"...."
"And things like that are usually called punishment."
"...."
"The greatest reward of death is oblivion."
Emiliano spoke in a low voice and looked past Cárcel's shoulder at the colossal statue of the Apostle.
The Apostle of God, Anastasio, his eyes closed, stood with his arms laid over his chest, looking down on them like a sarcophagus set in a crypt. As with the first death recorded in Scripture—standing yet like one dead; lying down yet as one who rises.
From the folds of the long hem that hid his feet to the lowered lids and the sweep of his lashes, the Apostle's form was carved with such fine precision that he looked almost like a great, living man—and so, like a god. The light-brown eyes that had wandered over the hewn face as if searching for a trace finally lowered to the Cárcel before him.
"I have received no punishment…"
"...."
"I died of my own accord without recompense, and I am one who was not set free."
Cárcel remembered the Seville sun beating down over Emiliano's hair—like shafts of evening light—and the small waves where the sunlight shattered to spray. He felt the hoofbeats rumble up from the ground to his toes before they reached his ears, and he remembered the salt smell that rode the westerly wind.
Memory. Memory, of all things.
"I dared to wonder whether you, too, had received such punishment."
"…Absurd nonsense…"
"Have you perhaps seen the Apostle behind you?"
"...."
"Do you, too, remember the moment of your last death?"
A gaze, sharper than ever before, flew at him.
"I have but a single memory left to me."
"…That you remember it all."
"Only what happened in my paltry little life."
"Because you wished it, I remember it all. Since when?"
"From the very beginning."
"...."
"From that time when, apart from being 'born again' into this world, nothing at all had yet happened to me."
Cárcel recognized the fierce gust that had, for an instant, skimmed over Emiliano's fragile face.
Eyes that had burned with a desperate hope that he might be the same as himself. That one instant of urgent selfishness that veiled his gentle light. And then—
"…You were not."
"...."
"So you were granted only the mercy of dreams."
Ironically, on his face there had risen, the moment he confirmed that "he was not the same as me," a deep and kindly relief.
"You, Sir Escalante, are not a fool like me."
"...."
"You have never made the wrong choice."
What was that desperate urge that had, like a spell and for the blink of an eye, clouded those good eyes? This fool seemed like a man marooned for decades on an empty island, waiting for anyone at all to appear alive.
Hoping someday to glimpse a ship far off, to see it draw near, and if it would not stop here then to have it wreck and drift to this shore; hoping for someone who knew this ghastly loneliness to appear; hoping someone like himself would be trapped in this prison and unable to leave, so he would no longer be alone… Even if that someone were the husband of the woman he loved, even if he were a man who wanted him dead.
That ravenous hunger. A loneliness like famine. Something like an instinct to survive.
"As expected, Sir Escalante, you are always magnificent."
Emiliano was clean again. In his eyes everything had vanished in an instant—eyes pressed down by reason alone, by a will toward good.
A staggering reverence. Relief that you are not like that.
"God will surely love you."
Cárcel wiped a twisted face with his hand and let out a hollow laugh. As if the likes of him even knew how wretched he made him feel. As if the likes of you knew how much you…
"…I still don't understand a word you're spouting. Not one. All that comes to me is—"
"If you do not know that you were born again, that is the blessing of opportunity."
"...."
"If you were not born again, that is the more perfect blessing."
"...."
"If time was not wound back to hurl you into the midst of life, that too means you are innocent without sin—and even so, if there is some memory, some dream that seeps into your mind…"
"...."
"Then this time God means to help you."
The breath that had been halted in his mouth escaped. For all that he kept droning on like a heretic, those eyes shone with a piety that was staggering. Those I-will-help-you eyes. Would he know that I had wanted to kill him?
To bury the answer forever. To leave Ines with nowhere to return.
If he knew even a little that I had wanted to snuff out that light…
"Sorry, but you sound insane."
"I know."
"And I think I'm even more insane than you are."
He clenched his teeth and stared at the bare altar. Like a single flower blooming alone in a tangle of bushes, the only thing with color on the blank stone wall was the God of the Beginning Emiliano had painted.
Cárcel glared at that God. It was a blasphemy he had never once committed in his life.
"…For some time now, fragments have been surfacing. It's strange to call something a memory when I've never lived it, yet strangely, for a moment it's vivid. As if I were standing right there—the air, the smells, the far-off sounds carried on the wind. Then it just snaps off. Like a light going out."
"...."
"When someone tried to kill me, I knew that 'back then' the same thing had happened."
"...."
"The Seville painting split my head open for a moment. Seville, yes…"
"...."
"You were in Seville that day."
"...."
"The day you died."
