The Far Side of the Sky

by Daniel Kalla

  CHAPTER 39

  Jia-Li stubbed out her cigarette and dabbed at her lower lip, removing a flake of blood-red lipstick with her little finger. “So you are the world-famous Dr. Franz Adler?” Her accent was similar to Sunny’s, but her tone was naturally flirtatious.

  The three of them stood huddled in the hospital’s staff room beside the cot where the night staff stole the odd hour of sleep. Jia-Li was dressed like a cinematic femme fatale in a black cocktail dress, white gloves and hat with attached veil. She could have passed for one of the ubiquitous poster models in Shanghai—or “beautiful girls,” as they were commonly known—who advertised everything from cigarettes to motor oil.

  Franz bowed his head. “Thank you for coming, Miss Ko.”

  “It’s Jia-Li, please.” She turned to Sunny and laughingly added something in Chinese.

  Sunny, who had been on edge ever since Jia-Li arrived, did not offer even a wisp of a smile. Franz did not understand her uncharacteristic irritability, especially considering that her friend had come to help them.

  But Jia-Li appeared indifferent to Sunny’s coolness. “So you need to make two people disappear into thin air,” she said.

  “Not thin air,” Sunny corrected. “The countryside.” Jia-Li angled her head and smiled. “Is there really a difference, xiao hè?” Sunny rolled her eyes. “Can you help us or not?” “Pas de problème.” Jia-Li snapped her fingers. She turned to Franz with another airy smile. “Do you speak French, Franz?” “Only German and English, I am afraid.” “Pity.”

  “Jia-Li, please! This is serious,” Sunny snapped. “Can you really get two wanted men past the Japanese sentries and out to Free China?” Jia-Li nodded dreamily. “But how is this possible?” Franz asked.

  Jia-Li floated her hand up in the air. “My boss’s boss is Du Yen Sheng. Are you familiar with the name?”

  The gangster and his Green Gang were as legendary in Shanghai as the bronze lions guarding the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. “He is the man they call ‘Big Ears’ Du?” Franz said.

  Jia-Li exhaled as though blowing out smoke. “Only the suicidal call him that to his face,” she said. “But Mr. Du is exceptionally well connected in this city.”

  “Even after the invasion?” Franz asked.

  “War has had little effect on Du’s business.” Jia-Li waved away the question. “After all, no one loves clubs, gambling or women more than the Japanese. And not only the foot soldiers. It goes right to the top with them.”

  Franz shook his head. “How can he possibly smuggle two people out from under their noses?”

  Jia-Li laughed again. “Trust me, my dear Dr. Adler, the Green Gang could smuggle an entire circus out of Shanghai, elephants and all.”

  “When can it be done?” Sunny asked.

  “Tomorrow at 0300,” Jia-Li said. “The boys will pick up your friends and transport them to the city’s western outskirts. There they will rendezvous with members of the Chinese militia, who will guide them out to the countryside.”

  “Is it dangerous?” Sunny’s words were clipped and quiet.

  Jia-Li extracted a silver cigarette case from her handbag. She offered a smoke to the others, both of whom refused. She lit a cigarette and took a long drag before answering the question. “Nothing is without danger these days, Soon Yi. But the Japanese don’t have nearly enough men to patrol the whole countryside. At night, the militia moves freely in and out of Shanghai. How do you think they plant their little bombs all over the city?”

  Despite the media blackout, Franz had heard of the wave of guerrilla attacks on Japanese military installations across Shanghai.

  Sunny checked her watch with concern. “It’s not even six o’clock yet.”

  “Don’t worry so much, xiao hè.” Jia-Li massaged Sunny’s shoulder. “By tomorrow, your problem will have disappeared like the morning mist lifting.”

  Sunny shrunk from her friend’s touch and snapped at her in Chinese.

  “Of course I am high!” Jia-Li replied in English. Taking another drag of her cigarette, she turned to Franz. “Doctor, my oldest and dearest friend can’t seem to comprehend that nothing aside from opium could possibly get me through another day.”

  “We worked so hard to wean you off the pipe this time.” Sunny’s tone resonated with hurt. “You promised.”

  “And Godfrey promised to take me away with him.” Jia-Li shrugged. “The world is built on broken promises.”

