I Loved You In Order To Survive - Chapter 8

Giles looked at the piano and then at Lily, flustered. The last time he touched a piano was before puberty. He doubted he could play it properly.

But he couldn’t say no, so he eventually sat in front of the piano. Most of the pieces he learned as a child were long gone from his memory, but he could still play a basic sonatina, with a stutter.

Then he pressed the keys. The melody flowed at a slow pace. The Nuremberg Sonatine was a simple piece for children learning to play the piano.

A practice song he played as a child. Fumbling and remembering each note was accompanied by the process of retracing the old days that he had destroyed with his own hands.

Giles was no longer in an empty room in an abandoned house. The sound of people having lively conversations overlapped like an auditory hallucination.

‘I can’t do it.’

It was at the moment that he tried to take his hands off the keyboard that someone sat next to him. It was Lily. Lily reached out with her right hand and pressed keys. Her melody guided Giles like a tutor. Giles resumed playing under Lily’s guidance.

Playing with her, he was back in the familiar mansion during those happy days. Giles looked to his side. There was a happy young lady with striking black hair.

If only he could turn away from everything and go back to those days when he didn’t know anything. His chest was burning. A thin, gentle melody was leading him. Giles slowly leaned over to Lily, driven by instinct.

The moment he kissed her, the melody that created his fantasy disappeared. Everything became static. Giles woke up in a flash to cold reality.

“Ah, sorry.”

Giles, who hurriedly withdrew from her, straightened his necktie without hesitation.

What could he do about it?

He just kissed her without permission. He never approached her with that intention. He had nothing to say, even if she misunderstood.

“So, I-”

But before Giles could finish his sentence, Lily closed the gap again. This time she kissed him. It was a clumsy but passionate kiss.

Giles couldn’t deny it. Lily was a woman far removed from Giles’ world. Nothing in the past that was destroying Giles little by little from the inside had anything to do with her.

When Lily was by his side, he could listen to her play and forget everything as if he were in another world.

Heloise Bismar…

No, Lily Belmore was his refuge.

Giles was immersed in the sweet moment that came like a utopia.

The pianist he saved.

The ‘right choice’ he made…

As long as he was with Lily, everything was fine.

Everything seemed to be okay.

Giles took Lily in his arms. He was desperate, as if to keep cold reality from taking her away from him.

“Lily…”

He called her name in a sweet voice. Giles was like a piece of scrap metal that had lost its purpose. But at this moment, the hot furnace in his heart was burning again.

As Harrington said…

-There is nothing you want to achieve, nothing you want, no goals, no aspirations.

Giles just realized.

Lily was more than just someone he wanted to protect.

Giles needed Lily.

He didn’t want to ever miss Lily.

Lily Belmore was the one who motivated him again.

***

It was a day that made him want to stay at the mansion longer than usual.

At first, he returned after confirming that Lily was safe, but before he knew it, he stayed at the mansion longer and longer. Maybe it was because this empty, spacious abandoned house had become more comfortable than the townhouse he lived in.

The most comfortable place in the empty mansion, which had been requisitioned by the Revolutionary Army, was the instrument storage where Lily usually spent her time. Even Giles had to admit that the broken instruments that the Revolutionary Army abandoned because they were of no use gave a sense of security.

Lily had her own ways of passing time when no one was around. She ripped up the floor and pulled out a bunch of newspapers.

It was a crossword puzzle that was used as an appendix in newspapers. Lily explained that she used to kill time by secretly stealing newspapers her family had read and discarded.

Lily held out a bunch of blank crosswords to Giles.

“There’s nothing else to do, so please take this. I couldn’t solve them no matter how hard I tried.”

“Is there anything to be gained by solving it?”

“It feels good.”

Giles accepted the crossword puzzle. He silently started solving the spaces Lily had left blank. Lily sat next to Giles and watched him fill in the blanks one by one.

Like all crossword puzzles, there was a hint towards the correct answer. Fish belonging to the family Pomacentridae.

‘Cedar.’

He wrote down the answer. The cursive handwriting, which did not match Lily’s handwriting at all, created a sense of incongruity.

In order to get the answer right, he had to read the hints carefully and lines that Lily had already solved. A stone placed as a foundation under a pillar, or a word that metaphorically refers to the foundation of something.

‘Cornerstone.’

In television, a term used to refer to images with sound.

‘Talkies.’

As he solved the puzzle one by one, he fixed his eyes on one sentence.

A heart that cherishes a certain person or existence.

What was it?

Giles felt his head go stiff like a child caught doing something bad. As if urging Giles, another hint was written. A feeling of longing or liking between a man and a woman.

He knew the answer. How could he not? It was he who felt such emotions sweeping over him like a tide a short time ago.

Giles couldn’t bear to write down the correct answer. He was stunned to see how restless he made himself. He slowly turned his gaze toward Lily.

Lily was dozing off with her head on his shoulder. Her tightly closed eyes looked tired. The large coat draped over her shoulders must have been quite warm, so she must have fallen asleep without knowing it.

Giles stretched out his hand towards Lily. The fact that such a being was sleeping next to him seemed to warp reality.

He mercilessly pushed screaming and weeping people of his hometown into trucks and even executed them by shooting them.

Arresting people, killing them… Such things were part of Giles’ daily life. Murder, which was justified by the new government, soon became his life purpose.

Having lived such a life, he was solving crosswords by the side of a good pianist who survived against all odds. This scenery, which was routine for some, was unrealistic. It was like waking up from a long nightmare.

The hand that had hovered by Lily’s side was soon withdrawn. He couldn’t bear to put his hand on her because it felt like her good dreams would be shattered if he touched her.

He looked down at the crossword puzzle again. A feeling that everyone experiences at least once in their life.

The deepest, most intense…

Giles wrote down the name of the emotion he believed he could no longer feel.

Love.

Everything became clear the moment he wrote down the identity of the emotion that had been swirling in his head.

Giles loved Lily.

He wanted to protect her no matter what…

He loved Lily.

He had no intention of denying it.

Because that was the truth.

So, could Lily love him?

He couldn’t jump to conclusions, but at least she was sleeping next to Giles, with his coat covering her. That fact alone was enough to comfort him.

Why did Lily leave this column empty?

Giles remembered the statements of the Bismar family. Perhaps she had forgotten the comforting feeling called love because she was in a hurry to survive. She must have shoved all the emotions that didn’t help her survive under the floorboards and never thought about them again.

Just as Lily was Giles’ comfort, he felt at ease thinking that maybe he was a comfort to Lily.

Giles closed his eyes, listening to her soft breathing.

He decided to enjoy this peace until he felt better.

***

“What are you thinking about these days?”

Giles lifted his head and looked at the face of the person sitting across from him. Harrington looked at Giles with a keen eye to dig into what was in his head.

Giles, whose mind had wandered involuntarily, straightened his posture.

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t mean to reprimand you. I was just wondering if you were okay.”

Harrington sighed as if he was embarrassed to say such a thing.

“It’s no surprise considering what you have been through lately.”

“I am okay.”

“Don’t even think about lying to me. No matter how much she was the enemy of our revolution, she was your sister before she was an enemy. You made a big decision. I hold you in high esteem for your work.”

Giles bowed his head and quietly thanked him. They were at a restaurant. It was a meal at Harrington’s request. Giles had no right to refuse. Harrington seldom left him alone for fear he might commit suicide.

“I thought this was enough for you to gain trust, but I think there are more hurdles to overcome. As you might have expected, some of the men who participated in the operation at the time were supposed to post a report on you. “

***