Twilight of Gutenberg

by Hitoshi Goto

  “Hmm,” Lieutenant Schmidt said, folding his arms.

  “I see what you mean. In other words…”

  “Yes. It’s just a hunch, but I think it’s possible she met that man.”

  †

  The weather was fine the next day too. Lieutenant Schmidt arrived punctually, and after greeting me said, “Mr. Hoshino, I must say you’ve become quite French, haven’t you?” handing me the car key with a wry smile.

  “How I envy you! I remember the wife I left behind in Germany. I have no option but to help you investigate the fear you mentioned yesterday evening. That’s an order.”

  “But you’re letting me go off on my own?”

  “Well, how should I put it? Perhaps I should say I’m being discreet,” he said with feigned innocence. “We have confirmed her identity. Her name is Catherine Tellier, from Saint-Malo on the French mainland. From the beginning of this year, we’ve gone full steam ahead with the fortification of the Channel Islands, bringing in a lot of labourers from the mainland. A German army division is stationed here too, so of course we need cooks to work in the lodgings for the soldiers and the labourers. She was one of them, and until just recently she was waiting at table in the hotel catering to the German army. Since the Manteuffel’s maid suddenly died, though, they were in urgent need of a replacement, and they were probably concerned that another British woman might be suspected of being a spy. The military received a request from Marquis von Manteuffel for someone who wasn’t British, you see. She was chosen from amongst the French girls for her excellent work ethic.”

  Having been loaned the car by Lieutenant Schmidt, I again visited Marquis von Manteuffel’s mansion, and after expressing my appreciation for the friendship between Japan and Germany especially politely, I took Catherine out.

  That day was indeed the best day of my life.

  To avoid being seen, we drove around the western part of the island where there were relatively few houses. Since I wore dark sunglasses, nobody appeared to take me for a Japanese, and the islanders paid me little attention. Although our car probably was noted as it was rare to see any non-military vehicles.

  We stopped the car wherever we pleased, and chatted while I sketched. We talked about the town of Saint-Malo, Jacques Cartier, Quebec—a place I’d never been to—and he way the lifestyle of the French people who settled on the Ile d’Orleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River near Quebec City, in the 17th century is still maintained today. Catherine had been nervous to begin with, but gradually she began to open up as we talked.

  “In Canada we lost to the British, but there are still French territories left on the American continent, you know, such as the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon,” puffing out her chest, the image of proud Frenchwomen ever since Joan of Arc.

  At midday, in the shade of the forest, we opened up the hamper of sandwiches prepared for us by the hotel. It was very English, and even if it didn’t taste of much it was unaffected by the wartime food shortages, with thickly cut cucumber, tomato that for some reason appeared to have been parboiled, and overly salty smoked salmon. If we crossed the Channel there were raw oysters with a squeeze of lemon and boiled shrimps, so why was it that British food on the whole was so unappetizing? To tell the truth this was an eternal puzzle to me. Or maybe there was some secret behind it. When I said this to Catherine, she laughed with genuine amusement.

  “You’re right. I can cook better than that!”

  The dreamlike time was flashing by, and before I knew it the conversation had turned to matters related to the case in hand.

  Catherine had started working in that mansion a short time after the previous British maid had died in an accident, she said.

  According to her, Marquis von Manteuffel had long experience of the diplomatic life and his manners were extremely refined.

  “Come to think of it, there were two or three things that bothered me,” she said. “In that room there is a writing desk and a number of low bookcases, and it looks as though it should be his study, but in the time I’ve been working there he has spent practically all his time in the library next to the living room. And if you look closely at the carpet in that room, there are clear marks suggesting that a single bed had been in there for quite a long time, and probably until quite recently. That’s in the front of the room, and further in too there are marks in the carpet of something having been placed there for a long time.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Not as big as a bed, but a rectangular piece of furniture with four legs.”

  “Was there anything else that was strange?”

  “Yes, those two landscapes hanging in the room. When I was cleaning them with a feather duster, I happened to see behind the frames.”

  “And?”

  “There weren’t any marks on the wall. If they’d been hanging there for a long time, the sunlight wouldn’t have reached behind the frame, so the colour of the wallpaper there would be a bit different from the rest of the wall. In other words, there hadn’t been any pictures hanging in that room until recently.”

  I was taken aback by her detective-like powers of deduction.

  “And there’s something else. That couple’s mental state is strange,” she went on.

  “Strange?”

  “Since I was conscripted and brought to this island, I’ve been waiting tables at the hotel used by the German army, but ten days ago they told me to go to that house instead. That was about a week after the previous maid had died. Yet the wife was still really down about it.”

  “Isn’t that to be expected when the maid who had been working for her for two years died in an accident?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s all there is to it. I don’t mean to be rude to the deceased maid, but I get the feeling it’s too much to expect that someone from an aristocratic family would grieve the death of one of their servants… it’s just a hunch, but I get the feeling that something else happened to make her sad.”

