The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

stroke the man's almost skeletal back until his weeping had subsided.

Chapter 27
    T he old man said, "Sorry about that. When you get to be my age, you cry more easily."
    Youko didn't say anything, only shook her head.
    "So . . . what year was it?"
    "What year?" Youko echoed.
    The old man looked back at her with an inscrutable expression. He said, "When did the Great War end?"
    "It was in 1945."
    "Showa?"
    "Um . . . . " Youko had to think about it for a minute, digging out of her memory the chronological tables she'd memorized for her high school exams. "Showa 20, I think."
    "Showa 20?" He stared at her. "I came here in Showa 20. When in Showa 20?"
    "August . . . it was August 15th."
    The old man balled his hands into fists. "August? The 15th of August, Showa 20?"
    "Yes . . . . "
    "I was thrown overboard on July the 28th!" He glared at her. "Not more than half a month before!"
    Not having the slightest idea of what to say, Youko could only bow her head, quietly, patiently, while the old man railed on, spelling out all the sacrifices he had suffered because of the war.
    It was close to midnight when he finally got around to asking Youko about herself. Her family, her home, what kind of house she lived in, what kind of life she had led. Answering these questions was a bit painful. It struck her forcefully that here was a person, born well before her time, who had been transported to this place and had never returned.
    Was this to be her fate as well? Was she to live her whole life in this strange country, never to go home? At least she'd had the good fortune of meeting a fellow kaikyaku. When she thought about all the time the old man has been by himself, it really was a stroke of good luck.
    "So tell me, what did I do to deserve this?" The old man sat cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. "My friends and family all gone, me ending up in this strange place. I was expecting to die in one of them air raids, anyways, but to think it would've been all ended in but half a month, just half a month."
    Youko still had nothing to say.
    "The war ending, that would have turned everything around. But instead I ended up here, not once ever being able to enjoy myself, not even have a decent meal."
    "Yes, but . . . . "
    "Lots of times I tell myself it'd be better if I'd died in one of them air raids, better than coming to this strange place where I got no sense of what or where anything is and don't understand a thing nobody says at all."
    Youko looked at him in surprise. "You don't understand what anybody says?"
    "Not at all. Just a few words here and there. That's why this kind of job is all the work I can get." He gave Youko a suspicious look. "You get what they're saying?"
    "Yes . . . " Youko said, her gaze steady. "It sounds like Japanese to me."
    "Nonsense," the old man said, an astonished look on his face. "The only Japanese I ever heard, save me talking to myself, was from you, starting today. I don't know what kind of words they're speaking, but I got the feeling it's something like Chinese. Ain't nothing like Japanese, that's for damn sure."
    "But don't they write with kanji?"
    "Yeah, they write it. But Chinese-type characters. There was some Chinamen working at the harbor and them's the kind of words they used."
    "That can't be possible!" Youko looked at the old man, a tumult of emotions coursing through her. "I haven't had a single problem with the language since coming here, not one. If they were speaking something other than Japanese, there's no way I could understand them."
    "Then you was understanding what they was saying downstairs earlier?"
    "Of course."
    The old man shook his head. "Whatever you think you been hearing, it ain't Japanese. Nobody here speaks Japanese."
    What in the world was going on, Youko wondered, her confusion only deepening. There was no doubt in her mind that what she was hearing was Japanese. But the old man was telling her it wasn't Japanese. She could not discern any measurable difference what she'd been hearing all along and the language he was speaking.
    She said, "This is the Kingdom of Kou. Kou is written with the kanji that means "skillful," right?"
    "Yes."
    "We're kaikyaku, and we came from across the Kyokai. It means, the Sea of Emptiness."
    "Right again."
    "This city is the prefecture seat."
    "Prefecture seat? It's a castle town. A fiefdom, you mean."
    "No, like the prefectural offices in Japan."
    "Like a prefectural office?"
    "Where the governor lives."
    "The