“Once, I used to dream of having a grandmother I could visit in the summer. I imagined her house would look just like this.”
Sara’s mouth twisted in a mocking smile.
“A house like this? Then that grandmother would have been so poor she hadn’t even a piece of cake hidden in a cupboard for her visiting grandson.”
Jamalik joined in.
“Why? I saw plenty of things coming out of Granny’s pouch just now.”
“Be quiet. And stop your nonsense too. If you’d really had a grandmother like me, you wouldn’t want to visit even when it was time for me to go into my coffin.”
Lowering his eyes, Gene smiled. Just as he had not known what Sara was like before entering this house, she did not know what the idea of “a grandmother’s house to visit in summer” meant to him. It did not matter. He liked simply sitting here, talking about Beka’s past. Gene was enjoying having someone with whom to share such a conversation just as much as Sara was.
Had Beka known it would turn out this way?
It did not matter whether he had known. No, Gene chose to believe he had. One had to begin by trusting, if two strangers were to meet and become family. Trust their care, their love, their sympathy.
He felt a little embarrassed. Meeting someone connected to him by the thinnest thread had moved him this much. It made him realize how desperately he longed for blood kin, or for people who were almost kin. He did not want to dwell on it and grow bitter. At last he spoke.
“May I come again?”
“Adjutant. Have your feelings changed lately?”
“Hm? Mine?”
Gene emerged from his thoughts and looked at Jamalik. Their horses were walking with the setting sun behind them. They were on their way back to the nearby village where Jamalik had taken a room. They would spend the night there and return to Delphinad tomorrow.
“You seem to think a little differently from before.”
Gene did not answer immediately. Then one corner of his mouth rose as he muttered, “Being turned into a living love letter is a rather peculiar feeling.”
Jamalik tilted his head.
“Did you mean what you said?”
“What else?”
“Oh, it was a fine thing to say, of course. But it didn’t sound like you.”
“No?”
Gene looked unconcerned, but Jamalik studied his face thoughtfully and went on.
“Of course, it was well done. The old woman was truly pleased. But for the old adjutant, it would have been hard to imagine. How should I put it… You seemed rather… p-pure. No, we needn’t go so far back. You weren’t like this even last month. Have you perhaps fallen in love recently?”
When Gene burst into incredulous laughter, Jamalik seemed to wonder whether he had made a mistake. He scratched his head. He had spent some time away from Delphinad searching for Sara Izram. At last Gene spoke.
“You’re taking great pains to put it delicately. You mean I behaved like a child. But Jamalik, is your grandmother still alive?”
“Mine? Certainly not.”
“You had one once, though?”
“Of course. Until I was about twenty?”
“Then you must have plenty of experience playing the grandson. I don’t know how.”
Jamalik fell silent. Only then did he realize what Gene had been trying to do. Gene suddenly laughed.
“Come now. Was I that awkward?”
“Oh, no.”
Then he quickly added, “Well… a little. But don’t worry. I’ll get used to it from now on. Adapting is something I’m quite good at.”
Gene shook his head.
“It won’t be often.”
He had promised to visit from time to time. Sara had neither told him to do so nor told him not to, which amounted to permission. Next time, he meant to bring some suitable food. The thought somehow pleased him. It would be even better if he had someone to go with.
Sara did not have many years left. Had Beka been alive, he would have been almost seventy, so she must have been a similar age. Gene’s meeting with her was a line Garon had faintly drawn long ago. For an ordinary person, it would soon have faded. But Gene meant to draw over it. Just as he had once resolved to prove that a man named Beka had existed in this world, he wanted to recover a line that man had lost.
Beka had not deliberately passed on the name Shadowhawk, yet it had come to Gene of its own accord, as though joined by an invisible cord. He did not want to think of it as mere coincidence. He wanted to bind this connection firmly through his own efforts. If he could do that, perhaps he would find there something he should have received from his real family.
Discover more from Lilly Translations
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.