Menshiki arrived at eleven twenty. The moment I heard his Jaguar, I slipped on my leather jacket and headed out the door. He stepped from the car wearing a padded, dark-blue windbreaker, narrow-cut black jeans, and leather sneakers. A light scarf was draped around his neck. His mane of white hair glowed in the dark.
“If it’s okay, I’d like you to come with me to check out the pit in the woods,” I said.
“Of course,” Menshiki said. “Do you think it’s connected to Mariye’s disappearance?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ve had a premonition for a while that something bad was going to happen. Something connected to that pit.”
Menshiki asked no more questions after that. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go take a look.”
He opened the trunk of his Jaguar and pulled out what looked like a lantern. Then he closed the trunk and set off with me toward the woods. Neither moon nor stars were out, so it was very dark. There was no wind.
“Sorry to ask you to venture out so late,” I said. “But it seemed safer to have you come along. If something went wrong, I might not be able to handle it alone.”
He patted my arm. As though to encourage me. “It’s no trouble at all—I’m happy to do what I can.”
We picked our way through the trees, shining the flashlight and lantern on our feet to avoid tripping over the roots. The only sound was the crunch of dry leaves underfoot. Otherwise it was dead silent. I sensed the animals of the woods silently watching us from their hiding places. The dark depths of midnight give rise to illusions like that. Had someone seen us, they might have mistaken us for a pair of grave robbers on their way to ransack a tomb.
“There’s just one thing I’d like to ask,” Menshiki said.
“What’s that?”
“Why do you think Mariye’s disappearance and the pit might be connected?”
I explained that she and I had visited the pit together not long before. That she had already known about its existence. That the whole area was her playground. That nothing happened here without her knowledge. Then I told him what she had said: You should have left the place as it was. You should never have opened it up.
“When she stood in front of the pit she seemed to have experienced something,” I said. “A special feeling…I guess you could call it spiritual.”
“And she was drawn to it?”
“Yes. She was leery, but at the same time something about the pit was drawing her in. That’s why I worry it might have played a role. That she might be down there, unable to get out.”
Menshiki thought for a moment. “Did you tell her aunt this?” he asked. “Does Shoko know?”
“No, I haven’t said anything yet. If I mentioned the pit to her, I’d have to go back to the beginning. To how we opened it, and why you were involved. It would turn into a very long story, and I doubt I could explain myself very well.”
“Yes, it would cause her a lot of needless worry.”
“It would be even more awkward if the police got involved. If they grew interested in the pit.”
Menshiki looked at me. “Are they investigating already?”
“She hadn’t contacted them yet when I talked to her. But she could have put in a search request by now. After all, it’s getting pretty late.”
Menshiki nodded several times. “Yes, it’s only natural. It’s almost midnight, and a thirteen-year-old girl hasn’t come home. No one knows where she’s gone. What can her family do but call the cops?”
I could tell from his tone that Menshiki wasn’t too thrilled that the police would be entering the picture.
“Let’s keep the pit between ourselves if we can,” he said. “The fewer people know, the better. Otherwise we could run into problems.” I agreed.
The biggest problem for me was the Commendatore. It was almost impossible to explain the significance of the pit without bringing him—as an Idea, no less—into the mix. Yes, as Menshiki said, mentioning the pit would only make things worse. (And even if I did reveal the existence of the Commendatore, who would believe me? They’d just question my sanity.)
* * *
—
We emerged from the trees in front of the small shrine and circled around to the back. Stepping across the clump of pampas grass, whose plumes still lay cruelly flattened by the backhoe’s treads, we arrived at the pit. The first thing we did was shine our lights on the boards covering the hole and the row of stones that held them down. I checked the placement of the stones. The change was subtle, but I could tell they had been moved. Someone had come after Mariye and me, removed the stones and several boards, and then, when they left, tried to return everything to its original position. My eyes could spot that slight difference.
“Someone moved the stones,” I said. “There are signs that the pit has been opened.”
Menshiki glanced at me. “Do you think it was Mariye?” he asked.
“I wonder. It’s not a place anyone would stumble upon, and apart from you and me, she’s the only one who knows about it. So the chances are good it was Mariye.”
The Commendatore knew about the pit, of course. After all, that was where he had come from. Yet in the end he was an Idea. He had no fixed shape. He wouldn’t have had to move those heavy stones if he wanted to go back inside.
We removed the stones and took the boards away. Once again, the hole was exposed. It was perfectly round and not quite six feet across, but it looked bigger now, and blacker, too. I imagined that the darkness was what created the illusion.
Menshiki and I leaned over the hole and directed our lights inside. No one was there. There was nothing at all. Just that empty cylindrical space surrounded by the same stone wall. There was one difference, however. The ladder had vanished. The collapsible metal ladder that the landscaper had considerately left behind after moving the pile of boulders. I had last seen it leaning against the wall of the pit.
“Where did the ladder go?” I wondered out loud.
It didn’t take us long to find it lying on its side some distance away in a stand of pampas grass that the backhoe hadn’t flattened. Someone had taken it from the hole and chucked it there. It wasn’t heavy, so moving it required no great strength. We returned the ladder to the hole and leaned it back against the wall.
“I’m going down to take a look,” Menshiki said. “Maybe I’ll find something.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve been down there before.”
Menshiki descended the ladder with ease, lantern in hand.
“By the way, do you know the height of the Berlin Wall?” he asked as he descended.
“No.”
“Ten feet,” he said looking up at me. “It varied depending on the location, but that was the standard height. A little taller than this hole is deep. It was about a hundred miles long, too. I saw it with my own eyes. When Berlin was still divided into East and West. A pitiful sight.”
When Menshiki reached the bottom, he inspected the pit in the light from his lantern. Even then, though, he kept on talking to me.
“Walls were originally erected to protect people. From external enemies, storms, and floods. Sometimes, though, they were used to keep people in. People are powerless before a sturdy, towering wall. Visually and psychologically. Some walls were constructed for that specific purpose.”
Menshiki broke off at that point. Holding his lantern aloft, he examined every inch of the wall and the ground. Intently and carefully, like an archaeologist poring over the inner sanctum of an Egyptian pyramid. His lantern was stronger than my flashlight, so it illuminated a much wider area. He seemed to have found something on the floor of the pit, for he knelt down and examined it closely. I couldn’t make it out from above, though. Menshiki said nothing. Whatever it was, it must have been very small. He stood up, wrapped it in his handkerchief, and deposited it in the pocket of his windbreaker. He looked up at me.
“I’m coming out,” he said, raising his lantern into the air.