Willingly My Stain
“If, as you claim, I’m living as well as I am only because you’re my wife, then I have no reason to want a separation. Pushing this hard suggests you have something to fall back on.”
“That’s not it. I simply no longer want to live with you.”
“Why? Because you learned I betrayed you and now you hate me?”
“I could never hate you, Heiner.”
At those words Heiner’s eyelid twitched once. His lips parted as if he meant to speak, but Annette did not wait for him.
“I hate no one. Even if the entire world hated me, I still couldn’t. I don’t have the right.”
Heiner looked as though he could not believe those words had come from her mouth. A strange feeling stirred in Annette.
Had he imagined her locked inside this residence, grinding her teeth at the people who discussed her disposal—without a shred of guilt?
“Every newspaper says the remnants of the dictatorship must be completely eradicated. I’m not sure which part of me needs eradicating, but if that’s what they want, I don’t mind.”
Annette still knew little of politics. Yet she understood the cause. She understood human rights and democracy. She understood why people had wanted a new order.
In the past she had neither known nor cared to know. Now she did.
Guilt, debt, shame—those things existed as well. Of course they were not feelings rooted in true understanding.
Everyone simply told her she was wrong, so she had come to accept it. Nearly three years had passed since the fall of the monarchy. Three years was more than enough time to drive a person’s mind into a corner.
“You don’t mind? Do you even realize what you’re saying, madam?”
“I don’t care about anything else, as long as you give me the divorce.”
Even if she fell, she did not want to fall while still the wife of Heiner Valdemar. She did not want the man she had loved to see her like this. It was the last scrap of pride left to her.
If there was one thing she wished to reclaim, it was the time she had spent loving him.
“Divorce, divorce, divorce.”
Heiner’s words came out clipped and hard.
“You’ve lived so easily that divorce must seem easy to you as well.”
“……Is it so difficult? If only you agree.”
“I do not agree.”
Large hands seized both her shoulders. The heat of him through the thin slip was far too intense. He spoke savagely.
“I said I do not agree.”
“I’m no use to you anymore. As I told you, I’m only a stain……. Let go of me.”
But Heiner only tightened his grip. Their faces were so close they nearly touched. The murderous pressure stole her breath.
A voice, dark and sunken, burrowed into her ear.
“You will gladly become my stain.”
“Heiner.”
“You will remain my wife. You will never leave this place. You will never so much as dream of freedom or happiness. Under my eyes you will endure every misery and pay the price for your sins.”
He ground each syllable out. Their gazes locked at point-blank range; their breaths mingled.
When Annette frowned at the tingling pain in her shoulders, Heiner finally released her. A precarious silence settled.
The heated atmosphere slowly cooled. After watching her for a time, he spoke again, far more composed.
“In a few days there will be the opening banquet at the Belen Hotel. You will accompany me. Prepare yourself, madam.”
“…….”
“As my wife.”
He added the last words with deliberate emphasis. The brief storm in his eyes stilled once more. On that flawlessly sculpted, marble-perfect face lingered an unreadable obstinacy.
“I refuse.”
For the first time Annette defied him.
“You will go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why? Didn’t you always love parties?”
Heiner sneered, recalling the endless round of parties and social gatherings she had attended before their marriage.
“If I refuse, will you drag me there by force?”
“Think carefully, madam. If you keep defying my will like this, I can lock you in a mental hospital for the rest of your life.”
“……What?”
“No matter how hard you deny you’re mad, no one will believe you. I won’t let them. Running away will do you no good either. I will find you, no matter what. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your days locked away in an asylum—then you had better do as I wish.”
His voice, sharp as shards of broken glass, drove each syllable into her ears.
Annette stared at him, her face drained of color. Her mind tilted like a chair with one short leg. The hand clutching the blanket trembled finely.
Was this man truly Heiner Valdemar?
Was this the lover she had once adored without equal?
Heiner’s expression, eyes half-lowered and cold, looked no different from usual, yet to Annette he was utterly unfamiliar. So unfamiliar that he terrified her.
