Dragons in the Forest Read online

  “Ah … well …”

  He got no further than that before she slapped him again. By then it was apparent to other disembarking passengers that a serious domestic event was taking place.

  “Bastard!” she repeated, not at all quietly this time, and interest in the situation grew. Mathilde was bewildered and close to tears. Their father was growing anxious at the attention they were creating.

  “Marie please. You mustn’t misunderstand. Ingrid and I are just good friends.”

  It was clearly the worst thing he could have said, and provoked a loud tirade in Russian directed at the elegant German lady. While Alex only knew scraps of the language, he did remember some words and later looked them up in the dictionary, and in this way was able to gather his mother was calling her a cheap rotten tart — as well as a two-faced harlot, a trollop and a conniving German cow.

  And lots of other things, by the look on his father’s face, as he nervously switched into French and finally admitted that Ingrid was his mistress, and he was shocked by his wife’s behaviour, having never anticipated such a display in front of others, let alone their children.

  “You just hoped to sneak her into a cheap hotel, as cheap as possible, so you could call in each day and play tootsie, a bit of morning glory in the afternoon. That’s what you had in mind, you oversexed treacherous rat.”

  “Steady on, Marie. Don’t be absurd.” Their father was struggling to retain his dignity, ignoring the onlookers who all seemed entranced by what they were overhearing. “As a matter of fact, Ingrid and I have discussed this, and she agrees I should talk to you privately and make a personal and discreet suggestion.”

  “I can just imagine!”

  “No you can’t, Marie. We’ll talk of it later.”

  “We’ll talk of it now. What suggestion?”

  “I’d actually prefer to talk of it later.”

  “Now,” she had insisted.

  “Very well,” he’d shrugged. “It was never my intention to be secretive about this. If you’d take the trouble to know her, you’d find Ingrid is a very nice person. And so what I propose is we give it a trial.”

  “Give what a trial?”

  “I really think we should wait for more privacy” he looked at her helplessly. “But if you don’t agree …”

  “Give what a trial?” she demanded insistently.

  “The idea of Ingrid moving into our house, and the three of us living together as a family. Er … that is … with the children, of course.”

  Alex was mesmerised, watching his mother. She seemed to have run out of words to say. Her mouth opened, but for once nothing emerged. His father appeared to think this a good omen, and hurriedly went on to explain what he had in mind.

  “You see, I have to admit I’m in love with Ingrid. Mad about her, in fact. I simply can’t get enough of her.” He seemed oblivious of Alex and Mathilde gazing at him and reacting to this statement. “But then I can’t get enough of you, either. I’m very fond of you, Marie …”

  “Fond?”

  “No — that’s the wrong word. Not fond.”

  “Fond,” she repeated again, as if it was an obscenity.

  “No, no. More than fond,” he pleaded. “I’m still in love with you — in fact I’m besotted by you. That’s the word. Besotted — by you both. I’m in a cleft stick, unable to choose between you — so the solution seems obvious. After all, a menage a trois is simply a love affair between three people. You and me and Ingrid …”

  “What!!!”

  “All three of us … living together in harmony.”

  “Harmony!” Alex gazed at the fire in the grate, vividly recalling his mother’s outrage and every moment of that bizarre day. He could still hear the fury of her reply. He had not realised the extent of her vocabulary or capacity for action. By nightfall she’d made arrangements; their belongings were packed, a taxi was waiting. She had gathered her two children, and left him.

  “Alex?”

  He turned from his study of the flickering flames. His father was looking at him curiously. “Yes, Papa?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “No, just watching the firelight. Thinking.”

  “A lot to think about — with this damned war so certain.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ingrid and I will miss Kobe. God knows when we’ll be back.”

  “Ingrid’s going with you?”

  “Of course. I wanted her to stay here, but she refused.”

  “I thought she didn’t care for Saigon.”

