Paid in Full

The customs officer asked what was in the case.

“A musical instrument.”

“Value?”

“My ship, mostly.”

She looked up.

“You traded your ship for a musical instrument?”

“The ship was the deposit. There were other expenses.”

The officer opened the case. Inside, six pale reeds lay suspended between two rings of black stone. One moved toward her hand.

“Don't touch that,” Leon said, gently enough that she stopped.

He showed her the permit, the release from the monastery, and the certificate discharging him from seventeen months of compulsory service. She read the last document twice.

“You could have left it there.”

“I'd said I would bring it back.”

She stamped the permit. He thanked her and asked where he could catch a tram.

---

Anja opened the door with flour on her forearm.

For a moment neither moved. Then Leon put the case down, and she came into his arms so hard that he stepped back against the passage wall.

“You're thin,” she said into his coat.

“They fed us badly.”

She drew away far enough to look at him.

“Us?”

“I'll tell you.”

He touched her cheek. He had imagined this often enough to distrust it, and now she was here, annoyed already, getting flour on his collar.

“I missed you,” he said.

“Come inside.”

She had moved the table. There was a new burn on the kitchen ceiling. He wanted explanations for everything and knew he had no right to receive them all at once.

He set the case beside the breadboard.

“You found one.”

“Eventually.”

“Leon. I showed you a picture.”

“You said your grandmother played it.”

“I know what I said.”

She opened the case. The reeds leaned toward her.

Her grandmother had played an instrument like this before the evacuation, when there had still been enough air on Orra to carry music outdoors. Anja remembered its sound poorly. She had once tried to hum it for him and stopped, embarrassed by the inadequacy of her mouth.

Now she held her hands between the rings.

Nothing happened.

“Breathe,” he said.

“I am breathing.”

“Toward it.”

The first note made her sit down.

He had imagined this too. He had got it wrong. In his imagining she had smiled.

He sat beside her while she cried, keeping his hands still until she reached for one.

---

Over supper, he explained the ship.

Then the service contract. Then the fever, because she asked about the marks on his wrist.

“All this for a thing I mentioned over breakfast.”

“I wanted you to have it.”

“I'm glad I have it. I'm angry you did this. Give me time.”

“Of course.”

She poured him more soup.

“Where are you going next?”

“The outer stations. There's a survey crew that needs a pilot.”

“Do you want to go?”

His face changed before he answered. She knew that look. Once, in a museum, he had seen a map with an unfinished edge and spent the rest of the afternoon distracted.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Thursday.”

She nodded.

“I'd like to keep seeing you,” she said. “When you come back. Between things.”

He looked at his bowl.

“I don't know whether I'll ever want to stop.”

“I didn't ask you to stop.”

“You might want me to.”

“I might.”

“And I might not be able to.”

“Then we'd have a problem.”

He rubbed his wrist beneath the table. She could hear his thumb catch against the cuff.

“You can say no,” she said.

“I don't want to say no.”

“Then tell me what you're trying to say.”

He stood, collected their bowls, and brought them to the sink. It was easier with something in his hands, though he knew she would recognize the delay.

“If I take that survey job, they know what they're getting. If I don't deliver, I lose my fee. If I damage the ship, they can take my license.”

“And if you die?”

“They get the insurance. My share goes to the crew.”

“You've arranged that already?”

“Naturally.”

She laughed. He turned, hurt, and she put a hand over her mouth.

“I'm sorry. You've arranged compensation for being dead, but you can't arrange to visit me.”

“I can visit you.”

“Yes, Leon. That's what I thought.”

He dried his hands slowly.

“What if you spend years expecting something I can't give you?”

“What if you do?”

He had no ready answer to that.

She stood and wrapped the remaining bread. He watched her fold the cloth, tucking in the corners to keep the cut surface covered.

“I could miss you until it makes me miserable,” she said. “You could come back and find I've met someone. We could try this and be bad at it.”

“I know.”

“You keep explaining my risk to me. I'm asking whether you want to take yours.”

He wanted to tell her how much. Instead he asked, “What could I possibly give you if I hurt you?”

Anja set the bread down.

“I don't know. You'd have to ask me then.”

---

He slept on the sofa. She had offered him the bed, but he could not decide what accepting it would mean, and by the time he had tried to explain, she was tired.

In the morning he found the case open and empty.

For one absurd instant, he felt relief. She had taken the instrument. It had reached her safely. Whatever else happened, that part was done.

Then he heard her in the kitchen, patiently failing to make a tune.

He lay still and listened. On Orra, he had worked in a quarry until the monastery released him. Every evening the clerk had crossed one day off his obligation. Even with the fever, even when he was frightened, he had known exactly how much remained.

Anja attempted the same phrase again. He could not tell whether she was improving.

When he entered the kitchen, she pointed to the kettle without interrupting herself.

He made tea. He knew where she kept it. He did not know whether he would know that next year.

“I'd like to see you when I come back,” he said.

She lowered her hands.

“So would I.”

He waited for relief. There should have been a document, a figure, something he could sign and stand behind. She was looking at him as though he had said something welcome and quite ordinary.

“I don't know how to do this properly.”

“Neither do I.”

She tried the phrase once more, then moved her chair to make room for him.

He sat. There were several things he still wanted to explain. He held his cup with both hands and let her play badly.