Disclaimer: Faust and Eliza belong to Takei Hiroyuki and the relevant publishers/distributors.
First Corinthians 13:13
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
I
Here is Justice, who is blind. Her eyes are torn out by winged beasts, so that she is faulted and cannot give back that which was taken.
Here is Eliza, who is dead. Her heart is eaten by worms and soil, so that she will not love him again. This is why he hates Justice.
Here is Faust, who coats his hands in blood. His soul whispers vague things about death and a cradle that knows no child.
Here is Love, who is greater than Justice. It has eaten him and killed her, and will be the undoing of Justice.
II
Eliza smiled at him in the sunlight, her pale hair glistening in the thin, sharp air of the German winter. She said, "It's going to be our first Christmas soon."
"I will make it snow for you," he offered. She laughed, and his chest burned, pleased.
Now it is winter again and it is not snowing. He stands at her grave and looks at the letters ground into the headstone. He wants to tell her he will give her Christmas again, but she must wait.
It will be spring soon. The earth will be softer; her grave will be emptied.
III
He wonders if it is madness that has driven him to cut the throat of this man, or if it is love. He watches him bleeding, throat severed and mouth swelling red, and thinks it is both.
The man struggles, not wanting to die, filling with pain and emptying of blood.
He is reminded of Eliza in the helplessness and feels angry - at her and the ugly body twisting before him. He says, "I'm doing this for you," and suddenly tired, he stabs through the man's chest into the heart.
Stillness, now, and he begins to clean his hands.
IV
He does not like Tokyo much. It is small and cramped, with too many people in too little space. He does not like to travel out in the daytime, not when his coloring and height make him so obvious. He worries about Eliza packed gently in his coat, and whether all this jostling will harm her.
In his small room at night, he arranges her bones gently on the bed while he sleeps on the floor, dreaming of blood and death and not caring that he is the one who has caused it.
He has nightmares of Eliza and Germany.
end