Solo For Two

Sasha woke up suddenly. It was still dark outside, and a faint moonlight was streaming into the room.With his head still fuzzy from sleep, Sasha thought reflexively.“Karel is very late.”Recently, not only had he been coming home late, but there were also frequent instances where he didn’t come home at all. Sasha, feeling completely awake now, sat up. As he sat on the bed, which was too wide for one person, he slowly realized that Karel had been gone for a very long time.Since that day when Karel was taken by the police, he had not crossed the threshold of this house.As this realization hit him again, past memories began to resurface. He remembered Karel confessing in front of the police and how calm he had been despite committing such a serious act.Sasha’s breath quickened.Fumbling beside him, Sasha found the kettle and drank some water. The lukewarm water slid down his throat and settled in his empty stomach. Water he couldn’t swallow dribbled down his lips.“Why did he make such a choice?”Sasha lay back down, blaming Karel.“Karel never does anything he doesn’t want to do….”Conflicting emotions filled him. He was glad Karel had avenged him against the soldier who had hurt him, but he couldn’t understand why Karel had done something he couldn’t handle.“Could it be that he found me burdensome?”Karel was so responsible and devoted that he would never say he wanted to leave first. Sasha suspected that Karel had escaped to prison. Feeling weak, Sasha often reconstructed the situation in his mind, steeped in a sense of victimization.Upon reconsidering, it seemed almost plausible, and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of this possibility sooner.Looking back, it seemed that Karel had been annoyed with him a few months before leaving. It was as if he wanted to leave entirely but was searching for an excuse. Though Karel’s dedicated attitude was unchanged since they first met, the deep-seated resignation that had settled in his soul frightened Sasha.If he abandoned me like this.Karel had been spending more time away from home, claiming it was because of his new store, but that too could have been an excuse.“Why did he tell me not to leave the house?”Karel had often recounted proposals and matchmaking attempts. Why would Karel refuse a stable home and a kind, considerate mature woman? Sasha had no idea what Karel was doing or who he was meeting outside his sight. If he wanted marriage, a life where the couple is introduced to the town and invited to community dinners, why would he stay with him?Tears rolled down Sasha’s cheeks as he blamed himself for not being able to give Karel what he wanted. He lost his composure and attempted to harm himself again. Seeing the blood drip down, Sasha regained some calmness. With bloodshot eyes, he thought.“Don’t blame Karel. Think about how my life would have been if I hadn’t met him… I might have died sick in Paris, selling my body. But if I had been slightly luckier? If I had stayed in Paris and kept auditioning…? No, the Grand Duke would have never left me alone. And if I had listened to Madame Rambouillet and fled? Where would I be now, and what would I look like?”Sasha remembered the first opportunity he had to completely escape from Karel.A train was coming. From afar.Sasha didn’t board the train.Dawn broke, and the next train arrived. The train came in, pushing the platform’s air and noise heavily. Again, Sasha didn’t board the train. Another train arrived. And when the next train arrived….Sasha didn’t board the train.Even when the sun set and the platform emptied, no one might have come looking for him. Sasha thought that would be a good thing. If no one chased after him, that was truly fortunate. Despite everything, Sasha didn’t get up from the bench.How much time had passed? A pale-faced man with disheveled blond hair ran into the station. Seeing Karel, who had come after him, Sasha thought.Maybe I was waiting for this man.Sasha gazed endlessly at the straight face of the young man, who was expressing his intense emotions. He clung to him, crying and pouring out his resentment.“Why did you leave?”“…….”