Dragons in the Forest

by Peter Yeldham

  As a final pretence in the masquerade, Alex and the Count also solemnly shook hands. De Champeaux appeared completely unperturbed but Alex felt foolish as they took part in this ritual, before going to their respective work places, the Count to his luxurious office, Alex to his desk adjacent to where Kimiko sat at her typewriter.

  He had barely begun work, making entries into the bank’s journals and ledgers of the previous day’s transactions, before she rose and paused alongside him.

  “How was your meeting?” she asked.

  He stared at her.

  “Meeting? What meeting?”

  “With His Highness.” She glanced in the direction of the Count’s office, and seeing that no-one was watching her made a mock bow. Alex tried to restrain a smile.

  “You’re supposed to be a polite, well brought up Japanese girl, who should not behave like that.”

  “I’ve been corrupted, working for the French. Was it interesting?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying put a stop to this. “Who with, and when? There was no meeting.”

  “A secret meeting, Alex. It must’ve been important.”

  “Kimiko … haven’t you got any work to do?”

  “Heaps,” she said.

  “Then how about getting on with it?”

  “Listen to you giving orders, Faure-san,” she said mockingly. “We’re much more important than yesterday. It shows. We have an air of authority, don’t we?”

  “Shut up,” Alex muttered.

  “You’re on the payroll at last.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You must be, because that’s why you met. And by the look of you it’s good news, better than you expected, which I’m glad about. But it’s no use trying to tell me there was no meeting. Because there was — at eight o’clock this morning, just you and the Count before the bank opened.”

  Alex was speechless. He knew her capacity for finding out what went on in the organisation, but this was impossible.

  “How?” he asked. “How in hell could you know that?”

  She smiled teasingly, but before she could answer Andre Ribot, called to her from his nearby cubicle. The assistant manager had a peremptory manner and did not hesitate to interrupt their conversation. Would she kindly bring her shorthand book at once; he had some important letters to dictate.

  “One moment, Monsieur,” she replied, and murmured to Alex. “How do I know? Take me to lunch at that new sushi bar in the Ginza, and I’ll tell you.”

  “You will? Promise?”

  “The new restaurant, not that cheap one. Well, is it yes or no?”

  “Twelve-thirty,” Alex agreed, then after she had hurried to Ribot’s office he worried if he had enough money for the smart new sushi bar. Until he collected his new pay at the end of the month he was almost penniless. And he was giving up his usual free lunch in the bank’s dining room.

  On the other hand, it would avoid another dull meal with the same people he sat with each day. They were not a lively group, the senior French staff. He liked Mademoiselle, but she rarely had much to say, and always excused herself when the meal was over. If the Count was present, his executives spent all their time agreeing with everything he said, being so obsequious that the end of lunch came as a relief. Alex had never seen adults so sycophantic, but realised none of these men could expect to find another position of substance here while the war lasted. Nor could they leave the country. For them it was the French Bank or nowhere, making the Count’s power absolute. No, it was not an atmosphere he particularly enjoyed, and he felt that if they knew about the meeting and his salary, they would resent him. So the Ginza and the sushi bar with Kimiko was best. Apart from which, he was determined to find out how she was aware of everything that happened in this place.

  “You don’t really want to know,” she said, reaching across the tiny table with her chopsticks to take a slither of sashimi and a helping of daikon from his plate. Alex had been eating rather slowly, after a hasty calculation of the prices on the menu against the amount in his pocket. It was going to be a very close thing, when it came time to pay the cashier.

  “Of course I want to know. That’s why we’re here.”

  She gazed at him and sighed. “Is that the only reason? You didn’t have anything else in mind?”

  She leaned across and took a tuna sushi wrapped in nori and topped with red caviar. His meal was fast disappearing while her eyes flirted with him, and he was sure he’d be ravenous all afternoon. He realised he’d better eat what remained of his lunch, before it vanished entirely.

  “I thought you might have had a different reason for taking me to lunch,” Kimiko said. “Slightly more romantic.”

