The late snow stopped after two days, just as the market people had said it would.
After it stopped, the roads thawed quickly, as though the season of melting snow meant to collect all the debt it had put off at once. During the five days of performances, the snow in the back alley was driven beneath the walls, water dripped from the eaves without stopping even at night, and the powder scattered every morning darkened slightly atop the wet stones.
For five days, I carried documents to the room near the front entrance every evening.
Every evening, the theater director accepted them by asking, "The numbers are correct, I trust?" Every time, I answered, "I counted them three times." From the third day on, though, he seemed to be waiting for those words.
I did not know why a man who had handled documents for thirty years would ask the same question five times over a single sheet from the props room. Not knowing, I answered him five times.
Once I handed over the documents, I went to the stool beside the stage. The stool I had yielded to someone else on the first night had been empty from the second day onward, so I sat there.
From there, I watched the third performer from the left in the front row for all five days. Even when that voice rose over the other nine and fell again, no one clicked their tongue even once.
On the third day, the theater director pressed his finger to one number on the document. Keeping it on the entry for four painted backdrops, he asked, "Is this that backdrop?" When I answered that it was the number without the castle, he merely lifted his finger and said, "I see."
On the fifth night, after accepting the document, the theater director spoke different words for the first time.
"You have worked hard," he said.
His eyes through his glasses looked somehow as though they were reading a document, so I only answered, "Yes," and left.
For all five days, when the curtain fell, Vodianitsa only bowed toward the audience. She never once looked toward the side of the stage. For all five days, Odette never stepped on the chalk marks.
Once each performance ended, they left through their respective doors. I returned to the props room and counted the returned candlesticks, and when I got home, Danika had soup warming for me.
Over those five days, I thought once of the person from the first night. On the second day, while passing through the room inside the front entrance with the documents, I saw the upside-down cups on the mantel. Even then, I could not tell which cup had been theirs.
Once I knew I could not distinguish it, there was nothing more to think about.
They were someone I would never see again. Letting someone who could not buy a ticket stand before the fireplace was only one small thing that had happened in the theater on a performance day. By the next performance day, such a thing would be covered over by another small thing.
For all five days, Danika greeted me when I came home late without a word, and for all five days the soup was warm. Instead of asking how it had gone, she held out a hot compress cloth. As I accepted it, I said the same thing all five days: the front row had done well.
On the fifth night, Vodianitsa opened the props-room door, shook a tin once, and left. One came into my hand accompanied by the rattle of its dented lid, and with that one, the five days came to an end.
The day after the performances ended was the theater's day off.
When I stepped out through the blue door that morning, not even a handful of snow remained in the back alley. The black earth beneath the walls had begun to dry, the powder had become white again on the dry stones, and Danika stood outside the threshold without going in until I turned the corner.
Two rolls were in my inner pocket.
The props room did not rest, even on a day off. Putting the things returned from the stage back into their boxes and checking them against the documents was the work that remained after a performance.
Since it was seated work, I climbed the three steps to the back door at my usual time. The hand that held the railing had become as accustomed to it as the hand that held my cane.
The corridor was quiet, the opposite of a performance day. Even the practice-room piano was resting, and only the scent of face powder still lingered on the walls. The old man had already arranged boxes across the props-room floor.
"You're here?"
"Yes. Shall I start with the cups?"
"Start with the candlesticks. Scraping off the wax takes a while."
Scraping the wax from eleven candlesticks took the entire morning.
The wax burned over five days had run all the way down to the bases of the candlesticks and hardened there. Pushing off that hardened wax with a wooden scraper required persistence more than strength, so it suited work done sitting down.
As the scraped wax piled up on the cloth over my lap, the old man wrapped twenty cups in cloth again.
Neither of us spoke much. The props room was always like that after a performance had ended.
While I scraped wax, the old man did not put a hand to his back even once. During the five performance days, his hands had gone to his back from carrying boxes down and up. On the day off, they were used only to wrap cups.
Watching those hands, I realized that a day off was a day of rest for the old man too.
"When is the next performance?"
"Don't know yet. The theater director hasn't set the date."
"What about the roles?"
"Who knows? With a troupe that has five principals, it will take them a month to decide the roles."
