Twilight of Gutenberg

by Hitoshi Goto

  Mr. Hoffman was unusually nervous.

  “This is my employee Eva, Herr Wolf”

  Wolf? Like the animal… he must be twenty years older than me. I’m not into old men.

  She smiled and shook hands with him. Mr. Wolf started talking about some play at the national theatre, but Eva wasn’t much interested and only pretended to listen. Finally he stopped talking, and offered to see her home. She refused politely, and he left in his Mercedes.

  That was Eva’s first meeting with Adolf Hitler.

  July 1941

  Azabu Ward, Tokyo

  Yagyu got off the tram outside the Azabu First Infantry Regiment barracks. He glanced at the sentry standing in front of the gate, and set off for Ryotei, the high-end traditional restaurant in Ryudocho where the meeting was due to take place. He sighed, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. The sun had gone down some time ago, but the air was still as heavy as it had been at midday. An evening shower might have eased it a little, but today the cumulus clouds that had been gathering since midday didn’t produce a storm. The humidity clung to his skin. Just as well he hadn’t been assigned to a submarine, he thought with feeling.

  Nevertheless, it was an extraordinary summons.

  Whenever Admiral Yamamoto took him to restaurants they were for the most part in places like Tsukiji or Shinbashi, and he had no memory of having been brought to this one before. The location he’d been instructed to go to was, of all places, right beside the barracks for the Azabu First and Third Infantries. It was close enough to the Admiral’s home in Aoyama, but it wasn’t far from the site of the 1936 plot by the young army officers in the 26 February Incident, and the Nogi Shrine, dedicated to General Nogi who committed suicide after the Meiji emperor’s death, was nearby too. Many top officials from the Home Office and high-ranking army officers lived here in Ryudocho. It was the army’s turf, he thought, and felt out of place.

  What’s more, they were currently incredibly busy with settling the plan of operations for a possible war with America, starting with an attack on Pearl Harbour. Surely at such a time the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet wouldn’t be throwing a party for staff officers? What was most surprising was that the invitation had come directly from Admiral Yamamoto himself. He’d been told not to breathe a word to anyone else about it. This summons was really unusual, Yagyu felt keenly.

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead again, and started walking. The evening cicadas chirred as if yearning for the sun that had just set.

  He arrived at the appointed place. It was a cosy looking upmarket traditional restaurant like many of those around Kagurazaka. No sign or lantern hung by the entrance. There was no light other than the feeble streetlight and the moon shining through the stagnant air. This was definitely the right address. He started to walk through the gate, then stopped. He had the feeling that once through, he would never be able to come back to this side again. Why was that? In the far distant past, humans had been creatures living in the sea. Putting a good spin on it as a naval officer, he’d say that his genes from the times when we were primitive organisms living in the sea were trying to tell him something.

  Nevertheless, he was a staff officer of the Combined Fleet and this was an order from his commander. Yagyu steeled himself and went through the gate.

  March 1943

  Wewelsburg, Germany

  A curtain hung from the ceiling. It was a “blanket of the dark” like that invoked by Lady Macbeth at Inverness Castle. The gold stars painted on the curtain glittered in the light of burning torches placed in the four corners of the hall.

  But it was cold. The chill came creeping up through the feet of the audience as they shivered in the wooden seats.

  A bell sounded. The drama would be starting soon.

  The audience gazed at the specially constructed stage, their faces tense.

  A typical farming area in Westphalia. At the top of the hill, past the bucolic cluster of snow-covered farmhouses, there was a clearing. Densely packed cobbles were peeping through the snow where it had been removed to make just enough space for a car to pass.

  There, a visitor stood before an imposing castle that radiated intimidation. Its round, snow-covered towers clearly originated from the Middle Ages when it had been the base of the prince electors. This castle was the hub of the Black Order that ruled the Third Reich.

