Killing Commendatore: A novel (53 page)

I listened quietly to what he had to say.

When we stopped at a long red light, Masahiko took off his dark Ray-Ban sunglasses and wiped them with his handkerchief.

“My guess,” he said, turning in my direction, “is that my father is hiding heavy secrets of some kind, personal secrets he has borne entirely alone and intends to take with him when he drifts from this world. It's like there's this metal safe in his heart where he stored them. He locked them all in there, and then he either threw the key away or hid it somewhere. Now he can't remember where he stashed it.”

In that case, the unsolved riddle of what had taken place in Vienna in 1938 would be buried in darkness. Then again, perhaps
Killing Commendatore
itself was the hidden key. The idea struck me all of a sudden. Were that true, it would explain why, at the end of his life, Tomohiko's living spirit had returned to his mountaintop to confirm the painting's existence.

I swiveled around to look in the backseat. Just maybe, the Commendatore was sitting there. But the seat was empty.

“Is something wrong?” Masahiko said, glancing behind him.

“No, nothing at all,” I said.

When the light turned green, he stepped on the accelerator.

On our way to check in on his father, we stopped at a roadside restaurant so that Masahiko could use the toilet. We were shown to a table next to the window, where we ordered coffee. As it was already noon, I ordered a roast beef sandwich, too. Masahiko asked for the same thing. Then he headed for the men's room. While he was gone I stared blankly out the window. The parking lot was packed with cars. Most had come with families. The number of minivans really stood out. All minivans look identical to me. Like cans of tasteless biscuits. There was an observation deck at the end of the lot where people were using small digital cameras and cell phones to snap photos of Mt. Fuji, which towered right in front of them. It's dumb, I know, but I've never really gotten comfortable with phones taking pictures. I'm even less cool with cameras making phone calls.

While I was sitting there looking at nothing in particular, a white Subaru Forester turned off the road and into the lot. I don't know much about cars (and the Subaru Forester is hardly distinctive), but I could tell at a glance that it was the model the man with the white Subaru Forester had been driving. It trolled up and down the rows before finally nosing into an empty space. Sure enough, the logo on the spare-tire cover read
SUBARU FORESTER
. It appeared to be the same model as the car I had seen in the little seaside town in Miyagi Prefecture. I couldn't make out the license plate, but the more I looked, the more I was sure it was the same car I had seen that spring. Not just the same model. I mean the
exact same car
.

My visual memory is sharper than most—and more durable. As a result, I could tell that the stains and other markings were strikingly similar to those of
that car
as I remembered it. I could hardly breathe. But just when I was straining to identify the driver as he stepped out, a large tour bus pulled into the lot and blocked my view. Unable to move past the jam of cars, it just sat there. I jumped up and hurried out of the restaurant. I rushed around the bus, which had stopped dead in its tracks, and approached the spot where the white Subaru Forester was parked. But the car was empty. Its driver had gone off somewhere. He might be in the restaurant, or perhaps was taking pictures on the observation deck. I scanned the area but couldn't spot the man with the white Subaru Forester anywhere. Of course, the driver could have been someone else.

I checked the license plate. Sure enough, it read “Miyagi Prefecture.” On the rear bumper was a sticker with a picture of a marlin on it. It was the same car, no question.
That man had come here.
A chill ran down my spine. I decided to search for him. I wanted to see his face one more time. To figure out why I couldn't finish his portrait. Perhaps I had overlooked something basic about him. First, though, I memorized the license plate number. It might prove useful. Then again, it might be of no use at all.

I walked around the parking lot, keeping an eye out for someone who resembled him. I checked the observation deck. But the man with the white Subaru Forester was nowhere to be seen. A man of middle age, deeply tanned, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut. On the tall side. When last seen, wearing a battered black leather jacket and a Yonex golf cap. I had whipped off a quick sketch on my memo pad and shown it to the young woman sitting across from me. “You're really good at drawing!” she had enthused.

Once I was sure no one matching his description was outside, I looked inside the restaurant. I circled the place, but he was nowhere to be seen. The seats were almost full. Masahiko was back at our table, drinking his coffee. The sandwiches hadn't shown up yet.

“Where'd you disappear to?” he asked me.

“I thought I saw someone I knew. So I went outside to check.”

“Did you find them?”

“No. Probably a case of mistaken identity,” I said.

