Nightfall Over Shanghai

by Daniel Kalla

  She shook her head. “He won’t.”

  Herschel slowed and pulled her to a stop. “Why do you say that?”

  “Papa has no time for Zionism. He thinks it’s a hopeless fantasy. An idea that could be dangerous for the ghetto.”

  “Dangerous? How could a Jewish homeland be dangerous for us?”

  “He told me that, back in Vienna, the Zionists used to incite anti-Semitism. The goys saw it as another example of Jews wanting more, a slap in the face to other Austrians, who had given them a home and citizenship. Papa worries that the Japanese might feel threatened by it too.” She lowered her voice, even though no one could hear them. “You know how paranoid they can be.”

  Herschel reached out and took her other hand. She flinched, self-conscious about her left hand, but she didn’t pull away. “You must convince him that it’s not so.”

  “I can’t, Herschel. It’s hopeless.”

  “Like Rabbi Hiltmann says, if we cannot convince our own people, how can we possibly convince the British or anyone else that we deserve our own land?”

  Hannah enjoyed the feel of his grip. She doubted anything she could say would sway her father’s opinion, but she didn’t want to disappoint Herschel. “I’ll speak to Papa.”

  He flashed a grateful grin. “Good. That’s very good.”

  They stood facing one another in the warm spring breeze, their hands intertwined. She wondered if he might lean in to kiss her—she hoped he might—but he just stood there. Finally, she broke the awkward silence. “I left a book at school. I have to stop there on the way home.”

  “I’ll come too.” He looked away. “If you want me to.”

  She let go with her left hand and pulled him along with her right. Even at their sauntering pace, they reached the Kadoorie School within a few minutes. The front door of the converted warehouse—the school had been originally funded by the Kadoorie family and other wealthy Jewish Shanghailanders—was locked, so they walked around the side toward the back door. As they were rounding the building, Hannah heard hissing and popping sounds, but it was Herschel who identified their source. “A radio,” he whispered, slowing and pulling Hannah to a stop with him.

  Suddenly, someone was blocking their path. Hannah would have recognized Avraham Perlmann—or “Avi,” as everyone called him—from his swagger alone. She had always thought of the boy as a bully, but she still had a bit of a soft spot for him. As the shortest in the class, Avi seemed desperate to prove himself; Hannah empathized with his need to overcome a shortcoming.

  Avi looked from Herschel to Hannah and back. “What are you two doing here?” he demanded. “You’re not spying on us, are you?”

  Herschel held up his palms. “No, Avi. We’ve only come to pick up a book.”

  Another of their classmates appeared behind Avi. “Easy, Avi,” said Fritsch Herzberg, known by everyone as Freddy.

  “They got no business here,” Avi muttered. “They’re just snooping.”

  Freddy clapped the shorter boy on the shoulder. “They’re friends, remember?” He spoke English with his usual feigned American accent and in a style he seemed to have lifted directly from Hollywood films. “Hiya, Hersch.” He turned to Hannah with a smile and a wink. “Good to see you, as always, Banana.”

  Hannah felt her heart speed up as a flush crawled over her face. She hated herself for responding to his charm, thinking of how completely she had fallen under Freddy’s spell the year before. She had only snapped out of her crush after she was caught smuggling cigarettes into the ghetto for his father to sell. Since the terrible incident, which had resulted in her father’s flogging, Freddy had hurt Hannah further by treating her with the kind of polite friendliness usually reserved for a distant relative or a meaningless acquaintance.

  Now, though, Freddy eyed Hannah thoughtfully before he thumbed toward the grounds behind him. “Want to see something neat?” he asked her.

  Herschel, whose command of English was minimal, turned to Hannah, confused. “Neat?”

  “Interessant,” Hannah translated into German.

  “Why the hell would we show them?” Avi demanded.

  “You won’t be disappointed,” Freddy said, ignoring Avi’s protests as he turned back.

  Herschel followed Freddy, who moved with the easy grace of an athlete. Hannah was reminded again of how dissimilar the two boys were. She followed them to a small clearing within the shrubs behind the school.

  “Look at that.” Herschel pointed to a radio that was perched on an old blanket in the middle of the clearing.

