Nightfall Over Shanghai

by Daniel Kalla

  Sunny looked up to Franz with a small smile but didn’t stop singing or moving. After another minute or so, the baby stilled in her arms and her song faded. She stepped over to Franz almost on tiptoes and brushed her lips over his before twisting her torso to allow him a better view of the sleeping baby.

  Franz still could remember those long evenings in Vienna when he had paced endlessly with Hannah, bouncing her in his arms while humming lullabies and praying that she would exhaust herself from crying. At the time, he had attributed Hannah’s fits of colic to the absence of a mother in her life, but looking back he wondered if maybe his daughter had somehow detected the fog of grief that had enshrouded him in those months following Hilde’s death. Ever since, Franz had always found a measure of contentment, even relief, in the sight of a sleeping baby. Until today.

  “I would like to call him Joey,” Sunny said in a hushed voice, her eyes searching his for approval. “Perhaps Joey Kun-Li Adler, after my father as well.”

  Franz tried to convey an enthusiasm he didn’t feel. “That would be fitting, yes.”

  Sunny was too perceptive to be fooled. She rotated her body away, offering him only her shoulder in profile. “How was your meeting with Mr. Ghoya?” she asked distantly.

  Franz reached out and touched her upper arm. “He is considering letting us open the hospital again.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “If?”

  “If you run it, Sunny.”

  “Me? Ghoya requested that I run the hospital? That makes no sense, Franz.”

  He averted his gaze. “Where’s Hannah?”

  “Out with that boy Herschel.”

  He sighed. “The one who fills her head with all that Zionism nonsense?”

  “He’s a sweet boy.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “The market, I believe. Hannah said she would be home to help with supper. Esther and Jakob should be back by then too.”

  He massaged his temples distractedly, struggling to conceal his anxiety. “So she still could be hours?”

  Sunny’s face clouded with alarm. “What is it, Franz? What did Ghoya tell you?”

  He squeezed her arm and gently directed her to the couch. “Come. Sit with me.”

  They sat side by side. Franz remained still, but Sunny rocked back and forth in her seat, even though the newborn was already fast asleep. Her tempo increased as he recounted his conversation with Ghoya.

  “Where does he intend for you to work?” she demanded.

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Surely it will be the Shanghai General? Where you operated on General Nogomi’s stomach ulcer? I hear they still send many of their wounded there. Maybe Nogomi himself even suggested it.”

  “Probably the Shanghai General, yes,” he muttered.

  She placed her free hand on his thigh and squeezed it. “You don’t think they might send you somewhere outside Shanghai?”

  It was precisely what Franz had been wondering ever since Ghoya had announced that the soldiers would be coming for him. Why else would he require an escort? Certainly not to go to the Shanghai General, which was less than a mile outside the ghetto’s border. “I have no idea where he will post me.”

  Staring into his eyes, Sunny tightened her grip on his thigh. “Franz …”

  He ran his fingers along the smooth contour of her cheek. It occurred to him again that she often looked most beautiful in troubled moments. Her face was a delicate fusion of Western sharpness and Eastern delicacy: her straight nose and prominent cheekbones, inherited from her American mother, complemented by the soft milky complexion that was pure Chinese. Her almond-coloured eyes had a speckled texture that Franz loved, and that made them so expressive at times like this. “Ghoya probably means to keep me somewhere nearby.” He reassured her with a forced laugh. “We refugees are dying off at an alarming rate, and the ‘King of the Jews’ would be loath to lose another subject in the ghetto, particularly one he loves to terrorize as much as me.”

  Sunny’s expression held fast. “What if he takes you away from me … from the family?”

  Ignoring the ache in his chest, Franz leaned forward over the sleeping child to kiss Sunny. She met his mouth hungrily, her tongue coursing along the inner contours of his lips. Franz reluctantly pulled free. “Ghoya was clear that I cannot set so much as one foot inside the hospital, Sunny.”

  She frowned. “What about Dr. Freiberg? Or Dr. Goldmann?”

