CH 24

Heiner could not take his eyes off the last sentence for a long time.

He noticed a step late that a faint smile was drawn on his lips. Heiner touched his mouth with a trembling hand.

Unable to resist, he opened a few more envelopes. One by one, the fragments of memories he had tried to keep hidden came to light.

Everything was a lie, but it was the happiest time of his life. The moments when he wanted to forget everything and live in peace like that. He wished that the future would never come…

“I’m sorry.” (A)

Her words came to his mind suddenly as if he had been hit on the back of his head.

“Just everything…” (A)

Annette was not a woman accustomed to apologies. She was a woman who, even after a fight, could not speak directly to him, but only delivered letters later.

“I’m sorry, Heiner.” (A)

Even then, the first part usually began with a criticism, and the word sorry was sometimes preceded by the qualifier ‘I’m sorry, too, to a certain extent.’

“Even for the things I don’t know.” (A)

She wasn’t the kind of woman to apologize, at least not in that way.

Heiner’s face tightened as he looked at the letter of mercy  in the pile of letters on his desk. The uneven handwriting and spacing between the lines seemed to speak for her inner feelings.

The blood slowly drained from his face as he traced the disordered handwriting.

Sleeping pills she had saved up for months. The crooked embroidery on the handkerchief, the way she walked absentmindedly into the sea.

The answer was that there was no need to change her doctor.

The traces she had been showing were opposite to the woman he knew, the traces he was suspicious of came together one by one.

She was not that kind of woman.

Ah.

Since when did she stop being the woman he knew?

A terrifying feeling of foreboding ran down his spine.

Without time to reflect further rationally, Heiner jumped up from his seat. The chair was pushed back with a loud thud.

He strode out into the hallway without closing the door to his office. The sound of his shoes echoed heavily in the vast hallway.

He wasn’t sure. It might have been a groundless fear. Maybe he was just being oversensitive. But his steps didn’t stop and became faster.

Major Eugen, who was on his way home late, called him with a surprised look on his face.

“Your Excellency ……?”

The question of what was wrong was added, but Heiner walked past him without even looking at him.

All the way to Annette’s room, his heart pounded horribly. He was the kind of man who never held frivolity without certainty, but it was hard to ease his anxiety.

Leaving the eastern government office and passing through the gardens, Heiner entered the main building. The servants greeted him hurriedly at the unusual presence of the Commander-in-Chief.

As he ascended the stairs, he could see the door to her room. Heiner caught one of the passing servants and asked.

“Where is the madam?”

“Yes? Oh, she is probably in her room. She’s tired and going to bed.”

He turned toward the room without further questioning. With each step closer, the horrible premonition became more vivid.

Heiner stood at the door and knocked twice, calling for her.

“Madam…”

Before she could reply, he knocked again impatiently.

“Madam, are you inside?”

Heiner waited to hear the usual small voice. He hoped for a whispered reply without the characteristic force.

Then he would be able to leave, scoffing that he had been foolish and that she was not a reckless woman after all.

But there was no sign of her inside. Heiner quickly opened the door.

The room was frighteningly quiet. Things were neatly arranged, and the bed was tidy, with no signs of having been laid down. The strange silence made his heart pound for an instant.

“Annette!”

Heiner walked around the room with razor-sharp eyes, calling her name. A servant came along with anxious eyes at the commotion in the room.

He checked the closet and even the powder room, but there was no sign of her anywhere. Finally he walked to the bathroom.

“Annette!”

He had no reason left to knock on the bathroom door. Heiner yanked the doorknob roughly.

As soon as the door opened, a terrible scent of roses stung his nose along with a misty steam. Meanwhile, something faintly emanating from the mist caught him.

The smell was disgustingly familiar. His head felt cold.

Before his mind could register that this was the smell of blood, the scene in the bathroom rushed before his eyes. Heiner stopped. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. After a moment’s interval, his pupils gradually dilated.

A sharp pain passed through him as if a giant needle had penetrated his head.

He tried to shout her name, but his voice failed him. Heiner rushed over and pulled out Annette’s wrist, which was submerged underwater, to check her condition.

Her pale face stung his retina painfully. Fortunately, she was still breathing. But she was in danger of stopping at any moment.

A servant who then checked the bathroom gasped and covered her mouth. Heiner did not look back, but shouted ferociously.

“Get a doctor! Now!”

The servant, belatedly came to her senses, rushed to call a doctor.

