Killing Commendatore: A novel (14 page)

After eleven I fell asleep for a while on the sofa listening to music. I might have slept for about twenty minutes. When I woke up the record was over, the arm back in its cradle, the turntable not moving. There were two players in the living room, one an automatic, the other an old-school manual type, but to play it safe—so I could fall asleep listening, in other words—I generally used the automatic. I slipped the Schubert record back in its jacket, and returned it to its designated spot on the record shelf. From the open window I could hear the clamor of insects. Since they were still making a racket, I wouldn't be hearing the sound of the bell quite yet.

I warmed up coffee in the kitchen and munched on a few cookies. And listened intently to the noisy insect ensemble that enveloped the mountains. A little before twelve thirty I heard the Jaguar slowly making its way up the slope. As it changed direction, the pair of yellow headlights lit up the window. The engine finally cut out, and I heard the usual solid
thunk
as the door shut. I sat on the sofa, sipping coffee, getting my breathing under control, waiting for the front doorbell to ring.

We sat in chairs in the living room, drank our coffee, and talked, killing time until
that time
rolled around. At first we chatted about inconsequential things, but after a curtain of silence descended on us Menshiki, a bit hesitantly, yet resolutely, asked, “Do you have any children?”

The question took me by surprise. He didn't seem the type to ask that kind of question—especially of someone he didn't know well. He seemed more the I-won't-stick-my-nose-in-your-business-if-you-won't-stick-yours-in-mine type of person. At least that's the way I read him. But when I looked up and saw his serious expression, I knew it wasn't an impulsive question. He'd been thinking of asking me this for a long time.

I responded. “I was married for six years, but we didn't have any children.”

“You didn't want any?”

“I was fine either way. But my wife didn't want any,” I said. I didn't, though, get into the reason she gave. Even now I'm not sure that it reflected her true feelings.

Menshiki seemed hesitant, but forged ahead. “This might sound rude, but have you ever considered that there might be another woman somewhere, other than your wife, who secretly had a child of yours?”

I looked him full in the face again. What a strange question. I rummaged around, pro forma, through a few drawers of memory, but came up empty-handed. I hadn't had sex with all that many women until then, and even if something like that had taken place, I think I would have heard about it.

“I guess it's possible, in theory. But realistically—commonsensically, you might say—it's not.”

“I see,” Menshiki said. He quietly sipped his coffee, thinking deeply.

“Why do you ask?” I ventured.

He looked out the window, silent for a time. The moon was visible, not as weirdly bright as two days ago, but still plenty bright. Scattered clouds slowly wended their way from the sea toward the mountains.

Menshiki finally spoke up. “As I mentioned before, I've never been married. I've always been a bachelor. Work kept me busy all the time, that's one reason, but it's also because living with someone else didn't fit my personality and lifestyle. I'm sure this sounds pretty stuck-up, but I'm the type who can only live alone. I have almost no interest in lineage or relatives. I've never thought I'd like to have children. There's a personal reason for that, mostly because of my home environment when I was growing up.”

He paused, took a breath, then went on.

“But a few years ago I began to think that I might actually have a child. Or I should say, I was compelled to think that way.”

No comment from me.

“I find it strange myself that I'm opening up to you, about this kind of personal matter. I mean, we just met.” The faintest of smiles rose to Menshiki's lips.

“I'm okay with it, as long as you are.”

Ever since I was little, for some reason people have tended to open up to me about the most unexpected topics. Maybe I have an innate ability to draw out secrets from strangers. Or maybe I just seem like a good listener, I don't know. Either way, I don't remember it ever working to my advantage. After people tell me their secrets, they always regret it.

“This is the first time I've ever told anybody this,” Menshiki said.

I nodded and waited for more. Everyone says the same thing.

Menshiki began his story. “This happened fifteen years ago, when I was going out with a woman. I was in my late thirties then, she was in her late twenties. She was a beautiful, attractive woman, extremely bright. I was serious about our relationship, though I'd made it clear to her there was no chance of us getting married. I don't plan to ever marry anyone, I told her. I didn't want her to have any false hopes. If she ever found someone else she wanted to marry, I would step aside without a word. She understood exactly how I felt. While we went out—for about two and half years—we got along really well. We never argued, even once. We traveled together to lots of places, and she'd often stay over at my place. She even kept a set of clothes there.”

