by Nicole Mones
More than a year earlier, on a brisk Saturday morning in March 1938, Ho Feng-Shan had left his home in Vienna on foot after breakfast, thinking he would walk to the consulate and check on the news about Germany. He had watched with concern as calls and demands flew back and forth between Germany and Austria, everything stalled, nothing certain, lines forming at the banks because everyone wanted their money out. Dr. Kung had cabled him the day before, through back channels to be safe, advising him that a Nazi takeover of Austria appeared imminent, but was expected to be peaceful. At the office, he could find out more, and as it was a fine late winter day, he needed no more than his overcoat and fedora for the walk.
As he came close to the wide, tree-lined boulevard, he heard truck engines, a crowd, marching feet. He thought he had misheard until he turned a corner and saw that the boulevard was thick with lines of marching troops. No mistake—the Germans were entering Vienna.
He stopped among the crowds who had gathered eight or ten deep behind the barricades, some of them cheering and extending their arms in the Nazi salute. Fools, he thought. He craned this way and that, and saw only the soldiers, six abreast, hundreds beyond count. His heart sank.
“Consul Ho,” said a child’s voice, and he turned to look.
“Lord have mercy,” he exclaimed, one of the first English expressions he had learned as a child from the Norwegians who had schooled him, and which still erupted from him fairly regularly.
It was Lilith-Sylvia Doron. He knew her family; twice he had visited their home for dinner. “What are you doing out here by yourself, Sylvia?”
“I was with some girls from my class. I got separated.” She looked ready to cry, and with good reason, he thought. The Doron family was Jewish, and this parade was a terrifying show of Nazi force.
She was shaking. He slipped his hand through hers. “Come,” he said. “I take you home.”
He sensibly led her away from the military marchers and the crowds shouting Sieg Heil, and down quieter streets also lined with bare-limbed trees, the houses stern and silent with their curtains drawn. Consul Ho could feel the eyes on him as he walked the girl down the street.
When he rang her parents’ doorbell and they opened up, they started to cry.
“Now, come,” he said reasonably, “she’s safe and sound. If you are really frightened, I will stay a little while. I am a diplomat! I am the Consul General. No one will harm you while I am here.”
And with that he sat down in the parlor, not far from the welcoming fire, and chatted with Sylvia, and her brother, Karl, and their parents. It was not until evening that Herr and Frau Doron said they felt safe, and that it would be all right if he went home. “Remember,” he said before he left. “We are friends. Any problem, come to me.”
In the months that followed, actions against Jews became frequent and public. He saw SS men waiting outside synagogues, where they grabbed Jewish men emerging from services, shoved them into trucks, and then forced them to use their prayer shawls to scrub the urinals in the SS barracks. Ho Feng-Shan found it childish and hateful.
In midsummer, people started lining up at the Chinese Consulate. Soon the line stretched all the way down the driveway. People stood there for hours.
Jews.
“Shenmo shi?” he hissed to Guomei, his secretary, when he came in. What is it?
“Visas,” she said. “They want visas.”
“What do you mean? What sort of visas?”
She shrugged.
He went in his office with its striped wallpaper and reassuringly heavy desk, thinking maybe he could shut out the noise and the line of people. He knew that the Nazis would not let Jews out of the country unless they had a visa to enter someplace else, and since no country would take them, they were trapped.
He saw he had left the door half-open, and when he got up to close it, he heard a familiar voice, asking for him, being told to wait, asking again.
He put his head out. “Sylvia?”
“Consul Ho!” She broke away from Guomei and ran toward him.
“What are you doing here?”
“You have to help! You said to come to you, remember—”
“Sit down, child,” he said kindly, and slipped into Chinese to ask the secretary to bring tea. “It’s clear you’ve had a fright. Now.” He fixed his eyes on her. He was known for his serene, calming gaze. Maybe it was because he himself was filled with trust, for had not life always been good to him, despite such difficult beginnings? Had not God always treated him kindly? So he was kind in return. “Tell me what’s happened.”
“They arrested Karl!”
“What! Where is he?”
“They put him on a train to Dachau.”
Dachau. Ho Feng-Shan felt the chill in his intestines.
“They won’t let him out unless he has a visa to go somewhere else. Can you give him one for Shanghai? Please!”
He felt his brows knit. “The Chinese Consulate does not issue any visas for Shanghai,” he said. “You do not need a visa to go there. No one does. There is no such thing as a Shanghai visa.”
Tears streamed down her face. He realized she would always be a child to him, even though she stood before him now on the edge of growing up. He would do anything to help her.
His mind ranged over Karl’s case. It was true that no one needed a visa or even any form of identification to enter Shanghai. All arrivals were welcome, no matter where they came from or how they got there.
“Give him one anyway,” she said through her tears.
“We can certainly try, no? Guomei!” he called imperiously. “Bring me a visa form.” And then, to her answering stream of Chinese, he said, “How would I know? Bring whatever you think a visa form should look like.”
Twenty minutes later they had a reasonable facsimile of a visa form, and an official-looking series of stamps to make it seem authentic. “You see?” said Ho. “The very first Shanghai visa.” He signed with a flourish, and then dictated a stern letter to the Commandant at Dachau advising him to release Karl Doron immediately so that he could leave Austria under this visa, with his entire family included. Etcetera. In the name of the Republic of China. Consul General. And so on.
