Menshiki thought for a moment. “So we’ll keep our lips sealed—that’s all there is to it!” he said at last. “You found it on your studio floor. We’ll go with that.”
“Maybe one of us should be with Shoko,” I said. “She’s home by herself with no idea what to do. Lost and confused. She’s heard nothing from Mariye’s father. Doesn’t she need someone there?”
Menshiki furrowed his brow. “I’m in no position to do that,” he said at last, shaking his head. “Her brother and I are total strangers, so if he came back…”
Menshiki lapsed into silence.
I had nothing to say either.
Menshiki sat there, lightly drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa. Whatever he was thinking brought a slight flush to his cheeks.
“Would you mind if I stayed a little longer?” he asked a while later. “Shoko may try to get in touch with us.”
“By all means, please do,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be going to bed any time soon. Stay as long as you like. You can sleep here too. I’ll lay out some bedding for you.”
Menshiki said he might take me up on my offer.
“Shall I make coffee?” I asked.
“Sounds good,” Menshiki said.
I went to the kitchen, ground the beans, and started the coffee maker. When the coffee was ready, I took it out to the living room. Then Menshiki and I drank it together.
“I think I’ll build a fire,” I said. The room had grown markedly colder once midnight passed. It was already December. An appropriate time for the first fire of the season.
I filled the cast-iron grate in the fireplace with the small stack of firewood I had set aside in the corner of the living room. Then I inserted paper under the grate and lit a match. The wood appeared to be dry, for it caught right away. I was worried that the fireplace might back up—Masahiko had said it was set to go, but you never knew until you used it. A bird could have nested in the chimney. Fortunately, however, it worked beautifully. We moved our chairs in front of the fireplace and sat there in the warmth.
“Nothing beats a wood fire,” Menshiki said.
I thought of offering him some whiskey but changed my mind. Tonight we should stay sober. Who knows, we might have to drive somewhere. So we listened to records and watched the flames dance. Menshiki selected a Beethoven violin sonata and put it on the turntable. Georg Kulenkampff on violin, with Wilhelm Kempff on piano. Perfect music for an early-winter night before a fire. It was hard to enjoy it, though, with Mariye out there shivering in the cold.
Shoko called half an hour later. Her brother had just come home and had already contacted the police. They would be there any moment to investigate. (The Akikawas were an old and wealthy family in the area, so the possibility that it was a kidnapping was making them move quickly.) There was no word from Mariye, and calling her cell phone still didn’t work. They had contacted every likely person they could think of (there weren’t that many) with no luck. No one knew where Mariye had gone.
“Let’s hope she’s all right,” I said. I asked her to let me know if there was any progress, and hung up the phone.
We sat before the fire and listened to another record. Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto. Menshiki plucked that off the shelf as well. It was the first time I had heard it. We sat there side by side as it played, watching the fire and thinking our solitary thoughts.
At one thirty, I suddenly grew terribly sleepy. I could barely keep my eyes open. I’ve always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, so late nights are hard on me.
“Go ahead and turn in,” Menshiki said, looking directly at me. “Shoko may call again, so I’ll stay up a while longer. I don’t need much sleep. I can skip a night without any problem. Always been that way. So please don’t worry about me. I’ll keep the fire burning. I can watch it while I listen to music. Do you mind?”
Of course not, I said. I brought in another load of firewood from the shed outside the kitchen and stacked it next to the fireplace. More than enough, I thought, to last until morning.
“Well then, I’m off to bed,” I said to Menshiki.
“Sleep tight,” he answered. “Let’s rotate. I’ll probably sleep for a bit around daybreak. Could you lend me a blanket or something?”
I went and got the blanket Masahiko had used, a down duvet, and a pillow, and arranged them on the sofa. Menshiki thanked me.
“I have whiskey if you’d like some,” I added.
Menshiki gave a brusque shake of his head. “No, no alcohol for me tonight. We don’t know what could happen.”
“If you get hungry, please help yourself to the food in the fridge. There’s not much, but there’s crackers and cheese at least.”
“Thanks,” Menshiki said.
* * *
—
Leaving him there, I retired to my room. I slipped under the covers, flicked off the bedside light, and tried to go to sleep. Yet sleep didn’t come. I was exhausted, but a tiny bug was whirring in my brain. This happens sometimes. I gave up, switched the light back on, and got out of bed.
“What might be the problem, my friends?” the Commendatore said. “You cannot sleep?”
I looked around the room. There he was, sitting on the windowsill, clad in the same white garment. Strange pointy-toed shoes, a miniature sword by his side. His hair neatly tied back. As always, a perfect replica of the Commendatore who was stabbed to death in Tomohiko Amada’s painting.
“You’re right, I can’t sleep,” I said.
“There is indeed a great deal happening these days,” said the Commendatore. “No wonder people struggle so to drift off, to no avail.”
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it,” I said.
“I cannot attest to that. I think I told my friends before, but ‘long time’ is lost on us Ideas. We cannot fathom ‘It’s been a long time,’ or ‘Sorry not to have written in so long.’?”
“Still, your timing is perfect. There’s something I need to ask you.”
“And what, then, is the question?”
“Mariye Akikawa went missing this morning, and everyone is out looking for her. Where on earth could she have gone?”
The Commendatore cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment.
“As my friends know,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “the human realm is ruled by three elements: time, space, and probability. Ideas, by contrast, must remain independent of all three. I cannot, therefore, concern myself with matters of the sort that my friends have just described.”
“I can’t entirely follow you—is the problem that you can’t foresee the outcome?”
The Commendatore didn’t answer.
“Or is it that you know, but can’t tell me?”
The Commendatore narrowed his eyes in thought. “I am not evading responsibility—Ideas have our own constraints.”
I stiffened my back and looked him square in the face.
“Let’s get things straight. I must save Mariye Akikawa. She may be in great danger, and needing my help. She has likely wandered into a place from which she cannot escape. That’s the feeling I get, anyway. Still, I’m at a loss how to find her. And I think her disappearance is linked in some way to the pit in the woods. I can’t give you a rational explanation, but I’m quite sure there’s a connection. Now, you spent a very long time confined in that same hole. I have no idea what led you to be shut up there. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the case, Menshiki and I brought in heavy equipment, moved the pile of boulders, and opened the pit. We set you free. That’s true, isn’t it? Thanks to us, you are now able to move throughout time and space, with no restriction. Appear and disappear as you like. You can even watch me making love to my girlfriend. All this is as I say, isn’t it?”
“Affirmative, my friends. Affirmative!”
“I’m not demanding that you tell me precisely how Mariye can be saved. I’m not asking the impossible—I can see that the world of Ideas has its own restrictions. But can’t you give me a hint? After all I’ve done for you, don’t you think you owe me at least that much?”