Notes from the Grey Tower

Ever since helping Lindon with his cryptography work, I began meeting with Edgar less and less. Most of my time was spent in the activity room of the mathematics society, and in order to draw Edgar needed the light of the outdoors.

On the second day since Lindon relayed to me from Andemund “it was only his appearance that redeemed him”, Edgar barged into the activity room, snatched my notebook, and hurled it out of the window.

“I was writing a paper!” I grabbed his collar. 

“To hell with your bloody paper.”

The notebook with ‘a brief analysis of group theory’ scrawled across its title contained my efforts accumulated across the last three months. While I dashed downstairs to pick up the notebook from the grass and grievously dusted it off, Edgar stood watching by the side with his arms crossed. “What kind of paper are you writing for you to look like death itself? You haven’t gone outside in a week; any more of this and you’ll write yourself into a mummy.”

My image of Edgar was always gentle and uptight in his own old-fashioned way. This was the first time I’d seen him so angry at something so little.

“Alan, did you receive the message I gave to your landlady?”

I shook my head. I’d been out at the library these couple of days, and had no chance of meeting the landlady at home. 

“Oh, so you weren’t aware.” A look of relief seemed to pass over his expression. “Forget it. Thank God I made it here in time. Come with me.”

He chucked me into the barber’s shop, got me shaved and my hair cut, and I came to the pleasing knowledge that my looks hadn’t worsened over time. Edgar’s mood began to lift as he gauged my appearance with a critical eye. After fussing over the barber’s work for what felt like forever, he finally gave his approval, fixed my tie, and hauled me onto a carriage. 

Cars were already the norm in the streets of London, but in Cambridge carriages were still around for hire for tourists who wanted to travel during the weekends. We left the city by a path to the countryside and watched the summer flowers among the lush bushes drift lazily in the tepid breeze. The whole ordeal was rather romantic, really.

Edgar hummed as he carried his canvas with him.

I asked him where we were headed, but he only smiled and said nothing.

We got off at a simple country mansion. Edgar unlocked the front door with a copper key, brought me to the second floor, and pushed the windows open. “There’s a lake outside; the scenery’s great here. I’ve rented this place for three days, so I thought I’d invite you over too… you haven’t modeled for me for a few months now.”

My first reaction was, “The rent’s hellishly expensive for a mansion like this, if only for three days. Where’d you get the money from?”

Edgar pushed the windows open and turned to face me. His features blurred in the harsh glow of the sunlight, the sudden illuminance ringing his chestnut curls in a soft white brightness. 

“From selling my art, of course.” he said easily. “I’m going to finish a real work of art this time.”

The three days passed by blissfully. The lake was a mere ten-minute’s walk from the mansion, and beside the lake stood a tree with its blossoms in full bloom. I didn’t know what species the tree belonged to, and only remembered its numerous white flowers with their innumerable petals falling and piling upon grassy slope beneath the tree. Edgar said he was about to create the artwork of the decade, and so he dropped me under the tree and began to draw. 

The air was filled with the sweet fragrance of the flowers. We chatted about almost everything, from economics to politics to what our future held for us. I said I wanted to continue teaching at Cambridge after my graduation, and enter the academic world afterwards. I was going to prove all twenty-three of Hilbert’s problems and shake the world to its core. I told Edgar he could publish his albums in the future, and I would help him sell them at the school so that every student there would own a copy of his work.

Edgar smiled faintly and nodded at this, and continued with his drawing.

When he wasn’t satisfied with his sketch he would casually discard it below the tree, and some would be carried by the wind and be drowned in the lake. I snatched one out of the air, and saw my own yawning figure on the paper scratching idly at myself

Back then, I was still enraptured by the Enigma, and a sense of unease suddenly came over me. “I need to go back to class.”

Edgar gave me a brief look. “You’ve been skipping class anyways. A few more days won’t make the difference. Keep me company a while longer, won’t you, Alan.” His tone was oddly sincere as he said this. It was the morning of the last day, and we were going to return to the school in the afternoon. I laid on the grass, a hand on my forehead shielding me from the sunlight glaring from between the leaves. He threw his pen down all of a sudden and walked over, crouching to my height.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Edgar said.

I blinked, stupefied.

“My application to the military got approved. The Royal Air Force’s recruiting.”

At that moment, dazedly, I thought that I had misheard.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I already did. You were always complaining that I was in the way of your writing of your paper, so I left a message with your landlady saying that I’d joined the military, and wanted to take you on a date one last time before I left.” Edgar smiled amicably. “But you were writing your paper elsewhere and didn’t receive the message. I waited downstairs for a long time, and finally went up to the activity room to drag you out here.”

I laid on the ground as Edgar crouched beside me, looking down at me from his vantage. In that moment his amber eyes sparked brightly, as if light had somehow made its way to swirl around in his irises. He picked up a white flower that had fell to the ground from the tree and placed it in my hair. The petals felt cool against my forehead in the sweltering summer heat. 

I asked him. “Why?”