The old man said that without stopping his hands as he wrapped the cups. He had counted them out to me before: three for singing, two for dancing.
I had heard the five of them arguing over roles through the corridor walls once or twice.
"Last time, two of them threw sheet music at each other in the hallway. Over who would stand in front."
"Why are there five principals?"
"One is some family's niece, and one got there by having been around for a long time. I don't know about the rest. It isn't for someone from the props room to know."
After saying that, the old man wrapped another cup in cloth. He said it was not for him to know, yet he knew the reasons for two of them. Whether he truly did not know the rest or simply would not say, I could not tell.
"They say the riggers will inspect all the overhead ropes again before the next performance."
"Again?"
"Just inspect them. Those ropes have all been hanging there for half as long as this props room has existed. There's nothing to inspect or not inspect."
The old man said it as though it were just another remark. I learned then that only the one rope that had snapped last time had been replaced, while all the others remained as they were. But there was nowhere in the props room from which to look up at the ceiling.
Once I finished scraping all eleven candlesticks, the cloth on my lap was white with wax. I was about to go to the back door to shake it out, then realized it was lunchtime and stopped.
I decided to eat lunch on the back-door steps.
The props room was dark on days off even with the lamp lit, while outside the sunlight was at its brightest. Of the two rolls Danika had packed, I had given one to the old man first thing that morning. He tore that roll in half and ate it, but did not give half back.
Whether that was because it was a day off or because he was hungry, I did not know.
I took the remaining roll from my inner pocket and stepped out into the corridor, only to find the old man returning from the direction of the back door.
"Someone's standing outside."
"Who?"
"How should I know? Not someone from the troupe. I was walking down the steps, and they just stepped aside without saying a word. Is it a visitor for you?"
"No one would come to visit me."
"Then go ask. Who stands at the back door on a day off?"
The old man said it while picking up a rag, with a face that no longer seemed curious.
From the inside, the back door at the end of the corridor was only a wooden door. In the daytime it was not bolted, and its doorknob was the same doorknob I turned twice every day.
I pushed the door open.
The noon sunlight came in first, and then I saw the person below the steps.
A gray coat. The sunlight was at least twice as bright as it had been last week, yet the coat, brown scarf, thick fur hat, and even that old umbrella in their hand were unchanged.
On a road without snow, the umbrella looked even less like an umbrella than it had last week.
They stood on the stone road below the steps, facing the door three steps above them, about a step and a half away from the doorknob. When the door opened, they did not startle. They only raised their head very slightly.
There was whitish powder on the tips of their boots. If it had come from the back alley, it meant they had approached from the back rather than from the front of the theater.
When the front entrance was closed on a day without performances, people usually turned back. They did not make their way around to the back alley.
"It is open."
It was the same tone that had said, It is closed, before the window last week. The person who had stood before a closed window was now standing before an unopened door. Both times, they had chosen a place where they waited for the door or window to move toward them.
They apparently had not tried pulling the doorknob. I took it to mean they knew it was a door used by troupe members and had not touched it carelessly.
Once I took it that way, the way they stood below the stairs looked like the manner of a polite person.
That must have been why they had merely stepped aside when the old man passed. They had made way for someone from the troupe, while they themselves, not belonging to the troupe, had not stood directly before the door.
"What brings you here?"
"I came to return your kindness."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since the sun rested on that roof."
The hand pointing at the theater roof wore a glove. The sun had rested on that roof in the morning, while now it had passed over it. It seemed this person had stood below these steps for quite some time.
During that time, the old man had gone down and come back up once, and no one else had opened this door.
They did not seem to have considered knocking. Even with someone inside who could open it, they had chosen to wait for the door to open.
I did not think that choice strange. This was the person who had done the same thing before the window that day.
They took a paper-wrapped bundle from inside their coat. The paper had been folded neatly, but instead of using string, its ends had been folded and tucked together in a way that looked somehow clumsy.
"For the tea last time..."
"Tea?"
"The tea you poured that day."
Leaning on my cane, I descended the three steps. Holding the railing, I came to stand before the bundle, but in those short three steps I could not decide whether I ought to accept it.
"It was the theater's tea. It wasn't even mine."
"This is a return gift for the one who poured it."
