The Far Side of the Sky

by Daniel Kalla

  “Roughly sixteen hundred American dollars,” Franz said.

  The official nodded. “And tobacco and alcohol?”

  “No alcohol. Tobacco …” Franz turned to Ernst.

  “I have two packs of cigarettes left.” Ernst shrugged. “One and a half, actually. It was a long, bumpy ride to shore.”

  The official eyed them. “No more than two packs? And no alcohol? Are you certain?”

  Franz smiled with relief that alcohol and tobacco were the man’s primary concern, rather than the jewellery Esther had smuggled out of Austria.

  Beyond customs, the terminal teemed with people of every race, busier than even the Südbahnhof at the peak of rush hour. Some Chinese wore Western-style clothing; others were dressed in traditional silk gowns and matching jackets and pants. Franz even noticed a cluster of orange-robed Buddhist monks with shaved heads.

  Across the room, Hannah spotted crew members from the Conte Biancamano waiting beside piles of luggage. As soon as Ernst and the Adlers claimed their suitcases, a young Chinese man wearing only a light jacket and stained pants rushed up to them pushing a large empty cart as though it were a wheelbarrow. “I porter,” he announced in pidgin English. “I catchee suitbags.”

  Ernst nodded and pointed out their bags. The scrawny man effortlessly hoisted the heavy suitcases onto his cart, expertly balancing them in one tall pile. “Taxi?” he asked as he began to push the cart toward the street.

  Franz nodded, wondering if they could afford the expense.

  The Bund was dense with traffic. Cars, trolleys and double-decker buses crawled along the congested road. Bicycles and yellow rickshaws, pulled by lean young men in short pants, wove between the vehicles. A Sikh policeman stood in the middle of the road, guiding the traffic with hand signals and repeated shrill blows on his whistle.

  They walked past a little boy, at least a year or two younger than Hannah, sitting on the pavement. His left foot was mangled and his right arm had been amputated above his elbow. With his left hand, he held up an inverted cap with a few coins inside. “No mama, no papa. No whiskey soda,” he squealed in broken English. “No Russian sweetheart.

  Okay?”

  Ernst and Esther kept moving alongside their porter, but Hannah stopped and stared at the boy. She looked up at Franz, her eyes brimming with sympathy. “Papa, do we have any money?”

  Franz dug in his pocket and found the last of his German coins. He gave them to Hannah, who dropped them in the boy’s hat. The little boy acknowledged the donation with only a nod before he turned to the next passersby and repeated the same “No mama, no papa …” chant.

  At the curb, they saw several passengers from the ship walk up a plank and onto the back of a weathered flatbed truck. A tall man in a trench coat approached them. “Are you folks Jewish?” he asked in fluid German tinged with an American accent.

  “Yes.” Esther glanced at Ernst. “Three of us, anyway.”

  “Welcome to Shanghai.” The man flashed a warm smile, holding Esther’s eyes for an extra moment. “I am Simon Lehrer. I work with the CFA.”

  “I am Mrs. Karl Adler,” Esther said and then introduced the others. Simon grinned. “Will your husband be arriving soon, Mrs. Adler?” “My husband …” Esther glanced over to Hannah, who was still focused on the young beggar behind them. “He has passed,” she said quietly. “Oh … I am so sorry,” Simon muttered.

  Franz was eager to redirect the conversation before Hannah overheard it. “Pardon me, Mr. Lehrer, but what is the CFA?”

  “The Committee for Assistance of European Refugees in Shanghai. How’s that for a mouthful? Bet you’re sorry you asked.” Simon chuckled and pointed toward the truck. “Why don’t you come with us to the Embankment House? Sir Victor Sassoon has established a hostel there for the new arrivals until more permanent dwellings can be found.”

  Franz shook his head. “I don’t believe that will be necessary, thank you, Mr. Lehrer …”

  “You’re not signing your life away or anything,” Simon said. “It’s just a place to stop and gather your bearings. We offer hot meals, a roof over your heads and a few lectures on adjusting to life in Shanghai.”

  Esther eyed Franz uncertainly. “Maybe we should? Until we do gather our bearings?”

  Hannah’s fingers dug into Franz’s palm and she looked up at him with worry. “Papa, what about the hotel?”

