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Franky Furbo
William Wharton


A welcome reissue of this wartime classic from the author of Birdy.During WW II, a dying American soldier, William Wiley, and his German captor, Wilhelm Klug, are miraculously rescued by a fox endowed with extraordinary powers, Franky Furbo.For William, the experience is indisputably true but when he discovers later that neither his wife nor children believe in Franky, he endures a crisis of faith and searches desperately for the truth.Franky Furbo is a modern fable with a remarkable twist, quite unlike anything Wharton wrote before or since.









WILLIAM WHARTON

Franky Furbo








This book is dedicated to our daughter Kate, her husband, Bill, their two beautiful daughters, Dayiel, age two years, and Mia, age eight months.

They are all dead now. They were killed August 3, 1988, at 4:00 p.m. in a terrible automobile crash and fire on Highway I-5 near Albany in the Willlamette Valley in the state of Oregon.

This horrible accident was precipitated by a field fire licensed by public officials of that state. Despite the accident, in which seven were killed, thirty-five injured and twenty-four vehicles destroyed, these field fires are still licensed with the published endorsement of the governor. The overwhelming objection to field burning by most of the residents in that valley is also ignored in the special interest of less than a thousand farmers who bring in $350 million yearly to the state at a profit of $170 million to themselves.

The first Franky Furbo stories were told by me to Kate, over thirty years ago. I told them every morning to each of my children during the next twenty years. I’d looked forward to telling them to Dayiel and Mia.

Now, due to the arrogance, short-sightedness and greed of the grass growers with the backing of Oregon state officials, this can never be.

We hope to forgive but we can never be reconciled.


Contents

Title Page (#u65bb63c5-2b61-577b-bf34-7ad68e699260)

Dedication (#u2cbf51ae-dc93-5ffc-a4c9-888c605aa8e5)

1. Going to Ground (#uf66ba91e-8247-5994-a91c-40fcc09efc40)

2. Denial (#u90ed0c6a-d9cd-5d3f-91b1-83c7eb05204c)

3. Fox Hole (#u50c2ca88-f828-5475-8e25-a6547bc5ee34)

4. The Warren (#uc4c3fdeb-f395-59c2-a328-45e8299b7028)

The Story I (#litres_trial_promo)

5. A Suggestion (#litres_trial_promo)

6. The Search (#litres_trial_promo)

The Story II (#litres_trial_promo)

7. Coming Home (#litres_trial_promo)

The Story III (#litres_trial_promo)

8. The Meeting (#litres_trial_promo)

9. Franky’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)

10. Going Home (#litres_trial_promo)

11. Going to Ground (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by William Wharton (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




1

Going to Ground


In the center of Italy, surrounded by the rolling hills of Umbria, there is a city built on top of a hill. This city is called Perugia, an old fortress city, with tunnels under it designed to withstand sieges during the many battles that, through the centuries, have raged up and down the Italian peninsula.

A few kilometers south of Perugia is a much smaller village called Prepo. It has only twelve houses in it; these are the homes of farmers who work tiny plots of ground around the village. Mostly the farmers grow olives and grapes on their land. They also grow vegetables for themselves, and grain for their animals.

In order to plow the ground, the farmers have huge white oxen called buoi. These beautiful animals are usually hitched by a wooden yoke in twos to pull a plow. The wooden plows dig deep into the dark, brown earth.

Up on the side of a hill, beside Prepo, is a small forest of pine trees. At the edge of these pine trees, and above a small plot of two hectares, is a medium-sized stone house. This house has a tile roof with moss growing on it. There are five windows with wooden shutters, and a chimney. Attached to the house, on the south side so it catches the sun, is a terrace with a grape arbor. In the summer and early autumn the grapes hang over the terrace and the leaves give shade. In all, it is a beautiful place to live.

Inside this house on the side of the hill, near the forest, lives a most interesting family. The father is an American. The mother, although she speaks perfect Italian, is not Italian; she doesn’t look American either. She has golden tan skin and dark red hair. The people in Prepo consider her brutta, or ugly, because red hair to them is a sign of the devil. Actually, almost anyone from anywhere else would call her beautiful.

This American family has lived in their house for more than forty years. The father comes out often and talks with the villagers or rides his bicycle into Perugia to shop. The mother stays home and keeps house and works in the garden. She does not talk to many people. If someone comes to visit, she is very polite, but she never invites anyone to come and never visits anyone herself. Many times she walks alone, or with her husband, through the fields, in the night. There are some in the village who have insisted she is a witch.

This American and his strange wife have four children. Three of them, when they were old enough to leave home, went elsewhere to live, but the youngest still lives with them. None of the children ever attended the Italian schools or any school whatsoever. The parents have taught these children themselves.

The man speaks some Italian but with a quite strong American accent. The children all speak beautiful Italian like their mother. It must be she who teaches them.

In addition to cultivating his grapes and olives, the American father, whose name is William Wiley, is said to write stories for children. Often he can be seen in the neighborhood pedaling around on his bicycle with a folder of paper and a box of paints while he looks for places to paint or draw. No one has ever seen anything he wrote or painted, so there is no way for them to know that the stories he writes and illustrates are published in America and England. The people in Prepo do not travel much. The farthest any of them has ever been is Rome.

It’s the postman who made that journey. He also travels all over this hilly region of small villages, delivering the mail. He is considered by everyone very well traveled. He says the American often receives packages and letters from America or other places. In fact, the mail this American man, William Wiley, receives is probably about half the mail the mailman delivers from the small bag attached to the front of his bicycle.

One of the strange things about this family is they do not make wine from their grapes. They pick the grapes at the proper time, when they are filled with juices, then eat some of them, as does everyone in the village. The rest of the grapes they crush in a large wine press, as everyone knows it must be done, but then they bottle the juice and keep it tightly closed so it can never turn into the lovely light wine for which this part of Italy is famous.

They drink this juice of the grape just that way, raw. It is another thing the people in the village can never understand. But then, they say, what else can one expect from foreigners, especially when one of them is most likely a witch, or worse.

Long ago, the cardinal in Perugia sent a priest to vist the Americans. This was just after they had arrived.

This priest was thirty-five at that time, and it is said he had studied in Rome. He did not think the mother and wife, whose name is Caroline, was ugly at all. He found her quite attractive in a foreign kind of way.

He made this first visit over forty years ago. They invited him to drink with them, and it was true: it wasn’t wine, it was grape juice. He told the villagers he was surprised to find how delicious it tasted, but no one in the village would believe him, even though he was a priest.

This priest discovered the Americans were not Catholic, had no religion, did not go to any church, did not intend to send their children to church or to instruct them in religion. In fact, he suspected they weren’t even Christians, but he didn’t tell anybody in the village this.

Finally, he talked to the family about why he’d come to visit them, how the villagers found them peculiar and thought the wife might be a witch. At this, the two strangers looked at each other and smiled. They’d just had a child born to them, a baby girl; the mother brought her out for the priest to see. He asked if perhaps he might baptize the child. It would help the villagers accept the Americans if he could tell them the baby was baptized. William and Caroline had no objection, and so the priest performed the ceremony. They named the little girl Kathleen.

With that, he left. There was no other discussion.

In the course of years passing by, he came once a year, until, years later, he became a monsignor and was assigned to another church in another part of Italy. During all that time, the American couple allowed him to bless the house and baptize their other children when they were born. This seemed to satisfy most people in the village, although many still maintained the woman was a witch.

The thing that especially bothered everyone, particularly the women in the village, was that as the years passed by, the wife, Caroline, scarcely seemed to age. She became only more mature, more beautiful. At the time when our story starts, after more than forty years, she still looked younger than most forty-year-old women in the village. It wasn’t natural.

Over the years, she continued with her long nocturnal walks, through the dusty fields, up into the forests, sometimes as many as twenty or thirty kilometers in different directions. When she did appear in the daytime, or when children came near her house, she was always kind, and the village children grew to love her. This, perhaps even more than the priest’s acceptance, somewhat commended her to the villagers. In Italy, anyone who loves children and whom children love in turn cannot be thought of as really bad and probably couldn’t be a witch.

So, now it is time for our tale. It will be told mostly by the man in the family, the American named William Wiley. It is a strange, somewhat frightening history, and I must admit I cannot actually remember now how I came to know it. Sometimes it all seems like a weird dream. At the same time, I believe it as strongly as I believe anything in this life.

At the time of our story, the three older children have left and only the young boy remains. The father, William, now has almost pure white hair and is over sixty years old. Caroline continues to look young, not girlish, but like a real woman, a strong woman of great natural beauty. The little boy is dark, thin and tall. All the children, like their mother, seem to mature slowly, seem very young for their years.

Inside the house, on the first floor, is one large room, the room into which one enters. On one side, to the right, is a huge bed, a bed as large as three double beds; it takes up the entire width of the room. In the center of the room is a large round wooden table. It is massively thick and ample enough to seat six people comfortably.

