He switched back to German. “Maybe you speak Dutch. Dutch? Speak Dutch? I hope so. I’m going to get Axe. She speaks Dutch. You can speak to her. Stay here. I’ll come back with the Dutch woman.”
Michel did not know why he continued to explain himself when the man obviously understood nothing he said, yet he could not help himself.
“All right, I’m going then. Not for long. Just wait. The dog will stay with you. She’ll keep an eye on you.” Michel looked down at Monster and pointed. “Stay, Monster. Stay!”
Monster looked up, then forward, out at the man. Michel turned and took a few steps. Monster barked excitedly. Michel turned around. Monster was now standing. So too the man.
“Well, shit,” said Michel. “Do you want to come? You want to come with me?”
The man made no response and did not move.
“You come with me. You come with me and the dog.” Michel turned around and took a few steps, then glanced behind. The man had not moved. Michel gestured with his hand.
“You come,” he said, and kept walking.
Michel felt like he was back at Percy’s farm, helping break in horses. Same principle. An untrained horse starts off scared and skittish. Percy taught him that his job was to show the horse the safest thing it could do was see you, follow you, be next to you. Soon as the horse starts running away and is met by the corral, throw out your rope and tap it on the rump. Keep doing that till the horse stops and turns. Then there’s no tap from behind. Nothing to be scared of. Keep doing that until the horse realizes that looking at you and being near you is when the unseen danger from behind goes away. You are safety. Then you turn your back and walk away. If the horse is not following you by that stage, start again.
Michel could hear the footsteps. He smiled. Only once they were through the copse did he finally turn his head and look behind. Sure enough, the man followed at a gap of seventy feet. He was a man and not a horse, and so that was the last time Michel looked behind, in order that he feel like there was integrity to his choice. Monster had no such compunctions.
When within sight of the barn, Michel saw that the outdoor stove was going. When he was closer, Axe stood up and waved. She called out in German.
“So you tried? I don’t see a rabbit.”
Michel said nothing and kept walking. He knew the exact moment that Axe saw the man behind him, for her eyes seemed to push from their sockets. Axe inhaled sharply and her back straightened.
“No rabbit … but I did find a man,” Michel called out and kept walking.
“Michel! Who is he?”
“It is all right, Axe. I think he is shell-shocked. I think he is one of ours.”
Michel continued until he was standing next to Axe. Finally, he turned, and together they watched the Asian man walk across the lawn until thirty feet from the stove.
“He does not speak. Maybe it is the ears, from the blast, or he might not know our languages. I have tried German, French, English. You should try Dutch. Speak to him,” said Michel.
“The canal? Another from the canal?” Axe said to Michel.
“Yes. Go on, speak to him.”
Axe stepped forward. “I am Axe,” she said in Dutch. “This is my farm. Are you hurt?”
The man stared at her and said nothing. Axe looked to Michel. He shrugged.
“He will be hungry and cold. Maybe if we warm him and feed him …” said Axe. She turned and walked toward the man.
Michel stayed put. He believed his original assessment right, that the man did not mean them—or Monster—harm, but he nevertheless left the rifle dangling from the crook of his arm. He could have it at his shoulder in less than a second, though hitting any sort of target was another story.
Axe stopped in front of the man. She tapped her chest and said, “Axe. Axe.”
She reached out and took his muddy hand. He let her and she smiled broadly—a forced smile, a smile to prove friendliness, but the result was the same.
The man followed as Axe led him behind the barn and showed him the outdoor shower. She left him there, then returned a few moments later with a towel and clothes.
Michel took a half-bucket of water from the well and added hot water from the kettle. He took it to the man and left it on the ground. He pointed at the other bucket sitting upon a higher perch. It had holes in its base. Michel motioned the action of pouring water, and pretended to shower. The man did not respond. Michel left him there to figure it out in privacy.
Axe had a pan on the stove with pieces of lard in the bottom. She cut pieces of onion and dropped them in.
