Sometimes I can feel it.
Like Hester Prynne's letter, burning her chest whenever she looked at another woman guilty of adultery, I can feel this crucifix around my throat branding me a sinner. Is there an unforgivable sin? And how do you know when you've committed it?
Maybe Christianity is irrelevant. Perhaps Buddhism is the true path. Dunno, but I'd rather roast in Hell with Zechs than sing tired hymns with the angels anyway. One more sin doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
My thoughts are interrupted by the neighbor's barking dog. Something tells me Zechs didn't get any sleep last night either thanks to that rotten mutt. I was hoping he'd sleep undisturbed since he woke up the previous night with a nightmare, the third one this week. But he rolls toward me, his legs twisted in the sheets, muttering a word I've never heard before, "Alsike." What is that? Norwegian? Sounds more Norwegian than Cinquian, or possibly Danish, but maybe I'm wrong. These Scandinavian languages throw me. I can almost tell the difference between Cinquian and Swedish, but I guess it doesn't matter.
Zechs is having another nightmare. I should probably wake him, but I'm frozen in place by the picture he's presenting. Blond hair winds around his wrists, closed eyes flutter in the throes of R.E.M. slumber. He's a tortured vision, an angel in Hell. Seems so evil that God should let one of his divine beings suffer so, but perhaps it was Zechs who committed the unforgivable sin. Every sin after his is a damnable offense; there will be no more mercy from God.
He awakens a moment later, groggy and confused. The clock on the headboard beeps 10 a.m. and he's a little surprised to see me here still in bed with him. But where would I go on a Saturday morning? I can't sleep when he can't sleep, and I'm dead tired right now.
The mutt next door barks again, and Zechs' eyes dart nervously to the bay window. Slowly unwrapping his legs from the sheets, he rises from the bed and gravitates toward the window. There's something in his eyes I've never seen before, and it scares me. Scares me even more when he sits on the window seat, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth. I suddenly know what Milliard Peacecraft looked like when he was six years old. He looked like this. A frightened little boy.
"Zechs? Are you all right?" I ask the question quietly; maybe too quietly because he doesn't answer for several seconds. When his tired whisper cuts through the stillness in the room, it's like a door creaking in a mausoleum. Startles me.
"I remember now," he begins slowly, "I remember everything now. I tried to bury it for so long, but it won't stay buried." His voice cracks, and I find myself throwing off the covers to join him at the window. Zechs has never liked pity, but I'm not sure there's another word for what I'm feeling. I've never pitied anyone as much as I pity him right now. I want to gather him in my arms and make the pain go away somehow, but this pain, I already know, has no relief. Like a bullet buried in tissue too close to a major organ for a surgeon to risk removing it. He has to leave it where it is, then hands you the bill for doing nothing. It will always hurt; you just deaden yourself to the pain. Zechs has done a good job numbing himself up to now, diverting his attention to his revenge and his endless pursuit of those who wage war.
But something's changed in the last week, and I can see the walls he's carefully constructed around the pain are crumbling. The damn dog next door yaps again and I wonder just what the hell this puppy's barking at.
"There was a dog barking then, too..."
I turn from the dog to the blond prince trembling in front of me. "What, Zechs?"
"I was in the study, and...and there was a dog barking somewhere. People were running, screaming; the building was shaking, but all I could hear was this dog barking."
His words are like a blade dragged against glass; I just want the horrible sound to stop, but he needs to say this, and I suppose I need to hear it.
"It kept getting closer and closer until it was in the same room with me. A white dog with a smile. Samoyed. She ran up to me and licked my face, so happy to see me. She jumped around, and...and her paws..."
Her paws? He stops a long moment remembering them, but I don't see the importance of dog feet. Not yet. "What about her paws?"
"So much blood, her paws...covered in blood...jumping around in the blood..."
"Blood? Whose blood?"
He pauses a moment to picture the owner.
"Papa's."
Ah. We're there. Only I never knew there was a dog. He stops to dig the heel of one hand into his eye and I realize his eyes are tearing. He'll never let them fall, though. Zechs would rather die than let someone see him cry. The dog next door starts barking in earnest.
"The building shook, pieces of the ceiling started falling, and I screamed, 'Papa! You've got to wake up! We have to go!' But he didn't get up."
I've seen the news footage of this day; I've heard eyewitness reports. But I've never heard the Prince of Cinq talk about the last days of the kingdom before.
"There was a man there, following the dog as if expecting her to lead him to something. Don't know who he was; just someone who worked for my father."
Every sentence seems to trail off into space and he stumbles over every other word. I don't want to hear about the fall of Cinq any more than I want to hear the neighbor's dog yapping, but the two are connected somehow. Zechs draws breath again, talking more to the window than to me.
"'Your Grace, what are you doing here?' he asked me, 'The palace is going to collapse any moment. We have to—oh my god! His Majesty! All is lost for Cinq. All is lost!' I didn't know what he meant by that; I found out later he'd already seen my mother."
