Chapter 11

Every incarnation of “him” I met left me something different in each lifetime.

Ilie gave me existence and taught me love. Michael awakened in me the sensation of a “lover sharing a life” and made me recognize destiny. Émile’s endearing arrogance and playful cheekiness brought me closer to being human, teaching me jealousy and laughter. Lucien showed me the growth of a soul and the will to live, teaching me what a noble farewell meant.

And Daniel, who burned like the most precarious flame of all, made known his long-held desire and granted me the right to be selfish.

Living in a shabby rented warehouse in Brooklyn, he moved into my home just days after our reunion. I furnished one of the rooms—kept empty because I had seen no need to fill it—into an atelier for him.

He painted without rest. Not only the images of me he remembered and the scenes he saw in his dreams, but even the faces of his long-ago parents who he said appeared only on rare occasions.

As though possessed by something, he took up his brush every single day without fail.

Once, seeing him so absorbed in painting that he skipped meals the entire day, I asked him the reason, wondering if he was pushing himself too far.

“Because I want to leave something behind.”

He said that back then as if answering a question he had waited an eternity to receive. Without even halting the hand holding the brush, in a calm and steadfast voice.

“Part of me wants to scream out to the world that a love like this truly exists, that we are still here. But I can’t actually do that.”

His previous incarnations suffered every time they regained their memories. They wept in agony. But Daniel, who had dreamed of me and harbored this longing since his earliest childhood, was different.

“To me, those dreams were hope. The hope that I would be able to find you again, that we would surely meet again.”

He did not call those dreams nightmares, nor did he call our fate a curse.

“Isn’t it romantic? Even death couldn’t tear us apart.”

Far from despairing or grieving, he said so with an innocent face and smiled.

When I first heard those words, I could not comprehend that smile. For to me, the memory of him had been sin and punishment for far too long.

During the days we spent together, whenever sunset approached, he would often step into the living room without even wiping the paint from his hands and gaze blankly out at the New York skyscrapers. As if recalling that day when the beautiful sky had been an utterly cruel shade of blood.

“Tell me honestly. Have you ever wanted to forget me?”

It was a night when our time living together was nearing a full year. Emerging from the atelier, still wearing his paint-stained shirt, he sprawled out atop my thighs as I sat on the sofa and asked out of nowhere.

Instead of answering, I swirled the red liquid in the glass I was drinking from. Like a mischievous child, he lightly grazed his fingertip against the tip of my canine tooth as he spoke:

“No matter how much I think about it, I just can’t understand what I said in my past life. Well, even if he was my past life, he’s different from who I am now, so of course his thoughts would differ…… But still. Every time I think of it, my chest feels so stifled.”

Looking down at him on my lap as I sat upright, I gave his teasing hand a playful nip as if scolding him. Flinching slightly and whining an exaggerated “Ouch,” he swiftly pulled his hand away, examined it, and muttered,

“If remembering me caused you nothing but pain, I might say the same now, but that’s not true, is it? You keep waiting for me. Which means you want to see me again no matter how much time it takes.”

As were many incarnations of “him” I had known, Daniel was truly a bold, impudent young man.

“Then telling you to forget me amounts to telling you to be alone again. How could that ever be rest or happiness for you?”

Twitching his brow slightly as if regretting that his finger hadn’t been punctured, he reached out once more to cup and stroke my cold cheek.

“If one truly loves someone, isn’t taking away their loneliness the right thing to do? Wanting to shoulder the weight of that immortality together, so you never have to wait anymore…… isn’t that what love is supposed to be?”

The eyes looking up at me as he spoke shone with a brilliance entirely unlike the poignant despair of 1918.

“It’s only a guess, but my past self must have had thoughts like this too. That’s why he added the condition, ‘If in the next life I cannot be born as a being like you,’ right? In the end, in whichever life, I simply never wanted you to be lonely.”

What I faced then was an intense radiance perfectly suited to that era, mirroring the neon lights of 1955 New York that grew more dazzling by the day.

“So…… no matter what I might say in future lives, never give up. Don’t forget me. Find a way. A way for me to never leave you lonely, a way for me to remain your first love forever.”

That day, Daniel’s arrogant declaration tore down in an instant something that had held out within me for so long.