  Alex was unable to reply. Having taken a delicious morsel into his mouth he was busy savouring the taste of prawns and sea bass, mingled with flakes of omelette, squid and vinegar rice.

  “Or even sexy,” she said.

  He mumbled and indicated that his mouth was still full.

  “After all, most of the staff at the bank are fairly old … except for us. I’d much rather go out with you, than have Monsieur Laroche rubbing up against me every chance he gets, and feeling my bottom.”

  Alex hastily swallowed a mouthful so he could reply. “The Chief accountant? He doesn’t.”

  “He does. Every time there’s nobody about.”

  “Dirty old bugger,” said Alex.

  “Then there’s Frankenstein …” she murmured, and smiled.

  “He doesn’t feel your bum.” Alex was aghast.

  “No, but he’d like to. Given half a chance. That’s why he tells me everything that goes on.”

  “Frankenstein!” Of course! He suddenly knew how she was so well informed.

  “He’s always having rows with Mrs Frankenstein, who doesn’t like what she calls ‘that nasty business in bed’ — so he keeps asking me if I’ll go into the stationary cupboard with him.”

  “That’s dreadful,” Alex said. Unnerved by this revelation he momentarily forgot to continue eating. Kimiko daintily took the last butterfly prawn from his plate.

  “I won’t, of course,” she smiled. But he knows I like to hear gossip, so he tells me in the hope it’ll change my mind.”

  “Good God.” He was astounded. The sedate French bank seemed full of lust. He said as much to Kimiko and made her laugh.

  “Lust! You haven’t heard the half of it yet. There’s Mr Ribot,” she said. “Goes to his church with Mrs Ribot every Sunday. If he confesses all his sins, it’d keep the priest busy.”

  “What sins?”

  “I can only speak of the ones I know,” she said demurely, “like the time he exposed himself to me.”

  “He didn’t!”

  “He did. Not that there was a lot to see, and when I took no notice he pretended he’d forgotten to button his fly. He asked me if I’d come to work with a short skirt and no panties, so he could drop his pencil on the floor and have a look …”

  “The dirty bugger,” Alex exclaimed, “it’s a hotbed.”

  “They’d certainly like it to be.”

  “Anyone else?” Alex asked. “Not the Count..!”

  “No. Devoted to Moustique. The ones I like aren’t interested — by which I mean him and you.” As Alex tried to think of a reply to this, she said: “I almost forgot the Sardine.”

  “Monsieur Sardaigne?”

  “Slippery and oily. Hands like tentacles, always trying to make a grab. More like an octopus than a sardine.” She leaned across and expertly gathered his remaining slice of sashimi. “The trouble with that bank,” she said, “there’s not enough customers any more. Not enough real work to keep them busy, so all they can do is think about sex.”

  Alex had to borrow two yen from her to help him pay the bill. He promised repayment the first moment he received his salary. His so confidential salary. At least he felt certain that piece of news was not known to her.

  “One hun
dred yen a month,” Kimiko said, as if directly reading his mind, then laughed at the baffled expression on his face. “Did you think it was a secret, Alex?”

  “I was told it had to be.”

  “Let me explain the first rule of office life. The bigger the secret, the sooner everyone knows it.”

  As they walked back through the crowded streets, he asked her about Mademoiselle Patou. Since she knew absolutely everything, was it true she had a husband and mystery life?

  Kimiko was silent for a moment. For the first time she seemed unsure how to answer. “Poor Cecile,” she said quietly. “Yes, it is true. But that’s a different story, for another day.”