He said it like a man finally forcing out a breath that wouldn't pass. Emiliano quietly nodded.
"It's a small harbor I'd already visited many times. Nothing new to it. And yet, strangely, it felt like a place 'I' didn't know. It rose so vividly, but it wasn't the Seville I knew."
"...."
"I say things I never said. Whoever I face says things I've never heard. Absurdly, Ines was Oscar's consort. Oscar spoke to me about his 'wife.'"
"...."
"I couldn't even see Ines, and there I was, knowing nothing, watching that delusion of a scene—and laughably, in that one instant, I knew the 'wife' he was swaggering about was Ines."
Cárcel slowly turned his head and looked at Emiliano. The gaze he set on him was more courteous than the profane look he had lifted to God.
For the first time Emiliano looked surprised.
"Is that something you don't remember? Or…"
"...."
"Is it something you never once heard of in your memory?"
"…All I knew was a single life, scarcely more than twenty-two years. When I first had the honor of seeing Lady Ines, she was soon to be the Crown Princess…"
"Right. I've seen that time too. One day he was going on about his 'fiancée.' What's truly strange is that even though I am Ines's husband now…"
"...."
"…I took it for granted, as if my mind turned over. Looking at Oscar, who looked no more than seventeen, eighteen at most, and thinking Ines would soon marry him."
"...."
"Looking up at Oscar—who nowadays is shorter than I am—suddenly seized by a suffocating, horrible bleakness, becoming that strange kid and…"
Like a lightning strike, every feeling of that young boy crashed through his head. Yet he—fourteen, to be exact—could not understand his own bleakness.
Why he was sunk so deep in despair. Why he despaired of a thing he already knew so well. Ines Valeztena—whom he didn't even especially like…
"It's all fragmentary, none of it connects. So I decided at last that I must have gone mad."
"...."
"The first time your face came to me was when I happened to see the Seville painting one day. A face I had never once seen—and the instant it rose in my mind, damn it all, I thought I wanted to kill that base cur."
"...."
"I swear I had never seen you, and yet your damned hair, your features, the way you looked at me… The mug I saw only in that irritating delusion stands here, in Bilbao."
"Cárcel."
"Which makes you proof that I am not insane."
The sight of Ines choking like a drowning person, those four years—everything he hadn't been able to understand felt as though it were converging to one point.
She had faced him in that little country harbor, a child in her arms. His breath jammed in his throat. Ines, holding not his child but another man's. Ines, looking at her 'husband'…
That Emiliano existed before his eyes was proof that all those delusion-like scenes were true.
The tale still lay in black fog. Even so, the answer was clear.
"And I must be proof that you're not insane."
Ines loved the man before her eyes.
I had even thought you might love me. That night, that dawn… Every expression that crossed your face, your heat, your eyes on me, your hand as you touched me—they all seemed to speak of love. Or at least something akin to love. That you, too, might…
'Still, this time I recognized you…'
That maybe you had recognized me.
'I suddenly wanted to have a child. Cárcel.'
Ah.
'I truly wanted us to have a child.'
Ah…
Cárcel sank, dazed, into the tears pouring down. His whole face was wet. He could feel Emiliano staring at him, stupidly. But more vivid than the man before him was Ines.
'…Escalante, did you come to kill me? Like Oscar's dog.'
Ines glared at him as if to kill him, hiding her child in her arms. That day she called him Oscar's dog. As if he might kill her child. As if she were looking at a mere murderer.
As if she truly believed he could kill her child. Her child. A child born of the blood and flesh of Ines Valeztena…
'If Oscar still needs me, don't lay a single hair on my husband or my child. I can kill you, too. Of course, more easily, you could kill me.'
That you loved me.
How could I ever have thought such a thing possible?
'If you kill my family, you'll be dragging my corpse—or me—to Oscar.'
Even without your threat, I wouldn't have been able to leave so much as a scratch on this bastard. Because he's the man you love. The man you stake your life to love.
The words that I had, in my folly, already saved your husband did not come out at once. That I had found him before the Crown Prince, before your brother. That I had saved that fool's life and let him escape.
Ines's desperate face, driven to the brink, was beautiful. In the guise of a woman in shabby clothes such as I had never seen on her, with eyes leveled at me, full of hostility—she, who loved someone so fiercely, was piercingly beautiful.
I could not bear the jealousy. I could not bear how I envied this lowly man. So I could not dare to harm him. I could not obey the order.
From the very beginning to the very end.
'…I'm sorry, Cárcel. I've been on edge lately. This child's name is Luca.'
At the moment she pronounced the child's name, a brief light blossomed on Ines Valeztena's parched face.
Ah. So that was love.