  The knights would hear the small bell in the clock tower chime as they crossed over the bridge that described a wide arc to the left over a dry moat. Having reached the other side and passed the stone sentry box, there was a massive wooden gate.

  Past this gate was the inner courtyard, also cobbled, and flanked on three sides by walls connected by three towers. Two of these had domed roofs, while the third was lower and wider, constructed as a fort. On the third tower the flag of the Schutzstaffel, with its signature SS in stylized runes, flew against the backdrop of the grey sky that looked as if it would burst into tears at any moment.

  A solid oak door led from the courtyard into a majestic space, one of the biggest of many rooms, that served as the dining hall. A huge table sat in the centre, with large wooden chairs placed at regular intervals around it. All were like thrones, with plush, leather upholstered seats, and silver plates engraved with the names of the occupants of each affixed to the backs.

  There were thirteen seats in emulation of King Arthur’s knights. No one other than Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and twelve SS officers were allowed to sit at this table.

  Right above the spacious dining hall were Heinrich Himmler’s personal quarters, where he surrounded himself with his collection of weapons and writings devoted to the occult.

  Beneath the hall was a small chapel. This small and slightly musty room was the domain of the dead, and housed twelve empty pedestals. Whenever one of the twelve people chosen by Himmler died, that person’s family crest would be burned and the ashes put into an urn and placed on a pedestal, to be worshipped forever more by future generations of the SS. Himmler shared the Catharist belief in reincarnation, and believed he was the reincarnation of Heinrich I.

  And now, “Parsifal” was to be performed before the top five SS members, gathered to celebrate an auspicious event.

  February 1945

  Dresden, Germany

  At first he thought it was just the usual bombers passing overhead.

  Just then the music program on the radio was interrupted for an announcement that a fleet of bombers flying in formation had been detected.

  He looked up from the patient’s notes in his hand and sighed as he glanced over at the clock on the wall: 21:55. So which industrial zone would it be tonight?

  No, this time it was different.

  The announcer repeated four times, his voice shrill, Achtung! Achtung! Achtung! Achtung!

  That must mean the target was… here.

  What the hell?

  Just as he cursed, the siren started. Berlin had been targeted a number of times, but not Dresden. How ironic that those Anglo Saxons would attack Saxony!

  He felt the world outside grow light outside.

  He rushed over to the window and pulled open the curtain. A dazzling light streamed through the glass, crisscrossed with tape to fortify it against air raids.

  Flares came raining down as if celebrating Christmas out of season. Trace after trace lit up the pitch-black night. It was beautiful, but he didn’t have time to indulge in sentimentality. Those were angels of death.

  He hastily made his way to the hospital’s underground bunker.

  A separate shelter was provided for ordinary patients, but this one was limited to the top-ranked staff of the hospital. In the end, he was the only one who took refuge here. He used all his strength to pull the door open, went in, and turned on the switch inside. At that moment, a fan started operating.

  He pushed the heavy metal door clos
ed after him, and sighed.

  It was a dreary room, with some chairs and enough food and water to last a few days.

  And then the underground bunker began swaying like a ship to the muffled sound of explosions outside.

  The lights went out, and a weaker light came on. Being for the use of prominent people from the party and government, this hospital had its own generator, which had now kicked in.

  The flares must have been dropped by vanguard planes. The real thing would start soon.

  The hair-raising wail of sirens. The roar of planes flying in formation. A series of thuds like the percussion instruments in an orchestra—that must be from our own anti-aircraft artillery. The sound of things splitting the air as they fell—bombs?

  A brief silence, then a loud ratatatat like a drum sounding from the bottom of his belly. Noise. The bunker shook. Dust and a wave of heat came through the fan into the bunker.

  The refrain continued in an endless hell.

  For that night-time air raid on Dresden, the British Royal Air Force mobilised 1,400 planes. It was a resounding success, with only minimal interception and resistance on the part of the Germans

  However, the hell wasn’t over yet.

