Volume 5 -A Chapter 6 (1/2)

03/26/1944 - 03/27/1944

Every time we turned a corner the bicyclette bounced along the stone pavement

Urgent.

Investigation here in Germany has confirmed that the Attesor Project was carried out within France. The rest is counting on the continued investigation at your branch. These detailed doc.u.ments concerning the Attesor Project are to be given to Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Berge who is thought to be the closest to the investigation. Authority on the matter will later be given to the Lieutenant Colonel, so follow his instructions. We look forward to seeing the results.

Today is probably going to be a long day and I could be arrested at any time, so I'm writing this first entry during the day. I am currently near my appartement. I'm writing this while sitting on the railing of the Place de la Concorde bridge.

People tend to only Sign while walking, so no one sees me sitting on the railing.

This is best when I want to be alone.

Now, Rosetta came to my room today. Right now, she should be preparing the ingredients that Mallette and the others bought. Most of the plates in my room were ”unusable”, so I left to do some shopping while also gathering my thoughts.

I want to think seriously about what to do next if I'm not arrested in the next few days.

1. Search for Rose Francisca's House

The thought occurred to me while I was out shopping. Part of the reason I came to Paris was to search for that. Before I'm arrested, I want to give her the letter my grandma left with me.

2. Should I partic.i.p.ate in the Heavy Barrel battle at the school festival?

If Phillip is right, partic.i.p.ating would be very dangerous. The Germans will almost certainly use their special slot to send in someone quite skilled. I would be at risk if I partic.i.p.ated and fought back. But someone else will be at risk if I don't partic.i.p.ate. Protecting people is a Knight Striker's job, so I have to partic.i.p.ate.

But to be honest, I'm scared. The events of the last few days have left me a little off balance.

I need to give both those issue serious thought. Even without the Attesor Project, I'm pretty busy, aren't I?

Come to think of it, that Heavy Barrel practice is this afternoon.

It's voluntary and I don't plan to partic.i.p.ate, but I am curious about it.

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It is midday. Lunchtime.>

It's this late already? We're going to spend the afternoon on our cooking battle, so I need to get focused and get back there.

Rosetta is waiting. I wonder what she would do.

If I was arrested and couldn't see her anymore, would she still want to be human?

I am writing an entry today as well.

I normally write my journal entries at home. But today I am visiting Lady Beretta's home and a lot has happened. So I am using the time until the food is ready to write some of it now.

I am writing this on some paper Lady Beretta gave me because she was not going to use it.

Lady Beretta is in Lady Mallette's room next door to clean up for everyone to eat together.

I am using Lady Beretta's room to write this. It is a strange room. It is smaller than any room I am familiar with and yet it has so many things inside it. A bicyclette tire. A bag. A parasol. A few folding chairs. Books. A toolbox. And a pendulum clock on the floor. I can see no rhyme or reason to where or how things are stored.

But I digress. I need to write about the day's events. Lady Beretta arrived in the morning today.

I had known I would see her at 10 because we had agreed to it the evening before. She was carrying a larger bag than normal. I was curious and asked what was inside.

She said she has too many secrets and thus needs to carry them all around with her. She then suggested we get going. I felt like I was forgetting some things and could ask more questions. But I did as she said.

It was my first time to ride a bicyclette. Lady Beretta was driving it. I was further luggage on top of the large bag she had tied to the luggage rack.

She said I did not need to worry because she would drive safely.

We then rode down the hill in front of the mansion. We moved really fast.

The ground at the bottom of the hill approached rapidly and the wind was strong. The only way to support myself was to hold tightly to Lady Beretta's hips. I shut my eyes and cried out without meaning to.

I felt myself shaking and realized we had already left the mansion's gate and entered Boulogne Forest.

We were moving so fast. I think Lady Beretta said something. But it did not register with me.

I was too surprised by the way the scenery rushed by and the wind hit me.

We soon left the forest and pa.s.sed by the boîte aux lettres I use to send out letters.

The mechanical beating of the heart created inside me by the Coppelia Effect was racing.

Then we were in the city.

It was the first time I focused on and saw the bright daytime city.

There were young men. There were young women.

There were young boys. There were young girls.

There were old men. There were old women.

There were cars. There were carriages.

There were unlit streetlights. There were trees growing in rows alongside the roads.

There were houses far smaller than the mansion. There were appartements as tall as the mansion.

There were colorful signs. There were old metal signs.

The things I wanted to see pa.s.sed me by with the wind. We were moving so fast. That speed was probably the speed with which Lady Beretta experiences the city.

