Attack on Titan Fanfiction – The Stowaway: Chapter 16

The Truth and Nothing But

(Continued, six months after the war with Marley, before Philip met Mikasa)

Philip sat inside the broom closet at the police station. 

“Stay here, just for an hour,” the policeman told him, handing him a biscuit and a flask of water. Jean was nowhere to be seen.

The boy looked around the closet. Well, it wasn’t exactly a closet, more like a tiny room for keeping cleaning implements. There was enough sunlight from the barred window to seep through. The boy sat on the floor, feeling completely dejected. His life was over.

He had no idea his Aunt Edith was pregnant. Had he known, he wouldn’t have run away to a ship. She had always been on the plump side. How couldn’t know, could he? On that fateful night, when she and his father were fighting and shouting their heads off, all Philip could think of was how to make his enraged father put the fire iron down. He’d seen the damage his dad could do with the tool: it was a year ago, but the bone in his right arm still hurt from when his perpetually angry, alcoholic father came home one night and beat him with it. 

As far as Philip was concerned, his aunt did nothing wrong. He didn’t even understand what they had been yelling about. There were phrases he picked up: dough, fair share, fucking asshole, knocked up, reckless bitch, just like your slut of a sister, nasty piece of work, Ursula tried and she fucking bled to death, gimme my half of the plunder, miserable thief, good-for-nothing sonofabitch, fat piece of white trash…

They were insulting each other, but they’d always been at each other throats. It was nothing new. His father and aunt have always hated each other. On that night, one word came up many times: dough. Philip knew it meant money. 

There was also something else: “get rid of it,” his father had shouted several times. What was this “it”, Philip had wondered the whole time. 

Now he knew. It made him sick to the pit of his stomach.

Aunt Edith hadn’t been particularly kind or affectionate to him, but when his mother abandoned him when he was three years old, it was his aunt alone who had bothered to feed him. His father was often gone for days, sometimes even weeks, doing ‘cleanup’ work for the local mob. Each time he came home at night he reeked of alcohol. There were times when he fell on the floor in a snoring heap. Those were the best times. 

The worst times were when he came home in a drunken stupor but walking on two legs. Philip would find himself dragged out of bed and kicked across the room for god knows what reason. 

When he was five, he learned how to walk through the markets and steal food. The handouts his aunt gave him were no longer enough. He was constantly hungry. He befriended a bunch of street kids. It was the oldest among them, a boy nicknamed Scarface Larry, who taught him the art of knife throwing. Obviously he hadn’t been taught well enough.

Soon a group of women—community volunteers they called themselves—holding a banner which he later learned read “School for All, by order of Her Majesty the Queen” found him and his friends, and threw them into a classroom. He liked it there. They taught him to read and write and count. But what he liked best of all was that the school offered free soup and bread for lunch. 

At night, he went looking for his Aunt Edith to see if she had any food for him. When she was nowhere to be found, his growling stomach led him to the shops and restaurants in the center of town, where he stole his dinner. 

Philip would creep into a restaurant, grab leftover food before the waitress could clear up the table, and then run for his life. Or he’d target the bakery shops and the well-to-do women with long, voluminous skirts who did their shopping there. It was easiest when they had large skirts. Philip, being small for his age, soon found out that he could hide behind the skirts of two gossiping women, enter the bakery without being seen, and make a grab for a piece of bread before scrambling out the door. 

More often than not he got beat up by the store owners with sticks they always had in handy for thieving street urchins. But with food stuffed into his mouth he considered the beatings to be worth it. 

“Pick the largest ship you can find and hide there. Go where it goes,” his Aunt Edith was all business, eerily calm after his father toppled over dead that fateful night. “Don’t ever come back. You ain’t got no future on this godforsaken island.”

As he’d been told, Philip picked the largest ship on the port that day, which turned out to be a newly-christened battleship, the HMS Dot Pixys II. His small size enabled him to somehow sneak into the cargo amidst the hustle and bustle of embarkation. But after two days the bread and water his aunt had packed for him ran out. It was when he was rummaging amongst the cargo, trying to open up a crate, that someone from the kitchen staff found him.

