TWELVE Ch 19

Tall enough that his head almost brushed the ceiling of the stairwell, he raised a hand toward Enzo as he climbed the stairs. Enzo waved back, then opened the glass jar, took a sniff of the candy’s sweet scent, and popped one into his mouth. As the sweetness spread through his mouth, he quickly took out one more.

“Brother.”

“I am fine.”

As Pietro went inside the house, Enzo touched his cheek, which was bulging with the candy, and followed him inside. It was around the time the candy in his mouth had melted to half its size and felt lukewarm that the sound of footsteps was heard outside the door.

Enzo, holding the candy jar and the cat statue in both hands, quickly stood up from his chair and ran to the door.

“Brother!”

When he flung the door open, Romeo was coming up the stairs. Climbing up while sweeping the handrail with one hand and holding his cane in the other, Romeo stopped and looked up.

When Enzo ran down the stairs in a single bound and threw himself into his arms, Romeo hugged his shoulders and asked:

“Were you waiting?”

“Yes, I waited the whole time!”

Enzo hugged Romeo’s waist and rubbed his cheek against the military uniform. Taking a deep breath as if smelling Romeo’s scent, he showed him the cat statue in his hand.

“It is a cat I made!”

Enzo, who sometimes forgot the fact that Romeo’s eyesight was poor, thrust the cat statue right in front of Romeo’s nose. Instead of saying he could not see, Romeo stroked the head of his young brother whom he hadn’t seen in a while and praised him first.

“Did you really make this? It seems your skills have improved a lot since last time. Let’s go inside the house and take a closer look.”

Enzo, practically hanging off Romeo’s waist, climbed the stairs with him. As the two entered the house, Pietro was standing in front of the room door.

“Enzo has been pestering me to tell him when you were coming since before the sun went down.”

Taking the salary envelope out from the inner pocket of his military uniform, Romeo looked down at Enzo, who was clinging to his waist so tightly it was hard to stand. Thinking of how Enzo must have been whining while waiting for him, he felt apologetic and squeezed the boy’s shoulders once more.

“I should have stopped by on that rainy night; I am sorry.”

“It rained a lot that day, and I heard strange sounds outside the window. The wind kept blowing until late at night, so I cried, and Pietro Brother got angry and told me to be quiet.”

“He shouldn’t have done that.”

When Romeo handed over the thick salary envelope, Pietro took it. Enzo rolled the candy around in his mouth, not understanding what that envelope being passed from Romeo’s hand to Pietro’s was.

“Shall we take a look at the statue?”

Romeo knelt down and took Enzo’s cat statue. The statue felt heavy in his hands, and its surface was cold. The texture was bumpy, and it hit against his fingernails with a dull sound. As he fumbled with his fingertips over the dimly visible shape, Enzo began to explain as if he were used to it.

“The cat is curled up in a circle and lying down. Its ears are sticking up, and there is a swirl pattern on its back. Its tail is curled next to its bottom, and its front paws are tucked under its chin, but the claws are very long.”

Romeo grasped the overall shape of the statue by pressing and touching it with his palms. Just as Enzo said, the ears were perked up and felt sharp to his fingertips. The back and tail formed a supple curve, and a concave groove could be felt between the hind legs and the torso.

After identifying the general form by hand, he brought it close enough to his face for his eyelashes to touch and examined it slowly once more. Because it took a long time just to look at the cat’s face, Enzo, lacking patience, occupied himself by shaking the candy jar.

“What is that in your hand?”

Romeo, who hadn’t noticed the candy jar in Enzo’s hand, only asked then at the sound of the rattling.

“It is candy.”

Because Romeo had always refused sweet snacks flavored with honey and sugar, Enzo misunderstood that he did not like sweets and did not offer him any, only shaking the jar. Romeo, having checked the cat’s head, torso, and tail one by one, finally fumbled over the statue with his hands once more to grasp the overall outline. Even so, he could not know the statue as detailedly as if he had actually seen it with his eyes.

“You made it well. It must have taken a lot of time to refine it with a carving knife, right? The surface feels smoother than last time, and the shape of the tail and back seems very similar to a cat.”

“The master said so too. He said I refined it the best out of all the children in the art studio. Next time, I am going to try making a statue of a bird flapping its wings.”

Since it was Enzo he wanted to see more than the statue, Romeo set the carving down and had Enzo come closer.

“Let’s see how much you have grown in the meantime.”

As they stood facing each other close enough for their breaths to touch, Enzo let out a cute laugh. This was something Romeo always did whenever he stopped by the house after a long time.

First, Romeo touched Enzo’s cheeks, fumbling over the cheekbones with slow movements, and then he felt the recessed eyelids as if trying to confirm how they looked. With the tip of his thumb, he swept down the nose, ears, and jawline, and caressed the forehead and hair with his palm. When he touched the round back of the head and the thin neck, Enzo twisted his body and laughed.

“It tickles.”

The Enzo that existed in his memory was exactly as he looked when he was a very young child. He remained exactly as he was when Romeo had seen him back when his vision was clearer.

As he touched the shoulders and moved down the arms to hold the two soft hands, he felt the slender bone structure. A scent unique to young children wafted from Enzo. He could also feel his breathing and warmth. The things he could feel most clearly from Enzo, who was growing bigger by the day, were his voice and his laughter.

“Come here. Let me see you closer.”

Romeo pulled Enzo in and held his cheeks with both hands. He brought his head close as if to kiss him and met Enzo’s eyes.

Enzo’s eyes and nose came into his field of vision, which was blurry as if draped in smoke. Although he could not discern the shape of the eyes or lips in detail, he could see the features, however vaguely. Since Romeo could not even see his own face properly, he could not tell which parent Enzo resembled more, or by how much. He merely guessed that Enzo looked like him because Valeria and Marco had said long ago that Enzo resembled him a lot, and Gallienus had also once called Enzo “the little Captain.”

“How is it, Brother? Have I grown a lot?”

The sound of a knock on the door was heard just as Enzo asked that.

“I will open it!”

When Enzo ran in a single bound and opened the door, someone was seen standing there. Romeo, who could distinguish red the best, knew the visitor standing at the door was wearing reddish clothing.

“I heard voices and came down. It was indeed the Captain.”

When Giovanni’s voice suddenly came from the man standing at the door, Romeo furrowed his brow. It was natural to be surprised by Giovanni suddenly knocking on the boarding house door in the middle of the night. What reason could he possibly have for being here so late at night?

“Is it you, Mister?”

When he asked in a voice mixed with wonder, Giovanni laughed lightly.

“Yes, Captain. You seem quite surprised.”

While only the form of the body was faintly visible, Giovanni raised his hand and pointed toward the ceiling.

“I moved to the third floor here today. It is a relief that I can offer my greetings since the Captain happened to come by.”

Romeo furrowed his brow even more deeply and asked back:

“In that case, did you come down from the floor above?”

“Yes. We have essentially become neighbors now. While looking around the boarding houses in this vicinity to find a place to move, Madam Grana told me that three brothers lived on the second floor of this house. But I did not know that was you, Captain.”

Madam Grana was the owner of this boarding house, who was over seventy.

“It is a coincidence among coincidences that I looked around all the boarding houses in this area this morning and decided on this place. Actually, I saw Enzo’s face and, on the off chance, asked for the Captain’s name and found out. Since Enzo resembles the Captain so very much.”