On the other side of the room is a kitchen with a closet for dishes and food. The kitchen has a copper sink, a drainboard in wood, and a large worktable. On the rear wall of the room is a fireplace. On either side are closets for clothing, huge, hand-carved wooden chests reaching to the ceiling. Also on that back wall is a staircase, almost like a ship’s ladder. It leads to the upstairs.

If we go up those stairs, we find two rooms. One is a schoolroom, with chalkboards on the walls, a wide desk and four smaller ones. In that room, the walls, where there are not chalkboards, are lined by bookshelves filled with books. It’s a miniature schoolroom.

The other room is the workroom of the father, William. There is a desk with a typewriter. This desk is large and has many drawers. It also has a section with a slanted top for drawing. There is a light over the typewriter and another over the drawing board. On the board is a half-finished drawing, but we cannot quite see it.

We now go downstairs again. The mother, Caroline, is in the kitchen preparing breakfast. The father, William, and the son, Billy, are still in bed. The little boy is stretched out on his father’s chest.

Let us now begin our story. I only hope I can tell this properly. Oddly enough, being a professional writer of novels can sometimes make it difficult to tell about true things so they’ll be believed. People don’t expect truth in novels. Once, in a book called A Midnight Clear, I wrote about a nineteen-year-old boy who said, ‘I have a penchant for telling true stories no one can believe.’

I feel that way myself, now.




2

Denial


‘Aw, come on, Daddy, that’s not the way it ends. You can’t end the story that way.’

‘What do you mean, Billy? Of course that’s the way it ends. That’s the end of the story.’

‘Please, Dad, make up another ending. Make up an interesting ending with more things happening, exciting things.’

Billy has his head on my chest now. With one ear he can listen to the hollow sound of my voice inside me, and with the other ear hear the sounds coming out of my mouth. All our children figured this out at one time or another, or maybe it was only one and they shared. But, in the past, when for a while there were four of them scattered on top and around me, there was hardly room on my chest for all the heads. I’m missing those wonderful mornings, those full days. I dread when Billy will grow up and leave us.

Kathy, our oldest, once told me how hearing a story that way, with her ear on my chest, made it seem to come from inside herself. Matthew, our first boy, always said he liked to watch my eyes and mouth when I told a story, but that it was even better hearing it with his ear against me. Once in a while, in an exciting part, he’d lift his head and look into my eyes. He’d have such a wonderful glow of excitement and interest in his beautiful yellow-brown eyes. Such wonderful days.

But now I must come back to the present; I can’t avoid it any longer. I know I’m only putting this off. It’s something I don’t want to face; I’m not prepared.

‘But, Billy, you know these aren’t stories I make up myself; these are stories Franky Furbo told me many years ago. I can’t change the ending, you know that.’

Billy lifts his head from my chest and looks me in the eyes the way Matthew used to years ago, only Billy’s eyes are more knowing, more challenging. I think, what a beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, kind boy he is, as have been all our children, each different and each such a tremendous joy to us over the many years. Our lives have truly been like a dream; there’s no other word to describe the way we’ve lived all these years.

I never have had to go off to work anywhere. The combination of my military disability pension and the money I earn from the little stories and books I write, along with the money we make selling olive oil from our trees, has more than provided us with any money we’ve needed. When the children were young, none of us wanted to travel. We only sent the children off from home to the university because it was time for them to know something of the everyday world, the world we’ve abandoned.

Caroline has insisted they have this experience with real life, the hostility, competition, violence, greed from which we’ve sheltered them. Caroline has been an excellent teacher, and they were each well prepared to attend any university they wanted, or do any work that interested them.

The most rewarding, incredible thing is how, during their entire lives, they’ve always played with one another. They’ve been such loving friends. They’ve had Italian friends as well, but mostly they’ve made up their own games here at home. There’s been much laughter and joy in this house over these years.

Billy is still staring into my eyes as my mind wanders.

‘IKNOW you make up these stories, Dad. I don’t really believe in Franky Furbo anymore, either. Come on, Dad, tell me, truly. You do make all these stories up, don’t you? There isn’t any real Franky Furbo; he’s just somebody you made up in your head. You can tell me; I’m old enough now.’

It had to come, sooner or later. But he’s the first one to challenge me, to throw it in my face. Probably the others were too timid or too kind, or maybe they only wanted to believe more than Billy does. Also, they had one another to back up the stories. They’d repeat them over and over; they’d even play Franky Furbo games, taking turns being Franky. They’d often ask me questions about Franky Furbo, questions independent of the stories I told. They were curious; Franky was such an important part of their lives. Believing might be harder for Billy because he’s been alone these past years. In some important way he’s different.

The crazy thing is how hard it hits me when he says he doesn’t believe in Franky Furbo. I don’t know how to respond. I want him to believe with me. I want to respect his opinions, his beliefs, but I still have to be true to myself.

‘But, Billy, there is a Franky Furbo. I’ve seen him. I lived with him. I know him very well. I’m not lying to you.’

‘I know you’re not lying, Dad. You’re only telling stories. That’s not the same as lying. You know how you’ve tried to teach me, all of us, to tell stories. Telling stories is fun. I know that. I know you like to tell stories, and I like to listen to them, too. Come on, Dad. Make up another ending for me. I don’t really have to believe in Franky for it to be fun.’

He puts his head back on my chest and gives me a good love hug. I know how soon it will be before he’s too embarrassed to come into bed with me and cuddle like this in the morning. Boys or girls, it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Even though we all sleep together in this gigantic bed, it still happens. I designed this bed because neither of us, Caroline nor I, believe children should be alone in the night.

Still, there comes a time when they pull back and are less willing to be held closely. It’s interesting how the farthest part of the bed from Caroline and me becomes the special prerogative of the oldest child. As they’ve grown older and each one, in turn, has left our nest, our private warren, the next in line would move toward that end. Little Billy has a lot of bed to himself, and he seems to pick a place according to his mood. Last night I noticed he slept on the far end, as the oldest child at home normally would. That should have told me something.

Most likely, the children sense that the bed space where Caroline and I sleep is our private property, and they feel like invaders in our personal life. There’s a little curtain I insisted on putting up, which can be drawn across when we want to make love alone. Caroline says I’m silly, but she lets me draw it anyway sometimes.

However, whatever the reasons for their pulling apart, I do regret it, as does Caroline; although both of us are resigned to this inevitable pulling away, separation, parting. And we know we’re lucky having them as long as we do.

I turn my mind back to the problem of Billy and Franky Furbo. Billy lifts his head up to me one more time.

‘Don’t feel badly, Dad. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, or Brufani, or Santa Claus either. It doesn’t mean anything if I don’t believe Franky Furbo really exists.’

How can I ever tell him?

‘OK, then, if that’s what you want. So, instead of the guardians for the ball of fire returning through the crack in time-space and going back to their own world in another galaxy, in another universe, they work their way through again. They force their overwhelming power of blue death through the Climus Channel and with great wickedness and malevolence set fire to everything. They burn down the forest where Franky lives with his friends. All of them are burned, turned to a white ash. Before Franky can even think to make himself big or small, change himself into something else, hide or fly away on Bamba, it’s all over.

‘The denizens of Climus look over their work, their destruction, and even they are sad. This is the end. All their years of trying to stop Franky Furbo’s efforts at doing good, helping people on this planet, have finally been successful. They’ve won! Franky is dead! His tree house and all he’d built, his magic powders – all are gone! These wicked aliens will never have anything to worry about in their conquest of the universe. The end.’

I stop. I know, even as I’m telling this story, that I’m being incredibly cruel. I don’t understand it myself. I’ve been telling this continuous story of Franky Furbo all the years we’ve had children old enough to listen and enjoy. I also know I’ve hurt myself as much as anyone.

In our family, storytelling time is always in the morning. It gives Caroline some free moments to get herself dressed, to clean up and make breakfast. I must’ve told thousands of stories over the years. And all these Franky Furbo stories would just come to me out of nowhere. In a certain way I really didn’t make them up any more than the real things in life are made up.

Another reason I’d always tell these stories in the morning was because the children would go to bed at different times at night, according to their age; also Caroline was concerned they would dream about them. Some of the Franky stories are very scary. But this one I just told, this ending I gave to this story, didn’t come from anywhere but my own wounded vanity. I’d struck back at my much-loved son with an unnecessary, indefensible violence.

I can feel Billy sobbing against my chest. He doesn’t look up at me. I wait. He’s gone limp. When he speaks it’s haltingly, between sobs.

‘Aw, that’s not fair, Dad. You didn’t have to kill off everybody, even Franky. I feel awful. Camilla and Matthew and Kathy will be sad, too, when they find out. Just because I don’t believe in Franky doesn’t mean he isn’t really there. I feel as if I killed him myself.’

