Nightfall Over Shanghai

by Daniel Kalla

  “You will go with them now, Dr. Alder,” Suzuki finally announced.

  “Go where, Captain?”

  Suzuki shrugged. “Wherever they take you.”

  Feeling sweat beading across his brow, Franz dropped his hands to his sides. “Will I be returning?”

  “It’s not for me to say,” Suzuki said impassively. “They brought you to me without consultation. They’re taking you away in the same fashion.”

  ***

  The military vehicle, a spacious black Buick that smelled of hair tonic and talcum powder, hurtled eastward, toward the heart of Shanghai. Franz would have been elated to be heading in the direction of home, but the last time he taken a drive with the Kempeitai, they had taken him to Bridge House, the most feared address in all of Shanghai, because of Franz’s suspected involvement in spreading rumours among the refugee community. During his daily interrogations at the Kempeitai headquarters, Franz had been drowned to the point of unconsciousness, and his arm had been broken in two places.

  They drove through the International Settlement along Nanking Road, which had once been the retail heart of Shanghai: Asia’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue or Savile Row. Most of the luxury department stores and specialty shops had long ago been boarded shut or converted to military offices and supply stations.

  Franz’s throat constricted as soon as the sedan turned onto the riverside Bund and headed across the Garden Bridge, over Soochow Creek, and into the Hongkew district. He buried his face in his hands, trying to compose himself and muster the strength it would take to walk through Bridge House’s bronze doors and down its marble staircase, which led to the closest thing he could imagine to hell on earth.

  When Franz finally pulled his hands from his face, he felt disoriented. The car had veered onto Broadway, the city’s busiest—though hardly most glamorous—thoroughfare. They turned onto Ward Road, and as soon as he saw the ghetto checkpoint through the windshield, his chest welled in giddy anticipation.

  The guard at the checkpoint waved the vehicle past. They had barely crossed into the ghetto when they came to a stop in front of a nondescript building at the corner. The smile slid from Franz’s lips as the driver parked in front of the Bureau of Stateless Refugee Affairs. The Kempeitai men yanked Franz out of the car and shoved him down the path, aggravating the ache in his ribcage. They dragged him into the building and past the startled exit-pass applicants who lined the narrow hallway.

  Ghoya sat behind his desk, wearing one of his outdated double-breasted, wide-shouldered suit jackets. He didn’t rise to greet Franz, just offered him a smile. “Ah, Dr. Adler, you have come back,” he said, as though Franz himself had chosen to depart the ghetto for the Country Hospital.

  Franz bowed at the waist. “I’m most pleased to be back.”

  Ghoya nodded from one Kempeitai man to the other. “Yes, yes.” He laughed. “I saw to it myself that you had an official military police escort.” He giggled. “Did you enjoy the company?”

  Franz relaxed, assuming that the Kempeitai’s presence must have been part of one of Ghoya’s mind games. The little man continued to stare at him expectantly. “You are most welcome, Dr. Adler. Most welcome.” Ghoya dismissed the Kempeitai men with a wave and then clasped his palms together, resting his chin on his fingers. “Much has happened since you left us. More smugglers, I am afraid. I cannot tolerate it. Not at all, no.” He sighed. “I’m rather fond of Mrs. Cron too. She bakes me the most delicious babka.”

  Franz also had a soft spot for the spry woman who, though almost eighty years old, continued to volunteer every day in the kitchen of one of the heime. But he had trouble seeing the connection between smuggling and coffee cake. “Mrs. Cron?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes,” Ghoya said impatiently. “Two of her sons. They were the leaders of a smuggling ring. What choice did I have, I ask you? None. None at all.”

  Franz’s heart sank. He knew both Felix and Isaac Cron personally. He was especially fond of Isaac, who was thoughtful and soft-spoken.

  “They were grown men,” Ghoya continued. “I couldn’t be as lenient as I was with your daughter. Too soft, always too soft. No, no. I warned you all. Did I not?” Ghoya pulled his hands away from his chin and turned to look out the window behind him. “A firing squad, the day before yesterday. I am afraid we will have to leave the bodies there by the wall for a few more days. This smuggling nonsense. A lesson. Yes, it’s a lesson my people simply must learn.”