He seemed to be contemplating something, then continued his story.

“If I were a normal person, or closer to being normal, I wouldn't have hesitated to marry her. But—” He paused here and let out a small breath. “But the upshot was I chose the kind of life I have now, a quiet life all by myself, and she chose a healthier life for herself. In other words, she got married to another man who was closer to being normal than me.”

Until the very end, however, she didn't disclose to him the fact that she was getting married. The last time he saw her was a week after her twenty-ninth birthday (the two of them had dined out at a restaurant in Ginza on her birthday, and later on he recalled how unusually quiet she'd been). He was working in an office in Akasaka then and she'd called him saying she wanted to see him and talk, and asked if she could see him right away. Of course, he replied. She'd never visited his workplace even once, but he hadn't thought it odd. His office was a small place, just him and a middle-aged woman secretary. So he didn't need to worry about anyone else if she stopped by. There had been a time when he'd managed a large company with lots of employees, but at this point he was developing a new network by himself. His usual approach was to work quietly by himself to develop a new business strategy; then, when he began implementing the plan, he would aggressively employ a broad range of talent.

It was just before five p.m. when his girlfriend showed up. They sat down together on his office sofa to talk. He'd had the secretary in the next room go home. It was his normal routine to continue working alone in the office after his secretary left for the day. Often he'd be so engrossed in his work that he'd stay all night. His idea was for the two of them to go to a nearby restaurant and have dinner, but she turned that down. I don't have time today, she said, I have to meet somebody in Ginza.

“You said you had something you wanted to talk about,” he said.

“No, I don't have anything to really talk about,” she said. “I just wanted to see you.”

“I'm glad you came,” he said, smiling. It had been some time since she'd spoken so openly to him. She generally spoke in a more indirect, roundabout way. He had no idea what this portended.

She moved over on the sofa and sat down in his lap. She put her arms around him and kissed him. A serious, deep kiss, tongues entwined. She reached out and undid Menshiki's belt. She took out his already erect penis, holding it in her grasp for a time. Then she leaned forward and wrapped her mouth around it. She slowly ran the tip of her long tongue around it. Her tongue was smooth and hot.

This all came out of nowhere. She was usually more passive when it came to sex—especially oral sex—and when it came to doing it, or having things done to her, he'd always felt a slight resistance on her part. But now here she was taking the lead. What's come over her? he wondered.

She suddenly stood up, tossed aside her expensive black pumps, briskly lowered her stockings and panties, again sat down on his lap, and now guided his penis inside her. Her vagina was wet, and moved smoothly, naturally, like some living being. The whole sequence had happened so quickly (and was so unlike her, since she was always so calm and deliberate). Before he realized it, he was deep inside her, that smooth wall completely enveloping his penis, squeezing him silently yet insistently.

This was unlike any sex he'd ever had with her. It was at once hot and cold, hard and soft. It was a strange, contradictory sensation, as if he were being simultaneously accepted and rejected. He had no idea what that meant. She straddled him, and like a person on a small boat being tossed around by the waves, moved violently up and down. Her black hair tossed about, supple as a willow branch in a strong wind. She lost control, her gasps growing ever louder. Menshiki wasn't sure if he had locked the office door or not. He felt he had, but also that he'd forgotten to. But this wasn't the time to go check.

“Shouldn't we use a condom or something?” he managed to ask. She was always careful about contraception.

“It's okay—today,” she gasped in his ear. “Don't worry about a thing.”

Everything about her was different from usual, as if a totally different personality dormant inside her had awoken and hijacked her body and soul. Menshiki imagined that today must be some sort of special day for her. There was so much that men can't fathom about women's bodies.

Her movements became increasingly frenzied. There was nothing he could do but make sure not to interfere with what she desired. They neared climax. He couldn't hold back, and ejaculated, and in time with that she let out a short screech like some foreign bird, and her womb, as if waiting for that instant, greedily absorbed his semen. A muddied image occurred to him of himself, in the darkness, being devoured by a greedy beast.

