The Far Side of the Sky

by Daniel Kalla

  With his driver’s help, Kingsley was able to rise to his feet. But even with Fai’s arm wrapped around him, he swayed like a sapling in a windstorm. His breath came in rapid grunts.

  Franz shot his hand out to Kingsley’s neck. His fingers stuck on contact with the skin. Blood! His hand skittered up and down the man’s neck, finally finding the faint racing pulse. “What happened?”

  Kingsley weakly waved away the question. “Oh, Dr. Adler … thank God … please … Sunny!”

  “Sunny? Where is she?”

  “Franz, help!” Simon called.

  Franz looked over to see Simon dragging Sunny out from the back seat. He lunged forward and caught Sunny in his arms just as Simon pulled her free. Lifting her up, Franz felt warm blood on her exposed abdomen. She lay ominously still in his arms.

  “Is she …” Simon’s voice cracked.

  Franz lifted her higher, bringing her mouth to his ear. He heard faint breathing. He wheeled and raced for the hospital entrance, Sunny light in his arms.

  The noise from the street had roused Maxwell Feinstein and two of the German nurses, Liese and Berta. They rushed out to the street.

  “Nein!” Franz stopped them. “Ready two beds!”

  “Ja, ja!” Max shepherded the women back inside.

  “And prepare the operating room!” Franz called after them.

  He burst through the open door, bumping Sunny’s head against the casing, but she didn’t respond. “This way, Herr Doktor!” Berta cried.

  Franz followed her voice to the ward, where Max and Berta were hastily dragging partitions around two empty beds. Several patients were sitting upright in their beds, clutching sheets to their chests and murmuring among themselves.

  Franz lowered Sunny into the nearest bed. She blinked as she hit the mattress but uttered no sound. Under the light, the extent of her hemorrhage was obvious. Blood was already caked to her left side and continued to ooze from the one-inch gash below her rib cage. He palpated her abdomen. The muscles tightened in response. “I need intravenous supplies! And when will the operating room be ready?”

  “Soon, Herr Doktor,” Berta answered shakily. “Liese is preparing the equipment.”

  Franz hurried over to the other bed, where Fai had deposited Kingsley. Someone had stripped off his shirt. He sat up, his legs dangling over the side of the bed, and gasped for air. Franz spotted the wound on his hairless chest just below the right nipple. The edges puckered in and out with each rapid breath. Stethoscope plugged into his ears, Max was trying to examine Kingsley, but he kept struggling to stand. “Sunny …” he wheezed. “Sunny …”

  Max glanced at Franz with worried eyes. He pointed to the stab wound. “The knife has punctured the right lung. It has collapsed, and his chest is filling with blood.”

  Kingsley tried to rise again, but Max held him gently in place. “Do not … worry … about … me,” Kingsley gasped.

  But Franz knew that if the blood continued to pool in Kingsley’s chest, he would suffocate in his own fluid. “We need to drain your chest, Dr. Mah,” Franz said.

  “No … no … no.” Despite a heroic effort to rise, Kingsley fell back onto the bed.

  “Listen to him, Dr. Mah,” Max implored. “It has to be done!” “No!” said Kingsley. “Fix … Sunny … first.”

  “I will, I swear,” Franz said. “But that will take time in the operating room. I can put a tube in your chest right now in a matter of minutes.”

  “After,” Kingsley gasped. “Not until … Sunny …”

  Franz darted back to Sunny’s bed, where she lay still on the stretcher. He ran his fingers along her ice-cold neck. He held his breath until he found the weak pulse.

  Berta reappeared, fumbling with coils of rubber tubing and two bottles of Ringer’s lactate. Franz snatched the needles out of her hand and dropped to his knees. He ripped open the sleeve of Sunny’s dress and touched along the skin of her elbow crease until a stringy vein rolled under his fingers. With his other hand, he pierced the skin over the vein and advanced the needle. Steady, Adler. You will not have a second chance.

  As soon as a drop of blood formed at the needle’s hub, Franz grabbed the tubing from Berta and connected it to the needle. He took the bottle and attached it to the pole beside the bed, mounting it as high as he could to maximize the rate at which it flowed into Sunny’s vein.

  Franz turned back to Kingsley. “The fluids are running into her, Dr. Mah. The operating room will be ready any minute.” He motioned to Kingsley’s chest. “Meantime, I am going to drain the blood from around your lung.”