  Franz was still absorbing this news when Ghoya spoke again abruptly. “I’m told you performed adequately for Dr. Suzuki.”

  “I hope so, Mr. Ghoya.”

  “Yes, yes. He says you are perfectly able. You will do just fine.”

  “You are sending me back to the Country Hospital?” Franz asked with alarm.

  “Did I say that?” Ghoya demanded, looking around as if someone in the room might back him up. “Did I?”

  “No, I just assumed …”

  Ghoya eyed him coolly. “Go home, Dr. Adler. Yes, yes. To that mischievous daughter and your mixed-breed wife. Go home to them.”

  The elation resurged, though Franz remained wary. “Right now, Mr. Ghoya?”

  “Why not?” Ghoya laughed. “Is there somewhere else you would rather be?”

  “No. Thank you. Thank you.” Franz was already backing toward the door as he bowed his exit.

  “Oh, and Dr. Adler, I have reconsidered my position on the hospital. Yes, yes. I have decided that while you are still in Shanghai, I will allow you to work in that terrible little hospital.”

  Franz froze. “While I am still here?”

  “Of course,” Ghoya scoffed. “Did you not hear me earlier? You performed adequately. Captain Suzuki considers you ready.”

  “Ready for what, Mr. Ghoya?”

  Ghoya laughed again. “You didn’t think you would be staying in Shanghai, did you?”

  CHAPTER 13

  Sunny resisted the urge to run as she hurried home down Chusan Road. Father Diego matched her pace, but his head swivelled from side to side, taking in the busy street scene. “I had no idea,” he marvelled.

  “No idea of what, Father?” Sunny asked out of politeness more than interest.

  “How industrious the Jews have been.” He pointed to a sign that read PHARMACY in large block letters. “A pharmacy here in the ghetto? And look, a newspaper publisher.”

  “There are three Jewish newspapers: two are printed in German and one in Yiddish. And a football league and boxing team too.” She sighed. “I don’t imagine you would report any of that on your radio program.”

  Diego smiled. “No, probably not. It is unlikely to appeal to my listeners.”

  “Fascists?”

  “For the most part, yes.”

  Sunny glanced around and then said in a low voice, “You are the voice of fascism on the wireless, and yet you shelter a wounded American?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “And you, it seems, are the voice of the German Jews, yet you are neither.”

  The priest was right. Proud as Sunny was of her husband’s tight-knit community, she still considered herself little more than a guest, a welcome outsider. She admired the people. She loved many of them. But it didn’t help her understand them any better. They exhibited an almost boundless capacity for kindness and empathy, and yet they could be surprisingly petty. And the bickering! She had never heard anything like it. She hardly remembered having heard her father raise his voice, and certainly never in public. Yet it was unusual not to hear raised voices or cries of protest among any gathering of Jews, no matter how small. Sunny didn’t trust the enigmatic priest enough to elaborate on her thoughts, so all she said was, “I’m also neither Chinese, nor Caucasian.”

  His face showed a trace of amusement. “Not everything is as it appears, Sunny.”

  So, you are a spy, then. “It must be dangerous,” she said quietly.

  “One has to be careful, yes.”

  Sunny thought of her own brush with espionage the previous year
, when she had briefly operated as an agent for a local Resistance cell. It had begun innocuously enough after she had made a few discreet inquiries through a Chinese colleague whom she suspected of being connected to the Underground. But she soon came to regret the decision. She had envisioned herself treating wounded Resistance fighters or passing messages along the spy chain. Instead, she had been forced to spy on the only honourable Japanese officer she had ever known, ultimately helping to target him for assassination. She had narrowly escaped being caught by the Japanese. The other members of her cell were subsequently brutally tortured and publicly executed, their corpses left for days on public display as a warning to others.

  Sunny didn’t feel safe sharing any of this experience with Diego, so instead she said, “The Japanese could raid again at any time. The lieutenant cannot stay at our hospital much longer.”