The choice of “the peace of oblivion” that Lucien had tentatively offered lost its luster in a heartbeat, eclipsed by the sweetness of “eternal possession” boldly extended by Daniel.

Even knowing how horrific and lonely this immortal life was, even knowing that should he ever come to regret it, there would be no turning back, I wavered. Like a frail skiff caught in a tempest on the open sea, I was swept away helplessly and swallowed whole in an instant.

Of course, I was not entirely free of conflict.

Whenever my heart tilted heavily toward that side and neared a resolution, the most human facets within me surged forward to pull at the noose around my neck. They continuously reminded me of the guilt and responsibility I had learned from the first incarnation, and of the innocent lives that had withered away in vain due to my selfish greed and desire.

“You don’t happen to know how already and are just holding back, do you?”

Whenever the shadow of agony showed on my face, Daniel would perceptively approach and coax me with such words, softening my resolve:

“That might be the way to break the curse. It could be the only way to undo the curse I placed upon myself. Don’t hesitate. It’s what I want, Sir. It is what I truly desire.”

And so, without even time to resist, I would melt and slip away, becoming utterly intoxicated by him.

From the autumn of 1954 to the early winter of 1956, we lived like that. Whispering love every night and sharing gentle kisses every morning, like any ordinary lovers occupying a speck within that vast city.

Daniel departed in the early winter of 1956, at that promised age which, despite fate having begun to shift, remained unchanged in the end.

“I won’t be too long, so don’t cry and stay brave.”

Leaving behind words so characteristically his with a playful smile, he closed his eyes as though falling asleep.

After meeting the fifth incarnation, I had imagined for the first time what he might look like growing old. Like the countless mortals blessed with a tranquil destiny, I imagined him simply aging along with time and slowly approaching death in that manner.

Even if he grew white hair and slackened skin, I could always gaze upon him with the same love as when he was in his most dazzling prime. Even at one hundred, even at two hundred, he would still be like a child to me, and I could tenderly care for and cherish him just like raising a child.

He could surely enjoy a life of seeing and experiencing so much more. If only he cut me out of his life, he surely could.

Was it because I had seen him so full of vitality after so long? Lingering regret kept gnawing at me. I wanted to watch over that radiant life as it gradually drew to its twilight across the years.

The true irony was that while I earnestly wished for that, at the same time I did not. Just as I knew I could never cut him out of myself, in truth, I did not want him to cut me out of his life either.

Yes, that was my true heart.

I wanted to possess him forever. I never wanted to lose him again.

Even knowing that such greed of mine was an act of plucking the flower that was him, even knowing that far from being sunlight and water, I was nothing more than a parasite to him.

Though I loathed to admit that my love was so selfish and hideous, I could not help it. I simply wanted to love him. Forever. I did not want to let him go. Forever.

Whenever such thoughts arose, I felt the noose tightening around my neck—the one hanging there ever since I learned from the first incarnation—yet for one who would not die no matter how many times his neck broke, it was a desire that could never be broken.

All throughout the time I saw off Daniel, who had departed from me once again, my feelings were more tangled than ever before. Lucien’s voice calling my endless funeral marches a curse and Daniel’s voice pleading with me to find a way tangled dizzyingly inside my mind.

Yet it did not take long to arrive at a conclusion. Well, perhaps it was something I had decided long, long ago.

It was a few days after seeing him off, when I returned to the house where I remained alone.

Looking with glazed eyes around the house that had emptied once more, I stepped into the atelier by instinct in search of his traces. Gazing at the easel placed with its back to the door and the canvas resting upon it, I walked toward the spot where he had always sat.

The moment I stood before the final painting he had tenaciously rendered right up to the verge of his departure—even as his body weakened, his face grew haggard, and he coughed up blood—the guilt remaining within me vaporized in an instant.

What was painted there was, as expected, me.

And it was also him.

The me in that painting was different from the expressionless self captured in the countless fragments of memory he had painted until then. There, I was smiling with utter serenity. Beside me, standing proud and looking up at me, he too was smiling more brightly than any version of him I had ever seen.

Why was it? For some reason, I felt like weeping.