I hold on to him tightly. Caroline comes over from the kitchen and looks down at me. Boy, is she ever upset! Usually she doesn’t get angry easily or show much of what she’s feeling unless the feelings are good. And then, somehow, she helps me feel her good feelings. But I know right now she has no good feelings toward me. She doesn’t have to say anything. I don’t think I ever remember her being this deeply disgusted. She’s so angry she doesn’t speak but turns away and goes back to her work in the kitchen.

‘OK, Billy. I was only kidding. That isn’t the way it ends. I was just pretending. The way it ended the first time I told you is the real ending. It’s the way the story ended when Franky told it to me. I can’t change it. If I change that ending, then any ending would be all right, could be true, even the terrible one I just made up. Do you understand? Making up stories is a tricky business. I must be honest with the story even if you don’t like it or don’t believe it, even if I don’t like it, don’t believe it.’

Billy hugs me harder and nods his head that he understands. At least that’s what I think he’s doing. I look over at Caroline. She’s shaking her head, too, but not the same way. She’s shaking her head as if she still doesn’t understand or agree with what I’m up to. It’s a head shake of incomprehension.

The tension is so great I can’t take it anymore, and, besides, it’s time to get up. The eggs and cereal are almost ready, and I need to wash up first. So does Billy. It used to be a madhouse around here when all six of us were trying to wash. Caroline would have hot water in bowls for each and there would be as much splashing around and spluttering as a flock of birds bathing in a birdbath. Caroline would check all of us, even me, to see if we’d washed correctly and were clean. Our toilet is in the back, behind the house, and we’d each take our turns there too. I’m really missing the other children, especially right now, just before Christmas. And Billy will have another birthday, two days before Christmas. It won’t be long before we’re alone. It’s hard to think about.

Kathleen and Matthew are both down in the mountains of Chile now. They seem to be happy together, and each is doing work they think is important. Kathy has become what she calls an anthropologist-archaeologist and is making studies of giant rocks and strange marks on the mountains down there. Matthew works on a computer and makes up programs for solving different problems in ecological procedures, the way I make up children’s stories. He says he can live anywhere he wants, and he likes living near Kathleen. I worry about them living such strange lives, but Caroline doesn’t seem concerned, and, after all, she’s the mother. I’ve been a pretty good father, but there’s no question: the center of our family has always been Caroline. She lives her life around them and they around her. Except for the Franky Furbo part of my life, I’m not very important.

Camilla is living on one of the northern islands of Japan. She’s an oceanographer and is concerned about the whales and dolphins, their survival. She keeps trying to dissuade the Japanese from killing whales and dolphins for food. Boy, our kids sure have taken up crazy things for a living. It’s hard to believe it all started here in this little house.

But then, I should talk; I’m probably the wackiest one around.

Could be I’m actually not all here, a true loon, the way the army psychiatrists insisted. I do know I can’t get myself to stare over that edge to the black hole of existence or nonexistence without help. I really like to pretend, to make believe, to live inside stories, stories I hear or read or make up, even the stories I write for a living. Also, I’m a sucker for all the group fantasies man’s created – Christmas, Easter, Halloween, birthday celebrations. All those things buffer me, give me an illusion of continuity. I need something I can hold on to.

Also, the entire Franky Furbo saga, and what I believe about him, is a part of my life, my reasons for living. I just can’t consider that he doesn’t exist, that I make him up myself. He means too much to me. The deep purples of despair surround me right now, and only because Billy said he didn’t believe in Franky. I don’t know how to handle it. I smell the smells of dirty feet, moldy sheep, feel the slippage of entropy. I’m not ready for this unwanted clarity of perception.

After breakfast, Billy goes upstairs to the schoolroom. One of Caroline’s theories of teaching is that children must learn to teach themselves. She teaches them so they read with personal joy and pleasure, then gives them books that will interest them and at the same time instruct. After they’ve read the books – whether they be novels, biographies, algebra, chemistry, physics, geography, any subject – she’ll sit with them and discuss what they’ve read. When something is particularly difficult, she’ll explain or, better yet, help them explain it to themselves. I’ve sat in when she’s been teaching, and sometimes I just leave the door open from where I’m working, opening onto her classroom, and I always learn something I didn’t know.

When we were at UCLA together, I knew she was an outstanding student, but I didn’t know how much more she was learning than I was. She loves to teach too, and our children love her as teacher almost as much as they love her as Mother.

So, we’re left alone. I’m drying the dishes and stacking them in the closet. I’m waiting for her to say something about the terrible ending to the Franky Furbo story I told, but she’s holding back. It’s almost as if she’s thinking of something else and doesn’t want to be disturbed. I’m feeling terribly depressed and want to talk with her, but I don’t want to interfere with her thoughts. I find I’ve started whistling; it’s that damned six-pence song. That’s always a bad sign for me. Caroline notices and looks over. I stop. I need to talk.

‘All right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve made up that ending. It was a cruel thing to do.’

‘Yes it was. He’s getting too old for you to insist he believe in all those things; he’s growing up. I think he’s going along with Santa this year because he knows how much you enjoy it, but this will be his last year. Billy is a very nice person.’

I know I’m supposed to feel bad here for what I did, and I do. I really do, with one part of me.

‘Caroline, I know I shouldn’t have made up that whole bit about the fire and Franky being killed and all that, but Billy hit me where it really hurts. He said he didn’t believe in Franky Furbo. I guess I was striking back.’

‘He was only being honest, William. You can’t punish him for that. He can’t go on forever believing in a fox who’s more intelligent than human beings, who can fly, who can make himself big or small, turn himself into a man or fox, can transmigrate his body from one place to another, transmute matter – all the rest. You can’t ask him to grow up believing something like that. It isn’t right. You should be proud he could come right out and tell you.’

‘Yes I know. But the trouble is, there really is a Franky Furbo. You know that. It can’t hurt him too much believing in something that really is, even if he can’t see him or know him himself, can it?’

She looks at me, she looks into my eyes in that kind yet veiled way with which she can seem to see into my deepest parts.

‘William, we both know, in one way, there really is a Santa Claus too, but in the real world, there isn’t. You can’t ask Billy to live with you in your fantasies; it isn’t fair. The children need to know there’s a place where they can draw a line between what is and what isn’t, what can be and what can’t. It’s only natural.’

‘You’re not listening, Caroline. There really is a Franky Furbo. Let us not forget that. We’re not talking about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Little People now. We’re talking about Franky Furbo! If he isn’t true, then nothing is true.’

Caroline looks at me again. In over thirty-five years, we haven’t talked much in this area. I think we’ve been afraid of it, what it means, could mean to our relationship, to the way we live.

‘You don’t really believe that, William. I know you like to play with thoughts, the nature of reality and all that kind of thinking, but this is serious. You know, deep down in your heart, there’s no Franky Furbo. There couldn’t be. It’s just too ridiculous.’

I stare back at her. I could leave it here. We mean so much to each other and it all happened so long ago, but I can’t stop myself.

‘Caroline, you do know I had a Section Eight discharge from the army. I never lied to you about that now, did I?’

‘Of course, William dear; I know that. But it never mattered to me. I love you. I loved you then and I love you now.’

‘But when I told you about my Section Eight, I also told you about Franky Furbo. I told you all about it then, when we were at the university, just after we’d met at one of those Friday night dances and knew right away we were in love. I told you about it that night. I felt you were the first person I’d ever met I could tell about Franky who wouldn’t laugh or get scared or run away from me. It was the year I was released from the hospital back in Kentucky. This is true, isn’t it? You did believe me, didn’t you?’

Caroline stares at me. She has the butter in her hand, ready to slide it into the refrigerator.

‘It was such a long time ago, William. Everything was mixed up after the war and you were so sad. And yet you had a fascinating way about your life, driving that impossible black, yellow and red cut-down jeep with the birdcages built into the back, living in a tent up there on a hill in Topanga Canyon. And then building your private nest in the attic of Moore Hall and living there.

‘I would have believed anything you told me; even if I didn’t believe, I’d have pretended I did. I wasn’t about to let you get away. I was so young. You can’t imagine what it is for a young girl when she meets someone like you and knows she’s in love – it’s a special kind of desperation.’

‘Then you didn’t believe me and you don’t now. You’ve only humored me along. Is that it?’

‘It’s not so simple, William. I knew you’d had a terrible time with the war and had been hurt deeply. I guess I felt sorry for you. But more than that, I wanted to be involved in your life, the life you told me you were going to lead. It’s possible I could have believed you with a part of my mind, an important part, the part related to my heart. Don’t you understand – I wanted to believe so much I maybe actually did believe. I never felt I was lying to you.’

She pulls the plug to let the water out of the sink. I dry the frying pan and hang it on the wall. I’m feeling empty inside, cold, lost, the way I used to feel in the hospital when no one would believe me and they’d ask the same questions over and over. Now, my own wife and youngest child don’t believe in me.

