by Daniel Kalla
“The Jews. I let them—” Ghoya glanced sheepishly over to his superiors. “We let them out of the Designated Area to work in the rest of the city. I give them passes. And how do they thank me?”
Again, Ghoya left Franz hanging. “I am not sure, sir.”
“They smuggle. They smuggle!” Ghoya cried. “Jewellery, liquor, cigarettes. It does not matter. All for the money. These Jews, Dr. Adler. These Jews, they take advantage of our kindness.”
Tanaka swirled his head in Ghoya’s direction and scolded him in Japanese. Ghoya’s eyes went wide and his chin dropped in deference.
Franz’s throat constricted at the sound of Tanaka’s shrill voice. He thought back to the squalid torture chamber in the basement of Bridge House, and lying strapped by his head and limbs to a wooden bench. Franz could practically feel the ligatures cutting into his wrists and the foul water sloshing over his face now. He breathed deeper, fighting off the memories.
Tanaka looked over to Kubota and continued in clipped Japanese. Kubota nodded reluctantly before turning to Ghoya and addressing him quietly. Ghoya sputtered an obsequious reply and bowed deeply at the waist. Kubota’s left hand shook on the desktop as he held out his good arm to Franz. “We did not invite you here to discuss smuggling, Dr. Adler.”
“Sabotage!” Tanaka hissed in English.
Franz’s shoulders tightened. Against reason, he assumed that Tanaka must already know that Charlie and Simon were hiding in Yang’s home. “Excuse me, Colonel?”
“A bomb.” Tanaka stabbed his finger at the window. “Right here.”
“Yesterday, saboteurs detonated another bomb in Hongkew,” Kubota explained. “The explosion occurred just before noon at the wharf at the foot of Muirhead Road. Two sailors died. A merchant ship was damaged.”
“So close,” Tanaka snapped, his eyes blazing behind his thick glasses. “Were the Jews responsible?”
“Colonel, the wharf is outside the ghet—” Franz caught himself. “Outside the Designated Area.”
Tanaka’s angry gaze never left Franz, but he waved dismissively in Ghoya’s direction. “This one lets Jews come and go. He fusses over jewellery and cigarettes. I worry over bombs!”
Franz opened his mouth. “Colonel Tanaka, there is no—”
“You Jews hate Germans. Admit it!” Tanaka seemed to believe Franz spoke for all of Shanghai’s Jews. “All you want is their defeat. So Imperial Japan must also lose. You will do everything to make it so.”
“Colonel, we are peaceful.” Franz brought a hand to his chest. “The great emperor has given us shelter. And we are most grateful for the Japanese hospitality.”
“So you say,” Tanaka scoffed.
“No one in the Designated Area has access to explosives.” Even as Franz spoke the words, he wondered if they were true. He knew of a few young hotheads, including the three Klein brothers, who were making noises about aiding the Underground. He had warned them and their parents that their reckless talk could threaten the entire community.
Tanaka smirked at Franz. “We will look ourselves.”
Kubota stared down and spoke to his desktop. “I’m afraid Colonel Tanaka is correct. We will have to search the Designated Area.”
Franz suddenly pictured the Kempeitai crashing through the doors of Yang’s suite, catching Charlie and Simon unaware. Hiding his panic, he edged toward the door.
Tanaka suddenly sprang forward, stopping only inches from Franz’s face. The hot sour breath made Franz blink. Tanaka pointed his forefinger into Franz’s chest, as though poking him with a stick. “If I find anything, you answer to me.”
“I . . . I . . .” Franz stammered. “There is nothing to find.”
Kubota began to speak in Japanese, but Tanaka stopped him with the same sharp tone that he had levelled at Ghoya. Franz could see that his old ally no longer had much standing with the Kempeitai chief. Tanaka turned to Franz with a malicious grin. “If I find anything . . .” Without another word, he wheeled around and stormed out of the office.
Ghoya shuffled after him, head low. He stopped at the doorway and turned to Franz. “The smuggling will stop. It will stop. You mark my words, doctor.”
