For a moment, Hainer stared at the business card, but contrary to expectations, he showed little reaction. He simply tucked it into his trouser pocket rather than his bag.
An uncomfortable silence fell. Anette, who had been fiddling with her teacup, hesitantly opened her mouth.
“……It’s about Ansgar.”
Hainer’s hand, which had been putting his belongings back into his bag, paused for an instant. Then, as if nothing had happened, he closed the bag with a natural motion and raised his head.
“If I were to follow him.”
Anette, eyes lowered, continued softly.
“Would that be a second-best option for me? I’m not saying I will follow him. I just wondered what you thought.”
“I don’t know what answer you want from me.”
“Is there a royalist restoration faction in Franche?”
At the direct question, Hainer’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Hainer, you know, don’t you?”
“Did Ansgar Stetter say that? Did he ask you to join him because there is a royalist restoration faction in Franche?”
“No, I thought of it myself. Ansgar only asked me to go with him.”
“If you thought that yourself, why ask me?”
“I’m informing you. That I have nothing to hide from you, and that I won’t secretly follow Ansgar.”
Though the content of her words professed innocence, her voice was not particularly desperate. No particular emotion surfaced on Hainer’s face as he listened.
“……A second-best option. Perhaps it could be.”
Deep in thought, he uttered dryly.
“In the past, Ansgar Stetter had his eye on you, and he is currently unmarried. And if there truly is a royalist restoration faction in Franche, as you think, they would treat you quite well. But I can’t guarantee it. Your reputation within Padania is the worst, so they might think you hold little utility, mightn’t they?”
Hainer paused briefly, then smiled a smile devoid of warmth.
“You said there was nowhere to be happy, yet it seems somewhere willing to take you in has appeared. Though it is a useless assumption either way.”
“As I said, I won’t follow Ansgar. My guess may be wrong. However……”
Anette continued in a cautious tone.
“However, if by any chance you didn’t know…… that is, the possibility of a restoration faction existing within Franche…… I only wanted to inform you. Of course, someone like you may have already known—”
“You would gain absolutely nothing from telling me that.”
His gray eyes, like those of an informer, slowly slid downward, then rose again. Backlit, the tips of his hair appeared faintly yellow.
Anette smiled bitterly.
“Wasn’t it all to create a better world?”
Was the world now better than before? Anette couldn’t feel it. Because the changed world had been too cruel to her.
But people said the world had become much better, and would become even better still.
Then those words must be true. She was a foolish, dim-witted woman. She had never judged for herself, and even if she did now, it would be the wrong judgment.
The words she had spoken to Aneli Engels had been sincere, too. Anette respected the great cause of those who sought to change the world. Even if that cause was endlessly cruel to her.
And even if she could not sympathize with it.
Feelings like vengeance or resentment had long since vanished. Like ash left after everything had burned, they had become nothing but old scars.
In the silence, Hainer’s breathing could be heard. It was upright and regular, like his disposition.
“……I have never wanted such sympathy from you.”
After a moment of silence, Hainer placed his hand on the blanket. Then he leaned his upper body close to her. As his strict-looking face drew near, Anette shrank back slightly.
A cold voice fell.
“Don’t think at all, Anette. Just live as the current takes you.”
“……”
“It’s what you’re good at.”
Though she was clearly the one being mocked, for some reason Hainer’s eyes looked wounded. He quickly erased that expression and opened his mouth with a composed, cold face.
“I know better than you that Ansgar Stetter wanted you. If you hadn’t married me, he would have become your husband. I don’t believe your words.”
“I never loved him.”
“Noble marriages of such high standing are not based on love alone.”
Hainer’s words were not wrong. Cases of people marrying after a love affair were unusual. Though even that had been a lie.
The tea had grown cold before she knew it. Anette murmured softly.
“Whether you believe it or not, it is the truth.”
If following Ansgar was the second-best choice, she already knew the best one.
Their gazes entangled in indecipherable meaning. Anette took one more sip of tea and set the cup on the nightstand.
“I’m tired. I’d like to sleep now.”
Hainer gazed down at her face, as if verifying whether her words were true. When Anette turned her head, he withdrew his upper body.
