03. Love was visible.
「To Aunt Marilyn.
Hyacinth Blossom, who omitted the modifier ‘dear’, greets you.
But please do not misunderstand that I no longer held Aunt Marilyn dear. Because I could not carelessly waste this precious paper, I thought it would be better to boldly remove any unnecessary flowery phrases in order to say something important.
I really had not known, you see. It turned out that one’s eyes grew dim when one became an adult. The more finely I wrote the letters, the harder they were to read, so I had to squint and move the paper close and then far just to barely read each letter one by one.
Growing older was more painful than I had expected.
Anyway, this time, I tried writing in large letters with all my adult-like strength.
I did not have the energy to write at length anyway. Although I was still a little girl whose eyes were good enough to easily read even the tiniest letters, I spent this past week as miserably as any grown-up.
In order to tell that story, I first had to talk about Uncle Shawn’s reading class. I had already told you everything in the last letter, right?
I had mentioned that Uncle Shawn decided to teach Sir Arthur Gillen how to read letters and write letters. His special training began right the next day.
My sparkling Wizard, Sir Arthur Gillen, was just as passionate as Uncle Shawn. Even as he stumbled and made mistakes, he refused to eat or drink or leave his seat until he finished reading every book that Uncle Shawn placed in his hands.
He read ‘Hyacinth’ as ‘Haisance’, and while reading Primrose, he did not know what the ‘Rose’ in Rosemary meant, so he was flustered. Clumsily as he was, he devoted all his strength to reading.
It seemed quite complicated for him to cram new words, not words he had already learned, into his head.
Later, Uncle Shawn explained that people like Sir Arthur did not see each letter combining into a whole word when they looked at them, and they also found it hard to read long sentences in order. Everything hit his eyes at once, and in the end, he could not identify anything, apparently.
So Sir Arthur Gillen had no choice but to read slowly, sounding out only one letter at a time and covering the rest, inching his way through the book. Inevitably, the lessons went on late into the night.
Now, nights at Uncle Shawn’s general store passed like this.
When the sun set, Sir Arthur Gillen lit a candle, drove away the darkness, and stumbled through his reading. Uncle Shawn dozed off at the desk in the middle of the shop, only to jerk awake when he banged his head.
That was around the time for us sisters to go up to the attic on the second floor, lie down in bed, and try to sleep. But with eyes wide open, I climbed down from the bed and purposely pressed my ear to the floor. Then, that person’s voice could be heard faintly through the thin walls of the shop.
That was how I heard about Queen Guinevere from the legend, and the tale of the knight Arthur Gillen. I also learned about the sad story of the one-legged knight and the paper doll.
My glittering knight, my shining Wizard, seemed to love that story very much. He insisted on reading it once more, then once more again. He said he wanted to read and read it until he had it memorized, and that his wish was to read it smoothly without fumbling or hesitation, so even Uncle Shawn had no choice but to give in.
Aunt Marilyn, did you know that story, too?
It was the sad love story of the wooden, one-legged knight who limped, and the paper doll dancer. The one-legged knight, who lacked one leg, met the paper doll dancer who lifted one of her legs while dancing, and so he came to a big misunderstanding. He believed that she was limping like him, and he was glad for it.
The paper doll dancer was too kind to tell the one-legged knight that this was a misunderstanding. She was afraid that if he knew she was actually a dancer with two whole legs, he might be disappointed.
Eventually, when the two learned the truth and fell in love, the cruel prince who ruled the toy kingdom arrived and tore the paper doll dancer apart. It was truly sad.
And it was even more horrible that the clown doll, weeping and holding them, shoved the two into the fireplace.
In the end, the two made of wood and paper burned together in the flames as they clung to each other, leaving only ashes. Why did my Wizard love that terribly sad story so dearly?
Perhaps Sir Arthur Gillen, who always walked with a slight limp in his left leg, felt that the wooden doll in that story was just like him.
Otherwise, why would he read the same story dozens, hundreds of times? If that were not the reason, why would he keep reading that long story over and over, sobbing sadly each time?
One dawn, I heard him sobbing through the floor, and it sounded so pitiful that I went downstairs to comfort him if I could.
Alas, Sir Arthur, who spent the night alone with no one to hold his hand, wept sorrowfully like a child whose toy was stolen, stroking the heart-shaped necklace that hung on his long, graceful neck.
I hid behind the stairs and watched silently. Then, when his crying subsided, I went behind him and gave his big body a tight hug.
He laughed brightly, though his voice sounded choked and wet.
“Yes, Hyacinth, you have come. Did you wake from a scary dream?”
He spoke so gently and casually that my heart felt even more tender. I asked him as if rebuking him.
Why was he reading that story about dolls made of paper and wood who burned to death in the fire, filling the nights with tears as he read it over and over?