‘I’m not trying to blame you, Caroline. I understand. It’s just during all these years, I thought you believed. It helped me hold on to what I thought was the only sanity I had left. Except for the army psychiatrists, I never talked to anyone about it. Then I started telling the children stories, some of them actual stories Franky told me, some I made up over the years to amuse them. But even those made-up stories were somehow true, true in that I believed them myself.

‘You know how the doctors in the hospital put the whole Franky business down to a fantasy I’d constructed as compensation for a complete amnesia due to extreme trauma. They insisted I was only supporting a sustained delusion. That’s why they gave me the Section Eight. That’s why I still receive the fifty-percent disability pension – not for anything physical. I’m considered fifty percent mentally incompetent. I’m a certified half-wit. You know that.

‘But, damn it, I was convinced you believed me. I was sure you understood about Franky and believed with me; it gave our lives some sense. Probably I should never have invented some of those stories for the kids. Maybe it was there when you stopped believing in me. But I wanted to share the magic. I wanted them to know something about why their father is the way he is, lives the way he lives, has tried to design a personal kind of life for all of us.

‘Of course, some of those stories I told weren’t true, didn’t necessarily happen; there weren’t that many stories Franky told me. But I wanted to tell those stories, and I didn’t think it would hurt. Also, in an unbelievable, almost mystical way, I didn’t make them up. It was almost as if Franky were speaking through me. Even some of the children’s stories I’ve published came into my mind that way, like magic writing. I don’t quite understand it myself.

‘But, the important thing is, this doesn’t mean Franky Furbo isn’t real, and many of the stories I told them were true – true stories Franky told me, especially stories about how he discovered he was different from other foxes, that somehow he was a magic fox.’

I dry my hands on the dish towel and go over to the rocker in front of the fire. There are only two chairs in our home, other than those in the schoolroom and my workroom. There’s the rocker I’m sitting in and another rocker on the other side of the fireplace. Mostly we all just stretch out on our gigantic bed. Each of us has a reading light, and it’s there, in the bed, where we spend a good part of our evenings: reading, talking, discussing what we’re reading, playing word games – having wonderful times.

My sitting in the rocker is another bad sign, like the whistling. I hardly ever sit in it.

I see the fire needs more wood. I push myself up and throw two more logs into the hearth. We have all the wood cut for winter. It doesn’t get very cold here, but some evenings can be bitter. We have enough for at least two winters. A good part of our wood is olive, which we get when we trim the trees. It’s hard to start but then burns long and hot.

Caroline comes over behind me. She puts her hands on my neck and shoulders and starts massaging. I don’t respond. In fact, it annoys me. I don’t feel she even knows me, and I’d always thought of her as my closest friend as well as my wife. I’m feeling very alone, and I don’t know what to do. I’m wishing I’d just let it all go and left everything the way it was.

Caroline is very sensitive and I know she feels what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling. This somehow makes it worse. There are double-barreled guilts floating around in all directions. I sense how easy it would be for me to drift off into a deep depression, the way I would in the hospital when I felt so isolated. When I’m like that, it’s almost as if I’m in a nonexistent state; I have a hard time even remembering to eat or sleep.

Caroline stops massaging and comes around in front of me. I look up at her and she doesn’t smile. She just stares at me.

‘Look William, what does it matter if I believe in Franky Furbo or not? It just doesn’t matter. I believe in you; that’s what counts. Why should something that happened more than forty years ago be so important? Don’t make a big thing out of this. Please don’t ask me to lie to you.’

‘Honest, Caroline. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. If you don’t believe, after all these years living with me, living the way we’ve lived, the way Franky taught me to live, then how can mere talking help?

‘Don’t you realize that if it weren’t for Franky Furbo, I wouldn’t be alive? And even if I were alive, I wouldn’t be anything like the person I am. In a strange way, belief in Franky Furbo has been my religion. The experience I had with him made me an artist, a writer, gave me a feeling of uniqueness, of value, such as I’d never known. He gave meaning to my life. Can’t you understand that?

‘Without Franky I’d definitely be dead, not just physically dead but mentally dead, psychically dead, psychologically dead – a zombie. I’d lost confidence in the importance of living, the value of being alive, and Franky gave it back to me, helped explain some of what life is about. As a child, an orphan in an asylum, there had never been much joy or meaning in my life, and then there was the insanity of war. It all seemed so meaningless, so awful. Franky gave me a reason for living.’

I look up at Caroline; tears are rolling down her face. She just stands there in front of me. What can I do?

‘Caroline, please, will you listen to me one more time? I want to tell you everything I can remember. You don’t have to believe if you can’t, but it could be good for me to go over it all once more, to remind myself of what did happen, what didn’t happen. If I can separate those things, perhaps, now so much time has passed, I can see the whole experience for what the doctors said it was – only some kind of complicated delusion.

‘I think I made up many things to explain aspects of Franky I didn’t understand myself. I wanted the children to believe with me. Even this morning’s story, I know now, although I told it as truth, was not a story Franky told me. In a certain way, Billy was right when he said I made it up, that it wasn’t true. But it seemed true to me, and I wanted him to feel this truth with me. I couldn’t change the ending just because he wanted me to. That would be lying, untruth.

‘I hate to think those army doctors were right and there really is something wrong inside me, that my head doesn’t work right, that I can’t separate reality from fantasy. But I do accept the possibility there is something different in me. I often have the peculiar feeling I’m not even myself. That’s got to be crazy, doesn’t it?

‘If Franky Furbo isn’t real and I can learn to believe it, I can live with it now, I think. I have you, the children, our wonderful life – that should be enough. It’s been a long time, much has happened, we are so close. You’re right, I shouldn’t ask too much of you. It isn’t right.

‘But would you sit down there, dear, in our other rocking chair, and let me go over the entire experience one more time with you, and please, please, try to listen. Listen to me, knowing I’m not purposely trying to make any of this up, that I’m not lying to you. Listen as if it’s all happening to you, and believe what you can believe. I need someone to hear this with me.’




3

Fox Hole


As you know, dearest, I was only twenty when we hit the beaches near Palermo in Sicily. I was with the Thirty-fourth Infantry Division, and we were all scared out of our minds.

Somehow, after horrible fighting, we made our way up through Sicily and then onto the mainland of Italy. It seems so strange now, thinking of attacking this beautiful land, which has become home to us.

By some miracle, I managed to stay alive and unhurt. We were attacking Germans entrenched in an old monastery on a hill called Monte Cassino. There was ferocious fighting, small arms, mortar, artillery, bombing, much pushing forward and then retreating. It seemed as if we were never going to get past this defense position the Germans had set up. Many Italian prisoners came in, but the Germans were fighting to the last man. It looked to me as if we were going to lose the war, or at least keep fighting until either I was killed or died of old age.

Rumor spread along the lines that we were about to mass a major attack coordinated with division, corps, and army artillery. I, personally, wasn’t ready. I was at the very limits of what I could endure, but then so was everyone else.

I was half asleep in a hole with a friend called Stan Cramer, when Sergeant Messer came up to our hole.

‘OK, you two, haul ass outta there and follow me, the captain wants to see you.’

We crawled back on our bellies, in the mud, to the company CP. The CO was as dirty as the rest of us. Somehow he’d also managed to survive. He was one of the only company commanders in our battalion who had lasted this long.

He wanted us to go on a reconnaissance patrol. The word patrol had taken on a special quality of its own for me. My brain, my insides shook when I heard it. I was so frightened I couldn’t speak. I listened with Stan, as the CO pointed at his dirt-smeared, often-folded map and explained what was going to happen, what we had to do.

‘Now, this is only going to be a “recon” patrol, you two, so don’t get your ass in an uproar. We just want to find out if a little bridge up ahead has been mined or has been set to be blown. If anyone opens fire or you see anything that looks like a serious defensive position, hustle your asses right back here. This whole battalion is supposed to attack at oh-six-hundred, right through there, and if that bridge is intact, it would sure make things a lot easier. Artillery will start coming in at oh-five-thirty, so get on back here before then. You understand?’

He explained how the bridge was over a small stream. The stream could be forded but would be hard for the antitank guns and heavy-weapons people. He wanted to know just what was there if we could find out.

He gave us C rations: hot hash and hot coffee. Then he left us. We ate leaning against a piece of broken masonry near the CP. We didn’t talk much. We rested. It was good to be off the line, even if it was only a hundred yards back. We had four hours before we were to move out.

At four o’clock in the morning we started. We moved behind our own lines, north, till we were in line with where the bridge was supposed to be. I remember the password that night was Lana-Turner. We came up to the last outpost on that part of the line. It was the Third Platoon. They challenged us and we gave the password. We slid down into the hole with them. We told them what we were supposed to do. They told us they hadn’t seen any bridge but could tell us where the stream was, down the hill, just before you had to start up the next hill. They insisted the hill was absolutely infested with Jerry. They scared us with descriptions of suspected mortar emplacements here, snipers there.

We went out carefully; I could taste the coffee in my nose and in the back of my throat – sour. I should never have drunk it. We slid and slipped down the hill. It was hard mud with flat loose shale over the whole surface. We came to the stream. We stopped.

