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If one happened to be in a Minsk tram station several days after the departure of a thrilling English gentleman and his intrepid valet, you may have noticed a newspaper seller standing by with a stack of papers and a distinctly sullen demeanour. Or indeed, you may not have, since he had the tendency to be there every day. Same face, same paper, in the exact same spot. As though tethered.The dancer who had departed much longer ago was never tethered, never stuck in one place or one feeling. She moved with all the vigour of her limbs, and lost sight of people because of it.If one happened to be in a Minsk tram station on the day she returned, you would have seen the journalist break into a smile so broad it almost did not fit on his face. Unfiltered happiness that made him run for her embrace when he was sure his eyes did not deceive him. And she had known, she whispered into his ear breathlessly, just where to find him, because he was always in one place at one time, with the same people to lead her there.And only then was she reminded of her reasons for leaving: what good was complacency for a woman like her? She wanted to dance in exotic foreign lands and travel in thundering airships, and she told him just that.“But that is ridiculous,” he said, in awe. “To come all this way for me only to accuse me of being stuck in my ways. You left Tehran for old Minsk!”“How could you accuse me of ridiculousness,” she said incredulously. “When you sent a trapezing French servant to retrieve me for you?”“I did not send him,” he protested, wounded. “He went because he recognised my love for you.”“If love keeps means staying at home and lamenting to strangers, then I do not think it interests me.”“Somehow, I expected that of you. No matter how I felt.”If you were a bystander to this loud exchange, as many were, then you would have witnessed a change of emotions more rapid than the tramlines, with the journalist and the dancer marching in opposite directions.You could be forgiven for turning up the next day, not because you had a tram to catch, but just because you wanted to know. Perhaps, if you had the nerve that day, you’d march up to the newspaperman and give him a shake and tell him the truth. Except the newspaperman was not there- he was a whole twelve metres to the right of his post, hands being clasped in the strong grip of the dancer who’d left him (forever, again) only yesterday.“Come with me,” she asked of him, with all the passion of Marina Poltavka and all the sincerity of Leena Palkala. “We can go to Iran together, and I shall dance and you shall write in the papers about bumblebees and horsesaddles or whatever it is you fancy. And all will be well because we shall have each other.”He did not let go of her yet (and perhaps he couldn’t have if he wanted to, considering her iron grip). “The future will be uncertain. And bringing a lover might make you less… appealing, to the audiences. And I will only call you Leena.”“Those are obstacles I will face,” she said proudly. “Forget about them. From today, I rely on my own virtues. Not those I falsify.”There must have been witnesses to this saga. People who pretend to sip coffee and wait for friends nearby who smiled secret smiles as the two embraced and left together (forever, this time).“And it has been so long since someone called me by my name.”Indeed, far away, a trapezing French valet paused in his frantic mapwork and tea boiling to daydream about glittering citadels and newspaper presses and the people who cut through time and distance to have it all.
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Danzer's existence had become a series of miserable things. Drinking. Lamenting to strangers. Weeping. Sometimes even weeping whilst drinking and lamenting. So when a member of the Artificer's Guild with the Copper Lily he had chased all his life pinned to her lapel stepped into the public house in Lisbon, it was only very natural for him to burst into a fresh flood of tears.He had not been this affected since the arrival of the thief Passepartout. Artificers were few and far between here, so for one to slip into his life again out of nowhere was surely nature's way of mocking him. She was neatly pressed, but the vagabond-looking man she walked with shared her complexion. Clearly, there was no far way to fall with a friend in the Guild. How could he possibly have been born into such deep misfortune-“You sir,” cut a voice into his misery, in precise German. The Artificer woman stood over him, the scruffy man looming behind her like a tall shadow.“What?” he hissed, rather raspily. “Have you come to insult me? To degrade me? To regard the terrible fate-““No. I have come with a request.” The woman was Serbian of tone, except that did not make sense, because most Serbians are dead or refugees, not neatly pressed and standing in front of him to ask for requests.She pressed her lips together as though his existence disgusted her. “I know who you are. You are the escaped Kriegorchester general, Hans Danzer. I was told to look for the hysterical Austrian man who never leaves this establishment. I suppose you believe the Austro-Hungarian Empire has wronged you.”“The Guild has wronged me too!” he wailed. He sloshed his half-full glass in her direction accusatively, and the gruff man tensed up as though a wild animal. The hallmark instinct of a survivor.The woman tapped a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Peace, brother.” She regarded Danzer once more. “You are like a child. Easily displeased. Your deeds in the army are borderline unforgivable yet you refuse to accept this. Regardless, there was a recommendation to your name.”“I… what?”“You know the workings of the Austro-Hungarian army. The practical use of the Mozart-Haydn devices. The war plans are still in your head. So you can be of use to us.”Danzer shook his head violently. ”I spoke to the Guild already, and they would not accept me. I told you! Traitorous! Objectionable! Useless!” He punctuated his outburst with clangs of his glass, spraying beer in all directions.The previously silent man rolled his eyes, any tension in his body evaporating. “You are harmless in the hands of most, most of all your own. You would have a purpose if you joined us.”“And you would repent for all you have done to Belgrade,” added the woman quietly.New emotions filled Danzer's alcohol-clouded mind. Guilt, regret and hope. They swirled together, all uncertain, but only seemed to produce one solution.“I will join you,” he rasped. “If you will take me. I have nowhere else to be. I only wish to leave this place.”Grim determination filled their faces, the faces of the long-tired rebels. Pavle took one arm and Ljubica the other, and Danzer eased himself into a standing position with great effort.Much later, Ljubica produced to Danzer a file full of documents. A list of the last strongholds in Belgrade. Details of one of the automata Pavle had tackled and Ljubica had taken apart. A photograph of the stolen Zauberflöte. And a letter addressed to Ljubica that put Danzer's name back in good faith, signed off with a flourish. “Chaleureusement, Jean Passepartout”.
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“You are leaving.”Vitti Jokinen was caught in the act. Clad in a thick fur cloak with the hood just above his eyes, carrying his few possessions bagged and over his shoulder, fleeing the sacred city of Qausuittuq in silence at midnight.“I am disguised,” he said wanly, tugging at his cloak. "You cannot tell who I am."“Your gait is distinctly miserable, Jokinen,” he was informed. Raija Juho stepped out of the shadow of her hut and approached him warily, wearing far thinner furs that Vitti needed to combat the cold, as all the Sami seemed to do.“You should go back inside. You’ll catch a chill.” He shrugged his pouch. “And so will I, if I stand here any longer.”"Where will you go?""I have watched the airships come and go all day. I will stow away on board one of those, and I will leave with it come morning."A long, icy silence stretched between them before Raija shattered it with a jab of her gloved finger."I hope you know I did not crash the walker." Another jab succeeded each sentence, each coming dangerously closer to his reddening nose. "I did not want the expedition to mean nothing. I did not choose to be born in this society, with these duties-!""I know, Raija," he said, because although they had not spoken a word to each other since they had reached the city, he had still seen that she was carrying her own burdens as heavy as his own. They all were, God help them.He reached out his hand and squeezed her shoulder, and she offered no resistance, all the anxiety seemingly blown out of her. "I will be back again one day. I just need to think. And so do you. Be well, my friend.""You too, my… friend," she echoed dully. But she had never called him that before. There was resignation and acceptance both in this farewell, then.He turned swiftly and left the city behind then, trying to erase the human faces from his mind: Raija standing silently in the cold, Passepartout looking wistful in his sleep, the weary eyes of the survivors. He didn’t dare turn around, because he did not know if he would be 'back' anywhere, never ever again. There was no lying to Raija, but she did not call after him.