“No,” said Axe. She went to say something more, but could not think how to explain it in a way that made sense to herself, let alone to anyone else.
“No,” she repeated. Then, as an afterthought, she said, “But whenever anyone is here, or anyone sees us—all of us—we must pretend that Michel is my fiancée, that he is Sven.”
Ken turned his head forty-five degrees. “Michel is your fiancée now?”
“No. It is just pretend. We told the Germans he is Sven. It is—”
“A convenient lie,” said Michel, cutting in.
Axe looked at Michel while she spoke to Ken. “Yes, it is a convenient lie. And part of that lie is that you are Sven’s laborer.”
Ken seemed to be thinking. “So, you say to everybody that Ken is your coolie?”
“No, we would never use that word.”
“The British use that word,” said Ken.
“Laborer. A farm worker. Just a story we tell,” said Axe.
Ken nodded. “Ok. I don’t care.”
“You don’t?” said Axe.
“It is a good story. People will believe this story. It is no problem for me. And you will go back to Rotterdam with Sven? The real Sven, not Michel,” said Ken.
“Ken, you can just say Sven. We all know who is who,” said Michel bitterly.
Axe laughed nervously. “I don’t know. Maybe. Next year they were going to grant me admission to the university. One of the first women. I was going to hopefully, one day, become an economic historian.”
“That is astounding! University is good. For learning. You should go. Why do you want to stay here? Farming is hard. Everybody in China is farming. Life is hard. Learning is best,” said Ken.
“He’s right,” said Michel. “You should go. There’s nothing here. There won’t be.”
“Nothing here? This is where I grew up. There’s no crops or animals, but every inch of this land is sown with memories. This land is all I have left.”
Michel shook his head. “It’s all you have?” he said, and kept shaking his head.
Axe did not say anything. It was Ken who spoke.
“What do you mean, Michel? What does Axe not understand that Michel understands?”
“She thinks this property has been spared, Ken. That it’s got a reprieve. A stay of execution. Well that reprieve is the same one that managed to kill her family! And no reprieve lasts, Ken. That’s what she doesn’t understand. No one escapes it. Nothing does. We’ve seen it. You and me out there in the trenches and battlefields. We’ve seen what she hasn’t.”
“Don’t talk to him, Michel. If you’ve something to say, say it to me,” said Axe. Her foot tapped the dirt, tap-tap, tap-tap.
Michel turned to face Axe. His eyes were burning. “The front will come, and it will take all this away, Axe. Sooner or later. And it won’t just overrun your property, it’ll wipe away every trace of anything that ever meant a damn thing to you. A blank fucking slate by the time they’re done. Nothing left. No tree, no bird, no blade of grass. It will be mud. Craters and mud and there will be pieces of dead men mixed up in it all and good luck finding your memories in all of that.”
“It will still be—”
“Nothing! It’ll be nothing! That’s what’ll be left! The war doesn’t give a damn, Axe. Doesn’t give a damn about you or me or him or anything.”
Michel got up and dropped his plate on the ground in front of Monster. He walked away with heavy steps, headed past the crater brimming with black water.
Axe’s lip trembled as she watched him go. She knew now—she had made a mistake. What that mistake was, she was not quite sure. Part of her said that it was kissing him. Part of her said it was that she stopped kissing him. And part of her said it was the very thing Michel had said in anger and truth: that she had chosen to stay as some sort of pointless act of martyrdom, when a life awaited her away from the war, the very life her parents had so desperately wanted her to live.
Axe’s eyes felt heavy and hot, but she knew she would not cry.
“Why does Michel make a problem?” said Ken. He wore an exaggeratedly quizzical expression, his long neck tilting his head almost forty-five degrees.
Axe put a hand on Ken’s arm, a consoling touch when it was in fact Axe who needed it.
“He’s been through a lot. We all—”
Axe’s words were drowned out by a huge and enveloping noise, like the earth had been holding its breath for millions of years and suddenly gasped.
