The Great War of the Quartet (The Imperial Timeline Book 1) (12 page)

“That is t
oo bad,” the middle-aged major said as he refilled his cup from the bottle of moonshine.

The war had exacerbated the lack of legal spirits
around this part of the country, and the authorities had turned an even bigger blind eye to the locals’ production of unlicensed liquor than before the war. There were hardly any big distilleries in Russian Turkestan, and most of the alcohol was produced in individual households to meet their own needs or by small groups of entrepreneurs who might make a marginal profit selling it at a higher price to Russians. The Russian soldiers in particular were the engines driving the moonshine business since Russians were far more avid drinkers than the Muslim Turks.

Major Ueno looked different from the other men, possibly since he
was the product of a union between a Chuuka army officer and a young bride from a small Kazakh community traditionally roaming the area between Kashgar and Dushanbe among the other peoples in that part of Shinkyou. His clothes were dusty and he had a beard that gave him a much more feral look than the cleanly shaved man Daryn had met on the other side of the border. He looked like an impoverished nomad rather than a major commanding a unit working under the Intelligence Department. Major Ueno was the commander of Daryn and around two dozen other agents, and he would send encoded radio messages with a shortwave radio to Japan to share whatever they found out. It was not impossible that the senior officers—generals and colonels—in the palaces in Hokukei would make decisions based in part on the small tidbits of information from the ground behind the Russian lines, and the men had to work as carefully as possible to acquire the information necessary to aid in the General Staff’s planning. If they could save just a few Japanese soldiers or kill a few Russians with their intelligence, then it would all be worth it.

Meryem
was feeling a little perturbed by the sudden appearance of the senior officers to see them after two whole days of wonderful peace and quiet in the small inn. She didn’t particularly like Captain Suzuki who almost constantly smoked cigarettes and almost never said anything, and the small, cramped room was becoming engulfed in a tobacco mist that irritated her throat. Like Meryem and Daryn, the captain came from Tekika rather than the Altay region that was home to most Japanese Kazakhs and most of Daryn’s comrades as far as she knew. She had met the major and the captain about half a dozen times, and she had only seen two or three other officers in the unit, but apart from that she knew hardly anything about Daryn’s comrades since he didn’t like to talk about it with her, and she didn’t ask.

Captain
Suzuki had an air of smugness about him, and she felt a little bad for passing judgment on such a quiet man, but he just seemed irksome to her in some way she could not quite articulate. He was surely nothing like Daryn who radiated manly courage and compassion. Like Ueno, Suzuki looked like a common impoverished nomad which made him look like one of the thousands of men who had no cattle of their own and who lived from one day to the next rather than an officer. She had seen neither of them shaved and dressed in army uniforms, so she thought of him as little more than man who looked dirty and smug.

“You have to be more persuasive,” Suzuki said, adding to the major’s disappointment that Daryn had not been able to persuade any of the local tribes to support them through sabotage or any other active means.

Meryem wanted to leap to Daryn’s defense as she could sense that the two men were not impressed by Daryn’s hard work that had been so fruitless so far. Why couldn’t they understand that people were genuinely afraid of the Russians? The Cossacks had put down the uprising that had taken place just as Meryem was learning to walk, and it had apparently been a horrific affair with the revolting tribes being punished even when just individual tribesmen had joined the noble fight against the foreign devils. Thousands had been shot, whipped, or otherwise slaughtered like animals, and she was sure that many of the tribes were afraid that the same thing would happen again if they dared to lay even a finger on the brutal Cossacks. As much as she resented cowardice in men, it wasn’t Daryn’s fault that the Kazakhs and many of the other tribes of this generations were unmanly and tame.

Despite her instinctive urge to defend her husband
as Ueno and Suzuki critically examined his work, she said nothing. Major Ueno frightened her and made her feel even smaller than she was while she sat on the bunk and listened to what the men were saying. Captain Suzuki would occasionally look over at her which made her quickly lower her head as if she was sitting in her own little world detached from the men’s conversation which she was following as best as she could, but some of the military language was difficult to comprehend. Some things were not, however, and when they shifted from talking about the past to the future, she was caught quite off guard.

