Since helping Linton decipher the code, I have seen very few times with Edgar. I spent most of my time in the activity room of the math club, while his sketches needed bright light outside.
The day after Andymond told Linton to tell me that "he was only passable at the time," Edgar rushed into the activity room, grabbed my notebook and threw it out the window.
"I'm writing a thesis!" I grab him by the collar.
"Fuck the papers."
This notebook with "A Brief Analysis of Mathematical Group Theory" on the cover contains all my decryption ideas in the past three months. When I rushed downstairs to pick up the notebook that fell on the lawn and patted it again and again with heartache, Edgar stood by with his arms folded and watched: "Who wrote a thesis and wrote it like you! I haven't been out of the house for a week. Write any more and become a mummy."
Edgar has always been gentle and reserved in my impression, and a little old-fashioned. This was the first time he got angry out of nowhere.
"Alan, did you receive the message I asked your landlord to bring to you?"
I shook my head. In the past two days, I went out early and returned late to the library to check information, but I have not been able to meet the landlord face to face.
"Oh, you don't know." He seemed to be relieved suddenly: "Forget it, fortunately there is still time. Come with me."
He threw me into the barber shop, shaved my beard and cut my hair, looked in the mirror and found that I was still as handsome as before. Edgar looked at me critically, and his mood began to improve. He asked the barber to modify it for a long time, finally expressed his satisfaction, adjusted my tie, and pulled me into an open carriage.
Cars have become popular on the streets of London, but there are still some old carriages left in Cambridgeshire for tourists to go to the countryside for weekends. We walked out of the city along the path, and saw the thick green leaves in midsummer with broken flowers on both sides of the road, swaying slightly in the overly warm wind. A little romantic feeling.
Edgar carried the drawing board on his back, humming a ditty all the way.
I asked him where he was going, but he just smiled and said nothing.
We got off at a modest farmhouse. Edgar took out the copper key to open the door, pulled me up to the second floor, and opened the window: "There is a small lake outside, and the scenery is very beautiful. I rented this villa for three days to paint, and I invite you to come and play... Haven't been my free model for months."
My first reaction was: "This kind of villa is very expensive even for three days' rent. Where did you get the money?"
Edgar pushed open the window and looked back at me, his face could not be seen clearly in the backlight, his chestnut curly hair was coated with a layer of soft white light by the light that suddenly came in.
"I sell paintings to make money." He said relaxedly, "I want to complete a real work."
We had a great time those three days. A ten-minute walk from the villa is a blue lake with a flowering tree beside it. I don't know what kind of tree it is, I just remember that it was full of big white double flowers, and the petals fell all over the lawn under the tree. Edgar said he wanted to finish a stunning work, so he threw me under the tree and started painting.
The air is filled with the sweet scent of flowers. We talk about the economy, politics, and the future. We talk about everything. I said that after I graduated from Cambridge I wanted to continue teaching at Cambridge and then step into academia. I want to solve the twenty-three mathematical problems proposed by Hilbert one by one, shocking the world. I said Edgar, you can publish a picture book in the future, and I will sell it for you at school, and each student will have a copy.
Edgar nodded with a smile, and continued to draw his picture.
The unsatisfactory sketches he drew were thrown under the tree, and many of them were swept into the lake by the wind. I grab one and I can see myself yawning and tickling my boredom on the paper.
I was thinking about "Mi", and suddenly I was absent-minded: "I want to go back to class."
Edgar glanced at me: "Anyway, you skip class every day, don't be in a hurry these few days. Stay with me, Alan." When he said this, his tone was a little sincere. It was the morning of the last day, and we had to take a bus back to school in the afternoon. I lay on the grass with my hands on my forehead to block the harsh sunlight from the shade of the trees. He suddenly threw a pen over and squatted down beside me.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," said Edgar.
I am stunned.
"I've been approved for enlistment. There's a shortage of pilots in the Royal Air Force."
At that moment, I was a little dazed, thinking that I had heard wrong.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I said so. You always said that I was bothering you to write math papers, so I just left a message to your landlord, saying that I joined the army and wanted to go on a date with you before I left." Edgar smiled kindly : "But you were writing a thesis, and the message was not forwarded. I waited downstairs for a long time, and finally went to the activity room to catch you."