Heiner pulled Annette out of the water. The red-tinted water dripped down like a shower. His clothes were soaking wet.

Like a broken doll, her body sagged in his chest was a horrific mess. Anxiety overtook him more than when he was waiting for his abuser in the torture chamber.

“No, no, Annette, no…”

Heiner moved Annette to the bedroom, mumbling like a madman. He tried to hold her tightly to his chest, but he couldn’t because he felt like she was going to break.

After laying Annette on the bed, he took a handkerchief from his pocket. He reached over and grabbed a water cup to wet the handkerchief with cold water.

The glass he accidentally touched fell and cracked. He poured the water on the handkerchief, not caring.

The stream of water kept falling in odd places due to his hands shaking maddeningly.

He wrapped the wet handkerchief around Annette’s wrist and lifted her arm above her heart. Instantly the handkerchief turned red. Heiner’s eyes shook.

There was too much blood. Too much to think it was blood from her little body.

Heiner had had many wounds like this, or worse than this. But he felt completely different. He had never felt such fear, even when he had killed someone for the first time.

“It’s all right, it’s going to be okay……. Annette…..”

Heiner repeated the mumbling, not knowing whether he was talking to her or to himself. Meanwhile, the doctor burst into the room.

While he was unable to speak  for a moment due to the situation in the room, Heiner opened his mouth.

“Help her.”

The doctor winced at the murmur that spilled out threateningly.

“Save her!”

Heiner shouted in a gravel voice.

His words sounded like a threat, or perhaps a plea of someone driven to the edge of a cliff.

The doctor hastily examined Annette’s condition and prepared to treat her. Others assisted with the treatment and covered Annette’s body with blankets to maintain her body temperature.

While the first aid was being administered, Heiner stood guarding his seat, not moving an inch. His face was as pale as Annette’s.

It was hard for him to breathe, as if his airways were filled with water. Heiner gasped for breath as if the air was scarce.

His eyes slowly rolled from left to right.

A thin body lying motionless, a sheet soaked with red water, a blood stained handkerchief, the doctor’s moving hands, thin fingers hanging helplessly…………

The whole series of scenes did not connect smoothly and looked disassembled in pieces. In the midst of this disharmony, Heiner absentmindedly bit his lips.

‘How did you…’

How can you do this?

You can’t do this to me.

You shouldn’t be doing this to me.

You must despair as I despaired. You must lose what I have lost.

You have always been there in my unhappy moments, so I must be there in yours.

For as my life has been too long and dark, so must yours…

Your life too ………….

Somewhere in his head seemed to crack. The doctor shouted something to the assistants, but the voices sounded distant.

Heiner took an involuntary step back. And he couldn’t move for a long time.

***

In the dream, Heiner was standing in the middle of a rose garden.

Annette was with him. A green jeweled pin was in her wavy blond hair, fluttering in the wind.

Her sky-blue dress and blue emerald necklace shone in the sunlight.

Heiner remembered this moment clearly. It was the moment he first formally met her.

But Annette’s face was red like it had been rubbed with red crayons. Only her smiling mouth was visible beneath it.

Annette tilted her white parasol slightly with a small smile.

“Heiner. What are you thinking about?”

This was also a dream. Annette did not say this at the time. Heiner looked down at her somewhat suspiciously and answered.

“I am thinking of you.”

“Of me? What kind of thoughts?”

“When I first met you……..”

“Isn’t it here? The rose garden of Valdemar’s mansion. My father introduced you to me.”

“No, before that.”

“Before that?”

“Before that.”

Annette tilted her head as if she had no idea.

Somewhere along with the wind came the melody of a piano. Annette’s shape was swept by the wind. Soon she turned to dust and vanished without a trace.

Heiner slowly looked behind him, following the source of the sound.

The sound of a piano was streaming from inside the mansion through the open window. He stepped toward it as if possessed.

The closer he got, the clearer the sound of the piano became. Arriving at the window, Heiner stood stunned and stared inside.

A girl in a white dress was playing the piano in her room. Her small hands went back and forth over the keys like waves. Soft melodies rose and fell in the gentle shimmering sunlight.

It was a figure that could never be erased from his memory.

Heiner looked down. A rich bouquet of woven lilies and hydrangeas lay by the window.

Whoosh.

The wind blew again from a distance. The petals of the bouquet swayed helplessly. Suddenly the sound of the piano stopped. The girl turned her head to the window.

He woke up from his dream.