That was how he met the admiral’s aide, Corey Feldman, a young man whom Philip soon swore was made of pure kindness. Mr Feldman was a saint. He immediately made the stowaway feel welcome and at ease.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked him a week after he had been found. The child, so used to being treated like vermin, found the man’s behaviour strange and novel.

Feldman didn’t tell him that when the kitchen boy appeared holding Philip by the back of his collar, he took one look at him and already knew half the story. Another one of them, another kid whose current reality was so bad he risked his life sailing on an unknown ship, in the blind and reckless hope that wherever it takes him would be better than the hell he was suffering at the moment. The stowaway lifted his grave eyes up at him as though unconsciously asking for help. 

The admiral’s aide-de-camp did what a decent person would do: treat the child with basic human kindness. He himself knew what it was like: the need to run away. If the boy stuck around long enough perhaps he’d get to hear the Feldman story.

“Oh, I’m showing you the best of the Royal Navy,” he saluted the boy before winking teasingly. “You’re promising, kiddo. You’ll make a good sailor. I’ve already begun the recruitment process. Can’t let the Army or Air Force have you now, can we?”

The kind words were like a ray of sunshine over Philip’s dark future. “Do you really think I’ll make a good sailor, sir?”

“For sure!” exclaimed Feldman. He told the boy of the few other stowaway kids he had encountered. One of them, a boy of eleven, entered the naval academy a year later. Another one, a boy of ten, never got his sea legs, throwing up and being sick the entire journey. 

“You’ve taken to the sea faster than I’ve ever seen a kid. Born to sail, if I do say so myself!” he informed the boy.

Philip had a smile on his face when he fell asleep in his own hammock strung next to Feldman’s cot.

And then there was the Big Boss, Admiral Jean Kirschtein. He was scary, at first. Towering over everyone, well-built, sharp-eyed, with an imposing air, he was having a meeting with his officers when Philip first laid eyes on him. Even to a six-year-old it was obvious that Jean was the leader of them, and that the others on the ship respected his authority. Philip knew instinctively that his fate in the journey rested on Jean’s good will. 

To his surprise, Jean was incredibly kind. He was patient as a teacher, from chess to the basics of seamanship. It was as if he was used to being in a teaching role.

“He’s the father of the Paradian Royal Navy. He taught us all,” explained Feldman. “Admiral’s actually younger than he looks. But he’s the one that got us through the war with Marley. He’s a war hero, from during the time he and his peers used to be in a group called the Scouting Regiment, during the titan era. Now he and his friends run the country. If you want a role model in life, Jean Kirschtein’s the guy you’re looking for.” 

Feldman held the admiral in high esteem. Soon Philip did, too. Not only was Jean kind, he had a paternal concern toward him and everyone else on the ship.

Then there was the game of chess. It was his very first board game and he loved it immediately. Feldman taught him the basics, while Jean taught him the intricacies.

At his age he couldn’t put a finger on it, but the beautiful wooden board with its sixty-four squares, and the black and white carved pieces with their standardised moves, the whole board game fascinated him. There were many rules and regulations, and millions of possible scenarios. 

It was a world of its own, this game of chess, the Black and White kingdoms battling for supremacy. As the mastermind behind a kingdom’s battle strategy he either won or lost or drew, but no one had to physically hurt anyone. It was all done with the mind. A cerebral battle of wits. Mathematical elegance to the extreme. There was a method to the madness. 

For the first time in his short life, he felt in control as he moved the pieces one by one. 

Philip found himself drawn into the world of the sixty-four squares. When he concentrated on playing, trying to read his opponent’s next dozen moves and figure out his strengths and weaknesses so that he can set up a strategy for winning, he got into the zone. He forgot that he was hungry, or that both his parents couldn’t stand the sight of him. He forgot that he had no home, no family, no friends, no money, and nowhere to go. 

When he played, the suffering of the real world faded into the background. 

All that mattered were these two kingdoms and how he could ensure the survival of the one assigned to him. There was just him and his Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Rook and Pawns, and those of his opponent’s. It was no longer a disadvantage that he was small or homeless or penniless or dressed in rags. All that mattered was his mind. 