  Next it was the Americans’ turn to send 1,350 planes targeting Dresden. By the time the US Air Force had departed, normal life was finished in the city. As the smoke wafted slowly through the ruins, the beautiful Baroque city of Dresden, on a par with Prague, had been reduced to desolate rubble. All that was left were the mangled metal beams of destroyed buildings, and the hollow remains of structures with no windows or roofs.

  Along with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this air raid on Dresden marked another tragic chapter in the history of genocide of ordinary citizens.

  When he was sure the air raid had finally finished, he opened the steel door.

  There was nothing left of the hospital. Soot and ash filled the air, and the sun reflected off glass fragments scattered over the ground. There was no sign of anyone around, it was as if the whole town had died out. There was an indefinable, viscerally disgusting stench, like burned protein. The smell of death was dispersed in the air around him.

  He took a step out onto the desolate rubble of the ruins, and unsteadily made his way to the room where he had been looking at a patient’s notes when the air raid had started. When he finally managed to get to it, all that was left was the metal doorframe, twisted by the heat. The room itself had been was reduced to ash, maybe burned in the heat of a Superflamer incendiary bomb.

  Everything was gone.

  He stood rooted to the spot in his white doctor’s coat, now covered in soot and dust.

  His patient’s notes had been lost.

  Hertha Rindt, a woman from Bavaria who had come for her second pregnancy check-up.

  Had she made it back to Munich? Or could it be that…?

  Chapter 1

  Memorandum

  The back clouds of war over Europe had finally cleared, and I, too, had returned to Paris. How time flies! It was already ten years since I’d first come to the City of Flowers.

  I’d decided to do my best to keep notes of everything that happened to me daily since I left Japan. So far I had a total of ten notebooks, yellowing in order of age. As I turned their pages, various memories came back to me.

  Ten long years, yet they went by so fast. The way people feel about time is relative, but experiencing so many things the days flashed by like arrows.

  I came to this country as an artist, but it just so happened that I travelled all over Europe during the war and had a number of mysterious experiences, and even ended up going on an adventure that endangered my life. Fortunately I survived that ordeal and managed to solve the puzzle of complexly intertwined events. Or rather, maybe I should say that I solved everything but the biggest puzzle, the one that still eluded me. In truth a significant part of my deductions must have come close to solving it, yet still it remained hidden behind a thick veil.

  Peace had returned to Europe, but that unsolved puzzle might still cause ripples in history in the future.

  That is why I must make a record of it while my memory is still fresh, and make it as detailed and accurate as possible. I’ll go through the pile of notebooks before me summarizing everything that happened.

  †

  I’ll start with my parents, and the circumstances that led me to travel to Europe.

  I was born in Omihachiman, near to Lake Biwa. My father was from a family of shopkeepers, but my mother was of samurai lineage. Having inherited the blood of merchants, my father worked in a small trading company. He travelled not just to Tokyo and Osaka, but all over the world on business, and was hardly ever at home. Therefore, the role of a father figure fell also to my mother. She evidently took pride in being a woman from a samurai family. She was strict about manners, and never tired of speaking of the mindset of Bushido and a fondness of nature. For all that I’ve led a bohemian lifestyle since going to Tokyo and then on to Paris, however, I have always had a firm, upstanding pillar at my core. And I have my mother to thank for that.

  The town where I was born and brought up, however, was somewhat unusual. Its traditional style houses could be found all over the country, but what was different was the presence of an American, William Merrell Vories. He first came to Omihachiman in 1905. To begin with he was an English teacher at the Prefectural Hachiman Commercial High School, but eventually he started up a Bible Study group, established the Omi Mission, and carved out a path for himself in architectural design and the sale of medical supplies. Along with preaching the gospel of Christ, he designed a number of Western-style buildings, including many that still stand in the Omi area today. Yes, that is what made Omihachiman different, an unusual town that aroused my interest in other countries.

