I Pray That You Forget Me - Chapter 108
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
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Ah, so that’s what he meant. It makes sense now. The Major couldn’t possibly know that I’m a stand-in for Dana. I was unnecessarily frightened.
“It’s quite pitiable that a soldier would go so far as to try to take a civilian’s wife.”
With those incisive words, the Major burst into laughter. However, none of the surrounding soldiers joined in. They all looked away with faces even more uncomfortable than before.
The Major’s laughter quickly faded, replaced by an awkward and tense silence. When we first sat at this table, they had united to humiliate Johann. But now the atmosphere suggested that the Major was the one being humiliated.
I thought the bad-tempered Major would find a way to retaliate against Johann, but he simply stared at him, smiling quietly as wrinkles formed around his eyes. It was a gaze laden with meaning. Was it questioning whether Johann truly preferred men?
As I met that gaze quietly, Johann, maintaining his usual calm demeanor, opened his mouth again with a gentle smile.
“What I wanted to say ends here. Now let’s hear what you have to say, Major.”
The Major, perhaps feeling angry, clenched his teeth and scoffed, crushing a cigarette butt on the table as he spat out a word.
“Ghostwriting.”
Ghostwriting?
“I need someone to write a letter for me.”
He was clearly extending the request that asked me to bring him something Johann had written.
“I hope you keep your word that there’s nothing you can’t write.”
The Major didn’t bother hiding his ulterior motive. He pulled out a crumpled piece of white paper and a pen from his jacket pocket and placed them in front of Johann. It was clearly prepared in advance.
“Oh, of course, there will be compensation.”
He then tossed a worn coin onto the table in front of Johann, like he was giving alms to a beggar. But Johann’s expression remained unfazed. He released my hand, picked up the coin, and pushed it back toward the Major.
Clearly, the Major was trying to obtain his handwriting for some dubious purpose, and Johann would now find an appropriate excuse to refuse.
“Let the price for the ghostwriting be that you no longer annoy my wife, Major.”
My prediction was wrong. The Major didn’t agree to that. Nevertheless, Johann unfolded the paper and picked up the pen. The Major lit a new cigarette and let Johann wait while he recited the beginning of the letter.
“To my dear Rize.”
To have him write a letter addressed to his wife was shocking for everyone at the table, including me. Johann furrowed his brows at that moment but soon shook his head, as if he thought the Major was hopeless, and lowered the pen to the paper.
The Major pretended not to notice all the commotion and continued with a nonchalant tone.
“Oh, while it is intimate, it doesn’t seem to be affectionate yet.”
“That’s incorrect.”
Ignoring my retort, the Major resumed reciting the beginning of the letter.
“Let me correct that. To the pitiful and foolish Rize.”
It wasn’t enough that he attached such rude descriptors; the Major also looked at me with a sticky gaze while reading the letter. However, contrary to my ominous expectations, the content was not a sleazy love letter.
“Your husband is a fraud. A devil with the face of an angel. While I hope you open your eyes and see for yourself, what can you expect from a zealot who has been brainwashed beyond measure? Just wait. I’ll reveal the truth. Oh, and if I happen to die before that, the culprit is Johann Renner.”
I was flabbergasted by the absurd content, but I couldn’t voice my objections. Johann, seemingly unfazed, smiled as he continued to move the pen without a moment’s pause.
“Rize Eineman, the reason I’m sending you this letter is to propose a wager. If I’m right, you’ll leave that man named Johann Rener and come to me. But what if you’re right?”
The Major shook his head with a twisted smile while facing me.
“You can’t possibly be right.”
He concluded the letter, which was a work of fiction disguised as a letter, with even more absurdity.
“Your savior, disguised as a devil, Dietrich Felkner.”
When Johann attempted to return the letter he had willingly written, including the Major’s name, the Major shook his head.
“Oh, make sure to include the location and date at the beginning. Mullenbach, April 27.”
But today was not April 27. However, Johann didn’t seem to question it, perhaps mistaking today’s date, and he wrote the incorrect date exactly as the Major instructed.
From the moment the Major took the letter, my heart began to race wildly. I already knew what Johann had written in the letter.
“Those who deceive and slander will lose their tongues. Those who covet another’s wife will not escape punishment. Those who defile another’s body will find their own body defiled.”
Johann filled the letter with biblical verses meant for the Major instead of what the Major was conveying to me. The Major read it and chuckled, then lifted the letter toward Johann and asked,
“Is this your confession?”
The Major had asked for someone else’s letter to be ghostwritten, yet he couldn’t accept a letter written by someone who had just penned his own diary. It was a clear indication that he intended to continue bothering me.
Fortunately, the Major’s reaction to Johann’s provocation stopped at just that.