The words I had heard atop the stairs last week came back to me. I had not found an answer then, but today there was a bundle after those words, and my hand moved out in place of one.
The bundle was heavier than I had expected.
Only after accepting it did I realize that I had never written that cup of tea on any line. When a return gift came back for something unwritten, I did not know where to put it.
If I placed it on the line of things received, the place that should match it was empty. Something with a form I had never written down rested in my hand.
"May I sit?"
The person looked at the steps as they spoke. Of the three stone steps slanted with sunlight, the middle one was the widest.
"Here? The stone is cold."
"It is fine."
They sat on the middle step. Without smoothing the hem of their coat, they simply sat. Their back was straight as it had been on the stool that day, and the umbrella lay crosswise over their lap.
I sat at the end near the railing. I propped my cane against it and stretched my left leg down over the step below. The bundle and the roll sat side by side on my lap.
"Do you always eat here?"
"Only on days off. It is dark inside."
"The railing is new."
"Yes. The troupe had it installed. Four days after I started coming out again."
The person looked once at the railing and once at my cane. Their gaze connected the two, though they did not say aloud what they had connected.
In sunlight, I could see more of their face than I had in the snow.
The space between the fur hat and scarf was unchanged, but the lashes above the pale blue eyes visible there were whitish. I could not tell if they looked that way because of the sunlight or because this was someone whose coloring was naturally pale. So I attributed that whiteness to the sun and unfolded the paper.
They were flour biscuits. There were about eight, each about half the size of my palm, and not one was the same shape as another.
There were round ones, long ones, and ones difficult to call either. Two had edges blackened from burning, grease stains showed through the paper beneath them, and the sugar sprinkled over top had gathered to one side.
They were not bought from a shop. Market stalls did not sell biscuits of uneven shapes, and these biscuits did not even begin with matching shapes.
They had been baked by the hands of someone who had not baked often.
I picked one up and put it in my mouth, but my front teeth would not go through it, so I moved it to my molars. My molars could not manage it in one bite either, and I had to wait for it to soften in my saliva.
"They are hard."
The words came out first. I had been putting force into my molars and did not mind the end of my sentence.
The person turned to look at me.
"Are they hard?"
"...Yes. A little."
"It was my first time baking them."
It did not sound like an excuse. In the same tone they had used to say they did not know how to live, they simply stated what they saw: that the first thing they had baked had turned out like stone.
After hearing that, the biscuit in my hand looked a little different.
I did not ask aloud why someone baking for the first time would bake something to give another person. They probably were not someone who normally baked biscuits, so if they had baked them, there had to be a reason enough for it.
Once I arrived at the thought that the reason was a single cup of theater tea, it became difficult to ask further.
It was sweet. Once it softened, the sweetness arrived late, followed by a faint bitterness from the burnt edge after a sweetness that might have been honey or sugar.
I could not say it tasted bad, but it was hard to say it tasted good when my jaw hurt.
"How does it taste?"
"It is sweet. Sweet and hard."
They nodded very slightly, as though filing those words away. From their face, I could not tell whether they had filed away the sweet or the hard.
I had a habit of looking for reasons first in people who were kind to me without reason. Today, there was no need to seek one. The reason had arrived before the biscuits.
One cup of tea for one bundle of biscuits was enough reason, and kindness with a sufficient reason could be swallowed.
I picked up a second.
If they had been store-bought, I could have eaten one and said thank you. But the person who had wrapped differently shaped biscuits in paper and carried them all the way to these steps sat beside me, watching me chew.
I did not know how to eat only one and fold the paper back up in front of the person who had baked them.
By the third, my jaw was aching. With the fourth, I alternated bites of biscuit and bread. For a moment, I wondered what Danika would say if she knew I was using the roll she had packed as a palate cleanser between biscuits.
The person neither urged me on nor told me to eat more. They only watched the entire time. Each time a biscuit disappeared, their eyes went to the bundle and then returned.
"Would you like one?"
"I baked them."
"Still. There are too many to eat alone."
The person looked at the bundle, then picked up one from the middle. Still wearing their glove, they brought it to their mouth and bit it once with their front teeth before stopping.
They remained still for a moment, then I saw them move it to their molars.
