Mohr

by Frederick Reuss

  He turns to Agnes, offers a cigarette. “Do you know what I would like to do?”

  She casts a sidelong glance.

  Match after match blows out in the breeze. After several attempts, he manages to light hers, then his own, cupping the match in his fist. “I would like to climb Mount Fuji.”

  “You want to go to Japan?”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No, Doctor,” she says, holding her cigarette urbanely at the corner of her mouth. “I have never been outside Shanghai.”

  Back home a few hours later, still in his tuxedo and sitting at his desk, Mohr writes to Käthe:

  Oh my dearest, I’m completely worn out. A heat wave. Bills bills bills. I’m going to Japan. Yes. For a vacation! I need it badly. Nagy advanced me a month’s pay, and I’m using it to escape from the grind. Am now working from morning until late at night. I cabled $200 to you yesterday. Should be there by now. I can’t write. Have to fight just to get in five hours of sleep. This heat! The odds on the street are 50/50 on war with Japan. I don’t believe it, but signs are everywhere. Have dreams about Fujiyama. Strange. They say you can walk right to the top. I don’t know that I can take another month of this city. Maybe a drive out into the countryside between now and then.

  He folds the letter and encloses a photograph of himself taken recently by Wong: standing behind the portrait of Eva. If Käthe had included a picture of herself in that last letter, he could have composed a kind of long-distance family portrait. The three of them, separate, yet pictured magically together. But he doesn’t have a recent photograph of Käthe. She has never sent him one.

  A summer downpour has flooded the streets. In front of Vogel’s iron-gated house, Wong honks a second and a third time. At last, the bandy-legged gardener opens the gate, then returns to his work, squatting like a crab and shearing the grass with a hand scythe. The tranquillity in this farthest western part of the Settlement is always a shock. The mock-Tudor houses, surrounded by manicured lawns and well-tended flowerbeds, songbirds, rustling trees, all part of an elaborate self-deception, an illusion of peace and contentment—a protection and a prison.

  A pigtailed servant escorts Mohr through the house and into the back garden. He has always thought of the place as the work of a man with-out fantasy. It is a more polished, worldly variation of the Würtzburg house he had grown up in, Rottendorferstrasse 1. Jugendstil leaded glass, neoclassical sculpture, Persian carpets, porcelain, pre-Impressionist paintings, decorative objects scattered on tabletops and in cabinetry, a grand piano. Hedwig would have declared it sehr elegant.

  Vogel is sitting in a reclining chair, shaded from the morning sun by an enormous parasol. He drops his newspaper as Mohr tromps across the flagstone patio. Vogel is just five years older than Mohr, but already frail and aged. His thinning hair has gone entirely gray. He combs it back over the top of his head. Sullen, red-veined cheeks scraped barber clean. As always, he is smartly dressed, a man for whom even a hint of illness is bad form and vaguely distasteful. “Have you read the news today?”

  Mohr helps himself to a slice of bread from the breakfast tray on the table. “I make it a point never to start off the day on a bad note.”

  “The Japanese are closing in on Peking and Tientsin.”

  Mohr pops the bread into his mouth, reaches for his medical bag. “Is that why you called me here? To tell me what’s in the newspapers?” He puts the stethoscope around his neck. “Let’s have a look at you.”

  They’ve seen very little of each other in the past year. Although Vogel has always worked under great pressure and strain, Mohr has begun to suspect the pressure is of the bottled variety. Last time he visited—just before Christmas—Vogel had kept a bottle of brandy at hand, sipped and refilled his glass during the entire visit. He’d never been a drinker. Back in Munich after the war, he had sworn an oath of abstinence, and lectured Mohr about the veterans dissipating all over Germany. Even as a prisoner of war Vogel had been fastidious, played the captured officer to a tee, never deviated from the officer’s code. He kept himself scrupulously neat, mended his clothes with meticulous care. Mohr played a much looser game, and charmed the guards with his easygoing humor and occasional outbursts of Shakespeare and Wordsworth. In the prison camp, the two had not been close at all, and had never set out to become lifelong friends. The friendship had evolved by accident. Shortly after the war Mohr ran into Vogel by chance on the street. They detoured to a restaurant, where, down to his last three marks, Mohr insisted on buying. He’d just finished a new play, Dadakratie, and watched Vogel leaf through the typescript, page by page. “It’s funny,” Vogel admitted, without a trace of amusement. Then he put the manuscript aside. “I’m a lawyer, Max. Not an impresario. Have you shown it to anyone else?”

  “I sent it to Max Reinhardt. The Deutsches Theater in Berlin.”

  “What happened?”

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “It’s for the best, Mohr. You’re wasting your medical education.”

  He can remember the scene well. Vogel had a toothache, exuded a strong clove aroma as he went into an intricate and long-winded analysis of the Bavarian political situation; the Räterrepublik. Kurt Eisner had been assassinated a few weeks earlier. Finally Mohr cut him off. “Ach, Vogel. Will you please shut up? I’m finished with all that. Politics. War. Medicine. I’m finished with all of it.”

  “And what do you propose to do? While everyone else is struggling you’re going to—what? Write amusing comedies?”

  “That’s exactly right, friend. I’m going to write amusing comedies.” He smiled.

  Vogel snorted.

  Mohr stood up, defensive, but hardly offended. “I’m going to find a house in the country, and get a dog, and do lots of hiking and climbing.”

  Vogel dismissed him with a wave. “Go ahead, Mohr. Get a dog and go climbing. You selfish bastard.”

  “And I’m getting married.” Mohr grinned.

  Vogel burst out laughing. “You? Married?”

  Now, a much older man unbuttons his shirt and submits to an examination. In spite of Vogel’s cranky nature, it is nearly impossible for Mohr to be unhappy around him. By some strange chemistry, Vogel’s grumpiness usually has the effect of increasing his cheer. That they are friends these twenty years hence, on a hot morning in a well-tended garden in China. What is not to be grateful for?

