Dragons in the Forest

by Peter Yeldham

“But they’re stealing Gracie,” Cook-san replied.

  “And doing us a favour. Go back to bed and stop hurting him.”

  In the morning the goat was gone. The yard was empty.

  It was the way I was to feel a few days later.

  Empty.

  For that was how the French bank looked when I arrived one morning and saw Kimiko’s desk was cleared, her chair vacant. She had found another job and left.

  I was told it was for personal reasons.

  10

  A SMALL, SAFE COUNTRY

  The Count de Champeaux was in a buoyant mood. A letter had come via the diplomatic bag, delivered to the bank from the French Embassy. It was from Herr Guizot in Zurich, confirming all transactions with the Banque Commerciale, and the information came as a considerable relief. He could now arrange for Alex to write letters of verification to the clients, quoting only the number of their accounts to ensure privacy. Once this was done he would then deliver the letters by hand.

  Among them were politicians and industrialists — prominent people, fiercely protective of their public reputations. Secrecy was essential, and although he felt Alex knew the names of some, the illusion must be preserved. It was banking protocol. That a junior might be a party to their activities would cause them concern. Alex knew this, and played the charade to perfection. The Count had faced a choice in his staff selection after the outbreak of war, and felt pleased at the decision he had made. The eminent names in this letter had nothing to fear in the way of disclosure.

  But they would be relieved the matter had been finalised. In wartime, even diplomatic bags took an unconscionable time, and ran the risk of being lost through enemy action at sea. While such a loss would be technical, for the transfer was merely an exchange of letters, it could cause delay and concern. People passing over large amounts of cash were always anxious until receiving proof that their currency was in a secure place.

  Far off Switzerland was a very secure place.

  A friendly note from Guizot was at pains to assure him of this. It thanked him for past business, and looked forward to further dealings in the future. “You may be quite certain,” the banker had written, “that whatever happens elsewhere, nothing will happen to Switzerland. In our small, safe country, neutrality comes first. It is like our religion. God, we say here, created Switzerland for one purpose — to be a secret financial clearing house for the rest of the world.”

  The Count enjoyed the sentiment. It was indeed a small safe country, an astonishing spectacle despite being surrounded by enemies at war. He reminded himself to tell Prince Konoe of the quote from the letter when they next met at a diplomatic party. When he thought about the Prince, he wondered — not for the first time — if Alex realised that twice in the past year since their first transaction, they had moved sums of money for a close relative of Konoe to account number 7305 in Zurich. He hoped not. While trusting Alex implicitly, it was vital Konoe and the contacts he provided did not feel threatened.

  The Prince was by far his most important patron in the upper echelons of power and wealthy elite. These were difficult spheres for any foreigner to fully penetrate, for Japanese society had an intricate class system, as tribal and clannish as the English, or indeed the French. It was a complex world, and Konoe had proved to be an ally, without whom the Count would not be trusted in it. An enigmatic figure, still angered at being deposed as Prime Minister, the Prince commanded a close circle of influence. Friends had been discreetly referred to de Chapeaux, and in time there would doubtless be others. But not if Fumimaro Konoe became nervous. It was like the childhood game, building up a house of cards. Move one unwisely and the whole careful edifice could come tumbling down, just when it was looking substantial.

  In the previous month he had successfully arranged two new transactions, one with Guizot in Zurich and another with the Union de Banque Suisse in Geneva. The numbered accounts of two senior government ministers had been credited with enough Swiss francs to ensure their future comfort, no matter how the war might end. The two clearly had reservations about the outcome; this had been instantly apparent in their nervous negotiations and being a shrewd banker, de Champeaux had seized on this advantage and raised the exchange rate. Neither politician had protested and, as a result, the French bank had enjoyed a handsome profit.

  Although he never expressed it, the Count himself was more sanguine than his clients about the future. He believed Japan and her Axis partners would eventually win. While conceding that 1943 had not seen the victories of the previous year — in fact, there had been some minor reverses — it was unrealistic to imagine the initial triumphs could continue at such a pace.

