The Far Side of the Sky

by Daniel Kalla

  On the last scheduled day of their voyage, Franz woke to find Hannah standing by the bed and shaking his shoulder. “Today is the day, Papa!”

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up. “Are you excited, liebchen? “

  “I think so.” She turned Schweizer Fräulein over, pulled up the gown and examined the seam again. Hannah had been keeping as close an eye on the doll’s stitches as Franz had on Esther’s sutured arm. “I’m a little scared too, Papa.”

  “Me too.” Franz stared into Hannah’s trusting eyes, wondering again how his eight-year-old would cope with the drastic changes and challenges that awaited them in Shanghai. “Hannah, life is going to be different after today.”

  “How, Papa?”

  He smiled. “To begin with, I don’t think we will eat as well as we have on this ship.”

  Hannah shrugged. “I’m tired of all the food.” She arched out her flat belly and patted it, mimicking the adults she had seen onboard. “It would do me good to skip a few meals.”

  Franz chuckled. “Many of us, yes, darling. But not you.”

  She tugged at his arm. “Let’s go outside, Papa. I want to see China.”

  On the deck, Hannah chose a viewing perch near the smokestack on the port side. They sat and watched the craggy beaches and low-lying cliffs of the Chinese coastline drift past.

  Ernst sauntered up to them with a lit cigarette in hand. Despite the sunshine, a bone-chilling December wind whipped off the ocean. Ernst bundled his light blazer tighter around him. “Some fool steered us away from the tropics.”

  Hannah giggled. “That was three days ago, Onkel Ernst.”

  “Doesn’t make it any less foolish.” Ernst cupped her cheek. “Today our adventure really begins, doesn’t it, puffin?”

  “Are you scared?” Hannah asked.

  “No. I miss land too much.” Ernst turned to Franz with a small grin. “Besides, if God had meant for man to live on water, he would have provided a wider selection at the ship’s bar.”

  Hannah pointed ahead to the approaching break in the shoreline, where the sea’s colour turned from blue to yellowish-brown. “What is that?”

  “I think that’s where the Yangtze meets the ocean,” Franz said.

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “So we’re near Shanghai?”

  “Shanghai is still about fifty miles upriver,” Ernst pointed out.

  “That could take forever,” Hannah groaned.

  Ernst laughed. “We’ve just travelled ten thousand miles, puffin. You can probably survive another fifty.”

  She pointed back to the wide estuary. “Why is the river yellow?”

  “The Yangtze criss-crosses China,” Ernst explained. “It’s loaded with soil from its three-thousand mile journey to the sea. All that silt turns the water yellow.”

  Franz looked over to his friend, surprised and impressed. “What?” A sly smile creased Ernst’s lips. “You think we only talk about different types of gin cocktails at the bar? I have picked up a few useful tidbits.”

  The Conte Biancamano slowed, swung around and eased into the Yangtze estuary. The ship came to a stop and dropped anchor in the tawny waters. Moments later, a small boat chugged up beside the hull, and a Chinese official climbed aboard via a lower gangway.

  “Who’s that man, Papa?” Hannah asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Franz turned to Ernst. “What does our local expert have to say?”

  Ernst clasped his chest in a mea culpa gesture. “Sometimes all we do discuss are gin cocktails.”

  An older woman lying on a nearby deck chair stirred. She pulled back the broad white hat covering her eyes and sat up. “My dear child, he is our river pilot.” She spoke German with a thick English accent.

  “What does the pilot do?” Hannah asked.

  The woman rose stiffly to her feet and hobbled nearer, leaning heavily on the jade handle of her ornate wooden cane. “He helps guide the ship up the river. The depth is unpredictable and there are all sorts of hazards our captain cannot see. The pilot, on the other hand, knows the Yangtze well enough to steer us blindfolded.”

  “Why aren’t we moving?” Hannah demanded.

  “We have to wait for the tide to rise before it is safe to proceed.”

  “How long will that take?” Hannah groaned again.

  “Perhaps an hour or so.” The woman laughed and her heavy lids creased so deeply that they almost obscured her eyes. “I assume this is your first visit to Shanghai, my dear?”

  “Yes!”

