“Why,” I asked, “did Tomohiko Amada remain silent about what had happened in Vienna even after the war had ended? I mean, no one was standing in his way at that point.”
“The woman he loved was brutally executed by the Nazis,” the Commendatore answered. “Slowly tortured to death. Their comrades were slain in a similar fashion. In the end, their plot was a wretched failure. Only through the offices of the Japanese and German governments did he barely escape with his life. The experience savaged him. He had been arrested and detained by the Gestapo for two months. They subjected him to extreme torture. Their violence was unspeakable, but they took care not to kill him, nor to leave any physical scars. Yet their sadism left his nerves in tatters—and as a result, something within him was extinguished. Placed under the strictest orders, he bowed to the inevitable and remained silent. Then he was forcibly repatriated to Japan.”
“Not long before,” I said, “Tomohiko Amada’s younger brother had taken his own life, probably because of the trauma of his own war experience. He had been part of the Nanjing Massacre, and committed suicide right after his discharge from the army. Correct?”
“Affirmative. Tomohiko Amada lost many loved ones in the whirlpool of those years. He himself was sorely damaged. As a result, his anger and grief put down deep roots. The hopeless, impotent realization that, no matter what he did, he could not stand against the torrent of history. As the sole survivor, he must also have felt an immense guilt. Hence he never spoke a word of what happened in Vienna, even after the gag was removed. It is as though he was unable to speak.”
I looked at Tomohiko Amada’s face. But I could detect no reaction as yet. I couldn’t tell if he heard us or not.
I spoke. “Then at some point—we don’t know exactly when—he created Killing Commendatore. An allegorical painting that expressed all he could not say. He put everything into it. A brilliant tour de force.”
“He took that which he had been unable to accomplish in reality,” the Commendatore said, “and gave it another form. What we might call ‘camouflaged expression.’ Not of what had in fact happened, but of what should have happened.”
“Nevertheless, he bundled the painting up tight and hid it in the attic, out of public view,” I said. “Although he had radically transformed the events, they were still too raw to reveal. Is that what you mean?”
“Precisely. It distills the pure essence of his living spirit. Then, one day, my friends happened upon it.”
“So are you saying all of this began when I brought the painting out into the light? Is that what you meant by ‘opening the circle’?”
The Commendatore said nothing, just extended his hands palms up.
* * *
—
Not long after, we noticed Tomohiko Amada’s face turning pink. (The Commendatore and I had been watching him closely for any change.) At the same time, as if in response, the small, mysterious light that had been flickering deep in his eyes began to rise slowly to the surface. Like an ascending deep-sea diver gauging the effects of the water pressure on his body. The veil covering Amada’s eyes also lifted, until, finally, both were wide open. The person lying before us was no longer a frail, desiccated old man on the verge of death. Instead, he was someone whose eyes brimmed with a determination to hang on to this world as long as he could.
“He is gathering his remaining strength,” the Commendatore said to me. “Recovering as much of his conscious mind as he is able. But the more he regains mentally, the greater the physical torment. His body has been secreting a special substance to blot out that pain. It is thanks to the existence of such a substance that people can die in peace, not in agony. When consciousness returns, so does the pain. Nevertheless, he is trying to recover as much as he can. This is a mission he must fulfill here and now, however great the suffering.”
As if to reinforce the Commendatore’s words, Tomohiko Amada’s face began to contort with agony. Age and infirmity had eaten away at his body until it was ready to shut down—he could feel that now. There was no way to avoid it. The end of his allotted time was fast approaching. It was painful to watch him suffer. Instead of calling him back, I might better have let him die a peaceful, painless death in a semiconscious haze.
“But he chose this way himself,” the Commendatore said, again reading my mind. “It is painful to witness, but beyond our control.”
“Won’t Masahiko be returning soon?” I asked the Commendatore.
“Negative. Not for some time,” he said with a small shake of his head. “His call was work related, something important. He will be gone a considerable time.”
Tomohiko’s eyes were wide open. They had been sunk within their wrinkled sockets, but now his eyeballs protruded like a person leaning out of a window. His breathing was deeper, and more ragged. It rasped as it passed in and out of his throat. And he was staring straight at the Commendatore. There was no doubt. The Commendatore was visible to him. Amazement was written in his face. He couldn’t believe what was sitting in front of him. How could a figure produced by his imagination appear before him in reality?
“Negative, that is not the case,” the Commendatore said. “What he sees and what my friends see are completely different.”
“You mean you don’t look the same way to him?”
“My friends, keep in mind that I am an Idea. My form changes depending on the person and the situation.”
“Then how do you look to Mr. Amada?”
“That is something even I do not know. I am like a mirror that reflects what is in a person’s heart. Nothing more.”
“But you assumed this form for me on purpose, didn’t you? Choosing to appear as the Commendatore?”
“To be precise, I did not choose this form. Cause and effect are hard to separate here. Because I took the form of the Commendatore, a sequence of events was set in motion. But at the same time, my form is the necessary consequence of that very sequence. It is hard to explain using the concept of time that governs the world you live in, my friends, but it might be summed up as: All these events have been determined beforehand.”
“If an Idea is a mirror, then is Tomohiko Amada now seeing what he wishes to see?”
“Negative! He is seeing what he must see,” the Commendatore corrected me. “It may be excruciating. Yet he must look. Now, at the end of his life.”
I examined Tomohiko Amada’s face again. Mixed with the amazement, I could discern an intense loathing. And almost unendurable torment. The return to consciousness carried with it not only the agony of the flesh. It brought with it the agony of the soul.
“He is squeezing out every last ounce of strength to ascertain who I am. Despite the pain. He is striving to return to his twenties.”
Tomohiko Amada’s face had turned a fiery red. Hot blood coursed through his veins. His thin, dry lips trembled, he gasped violently. His long, skeletal fingers clutched at the sheets.
“Stop dithering, my friends, and kill me now, while his mind is whole,” the Commendatore said. “The quicker, the better. He may not be able to hold himself together much longer.”
The Commendatore drew his sword from its scabbard. It was just eight inches long, but it looked very sharp indeed. Despite its dimensions, it was a weapon capable of ending a person’s life.
“Stab me with this,” the Commendatore said. “We shall re-create the scene from Killing Commendatore. But hurry. There is no time to dawdle.”
I looked back and forth from the Commendatore to Tomohiko Amada, struggling to make up my mind. All I could be remotely sure of was that Tomohiko Amada was in desperate need, and the Commendatore’s resolve was firm. I alone wallowed in indecision, caught between the two of them.
I felt the rush of owl wings, and heard a bell ring in the dark.