I lay on the ground, and Edgar squatted beside me, looking down at me. At that moment his amber eyes were particularly bright, as if light were flowing in the pupils. He picked up a double-petalled white flower that fell from a tree and put it on my hair, which felt cool against my forehead in midsummer.
I ask him why?"
"I'm not like you. I have talent. I don't have talent. I know I can't be a painter, so I want to try something else. We have newly built two types of fighter jets, the Spitfire and the Hurricane. The Air Force is short of pilots and is recruiting openly. I signed up."
"I didn't ask that. I mean... you said you wanted to date me." I was wary.
Edgar confessed. He was like a child who wanted to escape but failed in the end, and smiled guiltyly: "Alan, I like you."
His face was very close to mine. I wanted to sit up, but he held my shoulders. Then he leaned over and hugged me, buried his face in my shoulder socket, and didn't speak. The bridge of his nose gently rubbed against my neck, which felt crisp|itchy.
"Homosexuality is illegal," I said.
Edgar hugged me tightly, and he said seriously: "I know. So I just told you that I like you, and I didn't ask you to like me. Look, I'm leaving right away..." He hesitated : "When I come back, you can still treat me as a friend. I don't mind."
He apologized to me: "I shouldn't have gotten mad and thrown your paper downstairs. I didn't know you didn't get the message and thought you'd rather write the paper than come out with me one last time."
His voice was low: "Alan, it's only been three years since he joined the army. Can you wait for me to come back?"
In retrospect, my attitude towards Edgar was almost cruel. After he joined the army and left Cambridge, I went to the lodgings where he used to live. The walls of his bedroom are covered with oil paintings that he did not take away. Each of those oil paintings, large and small, is inlaid with a golden frame, spreading out gorgeously on the old peeling wall.
The people in the painting are all me, I am laughing in the shade of a tree, I am cutting toast in the restaurant, I am squatting at the door of the library watching beautiful women...
In fact, when I first met Edgar, he told me with a smile: "I have devoted my whole life to oil painting."
When I talked to him about Andymond, he protested: "We fell in love at first sight too."
It was too late when I really understood the meaning of his words.
He accompanied me, watched me chase beautiful girls, watched me chase Andymond, threw me into the bar when I was depressed because of breaking up with Andymond, and carried me out when I was drunk, he even suggested I found a girlfriend to forget about Andymond... Finally he was leaving, so he told me: "I like you, I know you don't like me, but I don't mind if you see me as a friend."
Edgar was still very young at that time, rigid and restrained with an outdated gentlemanly demeanor. He is not the tyrant who handcuffed me to the bedside when I desperately wanted to see Andrémon, nor would he put a gun to my chin and ask me hoarsely if I would go to America with him right away.
Both the army and war can change a person from the deepest part of the soul.
At this time Edgar just bowed his head and kissed the white flower he inserted into my hair, and asked me to wait for him to come back—as a friend.
In the late summer of 1938, Edgar officially left Cambridge to join the Royal Air Force. In the autumn of 1939, the Second World War broke out, and Edgar's unit joined the battle. Compared with the Axis powers, the British air force was weak and understaffed. When the weather is clear, you can sometimes see fireballs and meteors falling from the sky in the distance. At that time I always crossed myself, hoping that it wasn't Edgar who fell.
The week after Edgar left, I spoke to Arnold again in the tavern. He adjusted his glasses in surprise: "You've shaved your beard and cut your hair...I didn't expect you, Alan, to be pretty good looking!"
"Dragged to the barber shop by a friend." I said, "Sorry, Veschi, we don't have to see each other next week."
My voice is steady and reasonable: "I believe I've got rid of Andymon. I'll try to date girls, uh, no more intersecting with his life. Thank you, your therapy is very effective."
Arnold was drinking coffee and at that moment he choked.
"Alan, what's wrong with you?"
I laughed, pointed to my heart, and raised my middle finger: "Please tell Andmon that I have kicked him out of here. He can do whatever he likes."
In fact, I didn't really kill Anderson psychologically, but Edgar taught me restraint. Even if you like it, you can act like a friend, lock your feelings in your chest, and look calm on the surface.