"Killing Commendatore"

The painting "Killing Commendatore" is a symbol of secrecy, a key theme in the novel. Specifically, it is an allegorically telling of an assassination that never took place, but which Tomohiko Amada had been a part of planning. Tomohiko and his friends, including his lover at the time, planned, in 1938, to murder a Nazi official in Vienna. When the plot went wrong, all the conspirators except for Tomohiko were killed, and he was sent back to Japan after Japanese officials intervened. Sworn to silence, "Killing Commendatore" was Tomohiko's only attempt to express himself and to tell the story of what he was involved in. By locking it in his empty attic, he thought he was ensuring the secret would outlive him.

When the artist finds the painting, he also discovers that supernatural forces have attached themselves to it. In effect, the weight of Tomohiko's secrets...