Nightfall Over Shanghai (26 page)

Franz sat in the backseat across from von Puttkamer and his impassive bodyguard. The silent driver was the only other occupant of the vehicle, which reeked of leather polish and cologne. Von Puttkamer leaned calmly back in his seat, resting his head against the window as though settling in for a long train ride.

Having finally caught his breath, Franz willed his voice to be strong. “Where are you taking me?”

“Not to worry, Dr. Adler. We are only going for a scenic drive. To give us a chance to chat.” Von Puttkamer's smile and amicable tone were even more unsettling than his words. “You will pardon me if I confess that this is not one of my favourite neighbourhoods.”

“I'm not permitted to leave the ghetto without a pass,” Franz said.

“No one will know you have gone.”

The words turned Franz's blood to ice. “Believe me, Baron, several people will notice.”

Von Puttkamer shrugged. “It can't be helped.”

Franz glanced out the window and saw the Ward Road checkpoint fly past. He had not left the ghetto since returning from the field hospital eight months earlier. He stole a quick glance at the door handle. He couldn't tell if it was locked, but it almost didn't matter.
To reach it, he would have to climb over the baron's bodyguard.

“Your Führer is dead,” Franz said.

“Yes, I am still in shock over it,” von Puttkamer said in a casual tone that belied his words. “All men die. Even the great ones.”

“They say it will only be a matter of days until Germany surrenders.”

“I agree. The war is lost. There is no point in arguing that.”

“Then what is this all about? Why have you kidnapped me?”

“
Kidnapped
is such an ugly word.” Von Puttkamer tsked. “I prefer the term
shanghaied.
It's both local and exotic. And so much more colourful, wouldn't you agree?”

Franz forced his breathing to slow. “What do you want with me?”

Von Puttkamer sat up straighter and the smile slid from his lips. “The war may be over, but business goes on. Accounts must be settled.”

Franz tensed. “What accounts do you have to settle?
You
were the one who tried to bomb us.”

Von Puttkamer's eyes darkened. “And you slit Hans's throat. He was hardly more than a boy.”

“I didn't slit his throat. Besides, that ‘boy' was trying to blow up the synagogue and everyone inside it.”

Von Puttkamer stared long and hard at Franz. Time seemed to come to a stop. Finally, the baron relaxed back in his seat again. “Hans was only following orders,” he said evenly. “As was I.”

“You had orders to blow up the ghetto?”

“It certainly wasn't my idea.”

Franz knew the baron was lying, but his breathing calmed and his shoulders relaxed. It occurred to Franz that von Puttkamer might not have abducted him out of vengeance. Perhaps the baron was looking to protect himself after Germany's collapse, even if
it meant negotiating with a Jew. How rapidly the world was changing.

“No, the orders came from Major Huber,” von Puttkamer continued. “Chief of Gestapo in Shanghai. I believe the major's orders came directly from Berlin. From Himmler himself, apparently.” Von Puttkamer leaned closer to Franz, as though about to divulge a secret. “You know, in Berlin, they have never forgotten about those of you who escaped to Shanghai.”

“
Escaped?
” Franz felt his anger building, like lava under pressure. “Is that what they call it? As if we were all hardened criminals?”

“Emigrated, then? It's merely semantics, Dr. Adler.” Von Puttkamer dismissed the idea with a small wave. “You're missing my point. I was simply—”

“Let me tell you about my ‘escape,' Baron.”

Von Puttkamer shook his head. “That is not necessary—”

“The day after the storm troopers lynched my brother, Adolf Eichmann himself warned me that I had two weeks to get out of Austria or I would be sent to a concentration camp.” Franz glared into von Puttkamer's evasive eyes. “You do know about the camps, Baron, don't you?”

Von Puttkamer brushed him away with another sweep of his hand. “I have heard a few unsubstantiated stories. After all, the victors get to rewrite history as they so choose. It's one of the spoils of triumph.”

