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Heiner couldn't take his eyes off the last sentence for a long time. He belatedly realized that a faint smile was playing on his lips. Heiner touched his lips with a trembling hand.
Unable to bear it any longer, he opened a few more envelopes. Fragments of memories he'd tried so hard to keep hidden came flooding back, one by one.
It was all a lie, but it was the happiest time of his life.
There were moments when he wanted to forget everything and just settle down.
He wished the future would never come...
"I'm sorry."
Suddenly, her words came to mind as if he had been hit in the back of the head.
“It’s just everything...”
Annette wasn't accustomed to apologies. Even after a fight, she couldn't say it out loud, so she'd send a belated letter like this.
“I’m sorry, Heiner.”
Even then, the first part usually started with a reprimand for him, and the apology was often preceded by the modifier 'I also feel sorry to some extent'.
“Everything I don’t even know.”
At least she wasn't the type of woman to apologize like that.
Heiner, his face hardened, searched for the letter of forgiveness among the pile of letters on his desk. The uneven handwriting and line spacing seemed to reflect her inner thoughts.
The color slowly drained from his face as he traced the disheveled handwriting.
Months' worth of sleeping pills saved up. The crooked and messy embroidery on the handkerchief. The sight of her walking into the cold sea. The answer that there was no need to change doctors.
The traces that he had buried, telling himself that it couldn't be true and that she wasn't the kind of woman who would do that, were being pieced together.
She's not 'that kind of woman'─.
Ah.
Since when did she stop being the woman I knew?
A chilling feeling ran down his spine. Without time to think rationally, Heiner abruptly jumped to his feet. The chair slammed into the ground with a loud thud.
He stepped out into the hallway without even closing the office door. The heavy clatter of his heels echoed through the spacious hallway.
He couldn't be sure. It could have been a whimper. It could have been just oversensitivity. But his footsteps didn't stop; they quickened.
Major Eugen, who was on his way home from work late, called him with a surprised look on his face.
"Your Excellency...?"
Heiner passed him by without even looking at him, even though he was asked what was going on.
His heart raced terribly as he walked toward Annette's room. He was never the type of person to act rashly without confidence, but he couldn't quite appease his anxiety.
Heiner left the eastern government office, passed through the garden, and entered the main building. The servants, startled by the commander-in-chief's ominous demeanor, greeted him with a startled expression.
As he climbed the stairs, he saw her room inside. Heiner stopped one of the servants passing by and asked him.
“Where is my wife?”
“Yes? Oh, she’s probably still in her room. She must be tired and sleeping...”
He turned toward the room without further inquiry. With each step closer, the uneasy feeling grew more pronounced.
Heiner, standing in front of the door, knocked twice and called her.
"Ma'am."
Before he could even wait for an answer, he couldn't hold back and knocked again.
“Madam, are you inside?”
Heiner waited for the usual thin voice to return. He hoped for the characteristically weak, whispered reply.
Then he could go back, laughing that it was stupid of him to do something like that, and that she wasn't the kind of woman who would do that.
But there was no sign of life inside. Heiner immediately threw open the door.
The room was eerily quiet. Everything was neatly organized, and the bed was neatly made, without a trace of anyone lying down. For a moment, his heart sank at the eerie silence.
“Annette!”
Heiner called her name and searched the room with icy eyes. The commotion in the room drew the servant in, his eyes tinged with anxiety.
He checked everything from the closet to the powder room, but there was no trace of her. Finally, he walked to the bathroom.
“Annette!”
He didn't have the sanity to knock on the bathroom door. Heiner yanked on the doorknob.
The moment the door cracked open, a faint, steamy scent of roses wafted into his nostrils. Heiner caught something faintly wafting through the air.
It was a smell so familiar it made his spine tingle. A chill ran down his spine.
Before he could even register the smell of blood, the sight inside the bathroom came into view.
Heiner stood frozen. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. After a brief pause, his pupils slowly dilated.
A sharp pain passed through his head, as if a huge needle had pierced it.
He tried to call her name, but his voice was silent. Heiner rushed over, pulled her wrist out of the water, and checked her condition.
A pale, emaciated face was painfully embedded in his retina. Fortunately, she was still breathing. But it was precariously close to going out at any moment.
The servant who had checked the bathroom then gasped and covered his mouth. Heiner shouted fiercely without even looking back.