  Going home in the train, he tried to work out what Kimiko might have meant. No doubt he’d find out when he could afford to take her to the sushi bar again. Packed in as tight as usual, hardly able to breathe, he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like going to bed with Kimiko. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was very sexy. All the Frenchmen seemed to think so. Making love to her, Alex began to realise, would be exciting. In fact the more he thought about her smiles across the table, and the way her eyes flirted, the more beautiful and sexy she seemed. Imagine dirty old Ribot asking her to come to work without any panties …

  He suddenly realised the effect these thoughts were having on him. He became aware of this firmly pressed tight against a young woman, who turned and began to gaze intently at him. Because it was such a packed carriage Alex couldn’t move away. He could feel some part of her making contact, her heart beating or breast against his, and was sure she could therefore feel what else was going on. He attempted to think of other things — like playing tennis or rugby … like his new salary … like anything at all … but it was no use.

  His mind kept flashing back to Kimiko, and then to the girl whose face was only inches away and who was smiling now, one of those secret and private smiles, and even though it was impossible to move, she managed to move more securely against him. They were the same height — everything was meeting in the same part of their bodies. Alex could only think how embarrassing it was going to be in a moment — as the train reached Yokohama. He wasn’t sure how he felt — thankful or thwarted — as much of the crowd stumbled from the train and she remained behind, watching him with a look that made him wonder how far away she lived, and if he could jump back on the train? Ask her name, ask her phone number! Ask her out!

  Impossible! He had no money in his pocket to pay the extra fare, let alone invite her anywhere. He walked along the platform and as carriages shuffled past he glimpsed her smile, her hand raised, then she puckered her lips and blew him a kiss.

  Dear God, Alex thought, with a girl like that I could have stopped being a virgin tonight.

  7

  A SUBSTITUTE FOR MILK

  It was the wrong day to bring home the triumphant news of his salary. His mother was thrilled at the news, but absorbed; the entire household was completely engrossed in a new family addition. They had bought a goat.

  It was because of the shortage of milk. Cook-san had persuaded Marie Faure that a goat was the answer. For once in rare accord, they had gone out together to buy it that morning. The goat would eat all the scraps, give precious milk, and was a pet the family would all come to love. At least, that was according to the man who had advertised it for sale.

  By the time Alex reached home, certain facts about goats had become clear to them. It certainly ate all the scraps, but it had also, within hours, eaten everything else that grew in the tiny back yard. It had polished off the stems of shrubs already denuded of leaves by the winter. If it had waited a few weeks, there would have been fresh spring buds — but spring in the garden was cancelled. The small square of grass, the contents of the garbage bin, all had been devoured by the goat, who showed no sign of being satisfied by these hors d’oeuvres.

  They finally went to bed with it tied up and bleating in the back yard, with his mother telling Cook-san that since it was her stupid idea she would have to somehow keep the wretched creature quiet, or else the neighbourhood would complain.

  Sometime in the night Alex was woken from a lovely dream by the sound of bleating, and heard the cook begging the goat to be a good girl and go to sleepies. He tried to do the same, to return to his warm bed and happy dream. The trouble was, he couldn’t remember whom he had been making love to — whether it was Kimiko or the girl on the Yokohama train.

  “We’re learning more about goats,” Marie Faure told her friend Paul Jacoulet, “and the more I learn the less I like it.”

  Jacoulet was a noted wood-block artist, who possessed the world’s most exotic collection of butterflies. An exotic himself, he was an overt homosexual who rarely wore men’s clothing, and was mostly to be seen in a kimono with his face painted like a geisha. He was rich and notorious, entirely impervious to public opinion, famous enough not to be in danger of harassment by the law, and invariably attended by a cluster of young Korean boys, who stood watching and giggling some distance away, while he and Marie sat talking in a teahouse.

  “My dear girl, you must be utterly insane. A goat?”

  “It’s for the milk.”

  “It’s madness. Was it your idea?”

  “No, Cook-san’s.”

  “That woman is an idiot. She’ll have to go.”

  “She will. I keep trying to be brave enough to tell her.”

  “The milk must taste revolting.”

  “Actually,” she reluctantly admitted, “it’s not as awful as I thought. It’s pure white, like ordinary milk, and the taste isn’t bad. Surprisingly.”

  “It surprises me. Don’t you dare let Cook-san her use it when I come to visit.”

