Chapter 53
At Ezekail’s firm declaration, Polina looked at the master of the mansion and the maid he had indicated.
Afternoon light filtered through the half-drawn curtains and fell across him at an angle. The half of his face revealed in brightness was elegant, while the other half, sunk in shadow, was intense. He was a man like a painstakingly painted portrait, enough to make one understand why he had stood at the center of attention even while roaming battlefields filthy with blood, sweat, and dust.
And the maid standing one step behind him, in the shade, was a delicate beauty. She was also the one who had guided Polina to the drawing room. The maid, who in one light looked as young as a girl and in another somewhat more like a mature lady, had unmistakably youthful features, yet gave off an impression that made her age difficult to guess. Moreover, she was the rare sort of person who had neither screamed nor shown revulsion upon seeing the burn scars covering most of Polina’s face.
So she was the one……
“Rose will be by my side.”
Rose—the woman whom this man, whose arrogance and cool indifference had seemed ingrained in his speech and manner from the very first impression, referred to with boundless tenderness.
“Won’t you, Rose?”
Ezekail drew out the line of his mouth as he sought the maid’s agreement.
Ordinarily, people who suddenly lost their sight became awkward in their expressions and movements for a time, as they lost spatial awareness and the ability to read another person’s face. Ezekail was not like that. In particular, the more abrupt the accident that robbed someone of sight, the more likely they were to be seized by shock and anger and lose control of themselves, but there was nothing unstable in Ezekail’s attitude toward the maid. No matter how one looked at it, Ezekail was simply a man who wanted to be the only man to her.
So they’re not merely close.
Somehow, from the very beginning, she had felt a subtle current between master and maid that went beyond their stations.
Even so, the surgery was a separate matter. Hoping Rose would help persuade him, Polina shook her head.
“Regardless of whether Miss Rose is present, opium is necessary.”
“I don’t need it.”
But Ezekail was firm as well.
“That will not do.”
“It will. I’m telling you, all I need is Rose.”
Neither Ezekail, who insisted on undergoing surgery without opium, nor Polina, who insisted that she could not perform surgery without opium, would yield. As their opinions showed no sign of narrowing easily, Rose could not rashly take either side and fell silently into thought.
From the standpoint of the doctor who had to perform the surgery, Polina’s concern in trying to snuff out every possible spark of danger was reasonable. But when she thought of the suffering Ezekail had endured to escape withdrawal, she could also understand why he shuddered at the thought of opium.
Rose asked quietly,
“If he receives the surgery, will his sight truly return?”
“I believe it will return, so long as no unforeseen situation occurs that ruins the surgery.”
“Even though it is a difficult surgery, is there no chance that something might go wrong?”
Another question followed in the same tone.
Since it was not a common operation, it was only natural that there would be great anxiety about its effects. In fact, most patients remained half in doubt until the very end and came to Polina only after their condition had worsened to near blindness. It was the reason she had become accustomed to difficult surgeries, however unintentionally.
Polina answered the other woman’s question with a doctor’s bearing.
“To be frank, if I said I was certain of a one hundred percent success rate, that would make me a fraud. However, when it comes to eye surgery, among all the doctors in Astrie, there is likely no one with as much experience as I have. I perform only eye surgeries, after all. If I cannot succeed at an operation, then I believe no one in Astrie can.”
“……I see.”
There was a slight hesitation between the movement of her lips and the voice that actually emerged. Perhaps because of that, Rose’s reply carried a strangely subtle air.
Polina grew somewhat puzzled and became conscious of Rose.
Does she not want the surgery to succeed?
Like other patients, the emotion Polina sensed most clearly in Rose’s reaction was fear. And within her worry and sadness, there was a suffocating heaviness that seemed threaded with a strand of resignation.
Resignation?
Resignation, of all things. What reason would she have to resign herself when the man she loved might regain his sight?
That could not be. She must have misread it.
Polina pushed the ambiguous sense of wrongness from her mind.
“Is there a reason you insist on only eye surgery?”
Just then, Ezekail’s question followed.
