Episode 107
Even after the door closed, Sasha stood blankly in that spot for a long time.
As if a tempest had swept through, the room was littered only with debris-like remnants of sentiments she had failed to voice and tangled misunderstandings. How many minutes had passed by her own sense of time? Only then did Sasha press a hand to her chest and let out a deep sigh, as if exhaling a blocked breath all at once.
She belatedly looked at her left hand, messy with crumbled soap. The soap that had been flung nearby was visible too. A cheap, crude soap smelling of some unidentifiable grass. Sasha bent down and picked it up. After staring fixedly at the finger-shaped marks left in it, she tossed it into the basket nearby.
Soon she staggered over to the bed and barely sat down. And as if it still didn’t feel real, she rubbed her own cheek with her other, whole hand.
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Her first name had been “Marie.” It was a name given by the couple who had adopted her when she was only three years old. The three-year-old her had been pretty even among her peers, capturing the couple’s attention in an instant.
They were a foreign couple who had come from a distant land, and the husband was a teacher who taught the language of that country. Young as she was, she lived with them for about half a year. Yes. Merely half a year. When the wife passed away from pneumonia, the husband gave up on his dream of a new life in the Empire, liquidated everything, and returned to his homeland. Of course, among the liquidated assets was not only the house he had painstakingly acquired but also the young girl who had lived with him for half a year.
Before long, she received her second name, “Sophia.” The ones who adopted her a second time were a wealthy businessman couple, and she lived with them for about three and a half years. Fortunately, that couple had been healthy. However, less than two years into living with them, the factories run by the couple closed down one after another. The household finances rapidly deteriorated. Yet despite their worsened circumstances, the couple’s spending habits and way of thinking about money were no different from when they had been wealthy, and she found that disparity unbearable.
The affection that had once been abundant was short-lived, and heated arguments flew between the couple every other day. They talked of nothing but money. They would even carry the young girl around deliberately to elicit sympathy from people and borrow money. Before long, the wife left home, and the husband fell into the bottle. Every day, strange men came and pounded on the door as if to break it, looking for the couple. It was around then that the orphanage director, having heard news of the runaway wife, came to take her back.
After returning to the orphanage, she no longer tried hard to smile brightly and make herself appealing to the adults who came to see her. On the contrary, she hid in corners as if trying not to catch their eyes, and when their gazes met, she put on a sullen expression unbefitting her age and clicked her tongue. It was because she had realized that an appearance which made others think she had been raised prettily and preciously was ultimately of no help whatsoever.
Rumors had played their part too. Since bad things happened to every family that adopted her, the administrators would chatter openly right in front of her. Robin, a tailor who had come to the orphanage looking for a quick-handed child, said he wanted to take her without paying any heed to such rumors. The reason was simple. He simply said he liked her eyes.
And so she received her third name, “Anna.” Anna liked Robin. At least Robin, unlike the previous couples, did not foolishly treat her like a daughter and shower her with affection. He evaluated her solely by her usefulness.
He wasn’t wealthy enough to indulge in excessive luxury, but she rather liked that too. If the businessman couple had taught her the transience of affection and the terror of money and poverty, Robin taught her labor. He taught her hope as well, so that she could learn tailoring from him and dream of a future.
Yet she was shattered into pieces once again when she was sent back.
Anyway, when she received the name “Sasha,” that had been her state. It was a time when she was experiencing firsthand the helplessness of her young self, the future plans she had briefly dreamed of already in ruins.
The old lady of the Dilton Mansion, that grand estate, was wealthy and spared no material expense for her. It was strange to be told to imitate her granddaughter, but later she came to think it was rather comfortable precisely because of that. However, as she gradually grew accustomed to life in the mansion, and furthermore grew accustomed to a life where everyone called her “Miss” and attended to her, she had foolishly begun to grow greedy.
It had probably been, to some extent, a child’s cunning calculation, and added to that, a desire to finally be shown proper affection. She had truly wanted to become Sasha. Even if she were a stand-in for life, she wanted that old lady to love her sincerely, and therefore wished that no circumstances would arise later to cast her out. Yes. In truth, that had been her main goal.
However, when she gathered her courage to place her hand on the old lady’s knee and seek affection, what returned was a slap. The old lady said her granddaughter did not act that way toward her.
She was somewhat dumbfounded. Hadn’t the old lady been scolding her moments ago, pointing fingers and shouting that she acted too much like her own granddaughter?