“I want you to infiltrate Verniy
,” Ueno said as if it was the most casual thing he might have just thought of, like he just wanted Daryn to run down to the shop and get him a box of cigarettes.

Even
Meryem—a silly, know-nothing girl—knew that the city had become an enormous military base as the Russians had been gathering strength for the inevitable battle against the Imperial Army. How was he supposed to walk into that place crawling with nasty white devils? She had absolutely no desire of getting near the devils if she could help it, and she was sure that Daryn felt the same.

“I thought civilians were banned from entering
the city,” Daryn said, even though he suspected that Major Ueno was aware of the prohibition on “Turkmen” to enter the city and must have thought about that already.

“Not everyone,” Suzuki said
quietly before he took another drag on his cigarette.

“Do I need a permit?” Daryn asked
, assuming that his superiors already had a plan.

“I have one,” Ueno said, pulling out a small piece of paper
from the bag on the floor. “All authorized and rubber stamped,” he added quietly as he held it out towards Daryn. “I doubt anyone will try to verify it.”

“What kind of permit?” Daryn asked
as he accepted the papers.

He knew that the different kinds of permits could always make things tricky, especially since he often did not know things that he should kno
w. His standard cover story carried with it the danger of being unraveled if he ever came across with someone from Orenburg who felt nostalgic and would begin to talk about the city Daryn had never seen with his own eyes. Then he would only be able to hope to bluff his way out. Keeping things simple and without too much detail was safer than intricate cover stories with plenty of points to be examined and exposed as incorrect.

“Please understand that this was what we could think of,” the major said quickly, his eyes shifting between Daryn, his cup of vodka, and Suzuki.

“I understand,” Daryn said, wondering why his superior had turned so insecure all of a sudden while he examined the papers to see if he could figure it out.

“It’s a ‘pimp permit,’” Suzuki said
, as if he enjoyed spelling it out. “That’s about the only way you can get in without bringing something other than...”

Suzuki
’s voice died down, and his head somewhat awkwardly indicated something behind Daryn’s back, but he didn’t have to turn around to know what he meant. He could put two and two together. That explained why they asked Daryn and not someone else to go into the city.

“The alternative was some kind of other essential supplier, but you don’t exactly have any goods to show for it. It would be suspicious if you showed up with a trade permit withou
t any wares,” Ueno said, not looking as embarrassed as Captain Suzuki suddenly looked.

Meryem had tensed when Suzuki mentioned the word “pimp” and she waited impatiently for Daryn to say something
. She couldn’t imagine herself—or anyone else—buying that she was a prostitute, and certainly not someone traveling around with a pimp.

“The demand is high,” Major Ueno said as if he could see through
Meryem’s objection. “All the pimps of Verniy have been feverishly looking for girls for the garrison. No one will pay attention to another one.”

“The major doesn’t expect you to actually work,” Captain Suzuki mumbled in Meryem’s direction, not looking directly at her.

Tomoki assumed that most girls would balk at the idea of being labeled as that sort of women, and Lieutenant Ibrahim’s girl would probably not be special in that regard. Even if she might be some gutter rat, even those surely possessed a sense of dignity and purity and would rather die than be defiled.

“Oh, don’t be so childish,
” he scoffed.

“I—I’m not being childish,”
Meryem protested, turning her head to face the wall, sulking like a small child.

There was a long silence as she continued to face the wall while Daryn was l
ooking at her turned away head, waiting for her to stop being such a baby. Once the officers had left after breakfast they were once again free to talk among themselves, and she had been building up to unleash her feelings for some time until it was safe to do so. Meryem had hardly said a word since Major Ueno had shown up, and Daryn could feel her dislike for the scheme and the permit he had received even before she opened her mouth to object. It looked like the real deal, and as they said, no one would bother to investigate whether or not the permit was real.

“I don’t want to do this,”
Meryem muttered. “It’s... No one will think I’m like that,” she said.