  Hannah had seen wirelesses in homes in the ghetto, but what distinguished this piece of equipment was its mouthpiece transmitter. It was one thing to listen to the banned Voice of America broadcasts but a far more serious offence to transmit over the radio. She knew that the Japanese would consider it tantamount to espionage, a crime that always ended in execution.

  Avi jabbed a finger again in Herschel’s face. “Not a damn soul, you understand me, Zunder? Not a damn soul.”

  Freddy pushed away Avi’s hand. “Of course they’re not going to tell anyone. They are part of this now. Aren’t you?”

  His tone sent shivers down Hannah’s spine.

  “Is it real, Freddy?” Herschel asked in awe. “Can you really transmit messages with it?”

  Freddy nodded. “To about fifty miles away, give or take.”

  “Where did you get it, Freddy?” Herschel asked.

  “It was lying around home,” he said vaguely.

  Hannah had heard rumours that the Herzbergs had recently been smuggling more than just cigarettes into the ghetto. Word was they were sneaking everything from kosher wine to typewriters past the guards at the ghetto checkpoints. The Herzbergs, like the Adlers, had been banned from leaving the ghetto after Freddy’s father was caught fencing jewellery in Frenchtown. Hannah had no idea who their new couriers were, but she didn’t doubt the rumours. After all, Freddy wore new clothes to school and, even more remarkably, always seemed to carry a lunch.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Hannah asked.

  “It’s hard for me to slip out of the ghetto these days.” Freddy chuckled. “But I’ve still got friends all over Shanghai.”

  “You mean you would use it like a telephone?” Herschel asked incredulously. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Avi snickered. “When was the last time you had any kind of reliable telephone service in this rotten town, Zunder?”

  Ignoring Avi, Hannah turned to Freddy. “Is it really worth the risk?”

  “Sure, why not?” Flashing another devil-may-care smile, he was the picture of teenaged bravado. “Besides, Banana, don’t you think I’d make a dashing spy?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ach, you could drop Franz into the heart of a volcano, and he would make it out without so much as a singe.” Ernst swirled a cigarette over his head to punctuate his point.

  It was a game attempt to make light, but Sunny could see that his jocularity was forced. Since she had arrived, Ernst hadn’t stopped smoking or pacing the cramped living room, brushing past the canvases that leaned against almost every square inch of the apartment’s lower wall space.

  In contrast, Simon Lehrer couldn’t have been less animated. He stood at the lone dirt-streaked window, arms hanging limply at his sides and his gaze fixed on the street below. Sunny had first met the gregarious New Yorker before the war, when he was establishing the hospital for refugees. He had always seemed so carefree and youthful, someone who could find humour and joy in any situation. Even on her recent visits, he had been full of optimism at the prospect of a Japanese defeat and about his plans to whisk his family home to New York. But today he looked so different, as though the year of being a fugitive, kept apart from his wife and young son, had shrunk him, not only physically—his shoulders were now stooped and his face sunken, accentuating his hawk nose—but also in manner, which was unusually subdued.

  “Well?” Ernst shook the cigarette demandingly at Sunny.
/>   She inhaled the oil-paint fumes and cigarette smoke. “Well, what?”

  “How are we going to bring Franz home?”

  “Bring him home?” Sunny echoed in disbelief.

  Ernst tossed his long hair away from his forehead. “We can’t simply abandon him to some horrid little Japanese hospital in the middle of God knows where.”

  “What can we possibly do?” she said. “I don’t know even know where they’ve taken him.”

  Simon turned away from the window. His gaze fell to the baby sleeping in Sunny’s arms, and he mustered a small grin. Simon had been crestfallen when she arrived carrying Joey instead of his son, but he hadn’t commented or complained. “Ghoya,” he said.

  “What about him?” Sunny asked.

  “Ghoya sent Franz away. He could just as easily bring him back.”

  Sunny shook off the glimmer of hope. There was no substance to any of this talk. “Why would he do that?”

  Simon shrugged. “If Ghoya thought he needed Franz back in the ghetto for some reason, then, believe me, the son of a bitch would bring him back. In a heartbeat.”

