[h3]Siberia[/h3]


[b]Urajiosutoku
5:23 AM[/b]


Nagumo Kishimoto walked down the deserted streets with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slouched. Even though he'd been off duty since midnight, Nagumo still wore his leather bomber jacket with the IJN flag on the right shoulder and his name and rank under the left breast pocket. In the hip pocket of his khaki trousers was an empty flask he was looking to get filled. 

The bars the city had all closed two hours earlier, but Nagumo managed to get the flask filled with western whiskey before the bar closed, but now it was was bone dry. Bone dry seemed to be an accurate description of the town at that moment. The neon lights that usually advertised the nightlife attractions in both Kanji and Cyrillic were off, leaving the street eerily dark. All lights were out but one. At the dark end of the street sat a two story building with a marquee above it. The sign was supposed to read "The Mad Monk" in both languages, but the Cyrillic letters had started to burn out so that it read as "T e ad M nk." To Nagumo, it was symbolic of the Empire's gradual but unrelenting "Japanization" of colonial territory. 

Turning his collar up, he rapped on the door of the Mad Monk and waited. Thirty seconds later, the door swung in and a short, stocky Eurasian man with a shabby suit and even shabbier toupee stared up at him with an annoyed look on his face. Nagumo passed the man two thousand yen. The feeling of cash in his hands turned the Eurasian's annoyance to joy, or at least faux joy. He greeted Nagumo like an old friend in clipped Japanese before stepping aside to let him in.

The Mad Monk's interior was equal parts memorial and museum. The double-headed eagle of the Russian Empire was proudly displayed on the far wall of the bar. The rest of the walls were covered in nostalgia. Black and white photos of the pre-war days of Russia were hung on every inch of the wall. Photos of children at play, weddings, soldiers marching, and of course photos of the royal family. Next to the bathroom was a dartboard. On it was a photograph of another Russian, some communist agitator whose name Nagumo couldn't remember. A tight grouping of darts covered the man's forehead and face.

The centerpiece of the place was behind the bar. A giant photo of a wild, big bearded man dressed in a Russian Orthodox frock hung on the wall, his hands spread in an obvious attempt to draw Christlike comparisons. The hypnotic eyes of Grigori Rasputin seemed to follow Nagumo's every movement through the bar. On the shelf beneath the photo was a jar that contained an immense penis preserved in fluid. Nagumo turned away from the bar and looked across the tables in the room. 

One look at the late night clientele at the Mad Monk could explain why the interior of the bar seemed to flaunt its defiance of Japanization policy with its blatant tributes to Imperial Russia. Nagumo counted at least half of Vice Admiral Hoga's staff among those at the tables, having one last drink before the sun rose. Along with them were upper-level army officers, government administrators, and a smattering Russian and Eurasian collaborators and gangsters. The Mad Monk was where they all gathered for a stiff drink after the bars had closed. Everyone who was someone in the city had a vested interest in seeing this bar stay open. 

And the Tsarina knew it.

Nina stood behind the bar, sizing Nagumo up with her blue eyes as he sat down on the barstool. He was only one of two men who hadn't opted to sit at a table. His other companion rested face down on the wooden surface, a half empty glass of vodka beside his outstretched right hand and drool puddled by his face. Nagumo gave her a smile as she approached him. She was beautiful in a lot of ways. Just not conventionally. Not any more. 

She had long dark hair and high cheekbones, a mixture of European and Asian ancestry that favored the European side heavily. Two long scars ran down her face from the left side of her forehead down across her nose and cheek before they stopped on the right side of her chin. There were rumors that she had once been a whore in Moscow whose pimp had carved her face up. Another rumor said that she fought in the war and the scars were from shrapnel. Yet another rumor said that a Japanese soldier's katana had done the job. The rumor went on to say that she killed the man with the very same blade that had scarred her.

"Your Lordship," she said. "Drinking this morning?"

Nagumo winced at her pronunciation. "I'd forgotten how bad your Japanese was."

"It's not as bad and as awkward as your Russian," she said in her native tongue. 

"True, this is. Continue to work on it I shall. Progress slowly I make."

"Why must you butcher such a beautiful language, for god's sake!"