Anette turned her body and lay down. When Hainer turned off the gas lamp, darkness fell upon the room in an instant.
From behind her came the rustling sound of him lying down. Anette closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep. The two bodies, not touching, slowly cooled like tea.
***
Hainer raised his upper body from the bed at dawn. Light filtering through the incompletely closed curtains palely drenched the bed.
Silently pulling back the blanket, he looked at the woman lying apart from him. Anette, who seemed to have taken a long time falling asleep, was now deeply asleep.
Her tightly curled-up face was buried in the blanket. The white blanket rose and fell in small, regular movements.
Without realizing it, Hainer leaned his body closer. Between her hair and the blanket, a cheek white as paper was revealed.
He unthinkingly tried to bring his hand to it, then stopped. Then, withdrawing his hand, he dry-washed his face.
‘This is uncomfortable. I should have just taken a separate room…….’
It had been a long time since he had shared a bed with Anette. He had originally intended to take another room, but strangely, he had felt uneasy.
Hainer himself didn’t know exactly what had made him uneasy.
Hainer forcibly drove from his mind the image of the woman submerged in seawater. Rising silently from the bed, he walked toward the coat rack.
As Hainer took a cigar from his coat pocket, his gaze suddenly fixed on one spot. The pocket of Anette’s cardigan, hanging beside it, was bulging.
He took out what was inside the pocket. Something glinted briefly in the darkness. He had thought it might be jewels, but upon closer inspection, they were completely useless fragments.
‘What is all this trash?’
So this was what she had been so diligently picking up? Just this?
For some reason, his mood soured. Hainer stuffed them into the trash can and went out to the balcony. His breathing eased considerably in the open air.
Hainer could not remain for long in dark, enclosed spaces. His condition had improved now, so it wasn’t entirely impossible, but he still felt mentally cornered.
It was because of memories from the interrogation room.
The only one who knew this fact was his psychiatrist. Everyone else who might have known had died long ago.
His hair fluttered in the chilly night wind. Hainer gazed at the sea steeped in darkness, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth. From afar came the sound of waves crashing in layers.
He was not a habitual smoker. He had quit quite some time ago, but when his thoughts were tangled, clamping a cigar between his teeth dulled his musings somewhat. Even without lighting it.
‘Is it psychological?’
Hainer had seen many such psychological phenomena. Complaining of pain in a leg amputated long ago, or believing fake medicine truly worked when deceived into taking it during a wartime shortage.
He rolled his eyes downward to look at the cigar in his mouth. A faintly brown stick caught his sight.
He had quit smoking six years ago. It was when he had begun courting Anette. She had never shown any sign of disliking the smoke or smell, but he had quit of his own accord.
There was no longer any need to make a good impression, so there was no need to refrain. Yet Hainer still could not start smoking again. Because……
When his thoughts reached that point, Hainer faintly grimaced. He clicked his tongue softly and rested his arms on the railing.
“You must have found me truly laughable.”
If only that were the case, I wouldn’t feel this filthy.
No matter how much I drag you down and trample you— is it your problem or mine that you still look so damned noble?
Hainer held a bitter smile. He had agonized over this for a very long time, but still could not reach a conclusion.
Anette Valdemar.
You touch my lowest and weakest part.
You make me infinitely miserable.
At least this is your problem and your fault.
Hainer pulled the cigar from his mouth and straightened. He turned and entered the room. Returning the cigar to his coat pocket, he stared briefly into the trash can.
The things Anette had picked up had lost their gleam and lay quietly in the darkness.
“My heart is of little use anyway.”
Your heart is not useless.
Hainer quietly moved his lips.
He wished that woman would feel the despair of being unrequited. He wished she would suffer over a reality beyond her reach. And despite it all, he wished she would be miserable because her heart refused to yield.
Just as he had once been.
Therefore, at least to Hainer, her heart was necessary.
Hainer raised his head with a somber face. After confirming that Anette was still asleep, he quietly entered the bathroom.
When he turned the tap, cold water poured out. He stood still for a while, touching the flowing water with his fingertips.
He felt the trash she had picked up on the beach rattling inside his body.