And the rest, is Johann

Chapter 12. Alea iacta est (II)

Johann had really just dropped a bomb and left her to deal with the aftermath. And that aftermath was right in front of her, with leathery covers over the table.

She would never, ever, confess it to him, but she was actually terrified of whatever lied behind those covers. He hadn't allowed her a moment to prepare herself.

And Nina feared Kinderheim 511, irrationally. Beyond the obvious, even with her limited knowledge. Maybe she wanted to think that whatever Johann had become was a direct consequence of that place and the horrors within had to be worse than anything he was capable of.

Maybe it was Johann's unconcern, in those very special moments in which he had mentioned that place, to point out the most random details, like recognizing the design of an office table in a hotel room, one that the director of that orphanage had also possessed. He had already shared with her details like that, scattered through their conversations during the last months. He talked about Kinderheim 511 exactly the same way he did about the Ludwig Maximilian Universität.

Now the truth, the real truth, was right in front of her, in the shape of roughly 400 pages, she calculated.

One deep breath and her hands reached for that cover, the green one, and all bravery she assumed possessing disappeared at the pathetic sight of her own trembling hand.

She considered going to him, checking it for the first time in his presence. Yet Nina wanted to have a whole picture before confronting him, because there was going to be a confrontation, of her asking extremely personal questions and seeing Johann mercilessly fighting himself to avoid any manipulation, any lie, when verbalizing those thoughts that were the last thing he might want to share.

It was an unsettling view, him so obviously uncomfortable, so unaware of his own distress.

She feared those notebooks, but less than she feared Johann's reaction to them.

A reaction that might already be going on. He knew the conversation that was about to fall upon him, he had chosen it himself.

Holding both against her chest she stood again, following the thin noises of his whereabouts, that brought her to the kitchen.

Like nothing involved him, Johann occupied himself arranging the kitchen after her meal, hopefully, his too. He barely acknowledged her before going back to drying a couple of plates.

"Do you need something?" Could he be bothered by something, anything at all, for once?

She silently sat in one of the chairs, against the wall, hoping he would receive the message that she was expecting a lengthy answer.

"Well..." he crossed the kitchen in silence to store those plates. Only as he turned around she deserved another look, equally detached, before repeating that same process with the cutlery now. "What do these contain...?"

A couple of seconds of silence.

"The green one is a diary from one of the orphanage instructors. He became my tutor little after I joined and very much includes all that was done to me along with his own hypotheses and a never-ending ramble of how special I was." Another moment of silence, only to continue with the same monotony. "The blue one contains all the rest." He turned around then, as he was finished, now drying his own hands with the kitchen cloth. "Start with the green one."

Nina nodded slightly as her focus went to that file to him again who, like a statue, remained still. His expression was impenetrable, even his eyes lacked all intensity, offering instead dull apathy.

"I would like to check them with you... if you don't mind." She finally stood, not without focusing all her attention on him.

It had been there, for one instant. She hadn't dreamed it... the fear in his eyes.