The northernmost metropolis of Japan had always been famous for its spectacular snow festival, where talented artists from all over the world had delighted the people with their artworks of ice.
Often, their skillful hands had let the visitors of the city be astonished. They had formed Japanese temples or enormous animals out of the material, what was distinctive for Sapporo during the winter months: Ice.
This year, the snow festival was canceled and the people of Sapporo had other things on their minds, for example the question, where they would bring the countless corpses, covering the streets of the city. Furthermore, how they would safe the living from the coming hunger crisis.
For the next days, it was quiet again on the fronts. No attacks of the GCF, no counterattacks of the Japanese. Daniel Schwarzer, the commander-in-chief of the northern invasion army, was just waiting.
Then, it started to snow, became bitterly cold and the food supply finally broke down completely. For some days, the city center was attacked with chemical bombs which were much worse than every infantry offensive. Thereupon, some Japanese pilots tried to destroy the GCF artillery in the hinterland, but they were not very successful and most of them did not return alive.
General Schwarzer planned to burn his enemies out like rats in a dugout. If they would not surrender, Sapporo would become a city of death. Chemical weapons, even poison gas, had always been doomed by the international media and the World President. As „great humanists“, the polititians of the World Union, had nothing to do with such cruel weapons. But all that was not worth the paper it was written on. However, the media just hushed up the use of these bombs. Only the people of Sapporo knew the truth.
Frank Kohlhaas huddled in a dark corner and pressed the hands before his face. His friend, Alfred, was out to look for a telephone or an Internet access. Otherwise, nobody else was in the cold, destroyed house. The young volunteer withdrew into himself and still mused for some hours.
The hunger tormented him, his neck and head hurt, and in the early morning hours of this bleak day, he had already cried. He missed Julia Wilden so much and had her picture in his mind since days. Yesterday night, his dead mother had visited him in his dreams. She had told him that everything would be good some day.
„You will still live for a long time, my boy!“, she had said to him with her tender voice. And finally, she had hugged him.
Occasionally, a Japanese soldier came into the bombed out house, in order to look for a comrade. Frank tried to behave calmly, and hoped that nobody would see him cry. He was anyway „the hero“ who had killed that GCF major. Meanwhile, even the Japanese talked about him, admired him.
The GCF artillery had already shot poison gas shells at the city center of Sapporo several times, what had caused a giant tragedy. Meanwhile, a yellowish fog had slowly spread out and some quarters had been evacuated. Cold and hunger were distressing the city like Kublai Khan`s hordes, and now there was that terrible barrage with chemical bombs. Soon, it would end. Frank was sure.
He often doubted in these days that Alf and he would ever come out of this hell alive. But their fate had planned another task for them. Frank should experience it in the course of this hopeless day.
It was after 18.00 o'clock, Frank and Alfred had just swallowed another slop, tasting like nothing, when their Japanese platoon leader came to them. The man looked for Frank Kohlhaas, as he explained in broken English.
“You!”, he pointed at Frank. “You will coming with me, understand? General Takeuchi wants talking with you!“
The two volunteers from Lithuanias looked at each other and Frank followed the officer. They went through some devasteted streets and finally came to Takeuchi`s provisionally command post.
This was the residence of the Japanese general, that dirty, ruined house. Takeuchi already seemed to wait for his guest. When Frank entered the room, the veteran smiled and fetched a bottle of sake out of a wooden box, then he asked Frank to sit down. The general gave him a sip of Japanese rice wine, still smiling. Both men examined each other.
Some minutes later, Takeuchi began the discussion: „One of the Japanese soldiers has told me that you have killed a high rank officer of the GCF!”
Frank nodded and showed Takeuchi the ID tag which he was carrying in his pocket since days - like a trophy. Kohlhaas put it on the table.
„I have killed this major general of the GCF!”, he said. Takeuchi perked his eyebrows up and regarded the identification tag more exactly, then he grinned and gave Frank a wink.
„Major General Martin Chirac. He was an important man of the northern GCF army. Good work, soldier!“
„Thanks!”, answered Kohlhaas, while the general gave him another glas of sake.
„You are Frank Kohlhaas?“
„Yes, Sir!“
„Where are you from, soldier?“
“Litauen...Lithuania...But I`m German...”
“German? Ah! German soldiers are brave!“
„Thanks!“
„Deutsche Soldaten sind gute Soldaten! Ha, ha!“
„In the olden days…“, Frank smiled.
“Woher sie sind?”
„I`m from Berlin!“
„Berlin, nice city…“, meant the Japanese.
„Not in our days!“, said Frank with a shake of the head.
The third glas of sake followed and both men became even more relaxed. Takeuchi, that embittered veteran, was suddenly garrulous.
„What is your contact person here in Japan?“, he asked.