Most doctors handled multiple fields at once. Some might have more specialized knowledge in a particular area, but it was rare for someone to do “only” one surgery, as Polina had put it.
“Because among surgeries, it is one that does not involve seeing blood?”
“No. If one becomes a doctor and fears blood, that would be absurd. I have even experienced losing a great deal of blood myself.”
“Then why?”
Polina ran a hand over the burn scars that had consumed the whole of her skin.
“Miss Rose showed no sign of shock, so you would not know, but my face bears severe burn scars.”
Polina’s voice was plain. Even as she confessed the story of how her face had been completely ruined, she had no intention of seeking the listener’s sympathy or pity; she spoke of it simply because it was fact.
“About eight years ago, there was a fire at the school. I heard that something caught fire during a scientific experiment in a nearby laboratory, and as it kept spreading, it seems it reached the medical department as well.”
Rose’s eyes widened.
“How awful…….”
“At the time, I had fallen asleep in an empty practice room. The other students all evacuated outside without realizing I was missing, so by the time I woke after inhaling the acrid smoke, the flames were already blazing beyond all control.”
“…….”
“The practice room was in a rather secluded location, and there were no windows. Fire was on every side, and because of the smoke I couldn’t even see the door. I thought I was certain to die. But then, suddenly, a classmate of mine ran into that place to look for me.”
Rose spoke carefully.
“They must have been a very dear friend. To come in and save you despite the danger, when such a large fire had broken out.”
“Well. Rather than close…… we were rivals. We competed, overtaking and being overtaken by each other. He had the best grades among the male students, and I had the best grades among the female students. Because of that, we were treated as the representative male and female students, and there was a bit of a battle of pride between us. I often hear that my way of speaking is stiff and frightening as I work as a doctor, and this too is a habit I picked up at university. Since there weren’t many female students in the medical department, everyone tended to change even the way they spoke so as not to appear weak.”
The professional school that trained doctors was a place students entered with a recommendation letter from their principal after graduating from the ordinary school Rose had attended, if they wished to pursue deeper studies. Since it gathered only a very small number of highly intelligent students, it was understandable that pride would clash.
“That may be why that classmate was the first to notice my absence…… In any case, that day was the first time we even held hands. Until then, every time exam results were announced, he would check the scores and offer me a handshake, which was so irritating that I would slap his hand away.”
Even in the midst of a serious story, there was one part that particularly caught the ear. Perhaps Polina had been the only one who regarded the other person purely as a rival.
Rose looked down at her own hands.
She would not have known before, but now she did. Ever since becoming aware of his feelings, Ezekail could not leave Rose’s hands alone either. He kept touching and kneading them, and frequently laced his fingers through hers. Even in the midst of their intimacy, even in the mornings when they woke after falling asleep together, their fingers were always entwined.
“There was no time to recall the uncomfortable feelings of everyday life. We joined hands and ran out together because we wanted to live. The problem was that the building had begun to collapse. Flames poured toward my face, and there was no way to avoid them. My classmate’s situation was even more severe. Fragments of the building had flown into his eyes. When he could no longer open his eyes, he pushed me from behind, telling me to get out first.”
“How did you escape?”
“From that point on, I don’t remember much except that I was the one who grabbed his hand and pulled him along. The two of us simply ran in any direction we could, taking the flames with our whole bodies, and before we knew it, we were outside. Fortunately, at least, there were many people from the medical department nearby, so we received emergency treatment immediately…… But as you can see, the scars on my face remained. I suffered, yes, but in truth my classmate’s injuries were greater than mine. The severe burns were a problem, but more than that, the fragments had dug deep, and he went completely blind.”
“Ah…….”
Rose chose her words carefully.
“Then you must have graduated from school alone.”
“No. My classmate’s mind was originally, well, extraordinary. Once he saw a book, he memorized it in its entirety. I, on the other hand, was the diligent type who studied through sheer repetition. So it would have been a waste of talent to expel him from school simply because he had gone blind, and the professor made a special allowance for only my classmate to take his exams orally. We competed for the top place until the very end and graduated together.”
Polina grinned.
“And then we got married right away.”
It was the first bright, refreshing smile she had shown.