The Deputy's Farewell

Reality was even more real. Reality was even more real. Knock, knock, knock.

“...Who is it?”

My voice cracked as it came out. The inside of my throat was coated with the sticky residue of alcohol, and at the back of my skull, the low rumble of artillery fire still echoed. There was no immediate answer from beyond the door. No sound of restless shifting, no second knock. Only the patient silence of someone waiting for me to understand.

“It’s Hartmann, Major.”

My fingers froze. Rowen Hartmann.

I looked down at the empty bottle toppled on the table, the scattered medals, and my palms still smeared with dried blood. The living room looked like an abandoned command post after an all-night operation. Cold ash filled the dead fireplace, and the sofa bore the crumpled imprint of my thrashing from nightmares, like a discarded blanket. For the home of an imperial hero, it was quite the spectacle.

I closed my eyes for a moment. I didn’t want Hartmann to see me like this. I didn’t want him to see the current me.

“What is it?” I asked without opening the door.

“I brought liquor.”

Hartmann’s reply was curt. I twisted my lips.

“You’re like a ghost.”

“It seemed like you would need it.”

“Were you my medic?”

“No, sir.”

“Then a fortune teller?”

“I was your adjutant.”

That answer momentarily sealed my lips. The voice beyond the door hadn’t changed much from before. Low, neat, and nearly devoid of emotion. The only difference was the exhaustion that only someone long-dried on the battlefield could carry inside it.

I eventually stood up. When my feet touched the floor, my legs trembled once. My hand instinctively reached for my sword first. It was leaning against the sofa. I couldn’t remember when I’d put it there. I stared at the hilt for a moment, then withdrew my hand.

The person outside was Hartmann. Even as I told myself that, my body refused to stop calculating. Three steps to the door. One and a half steps to the sword. If the door opened and the opponent stabbed, I would dodge left and strike the wrist. Hartmann wouldn’t come in that way. I knew that, yet my mind still conjured the quickest way to sever his neck.

I clicked my tongue softly.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Armed?”

“One military blade.”

“Planning to use it?”

“Against you, Major?”

He paused briefly before answering.

“My judgment has not deteriorated to that extent.”

“That’s good news.”

“I believe so as well.”

I walked to the door. After confirming the shadow through the gap in the curtains, I turned the handle. Cold air rushed in first. Then Hartmann was standing there.

His gray uniform was worn but impeccably maintained, and his boots were dusted with dry mud. The moment he saw me, he snapped to attention and saluted.

“It has been a long time, Major.”

I stared at that salute for a while. In the imperial palace, they had called me the Sword of National Salvation. The newspapers had called me the Hero of the Red Reed Plain. But Hartmann never used those names. He still called me Major. That title was outdated, heavy, and tiresomely old. And for that reason, it was comfortable. Comfortable to the point of discomfort.

“The war is over,” I said. “You should have buried that title along with it.”

Hartmann lowered his salute.

“To me, you are still the Major from that day.”

That day. He didn’t name the place. I didn’t ask. Krasen Canyon. The second trench. Three magic artillery pieces. The single word I had spoken while lowering my hand.

“Fire.”

All of it passed through the short silence. I stepped aside from the door.

“Come in.”

Hartmann bowed his head and entered. The door closed. Thud. At that sound, my shoulders stiffened minutely. Hartmann would have noticed. He had always been good at noticing such things. The tremor in a subordinate’s fingers, the flicker in a soldier’s eyes, the half-beat delay in a commander’s breath. He even knew how to see them without ever speaking of them aloud.

This time was no different. He said nothing. I didn’t like that silence, yet at the same time, I was a little grateful for it.

“The house looks like this,” I said, jerking my chin toward the living room. “If you want to leave, go now.”

Hartmann swept his gaze once over the empty bottles on the table, the medals, and the scraps of bandage on the floor.

“It is better than a field command post.”

I let out a short laugh. My throat was hoarse, so the sound came out rough.

“With standards like that, a mass grave would count as a villa.”

“If it doesn’t leak when it rains, it is serviceable.”

“Quite the philosophy.”

“The war taught it to me.”

“A terrible teacher.”

“I agree on that point.”

Hartmann stood in the center of the living room, waiting for my permission. I waved a hand.

“Sit.”

“Yes, sir.”

He sat in the chair opposite me. He didn’t lean all the way back, keeping a posture from which he could rise immediately if needed. Seeing that, I spoke.

“Don’t sit like that.”

“Does it discomfort you?”

“Not me. You look uncomfortable.”

“I am comfortable.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

Hartmann fell silent for a moment.

“It is a habit.”

“That sounds less like an answer and more like a diagnosis.”

“It may well be.”