  There had simply been a pause.

  The Battle of Midway had not been a success, some felt it a setback, although no such word had appeared in newspapers. New Guinea had become a stalemate, the Australians had been surprisingly tenacious there. The shock death of Admiral Yamamoto — killed when his plane crashed in Papua New Guinea en route to the Solomon Islands — had been a matter of national sorrow. But this was the ebb and flow of battle. The war was being waged far from Japan. Apart from the one surprise air raid, a token gesture by planes from an aircraft carrier, a venture never repeated, the homeland cities remained immune from attack. Industry could therefore continue production. This was vital, for the powerhouse of the country — the hundreds of tiny firms that had previously made toys, electrical goods or automobiles, now built only the essentials of war: planes, guns and battleships.

  There was also the German factor. Even if Hitler had erred in attacking Russia, he still controlled western Europe. And once he had settled on how to deal with Britain, then made a pact to neutralise America — which he would surely accomplish — Japan would have a huge and powerful ally. But these were thoughts the Count kept carefully in his mind. No-one knew of his sentiments, no member of his staff, none of his friends in the circles where he was a frequent guest, not even Moustique. And certainly not Alex Faure, who had proved to be such an asset during the past 18 months. He knew that Alex, like his father, would be anti-fascist and hopeful of an allied victory. So while they were unlikely associates in the intrigue of keeping the bank alive, sharing the danger of the currency transfers, working together and trusting each other, they were in fact on opposite sides. For this reason, in all his dealings with Alex, the Count de Champeaux attempted to be prudently non-political. He’d made a good and fortunate choice, and knew that for it to continue a pleasant relationship with Alex Faure was essential.

  Alex woke up and gazed at the ceiling in mild confusion. It was definitely not the ceiling he expected to see, nor was the room one he had expected to wake in. For a start, it was unusually warm, and there was a naked female body on either side of him. Both were nestled tightly against him because there was barely room for all three of them on the futon, which was why he felt so warm. The heat of their limbs was having two effects on him; the first was to make him perspire, the second was confusion, a muddled memory of how he came to be sandwiched between such sleeping beauties. There was also a pulsating noise, which he thought was a distant road drill outside, but then realised the sound was coming from somewhere between his ears.

  He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, a motion he instantly regretted. The sound of the road drill ceased, instead his head began to throb to the same rhythm as he tried to work out how they came to be here. His slight movement made one of the women murmur something soft, then sigh and snuggle against him without waking. He carefully tried to swivel his eyes to gaze at her, but while he could glimpse them and feel the impact of her firm breasts, a mass of dark hair obscured her face. He puzzled over it, but had to admit defeat; for the moment he was unable to recall how she got here or who she was. Then with considerable care he slowly turned his head to look at the woman sprawled on his other side, and shock brought sudden perception as he recognised Sumiko.

  O-mi-God, he thought, and it slowly unfolded in tangled waves of memory. If this was Sum
iko, then the other must be … he paused while trying to think of her name. His head ached with the effort, until at last it came to him in recurring images. Aiko. That was it. The girl in the bar. If he could manage to remember what they had all been drinking last night, he’d make sure he never drank it again.

  But how had they ended up here, and where the hell was it? Aiko’s place? It must be. It certainly wasn’t Sumiko’s. Then it all began to fit together in his mind, as he lay there sweating between their nude bodies.

  Sumiko ran a small bar, in a back street off the Ginza, about a 10-minute walk from the bank. He and Claude Briand went there one night to celebrate Claude’s finding a job working as an interpreter for a French news agency. During a convivial evening Alex had become increasingly conscious of the attractive and glamorous woman behind the bar. He noticed her frequent glances in their direction, and after a time she gestured to the barman to take care of the other customers, and perched herself on a stool behind the counter to chat with them.

  “You boys live in Tokyo?” she’d asked in English.