  Now that she said it, I thought so too. Why such a show of grief over the death of a maid, even if they had been fond of her?

  “Come to think of it,” Catherine said, apparently having remembered something else. “They’re going back to Germany soon. Apparently they’ve been ordered to go by someone called Ribbentrop.

  The evening sun was setting over the horizon. We were standing on the westernmost tip of the island.

  “Catherine, there’s something else you haven’t told me about, isn’t there?”

  We’d started the day by addressing each other formally as “vous,” but now we’d slipped into the more familiar “tu.”

  She didn’t say anything for a while. I took hold of her shoulders, and I realised there were tears in her eyes.

  “You met Commander Yagyu, didn’t you?” I asked her point blank.

  August 1943

  London

  London had been hammered by strong wind and rain all morning, but it cleared up in the afternoon. It was chilly enough to feel the effect of the autumn in this northern land and it was hard to believe the sun was shining above the thick heavy cloud layer.

  Rear Admiral Rushbrook of naval intelligence had been gazing out of the window at the leaden sky for a while, but now turned his attention to the pile of reports on his desk and began reading.

  On his desk was a fine bone china Spode cup and saucer, fragrant steam rising from the Darjeeling tea in it. Every time he turned a page, the steam yielded to the faint tremble in the air, wavered its way up to the ceiling, and dissipated.

  Three knocks sounded on the door. It was Lieutenant West, an NID officer from Hut 4 in charge of intelligence in the Far East.

  The huge lieutenant was well over six foot tall and had a body toughened by playing rugby, yet he was cowering from nerves. Impatient to get the pleasantries over and done with, he said, “Rear Admiral, a report has come
in.”

  Rushbrook reached for his teacup. “The tension is written all over your face,” he said with a wry smile. “You need a poker face to work in intelligence, you know. You’ll never win at cards at that rate! So, where is it this time? German u-boat activity in the Indian Ocean around where it meets the Atlantic? Or are that RAAF lot screaming about the Japanese air force plans to bomb Darwin in Australia?”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s about Hamlet.”

  An unhappy expression appeared on the Rear Admiral’s face. “It’s been three weeks now, hasn’t it? Hamlet hasn’t arrived in London….”

  “That’s right. It’s about the plan to fly him from Gibraltar over Spain, then follow the French coast northwards—but flying low to avoid the radar they got caught in a strong westerly and had to make an emergency landing in Guernsey.”

  Rushbrook frowned. “That’s why we got Special Ops to send them the Lysander, isn’t it? Although now it’s also missing, along with Hamlet.”

  “There’s been contact from Guernsey.”

  “What? Why didn’t you say so right away?” Rushbrook couldn’t hide his surprise, and put his teacup down on the saucer with a clatter.

  “Hamlet himself is missing, but the letter entrusted to him has been found. It’s in the keeping of a local woman, who should be handing it over to our agent any time now.”

  Rushbrook half rose from his seat. “Send in a rescue right now!”

  “It’s already on its way. We’ve dispatched a Midget submarine that should reach the island before dawn tomorrow.”

  Memorandum

  It was in the evening seven days earlier when Catherine came across Commander Yagyu. Over ten days had passed since he’d been spotted on the beach.

  It was in the west of the island. She had been given a half-day holiday by the Manteuffels, and she’d headed west avoiding the no-go areas to a small village called Les Fontaines. Her mother’s name happened to be Fontaine, and the name aroused a feeling of nostalgia in her.

  She was pedalling her bike along the practically deserted country lanes when she suddenly heard a voice coming from the trees on her left. Doubtfully she got off her bike and went over to the trees.

  At first sight she’d honestly had to wonder if he was even human, with such black hair, hollow eyes and cheeks, and face covered in black stubble, and she took a step back out of fright. Then he surprised her by reciting a poem by Verlaine in the original French.

  “Just a minute. How did he know you were French?” I asked, interrupting her account.

  “I suppose it’s because I was humming a French song as I rode my bicycle. As soon as I heard that poem, I knew he wasn’t a bad person.”

  Catherine went up to him timidly. He introduced himself as a Japanese naval officer who was on his way to Britain. He spoke French, albeit with a strong accent. She asked him the obvious question, “But what are you doing out here?”

  He explained that he had left Gibraltar headed for England over two weeks ago. However, they’d unfortunately run into bad weather and had crash-landed just off the coast of the island. The plane had been lost at sea, but he the English pilot had managed to swim ashore.

  This was originally a British territory, and there were English spies and sympathisers here that he could contact in an emergency. He had gone to a house the pilot told him about and had thus managed to inform London of what had happened, and it had been decided to send a rescue plane in.

  One thing I had been vaguely wondering about ever since departing from Berlin was now settled. How come he’d been able to travel from Japan to Europe in just over forty days even in wartime? The answer was simple: he had been brought in Allied planes. Given that they’d departed from Gibraltar, it was possible to imagine the rest of the route. From Japan he’d somehow travelled to Burma or nearby, made contact with the British, then gone through India, Egypt, Malta, and Gibraltar…

  But why had he been travelling in enemy planes?