I cleared the empty bottle from the table and picked up the one Hartmann had brought. It wasn’t cheap swill, nor was it the extravagant sort that would appear at imperial banquets. It was the kind of decent liquor a field officer who had survived the war to the end could choose from his own wallet without straining himself. A very Hartmann-like choice.

“A gift?”

“A consultation fee.”

“Consultation?”

“Yes.”

I held the neck of the bottle and stared at him. Hartmann’s face was perfectly composed. That expression bothered me slightly. It resembled the face he wore when delivering reports during the war, but today it was excessively neat. The lack of disarray made it ominous instead.

I searched for glasses. As I picked up two that had been rolling on the table, Hartmann silently produced a handkerchief and offered it.

“You still carry a handkerchief around.”

“Yes.”

“You used it to wipe blood during the war.”

“Today it can be used to wipe glasses.”

“You’ve been promoted.”

“The handkerchief, sir?”

“Yes.”

The corners of Hartmann’s eyes moved ever so slightly. It was too faint to call a smile, yet too warm to call a mere habit. I wiped the glasses with the handkerchief and poured the liquor. The clear liquid swayed inside the glass. My hand trembled slightly. Small ripples formed on the surface. Hartmann saw it. And then pretended he hadn’t.

“If you’re going to look, then look,” I said.

Hartmann looked at my face instead of my hand.

“I have seen.”

“Then say something.”

“If you pour less, it will shake less.”

I paused, then let out a hollow laugh.

“Excellent advice.”

“It is practical.”

“Both your strength and your flaw.”

I slid one glass toward him. Hartmann accepted it with both hands. It was soldierly in its politeness, and familiar in the way only comrades could be. I drank first. The liquor burned down my throat. My stomach accepted it. My head slowed down a little. That brief dullness saved me.

Hartmann also lifted his glass and drank. He didn’t drink much. The liquor wet his lips, passed down his throat, and the glass was quietly set back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the table.

“So,” I said, setting my own glass down. “Consultation, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Did someone die?”

The question came out naturally. What kind of person heard the word “consultation” and immediately thought of death? The imperial army had at least done a thorough job with that part of our education.

Hartmann shook his head.

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“The words slipped out.”

“A poor beginning.”

“I agree.”

“Then what is it?”

Hartmann looked down at his glass. There was a brief silence. It was rare for him to choose his words so carefully. He usually produced the necessary words in the necessary order. The second trench has collapsed. Contact with the seventh company has been lost. Enemy magic cavalry approaching the southern ridge. Like that.

But now he opened his mouth slowly, as if unfolding a piece of paper long folded away.

“My wife has taken a lover.”

Silence descended. It took me several seconds to process the words. I had expected war, injury, disappearance, suicide, treason, assassination. Instead, what came out was his wife’s infidelity. A misfortune too close to daily life, and therefore more alien.

“...What?”

“My wife has taken a lover.”

“Don’t repeat it. I heard you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Hartmann tilted his head slightly, like a man organizing his reasons.

“The first person who came to mind was you, Major.”

“Don’t you think that’s even stranger?”

“I do.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Yes.”

I pressed my temple. I couldn’t tell whether the alcohol had worn off or if I was even more drunk.

“The other man?”

“A secretary from the rear logistics bureau.”

“Armed?”

Hartmann looked at me. I looked at myself. The question that had left my mouth dried up in the air.

“Forget that last one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did I even ask that?”

“At first, I too checked the access routes.”

“Enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

I refilled my glass. I needed a drink. I never imagined I would need one not to hear war stories, but to listen to my subordinate’s marital problems. Life sometimes flew in at angles even more unpleasant than artillery shells.

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not sure if that was the right situation for praise.”

“I am not certain either.”

Hartmann’s face remained serene. That serenity was both comical and painful. He had spoken of his wife’s infidelity as if delivering a report, accurately stated the other man’s position, and dryly added that he had not killed him. On the battlefield, emotions were usually pushed behind the report. Even if you were angry, you reported first. Even if you were afraid, you followed orders first. Even if you were sad, you counted the corpses first. If you lived like that for years, even when your own life collapsed, you reported first.

“When I opened the door, it did not feel like my house,” Hartmann said. “My wife and that man were standing there in panic, and strangely, I felt like the intruder.”

I had been bringing the glass to my lips but stopped.

“The intruder?”

“Yes.”

“It was your house.”

“On paper, yes.”

“Not on paper.”

Hartmann was silent for a moment.

“That house was running perfectly well without me.”

The words were small, but they lingered. I looked around my own house. Dark, empty, steeped in the smell of alcohol. A house that didn’t run well even with me in it, yet wouldn’t particularly collapse without me. A place I had returned to but never truly arrived at. I still hadn’t decided whether to call it a home or an empty box.