  “Of course not.” Diego slowed to a halt. “Please understand that we came to you only as a last resort.”

  “But you came nonetheless.” Sunny stopped and turned to him, unable to suppress her anger any longer. “I hope you understand that you’ve exposed all of us to great risk.”

  Diego held up his hands penitently. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  “We don’t need your sympathy, Father. Or your regret. What we need is for you to move the lieutenant out of our hospital.”

  “Without question.” Diego nodded solemnly. “When is the soonest, medically speaking, he can be moved?”

  Sunny considered the question. Lieutenant Donald Lewis was incredibly fortunate to be alive. In the operating room, Sunny had sliced him open from breast bone to pelvis, expecting the worst. Lewis’s belly had been riddled with sharp fragments of flak, along with slivers of leather and fabric from his uniform. She found three pieces of metal less than an inch from his aorta, the largest artery in the body. His spleen had been penetrated by a twisted shard of metal, but the bleeding had been contained and, amazingly, his intestines and liver were uninjured. Wounds to those organs would have proven fatal. Sunny had to remove countless metal fragments, mop up the bleeding and tie off several small blood vessels in the process. Normally, she would have expected Lewis to remain in hospital for weeks, but the circumstances were far from normal. “He will need at least three days before he can even get up, let alone travel.”

  Diego took the news in stride. “Three days, then.”

  It was a ridiculous time frame, but Sunny appreciated that the risk of keeping Lewis at the hospital, where the Japanese might find him, was too great, not only for the hospital but for the lieutenant himself. “Where will you take him?” she asked.

  “We will find a safe house for Dominic—” He chuckled at himself. “—Donald outside the city. To Free China in the west.”

  “Find?” Sunny gawked at him. “You don’t have one yet?”

  “Not yet, no. Not to worry, Sunny.” Diego took her hand. “In three days, I will rid your hospital of both of us. This much, I swear to you.”

  Sunny didn’t doubt the priest’s sincerity as she pulled free of his warm grip. She thought again of the lieutenant, who had struck her as more like a frightened teenager than a combat pilot. “I have a friend. Perhaps she can help.”

  Diego’s cheeks coloured. “Usually, I wouldn’t dream of imposing. However, we are in the process of … restructuring our operation.”

  Sunny thought of the thirteen dead men from her own Resistance cell whose bodies she had seen on the busy street corner months before. They had been beaten almost beyond recognition and left hanging from scaffolding. She wondered bleakly if the word restructuring meant something similar had befallen his own operation.

  “I will let you know if my friend can help,” she said as she turned to leave him.

  * * *

  Sunny found Esther and Joey inside the flat where she had left them that morning, sitting on the tattered couch. She fought off the now familiar stirrings of maternal envy as she watched Joey nurse.

  Hannah was lying on the floor, happily bouncing Jakob on her belly. As soon as she saw Sunny, Hannah hopped to her feet. “Sunny! Any word from Papa?”

  “No.” Sunny shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

  Hannah’s face fell. “It’s been a week.”

  “I am going to see Mr. Ghoya soon.”

  “That awful man would never help Papa,” Hannah grumbled.

  “Perhaps if I can convince Mr. Ghoya he had a good reason to bring your father home.”

  “Like what?” Hannah’s voice cracked. “Ghoya has a heart of stone. He won’t ever let Papa come home.”

  Esther raised an eyebrow. “What sort of reason?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet.” Sunny held Esther’s gaze, a silent signal between them. “I’m still working on the details.”

  “Natürlich.” Esther cleared her throat and changed the subject. “You haven’t, by chance, visited Ernst—or Simon—today?”

  “No, Essie, sorry. With the hospital reopening, I haven’t had any time to spare.” Sunny had been frantically busy, but she also knew that it was her fear of running into Baron von Puttkamer again that was keeping her from venturing back to Ernst’s apartment.

  “Not to worry. I am sure Ernst will drop by sooner or later with another letter.” Esther forced a laugh. “You know his old joke of being as reliable the ancient Greek courier?”

  “Yes, how does Ernst always say it?” Hannah chimed in. She raised one palm in the air and brought the other to her chest, mimicking the flamboyant artist’s delivery. “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor Nazis, nor Japanese devils keeps this courageous courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.”