  “One of the most common phrases you will hear spoken on the streets of Shanghai is man zou or ‘walk slowly.’ It is similar to our ‘good day,’ but what the Chinese really mean is, there is never a hurry. Man zou is more than just an expression. It’s a way of life here. My dear, now that you are in the Orient, I am afraid you will have to get accustomed to waiting.”

  “Hannah is usually more patient, and generally more polite,” Franz said in English. “But as you can see, she’s most excited about our arrival.”

  “No need to explain.” The woman smiled. “Her youthful enthusiasm is so appealing. Wonderful. Frankly, it’s infectious.” Despite her wrinkled skin and sunken cheeks, she had striking green eyes. She held her knobby arthritic fingers, palm downward, for Franz to shake. “I am Lady Leah Herdoon.”

  “Dr. Franz Adler,” he said with a slight bow.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Adler. Are you a physician?”

  “A surgeon.”

  “Wonderful. No one is happier than this decrepit old woman to see more European-trained doctors arriving.”

  Franz indicated Ernst. “Lady Leah, this is my friend Ernst Muhler.”

  Lady Leah touched her chin. “You are not, by chance, the artist?”

  Ernst flicked the ash from his cigarette over the railing. “I have no idea whether it’s by chance or not, but yes, I am an artist.”

  Her weathered face lit with admiration. “What an honour, Mr. Muhler. I am a true admirer of your work. In fact, one of your paintings hangs in my modest collection. Your Two Women in the Snow. One of my most prized possessions. So gripping. I shivered the first time I saw it.”

  “I’m delighted,” Ernst said with the same feigned indifference he tended to show anyone who gushed over his work.

  “What brings you to Shanghai, Mr. Muhler?” Lady Leah asked. “An exhibition?”

  Ernst shook his head. “Adolf Hitler.”

  Lady Leah eyed him suspiciously for a moment before breaking into a small laugh. “Oh, I see. Your genre is most unlikely to appeal to the Nazis.”

  “Apparently.” Ernst fluttered his hand through the air. “They much prefer their art to mimic their own lives: regressive, démodé and overbearing.”

  Lady Leah turned to Franz. “And you, Dr. Adler? Forgive me for prying, but do you happen to be part of the German Jewish contingent?” Franz nodded. “Austrian, actually.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I think you will find Shanghai far more hospitable than Austria. In fact, our Jewish community is thriving.”

  “Our?” Franz gaped at the aristocratic woman. “My Lady, are you Jewish?”

  She nodded. “My husband, Sir David—God rest his darling soul—his family has been in Shanghai for almost a hundred years. Iraqi Jews originally. British subjects, of course. My husband’s great-grandfather, Edward, was the original baronet.”

  Lady Leah explained that Sir Edward, along with several other Jewish traders, helped to colonize Shanghai in the mid-nineteenth century. They nourished a vital Jewish community in the city, which grew exponentially in the early 1920s after the Russian Civil War, when five thousand Ash-kenazi Jews joined twenty thousand White Russians fleeing to Shanghai.

  Lady Leah indicated Franz and Hannah with a sweep of her gnarled fingers. “And now, Shanghai is seeing a third influx—German and Austrian Jews—which promises to be more sizable than the first two communities combined.”

  “Perhaps the Zionists are wrong,” Franz said. “May
be Shanghai is destined to be the Jewish homeland.”

  “I doubt there is room. Shanghai is already frightfully crowded. Fortunately, anti-Semitism is a concept foreign to the Chinese.” Lady Leah paused pensively. “And thanks to the Japanese, the Chinese understand only too well what it means to be downtrodden.”

  The anchor’s chain rattled noisily as it retracted. The deck vibrated again as the engines powered up. “We’re moving!” Hannah said excitedly.

  “We are indeed, my dear,” Lady Leah said laughingly. “Remember, man zou!”

  The Conte Biancamano nudged ahead and slowly gathered speed as she sailed up the murky Yangtze along its southern bank. The river was so wide that Franz could barely make out the northern bank on the horizon.

  As they motored westward and inland, Lady Leah explained more about the local history and flavour, including the intricate process of the rice farming that sustained most of the riverside inhabitants. As she spoke, they passed several vessels, including ocean liners, freighters, tugs and naval ships, flying a wider variety of flags than they had seen in either Trieste or Port Said.