  Simon knelt down to Hannah. “This is kind of like a hotel. Except there will be a bunch of other kids around to play with.”

  Unmoved, Hannah continued to stare at her father, imploring him to decline the offer.

  Franz turned back to Simon. “Thank you all the same, Mr. Lehrer. I believe we can manage on our own.”

  “Okay. Suit yourself.” Straightening up, Simon glanced at Esther. “If you change your minds, you can always find me at the Embankment House on North Soochow Road.” He laughed again. “Just ask for Simon. The New York busybody. They’ll know how to reach me.”

  They thanked Simon and rejoined the flow of pedestrian traffic, heading toward the lineup of black taxicabs parked at the curb. Franz had only made it a few steps when someone shoved past him so hard that he toppled forward, almost falling over.

  Franz regained his balance and looked up to see Simon sprinting away. “Stop, you!” Franz shouted after him, but Simon had already disappeared into the throng of people ahead.

  “Are you injured, Franz?” Esther asked, pointing frantically at the front of his coat.

  Franz looked down and saw that his coat had been slashed open over the right side of his chest. He thrust a hand inside the gap where the inner pocket had been only moments earlier. Nothing. “Essie, the money!” he cried. “It’s gone!”

  “Can’t be,” Ernst muttered in shock. “Robbed by the man from the CFA?”

  Before Franz could answer, Simon emerged from the crowd and made his way toward them, dragging a terrified skeletal Chinese teenager by the arm. With his free hand Simon held up the envelope full of American bills and the unopened letter from Jakob.

  Passing the papers back to Franz, Simon arched an eyebrow. “Are you still convinced you can get by here on your own?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Sunny Mah sometimes followed the long route to the Country Hospital, via Rue Cardinal Mercier, just to pass the Cercle Sportif Français. With its curved portico entrance and detailed relief work, the building was one of her favourites, but she had never before set foot inside the French Club. Now, she could hardly believe she was sitting on the glassed-in garden terrace, enjoying afternoon tea and sampling pastries.

  Sunny felt acutely underdressed in her simple navy qipao—the traditional high-collared Chinese frock—among the mix of Western and Asian women who were dressed to the nines in colourful silk cheongsams or elegant skirts and jackets. Across the table, Jia-Li Ko resembled a Chinese Greta Garbo in her grey silk suit and matching pillbox hat as she smoked a cigarette in a long black holder. Like so many of Shanghai’s young Chinese women, Jia-Li revered all things foreign.

  As one of the only social clubs to admit Asian members, the Cercle Sportif Français had a reputation as an “open club,” but it was still the exclusive domain of the city’s upper crust. Sunny had no idea how Jia-Li secured a table for two non-members, but she wasn’t surprised. Jia-Li was a star in the stable of the city’s most influential madam, Chih-Nii, who reported directly to the undisputed head of Shanghai’s underworld, Du Yen Sheng or “Big Ears” Du. Consequently, Jia-Li had access to people and places that few others in the city shared.

  Sunny was pleased to see her best friend so carefree. Full of confidence, gossip and laughter, Jia-Li seemed to be back to her old self. Her dilated pupils, which always constricted under the influence of opium, suggested that Jia-Li had not touched a pipe recently.

  Jia-Li blew out a languid stream of smoke. “You cannot keep up this pace, xiao hè”

  Her friend was right. Recently, Sunny had put in almost as many hours at the Jewish refugee hospital
as she had at the Country Hospital. As exhilarating as she found the volunteer work, it was exhausting. The day before, she had fallen asleep at the Country Hospital while charting at the nurses’ desk. She awoke, mortified to find Dr. Samuel Reuben hovering over her. “It appears, Nurse Mah, that you cannot stay awake long enough to care for your patients,” he gloated. “Perhaps you could borrow Mr. Hamilton’s bed for a nap while he is still in the operating theatre.”

  Sunny shook off the humiliating memory. “I can’t stop now, bao bèi. They need me.”

  Jia-Li stroked Sunny’s hand across the table. “Everyone always needs you, xiao hè. You will die of exhaustion if you don’t learn to say no.” “To everyone?”

