chsdbacks Chapter 323 Little Red Riding Hood
Chapter 323 Little Red Riding Hood
(Two chapters today too~ I'm working so hard~)
Late at night, in the SIS underground laboratory.
The fluorescent tubes hummed. Weber sat alone at his workbench, the experimental data sheet on Mo/Si multilayer film sputtering spread out in front of him untouched for a long time.
His gaze was drawn to the small television on the side of the worktable.
On the screen, NHK is broadcasting the German reunification celebrations in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It's a pre-recorded broadcast.
He didn't watch the live stream, making excuses for himself by saying he was too busy. Besides, he's already a Japanese citizen and a Japanese person; that other country has absolutely nothing to do with him... right?
Why was I drawn to this little TV again?
Who knows...
On the screen, midnight fireworks burst across the sky above Berlin, and the black, red, and gold tricolor flag filled the entire frame.
A young man, perched on his friend's shoulders, held a bottle of beer in his hand, his mouth wide open, shouting something. The crowd was singing—the melody was indistinct, but Weber recognized it as "Ode to Joy."
On television, Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker is giving a speech.
"...This is a happy moment that will be remembered in the history of the German nation..."
Weber stared intently at the screen. He gripped the lab pen tightly in his hand, the cap already unscrewed, leaving a small blue stain on his fingertip.
Weber's gaze was fixed on the federal flag on the screen.
Black, red, and gold. He stared at it for a long time.
He had lived most of his life under another banner—one with a hammer and compass in between.
He thought of Jena, where the smell of metal cutting fluid always lingered in the Zeiss Optics workshop.
I recall the fog that drifted from the Saale River in winter, condensing on the outside of the laboratory windowpane, so thick you could draw on it with your finger.
I remember the overcooked potatoes and the perpetually thin gravy in the cafeteria.
I remember those evenings after get off work, squeezing into that little pub next to Marktplatz with my colleagues, clinking glasses with cheap Nordhäuser. Some told crude jokes, some complained about rations, and some whispered things that couldn't be heard by the next table.
Where are those people now?
He was a defector. In June 1989, a Japanese girl used US dollars and the word "freedom," along with all the secrets in his head about extreme ultraviolet lithography, to pack him into the base of an abandoned machine tool and smuggled him out of the Iron Curtain.
He betrayed that country.
But that country no longer exists.
The Germans on TV were cheering. But he found himself unable to cry or laugh.
Should he cry? He didn't know; should he laugh? He didn't know either.
He just felt—a part of his chest had become very light. It was as if something had been taken away, leaving a perfectly shaped void.
He didn't even have time to feel real guilt for his betrayal—because the person he betrayed had already disappeared.
Weber stood there in a daze for a long time.
Until the small-sized TV became a blurry mess in his vision.
Just then, footsteps came from the end of the corridor.
The sound of leather shoes stepping on the cement floor was rhythmic and even.
Weber snapped out of his daze and subconsciously assumed that his assistant had come back to retrieve something he had forgotten in the lab. He muttered in German, "The door wasn't locked."
Then he looked up.
The person standing outside the door made him freeze for almost two seconds.
It was the person who led him out of the Iron Curtain, Saionji Satsuki.
She was still wearing the same cream-colored cashmere cardigan she'd worn during the day, her hair loosely tied back. It was clear she'd come directly from the main house, without even changing her coat.
She was carrying a bottle of wine in her right hand. In her left hand, she held two glasses, rims down, stems wedged between her fingers.
Weber's gaze fell on the red bottle label. He paused for a second.
"Good evening, Miss."
He immediately stood up from his chair—it's basic courtesy when facing the boss.
Satsuki raised the hand holding the sake bottle and pressed it down.
"Sit down."
Weber stopped moving.
"Don't be so formal, Mr. Weber. Let's not talk about work tonight."
……
The two pulled up two folding chairs in the open space in front of the television and sat down.
The lab has no sofas or living room; it's mostly workbenches and metal frames, so the scene feels somewhat incongruous, like "picnicking in a workshop."
Satsuki placed two glasses on the low table beside her (which was actually an upside-down plastic crate), picked up the bottle, and began to unscrew the wire tap on the bottle neck.
She opened the bottles of wine while introducing them.
"This is Rotkäppchen Sekt (Little Red Riding Hood) sparkling wine. I specially brought it from Berlin. It's said that in East Germany, a bottle of this is opened on every noteworthy occasion." She loosened the wire tap, pressed her thumb against the cork, and said, "Today is the day of reunification—to bid farewell to East Germany with East German wine should... be appropriate, right?"
Weber watched as Satsuki strained her fingers on the cork, opened her mouth as if to say something.
Satsuki glanced at him, thinking that this damned German was about to bring up the lab's "no eating" rule, and interrupted him first.
"It's alright. I made an exception. I approved the funding for this lab, so I'm the one who calls the shots."
"...No, young lady, that's not what I meant."
"Um?"
Weber cleared his throat, his face serious.