After that, I kept a close eye on the white Subaru Forester outside. Yet if the man in question did come back, what should I do? Go out and talk to him? Tell him I was sure I had bumped into him twice this past spring in a small coastal town in Miyagi?
Is that so? Well, I don't remember you
, he'd probably shoot back.

Well then, why are you following me?
I would ask.
What are you talking about?
he would reply.
Why the hell would I be tailing someone I don't even know?
End of conversation.

In any event, the driver of the white Subaru Forester never went back to his car. It just sat there in the lot, short and squat, silently awaiting its owner's return. We finished our sandwiches and coffee, but he still hadn't shown.

“We'd better be going,” Masahiko said, glancing at his watch. “We don't have a whole lot of time.” He picked up his Ray-Bans from the table.

We stood, paid the bill, and walked out. Then we climbed into the Volvo and drove out of the jammed parking lot. I wanted to wait for the man with the white Subaru Forester to return, but meeting Masahiko's father had to be my top priority. The Commendatore had driven home that message with absolute clarity:
My friends
will be invited somewhere. You must not decline that invitation.

I was left with the fact that the man with the white Subaru Forester had shown up once again. He had known where to find me and had made it clear that
he was there
. His intent was obvious. His appearance could be no accident. Nor, of course, was the tour bus that had hidden him from view.

To reach the facility where Tomohiko Amada was being cared for, we had to leave the Izu Skyline and drive down a long, winding road. The area had recently been turned into a summer retreat for city folk: we passed stylish coffee shops, fancy inns built to resemble log cabins, stands selling local produce, and small museums aimed at passing tourists. Each time we went around a curve, I gripped the door handle and thought of the man with the white Subaru Forester. Something was blocking me from finishing his portrait. A key element, something that made him who he was, had escaped me. A missing piece of the puzzle, as it were. This was new for me. I always gathered together everything I knew I would need before I started a portrait. In the case of the man with the white Subaru Forester, though, I had not been able to do that. Probably the man himself was standing in my way. He didn't like having his portrait painted, for whatever reason. In fact, he seemed dead set against it.

At a certain point, the Volvo turned off the road and passed through a big, open steel gate. The gate was marked only by a very small sign. Someone could easily drive right by if they weren't paying attention. It appeared to be an institution that didn't feel compelled to announce its presence to the world. Masahiko stopped at the small guardhouse beside the gate and gave his name and the name of the resident he was visiting to the uniformed security guard on duty. The guard made a phone call to confirm the resident's identity. Once through the gate, we entered a dense grove of trees. Most were tall evergreens, which cast a chilly shadow. We drove up the freshly paved road to the circle set atop the rise, where cars could be parked. A bed of ornamental cabbages surrounding a circle of bright red flowers sat at the center. The flowers were being tended with care.

Masahiko drove to the far end of the circle and parked his car in one of the visitor spots. Two other cars had preceded us. A white Honda minivan and a dark blue Audi sedan. Both were sparkling new—between them his Volvo looked like an aged workhorse. Masahiko, however, didn't seem to mind a bit (his Bananarama cassette tape took clear precedence). Below, the Pacific Ocean gleamed dully in the early-winter sun. A few midsized fishing vessels were plying its waters. A small humped island sat just offshore, and beyond it the Manazuru Peninsula. The hands of my watch pointed to 1:45.

We got out of the car and walked toward the entrance. The building looked quite new. It was a clean and stylish concrete structure, yet nothing was distinctive about it. Perhaps the architect who designed it lacked imaginative oomph. Or else the client, considering its function, had demanded that the building be as simple and conservative as possible. It was three stories high, and quite square—a structure made up entirely of straight lines. The blueprints could have been drawn up with a single ruler. The ground floor was mainly glass, to create as bright an impression as possible. Jutting out from the front of the building was a large wooden balcony with about a dozen deck chairs, but it was winter, so no one would be sunbathing, however bright and pleasant the day. The cafeteria had glass walls that soared from floor to ceiling. I could see five or six people inside, all well along in years, from the look of them. Two were in wheelchairs. I couldn't tell what they were doing. Perhaps watching television on the big screen on the wall. They weren't playing leapfrog, that's for sure.