  “Never to me, of course!” Jia-Li said with a giggle. “Besides, I haven’t touched a pipe in over a month. You have cured me for good this time.”

  “Is this time truly different, bao bèi?” Sunny asked.

  “I can’t put Mother through that again. It would kill her.” Jia-Li tapped the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray. “Enough humdrum talk. Tell me more of your handsome doctor.”

  Sunny felt a blush coming on. “He’s not mine at all.”

  “Please, xiao hè. It’s me.”

  “It’s over.” And then Sunny hurried to add, “Not that it ever really began.”

  “I thought he had a good heart.” “That has nothing to do with it.”

  Jia-Li sat up straighter, and her affected pose gave way to a more sincere expression. “It has everything to do with it,” she said softly.

  “Wen-Cheng is married. He does not have the courage to face the consequences of choosing a life with me. Neither of us do.”

  “Your father would understand.”

  “I don’t believe he would.”

  Jia-Li waved the cigarette holder in the air. “Your father, of all people, knows what it means to follow his heart in spite of what others think or say. His family is so traditional. Imagine what it must have been like for him to bring home a round-eyed wife. An American, no less!”

  Sunny nodded. “Grandmother did not speak to him for five years. Even when they lived under the same roof. And his own sister still has not forgiven him.”

  “Exactly! Your father would want you to be happy. He loves you that much.”

  Sunny doubted Kingsley would accept such loss of face so easily. It didn’t matter, though; her mind was made up. But Wen-Cheng had never stopped trying to win her back. To prove his dedication, he had helped Sunny stock the refugee hospital with medical supplies. He had rounded up a surprising quantity of equipment, dressings and medication, and even managed to provide bottles of Ringer’s lactate solution. As touched as Sunny was by his commitment, she was determined not to waver in her resolve.

  “And you?” Sunny asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  “Me?” Jia-Li resumed her starlet pose with cigarette held high above her head. “Darling sister, my romances rarely last longer than an evening.”

  Despite the pretense, during her fits of narcotic withdrawal, Jia-Li often admitted that she still clung to the fantasy of true love rescuing her from life in a brothel. Several men, including clients, had already auditioned for the role. But Jia-Li invariably fell for penniless musicians and artists who had neither the means nor the will to see her salvation through.

  Sunny cocked her head. “So you no longer believe in love, bao bèi?” “Oh, it’s too late for me.” Jia-Li said matter-of-factly. “Not for you though.”

  “I’m two months older than you.”

  Jia-Li chuckled and took another drag from her cigarette. “You know, xiao hè, sometimes I think our problem is that I’ve lived too much and you’ve lived too little.”

  “Maybe,” Sunny said, though she was thankful that her life had been so much more sheltered. “Perhaps we should both leave Shanghai?”

  A flicker of excitement lit up Jia-Li’s eyes. “And go where?”

  “Singapore? Paris?” Sunny smiled. “Or even New York. Remember how we always planned to go there when we were little girls?”

  “I do,” Jia-Li said quietly.

  “Why not then, bao bèi?”

  Jia-Li motioned to the span of bare branches outside the window. “Because you and I are like those birch trees. Far too firmly rooted here to ever leave Shanghai.”

  “It’s true,” Sunny sighed.

  Jia-Li stubbed out the last of her cigarette. “Let’s go shopping, xiao hè.” Sunny glanced up at the clock and saw that it was already after three o’clock. “I have to go to work now.”

  Jia-Li rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Which job?”

  “The refugee hospital.”

  “One simple little word: fau. Non. No.”

  They left the club together. The doorman hailed a taxi for Jia-Li, but Sunny declined her offer of a ride and instead rode a bus into the International Settlement. She crossed the Garden Bridge on foot, where she faced the usual tense, humiliating bowing ritual. She arrived at the refugee hospital just before four o’clock. The roof of the old structure had been patched and its exterior painted but, as Simon had predicted, from the outside it still looked more like a derelict building than a hospital.