"It is hard indeed."
"Yes, it is."
"Have you eaten five of these?"
"Four. This is the fifth."
They held the biscuit they had bitten for a long time. After swallowing, they said nothing, but their eyes on the biscuits left in the bundle had changed a little from before.
Like when their cup had stopped before the fireplace, I could not say what was different.
"May I ask your name?"
It was something I had not said atop the stairs last week. The person I had simply sent away, thinking I would never see them again, had come back carrying biscuits. That assumption had been wrong, and it took only one question to correct a mistaken assumption.
"Lyuba."
It was short. It seemed like a name one might commonly hear in this city, but I did not know enough names in this city to tell whether it truly was common.
"I am Kim Sang-hyeon."
"Kim Sang-hyeon."
In this country, only people like the theater director, the doctor, and the employment-agency workers called me by my full name, and they always attached a formal title after it. Other people called me Sang-hyeon, Mister Kim, master, or you.
They rolled my name once inside their mouth. Their lips had the shape of someone memorizing a name they had heard for the first time, but when those lips opened, what came out was not my name.
"That is your name."
The word your came out there in an old-fashioned form, a word I had only seen in books, one that did not seem as though it should fit.
Yet laid atop that antiquated manner of speech, it strangely seemed in its proper place. They were the first person in this country to call me that.
"What work do you do, Lyuba?"
"I look over documents near the palace."
When the words near the palace and documents came together, their manner of speaking, posture, and gait were all explained at once.
There would be government offices near the palace, and people who reviewed documents in those offices. It was not strange for someone who had worked in such a place a long time to use a manner of speech found only in books.
"So, something like a government clerk."
"Is that how it sounds?"
"Yes. You said you reviewed documents."
"Is that so."
They did not correct me. I took that to mean there was nothing to correct.
After that, Lyuba became a clerk at a government office near the palace in my mind. I did not know whether they were a low-ranking clerk, but someone who baked biscuits alone on their day off and carried them to the theater's back door did not seem likely to hold a high position.
"Why has that roof been stripped on one side?"
Lyuba asked, looking at the theater roof. During the winter, snow had pressed down and shifted the tiles there, and no one had gone up to repair it even after the snow melted.
"The weight of the snow in winter. Repairs cost money, and the troupe is not well-off. When melted snow leaks in, we put a bucket at the end of the corridor."
"A bucket?"
"Yes. The buckets belong to the props room too, so I count them."
Whether Lyuba's mouth moved at that, I could not see because of the scarf. But their eyes remained on the roof a little longer.
"You said you had never watched a performance until the end."
"Yes. I watched one until the end for the first time last week."
"Last week?"
"At the side of the stage. Thanks to you, Lyuba. I had no excuse to sit there by myself, but after seating a guest there, I ended up sitting through it until the end as well."
They did not respond to that. I could not see where the words thanks to you had reached beneath the hat and scarf, and only the hand holding the umbrella shifted its grip once.
"Who was the old man who passed by earlier?"
"The old man from the props room. He is my superior. He was the one who told me someone was standing outside."
"He passed the message along."
"Yes. That is why I came out."
At that, Lyuba looked once toward the back door. Their gaze seemed to take in the three steps the old man had gone down and climbed back up, though they did not say what they saw.
"The front door was closed."
"It is closed on days off. It only opens on performance days."
"So I went around. I thought the props room would be in the back."
They had circled the building based on that one thing I had said before the fireplace—that I worked in the props room. Anyone could learn that there was a door behind the theater by going around it, but whether anyone other than this person had done so was another matter.
"Why did you pour tea for someone you did not know?"
It was a question they had not asked that day, and one I had not asked myself while eating soup that night.
When I received it, the answer did not come immediately.
"I do not know. You looked like a familiar face."
"A familiar face?"
"It was how I was when I first came to this country. I did not know what I had to do first just to buy a single roll, so I watched other people's hands. When I saw you doing that before the window, it reminded me of then."
"Did you come from far away?"
"Yes. From far away."
This time, I did not prepare the next words I always had ready after saying I came from far away. It was because they did not wait for the next words.
Before someone who did not wait, there was no reason to say where far away was.
Lyuba looked at the wall of the theater.