Stan had the map and was sure the bridge had to be farther to the north yet, although it was actually supposed to be more east than north. I had no idea. I was interested only in going through the motions and getting back.

We started working our way up along the draw formed by the stream. It was hard going because it was so dark. The sky had that little bit of light that always seems to come before dawn when you’re on guard duty and waiting for relief. But, as usual, it didn’t help much. Mostly, we guided ourselves by the sound of water running in the stream.

The sides of the draw began getting steeper, so we slipped more and more often into the water. Then Stan stopped. He pointed. There was a bridge. It had to be the bridge we were looking for. It was a typical Italian bridge one finds around this area, constructed of stone part way out on each side and the middle built with heavy wood. It was longer than the stream was wide, so the stream must have run more fully in the spring. We crept up a little closer. Stan leaned close to my ear.

‘You willing to slide out on that thing and take a look-see? I’ll scramble up the side of this hill to cover you.’

I was willing but I didn’t want to. I nodded my head. Stan put his mouth close to my ear again. He had a luminous watch he’d taken from an Italian officer.

‘We have about half an hour before all that corps and division crap is supposed to hit. We sure as hell want to be far from here by then. Give me five minutes to get up in a good spot to cover, then scramble out on the bridge and give it a quick going-over.’

He started off up the ridge. I sat and wondered what I was doing. I had a carbine and four grenades. Out on that bridge I’d be a dead duck if anyone were guarding it. Only the dark was in my favor. This was one of those patrols that could turn out to be only a cold, wet walk or a last walk into the final cold.

When I figured Stan had to be in place, I started. Twice I slipped into the streambed till it was over my boots, so I figured I’d walk along in the water at the edge of the stream; it was easier and I wasn’t going to get any wetter. I was reaching the point where I was not only scared but scared of being scared. When you get too scared, you don’t do the right things at the right time in the right way; that can be really dangerous.

I wondered if I should be higher up on the side of the hill with a chance to scurry for cover. The problem is, when nothing is happening, I get careless.

Now, as I got closer to the bridge, there were bushes and reeds growing along the edge. I moved into them and looked at the bridge carefully. There seemed to be no one there. I started to worry about the time; my watch is only a normal Bulova, which doesn’t glow in the dark, and I couldn’t read it, no matter which way I twisted my wrist. The orphanage, St Vincent’s, gave it to me as a high school graduation present because I was first in my class. It’s amazing it’s still working after all it’s been through. It’s an ordinary watch, not waterproof, but it’s been in a lot of water.

I reached the bridge on our side of the stream. I slithered under it and felt for a mine or dynamite sticks. There was nothing. I pulled myself up onto the bridge quietly and stretched out there. At this point, I began to feel that the moon, the stars and all possible light available were concentrating on me. I looked under my arm, almost expecting I’d cast a shadow. It was too dark; my imagination was running amuck.

I pulled myself on my belly and reached over the edge of the bridge to check each of the supports. I figured if anything started, I’d just let myself drop into the water and float on downstream. I was probably not actively thinking this, but the thoughts were there.

The secret to success on any patrol is full-fledged paranoia. You have to expect the worst to happen and be prepared for it, at any minute. The least surrender to a sense of security is an invitation to sudden death.

I slid farther along the bridge. I tried to stay beneath the cover of the railing and reached far under to the center support where the diagonal wooden braces met. It’s the place where dynamite should’ve been placed if somebody really wanted to blow this bridge. There was nothing. I was beginning to feel more confident. I slid farther along and now only had to check those supports where the wood fit into the stone on the other side. Stan and I had agreed that, when I was finished, and if everything was OK, I’d wave my arm so he’d know to start back to our meeting place, the place where we’d separated. This wasn’t the first patrol I’d been on with Stan. We’d take turns doing the hard parts, and it was my turn.

I leaned over the edge of the bridge again, feeling for something there but not really expecting it. Then, two hands reached out from under the bridge and pulled me down! My carbine strap got caught up on the bridge, so it was ripped right off my shoulder.

There were two of them. Germans. They weren’t SS, only regular field green, garden variety Wehrmacht, German GIs. The one who pulled me over the edge had a knife at my neck, the other had his rifle pointed at my head. I put my hands above my head behind me. I was on my back, half in the water. The one with the knife let me go and pointed up the hill on the other side of the draw. The one with the gun prodded me in the ribs, hard. I clambered up in front of them in the dark, stumbling, wondering if Stan could see us. He probably could, but couldn’t do anything. He could never tell in the dark which were the good guys, me, and which were the baddies, Krauts. I’m hoping he won’t try any shooting. He’s not all that great a shot; he just barely made marksman, with help from all of us.

In a few minutes we reached a hole dug in the lee of the hill on the other side of the draw. They shoved me into it. The one with the knife also had a Schmeisser, what we called a ‘burp gun’, slung over his shoulder. He reached for my neck and yanked off my dog tags. He also used his knife to cut off my division insignia. He searched me and took my Bulova watch and wallet. This was more like a mugging than a capture. I began to be afraid. These guys must never’ve heard of the Geneva Convention. Or maybe they’d heard of it and didn’t believe in it. Just my luck.

He jammed all my stuff into his pocket and said something to the other guy. This Kraut then braced his back against one side of the hole and propped his rifle on his knee, pointed right at my chest. The one with my things clambered out from the hole and took off up the side of the slope.

I tried smiling at the Kraut with the rifle, a smile in the dark. No smile back. I’m wondering what time it is, how soon that artillery is going to start coming in. I wonder if Stan has run all the way back to tell them I’m stuck out here, or if he even knows. Hell, they wouldn’t hold up an artillery barrage for one lousy Pfc.

I slowly try to make moves with my hands over my head like bombs coming in. I make ‘Boom Boom’ noises. He flicks off his safety! Maybe ‘Boom Boom’ means something different in German. I keep trying to get the message across, but he’s only acting more suspicious and crouches behind his sight to let me know he’s ready to shoot if I make one false move. I’m beginning to panic. They’re bound to have this bridge zeroed in.

Then it comes. First one over, then one under, bracketing. The third lands about fifty feet down from us and to the right of the bridge, near the water.

Now my German comrade finally seems to have gotten the picture. Keeping his rifle on me, he looks down as bits of dirt and rocks are dropping all around us. I make moves as if to get the hell out of that hole and up the hill. He points his rifle at me again and shouts something. Another salvo comes whistling and roaring in; the bridge is blown sky high, bits of wood and stone fly around with dirt and shrapnel. So much for the attack over the bridge; everybody’s going to get their feet wet anyway. If the Krauts don’t blow it, we’ll do it ourselves.

I crouch down deep in the hole with my hands tight on my head. I remember I don’t even have my helmet. It fell off when they pulled me under the bridge and is probably floating downstream. I’m beginning to feel I’m in for it.

I’m thinking how I didn’t have a chance to surrender; I’ve had many wonderful fantasies – walking up to some Kraut, handing over my rifle, and surrendering, like General Lee at Appomattox. But they ripped my grenades off me down there by the water before I could think, and my carbine must still be on that bridge, actually flying around in pieces with the rest of the debris.

Well, now I’m a prisoner, but not for long. I try once more to get this guy to climb out of the hole with me, but no go.

Just then, it starts truly coming down. The concussion is so great I feel as if my eyes are popping out of my head. That Kraut and I are groveling, fighting, for the lowest spot in the hole. We’re both screaming. Mommy and Mutti are in great demand that morning but are not responding. I don’t even remember my mother but I’m yelling for her anyway. The impact, the noise, the dirt falling in on us fills the air.

In the middle of everything, I see the rifle leaning, unattended, against the front edge of the hole. The Kraut has forgotten all about it. We’re involved with bigger guns now; this popgun looked like a peashooter.

I decide how, if by some major miracle we get through this, I’ll look a lot better if the German is my prisoner than the other way around; so, in a clear instant, when dirt isn’t being blown into my mouth, eyes and ears, I lean over with one arm and cradle that gun against my chest. I might as well look like a hero, it can’t hurt. Single-handed, in hand-to-hand combat after he’d been captured, he overwhelmed the enemy and escaped – all that crap. It could make a fairly nice bronze star citation.

The Kraut looks at me as if I’m nuts. He probably figures we should be past all that. He’s right. I try to relax, let my mind wander, think about other things, because there’s nothing I can possibly do concerning what’s actually happening now. I try to justify what’s going on, explain it to myself.

So far, I’ve found out there’s a big difference between recklessness, fearlessness and bravery. The first is to be avoided, except as something from afar, say in a movie or a story. The second is also something to be avoided. If you are fearless, you probably lack some critical aspect of imagination. If you’re near someone who is fearless, chances are you’ll get sucked into the vortex of fearless madness and get hurt yourself, no matter how careful you are. I’d already discovered the truth of this second one before the crazy war, but have had it verified too often over the past few months.

