CH 71

Annette found his face weak, transparent and fragile.

Despite the fact that all of these expressions were completely out of character with him, Heiner opened his mouth emphatically.

“You always say that. You are not trying to blame me. You said you don’t hold it against me.”

“It’s true.”

“I wanted you to blame me and hold a grudge.”

He laughed, barely lifting one side of his mouth.

“Then, you could have an excuse as to why I did it to you.”

“—— Excuses are for the wrong people.”

“Do you think I did you no wrong?”

“Sometimes I think I did, sometimes I didn’t.’

“Then what about now?”

Annette’s hand gave a small jerk. She curled her fingers weakly, then sighed lightly.

“I’d rather not talk about this.”

“…”

“…Shall we go?”

Before hearing his reply, Annette organized the sheet music from the stand and put it in an envelope. 

The sky had turned reddish as if on fire as she was about to close the piano lid. She stopped moving and looked up.

The clouds retreated and the sunset entered the front of the window. The illumination inside the chapel gradually increased.

The red and blue light that permeated the inside of the multicolored glass shimmered in the air.

It was as if a handful of the most beautiful sunsets floating above the surface of the sea had been separated and brought here. Annette, who had been watching it idly, opened her mouth as if possessed.

“The sun is setting.”

“…”

“This is the first time I’ve ever been in church at this hour. We always have morning services.”

She didn’t realize how beautiful the stained glass was bathed in the sunset. Annette felt as if she had become invisible under this enormous light.

Sitting on the piano chair, her clothes were stained with color. She looked down and saw rainbow-colored light streaming from the keys.

Annette held out her palm above it. A rainbow pooled in her hand. She smiled and murmured softly.

“It’s so beautiful.”

Annette slowly looked back at Heiner. His face was also bathed in colorful light. It was too dazzling to see his expression.

“I see…yes.”

After some interval, he answered. He sounded as if he was somehow submerged under water.

The clouds were overcast again, and for a moment the interior became even darker. Only then did she finally get a good look at his face. 

However, only his features, as hard as the hard ground after the rain, were clear.

His incomprehensible gaze stared at her. The gaze was precarious as if it would break at any moment, and on the contrary, it was extremely tenacious.

For some reason, she felt imprisoned in that gaze.

Annette turned her head and closed the lid of the piano. The rainbow was gone before she knew it. She removed her hand, which had been resting on the lid for a while.

“Let’s go back now.”

***

It had been a few days since she had been to church.

The days were just like any other. Annette had breakfast with him every day, and the rest of the day was spent looking at sheet music and reading books.

If there were any gaps in the score, she wrote them down and reported them to Heiner.

Of course, she never knew if it was really used as a ciphertext.

That day, Annette continued to spread out the sheet music and examined it. Papers were scattered on her desk. They were tightly packed with her own notes.

After peering at the notes and commas for a while, writing something, comparing, contrasting, and peering again. Annette’s eyes, which had been repeating this process, stopped steadily in one place at one moment.

She wrote down some numbers on a piece of paper. Her increasingly slow hand eventually came to a complete stop.

She stared at the numbers she had written for a moment, forgetting to breathe. Then she snatched the paper and hurriedly left the room.

Her steps across the barracks became faster and faster. When she finally arrived in front of the Commander-in-Chief’s office, Annette hurriedly asked the aide, 

“May I possibly see His Excellency now?”

The aide, buried in a swamp of papers, pushed up his glasses and glanced at the door.

“Oh, there are other guests inside right now, is it urgent?”

“…It’s urgent….”

Annette trailed off. She certainly thought it was important and came right away, but she wasn’t sure if this was important enough to interrupt his visitor.

The aide was troubled for a moment when he noticed her distress. Soon he pulled back his chair and said.

“I’ll be back. Please wait.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.”

The aide reported about her after knocking on the office door. From behind the door came the sound of something being said.

After a short conversation, the aide nodded toward her.

Annette took a step, clutching the paper to her chest. When she entered the office, the aide closed the door. She then glanced up.

Heiner, sitting in the middle of the large desk, was the first to come into view. Then she saw a man before him, half turned back, staring at her in disapproval.

Annette stopped and froze.

The man looked delicate at best and nervous at worst. Of course, the latter was more than she was accustomed to.

The guest inside looked like Major Eugen. Despite not having seen him in about a year, he hadn’t changed much.

Annette greeted him with a bow of her head, showing no expression.

“I’m sorry for interrupting. I have something urgent to report.”

Her tone was very clerical, as if she had just met him for the first time on the battlefield. Heiner must have sensed her feelings, he replied dryly.

“It’s fine. What’s wrong?”

“So, the sheet music ……. It’s about …….”

“You can say it. The Major is the Operations Planning Staff.”

It was hard to tell exactly how high a job classification that was. But in any case, since the term “Staff” was attached to it, it seemed that Major Eugen also had a seat at the table in this war.

But apart from being a private inspector, he was also a competent man. Even though he did not graduate from a military academy, Major Eugen was one of those who were recognized for their abilities and became a close associate of the Commander-in-Chief.

He was a man who had risen to this level with only one ability, so his opposition to the nobility was reasonable. She didn’t remember exactly, but she heard that he had inflicted great damage on the nobles.

In any case, it was still awkward to meet again someone with whom she had had a connection in the past, someone who had hated her terribly.

Annette approached the desk without looking at Major Eugen. Whether he was there or not was not important right now.

“…I’ll just get right to the point.”

She continued as she placed the piece of paper on the 

desk.

“Since this is a guess related to the numerical ciphertext you mentioned last time, I decided it was right to report it right away. I have a point that matches the number you shared with me last time.”

“A matching point?”

“Yes. I have a couple of points of coincidence. First of all, in the monophonic scale, ‘la’ is the principal note. That is, it is considered to be the basic number 1. Here is the last word of each of these, the part of the original piece that was altered………….”

Annette explained briefly, pointing to the paper. Heiner and Major Eugen did not say anything until after the explanation.

“… This collation results in substitution equal to this number. It may have been forcibly put together, but it still came out the same.”

Annette, who wasn’t entirely sure, added an excuse that wasn’t an excuse.

For a while, Heiner and Major Eugen looked at the paper in silence with hard faces. For some reason, Annette bit her lip nervously, as if she were waiting for the results of the competition.

Time passed slowly. Eventually, Heiner opened his mouth.

“I understand what you are saying. I will reflect it and communicate it to the decoding department. Thank you for your help.”

His voice sounded very calm, as if he were honoring a routine errand runner. Therefore, Annette had no idea if this was a big deal or not.

But as far as she was concerned, she just had to keep her eyes down and finish her report.

“…… yes, then.”

***

As soon as Annette left, Heiner directly transmitted the relevant information to the decoding department. Major Eugen, who was watching this, laughed in disbelief.

“Sheet music, or the way spies use it, I see.”

“They must have realized that the chord book could be read. Or maybe it really does belong to a spy.”

It was certainly not a mundane method. Although some spies had used such ciphertexts before, it was because sending ciphertexts to codebooks had become universal in recent wars.

To this, Major Eugen replied cynically.

“It is very likely that they have realized that we are decrypting them over here. But they will have no choice but to continue using them.”

“Because time is very short to develop a new encryption machine.”

“Crypts that you couldn’t risk being read wouldn’t have been transmitted to the codebook. If you’re going to use it, you have some pretty unique preferences in that area………….”

“Or the information is so important that you can’t risk it.”

“It seems that God is on our side that that help is available to us.”

Major Eugen chuckled. Heiner replied tastelessly, staring at the paper Annette had left behind.

“…… well. I wish it were.”