Dragons in the Forest

by Peter Yeldham

  “Arigato,” Alex said, thanking him.

  Frankenstein scarcely nodded, stepped aside and Alex went into the bank. The caretaker switched off the main lights. Alex carried his suitcase up the stairs — to his future home.

  It had happened unexpectedly, just days before. The morning after Ribot’s outburst and the Count’s lunch with the Prince, Alex was unable to reach the bank until noon. The cause of this was another air raid while he was on board the train — a different experience this time — bombs dropping, the passengers all frightened, and the track ahead destroyed by high explosive. It had created a long delay, until buses and trucks were found to shift commuters. Forced to queue in drizzling rain, hours passed while police and civil authorities tried to handle the situation.

  Those who had no urgent need to reach Tokyo were directed to return home. Alex was among those who remained to wait for transport. Uncertain if he still had a job or not, he knew that reaching the bank to find this out was vital. He was eventually loaded into the back of an open truck. It was crowded with angry or disconsolate passengers, and took another two hours in chaotic traffic. He arrived tired, wet, and dispirited.

  There was an immediate summons that the Count wished to see him. Pierre Laroche had looked pleased to convey the message. Prepare for storms ahead, the chief accountant’s smug look had seemed to say. But there were no storms. Just the startling news of a blessed reprieve.

  “An error in the government decree,” the Count gave the semblance of a smile. They sat in his office, and surprisingly, for it was unusual, Mademoiselle Patou sat with them. But that was not the only surprise.

  “Monsieur Ribot has left us,” the Count said. “He felt unable to remain in Tokyo, and I’m not unduly distressed. Nor, I believe I can say, is Mademoiselle.”

  “He’s gone to join his wife and family in Shimoda,” she said, not looking or sounding at all distressed.

  “Which leaves us one problem. You. Your family will have to leave the house in Yokohama, like most other foreigners.”

  “Yes, I know, Sir. I could try living in the house alone.”

  “Difficult to commute, Alex. If today is any example.”

  “I’ll manage somehow, Monsieur.”

  “Awkward and dangerous. Those of us in central Tokyo can use the underground if there’s a raid. Any other travel will become a concern. The authorities might even refuse to issue you a permit. So it’s been suggested — Mademoiselle’s suggestion, may I say — that there is an empty apartment upstairs. And that it might very well solve your problem, and ours.”

  Alex had stared at them, hopeful but disbelieving. It was just too tremendous to be true. “The penthouse?” he hardly dared ask her.

  “The penthouse,” Cecil Patou had said.

  14

  A NEW ABODE

  ALEX’S DIARY: NOVEMBER 15th, 1944

  My new home. One bedroom, containing a double bed with a futon. One small but perfect living room. A bathroom and a kitchen, both small but also perfect. Everything is small but perfect. Except the view. The view is huge and quite spectacular. Windows that look across the canal towards the Sumida River. A tiny balcony that sits high above the Ginza. By day I can see barges, trees, the pale November sky. People in the street below like ants, hurrying through the chill late-autumn winds. At night if I turn off all the lights, I can sit beside a window and watch the blacked-out city, the dark shapes of buildings, clouds drifting against the moon, sometimes a canopy of stars.

  The sheer luxury of it: my own place, my own apartment, freedom to come and go, freedom from the tyranny of two hours daily travel — the joy of not being squashed into the commuter train by men with white gloves. And I have choices. I can cook a meal, or eat in one of the intimate restaurants that crowd this district. I can choose to sleep alone or invite a girlfriend. Make it my own domain, the Count said. Enjoy it.

  Kimiko-san, where are you now? If only I knew.

  Mademoiselle discreetly gave me a key to the back door of the bank. For those times, she said, when you may be home late. I think she was also saying, for the times when you have a guest and it might be awkward to knock on the door and wait to be admitted by Frankenstein.

  Dear Mademoiselle Cecile. All this was her idea. I think I love her.