Desperate to warn the others, Franz hurried for the door himself. “Colonel, if you will please excuse me.”
Kubota only smiled weakly. “Circumstances have changed in Shanghai. Yours, mine, everyone’s. Would you not agree, Dr. Adler?”
“I would, yes.”
“No wonder the Reubens declined my offer.”
“To be released from the internment camp?”
“We refer to them as ‘civic assembly centres,’” Kubota said with a trace of sarcasm. “Yes, they requested not to be relocated.”
That the Shanghailander couple had opted for prison camp over the relative freedom of the ghetto struck Franz as proof of just how dire the refugees’ situation had become.
“Colonel Tanaka.” Kubota shook his head. “His threats are never empty.”
“So I have learned.”
“We will not tolerate subversion in the ghetto,” Kubota said mechanically.
“I would not expect you to.”
Kubota looked up from his desk, his eyes burning. “I had no intention of returning here.”
“I realize that.”
“We Japanese are guilty of pride. Too much pride. I am afraid I am no exception, Dr. Adler. To come back to the city that I once viewed as home . . . like this.” Franz was uncertain whether Kubota meant his diminished physical or administrative capacity, or both. “After my stroke, given the choice, I would have preferred to have never awoken.”
* * *
As Franz left the bureau, he resisted the urge to run. At the ghetto checkpoint, he saw two Japanese soldiers flanking the refugee guard. A thin woman stood in front of them, twitching nervously, while one of the soldiers rooted through her handbag.
When he was done, the soldier returned the bag to the woman and cleared her to re-enter the ghetto. As she crossed through, Franz recognized her as Liese, the nurse who had fallen into the role of the refugee hospital’s anaesthetist.
Liese seemed astonished to see him. “Herr Doktor Adler!” she gasped. “Why . . . why are you here?”
“I had a meeting with the authorities,” Franz said. “And you? Why did you leave the ghetto?”
Breaking off eye contact, Liese looked acutely uncomfortable. “I hem clothes for a Japanese tailor in Frenchtown. Twice a week I drop off the finished clothes and collect the new ones.”
“Is everything all right, Liese?”
She stared at her feet for a long time before answering. “I am not sure whether it is my place to comment, Dr. Adler.”
“Comment on what?”
“I had just received my pay from the tailor. He only gives me a few marks for a week’s worth but still . . .” She sighed. “After he paid me, I went to the Old City. There is a market there that sells vegetables for a good price when they have anything to—”
Franz regretted asking. “Liese, I do not mean to be rude, but I am in a frightful hurry.”
She nodded to herself. “I wasn’t snooping, Dr. Adler. I just happened to see them together. On the bench.”
“Who did you see, Liese?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your wife.”
“Sunny was in the Old City?”
“Yes.” Liese glanced around her before speaking in a hush. “She wasn’t . . . alone.”
Chapter 26
“Papa sold them all!” Freddy exclaimed as soon as they were alone beneath the eaves behind the school. Laughing, he grasped Hannah by the shoulders and spun her around. “You’re a brave one, Banana, carrying all those cartons through that checkpoint.”
“It was nothing.” She tried not to remember queuing at the checkpoint in her bulky coat, which was lined front and back with
cartons of cigarettes, worrying she might faint with fear. But in the end, the guard waved her past with only a few questions and seemingly no interest in what might be under her coat.
Freddy dug into his trouser pocket and pulled his hand out in a fist. “I wouldn’t call this nothing.” He made a show of slowly unfurling his fingers to reveal the five-dollar bill in his palm.
Hannah stared dumbfounded at the crumpled note. She assumed that the man with the beard was Abraham Lincoln, but she had never before seen anything other than an American one-dollar bill.
Freddy waved it at her. “For you.”
“For me?”
“Your share of the profit.”
“But Freddy this . . . this is a fortune.”
Still laughing, he leaned forward and pecked her on the lips. “No, Hannah, this is just the beginning.”