“Why didn’t you leave?”Sasha recalled Karel’s tears then. He also remembered the firm embrace and the warmth of his body.Before he knew it, Sasha was wandering outside the house, barefoot. Walking through the quiet grass under the moonlight, he looked like a madman, but he believed he was recalling the past with clear reason.When Sasha regained his senses, it was past noon. He had come home at dawn and had fallen asleep, waking up eight hours later.The sunlight, the clear view, and the voices from the radio briefly brought Sasha back to his senses.The smell of grass and dirt clung to his pants and sleeves. Sasha vaguely remembered the events of the previous night, as if they were a dream. It felt like someone else’s experience. He doubted if he had really been outside, but his dirt-stained bare feet proved it. Sasha sat blankly for about an hour after getting up. Though he felt extreme hunger, he couldn’t bring himself to move.Listening to the news, more news, and then music from the radio, evening approached. Overwhelmed by hunger, Sasha finally stood up. A severe sense of helplessness enveloped him.There was moldy bread left in the house. Sasha ate the white parts half-heartedly and drank a few sips of alcohol instead of bread. However, his stomach, which had not had proper food for days, only reminded him of its presence. It felt like it was burning.With no other choice, Sasha rode his bike to the village to buy food.In the bustling street, people walked past Sasha quickly as he hesitated. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he regretted not tidying his hair before leaving the house.On his way to the grocery store, he passed a modest restaurant with flickering lights. They sold schnitzels the size of two palms. He missed having a meal prepared by someone else instead of making dinner himself. The warm light from the candles, the fresh flowers on the table, and the heavy iron cutlery….Sasha approached the door but then stepped back. He didn’t have the courage to enter the restaurant and dine alone among others.Eventually, Sasha forced himself to move and bought a few pieces of fruit and some bread that hadn’t been sold since it was baked that morning. Instead of perishable vegetables, he opted for canned goods. The moment he paid, he rushed out of the store as if fleeing. The woman at the register had looked at him with suspicious eyes.“Does she know me? Why is she staring at me like that?”In reality, she had no particular thoughts; she merely found Sasha peculiar because he avoided eye contact and spoke awkwardly. However, with Sasha’s recent paranoia, he believed anyone could attack him.“Sasha? It’s Sasha, right?”Someone called his name from behind, and Sasha was startled, straightening up.Turning around with trembling nerves, he saw Julian. Julian poked his head out of a carriage and asked with a welcoming expression.“Are you here to prepare dinner?”“Yes.”“What a coincidence. I returned from London last week. I was thinking of visiting you…. Would you like to have dinner together? I was about to eat as well.”Julian extended his hand to help Sasha into the carriage. At that moment, a piece of fruit rolled out of the paper bag. Sasha let out a small scream but quickly closed his mouth, not wanting to bother Julian.As the carriage started, the fruit was crushed under the horse’s hooves. Sasha concealed his distressed feelings.“I heard Karel went to the Eastern Front.”“…Yes.”Sasha’s weak voice came out as his dry lips cracked.Julian, with a troubled expression, muttered a series of uncharacteristically crude words: “Foolish bastard, idiot, the most ungrateful son who thinks his body belongs to him.” Julian had been running around, attaching a lawyer to Karel, posting bail, and meeting with the prosecutor and judge through connections to plead for leniency.During all that time, all Sasha could do was attend the trial. Regardless, Julian, who had struggled so much for Karel, seemed still in shock over what Karel had done.“He’ll come back alive, won’t he?”Sasha reflexively nodded, but Julian’s comforting words didn’t reach him. Sasha’s mind was already too sick to realistically judge life and death.Arriving at the Ludwig residence, Sasha ate a hearty meal after a long time and was bathed by the servants. As soon as he lay down on the soft feather bed, he heard a hallucination.Karel and Julian, sitting on the sofa beyond the bed, were talking about him, knowing full well that he was listening. Sasha held his breath under the blanket, eavesdropping on their conversation, fearing they might realize he was awake.“He’s reasonably handsome, so it’s worth keeping him around.”It was Karel, trying to persuade Julian. Sasha was suddenly transported back to the Côte d’Azur villa four years ago.“Are you kidding? Do you know how much money we’re wasting on him for medical bills, food, rent, and transportation?”It was Julian who was complaining.“I’ll take care of it.”“You’re not planning to live with him forever, are you?”“What are you talking about? Do you think I’d throw my life away like that?”“Exactly, don’t do anything that would disgrace your honor.”“That’s why I’ve hidden him. Out of sight of others… very carefully.”As Karel said that, he looked at Sasha.Sasha, with only his eyes peeking out from under the blanket, shed tears. He couldn’t forgive Karel for saying such things. He resented Karel for taking away the ground he could stand on and making him a bird in a cage. Sasha sprang up and swung his fist at Karel.But with his punches landing on thin air, Sasha only wobbled. Breathing heavily, he placed his hands on the floor. He groped the table, grabbing whatever he could and swinging it. A heavy wine bottle smashed against the wall.Hearing the commotion, a servant rushed in. He was a stout man accustomed to Sasha’s fits. The burly servant, who had been caring for the mentally unstable Sasha, now forcibly restrained him from behind as Sasha tried to throw a candlestick.