“Unsubstantiated?” Franz echoed hoarsely.

“I understand propaganda, Dr. Adler. At times, the publicity war is fiercer than the fighting on the front lines. One doesn't know who or what to believe anymore.”

“Are you suggesting that the Allies made up these camps, then?”

“I'm not suggesting the Jews didn't suffer in Europe. Everyone suffers in wartime. War makes civilized people do uncivilized things. But I happen to know the Allies' accounts are grossly exaggerated.”

“This is not your wireless propaganda.” Franz's fury overpowered his fear about his safety. “This is the terrible truth. Death camps with millions of victims, including women and children. My daughter and I would have surely been among the dead had we not ‘escaped' to Shanghai.”

The Korean bodyguard leaned forward in his seat, but the baron restrained him with his arm. “It's all right, Yung Min. The doctor feels the need to vent.”

“And you, Baron,” Franz continued. “You would have undoubtedly pulled the trigger or released the gas or done whatever other monstrous thing you were ordered to do, had you been stationed in Poland instead of Shanghai.”

“You are wrong, Dr. Adler,” von Puttkamer replied calmly. “I am a patriotic man, yes. And I believe the Führer was a great man who did great things for our nation. However, I've always considered his opinion to have been a little extreme regarding the Jews. The Bolsheviks, absolutely. They represent a great threat to the entire world and need to be eliminated. Not so with the Jews.”

Franz couldn't believe what he was hearing. “
Ach
, I see. We Jews should consider you a friend, then?”

Von Puttkamer snorted. “I won't deny that I find your race to be self-centred and obsessed with wealth and status. But the Jews were not the only flawed creatures in the Reich. Besides, now is the time for reconciliation, not blame, among all Germans.”

“I was never German,” Franz grumbled. “I am Austrian. Or I was, until you Nazis stripped me of my citizenship. You can keep it too.”

Von Puttkamer folded his arms. “All right, Dr. Adler, you have spoken your piece. Enough self-righteous prattle. We need to discuss the practicalities of our future here in Shanghai.”

“Our future?” Franz blurted. “Your future involves a prison cell or a firing squad.”

Von Puttkamer turned to Yung Min. “You see? This is what happens when I try to reason with these people.”

Franz peered out the window and recognized the bases of the art deco buildings that lined Bubbling Well Road. They would soon reach Germantown, and there might not be any turning back then. “Stop the car,” he demanded. “I am getting out.”

“You will get out when I say so.”

“I will get out now.”

Von Puttkamer uncrossed his arms. “I came to speak with you in good faith. To put our differences aside.” He sighed heavily. “The way you talk, Adler, it makes me wonder what the point of it is. If I allow you to return to that miserable ghetto, you will only instigate and stir divisiveness and unrest among the rest of the rabble.” He glanced over to the bodyguard. “Perhaps it would be best for everyone if you were not to return.”

Recognizing that his tirade was falling on deaf ears, and increasingly aware of the danger he was in, Franz changed his tack. “It would be a mistake not to release me, Baron.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Do you think I'm the only person in the ghetto who knows about the bombing plot? Or who has heard your radio program? Do you believe the others will feel any differently than I do?”

“Only time will tell,” von Puttkamer said.

“I am a well-known member of the refugee community.”

“So what?”

“I have told several people about how I've seen your car parked in front of my home and the hospital over the past weeks. If I were to go missing, the others would immediately assume you were responsible.”

“And what proof would they have?”

Franz scoured his brain for a convincing response. “What will the American soldiers think when they roll into Shanghai? Perhaps some of them will have seen the camps in Europe. Do you honestly think they will require much proof to believe that it was a Nazi who abducted the ghetto's most prominent Jewish doctor?”

Von Puttkamer glanced uncertainly to Yung Min before turning back to Franz. “Say I release you. What do you intend to do?”

“Go home to my family.”

Von Puttkamer's eyes narrowed and he motioned to himself and Yung Min. “I meant about us.”