The kiss left her dazed. Warmth swept across her brow and cheeks. She stared wide-eyed at the boy before her, who was suddenly too handsome to bear. Freddy was saying something, but she couldn’t follow his words.
He shook her gently by the shoulders. “Next week again, yes?”
“Yes,” she murmured, uncertain of what she was agreeing to and not even caring.
“Papa was wondering if this time you might be able to carry a few more cartons?”
“I think so, yes,” she said. Anything that might encourage Freddy to kiss her again.
The sound of footsteps shattered the moment. Freddy dropped his hands from her shoulders as though letting go of a scalding pot. He stepped back just as Hannah saw Otto Geldmann rounding the corner.
Otto was a sweet kid whom she had known since her first week in Shanghai. But just then, she wished the earth would swallow him up and leave her alone with Freddy again.
Freddy straightened to his full height and took a step toward the slight boy. “Hey, Otto, you’re not spying on us, are you?” he asked in a friendly voice, but with a threatening undertone.
“No.” Otto’s cheeks reddened. “I was just—I don’t know—kind of bored. I came to see if I could find anyone behind the school.”
Freddy reached into his pocket and extracted a crumpled box. Hannah counted four cigarettes inside it. “We were just about to have a smoke. You want in?”
“Yes. Yes, please. I would love one,” Otto said. He glanced at Hannah, his eyes wary.
Hannah and Otto choked on their cigarettes while Freddy inhaled as smoothly as if he had been smoking for years, then tossed the stub to the ground and crushed it with the heel of his shoe. Hannah and Otto followed suit.
“Those were less than half done!” Freddy exclaimed. “What a waste!”
“Oh, sorry,” Hannah said, and meant it. Otto nodded contritely.
Freddy turned to Hannah with a knowing grin. “No matter. I’ll be getting a bunch more very soon.”
* * *
As Hannah headed home after school, she felt light as air. Her belly grumbled, but she hardly noticed another day without lunch. The kiss had happened so quickly that she couldn’t even remember how Freddy’s lips felt on hers, but her chest filled with butterflies as she considered the promise inherent in that one moment. She resisted the urge to skip: her left foot never cooperated gracefully enough.
Her thoughts turned to the five-dollar bill tucked into her skirt. She would give it to her father without a second thought, except she knew there would be questions. She could not risk revealing what she and Freddy were doing. She considered leaving the money on the floor or tucking it into Franz’s coat pocket, or perhaps even Sunny’s, but the outcome would be the same. No one in Shanghai could afford to be so careless with that amount of money.
Esther! She would give the money to her. She could trust her aunt with anything.
With that problem solved, her thoughts drifted back to Freddy. Had they just become boyfriend and girlfriend? Could it really be?
Caught up in her daydreams, Hannah had already walked a few blocks before she noticed the unusual number of jeeps and trucks collected along the street. Some were parked on the sidewalk or pointed halfway out into intersections, while others blocked the entrances to the alleyways and the networks of homes they concealed.
As Hannah rounded the corner onto Kung Ping Road, she saw three soldiers gathered behind a truck parked at the end of the block. Infantrymen were a common sight in the ghetto, and these men stood at ease, but Hannah still felt deeply unsettled. She almost doubled back to avoid them but instead lowered her eyes to the pavement and continued on her way, staying on the far side of the street.
Just as Hannah reached the truck, the soldiers sprang into action. For a panicked moment, she thought they were heading for her. Instead, they raced over to the door of a nearby apartment building that had just flown open.
Hannah heard the shrieks first. The words were almost unintelligible, but she made out the phrase “Leave me be, you devils!” howled in Shanghainese.
A soldier stumbled out through the doorway hoisting a tiny Chinese woman in his arms. Her long hair had fallen across her face, and she struggled like a cat in a bathtub. The soldier pinned the woman’s arms to her sides, but her legs flailed as though she were trying to run on air.
The other soldiers raced over, taking hold of the woman’s arms. One soldier slapped her viciously across the face with his palm, then hit her again with the back of his hand. The woman yowled in response and struggled even more vehemently.