  Finally, just before noon, their ship turned south and sailed into the mouth of a tributary. “The Whangpoo,” Lady Leah announced. “Only fourteen more miles to Shanghai.”

  Hannah moaned, eliciting a laugh from the others.

  Farms and fields lined both banks of the quarter-mile-wide Whangpoo, which was crowded with even more shipping traffic than the Yangtze. “Look, Papa!” Hannah pointed to the exotic sailboats around them.

  “What are those?”

  The cigar-shaped boats sailed so close that Franz could pick up the smell of fried oil and seafood emanating from them. “That is a sampan,” Lady Leah said. “What you and I might call a houseboat. In China, many people live their entire lives from birth to death on the very same sampan.”

  Franz studied the exotic craft. A patched, dirty triangular sail billowed over the sampan’s hull and another flapped like a jib at the front. A Chinese woman knelt on the nearside of the boat and, while holding a crying baby in one arm, leaned over and pulled laundry out of the muddy water with the other. At the back of the sampan, a man worked to untangle fishing lines. A boy stood up at the edge of the boat, pulled down his pants and urinated into the river, indifferent to Franz’s and other watching eyes.

  Lady Leah pointed out a smaller sail-less boat, no more than twelve feet long, nearer to shore. A man stood at the helm and propelled the boat with a long pole that he planted with slow two-handed strokes. “Those, my dear Hannah, are called junks. Soon, the sight of the junks and sampans will be as familiar to you as bicycles and automobiles were in Vienna.”

  The skies had turned grey and overcast. As the ship was now protected from the exposed sea, the wind had died and the temperature had warmed slightly, but a damp chill hung in the air. The rank smells of fish and decay grew stronger by the minute.

  Lady Leah’s crooked finger swung toward the western shore. “Behold, Shanghai.”

  In the flat light, Franz struggled to make out the dark structures lining the riverbank a mile or so ahead.

  “Oh, mein Gott!” Ernst exclaimed. “What the hell happened to it?”

  The buildings came into focus, and Franz suddenly understood Ernst’s reaction. The city had clearly been bombed and shelled. Several buildings had collapsed, while fire and smoke damage had blackened others. “This is Hongkew, Shanghai’s northern district.” Lady Leah shook her head. “Poor Hongkew bore the brunt of the Japanese invasion last summer. Many of us Shanghailanders now refer to it as ‘the Badlands.’”

  As the Conte Biancamano neared the wharf, Franz recognized a swarm of activity. People hustled along the waterfront, while others loaded and unloaded ships. The din floated across the water toward them. No one spoke a word as their liner sailed past an imposing naval ship flying the Rising Sun flag from its flagpole. The huge barrels of its polished guns pointed toward them as though warning them to turn back.

  A quarter mile upstream, a narrow waterway cut through the urban chaos of Shanghai. “Soochow Creek,” Lady Leah said. “Some call it the busiest little river in the world.” She indicated the arched bridge spanning the creek. “The Garden Bridge connects the International Settlement and Hongkew. Sadly, it has become an armed border.”

  Ernst pointed to the International Settlement’s approaching shoreline. “Apparently, the two neighbourhoods don’t share the same architect.”

  “Nor the same real estate prices, Mr. Muhler.” Lady Leah smiled. “That—over there—is the beginning of the Bund. The most famous road in Shanghai. Possibly in all of Asia.”

  Franz’s jaw almost dropped at the night-and-day contrast in the landscape. On the far side of the promenade, the tallest buildings he had ever seen lined the Bund and spanned the waterfront for blocks and blocks.

  Their neo-classical and art deco facades were as awe-inspiring as any he had seen in Vienna, Paris or London.

  Lady Leah pointed across to a high-rise with a green pyramid roof. Its tall mullioned windows reflected back the Conte Biancamanoo’s smokestack as the ship floated by. “That is the Cathay Hotel. Built by the most famous Jew in Shanghai—possibly the city’s best known inhabitant—Sir Victor Sassoon.” She sighed. “A bit too much of a playboy for my taste, but Victor is a decent fellow.”

  Hannah’s eyes were wide with awe. “When do we get to go ashore?”