  “She cares for me,” his father said. And indeed she did, for after the fury of the separation, he and Ingrid had lived together ever since, and seemed happy. Although it was difficult to say so — in fact, downright dangerous to even mention at home — but Alex quite liked her.

  “Time we got some sleep. About Saigon, it might be best not to tell your mother yet.”

  “You think she’ll mind?”

  “Not in the least. But she has lots of friends at the Yokohama Country Club, and enjoys a gossip. I’ll send a message when we’re safe in Indochina.”

  Alex slept badly that night, aware of the house growing damp and cold after midnight when the supply of firewood was exhausted. Long before dawn, he lay awake and restless, uneasily visualising his father under arrest and facing interrogation. The Tokko were a unit known for their brutality. It was definitely not a time to come to the attention of them or any other police authority.

  Although his family were not really involved, there had already been one rather alarming incident. Less than a month earlier the Kempeitai, the feared military police, had arrested a friend of his mother’s. Richard Sorge, a leading journalist and prominent figure in the cloistered foreign circles of Tokyo and Yokohama, was now in Sugamo Prison awaiting trial, charged with espionage.

  It had come as a bombshell to the European community, but all the facts seemed to indicate he had spent years posing as a spy for his native Germany, working as a double agent for the Soviet Union and feeding information to Moscow. Rumour abounded that with his social connections he was an intimate of the German Ambassador, and believed to have alerted Stalin to Hitler’s planned invasion of Russia. If true, it would mean his certain execution.

  Sorge had several times visited their home, and once, about six months ago, Alex had arrived home from school earlier than usual, and met him as he was about to leave. The journalist had expressed a rather breezy surprise at Marie having brought up a son. Alex had not liked his patronising manner, or what seemed a possessive attitude towards his mother. He knew that Sorge, chief correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, was known for his sexual exploits and hedonistic lifestyle.

  He’d watched as his mother walked him to their front gate, and how she stood there waving as he left. Later, she commented that he was an amusing and interesting man whom she sometimes met at the Yokohama Country Club. He had come for afternoon tea. After asking why, Alex was told he was hoping to improve his Russian, hence his reason for the visit, she explained. When news of his arrest swept the foreign community she openly expressed her belief it was a mistake. But in the weeks since, as it became apparent he was not just a journalist — and certainly not an innocent — she had stopped mentioning his name. Alex wondered if his father knew about the amusing and interesting Richard Sorge.

  Early next morning they boarded the train to Tokyo. They bought food and newspapers at the station, and for much of the journey each was immersed in the English language version of the Nippon Times. As so often in the past two years, the war in Europe occupied the headlines. It seemed as if Hitler had victory in his grasp. His armies were at the gates of Leningrad, his air force bombing Britain into submission, while his fleet of U-boats were cutting British supply lines. It was a matter of time, according to the editorial of the day, before he ruled the entire continent.

  There was no news of an impending Pacific conflict; on the contrary, the paper was optimistic. The visit of Japanese diplomats
to Washington for talks with the State Department was considered a significant move towards peace, and given great prominence.

  “Don’t believe a word of that,” his father said, leaning across to tap the story Alex was reading. “Now Prince Konoe has been ousted and General Tojo is prime minister, there’s no chance of peace. This is a war cabinet Tojo has chosen. He’s a militarist, not a peacemaker or diplomat.”

  It was noon when they reached Tokyo Central, and Alex accompanied his father to the waiting Kobe express. The train was hissing steam, the guard’s flag poised to signal departure.

  “Take care,” his father said.

  “You too, Papa. You and Ingrid, both of you take good care.”

  “We will. Look after your mother. My love to Mathilde.”

  Carriage doors slammed. The engine belched smoke. Alex watched the train leave, wondering how long it would be before they met again.

  That night at home he wrote about their meeting in his diary. It was safe to express personal opinions, for the diary was a new acquisition, one with a lock and key that kept it safe from any intrusion by his mother or sister. He recorded his hope for their safe arrival, and when news came that the freighter they travelled on had reached Saigon, the diary expressed his relief at their escape.

