The Far Side of the Sky

by Daniel Kalla

  “Good.”

  Jia-Li’s expression hardened. “Not good at all, Sunny. You must tell him!”

  “I won’t.” Sunny folded her arms across her chest. “I will not be the other woman. Not again. I still have not forgiven myself for the last time.

  With Wen-Cheng.”

  Sunny had left the restaurant more determined than ever to bury her feelings for Franz. However, now as she walked beside him down the hospital’s narrow hallway with their elbows only inches apart, her resolve wavered.

  At the end of the corridor, Hermann Schwartzmann paced furiously, a stream of pipe smoke marking his circular route. As soon as the diplomat saw them, he stopped dead in his tracks and yanked the pipe from his lips. He opened his mouth but closed it without a word, as though afraid to inquire about the outcome.

  “Your wife is beginning to wake, Herr Silberstein,” Franz said in the same cool tone he always adopted with Schwartzmann. “You will be able to visit her soon.”

  “Oh, good. Wonderful.” Schwartzmann nodded gratefully. “And the … the surgery?”

  “It went as well as can be expected,” Franz said. “We found no unpleasant surprises. We were able to remove the tumour. And I could not see or feel any obvious spread of the cancer inside her abdomen.”

  Schwartzmann’s shoulders sagged with relief. His face crumpled for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. “Oh, thank you, Dr. Adler. Thank you so very much.”

  Franz held up a finger. “I must remind you that none of this guarantees a cure. As I warned you, cholangiocarcinoma is an aggressive tumour. While I did not feel any masses, it does not mean the cancer has not already spread microscopically beyond the bile duct.”

  Unperturbed, Schwartzmann slipped the stem of the pipe back between his lips. “You did indeed warn us. Without your intervention, my Edda’s fate would have been sealed. You have given us a chance. That is more than I had the right to ask of you.”

  Franz studied him for a long moment before speaking. “Even if her recovery is uneventful, your wife will need to remain in the hospital for a few weeks, possibly longer.”

  “I understand,” Schwartzmann said.

  Franz glanced over either shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot. “I trust you will respect the terms of our agreement. No visitors aside from yourself. And you will tell no one where Frau Silberstein—” he stressed her alias—”had her surgery or who performed it.”

  Schwartzmann laid a hand over his heart. “I swear it—again—on my life.”

  Franz nodded. “The nurses will let you know when Mrs. Silberstein has awakened enough for you to visit.”

  Franz began to turn away when Schwartzmann called to him. “Dr.

  Adler?” “Yes?”

  “You are a fine, fine man, Dr. Adler,” Schwartzmann said.

  “No, Mr. Silberstein. I am just a Jew. Nothing more.” He strode off without waiting for a reply.

  Schwartzmann stared after the departing surgeon before he turned to Sunny. Their eyes locked for a moment, and she detected a glimmer of shame in them. “Thank you, Miss Mah.” He broke off the eye contact. “I understand Dr. Adler would not have been able to perform the operation without your assistance.”

  Schwartzmann struck Sunny as so civilized. She wanted to ask him how he could work for a government like Hitler’s, but instead she simply nodded.

  Sunny caught up with Franz outside the changing rooms. He looked grim. “It’s over now, Franz.”

  “We will see,” he muttered.

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “For whom, Sunny?”

  “For them. For you. For everyone.”

  He nodded slightly. “We will see,” he repeated.

  She ran out of words to reassure him. Instead, she asked, “Where are you going now?”

  “To the Country Hospital. And I had better arrive armed with a flawless excuse for my absence this morning.”

  “I have little doubt that Dr. Reuben will be enthralled by the details of Mrs. Silberstein’s hemorrhoid repair.”

  Franz showed a fleeting grin. “Are you heading to the Country Hospital as well?”

  “Yes, but I planned to stop for lunch along the way.” Without even considering, Sunny blurted, “Would you have time to join me?” “No.”

  She flushed with embarrassment.

  He cracked a small smile. “But I will anyway.”