Masahiko walked through the entranceway and up to a young woman stationed at the front desk. She was round-cheeked and friendly, with beautiful long black hair. A name tag was affixed to her dark blue blazer. She seemed to know Masahiko by sight, for the two of them chatted for a few minutes. I stood a short distance away and waited for them to finish. A large vase sat in the entranceway, overflowing with a lavish assortment of fresh flowers, arranged, I assumed, by an ikebana expert. At a certain point, Masahiko signed the guest register with a pen and, consulting his watch, added the precise time. He left the desk and walked over to me, hands in pockets.

“My father's condition seems to have stabilized,” he said. “Apparently, he was coughing all morning and very short of breath, so they worried that he was developing pneumonia. But they got his cough under control a short while ago, and now he's fast asleep.”

“Is it really okay for me to go in with you?”

“Of course,” Masahiko said. “You came all this way to see him, didn't you?”

He and I took the elevator to the third floor. The corridor there was also simple and conservative. Decoration kept to a bare minimum. The one exception, as if by way of concession, was a row of oil paintings hanging on the long, white wall. All were coastal landscapes. They seemed to be a series by a single artist, who had painted spots along the same stretch of coast from a number of angles. They weren't especially well done, but at least the artist had been generous in his use of paint, and I could applaud the way his paintings disrupted the strict minimalism of the architecture. The rubber soles of my shoes squeaked ostentatiously on the smooth linoleum floor. A little old white-haired lady in a wheelchair pushed by a male attendant passed us in the corridor. She stared straight ahead, her gaze so fixed and rigid it did not even flicker when we went by. As if she was determined not to lose sight of a crucial sign suspended in the air before her.

Tomohiko Amada was in a big room at the very end of the corridor. The name card on the door had been left blank. Most likely to protect his privacy. He was, after all, famous. The room was the size of a small hotel suite, with a basic set of living room furniture in addition to the bed. A folded wheelchair rested against the bed's foot. A large southeast-facing window looked out over the Pacific Ocean. It was a magnificent, unobstructed view. A hotel room with a view like that would cost an arm and a leg. No paintings hung on the walls. Just a mirror and a round clock. A medium-sized vase filled with purple cut flowers sat on the table. There was no odor at all. Not of a sick old person, nor of medicine, nor of flowers, nor of sun-drenched curtains. Nothing. That's what surprised me most—the room's utter lack of smell. It was so striking I thought something had happened to my nose. How could odor be erased so completely?

Tomohiko Amada was fast asleep near the window, oblivious to the view outside. He slept on his back facing the ceiling, his eyes tightly shut. Bushy white eyebrows overhung his aged eyelids like a natural canopy. Deep wrinkles furrowed his forehead. His quilt was pulled up to his neck—I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. If he was, they were extremely shallow breaths.

I knew right away that this was the mysterious old man who had visited my studio. I had seen him for only a moment or two in the shifting moonlight, but the shape of his head and his wild, white hair left no doubt: it had been Tomohiko Amada. The fact didn't surprise me in the least. It had been clear all along.

“He's dead to the world,” Masahiko said to me. “We'll just have to wait for him to wake up.
If
he wakes up, that is.”

“All the same, it's a blessing that he's sleeping peacefully,” I said. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It said five minutes before two. I suddenly thought of Menshiki. Had he called Shoko Akikawa? Had there been any developments in Mariye's case? Right now, however, I had to focus on Tomohiko Amada.

Masahiko and I sat across from each other on matching chairs, sipping the canned coffee we had bought from the vending machine in the corridor, while we waited for Tomohiko Amada to wake up. In the meantime, Masahiko told me a few things about Yuzu. That her pregnancy was progressing nicely. That her due date was sometime in the first half of January. That her handsome boyfriend was thrilled about becoming a father.

“The only problem—from his perspective, anyway—is that she seems to have no intention of marrying him,” Masahiko said.

“Huh?” I couldn't believe what I had just heard. “You mean she plans to be a single mom?”

“Yuzu intends to have the baby. But she doesn't want to marry the father, or live with him, or share custody of the child…that seems to be the story. He can't figure out what's going on. He assumed they'd be properly married once the divorce was final, but she completely rejected his proposal.”

I thought about that for a moment. The more I thought, though, the more confused I got.

“I can't wrap my head around it,” I said. “Yuzu always said she didn't want kids. Whenever I said I thought the time was right, she said it was still too early. So why does she want a child so badly now?”