‘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