The chessboard was the ultimate equaliser.

For the three weeks he was on the ship he looked forward to each night after supper when he got to play chess with Jean Kirschtein. He was learning very fast and was complimented on his progress. The admiral had not only been generous in his teaching and praise, he also entertained him with stories of his boyhood in Trost, and his adventures with his friends in the Scouting Regiment during the titan era. 

Philip soaked it all in. When he was in the admiral’s company, he felt safe. At night, he went to sleep dreaming he was a soldier slaying titans alongside Jean and his friends. He dreamt of riding on Eren Jaeger’s shoulder when he was in titan form, the way Jean had done, holding on to his dark hair and asking him only questions answerable with a yes or no. He’d have liked to ask the Attack Titan, “Are you hungry?”

On the ship, even the food was great. The crew liked to make fun of the standard Navy fare, but for Philip it was like eating a chef’s special meal each time. Food he didn’t have to steal or beg for tasted infinitely more delicious. 

Being on the HMS Dot Pixys II had been the best three weeks of his life.

But it was all gone now. He had to confess his crime to the police, otherwise his Aunt Edith will be imprisoned for life, will have to give birth in prison and raise the baby in prison. All because of him.

Now that he was deemed a murderer, he’ll be hanged, he was sure of it. He’ll die, just like Scarface Larry died after he was caught by the police. Scarface Larry joined a gang and was thrown into juvie for drug trafficking and attempted murder. Three months later he was killed by a fellow juvenile delinquent. Philip was sure the same thing was going to happen to him.

Poor child. At six, he had no idea about the Penal Code, which didn’t allow for children his age to be hanged. But because we grownups are so busy with our own stuff, nobody took the time to reassure the little boy that no hanging would take place.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the thought of the gallows that saddened Philip the most. It was the thought that Mr Feldman and Admiral Kirschtein would no longer want to be friends with him, now that they knew the truth about him: that he was a thief, a murderer, a criminal. Because of him his innocent, pregnant aunt was thrown into prison. 

Of course the good men of the Royal Navy wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. 

But what could he do? He had to tell the policeman what happened that fateful night. He was only trying to protect his aunt. Begging his drunken father to put down the fire iron didn’t work, so he had no choice but to throw the knife. He really was aiming for his father’s shoulder. But he missed, fatally so. 

The constable, he was a clever man. He got Philip to admit that the bruises on his body didn’t come from his fights with the neighborhood kids, but were inflicted by his own parent. The abuse he suffered at the hands of his father gave him motive to kill the man, that was what he was sure the police would like to believe. 

Philip despised his father, but he never thought of killing him. He only wanted to stop him from swinging the fire iron at his aunt. Really, truly. But who would believe him?

Well, none of that mattered now. He was sure he’d end up like Scarface Larry. And he wasn’t even sad about that. What saddened him was the thought he would never be able to see Mr Feldman or Admiral Kirschtein again. 

On the ship, the admiral had told him about his beautiful wife Mikasa, a woman with long, black hair and deep violet eyes. She loves kids, Jean had said. He told the boy of the time when Mikasa saved a young girl, Gabi, from a knife attack. The girl was a spy from an enemy country whom Jean had previously saved from a fellow soldier who wanted to throw the girl out of an aircraft. This same girl ended up shooting Mikasa’s adoptive brother, but when Jean asked if she regretted saving Gabi, the answer was no. 

Philip wanted to meet Jean’s kind, beautiful wife. “She makes the best mince pies in the world,” Jean had said with a twinkle in his eye. Philip wondered what they tasted like. 

Well, the possibility of eating those pastries was gone now, he thought, bereaved. He was going to either be hanged or rot in jail and no one was going to come see him.

Never again would he be able to play chess with the admiral. For some inexplicable reason, Philip considered this to be the saddest of all. He willed himself not to cry.

Let’s play a game. 

Hugging his knees to his chest, he closed his eyes, conjuring up a chessboard in his mind. 

Virtually, he places down the pieces, recalling the last game he played with the admiral. Philip lost the game in thirty five moves, the longest he had ever played. Playing White against Jean’s Black, he found himself misreading the admiral from the start. What could he have done differently? He reviews the game move by move.