Bravery is doing what has to be done even though you’re afraid. Most brave people I’ve known have done what they did very cautiously. They were scared, but for survival reasons, either of self or others they valued, did something that normally would require fearlessness or recklessness. But they don’t do it fearlessly or recklessly. They only do what has to be done and they do it with an absolute minimum of bravado.

Then, there’s another category. I could call it pragmatic sensibility. It’s when one does the obviously intelligent thing, which can easily be confused with bravery, that is, if you don’t look carefully. My reaching out for the rifle and cuddling it to myself fits in here somewhere.

But I don’t have long to cogitate all these minor variations in human behavior. I keep telling myself that anything I can hear or feel probably isn’t going to kill me. I’ve gotten through a few other bombardments with this specious rationale, but then the one I didn’t feel or hear must have come. I don’t know how close it was, but it was close enough to just fold that hole right in on top of us. Everything stops for me.

When I come to, I’m covered with mud, dirt and blood. I can’t move. I can barely see. My ears are ringing. My feet and arms are numb. I feel strangely warm and comfortable. I consider the idea that I am dead.

In front of me, stretched out on my dirt-covered lap, is the Kraut. His eyes are open and looking right at me, but he isn’t seeing. His neck looks twisted the wrong way. I figure he’s dead, too, and if he’s seeing anything, he’s seeing me dying. We’re on the inside of a mass grave for two.

If I’m dead, then there’s nothing to do but wait and find out what happens next. If I’m not dead, then I’m probably dying. I’m astounded at how easy it is, how I’m not as scared as I thought I’d be.

I can see enough to know, or think, that it’s full daylight. Some considerable time must have passed. I feel the way you feel when somebody buries you deep in sand at the beach, or when, in a hospital, they give you an ether anesthetic, or I should say, the way I felt when they gave me an ether anesthetic to take out my tonsils and adenoids at the orphanage when I was eight years old.

I know I’m crying, but I can’t hear myself. When you’ve been under a one-five-five artillery bombardment, you don’t hear much of anything for a while.

I’m not sure how long we lie there like that. Nobody comes to check us, neither GI nor Kraut. The war seems to have passed us by. That’s not too disappointing.

I drift in and out. I’m just beginning to feel some pain. Maybe I am alive, more or less. I try moving a few fingers but nothing happens. I can’t even lift my head to look up over the edge of the hole, and that’s when I’m conscious. When I’m passed out, we must just look like a couple of prime candidates for the grave-registrar bunch, and they won’t be along till much later. Everybody’s too damned busy fighting the crappy war to pay much attention to us for now. We’re sort of obsolete.

It’s getting to be night again when I hear a small scurrying sound. That wakes me! I’m sure it’s rats come for a free nibble. We had rats in the night at the orphanage. I wonder, if I try, if I can make a noise like a cat. I try making a noise and two things happen. The ‘dead’ Kraut starts to moan; muddy tears come out of his eyes, puddle with his muddy sweat. The other thing is I can hear myself as well as hear his moan. Of course, I’d also heard the scurrying, so my ears must be working. I try to turn my head a little, but it hurts, hard, down deep in my back, under all the dirt. My arms, hands, legs and feet begin feeling cold – not so much cold as dead. I’m starting to wish all of me could feel as dead as they seem. At least they don’t hurt.

I look around for the rats, but there aren’t any. It’s a fox! It’s a beautiful fox standing on two legs! He comes close and begins carefully, with small fine almost handlike paws, scraping dirt off the Kraut and me.

I watch, not knowing what’s happening or what to do. Then the fox looks me in the eyes and says in a clear, calm voice:

‘Stay perfectly still, William. I’ll have you out of here very soon.’

Now I’m sure I’m dead or crazy, or both, but there’s nothing I can do. He slowly lifts off the Kraut’s helmet and gently slides his head off my chest. He works slowly, carefully, pulling dirt from the both of us until we’re completely uncovered. Then this little fox stares down and at me again.

‘Now you do just as I say, William, and everything will be all right.’

I’m sure I’m dead now, but how is it nobody ever figured out God was a fox? The Kraut moans again, and the fox touches him all over with his light, tender, moving paws. He speaks to him in another language. I’m not sure, but it sounds like German. In either language, his voice is a strong modulated whisper, warm and comforting, still loud enough so I hear it easily through the mud and dirt packed in my ears.

He turns back to me. His eyes are an incredible yellowish amber.

‘William, you shall both die unless you do exactly what I tell you.’

I’m numb, dumb with shock and fear. His eyes peer intelligently at me over his reddish black muzzle.

‘Look deeply into my eyes. Try to relax. You will have a strange sensation, but it is the only way I can think right now to remove you from here and to a place where I can help you.’

I stare into his eyes and slowly seem to feel myself lifting out of my body. At the same time, I sense an intense enclosing concentration, a compaction of all I am. The closest thing I can think of is the way it would feel for loose snow to be squeezed into a snowball. I slowly become as nothing. The pain and numbness leave, then I lose consciousness.





4

The Warren


The next thing I know, Caroline, I’m in a large room. I’m stretched out on a bed. My entire body is in traction, with pulleys and weights hanging from rafters in a ceiling. The ceiling, rafters, walls and floors are made from wood, and they’re not painted. It seems like a strange kind of hospital. But I’m in a clean bed and it’s quiet. I don’t feel any pain if I lie still, not even a headache.

I try to remember what’s happened to me. I can move my hands, my arms, if I do it carefully, but it is painful. I turn my head slowly back and forth. In the bed beside me is the German soldier. He’s asleep and breathing hard. I recognize him by his split front teeth. I have the same kind of teeth myself, you know, Caroline, and when I see it in someone else I always remember it. I have a feeling of family with people who have this kind of teeth.

I figure that somehow some medics, Kraut or American, have found us, and we’re in a field hospital somewhere. I couldn’t care too much which, Kraut or American. I’m beginning to believe I’m alive and out of the war, out of pain. I fall gently back to sleep.

When I wake again, I can’t believe what I see. A giant fox is leaning over me, checking my bandages, checking the bottles and tubes hanging above my bed. He’s human sized and wearing white doctorlike clothes! He has the build of a medium-sized man, taller than most bears.

He sees I’m awake and lays his paw on my forehead. The underside of his paw is soft but feels cool.

‘Well, William, you are awake at last. Those were really horrible wounds you had, but you shall soon be all right. You had two fractured vertebrae, which were hard to repair without damage to your spinal cord. You also had six broken ribs and a broken collarbone. There was some damage to your liver and one of your lungs as well, but that is all repaired.’

I’m beginning to wonder again whether I’m dead. But this is even more than I’d expect if I were dead; this is all just nuts. The fox is still standing there, leaning over me. The tip of his nose is wiggling so the whisker hairs dance.

‘I’m sorry, William, I know it must be very confusing. I can tell you that you are not dead and you are not crazy either. I should also tell you I cannot only speak English, but that your thoughts speak to me as clearly as words.’

It takes a little courage getting myself to say anything. I have an inside feeling that if I begin talking to this giant fox all dressed up in a white coat like a doctor, I would definitely be bonkers. But what else is there to do? Maybe if I start talking, he’ll disappear and some real people will come running to help me.

‘How did I get here? What are you? What’s happening?’

The huge fox pulls a chair over from the wall. He sits in the chair beside me.

‘Now you just relax and listen, William. Your questions are hard to answer and the answers will be even harder for you to believe.

‘How did you get here? I brought you here from that hole where you were dying. I made you very small, along with Wilhelm across there, and carried you both back with me to my home. For me, it was not a long or difficult journey. I shall tell you why later. I brought you into my home to see if I could make you well. I should tell you that my home is in the inside of a tree. You think I am a big fox right now, and I could be if I wanted to, but actually I have made you and Wilhelm small and I am the natural size of a fox. You only think I am big because we’re the same size and you expect a fox to be smaller than you.’

He pauses. It’s almost as if he’s watching my brain and waiting until what he’s said has printed itself in there. I’m wondering how I could make this all up. In general, I’m not very imaginative. He starts talking again.

‘Don’t worry about it, William, just listen. You shall understand much more as time goes by. Your second question is harder because I do not understand it very much myself. “What am I?”

‘It seems easy just to say I am a fox. But you can see I am not an ordinary fox. For reasons I do not know or understand, I was born very intelligent, with many skills and abilities no fox or even humans have. I live by myself here in this tree. My mother, brother and sisters were ordinary foxes. I don’t know why or what I really am. I know that doesn’t answer your question, but it is the truth.

‘Now your next question. “What’s happening?” I was wondering the same thing. What’s happening here in this place where I live? Humans are dashing up and down, back and forth, killing one another, making noise, destroying towns. I know it is a war, but I don’t know why there must be all this killing, how they force all of you to do such a crazy thing.