  The three of them shared a small laugh.

  Something slammed into Sunny’s legs, and she looked down to see Jakob hugging her knees and pulling at the hem of her dress. She leaned over and swept him up in her arms. Playful as ever, he giggled and swatted at her face, trying to engage her in a game of peekaboo. He cried in delight as Sunny dipped him low and then swung him up. “You’re as energetic as ever, aren’t you, Jakob?” she said.

  Esther grinned. “He never stops, that little menace. Thank God he’s a good sleeper.”

  Sunny carried him back over to his mother. “Perhaps, we could make a trade?”

  “Ja, I think your little Schätzchen has had his fill for now.” Blinking drowsily, Joey wriggled under the blanket as Esther passed him over to Sunny. Sunny lowered Jakob to the couch and took Joey out of Esther’s arms. She hugged him tightly, pressing her cheek to his and greedily inhaling his scent. She could feel the calm rolling over her now, the world suddenly more bearable.

  “Sunny?” Hannah’s face creased with gravity. Even though she had inherited more of her mother’s fair-skinned looks than her father’s darker features, now her expression was pure Franz.

  “What is it, Hannah?”

  “Do you really think you can persuade Ghoya to bring Papa home?”

  Sunny reached out with her free hand to stroke the girl’s cheek. “I don’t know, darling.”

  Hannah’s mournful gaze only compounded Sunny’s loneliness. Breaking off the eye contact, Sunny stood up. “I must get going. I’ve promised to visit Jia-Li today.”

  “How is your friend coping?” Esther asked.

  “She doesn’t ever mention Charlie, but …” Sunny sighed. “She’s not good. Not good at all.”

  “Ach, my heart aches for that one,” Esther murmured. “I can’t even imagine.”

  How could you not? Sunny wondered irritably. Esther had lost her first husband to a lynch mob and her second had been forced into hiding by the war. Sunny realized the other woman’s comment came from a place of compassion. She had to remind herself that her frustration with Esther wasn’t rational. But she just wanted to escape the flat with her baby. “I better go if I hope to be back before curfew.”

  ***

  Sunny arrived at the Comfort Home just before six o’clock. At the dinner hour, the brothel was relat
ively quiet. Once word of Joey’s presence spread through the mansion, though, a stream of young women drifted into the sitting room to greet him. Sunny passed Joey from girl to girl; she knew many of them from her visits over the years. It was both heartwarming and tragic to see the girls light up in Joey’s presence. Sunny wondered how many had once been in Feng Wei’s position, forced to give up their babies. She was also saddened to see many new faces among the crowd, including two boys who looked as if they hadn’t even reached puberty.

  The group swarming Joey finally thinned and Jia-Li appeared. She wore a stylish black hat and a matching gilded cheongsam that showed her garter through a waist-high side slit. Holding a sleek cigarette holder, Jia-Li resembled a hypersexualized version of a Hollywood femme fatale. “Leave us, please,” she announced to no one in particular. There was a rush for the door, and soon Sunny and Jia-Li were alone with the baby.

  Jia-Li cocked her head as she studied Joey dispassionately. “So this is your temporary house guest, is it?”

  Sunny held him out to her friend. “This is my son. Joey.”

  Jia-Li just kept staring vacantly. “So you did it? You’ve convinced Franz to keep him after all?”

  Sunny tucked Joey against her chest. “They’ve taken him.” Her voice cracked. “They’ve taken Franz, băo bèi.”

  Jia-Li’s distant expression evaporated. She rushed over and swallowed Sunny and Joey in a hug. “Oh, xiăo hè, no! Not Franz too,” she cried. “When did this happen?”

  “Almost a week ago now.”

  “A week?” Sunny saw the hurt flash across her friend’s eyes, but Jia-Li didn’t comment. “Those filthy devils. They will not rest until they’ve destroyed everything. And everyone.”

  The tears threatened to flow again. “I don’t know what do, băo bèi,” Sunny said.

  “We must find him. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Impossible.”