—Epilogue—
“So that’s how it was…”
The man from the post office wore a somber expression.
“I never imagined Antonio would be that kind of person…”
“Antonio?”
“Antonio Renner. That foolish man.”
‘Was his name Antonio? Was Renner his surname?’
It was lucky he found out now. He didn’t know how awkward it would have been if he had tried to address the letter without knowing the proper name.
“Antonio and I have been friends since we were children. We were around the same age in this small town, and our names, Bassanio and Antonio, are quite similar, aren’t they? So we used to hang out often.”
“You must have a lot on your mind.”
“Even though we were that close, I wonder why I didn’t recognize his true intentions sooner.”
“Even with someone close, it isn’t easy to see the malice hidden deep inside. In fact, it’s often harder to notice precisely because you are close.”
“No. Thinking back, there were plenty of signs. I was simply turning a blind eye to them.”
The post office man—Bassanio—sighed and spoke as if he were in a confessional.
“Antonio was always badmouthing Utu. He would say things like foreigners never know when they might commit a crime, or that he was surely keeping his wife locked up at home. But I didn’t think Antonio was dangerous at all. I just… I just thought Utu was the one bringing discord to this village.”
Bassanio seemed to be feeling a heavy sense of guilt.
“Detective. Please answer me honestly. If I had trusted Utu and sent that letter on time, would he still be alive today?”
“That…”
After a moment of hesitation, I answered.
“There is no way to know. No one can.”
The letter had arrived at the post office this morning. Even if he had sent it the moment it arrived, there was no way to be sure it would have reached Utu while he was still alive. Even if it had been delivered while he was alive, there was no way to know if Utu would have checked the letter in time. And even if he had checked it, would he have survived?
Even that was uncertain. Because the content of the letter wasn’t about saving himself; it was about protecting Posha.
“Maybe he would have, but nothing is certain. Everything is just a possibility,” I said honestly.
“I see…” Bassanio nodded heavily. “Detective. Do you remember what I said about Utu when we first met?”
“I’m not sure.”
I recalled him saying several negative things.
“I laid out all sorts of prejudices against the people of the Northern Region. I said they were likely to be criminals, and therefore Utu was a dangerous person who should be avoided. Looking back, I was just mindlessly accepting Antonio’s words, but at the time, I believed it was the truth.”
Bassanio let out a hollow laugh.
“But now, I’ve become the person who is likely a criminal—someone who might have even aided and abetted a murder.”
“Mr. Bassanio…”
“Perhaps it’s my fault that Utu died. If anyone found out, wouldn’t they look at me with prejudice as well? As the man whose prejudice caused someone’s death.”
Suddenly, I remembered my conversation with Walter about prejudice against veterans. Walter had said that prejudice is just statistics. He argued that treating veterans like criminals happened because they were statistically more likely to be criminals.
‘Perhaps that’s true.’
However, there were human lives outside of those statistics. There was the life of Utu, a foreigner with a criminal background who fit the statistics but dreamed of a different life. There was the life of Posha, who had thoroughly exploited statistical prejudices only to eventually grow weary of them. And there was the life of Bassanio, who might not be a good person but wasn’t a bad person either.
These lives were too diverse to be read through prejudice alone.
“I’m planning to hold a memorial service for Utu.”
“A memorial service?”
“Yes. I heard somewhere that it’s a tradition among the people of the Northern Region. I heard they set out the food the person liked while they were alive on every anniversary of their death. I have no idea what Utu liked, though. To be honest, I knew nothing about him.”
“From what I’ve heard, he probably liked mushrooms.”
Bassanio nodded silently.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Humans cannot change the past. Regret will not bring back the dead. Nevertheless, people must keep living. So, the only thing one can do is carry their sins on their back and move forward. Remembering what they have done, and hoping that they might learn something from it.
***
Around the time the case was being wrapped up, Walter approached me while I was alone and spoke.
“Thank you.”
“Pardon?”
“For persuading Mrs. Posha. I don’t think even the great Balthazar could have gotten her to cooperate with me if it weren’t for you, Mr. Hayes.”
“Ah.”