“Mr. Masaru Taishi from Tokyo!“
„Okay, I will call him and ask him about you. Please come back tomorrow and we will talk again...”
Kohlhaas was more than surprised about that conversation with general Takeuchi. And Alf did not know, what to make of the whole thing too.
Finally, after a longer skat game, they went to bed. This night remained calmly, except for the usual bomb explosions that could be heard from a distance. On the next day, general Takeuchi let the young man call again. He seemed to be very excited and welcomed Frank with a broad grin. Again, he fetched his sake and gave it to his soldier. A moment after, he banged his fist on the table and laughed loudly.
„My God! You have killed Leon-Jack Wechsler?“, he shouted and was all smiles.
Frank winced und just swallowed. Then he tried to grin.
„Yes! My friend Alf, and me!“
“You are Rambo, ha, ha!”, returned Takeuchi. “Do you know Rambo?”
“Eh...no!”, stammered Frank.
The Japanese stopped him with a wave of his hand, grinned even broader and preked his eyebrows up.
„Doesn`t matter! This was only a joke! But who is Aruf?”
“Alfred Bäumer...I call him Alf. He is my best friend and he also fights in the “Nihon no Yari” unit!”
“Oh!”, general Takeuchi seemed to be delighted. „He is also here?“
„Yes, Sir!“
„The men who killed Wechsler in Paris, ha, ha! Nice!”
Shortly afterwards, even Bäumer had to come and the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army of Sapporo bombarded him with questions. Bäumer drank some glasses of sake with the general too. Meanwhile, Takeuchi grinned from ear to ear.
„Ha, ha! Nice! Nice!”, it resounded through his office.
Frank and Alf became a bit thoughtful. How could that Japanese know about the bombing in Paris? Who had told him, that they had killed the governor of „Central Europe”? „Wilden! It was Wilden!”, it flashed through Frank`s mind. „He had told it to Masaru Taishi, and Taishi had told it to Takeuchi on the phone!”
After some demands, the general confirmed that he had heard everything from Taishi. At that time, the bombing in Paris had even been on Japanese television.
Wilden had probably bragged with them once again. That was not the exemplary secrecy he always talked about. But Taishi had not said a word about the bombing in Paris. Frank slowly became angry. What had Wilden said to his Japanese friend?
Perh
aps: „Hey, Masaru! Ich will send you my little superstars!”
However, that general in Sapporo knew everything and was apparently completely enthusiastic. It would not have taken much for begging them for some autographs.
Takeuchi slowly calmed down, stopped smirking and finally behaved like a real general again.
“The Japanese army wants you for a special mission. You will leave Sapporo and go back to Tokyo!”, explained the commander-in-chief.
“What mission?”, asked Bäumer.
“They will tell you everything in Tokyo. You will leave Sapporo tomorrow! Good luck!”, Takeuchi just said.
Then the conversation was over and the Japanese general looked authoritative again. He shook their hands and bowed out.
The two volunteers went back to the camp. Beyond doubt, hey were happy to leave Sapporo, but want meant Takeuchi with “special mission”? Frank mused, scratched his head and looked at Alf.
“That was strange, wasn`t it?”, said Kohlhaas.
“This is true enough...”, answered Alf.
Kohlhaas stopped walking. “Alf?”
“What?”
“Who the hell is Rambo?”
“Rambo?”, Bäumer rejected the question with a shrug of his shoulders. “No idea!”
At this night, Frank walked through the streets of Sapporo for a last time. The soldier nearly reached the inner city. He just wanted to be alone for a while and had told his friend, that he would soon be back in the camp. It was raining and snowflakes already came from the dark night sky, while a cold wind was cutting through his clothes. Nevertheless, Frank always just walked straight ahead. Sapporo, the metropolis with its 2.5 million inhabitants, seemed meanwhile to be empty. Many of the beautiful houses were totally destroyed and somewhere, far away, he could hear the grumble of detonations. The young volunteer was depressed and wistful, in spite of the praise of general Takeuchi.
„What is the sense of all this?”, he constantly asked himself. „Holding Japan, holding Sapporo, holding any streets?”
At a house entrance, beside him, Frank recognized a Japanese woman who was wrapped in tatters, holding her child in her arms. She sang a beautifully sounding song in her alien language.
Frank stopped for a moment and considered her. The woman smiled, but her face looked sad and sickly. Kohlhaas just smiled back and finally walked away.
When he came to one of the larger shopping streets, he could recognize men who pulled corpses out of the mountains of rubble. They just piled them up like firewood, in order to burn these remains of human life.
The sight was terrible and Frank closed his eyes, hoping, that this horror would spare him. He had seen many dead men in the last weeks, but this sight was a much bigger torture for his soul.
„It is worth it?”, he whispered quietly and went back towards the Maruyamapark.