“Did he say anything?” said Axe.
“No. But I think I recognize his uniform. I think he’s with the Chinese Labour Corps. We’re from the same army.”
“Two of you. Two mute soldiers, both in the British Army, and neither of you British!”
“Yes, I never explained that.”
“I know. And now is not the time. Later.”
“All right. Then—”
“How did two of you come to be on my farm? That is what I want to know.”
“I don’t remember how I got here. It’s just guessing. Maybe it was the same thing for both of us. Shell shock.”
“So he is a soldier? How do we explain a Chinese soldier if the Germans arrive?”
“Not a soldier. He’s a laborer. The British recruit them from China to do some of the hard work, save their own for the nobler fate of becoming cannon fodder. The canals must have been smashed up and broken, joined by craters. I’m guessing you can get all the way from the front to here in one long stretch of mud,” said Michel.
“So tomorrow there could be half a dozen more?”
“Let’s take it one day at a time, Axe.”
“But what do we say, Michel? He could show up at any moment!”
“Say what to who? Who could show up?”
“Yetzel! Yetzel could show up and he would have all of us shot!”
“Axe, Yetzel is not coming back. He was humiliated. He’s not going to want to show his ugly face. And if anyone else does, then—” and Michel paused to think “—then we don’t tell a completely new lie, we tell the same one. I am Sven. I am your fiancée from Rotterdam and I don’t know anything about farming. I knew we would need help, so I had a Chinese laborer sent here. A coolie to help work the farm.”
Axe was silent for a moment. The pan had started to sizzle with the lard and onion.
“It could work,” she said. “But I don’t know. Sven would never be part of coolie labor. They trap them. It’s bonded labor, like slavery. He says it is horrible. It should be criminal. Sven has studied those sorts of—”
“Axe! It is a fantasy. Of course Sven would not and you would not have a slave, or whatever it is called. But this man is here. He needs a story that meshes with mine and yours. It works. Now, what is his name going to be?”
There was a pause as they both thought.
“Kenshin Qi Buyoshi. You may call me Ken,” said a voice from behind.
Michel and Axe jolted. They spun around. The man had approached without a hint of sound. He held his folded, muddy clothes in one hand.
“We need to hide these,” he said in German.
“You …” said Michel and managed no more.
“Speak? Yes. Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Russian, French, English, German, some little Dutch. I learn now Spanish and Indonesian. I am Ken.”
“But …” Michel seemed in shock. He could not say more.
Axe spoke instead. “But why did you not speak before? Are you hurt?”
“No. Not hurt. Sorry. I do not want to make you scared. I have to see the kind of people you are. Good, bad, something else. White people say everything in front of my people,” he said and scoffed. “They think we do not understand. We are too lazy to listen. I understand. I listen.”
“You’re people … the Chinese?”
“Yes, and Japanese. Both. Miscegenation son! Japanese father, Chinese mother. Chinese–Japanese. That way no
body is ever happy,” said Ken and raised his eyebrows.
“Huh!” said Axe and laughed a short hard laugh, as much from nervousness as surprise that there was a Chinese–Japanese man who spoke ten languages, or thereabouts, standing in front of her, making jokes.
“What do you mean, see what kind of people we are? We are not German. What else is there?” said Michel.
“German, not German, you in Europe are so similar! Not like Japanese and Chinese, who are very different. I know, Ken knows, better than any. And Germans never laugh at me, tell me I am a big monkey and stupid and lazy and should live in some cage or eat smelly food and I have bad morals and little …” Ken placed his hand at his crotch and brought his fingers together till not even an inch gap was left.
Axe shrieked and laughed again.
“I will stay with you. Your name is Michel. You are not a bad man. Your name is Axe. You are not a bad woman. The dog is Monster. It finds me. Not a bad dog! But I let it find me, so I do not scare you. Not give the … great trepidation.”
“You … let Monster find you?”
“Yes. When the dirty, smelly Chinese–Japanese man walks into the house at night when everyone sleeps, will you say hello, would you like a cup of tea?”