“I’m not like you with your inborn genius. I know I don’t have the talent to become an artist, so I wanted to try my hand at something else. The Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane have recently gone into production, and the air force’s in desperate need of new recruits. Thus, I signed up.”

“No, I wasn’t asking about that. I was referring to… that you wanted to take me on a date.” I said carefully.

Edgar came clean with himself. As if he were a child that had tried and failed to get away with something, he smiled sheepishly. “Alan, I like you.”

His face was excruciatingly close to mine. I wanted to sit up, but he pressed me down by the shoulder. Then he knelt and embraced me, burying his face into the crook of my shoulder and saying nothing. The bridge of his nose lightly brushed against the back of my neck, sending a ticklish sensation down my spine. 

“Homosexuality is outlawed.” I said.

Edgar’s embrace was extremely tight, and he spoke seriously. “I know. That’s why I’m only here to say that I like you, without expecting you to do the same. Look here, I’m about to leave anyhow…” He hesitated. “When I return, you can still treat me as a friend. I won’t mind.”

He apologized to me. “I shouldn’t have thrown your paper down the building in a fit of anger. I didn’t know if you’d received my message, and I thought that you had rather written your paper than come out with me one last time.”

His voice was quiet. “Alan, military service only lasts for three years. Won’t you wait for my return?”

Now that I think about it, the way I treated Edgar at the time was almost brutal. After his leave from Cambridge to the military, I visited the apartment he had rented before. His bedroom walls were full of the oil paintings that he hadn’t brought along with him. Each of these canvasses were framed with gold, and spread out along the worn walls that were peeling with paint.

The subjects of the paintings were all of me. I was smiling beneath the shade of a tree, cutting toast at a restaurant, hanging around the entrance of the library and watching as the occasional woman passed by…

In fact, when I met Edgar in the beginning, he’d told me this with a smile: “I’ve given all the love I’ll have in my life to my oil paintings.”

And when I’d spoke with him about Andemund, he had protested, “but you and I, it was also love at first sight, too.”

Until I finally understood the true meaning behind his words, it had already been too late.

He remained in my company and watched as I went after countless women, and watched as I went after Andemund. He was the one who’d dragged me to the bar while I was still brooding over my breakup with Andemund, was the one who’d hauled me out of there when I got drunk, and he’d even recommended me to find a girlfriend to forget about Andemund… and in the end, until it was finally time for him to leave did he tell me, “I like you. I know you don’t return my feelings, but I won’t mind if you still treat me as a friend.”

At the time, Edgar was still very young. He was uptight and old-fashioned, and had an outdated, gentlemanly air about him. He still was yet to become the tyrant who had chained me to the bedposts when I desperately wanted to see Andemund, and still wouldn’t have put a gun below my chin, voice hoarse as he demanded if I would immediately go to America with him.

Soldiery and war could very well change a person’s soul.

But the Edgar of this time only dipped his head to kiss the white flower he’d slipped into my hair, and told me to wait for him— as a friend.

Towards the end of summer of 1938, Edgar officially left Cambridge to join the Royal Air Force. The Second World War broke out in the autumn of 1939, and the division Edgar joined was sent to war. Compared with the Axis Powers, England’s air force was weak and lacked people. When the weather was fine, you could occasionally see specks of meteor-like planes rain from the skies on the horizon. At those times, I would always make the sign of the cross in front of my chest, and pray that it wasn’t Edgar that had fallen.

The week after Edgar left, I met and conversed with Arnold at an alehouse again. He adjusted his glasses in surprise. “You’ve shaved your beard and cut your hair… I didn’t think you could have looked this good, Alan!”

“Got dragged by a friend to the barber’s.” I said. “My apologies, Doctor Visco. It seems that we won’t have to meet up next week anymore.”

My voice was steady and logical. “I believe that I’ve moved on from Andemund. I’ll try to go out with women, and um, not get involved with his life. Thank you. Your psychotherapy worked quite well.”

Arnold choked on the coffee he was drinking.

“Alan, what happened?”

I laughed, gestured at my heart, and raised my middle finger. “Tell Andemund that I’ve chased him out of here. He can do whatever he likes now.”

The truth was, I hadn’t really wiped Andemund from existence in my heart, but Edgar had taught me the virtue of self-restraint. No matter how intense your fondness was for someone, you could still present yourself as his friend, keep your feelings locked up to yourself, and look as if nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

[20/2/2021] Translator’s notes: And with this chapter I believe we’re up to the first season of the audiodrama! (The audiodrama is on maoer fm if you want to listen– here is the link for it– It’s very good. I listen to it to sleep. andemund’s voice is very sexy. Might translate that if I’m free in the future too^^)

at this point i’m more invested in edgar/alan than anything the unrequited love is horrible and real

[7/3/2021] Translator’s notes: Apologies for the lack of updates– my finals are in a few months and I may be taking a three-four month hiatus while sparsely updating in between. Chapter 10 is halfway translated but progress has been excruciatingly slow since I had to squeeze out time to translate between my mock exams, so thanks for bearing with me! ;;;;;;;;;;;