"Why was the third from the left in the front row at the end of the back row?"
They remembered even the name of the position I had mentioned beside the stage last week. Their tone was calm, but it was a question like one from a person reviewing documents, pointing to a blank space.
"Because she is a water nymph."
I said it after swallowing a biscuit.
"Her ears are shaped like fins, so she keeps them covered with cloth. In this country, it seems that counts when deciding one's position. Her singing was not the sort of singing to place in the back row, but she remained at the end of it for a long time."
"In this country..."
Lyuba repeated those words once. Nothing clung to the repeated words, so I could not tell whether what I had said was wrong or right.
"Who told her to silence that voice?"
"The person who stands in front of the piano during practice. On the first performance day, someone also clicked their tongue backstage. They do not do it now. Not because she is in the front row, but because there is no place left to do it."
Lyuba stayed silent for a moment as though recording those words.
"Did the troupe not know that voice?"
"They must have known. Even the old man from the props room said it was a voice to regret wasting. They knew and still kept her in that place."
"Is that so."
This time, the words is that so were a little lower. I could not tell what the lowered tone held, and for a moment I wondered whether Lyuba said is that so in that same voice while reviewing documents.
"And the feet that turned in the center?"
"She measures the floor before dancing. She measures where everything will be set, turns around it all, and never steps on the chalk marks. She was also the one who told me to keep everything within half a step."
"Were those feet in the back row too?"
"No. She is a principal. One of the five."
"Five."
"Three singers and two dancers. I do not know why there are five either."
During the time I spoke of the two women, two biscuits disappeared. Talking kept my mouth busy, so my jaw hurt less.
That was why I spoke a little longer, but neither the field of snow nor the cloth around my cane's handle found their way into those lengthened words. Those two things were not the stories of the women's singing and feet, but stories from my side.
The glove holding the umbrella was not the glove that had gotten wet before the fireplace that day. There were no water marks, and its fingertips were not worn at all. It looked new again, but I did not look any further.
Lyuba was someone who asked questions. Upon hearing an answer, they pointed once more at something within it and asked, but never asked the same thing twice. Their expression did not change the entire time.
With that face, I felt I knew what this person did. They were someone who had spent a long time asking about and filling in blanks on documents.
"Do you always use a cane?"
"Yes. I will from now on, too."
"The rope that fell that day?"
"They put up a new one. The very next day after the accident."
"What about the other ropes?"
"The others are unchanged. Only one snapped."
Last week, I had only said that a stage set had fallen. Drawing the rope out from the word fallen was likely the habit of a person who reviewed documents.
Lyuba did not answer that at all. Instead, they looked up once toward the theater roof. From the steps, I could not tell whether their eyes were looking at the roof or the ceiling beneath it.
I swallowed the final biscuit.
Only crumbs remained on the paper. My jaw ached, my mouth was sweet, and while all that happened, the sunlight had climbed one step higher.
"I have eaten them all."
"I see."
Lyuba looked at the empty paper. Their eyes resembled the ones that had looked into the cup before the fireplace, so I watched them and folded the paper neatly.
"They were delicious. Aside from being hard."
"Were they hard?"
"Yes."
"Next time, they will be less hard."
"When you come next time, you can knock on the door. We can hear you from inside."
"One knocks?"
"Yes. There are people inside even on days off."
Lyuba only repeated, One knocks? I took that repetition as the habit of confirming things I had seen since the day we met.
They said next time very easily. I was the only one who had decided last week that we would never meet again. It seemed there had been a next time on their side from the beginning.
Lyuba rose. They did not dust off their coat hem, and despite having sat on stone steps, there was no sign anywhere on them that they had been sitting.
I stood while holding the railing. Since my left leg had been stretched over the step below, it took effort twice over to rise.
Lyuba neither held out a hand nor looked away. They were the first person in this country who did neither.
"The documents are waiting."
"Yes. Take care."
"You too."
Leaving those words behind, Lyuba walked toward the front of the theater through the back alley.
The tip of the umbrella tapped the stone road evenly, and their stride was the same on stone as it had been on snow. They did not look back at the corner.
