Flight

“There’s still ever so long to go, and now all at once you want to walk out of the theater…”

And a premiere, at that. To slip out of such an occasion so openly would be a grave discourtesy to audience and performers alike. I glanced cautiously around us; partitioned off by the box walls though we were, an empty seat was bound to set people talking.

“They’re bound to think it ill-mannered.”
“Then let them think it.”

Once again, Herman met it with the same breezy unconcern.

“Think it over properly, Gloria. Isn’t it the greater loss — wasting your time on an opera you aren’t even watching, all for the sake of how others might look at you?”

Watching Herman at moments like these, I would wonder how a man could be so free of the eyes of others. Whether it came of his parents’ influence or simply the life he had lived, there were times I truly envied it in him.

“So what will it be. Stay and watch, or leave?”

“…”

“For my part, I mean to do just as you’d have me.”

Herman handed the choice to me as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I turned and stared into the darkness that had settled over the opera house. For some reason, that stifling dark felt like something that had long held me in its grip. All at once it did seem, just as he’d said, that sitting there was a waste of time, and it was true enough that I hadn’t been able to fix my attention on the performance the whole while.

As I hesitated over my answer, Herman coaxed me with fine, tempting words.

“Come out with me now, and I’ll take you to the most beautiful place in all the Empire.”

The most beautiful place in all the Empire, no less. He had a rare gift for piquing a person’s curiosity.

“Trust me. You won’t regret it.”

Herman held out his hand, tempting me, urging me on. Still, it was plain enough that taking it and springing up from my seat would change nothing of any great consequence. A small mischief like this couldn’t sink the already-battered reputation of ‘Gloria,’ the name that had fallen to me to bear, any lower than it already stood.¹

Yes — for this one day, at least.

It might not be such a bad thing.

“All right.”

Not to the ‘Marienne’ I had spent a lifetime building so solidly, nor to the ‘Gloria’ I had somehow come to shoulder, but to a place where I was, simply, ‘me.’ Even knowing no such place existed anywhere in this world, still I wanted to take Herman’s hand and set off in search of it.

“So where is it, then — this most beautiful place in all the Empire?”

I asked as we passed through the emptied hall of the opera house and out onto the commercial street, thronging with people.

“Well — you’ll know when we get there.”

A playful smile hung at the corner of his mouth as he led me on, no intention, it seemed, of ever satisfying my curiosity.

“You won’t tell me?”
“No. It’s a secret.”
“But I want to know…”

Yet it seemed he meant to keep it from me right to the very last.

The midday commercial street had a calm sort of liveliness to it. Being a district where the opera house and various institutions clustered together, it lay quieter than the others.

In one shop window costly dresses were on display, but I trailed after Herman without so much as a moment to admire them. I couldn’t tell why he was hurrying his steps so, but soon enough a murmur rose up from somewhere, and I understood the reason.

“Isn’t that His Excellency — Herman Ernst?”

A fruit-stall owner had recognized Herman and was whispering it about. The merchants by the stalls and a few passersby in the middle of their shopping all turned to look our way at once.

“…What do we do?”

About the time their stares came flying at us, Herman and I both realized the situation was taking an awkward turn. We had only wanted to spend a quiet while together, and it wasn’t going as we’d hoped.

The passersby had halted, murmuring at us from a distance. No one dared come near, and yet the air around us had grown clamorous enough, before we knew it, to set one on edge. One person was drawing in the next; linger even a little longer, and it seemed we’d find ourselves hemmed in, unable to go forward or back.

“Nothing for it, then.”

A flustered look on his face, Herman managed a faint smile and turned quickly to the keeper of a hat stall.

“I’d like to buy this fedora and this bonnet.”
“Ah, yes. A fedora and a bonnet. I’ll have them ready for you at once.”

The stall keeper, quick to read the moment, hurriedly handed over the two hats, and Herman paid for them in the blink of an eye. Then he settled the pale sky-blue bonnet atop my head and pulled the black fedora down low over his own.

“Gloria.”

In a voice that somehow boded ill, Herman called my name.

“Hold on tight.”

And then, before I could get a word out in reply, he took hold of me and began to cut swiftly through the crowd. In an instant he had threaded the throng and shaken them off, pressing straight ahead without stopping, all the while keeping a firm hold of my hand.