Michel was next to the crater and Axe saw him fling his body back. Water splashed high into the sky and at first Axe thought that there had been an explosion. She jumped to her feet and ran for him. Michel scrambled back, his eyes never leaving the crater that spat and hissed and howled, the noise the choked whine of a vortex in a narrow bath drain, except a thousand times larger and louder.
When Axe reached him he had found his feet, and still he stared at the crater. Now Axe stared, for a huge whirlpool had formed in the middle of the dark water, spinning at great speed, disappearing into a tail of black that drew down into the earth.
“Fuck …” said Michel.
“What’s happening!” yelled Axe above the noise. Half the water had disappeared already, while the rest roiled as it charged the circumference of the tapered, muddy hole. Pieces of rubbish sucked into the spout and displaced a fountain of muddy water that spat easily twenty feet into the sky.
“Must have opened a sinkhole! Step back,” said Michel.
Axe was transfixed and did not move. Michel took her by the waist and arm and pulled her back. Michel held onto her and they together watched the earth, screaming like a demon banshee, suck down in seconds a body of water that had accumulated across three days of torrential rain.
37
With a few week’s experience under his belt, Henry felt like an old-hand at mining. He had stopped bashing his head against the roof, and his technique when it was his turn on the pick or the digging boots had improved markedly. It had been over a week since Sergeant Lynch last told him he would never amount to a miner’s asshole, and so Henry now considered himself every bit the miner’s asshole, and perhaps even higher up the body of functions.
He and Rat Dick were meant to be hauling clay to the surface, but there had been a delay in the digging. That was par for the course. All manner of things slowed or stopped work. Sometimes they got the microphones out to listen for Jerry, who was digging his own tunnels. Sometimes they stopped to check structure or make repairs or sure up something that had started moving. Occasionally they had to haul out an injured man. There had been a handful of stops to pump groundwater. Two or three to evacuate for gas. Another two or three to bring down more tools to excavate and repair cave-ins.
Henry had learned not to waste his time asking why they were slowed down or stopped. They were moments to rest and be grateful he was not up top being shot at and not further along where the mine was less stable. He slumped back against the wooden boards lining the tunnel. His shirtless body was covered in sweat and clay. A little thread of muscle was starting to show on his upper arms.
“Fancy a bit of morning tea, Rat Dick?” said Henry.
His smaller companion looked across from where he rested. Henry pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded the sides of a small parcel.
“Cheese,” said Henry.
He wanted to make a joke, because rats ate cheese and Rat Dick was nicknamed for a rat—and Henry was offering him cheese. He could not think of anything, so he said, “Want some? Go ahead.”
“All right,” said Rat Dick, and took a piece from Henry’s outstretched hand. “Where’d you get this, then?”
“I traded some cigarettes for it with Shirley. Don’t know where he got it.”
“I don’t mind a bit of cheese, but I’d rather a fag any day,” said Rat Dick.
“Not me. Mom never liked smoking. Dad smoked all the time and she hated it. I guess I picked it up from her, not liking it. Only reason I smoked before was be
cause of the stink in the trenches. You just want to smell something other than what comes out of a horse’s ass. Or dead fellas.”
“You got a point there, Henry. I used to head to the latrines to smell something nice.”
Henry laughed. “I hardly smoke any at all now. I use ’em for trading. Cheese, socks, paper, I’ve been getting all sorts of stuff. Here, look. Got this, too.”
Henry put the handkerchief down and reached into his other pocket. He pulled out a small figurine. He held it up and admired it.
“It’s Saint Rasha. Patron saint of mines and miners.”
“Can I’ve some more cheese?”
Henry nodded. Rat Dick leaned over and took another piece. He put it in his mouth and chewed.
“Saint Rasha, you say?”
“Yep. Patron saint of miners. I carry him with me everywhere. Good luck. Keeps me safe. And you. All of us.”
“Have us a look?” said Rat Dick.
“Don’t break him.”