  Outside the hospital, the sun had finally broken through the clouds, bringing with it the first inklings of spring. Inhaling the warm air, Sunny glanced at Franz. Some of the worry had drained away from his features as he blinked in the bright sunlight.

  Fai was already waiting at the curb. He drove them back to the International Settlement via the Garden Bridge. As the car idled at the Japanese checkpoint, Sunny’s heart thudded hard. As always, she scrutinized the guard’s face in search of a scarred lip but saw none.

  “Are you all right, Sunny?” Franz asked.

  Sunny looked away from the window.

  “It can’t be easy, Sunny. With so many Japanese soldiers to remind you of that night …”

  She forced a smile. “I am all right, Franz.”

  As soon as they reached the International Settlement, Sunny pointed to the curb and said, “Here is fine, thank you, Fai.”

  They climbed out in front of Public Garden, which jutted out to a point at the southern intersection of the Whangpoo River and Soochow Creek.

  Many native Chinese resented the colonial English-style greens, which up until the turn of the nineteenth century had bore a sign reading, “No Dogs or Chinese Allowed.” But Sunny had always loved the manicured lawns, colourful flower beds and, especially, the central red-topped gazebo where her father used to bring her to watch brass bands play in the summer.

  They walked along the perimeter of Public Garden. The oily aromas from the street kitchens wafted by. Sunny’s stomach rumbled as they approached the little stall where the same gnarled, old woman who had been there forever made some of the best bamboo-wrapped rice dumplings in the city.

  A new concern struck Sunny, and she felt her face reddening again. “I am sorry, Franz. The food here … it’s not kosher.” Franz shrugged. “Neither am I.”

  “But I thought … oh, good. Do you trust me to order our lunch?”

  He bowed his head. “With my life.”

  She laughed. “Hopefully, it will not come to that.”

  Sunny ordered four dumplings or zongzis and, out of tradition, haggled with the woman until they agreed on a price. At the next stall, she ordered two other Shanghai delicacies: cong you bin or fried chive pancakes and you-tia, fresh Chinese crullers. Sliding the pancakes off the grill, the cook stacked and folded them inside newsprint before passing them to Franz.

  They headed inside Public Garden and found an empty bench facing the gazebo. After they spread the food between them, Sunny described each dish, relishing the opportunity to teach Franz for a change. He sniffed the zongzi dubiously before taking a small bite. As he chewed, his eyes lit with pleasure. He took a much bigger second bite. “Delicious. And all this time, I was warned to stay clear of the street kitchens.”

  “You just need to know which ones are safe.” Sunny grinned. “I can help there.”

  They ate in comfortable silence. Sunny was full after finishing a zongzi and three slices of cong you bin, but Franz kept going until only a few pieces of you-tia remained. “I was hungrier than I realized,” he said with a sheepish grin as he wiped his lips with a handkerchief.

  “It was a long, difficult surgery.” Franz’s smile shrank. “I suppose.”

  “What is it, Franz?”

  He paused a moment. “I always love the peacefulness of the operating room. Inside, I can tune out the rest of the world and focus only on the patient and the surgery. But today …”

  “You performed a flawless operation, Franz.”

  “Today I dragged all the ugliness of the world into the operating room with me.”
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  Sunny touched his hand. “It’s over now.”

  Franz laid his other hand on top of hers. “I hope it gives Mrs. Schwartzmann relief from her symptoms. Perhaps even a cure. But if the Reubens were ever to discover that I went ahead and operated …”

  “We won’t let that happen,” Sunny said, distracted. Franz’s touch had been spine-tingling. She felt her earlier resolve melting away. For a moment, she lost herself in his troubled hazel eyes.

  He squeezed her fingers and leaned closer. “I am not sure where I would be without you.”

  “At the wrong street kitchen, no doubt.”

  A faint smile crossed his lips but his gaze grew even more intent. “You have no idea how much you mean to me, Sunny.” She swallowed. “I feel it too, Franz.” “You know with Lotte …”

  The mention of the other woman’s name broke the mood like an air raid alarm sounding. Sunny sat up straighter and tried to pull her hand free of his, but Franz held on. “I don’t love her, Sunny.”