“So you mean …”
“We can hide these,” said Ken, and held up his muddy clothes again. “If you have the shovel, I dig the hole.”
32
Axe’s challenge—then as always—was to somehow turn a handful of ingredients into a palatable meal. She went to her vegetable garden, formerly her father’s vegetable garden, the whole thing now largely destroyed by the combination of an unruly goat and torrential rains, to see what could be salvaged for breakfast.
Michel and Ken sat and talked.
“You know China?” said Ken.
“I know it exists. But I only know a few stories told to me,” said Michel.
“Then I tell you. Quick lesson, because much too much history to explain. Ready? All Chinese hate Japanese. All Japanese hate Chinese. The end,” said Ken, and grinned.
Michel raised his eyebrows.
“Ok. You want to know more? I am Kenshin, I am from Lushunkou at end of Liaodong Peninsula in north of China. Near Korea and Japan. This is not good, because Japan and China—tsst tsst—not friends. Thirty years before, there is war. Japanese invade China because us Chinese are proud. They come through Korea and what is after Korea?” Ken said, then waited.
Michel cocked his head and held out his hands. He proffered a blank face.
“I just tell you, Michel! Liaodong Peninsula. So us Japanese invade Liaodong Peninsula and win a war. Then we say, all this, ours now. Then your countries say no, Japanese cannot have it, and Japan does not want war with Russia and Britain. Not like the Germans,” said Ken, and laughed with a high, explosive cackle.
“We give it back, but some Japanese soldiers already made homes and they stay. Japanese soldiers have money and power, more than we Chinese. For the poor Chinese woman from town or farm, maybe a Japanese is not so bad. My mother is very poor and very young. She met father. Everyone says she was a beauty. Beautiful. Like my sisters. My sisters are very beautiful, but they are very stupid.
“Together, father and mother have thirteen children! That is too many, even for a family in China where many sons means many workers. Do you know what number of these childs I am?”
Michel shook his head.
“Thirteen! Thirteen is a lucky number for we Chinese and mother stops. But it is not lucky for me, Ken. The oldest child has most, and youngest least. That is why Ken is skinny. But I never worry. I am smart. Father has books. I learn from books and then other books. Nobody wants to teach Ken anything, but I learn everything anyway.
“And nobody likes Ken! We Chinese do not like Ken because I am half Japanese. We Japanese who stay in China do not like Ken because I am half Chinese. Miscegenation son! Even brothers and sisters do not like Ken, but I am the same as them. That is because they are stupid. It is ok. I made a good decision when I was seven. When I am tall, I should leave and become rich.
“We hear about men who cross the sea and work. They work with their body, but I know I am smart. If they work with the body and are too tired and stupid to learn, who will tell them what to do? Men from Britain or America? No. They are stupid, too. They do not know my language. They need me to tell men what to do because I converse every language. Other boys played. I studied. I gave all my food to Ken’s brain, not his muscle.
“When I am sixteen I went to Qingdao where everybody from the entire world goes to take men, for work. It is a problem, because they like big strong men, not Ken who is too skinny and smart! But then your countries have this war and I am lucky.”
“Wait, how old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” said Ken. His eyes darted.
“You’re twenty-five?”
“Yes. In Qingdao, the British Army come for men for work. Your British generals are smart. They know our men need me to tell them what to do. Much better than this,” said Ken and began grunting and gesticulating wildly, imitating a wordless effort to marshal men to work.
“Then I am a translator for British Labour Corps. They know I am very good. Maybe the best ever! They have work, they tell me and I tell men who do not speak anything, some not even Mandarin, just the language from their town, but I work it out. I tell them what to do.
“So, you actually speak more than ten languages?” said Michel.
“Yes, of course, but some are not important, only some people speak them, maybe one hundred thousand, maybe one million. The men, I am their boss, they speak them. They depend on me.”
Ken sat tall and proud, and nodded to Michel.
