“For real,” I said. “I had no idea he would show up today.”
Mariye seemed to buy my story. Menshiki had not told me he would be coming, and his sudden visit had taken me by surprise. So I wasn’t really lying after all.
“His eyes are weird,” Mariye said.
“Weird in what way?”
“It’s like he’s always scheming about something. Like the wolf in ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ When the wolf dresses up like the grandmother and lies in bed, you can tell it’s him by his eyes.”
Like the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood”?
“So you had an adverse reaction to Mr. Menshiki, right?”
“Adverse reaction?”
“A negative impression. A feeling he might harm you.”
“Adverse reaction,” she said. She seemed to be storing the phrase in her mental filing cabinet. Alongside “a bolt from the blue,” no doubt.
“It’s not like that,” Mariye said. “I don’t think he’s planning anything bad. I just think Mr. Menshiki with the pretty white hair is hiding something.”
“And you sense it, right?”
Mariye nodded. “That’s why I came to see you. I thought you might be able to tell me more about him.”
“Does your aunt feel the same way?” I asked, trying to deflect her question.
“No,” she answered, tilting her head to one side. “That’s not what she’s like. She seldom has an adverse reaction to people. And I think she’s interested in him. He’s a bit older, but he’s handsome and well dressed and I guess very rich and living all by himself…”
“So you think she’s taken to him?”
“I guess so. She really lit up when she talked to him. Her face, and her voice—it got higher. She wasn’t like usual. I bet he felt the change too.”
I said nothing, just poured us both a fresh cup of tea. I took a sip.
Mariye seemed to be turning something over in her mind. “I wonder, how did he know we were going to be here today?” she asked. “Did you tell him?”
“I don’t think Mr. Menshiki came planning to meet your aunt.” I chose my words with care, hoping to avoid another lie. “In fact, he tried to leave when he realized the two of you were here, but I talked him into staying. He happened to stop by when your aunt happened to be here, and when he saw her he got interested. Your aunt is a very attractive woman, you know.”
Mariye didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t push the issue any further. She just sat there frowning, elbows on the table.
“In any case, the two of you are going to visit his home next Sunday,” I said.
Mariye nodded. “Yes, to see your portrait of him. My aunt seems to be really looking forward to it. To paying Mr. Menshiki a visit, I mean.”
“I don’t blame her for getting excited,” I said. “After all, she’s living in the mountains with no other people around. Not like in the city, where she’d have opportunities to meet all sorts of men.”
Mariye pressed her lips together for a moment.
“My aunt used to have a boyfriend,” she said, as if letting me in on a big secret. “A man she saw for a really long time. When she was a secretary in Tokyo. But a lot of things happened, and in the end they broke up. It hurt her a lot. Then my mother died, and she came to look after me. She didn’t tell me any of this, of course.”
“I don’t think she’s seeing anyone now, is she?”
Mariye shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“So you’re a little concerned that your aunt is interested in Mr. Menshiki, and that she may be experiencing the first stirrings of something. So you came to talk to me about it. Is that right?”
“Tell me, do you think he’s trying to seduce her?”
“Seduce her?”
“I mean, that he isn’t serious?”
“There’s no way for me to tell,” I said. “I don’t know Mr. Menshiki that well. They just met this afternoon, so nothing has happened between them yet. When two people’s feelings are involved like this, things can change in subtle ways. What begins as a small feeling can grow into something really big, or the opposite can happen.”
“But I have a kind of hunch this time,” she asserted.
I sensed that I should believe her “kind of hunch,” baseless though it was. For I had a similar kind of hunch.
“So you’re worried something could occur that might harm your aunt psychologically,” I said.
Mariye gave a quick nod. “My aunt’s not a very cautious person, and she’s not used to being hurt.”
“It sounds like you’re the one looking after her, and not the other way around,” I said.
“In a way,” Mariye said seriously.
“How about you, then? Are you used to being hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Mariye said. “At least I’m not about to fall in love.”
“You will someday, though.”
“But not now. Not until my chest gets a little bigger anyway.”
“That may happen sooner than you expect.”
Mariye made a wry face. I guessed she didn’t believe me.
I felt a seed of doubt sprout in my own chest. Would Menshiki draw close to Shoko Akikawa to establish a firm connection with Mariye?
After all, he had said to me, I couldn’t tell anything in one brief meeting. I need to see her more.
Shoko would be an important intermediary—through her, Menshiki could see Mariye on a regular basis. After all, she was the one looking after the girl. To a greater or lesser extent, therefore, Menshiki had to place Shoko under his thumb. That shouldn’t be too hard for a man of Menshiki’s talents. Not child’s play, perhaps, but close to it. I didn’t like to think that Menshiki was harboring a plan of that sort. Yet perhaps the Commendatore had been right, and he was a man who couldn’t help fabricating some scheme or other. From what I had seen, however, he wasn’t that cunning.
“Mr. Menshiki’s house is really impressive,” I said to Mariye. “You may or may not like it, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”
“Have you been there?”
“Only once. I went there for dinner.”
“It’s on the other side of the valley?”
“Right across from us.”
“Can you see it from here?”
I pretended to think for a moment. “Yes, but it’s far away, of course.”
“Show me.”
I led her to the terrace and pointed out Menshiki’s mansion on top of the mountain across the valley. Bathed in the light from the garden lanterns, the building floated white in the distance like an elegant ocean liner sailing the night sea. Several of the windows were also lit up. The lights burning there were small and unobtrusive.
“That enormous white house?” Mariye exclaimed in surprise. She stared at me for a moment. Then, wordlessly, she turned back to the distant mansion.
“I can see it from my house, too,” she said eventually. “The angle’s a bit different, though. I’ve always wondered who would live in a place like that.”
“It does stand out, that’s for sure,” I said. “Anyway, that’s Mr. Menshiki’s home.”
Mariye spent a long time leaning over the railing looking at the house. A handful of stars twinkled above its roof. There was no wind, and a small, sharp-edged cloud hung there motionless. Like a paper cutout nailed to a plywood backdrop in a play. Each time the girl moved her head, her straight black hair glittered in the moonlight.
“Does Mr. Menshiki really live there all by himself?” Mariye asked, turning to me.
“Yes, he does. All alone, in that big house.”
“And he’s not married?”
“He told me he has never married.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“I’m not sure. Something connected to the information business, he said. Maybe having to do with tech. He doesn’t have a regular job right now, though. He lives on the money he made from selling his old business, and from stock dividends and so forth. I don’t know the details.”
“So he doesn’t work?” Mariye said, wrinkling her forehead.
“That’s what he said. Seldom leaves his home, apparently.”
He might well be standing on his terrace, watching the two of us through his high-powered binoculars just as we were watching him. What would run through his mind if he saw us standing side by side like this?