“Even though your words were a bit harsh, I think that kind of shock therapy was exactly what she needed, since she had lost her will to live.”
“Um… thank you for seeing it that way.”
I nodded awkwardly. I wasn’t the type to dislike praise, but I felt a bit guilty about accepting recognition for this. The result was good, but that hadn’t been my intention.
‘In that moment… I couldn’t suppress my anger.’
It wasn’t some grand idea like shock therapy. I simply couldn’t hold back my rage.
‘I shouldn’t have been that harsh, though.’
Telling her she was a coward, or that she was just trying to escape through death… Those weren’t things you should say to someone who had just lost their husband and was in despair. Although things worked out in the end, I didn’t quite understand why I had gone that far.
In that moment, it felt as if I weren’t myself.
“You might not believe me, but I don’t usually speak that aggressively.”
“Is that so? Because those words reminded me of how you were in the past, Mr. Hayes.”
“Excuse me?”
“I told you before, didn’t I? I had a feeling I had seen you somewhere before.”
Walter smiled, his eyes crinkling softly.
“I was right after all. I have seen you before. Five years ago, on the Eastern Front.”
“…! Can you tell me more about that?”
“It’s not a problem. Honestly, I still remember that day vividly. But I never imagined that the traitor from that day would be you, Mr. Hayes.”
Traitor?
At that ominous title, my heart skipped a beat. I suppressed my anxiety and listened to his story.
***
Five years ago.
It was around the time the war of expansion was winding down. Around then, peace negotiations had begun, and diplomats were moving actively across the borders of the two countries.
However, the roar of cannons had not stopped at the front. On the contrary, the Eastern Front was more intense than ever. It was a desperate struggle to secure even an inch more of land before the war completely ended.
Around that time, an ominous rumor spread among the soldiers of the 6th Infantry Regiment under the 17th Infantry Division of the Imperial Army. It was said that a colonel, obsessed with achievements, was planning a reckless charge to earn military merit.
The ground in front of the enemy territory the colonel was targeting was covered in ankle-deep snow. The snow had frozen and melted several times, making it so muddy that it was no different from a swamp. A charge would be extremely difficult to succeed, and even if it did, it was certain that numerous soldiers would lose their lives.
One day, while an uneasy atmosphere lingered, Walter witnessed the colonel in question. It was in the middle of the night, in the shadows behind a secluded barracks. From there, he heard the colonel’s angry voice.
“How can you not understand! A soldier is someone who must move forward even when they know their life might end! Isn’t that the military spirit!”
“If you were prepared to die and wanted to move forward, I wouldn’t have stopped you. But choosing to carry out an order when you know the operation is bound to fail… isn’t that just escaping through death?”
What?
At the sound of the alarming conversation, Walter held his breath without even knowing the identity of the person speaking to the colonel.
“What you are trying to do isn’t a soldierly charge; it’s suicide. How do you intend to pay for the lives of the innocent young men who will be your companions to the afterlife?”
“Then what do you want me to do!” the colonel shouted in frustration. “I know! This kind of operation makes no sense! But has anything in this war ever made sense? It was a meaningless war from the start! Nevertheless, I was ordered to go, and I’m simply trying to charge because I was ordered to. What else can I do? I am a soldier! A soldier of this country, of the Empire!”
“Is that a value more important than your life?”
The colonel gasped. “…What are you trying to say?”
“I’m telling you to truly be prepared to die. Don’t just walk into death while being completely submissive.”
*Gulp.*
The sound of someone swallowing hard could be heard. Walter couldn’t tell if the sound had come from him, the colonel, or both.
‘Is he crazy? Telling him not to be submissive?’
From the sounds of it, this ridiculous charging operation hadn’t come from the colonel’s head. It was an operation sent down from higher up. To tell him to disobey it… was he encouraging wartime insubordination? Or something even more?
‘Rebellion…’
Just as that terrifying word became etched in his mind…
“This isn’t the place to talk. Let’s move somewhere else and speak in more detail.”
The two men turned toward Walter. He hurriedly hid himself. For a fleeting moment, he felt like he had locked eyes with a young man in a blue officer’s uniform, but he couldn’t be sure.
