Nothing Left
Annette stepped into the room farthest back on the first floor of the residence. She switched on a few of the incandescent bulbs fixed along the walls, and the interior slowly revealed itself.
In the center of the room stood something large, draped in a white cloth. She took hold of the edge of the cloth, hesitated a moment, then drew it slowly away.
A glossy black surface emerged. It was the piano she had used since her girlhood. When she married it had been moved from the Rosenberg mansion to the Waldemar residence, and after Heiner became supreme commander it had followed them here to the official residence.
Annette sat on the bench and lifted the lid. The keys were still pristine, not a single one faded. Yet they had gone untuned for so long that she could hardly expect a pure tone from them.
She gazed quietly at the keyboard. Even now she could be certain which note would sound if she pressed any given key.
But it's all useless now.
After her father's death she had naturally been barred from any competition. Every achievement she had built collapsed. The labels that clung to them were damning: gained by power, by connections, by money.
That was when she had stopped being able to play the piano. She could not even press a key, let alone perform.
At first she had tried again and again, countless times, only to fail. After that she simply turned her back on the instrument. She forgot it. She tried to forget it.
I thought it would get better with a little time…
Under the dim light of the bulbs the keys looked pale as bone. If she touched them, she felt her fingertips would freeze and shatter into dust.
The night deepened. After sitting before it for a long while, Annette suddenly understood.
She truly had nothing left.
“The primary weapon has been adopted as a thirty-caliber bolt-action rifle with a five-round magazine. The seal is excellent; the chance of a jam looks low.”
“At this level we may not need semi-automatics after all. And here—can the barrel be kept as far from the receiver as possible?”
“I'll see to it.”
Heiner nodded and wrapped the rifle model in its cloth again. For the snipers' main armament he preferred to examine the prototypes and approve them himself.
“Past quitting time. We'll stop here for today. Good work.”
“Yes, sir!”
Brigadier General Fritz and Major Eugen saluted and left the supreme commander's office.
Heiner reviewed the documents on the purchase of fighter aircraft, stamped them, then turned to the report on France's diplomatic situation.
Arms purchase records…
As he scanned the table of French military materiel, Heiner's brow tightened.
Rattland had long since won its independence from France, yet many French still lived on that soil. They were pro-French, eager for reunification. Motive for war was more than sufficient.
Worse, Rattland's domestic affairs were in chaos from the army's repeated coups. If that civil strife spilled over into a diplomatic crisis among the great powers, a larger war could easily erupt.
With a seasoned instinct beyond his years Heiner had managed to keep the defense treaty intact, yet that was no sure answer.
No clear pattern has shown itself yet. But that doesn't mean we can simply watch.
It was an age when most nations leaned hard into nationalism. A war that broke out in such a climate would certainly whip up a fever of volunteers. The sacrifices would be countless.
Heiner knew all too well what aftermath a war left behind. He had lived it; so had his comrades. Anyone who suffered that kind of shock was bound, in some form or other, to…
“I want to go home.”
His thoughts stopped dead in one place.
With a faintly irritated look Heiner took his hand from his forehead. Why was he thinking of that woman now?
He rubbed his eyes once and forced his gaze back to the papers. But the print slipped beyond comprehension, breaking into scattered letters.
He tried to drive the distraction out; it refused to go. With her it was always like this. Heiner looked away from the documents as if they gave him a headache.
A string of images began to replay in his mind without mercy.
The eyes that had sought him for help, the body trembling faintly before the piano, the strangled face that fled the ballroom, the back bowed over retching on the floor…
The way Annette had behaved then looked almost like the eruption of trauma.
“Ha.”
Heiner let out a short, involuntary laugh. Trauma? Trauma? A woman who had not shed a single tear in three years—what trauma?
When she was young she used to cry over the pettiest things.
While that woman dripped tears because her piano playing was not improving, Heiner had been under the curses and beatings of the training camp, enduring brutal drills.
While she held elegant parties inside her splendid, sheltered mansion, he had killed people under the name of operations and been tortured in return.
And that woman dared speak of trauma.
The papers in Heiner's hand crumpled slightly. He clenched his teeth and flung them aside. The sheets fluttered down with a soft rustle.