  The words were painfully reminiscent of Wen-Cheng’s rationalizations. Sunny yanked her hand out of his grip and stood to her feet. “We should be getting to the hospital now.”

  Franz nodded but made no effort to rise from the bench. He spoke to the ground. “If it were only about my position at the Country Hospital, I would never let that stop me. I could find work elsewhere.” He turned to her, his face taut with angst. “But Hannah is so happy at school. She is accepted there. I cannot take that from her. I simply cannot.”

  Sunny’s head spun. “The Country Hospital? Hannah’s school?” She squinted. “What do those have to do with us?”

  “Mrs. Reuben is desperate for me to marry her niece. She persuaded the school to accept Hannah in the first place. And Clara can just as easily have her removed if she so chooses.”

  “Mrs. Reuben is blackmailing you?” Sunny dropped back onto the seat beside him. “Franz, I had no idea.”

  “How could you?” He reached for her hand again but stopped and pulled back before making contact.

  Sunny dropped her gaze to her lap. Heart aching, she said, “You are right, Franz. We can’t endanger your daughter’s future for our sake. It wouldn’t be right.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “Dr. Reuben has cancelled the afternoon surgeries,” the Country Hospital’s matron, Mrs. Bathurst, announced before Franz even had a chance to remove his jacket.

  “Why is that, Matron?” Franz asked, concerned that Reuben might have already caught wind of the clandestine surgery on Edda Schwartzmann.

  “A dignitary of some kind or another has arrived in town, and Mrs. Reuben has arranged an afternoon tea.” Bathurst glanced from side to side before adding, straight-faced, “The Reubens have been known to hobnob now and again, Dr. Adler.”

  Franz was relieved to not have to face Reuben, but he couldn’t shake his despondency over how Sunny and he had left things between them. Anxious to avoid her while the wound was so fresh, he raced through his rounds on the post-operative patients and headed home.

  Esther sat in the main room sifting through a wicker basket full of clothes that she had accepted on consignment. She pulled out a long black dress from the basket and appraised it in the natural light. “Home so soon, Franz? Have they closed both hospitals?”

  “His Highness did not require my assistance today. I thought I would collect Hannah from school.”

  Esther expertly folded the dress. “She will be excited to see you.”

  Franz stepped closer. “Essie, I operated on her today.”

  “The diplomat’s wife? Ach so.” She laid the dress beside the basket. “How did it go?”

  “As well as could be expected. Fortunately, no one questioned her identity.” “Simon will be relieved.” A troubled look flitted across her face. “What is it, Essie?”

  She unfolded a grey silk scarf carefully. “It’s not important.”

  “Has something happened between Simon and you?”

  Esther studied the scarf for several seconds and then slowly lowered it. “He told me he loves me,” she said softly.

  “Oh, Essie, I could have told you that. Months ago, in fact.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose I had my suspicions, but we had never discussed our feelings before. Simon caught me … unawares.”

  “How do you feel about him?”

  She balled up the scarf and dropped it back into the basket. “Simon is not Karl.”

  “And he never will be. No one will.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “What Karl and I had was once in a lifetime.”

  Franz wrapped an arm around her. “Essie, I saw how special your relationship with Karl was. What you had was rare indeed. But it’s no reason to never try again.”

  She gazed at the floor without comment.

  “Simon is a good man.” Franz smiled tenderly. “I have seen how happy he makes you.”

  “But, Franz, I cannot even begin to—”

  He held up a hand. “Imagine for a moment that your destinies were reversed and you had died before Karl. Would you have wanted him to spend the rest of his life lonely and pining?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “That is not how I spend my life, Franz.”

  “You are right. I apologize. But would you have wanted him to give up a second chance at love and happiness for the sake of your memory together?”

  “I suppose not,” she murmured.

  “Trust me, Essie. Karl would feel the same. He would be overjoyed that you found someone who made you happy in his absence.”

  An anguished look crossed her face. “I understand what you are saying, Franz, but I still can’t help feel as though I am somehow betraying his memory.”