Franz held the baron's gaze. “I don't care what becomes of you—I swear to God, I don't—as long as I never have to lay eyes on you again.”

Von Puttkamer slumped back in his seat. He suddenly looked older, smaller, than he had before. Finally, he swivelled his head toward the driver and shouted, “Pull over and let this worthless Jew out! I cannot tolerate another second in his presence.”

Sunny stood next to Esther in the cramped little space that passed for their kitchen. The two boys sat on the floor, each playing with one of Joey's toys. All the while, Hannah's sniffles and sobs drifted down to them from the small loft above.

“I will go talk to her again,” Esther said.

Sunny squeezed Esther's wrist once before letting go. “I think she needs to be alone right now, Essie.”

Esther shook her head in disbelief. “So upset over possibly moving to Palestine? We don't even know when or even if this will ever happen. There must be something more, surely?”

“Hannah says not.”

“Should we go find Freddy? He's not my favourite by any means, but he always seems to know how to cheer her up.”

“I think she needs to be alone,” Sunny repeated.

Esther sighed. “It breaks my heart to see her suffer like this.”

“Mine too.”

“She has always been more than a niece to me,” Esther said. “Before Jakob, I never thought I would have one of my own. Hannah never knew her mother. I liked to think …” She cleared her throat. “Of course, you are here for her now. Everything is completely different.”

Sunny gazed into Esther's compassionate eyes. “You are the closest to a mother that Hannah has ever known. That hasn't changed. It never will.”

Esther nodded gratefully. “Ironically, in Vienna, it was my Karl who was so involved with religion. Franz was nothing like his brother in that regard.” She sighed. “He was suspicious of the Zionists. He viewed them as nothing but troublemakers.”

“Even when I first met him here, he was the same. Something has changed in him.”

“Regardless, Franz has taken it too far.” Esther shook her head disapprovingly. “Of course, America I would understand. To come with us to New York. To keep the family together. But Palestine? With a baby? And a wife and daughter who do not even want to go? It's madness.”

“It's very important to him.” Sunny again found herself in the strange role of defending her husband's views even though they differed from her own.

“Family is the most important,” Esther declared. “Even the Torah says so.”

Sunny stroked her arm. “We Chinese always say the same.”

Another paroxysm of sobs could be heard coming from the loft.

“I can't bear it, Sunny,” Esther said, turning to the ladder that led to the loft. “I must at least try to talk to her.”

This time, Sunny didn't try to stop Esther.

Sunny watched her son move the wooden blocks around on the floor. When Jakob reached out and grabbed one right out of Joey's hand, Joey just picked up another, unbothered. She smiled to herself at how much her son's temperament reminded her of her father's unflappable manner.

There was a knock at the door. Jakob sprang to his feet and ran
over to answer it before Sunny had time to stop him. On the other side stood the young male prostitute whom Chih-Nii had sent to Sunny a year before.

Sunny's stomach plummeted. “It's Jia-Li again, isn't it?” she demanded.

The boy simply turned and beckoned her to follow.

***

The rickshaw ride was a blur of worry and awful imaginings. The boy hadn't told Sunny anything other than that there had been “another incident.”

Inside the Comfort Home, girls and clients milled about as usual, but Sunny picked up on the charged air even before Chih-Nii arrived. The madam silently slipped her elbow into the crook of Sunny's arm and swept her up the circular staircase.

“How bad is it, Mama?” Sunny asked, fearing the answer.

“Bad, buttercup,” Chih-Nii replied in a monotone. “Very bad.”

Upstairs, two towering guards in matching black suits stood shoulder to shoulder blocking the entrance to the landing. They parted only briefly to allow Sunny and Chih-Nii to pass.

