Chapter 113
When Rijan sat by the window and looked down, she would often see a man holding Polina’s hand as they slowly walked through the garden. Unlike Ezekail, who, even after losing his sight, had memorized the structure and layout of every place he stayed in and strode about quickly as though he were not blind at all, Polina’s husband seemed to have accepted his blindness and adapted perfectly to that life.
“Miss Rijan?”
Rijan, who had been trying to slip away on tiptoe, stopped when the man called her by name exactly. Though not to Ezekail’s degree, Polina’s husband also seemed to have developed rather keen hearing, for he had identified the direction she was standing in with relative accuracy.
“Um……”
The man gave an embarrassed smile.
“I did try to think of a way to greet you naturally, but honestly, nothing came to mind. In that case, I thought it would be better to simply acknowledge that I know you. After all, I’ve heard who you are, Miss Rijan, and in truth, you probably don’t exactly not know me either. Ah, my name is Ethan.”
Ethan tapped the floor with the end of his cane, as though offering a handshake.
Rijan hesitated.
How was she supposed to express that she was not in the mood to go out of her way to exchange greetings with a stranger? If he had been someone who could see, he would have stepped back at the sight of her hesitation or the slight downward cast of her eyes. Unfortunately, the man named Ethan who had appeared before her had no way of understanding her indirect signals.
Should she wait until Anna came back?
Ah, but Anna would probably not return until a suitable amount of time had passed.
She should at least pretend to walk away by making her footsteps loud. Just as Rijan made up her mind and forced strength into her heels, taking a step or two—
“Even if other people make a fuss as though heaven and earth have turned upside down because you can no longer speak, isn’t it actually rather comfortable for you, Miss Rijan?”
The question that followed abruptly caught her steps.
At the sound of her footsteps cutting off, Ethan smiled gently.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. And I didn’t mean that there was something wrong with you, Miss Rijan. In fact, I’m the same way.”
He spoke to her in a friendly manner.
“My wife describes me as an optimistic person, but in truth, I’m simply living as though in a dream.”
Ethan’s cane scraped against the stone floor as he felt for direction.
“Would you sit for a moment? I’m certain there was a chair somewhere around here, but where was it again……? I can’t quite remember. Even though I’ve walked around this garden with my wife any number of times, I still don’t really know where anything is. Though that’s partly because this mansion is so large.”
Rijan stared at him silently for a while, then took the lead toward where the chair was. In any case, he was someone without sight, and she felt a sense of obligation to guide him.
It was only after coming to the Valdemaera main house that Rijan learned that truly large gardens sometimes had chairs placed here and there so one could sit and rest. So as not to disrupt the overall landscaping of the garden, the chairs took the form of ornaments.
Rijan tapped the chair to show him where it was. Ethan reached out, felt over the shape of the chair, then sat down.
“Thank you.”
Instead of taking a seat on another nearby chair, Rijan hesitated over whether to leave or stay. Sensing this, Ethan threw out the name of a spell that would hold her there.
“You’re quite used to dealing with blind people too, Miss Rijan. It must be because of Major Valdemaera.”
“……”
“I know I must make you uncomfortable, Miss Rijan. This sort of meeting is actually a first for me as well…… but to my wife, it seems there was something about you and me that might resonate. Yes, perhaps avoidance? In that we’re avoiding something, we may be a little alike.”
Avoidance.
Rijan repeated the word in her mouth.
Everyone else had described Rijan’s silence as a disability or an illness. Today was the first time she had met someone who called it avoidance.
“The fact that I’m living as though in a dream also means, to some extent, that I’m avoiding reality. As for you, Miss Rijan…… if you begin to speak, you’ll incur the duty of communication, a debt of words. At a time when so many people are watching your mouth, by forcibly losing your voice, you have gained a kind of reprieve. My wife and Major Valdemaera seem to be very worried about your symptoms. But, well, I thought a little differently. What’s so wrong with wanting to avoid difficult things for a while? Isn’t that so?”
Ethan asked lightly in return.