Even the idea of such people was revolting to her, and she was horrified that the officers hadn’t batted an eye when they talked about nasty things. She was disgusted by selfish, unnecessary immorality, and virtually nothing could be more unnecessarily immoral than prostitution. It was so perverted, and she wanted nothing to do with it whatever. Even if it was just pretend. Just the filthy words hitting her mind made her skin crawl.

“There’s not really any uniform, you know,” Daryn pointed out.

“Do I look like a whore to you?” she asked, her voice dispassionately as she met his eyes head on
, her voice rather hostile by her standards.

Sometimes, she could be so childish, and Daryn would have hoped that she would be more mature when it came to important things. She had promised that she would not cause any trouble when she argued that he had to bring her along, yet now she was being quite combative and disobedient.

“You look like a woman,” Daryn said as he took another drag on his cigarette. “That’s enough of a disguise.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Meryem insisted. “Do you think I—?”

“There’s no such thing as looking like a whore,” he snapped,
Meryem instinctively flinching when he raised his voice on her like that. “A woman is a woman to a man in need!”

“Oh, so that’s what I am?”
Meryem demanded, sounding like she was going to cry. “I’m just a
woman
?!”

She was glaring at him as if she would jump for her gun to shoot him. As much as she loved him, she could not believe that he would say something like that.
Whatever happened to her being his beautiful, special little flower?

“To most people,” he said calmly
, resisting the urge to berate her for being so vain and silly about this. “You don’t think strangers think of you as their wife, do you?”

He had a way of talking as if he was the voice of God, and it made her feel stupid even when she felt that she had no reason to.
She was sure she was in the right. She knew she was.

“I don’t want to...”

Daryn pushed himself up off the bunk and walked over towards the table before he sat down at one of the low stools.

“Then go home,” he said. “If you’re scared
you should be home with your mommy.”

The way he said it—as well as what he said—made her wince.

“I’m not scared! I just...”

She lowered her head, unsure of why she wa
s making a big deal over this. After all, she had promised to do everything he asked her to do and to never complain when she talked him into letting her come. She couldn’t let her own feeling of discomfort at pretending to be a bad person get the best of her, could she? Because she was smaller and weaker than Daryn, she would have to do her best to make up for it with a strong spirit.

“I will do as you say
,” she mumbled quietly, “but you have to protect me.”

“Isn’t that what I am supposed to be doing?” he
asked with a smirk.

She nodded quickly, happy that he wasn’t giving her that dirty look.
It was always good to hear him say things that were comforting, even when she wasn’t happy with him. This was just so wrong, and she didn’t want to pretend to be a bad person. She wanted to be his good and loyal wife, not a depraved thing.

It was already dark when Isuzu climbed the stairs to the sma
ll apartment on top of the shop after she had closed for the night and barred the door. Because of the civilian inactivity at the train station and people’s lowered demand for lighters, postcards, and the other things the Shoji family was selling she had less work to do. As if the demand wasn’t enough, there was also the trouble of supply, and most popular items were becoming exceedingly rare or expensive on the wholesaler side to add to the lack of goods they could sell. Unfortunately, all of that meant having less money to spend on the business and the family, and the less money spent on goods, the less she had to sell.

Kazuko helped with the daily chores around the home
so Isuzu didn’t have to do everything when she closed the shop in the evening. Isuzu’s younger sister Otsu also helped out while Tatsuji had to focus on his studies so he would do well in the future. The money Father and Mother had saved over the years would hopefully last through his remaining two years at the prestigious Nogai Preparatory Academy. Isuzu was proud and hopeful of her younger brother being intelligent and hardworking enough to study, but so far his studies were a financial liability until he would be done and could find work as maybe a clerk or a junior official apprentice. Sadly, that possibility was still far off into the future, and for now she had to do what she could to help give her little brother the time and space to do well on his exams so he could dazzle an employer or government official with his great knowledge and be taken on as an apprentice boy.

Kan was still in
primary school, but he sometimes helped make deliveries for one of the neighboring merchants for a five rin coin or a couple of sen. It was Kan’s scant earnings and the income from the shop that fed the family, but Tatsuji’s education, their mother’s medicine, and the ordinary expenses still forced Isuzu to occasionally go to the bank, not to deposit like she and her mother had done when she was younger, but to withdraw money.