“Let's divorce, Heiner.”
She could be thrown into such turmoil by a single piano, yet she could speak of divorce with that calm face—as if none of it held any meaning at all.
“Do I still have any use left for you?”
Use? She had none. But the time for talking about usefulness had long since passed.
Heiner knew this choice was irrational. Still, he could not simply let her go in peace.
After everything he had endured just to have her.
“It must have been hard, pretending to love the daughter of your enemy.”
“Damn it.”
Heiner dragged a rough hand down his face.
That clumsy first love from his lonely boyhood was nothing but a past he wanted erased.
When Heiner returned to the residence the steward delivered a report. Listening, his expression hardened to stone. Without even changing out of his uniform he went straight to Annette's bedroom.
Since the Belen Hotel opening gala Annette had shut herself inside her room. She had never been one to come out much, yet this time the degree was extreme.
According to the steward she was refusing meals as well. It was not something he needed to care greatly about, yet it rankled him as if it were some form of defiance.
His hand paused just as he was about to fling the door open. Heiner clenched his fist, then opened it again, and knocked twice.
That aristocratic young lady would despise any ungentlemanly manner.
After I've already trampled every last one of her feelings, this is almost funny.
Mocking himself, he opened the door. Inside, Annette sat with perfect posture, doing embroidery. She still looked offensively lofty.
She did not even glance at him. Her lowered eyes and closed mouth formed a profile so flawless it might have been measured with a ruler.
In contrast to that perfect still-life, empty medicine packets lay scattered on the side table. Displeasure flickered through Heiner's eyes at the sight.
“Have you spent the whole day in here doing nothing but embroidery? Skipping meals as well?”
He spoke in a cold tone that only half hid his irritation.
“Is this some kind of protest?”
“It's nothing of the sort, so don't concern yourself.”
“How many of these pills are there?”
Muttering, Heiner strode to the side table. Every translucent paper packet lying on top was empty. He pulled open the drawer beneath.
Annette, who had been stitching colored thread through cloth, jerked her head up.
“Why are you opening things without—”
“Have you hidden classified documents in there?”
“It's not that.”
“Then is there any reason I shouldn't look?”
No further words came from behind him. Heiner closed the first drawer and opened the second. Inside were a few more packets and a small bottle no larger than a palm.
When he opened the bottle it was half-filled with white pills. He shook a few into his hand to examine them. Round and tiny, each was stamped with letters and numbers.
“What is this?”
He turned and asked. Annette blinked several times before answering hesitantly.
“Just medicine.”
“Don't you receive your medicine regularly from Arnold?”
Annette was a woman who took medicine more often than she took meals. Because she seemed to overdo it, he had ordered Arnold always to dispense the doses in individual envelopes rather than whole bottles, on a fixed schedule.
“I haven't been taking them well lately… so they piled up.”
Piled up? If she truly had not been taking them, the envelopes should still have been sealed and full. Not gathered separately like this.
With a rigid face Heiner closed the bottle.
“I'll take this for now.”
“Why would you—”
“There's no need to keep outdated medicine. Get a fresh prescription from the doctor.”
It was a voice that allowed no excuse and no rebuttal. Annette's lips parted as if she meant to speak, then she simply let her head droop in defeat.
Suddenly Heiner's gaze fell on the embroidery cloth lying on the table. Even to his untrained eye the stitches on the white fabric were crooked and a mess.
He knew her embroidery had once been rather fine. In the past Annette had given him several handkerchiefs she had embroidered herself.
“Heiner, a gift.”
The embroidery on the handkerchief she had handed him with a shy smile had been so delicate and beautiful. He had thought that if embroidery had been a subject at the training camp he would certainly have failed it.
He had even sneered to himself that aristocratic young ladies learned only such refined, elegant things—how overflowing with leisure they must be.
He had never used those sickening handkerchiefs. Yet he had never been able to throw them away either. Not even now. In truth he had simply shoved them away, but he still remembered the patterns and the precision vividly.
The embroidery of those days and the embroidery before him now were so different it was hard to believe the same person had done them. As if a child had stitched them…
Heiner looked at the cloth with open distaste and pressed the call button. A servant entered at once. Without turning he gave the order.
“Bring a meal. Something light.”