The Far Side of the Sky (41 page)

His pulse pounding in his temples, Franz stared silently at the floor.

Another five or ten taut minutes crawled past before one of the Kempeitai officers hurried down the hallway toward them. He reported to Tanaka in a rush of Japanese. Tanaka’s scowl only deepened as the man spoke. The colonel snapped his fingers and pointed outside. Without a word to Franz, Tanaka spun and stormed out of the hospital. The rest of the Kempeitai men marched after him.

As soon as the military vehicles’ engines sputtered to life, Franz’s shoulders sagged with relief. His legs almost gave way as he took his first full breath in minutes. He ran into Sunny in the hallway. “Well?” he demanded.

She flashed a small smile. “Your friend Ernst is quite the actor. You should have seen how far the Kempeitai men jumped back from his coughing fits.”

“Sunny is not exaggerating!” Ernst cried as he caught up to them. “I was the very embodiment of contagion.” “And Shan?” Franz asked.

“They hardly spent any time in the basement,” Sunny said.

Ernst tapped his chest. “Once the Japanese met Typhoid Mary here, they couldn’t get out soon enough.”

Sunny laughed. “Probably best to stay in costume. In case they surprise us again.”

Franz headed straight to the staff room to telephone home. Esther answered on the second ring. “Is everything all right, Essie?” “All right now,” Esther said calmly.
“Now?
What happened?”

“Colonel Tanaka and his men searched the apartment. They left quite the mess.”

“And Hannah?” Franz breathed.

“Hannah was a trooper. She is fine. And Simon is here with us now.”

Franz felt guilty that he had not been home to protect them.

Moments after he hung up, Ernst wandered into the room with a lit cigarette between his lips. Franz’s gaze drifted involuntarily to the artist’s shorn scalp. Ernst ran a hand over the stubble. “Believe me. No one misses those gorgeous blond locks more than I do.”

“How is Shan managing?” Franz asked.

“Devastated.”

Sympathy stirred in Franz for both the father and the son. “Poor Heng. I cannot imagine what they will do to him.”

“Family means everything to Shan, and now he’s lost them all.” Ernst dragged heavily on his cigarette. “I spent most of the afternoon talking him out of marching himself into Bridge House to join his father.”

“Time will help, surely,” Franz mumbled.

“I wonder,” Ernst sighed. “Shan was completely lost after his mother and sister died. Now this.”

“He still has you,” Franz pointed out.

“Some consolation. The poor devil.” Ernst rolled his eyes. “Can you imagine, Franz? If we’re extremely fortunate, in the next few days we will find ourselves a thousand miles from civilization in some backwater village that has never seen a white man.” He tapped his chest again. “Let alone
this
queer one.”

“You’ve survived the Nazis and the Japanese,” Franz pointed out. “How much more challenging could a Chinese village be?”

“Not just any village. One full of Communists!” Ernst shuddered. “When I think back to my socialist friends in Vienna and all their insufferable moralizing.
Mein Gott,
the only saving grace is that I won’t understand a word of their Marxist tripe in Chinese.”

Franz laughed. “Now you sound more like your old self.”

“I’ve been a fool, my friend,” he sighed. “A lovesick fool. I should have listened to you eons ago.”

“About?”

“Everything. Nanking was never my battle. I was swept up in Shan’s passion and thirst for justice.” He looked down sheepishly. “I had no right to endanger your family—the people I love—for the sake of my artistic pride.”

“Those paintings were some of your best work, Ernst. Besides, what is done is done. At least we survived.”

“So far.” Ernst took another puff of his cigarette. “You have risked too much for my sake.”

Franz grinned. “Where in this city could I possibly find another bull-headed prima donna with your flair for art and style?”

Ernst laughed. “Or any city, really.”

“That morning after Kristallnacht, when you risked your life to bring us food and support when we needed it most …” Franz shook his head. “I will never forget that, Ernst.”

“It’s what friends do.”

“Only the best ones.”

Ernst inhaled his cigarette until it was burned down to the stub. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “You will say goodbye to Essie and Hannah for me?”

“Of course.”

“In spite of it all, the little puffin has flowered here in Shanghai, hasn’t she?”

Franz nodded, warming with pride.

“I’m so disappointed that I will miss your wedding,” Ernst said. “Oh, Lotte and I will not be—”

“Not her!” Ernst waved away the suggestion. “I meant to Sunny.” Franz shook his head in surprise. They had never before discussed his feelings for Sunny.