  In another part of the Pacific a large fleet had already been at sea for eight days. An armada of warships and aircraft carriers, it grouped north of the Volcano Islands, then bypassed Midway, and headed in the direction of Hawaii with great caution. Every vessel’s radio transmitter was sealed to preserve strict silence. Protected by the massive convoy of battleships, the aircraft carriers were laden with a strike force of 350 bombers with fighter escorts. As Alex was to write in his new diary, the Japanese had long ago turned from making toys.

  At dawn of Sunday, December 7th, they stood in their allotted positions to the north of the Hawaiian island of O’ahu. The sun was soon to rise over the unsuspecting playgrounds of Waikiki beach and Diamond Head. As it did, coded orders launched the first wave of aircraft in a surprise attack. A second and a third strike were to follow.

  Before the morning was gone, the fortified US bases with its aircraft and the American Pacific fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbour had been almost totally destroyed.

  ALEX’S DIARY: DECEMBER 7th, 1941

  Today the war began! I’ve just heard the news on the radio. I was trying to finish my homework in English, and at the same time listen to a talk to improve my Japanese. I often use the radio for this purpose. The Marianist Brothers at St Joseph’s teach us in English and French, but speaking Japanese at school is forbidden. Which is a pretty stupid rule, since this is where I was born and where my family lives, and on leaving school I want to get a job here. But all the best jobs in the East go to those fluent in languages, and if you only speak coolie Japanese picked up from the cook or an amah — then you won’t get far.

  So this is why I was listening to the radio and heard the program interrupted by a fanfare. Then came a speech by the Prime Minister, General Tojo. He said the Americans had attacked the Japanese fleet without warning, so the navy and air force had responded bravely and inflicted a resounding blow on the enemy. Their fleet had been crippled and it was a glorious victory. He finished by saying the war would be over in a few months, and Japan would triumph because they had the divine blessing of the Emperor.

  I went looking for my mother and sister to break the news. They were not in the house, so I went to the kitchen to ask our cook where they were. Before I could speak I realised that Cook-san was sitting without her blouse, feeding her daughter Junko. I’d heard about this, but it was the first time I’d seen her large tits, and Junko chewing away at them like a big calf hanging on an udder. Junko is nearly six years old! I said “Excuse me cook-san,” and backed out of there as fast as I could.

  “Dreadful,” Mama said when I broke the news.

  “You mean the war or cook-san?” I asked.

  “Both. The war’s terrible, but we expected it. Cook-san is disgusting and I’ve told her so. Haven’t I, Mathilde?”

  “Yes, Mama,” my sister said, “but she takes no notice.”

  “She’ll have to go.”

  “You’ve been telling her that, too. For years. She never takes any notice.”

  “It’s a pity, she’s such a good cook,” was my mother’s stock answer.

  The news, of course, was all through St Joseph’s next day. The teachers assured us there was no cause for panic. Our Catholic school and its staff were completely safe, they said. Our American teachers were considered non-combatants. Life would continue as before. The war would be no excuse for not attending school on time, nor for not doing our homework.

  2

  THE ENEMY

  It was lunch hour at St Joseph College when the military police came and the arrest of the American teachers was very public. The first to be taken into custody was the senior maths master, Brother Abromitis, who came from Alabama, and had long-suffered the nickname of “the Cockroach”, because of the way he scuttled across the schoolyard on skinny legs. A group of his students watched in silence as he was bundled into a steel cage mounted on the back of a police van, handcuffed and declared to be an enemy.

  Not much of an enemy, Alex thought. Abromitis stared through the mesh, a small and rather untidy man, looking frightened, while the boys felt conflicting emotions about what was happening. The Cockroach was not popular; as a teacher he was impatient and sarcastic, at times tyrannical, often unfair. But so was this unfair. Treating him like a criminal, and using physical duress; it hardly seemed necessary against a Catholic Brother who tried his best to teach the unpopular subjects of algebra and trigonometry.