‘So, this is what is happening to you: I decided to select two samples of people who are doing the killing, acting so insanely, and find out why they’re doing it. I didn’t want to capture anyone who was well and healthy so I waited till I could find two humans, each speaking a different language, who were fighting each other but were about to die. When I found you and Wilhelm in that hole, I decided to take you two because I could see you would soon be dead anyway. Wilhelm is hurt even worse than you. But he is soon going to be well, too. One of the many skills I have is that I can heal others, better than any human doctor.’

I watch his eyes. They show only kindness and intensity. I begin to feel myself relax, able to believe a little bit what I’m hearing. In a crazy way, it almost makes a kind of sense, at least as much sense as the dumb war does.

‘That’s good, William, now you are relaxing. It will help you become well sooner. I have only a little more to say now, then I want you to sleep.

‘I shall be asking questions, as well as reading your mind over the next while. I want to understand why humans do some of the things they do, especially war. I want you and Wilhelm to know each other, to speak to each other. I shall teach each of you the language of the other so you can share what you know. I shall also teach you another language, one that will make understanding, for all of us, much easier. I cannot teach you to read each other’s minds because it is probably impossible for humans to do that; but this language I shall teach you is the most complete communication possible for humans.

‘When you are well, when you want to, you may leave here and go back to your own people. I hope you don’t mind my having taken advantage of you this way, but I think it will be good for us all. Now, close your eyes and go to sleep.’

With that he puts his cool paw on my forehead and slides it down over my eyes. I go to sleep, a deep sleep, immediately.

I don’t know how much longer it is before I wake again. I feel much better. The traction has been removed. I’m stretched out on my bed, very relaxed, warm and with a happy feeling. I hear talking on the other side of the room.

I turn my head, without pain, and see that the fox is sitting in a chair beside the Kraut’s bed, just as he had been with me before. I try to listen. They are talking German. I stare at the ceiling and want to put it all together. I’m beginning to feel nervous, frightened again.

The next thing I know, the fox is leaning over me, smiling. He pulls the covers down and begins to feel over my body with his gentle paws. His eyes, his ears, seem to be concentrating on my body. When he finds a spot that still hurts, he covers it with his hands, makes it warm, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.

‘You’re coming along fine, William; you are almost completely healed. You will feel weak for a few days but with some good solid food you shall be on your feet soon.’

I don’t know how to thank him. How do you thank a fox? What should I call him, Mr Fox? He’s checking the back of my neck now.

‘Don’t worry about it, William. My name is Franky Furbo. At least, that’s what I call myself. Foxes usually don’t have names. You may call me Franky, if you will. I’d like that.’

‘All right, Franky. Thank you for saving my life. You saved the life of that Kraut too, right? Whose side are you on?’

‘I don’t take sides, except I’m on the side of life. You two are now alive and are human, the closest creatures on this earth to myself I’ve found so far. There’s no need to thank me; my pleasure is in seeing you well.’

There’s no answer I can think of to that.

‘Did I hear you speaking Kraut – I mean German – to that guy over there?’

‘That’s right. I can speak any language spoken on this earth; it’s a hobby of mine. Do you know there are more than six thousand languages spoken on this planet alone? I find it fascinating, also the way languages come about, how they’re constructed. It is easy for me to learn all these languages because of my special mind skills. Our German friend’s name is Wilhelm, the same as yours only in German. His full name is Wilhelm Klug. And your name is William Wiley. Is that right?’

Of course it’s right. At first I think he’s read my dog tags, but then I remember the other German took them with him. It’s so weird being around someone, even if it is a fox, who knows everything in your head. It almost makes it not worth talking.

‘I’d like to teach you to speak German, William. It won’t take any time. I can also teach you everything that is in Wilhelm’s head so you can know him as well as he will know you. That way, I feel you can talk about this war and understand more of what it is supposed to be all about. Are you agreed?’

By now, I’m so confused I’ll agree to anything. I nod my head.

‘All right then, just relax. You will feel a strange warmness and you won’t be able to see or hear for a few minutes, but then it will go away. It’s best if you close your eyes now.’

Franky lowers his head close to mine. I close my eyes. It’s the way it was in the hole. I feel warmth, but this time going through my whole brain. There is a smell, almost of burnt almonds or the smell of the seed inside a peach stone. It seems to last only a few minutes. Then Franky leans back. He speaks to me.

‘Well, how did that feel? It wasn’t so bad, was it?’

‘It felt warm in my head and I smelled something peculiar. How should I feel?’

‘Listen to yourself.’

Only then, I realize I’ve answered in German, and it was so familiar to me it sounded like English to my ears. I also realize I do know everything about Wilhelm, all he can remember about his own life. I know where he lived, about his wife, how he misses her. It’s almost as if they are my own memories, but more, as if it’s a movie I’m watching, only seeing it, not actually participating. I stare over at Wilhelm. I turn to Franky.

‘You did it. You actually did it. But can I still speak English?’

‘Certainly. Sometimes, at first, you might get confused and speak the wrong language, but that won’t last long. In time, your own language will control your German. It’s what you are, an American who speaks English as your home language.’

‘You haven’t done this with Wilhelm yet, have you?’

‘No. He isn’t quite strong enough, but in a few days he’ll be ready. I think now he would appreciate it if you would speak with him some when I am gone. He’s very lonesome and frightened.’

‘I never thought about that. He’s probably as scared as I am. In fact, I know he is, I can feel his feelings. He’s afraid of me even.’

Franky pats me on the arm while his nose and whiskers quiver again.

‘Well, I’m going down to cook you a good meal. Would you like a big omelet with baked potatoes and carrots, all served with fresh homemade bread?’

He knows I would, he knows everything about me. I smile. He leaves. I look over at Wilhelm. He’s staring at the ceiling and I can see tears flowing from his eyes. I speak and it comes out in German.

‘It’ll be all right, Wilhelm. Franky will make everything just fine. We would be dead if he hadn’t saved us, you know.’

He lifts his head, stares at me.

‘You are German?! You are Bavarian, a Munchener?’

‘No, I am American.’

His head falls back. He stares at the ceiling, the wooden

ceiling.

‘But you speak perfect German, the German I speak, the German from my part of Germany. What is this? Are you an American spy?’

I try to explain how Franky taught me, how, by some magic way, he put part of Wilhelm’s brain into mine.

‘But that is not possible. None of this is possible. Who is it who wears the big fox suit? Is this some American trick?’

I don’t know whether to try explaining it or not. It seems impossible. How can one explain what one not only doesn’t understand but doesn’t even really yet quite believe himself? But Franky wanted me to talk to Wilhelm. I try.

‘This fox we see is a real fox, a special fox. He calls himself Franky Furbo. He is not a giant fox; he only looks big to us because he has made us little as foxes. He has saved us from death with his magic medicine and special skills.’

My God, it sounds just as crazy in German.

‘He made us small, took us from the hole, and brought us here. We are in the inside of a tree, which is where this fox lives.’

‘Yes, he told me these things. But do you believe him? It is not possible. Perhaps you are crazy, but I am not.’

I know how he feels.

‘Yes. I think I believe him, although it is very difficult. When he gave me your language, he also gave me a good part of your life. Let me tell you some things and maybe then you will believe.’

I wait. I have a sensation of a Peeping Tom, looking at this film that is in my brain, at the life of this man who a few hours ago was a stranger to me, the enemy I was trained to fight and kill.

‘Wilhelm, you are married. You have a wife named Ulrika whom you call ‘Riki’. You miss her very much and are worried for her because of the bombs. Your father’s name is Heinrich. Your mother’s name is Heidi. You had a brother named Hans, but he was killed in Russia. You were studying to be an engineer but were taken into the army.’

As I talk, Wilhelm twists to look at me. There is pain on his face. It is the pain of his body and the pain of his emotions.

‘Stop. This is all a trick. I must have been talking out loud when I was unconscious. How do you know these things? This is very cruel of you to treat me like this!’

‘I know much more, but it will not help to say it now. Let us talk about other things. You play chess, yes? Perhaps Mr Furbo will find us a chessboard and we can play. How are you feeling? Do you still hurt? Mr Furbo took away all my pain yesterday and says that soon I shall be able to stand and walk.’

I stop. Wilhelm is quiet.

‘All this craziness must be true then. Do you know that you speak with my voice? When you speak it is almost as if I am speaking myself. How can that be?’

‘It’s as I told you.’

Wilhelm is quiet; he lies back. I’m feeling tired myself. I drift off to sleep. When I wake, Franky has placed a table beside my bed. He helps me swing up so I can sit at the table. He puts slippers on my feet. I look over and see that Wilhelm is asleep. Franky pulls up a chair for himself across from me.

‘Ah, William, it will be nice to sit at a table with someone, to have conversation and eat. I do not often have the chance. Most of the time I am alone. I make friends with some of the other animals in the forest, and once there were two children with whom I was friendly, but now they have grown and gone off to the university, taken work in another part of Italy. I don’t see them anymore. We write to one another and I hope someday they will come back to live near here.’