  I wanted to kiss her in the Count’s office, on the cheek, of course. I hope she realises — I think she does — how she has completely changed my life.

  NOVEMBER 22nd

  I had a first anniversary party. One week in residence. Only Claude and two girls we met in a bar. As he’s my best friend and first guest, I gave Claude and his girl the double bed. Me and mine managed on the sofa.

  In the morning when they’d gone we had lots to talk about, things to catch up on as Claude has been away with the French film unit for months. He said whenever they film now, the Kempeitai come to the set, to insist on reading and changing the scripts. Some police are no older than us, and strut about wearing military swords, shouting and giving orders to the director. So the films end up looking ludicrous, because of these changes, and people even laugh and boo when they are shown. He says he’s fed up, and might join his family soon. Like many we know, they’re in Karuizawa.

  Before he went, Claude gave me bad news. Richard Sorge, who was convicted of espionage, has had his appeal denied. It’s likely he’ll be executed any day now. There is an order preventing news about him being published. I’ll have to tell Mama. She never mentions his name, but she liked him, and is bound to hear it. With all those people cooped up in Karuizawa, gossip is rife. I need to tell her before anyone else can.

  It was cold outside the house. They walked together in the empty garden, as Mathilde had girlfriends visiting, and this had to be private. Damp leaves were matted on the ground, the branches moist with thawing frost.

  “Nobody knows when it will be?” she asked. “Not even how many more days … before it happens?

  “No, Mama.”

  “Or what prison he’s in?”

  “Sugamo, Claude thinks. But you can’t go there.”

  “Of course not.” She digested the news in silence for a time. “Thank you for telling me, Alex.”

  “Better me than anyone else.”

  “When … when it happens, will it be in the newspapers?”

  “I doubt it. Not the way censorship is these days.”

  “You’re probably right. Especially as Ozaki, who was charged and arrested with him, was very high in politics. The chief political adviser to Prince Konoe, when he was prime minister.”

  “I’d forgotten that,” Alex said, startled.

  “There was talk that they questioned Konoe. There were even some rumours he might be arrested, though I think they were all spread by the military. You didn’t know that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s of no consequence now. All water under the bridge, or whatever peculiar expression the English say.”

  It was becoming colder in the garden. He took her arm and they began to walk back in the direction of the house.

  “I’m so sorry, Ma.”

  “He was a fool,” she said, “to believe in Stalin. Mad to be recruited as a spy. He could be charming, but he drank too much and was gullible. So in the end he became a traitor and a fool.”

  They saw the bizarre sight of Paul Jacoulet, in a brightly coloured ornamental kimono, his hair combed in high-lacquered geisha style. He was followed at a discreet distance by his adoring cluster of effeminate and giggling young Korean boys.

  “There’s another of my fools,” Marie Faure said, “but at least he’s talented, and he makes me laugh.”

  “And lets you win at poker.”

  “He does not let me win — I play my cards far better than he does. I bluff beautifully.”

  “Dear girl,” Jacoulet greeted her, “you bluff outrageously. But today I call the bluff. Today I read my tea leaves, which tell me I shall win.” He kissed her hand, then both cheeks. “And Alex. Bello ben proporzionato! I ta
ke lessons from the Italian vice-consul, who says it means handsome. So I say it to all the men!”

  “Hello Paul.” Alex smiled, and they shook hands.

  “You now live in a penthouse, I hear?”

  “For the moment.”

  “Very grand. Spare a thought for the poor unfortunates like us, who have to suffer here in deprivation.”

  Alex doubted if they would see the day when the artist was deprived, watching as his mother took her favoured guest into the house. Paul Jacoulet was a rich man. He had a villa near the French Ambassador’s summer residence, adjacent to the house owned by Odette’s parents. It was highly amusing that both these neighbours were secretly appalled by his behaviour, but they pretended to tolerate it as artistic temperament because of his prestige. They even — through gritted teeth — invited him to some of their diplomatic functions. Odette herself had told him this. Walking past the verandah to fetch his bicycle a few minutes later, Alex could see Jacoulet inside their house. He was in front of a large wall mirror checking his appearance, powdering his face as he carefully applied more lipstick. He saw Alex’s reflection gazing at him, waggled his fingers in a mocking farewell, and laughed at his own grotesque image in the glass.