Hannah spun away from the violent scene. She was about to run back down the street when the woman called out to her in Mandarin, “Girlie! Listen to me!”
Yang! Hannah froze. She cautiously looked back over her shoulder at the woman who had helped teach her Chinese. Yang tossed her head, clearing the hair from her ashen face. Her frantic eyes were huge. “Wo˘ dúzì yīrén!” she cried. “They found only me!”
Hannah was confused by Yang’s odd statement. Had she misunderstood an idiom?
“I was alone!” Yang cried. “Soon Yi must know that I was alone. Tell her.”
The soldiers were looking at Hannah now. She began to back away. The man who had slapped Yang squinted hard at Hannah and shook a finger accusingly. “You know the woman?” he demanded in English.
Hannah shook her head. “I . . . I don’t speak Chinese.”
The soldier stared at her skeptically for a moment before shooing her away. “Go! Leave us!”
Hannah held Yang’s terrified gaze for a fraction of a second before she backed away a few paces, then turned and ran down the street.
“Only me! You tell her, girlie!” Yang cried behind her. Then she shrieked again, “Leave me be, you devils!”
Chapter 27
Something was wrong. Sunny sensed it the moment Franz appeared on the ward and shepherded her off to the staff room. Once they were alone, he grimly told her about his interview with Kubota and Tanaka and their threat to raid the ghetto. “Where are we supposed to move Simon and Charlie this time?” he demanded.
“We have to separate them.”
“But how? It will take a miracle to find one new safe house, let alone two.”
Sunny locked her fingers together. “We have to get Charlie out of the ghetto altogether.”
“And Simon? He can’t stay around here either. After last year—what happened at Bridge House—someone in the Kempeitai is bound to recognize him.”
Only one solution came to mind. “Jia-Li will take Charlie in,” she said.
Franz grimaced. “Into her flat? In Frenchtown?”
“Can you think of anywhere else?”
“No. Even still, then what do we do with Simon?”
“Perhaps he can go back to the Comfort Home?”
“Would Chih-Nii really take him back?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I can see how we might be able to pass Charlie off as a crippled beggar or somet
hing,” Franz said, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “But how would we get Simon out of the ghetto past the guards?”
Before Sunny could reply, the door burst open and Hannah rushed into the room, her hair a tousled mess and tears coursing down her cheeks. Sunny had never seen her stepdaughter looking as distraught.
Hannah launched herself into her father’s arms. “They have Yang!” she cried.
Sunny went cold. “Who has her?”
“The soldiers,” Hannah gasped into her father’s shoulder. “I watched them take her away.”
Sunny covered her mouth with both hands. The blood-curdling image of Irma being cut down by gunfire flashed to her mind.
Franz gently pried Hannah from his chest and steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. “Slow down, Hannah. This is very important. Did the soldiers arrest anyone else with Yang?”
Hannah shook her head.
“Are you certain?” Franz demanded. “They could have already taken others away or . . .”
“No, Papa. Yang told me.” Hannah shook free of her father’s grip and turned urgently to Sunny. “She kept saying to tell you that she was alone.”
“Are you certain, Liebchen?” Franz asked.
Hannah nodded adamantly. “At first I thought I misunderstood her Chinese, but she repeated it twice: wo˘ dúzì yīrén!”
“‘I was alone,’” Sunny said, thinking of just how alone poor Yang really must have felt at that moment.
Sunny felt nauseous with worry. Yang was the closest to a mother that she had known for the past twenty years. They had lived apart only since the Japanese forced the Adlers to move into the ghetto. Even then, despite her dread of the Japanese, Yang had followed them out of loyalty and love. Yang’s greatest fear had now been realized, and only because she had offered to help Sunny. “We must do something, Franz,” she murmured. “How can we help her?”
He stared back hopelessly. “If only . . .” His words petered out, and he stepped forward to wrap her in a tight hug.
Sunny squeezed back, desperate for the contact. “We had better find the other two,” she sobbed into his neck.