SALOME Ch 4

Having known that any foreign service assignment guaranteed a stay of at least five years, Cedric didn’t bother answering Beth’s question. Leaving his mother flustered as she struggled not to lie to her young daughter, Cedric carefully observed the surroundings of the house until his eyes met those of a woman next door, who was holding a broomstick and glaring discontentedly. When he raised his hand slightly to greet her out of habit, her eyes widened, and she promptly scurried back inside her house.

Watching her retreat while her headscarf fluttered behind her, Cedric felt a little awkward. It seemed the rumor that Germans were stoic was indeed true. Leaving the mother and daughter to their squabble, Cedric grabbed his share of the luggage from the Jeep they had arrived in and stepped inside the house.

On the other hand, Laura—who had met Cedric’s eyes—was so flustered at getting caught secretly spying that she tried to calm her beating heart before heading back to the large kitchen window. Just as she had expected, they were a British family.

Among them, the brown-haired lady with her refined beauty and the girl whose cheeks were still flushed were indisputably lovely to anyone’s eyes. Yet even aside from them, there was someone who stood out extraordinarily. It was the eldest son, who was as tall as her own master. Dressed in a school uniform—perhaps having just finished school—Cedric looked to be Laura’s age, or maybe a year or two older.

My goodness. Laura, feeling a sense of flutter in her chest after a long time, pressed her eyes between the embroidered kitchen curtains and secretly admired Cedric’s face as he moved a large suitcase. His eyes possessed a deep color like ancient wood, and his dark, neatly slicked-back hair added a sense of maturity to his somewhat youthful face.

He greeted me! Unlike the offhand greetings from Chris next door whom she ran into on the street every day, even the way he raised his hand carried a certain weight. Though Laura usually considered a pale face unmanly, Cedric was an exception.

Before she could indulge in those thoughts any further, Cedric disappeared inside the house, and Laura waved goodbye in her heart. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to see him every day. Resolving to apply without fail if a job posting for a maid next door ever came up, she turned away with regretful steps to do her backed-up laundry.

“Cedric, do you want to see your room already?”

As Cedric entered the house and was about to head up the stairs, his father, Albert, paused in his conversation with the movers and approached him. At that, Cedric lifted his suitcase and replied.

“Yes. I don’t have much luggage anyway.”

“Ah, that’s right. You came straight from Eton, after all. Your room is on the second floor.”

“Thank you.”

Just as Albert had said, Cedric had arrived in Berlin immediately after finishing his first term at Eton to follow his father’s assignment, so a few items of clothing and a handful of books were all he had. Though well-maintained, the staircase gave off a soft, occasional creak owing to the passage of time. Even that sound, however, was mostly drowned out by the footsteps of the movers hauling luggage up and down.

Reaching the second floor, it was relatively quiet compared to the ground floor and the communal area, which were bustling with unpacking. Four rooms faced each other across the central staircase; seeing a large wardrobe being brought into the room on the left—which clearly belonged to his sister—Cedric intuitively knew his room was on the right.

Stepping inside, he found a room of decent size—if anything, it looked larger than his dormitory room at Eton. The room was furnished with a desk, a bed, and a chest of drawers, and dust swirled in the air as unpacking was still underway. Cedric set his suitcase down near the drawers, took off his school uniform jacket, and placed it on top. It seemed he would need to clean up before filling the room with his belongings.

With that thought in mind, he loosened his tie to make himself comfortable, unfastened his shirt cufflinks, placed them on the desk, and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Then, he first opened the skylight fitted diagonally along the roofline by the bed, followed by the medium-sized window in front of the desk. A pleasant winter breeze blew in, gently ruffling his pomade-slicked black hair.

Beyond the window, through the bare branches of the trees, neighboring residential houses came into view, along with scattered small parks and lakes. Though perhaps not quite like Britain, just as his mother Ann had said, it looked like it would be quite green come spring and summer. As he leaned against the desk to enjoy the view, someone entered Cedric’s room, causing the floorboards—which had been relatively quiet compared to Beth’s room across the hall—to creak louder. At the sound, Cedric turned toward the entrance. Is there still more luggage left?