  Alex smiled. It was impossible not to like the scandalous Jacoulet. He collected his bike and rode into the town. Karuizawa was changing. It was not only that the village was crowded at a time of year when it would normally be deserted. Other things were changing. There were far more Germans, a greater number than in the summer, he thought. Or perhaps it was because many were so intent on drawing attention to themselves by wearing swastika arm bands, and it was becoming a daily sight to see them meet and militantly raise their arms in a Nazi salute.

  These were not the Germans he knew, some of whom had been his school friends. These newcomers were refugees from the third Reich’s south-east Asian embassies, bureaucrats from the ministry of foreign affairs and party members. There were also intelligence and security officials drawn from the ranks of the SS. They were loud, aggressively brash, and disturbing. Two of them stood in the street, deliberately making Alex swerve his bike to avoid them.

  “Heil Hitler,” they shouted. “Sieg Heil.”

  15

  THE EMPEROR’S FOREST

  That weekend Alex bought a whetstone to sharpen their rusty old axe, and spent half an hour working on it until the blade was razor sharp. He took it with him into the woods behind the house. He tramped for some distance, as forests in Japan were officially designated property of the Emperor, and to cut timber in them without a permit was considered a public offence.

  The ground was soft and wet with rotting autumn leaves. In spring the same soil would be enriched by this decomposed mulch, and the forest would be a blaze of wisteria and cherry blossom. The birch trees, maples and willows would take on their summer plumage, enlivening yet another of the Emperor’s estates with a tapestry of rich foliage. Larks, finches and golden-crested wrens would return, and the exquisite fluted notes of the Uguisu, the local nightingale might be heard.

  He loved this forest; it had been his private playground in summers long past, when war — or such events as a family divorce — had seemed inconceivable. Here he’d had his imaginary childhood adventures, fashioning scraps of wood into rifles to hunt wild boars and snakes, or setting out on a journey to track eagles. In boyhood dreams it had become an enchanted realm where he walked with dragons in the forest, and kept this domain sister-free by telling Mathilde such vivid tales about these marauding dragons that she never ventured here.

  A squirrel scurried from hiding, startling him from his reverie. No dragon he perceived, just a frightened squirrel. It fled, scuttling and clawing its way up the trunk and into the safety of a conifer, preferring its needle leaves to the intruder. He smiled and decided it was time to get on with some work. Finding a dead laurel tree crushed by a fallen oak, he started to cut steadily, until he had a pile of two-metre lengths of thick timber. There was satisfaction in the wealthy Imperial household providing warmth for his family’s winter. Then, taking as many of the lengths as he could carry at a time, he shifted the firewood to where the forest ended and the cleared patch of ground behind their house began.

  The following day he cut most of the wood into short sizes, split them, filled the box beside the pot-bellied stove then stacked the rest below the back deck so the pile would remain relatively dry.

  “What if someone steals it?” Mathilde asked. At 19, she was a pretty girl with a growing circle of friends, both male and female, but principally the former. She and several of these admirers had watched his weekend efforts without the boys making an attempt to offer assistance.

  “If you let anyone steal this,” Alex said, “you either freeze without a fire, or you have to cut some more. Better still, get a few of those useless randy boyfriends of yours to help.”

  “Who said they’re randy?”

  “Well, aren’t they? The way they hang around you and Octavia all the time? Like a swarm of bees around a couple of honey carts.”

  “Thanks! Charming. I’ll be sure to tell Octavia you called us shit carts.”

  Alex smiled. “I apologise.”

  “In that case, accepted,” she said. “But we don’t mind them hanging around. What else is there to do?”