  “Oh, Essie, Karl’s memory will never be threatened, no matter what happens between Simon and you. He is yours forever. Nothing will change that.”

  Esther didn’t respond. Instead, she raised a pair of trousers to examine them but, after only a few seconds, let them fall back into the basket in a heap. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. “I think I might … I might love Simon, too.”

  “You see.” Franz smiled, pleased for his sister-in-law.

  Franz left Esther to her work and headed out to meet Hannah. Walking northward in the warm sunshine, he crossed over into the International Settlement. Under blue skies, the sidewalk bustled with pedestrians again. He continued along the fashionable Seymour Road, arriving at the Shanghai Jewish School before classes had been dismissed.

  With time to spare, he admired the school grounds. Across the courtyard stood the stunning neo-classical synagogue, the Ohel Rachel, where the most prosperous and established of Shanghai’s Jews—the Baghdadi Sephardic families—came to worship. He considered returning with Kingsley’s old camera. But as he studied the ornate building, imagining how it would look through his lens, he realized he had no interest in photographing it. To his eye, the temple was too perfect, lacking the character and dignity wrought only by time and the elements.

  A bell chimed and, moments later, the school doors opened. Students of all ages, from tots to grown teens, flooded out. A few teenage boys were already lighting up smokes on the school steps. The girls were dressed in navy tunics with white blouses; the boys wore matching blazers and ties, several sporting yarmulkes.

  Franz spotted Hannah before she saw him. She was walking between a girl of her height and a boy who was half a head shorter. They were all smiles and giggles. Hannah saw her father and broke free of her two friends. She shouldered through the crowd and rushed toward him.

  “Papa!” She hugged him. “Why did you come? Is Tante Esther all right?”

  “Esther is fine. I finished early today.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, her warm breath tickling his ear. “I’m glad you came.”

  Hand in hand, they headed back home, Hannah bubbling non-stop with details about the classroom, her teacher and her friends. At one point, she looked up at him and asked, “Papa, will we have a Seder dinner this year?�
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  Franz realized that Passover was only three days away. “I think so, Hannah. Yes.”

  “Lotte told me we might be going to her home for Seder.”

  “Not this year. Your aunt has made alternate arrangements.”

  Hannah accepted the news with a shrug. “Today Mrs. Goldbloom taught us more about Passover and the story of Exodus.”

  “Did she?” The specifics of the Israelites’ escape from Egyptian slavery had dimmed in Franz’s memory. Lately, Hannah often referenced Jewish customs and biblical stories of which he had little or no recollection. He had attended a secular public school as one of only three Jews in his class. He found it ironic that his daughter, who was half Christian by birth, was growing up far more Jewish than he ever had.

  “Mrs. Goldbloom compared the pharaoh who tried to stop the Jews from leaving Egypt to Adolf Hitler,” Hannah said. “What do you think, Papa?”

  “I suppose it’s a fair comparison,” he muttered. She stopped walking. “In Egypt, God helped Moses free the Israelites. He sent down the ten plagues until the pharaoh had no choice but to let the Jews go. And then God parted the Red Sea to let them escape.” She paused. “Papa, how come God isn’t helping the Jews now?”

  Franz had heard adults pose a similar question. For him, the answer was easy, but he did not share his atheism with his daughter. Instead, he said, “Hannah, look at Shanghai. There are over twenty thousand German Jews here already.”

  Hannah’s face lit with sudden insight. “Do you mean Shanghai is for us what the Sinai desert was for the Jews of Egypt?”

  Franz had not thought of it that way, but he nodded. “Perhaps.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Or maybe, Papa, Shanghai is our Promised Land?”

  Franz gently tousled Hannah’s hair and laughed. “Time will tell, liebchen.”

  His daughter abruptly switched topics to her school’s upcoming track meet. Her disability prevented Hannah from running in the events, but she was ecstatic to have been chosen as one of the cheerleaders. She spent the rest of the walk speculating on how the new dress that Esther had promised to make would turn out.