  He laughed sadly. “You would have a psychoanalyst or a skin specialist run our hospital?”

  “They are doctors at least.”

  “And you are a surgeon, Sunny.”

  “No. I’m a nurse.”

  He shook his head. “Papers or not, your father trained you to be a doctor. And I trained you to be a surgeon. You operate better than most I’ve seen. That is not flattery either. It’s the truth. You are the only one who can manage the hospital.”

  Sunny eyed him questioningly for another moment before sighing. “I will do what I can.”

  “Thank you.” He reached for her free hand, caressing her fingers. “And if they do send me somewhere outside the city, the others …”

  “I will take care of the family.” She swallowed. “We will all still be right here when you come home.”

  He glanced down at the newborn in her arm and then back up at her.

  She met his gaze with gentle defiance. “Joey too.”

  Franz motioned around the cramped quarters. “Darling, is this really the best place for him? To be raised in the ghetto? Surely, in Frenchtown or the International Settlement, one of the churches still must run an orphanage of some—”

  “No,” she snapped, hugging the baby closer to her chest. “This is the best place for Joey. Right here.”

  “Are you thinking with your head or your heart now?”

  Her hand went limp in his. “Both.”

  “Sunny, I want this for you. For us.” He sighed. “But of all the terrible times to assume such responsibility, now when Ghoya is about to—”

  Three heavy knocks rattled the door, cutting him off midsentence. There was no mistaking the sound. His mouth went dry and his neck tightened just as they had back in Vienna on the afternoon the SS had pounded so roughly at his door that he wondered if it might fly off its hinges.

  Sunny leaned in toward him just as the baby stirred in her arms. He could feel her shoulders shaking. And the pain of his broken rib was no match for the deeper ache inside his chest.

  ***

  The soldiers at the door had been unusually patient. Neither had laid a hand on Franz, and they had even allowed a moment for a tearful goodbye with Sunny. The older of the two was clearly in charge. He smelled of hair oil and spoke passable English but had said very little after escorting Franz outside. He hadn’t uttered a word since the military vehicle had pulled away from the curb. When Franz tried to inquire after their destination, the man didn’t acknowledge the question.

  As they turned onto Chapoo Road, Franz spotted the sign for the Shanghai General Hospital through the window ahead. Flickers of relief settled over him. As long he remained in Shanghai, he could handle whatever Ghoya demanded of him. But the vehicle didn’t slow down. Instead, they flew past the hospital’s entrance. Franz turned to the older escort, but the cool look in the man’s eyes was enough to crush any hope that the driver might have missed his stop.

  They headed west down Great Western Road, away from the centre of town. Franz’s fingers drummed faster against his thigh with every tree and telephone pole that passed by the car window. Each pothole that shook the car rattled him further. I’ll never see them again, he thought.

  As they neared the outskirts of the city, the car slowed. Franz resisted the spark of hope he felt, reluctant to have it ripped away again. Craning his neck to peer out the window, he could see the lavish columns and arches of a grand building. He hadn’t seen the structure in well over two years, but he recognized it immediately. He had worked in the Country Hosp
ital from the first week he had arrived in Shanghai, in December 1938, until the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

  His pulse slowed as the car rolled to a stop and they exited the vehicle. From the outside, the Country Hospital looked much as it had on his last visit. He knew the art deco marvel had been built in the mid-1920s, primarily to cater to wealthy Shanghailanders, the expats and tourists who used to flood into the cosmopolitan city. While the surroundings had suffered, the hospital still maintained its inviting elegance.

  However, stepping through the main door, as he had done so many times before, provided no sense of nostalgia or even comfort. Despite having once been the youngest professor of surgery in the history of the University of Vienna, Franz had spent his days at the Country Hospital functioning at the level of an intern, condescended to and bullied by the chief of surgery, Dr. Samuel Reuben. Although he had complained to Sunny about his mistreatment at the time, as Franz glanced around the spacious foyer, now filled with uniformed Japanese, he had little doubt that he might soon be longing for those days under Reuben’s reign.

