Even Now
Heiner wore the look of a man who could not trust his own ears. Annette clenched her fists atop her knees and said it again.
"I must have been quite the joke to you."
In a moment like this she felt she ought to seize his shoulders and pour out every bitter accusation she had, yet all that filled her was a strange, hollow emptiness.
She lowered her head, then lifted it once more.
"Isn't that right? You acted out a little love for a woman you found so loathsome and repulsive that it made you sick… and the fool of a woman actually believed it and went around saying she loved you too. It's laughable, isn't it?"
She gave a small laugh, as though she truly found it amusing. The sound died almost at once. With every trace of mirth gone from her face, she continued.
"But if that was all it was… you should have told me three years ago. When you had already achieved your goal and no longer needed to deceive me—you should have told me then. I had no idea…"
Her throat closed. No tears came. The words that escaped were locked tight, rising from some deep place inside her.
"…I loved you for three more years after that."
At those words Heiner's eyes wavered violently. Or perhaps it was only her own vision that shook. Annette quietly dropped her gaze.
Over those three years her love had been shattered so many times that its original shape was nearly impossible to discern.
To break often is also to rebuild often. For three years Annette had collapsed, and just as often she had rebuilt herself.
He will come back. He will smile at me again. He will change his mind. He will whisper tender words once more. He will love me again.
How many more times would she have to repeat it?
"Even now."
Heiner broke the silence. His voice sounded as if its edges had crumbled away.
"Even now… do you still love me?"
Annette took the question for mockery or sarcasm. The tone itself was not quite that, yet to her ears it was exactly that.
She smiled, dry and brittle, and murmured,
"If I said yes, how pathetic would that make me?"
The stove quietly breathed its warmth into the room. Eyes fixed on the bedsheets, Annette spoke into the emptiness.
"I don't know anymore. What I loved was the performance—the way you pretended to love me. Everything I loved about you was a lie. So doesn't that make my love a lie as well?"
Blue veins stood out in a tangled lattice across the back of the hand he had braced against the floor. Annette thought of the days when she had nestled her cheek against that hand.
"By now I even wonder whether any of it matters… My situation is far too wretched for me to keep going on and on about love alone."
Could something rebuilt over and over still be called the same thing it had been at the beginning? Annette could not be sure.
In truth, it no longer seemed important.
"My feelings aren't useful for anything anyway. Whether I love you or not—nothing changes, does it?"
When she raised her head again, her face was simply peaceful, as though she carried no past at all.
"This will never happen again."
"…"
"Never again."
Heiner had half expected it from the moment they entered the hotel, and it seemed he intended to spend the night here.
The luggage his attendant had brought contained a change of clothes, shoes, toiletries. Annette showered in the hot water the staff had prepared.
When she emerged from the bathroom in fresh clothes, she stopped short. Heiner, whom she had assumed would take another room, was sitting at the table leafing through a newspaper.
"…You're staying here as well?"
"Why? If I stay somewhere else, are you going to run off alone again?"
"That isn't what I meant."
"You never know."
He answered curtly and rose from his seat. As he gathered his clothes to head for the bathroom, Annette spoke in a rush.
"Wait—let me call the staff for hot water—"
"It doesn't matter."
He had been about to close the bathroom door when he turned back. A cold voice came through the gap.
"Don't even think of leaving. Unless you want my men outside to catch you and drag you back."
Even after the door shut, Annette stood there blankly. She felt a little dazed. The cutting words earlier, and now this—he truly seemed angry.
She listened for a moment to the sound of water, then moved. Sitting at the vanity, she pressed the towel against her hair again and again.
A pale woman stared back from the glass. There was not a spark of life in her. Annette rubbed the mirror for no reason and left a handprint across her own reflection.
By the time she had finished drying her hair and settled into bed, Heiner came out of the bathroom. Annette pulled the covers up and curled into herself.
He extinguished the lights and left only the gas lamp hanging above the table. Its yellow glow faintly illuminated one corner of the room.