  On the open ward, Sunny saw that the beds were still full after an outbreak of salmonella poisoning had overrun the hospital. The culprit had turned out to be contaminated eggs served four days before at the local synagogue luncheon. The mood of the small hospital was surprisingly upbeat, since none of the sickened patients, even the small children, had died. Dr. Max Feinstein credited Sunny for saving lives with her unorthodox technique of rehydrating patients. Instead of forcing down large amounts of fluid, which the patients invariably vomited up, Sunny had them sip every three to five minutes a few tablespoons of a solution she constituted from water with small amounts of baking soda, salt and sugar.

  Several smiling, grateful faces greeted Sunny on the ward. She could tell from their robust colour that many were near ready for discharge.

  “Miss Mah!” Dr. Feinstein called from the small laboratory down the hallway.

  Sunny found him hunched over his microscope. “Here, quickly!” His bald head gleamed. “Look here.”

  As Max moved out of her way, she picked up a whiff of iodine cleanser, a scent he carried like aftershave. She peered through the monocular lens and saw the magnified cluster of violet, ovoid cells. “Do you see them?” Max demanded.

  Sunny looked up from the microscope. “Are those Diplococcus pneumoniae?”

  “Exactly so!” Max laughed. “Good for you! Few of my medical students in Hamburg would have been able to recognize the bacteria.”

  “Is this sample from Mrs. Gimbelmann?” Sunny asked. “The young lady with the fever of unknown origin?”

  “Not unknown anymore!” Max trumpeted. “I performed a lumbar puncture this morning. The woman clearly has meningitis.”

  Sunny nodded. “Do you have enough antibiotics to treat her?”

  Max flashed a paternal grin. “Your friend, Dr. Huang, brought me a fresh supply only yesterday.” He shook his head. “It’s not as though we are working in the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf here, but this would be no hospital at all without the assistance of Dr. Huang and yourself.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Simon said from behind them. “Without Sunny, we might as well lock up the doors and turn off the lights.”

  Sunny turned to see Simon smiling at them from the doorway. “Dr. Feinstein, Sunny.” He beckoned them out to the hallway. “I want you to meet someone.”

  Simon’s guest was as tall as him but broader across the shoulders. The handsome newcomer had a square jaw, dark curly hair and grave hazel eyes, and appeared to be five or ten years older than Simon. “Allow me to introduce Dr. Franz Adler,” Simon said.

  The name meant nothing to Sunny, but Max’s eyes widened. “You are not the surgical professor from Vienna, are you?”

  Franz nodded. “I am a surgical professor or, at least, I used to be.”
>
  Max pumped his hand. “It’s an honour, Dr. Adler. Truly. Your reputation for surgical innovations precedes you. I am Maxwell Feinstein from Hamburg.”

  “The internist?” Franz said. “I read your fine paper on electrolyte management in patients with shock.”

  Max shrugged modestly. “So Hitler forced you to flee to Shanghai too?”

  “We were very lucky to find passage here.”

  Max sighed heavily. “Not so lucky as you might think.”

  Simon chuckled. “Dr. Adler, you’ll have to excuse Dr. Feinstein. He is not one of our most optimistic arrivals.”

  “It is true. In spite of the Nazis, I’m still very homesick.” Max cleared his throat. “Our … our eldest daughter and her two sons are still in Hamburg.”

  “They did not accompany you to Shanghai?”

  “Her husband was convinced the Americans would open their doors to downtrodden Jews.” Max glanced over to Simon, but there was no judgment, only worry, in his expression. “Now they cannot leave.”

  Franz nodded solemnly. “I know how it feels to leave family behind, Dr. Feinstein.”

  Simon gestured to Sunny. “Dr. Adler, allow me to introduce our brightest and loveliest nurse, Sunny Mah.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Mah,” Franz said in English.

  “Miss Mah is not merely a good nurse, Dr. Adler,” Max said in German, his only tongue. “She is more capable than most junior physicians. Only this past week, she single-handedly managed an outbreak of dysentery that could have proven disastrous.”

  Sunny’s cheeks burned. “My father is a doctor, a diabetes specialist. He has taught me a few approaches for treating dehydration.”

  Franz viewed her with disconcerting intensity. “Where did you learn to speak German so well?”

  Her face heated even further. “I had a terrifying languages teacher at school—Mr. Hinkel. He seemed to be about seven feet tall. When Mr. Hinkel told you that you were going to learn German, you learned German.”