It felt stingy to not buy a single
war bond, but with Mother’s health, Tatsuji’s education, and Kazuko’s looming childbirth Isuzu didn’t dare waste money even for the patriotic cause of the nation—it wasn’t like she was an industrialist with millions of yen to waste. As soon as Ota and Sekiji would return home she was sure that things would be fine again, and she just had to keep the business and family in good health and everything would resolve itself. She was sure of it. She just had to work to keep the boat afloat until her big brother could take over the rudder and she could return to live with her husband and her in-laws again and be a good daughter-in-law and wife without big responsibilities.

Kan, Atsuko, and M
other were all sleeping in the little room, leaving the others with the big room for the night. Otsu was reading through one of Tatsuji’s expensive books next to where he was studying one of the other expensive books. He had to study hard for the upcoming exams at the end of the winter semester in a couple of weeks and ahead of the spring semester. Of the six Shoji children, it was Tatsuji whom Mother had pinned her hopes on. Sekiji was hardworking, but it was Tatsuji who had a gift for reading and was really smart too.

Maybe he could become a civil servant or a bank clerk, or a lawyer or an engineer? But the downside to his talent was that it had to be nurtured, and with Sekiji called up, only Kan and Isuzu could help him
exercise his brain by paying for the books that would fill it with important things like legalism, history, and literature for his exams. Even though Otsu was just a year older than 13-year-old Kan, there was no work waiting for her. She couldn’t work making deliveries and run errands for someone else. Isuzu sometimes asked her to help her with the shop, but she was much too young to replace her and she was so lazy and disinterested in helping out that it was hard for Isuzu to understand her. If Mother had been stronger she might have beaten some sense into her, but Isuzu didn’t dare hurt her little sister—that would probably hurt Isuzu more than it might hurt Otsu, and Isuzu hadn’t hit her siblings since the time when she had been an immature, selfish little child herself.

A
tsuko was even younger and less productive than Otsu, but she wasn’t necessarily lazy; she was just a little girl. Kazuko was marginally older than Isuzu and had to look after the house, and just baking bread and noodles kept her busy for much of the time. Isuzu felt a bit guilty that she did not have such a good hand at cleaning, cooking, and even keeping Atsuko in line so she wouldn’t get excited. She was sure that Kazuko would make a wonderful mother while Isuzu felt like she still needed to learn more about those things. Her difficulties with her two little sisters seemed proof that she was not a ready mother, and she couldn’t wait to be able to learn by serving as her mother-in-law’s workhorse.

Part of Isuzu was worried that things would be hard
on her family when Ota came back and she would return to her in-laws, but then Sekiji would be coming back at the same time no doubt, and by then Kazuko and he might be able to do things on their own. And maybe Mother would be better too? As often as she could, Isuzu went to the Inari shrine with Otsu, Atsuko, or, if they weren’t busy, one of her younger brothers after she had closed the shop for the night, and she tried to enlist all imaginable help from the neighborhood’s host of ancestral spirits and the great gods like Inari and the Imperial Ancestors.

Mother had always been so strong, and it was unnerving to see her lie so apathetic
and weak for most of the time. Kazuko and Isuzu had to spoon-feed her, and the medicine was horribly expensive and didn’t seem to do much good, but Isuzu didn’t dare suggest that maybe there was something that might work better than the expensive little bottles. All the prayers and medicine would hopefully work their magic and make mother all good again so she could become the family rock again. Isuzu kept telling herself that everything would be fine. It had to be.

“Otsu,” Kazuko said, looking
over at her baby sister-in-law, “you should be going to bed or you won’t have any energy tomorrow.”

Kazuko tried to instill maternal responsibility in her sister-in-law, but Otsu was much too lazy, preferring to lie down with one of her brother’s books than to bake, do laundry, or otherwise help out around the house like a good child.

“I know,” Otsu said, “but I need to finish what I’ve started.”