  Eyes at half-mast, Kingsley stared back without argument.

  “Berta, please get me a scalpel and tubing,” Franz instructed.

  Franz was assessing the best location on Kingsley’s chest to insert the drainage tube when Liese appeared at the doorway. “The operating room is prepared, Dr. Adler!”

  Franz glanced over to Sunny, who was as white as a sheet and motionless. Kingsley weakly pushed Franz’s hand away from his chest. “Take … her,” he breathed. “Please!”

  “Go, Franz!” Max nodded. “I will insert the tube into Dr. Mah’s chest.”

  “I’ll help anyway I can,” Simon added from across the room.

  Franz hesitated a moment and then pointed to the bottle of fluid hanging from the pole. “Berta, take the intravenous!”

  Once more, he swept Sunny up in his arms. Berta freed the bottle from the pole and held it up as high as she could. Together they rushed Sunny down the hall into the operating room and laid her on the operating table. Franz grabbed a clean gown off the wall and threw it over his suit. He slipped a cap over his hair and tied a mask around his mouth. “Liese, you will have to give the ether,” he stated.

  Sunny lay on the table with her bloodied abdomen exposed, sterile towels draped over her chest and below her pelvis. Franz saw that her eyes had opened a crack. “Father …” she croaked. “Where is Father?”

  The sweat dripped into Franz’s eyes. “On the ward, with Dr. Feinstein.”

  “Is he all right?” she gasped.

  Franz wiped his brow with the sleeve of his gown. “He’s alive, Sunny. We will do all we can for him, but first we must fix you.”

  Sunny lifted a hand and plucked at the air near Franz. “Please, Dr. Adler. Please …” Her hand dropped to the bed and her eyes fluttered shut.

  Franz glanced over to the nurse at the head of the bed. “Begin, Liese!”

  With a tremulous hand, Liese brought the ether mask to Sunny’s face and dripped the anaesthetic on it. “Steady …” Franz said, watching a few drops miss the mask. After two or three more drops, he said, “All right, enough.”

  Franz hurriedly wiped Sunny’s abdomen with iodine-soaked cotton. He grabbed the scalpel off the tray and touched it to the side of her belly just below the rib cage. More sweat dripped toward his eyes, but he ignored it. He applied pressure and sliced vertically through the abdominal wall in one long motion until he passed below her navel.

  He wedged an L-shaped steel retractor through the edges of the incision and yanked back. Bright blood welled and bubbled over the edges of the wound like a fountain switching on. He jabbed a second retractor through the incision and pulled the incision apart. “Retract, please!” He passed the handles to Berta.

  Franz jammed a handful of sponges inside Sunny’s abdomen, trying to mop up as much of the blood as he could. From the degree of hemorrhage, he assumed the knife must have lacerated her spleen. At least, he hoped so. If the blade had penetrated a major vessel, or even her intestine, he stood practically no chance of saving her. Stay with us, Sunny. Please.

  Franz dug his left hand through the incision up to the level of his wrist. Warm blood enveloped his hand as he felt his way past the loops of slippery bowel until his fingers touched the base of the deflated spleen. Exploring its surface, his finger slipped into the ragged gash in its centre. Engulfing the pear-sized organ in his hand, he ran his fingers over the surface until he found the
base where the main blood vessels entered. “Clamp!” he grunted.

  Berta passed him a long scissor-shaped clamp. Pooling blood still obscured his sight, so he blindly plunged the instrument deep into Sunny’s belly until its tip met his other hand. He ran the clamp’s teeth alongside his fingers and then clicked across the splenic artery.

  Franz took all the remaining absorbent gauze sponges off the tray and wadded them inside her abdomen. Holding his breath, he slowly withdrew them. No fresh blood welled in place of the old. “All right,” he said to himself, feeling his first glimmer of hope.

  He took the long needle driver off the tray and loaded it with catgut. Moving the intestine out of the way, he feathered the needle driver down to the level of the clamp. He encircled the spleen’s base with three loops of catgut before tying it off, then added a second ligature for support. “Long scissors.”

  Franz inserted the scissors and cut across the far side of the clamp, slicing through the splenic artery and freeing Sunny’s spleen. He gently pulled it out through the incision and dropped it onto the tray.