The omelet is delicious, the carrots cooked just right, not too soft, not too hard. Franky tells me wonderful tales of his life as a fox, how he writes children’s stories to gain the little money he needs for books and necessities. He has a post office box, a bank account, and mostly he orders the things he wants by mail to be delivered at his P.O. box.

‘I used to have one or the other of my two young friends pick up those packages for me, but then I discovered I could transmute matter and make myself look more or less like a human, or even be invisible. This simplified life for me, and also I could travel by transmigration of my body. Would you like to see me as a man? It must be somewhat uncomfortable for you sitting here, eating with a fox. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it. I try not to enter your mind unless I feel it is necessary. It confuses conversation when only one is a telepath.

‘By the way, I hope you don’t mind, but I am a vegetarian; it seems very unfoxlike, but it is my preference. If you want meat while you are here, I can obtain some for you.’

‘To be honest, if you cook vegetables and eggs like this all the time, I won’t need meat, Franky. Also, I hardly notice you’re a fox anymore, so you don’t need to do anything about that either.’

I’d practically forgotten I was sitting there on the edge of a bed, at a table, eating cooked eggs, potatoes, carrots and homemade bread with someone who looks like a gigantic fox. Perhaps Franky Furbo has entered my mind to make me more comfortable. No, I don’t think he’d do that without telling me.

But then, right there, he actually does it. As I watch, he gradually changes: his fur disappears, his muzzle shortens, his arms and legs thicken, and he’s practically a human. There’s still something foxlike about him, but this is probably because I know he’s a fox. A stranger would only think he was a slightly thinner-than-usual human.

‘This is amazing, Franky. I wouldn’t have believed it. And are you little, the way we are?’

‘Of course; if I made myself the size of a human I wouldn’t fit in my own house.’

His nose wiggles and he begins eating. Franky stays in his human form for the rest of the meal. He says tomorrow he will work with me and try to help me get out of bed and walk around.

‘You need to regain some tone in your muscles and loosen up the area where I repaired those vertebrae. Now I think you should slide back in bed, stretch out and try to sleep. Your body has been through much and needs all the rest it can get.’

He gathers up our dishes from the table and carries them downstairs. I realize more than just my body has been through much; I definitely need rest. My brain feels as if it’s sizzling from so many new thoughts.

Two days later, Franky does the same thing to the mind of Wilhelm he’d done with mine. When he’s finished, Franky leaves us alone. Wilhelm starts talking to me in English. His eyes are wide; his face white.

‘But I speak with your voice, the voice you use when you speak English. I know all about you as if we were brothers. How can this be?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Franky Furbo. He’s the one who can perform this miracle. I think only he can know.’

Now we talk easily. Wilhelm is less scared, more willing to believe. At first, we avoid the situation under which we met. Me sliding out on the bridge, his sergeant and he underneath waiting for me. We switch back and forth from English to German, at first, but then he begins speaking German and I speak English. We understand each other perfectly, and, at the same time, we feel like ourselves speaking our own languages.

It turns out they’d seen me from the time I stepped out of the stream. I told him about Stan up on the hill. They hadn’t seen him. I make the motions of the bombs over my head and go ‘Boom Boom’ again. He remembers and I tell him what I was trying to do. We both get to laughing. We laugh the hardest when we talk about my grabbing his rifle in the middle of the bombardment when we were being killed.

‘I thought you were really crazy then, William. First you’re waving your hands over your head going “Boom Boom”, then you take the rifle when we both know we’re going to be killed, anyway.’

He tells me about his experience in the war, how he wouldn’t have been too disappointed if I had captured him. He says his sergeant was a very hard man and I’m lucky he didn’t kill me. He only saved my life because he thought some officer might want to interrogate me. The Germans knew there was going to be an attack soon but didn’t know where it would be. I told him I’d been looking for a way to get captured since Palermo. It turned out we’d been in the same area several times in the battle up the Italian peninsula. We agree we’re both glad to be out of it.

We’re also curious about what’s happening to us. We keep reassuring each other we aren’t crazy. Two people couldn’t be crazy about the same situation at the same time, could

they? There’s only one thing to do and that’s wait to see what happens. He wants very badly to get some message to his wife, Riki, so she will know he is all right, because he knows the sergeant will report him dead or captured. I suggest he ask Franky when we see him again about the possibility of getting word to her.

During the next days, both Wilhelm and I start getting out of bed and exercising. Franky has individual exercises for each of us to help us gain our strength. He also has different potions and medicines he gives us along with our food. We eat only vegetarian food and Wilhelm says he wants meat, so, at first, Franky brings him chicken, steaks, roasts – things like that. But Franky is a good cook and likes to eat. The way he prepares the vegetarian meals for us is so tasty, the meat Wilhelm’s eating begins to look like animal food.

After about two weeks, Wilhelm shifts over to vegetarian food with us. Once in a while he’ll have a Wiener schnitzel, but the main part of his food is vegetables. Franky has all kinds of spices he adds to the vegetables, so it’s hard to tell them from meat sometimes.

He says this is one thing from his fox background that has stayed – he really enjoys eating; but he can’t justify killing animals, especially because he can talk to them.

We have many conversations about ourselves. It is pleasant sharing our ideas, our experiences. Franky does manage to get a message to Wilhelm’s wife, and even brings a letter to him after a few days, written in what Wilhelm recognizes as her handwriting. She says she is well and staying with her family in the country. She tells him his mother and sister are well, also. She was very surprised to find his letter in her mailbox, even without a stamp or a Wehrmacht seal, because how could Wilhelm know where she is, that she is staying with her mother?

But Wilhelm is even more surprised. How could Franky deliver the letter and bring back an answer in only two days? It isn’t possible. Franky only wrinkles his nose, which I now begin to suspect is his way of smiling. I’m ready to believe anything, but Wilhelm has a harder time with believing. It’s not his way; he always wants to know things.

Finally we’re both in such good condition, it isn’t necessary for us to stay in bed. I don’t know where our uniforms are. We are both wearing blue pajamas.

One morning Franky comes in with clothes for us. They are not our uniforms; at the same time they aren’t regular clothes. There is a jacket, or jerkin, which slips over our heads, and trousers almost like knickerbockers, only tighter. There are heavy socks and light leather boots. There’s a wide leather belt to go over the shirt and to help hold up the trousers. He also has brought us light blue underwear, three pair each, the same color as our pajamas. I can’t help wondering where he gets these things, but I’m too embarrassed to ask. I see he no longer wears his white coat but is wearing the same kind of clothes himself.

We put on the costumes. There is also a hat. The clothes are all the colors of the forest, different greens and browns. The hat is dark green, pointed front and back like the kind of hat we used to make from old newspapers at the orphanage. I must say, we look fine in our new costumes, a bit like Robin Hood’s forest rangers, but Wilhelm seems worried. Franky twitches his nose.

‘I know, Wilhelm. You are worried because you are out of uniform and it is against the German military laws for a soldier to wear any other clothes. But your other uniform was so dirty. When you leave, you may have it back. In the meantime, if you want, I can make it so you will be invisible to anybody but William or myself. Please don’t worry so much.’

‘Yes, Franky, but I feel so strange in these soft clothes, these soft boots. What kind of uniform is this? It’s somewhat like Bavarian clothes but much softer. What is this?’

‘Let’s just say it is a peace uniform, Wilhelm, that, for a while anyway, we three are in an army for peace.’

Franky wrinkles his nose again. I smile, then laugh, and Wilhelm joins us. I smile at Wilhelm. It seems a great idea to me. I would definitely not be happy putting on my old dirty olive drabs and going out to war again. Wilhelm looks down at himself in his peace costume.

‘Well, it’s better than being dead, I must say. I was tired and scared by the war, anyway. I’m proud to be a member of our peace army. Can you really make us invisible?’

‘If you want.’

‘But we will be able to see each other?’

‘Oh yes. You won’t feel a thing. We won’t know we’re invisible unless somebody else tries to see us.’

‘OK, let’s be invisible. I’m ready.’

Wilhelm rises and stands to attention. I stand up, too, just to be sociable. Franky wiggles his nose and laughs.

‘OK, you’re invisible, both of you. I am too.’

Wilhelm looks down at himself.

‘How do I know I’m invisible? I can see myself.’

‘OK, if you want to be invisible to yourself, fine.’

Franky waves his hand as if he’s brushing away a fly. I think he’s failed for once, because Wilhelm is still standing there. Then I watch Wilhelm. His face is pale. He’s holding out his hands, touching them together; they’re shaking. He looks down at his legs.

‘Where am I? I’m gone. You did it. I’m invisible!’

‘Only to yourself. We see him, don’t we, William?’

‘That’s right. Are you sure you can’t see yourself, Wilhelm? You’re right there.’

‘Right where? I’m nowhere, I’m nothing! Mr Furbo, Gott in Himmel, make me come back, make me visible again.’

‘Do you want to be visible to everybody, just to the three of us or only to yourself?’




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