Killing Commendatore

652 Pages·2018·3.93 MB·English

by  Haruki Murakami

ALSO BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
Fiction
1Q84
After Dark
After the Quake
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of
Pilgrimage Dance Dance Dance The Elephant Vanishes Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World Kafka on the Shore Men
Without Women Norwegian Wood
South of the Border, West of the Sun Sputnik Sweetheart The Strange
Library A Wild Sheep Chase Wind/Pinball
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Nonfiction
Absolutely on Music (with Seiji Ozawa) Underground: The Tokyo Gas
Attack and the Japanese Psyche What I Talk About When I Talk
About Running: A Memoir

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Translation copyright © 2018 by Haruki Murakami All rights reserved. Published in the United States by
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in Japan in two
volumes, titled Kishidancho goroshi: Dai ichi-bu, Arawareru idea hen and Kishidancho goroshi: Dai ni-bu, Utsurou
metafa hen by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, in 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Haruki Murakami.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.
Ebook ISBN 9780525520054
Cover images: (blue canvas) Alis Photo Alamy; (eyes) Science Photo Library Alamy Cover design by Chip Kidd
Title page images: (moon) Stocktrek Images, Inc./Alamy; (eye) Science Photo Library /Alamy v5.3.2
ep
Contents
Cover
Also by Haruki Murakami
Title Page
Copyright
Part 1: The Idea Made Visible
Prologue
Chapter 1: If the Surface Is Fogged Up
Chapter 2: They Might All Go to the Moon
Chapter 3: Just a Physical Reflection
Chapter 4: From a Distance, Most Things Look Beautiful
Chapter 5: He Has Stopped Breathing…His Limbs Are Cold
Chapter 6: At This Point He’s a Faceless Client
Chapter 7: For Better or for Worse, It’s an Easy Name to Remember
Chapter 8: A Blessing in Disguise
Chapter 9: Exchanging Fragments with Each Other
Chapter 10: As We Push Our Way Through the Lush Green Grass
Chapter 11: The Moonlight Shone Beautifully on Everything
Chapter 12: Like That Nameless Mailman
Chapter 13: At This Point It’s Merely a Hypothesis
Chapter 14: But Something This Strange Is a First
Chapter 15: This Is Only the Beginning
Chapter 16: A Relatively Good Day
Chapter 17: How Could I Miss Something That Important?
Chapter 18: Curiosity Didn’t Just Kill the Cat
Chapter 19: Can You See Anything Behind Me?
Chapter 20: The Moment When Existence and Nonexistence Coalesce
Chapter 21: It’s Small, but Should You Cut with It, Blood Will Certainly
Come Out
Chapter 22: The Invitation Is Still Open
Chapter 23: They All Really Exist
Chapter 24: Merely Gathering Raw Data
Chapter 25: How Much Loneliness the Truth Can Cause
Chapter 26: The Composition Couldn’t Be Improved
Chapter 27: Even Though You Remember Exactly What It Looked Like
Chapter 28: Franz Kafka Was Quite Fond of Slopes
Chapter 29: Any Unnatural Elements
Chapter 30: It Really Depends on the Person
Chapter 31: Maybe a Little Too Perfect
Chapter 32: His Skills Were in Great Demand
Part 2: The Shifting Metaphor
Chapter 33: I Like Things I Can See as Much as Things I Can’t
Chapter 34: Couldn’t Recall the Last Time I Checked My Tires’ Air Pressure
Chapter 35: You Should Have Just Left That Place Alone
Chapter 36: What I Want Is Not to Have to Discuss the Rules of the Game
Chapter 37: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
Chapter 38: He Could Never Be a Dolphin
Chapter 39: A Camouflaged Container, Designed for a Specific Purpose
Chapter 40: I Could Not Mistake the Face
Chapter 41: Only as Long as I Didn’t Turn Around
Chapter 42: If It Breaks When You Drop It, It’s an Egg
Chapter 43: It Couldn’t End Like Any Other Dream
Chapter 44: The Traits That Make a Person Who They Are
Chapter 45: Something Is About to Happen
Chapter 46: People Are Powerless Before a Sturdy, Towering Wall
Chapter 47: “It Is Now Friday, Is It Not?”
Chapter 48: The Spaniards Simply Couldn’t Navigate the Angry Seas Off the
Irish Coast
Chapter 49: Filled with Just as Many Deaths
Chapter 50: It Will Involve Ordeal and Sacrifice
Chapter 51: Now Is the Time
Chapter 52: The Man in the Orange Cone Hat
Chapter 53: Maybe a Fireplace Poker
Chapter 54: Eternity Is a Very Long Time
Chapter 55: A Clear Contravention of Basic Principles
Chapter 56: It Appears That Several Blanks Need Filling In
Chapter 57: Something I Have to Do Eventually
Chapter 58: Like Hearing About the Beautiful Canals of Mars
Chapter 59: Until Death Separated Us
Chapter 60: If That Person Had Pretty Long Arms
Chapter 61: I Have to Be a Brave, Smart Girl
Chapter 62: One Can Stumble into a Labyrinth
Chapter 63: But It’s Not What You’re Thinking
Chapter 64: As a Form of Grace
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A Note About the Author
Reading Group Guide
PART 1
THE IDEA MADE VISIBLE
Prologue
T
oday when I awoke from a nap the faceless man was there before me. He was
seated on the chair across from the sofa I’d been sleeping on, staring straight at
me with a pair of imaginary eyes in a face that wasn’t.
The man was tall, and he was dressed the same as when I had seen him last.
His face-that-wasn’t-a-face was half hidden by a wide-brimmed black hat, and
he had on a long, equally dark coat.
—
“I came here so you could draw my portrait,” the faceless man said, after he’d
made sure I was fully awake. His voice was low, toneless, flat. “You promised
you would. You remember?”
“Yes, I remember. But I couldn’t draw it then because I didn’t have any
paper,” I said. My voice, too, was toneless and flat. “So to make up for it I gave
you a little penguin charm.”
“Yes, I brought it with me,” he said, and held out his right hand. In his hand—
which was extremely long—he held a small plastic penguin, the kind you often
see attached to a cell phone strap as a good-luck charm. He dropped it on top of
the glass coffee table, where it landed with a small clunk.
“I’m returning this. You probably need it. This little penguin will be the
charm that should protect those you love. In exchange, I want you to draw my
portrait.”
I was perplexed. “I get it, but I’ve never drawn a portrait of a person without a
face.”
My throat was parched.
“From what I hear, you’re an outstanding portrait artist. And there’s a first
time for everything,” the faceless man said. And then he laughed. At least, I
think he did. That laugh-like voice was like the empty sound of wind blowing up