Henry handed the figurine to Rat Dick. It was a cheap and crude mold of a man leaning on an umbrella. The face was unmistakably populated with the features of a pig. Rat Dick turned and looked at Henry in the same inquisitive way as he examined the figurine.
“You know he’s got an umbrella, don’t you?” said Rat Dick.
“Yep. To keep himself dry. Like us in here.”
“That right? Well, what about the pig face?”
“That’s not a pig face. His face is just all squished in where a mine collapsed, but he walked out. That’s the story I heard,” said Henry.
“And his name is Saint Rasha?” said Rat Dick.
Henry nodded enthusiastically. “Patron saint of miners.” He put the last piece of cheese in his mouth and chewed noisily.
“Sorry to tell you this, Henry, but I think someone was pulling your leg.”
“What do you mean? Ain’t that Saint Rasha?”
“Well, I suppose it could be. Suppose a sculpture can be named whatever you like. But there’s no Saint Rasha in the Church. And no saint with a pig face. Or an umbrella. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have our sorts of umbrellas back in the old days. Dead giveaway. As for Rasha, well, hell, didn’t you do any Church learning?”
“Course I did. All the bloody time,” said Henry, his back up.
“And you remember a Saint Rasha?”
“Not especially. But I don’t remember half the things they told us. I went to church, that’s all a fella should have to do. I’m not a theo-whatsisface. I can’t be expected to remember all the saints and stories.”
“You make a fair point, Henry, you do. But you’re telling me you didn’t notice this little blighter has a pig face, and his name is Rasha, as in, a rasher of bacon?”
Henry snatched the figurine from Rat Dick and held it close to his eyes. After a while, he said, “That bastard. Two packs, I gave him! Son of a … He does look like a pig. Saint bloody Rasha. I bet there is no Saint Rasha!”
Rat Dick smiled and nodded. “Saint Barbara.”
“Hey?” said Henry.
“Patron saint of miners,” said Rat Dick. “Sweet old Saint Barbara.”
Rat Dick reached across and plucked a small round rock from the floor of the tunnel. He looked at it, then held it up. “Have you ever heard of Saint Rock, Henry?”
Henry looked at him, his lips making a single flat line, then Rat Dick smiled and Henry smiled, and Rat Dick laughed and Henry laughed, too.
“Silly blighter,” said Rat Dick.
“Yeah, I suppose that does make me a silly blighter. And there I was thinking Saint Rasha was keeping me safe all this time!”
Henry looked at the figurine and shook his head. He threw it on the floor of the tunnel. The little pig man landed face first in the clay.
“Bloomin’ pig with an umbrella. I’ll be,” said Henry, but then an unexpected noise rushed up to Henry and Rat Dick from the depths of the mine.
Any unexpected noise in a mine meant trouble. It sounded like timber breaking and earth falling. The two men looked down the tunnel.
“You hear that?” said Rat Dick.
“Sounds like a cave-in.”
They got to their feet and waited, then it came, the rush of wind that made a dirty breeze, and they knew there had indeed been a cave-in. Both of them started at a lope down the tunnel, but then they saw men coming through the dim light, not loping toward them, but sprinting.
“Run!” screamed the first man. “Flood! Run!”
There were others behind and they were running and screaming, too. Henry stood there, not really understanding.
What sort of flow could there be? A bit of ground water? Shouldn’t they get the pumps set up?
And then he looked down and realized there was already a trickle of water at his feet, then the men were almost upon him and that is when the tunnel seemed to explode. Brown and black overtook the running men and swept them from their feet. It hit Henry and Rat Dick, not a current but a wall that was men and wood and mud and tools and rubbish. It was water—and it was trying to drown them.
Henry could not see. He slammed up and down as things battered his twirling body and he did not know how long it lasted till it spat him out, then he was waist deep and flailing and the water still poured forth, carrying him. The electrical lights lining the tunnel were no longer shining and the flames of the lamps had not survived the inundation. He was in the dark. He groped for a wall. He heard men calling and did not know from where.
“Henry! You ok, Henry?!”
It was Rat Dick. He seemed a long way away.