After a while she stood up, as if pushing his body aside, and silently adjusted the hem of her dress, stuffed the stockings and panties that had fallen to the floor in her handbag, and hurried off to the bathroom, bag in hand. She didn't come out for a long time. He was beginning to get worried that something had happened to her when she finally emerged. Her clothing and hair were neatly arranged now, her makeup redone. Her usual calm smile graced her lips.

She gave Menshiki a light peck on the lips, and told him she had to go, since she was already late. And she hurried out of the office, without looking back. He could still recall the click of her pumps as she left.

That was the last time he ever saw her. All contact ceased. He'd call her, and write, but never got a response. And two months later she got married. He heard about this from a mutual friend, after the fact. The friend found it odd that Menshiki was not invited to the wedding ceremony, and, in particular, that he had no idea she was getting married. He'd always thought that Menshiki and the woman were good friends (they'd always been very discreet about their relationship, and no one else had known they were lovers). Menshiki didn't know the man she married. He had never even heard his name. She hadn't told Menshiki she was planning to marry, nor even hinted at it. She just disappeared from his world without a word.

That violent embrace on the sofa at his office, Menshiki realized, must have been her final, farewell act of love. Afterward he went over those events, over and over in his mind. Even after a long time had passed, those memories remained amazingly distinct and clear. The creak of the sofa, her hair whirling around her, her hot breath in his ear—it all came back to him.

So did Menshiki regret losing her? Of course not. He wasn't the type to have regrets. He knew very well he wasn't suited to family life. No matter how much he loved someone, he still couldn't share his life with them. He needed solitary time every day to concentrate, and he couldn't stand it when someone's presence threw off his concentration. If he lived with someone he knew he would end up detesting them. Whether it was his parents, a wife, or children. He feared that above all. He wasn't afraid of loving someone. What he feared was growing to hate someone.

For all that, he had loved her very deeply. He'd never loved any other woman so deeply, and probably never would again. “Even now there's a special spot inside me just for her,” Menshiki said. “A very real spot. You might even call it a shrine.”

A shrine? This struck me as an odd choice of words. But for him it was likely the right way of putting it.

Menshiki ended his story there. He'd told this private tale in great detail, yet I got little sense of it being sexual. It was more like he'd read aloud from a medical report. Or maybe it really was that sort of dispassionate experience for him.

“Seven months after the wedding she gave birth to a baby girl in a hospital in Tokyo,” Menshiki continued. “Thirteen years ago. I heard about this birth much later from someone.”

Menshiki stared down at his now empty coffee cup, as if nostalgic for some past age when it had been full of hot coffee.

“And that child might possibly be my own,” he said, seemingly forcing out the words. He looked at me, like he wanted to hear my opinion.

It took me a while to grasp what he was trying to say.

“Does the timeline fit?”

“It does. It coincides perfectly. The child was born nine months after she came to my office. She must have picked the day she was most fertile to come see me and—how should I put it?—deliberately
gathered
my sperm. That's my working hypothesis. From the beginning she wasn't expecting to marry me, but had decided to have my child. I figured that's what happened.”

“But you can't confirm that,” I said.

“Of course. At this point it's merely a hypothesis. But I do have a sort of basis to say this.”

“That was a pretty risky experiment for her, wasn't it?” I pointed out. “If the blood types didn't match it might come out that the father was someone else. Would she risk that?”

“My blood is type A. Most Japanese are A, and I think she is too. As long as they didn't have some reason to run a full-blown DNA test, the chances are slim that the secret would come out. That much she could figure out.”

“But on the other hand, unless you ran an official DNA test you wouldn't be able to determine if you're the girl's biological father or not. Right? Or else you ask her mother directly.”

Menshiki shook his head. “It's no longer possible to ask the mother. She died seven years ago.”

“That's terrible. She was still so young,” I said.

“She was walking in the woods and was stung by hornets and died. She was allergic to them. By the time they got her to the hospital she'd stopped breathing. Nobody knew she was so allergic to their stings. Maybe she didn't even know herself. She left behind her husband and daughter. Her daughter is thirteen now.”