  “Poor bastard,” Alex’s close friend Claude Briand said, “he’ll be interned until the war’s over.”

  “There’s always a bright side,” sniggered Wilhelm Volkmann, the brash son of a Swiss businessman whom everyone disliked.

  “What bright side?”

  “The Cockroach set us a heap of homework, and now we don’t have to bother with it.” He called to the frightened man in the wire cage, with a bravado he had never dared show in class. “You can stick the square on the hypotenuse — and both sides of the triangle — right up your smelly arse.” He waited expectantly for laughter from his class mates, all graduation year students, but there was no laugh. Just a moment of silent reproach.

  “So what will you Swiss do in this war, Volkmann?” Alex asked him, “apart from yodelling and making cuckoo clocks for the Nazis.”

  “Watch out, Faure,” the other said. “Now Japan is on the side of Germany, you French cochons had better take care what you say.”

  “Tough titty. We’re strictly neutral cochons,” Alex’s reply brought a laugh from the others, which was meant to annoy the Swiss and did so.

  “Are you sure about that? The French were allies of the British, but that didn’t last long, did it? Now they claim to be neutral because their Vichy government’s a puppet of Germany. But half your country’s against the government, so if you ask my opinion some of you Frenchies are a lot less neutral than others.”

  “Nobody did ask your opinion.”

  “I’m entitled to it,” Volkmann said.

  “Of course you are. And we know you’ll give it whether we want to hear it or not. As a matter of fact,” Alex continued equably, “there is one opinion we’d like from you. One question you could really help us with.”

  “Oh?” He was wary of Alex’s congeniality. “What question?”

  “Why do the Swiss put all those holes in their cheese? Is it true it makes them fart less?”

  “Go and get stuffed,” the other snapped, and walked away.

  His classmates tried to stifle their laughter. It was hardly a time for levity. They were too conscious of the lone teacher inside the cage looking helplessly at them. Police now brought out a further six American Marianist Brothers. Brother Hudson, who taught Latin, was elderly and frail and it was apparent he fo
und it difficult to climb into the back of the van. Two policemen impatiently lifted him then roughly pushed him inside. From where the boys stood they could hear his involuntary cry of pain as he fell.

  After that came an interminable delay while the remaining staff were marched outside to be interrogated. When their French nationality was confirmed they and the students were ordered to return inside. By then it was clear there would need to be rearrangement of the entire curriculum. The loss of staff would mean major disruption; fewer teachers, larger classes, changes that would be detrimental, particularly for Alex, Claude and their friends in the last half of their graduation year.

  As they filed back into the school, trying to contemplate how this would disadvantage them, they heard the American teachers shouted at by a sergeant in charge, telling them they were all dangerous enemies of the state and would therefore be interned so they could not undermine the war effort. Alex stood watching as the van and its prisoners were driven away, guarded by a convoy of police vehicles. He wondered how a group of meek middle-aged teachers could undermine anyone’s war. The last sight he had was the anxious face of the Cockroach gazing pathetically out of the bars, in a vain search for someone who might be able to rescue him.

  That afternoon, the war took an even more personal turn. Alex and Claude had a scheduled training run with their rugby team at the popular Yokohama Country and Athletic Club — the YCAC as it was familiarly known — a select and privileged haven for foreigners and their families situated on the peninsula overlooking Honmoku Beach. It boasted a fine sports ground, tennis courts, a bowling green, and clubhouse with library, dining room, billiard room and a spacious bar. For most of the large expatriate community in Yokohama the YCAC was their meeting place and the centre of social life.

  When Alex and Claude arrived there were militia on guard and a notice announced the premises were closed. Gavin Tyler, the Irish secretary, had just been escorted from his office by armed police officers.