  “How could they possibly use the airfield now it’s under German control?” I asked.

  “I asked the same thing. He told me the British military have a personnel transporter plane called a Lysander, which apparently has a high STOL capacity.”

  “STOL?”

  Catherine smiled. “Snap again. I asked that, too. It stands for ‘Short take-off and landing.’ Even if the terrain is uneven, it can take off and land with a short runway length.”

  However, his run of bad luck continued. Two days later the Lysander arrived in the middle of the night but ran into bad weather—and then something else unexpected happened and the plane failed to take off, and crashed into the sea.”

  “Something else unexpected?”

  “Yes, but he refused to say any more. All he said was, ‘If the Gestapo hadn’t disturbed us, it would have been mission accomplished.’”

  The Gestapo?

  “He was even unluckier this time. Both the pilot who had come to meet them and the pilot he was already with sank out to sea. He was the only one who managed to swim to land.”

  “And again asked for help?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “The previous rescue had been staged because the British pilot had made all the contacts. He himself hid in the woods. It’s true, a Japanese man wandering around the island would cause an uproar. So he didn’t know who was spying for the British. And this time he was alone. He was unable to move.”

  “What did he do, I wonder?”

  “According to him, the flight had been against the will of his government, so he couldn’t ask help from the German army. But there was no way the British on this island could know what a tricky situation he was in, so couldn’t ask for help from them either. The only possibly conclusion was…”

  “A French person?”

  “That’s right. He could speak French, and believed there must be some French people on the island. He’d read Les Miserables.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Catherine smiled. “One to me, eh? Victor Hugo spent time in exile on this island. It was here that he wrote that work.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “He drank only water, and waited for a French person to come along. More than ten days! I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t have anything to eat.”

  “Japanese military officers have probably been trained for that sort of situation.”

  Suddenly there was silence between us.

  “So what did he tell you?” I probed, but she didn’t raise her gaze.

  Eventually she took a deep breath. “When the second plane sank, the pilot who had brought him from Gibraltar told him to go to the ice cream parlour.”

  “And?”

  “It seems the owner’s a British informant. But he had no way of finding out where it was. And so he asked me.”

  “And you knew?”

  Catherine nodded. “According to him, his mission was to deliver a letter to the British. And what’s more, it was in order to quickly put an end to the war. I don’t know much about war, but I believe he was telling the truth. And finding an ice cream parlour wasn’t hard.”

  “So what did he do then?”

  “He passed me a letter wrapped carefully in oilpaper. As he did so, the tension left his body—he really did seem relieved. It was already pretty dark by that time, but he…”

  “He what?”

  “He headed for the beach.”

  “The beach?”

  “Yes, a beach on the west coast. Then he walked out to sea.”

  “Pourquoi?”

  “I asked him the same thing. He turned to look at me. He was smiling.”

  As I watched, Catherine’s eyes filled with tears.”

  I am under orders to deliver that letter to England. My mission is to carry out that order to the best of my abilities. And I believe that it is for
the benefit of Japan and the Japanese people. This means I must get as close to England as I can.)

  But if you come with me to the ice cream parlour, you’ll be able to get a plane or submarine to England.

  No, if I’m with you I’ll just be a hindrance. In order to even slightly raise the chances of success, it is better I don’t go with you. And what’s more… if a Japanese officer dies in the course of duty, they can return to Japan, to a place called Yasukuni Shrine. So I’m asking you to please make sure that letter reaches England. Well then, I’ll be on my way…

  So that was it. He had an iron will, conviction, and the ability to act. But what was it that had impelled him to do this? Someone had ordered him to come here—no, to go to England. However, he had a sense of mission that went beyond that. And he had clearly thought he was acting for the benefit of Japan and the Japanese people.

  Plus, orders were given by senior officers. His former superior had been Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who had died in battle in April. However, would Admiral Yamamoto give such an order? From Japan’s point of view, wasn’t this an act that would help the enemy? And Admiral Yamamoto was already dead when Commander Yagyu had left Japan,.

  So who, and why?

  I was confused.

  And then he started swimming.

  “Swimming to England?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  “Yes, he was headed directly for England. There was still some sunlight left on the western horizon, so I could see his head quite clearly as he swam. But eventually it became too small and… and… disappeared.”

  I waited for her to stop crying before asking what I had to ask. Where was the letter?

  She said that she herself had it. I asked her to give it to me, but she flatly refused. She insisted that she had to deliver it to the ice cream parlour. That had been the last vow she had made to the Japanese soldier who had disappeared into the waves, and faithfully carrying out that vow was the mission that she was now asking me to take on.

  After some deliberation, I understood. The task I’d been given was to go to the island and investigate to the best of my abilities what had happened on Guernsey, whether that had really been Yagyu, and if it had, what had he been doing there. In which case I had done what I had to do. And letting her go to the ice cream parlour was the only thing I could do for Commander Yagyu who had vanished into the ocean.