Killing Commendatore

by Haruki Murakami

Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within.

I turned from the rain and gazed at her. And once again it struck me. We’d lived under the same roof for six years, yet I knew next to nothing about this woman. In the same way that people stare up at the sky to see the moon every night, yet understand next to nothing about it.

I’m not trying to excuse my actions, but at the time I really didn’t have the mental wherewithal to decide whether I was right or wrong. I was desperately clinging to a scrap of wood that had been swept away. In pitch-black darkness, not a single star, or the moon, visible in the sky. As long as I clung to that piece of wood I wouldn’t drown, but I had no clue where I was, where I was heading.

You can have all the desire and ache inside you want, but what you really need is a concrete starting point.

From a distance, most things look beautiful.

Our lives really do seem strange and mysterious when you look back on them. Filled with unbelievably bizarre coincidences and unpredictable, zigzagging developments. While they are unfolding, it’s hard to see anything weird about them, no matter how closely you pay attention to your surroundings.

I figured that, in time, my questions would be answered. That’s about all I could expect.

Menshiki looked me in the eyes. “But even if the painting’s never completed, I’d be very happy if, in some way, I’m able to help you change. Truly.”

After people tell me their secrets, they always regret it.

He wasn’t afraid of loving someone. What he feared was growing to hate someone.

I had a slight sense of resignation, too, as if everything were already out of my hands. Like when I was a child and the little kids would be playing some game and bigger kids would come around and take over. I remembered that feeling.

If things could be left alone, the smart thing might be to do so.

She sighed, the kind of sigh that condensed a variety of sighs into one.

The best ideas are thoughts that appear, unbidden, from out of the dark.”

The world is full of lonely things, but not many could be lonelier than waking up alone in the morning in a love hotel.

“You might be…discovering a new destination for yourself.” “I’d like to think so,” I said.

“There are things people are better off not knowing. That’s all I can say.” “But whether you know it or not, it ends up the same. Sooner or later, suddenly or not suddenly, with a loud knock or a soft one, that’s the only difference.”

The two of us were motivated not by what we had got hold of, or were trying to get, but by what we’d lost, what we did not now have.

“Changing topics, but I wondered, is it interesting to touch a clitoris?” “I don’t think you touch it because it’s interesting,” I said honestly.

berries. I sat on the terrace, soaking it all in. Nature grants its beauty to us all, drawing no line between rich and poor.

“It’s all practice. The more you practice the better you get.” “I think there are a lot of people,” she said, “who don’t improve, no matter how much they practice.”

However we thrash about, we are all thrown in one direction or another by our natural talent, or lack of it. That’s a basic truth we all have to learn to live with.

“I can’t tell if the power is good or not. Maybe it could be either good or bad, depending on the situation. You know, like the way we see things changes depending on where we’re standing.”

“You didn’t draw anything today,” Mariye commented. “There are days like this,” I said. “Time steals some things, but it gives us back others. Making time our ally is an important part of our work.”

In this world, what we think of as a single sound can have so many permutations. Just as we know, from one note struck on the open string of a double bass, whether it’s Charlie Mingus or Ray Brown.

It seems as if, year after year, the world becomes a more difficult place to live.

“Everything has a bright side,” he said. “The top of even the blackest, thickest cloud shines like silver.” “Yeah, but getting up there to see it is no picnic.”

People can become accustomed to almost anything, especially when they’re pushed to the limit. It may become surprisingly easy then.” “Or when they’re given justification for their actions.” “You’re right there,” Masahiko said. “In most cases, they’re provided with some justification for what they do. I’m not confident that I’d be any different, to tell the truth.

A definite life force connected us. Each was giving something to the other, and at the same moment receiving something. It was an exchange limited to a particular time and place. It was bound to fade and disappear. But the memory remained. Memory can give warmth to time. And art can—when it goes well—give shape to that memory, even fix it in history.

One is hard put to will oneself to cease thinking about a given matter. Namely, to determine to ‘stop thinking’ about something is itself a thought—as long as one follows that path, that something continues to exist. In the end, to stop thinking about something means to stop thinking about stopping thinking.”

Never wastes a move, that fellow. It is the only way he knows. Using both sides of his brain, all the time. He could never be a dolphin.”

“It’s hard to explain. But when she’s near, and I look at her face and watch her move, this odd feeling comes over me. The sense that somehow my life up to now may have been wasted. That I no longer understand the purpose of my existence, the reason I’m here. As if values I’d thought were certain were turning out to be not so certain after all.”

“Some become legends in their youth, though.” “Sure, there are a few. But there’s no great merit in that. In fact, it could be a real nightmare. Once you’re considered a legend, you can only trace the pattern of your rise for the rest of your life. I can’t think of anything more boring than that.”

It felt as though a fragment of real life had slipped into my sleeping mind by mistake. Then the moment I awoke, it fled like a quick-footed animal, leaving no trace behind.

“But you know, it seems to me that reality itself has a screw loose somewhere. That’s why I try to keep at least myself in line as much as possible.”

“So you think maybe they heaped on the stones to prevent whatever it was from escaping, and then built the little shrine to ward off its curse?” “Maybe.” “And then we went and pried it open anyway.” Mariye gave a small shrug.

Perhaps time really had stopped. Then again, maybe it kept nudging forward despite the fact that evolution, or anything resembling it, had ended. Like a restaurant approaching closing time that has stopped taking orders. And I was the only one who hadn’t figured it out.

That’s how bureaucracies work. It’s practically impossible to change something once it’s been decided. Going against the current means that someone, somewhere down the line, has to take responsibility.

His manners governed even the way he slept. The room seemed to be holding its breath so as not to disturb him.

We had been given an equation with multiple functions but almost no solid numbers. To make any progress, we had to nail down as many numbers as possible.

“My whole life may have been a mistake up till now,” Menshiki went on. “I feel that way sometimes. That I took a wrong turn somewhere. That nothing I’ve done has any real meaning.

“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.”

I felt the rush of owl wings, and heard a bell ring in the dark. Everything was connected somewhere. “Affirmative! Everything is connected somewhere,” said the Commendatore. “And my friends cannot escape that connection, however my friends may try.

It should be obvious, but the best metaphors make the best poems.

“This omelet is perfection,” I said. Menshiki laughed. “Not really. I’ve made better.” What sort of omelet could that have been? One that sprouted wings and flew from Tokyo to Osaka in under two hours?

“There are some things that can’t be explained in this life,” Menshiki went on, “and some others that probably shouldn’t be explained. Especially when putting them into words ignores what is most crucial.”

“It’s hard on you.” “There’s nothing to be done. Like I told you, dying is a major undertaking. It’s the person dying who has it hardest, though, so I really can’t complain.”

When it came down to it, though, could anything be completely correct, or completely incorrect? We lived in a world where rain might fall thirty percent, or seventy percent, of the time. Truth was probably no different. There could be thirty percent or seventy percent truth.

Time is the remedy for your concerns. It is the key for all things that possess form. True, time does not last forever, but as long as you have it, it is remarkably efficacious.

We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose.