Snowy Night Campfire (I)

"Does the second phase of treatment need to be extended a little longer?"

In the dimly flickering laboratory, Schiller stood before the cryogenic chamber with a notebook in hand, writing as he asked Victor.

Victor stood behind the cryogenic chamber, adjusting the equipment. "I think she’s much better already. Maybe we can move directly into the third phase of treatment."

"The medication regimen for the second phase may still need some adjustments. Let’s give it another week to wrap things up." Schiller looked up, intending to glance at Victor, but instead saw Mrs. Fries’s fingertips twitch slightly inside the chamber.

"Did I see that wrong? Her fingers seemed to react?"

Schiller crouched down and looked into the cryogenic chamber. Victor stepped forward as well. "It probably wasn’t an illusion. Last night, I saw Nora’s eyelids move…"

"I haven’t adjusted the chamber’s power, so it probably wasn’t voluntary movement. The brain-activity medicine must be taking effect."

"Should we increase the dosage of the neural repair medicine a little? After all…" Schiller turned to Victor. Under the cold light of the cryogenic chamber, the man looked somewhat aged.

"You’ve waited for so long already."

Victor shook his head. "Precisely because I’ve waited this long, I don’t mind waiting longer."

"Schiller, I know you want to help me, but this is already enough." Victor sighed. A streak of white at his temple reflected blue beneath the chamber’s light.

"The changes lately have already surpassed everything from the past several years combined. Nora’s condition is no longer worsening, and the neural healing medicine you provided has allowed her nervous system to gradually repair itself."

"Now that we’ve resolved the issue of brain activity during cryogenic preservation, many possible aftereffects caused by prolonged low-temperature hibernation have also been eliminated…"

He placed One Hand against the cryogenic chamber. His gaze toward Nora within was tender and focused. Then he turned to Schiller and said, "It’s late, Professor Schiller. You should head back first. I’ll fine-tune the chamber a little more. See you tomorrow."

Schiller raised his hand and checked his watch. It was already one in the morning. "I have an early class tomorrow, and it’s too late to get back to the manor anyway. Let’s stay here. We can chat for a while."

Victor said nothing more, but the tightness at the corners of his mouth deepened the lines on his face, as though he had hidden all his emotion away inside.

Schiller went over and sat at the table on the other side. As he organized his thesis materials, he asked, "How are things at the Vocational Education Institute? I heard you went to teach an extra class last night?"

"To be honest, it’s better than I expected." At the mention of the subject, Victor let out a relieved sigh. "Those little punks may be unruly, but they learn pretty fast."

"When are those gang bosses finally going to find some elementary education teachers? They can’t keep making a university professor teach a bunch of little kids."

"It’s not a big deal. I have experience with children’s education."

"When Nora and I lived in Florida, she substituted at a middle school once. Back then, I wasn’t a professor yet. Nora and I led activity classes for those children together, teaching them how water condensed into ice…"

Victor’s voice was filled with nostalgia. If there was anything wrong with him in social interactions, it was that no matter what topic came up, he always found himself recalling his former life with his wife.

Yet it was never unpleasant, because his stories were always full of sincere emotion. Even the smallest details of everyday life made people feel the happiness the two of them had shared during those peaceful, beautiful days.

"At the time, I lifted the hose like this and asked, ‘Does anyone know how water turns into ice?’ You know, using that sort of coaxing tone for children…"

"The hose connected to the fire hydrant had very high water pressure. The moment I opened the valve, a child running past got knocked flat."

"They didn’t think it was dangerous at all. They thought it was fun and lined up to charge at the hose. Nora was furious because her perfectly good lesson turned into a water fight. She complained about me for an entire week…"

Victor talked as he adjusted the equipment, his tone light and gentle. Schiller sat at the table working on his thesis, but then a string of urgent ringing shattered the laboratory’s peaceful atmosphere. Victor picked up the phone. "Hello? Oswald? What is it? What?… All right, don’t panic. I’ll be right there…"

Schiller turned to him. "What happened?"

"You know that student from the Vocational Education Institute?" Victor put down his tools and stood, beginning to change clothes as though preparing to leave.

"The short one, Oswald. Oswald Cobblepot."

"What happened to him?"

"His mother attempted suicide, but she didn’t succeed. It sounds critical now, but he doesn’t have the means to handle it. I need to go over there…"

"I’ll come too."

Schiller put on his coat as well. Victor drove downstairs, and once the car was on the road, Schiller, seated in the passenger seat, asked, "You seem very close to Oswald. Before this, I only knew that you admired him."

Victor gripped the steering wheel as the passing lights outside the windows played across his face. "Oswald is a rare good student. Unlike those little punks whose parents are all gangsters, he has clear goals, studies diligently, and learns quickly."

"I think he’s somewhat like me when I was young."

Schiller looked Victor over. "I remember you saying that you came from a middle-class family and had always been an excellent student."

"Yes. My father worked in shipping. The children of his business partners went aboard ships with their parents from a very young age and knew their family businesses inside and out."