To his intense embarrassment, Sylvia clung to his arm and sobbed, choked with gratitude, and he dried her tears and scolded her a little, telling her to be strong. “Take care of Karl’s envelope. Here is another visa for your family, just in case. Put them inside your jacket. Yes, that’s a good girl. Now, Sylvia—don’t wait. Pack quickly and get out, just as soon as you get Karl back again. Hurry.”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She moved to the door.
“And Sylvia? God be with you and your family.” He meant it. He felt sure the Lutherans would have wanted him to help.
He watched from the tall window, half-hidden behind its heavy velvet curtain, as she ran out the front door and pushed past the line of people winding out toward the gate. He sensed a murmur go through the crowd at her appearance, a frisson of hope.
“Guomei?” he called over his shoulder. “About that visa form.” He followed the line with his eyes, estimating the numbers. “I want you to produce as many as you can. Hire an assistant. We’re going to need one hundred blank forms, right away. Another hundred by the end of the day Wednesday.”
“You could just turn them away,” she said.
“No,” he said, without explanation. Ho Feng-Shan had been privileged to see God’s goodness; he could not expect everybody to understand.
He had been born of peasant stock. Though he was given the optimistic name Feng-Shan, meaning a phoenix that rises from the mountain, in truth he was the poorest of the poor. His father died when he was seven and his mother could no longer care for him. She gave him to the Norwegian Lutheran Mission over his screaming protests, asking of them only that they feed him. They did that and more, educating him in English and in their ways. He believed in God and Christ, after his years with them. They did not have to explain it to him, he
saw it; they redeemed him. Raised him and nurtured him and handed him an education, all in the name of doing God’s work. Now, as a diplomat, he did the same for others.
And so it was that Ho Feng-Shan said yes to the person at the head of the line, the one after that, and the one after that. He sat at his desk all day, signing visas until his hand ached. Each visa was good for a whole family—why not, they were his visas, he was inventing them. One paper per family was more economical, and yet still the line stretched every day, as far as he could see. How many Jews could there be in Vienna? Yes, you’re welcome, good luck, bon voyage, now please step aside so the next person can come in.
The Ambassador in Berlin heard what he was doing and excoriated Consul Ho for his impudence. He ordered him to stop at once. The Consul put the angry cables in a drawer and ignored them.
Then he arrived in the morning to find Guomei reading even more cables, her sensible skirt clinging to the swell of her hips, her red lips parted in fear. “He says stop or you’ll be arrested,” she said. For the first time, she looked scared.
“I will not stop,” Ho said calmly. “They will have to drag me away.” He sat. “You have a fresh stack of forms? Ah, good. Thank you. Now send the first one in.”
That summer David watched Margit playing with Leo in their locked room, wondering how long she could keep him inside where it was safe. It was no life for a small boy. He agonized constantly about whether they should leave, and how to get them out, even though he had nowhere for them to go. His parents were dead. Her parents were still here in Vienna, old and infirm. They refused to leave, but urged David to get Margit and Leo out. Her dear cousin Hannah was also desperate to get out with her husband and children.
David and Margit spent hours in bed, planning it out: each would take no more than one small valise, with a third bag devoted to things for Leo. Margit packed the boy’s hand-crocheted blankets and miniature satin-trimmed nightshirts, while David lay awake long after she and Leo were asleep and blinked painfully at the ceiling, trying to figure out how it could be done. He had enough money for steerage, now euphemistically called Tourist Class, and a little extra; they would need every last schilling to get started in their new land, wherever that was.
And therein lay the trouble, for no land would take them. He had been to almost every embassy and consulate in Vienna. Think. Find a way. He lay for a long time and no answer came to him, except that he must venture out again the next day, to wait in another line.
It was then, standing in line at the Mexican Embassy, that he heard Ho Feng-Shan at the Chinese Consulate was making up phony visas for a free port that required none, and giving them out as fast as he could write them. David left the Mexico line and ran to the Chinese Consulate, arriving there at midday with nothing but his violin case, which he carried everywhere with him. After one look at the line, he considered going home first to get food, but he saw people coming from all directions, hurrying to the queue, joining it, tailing it longer and longer, so he stepped in quickly and took his place, just inside the gate, before the line spilled out of the consulate grounds.
There followed a long day and cold night, one in which he could not dare to sleep, or even sit on the ground for a few minutes, lest he drift off and lose his place, his violin, or both. Instead he stayed upright, stamping, moving, clapping through the hours. He knew Margit would be beside herself with worry, but there was nothing he could do about that; now, with many hundreds in line behind him, he would not leave.
Around eight the next morning, as he stood bleary-eyed, a shiver of excitement swept up the long snake-coil of people stretching down the block: Ho Feng-Shan was coming. And David yawned and popped his ears and then he could hear it too, the approaching automobile.