  “Soon, dear. I must head back to my cabin to prepare.” From inside her jacket, Lady Leah withdrew a small engraved silver case. She slid out two business cards, passing one to Franz and the other to Ernst. “Dr. Adler, Mr. Muhler, and of course little Hannah, it was such an unexpected pleasure to meet you. I wish you nothing but good health and fortune in Shanghai. My telephone directory is on the card. Once you have settled in, I would be honoured to give you a Shanghailander’s tour of this strange and wonderful city.”

  Soon after Lady Leah left them, the Conte Biancamano dropped anchor across from the teeming Bund.

  Luigi Comparelli hurried up to them. “Ah, my most favoured guests,” he said with a deep bow that barely creased his starched white uniform.

  “Luigi!” Hannah hugged him.

  He knelt down to her level. “Ah, principéssa, I cannot tell you how much it saddens me to have to bid you arrivedérci today.”

  “You are a dangerously charming man, Ensign Luigi,” Ernst said as he lit a new cigarette.

  “A risk for all Italians, I’m afraid.” Luigi grinned. “I came to tell you too that lunch will be served only for another half an hour. And then the ship’s tender will take guests to shore.”

  “We should go find your aunt,” Franz said to Hannah.

  “Dr. Adler, you will need to close your account with our bursar. For Shanghai, I suggest withdrawing American dollars would be most practical.” Luigi dug in his inner pocket and withdrew a sealed envelope. “Also, Dr. Adler, this letter came for you.”

  Even before Luigi handed it over, Franz recognized his father’s meticulous penmanship. His heart sank as he sensed only grim news. “I’ll read it later,” he mumbled as he tucked it inside his coat pocket.

  They made their way to the dining room, where they found Esther, wearing a green dress, at their usual table. It was the first time since leaving Vienna that Franz had seen her in anything other than black. She had even applied mascara and lipstick.

  Ernst brought both hands to his cheeks. “Hannah, where is your aunt? And who is this stunning creature before us?”

  Esther blushed slightly. “Nonsense. I thought I should look … presentable … for arrival.”

  “Trust me.” Ernst pulled his hands from his cheek and clasped them in front of his chest. “You look more than just presentable.”

  “You look lovely, Essie,” Franz agreed.

  They served themselves from the buffet. As they ate, they reviewed their short-term strategy. “So, it’s decided?” Franz looked from Ernst to Esther. “We will rent a hotel room?”
r />   Esther nodded. “Only until we can find more affordable accommodations.”

  After lunch, they returned to their cabin for a final check. Franz was saddened to close the door on the room where he had felt more secure than at any other time in recent memory. Following Luigi’s advice, he withdrew the remaining funds in his account in American currency. It amounted to just over sixteen hundred dollars. He wondered how long the nest egg would feed, clothe and house four people in a city the size of Shanghai. Having been warned about the local pickpockets—who, according to the ship’s grapevine, were organized into their own guild—Franz tucked the envelope of money deep into his inner coat pocket, beside his father’s letter.

  Hannah was giddy with excitement at the prospect of going ashore, but the adults shared looks of melancholy and worry as they loaded into the back of the tender for the short jaunt to the dock. The others aboard were mostly upper-middle-class German Jews. Most were heading for Chinese soil as stateless refugees with little more than the money in their pockets and the clothes on their backs.

  At river level, the stench from the Whangpoo’s filthy brown waters was intense. Several people on the tender covered their mouths and noses with their hands or collars. Two people even retched over the side of the boat. Hannah kept her nose pinched for the entire trip but said nothing.

  As the tender nosed up to the dock, the smell of fried fish and cooked meats overpowered the noxious river odours. The noises of backfiring cars, roaring trucks and screeching peddlers melded into a thunderous clamour. Clutching Hannah’s hand, Franz stepped tentatively onto the wharf. They followed the other passengers up a staircase toward a bland building with a sign that read “Customs House” over its entrance.

  The line inside moved quickly. It took little time to reach the Indian man who sat behind the desk wearing a white turban and a beige uniform. “Welcome to Shanghai,” he said in his refined British accent. “May I see your identification, please?”

  They passed him their passports. He glanced at them, comparing their faces to the photos, but showed no reaction to the large red J stamped inside each passport. After he jotted their names on a piece of paper, he handed back the documents. “What is the total amount of foreign currency you are bringing into Shanghai?”