“So,” I swallowed the liquor. “Were you angry?”

“I was.”

“You don’t look it.”

“I learned during the war.”

“What?”

“That if I report with an angry face, my superior becomes tired.”

“If that superior was me, I probably deserve a few curses.”

“You already gave plenty.”

“When?”

“Mostly right after operations.”

I laughed shortly. There were probably quite a few curses I couldn’t even remember. During the war, I had no talent for choosing pretty words. When soldiers fell, I cursed them to get up. When officers grew afraid, I cursed them to move instead of being afraid. Hartmann had endured all those words beside me without recording them. He had been a good adjutant. That fact felt even more uncomfortable now.

“Do you resent her much?” I asked.

“Who, sir?”

“Your wife.”

Hartmann gazed into the liquor in his glass.

“A little.”

“A little.”

“To resent her greatly, I was away for too long.”

I closed my mouth. Those words were not directed at me. Yet they still touched something inside me. He had been on the battlefield. For more than ten years. He had left his home, letters had stopped, confirmation of life or death had been delayed, and the man who returned was no longer the husband he had been. Even so, that didn’t erase the betrayal. It didn’t make the wound smaller. It simply meant that Hartmann had become a man who could not attach only rage to his own wound. That seemed to be the scar the war had left.

“Why did you come?” I asked. “Forget the talk of consultation fees or whatever.”

Hartmann lifted his gaze from the glass and looked at me.

“I came to confirm.”

“What?”

“Whether you were still alive, Major.”

I drew in a short breath. That wasn’t the question I had expected, but the answer was already there. I was alive. In the form of someone reeking of alcohol, hands trembling, waking from nightmares gasping for breath, sitting among empty bottles. Alive, at least in that sense.

“You’ve seen me,” I said. “I’m alive.”

“Yes.”

“If you’ve confirmed it, then go.”

Hartmann did not go. He set his glass down. A little liquor still remained at the bottom.

“Major.”

“That title again.”

“Was that war meaningful?”

I looked at him. The air in the room slowly cooled. Wife. Infidelity. House. Intruder. All those words were pushed to the back. Perhaps this had been what Hartmann wanted to ask from the beginning. Maybe he hadn’t come to talk about his wife, but had sat here in order to pass through that story and reach this question.

“What is this all of a sudden?”

“When I returned home, the reason I had endured was no longer there,” Hartmann said calmly. “So I became curious.”

“About what?”

“Whether the time I endured had reached somewhere.”

I did not answer. Hartmann did not press me. He had always been like that. When I chose my orders, when I measured time between those I would kill and those I would save, he waited beside me. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠waited now as well. Only this time, he was waiting not for an order, but for an answer. That was harder.

During the war, there had been numbers. Distance to the high ground. Remaining artillery shells. Time until possible retreat. Remaining troops. You could decide with those. Whether the answer had been correct could later be confirmed by counting the corpses. But meaning could not be counted in numbers.

The empire had won. The alliance had collapsed. Axion Liberta was dead. The capital was in the middle of a festival, the emperor was laughing, and people were calling my name. Yet I could not tell whether any meaning had been born from it. Hartmann had returned home to find his place gone. My soldiers were selling their medals on the streets. I had returned home to dream nightmares among empty bottles.

Could any of that be called meaning? But if I said there was none, it felt like pouring all the dead onto the ground. The people who had lived and died by my orders in Krasen Canyon, during the northern retreat, on the Red Reed Plain.

I looked down at my glass. My face was faintly reflected on the surface of the liquor. Pale, exhausted, a face I didn’t like.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I still don’t know that.”

Hartmann did not look disappointed. He did not resent me. He simply nodded, very slightly.

“I see.”

That answer felt strangely more ominous. As if he had known I would say exactly that. As if he had not come to obtain an answer, but to confirm that there was none.

Only then did I look at Hartmann’s face again. He was serene. Like an adjutant who had come in the morning. Like a husband reporting his marital problems. Like a survivor asking about the meaning of war. And like someone who had already organized something inside himself.

“Hartmann.”

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

He thought for a moment.

“No.”

The answer was simple. So simple it caught in my throat.

“Then why are you sitting like that?”

“Even if I am not all right, I can still sit.”

“Did the war teach you that too?”

“Yes.”

I tightened my grip on the glass. I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to stop my hand from shaking or to keep from breaking the glass.

“Stay here and sleep tonight.”

The words came out more easily than I expected. Only after I said them could I admit that I had been somewhat glad to see him. I hated having anyone else remain in this house. I hated the sound, the presence, the way someone else’s breathing touched my darkness. Yet I also hated the thought of Hartmann leaving like this. If he disappeared beyond the door, this house would once again become a place containing only empty bottles, medals, and nightmares. That fact was hard to bear.