  “Of course not. The trouble is, she eats such a lot …”

  “Who? Cook-san?”

  “No. Gracie.”

  “You’ve given this beast a name?”

  “Well, we had to call her something.”

  “Gracie!” Jacoulet roared with laughter. “Gracie Fields?”

  “Just Gracie. She never stops eating. Or shitting. The back yard is full of it.”

  “Gracie Crapper!”

  “Paul, stop making fun of me. It’s serious. She ate one of Alex’s shirts last night. Shoes, the dustbin, nothing is safe. She even tried to eat the fence.”

  “My God, if the fence goes,” Jacoulet said, “she’ll be into next door’s garden like a scythe. Then other gardens. Neighbours will be livid. I can imagine the petitions and protest meetings. The ‘Gracie must go committee’ will take you to court.”

  “Oh shut up,” Marie said, becoming cross with him. “I need help. She gives us milk, but we’ll run out of food. Her appetite is ridiculous. At this rate the milk will cost more than if we bought it on the black market. I don’t know what to do.”

  “How about a curry?” Paul Jacoulet suggested.

  Murderer! It was what Alex’s sister Mathilde called Jacoulet and her mother when she heard of it, and vowed to become a vegetarian. In that case, her mother ordered, you can get a shovel and a bucket and clean up the back yard, because it looks like a sewerage farm. She told Cook-san to put a rope on the beast, walk her to the park and find some grass where she could graze. Later the cook came back in a rage because the park keeper had seen her let Gracie loose in a clump of bamboo where she had eaten all the young shoots, and he warned her the next time it happened the cook would be fined and the goat arrested.

  It was finally Mathilde who came up with the idea. They had a shed full of old newspapers. These had been saved for years, because their mother guessed that if there was a war, one of the first casualties — apart from the truth — would be toilet paper. Factories making such trifling luxuries would be switched to manufacturing guns. So they had a massive amount of local and even old overseas papers. Mathilde’s theory was that the war would never last long enough to use it all, and since the goat ate anything it should be possible to tempt her into trying a new diet.

  It was an immediate success.


  Gracie loved the taste of newspaper. She relished certain publications, seeming to like the English-language Nippon Times the best, while being quite partial to old copies of Le Figaro and the Daily Express. She munched on the headlines of famous events, like Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich in 1938 to make his unfortunate declaration of ‘Peace for our Time’, then Hitler’s army a year later invading Poland. There were recent local editions with references to Japan’s victories in Asia, and how they would soon invade Australia.

  Gracie ate steadily through the night — silently, with not a bleat to disturb the neighbourhood. It was clearly a triumph for Mathilde, who made sure she claimed the credit. Early the next morning they gathered, while Cook-san milked her.

  A full bucket of milk was the result. It was pure white, it looked like real milk. It even smelt like real milk.

  Unfortunately, it tasted like newspaper.

  8

  A DANGEROUS LUNCH

  The clock over the main door seemed to take an eternity to move and, having completed his morning’s entries in the ledgers, Alex tried to toll off the minutes. Just five more until Frankenstein would shut the doors for the lunch hour. He had already made excuses again for not eating in the staff dining room, explaining he had an appointment with an old school friend. In only four minutes now pens would be put down, chairs pushed back, and the rhythmic tap of Kimiko’s typewriter would cease. It was almost the only sound in the bank, apart from the murmur of voices from a meeting in Laroche’s office, and he could tell she was equally impatient and conscious of the time, as their glances met and messages were exchanged. Today, she’d agreed, he was to be told the truth about Mademoiselle Patou.

  But there was a condition. They must not be seen leaving together. He would exit by the side door. Kimiko would wait until the French executives had gone upstairs, and then make her own way to the Ginza, where they had arranged to meet. When Alex asked why the subterfuge was necessary, she told him not to be naive. Clandestine procedure was essential, because the bank frowned on the French staff taking out Japanese employees. It was a rule that such fraternisation was not permitted, at least not openly.