  Ernst nodded, motioning to Simon with his cigarette while addressing Sunny. “Is there any sense to this? What would motivate Ghoya?”

  “Maybe some kind of medical emergency?” Simon suggested. “Something only Franz can fix?”

  Sunny stared at her two friends. “What are you suggesting?”

  Simon raised an eyebrow. “If Ghoya were to be seriously injured …”

  “Natürlich!” Ernst clapped his hands. “Something requiring surgery. Something only Franz could repair.”

  Simon’s eyes found Sunny’s. Momentarily, she saw a violent intensity that was unusual for her gentle friend. “Franz did a bang-up job fixing you after that sailor stabbed you.”

  “Are you saying we should ambush Ghoya?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Why not?” Simon said flatly.

  “Impossible.” Sunny shook her head vehemently. “Absolutely impossible.”

  Ernst sighed. “Ja, this might not be the most practical approach.”

  “We owe it to Franz to try something,” Simon said.

  They fell into silence. Simon turned back to the window. Ernst exhaled plumes of smoke as he studied the ceiling, lost in thought. Sunny gently rocked Joey, asleep in her lap.

  “Don’t forget,” Simon spoke up, his back still turned to them. “We know where Ghoya eats lunch, right? Every day at that Café Aaronsohn. Like clockwork.”

  “Enough, Simon,” Sunny sputtered. “We’re not going to ambush the man!”

  Simon glanced over his shoulder at her. “What if we poison him instead?”

  “For what possible purpose?”

  “None, I suppose.” Simon paused. “Unless you could convince Ghoya that it was his gall bladder, or appendix, acting up.”

  Ernst patted his pockets, searching frantically for a fresh cigarette. “There must be such a poison, no?”

  “There are some that would cause vomiting and cramping,” Sunny said. A few possibilities came immediately to mind. “That’s the easy part. But if he were to see another doctor—a Japanese one—they would never be fooled.”

  Simon glanced from Ernst to Sunny before turning his attention once again to the window.

  Ernst laughed, clearly recognizing the impracticalities of the farfetched scheme. “Back to the drawing board, then, is it?” he said.

  As desperate as Sunny was to try anything to help her husband, poisoning Ghoya wasn’t the answer. Still, she felt so overwhelmed by gratitude for her friends’ support that tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  Ernst laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. “We’ll think of something. You’ll see.”

  She reached up and squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Ernst. You too, Simon,” she choked out as she wiped her eyes.

  Simon craned his neck for a better view of the street.

  “What is it, Simon?” she asked.

  Ernst answered for his roommate. “Those Nazis must be passing,” he sighed. “Baron von Puttkamer and his motley crew. Simon watches for them night and day. Like a dog at the window waiting for his master to return.”

  Simon paid no attention to the artist and instead consulted his wristwatch. “Three o’clock. Could practically set my watch by that creep.”

  “Leave them be, Simon,” Ernst said. “They’re merely overgrown children. Parading around in laughable uniforms with their ridiculous titles. Playing war while the real soldiers fight. The fools are as harmless as they are pointless.”

  “Harmless?” Simon spun from the window, his cheeks suddenly blotchy. “Last Hanukkah—on Christmas Day!—when von Puttkamer and his cronies came within a hair’s breadth of blowing up the synagogue and the hospital—was that harmless too?”

  “And Joey,” Sunny added.

  “Yeah, Joey,” Simon said. His former protegé, the baby’s namesake, had died protecting the refugee hospital from the Nazi saboteurs. “They murdered the poor kid in cold blood.”

  Ernst held up his hands in surrender. “Perhaps not harmless. But most certainly pointless. Even they are not stupid enough to attack the ghetto again.”

  Simon resumed his watch at the window. “If you just got me a rifle, Ernst, I could do the rest.”

  “And by the rest you mean shoot up the street and kill no one but the odd stray dog or unfortunate coolie?”

  “I know my way around a rifle,” Simon said matter-of-factly. “I used to hunt squirrels on my uncle’s farm in Upstate New York.”

  “The great American hunter, of course. I pity any goose-stepping squirrel who dares to enter our street.” Ernst looked over at Sunny. “If he fires a single shot, every soldier in the vicinity will be here instantly.”