From his bag he took a sheaf of documents and sat in the chair. Annette closed her eyes and tried to sleep, yet sleep would not come; she could not even grow drowsy. In the silence the occasional rustle of turning pages sounded.
Why did he come all the way here when he's this busy?
Even after hearing the entire truth from him, there were still so many moments when she could not understand his actions.
Sometimes he behaved as though he never wanted to look at her again; other times he acted as though he wanted her to remain forever at his side.
Either way, their relationship was as precarious as standing on a thinly frozen lake.
He worked late into the night. Annette counted every small sound with open eyes—the scratch of a pen, the brush of fingers over paper, his low breathing…
Only after a long while did Heiner turn out the gas lamp and rise. When he walked toward the bed, Annette shifted and edged herself toward the far side to make room.
Heiner's brow tightened at the motion.
"You're still awake?"
"…I can't sleep."
Looking displeased, he climbed onto the bed. The mattress sank beneath his weight.
Annette sat up, poured water from the glass on the nightstand, then leaned down to retrieve her handbag from beneath the bed. She was about to open a packet of medicine when his hand closed around her wrist.
"What is that?"
"Medicine."
"Sleeping pills? Why?"
"Because I can't sleep."
"So every time you can't sleep you take sleeping pills? Do you think that's good for you?"
"…It's not as if I take them for fun."
Heiner exhaled an irritated sigh and snatched the packet from her hand. Annette sat there awkwardly, hand still half-raised, watching his face for cues.
She could not tell which part of her had angered him this time. What did her medicine have to do with him?
"Stop taking this garbage. Do you want to become addicted?"
"I'll manage it myself."
"And managing it yourself has left you in this state?"
Annette turned her head, avoiding his eyes.
Every conversation with Heiner went like this. He found fault with everything she did. Perhaps her very existence irritated him.
It wasn't like this before… It never used to be like this.
She knew the reminiscence was meaningless, yet her mind kept drifting back.
In the past their conversations had always held love and affection. They had quarreled now and then, but only the ordinary, fleeting conflicts of any couple.
After every quarrel Heiner had always been the first to apologize and seek reconciliation. And once they made up, he would invariably hold her close and kiss her forehead or cheek.
Looking back now… of course he did. He had to keep the relationship intact.
To become the marquis's right-hand man he would have needed to marry the daughter. So he had catered to her whims and performed love.
Her stomach churned even though she had eaten nothing. Annette rolled over, then turned her head again at the sound of Heiner rising once more.
He set a teapot on the stove and selected tea leaves from the room's supply. In the hush the water began to boil. Soon a soft fragrance of tea filled the air.
"Here."
Heiner held out a cup. Annette looked up at him with wide eyes. He urged her.
"Drink."
She sat up and took the cup almost without thinking. Warmth seeped into her palms.
"It should help you sleep."
"…What is it?"
"Chamomile."
His voice remained curt, and for a moment it even sounded displeased.
And so she could not make sense of him at all.
Watching his expression carefully, Annette sipped the tea. Heiner regarded her with cool eyes, then gave a slight nod of his chin.
"Give me the bag."
"The bag… why?"
"I want to look."
Look at what, exactly?
She swallowed the rest of the question and hesitantly held out the bag. Heiner took it as though snatching it and sat on the edge of the bed. One by one he began laying her belongings out on the mattress.
"Is this the sleeping medicine?"
"No, the sleeping pills are these…"
"Then this?"
"Headache powder."
"And this?"
"Digestive."
Glancing at his rigid face, Annette added by way of excuse,
"My stomach keeps getting upset."
"What does the doctor say?"
"Just…"
She hesitated a moment, then answered honestly.
"…That I'm being oversensitive."
If Heiner asked Arnold, the truth would come out anyway. She had no desire to lie out of pride.
Heiner held the medicine packets in silence for a while. Then, without a word, he rummaged deeper into the bag.
That expressionless face seemed to say, Of course. Annette bit down hard on her lower lip.
Having examined most of the contents, Heiner picked something up from the bottom of the bag. A white card. Annette's face went rigid the instant she recognized it.
It was Ansgar Stetter's calling card.