episode_0107

“Raul.”

Even to my ears, my voice sounded hollow and emotionless.

She was born like this. She was so shabby and unattractive that she didn’t even know how to use that usual loving voice.

How can I tell my child what I have not heard? How can I let my child taste what I have not tasted?

“Raul…”

There was no answer. The tightly shut mouth showed no sign of opening.

Of course, that would be so. Just as I can’t tell this child what I haven’t heard, this child won’t be able to tell me what he hasn’t heard from me.

When this child called me to get my attention, I didn’t answer either.

It wasn’t even called revenge. It was just a natural truth. The pathetic and natural truth that what I did would come back to me.

“Raoul Bergé.”

It was foolish. It was pathetic. It was like a fool. What on earth was he doing?

What difference would it make if I called her by her last name? I hated myself for wanting to have small expectations even though I knew that. No, when I thought about it, I had never liked myself. And yet, I hated myself more than ever.

Even though it was no different from pouring water into a bottomless jar, I continued to pour water.

“Raoul Bergé…”

It is said that some tribes in the South hold rainmaking rituals until it rains. Some may laugh at me for being foolish, but my current actions may not be fundamentally different.

Selfishly, I wanted to keep calling until the child answered, even though she had never once responded warmly to my calls.

I was sickened by the terribly self-centered way of thinking and acting. But instead of feeling sick, my body just uttered the child’s name. I should have lost the right to do so long ago.

“Please answer me…”

How on earth was I supposed to apologize? I couldn’t let you go like this. I couldn’t let you go without even apologizing properly. The expressions I showed you, the horrible words I said, the cruel acts I committed.

I have to apologize to everyone. How on earth do I apologize? I have never received an apology from anyone who has done this to me, so I have no idea.

My mother who abandoned me in that beast-like family, my father who didn’t even remember my name until he died, my older brother who fed me cockroaches and rats, my older sister who set fire to the barn I lived in, and my younger brother who tried to feed me paralyzing poison and abandon me in the slums.

I couldn’t help but not know because none of them said a word of apology. It was a natural thing, and there was no need for an apology, and it was an environment where the only way to appease the displeasure was to swing a sword.

The only people who ever apologized to me in my life were my husband and Raoul. I still vividly remember them apologizing in tears for what they did to me, for not being able to protect me, for being a bad son.

So I didn’t know how to apologize to someone I had really wronged. They taught me how to apologize to someone I had not wronged. But I felt like I would never know how to do the opposite.

But if I let it go without apologizing, I felt like the pain in my heart would never go away.

“Raoul… Raoul Bergé… Will you please answer me…? If you just answer me… I’ll do anything…”

Could this tingling in my chest be guilt? No, guilt alone couldn’t have caused this. Even when I first realized my sins, my chest didn’t hurt this much.

This feeling…

This pain that makes me want to hate my past self, to fondle the mirror of my past, and to resent all the actions I did back then…

okay.

The regret was evident.

The child is innocent. My husband also wanted to raise the child as our own. My husband was prepared to risk his honor and the family line. But I still couldn’t overcome the shadow of the past and hated the child.

Even so, this child tried to follow me. Even when he was a small child, he followed me around and asked me to read him books. He respected me and called me mother until the end. Even so, I was afraid to acknowledge this child, so I turned away.

Yes. It was regret. This was regret. Even when I killed my mother, even when I cut off my father’s arm, even when I made my brothers and sisters into legless cripples and threw them into the slums. The reason my once calm heart began to wave was regret.

Regret is such a painful thing.

“… Raoul Bergé. My son.”

I grabbed my son’s cooling hand and brought it toward my face. I didn’t care if it seemed selfish. I had no intention of caring about what other people thought anymore.

This is what it felt like. This child’s hand. I couldn’t know because I’d never held it even once. This hand, still warm and clean, must have been swinging around in the war.

You spent days in tears when your pet died. How painful it must have been for you to take lives with your own hands in that harsh place.

Even so, I never worried about you until the end. I thought you had become heartless because you resembled me. Even then, I felt a little regret, but I didn’t feel anything more than that.

But now I know for sure. It was we who sent him into battle. He was willing to shed blood on his hands for us. He was willing to bear the heaviest burden in the harshest places on earth for us.

Now I know. No, I finally know.

“…. Please answer me. If you just let me hear your voice one more time. If you just do that… I.”

What could I do for this child? Even that was a question. This child would no longer need me.

This is a child who would not regret anything even if I were not there. What on earth can I do for this child?

I now realize that giving a replacement for the woman I loved was absurd. If someone had told me they would give me a replacement for my husband or son, I would have been so angry that I would have drawn my sword.

From someone else’s perspective, my actions could not have been more horrific.

To this child, I was no different from the trash that had violated me.

“Ah… Now that I think about it, there’s one thing left I can do for you.”

Fortunately, there was at least one thing this country could do for this child.

“If… you just answer me… I can just disappear from your sight for the rest of my life without saying a word. I’ll live quietly in the countryside where no one can see me, and then I’ll die like that… Please… will you answer me?”

But his hands were gradually cooling down. His tightly closed, open lips were still not opening.

“……”

What use is this regret and guilt now? What use is this feeling that has become so inescapable?

I can’t turn back the clock. I can’t take back the words I’ve said. I can’t undo what I did to this child.

Those obvious facts weighed on me, just as the obvious rationales I demanded had tormented Raoul.

“Arthur… You… Please tell me… What should I do in this situation…”

There was no way to hear an answer to that question either.

Because the righteous man who died in guilt and regret could not possibly answer my questions about betraying him.

A face like mine. But it had the hair and eyes of that hateful man. But now none of that mattered.

If only I could have one more chance, if only I could turn back time, if only this child would open his eyes right now. Because those are buried in countless what-ifs.

The cruelest thing about this regret called what-if is that it reminds us of the past that is the source of that regret.

Even now, one of those fragments of the past cruelly tore through my mind.

Raoul was that kind of kid.

Once, a maid spilled hot tea on Raoul’s clothes. Naturally, Raoul got burned, the butler got mad, and the maid kept apologizing and then got on her knees begging to be killed.

I didn’t really take anyone’s side in that matter. If you make a mistake, you should take responsibility for it. Even if it was the kid you hated. I thought you had the right to punish the person who did you a wrong.

“… It doesn’t really matter. More than that, I don’t like this car, so bring me something else. If you’re going to do it, make it cold.”

Raoul changed his clothes without much thought and drank his iced tea as if nothing had happened.

“Why didn’t they punish him? If it was another noble family, it would have been a mistake that would have been punishable by death.”

“… I know that, but it’s not like that. My hands were slippery, and my leg just happened to be in the direction where the tea water was dripping. ”

It seemed like a cold and dry remark, but thinking back now, Raoul was a very kind child even back then.

And the kind child said this while reading the book absentmindedly.

“Didn’t you apologize again?”

“… Apple?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s a mistake that I made because I didn’t know. However… If you just say that one word of apology, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t forgive you.”

Ah, I see.

Last time I tried to apologize, you were so mean to me.

That’s why I didn’t apologize properly.

That wasn’t an apology, it was an excuse.

What a miserable woman I am. To think that I have not even said a word of apology until I am this old. I really was… a miserable woman.

“Raul.”

I won’t be asking you to wake up any longer. It’s no different from what I did.

I will no longer try to relieve the regret and guilt in my heart. This is a pain that I must endure.

So what I’m going to say from now on is:

It’s something that should be said, and something that I absolutely must say.

“I’m really sorry…”

It may be irrational to say this, but I wanted to tell you to stop being rational.