  He had no answer to this, so she enlightened him. “We’re not allowed to have any dances — because it’s decadent! It’s too cold to go out at night, and in the daytime those Nazis try to start trouble. It may be fine for you up there in your penthouse, able to do what you like — and I’ve got a fair idea what that might be — but it’s deathly boring here.”

  “I know, Tilly. It’ll be better once winter’s over. There’ll be tennis, horse-riding, all the usual things we enjoy here.”

  “That’s in summer. Which is forever. Months away.”

  He nodded. There was no point trying to be evasive about it. There was going to be a long and difficult time ahead, in an already overcrowded town never meant for winter. Nor for such a volatile mix of people.

  “Do the Germans really try to make trouble?”

  “Some of them. Mostly the young ones. They look at us, and make filthy remarks, and even try to grab us, you know where.”

  “You be careful,” he said, feeling a sudden concern for her. “Someone ought to tell those bastards they’re losing the war.”

  “But that’s the problem. They don’t think they are.”

  “They must know they’ve lost Paris, and most of France, since the second front.”

  “They said that was just propaganda. One of them tried to claim that they got sick of Paris and decided to give it back. And that we should be very careful.”

  “Us? Why should we be careful?”

  “Because as France has changed sides, we’d be classed as enemy aliens.”

  “But France hasn’t changed sides.”

  “Most people have. The Nazis are always saying that the French resistance is active and killing Germans, so how can we be neutral?”

  It’s virtually true, Alex thought. It had often occurred to him before. They could easily be interned, if Japan should decide they were this. But then surely not, he reasoned. They were French because of their parents, but had all been born and brought up here.

  Aloud he said as casually as he could: “I suppose it could come to that. But it’s so unlikely, I don’t think we should worry.”

  “I worry,” she said. “This same German … he wears an SS tunic and a cap, and he’s always hanging around the streets … said it’d be worse for you and me. And Mama. He said that in Germany they know what to do with anyone who has even a tiny bit of Jewish blood in them. I don’t know how he knew, but that’s what he said.”

  Alex felt a sudden chill. He put his arms around his sister, and could feel her trembling.

  “Just take no notice of such bloody stupidity,” he said. “There’s not a chance of that.” He hoped he sounded convincing, and that she believed him
.

  The following weekend, Alex found out some truths for himself. He was on the crowded Friday night train from Tokyo, with a date to play tennis in Karuizawa with Claude the next day. He rode his bike into town to reserve a court. Sorry, he was told. All courts are reserved.

  Alex pointed to the board in the secretary’s office. Most courts were filled with pencilled bookings in the afternoons; in the mornings a great many were blank. “They’re not all reserved,” he said. “There are morning vacancies. How about Claude and I take number four court, nine o’clock tomorrow morning for a couple of hours?”

  “It’s not free,” the secretary replied. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?” Alex asked.

  “Of course, you wouldn’t know. Not fully resident like most people these days, are you?”

  There was a distinct undertone to this remark, but Alex tried to ignore it. “Wouldn’t know what?” he asked.

  “It was decided this week by the local authority. All courts are to be kept reserved for our German allies. Just one is allowed for neutrals, but that’s fully booked for weeks ahead.”

  “One is all we’re allotted? One out of 10?”

  “That’s right.”

  Alex stared at him with incredulity. The secretary gazed back at him, then he gave an amused smile and shrugged. They had known each other since the man had been a coach, and Alex was first able to hold a racquet. For years he had thought they were friends.

  “What happens if the Germans don’t want to play?”

  “Then nobody does. The courts are theirs, and no longer allowed to be used by anyone else.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Alex said.

  “Don’t blame me,” the secretary told him sharply.

  “Then who do I blame? Herr bloody Hitler?”

  “You watch yourself,” the secretary said. “Don’t get upset and say anything stupid. They have a right to this place, the same as you did.”

  “I see. You mean a right not to use the courts, and not allow anyone else to do so. That’s some special right, that is.”