I thought about what he said, though I still couldn’t grasp what he meant. I casually glanced over at the Commendatore, still seated on the display shelf. His face was bereft of expression.
Menshiki went on. “When you’re locked up alone in a cramped, dark place, the most frightening thing isn’t death. The most terrifying thought is that I might have to live here forever. Once you think that, the terror makes it hard to breathe. The walls close in on you and the delusion grabs you that you’re going to be crushed. In order to survive, a person has to overcome that fear. Which means conquering yourself. And in order to do that, you need to get as close to death as you possibly can.”
“But there’s a danger to that.”
“Like when Icarus flew close to the sun. It’s not easy to know how close you can go, where that line is. You put your life at risk doing it.”
“But if you avoid approaching it, you can’t overcome fear and conquer yourself.”
“Precisely. If you can’t do that, you can’t take yourself to the next level,” Menshiki said. He seemed to be considering something. And then suddenly—at least it seemed sudden to me—he stood up, went over to the window, and looked out.
“It’s still raining a little, but not so hard. Do you mind going out on the deck? There’s something I want to show you.”
We walked up the steps from the dining room to the living room and then out to the deck. It was a large deck, with a Mediterranean tiled floor. We went over to the wooden railing and gazed out at the valley. It was like a tourist lookout, and we were afforded a view of the entire valley. A fine rain was still falling, more like mist at this point. The lights were still on in people’s homes across the valley. It was the same valley, but viewed from the opposite side like this, the scenery looked transformed.
A section of the deck was roofed over, with a chaise longue beneath it, for sunbathing or perhaps reading. Next to it was a low glass-topped table to put drinks or books on. And also a large planter with a decorative green plant, and a tall piece of equipment of some kind, covered in plastic. There was a spotlight on the wall, but it wasn’t turned on. The lights in the living room were turned down low.
“I wonder which direction my house is?” I asked Menshiki.
Menshiki pointed to the right. “It’s over there.”
I stared hard in that direction, but with the lights out and the misty rain I couldn’t locate it.
“I can’t see it,” I told him.
“Just a moment,” Menshiki said, and walked over to where the chaise longue was. He removed the plastic cover from the piece of equipment and carried it over. It looked like a pair of binoculars on a tripod. The binoculars weren’t big, but looked odd, different from normal ones. They were a drab olive green and the crude shape made it appear like some optical instrument for surveying. He placed this beside the railing, pointed it, and carefully focused.
“Here, take a look. This is where you live,” he said.
I squinted through the binoculars. They had a clear field of vision, with high magnification. Not your typical binoculars that you find in a store. Through the faint vale of misty rain the far-off scenery looked close enough to touch. And it definitely was the house I was living in. The terrace was there, the lounge chair I always sat in. Beyond that was the living room, and next to it, my painting studio. With the lights off I couldn’t make out the interior, though during the day you probably could. It felt strange to see (or peek into) the place where I lived.
“Don’t worry,” Menshiki said from behind me, as if reading my mind. “No need to be concerned. I don’t encroach on your privacy. I mean, I hardly ever turn these binoculars on your house. Trust me. What I want to see is something else.”
“What do you want to see?” I said. I took my eye from the binoculars, turned around, and looked at him. His face was cool, inscrutable as always. At night on the deck, though, his hair looked whiter than ever.
“I’ll show you,” Menshiki said. With a practiced hand he swung the binoculars slightly to the north and swiftly refocused. He took a step back and said, “Please take a look.”
I looked through the binoculars. In the circular field of vision I saw an elegant wooden house halfway up the mountain. A two-story building also constructed to take advantage of the slope, with a terrace facing this direction. On a map it would be my nearest neighbor, but because of the topography there was no road linking us, so one would have to go down to the bottom of the mountain and ascend once more on a separate road to access it. Lights were on in the windows, but the curtains were drawn, and I couldn’t see inside. If the curtains were open, though, and the lights on, you would be able to see the people inside. Very possible with binoculars this powerful.
“These are NATO-issue military binoculars. They’re not sold anywhere, so it wasn’t easy to get hold of them. They’re bright, so you can make out images well even in the dark.”
I took my eyes away from the binoculars and looked at Menshiki. “This house is what you want to see?”
“Correct. But don’t get the wrong idea. I’m no voyeur.”
He glanced through the binoculars one last time, then put them and the tripod back where they were and placed the plastic cover over them.
“Let’s go inside. We don’t want to catch cold,” Menshiki said. We went back into the living room, and sat on the sofa and armchair. The ponytailed young man sidled over and asked if we’d like anything to drink, but both of us declined.
“Thank you very much for tonight,” Menshiki said to the young man. “Feel free to go now.” The young man bowed and withdrew.
The Commendatore was now seated on top of the piano. The black Steinway full grand. He looked like he preferred this spot to where he had been sitting before. The jewels on the top handle of his long sword caught the light with a proud glint.
“In that house over there,” Menshiki began, “lives the girl who may be my daughter. I like to see her, even if it’s from a distance.”
For quite some time I was speechless.
“Do you remember? What I told you about the daughter my former girlfriend had, after she married another man? That she might be mine?”
“Of course. The woman who was stung by hornets and died. Her daughter would be thirteen. Right?”
Menshiki gave a short, concise nod. “She lives in that house with her father. In that house across the valley.”
It took a while to put the myriad questions that welled up in my mind in some kind of order. Menshiki waited silently all this time, patiently waiting for my reaction.
I said, “In other words, in order to see that young girl who might be your daughter through the binoculars every day, you bought this mansion directly across the valley. You paid a lot of money and a great deal to renovate this house for that sole purpose. Is that what you’re saying?”
Menshiki said, “Yes, that’s it. This is the ideal spot to be able to observe her house. I had to get this mansion no matter what. There was no other lot around here that I could get a building permit for. And ever since, I’ve been looking for her across the valley through my binoculars, almost every day. Though I should say that the days I can’t see her far outnumber the days I can.”
“So you live alone, keeping people out as much as you can, so no one interferes with that pursuit.”
Menshiki nodded again. “That’s right. I don’t want anyone to bother me. No one to disturb things. That’s what I’m looking for. I need unlimited solitude. You’re the only other person in the world who knows this secret. It wouldn’t be good to confess this kind of delicate thing to people.”
You got that right, I thought. And this thought occurred to me as well: Then why did you just tell me?
“Then why did you just tell me?” I asked Menshiki. “Is there some special reason?”
Menshiki recrossed his legs and looked straight at me. His voice was soft. “Yes, of course there’s a reason. I have a special favor to ask of you.”
25
HOW MUCH LONELINESS THE TRUTH CAN CAUSE