Valentine's Day (2)
I stood before some kind of reception desk with Liselotte. What kind of place was this, anyway? The attendant bowed in greeting.
"Welcome. Is this your first time here?"
"Yes."
"If you wouldn't mind, for safety reasons guests must submit identification at the desk before entering and write down their names."
I glanced at the attendant seated at the desk. What sort of place required this?
Liselotte merely shrugged as though it were nothing. I followed the attendants' instructions and trailed after Liselotte.
Even riding the elevator, and until Liselotte opened the door, I still wasn't sure what this place was.
Only after the front door opened did I understand.
Ah. It was a house?
It didn't look like a residence for a single person. The upper floors of this high-rise were residential, so I guessed it was closer to a family facility.
Regardless, the place she had brought me to was a penthouse overlooking Palo Alto. Several oil paintings hung in her living room.
It was a rather absurd sight.
Liselotte untied the ribbon in her hair the moment she entered and hung up her coat, along with her scarf and bow tie. Her hair spilled down her back.
"Oh, make yourself comfortable. Let's have some tea."
I nodded and hung my coat on the rack near the entrance.
After some rustling sounds, Liselotte reappeared in a white T-shirt and short shorts and walked over to me. She must have gone to change.
She looked up at me.
"It's all right to relax, isn't it?"
"Please do."
Liselotte smiled faintly and gestured for me to follow. In her room stood a display cabinet filled with fossils.
Most were palm-sized.
She carefully opened the glass door and placed the crinoid fossil I had just given her inside the cabinet.
Her expression was, as expected, radiant with happiness.
She looked at me again.
"Thank you so much for the gift……!"
Upon closer inspection, the rainbow-hued opal fossil she had brought back from the New York Museum of Natural History was also displayed inside.
Liselotte, and what her family desired. The things people who had never once worried about money longed for……
In a way, they were obvious.
Things money could not buy. Or things whose true worth could not be measured in money. Time, history, academic significance.
Just like the fossils in that cabinet.
She retrieved a Polaroid from somewhere, photographed the fossil I had given her, then took one of me as well.
It would take a few minutes to develop.
While I stared at the black square, Liselotte handed me the Polaroid camera and lay down on her bed, looking up at me.
"Take a picture of me too……!"
I held the camera, considered for a moment, then photographed Liselotte lying there. She took the undeveloped black print.
"We'll see later whether it came out well."
"That's the fun part."
Liselotte chuckled.
We sat on the sofa in the penthouse living room. Liselotte brought a small teapot of black tea from somewhere and poured for me. A few small cookies sat beside it.
The cookies were delicious.
We sipped our tea and gazed out the window. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, all of Palo Alto lay spread before us.
Liselotte leaned against me.
"I hope inviting you home wasn't rude? You must be busy, and I thought wandering outside all the time might be tiring."
How had she known?
I simply nodded.
Liselotte leaned into me and began chatting about trivial things.
Lately Polaroid cameras were fun, so she had bought a book on photography techniques; the research she did last time seemed to have made the newspaper.
Liselotte paused mid-sentence and checked whether the earlier photos had developed.
They already had. One of the fossil, one of me, one of Liselotte.
In the photo, Liselotte lay on the bed wearing a playful smile as she looked at the camera. She looked satisfied.
"It came out better than expected?"
"Indeed. It turned out beautifully."
"Not that it turned out beautiful, but that I am beautiful?"
Liselotte handed me the photo of herself. Thick white borders framed the warm orange tones of the Polaroid.
"This is my gift to you."
She smiled at me, then took my hand and began toying with it.
***
Peace did not last long.
While we sat with Liselotte, eating cookies and talking about nothing in particular, I turned at the sound of footsteps. I had assumed it was staff from the building or mansion, but the dragging gait did not feel like that.
Liselotte rubbed her sleepy eyes and turned her head, as though wondering who could be coming.
And then I met the gaze of the person descending from the upper floor of the penthouse.
Guessing who it was proved simple.
"Ah, hello."
"Hello."
Family, perhaps?
She was a woman who resembled Liselotte. I felt a brief flicker of concern, but Liselotte casually raised her hand in greeting.
Short blonde hair the same shade as Liselotte's. Blue eyes verging on purple. Perhaps Liselotte's younger or older sister?
She appeared roughly the same age as Liselotte.
After a moment she regarded me with curious eyes, like someone who had unexpectedly encountered a deer while out walking. She did not seem particularly surprised.
"Who……? Ah, the friend Liselotte mentioned. Nice to meet you."
"What is your name?"
"Victoria. Victoria Weismann."
The two sisters looked at me.
Victoria sat beside me.
She brought a teacup for herself and poured tea. Liselotte sat quietly next to me and linked her arm through mine once more.
I sipped my black tea.
Victoria regarded Liselotte and me with an interested expression while slowly tilting her cup, as though deep in thought.
Did she have something to say?
"Liselotte spoke of you often. I think labor-class men are nice too, you know?"
I suppressed a hollow laugh.
"Oh, really?"
Victoria nodded as though it were obvious, wearing an expression that said she had been right all along.
I glanced at Liselotte's face, but she again seemed not to understand why this was amusing. Well, that could happen.
Victoria continued.
"It's wonderful, isn't it? A working man feels sincere somehow, and traditional."
She sat with legs crossed, absently fiddling with her hair as though pondering something.
Compared to Liselotte, Victoria was a bit……
How to put it gently. To put it plainly, she seemed rather foolish. Like a noble young lady who knew nothing of the world.
Victoria kept talking about something, cookie in hand.
"You said you're a doctor?"
"Yes."
"A dentist? Dentists seem the most common among doctors."
I scratched my head. Occasionally people thought that, though I never understood where the notion came from. Dentistry recruited separately from other physicians from the very beginning.
"Er…… I'm an internal medicine physician. You can assume I handle most ordinary illnesses."
Victoria exclaimed in admiration, as though it were fascinating.
Still, despite her simplicity, she seemed a kind person. A small sigh from Liselotte reached my ears.
"Oh. Do you also treat leprosy patients?"
"Pardon?"
What was she saying? I looked at Victoria in confusion.
"Like Jesus."
Ah. That leprosy from the Bible.
I opened my mouth to answer the absurd question, then closed it again. Leprosy patients. In modern medicine they were called Hansen's disease patients.
I saw them occasionally.
I wondered if it was a joke, but Victoria sat with not a trace of irony in her expression.
"Ah, that. There are a few."
"Can it be treated?"
It had once been a serious problem. But by the 1970s, as long as antibiotics were used, it was a disease that could be managed without major difficulty.
"Yes."
I answered briefly. Victoria nodded with a triumphant expression for some reason, as though her thoughts had been confirmed.
"Oh, that's a relief……. It seems truly wonderful that someone is still carrying on the legacy that has continued since ancient times."
I nodded.
Victoria appeared to have said everything she wished and sat calmly once more, sipping her tea.
***
A few minutes later.
Victoria looked at us.
"Hmm. Shall I take a picture of the two of you together?"
Liselotte nodded, slipped into my arms, and hugged me, resting her face on my shoulder.
Victoria rose from the sofa, held up the Polaroid camera, and looked at us.
"I'll count to three."
I smiled at the lens. Liselotte laughed for a long while before covering her mouth.
Click.
Two undeveloped black prints emerged again. Liselotte carefully kept one and handed the second to me.