“If it does not make you uncomfortable, Miss Rijan, I think it is truly one of the most effective means of self-defense. For any person, their own peace of mind is the most important thing. The side that feels uncomfortable should be the one to resolve the problem. Though I suppose that is why Major Valdemaera is so restless.”
The topic had taken a completely different direction from what she had expected. Rijan raised her head and looked at Ethan.
“Today will probably be the first and last chance I have to meet you, Miss Rijan. And you, from the impression I got from my wife, seem to have originally been a calm and tight-lipped person, and now you’re in a position where you cannot reveal another person’s secret even more than before. So, may I tell you one secret? My wife is trying hard to cure my eyes, but in truth, I don’t particularly want to regain my sight. My eyes are my wife’s sense of debt.”
Ethan lowered his voice a little more and added,
“Just as your voice is Major Valdemaera’s sense of debt.”
Rijan, who remembered Polina saying that she specialized in eye surgery because she wanted to cure her husband’s eyes, and that her husband was also waiting for the day he would someday open his eyes, was inwardly startled by Ethan’s secret confession.
“With these two eyes, I saved both the life and the heart of the woman I had loved one-sidedly. Wouldn’t you call that a fair equivalent exchange? As a result, I married the person I love and am living quite enjoyably.”
“……”
“But perhaps someday my wife really will discover a way to cure my eyes. She’s an intelligent person, after all. And she’s someone who works hard at everything. I think that part of her is wonderful. So if the day comes when my wife suggests that we try surgery, whether it succeeds or fails, I will agree to it first. It’s fine if it fails. I can simply go on living as I do now. But if it succeeds……”
“……”
“If it succeeds, then we will probably have to spend some time in confusion. Since I have never actually seen how badly my wife and I were injured after the fire, it won’t be easy to adapt to how changed we are.”
“……”
“Even so, if I open my eyes…… the first thing I plan to do is pull my wife into my arms and tell her thank you. Just because she was hurt a little less, my wife has carried far more burdens than I have. Even if I wanted to bear them with her, realistically, there wasn’t much I could do compared to my wife.”
Even knowing Ethan could not see it, Rijan nodded her head little by little. The story the man told was easy to understand. It seemed she could not deny that Ezekail and Polina had brought her quite a decent conversation partner.
“The reason I’m saying this is because, in truth, all I have to talk about with you, Miss Rijan, is my own story, and because there is a possibility that you, too, will go through processes somewhat similar to the ones I have experienced so far. As someone who has walked that road first, I wanted to share my experience.”
Ethan closed his mouth for a moment and sensed the presence of the person before him. The woman who had at first been wary of a stranger and had tried to avoid him was now quietly listening to his words. That was a relief.
“When some part of your body is not whole, other people try to make decisions for you in many areas of life. Even I, for instance, don’t know what clothes I’m wearing today. I put on whatever my wife dressed me in. It’s probably white, gray, or black. My wife prefers achromatic colors, you see. I like bright primary colors, though.”
Rijan unconsciously checked Ethan’s clothes. As he had guessed, he was wearing black trousers, a white shirt, and a black coat.
“But if I can live with my wife, then not being able to wear clothes to my own taste is such a small drawback that it cannot even be called a flaw. That is why I would be all right even if I suddenly opened my eyes one day. Because I have already gained more than I lost, and because even if I am hurt, I am confident I can overcome it with my wife.”
The man was comfortable and relaxed throughout. Enough for her to feel just how satisfied he was with his present life.
Ethan was confident that he would be all right even if he suddenly opened his eyes one day. He had even decided that when that day came, he would embrace Polina and tell her thank you. He was someone capable of shouldering whatever future came to him.
But what about me?
If one day, my voice suddenly returned……
Rijan bit her lip.
What situation would she face once this reprieve ended?
What first words would she speak with the voice she had regained?
“For that, I found that it is very important to know your own heart well: what you want, how much you can bear, and whether you are ready to accept the reality that will come after change occurs. Of course, it is something that requires considerable courage. Sometimes, you must face parts of yourself you would not want others to discover, such as your true nature or your lowest depths.”
As if he had read her mind, Ethan posed a question.
“How much do you know yourself, Miss Rijan?”