Her hand
indicated the thick book she had been reading since Isuzu came up after closing the store. Otsu didn’t seem to want to do much else than read, and Kazuko indulged her lazy interests a bit, although she could be stern with her little sisters-in-law when they didn’t listen to her. Tatsuji had reluctantly agreed to let Otsu read his books, but only if she didn’t run off with them so he couldn’t find them when he needed them, and the moment he needed a book she was reading she had to give it to him.

Isuzu didn’t understand the point of them. In fact, she suspected that she probably couldn’t read most of the books he was reading now. She had left school when she was the same age Kan was
now and had helped Sekiji and Mother after their father had died. Although she wouldn’t question her mother’s judgment, she thought that she had been much too young when she had been betrothed to Ota since the family was in such a delicate state after her father’s death, which seemed to be validated by how important Isuzu was to the family now, although Ota’s father had been very generous and had paid Sekiji almost twenty yen for her.

While Isuzu
could certainly read, many of the difficult words and rare Chinese characters in books like Tatsuji’s were not part of her base of knowledge. She could read and write common words and names, but there were so many difficult ones that cropped up in those books. Even Tatsuji had to consult a big reference book he had on written Japanese, and Isuzu had often seen her younger sister search it to understand words, phrases, and characters that were not immediately understandable to uneducated people like them.

Isuzu
was proud of her baby brother who could understand things most people couldn’t, and she was sure that it would be important for the future, and she knew for a fact that Father was proud of him too. The framed photograph was old, but you could clearly recognize him looking straight ahead from his place on the household shrine. Even when he had been at his strictest and had frightened her, Isuzu was still sure that he was watching over them and was happy to see how hard Sekiji and Tatsuji and even Kan were working in his place to keep the family together and the shop alive and the family well for the next generation. Next to Father’s picture on the altar was an even older photo that had been taken in Konan Province of Isuzu’s grandparents. While Father was dressed in a layered suit with a necktie in his photo taken after he and Mother had come to Tekika as young pioneer settlers, the picture of his parents were different, and the two were dressed in old-timey clothing people wore back then. Because her father was the youngest of twelve surviving children, his parents had not been very young when he was old enough to marry and hop on a train to leave the land the Shoji family had called home virtually since the dawn of time when the gods had first created people.

Konan seemed half a world away from Tekika when she had seen a map of the country
and realized just how big it was. Tekika was not a particularly large city compared to distant cities, and her parents had arrived on a train with others who were also looking to get their envelopes from the government and use their savings as well as the small gift from His Majesty of a paper gold yen to start a new life in Shinkyou. It was really a suitable name when you saw it on the map. The “New Frontier” was just one of the many places where people could try to build something entirely new just on the border to the Foreign World.

As much as she tried, Isuzu could never understand the kind of life her parents had known growing u
p, or their parents, or theirs. Village life was an unfamiliar concept to her, and certainly one in the lush valleys and across the plains in Konan where small village and hamlets were crowding the land. There were certainly peasants in Tekika, but Isuzu just had no experience or understanding of peasant life. She was a merchant child, if a poor one, but she lived entirely in the shadow of her urban parents rather than the millennia of peasant generations that made up her ancestry going back to the ancient beginnings of time.

The third framed photo at the small altar was
that of the Great Late Emperor who had died when Isuzu was a small girl. She remembered the black procession led by the priests that had marked the sudden, horrible passing of His Majesty. However, as much as losing a distant grandfather was a tragedy, she had quickly been offered an opportunity to see newsreels of the new Emperor, the oldest of the all too young Emperor’s sons. He was a very handsome man, and she felt mischievously profane for thinking that His Majesty was very beautiful indeed.

She crawled over to the small family shrine while Kazuko was working on patching up a pair of pants for Tatsuji
that had a tear in them. After pouring a cup of water for the family gods, Isuzu bowed her head in prayer to her father, her grandparents, His Majesty, and the other spirits of the altar in the hope that they would do their best to look after Ota and Sekiji and have them return soon.

Please end the war
and vanish all the bad devils
.