"But I was a bookworm from childhood, obsessed with all kinds of chemical experiments and completely uninterested in business."

"Oswald is like me. The two of us are like lettuce growing in a carrot patch. Our ideas are completely different from everyone around us."

"And I don’t think he’s bad by nature."

Victor turned the wheel and rounded an intersection before continuing, "His father died too early, and his mother has no ability to care for herself. Looking after himself is already difficult enough, but he also has to take care of his mother. Someone like that is lucky just to survive in Gotham. No one can ask more of him…"

"Or rather, he’s one of the few normal people in Gotham," Schiller continued for him. "Just like you."

"Me? Of course I’m normal!… Well, I know you all think freezing my wife in a cryogenic chamber is a little crazy, but I have confidence in my own technology. And things really are improving now, aren’t they?"

"I’m not included among those people. I don’t think there’s anything crazy about it. Perhaps in the future, it will become an entirely ordinary medical treatment, widespread in every household."

Victor turned toward him. His eyes held both the weariness of someone weathered by life and the hopefulness of a child. With anticipation in his voice, he said, "If that day really comes, perhaps I can take Nora back to see my parents. I miss them very much, but…"

Victor’s voice sank. Schiller looked out at the scenery beyond the window. "They understand you. You’re simply unwilling to go back, aren’t you?"

"I don’t want my shocking actions to make them into freaks and monsters in the eyes of their neighbors."

Victor had always been good at expressing his feelings plainly. He could always describe his state of mind clearly with words, and that was why Schiller got along so well with him. Victor was one of the rare people who, even when facing him, did not keep saying one thing while meaning another and deceiving himself.

"They love me very much. In the early stages of my cryogenic chamber research, my father sent me quite a bit of money. My mother and sister wrote to me too. They wanted me to go home, but I knew I couldn’t…"

"I couldn’t move a cryogenic chamber like this, with a living person frozen inside, back into my home. My family would all have to live beneath the stares of people who saw them as monsters. I know exactly how much those looks can hurt."

"But I can’t give up on Nora…" There was sorrow in Victor’s voice. "Just as she didn’t give up on me when my research accident happened and I was dismissed by the university."

"Things will get better soon." There was always a quiet strength in Schiller’s voice. Then he changed the subject.

"I remember you saying that you and your wife never held a wedding. What happened?"

"Oh, that." Victor’s tone carried a trace of guilt. "Didn’t I mention it before? Just after I was promoted to professor, an accident in an experiment cost me my job. Nora and I were already planning our wedding then, but you know, without stable work, projects, or funding…"

"At the time, Nora was the one supporting me. We simply couldn’t spare any extra money for a wedding."

"Later, I was hired by a cryogenics laboratory in Los Angeles. Once things improved, I wanted to prepare a surprise for her, but that was when she was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease…"

"Even with medical insurance, it couldn’t cover the cost of traveling through state after state seeking treatment. If not for those sums my father gave me, I probably couldn’t even have built the first cryogenic chamber."

The car rolled onward slowly. Before long, a fine rain began falling over Gotham again. It was not heavy, only soft and gentle, pattering against the windows without disturbing the atmosphere of their conversation.

"Sometimes I think I’ve truly been very lucky. Whenever I encounter difficulties, someone always comes to help me. When I lost my job, Nora stayed by my side. When Nora fell ill, my father continued to support me. And when my research stalled once again, you appeared…"

"Maybe people are just like that." Victor’s voice was warm.

"No matter how terrible things become, as long as they see a little hope, they feel satisfied."

"That little hope is what matters most." Schiller sighed as well. "Even if one is already in Hell, as long as there is still a sliver of hope, one can continue living as a human rather than falling into a demon of Hell or a complete madman."

"I like to compare that hope to a campfire in a snowy field." Schiller adjusted his posture in the seat. He and Victor often discussed literature and philosophy like this, and neither found it stiff or awkward.

"A traveler who has already walked through the snowfield for a long time sees nothing on the endless white earth except snow. Every snowflake makes him feel colder…"

"But once a glimmer of fire appears in the distance, even the fiercest blizzard cannot stop him from moving forward."

"When he reaches that campfire, he feels warmth, as though the snow filling the sky is no longer frightening. But he knows it is because the previous traveler lit that fire."

"So before he leaves, he takes out the few pieces of firewood he has left and throws them into the flames. Whether another traveler comes or not, the campfire will not go out."

Victor slowed the car and smiled. "You could sum that up in one phrase: offering charcoal in snowy weather."

Schiller shook his head. "Offering charcoal in snowy weather inevitably carries the condescension and pity of the successful. I have always believed this world does not need a savior, and Gotham needs one even less."

"If possible, I would rather be the traveler who leaves behind the campfire. No matter which direction later travelers come from, they can stop here. If they truly must thank someone, then they should thank themselves for crossing such a long road without giving up."

With that, Schiller pushed open the car door, stepped out, and walked into the rainy night.

Victor sat silently for a second, once again suppressing that moved expression. Then he turned, pushed open the door, stepped out, and entered the cool rainy night.