“Let go… let go! Ugh….”Sasha struggled with all his might, but his resistance was pathetically weak, and his voice was barely more than a whisper. Soon, he clung to the man holding him.“Why did you ruin my life? Why did you leave me…. I’ll curse you. Karel, Karel!”Sasha whispered, holding the servant’s face. The servant, silent, laid Sasha on the bed, securing the blanket tightly under the mattress to keep him from escaping. Then he firmly held Sasha’s still-twitching body.Feeling the pressure, Sasha wept bitterly, frustrated that he could no longer resist.“Let me go.”Sasha, his vision blurred by tears, looked at Karel.“I never held onto you.”Though the servant said nothing, in Sasha’s hallucination, Karel replied with infuriating nonchalance. With a stern face, Karel scolded Sasha.“I always left the door open for you to run away! Now’s your chance. Why do you keep saying you’ll leave if you don’t have the courage to? Do you want me to hold you back?”Karel’s cold, mocking smile was unbearably attractive and heartbreaking for Sasha.Muttering curses, Sasha desperately tried to kiss Karel. But Karel, with a serious expression, rejected Sasha’s kiss.The servant, laying Sasha back down, said, “I’ll bring some sleeping pills.”Sasha buried his face in the pillow, feeling despair. Until the servant returned to administer the prescribed sleeping pills, he continued to curse Karel.＊ ＊ ＊The next morning, Julian, who had been informed of Sasha’s antics by the servant, looked at Sasha with a complex expression as he calmly ate breakfast. Sasha, not remembering some parts of the previous night, felt ashamed of his disgraceful behavior when he broke the wine bottle.“Sasha, wouldn’t it be better to stay at the mansion?”Before sending him off, Julian made this difficult suggestion.Until then, Julian believed that Sasha had been a victim of his stepbrother’s overwhelming love. Julian concluded that Karel’s imprisonment and subsequent departure to the war were self-inflicted consequences of being consumed by love. He still couldn’t fully believe that his once-wise brother had done such things.However, Julian had anticipated such a tragedy long ago. It seemed inevitable that Karel would experience this kind of love.Julian knew that when his brother most desired something, he would take a step back. At such times, Julian wished Karel would act recklessly. He hoped so partly out of fraternal concern but mainly because he didn’t want to see what would happen if Karel repressed his desires to the breaking point.But if Karel had already changed, there was nothing Julian could do to stop it.Thus, Julian had already resigned himself to a certain extent. Julian saw that Karel’s patience had a clear limit. Unless he was a saint, such self-consuming patience would inevitably fester internally and explode one day. Julian, having read many classics, knew well how such patience could lead to tragic outcomes at critical moments.This was just one of those moments.After a while, Sasha shook his head at Julian’s suggestion.“I can’t live forever relying on others’ kindness.”Julian respected Sasha. Although he seemed to be tossed around, Sasha was inherently self-reliant. He had fled alone to a distant border to escape the inescapable pressure of a grand duke.“If Karel leaves me….”“Yes?”“What will become of you and me if Karel is gone?”Sasha asked, his eyes filled with faint fear and curiosity. Julian replied awkwardly.“We’d be friends.”He then sent Sasha off with various fine ingredients, clothes, and a servant to help with household chores.“Accept a friend’s kindness appropriately. I’m not a stranger.”Sasha’s eyes momentarily flickered with slight relief. “Thank you,” he said in a small, crawling voice, and left the mansion.＊＊＊As if the occasional chaos was a lie, Sasha often regained his sanity.However, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia constantly blurred the line between reality and madness, consuming Sasha’s mind. During this time, Sasha resolved that he must become independent. Even in his unstable state, Sasha found a plausible answer.