Nagumo laughed before returning back to Japanese. "Also, your sign out front needs new letters."

"So, did you come in here just to crawl up my ass, Your Lordship, or can I get you a fucking drink?"

Nagumo ordered two shots of sake. When she placed them in front of him, he slid the second shot towards Nina.

"Prefer vodka."

"You Russians are fifty percent vodka."

"And you, Nagumo, are eighty percent bullshit."

They clinked shot glasses and quickly downed the sake. Nagumo ordered two shots of vodka for a second round. When they were finished, he slid the empty glass across the bar. Nina collected it and stepped away to serve a waiting army officer. 

"Lieutenant Commander."

Nagumo turned when he heard someone address him by his rank. The Eurasian man with the shaved head leaned against the bar next to Nagumo and smiled. He wore all white and carried a white porkpie hat in his hand. 

"Boris," said Nagumo. "How goes the gambling business?"

"As long as your fellow Japs are dumb enough to play my games on payday, then business will always be good to me."

"Something I can help you with?"

Boris smiled. 

"Heard a rumor. There was supposedly some kind of breakout from the Farm yesterday. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that?"

"No," Nagumo said in a slow and measured tone. "I have no idea what you're talking about. And whatever the Farm is, it does not exist. And if it did, then it is not sanctioned by the Imperial Japanese government."

A smile broke out across Boris' face. It was a jagged thing that carried very little warmth with it.

"You should come to some of my games, Nagumo. I run a Mahjong game every Friday. Winner gets twenty thousand yen. We have Pai gow and American poker. I'm working with some of people in Japan on getting a few Pachinko machines as well."

"Duly noted," said Nagumo. "I'll take all that into consideration."

Boris flashed another smile and stepped away from the bar. A small square piece of paper rested where he had been leaning. Nagumo palmed the paper before slipping it into his jacket pocket. He watched Nina give the young army officer four bottles of beer. He thanked her without making eye contact and hurried back to the table where his friend's waited. 

"You know," she said once she returned. "With the way your people love to visit the comfort stations, I'm surprised how much soldiers avoid me so."

"With the prostitutes there are clear lines," said Nagumo. "Boundaries. With you, nothing is clearly defined. Plus I think they are afraid of you."

"The scars?" It didn't come out as a question. She'd already made her mind up.

Nagumo shrugged. "Part of it, I suppose. But it is also your general attitude. The way your carry yourself. Hard as nails. It's intimidating. There is a reason they call you the Tsarina."

She laughed and swept a loose piece of her hair away from her face.

"Well, then my plan is working. But you don't avoid me, Your Lordship. Why is that?"

"Because I like the attitude," said Nagumo. "Traditionally, Japanese men like subservient women."

"But you're not very traditional." Again, not a question. Just a stated fact.

"Take for example, your little pet name for me. Every other woman who has found out about my peerage suddenly acts as if I am the Emperor."

"It's just a title," said Nina. She reached behind the counter and pulled the sake bottle back out. She filled two more glasses and one she passed to Nagumo. "Only words." 

"The decorations in the bar seem to imply otherwise," Nagumo said after he downed the shot of sake.

"The previous owner," she said. "But I like it. There is something powerful about the longing of the days of the past. Nostalgia is as powerful as any liquor. All I added was the Rasputin part."

"Where does one find a pickled cock?"

Nina raised her eyebrow so high it almost touched her hairline. "In Russia? You'd be surprised."

Nagumo nodded and begged her off as she began to pour another shot for him. 

"No more."

"As you wish. So, let's see: Four shots of sake and two shots of vodka. That will be one hundred yen."

"Damn," Nagumo said as he started to pat the pockets of his jacket. "I gave the last of my money to your friend at the door. The one in denial about being bald."

"That's a shame," she said with the shake of her head. "I can't have people skipping out on their debts. It's bad for business. It makes the Tsarina look weak."

"Maybe we can work out a deal?" Nagumo asked with a grin. "I could work off the debt... I'm really good with my hands... and other kinds of manual labor."

Nina smiled and winked before crouching down behind the bar. When she stood up, she held a broom that she tossed to Nagumo.

"Get to sweeping, Your Lordship."