Chapter 23

[Sunday, October 6]

The alarm hadn’t gone off yet. However, a strange sensation gripped his heart, jolting him awake. Felix opened his eyes and looked at the person across from him. Those gentle brown eyes were slightly bloodshot.

“Hey, how long have you been awake?” he murmured softly.

“A while,” Erik replied. “Do you want to get up, or sleep a bit more?”

“What time is it?”

“Six-fifteen.”

“I’ll get up.” He smiled and closed his eyes again. “Soon. —Once you’ve made the crepes you promised me.”

“Sweet or savory?”

“Sweet. One with cinnamon and sugar, the other with chocolate sauce.”

He heard footsteps leaving the room. Soon after, the sound of an electric mixer came from the kitchen next door.

Fifteen minutes later, the air was filled with the sweet aroma of eggs and milk. The coffee machine gurgled.

Felix walked to the dining table.

“You changed the flowers,” he observed, looking at the white rose in the vase.

“Yeah, I cut it from the garden. The gerbera had wilted,” Erik said, placing the plate of crepes in front of him.

“Thank you.”

He finished both crepes and clasped his hands together. “Erik, you’re the best cook I know,” he said with a smile. “Can I have another one?”

“Of course.”

“One of each?”

“Sure.”

“And then can I have another one—if I can still eat it?”

“Of course you can.”

“Oh, great. I love you.”

Erik’s hand, holding the T-shaped spatula, stiffened for a moment. He turned to look at Felix. The latter smiled at him warmly and naturally.

“You’re welcome,” Erik replied, then poured more batter into the frying pan.

“Have you packed your luggage?” Erik sat back down at the table and picked up the coffee pot to refill both their cups.

“You know I don’t have much luggage,” Felix said. He swallowed the last bite of crepe and wiped his mouth contentedly. “The good news is, I called the transit station. They found my travel bag, so I can pick it up on my way back.”

Erik put down the coffee pot. “I thought that was made up too.”

“Come on, I don’t lie about everything, okay?” Felix raised his hand, making a face.

“Hmm, when will you be back in Strasbourg?”

“If the German trains are running on time, I should be home by around four in the afternoon.—Though these days, delays seem to be the norm for Deutsche Bahn.” He looked at Erik across the table, hesitating, as if wanting to say something but holding back.

Before he could speak again, Erik said, “So when are you going back to Canada?”

The smile in Felix’s eyes vanished instantly. He stared straight at Erik.

“…When did you find out?” he asked quietly.

“Last night. I searched for photos.” Erik said. “Because… I wanted to see what Zeno looked like.”

He picked up the phone beside him, turned on the screen, and pushed it toward Felix. On the screen was a group of smiling young people, with Zeno Presley and Felix Lorbeer standing in the front. The caption below the photo read, “Quebec-Montreal-based Presley-Lorbeer IoT Platform Project Wins McPlant Angel Fund Seed Round Investment.”

Felix looked at the photo for a few seconds, then pushed it aside slightly and leaned back in his chair.

“So you found out I’m from Canada, not France.—And then?”

“I thought about it for a long time,” Erik said. “There were always some things… some strange details. I knew you were lying but didn’t understand why… Then they suddenly came together like pieces of a puzzle, and everything made sense.”

“Hmm, you knew I was lying.” Felix repeated. “When?”

“From the beginning. When you said I was climbing a route rated 8.5, I knew you couldn’t have been here for the first time. Ordinary travelers wouldn’t know the grading of that route—that route was developed by Fritz. Because it’s too dangerous, the climbing association never added it to the public guide. Only a few people know about it.”

“Seems I’m not very good at lying, am I?” Felix said. He gave a self-deprecating smile. “What else?”

“I think you’re not taking benzodiazepines, at least not currently.”

“Why?”

“Because you drink a lot of coffee. Caffeine is contraindicated for people taking benzodiazepines.” Erik said. “After you told me you had anxiety, I looked up some information online. So I thought your sadness that first night wasn’t because of an anxiety attack. You just used it as an excuse because you didn’t want me to know the real reason.

“When I found out you had been living in Canada not long ago, I suddenly remembered my lawyer telling me that the legal inheritance rights required me to pay a large sum of cash to the family in Canada to offset the estate’s value. But according to German law, a divorced spouse has no inheritance rights, so although it was always Fritz’s ex-wife negotiating with us, the only person with actual inheritance rights was Fritz’s son, the boy who was taken away by his ex-wife after the divorce.—He mentioned offhand that the boy was about my age.

“This thought struck me like a bolt of lightning. I remembered that first night, when I asked you who you were crying for, your answer was ‘a bastard.’ But that obviously wasn’t referring to Zeno, you’d never use that word to describe him… In fact, the only bastard you repeatedly mentioned in our conversations was your father.

“This made me realize what had really happened that night: it was because I made you sleep in Fritz’s room, and you couldn’t rest there, so you had to escape to the balcony, sitting alone in his armchair in the cold… Your emotional breakdown came after I told you about Fritz’s suicide.

“All of a sudden, everything fell into place, everything made sense, including the strange yet familiar feeling you’ve always given me: you knew the climbing route under the Hanging Rock, were familiar with the local forests, knew the markets and the best goods. You’d occasionally use local sayings in conversation, as well as Fritz’s catchphrase ‘Falling is part of climbing.’ And… you’ve always loved the things he said were endlessly beautiful: the forests, bonfires, the streams in the valleys, sunrises and sunsets.

“Then I remembered the afternoon we first met, at the viewpoint. I understood why you kept standing on the Hanging Rock: because only from that position could you see the roof of the climbing gym. You had planned to come here from the start, but at that moment, I think, you were hesitating… I once thought our meeting was a coincidence, but it wasn’t—not entirely.

“This was once your home, wasn’t it? That’s why you came here from so far away, not for the famous hot springs, but to stay in this house and nowhere else—sitting in your old room, looking out at the scenery, climbing down the fir tree from the window.”

A long silence followed. They looked at each other, and the air seemed to be filled with unspoken words that hadn’t yet formed into sound: everything was already clear, even the other’s feelings at this moment.

Finally, Felix spoke.

“Your guess is only wrong on one point: I don’t currently have plans to return to Canada,” he said calmly. “I found a job in Strasbourg after graduating. I’ve lived in that city before, and my mother’s relatives are all in the Alsace region. I wanted to stay away from Canada for a few years, and that was the best place to go.”

He tapped the table lightly with his fingers. An unconscious gesture. Erik thought Fritz sometimes did that too—when he felt nervous and was trying to hold himself together.

“I actually thought about telling you. But I didn’t know how to bring it up… It didn’t seem necessary anyway. You’d find out sooner or later,” Felix said.

“—And it’s kind of awkward: I know my dad was a first-class bastard, but you loved him as if he were some great father.

“But I’m glad you figured it out on your own. It makes things a bit simpler.” He smiled slightly. “Otherwise, I really wouldn’t have known how to come up with an excuse to get you to take me to see Fritz’s grave.”