Sunny smelled the blood as soon as they stepped into the bedroom, but she couldn't see any. Jia-Li was lying on the room's four-poster bed, covered up to her neck by a flower-patterned quilt. Her face was devoid of colour, and she stared vacantly at Sunny as a young woman dabbed at her forehead with a damp washcloth. Ushi stood tucked into the corner of the room, looking like an overgrown child being disciplined at school.

Sunny rushed over to her friend, and the woman with the cloth skittered away. Only when Sunny reached the bedside did she notice the middle-aged man collapsed on the floor beyond it. He was wearing a Kempeitai officer's uniform. His eyes were rolled back in their sockets, and a knife protruded from his abdomen. Blood had turned most of his khaki shirt reddish brown. A revolver lay on the floor only inches from his body.

“What has happened,
băo bèi
?” Sunny demanded, yanking back the quilt.

The right side of Jia-Li's white corset was soaked red. It took a moment for Sunny to see the bullet's entry wound just above her breast.

“I wasn't going to break my promise to you.” Jia-Li's voice was ragged and breathless. “You must believe me, Sister.”

“Of course I believe you.” Sunny's fingers looked for the pulse at her friend's right elbow. It was alarmingly rapid and faint. She looked over her shoulder at Chih-Nii, who stood as still as a marble Buddha at the foot of the bed. “Get some men and a stretcher,” Sunny cried. “We need to get her to the hospital straightaway.”

Jia-Li fumbled a hand out. Her fingers felt like icicles on Sunny's arm. “No hospital,” she moaned. “I don't want to leave here.”

“We have to take you to the operating room,” Sunny cried. “We must stop the bleeding and repair your chest.”

Jia-Li ignored her. “The devil, he kept telling me about the ‘Chinks' he had killed,” she breathed heavily. “How he loved to capture guerilla fighters. How he kept them alive for days and days, even after he'd cut off their arms and legs. How easily he could make them beg for death—without giving it to them.” She stopped to pant for air.

“You must conserve your energy,” Sunny implored.

But Jia-Li didn't listen. “It excited him,
xiăo hè.
I could see the stiffness in his pants as he told me about those brave patriots he tortured. I couldn't stop thinking of Charlie. What this devil would've done to my Charlie if he'd got his hands him on. I couldn't take it,
xiăo hè.
I just couldn't listen to another word.”

“Oh, Sister,” Sunny breathed, touching her forehead to Jia-Li's frigid cheek. “And the knife?”

“Ushi gave it to me. To protect myself from dangerous clients.” Jia-Li's breathing grew even more laboured. “I keep it under the mattress. I didn't even realize I was reaching for it. I was thinking only of Charlie.”

“Please, save your strength,” Sunny pleaded. “We can discuss it all later. Right now we have to get you to the hospital. Franz will be able to fix you. I know he will.”

Jia-Li's breath was cool on Sunny's cheek. “It doesn't hurt, Sister,” she reassured quietly. “Only cold. And numb. So very numb. Just like how it used to be on the pipe. Floating above the room again. I always loved that feeling,
xiăo hè.
It feels like escape.”

Sunny knew her best friend was in severe shock. Without immediate surgery, she would either suffocate on the blood accumulating in her chest or die from the hemorrhage. Sunny lifted her head away from Jia-Li's and glanced over to Chih-Nii. “Where are the men with the stretcher?” she screamed.

“No one is coming,” Chih-Nii replied calmly.

“Are you crazy?”

“Don't you see, Soon Yi?” Chih-Nii said, her voice cracking for the first time. “Even if the hospital could help my beautiful orchid, the Japanese would only come for her. For all of us. There is no escape.”

“Mama is right,” Jia-Li said weakly. “Besides, I don't want to leave my bed,
xiăo hè.
I just want to be with Charlie again.”

Sunny felt the tears dampening her cheeks before she even realized she was crying. “Please, Sister, you can't leave me.”

Jia-Li reached up tremulously and wiped the moisture from Sunny's cheek. “I will never leave you, Sister,” she said. “But stay here with me now,
xiăo hè.
That is all I need.”