  The hospital still smelled faintly of iodine and sterility. The foyer’s dark wooden furniture, wainscoting and crown mouldings provided a familiar sombre air. And yet Franz barely recognized the place. Gone were all the white nurses, clerks and wealthy Shanghailander women who came as volunteers and, according to the world-weary matron, were far more nuisance than help. Now the faces all belonged to Japanese men, most in military uniform—patients and staff alike.

  Franz’s two escorts ushered him through the waiting area, past a stretcher bearing a man whose entire body was encased from the collarbones down in plaster cast, a white bar holding his legs apart. Franz was whisked down the hallway and onto the men’s surgical ward, where he had once spent so much time tending to Reuben’s post-operative patients. The twenty-five beds were still arranged in a horseshoe shape around the open, high-ceilinged ward. Every bed was occupied. More than half of the patients had their heads bandaged, some so that the faces were beyond recognition.

  Franz was guided to a bed in the far corner, where a balding Japanese doctor in a lab coat was leaning over a stretcher. The patient was wrapped in so much bandaging that he resembled a mummy from a horror movie. All that Franz could see of the patient were his impassive eyes and an area of blistered, blackened skin over his shoulder. He lay absolutely still as the doctor used a scalpel to dissect away layers of the burned skin.

  Across the bed, a woman in a British-style nurse’s uniform was peeling dressings from the man’s upper arm, exposing more damaged flesh. With flaming red hair that spilled out from under her cap, a pale complexion and prominent freckles, the nurse made as much of an impression as her wrapped patient. She made fleeting eye contact with Franz, offering him a hint of a smile, before returning her attention to her work.

  Franz’s escorts bowed to the Japanese doctor and addressed him in a quiet, deferential voice. Without taking his eyes off the patient, the doctor grunted a few words in Japanese. The soldiers backed away, leaving Franz at the bedside.

  “You speak English, I hope,” the doctor said as he peeled away another fold of dead skin.

  “I do, yes, sir.” Franz bowed deeply at the waist.

  “You are German.”

  “I am Austrian.”

  The man’s shoulders rose and fell indifferently. “There is no Austria.”

  “Not anymore, no.”

  “You are a Jew. Your citizenship has been revoked.” His accent sounded American. “So you are nothing.”

  “I believe I am considered a stateless refugee, sir.”

  “Exactly.” The doctor snorted. “A nothing.”

  Sensing that silence was the best response, Franz lowered his eyes and watched as the Japanese doctor debrided more dead flesh. He couldn’t help but admire the man’s fluid and economical technique—he was clearly a gifted surgeon. The patient remained still throughout, but now his eyes, fixed on Franz’s, lit up with a glimmer of curiosity. He appeared to be in no pain—all the nerve endings on his shoulder must have been burned away. Franz offered him a consoling smile.

  The doctor straightened to face Franz. “All right, you have seen enough.” The man was tall by Japanese standards, at least Franz’s height. With bags under his eye, sun splotches on his cheeks and lines criss-crossing his brow, his gaunt face looked weathered. Franz would have estimated him to be somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, but he couldn’t even be certain of that. The doctor turned the scalpel, blade outward, toward Franz in a vaguely threatening gesture. “Let’s see if you are capable of finishing this.” He snapped the fingers of his free hand at the nurse. “Find him gloves.”

  “Yes, Captain Suzuki,” she replied, solving one mystery for Franz as she hurried over to the main desk.

  Captain Suzuki glared at Franz. “I did not ask for your help, and I do not want it,” he grumbled, waving the scalpel menacingly. “Am I clear?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Herschel had pestered Hannah relentlessly before she finally agreed to accompany him to Rabbi Hiltmann’s “special meeting” after school at the synagogue. She knew how dimly her father viewed Zionism and, rather than try to explain that she was attending as a favour to a friend, Hannah had told her stepmother that she was going to the market. Sunny had been too preoccupied by the baby wriggling in her arms to even question it.