Walter didn’t know what kind of conversation passed between the two after that. The only certain thing was that the rumors among the soldiers ended as just rumors. The half-baked charge wasn’t carried out, and time passed as if nothing had happened.
Three months later, the war officially ended. The soldiers were able to return home safely, and no further casualties occurred. However, on the final day, the person who ordered their return wasn’t the colonel who had led them until then.
His whereabouts were unknown. Just like that mysterious young man who had spoken with the colonel that night.
***
“I never thought I would reunite with you again after so much time has passed.”
“…Are you sure the man you saw that day was me? It was just a brief glimpse, so maybe you saw wrong…”
“No way. I don’t get such a striking memory confused. The only reason I didn’t recognize you immediately was because your impression has changed a lot since then, Mr. Hayes.”
“My impression?”
“Back then, well, you looked a bit more solemn. You looked like a sharp person without a hint of a smile.”
“……”
“Well, it’s silly to judge a person based on their expression in a single moment. Really, I should fix this habit of relying on my intuition. I’ve already been wrong twice when it comes to you, Mr. Hayes.”
What should I say? I didn’t know. My mind was just too complicated.
‘Was I a soldier before I possessed this body?’
But I didn’t seem like an ordinary soldier. To speak with a colonel on equal terms, and even go so far as to suggest something close to rebellion… No matter how much I thought about it, the past embedded in this body didn’t seem ordinary.
That alone was a headache, but what was even more troubling were the statements ‘I’ had made that Walter remembered.
‘The things I said to Mrs. Posha today… they’re incredibly similar to the words Walter said he heard five years ago.’
I reflected on myself.
‘Being prepared to die and escaping through death are completely different things. Submission is merely an escape.’
Was I the kind of person who normally lived with such words in my heart? Was I that aggressive and solemn? No matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t think so.
Were the words I spoke today truly from my own will? Or, if not…
‘Is it still remaining inside me?’
The owner of this body, whoever he was?
“Mr. Hayes. Since so much time has passed, if it isn’t rude, may I ask? Who exactly are you? What kind of conversation did you have with the colonel that day, and what happened afterward?”
I was the one who wanted to know that most of all. In my troubled state of mind, I asked a question back.
“And why was Mr. Walter inside a military base at that hour? Did you enter a military operations zone as a civilian to investigate a case?”
“Not at all. I thought you would have been able to guess after hearing my story, Mr. Hayes.”
A faint smile spread across Walter’s lips. It was a self-deprecating smile.
“I was a soldier too. One of the many soldiers whose lives you might have saved that day, Mr. Hayes.”
“Does that mean…”
“Yes. I am a veteran. A veteran who was tossed aside with both body and mind miserably broken.”
I looked at him, startled. When Walter rolled up his baggy sleeve, an unnaturally gaunt right wrist was revealed.
“Since I’m in this state, I can’t do paperwork or physical labor properly. Still, being a detective is manageable, so that’s a relief, isn’t it?”
…I couldn’t say anything.
Suddenly, everything that had happened until now flashed through my mind. Clothes that were unusually baggy for a man. Poor handwriting that looked as if it were written by an unpracticed hand. And even the way he had been helplessly tossed around despite noticing the culprit’s attack and defending himself quickly.
I felt like I finally understood the root of the mysterious hatred Walter held toward veterans. The other name for that hatred was self-loathing.
“Well, were you surprised because it looks so hideous?”
“No! It’s not that…”
Since it didn’t seem like any words would be comforting, I decided to do what I did best. Picking at his words.
“I was surprised because I heard something deceptive. Being a detective is ‘manageable’? Mr. Walter, you are one of the top three detectives I’ve ever seen.”
“Hm, thank you. You’re a great detective too, Mr. Hayes. Regardless of what your past was.”
“I think so too.”
It was true. Regardless of what my hidden past was, right now, I was Detective Hayes.
‘First, let’s focus on the work at hand. And then I’ll slowly start looking into the past.’
If I did that, I would surely be able to reach the truth someday. I steeled my resolve.