As it turned in to the long driveway, the square black vehicle with silver running boards was instantly surrounded by people waving, tapping the windows, calling out to the mild-faced Asian man in the back seat. The car ground to a stop, idling, spitting exhaust. The force of the crowd pushed David right up to the car, against the window. He saw that the man in the back kept a serene gaze, despite the chaos outside the car. Be patient. I will take care of you, all of you.
Ho Feng-Shan must have sensed him there, because he turned at that moment and met David’s eyes. They joined in a bubble of shared silence amid the din of shouts and pleas and cries.
Wordlessly, David raised his violin case to display it through the window. This is who I am. Help me.
To his amazement, the Consul on the other side of the glass took a paper from a stack on the seat beside him, signed it, and then cranked the window open a few inches to thrust it out.
David stared, dumbfounded, frozen.
The Consul gave the paper a shake. Take it.
So David did, and at that moment the crowd parted in front of the vehicle and the driver inched forward. David looked at the paper. It was a family visa for Shanghai, stamped, signed, the ink still wet, only one line left blank, the one where he would write their names, David and Margit Epstein and Leo. They would sail right away, get on a ship out of Genoa, and trust God to protect them at sea.
Our freedom our freedom our freedom. He tucked the precious paper inside his shirt and pressed his violin case against it all the way home. As soon as he inserted his key in the door, he heard her glad shriek, and his heart twisted again at the thought of all she had suffered through the night, not knowing what had happened, imagining every possible reason why he’d failed to come home—the door creaked open to her face, swollen with tears, happy now, praising God, and then going mute at something too good to be true, a dream fulfilled from nowhere, out of the air.
“Pack, Liebchen. We are going to Shanghai.” He threw the bolt behind him, pressed the visa into her hands, and fell exhausted, shoes, suspenders and all, across the bed.
She tucked a pillow under his head, covered him with their big woolen wedding blanket, and let him sleep while she dried her tears and prayed her thanks to God.
A humble silence fell over the little group around the table. David’s and Margit’s eyes were locked in gratitude, while Leo slept in his mother’s lap. All of them felt the grace of God, suspended in the room with the last words of the story. “I too am grateful to Consul Ho,” Thomas said at last. “That you are here, well and healthy.”
At this Margit got up, handed Leo to David, and went out with a short excuse, as if going to use the alley outhouse, except that as she brushed past him to the door, Thomas saw her eyes welling.
“It’s her cousin Hannah,” David said softly after she was gone. “We write letter after letter, and there is never any reply. No news from anyone in Vienna. The children are just a little older than Leo. We don’t know if they are alive or dead.” He looked down at his own son, safe in his trembling arms, and held him tighter.
“I’m so sorry,” Thomas said. And they sat together in silence until Margit came back, and he thanked them, and embraced them from the deeper well of all they had told him.
In the tingzijian he found the light on and Lin awake, leaning against the wall in the corner where he had made his pallet. Before Thomas could even speak, he looked up and said, “I finally reached Duke Kung. He is a busy man.”
“Clearly.”
“But he left a meeting to talk to me.”
“He was worried. He cares about you.”
“I don’t know why.”
“Stop talking like that. Look at all you do. You brought jazz here. You got everyone dancing.”
“You did, you and your men, just like Buck Clayton and Teddy Weatherford before you. Not me. But that’s finished now. Night in Shanghai is dead.”
“We’re not, and we are still with you, in case you hadn’t noticed. So is Kung. He seems to think of you as a son.”
“No surprise, I guess. It’s as clear as looking into water that I needed another father.” It was the first spark of the old, wry Lin that Thomas had seen since the day they pulled him out of the Hollywood.
> Encouraged, he lowered himself to the floor beside his friend, leveling their eyes. “All of us you brought here—we never had this before. I’m not talking about the money. Respect. I would say it’s something true of every musician you brought here, that he yearned for that all his life. And this is the one place we all found it, because of you. You saved us that way. Even when we go back to America, back to the bottom, we’ll know.”
Lin nodded.
“And now, you are helping the Jews—including Margit’s cousin—”
“Hope can be brutal,” Lin cut in. “I advise you, don’t hope. Her cousin has not been heard from in too long.”
“I know,” Thomas said, the sight of Margit’s tears still burned into his mind. “But with the Resettlement Plan, you will save so many others. That’s why you must regain your strength. A hundred thousand.”
“If it works,” Lin said dully.
“If it works.”
“Then why could I not save one?” Lin whispered, and tears he had held in through all these days rose to his eyes and spilled out. “Why did I not come one month sooner?”
“I know,” Thomas said quietly, a hand on his arm. “It’s lousy.” And it is the blues, he thought, a realm he finally understood. They sat together in silence, as only old friends can, until past midnight.
In October of that year, Song was still returning to Baoding Village every three weeks, bringing new workbooks for the girls and teaching them new characters. Plum Blossom, the group’s ringleader, learned the fastest, and by the time autumn’s chill had descended, she had composed a short letter to Song, proudly sent down the mountain on a truck hauling casks of vinegar. The phrasing was off and some of the characters incorrect, but it brought Song perhaps her purest single moment of happiness since she came north. She expressed her happiness and pride in large, clear characters and gave the letter back to the vinegar seller to carry to Baoding, just as a messenger approached her. She was requested at a meeting.