Hartmann looked at me.

“I would be imposing.”

“You already are.”

“I see.”

“The bastard who came at dawn to tell me his wife took a lover is now worrying about manners?”

“The time is morning.”

“By my standards, it’s still dawn.”

“Then it is dawn.”

I pushed my glass toward him and refilled it.

“Drink.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hartmann accepted the glass. His hand, too, trembled ever so slightly. At first I thought I had seen it wrong because of my own drunkenness. But no. Hartmann’s hand was shaking too. He knew very well how to hide that tremor, and I knew only too well how to see it.

I saw it. And pretended I hadn’t. Just as he had pretended not to see my hand.

We drank like that for a long time without speaking. The liquor dwindled. One bottle was emptied, and somewhere in the house, another bottle I had hidden appeared. That one was opened too. At first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hartmann tried to stop me, but I didn’t listen. In the end he brought his own glass. After that, my memories began to break apart in pieces.

We tried to avoid talking about Krasen Canyon, but ended up doing so anyway. We spoke of the northern retreat and cursed, recalled someone’s name and simultaneously fell silent. Hartmann brought up his wife again, and I suggested cutting off that secretary’s supply lines. He laughed. Very softly. I said I didn’t like that laugh, and he replied that since he had been caught, there was nothing he could do.

The liquor kept going down. The glasses gradually lost their meaning. At some point we began drinking straight from the bottles. Hartmann told me to drink water, and I mistook the water for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠liquor, took a sip, and cursed. Only then did he laugh a little longer. That laugh didn’t last long either.

We drank until dawn. Until the morning light of the city where the war had ended slipped through the window gaps. Until our words grew fewer, the smell of liquor grew thicker, and the ashes in the fireplace grew even colder.

The last thing I remembered was Hartmann’s voice.

“Major.”

“What?”

“Please sleep.”

“Is that an order?”

“It is a recommendation.”

“You’ve grown insolent.”

“Because the war is over.”

“You use that line a lot.”

“There aren’t many places to use it.”

I tried to answer, but my tongue wouldn’t move properly. As I leaned back against the sofa, the world tilted slowly. I heard the sound of Hartmann rising. He probably brought a blanket. He probably took the bottle from my hand. I tried to resist, but my fingers wouldn’t move correctly. That annoyed me a little.

“Hartmann,” I called.

“Yes.”

“Don’t go.”

Only after the words left my mouth did I realize what I had said. It was embarrassing. So I quickly added, “There’s still liquor left.”

There was a brief silence.

“Yes,” Hartmann said. “There is still some left.”

Hearing those words, I closed my eyes. Whether it was because he was beside me, because liquor remained, or because the war was over, I couldn’t tell which of them brought me peace. I fell asleep just like that. I think I didn’t dream this time. At least, it didn’t remain in my memory.

When I opened my eyes next, light was coming through the gaps in the windows. My head rang like a cracked bell, and my mouth felt as dry and gritty as if I had chewed on dirt. I stared at the ceiling for a long time. It wasn’t a tent. It was the ceiling of a house. Cracked plaster. The same stains as yesterday. Only after confirming that did my breath come a little easier.

When I sat up, the blanket slid from my shoulders. I looked down at it. I had no memory of covering myself with it. It must have been Hartmann, of course. I ran a hand through my hair.

“Hartmann.”

There was no answer. I looked around the living room and paused. The table had been tidied. The empty bottles were gathered to one side, the broken glass fragments had been cleaned up, and the medals were neatly arranged by type. The scraps of bandage on the floor were gone. The dusty glasses had been washed, and the handkerchief was folded and hanging over the back of a chair. New firewood had been placed in the fireplace. It hadn’t been lit yet, but matches lay beside it.

It had been a long time since this house had looked so orderly. I stared at the scene for a while. My alcohol-addled mind took time to accept the change. So like Hartmann. After drinking heavily together all night, he wakes alone at dawn, cleans someone else’s house, and disappears. Playing the adjutant to the very end. What a faithfully infuriating bastard.

“What the hell,” I muttered, rising from the sofa. My voice was hoarse. “He left without even saying goodbye?”

The grumbling scattered through the living room. No answer came. I stood up unsteadily. My legs were heavy, and my head was belatedly demanding payment for the liquor. Still, it was better than yesterday. Perhaps because another person’s presence remained in the house.

I thought that, then immediately erased the thought. To be comforted by a single trace of presence. It seemed that even pathetic feelings could serve a long tour of duty.

The moment I headed for the kitchen, a single sheet of paper on the table caught my eye. Unlike everything else, it had been placed on top of the neatly arranged medals. A folded white paper. My name was not written on it. Only two words were written on it in a familiar handwriting.