Marriage Named Hatred Chapter 17
After Bastian had taken care of everything back home, he bought a plane ticket to Paris.
He clenched the boarding pass in his hand; it was only a thin slip of paper, yet it felt as heavy as if it were weighing something down.
He sat in the waiting lounge for a long time, staring out through the floor-to-ceiling window at the apron, while the roar of planes taking off and landing came through the glass, dull and muffled.
He did not know what he was going to Paris for.
To apologize? To confess? To beg her forgiveness?
During the fourteen-hour flight, he did not fall asleep.
Paris in winter was cold, damp, and bleak. Bastian had booked a hotel in advance; after he dropped off his luggage, he went straight to the concert hall where the orchestra was based. He had found her news—concertmaster of the Orchestre de Paris, and about to take part in an international competition.
He stood outside, listening to the faint sound of a violin drifting from within, and he stayed there for a long time.
Then he pushed the door open and walked up the stairs.
The door was left ajar. He stood at the threshold and looked in through the glass window, and at last he saw Annelise, the one he had been thinking about day and night.
She stood at center stage in a simple black dress, her hair loosely tied back, the violin braced on her shoulder, her eyes closed.
The piano began to play.
She started to draw her bow; it was a piece he had never heard before.
The melody was slow and light, like someone talking to herself.
Then it gradually quickened, carrying a hint of struggle, a hint of unwillingness, and finally it slowly settled back into calm.
With her eyes closed, she was completely immersed in her own world.
The expression on her face was one he had never seen—neither endurance, nor grievance, nor that careful wariness.
It was absorption, it was pleasure, it was… ease.
Like a bird that had finally flown out of its cage.
The piece ended.
The man at the piano stood up, smiled at her, and handed her a bottle of water.
After Annelise took the water, she smiled too.
Bastian stood where he was, his chest clenched as if something had seized his heart in a brutal grip.
He had never seen her smile like that.
He had never seen her smile like that.
When the rehearsal ended, the musicians filed out one after another. Bastian stood in the corridor, watching as she and the pianist walked out together.
The moment Annelise stepped outside, she saw Bastian. Her steps faltered for an instant, and then she kept walking forward.
Her expression did not change at all as she asked coldly, “Why did you come?”
Her tone was the kind you used on a stranger.
He opened his mouth, and for the first time he stammered in front of her: “I… I have something to say to you.”
Annelise looked at him for a few seconds, then turned to the man beside her and said, “Theo, wait for me a moment.”
The man nodded, asked nothing, and stepped aside to wait.
She walked up to Bastian, stopped in the corridor, and looked at him. “Go on.”
People came and went in the corridor; when musicians passed by, they glanced at them with curiosity and then moved on.
He stood there in front of her and poured out everything he had to say.
Annelise listened in silence the whole time, with little expression on her face.
When he finished, she was quiet for a few seconds, then lifted her head to look at him. “So what?”
Bastian froze.
“You are telling me all this because you want me to forgive you?” Annelise’s tone remained even. “Bastian, I had only just crawled out of the hell you put me through. Your remorse now is your business, not mine.”
After Annelise said that, she turned and walked toward the man waiting over there.
The two of them walked out of the rehearsal hall together and disappeared at the end of the corridor.
Bastian stood where he was, watching her retreating figure, unable to say a single word.