kogen, so I could stop by on my trip back. It’s right on the way.”
I told him he was welcome anytime except Wednesday and Friday nights and Sunday morning. My art class was on Wednesday and Friday and Mariye’s sitting was on Sunday.
He figured he’d be able to make it Saturday night. “I’ll let you know beforehand,” he said.
After our phone call, I went into the studio and sat on the stool. The wooden stool that Tomohiko Amada had occupied the night before. As soon as I sat down, it hit me—this stool was no longer mine. No, the long years Tomohiko Amada had spent sitting on it painting made it his, now and forever. To the uninformed, it looked like no more than an old dinged-up, three-legged chair, but it was infused with his will. I had borrowed it without permission, that was all.
I sat there and studied Killing Commendatore on the wall, as I had done countless times before. It rewarded multiple viewings—its depth allowed for so many different ways of looking at it. This time, though, I felt I wanted to inspect it from an entirely new angle. What was there that had made Tomohiko Amada return to it at the end of his life, to see it one last time?
I spent a long time sitting there, just studying the painting. I chose the same position, the same angle, even adopted the same posture that Tomohiko Amada’s living spirit or alter ego had taken the night before, and tried to focus on it with the same intense concentration. Yet I couldn’t find that something I had previously missed.
* * *
—
When I grew tired of thinking, I went outside. Menshiki’s silver Jaguar was still parked in front of my house, at a slight remove from my Toyota Corolla station wagon. It had been sitting there all night, waiting quietly for its master’s return, like an intelligent, well-trained pet.
I strolled on past the house, musing about Killing Commendatore in a vague sort of way. Walking the little path through the woods, I had the distinct impression that someone was spying on me from behind. As if Long Face had pushed up the square lid of his hole and was secretly observing me from the corner of the painting. I whipped around and looked back. But nothing was to be seen. No hole in the ground, no Long Face. Just a deserted leaf-strewn path wending through the quiet woods. This pattern repeated itself a number of times. But each time I spun around no one was there.
Then again, it might well be that the hole and Long Face were there only as long as I didn’t turn around. Perhaps they could tell when I was about to look back, and hid themselves at that moment. Like a child playing a game.
I passed through the woods to the very end of the path, the first time I’d gone that far. I figured the entrance to Mariye’s secret passageway had to be nearby. Yet I couldn’t locate it. “You really have to pay attention to find it,” she had said, and it did seem to be well camouflaged. In any case, she had taken the passageway after dark to reach my place from the adjoining mountain, alone and on foot. Past the thickets and through the woods.
The path came to an abrupt end at a small, circular clearing. The overhanging trees thinned out, so I could see pieces of sky. I found a flat stone bathed in a small pool of light, sat down, and looked through the tree trunks at the valley below. I imagined that at any minute Mariye might pop up out of her secret passageway, wherever that was. But of course no one appeared. My only companions were birds, who hopped from limb to limb and then flew off again. They moved about in pairs, each chirping loudly to let the other know where they were. I had once read an article describing how certain birds mate for life, and how when one died, the survivor spent the rest of their days alone. It goes without saying that they never had to sign and seal official divorce papers sent by certified mail from a lawyer’s office.
A truck selling fresh produce passed in the distance, its driver listlessly broadcasting his wares over its loudspeaker. No sooner was his voice out of earshot than there was a loud rustle in the bushes nearby. What was it? It didn’t sound human. A wild animal was more likely. For a scary second I thought it might be a wild boar (boars and hornets were the most dangerous things in the area), but then the sound abruptly stopped.
I stood up and started walking back to the house. When I passed the small shrine I checked the pit, just to make sure. The planks were in place, the stone weights neatly arranged on top. They hadn’t been moved, as far as I could tell. Fallen leaves covered the boards. They had lost their bright colors and turned sodden in the rain. So young and fresh in spring, their quiet death had come now, in late autumn.
As I stared at the planks, I began to feel that Long Face might poke his elongated, eggplant-shaped head out of the pit at any minute. But the planks didn’t budge. Obviously. Long Face’s hole was square, not round, and was smaller and more personal in scale. Moreover, this hole was home to the Commendatore, not Long Face. Or at least home to the Idea that had borrowed the Commendatore’s form. It had been the Commendatore that had rung the bell to call me here, and had made me open the pit.