My Beloved Oppressor

Her whole body felt heavy, as if she were buried under a stone. She tried to turn her head, but she couldn’t move as if trapped.

Turning over, Annette let out a faint moan. A pain, heavy and stiff rather than sharp, was pressing down on her whole body.

Delayed, a white ceiling came into view. Annette rolled only her eyes to check her surroundings. After a few moments, her mind slowly began to register.

‘It’s a hospital.’

Her last memory was of the crumbling wreckage.

She repeatedly woke up in it and then blackness. It was unclear whether she had fallen asleep or fainted.

In fact, she seemed to have woken up a few times here and there, but her memories of those times were fuzzy.

‘Was I rescued….?’

She thought it was impossible. The church was located in an area already occupied by enemy forces, so it was difficult to expect a rescue team.

But she was rescued. She survived.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

She was very glad that she survived. She was glad she kept her promise to him. She was glad she got another chance.

Another chance to ask him what she couldn’t………..

At that moment, the door opened. A woman entered the hospital room carrying a tray. She was unfamiliar.

Upon finding Annette awake, the woman’s eyes widened and she immediately pressed her pager.

“Are you awake? Are you all right?”

Annette was about to answer, but realized her voice wasn’t coming out well and nodded.

 “The doctor will be here shortly. May I offer you some water?”

Annette nodded again, and the woman gave her a sip.

Soon a doctor and a nurse entered the room. The doctor asked this and that and checked her condition.

Only then did Annette realize that she had been unconscious for four days.

The doctor said he had performed procedures, including supplying her with nutrients, while she was regaining consciousness. But those moments were as faint as a hazy dream.

Suddenly the door to the hospital room opened again. Annette’s gaze went to the door. A huge man stood in the doorway, breathing heavily.

It was Heiner.

Their gazes collided in mid-air. He was dressed in a relatively light white shirt and looked completely disheveled.

“Now then, is there anything particularly uncomfortable?”

“…nothing……… the same.”

Her voice cracked horribly even to her own ears.

She tried to clear her throat, but she didn’t have much strength left. Annette closed her eyes and opened them.

He was still standing in the same spot like a stone statue.

He did not approach her or speak to her, but just remained there, their gazes continued looking at each other.

Annette looked at him, not hearing the doctor’s words. For some reason, her heart ached.

“….. and ……. With your left hand, it will get better with rehabilitation, but you won’t be able to use it the way you used to.”

“….. huh?”

Annette asked back, looking at Heiner and unable to understand clearly. The doctor opened his mouth again in a cautious tone.

“Your left hand was buried under rubble for a long time…”

The words that followed sounded distant. Annette stared blankly at the doctor’s face, then slowly lowered her gaze. Her left hand, with a brace attached, was wrapped in a bandage.

“…With hard rehabilitation, you will be able to recover to some extent. But the treatment was too late, and it will be difficult to get back to full strength.”

The doctor then advised precautions. Annette could make no reply and looked at her left hand with shaky eyes.

Actually, she had expected some of this.

From the moment she realized that her left hand was crushed, she knew something was wrong. As time passed in that state, her hope gradually faded.

She had certainly expected it, but the doctor’s diagnosis, which she heard in her right mind, felt completely different.

Her breathing became ragged. Even when she tried hard to calm it down, it wasn’t easy. She clenched her teeth.

The doctor gave her a brief word of comfort and left the room. After the nurse who inspected the therapeutic infusion left the room, only the two people remained.

Silence hung over the room.

Annette slowly raised her head. Their gazes met again. Heiner was still standing in the doorway. Only silence.

There was so much to ask him, but it was all volatile in her head.

His breath was still rushing. After a while of only moving her lips, Annette eventually uttered a word.

“I’m sorry.” (A)

It was not her usual soft, clear voice, but a voice that sounded completely cracked and barely audible.

She didn’t even know exactly what she was sorry for.

Joining the rescue mission against his will, putting herself in danger, worrying him, taking the liberty of hearing about his past, all of this, too late………..

There was so much she really wanted to say, but nothing came out. The whole situation was just overwhelming for her.

“…What is there to be sorry for?”

Heiner replied with an almost invisible smile.

“You’re alive, that’s all that matters.”

His smile looked broken and distorted in some way.

Annette expected Heiner to say something more. He had been so angry when she served as a nurse on the front lines.

But contrary to her expectations, he said nothing more.

With those dry words, “That’s all right,” Heiner stopped talking. His gaze that trailed over her face eventually drifted away. He slowly turned around.

Annette tried to call for him, but he had already turned away. His retreating back looked like a defeated soldier.

Click, the door was shut.

Annette stared at the closed door for a long time.

***

Annette recovered slowly in the hospital. The Central Front was now completely in the hands of the Padania, and the Portsman Emergency Hospital was now relatively safe and spared.

Many people came to visit Annette. Nurses from the front lines who had been moved to the Portsman Hospital, soldiers who knew her, prisoners of war she had saved…

“Reporters came for interviews. Don’t worry, I answered according to what I saw and felt. Annette was a great field nurse.”

She thought it was a passing relationship.

“Perhaps you remember me? We met on the Western Front. I was your patient. Please get well soon.”

She thought they were people she would never see again.

“Thank you so much for saving me. You must have been very scared too… What would have happened if it wasn’t for you…”

She received many letters.

The child Annette saved first in the burning church also came to visit her. The child has been staying at a shelter near the hospital since he was rescued.

When the child saw Annette, he shrank back as if shy. But when Annette smiled and held out her hand, he immediately relaxed his guard and approached her. A poorly written letter was presented. Annette read it and smiled.

Because of the injury to her left hand, she was able to hold the child with only one hand. The child still could not speak. Annette asked him, holding out a notepad and pen from the small bedside table.

“Oh, come to think of it, I still don’t know your name. Can you write it here? Oh, you can write?”

 The child nodded vigorously with a proud face for some reason and grabbed the pen. The little hand moved.

 “That’s a beautiful name …….”

[Joseph.]

It was the name of the precious life she saved.

****

Catherine’s letter arrived late at the Portsman Hospital. The tense wartime situation caused a considerable delay in delivery. The date on the letter was before the bombing in Cynthia.

Annette tried to call the Grott family, but the connection was unavailable.

‘…I guess I’ll have to visit them in person after my discharge.’

Annette intended to be discharged from the army in the near future. She wanted to quit on her own because it was difficult to do a proper job with these hands anyway.

This hand.

Annette looked at her left hand with downcast eyes.

She deliberately tried not to be aware of it, or to remember it, but  she couldn’t. She had long foreseen that she would never be able to play the piano again…………….

When it actually took on the name “forever” and approached reality, Annette touched the threshold of despair every time she was alone.

After all, it was an unfinished business that remained unresolved because she couldn’t die.

About what had once been most important to her.

The bandage from her left hand was removed as the wounds on her face and body disappeared. The sensation in her numb hand was infinitely unfamiliar and painful.

Time continued to pass.

In all that time, Annette had never seen Heiner.

Heiner never came to see her or contacted her. The last time Annette saw him was the day she first regained proper consciousness in the hospital room.

Annette wanted to see him and talk. There were many things she needed to ask and had to ask. But now she knew he was busy, so she just waited.

Time kept passing.

Around that time, news about the shooting of the Commander-in-Chief in Huntingham was belatedly published in the newspapers.