  “We work in Tokyo, and live in Yokohama,” Alex had replied in Japanese, and she smiled, complimented him on his accent, and they bought her a drink. She asked about their work as well as their families, and worked her way casually around to how old they were.

  Twenty-three, Claude swiftly replied, and Alex nodded in agreement. Sumiko admitted she was 30. When she left to serve another customer, Claude asked him if Alex had evil intentions.

  Alex said he thought so.

  “You realise she’s no more 30 than we’re 23?”

  “Maybe not actually 30. I’d say 32.”

  “Forty, if she’s a day.”

  “She’s beautiful, and as sexy as hell. She’s as young as she looks and feels,” Alex said, and he came back the following night alone.

  Sumiko welcomed him. When he walked in the door, they both instantly knew what was going to happen later. It was a quiet evening, very few customers, and she was able to sit and talk with him while they sipped drinks and ate senbei. Sumiko told him her Uncle was a part owner of the bar, but a hard man to work for. She managed the place, and lived alone. She’d recently left her husband who worked in a night club near Kasumigaseki, as he was a treacherous bastard and many times had not come home until early morning, usually accompanied by the stink of some other woman’s perfume.

  Alex found her undemanding, and easy to talk to. He glossed over his job at the bank, saying it wasn’t important, just keeping the books and doing some interpreting. He told her about his divided family, and made her laugh by recounting the episode of the goat. Before midnight she closed the premises. They walked along an alley, crossed a bridge over the murky waters of the canal, and reached a wooden apartment building. She unlocked the front door and Alex followed her up narrow stairs to a modest apartment on the top floor. Beyond the sliding fusuma that divided her home into two rooms, was a double bed.

  They made love twice, then slept for a time. Before dawn he awoke to find her hands caressing and arousing him. She was skilled and avid; while he had had brief affairs in the past few months, he had never known such an earthy and eager eroticism. When he finally admitted he was 21, and she confessed her next birthday would be her 38th, the age gap had merely seemed to add spice to their relationship.

  He had dropped other casual girlfriends. She was as much as any healthy young male could handle, he told her, and it delighted her. That night she had excelled herself, and exhausted him. For the past three months, whenever possible, he found various reasons to remain in Tokyo and to spend his nights in Sumiko’s bed.

  But this morning, stripped like an uncovered prize trapped between two exotic claimants, his pounding head told him that wherever he might be, and however he had arrived there, this was definitely not Sumiko’s bed.

  “Aiko,” the girl had said, when asked her name. “It means love child.”

  “I know what it means,” Alex had answered. The bar was crowded, and Sumiko and her barman were busy serving drinks, but he was aware of her occasional sharp glances across the room at him. He had shrugged, trying to convey that the girl had come uninvited to his table. Without being rude to her, he could hardly get up and move away, so he was remaining there and making polite conversation. At least that was what his gesture intended to convey, but he was not sure Sumiko was in a mood for deciphering messages of conciliation.

  “You waiting for someone?” Aiko had asked.

  “No,” he’d said, which was the wrong reply, a careless answer, for it gave her the opportunity to say that neither was she; she had just felt a bit blue and had come in hoping to have a drink and to meet someone nice.

  Alex, remembering all too clearly now, as the pieces of the previous night came together, knew this was when he should have given her the flick, or else explained his relationship with Sumiko, or done something moderately sensible.

  Sensible was not buying her a drink. Or noticing she was only about 19, and very, very attractive. Sensible was certainly not telling her so, and then buying more drinks, and being still sitting with her when the bar shut and Sumiko came to join them — with a bottle of Suntory whisky, and an angry look on her face. It was definitely not the least bit sensible, the three of them sitting around the table, demolishing the whisky, then another bottle, deciding they were friends and so they would all go home together, and weaving their way out into the night and the pouring rain. Then hailing a taxi, Alex seeing what looked like two drivers inside and three charcoal burner stacks projecting from the same cab — which he thought a bit strange — and watching as rain-swept streets floated past until they stopped at a house.