  Fewer than half the seats inside the spacious auditorium of the Ohel Moishe Synagogue were filled. The ragtag audience consisted of zealous youths like Herschel, along with a few adult refugees, many of whom were elderly and seated alone. Uninspired, Hannah had begun to regret her decision to come when Rabbi Hiltmann rose to speak.

  The rabbi stood silently at the bimah—the raised platform at the front of the synagogue, meant for Torah readings—for what felt like minutes, stroking his shaggy grey beard and staring out beyond the audience as though completely lost in thought. “What if God sent Hitler to us for a reason?” he finally asked of no one in particular. Although his tone was soothing, the effect was anything but. All around the room, heads snapped to attention. “I’ve heard people suggest that God might have allowed that teiwl, that farseenisch”—he used the Yiddish words for devil and monster—”to prosper as he has in order to test our faith. Perhaps He did.” Hiltmann lapsed into another long pause. “But surely, after the past three thousand years, even God must be tiring of testing our faith. The razing of Solomon’s glorious temple. The diasporas—our people expelled first from the Holy Lands and then later from England, France and Spain. And the pogroms—so many pogroms—with the lootings, the beatings and the slaughter.” He sighed and then added rhetorically, “How much more can one people’s faith be tested?”

  The rabbi cast his gaze around the room, momentarily locking eyes with Hannah. Despite not being particularly tall or physically imposing, the grey-haired cleric commanded her attention. She felt as though he were speaking only to her. “What if Hitler and his Nazi henchmen represent not another in a long series of challenges but instead, as the English might say, a call to arms?”

  Chaim Weissbaum, a pimply boy in the grade above Hannah raised his hand tentatively. “You mean God wants us to fight back, Rabbi?”

  “Exactly, Chaim.” Hiltmann nodded approvingly. “What if God is teaching us a lesson? A very painful lesson.” He counted with his fingers. “The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Spanish and now the very worst of them all, the Nazis. How many more times will we abandon our homes to wander the face of the earth the moment some cruel king or self-anointed emperor takes issue with us?” He raised a hand skyward. “Perhaps God is telling us that enough is enough. To stop cowering. To stand up for ourselves. To accept no more diasporas.” His voice didn’t rise in volume or pitch yet was now inflamed with passion. “The Torah teaches us that we are his Treasured People. The sons and daughters of Israel.” He paused again to scan the rapt faces in the room. “What if God is telling us that it is time to return home?�
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  The rabbi continued to speak—articulately and persuasively—without referencing any notes. He argued for the need for a modern Jewish homeland based on the biblical borders of ancient Judea, the lands east and west of the Jordan River once known as Eretz Yisrael. Although the themes were familiar enough, Hannah found his enthusiasm contagious. As the rabbi spoke, Hannah could picture the lands they would cultivate out of desert and the shining new cities they would build.

  “We will, of course, try to find a peaceful resolution with the British,” Hiltmann said. “We will appeal to their well-developed sense of fair play and justice.” He shook his head gravely. “But we cannot wait indefinitely for them to allow us to return home. This is not merely a matter of convenience or even our Jewish birthright. No. It is our obligation—our destiny—to reclaim the land God has always intended for us.”

  ***

  As Hannah filed out of the synagogue alongside Herschel, she was the one who couldn’t stop talking about the sermon. “The rabbi is absolutely right. What better time to act? How can we possibly wait for things to get worse?”

  Herschel’s face broke into a huge lopsided smile. “This is what I’ve been telling you, Hannah.”

  “But the rabbi tells it just a little better.”

  Herschel’s laugh didn’t fully conceal his wounded pride. Hannah reached for his hand, and the traces of hurt disappeared from his face. They walked hand in hand for several blocks, in shy, happy silence. Eventually, Herschel cleared his throat and said, “Your father, he’s an influential man in the community.”

  “I’ve never really thought of Papa that way.”

  “People admire your father, Hannah. Zeyde says he is the best doctor in all of Shanghai.”

  “I have heard others say so too,” she said with more than a touch of pride.

  “If your father were to attend our meetings, Hannah. To support the cause—”