Why hadn’t she realized sooner? She should have known from the moment her father died, when he turned cold as if he had only been waiting. He had approached her from the beginning with a purpose. From the beginning he had been this kind of man.
No…… the truth was she had known. She had simply been unable to admit it. Back then her mind had been under siege; she had needed something to cling to. That something had been Heiner.
Annette had brainwashed herself again and again. Otherwise she could not have endured.
It’s only because I’m in this situation now.
He married me thinking I was a noble, honorable young lady of high birth, and then I fell so completely.
So of course his love might cool for a while.
But he will come back.
To the moments we loved. To the seasons we loved. To the……
“Answer me, madam.”
Ah.
Why hadn’t she understood sooner?
Love that sprang from usefulness was never love at all.
Annette opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Her voice would not come. She swallowed a trembling breath with difficulty and gave the barest nod.
Even after her acquiescence Heiner did not look satisfied. If anything he seemed displeased, as though the fear he had planted and the frailty that grew from it were not to his liking.
Ash-gray eyes slid slowly over her face. Those eyes appeared endlessly cold, yet held a strange heat.
For some reason Annette found it hard to meet them and lowered her head. At last Heiner rose from the bed. Without a backward glance he strode from the room.
Bang. The door shut.
Annette sat dazed, gathering her scattered thoughts. It felt as though a storm had just swept through. The events of moments ago already seemed as distant as ancient history.
She let out a short sigh and opened the drawer beside the bed. Inside were several packets of sleeping pills—the ones Dr. Arnold had prescribed.
She tore open a packet, swallowed one of the three tablets, and put the remaining two into a small medicine bottle. The bottle, no larger than her palm, was already more than half full.
For quite some time Annette had been hoarding sleeping pills the way a squirrel hides food. Every time the bottle grew heavier, she felt an odd sense of security.
She closed her eyes and lay down, waiting for the medicine to take effect. Hoping, just for tonight, that she would not dream of nightmares.
“—So I never went abroad to study. I’m rather timid, you see. And I don’t speak any foreign languages. I heard you’ve traveled a great deal, Heiner?”
“Yes. Operations took me quite a few places.”
“Can you speak all those languages?”
“I can manage, though many places used the common tongue.”
“How many languages do you speak, then……?”
“Four, counting the common tongue. I was educated at the institution from childhood.”
“Wow, that’s truly impressive. I have no talent for studying at all.”
“I know you play the piano well.”
“Well, I’ve been playing since I was little. For a very long time I dreamed of becoming a pianist, but…… these days I’m not so sure.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve started to doubt my talent. I’m wondering whether this path really suits me. Ah, you don’t have to take it so seriously. Given my station, piano is considered more refined as a hobby than a profession anyway.”
“……Your playing is excellent, Annette. I’m certain you would become an outstanding pianist.”
“Ahaha, what are you saying? You’ve never even heard me play.”
“You look as though you play well.”
Heiner shrugged. Annette laughed and playfully swatted his forearm. He smiled back. Roses swayed in the breeze.
Whoosh—. The scene blurred as though mist had rolled in, then sharpened again. Seasons changed several times. They remained together.
Landscapes passed, and passed, and passed. A summer night sky dense with stars unfurled. They floated on a boat on the lake.
“Annette. Marry me.”
Heiner knelt on one knee and slipped a ring onto her finger.
“I will make you happy for the rest of your life.”
His eyes curved. Annette covered her mouth with one hand, then, unable to contain the fullness in her chest, threw her arms around him. Heiner laughed and wrapped his arms around her back.
Stars spilled across the water. The single boat and the two figures floating in a world of pure glitter were as beautiful as a painting.
A current born from some distant place flowed in and shattered the scene. Her vision crumbled piece by piece. Amid the gathering ruins only his voice echoed like a refrain.
“I will make you happy for the rest of your life.”
“Happy for the rest of your life…….”
“For the rest…….”
“Be unhappy by my side for the rest of your life.”
Annette opened her eyes.