I stood holding the railing until the sound of the umbrella tip vanished past the corner. Behind me, the back door opened and shut once. It seemed to be the old man, so I did not turn around.
I did not know which direction the place was where documents waited. In truth, I did not even know which direction the palace lay in this city. There was nothing strange about someone who had gone only between the back alley and the theater since being injured not knowing the city's directions.
The middle step where Lyuba had sat received only sunlight after they rose. I was the one who had said the stone was cold, but Lyuba did not say they were cold until the end, nor did their back beneath the coat hunch even once.
Alone on the steps, I looked at the folded paper.
A clerk who baked biscuits on a day off and carried them all the way to a stranger's workplace was not a busy person. If they were someone who asked many questions and had no one to listen, then perhaps that single cup of tea and the stool beside the stage last week had meant more to them than I thought.
I settled it for myself: a lonely clerk who needed someone to talk to. Once I had settled it, even the hardness of the biscuits was explained, and I felt a little more at ease.
A person who could be explained was not frightening.
Still, I could not put that return gift anywhere until the end. Neither something received nor something exchanged rested folded into a single sheet of paper in my hand, and I put that paper in my inner pocket.
When I returned to the props room, the old man was closing the box of cups.
"Was it a visitor?"
"Someone who could not buy a ticket on the last performance day. Their name is Lyuba. I gave them a cup of tea that day, and they brought biscuits as a return gift."
"There is a visitor who brings biscuits to the back door on a day off?"
The old man only said that before opening the next box. He did not ask what sort of person Lyuba was. Only after opening the lid fully did he add one more thing.
"How were the biscuits?"
"Hard, but I ate them all."
"If you ate them all, they will come again."
The old man began counting cups after saying that. I did not know what expression to make at the words they will come again, so I pressed my jaw once with my hand. The old man did not look at that hand either.
My jaw ached all afternoon. It ached as I counted twenty cups and as I checked four painted backdrops, and every time it did, I thought of the differently shaped biscuits.
When I went as far as the side of the stage to check the backdrops, I looked up at the ceiling. The stage was dark because it was a day off.
The ceiling was darker still, with several ropes hanging down within the darkness. In that darkness, I could not distinguish the newly hung rope from the others that had been left as they were.
Whether it was right or wrong that the ropes had remained unchanged was not something my eyes could know. Ropes were for the riggers to inspect, and someone from the props room inspected props.
I settled it that way and rose from the stool, though it took a little longer than usual to stand.
Before sunset, the old man held out a sheet of paper. It was the document listing the number of props after the performance to submit to the theater director, and he told me to leave it in the theater director's office tomorrow morning.
"Leave it on his desk before he arrives. The day after a day off, he comes late."
"Yes."
Eleven candlesticks, twenty cups, and four painted backdrops. The numbers were the same as before the performance, but this time, the hand that wrote those same numbers did not shake.
That evening, as I walked down the back alley, the evening sun slanted over the powder. I still believed the reason powder was scattered anew over the back alley every day, now that the snow had melted and the stones were exposed, was simply the diligence of the people who cleaned the city streets.
Danika opened the door for me at the blue door. Her hands took my cane and coat as they always did, so I said I was back as I always did.
My spoon moved slowly as I ate soup.
Danika looked at my spoon, then at my jaw, but without a word poured a little more water into the soup. I did not tell her about the biscuits.
There was no reason to tell that story, and to explain why my jaw hurt, I would have had to begin with the story of that person.
The soup was not bland. It seemed she had adjusted the seasoning after adding water, though I only realized when I lifted the spoon.
Danika stood near the kitchen and looked at the list on the wall until I had finished every drop of soup.
After clearing away dinner, I sat before the fireplace and thought about the person I had met today.
Vodianitsa was someone who looked after people with words. Odette was someone who measured. Danika was someone who did things ahead of time.
Lyuba was someone who asked. Someone who seemed to write down somewhere the things they asked and heard. I did not know what they wrote or where, but Lyuba could be explained.
"Has the date of the next performance been set?"
Danika asked as she replaced the hot compress cloth. It was a question about work, and the end of her sentence was stiff. I told her it had not been set yet.
"Understood."
This time, understood was a word in its proper place. The story of my jaw never came out.