  Franz and both nurses stared into the gaping incision, watching for any sign of fresh bleeding. “How is she, Liese?” he asked without taking his eyes off the wound.

  “Her pulse is weak but she is still breathing, Herr Doktor.”

  “Good,” Franz said. “I’m going to close the wound now.”

  He removed the clamp and explored the inside of Sunny’s abdomen one last time, running his fingers up and down the intestine to ensure he had not missed a second injury. Satisfied, he reached for the needle driver and sewed the layers of the abdominal wall closed.

  Franz dropped the tools on the tray. Liese had already pulled the ether mask off Sunny’s face. Eyes still closed, she was breathing evenly and on the verge of rousing. “Keep the fluids running in,” he told Berta as he rushed for the door. “And clear the operating room as quickly as possible for Dr. Mah!”

  Franz broke into a run down the corridor, heading toward the ward. Simon met him at the doorway. “How is she, Franz?” he demanded.

  Something caught Franz’s eye, and he ignored the question. Mouth open, he stood at the doorway and gaped at the sight.

  Kingsley lay still on the bed. A rubber tube dangled freely from his chest and blood dripped steadily into a pool on the cement floor.

  Max was shaking his head continuously as he slowly draped a white sheet over Kingsley. “Even with the tube,” he muttered, “he had simply lost too much blood.”

  IV

  CHAPTER 24

  APRIL 14, 1940, SHANGHAI

  “Unglaublich! Can you believe we have already been in Shanghai for almost a year and a half, Franz?” Esther asked from the armchair where she sat lengthening Hannah’s school skirt.

  “Feels more like a lifetime and a half,” Franz replied.

  “Ja,” Esther sighed. “Quite a lot has happened since, no?”

  “You might say so, Essie!” Franz chuckled at her understatement. Europe had gone to war. The Germans had trampled Poland in the fall. While fighting had reached a stalemate over the winter months, with the dawn of spring, the Wehrmacht had launched a new blitzkrieg and invaded Scandinavia. Denmark had already surrendered, and now Norwegians shuddered as hostile forces occupied the streets of Oslo. The Adlers kept their wireless tuned to the BBC night and day, hoping and praying to hear word that the British and the French had struck back decisively. But each day brought only bleaker news from Europe. Rumours ran rampant among the refugee community about Jews caught in the Nazis’ clutches inside Germany, Czechoslovakia and especially Poland. Franz had heard frantic stories of walled ghettos, mass arrests, starvation and torture. With the borders closed and escape routes cut off by the hostilities, the flow of new refugees into Shanghai had stemmed from a flood to a trickle.

  Locally, tensions had steadily risen as the Japanese sabre-rattling intensified. More and more Shanghailanders and expatriates had packed up and departed for Hong Kong, Singapore and other safer harbours. Leaving was not an option for the Adlers or the twenty thousand other German Jews. Esther’s multiple visa applications and letters to the American, British, Canadian and Australian authorities had all been politely declined or ignored altogether. Esther remained optimistic, but Franz was more convinced than ever that no one wanted the displaced Jews.

  Still, Franz was astounded at how the refugee community had gelled. On his walks and rickshaw rides around the city, he saw that the German Jews had made a home for themselves, ironically, replicating the towns and streets they had escaped. Franz had never felt a strong affiliation to the Viennese Jewish community, but in Shanghai, through his work at the refugee hospital, he had already come to know several families in his same predicament. Many were secular Jews like him; some were only half Jewish or married to Gentiles. Franz took unexpected pride in how their resourcefulness had largely overcome the poverty to which most of the refugees had arrived. Cafés, restaurants, theatres, bakeries and sports clubs had sprung up all over, especially in the streets surrounding the refugee hospital—a neighbourhood that had come to be known as Little Vienna. All kinds of authentic fare, from matzo, bagels and smoked meat to non-kosher Austrian delicacies such as Wiener schnitzel, were readily available. In the evenings, Shanghai buzzed with Jewish culture.

  The sharp whine of strings drew Franz’s attention. Across the room, Lotte Weczel sat beside his daughter. Hannah’s face was creased in concentration as she balanced a diminutive cello between her legs. Franz had yet to adjust to the sight of his daughter’s lopsided playing style. Her bow hand sawed fluidly across the strings while her contracted left hand fumbled to finger each note. The music emerged in squeaky bursts, but the tune was identifiable and her improvement undeniable.