  Omi is also synonymous with Lake Biwa. Local kids would go swimming in the lake at any opportunity. They would also enjoy playing war games brandishing bamboo swords. Even now, as I went through my memories of those times, I could smell the manure scattered over the rice paddies and the heady fragrance of plants.

  I didn’t exactly dislike playing those war games, but I liked writing and drawing better. For a while I used only brush and ink, but then my father brought me a set of oil paints back from one of his business trips to America. Ever since, whenever I had a little spare time I would paint. I particularly liked to sit in the shade of a tree on the lakeshore and paint the lake and mountain scenery of my hometown. My favourite season for painting was when the chirring of insects gave way to the continuous sound of the so-called rainfall cicadas that were so evocative of autumn showers. Then the green leaves of the trees gradually turned red and eventually fluttered down to carpet the ground. Red dragonflies and birds frolicked in the sunset. This everyday yet richly evocative scene had brought tears to my eyes even as I painted it.

  Apart from the presence of Mr. Vories, the experience of our family having spent almost two years living in London for my father’s work was also a big factor in my developing an interest in foreign countries. My sister had been at an impressionable age and became extremely proficient in English, but by the time we returned to Japan I was still too young to be able to remember, and the experience disappeared from my memory without any discernable trace. Nevertheless, I do think it’s true that the experience of a foreign country was engraved on my memory genes somewhere.

  Our house was typical of the old merchant’s plots in Omi, so while it looked modest from the front, it went back a long way. In the middle was a gourd-shaped pond with goldfish darting friskily around, and with an old storehouse facing onto it. My father refurbished the storehouse and made it into his own domain. None of us were allowed into it, but I sometimes used to sneak in when he wasn’t around. He kept various cultural items he’d bought around the world in there. In retrospect he must have anticipated that I would sneak in there. It was a pla
ce that for me held an air of secrecy, an especially thrilling treasure trove. Even now my nostrils recall its musty smell in detail.

  Early one afternoon I went into the storehouse and was standing before the bookshelf on the right. There was a bookshelf on the left, too, but that was mostly Japanese books, while here there were a lot of Western books. I couldn’t understand what was written in them, but I liked these books the best. I wasn’t tall enough to reach any higher than the third shelf from the bottom. The ones I could get hold of all had mysterious horizontal writing in them, but I just liked looking at the maps and illustrations in them.

  That particular day I made a discovery. For the first time I managed to reach as high as the fourth shelf. I stretched my hand up and felt a thick volume. Before I knew it I was dripping sweat. At last I managed to grab hold of that thick volume with my left hand, and pulled it off the shelf. I held it in my hands, feeling its weight, a foreign book with a proper binding, and strange lettering that twisted and turned. And at its centre a picture of a young woman stared up at me. Looking back, that must have been a collection of the Art Nouveau posters by the Czech artist Alfons Mucha. Absorbed, I started leafing through it. All of the paintings were of women depicted in voluptuous lines. Those graceful, sensuous figures were probably far too strong a stimulus for me, brought up in the countryside of Omi. A shiver ran up my spine. My breathing quickened, and I even checked to see if someone was watching me from behind.

  Thinking back, that was both my introduction to Europe and my sexual awakening.

  After graduating from my local high school, I decided to go to Tokyo to embark on formal art studies at a municipal art school. There were three subjects of training, with Nihonga and sculpture as well as Western-style painting. Even now I feel my father was extraordinarily accepting of my wish to spend my life dedicated to painting and books. Even I myself couldn’t believe that I’d be able to earn my living through painting alone. He probably thought that my elder sister’s marriage to a naval officer who had graduated from the Imperial Naval Academy at Edajima with excellent grades was enough to keep up appearances. I can say that thanks to my sister, despite being a boy I was able to enter a world that at the time was considered effete. Even so, my mother was staunchly opposed to it. Even after it had been settled that I would go to Tokyo she lamented having her boy, from good samurai lineage, going into art and books, of all things.