Before the fireplace, I thought once more of that old-fashioned word for you. Sang-hyeon, Mister Kim, master, and you had gained one more beside them, yet the new word did not feel strangely heavy.
That night, I could feel the folded paper in my inner pocket. I did not take out the paper stained with grease.
======
The theater director had lived buried in documents for thirty years.
Over those thirty years, he could count on his fingers the documents that had come down from the palace, and even those had first passed through a government office. But the single sheet left atop his desk yesterday evening had not passed through any office, and at its bottom was that red seal.
It was the second time. The first had been the document listing hospital fees, housing, and wages for the time Kim Sang-hyeon had been injured. The theater director had been unable to set that paper down straight.
This paper bore neither sum nor name. It contained only a date, an hour, and the words Ice Palace.
When he stopped by the theater before the appointed hour, a sheet of paper lay on his desk.
It was a prop count written in clumsy Teyvat script: eleven candlesticks, twenty cups, and four painted backdrops. He knew who had left it merely by looking at the writing. The theater director placed it atop the pile of documents and left.
The theater director did not take a carriage. If he did, the driver would know how far he had gone, which would mean one more person who knew.
The gate of the palace he reached on foot was ten times higher than the theater's front entrance. The person at the gate looked at his document, then let him inside without a word.
The palace was quieter than the outside. Not the quiet of a vast place with few people, but the quiet of people who made no sound even when present. In it, the theater director heard his own breathing for the first time.
The corridors were all white stone.
Floor, walls, and ceiling were all white stone, and his footsteps struck against it and came back. The person walking ahead wore black clothes with a white collar, a servant whose steps made no sound. The theater director's were the only footsteps echoing through the corridor.
The room was long.
At the far end of the long room, on a raised seat, the Tsaritsa sat. The theater director did not lift his head as he walked toward her.
Stopping before the seat, he raised only his eyes a little, and saw the crown first. A crown of blue and silver sat atop braided silver hair, and beneath it, there was nothing on her face.
No joy, no anger, no curiosity. Pale blue eyes looked at the theater director, but he could not tell whether those eyes saw him or merely the place where he stood.
A snowflake-shaped jewel rested at the breast of her long white and pale-blue dress, and one hand held a scepter. It seemed the weather that had warmed outside had not entered this room, for it was cold within.
The theater director bowed. He bent deeper than he had ever bowed to principals during thirty years with the troupe, and remained bent as he waited for words to fall.
"Are you the theater director of the Korolyovsky Troupe?"
"I am, Your Majesty."
"Raise your head."
Her voice was neither low nor high, and it did not travel to the end of the room and return. It came exactly as far as where the theater director stood.
It felt as though she measured that distance before speaking, so even as he raised his head, the theater director could not straighten his back.
For thirty years, the theater director had endured the gazes of principals. Those eyes always wanted something, and what they wanted was written on their faces, so they were not difficult to read.
There was nothing written in these eyes.
"I will ask about the theater. Answer briefly."
"Yes."
"How many principals are there?"
"...Three singers and two dancers."
"Five."
The Tsaritsa repeated the number once. Nothing lay in the repeated voice, so the theater director could not tell whether five was many or few.
"Are all five in their positions through skill?"
The theater director could not answer immediately.
He knew the answer. One of the three singers was a patron's niece, while one of the two dancers had risen to the position through seniority.
Everyone within the troupe knew it, and they left it alone while knowing. But thirty years were not enough to make him speak of it aloud in this room.
"Not answering is also an answer."
"...My apologies."
"There is one principal per position. One singer and one dancer. Appoint them by skill alone. Do not consider seniority or patronage in deciding a position."
"Yes."
"Do not decide positions by one's origins."
Those words were a little slower than the ones before. Only someone who had lived thirty years among documents would have noticed, but the theater director noticed, and he knew what the words pointed toward.
There was a water nymph in the troupe who had stood at the end of the back row for a long time. That water nymph had stood in the front row during the last performance, and there had been no shortage of talk within the troupe over it.
Did the Tsaritsa know of it? The theater director took that question out in his mind, then put it back. In this room, who asked questions had already been decided.
"One side of the theater roof has been stripped bare."
"Yes. The tiles were pushed out of place by the winter snow."
