VIII. A Waltz For No Fox's Land
The air in the trenches tasted of mud, sweat, and gunpowder. The young private polar fox Einar, 4th infantry, tried to light a match against the soles of his boots. The flare illuminates the grime and mud on his once-beautiful, pristine white fur coat. He deeply inhaled the cigar smoke, letting it coat his long tongue. He hoped that the cheap tobacco could mask the flavor of his MRE. Mice meat, for the hundredth day in a row. It didn’t even taste like the mice meat his mother used to make for him years ago, more like a gelatinous lump of salt and boiled leather.
Einar leaned back against the sandbags, trying not to get his pointy ears or bushy tail stuck in the barbed wire. There was a, compared to gunfire, relative silence of banter. His fellow infantrymen were betting and playing cards, talking about their lives once they’d get home. His mind had never been so loud, though. He thought of years ago, when he went to school and learned about “the enemy.” The Tibetan Foxes. The “squarejaws”. They were even lower than mice, even rats. At least very few rodents struggled against their fate as food for a superior species. Tibetan Foxes swore they were sophisticated, but as Einar’s teacher put it, in reality, they were flat-faced troglodytes with weak minds. Incapable of culture or grace.
But the lie his education fed him died yesterday.
Einar had been out on a scouting detail near the ruins of a soon-to-be-conquered Tibetan Fox rural town, Saint-Renard. The fog was thick enough to cut with a bayonet. Through the mist, he entered a farmhouse, hoping to gain intel, though a part of his brain hoped to find something delicious the fleeing citizens had left behind. Berries, eggs, or venison. But there was something else there.
A young Tibetan Fox woman. Her coat was a dusty gold that seemed to hold the light of a sun Einar hadn’t seen since childhood. She wore a beautiful emerald gown that reminded Einar of the first days of spring. She was dancing next to a gramophone, its brass horn gleaming in the hay and dust of the farmhouse. A scratchy, melancholic waltz drifted through the air. It must have been at least a year since Einar last heard proper music like this.
Her dance was not the lumbering movement of a brute. It was fluid, ethereal. Her eyes were closed, one paw raised as if it was resting on an invisible dance partner’s shoulder. Her face was definitely angular, but it had a haunting beauty that stopped Einar’s breath in his throat. It almost felt like she was dancing to honor her dead brethren.
While in reality, Einar fled after their eyes met, not even waiting to see her full reaction, he couldn’t get the scene out of his mind. And instead of running away, in his mind, Einar would extend his paw, and in an over-the-top theatrical voice, say, “Young lady, may I have this dance?” And they would dance. He would wear a suit, they’d dance a waltz, and the world would finally smell of beautiful things again, like vanilla and, lavender instead of metal and gunpowder. They wouldn’t dance in a farmhouse, but in a beautiful marble hall. Then, at the end, they’d ki-
A sharp whistle snapped Einar out of his daydream. “Stand to!” “Stand to, you lazy, rabies-infected lot! The Tibs are attacking! Prepare to make a coat of their fur!” The sergeant shouted.
The reality crashed down with the weight of a collapsed tunnel. The marble floor was back to being a brown sludge. Einar let go of his cigar and half-eaten MRE. He quickly grabbed his bolt-action rifle, the familiar cold wood pressed against his paws.
He never felt so demotivated to fight, but so motivated to survive. Old men in war rooms signed war papers, and he might have to shoot her. Or the tods that are her beloved, like a father or brother. The thing that kept Einar hopeful was the idea that they both might survive and finally dance a waltz together. While his rational brain told him it was just the delirium of not having seen any young women for so long, his heart didn’t care. It gave him a reason to survive.
“Here they come, dogs!” The sergeant shouted. Einar mounted the fire step, staring into the fog. Praying that the sound of music would win over the sound of gunfire.