The faint hope she had dared to harbor was quickly crushed. She grew accustomed to the old lady’s hysterical temperament, and to the mental illness that erupted convulsively whenever her real granddaughter was mentioned. She grew disgustingly accustomed to that loathsome reversal too—suddenly flying into a rage after nitpicking, then making her rest her head on her lap and forcibly stroking her hair.
Rumble—.
Thunder rolled outside the window. Sasha, sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up, lifted her buried head and looked out the window. A growling thunderclap mixed with the sound of rain followed.
Yes. Hadn’t it been a day like this too, with rain falling and thunder striking?
The old lady had died on a day when it was raining and thundering. On the night the old woman was being laid in her grave after the funeral, Sasha packed her bags intending to leave the mansion just like that. Since she had come with nothing to begin with, there was almost nothing to pack when leaving.
As she was packing her bags to leave, Mr. Turner the lawyer came to visit late that night. Carrying that damned will.
That absurd conditional inheritance—when she first heard it, she had scoffed at Mr. Turner as if utterly dumbfounded. She kept deriding it, saying she didn’t need something like that. However, when Mr. Turner said, “Shouldn’t you receive compensation for all you’ve suffered?” she could no longer laugh.
Mr. Turner said it was ‘compensation’ for her suffering all this time. So did that mean it was conditional compensation? When she pressed him, asking if it wasn’t fraud, Mr. Turner did not particularly make excuses about that. However, Sasha hadn’t really pressed him because she wanted an answer.
In fact, she knew the answer best herself.
She knew all too well how worthless it was to have nothing, and how miserable it was to have nowhere to go. Wasn’t that precisely why she had endured and held out at the mansion?
Knock, knock—.
At the knocking sound from the door, Sasha abruptly lifted her head, which had been buried in her knees again. However, contrary to her expectations, what came from beyond was the voice of the servant bringing washing water.
Contrary to her expectations.
What on earth had she been expecting again?
Sasha washed her face with the water the servant had brought, and she could easily picture how tomorrow would unfold. Isaac would probably apologize to her again the moment he saw her. Saying he had been rude in many ways, that they should do as she wished.
He would say to forget it ever happened. But would that be easy? She and he would grow more awkward and end up worse off than before. Yet that man would again feel sorry about that and try his utmost to act as usual. It was obvious without needing to imagine.
And he can’t even act.
You really are, in that regard, so terribly clumsy.
……And yet how lovely that side of you is.
Isaac had said he liked her. The moment she heard those words, surprise as if her heart had dropped with a thud; simultaneously, what stabbed her was uncontainable joy. It had been but a moment, yet unable to hide how pleased and fluttered she was, because it was so absurd to herself, she had nearly let her expression crumble openly.
Sasha picked up a dry towel and rubbed her face more roughly than usual. She rubbed her poor face hard, as if trying to erase the choked-up emotions by taking it out on it. Of course, since emotions could not be erased that way, she simply glared at the poor wall with sharp, pointed eyes.
Sasha liked Isaac.
Yes. She decided to admit it.
The wall-like barrier she had erected long ago as Sasha had already crumbled long ago. She had involved herself in his affairs beyond necessity, interfered. As if it were “favor.” “Favor,” my ass. It was because she liked him. Who would interfere to such excess over mere favor?
Once she realized it, apart from the relief, it was painful too, so Sasha scrunched up her face. The helplessness of wondering what if she ruined things again. Added to that, the self-loathing of thinking, I’m truly hopeless. Yet unable to endure that she grew even greedier than before now that she knew.
Everything was simply overwhelming.
In all the time she had lived until now, had she ever wanted something so sincerely?
She hadn’t.
Her loosened hair flowed down. Sasha stopped brushing and looked at the comb she was holding.
She stared blankly at the comb Isaac had given her.
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Knock, knock—.
Isaac had been curled up on the bed, and the moment he heard the knock, he raised his body. With a displeased face, he was debating whether to open the door when there came another knock, knock from beyond, more impatient than before.
Isaac clicked his tongue and finally got up from his spot. He rose from the bed and headed toward the door, and irritably massaging the back of his neck, he flung the door open.
And froze on the spot.
“I have something to say.”
Isaac looked down blankly at her face, which seemed somehow brimming with regret. Her hair was loosened, and the face visible between the strands was deeply furrowed.
Yet the tip of her nose was red.
Like someone who had been crying. Or like someone who was already holding back tears.
“Will you let me in?”
Whether Isaac was looking at her state with a rather dumbfounded face or not, Sasha asked for permission once again.