"Repair it. Funds will be sent down under the pretext of repairing the roof."
The stripped roof could be seen from the street, so it was not strange for the palace to know of it. The theater director was not surprised by the mention of the roof. The next words surprised him.
"Replace every rope and suspension mechanism for the stage machinery. Do not leave a single one of those currently in place."
"The ropes, Your Majesty?"
"I heard there was an incident where a rope snapped."
The theater director's fingertips turned cold.
The snapped rope had been a matter within the troupe. It had never been reported to a government office, nor had word spread outside. Yet it had been spoken of in this room.
Before the theater director could ask where she had heard it, the Tsaritsa's eyes shifted very slightly to one side, then returned.
"The cost of the ropes and mechanisms will also be included in the repair funds. Repair funds are sent down every year, so no one will find it strange. Only the theater director needs to know their source."
There, the theater director recalled the red seal from the past winter.
The hospital fees, housing, and wages had all been sent under the troupe's name, in a form no one would find strange. The seal stamped at the bottom of that document was the same one stamped at the bottom of the paper that had summoned him to this room.
They had come from the same source. The highest authority in the palace had paid for the injury suffered by Kim Sang-hyeon of the props room, and now the highest authority in the palace ordered the rope that had injured him replaced.
Until then, the theater director had not known why he had asked that person the same question every evening for five days. When he asked, The numbers are correct, I trust?, five times, he had not truly been asking about the numbers.
The person whose name had been written beneath the red seal last winter stood before him with a cane and documents in hand. He had wanted to confirm five times who that person was, but all five times, the answer was only a single man from the props room.
Why was not written anywhere in this room.
The Tsaritsa never spoke that name. Without mentioning hospital fees or the props room, she simply spoke as though she had heard somewhere that a rope had snapped.
Something lay in the middle of this room, yet no one spoke its name. In thirty years among documents, the theater director had seen such places a few times. In such a place, there was only one thing to do.
"The words heard in this room today will not leave the theater director's mouth."
"Yes."
"Do not seek to know what I have not said. Even if you come to know it, do not speak of it."
"...Yes, Your Majesty."
"That will do. You may go."
The theater director bowed. Still bowed, he backed away several steps before turning around. As he turned, no sound came from behind him.
There was no sound of the scepter striking the floor, nor any rustle of clothing. The stillness of the Tsaritsa, unmoving as though seated on ice, clung to his back until he had left the long room completely.
As he walked the white-stone corridor again, the theater director looked at his pale fingertips. They were the same hands that had been unable to lay a document straight in the hospital room last winter. Today, though they held no paper, their fingertips were still the same.
When he stepped out of the palace gate, sunlight fell upon him.
The person who had stood at the gate remained in the same place and posture as when he had entered. They looked at the theater director leaving once, just as they had when he entered, and withdrew their gaze. Their face had no reason to know what words had been exchanged inside.
On the way back to the theater, the theater director folded away what he had heard today, one thing at a time. Reducing the five principals to two would cause an uproar in the troupe, but the one who would hear that uproar would be the theater director alone.
The order not to decide positions by origin would go toward the water nymph who had stood in the back row for so long. The ropes and mechanisms could be replaced as soon as the repair funds came down.
Setting a date for auditions and telling the two riggers about the new ropes were matters for tomorrow. Today, he intended to begin by putting the prop count on his desk away in a drawer.
They could select one singer and one dancer as principals by audition. The theater director could guess who would remain, and if things went as he guessed, at least two people in the troupe would resent him. Hearing that resentment was part of the theater director's work too.
One thing remained that would not fold away.
Why did the highest authority in the palace look after a single person from the props room twice? The theater director left that question unfolded. Leaving something unfolded was also something he had learned over thirty years.
He was not the only person in this troupe who knew something and did not speak it aloud.
He entered the theater by the back door. The front entrance only opened on performance days, and no one would see the theater director pass alone through the front corridor on a day off, but he went around through the back alley anyway.
A question of where he had been was easier to answer when asked at the back door than at the front entrance.
The old man stood below the back-door steps. He had stopped sweeping and straightened his back slightly upon seeing the theater director.
"Where have you been?"
The theater director did not slow his steps.
"To a government office."
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