  Repositioning the baby under her arm, Sunny rose and joined Simon at the window. She wrapped an arm around his chest, feeling nothing but ribs. “It would be suicide, Simon.”

  “Maybe it would be worth it,” Simon muttered.

  She rubbed his back. “Not to Esther or Jakob, it wouldn’t.”

  Simon stared out the window for a while longer before he turned to her, his face lighting up with the warmest smile she had seen from him in a while. He held his hands out to Joey. “Could I hold him, Sunny?”

  ***

  The sun had disappeared behind a canopy of ominous grey clouds, making Germantown seem even more menacing than usual. Swastikas flapped from windowsills and flagpoles. Men marched about in uniforms of varying colours and styles, some wearing the distinctive brown jodhpurs and high black boots that Sunny had once found comical. Not anymore.

  Most of the passersby ignored Sunny. The ones who acknowledged her did so with cold disdain or open sneers. As she hurried along the street, she kept her head down and Joey nestled against her chest. Aside from the uneasiness she felt in the hostile neighbourhood, she was also in a rush to get the baby home. He was squirming more now, and his plaintive cry told her that he was hungry. She prayed that Esther would be home and ready to feed him.

  She rounded a corner and came to a jerking halt as two hands gripped her roughly by the shoulders. She looked up into the eyes of the man she had almost bumped into and froze, recognizing the brawny Korean who was Baron Jesco von Puttkamer’s bodyguard.

  “Watch out,” the man snapped in English, squeezing her arms hard before letting go.

  “Most solly, mister, most solly,” Sunny said, falling into an accented pidgin English and averting her eyes.

  “Clumsy Chink,” the bodyguard grunted.

  Sunny stared at her feet, desperately hoping he would lose interest. Realizing von Puttkamer had to be nearby, she involuntarily pictured him, tall and icily handsome with perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper hair and intrusive eyes. She prayed he wouldn’t recognize her. The last time she had seen von Puttkamer, she had been disguised as a street walker—heavily powdered and rouged, wearing a gaudy cheongsam—in order to deliver a written message from Franz, part of the fallout of the Nazi
’s failed Christmas Day synagogue bombing.

  “Let me see her face, Yung Min,” von Puttkamer said pleasantly.

  Her stomach plummeted, but she pretended not to understand his German and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Look at the baron,” Yung Min snarled in English.

  Sunny slowly raised her eyes. Von Puttkamer was behind his bodyguard, standing next to a middle-aged man she didn’t recognize. Thin, with a pale and veiny face, the man wore a grey SS uniform; its ornately detailed emblems marked him as a high-ranking officer.

  Yung Min glanced over his shoulder to von Puttkamer. “This is the one who came to your office last winter, Baron. The girl with the letter.”

  Von Puttkamer studied Sunny’s face. “Ach so, it is you, isn’t it, Fräulein?” he said pleasantly in German.

  Sunny turned her upper body, moving Joey away from his line of sight. “My no savvy,” she said in pidgin, continuing to play the part of an uneducated local.

  “Yes, you are the one. I’m sure of it.” Von Puttkamer’s smile faltered. “You came with a letter from that doctor.”

  The SS officer went rigid beside him. “Not that miserable Jew who killed Hans?”

  “Indeed,” von Puttkamer said, motioning toward Sunny. “This one even brought me photographs of the brave lad lying in the snow with his throat slit.”

  Sunny’s pulse hammered in her ears. Shaking her head wildly, she forced herself to maintain the act of a confused peasant. “My no savvy.”

  A thin smile returned to von Puttkamer’s lips. “How is the good doctor, Fräulein?”

  “I don’t believe she speaks German, Baron,” Yung Min said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so convinced,” von Puttkamer said, then switched to English. “Tell me, young lady, do you understand anything beyond that pidgin squawk?”

  Sunny tilted her head from side to side. “My savvy little.”

  “Wonderful,” von Puttkamer said, lazily running his gaze over her. She felt acutely self-conscious in her basic navy dress, as though she were standing naked in front of him. “You certainly are dressed differently from the last time I saw you.”