We replaced the boards, leaving the ladder resting against the wall of the pit. When we put the stones back I registered their exact positions in my mind. Then we headed home through the woods along the same path we had come on. I glanced at my watch—it was already past midnight. We said nothing, just shone our lights on our feet. We were both lost in thought.
As soon as we got back, Menshiki went to his Jaguar, opened the big trunk, and placed the lantern inside. Then he shut the trunk and, as if finally allowing himself to relax, leaned against it and looked up at the sky. The black sky in which nothing was visible.
“Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes?” he said. “It’d be hard for me to relax at home.”
“By all means. I don’t think I can sleep yet either.”
Menshiki’s eyes were still fixed on the sky. He seemed lost in thought.
“I can’t explain why,” I said, “but I can’t get rid of this feeling that something bad is happening to Mariye. And that she’s nearby.”
“But not in the pit, right?”
“I guess not.”
“What kind of bad thing?” Menshiki asked.
“That I don’t know. But I feel she’s in some kind of physical danger.”
“And that the danger is lurking somewhere close to here, right?”
“Right,” I said. “Near here. And it bothers me that the ladder was removed from the pit. Who took it, and why did they hide it in the grass? What does it all mean?”
Menshiki stood up and gave me another pat on the shoulder. “You’re right. I don’t know either. But worrying about it won’t get us anywhere. Let’s go inside.”
47
“IT IS NOW FRIDAY, IS IT NOT?”
The moment we walked in the house I threw off my leather jacket and called Shoko. She picked up on the third ring.
“Anything new?” I asked.
“Mariye still hasn’t called.” I could hear her struggling to breathe normally.
“Have you contacted the police?”
“No, not yet. It still feels too early somehow. I keep thinking she’ll come wandering in the door…”
I described the plastic penguin we had found at the bottom of the pit. Without detailing how we’d found it, I asked if Mariye carried such an object with her.
“Yes, Mariye had a penguin attached to her cell phone. It was a penguin, I’m sure…yes. A penguin. Without doubt. A tiny plastic figurine. She got it in a donut shop. It came free with her order, but she treasured it. As if it were a kind of protective charm.”
“And she carried her phone wherever she went, correct?”
“Yes. It was turned off most of the time, but she always had it with her, yes. She didn’t receive calls, but occasionally she’d call to let me know when something came up.” Shoko paused for a moment. “Did you find it somewhere?”
I struggled to come up with an answer. If I told the truth, I’d have to tell her about the pit in the woods. If the police got involved, I would have to explain it to them as well—in a way they could swallow. Since the penguin was something she carried, they would comb the pit, even search the whole woods for further evidence. I would get the third degree, and Menshiki’s past would be brought into it. I couldn’t see how any of that would help. As Menshiki had said, it would just complicate things.
“I found it in the studio,” I said. I hated to lie, but I had to. “When I was sweeping the floor. I thought that it might be Mariye’s.”
“Yes, it’s hers. I’m sure,” said the girl’s aunt. “But then what should I do? Should I call the police?”
“Have you heard from your brother—I mean, Mariye’s father?”
“No, I haven’t been able to reach him,” she said hesitantly. “I have no idea where he is. He’s not someone who follows a regular schedule—I’m never sure if he’s coming home or not.”
The situation sounded complicated, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. I simply told her to inform the police of Mariye’s disappearance. It was after midnight, and the date had changed. It was possible that Mariye had been in some kind of accident. She said she’d call them right away.
“So Mariye still isn’t answering her cell phone?”
“No, she isn’t answering, though I’ve called her many times. It seems to be turned off. Or the batteries are dead. One or the other.”
“She left this morning for school, and she’s been missing ever since. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“Which means she should be in her school uniform, correct?”
“Yes, she should be. A navy-blue blazer and vest, a white blouse, a knee-length plaid skirt, white socks, and black loafers. Oh, and a plastic shoulder bag with the school’s name and emblem on it. She wasn’t wearing a coat.”
“Didn’t she have another bag for her art supplies?”
“She keeps that in her locker at school. She uses it when they have art class, and then takes it to your class on Fridays. She doesn’t bring it from home.”
That was the outfit she always wore to my class—blue jacket, white blouse, tartan plaid skirt, plastic shoulder bag, and a white canvas bag with her paints and brushes. I could picture her perfectly.
“Was she carrying anything else?”
“No, not today. So I doubt she was going very far.”
“Please call me if you hear anything,” I said. “Any time of the day or night.”
She said she would.
I hung up the phone.
* * *
—
Menshiki was standing beside me throughout this conversation. Only after I put down the phone did he shed his windbreaker. Underneath was a black V-neck sweater.
“So the penguin was Mariye’s after all,” Menshiki said.
“Seems so.”
“In which case, it’s likely that she went into the pit at some point—we don’t know when—and left her treasured penguin there. That’s what we have so far.”
“So you think she left it there on purpose, as a protective talisman.”
“Probably.”
“But if that’s so, who or what was it protecting?”
Menshiki shook his head. “I’m not sure. But it was clearly her lucky charm. So she must have left it behind for a reason. People don’t part with things they value so easily.”
“Unless it’s to protect something they value more than themselves.”
“For example?” Menshiki said.
Neither of us could answer that one.
We sat there in silence. Slowly but surely, the hands of the clock inched ahead. Each tick pushed the world that much further forward. Outside the window stretched a vast darkness. Nothing moved there. It seemed nothing could.
I suddenly recalled what the Commendatore had said about the missing bell. “The bell was never mine alone. It belonged to the place, to be shared by everyone. So if it disappeared there must have been a reason for it.”
Belonged to the place?
“Just maybe Mariye didn’t leave this penguin in the pit. Couldn’t the pit be connected to some other location? Perhaps it isn’t a sealed-off space but a conduit of some kind. If that’s the case, it might be able to summon all sorts of things.”
That is what I had been thinking, but said aloud it sounded ludicrous. The Commendatore might have understood. But not anyone from this world.
A deep silence settled over the room.
“So what could the bottom of the pit be connected to?” Menshiki said at last, as if addressing himself. “Remember, not so long ago I spent an hour alone down there. In the dark, without a light or a ladder. I tried to use the silence to focus my mind. To extinguish my physical existence and become pure consciousness. I figured if I could do that, I could transcend those stone walls and go wherever I liked. I used to try the same sort of thing when I was in solitary. But I couldn’t find a way out of the pit. In the end, those walls allowed me no escape.”
Perhaps the pit chose whom it wanted, I thought. The Commendatore had come to me when he left the pit. Chosen me as his lodgings, so to speak. Mariye too might have been chosen. But the pit hadn’t chosen Menshiki—for whatever reason.
“In any case,” I said, “we’re agreed—we won’t tell the police about the pit. At this stage, anyway. Still, we’re clearly concealing evidence if we keep our mouths shut about finding the penguin there. If they find that out, we could be in a sticky position.”