  “My house,” Aiko had said, and he remembered they went upstairs, the three of them. Into a cosy, small room. This room.

  “My room,” Aiko announced, and Sumiko had produced yet another bottle of something, and they had all undressed and settled down on her futon, with Alex in the middle between the two women.

  This is going to be bloody wonderful, he thought, which was the last thing he remembered until dawn light filtered through the thin curtains, and the road drill was jack-hammering inside his head, and he was trying to recollect whether they did or they didn’t, whether he had or hadn’t and, if he had, was it with them both in turn, or at the same time, or what?

  The same time? Could he have managed that?

  Just contemplating the thought of it brought an erection, which was when Sumiko’s eyes opened, and she smiled at him, then stretched like a lazy cat about to devour the cream. She rolled on top of him. Her eyes opened even wider, with a quite different expression as she saw Aiko’s naked body snuggled tightly against his, and the young girl now awake and stirring with expectation.

  Alex, blissfully unaware of this, decided age should come first and reached to embrace Sumiko. He was met by an outburst of rage, as she shouted in his face that he was a sly and treacherous gaijin, a double-or triple-crossing pig who had been fucking Aiko while she, Sumiko, was innocently asleep.

  “But I …” Alex said, which was as far as he got, as she turned and grabbed a bedside lamp. He ducked, but it wasn’t meant for him, as she wrenched it from its socket and hurled it at Aiko.

  The girl screamed. The lamp missed by inches, hitting the wall where the bulb smashed into fragments. Sumiko yelled that she was a sleazy little nymphomaniac harlot who had seduced this boy, a wanton who had forced herself on him and had her way with him, while decent people were sleeping.

  Aiko shouted back that she was a silly old bag, an old tart who was past it, too long in the tooth for sex games with nice young men, and she ought to know better.

  Sumiko was livid; she picked up a vase and hurled it at the girl with better aim this time, catching her head a solid blow. The vase broke in two. Aiko reeled back, shrieking that she was in danger of being killed by this mad bitch, this stupid old floozy.

  The two women started to fight.

  Alex leapt from the battleground between
them, grabbed his clothes and struggled into his trousers. He ran down the stairs as he buttoned his shirt, passing a startled couple on the first floor.

  “Konichiwa,” he said a polite “Good Morning”, thinking it correct to bow while he did up his fly, then headed out the door — frustrated, hung over, and swearing his determination to henceforth be celibate for life.

  Claude, back from working with the French newsreel crew, thought it a tremendous joke. “How long did this vow of celibacy last?”

  “About a week,” Alex said.

  “Did you go back to Sumiko’s bar?”

  “No thanks. It was great, wonderful, but exhausting.”

  “Worn out by an almost 40-year-old!”

  “But what a woman! It was a learning experience. And brother, did I learn!” They were on their way to the police office in Yokohama. It was the first of the month and they had to renew their travel permits. The wartime regulations stipulated all neutral foreigners must have a signed pass to move outside their own district, which had to be regularly updated. It was an inconvenience but, as Claude said, a hell of a lot better than the alternative. So many of their friends, residents of the tight-knit foreign community, among them many Australians and British, were all interned. No-one knew where they were being held, or under what conditions. There was a great deal of concern about what had happened to them.

  As Alex and Claude joined the group of neutrals queuing for permits, Wilhelm Volkmann was an unwelcome arrival. They had not seen him since he’d been a student with them at St Joseph’s.

  “Still clerking in the Indochinese bank, are we, Faure?” His manner, if they hoped for change, was as abrasive and obnoxious as ever. “Junior clerk, I imagine. Well, it could hardly be anything else.”

  “It’s really amazing,” Claude said, “the way some people never alter. This Vaudois was a prick when we first knew him in junior school, and he’s still one.”

  “But an even bigger prick than ever,” Alex said. “He’s definitely become enlarged without help — swollen with his own importance.”