White pawn to d4, Black Knight to f6. White Pawn to c4, Black Pawn to g6. Here Jean started off as if he wanted to play an opening called the King’s Naidni Defense. Philip responded accordingly, moving White Pawn to g3, seeing Black Bishop to g7, which he responded to with White Bishop to g2. Jean then challenged White in the center with Pawn to c5. He only realized in Move #7 that Jean was doing a Modern Inoneb, suiting Jean’s uncompromising opening style. By Move #9, Philip had a majority of Pawns in the centre, but Jean had Black generate tactical chances on both Queenside and Kingside. 

The game went on. At Move #21 Philip makes a good move with White Bishop taking e4, Jean responding with Black Bishop to d7. Philip then moves White Queen to e2.

“Good move!” Jean had praised him, before moving his Black Queen to b6. 

By Move #22 Jean is a Pawn down and retreats his attacked Knight on e5. In retrospect, Philip realizes he made a mistake with the placement of his Knight, having moved it to a3 instead of c4. This gave Jean’s Black advantages on the King’s wing. Philip panics and questionably moves his White Bishop to d2, with Jean responding by having his Black Queen take b2. 

By now Philip is befuddled and makes another questionable move, having his White f Pawn take e5. He realizes the second after he made the move that Jean had been baiting him, and he had just inadvertently accepted the bait. His position was rapidly disintegrating. But he refused to give up, and by Move #30 he sacrifices his White Queen to keep him in the game. He was playing poorly by now, making another questionable White Bishop to h6 in Move #33. 

When it was over, he hoped they could spend an enormous amount of time analysing the game, but alas, engine trouble cut short their time together and Jean was kept all night in the machine room.

Thus today, inside the police station’s broom closet, all by himself, Philip goes through the moves in his head. He’ll have to do the review and analyses on his own.

In Move #33 it now dawns to him that he should have played Rook to a8, to which Jean could only respond with Black King to g7. Philip could then move White Rook to a7, surely a good move that ought to have held the draw. 

But his troubles started much earlier. Philip closes his eyes and concentrates, going way back to Move #15. When he moved his White Pawn to e4 he had been expecting Jean to move his Black Pawn to f5. If Jean had moved as he predicted, by Move #21 he would have made a good move, White Knight to c4. But instead, Jean goes for Rook to f8, returning his piece to lend more punch to his position than an f5 thrust. 

Jean’s b5 at Move #17 was a magnificent conception. If Jean had asked him to analyse it, he would say, “Retreating the Black Knight was not an option as that would make White better off with the Knight coming to c4. The b5 move was bold as it successfully created discord among the White army.”

What would the admiral have thought of his analysis? Philip also wanted to add that, while he lost, overall he felt the game was a magnificent clash, an example of exciting, knife-edge chess. Did Jean feel the same way?

There were so many moves he wanted to analyse. Moves #15, 16, 19, 21, 29…If he’d moved differently, how would Jean have responded? If only he were here! 

So many things he wanted to ask, so many reflections he wanted to share, so many alternative scenarios that were worthy of a discussion. He needed Jean’s guidance, his teachings, his wisdom. Not just with chess, but with life in general.

But he, Philip Becker, six years old, was a criminal, a murderer. No chess games or warm meals for scum like him. He will surely be hanged for throwing that knife. 

Philip’s chest tightens. He feels a deep and profound sadness, a hopeless longing for what might have been. 

But Admiral Jean Kirschtein had left him, and he was all alone in this world. 

Never again will he hear Jean’s hearty “Good move!” Never again will he see those intelligent, hazel eyes twinkling with delight, the lopsided grin telling Philip that he played a fine chess game.

The pain ratchets in his chest. He curls into a fetal position on the floor and sobs and sobs.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider sharing a thought or two in the comment section below. Your comments give me life and are a real source of encouragement. xoxo, hana

Reference

The chess game detailed here is a blow-by-blow of the 1982 match between Victor Kortschnoj vs Garry Kasparov, as annotated and analysed at chessbase.in

Next – Chapter 17: Prince Eren

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