  Lotte had suggested the cello to Hannah, lending her a child-sized instrument and offering to teach her. Despite her handicap and unremarkable musical aptitude, Hannah embraced the instrument with the same ferocity that she tackled every new challenge.

  Lotte muttered a few quiet words of encouragement and then glanced to Franz with one of her shy smiles. They had been seeing one another for over a year. They shared an appreciation for music and old-time architecture. Lotte often toured him through the lesser trod areas of the International Settlement, exposing him to eccentric villas and other turn-of-the-nineteenth-century gems that he might never have otherwise found. She also cared deeply for Hannah, and vice versa. However, Franz’s relationship with Lotte remained passionless and, aside from a few staid good-night kisses, platonic. Little about Lotte stirred him romantically or sexually. And though she would occasionally reach for his hand while walking or sitting in the cinema, he sensed no more interest on her part than his.

  While neither Franz nor Lotte were in any hurry to advance their relationship, Clara Reuben made it her priority. She no longer relied on persuasiveness or guilt alone, but had become even more direct, suggesting that unless Franz married into the family, her husband would have trouble continuing to fund his modest salary at the Country Hospital. She also implied that Hannah’s scholarship at the exclusive Shanghai Jewish School would be in jeopardy. For Franz, the latter was a far weightier threat. Hannah was thriving at school, where both the teachers and students seemed sensitive to her handicap. Franz was prepared to do anything to protect his daughter’s well-being, even marry a woman he did not love.

  Esther did not share his opinion. She had made her view clear the week before over tea. “Lotte is a sweet woman, but that’s not reason enough to marry.”

  “Her aunt might be reason enough.”

  “You can’t let that woman bully you, Franz! It’s just not right. For you or Lotte.”

  “Essie, we are discussing Hannah’s future.” “No, Franz. We are discussing your future.”

  “What if they expel Hannah from school?”

  She held up her hands. “Because her father refused to marry a board member’s niece?”

  “For not paying the dues. We both know Cl
ara secured us the grant for Hannah.”

  “Maybe so, but Hannah is a good student. They would have no cause to withdraw her scholarship now.”

  “Her mother was not Jewish. So, technically, neither is Hannah.”

  Esther shook her head. “Did you hide this from the school when she enrolled?”

  “No, but Clara says the pressure for spots is greater than ever. And the board feels other, fully Jewish children are more deserving of scholarships.”

  “Oh, Franz, that woman would tell you that the sun will not rise again until you marry her niece. She is bluffing.” “How can you be so sure, Essie?” She sighed. “Ach. I do not trust the old turtle.”

  “Lotte is a kind soul. She is good to Hannah. It would not be the end of the world.”

  Esther patted his arm. “You and I have both been blessed to know what it means to marry for love. There is no other reason, certainly not blackmail! What kind of marriage would yours be?”

  The music stopped and the momentary lull pulled Franz back to the present. Hannah lowered her bow to the ground.

  Franz clapped enthusiastically. “Brava!”

  Esther put down her sewing to join in on the applause.

  “I am still terrible, Papa,” Hannah said with a timid smile.

  “Not so, liebchen. I hear improvement each time.” Franz motioned to her cello. “You remember when you first tried?”

  She giggled. “Onkel Ernst said I sounded like a cat trapped beneath the wheel of a cart.”

  “Wait until he hears you now.” He laughed. “No more crushed cats. Only lovely music.”

  “Is he coming tonight for dinner?” Hannah asked hopefully. “Maybe I can play for him?”

  Ernst no longer lived with the Adlers. A few months after their arrival, Lady Leah Herdoon had made good on her shipboard promise and toured them through the city in the back of her Rolls-Royce limousine. After a sumptuous dinner at her mansion on the western outskirts, Lady Leah commissioned Ernst to paint two original pieces. The money was enough for him to rent a suite in a building a few streets over from the Adlers. Lady Leah also introduced Ernst to one of Shanghai’s top art dealers, Lawrence Solomon, who invited Ernst to show at his gallery. Ernst produced several large oil canvases that captured the haunting vulnerability of his subjects—female nudes he had chosen from the youngest of the dockside prostitutes. The show was a critical and commercial success. As soon as it closed, Ernst threw himself into his next project and, in the process, had become a relative recluse.