He laughed quietly and then spoke with a voice so hoarse it sounded like someone with a severe cold.
He said that, in truth, there was more to that story afterward. I became flustered and blurted out:
“Huh, no. It ended there.”
Yes, Aunt Marilyn. I had read that book myself. Since my glittering Sir Arthur Gillen loved it so much, I wanted to see it with my own eyes and read it aloud with my own mouth, so one morning, while I was organizing the books in the general store, I read a sentence, a phrase here and there whenever I had a spare moment.
So I knew clearly. That story ended completely right at that point. There was no hidden back page, no unread line. When I looked at him with round eyes, Sir Arthur Gillen spoke to me.
“Alright. Hyacinth. It was as you knew. In the book, the story did not end so sadly. However, I… I knew the next story.”
“What was that?”
I had forgotten my purpose of wanting to comfort that person and asked as though I were pressing him. He went “Uuuhm.” and hesitated for a moment, then, unlike when he read the book, he slowly closed his eyes and opened his lovely lips.
The voice flowing from his mouth was different from before. It seemed as if he was recalling exactly a story he had heard somewhere in the past, reciting it word for word without a single mistake. He did it with no pause for uncertainty, no shifts in tone, and even his manner of speaking seemed to imitate someone else’s, entirely different from his usual voice.
“Torn in the paper doll’s chest was a tiny jewel decoration. And the knight’s sword was really made of tin. Though the two were burned up in the fireplace, the golden jewel decoration and the tin knight’s sword remained as they were. Then they melted in the fire and combined into a small heart shape.”
When he finished reading, his long lashes made a faint sound. His eyes, which had been closed, opened. The sky at dawn, in its pale blue color, filled his pupils. It was so deep that if I went in there, I thought I could meet sparkling stars, the faint shadow of the moon, and every kind of longing and melancholy that could only be felt at that hour.
He watched me stare blankly into those eyes, then he smiled. Lifting his arm slowly, he took my hand, which looked childishly small compared to his, and placed it near his collarbone.
Hanging from his deer-like long neck was an old necklace. It was a tin necklace with a gold-plated heart-shaped pendant.
He pressed it into my hand and spoke in a whisper.
“Here, look. This was the heart left behind by the one-legged knight and the paper dancer girl.”
Though I was already thirteen, I asked as guilelessly as I had when I was seven.
“Is this really that?”
“Yes.”
“Why did Sir Arthur Gillen have this?”
I only said that, nothing else. I did not scold him for being noisy, I did not point out that his reading voice was odd, nor did I complain that he should quit rereading the same book.
I just asked that question, but for some reason, it struck a nerve in him. He bowed his head deeply.
“Um, Sir Arthur Gillen?”
“…….”
“My Wizard? Sir Arthur Celine Gillen?”
I tried calling his name in different ways several times, but he could not answer. He only hung his head so low that he looked ready to collapse, staring into the dark floor.
My heart sank. Sir Arthur Gillen was kind to everyone, but among them, he had a special fondness for me. There had never been a time like this.
Ah, I realized that I had made a huge mistake somewhere without knowing. So, I folded my hands politely and spoke up.
“Um, perhaps I was rude….”
At that moment, Sir Arthur Gillen took my hand. In the dark, I heard his lips part, but even though he tried to speak, it seemed he could not bring himself to form words. He only shook his head vigorously.
He was telling me no, that it was not like that.
Aunt Marilyn, I learned only that night that he was someone who knew how to cry without making a sound.
I also realized that for a thirteen-year-old girl, it was unbearably painful to watch someone I loved cry like that.
But what could I do? It was not right to lose my temper because I felt bad, nor to force him to stop crying.
He went on crying silently for quite a while. I did not know what was happening, so I held his hand, sniffling in secret. His quiet weeping cut into my heart, and I found myself wishing he would just sob out loud.
After that night passed, for some reason, I felt awkward facing Sir Arthur Gillen. I deliberately avoided him, worried that he might feel ashamed if he knew his tears had been seen.
But the next day, and the day after that, every time I saw him, he was as kind as ever. He doted on me, calling, “Hyacinth, it has been so long,” greeting me with a bright smile.
Only after several days passed did I finally gather the courage to ask again. When I cautiously questioned why he had cried so much that night, he answered with his usual lighthearted laugh.
“Well now, I suppose it was just because I felt longing.”
“Longing? For what?”
Since Sir Arthur Gillen said “Umm,” and hesitated to answer, I asked again.
“Did you feel longing for an old story? The next part, the one that wasn’t in the book?”
At that moment, I must have hit the right answer with the cleverness of a thirteen-year-old. Sir Arthur smiled with satisfaction.
“That’s right. Yes, I longed for the next story. Yes, I felt very sad because I wanted to hear it again.”
That was how he explained it.
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