„Would this world be a better place, if I could rule it?“, it bored in his head.
It was gloomy what had happened to this former beautiful city. Everywhere lay rubble, debris and corpses. And there was no end of this insanity in sight.
„Just because the Japanese wanted their freedom? All that bloodshed, that pain, that destruction for the interests of a small group of greedy devils…”, he mused.
„And I don`t know if I really want to stop you anymore. I can`t suffer this any longer, I don`t want to fight, to kill, any longer. If I am a hero, then a hero is just pathetic! I would say to my son: Become everything in your life, but never a hero!“
Even the Maruyamapark was lonely. There was nothing here, nothing but dark trees without leaves and rain-soaked meadows. Frank sat down on a bench and stared at the ground.
„This horror eats up my soul. I want to get out…“, he whispered. “Out of this dying city, out of this doomed country.”
A little later he went back to the camp, where Alf was still waiting for him. He said nothing, just crept into his sleeping bag and stared at the concrete wall next to his head.
One hour later, finally, Frank fell asleep. But another weird dream was waiting for him in the depths of his mind…
Frank hoped that it was no dream, because it was great! He rode on a wonderful, white horse, dressed in a noble garb, towards a wonderful shining castle of pure ivory. Around him, the people cheered.
Men, women and children worshipped him and called his name full of joy. The girls, at the side of the road, were beautiful like angels and threw multicolored flowers at him. „Frank Kohlhaas! You are our deliverer! You are our king! God bless you!”, they shouted.
The young man proudly looked at the people and waved his right hand which was in a fine velvet glove.
„Crown him! Our deliverer, our hero! Frank Kohlhaas!”, shouted the girls and threw more and more flowers at him. The horse carried Frank nearer to the wondrous castle and dignitaries, wearing velvet and silk, finally opened the gates.
“Come in, great king!”
All bowed to Frank and one of the servants said: „Welcome to your coronation, Sire! Mankind has never seen a greater hero than you!“
Frank grinned and just nodded. The man was right, thought Kohlhaas. Honor to whom honor is due!
Then the young man strutted over some long stairs which led into a splendid throne room.
“You are our redeemer! Let us crown Frank! He shall be the king of the free people!”, he heard the damsels and servants call everywhere.
Finally, he sat down on a golden throne which was adorned with diamants and ornate images. One of the servants came to him and said: „Noble gentleman, great hero, welcome to this place! Today we will crown you, as you deserve it! You are a true hero, a benefactor and liberator for all human beings!”
Now the others began to cheer again and called his name. Kohlhaas smiled proudly – and a bit arrogant.
Meanwhile, even more dignitaries came from the rear part of the hall, in order to give Frank his regalia. One servant carried a sceptre, wrapped up in a cloth of silk. The other dignitary had something roundish in his hand - probably the orb, but it was also covered with a cloth.
Two other servants followed. One man had a meal tray in his hand, covered with a golden cap, while the other one raised a royal crown.
The servants came to the golden throne, bowed again, and one of them said: „Noble Mr. Frank Kohlhaas, today we want to celebrate your coronation! You will be the king of the free people!“
Then the man beside him added: „You are a liberator of mankind, a heroic warrior, a messenger of the coming, golden age!
“Now you are the king of the free people, Sire! Are you glad?”
Frank nodded and spoke: „I am happy and I will be a worthy king to you! And now, give me the regalia which are entitled to me and let me taste from the meals which you have prepared for me!“
„As you wish, Sire!”, answered the servants and the first of them came up the stairs. He pulled the sceptre out of the silk cloth and said: „Sire, this shall be your sceptre! It is made of the bones of your unborn children. They could never be born, because you had no time for a family. Only war has ruled your life!”
Then the second man followed: „Sire, here is your orb! It is the skull of Julia Wilden, that woman who has loved you a whole lifetime. Unfortunately, you had never had the time to answer this love, because only the eternal fight has ruled your thoughts!“
Finally the third servant came to Frank and showed him his crown. „Your crown is made of the bones of those who have followed you into battle and have died in your name!“
In a final step, the last dignitary lifted the golden cap from the meal tray. Frank frightened, because a heart and a brain were lying on it.
The servant smiled and explained: „Eat these tasty meals, because they have already been a part of you, Sire! You have given them to us, many years ago, so that we can crown you today!”
The young man jumped up from his throne and called: „What is that? What`s about all these terrible things you show me here?
I thought, that I would become the king of the free people...”
A loud murmur went through the spectators of the ceremony and many of them looked at Frank with a lack of understanding.
The dignitaries finally chorused: „Sire, did you really believe that you could become a king without making sacrifices?”
Kohlhaas woke up, startled and looked around. Nobody was there, except for Alf and some snoring soldiers. The young man left the tent and ran through the cold night. It was still raining and Frank felt alone...
Grief and Doubts