  Sunny stared hard at her friend for a long moment. “Not ours, Jia-Li.”

  Jia-Li looked away and nodded. “I need to go finalize the arrangements,” she said. “Remember, the truck will pull up at the front door at three o’clock. No lights. No horns. It will not wait, so the two men had better be outside and ready.”

  Sunny leaned forward and hugged Jia-Li. “Thank you for this.”

  “You never have to thank me, xiao hè.” Releasing Sunny, Jia-Li surprised Franz by folding her arms around him and kissing him lightly on either cheek. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Franz.”

  “And you as well, Jia-Li.” He bowed his head. “I cannot thank you enough.”

  “You are most welcome, dear doctor.” Jia-Li turned to Sunny and nodded in Franz’s direction. Giggling, she spoke in their dialect. Sunny’s face reddened, but she laughed too.

  They saw Jia-Li to the front door. After she had gone, Franz turned to Sunny and asked, “What was so funny?”

  Sunny blushed deeper. “Just silly girl talk. Jia-Li told me that you are not nearly as hard on the eyes as she had feared.”

  “Oh.” But his smile faded quickly. “Sunny, can we trust the Green Gang with Shan’s and Ernst’s lives?”

  “Jia-Li has always been true to her word.” She sighed. “Except, of course, when it comes to opium.”

  They fell into silence for a few moments, then Sunny turned to him with a timid smile. “Earlier, Franz, on the pathway, you started to tell me about your engagement to Lotte …”

  “I am not going to marry her, Sunny.”

  “Have you told Lotte?”

  “No,” Franz admitted.

  “That is not really fair to her, is it? To keep her in limbo like that.” But she sounded relieved.

  “I intend to tell her soon.” He bit his lip. “And you? Have you given Wen-Cheng an answer yet?”

  “Not yet.” She looked away and added softly, “But I’m not going to marry him, either.”

  Franz nodded, trying to conceal his relief and elation.

  The sound of vehicles thundering down the road broke the moment. The floor shook slightly. Franz craned his neck to peer out the small window to the street. Raw fear gripped him as he glimpsed two military vehicles screech up to the curb. “I will meet them here,” he said as calmly as he could. “Go make sure everyone else is in position!”

  Face pale but eyes calm, Sunny nodded once and hurried off down the hallway.

  Franz watched Kempeitai officers pour out of the cars. His mouth went dry as he recognized Colonel Tanaka at the head of the group.

  Tanaka stormed through the door, his face already contorted into a snarl.

  Franz held out his hand. “Good evening, Colonel Tanaka.”

  Ignoring Franz, Tanaka turned to the men behind him and barked out orders in Japanese. One of the soldiers knocked shoulders with Franz as he raced past him into the hospital.

  “Colonel, may I ask why you and your men have come?”

  Tanaka jabbed a finger at Franz, stopping just short of his chest. “Your neighbour, Heng Zhou, is Communist spy!” he spat as though Franz were somehow responsible. “His son is enemy spy too. He lives with the painter. Your good friend!”

  Franz nodded. “Herr Muhler, yes.”

  Tanaka squinted behind his glasses. “Where are they?”

  Franz shook his head. “I have not seen them in days, Colonel. Perhaps they have already left the city?”

  “No! They are in Shanghai!”

  Franz took a step down the hallway. “Colonel, why
don’t we go inside and—”

  Tanaka’s hand shot out and clamped on to Franz’s elbow. He jerked Franz back. “We wait for my men!”

  Helpless, Franz prayed Ernst had remembered to secure his face mask snugly. Sunny had altered the artist’s appearance with a near head shaving, but Franz doubted it would be disguise enough. They were gambling on the proximity of the two profoundly ill cholera victims, along with Ernst’s bogus coughing fits, to deter the Kempeitai from examining him too closely. Meanwhile, Shan was in the basement dressed as a repairman and pretending to fix the boiler. Franz reassured himself that even he would not recognize Shan in his coveralls, haphazard haircut and coke-bottle glasses borrowed from a patient.

  “We owe you nothing!” Tanaka snapped.

  “Excuse me, Colonel?” Franz’s voice cracked involuntarily.