Ernst brought two fingers to his eyes. “You do not need to be an artist
to recognize love when it’s staring you in the face.” He winked. “But of course, it does help.”

Franz did not bother denying it. “There is so much I have to do first.”

“But nothing nearly as important, my friend.” Ernst sighed heavily. “Look where love is leading me. To a village forgotten by time, where I will have to exchange my paintbrush and my beloved gin for a tree toilet and endless Stalin speeches in Chinese.” He jutted out his lower lip. “God willing, I will be picked off by a Japanese sniper before I ever arrive.”

Franz chuckled. “It’s only temporary, Ernst.”

“One can always hope.” Ernst smiled enigmatically as he extended his hand to Franz.

Franz’s mouth felt as though it were lined with wool, and his wrists dug into his forehead. He lifted his head off the small table and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. Grey morning light leaked in through the window. He glanced at his watch, surprised to see that it was almost eight o’clock.

He rose to his feet and was stretching his lower back just as Sunny stepped into the staff room.

“Any news from Jia-Li?” he asked hopefully.

Sunny shook her head. “No, but that is to be expected.”

As promised, the truck had pulled up in front of the hospital two minutes before three o’clock that morning. If not for the three blinks from the flashlight inside the cab, Franz would never have known anyone had come for Ernst and Shan.

Sunny rubbed her eyes. Her hair was unusually tousled and her face drawn. “We do have another problem, Franz,” she said gloomily.

Does this never end?
“What is it, Sunny?”

“The cholera.”

“Mrs. Schnepp?”

Sunny shook her head. “Mrs. Schnepp has improved, but several other cases have arrived in the past few hours.” “How many?” “Twelve.”

“Twelve?”
he gasped.

“They’ve all come from the Ward Road heim.” Sunny shook her head. “One of the patients, a four-year-old girl … she was already dead when her father brought her in.”

“Such a shame.” With deepening unease, he thought again of Hannah and Esther, who volunteered at the heim. “How much fluid do we have left?”

“The other nurses and I have mixed up several litres of oral preparation, but some patients are too ill to drink,” she said. “We have thirty-one bottles of Ringer’s lactate left.”

“A drop in the bucket if this cholera spreads.” Franz ran a hand through his matted hair. “Sunny, I will meet you on the ward once I have telephoned home.”

After Sunny left, Franz picked up the receiver and dialed. It rang numerous times before Esther finally answered. “Essie, I hope I am not waking you.”

“I’ve been up for hours, Franz,” Esther said groggily. “What of Ernst and Shan?”

“They were picked up on schedule. No news since.” “I see,” Esther said. “Listen, Franz, Hannah has had to go back to bed. She cannot go to school today.” “Why not?”

“Neither of us are well,” she said. “Perhaps influenza.” The receiver froze in his hand. “Not diarrhea?”

“I am afraid so,” Esther said, clearing her throat, embarrassed. “Hannah is vomiting, too. She is really suffering, the poor child. I think we must have eaten something—”

“Essie!” Franz’s throat constricted. “Bring Hannah here to the hospital!
Straight away!
”

“I am not sure it is a good idea, Franz. She is really in no shape to walk that far—”

“Hire a rickshaw! Damn the fare. Just get her here!
Please,
Essie!” “Franz, what is going on? I do not—”

“You both worked in the kitchen at the Ward Road heim this week, did you not?”

“And every week for the past four months, Franz.”

“Essie, did you eat there?” he asked, terrified of the answer.

“We never do. There is not nearly enough food for the residents, let alone the volunteers.” Just as Franz felt his throat opening again, Esther added, “Oh, except this week. On Thursday, the cook, that young Mrs. Schnepp, made a potato soup she wanted us to try. We each had a small bowl—”

“Oh, God!” he croaked.
“Bring Hannah here straight away!”

Franz slammed the receiver down. He dashed out to the ward to find it overflowing with newly arrived patients. Several women lay curled up on their beds, others sat hunched over, holding buckets to their lips. Retching sounds filled the room. The stench of vomit was almost eye-watering. Berta and Liese rushed between patients, carrying flasks of rehydration fluid. It took Franz a moment to spot Sunny in the far corner, inserting an intravenous needle into a patient’s arm.