I called her name. But she did not turn around. She seemed to be thinking about something. She seemed to be rus.h.i.+ng through the city like she was trying to run away from something.

Every time we turned a corner the bicyclette bounced along the stone pavement. It worried me how the end of my hair occasionally brushed against the road.

I eventually realized my pulse had settled down and sensed that I was clinging to Lady Beretta.

I looked around again and realized I really was in the city. I was contained inside the city.

It had seemed so special when viewing it from afar. But it had accepted me inside so easily. Perhaps that was because Lady Beretta had entered the city so quickly. I think I would have hesitated or been overwhelmed if I had been walking like normal.

Lady Beretta stopped the bicyclette after about five minutes. I got off and then tripped.

My mechanical legs were trembling. Lady Beretta helped me up.

Lady Beretta said I must have been nervous and that it might be better if my legs were modeled after human ones just like my arms.

I do not know if that would be better. But Lady Beretta must know what she is talking about since she is from a family of Belle de Marionnette engineers.

We had arrived at an appartement. We entered through the side entrance and climbed the stairs.

It was a narrow stairway. We climbed four times as many steps as the mansion's stairs and arrived at a hallway that reminded me of a dark and narrow shed.

The second door was Lady Beretta's room. Three of her friends were in the neighboring room. They were all women her age who she knew from school.

That was my first time facing so many people at once. They all introduced themselves and I gave a greeting back. The one named Mallette was the owner of that neighboring room and seemed to be their leader.

They all asked me many things.

Where do you live? How old are you? Where were you born?

I politely answered as best I could. Then they asked me one final question.

Are you really a Belle de Marionnette?

Lady Beretta answered before I could.

She asked Lady Mallette if she was really Jewish.

Lady Mallette seemed to understand something from that. She smiled bitterly and took my hand. I remember my heart beating extra hard from that sudden action. I could feel the warmth of her hand as she spoke to me.

She said they wanted me to be part of their group. But she said they could only do that if I swore to use an ability of mine for them.

Lady Beretta smiled and commented how hard it is for a group of women to live together.

I sort of understand what she meant. I use artificial arms and legs to make up for the ability I lack for my life in the mansion. I doubt I could have maintained the mansion so well if I was human.

I then began cooking as I had promised. That led to a commotion.

The room was too small to teach everyone to cook. So Lady Mallette had us use her room and the two neighboring rooms for the kitchen. That way we could cook three different dishes in parallel.

One was the plat de résistance that I primarily made.

One was the hors d'oeuvre that I only gave instructions for and did not spend any time on.

And one was the dessert that could be made in advance and allowed to sit.

We spent about an hour discussing before coming to a decision.

We agreed on escargot cooked in vin rouge and a whole cooked poulet for the plat de résistance. They both only needed to be cooked in the oven. They took some time to prepare but left you free to do other things while they cooked. The rooms were not installed with ovens and we had to use the one Lady Mallette had brought in for herself. We considered but rejected cervelle de veau because one of them found it unappetizing.

We wanted something we could all grab and eat for the hors d'oeuvre and we all agreed on oignon frit with saupiquet sauce. We also put out some pâté d'alouette for anyone who wanted it.

We already had the oignon frit and so we chose an onion gratin for the soup.

We chose cooking pain d'épices with lots of honey in it for dessert. Sprinkling sugar on it and buying some cream would allow us to eat it kouglof-style.

We decided on all that and began working at 1 PM. We finished not long ago at 6 PM. It is now in the oven waiting for tonight.

I started thinking about a difficult subject.

That subject is blood.

When preparing a poulet for cooking I remove all the red liquid remaining inside. But I only recently realized this is called blood. After the dinner on March 11 I was rereading a cookbook in the mansion and came across a reference to blood removal. I only realized its meaning once I compared that description to my usual cooking method.

The blood that comes out of a poulet's body is almost identical to what I saw flowing from Lady Beretta's thigh when we first met.

If too much of that flows out then you die. You break.

My heart has become the same as a human's after evolving through the Coppelia Effect. Would I bleed if my body was cut open with a knife? I felt like trying it to find out. But I decided against it.

Lady Beretta had looked in pain when she was bleeding.

I decided it probably was not a good thing and I continued cooking.

But there is a large difference between cooking on my own and having other people cook. The two biggest incidents were when one of them bought small snails thinking they were escargot and when some oil caught fire in Lady Beretta's room.

When I look up now I can see a scorch mark on the ceiling. Signe-ing too much would only cause the damage to expand so I will stop. I will just say it did not burn through the ceiling.

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It is growing dark outside the window.>

I should probably get the plates ready soon.

Friend, I have not had much to tell you recently and felt like I had lost any opportunity to speak with you.