  “For fixing General Nogomi-san,” Tanaka grunted. “We owe you nothing. Shanghai part of Imperial Empire of Japan. All Jews are war prisoners. We tell you to operate on general, you operate!” Franz lowered his head. “I understand.”

  “You understand better at Bridge House. You be there now, if not for Taisa Kubota.” Tanaka eyed him menacingly. “If we find your friends here, Taisa Kubota is no more protection to you.”

  His pulse pounding in his temples, Franz stared silently at the floor.

  Another five or ten taut minutes crawled past before one of the Kempeitai officers hurried down the hallway toward them. He reported to Tanaka in a rush of Japanese. Tanaka’s scowl only deepened as the man spoke. The colonel snapped his fingers and pointed outside. Without a word to Franz, Tanaka spun and stormed out of the hospital. The rest of the Kempeitai men marched after him.

  As soon as the military vehicles’ engines sputtered to life, Franz’s shoulders sagged with relief. His legs almost gave way as he took his first full breath in minutes. He ran into Sunny in the hallway. “Well?” he demanded.

  She flashed a small smile. “Your friend Ernst is quite the actor. You should have seen how far the Kempeitai men jumped back from his coughing fits.”

  “Sunny is not exaggerating!” Ernst cried as he caught up to them. “I was the very embodiment of contagion.” “And Shan?” Franz asked.

  “They hardly spent any time in the basement,” Sunny said.

  Ernst tapped his chest. “Once the Japanese met Typhoid Mary here, they couldn’t get out soon enough.”

  Sunny laughed. “Probably best to stay in costume. In case they surprise us again.”

  Franz headed straight to the staff room to telephone home. Esther answered on the second ring. “Is everything all right, Essie?” “All right now,” Esther said calmly. “Now? What happened?”

  “Colonel Tanaka and his men searched the apartment. They left quite the mess.”

  “And Hannah?” Franz breathed.

  “Hannah was a trooper. She is fine. And Simon is here with us now.”

  Franz felt guilty that he had not been home to protect them.

  Moments after he hung up, Ernst wandered into the room with a lit cigarette between his lips. Franz’s gaze drifted involuntarily to the artist’s shorn scalp. Ernst ran a hand over the stubble. “Believe me. No one misses those gorgeous blond locks more than I do.”

  “How is Shan managing?” Franz asked.

  “Devastated.”

  Sympathy stirred in Franz for both the father and the son. “Poor Heng. I cannot imagine what they will do to him.”

  “Family means everything to Shan, and now he’s lost them all.” Ernst dragged heavily on his cigarette. “I spent most of the afternoon talking him out of marching himself into Bridge House to join his father.”

  “Time will help, surely,” Franz mumbled.

  “I wonder,” Ernst sighed. “Shan was completely lost after his mother and sister died. Now this.”

  “He still has you,” Franz pointed out.

  “Some consolation. The poor devil.” Ernst rolled his eyes. “Can you imagine, Franz? If we’re extremely fortunate, in the next few days we will find ourselves a thousand miles from civilization in some backwater village that has never seen a white man.” He tapped his chest again. “Let alone this queer one.”

  “You’ve survived the Nazis and the Japanese,” Franz pointed out. “How much more challenging could a Chinese village be?”

  “Not just any village. One full of Communists!” Ernst shuddered. “When I think back to my socialist friends in Vienna and all their insufferable moralizing. Mein Gott, the only saving grace is that I won’t understand a word of their Marxist tripe in Chinese.”

  Franz laughed. “Now you sound more like your old self.”

  “I’ve been a fool, my friend,” he sighed. “A lovesick fool. I should have listened to you eons ago.”

  “About?”

  “Everything. Nanking was never my battle. I was swept up in Shan’s passion and thirst for justice.” He looked down sheepishly. “I had no right to endanger your family—the people I love—for the sake of my artistic pride.”

  “Those paintings were some of your best work, Ernst. Besides, what is done is done. At least we survived.”

  “So far.” Ernst took another puff of his cigarette. “You have risked too much for my sake.”

  Franz grinned. “Where in this city could I possibly find another bull-headed prima donna with your flair for art and style?”

  Ernst laughed. “Or any city, really.”