"According to Article 1 of Japan's Law on the Prohibition of Drinking Alcohol by Minors, people under the age of 20 are prohibited from drinking alcohol. If I remember correctly, Miss is 17 years old this year."
Satsuki paused, her hand still twisting the bottle stopper.
There was a moment of silence.
Then, she slowly turned her head and looked at Weber.
Her lips curved upwards, and her eyes crinkled into a smile. She revealed a flawless, perfect smile.
That smile.
Weber gave it a name in his mind: "Masked Smile".
Whenever the young lady wears this smile, it usually means someone is about to be in trouble.
"Oh?" Satsuki's voice was sickeningly sweet. "So, Mr. Weber, are you planning to report me to the police?"
As she spoke, she gave a push with her thumb—
"Pop".
The cork popped off. White bubbles welled up from the bottle opening and trickled down between her fingers.
Weber froze.
When he later recalled the scene, he was certain that the temperature of his back had dropped by at least two degrees.
A seventeen-year-old girl smiled at him. And he—a defector who had lived on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War—felt an indescribable fear.
"Absolutely...absolutely not." Weber hurriedly waved his hands in front of him, his movements as stiff as an unoiled robot. "Please pretend I didn't say anything, boss."
Satsuki's smile lasted exactly three seconds. Then, like a crack in ice, it loosened from the corners of her mouth, turning into a genuine, slightly smug chuckle.
"Mr. Weber." She tilted the bubbling bottle, pouring the golden liquid into the first glass. "You are the most... 'German' German I have ever met."
There was no mockery in the tone of this sentence; it even carried a hint of admiration.
She pushed the first glass towards Weber. Then she poured herself a second glass.
"Tonight," Satsuki raised her glass, turning her head to look at the Berlin fireworks display on the television screen, "let's just pretend it's... the two of us watching the fireworks."
……
The two clinked glasses.
Rotkäppchen has very fine bubbles. It has a refreshing green apple acidity on the palate, and a warm finish with a hint of bread yeast.
Weber took a sip. His eyes welled up for a moment.
This tastes like this.
The last time he drank Rotkäppchen was at Christmas 1988, at the Zeiss factory's year-end party.
Hans opened three bottles in the cafeteria, and everyone stood around the folding table, clinking glasses. Snow was falling outside the window. Someone played "Silent Night" on the accordion. It was terribly off-key, but everyone laughed.
That was his last Christmas in East Germany.
Satsuki didn't urge him to speak. She quietly drank her sake, her gaze fixed on the television screen.
The silence lasted for about two minutes. It was Weber who spoke first.
"What does Miss think about this?" Weber's voice was a little hoarse. He gestured with his chin toward the television. "Unification."
Satsuki raised the cup to her lips, looking at him through the golden liquid bubbling in the air. "I want to hear your opinion first."
Weber gave a wry smile. He traced a circle on the rim of the glass with his finger.
"To be honest... I don't know how to look at it." His gaze fell on a blank space. "If you ask any East German, 'Are you happy?' he will definitely answer 'Yes.' Genuinely. But if you look into his eyes for just one more second—you'll find that what's in them is very, very complicated."
He took a sip of the wine. The bubbles burst on his tongue, the tartness of green apple mingling with the warmth of yeast.
"There are too many absurd things in that country." Weber's voice lowered by half an octave, as if he were talking to himself. "Supplies are always scarce. Stasi informants might be sitting at the desk next to yours. Want to leave the country? Unless you have special permission—you can't even go to Hungary."
"You had to wait two years to buy a Trabant, and then another three years after you paid. Five years, all for a cardboard cutout car."
He shook his head. A very faint smile played at the corners of his lips.
"but……"
Weber paused for two seconds.
"Absurd as it may be, life goes on. And those days were indeed mine." His gaze drifted into the distance, "The electric bell that rang precisely at 6:45 every morning in the Zeiss workshop—twenty-three years without fail. Sunday mornings spent walking along the Saale River, the fog on the water swallowing half of the church steeple on the opposite bank."
"The lady downstairs from me, Schmidt, pickles a huge vat of cucumbers every fall using a recipe passed down from her grandmother—with dill and mustard seeds. The whole hallway smells of it."
He stopped.
"These things are real too. Just as real as those absurdities."
Satsuki didn't reply. She held the cup, her fingers occasionally tracing the inside of it.
Weber took another swig of wine and wiped his mouth.
"Kohl said something at the reunification ceremony—'a prosperous landscape.' blühende Landschaften." His tone suddenly turned sharp, "saying that East Germany would soon become as prosperous as West Germany."
He turned to look at Satsuki.
"I've heard politicians make far too many promises under both systems. Under the DDR, they said 'the people are the masters'; now they've changed flags and they say 'a prosperous landscape'."
Satsuki put down the cup. The bottom of the cup landed on the plastic box with a soft thud.
"When a country disappears," she said softly, "the first to be forgotten are always the ordinary people."
Weber fell silent.
The cup in my hand hovered in mid-air, my posture frozen for several seconds.
Then he slowly nodded.
The amplitude was small, but the impact was significant.