“Call a doctor! Now!”
The servant, who came to his senses late, ran out in a panic to call a doctor.
Heiner pulled her out of the water. The crimson water splashed down. His clothes were soaking wet.
The body stretched limply in his arms, like a broken-jointed doll, felt eerie. A greater sense of unease washed over him than when he had waited for his torturer in the torture chamber.
“No, no, Annette, no...”
Heiner muttered like a madman as he carried Annette to the bedroom. He tried to hold her tightly in his arms, but he couldn't, for he felt like she was going to break.
He laid Annette down on the bed, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and reached into the water jug to soak it in cold water.
A glass cup he'd accidentally touched fell, making a loud crash. He ignored it and poured water onto a handkerchief. His hands were shaking so violently that the water kept falling into strange places.
He wrapped a wet handkerchief around Annette's wrist and raised her arm above her heart. In an instant, the handkerchief turned red. Heiner's eyes fluttered.
There was too much blood. It was too much to believe it was coming from her body.
Heiner had seen wounds like this, and worse. But this was a completely different experience. He had never felt this level of fear, not even when he killed someone for the first time.
“It’s okay, it’ll be okay... Annette...”
Heiner kept mumbling something, whether to her or to himself.
Meanwhile, the doctor burst into the room. While the situation in the room left him speechless for a moment, Heiner spoke.
“Save her.”
The doctor flinched involuntarily at the ominous muttering.
“Save her!”
Heiner shouted in a hoarse voice.
His words sounded like a threat, or like the plea of someone on the edge of a cliff.
The doctor quickly assessed Annette's condition and prepared treatment. Others assisted with treatment or covered Annette with a blanket to maintain her body temperature.
While first aid was administered, Heiner stood motionless, his face as pale as Annette's.
Breathing was difficult, as if water had filled his lungs. Heiner gasped for air, as if the air was thin. His eyes slowly rolled from left to right.
A dry body lying motionless, a sheet soaked in red water, a handkerchief stained with blood, the doctor's moving hand, thin fingers hanging limply...
The entire sequence of scenes seemed disjointed, disjointed, and disjointed. Amidst this dissonance, Heiner absentmindedly moved his lips.
'How...'
How can this be?
You can't do this to me.
You shouldn't do this to me.
You must despair as much as I despaired. You must lose as much as I lost. You were always there in my unfortunate moments, so I must be there in yours.
As my life has been dark for too long, so too has your life...
Your life too...
Something in his head felt ripped out. The doctor shouted something to his assistant. Heiner listened absently, then unconsciously took a step back.
And he couldn't move for a long time.
***
In his dream, Heiner was standing in the middle of a rose garden.
Annette was beside him. Her wavy blond hair was pinned with a green jewel. Her sky-blue dress and blue emerald necklace gleamed in the sunlight.
Heiner remembered this moment clearly. It was the first time he had met her formally.
But Annette's face was scribbled with red crayon, and only the corners of her mouth, smiling, were visible beneath it.
Annette asked him, tilting her white parasol slightly.
Heiner. What are you thinking?
It was a dream, after all. Annette didn't say anything like that back then. Heiner stared down at her, her appearance somewhat grotesque, and answered.
I'm thinking of you.
My thoughts? What do you think?
When I first met you...
This is it. The rose garden of the Valdemar mansion. Your father introduced you to me.
No, before that.
Before that?
Before that.
Annette tilted her head as if she had no idea.
From somewhere, a piano melody began to waft along with the wind. Annette's figure was swept away as if by the wind. Soon, she completely vanished, dissolving into dust.
Heiner slowly turned around, following the source of the sound.
Through the open window, the sound of a piano drifted from inside the mansion. He walked toward it as if possessed.
As he approached, step by step, the piano's sound grew clearer. Reaching the window, Heiner stood there, staring blankly inside.
A girl in a white dress was playing the piano in the room. Her small hands rippled across the keys. A gentle melody rose and fell in the softly rippling sunlight.
It was an image that could never be erased from his memory.
Heiner suddenly looked down. A rich bouquet of starches and hydrangeas was placed on the windowsill.
Ss ...
A wind blew again from afar. The petals of the bouquet swayed. The piano music suddenly stopped. The girl turned her head toward the window.
He woke up from his dream.
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