Standing where he turned to look was a worker wearing a newsboy cap pulled low, dressed in a shirt tied with a loose black ribbon string, carrying a wooden basket piled high with odds and ends like lamps. Recognizing the lamps that used to be in his room back in Dundee, Cedric quickly lifted the wooden basket from the worker. Contrary to its appearance, the basket was quite heavy.

“That must have been tough work. Thank you.”

The moment he lifted it, fingers brushed against each other, and the worker’s face hidden beneath the hat was briefly revealed. At the same time, their eyes met for a moment.

“…”

“…”

The face—which he had expected to belong to a burly, strong-featured Polish man like the ones he had seen in the communal area—was surprisingly refined. Or rather, delicate. Through the gap inside the hat, a few irrepressible strands of golden thread spilled out. Beneath features drawn as softly as a watercolor, the eyes nestled between eyelashes spun from individual strands of gold held a low-saturation blue hue.

Flushed cheeks warmed by the winter wind, and lips that were rather rosy for a man—when those lips parted slightly, their paused eyes began to move again. Neither breaking eye contact, the two took a step back from each other. Cedric quietly watched the worker, who was adjusting a newsboy cap that was larger than his own head.

He didn’t know why the worker was hiding such lovely hair, but the movement from the back of his head down to his forehead was remarkably meticulous. Then, as if intending to set up the lamp, the worker reached toward the wooden basket Cedric was holding. Seeing that, Cedric shifted his body to side-step the reach.

Though one had to earn a living, he simply hadn’t expected a girl to be doing such rough, strenuous labor. To Cedric—a well-educated Englishman known for treating women with utmost courtesy—that fact felt somewhat pitiful. As Cedric shifted away, the female worker’s hand hovered in place, having lost its destination, and Cedric’s eyes naturally drifted to it. As if a piece of small ivory had been painstakingly and smoothly carved, the hand was as delicate as its owner. Too precious to be carrying heavy loads. Cedric blurted out that realization without thinking.

“You have very pretty hands.”

∞ ∞ ∞

“…”

At that, the female worker’s body stiffened slightly. Realizing what he had done, Cedric let out a brief “Ah,” put the item down, and waved his hand. It seemed speaking in English had caused a misunderstanding. Hastily, he spoke in the German he had learned since childhood.

[I just thought your hands were pretty. I didn’t mean anything by it.]

At that, the worker hid her hands behind her back, began edging backward, and then bounded down the stairs with a racket. Unprepared for such a reaction, Cedric belatedly gave chase as the worker ran downstairs. But by the time he reached the second-floor landing and looked down at the child descending, her hand was already letting go of the banister in the communal area among the swirling handrails.

[Hey, I didn’t mean anything weird… Wait a moment.]

Hurrying down to the communal floor, he searched through the busy movers, but the worker was so swift that no matter where he looked, she was nowhere to be seen. It felt as though he had been trick-played by a fairy out of a Shakespeare play. Feeling bewildered, he climbed back up the landing, only to spot a single slender black ribbon string swaying between the spindles of the handrail.

Cedric didn’t miss it and picked it up. Woven into the soft-textured ribbon were a couple of barely visible strands of blonde hair, as if to prove that the person he had seen was no apparition.

Cedric gathered it carefully and slipped it into his school uniform trousers pocket. His plan was to find her and return it when the movers were leaving after finishing the house setup. Being a girl, wouldn’t she be pleased if he gave her some sweets, too? Halting mid-step as he climbed the landing again, Cedric turned toward the kitchen on the communal floor.

Seeing him, his mother Ann paused in organizing the china plates with the maids and brightened up.

“What is it, dear? Are you all done unpacking?”

“No… By any chance, is there anyone among the workers here who brought up the luggage to my room?”