“Yeah!” Henry screamed back, not knowing which way to turn his head to call. He spat out water, mud and grit that had lodged in his mouth and throat.
The flow of water finally lessened and stopped, so that there was no flow at all, just a resting body of water. That only lasted a few seconds before it switched and started pulling gently back, then not gently—fast and savage. Even though it was waist deep and quickly reduced to knee deep, it meant to drag him to the depths of the earth and pits of hell, so Henry gripped a rafter and held on for dear life. He kept holding on till well after the tide had subsided and he was just lying there in the dark and the mud.
He lay still and spat and panted until men with lanterns came running down the shaft. Someone picked him up by the scruff of the neck and saw he was all right and kept moving. More men and light followed. When he was ready, Henry started to make his way out on his own two shaky legs.
He reached the high-water mark where the lights were still on, a clear line that separated mud and rubbish from what now seemed gloriously dry and clean ground. Henry saw a little figurine lying on its back. He picked it up and rolled it around in his hand until some of the mud was gone. He saw a stupid little pig face looking up at him.
Henry put Saint Rasha—patron saint of miners, despite what anyone said—in his pocket and promised that he would never take another step in an ungodly mine without him.
38
Michel and Axe joked about it: the hole that nearly swallowed them. It would have been the most unlikely and surprising of the many ways to die during a war—sucked into the earth like a cockroach caught in a drain.
Ken did not joke. When he recovered from the shock of what he had witnessed, he told Michel and Axe about Namazu, the giant catfish who lived beneath the ground, normally beneath the islands of Japan but it was possible he had followed the chaos of the European war, because Namazu liked chaos.
The god Kashima normally kept Namazu at bay by throwing huge boulders at his fat head—especially if Namazu misbehaved, though sometimes for no reason, just to remind him who was boss. But when Kashima was busy or distracted, Namazu got worked up and thrashed his body beneath the earth, causing earthquakes and tidal waves and even whirlpools.
Ken did not know if Namazu was responsible here, but it was possible—and he would not let Michel convince him otherwise. He refused to go anywhere near the lip of the empty crater in case Namazu was n
ot finished.
Michel stood at the lip and peered down and described a big catty, fishy eye blinking. He laughed at his own humor, but Ken did not laugh or smile. He stormed off. Axe told Michel to stop being such a brute, that different people believe different things and to let Ken be. It started them talking, and so they continued, yet never about the only thing on either of their minds.
They spoke nothing of the future—as if to do so would extinguish the present and whatever small joy they found in each other’s company. But they both knew. Axe would return to Rotterdam and her fiancée—if she survived the war.
That was her choice, to stay as long as she could. Michel would not seek to dissuade her. If she had to die to fulfil some notion of debt to the idea of a family that no longer was, so be it. And though it would be tragic and desperately sad, that was on Axe, not him.
On the other hand, Axe had no doubt that for all Michel’s ability to introspect and reflect he was, first and foremost, a good and loyal soldier who would return to the front and keep fighting so that people like her did not have to live in thrall, so they could make their lives as they saw fit, not the lives their German kommandanturens allowed them to live.
Axe taught Michel the Dutch saying central to the mindset of the men and women of the Low Countries: leef en laat leven. Michel instantly liked it: to live and let live. It was exactly how he felt. It was exactly who he was—or imagined himself to be. Just as soon as the war was done with and he did not have to kill anymore, he would make it his mantra.
A pleasant rhythm formed, the days and then weeks passing peaceably. Ken proved a fine addition. He was an entertainer with his many legends and stories, a reliable provider with his archery skills that bagged rabbit, pigeon and duck, and he continued to teach Michel tai chi. It helped with Michel’s flexibility after his many injuries.
Ken declared Michel a good student, while also declaring that all European men had bad balance, bad movement and bad energy. Michel knew to take none of it personally, while Ken himself was apt to take everything personally, until assuaged that no slight or disrespect was intended.
Michel And Axe Bury The Hatchet (The French Bastard Book 2) Page 16