For now, I will tell you what I had for lunch and dinner today:

Pain de campagne

Water

When did I become a prisoner in the Bastille!?

To be clear, I am the master of this mansion. Three cheers for independence, and all that. Although I was out having a meeting with Old ”Blue-Eyes” and the others. I still can't believe it. One of our contacts is dead and we're working to discover where the deliveries we left with her have gone. Were they already on their way out of the country or not? The Resistance does not have many other connections, so it isn't easy to research this kind of thing.

Rose Francisca isn't saying anything and I still don't know the ident.i.ty of that girl, so I'm feeling a little blue.

I did recently send another letter to Rose Francisca, addressing it to the Prophetess. There is so much I want to ask her.

But I get the feeling Rosetta isn't going to return. In my experience, women never return at times like this. Oh, h.e.l.l. How am I supposed to scold her if she returns in the morning tomorrow? Come to think of it, this might be the first time I've ever scolded her.

Until we speak again.

After we finished eating, an incident occurred. And now I'm writing this entry while everyone reviews for cla.s.ses next week while being oddly considerate of my feelings.

I can't believe this. Three of our cla.s.smate boys stopped by earlier. And Phillip was one of them. Probably to put us at ease, he was wearing casual clothes instead of his German uniform, but as soon as he got here and saw Rosetta, he said something rude. I gave him a good kick on reflex and he quieted down a fair bit after that.

But the incident was what happened later.

To put it simply, one of our friends ran in while we were eating and said someone was injured during the Practical Heavy Barrel lesson. I silently Pointed to listen to what she said.

<she was=”” also=”” taking=”” the=”” practical=”” heavy=”” barrel=”” cla.s.s=”” and=”” she=”” had=”” seen=”” it=”” happen.=””></she>< p=””>

During today's lesson, the German instructor's Heavy Barrel had completely smashed both arms and legs of the Heavy Barrel an essentially amateur boy had Write Bringed into. The instructor's Heavy Barrel had looked to the spectator seats and clearly looked disappointment when he realized no one was there to witness it.

She had gotten in the ambulance carrying the injured boy and visited the hospital with the professor.

He had received emergency Tune healing, but a complete recovery had seemed unlikely.>

When Phillip heard, he spoke up, probably because he was sitting next to me.

”And you want Beretta to take revenge? Don't be ridiculous.”

That p.i.s.sed me off, so I snapped back at him. I asked him what he meant by ”ridiculous” and told him this was my issue and he could b.u.t.t out. After some arguing, Phillip left, the friend who had just arrived took his seat in his place, and a horribly quiet dinner followed. Mallette tried to cheer everyone up, but I just didn't have it in me. Sorry.

But I did manage to hold back from saying something I knew I shouldn't:

”Then why don't you quit the Resistance?”

It's because he's in the Resistance that Phillip Missel is killed on August 1 when the Expert de Épée, the Heavy Barrel he was Write Bringing into, is sliced in two. If he's going to criticize what I'm doing, it makes me want to return the favor. Not that I can actually say it.

But during the fuss, Rosetta alone watched with great interest as Phillip and I fought.

When I realized it must look comical and that this was probably the first time she had seen anything like it, I started feeling silly and managed to calm down.

We finished eating and Rosetta is now was.h.i.+ng dishes in the next room. I thought I would help, but then I realized I would probably just break them. I was worried about Rosetta getting home too late, so Mallette sent a telegram to the old man's mansion. According to Mallette the bourgeois...

”By the Balleroy family, do you mean that famous Paris family!? The Royal Chevalier for the entire country, compared to the Missel family which is only the Chevalier de Paris!?”

Rosetta did not know and the doc.u.ments I had on hand weren't enough to tell me.

Mallette said the Royal Chevalier of the Balleroy family had been in charge of all of France's knights until the 19th century. Then the Balleroy family had fallen and disappeared, so Chevaliers for each region had fortified their own lands. And those Chevaliers had lost any purpose after the revolution.

Phillip's Missel family was the former Chevalier de Paris family. They still had influence in Paris politics and the neighboring lands, but apparently only the Balleroy family would have the authority to give them orders.

I had to wonder why someone so important was not found in any of the records in '98.

Then again, that old man didn't seem so important and Rosetta didn't seem to understand any of it.

”Is that who my master is? If so, he must be starving today, but what should I do?”

Mallette tilted her head at that. Rosetta's carefree att.i.tude had helped clear my mood a little. She may have had a way of reflecting people's emotions. Thanks to that, I was feeling more carefree and managed to make a decision about one of the things I had been worrying about during the day.