Barely keeping pace with Herman’s long stride, I looked up at the back of him, and for all the world he seemed giddy with excitement. For some reason it felt like the first time in my whole life I had done anything so free, so brimming with joy.

“Hah— Herman.”

Only once I’d made sure we were well clear of the crowd did I let go of Herman’s hand and catch my ragged breath.

“Sorry. It seemed a bad idea to stay any longer.”

He said it while straightening the disheveled hem of my skirt.

“Are you all right?”
“Whew — I’m fine. It’s just, it’s been so very long.”
“Mm. A long while.”
“Walking nonstop like that, I’ve gone — hah — quite out of breath.”

As I dragged breath in and out in great heaving pulls, all at once a warm, toasty smell drifted past the tip of my nose. Instinctively I turned toward its source: beyond a pane of spotless glass, freshly baked breads were laid out in an inviting display.

“Shall we buy some bread?”

Ever the man of ready action, Herman walked straight into the bakery before I could get out a single word.

Breads fresh from the oven sat in neat rows, flaunting their soft, pillowy shapes. Herman and I tugged our hats lower still and made for the counter.

“One baguette and two brezels, and an orange juice and one herb butter, if you please. Ah — and a loaf of rye as well.”

For fear his identity might be found out and land us in another fix like the last, Herman took it upon himself to disguise his voice as he ordered. That we were doing something so absurd in broad daylight, in the middle of a commercial street, struck me as so funny that I burst out laughing before I could help it.

While the owner went to fetch the bread, Herman looked at me giggling away and asked, dumbfounded.

“Is this funny?”
“Yes. It’s funny.”

When I answered without hesitation, Herman said, as if at a loss, “Fine — so long as it amuses you, then that’s all that matters.”

Since we were hiding our faces so excessively, the shopkeeper passed the bread over in its paper bag with a suspicious look. But on checking the tip Herman had pressed into her hand, she saw us off with a face that cleared all at once into bright good cheer.

“Enjoy your meal, and do come again!”

After that, our outing went on like some sort of espionage operation.

We passed a blue clock tower and crossed an arched bridge. On the bridge, a roadside stall was selling secondhand books.

Among the books heaped in great piles, one title caught my eye: Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan. I’d heard Richard’s past works had been put out as books, and this seemed to be one of them.

“Buy a book too.”

Watching me browse the books in passing, Herman said as much.

“It’d be rather nice to read a book there, as well. It’s a quiet place, well suited to concentrating.”
“Then I’ll take this one. Is that all right?”
“Of course.”

As though under a spell, I stepped up to the stall and picked up the novel that had been snagging at my eye all this while. The way Lohengrin kept cropping up here and there all day long felt almost like fate; it even left me with a sense of duty, as if I simply had to buy the book now in my hands.

And yet, by the time I’d paid the stall keeper, several books had gathered in my arms. The moment I actually started looking them over, I couldn’t help coveting first one and then another.

“Shall I carry them for you?”
“No — I can manage this much myself.”

Herman, treating me like a child, left me a touch exasperated. Did he take me for someone who couldn’t so much as carry a few books?

“Even so, tell me if they get heavy.”

He offered the words, laced with concern, right to the very end.

“I told you, I’m fine.”

About the time we’d crossed the whole length of the bridge, bickering over such trifles, a wind blew in from somewhere. On it, a flock of white doves before the cathedral took flight into the sky; wings beating like rippling water, the white birds soon came to rest on the bell tower of the great cathedral.

— Dong.

In that instant the great cathedral’s bell rang out to mark the hour. Two in the afternoon; the early-summer sun was already sliding away toward the west, and yet its light, dazzlingly bright, still washed the world white.

— Dong.

A few steps ahead of me, Herman came to a halt.

“Here.”

There in the afternoon of Baltaheim, smiling as dazzlingly as the warm sunlight itself, he held out his hand with a splendid flourish.

And he never even told me where we’re going.

I couldn’t fathom how he could lead me on with a face so full of certainty. I gazed a moment at the hand Herman held out, then carefully took it, thinking all the while that it didn’t much matter where we were going.