The dog next door has stopped barking, and in the silence I consider all the potential reasons a dog would bark. I've never seen this dog; it doesn't sound like a very large breed, but not a small one either. Never seen it, but it's only been there a little over a week.
"'Papa fell down!' I screamed, but the man ignored me."
"Give me your hand, Milliard! We must leave!"
"No, not without Papa!"
"I'm sorry, Your Grace, but your papa's in Heaven. Now we must go before the building falls on us!"
"I didn't want to leave, but he grabbed my wrist. The dog ran ahead, leaving a trail of blood on the marble floors. It was the only way we could find our way out with all the smoke...had to follow her bloody paw prints..."
"That's a good girl! Lead us out of here, Alsike! Come, Your Grace. Your dog knows the way!"
"It was so hot, heat seeping through shoes...white shirt stained with blood. Papa's blood."
"Keep going, Alsike! That's a good girl! Show us the way out! Come, Your Grace."
"We followed the barking through smoke and fire. Yet I didn't want to. Something was wrong; something missing. Papa...Papa is dead, isn't he? But where are Mama and Lena?"
"Just a little further, Your Grace! Don't let go of my hand or I'll never find you again in all this smoke. That's a good girl, Alsike! Lead us out!"
"Insistent barking echoing through black hallways. Sweaty hand pulling me through Hell, always following the steady yapping of a smiling dog with red paws."
"I can feel fresh air, Your Grace! Praise God, your dog has shown us to safety! Good girl, Alsike! Good girl!"
"There was more rumbling, and movement under our feet..."
"Good girl!"
"Marble shifting, and a sudden rain of ceiling..."
"Get down, Your Grace!"
"And then the barking stopped."
"Alsike!"
"Part of the roof caved in and the dog was crushed under the debris. Strange funeral for a good dog, buried under piles of rubble."
"I'm sorry, Your Grace. Your dog is dead. But she has saved us! Look, here is the way out."
"A sweaty hand pulled me away from Alsike..."
"Come, Your Grace! We're almost out!"
"Away from Alsike..."
"Try to get some fresh air into your lungs, Milliard."
"...and Papa." Zechs buries his face in his hands, and on cue the dog outside resumes his yelping. "I'm sorry, Trowa. I'm so ashamed. I'd put that day out of my mind, but that stupid dog next door brought it all back. I'm so sorry."
Zechs is never going to get another good night's sleep as long as that damn dog keeps barking. I decide to go have a little talk with our neighbors. I kiss Zechs on the forehead and turn toward the walk-in closet. It wouldn't do to leave the house in pajamas. I throw on a pair of jeans and a turtleneck that just happens to be handy. I can hear Zechs leaning against the window, heaving a deep sigh. The bitter sound of it reminds me there's one more thing I want to take along, just in case our neighbors need a little more motivation. On tiptoes I stretch up to the shelf above the clothes and rummage through a box up there for a semi-automatic I was never without during the war. There's probably a more diplomatic way to deal with a troublesome neighbor, but I'm not feeling particularly diplomatic today. For a moment I'm rather disgusted to find I packed the gun away loaded with a full clip, but it's not like Zechs and I have children. He still has his back to me when I emerge from the closet, and the picture of him rubbing his eyes sticks with me for the next few minutes as I head down the stairs.
'What's a friend?' someone once asked me. A friend is someone who watches your back. Protects you from harm, physical or mental. Is there a sin in that? The preoccupation with sin returns as I hop the fence dividing our property from the neighbors'. For the first time I see their dog. Samoyed. A smiling white dog. Hell, I should've known it would be the same breed. Not surprisingly, the dog barks furiously at my approach.
I guess the neighbors aren't home; if they are, they're indifferent to the dog's yapping because no one comes out to investigate me. It's just as well. I didn't really feel like talking to anyone right now anyway.
The dog is chained to a stake in the ground. He probably barks because he wants to run free. This thought comforts me a little as I raise my weapon and point it at the dog's head. His owners obviously don't give a damn about his comfort or they'd have more compassion for their frustrated animal. Dogs need to run free in a large, enclosed yard. I free him from his misery by pulling the trigger. Pieces of brain and skull fly everywhere for an instant as his head explodes, and I realize I didn't need to shoot him at close range with such large caliber ammunition. It's ironic that I never had enough ammo during the war and now I have too much.
What's left of the beautiful animal collapses in a heap, white coat drenched with blood. Red paws. I lower the gun and turn toward Zechs. The window he's in overlooks another yard and he can't see me from here, but he surely heard the report. Will he feel guilty for telling me about his past, knowing it led to this? I hope not. The sin is mine. I remove the clip from the gun on the way back to the house and notice specks of blood on my hands, my shirt, my pants, my face. A little more blood on my hands, a little more sin on my immortal soul.
But what's one more sin?