Drawing a slow breath to swallow down the emotion welling up as if ready to burst at the slightest lapse, I lowered my eyes and saw the title written in small lettering at the corner of the canvas:

Portrait of Immortality
— 1956, 5th

I looked upon that painting for a long time. For a very long time—so long that even if I were never to see it again, I could never forget it.

It was from the moment I stepped out of that room. Shedding the shell of Adrian Nykvist that he had forged for me, I returned to being simply the self who had starved for so long.

I hesitated no longer. As I had before learning love, I chose not to regard desire as a sin.

Thus, we arrive at the present.

The experiment succeeded, and one of my own kind already lives and breathes in this world.

Now, all that remains for me to do is to wait for him to return to my embrace—where every preparation has been completed, from the identity I will grant him to the manor where we shall share eternity.

Therefore, the record of recollection ends here.

I no longer await his death. I no longer rehearse a predetermined parting, nor do I review the agonizing pain of loss. Even as I write these words, on my desk lies a notebook detailing the method to keep his mortal vessel from growing cold and the method to bind his soul to this earth forever.

I shall never bury him again. I will erect no headstones, nor will I mourn. For our reunion that will soon come to pass, the next kiss I press upon his brow, will not be a prayer for rest promising another life, but a vow of eternity.

I wanted to finish this chronicle before his arrival, yet now that I am about to bring it to a close, a lingering reluctance remains.

What is this feeling? Once again, it is a sensation I have never known before.

***

A light shower fell from clear skies during the morning. It is the season when one can feel on the skin that summer has drawn near.

Where might you be right now?

Summer is in full swing. The rainy season has begun.

Under dark clouds that gathered since last night, I haven’t seen a speck of sunlight today.

Where might you be right now?

The lush greenery is fading, and the grass in the garden is turning yellow. Though the sweltering heat has abated, the fever of anticipation running through my body shows no sign of cooling.

Where might you be right now? Did you set out from afar? Or will you, once again, manage to find me only when you reach the perilous precipice of twenty-four?

Rain fell from the early afternoon. It was likely the final rain seeing off the autumn. The wind has grown noticeably cold.

Lately, I find myself growing slightly restless.

Where might you be right now? Could you have lost your way? Just like our last meeting, shouldn’t I be the one going to find you as you wait?

Sitting by the window reading a book, I casually looked outside. As I gazed numbly at the sleet heralding the onset of winter, a human silhouette suddenly caught the edge of my vision.

Even from a vast distance, there was no mistaking that radiant blond hair, dragging a shivering frame drenched in sleet as it drew closer to this secluded, deep manor.

At last, it was him.

Suppressing the urge to leap out the window and run to him this instant, I sat at my desk and opened the notebook for the unfinished conclusion.

For while this record began from Daniel’s wish to leave something behind, it was also begun to be shown to him upon his arrival. I must bring it to its proper period.

After sharing this eternity with him, we will embark on a journey retracing the traces of him I left scattered across the world over the long expanse of time.

The headstones of Ilie I erected before every beautiful vista I wished to share with him shall be our milestones, and the coffins where I holed myself up, unable to bear the searing grief, shall serve as our lodgings and the tombs where we bury the past.

Throughout the long span from our first encounter to this very moment, he alone was the one who lived. He lived his life, and I, already dead, lived him as my life. From now on, he too shall live me. We shall exist in that way.

My Ilie, my Michael, my Émile, my Lucien, my Daniel. And my nameless you who has succeeded in finding me once again.

In commemoration of all of you, I lay down my pen.

A knock sounds from downstairs. It is time to complete our portrait of immortality.

***

Afterword

Translator’s Note

This volume compiles the contents of handwritten notebooks discovered in October 2001 in an abandoned shepherd’s refuge at an altitude of 2,800 meters in the Alps.

We clarify that the original text has been transcribed verbatim, save for minimal edits to ensure readability.

Although certain place names and personal names appearing in the text have been confirmed to match historical records, the author’s identity remains unidentified to this day in 2026.

[Verification References]
— 18th-century Balkan Peninsula Eastern Orthodox Church Parish Registry, Caraș-Severin Eparchy
— Belsenburg Archives, Duty Roster dated March 1821
— Excerpt from the Eisenhardt Family Documents, Record of Proxy Appointment
— Björnstrand Family Records, 1884 Deceased Roster
… and 11 other documents.