“So you are a translator only, not a worker,” said Michel.
“Yes. I work, but not labor. I am too smart to work with the body. The body breaks, but the mind does not break.”
“Then … how did you end up here?”
“Stupid,” said Ken. He folded his arms and sat with his chin high, apparently waiting for Michel to say more.
“Can you tell me what happened? You were on the British front somewhere. You crossed the lines. You do understand, this is behind the German lines, right?”
“Of course I know. Now I can tell you, Michel, because you are not stupid. How many languages do you speak?”
“Three, more or less. And a little Wolof. They speak it in Senegal.”
“I do not know this language. Wolof. I can learn it. Ok, I will tell you, Michel. My men made a big problem for me. They are imperfect, bad Chinese.”
Ken resumed his affronted pose. Michel had to stop himself from laughing, so grand and exaggerated was the affectation.
Axe returned from the garden with some unripe budding tomatoes and juvenile carrots. Michel gave her a look and Axe smiled. She had heard some of their conversation, and was content to let Michel do the talking.
“Ken, will you tell me what they did? Where you were and what they did?” said Michel.
“Yes, ok. We move many guns up. A week before, we moved guns up, then moved the same guns back, then moved the same guns up. It is for the horse to move guns in mud, but who moves the stupid horse when the stupid horse is stuck in mud? I bring my men and we move everything through mud and my men are disgusting. They bathe in the mud with horses. Then the colonel says we should move them back now, please, it is too wet and the Germans should come soon. Back where? I say. Back where they were, he says. Wah!
“I have to tell my men, move the guns back now. They are tired and slow and stupid. Work you dogs! If you do not move there is no money and no dinner! Pull harder! And they are jealous because they are stupid and in the mud and I am smart and not in the mud. Japanese men know better than the Chinese. To be clean is very important. Unclean men are not favored by spirits. This is why this is a bad war.”
“Wait, the war is because we are dirty?” said Michel, incredulous.
“No. Do not be stupid. War is because count
ries want land. But this war is not a good war. Too many people die. This war has many evil spirits because you fight in mud. Too much impurity. Everybody knows this,” said Ken and waved his hand.
“Oh yes, how thoughtless of me,” said Michel with a tone of sarcasm lost on Ken.
“Yes. Then the German guns start and their explosions are too close. My men get out of the mud and on the boards, because they want to run away. I tell them no, you cannot run, we will take all the guns back like the colonel wants.
“Behind where my men run, other men yell. ‘Gas! Gas!’ Of course my men do not understand. They do not speak any language. They run past me toward gas. I tell them, stupid dogs, do not go there! You will die! And one man knocks Ken in the mud. And it is not an accident. He pushes me and runs away to die and nobody wants to help me!
“The gas came for me, and I know what soldiers say about gas because I listen. Men bleed inside. It pollutes the body. This is very very bad for the spirit. I go the other way in the mud. And the gas chases Ken! Maybe there are bad spirits in gas.
“I turn and turn and go more in the mud to escape the gas, then I do not know where I am. I go in the crater and ditch and sometimes I hear German voices. But it is dark, Ken is hidden. I go for a long time. I see a forest and think this is safer for the morning and I follow the canal. The canal goes here and here I find you.”
“You found us?”
“Yes.”
“Well, thank heavens you found us.”
“Yes.”
Axe brought over two bowls filled with steaming broth. She had boiled some eggs and peeled them; she placed two in each bowl. “Here, eat.”
Michel took his bowl and started in immediately.
Ken took his bowl and nodded. “Thank you, Axe. You are a great humanitarian.”
He took a sip straight from the bowl and made a face. He proceeded to eat the boiled eggs and then put the rest aside.
Axe looked at the bowl and then at Ken.
“Thank you, Axe. I should save mine for later,” said Ken.
“You aren’t hungry?” she said as she took a spoonful from her own bowl.
Michel And Axe Bury The Hatchet (The French Bastard Book 2) Page 14