Back to Halkeginia

Chapter 6: Problems arise

Saito rubbed his eyes. Reading by lamplight was exhausting. And his day's work was far from over. There were still passengers waiting on the bench in front of his makeshift office.
Saito looked a little desperately at his notes. Since he was responsible for interviewing foreigners, the majority of these people were either business travelers or tourists.
Wasn't there anyone among these people who had learned something useful? (Although he could not look out for himself...)
Saito got up and opened the door. "The next, please!"
The passenger, who was initially seated, got up from the bench with some difficulty and rubbed his back. It was an old man. Another tourist, probably. He was white by appearance, maybe American or European.
"Please come in," Saito said with an inviting gesture, and stepped back from the doorway.
The old man followed him into the makeshift office with a smile and nodded to him. "Kombanwa, Hiraga-sama."
Saito's head jerked up. "Nihongo hanasemasu ka?"
The old man shook his head. "Just a few chunks," he replied in English.
"Well, at least you speak English," Saito said. That seemed like a nice Iteki, although one shouldn't expect too much from it.
"Let's start with your name," Saito said, settling down at his table.
"My name is Müller,"  replied the old man.
"Ah, Miller," Saito grumbled, reaching for the pencil (although he had to remind himself again: 'Don't chew on it! It's a real pencil,with a lead made of lead'.)
"No," said the old man. "Müller with umlaut. Miller would be the English form of my name, but I'm from Germany. "He winked at Saito. "If your pencil struggles, I mean 'ue', it does too."
"And how do you write this umlaut?" Saito asked with a grin.
"Like a 'u' with two small lines above it."
Saito wrote down the name, saying: "Did you know that there are some words from the German language that have been taken directly into Japanese?"
The old man smiled. "I already knew that, but I didn't know what the individual words were." He laughed softly to himself. "I bet these are words for things that you Japanese found so attractive that you wanted to adopt them, but that have no equivalent in Japanese."
"You guessed it right," Saito replied. "What about your First name?"
"Ralf," said the old man. He waved it off. "Old royal name - well, that shouldn't be important."
"Why?" Saito asked. "My own name Hiraga is the name of a famous scientist."
The old man just smiled.
"So, now we come to the more important part. What is your profession?"
"Now - none more. I am retired. Before that, I was caretaker in a public service building in my hometown of Berlin. "
Saito sighed. Another useless job...
But the old gentleman wasn't finished yet ... "I already know why you're asking. What is the use of a caretaker, here, in our situation? You should also know that a Craft occupation was a prerequisite for obtaining such a job. Not in the way the polite English term sanitary engineer is used. "
"Ah, that's different. Not just a drain cleaner and bulb exchanger. "
"I had to carry out some repairs myself. Although drain cleaning and replacing lamps were part of it. Basically, I was responsible for making sure the staff in this house got their jobs done." He giggled. "When I wasn't there, it soon started hooking on every corner."
"And what Craft occupation did you have before?" Saito asked.
"I was a mechanic - in my home country it is now a dead profession. Unfortunately, it was mostly practiced standing, and I couldn't do that anymore - because of my flat feet. "
Saito had to laugh and wrote mechanic on his piece of paper. "So you were standing in front of production machines?"

"That too, but mostly I was busy creating machine parts. These were mostly spare parts for other machines. I can handle pretty much any type of machine tool - lathes, milling machines, planers, saws. "
"Bingo!" Saito blurted out. Finally a hit! "These are valuable skills," he said, drawing a star behind Mechanics. "Can you also design such parts?"
"That was part of the job description. I can read technical drawings and also create them. "
Saito smiled at the old man. "Here at the academy there is a magician and teacher who is also a technical genius. He designed and built a small internal combustion engine even before I arrived. Maybe I should bring you together with him and just see what comes out of it. "
"Yes, if I could speak the language ..."
"Aren't technical drawings also a kind of language?" Saito countered. "The only thing missing now is that you also had a useful hobby."
Ralf Müller grinned broadly. "I even had several. I grew bonsai once. "
"Indeed? You would have got along with my father straight away. He also loved to snip around his bonsai. And otherwise?"
"I was a modelmaker. I've built remote-controlled models of airplanes and ships."
"It's getting better and better," Saito shouted.
The two men were disturbed by a knock on the door, which opened immediately and revealed a lovely face - a face that Saito knew all too well. "What's up, Siesta?" Saito asked. He thought to himself that Louise had been right - no sooner had Siesta found out that Saito had returned to Halkeginia, than she had asked the Queen to release her from her court and return to the Academy. And Henrietta had complied, perhaps as a small revenge for Saito's rejection of her offer.
Of course, Siesta had come to the Academy and couldn't help but remind Louise of her promise. And since there was a lack of staff everywhere, she was immediately hired again.
But after a very short time she had noticed the extent to which Saito and Louise were involved. So she didn't insist on keeping her promise - or postponed it to a later date. Instead, she had set Saito's physical well-being as a task. She served excellent snacks at the most inopportune times - or served tea when her adored Saito was exhausted ... like now.
"Tea, Saito?" She asked, lifting the tray.
"Always a pleasure. I wonder how you do it to always hit the right time. "
"I know you and Louise quite well," Siesta replied with a soft laugh. "You haven't changed that much. You have always taken your responsibility very  seriously, whether as a vice-captain of the order or simply as a friend. That's one of the things that make you so adorable." At the same time she nodded to Saito's interviewee, who stared at her in surprise.
"What a pretty girl," he said in his mother tongue. Then he rose from his chair, made a small bow, and took Siesta's hand to kiss it.
Siesta gave a small cry of surprise. "But I'm not a noblewoman!" She cried and blushed.
Of course, the old man hadn't understood her, so Saito had to interpret Siesta's words for him. When he understood, he laughed. "Beauty has a nobility of its own," he replied. "Please tell the young lady that this is an homage to her beauty. We Germans think highly of good manners, so this gesture seemed appropriate to me. "
After Saito translated the man's words, Siesta laughed. "What a chivalrous... Lord!" She said.
The old gentleman listened. "Did I just understand the word Chevallier correctly?"
"Quite right!" Saito replied. "You will probably remember that  I mentioned that the local language is reminiscent of ancient French. Do you speak French? "
"There it is like the Japanese," replied Müller. "Just a few chunks. But English, French and German are related language families. If I think about it correctly, as I was wandering the hallways to get exercise I saw various proclamations on the walls. And I felt as if I could roughly guess the meaning." "
"Then it might not be that difficult for you to learn the language," Saito said.
"At my age - well, I don't know ..."