“Miss Mah!
Sunny!
” he called, ignoring the woman in the nearby bed who clutched her belly and waved frantically to him with her free hand.

Sunny’s head swivelled in his direction. “Yes, Dr. Adler?”

“I need two beds readied!” he cried.

Berta gaped at him. “Dr. Adler, we have no more beds.”

“It’s Esther and Hannah!” Franz cried. “They have it too, Sunny!”

Sunny sprang up from her crouch beside the patient and raced over to him. “Cholera?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

The colour drained from her face. She pointed to a stout woman who sat up in her bed worriedly watching the commotion around her. “Berta, put Mrs. Shapiro in a chair in the hallway.” She swung her finger to an older woman who lay dozing in another bed. “And Mrs. Steinman can be put in the cot in the staff room.”

Berta grimaced. “The staff room?
With cholera?
You cannot—”

“Dr. Adler’s child is coming!” Sunny’s words silenced Berta.

Franz rushed out to the street to wait for Hannah and Esther. He paced up and down. His open lab coat flapped in the icy breeze, but he was indifferent to the chill. He kept thinking of the four-year-old who had died before even reaching the hospital. Wringing his hands, he called out to the empty street, “Where are you,
liebchen?
”

Forever seemed to pass before a woman and a man, the latter carrying a child in his arms, rounded the corner.
Simon carrying Hannah?
Franz rushed toward them. After only a few strides, he realized that they were strangers.

“Herr Doktor!” the man called urgently and motioned to his staggering wife.

Franz waved toward the entrance. “Inside, my friend! They will help you there.”

Five or six minutes later a rickshaw swerved around the corner. Franz darted out to meet it. He saw his daughter lying in the back huddled against Esther’s shoulder, her coat pulled up and over her face.

“Hannah!”
he cried. “Do you hear me?”

Hannah didn’t stir at the sound of his voice. Esther’s face scrunched in discomfort. “Franz, Hannah was mumbling only moments ago. Then she just stopped!”

Franz shot his hand inside the rickshaw and pulled the coat from Hannah’s head. Her face was ashen and her eyes closed. Time stopped.

Then Hannah’s lips sputtered.

Franz scooped up his daughter. She hung limp in his arms as he ran her down the pathway toward the hospital.

Meeting Franz at the door, Sunny raced them to the ward and guided him to the waiting bed. His hands were damp from Hannah’s soiled clothing as he lowered her onto the mattress. Head flopping to one side, she lay as still as her old doll, Schweizer Fräulein. Berta stripped off Hannah’s coat and sopping dress, while Sunny reached for an intravenous needle.

Franz shook Hannah’s shoulder again.
“Liebchen,
it’s me. Papa!” Nothing. “Please, Hannah, wake up!”

Hannah’s lips bubbled and she muttered something incomprehensible.

Franz stroked the loose strands of hair back from her forehead, his fingers warmed by the fever ravaging her brow.

Esther appeared at the far end of the bed, holding herself upright by the railing. Berta and Liese joined them at the bedside, but their flasks of fluid were useless to the unconscious girl. Liese laid a hand on Esther’s elbow and tried to guide her to the other waiting bed, but she clung to the bed railing and weakly shrugged her off.

“Speak to me, Hannah!” Franz implored.

“Please, God!” Esther moaned.
“Please!”

With the intravenous needle in hand, Sunny leaned forward. She tied a rubber tourniquet under Hannah’s armpit and then ran her fingers up the girl’s arm in search of a vein.

“Can you feel anything?” Franz demanded.

Sunny poked the needle through the skin and wiggled the tip back and forth. Hannah didn’t flinch. Holding his breath, Franz stared at the hub of the needle, desperate to see a drop of blood form.

I will do anything, God.
He prayed for the first time in his adult life.
Anything. Just—please—do not take her from me!

Franz stepped around Berta to where Sunny hunched over the bedside. She looked up at him helplessly. “She’s so dehydrated, Franz. Her veins have all collapsed.”

Leaning forward, Franz took the needle from her hand. He burrowed the tip deeper under the skin, pivoting and angling it, but unable to pierce the flattened vein. Heartbeat drumming in his ears, he withdrew the needle and poked the skin higher above Hannah’s elbow. Still no blood.

Franz yanked out the needle and jabbed Hannah’s arm again. His vision clouded over as the tears welled and fell onto the child’s arm.