“I need to be myself.”Though this conclusion was filled with self-defense, it was the only answer for Sasha at the time.The radio played the “Polovtsian Dances.” The beautiful voices of the female singers soothed Sasha’s heart, and he naturally thought of the waltz steps. He remembered Karel once giving him a pair of ballet shoes, though he couldn’t recall where he had stashed them now.In March 1917, Sasha heard new news through the radio.There was a revolution in Russia, and the Tsar had been dethroned.It was the upheaval of the world, something Sasha had never considered. Sasha’s brother Levin had joined the peasant revolution and died. Sasha’s only remaining family, his mother, had also been killed by nobles.Sasha’s hands began to tremble with excitement.The revolution had begun.Grand Duke Nikolai was killed by peasants while fleeing. The splendid Winter Palace in Petersburg was also seized by peasants. Russian intellectuals, artists, and businessmen were continuously applying for asylum and flocking to Europe.Sasha was finally freed from the oppressive past that had always shackled him. The chains he hadn’t even realized were there were broken.An upheaval began within Sasha as well.He sat like a statue until the sun set and he could no longer read the newspaper’s letters.＊＊＊He cleaned the dusty house thoroughly. He threw out all the old stored food, packed the slightly valuable items in paper boxes, and locked them in the attic. Overflowing with energy for the first time in a while, Sasha spent several days sweating as he organized the house.The next thing Sasha did was visit the post office to buy stamps and envelopes. Arriving at the post office on a rusty bicycle, he found it so crowded that he could barely set foot inside. The employees looked busy, and the place was noisy with the sound of telegraphs being sent everywhere.After a long wait, Sasha finally bought stamps.While counting the stamps and envelopes he had paid for, an elderly employee who handed him his change suddenly asked.“Are you planning to send a letter to the front lines?”Startled, Sasha looked up. The employee was staring at him through his glasses. When Sasha nodded, the man averted his gaze. Sasha, flustered by the inquisitive look, hurriedly tried to leave. He heard a curt voice from behind.“If you send a letter now, it’ll take three months to arrive.”Muttering his thanks, Sasha left.“Why did he tell me that?”Feeling an inexplicable unease, Sasha fled back home.That day, Sasha bit his nails, making dots on the white paper and then removing them repeatedly. He had thought he had much to say, but upon reflection, most of it seemed unworthy of being written.“I’m leaving home.”In reality, most of the lengthy explanations were to convey that one sentence.And the short phrases in the letter were revised to convey various nuances.“Let’s meet when the war is over.”It started as a promise.“Can we meet when the war is over?”It started as a request for permission.“If you want to see me, we can meet when the war is over.”It became an indefinite supposition.In the end, the completed sentence was very passive. Even as he wrote it, Sasha felt unsure.After staying up all night, Sasha finally managed to finish the letter the next morning. One was to be sent to the front lines, and the other to Russia. Despite the extensive deliberation, the contents were surprisingly simple and concise.After sealing the letters and attaching stamps, Sasha headed back to the post office.The same employee from before inspected the letters Sasha was about to send, then stamped them with a thud.“One letter to the Eastern Front… and one letter to Russia, correct?”“Yes, that’s correct.”“Are you Russian?”Sasha hesitated, then nodded. The unease he had felt before surged up again.As Sasha walked out of the post office and headed toward where he had parked his bicycle, he glanced back. The employee from earlier was just exiting the building. He looked around, then approached a nearby policeman, pointing at Sasha. With trembling hands, Sasha grabbed his bicycle and fled the square.Racing back home, Sasha regretted his actions.“Am I being suspected of being a spy because I said I was Russian? Of course, they’d suspect me for sending a letter to an enemy country in these circumstances. But I have no ties to Russia. If the police have any sense, they won’t arrest an innocent person. The content of the letter is trivial anyway. And…”He had to send the letter, even if he didn’t receive a reply.Throwing his bicycle haphazardly into the yard, Sasha rushed into the house and began stuffing clothes into a leather case. He moved back and forth between the bathroom and the bedroom, checking multiple times if there was anything else he needed to pack. Then, just as he was about to walk out the door, he stopped and returned to sit on the sofa.For some reason, Sasha stayed in that house for three more days, even after preparing to leave. He couldn’t explain his behavior, even to himself. Although he knew he couldn’t wait for a reply from Karel, he delayed his departure. The employee had said it would take three months for the letter to reach the front lines, and even longer to receive a reply.