  “That morning after Kristallnacht, when you risked your life to bring us food and support when we needed it most …” Franz shook his head. “I will never forget that, Ernst.”

  “It’s what friends do.”

  “Only the best ones.”

  Ernst inhaled his cigarette until it was burned down to the stub. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “You will say goodbye to Essie and Hannah for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “In spite of it all, the little puffin has flowered here in Shanghai, hasn’t she?”

  Franz nodded, warming with pride.

  “I’m so disappointed that I will miss your wedding,” Ernst said. “Oh, Lotte and I will not be—”

  “Not her!” Ernst waved away the suggestion. “I meant to Sunny.” Franz shook his head in surprise. They had never before discussed his feelings for Sunny.

  Ernst brought two fingers to his eyes. “You do not need to be an artist to recognize love when it’s staring you in the face.” He winked. “But of course, it does help.”

  Franz did not bother denying it. “There is so much I have to do first.”

  “But nothing nearly as important, my friend.” Ernst sighed heavily. “Look where love is leading me. To a village forgotten by time, where I will have to exchange my paintbrush and my beloved gin for a tree toilet and endless Stalin speeches in Chinese.” He jutted out his lower lip. “God willing, I will be picked off by a Japanese sniper before I ever arrive.”

  Franz chuckled. “It’s only temporary, Ernst.”

  “One can always hope.” Ernst smiled enigmatically as he extended his hand to Franz.

  CHAPTER 40

  Franz’s mouth felt as though it were lined with wool, and his wrists dug into his forehead. He lifted his head off the small table and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. Grey morning light leaked in through the window. He glanced at his watch, surprised to see that it was almost eight o’clock.

  He rose to his feet and was stretching his lower back just as Sunny stepped into the staff room.

  “Any news from Jia-Li?” he asked hopefully.

  Sunny shook her head. “No, but that is to be expected.”

  As promised, the truck had pulled up in front of the hospital two minutes before three o’clock that morning. If not for the three blinks from the flashlight inside the cab, Franz would never have known anyone had come for Ernst and Shan.

  Sunny rubbed her eyes. Her hair was unusually tousled and her face drawn. “We do have another problem, Franz,” she said gloomily.

  Does this never end? �
�What is it, Sunny?”

  “The cholera.”

  “Mrs. Schnepp?”

  Sunny shook her head. “Mrs. Schnepp has improved, but several other cases have arrived in the past few hours.” “How many?” “Twelve.”

  “Twelve?” he gasped.

  “They’ve all come from the Ward Road heim.” Sunny shook her head. “One of the patients, a four-year-old girl … she was already dead when her father brought her in.”

  “Such a shame.” With deepening unease, he thought again of Hannah and Esther, who volunteered at the heim. “How much fluid do we have left?”

  “The other nurses and I have mixed up several litres of oral preparation, but some patients are too ill to drink,” she said. “We have thirty-one bottles of Ringer’s lactate left.”

  “A drop in the bucket if this cholera spreads.” Franz ran a hand through his matted hair. “Sunny, I will meet you on the ward once I have telephoned home.”

  After Sunny left, Franz picked up the receiver and dialed. It rang numerous times before Esther finally answered. “Essie, I hope I am not waking you.”

  “I’ve been up for hours, Franz,” Esther said groggily. “What of Ernst and Shan?”

  “They were picked up on schedule. No news since.” “I see,” Esther said. “Listen, Franz, Hannah has had to go back to bed. She cannot go to school today.” “Why not?”

  “Neither of us are well,” she said. “Perhaps influenza.” The receiver froze in his hand. “Not diarrhea?”

  “I am afraid so,” Esther said, clearing her throat, embarrassed. “Hannah is vomiting, too. She is really suffering, the poor child. I think we must have eaten something—”

  “Essie!” Franz’s throat constricted. “Bring Hannah here to the hospital! Straight away!”

  “I am not sure it is a good idea, Franz. She is really in no shape to walk that far—”

  “Hire a rickshaw! Damn the fare. Just get her here! Please, Essie!” “Franz, what is going on? I do not—”

  “You both worked in the kitchen at the Ward Road heim this week, did you not?”

  “And every week for the past four months, Franz.”

  “Essie, did you eat there?” he asked, terrified of the answer.