“The General! The General is shot dead!”

It was a powerful line as much as a cannonball launched in the middle of the crowd. What was once chaotic, became more chaotic.

“Don't let go!” was what Hubert kept on affirming which she received without any doubt, not a mere hold, but grabbing his wrist as the only life rope.

While they were searching for an exit in the ocean of scared people, instead of crying and worrying and rushing and pushing, she saw something that she would rather not to see. Armond, with blood-stain smeared at his cheek, casually put a black pistol into his pocket, with an appearance that she was foreign to. At least, not as same as the one she talked with in the library.

Of course, our heroine would not know the black object as a pistol but she had stayed in the realm long enough to recognise a deadly weapon. Not to mention, she remembered this gadget so vividly after seeing that very same object being so misused by the uninformed people to those group of travellers.

Unfortunately, Armond also caught her glimpse, at such a forbidden moment. She could see fear emerged into his eyes for a second and suddenly, the blood stain faded on his cheek and so as his entire presence, vanished within a mad crowd.

“Ah!” She let out a startled cry which was quickly buried by another wave of wails and bawls in the crowd.

The cry was caused not by a ghostly figure and Armond’s instant disappearance, but by his potential act in her imagination and the wicked presence that fell over his countenance.

***

Silence always came after the end like the battlefield at the end of a war. The Von Bach household, compared with the temperature in the ball, now remained a chill of silence, like the temperature of death.

Was it real? It was the same question asked by many during and after WW2 and this very same question was asked by our beloved hero also, but just toward the corpse of General Friedrich.

People fled in the exact same pace as the way they came for the ball. After the accident, not even one soul cared to comfort the remains of the Von bach household.

Inside the grand castle, laid a pathetic body. His eyes weren't even quick enough to shut closed when the bullet hit his heart. The stare, so wide and acute. But nobody closed them for him, no one wanted to accept the fact.

Fraulein Helen, who wept so much that almost forgot to breathe, couldn't even bear to take a glance over the body which the owner had long gone. She couldn’t accept the fact that the heartless battle failed to capture his life while a grand ball would have such authority to finish the duty of the war and ended his breath. How ironic! 

She couldn’t accept the fact that she had lost him, forever.

“Fraulein, please,” Aurora sensed her pain and knew the sorrow caused by death. Perhaps she didn’t know how much evil the dead man had done, but she knew that was a life as well, a living creature, blown away as if a piece of dust. Sitting next to her, she wept, “I have never witnessed anything like this before. I am sorry.”

Her words fell weakly to the poor woman’s side, flooded away by her tears of pain and sorrow. Of course, how would a little girl understand the long gone of true love? The words failed their purpose, she was not comforted.

“Ma’am,” a uniformed man reported, “no suspect is found.”

Hubert, who stood at the corner, wiped away the teardrops he wished no one would see, asked in a low voice, “Repeat that again.”

“Lieutenant, no suspect - “

“Damn it! Fool! I heard what you said!” He raised his voice to cut his sentence violently, “No suspect? Then continue to find me one! Don’t come in unless you find me something!” As if words weren’t powerful enough, he threw a vase toward him to burst out his anger.

At the back of Fraulein Helen, Aurora saw a different Hubert, the one that she would be afraid to look at. His eyes, burned up with wrath, set himself and the entire house on an invisible fire. No tears could extinguish it. For him, tears were useless. What was lost was lost. It was just a similar pain he suffered the day a bomb fell onto his household.

Aurora walked to the edge of a carpet which laid the corpse. She knelt next to it and closed the eyelids for him. They were not tight, like turning on and off a switch, now he was officially off.

“Don’t touch him,” Armond came in just right on time to catch her act, as coincidentally as it was when they met in the mad crowd.

“You may damage some evidence for the investigation,” he replied without a flinch as he caught her stare which was filled with questions and fear as if looking at a murderer.

It was followed by a lingering quietude in the air which then was broken by Hubert.

“Where were you, Armond? I could hardly see you in the ball.” He questioned, just randomly, to break the silence. Nonetheless, one could hear his tone without any taste of suspicion if one was innocent.

Aurora knew the correct answer but didn’t want to give an answer that she was not confident with.

“He was with me, dancing,” Fraulein Helen replied, with the sleek pain wavered in her voice, as if her memory would always end with the lingering sound of that abrupt gunshot.

Aurora didn’t seem to have any interest in their conversation though she might have some unwelcoming share over the question of Herr Hubert. She was rather caught by a brilliant idea in her mind.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I may have a way to help Herr Friedrich.” Perhaps spending too much time pretending to be an ordinary had made her almost forgotten about her gift.

“And in what way shall you help, my dear Fraulein Aurora? When the physicians have announced what should be announced?” Armond asked seriously.

Without taking in his words, Aurora placed her hand on the cold body’s forehead, closed her eyes and concentrated, as if she was reading something with her mind.

“Aurora,” Hubert walked toward her, in a voice almost cracked with grief, he said quietly, “it’s not time to present your wit. Let papa go. The people are coming to take him.”

Samely, without taking in his words, Aurora moved her hand from his forehead to his heart, where the bullet laid, where the flesh torn apart.

Just for a brief moment, the atmosphere had changed, it became warm and bright. The wound glowed with light. Her hand covering his chest, as if holding a light bulb, released rays of the sun. It was so astonishedly shiny that the other three people in the room had to raise their hands to cover their eyes. The surrounding flashed with the circumference of the moon and the air glittered with sprinkles of star lights. It was suddenly a room within the third heaven!

So bright, so beautiful, so divine, so much so that their expression was beyond my pen’s ability to describe!

“My dear Herr Friedrich,” she whispered gently, “rise up and walk.”

They wouldn’t believe it, very similarly as the General wouldn’t believe it either, for the next scene. He did exactly what she instructed him to do.

Firstly, his eyes were open. 

Secondly, he took a great gasp of air.

Thirdly, he rose.

Fourthly, he walked.

“Good heavens!” Fraulein Helen rejoiced and rushed to her husband.

“What happened? My dear, what happened? Why are you all crying!” The General couldn’t resist the passionate hug and even kisses from his wife, in front of all these people. Something must be wrong, he thought, but couldn’t pin the point.

Among all the faces, only that of Armond was hard to perceive. He first laughed and even went beyond shock, joyfully glee! But the face he took with him when he left the room was somewhat a piece of evidence that he was pretending, it was a frustrated angered face.