  Mohr completes the exam, tugs the stethoscope from his neck. Vogel buttons his shirt and walks across the flagstone patio. He stands at the edge, surveying his large lawn. The grass is wet with dew. Mohr picks up the newspaper, reads the headlines: fighting around Marco Polo Bridge, on the outskirts of Peking; a photograph of a derailed trolley car on the Boulevard de Montigny—“A Ricksha Caused This,” and an account of injuries sustained—by the tram passengers.

  “I suppose the rickshaw coolie just ran up and knocked the tram car right over on its side,” Mohr remarks.

  Vogel snatches the paper away. “Come inside, Max.”

  Slightly put off, Mohr takes his bag and follows Vogel into the house. Upstairs to the study.

  “Have a seat.” Vogel unlocks the drawer of his desk and takes out the little envelope Mohr had left with him on the day he arrived in Shanghai. The diamond from Käthe’s wedding ring. She’d given it to him as an emergency security. He’d refused, but she had insisted. With tears in her eyes, she’d insisted. Only after he’d gone did it dawn on him that it wasn’t simply financial security she had in mind. Vogel passes it across the desk. “You’ll need to find someplace else to keep it,” he says. “I’m leaving Shanghai.”

  “Leaving?”

  Vogel nods.

  “Where are you going?”

  Vogel removes a sheaf of papers from the drawer, quickly leafs through them, then passes the whole stack across the desk. Mohr fans through the papers, stamped Secret in bold red ink. “What are these?”

  “Read them,” Vogel says.

  SHANGHAI MUNICIPAL POLICE REPORT


  S.1 Special Branch

  Subject: Arrival and Departure of Japanese Naval Transport

  “Shiretoko.”

  The Japanese Naval transport “Shiretoko” berthed at the S.K. Wharf, 184 Yangtzepoo Road, at 3 P.M. 300 sailors landed and proceeded by Landing Party motor trucks to the barracks on Kiangwan Road. The following munitions were also unloaded from the same vessel:

  300 boxes rifle ammunition

  100 boxes each containing 8.75 mm shells

  160 drums of kerosene oil

  30 bicycles

  100 gas drums

  91 aerial bombs

  220 light gun shells

  4000 sandbags

  3000 winter uniforms

  1000 summer uniforms

  100 machine guns

  4 motorcycles

  “Well, I knew they weren’t carrying geishas.” Mohr tosses the sheaf of papers onto Vogel’s desk, shakes his head in mock dismay. “And all these years I thought you were just a simple lawyer.”

  Vogel picks up the papers. He selects one from the middle of thestack and hands it across the desk. It is also stamped Secret. Mohr scans the document, which lists the movement of Chinese and Japanese armies, division by division, around China, then hands it back to Vogel. “Very impressive. But what, exactly, are you trying to tell me?”

  Vogel returns the papers to the drawer, closes and locks it. “Don’t be an ass, Mohr. You know perfectly well.”

  “That there is a war going on?”

  “That the war is coming! Here! To Shanghai!”

  “I would say it’s already here. If you ever left your house, you might see for yourself. The city is filling up with refugees. Or have your spies over at the SMP not mentioned them to you yet?”

  Vogel leers. It’s a look Mohr has seen many times: arrogant worldliness blended with something a diseased gland might secrete. “I don’t know how to say it more plainly.”

  “Say what?”

  “Get out of here.”

  It’s Mohr’s turn now to be irritated. “And where, exactly, would you suggest I go?”

  “Palestine.”

  “And Käthe and Eva? What do I tell them? Put your furs in storage, girls, and meet me in Jerusalem? Or do I have to start up a new practice first? Send for them in another five years?”

  Vogel’s expression softens. He pushes himself back in his chair. “The war is coming to Shanghai, Max. I can’t predict what the course of it will be. All I can say for certain is that it will be bloody and dangerous, and the smartest thing to do is get out of the way.”

  “And go to Palestine?”

  Vogel nods.

  “Is that where you’re going?”

  Vogel shrugs. “Not just yet, but perhaps soon.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Vogel places his hands flat on the desk. “Max. Please trust me. The situation here is going to get very bad.”

  “What kind of answer is that? Why are you telling me this?”

  “Listen, Max. I wish I could go into detail, but I can’t. There’s nothing for you here in China. Go to Palestine. You can play a role there, not just stand to the side watching events you don’t understand unfold all around you.”

  “Who says I need a role to play? Or that I’m just standing around here?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean, Max.”

  Mohr looks away, not in the mood to debate. He has Vogel to thank for helping him at so many turns. But there are only so many emergencies a man can face, and only so much help a man can accept in one lifetime. “You know I’m not a Zionist,” he says at last. “I don’t want to play any roles. I’m a doctor. Just a doctor. I don’t want to be anything else but that.” He slips the envelope into his pocket. Vogel’s place has always seemed so permanent, a house nestled among all the other houses in this moneyed oasis, this city of four million people, of skyscrapers and slums, ringed by factories and warehouses and fed by ships and rail and air. Nothing comes of exile but the object lesson of exile. And here he is, once again, uncertain. “Why should I go to Palestine?”

  “I have contacts, Max. They can help you.”

  Mohr stares at his worldly old friend. Vogel doesn’t live. He machinates. “Thank you for the offer.” He picks up his medical bag, stands. “But I don’t see myself starting all over again. I don’t see myself anyplace but here.”

  “It’s not a question of where you see yourself, Max.”

  “No? What is it, then?”

  Vogel stands and walks over to the window. “It’s a question of safety, Max. And also responsibility. What business do you have here? Are you going to help fight the Japanese? Or join the Red Army? You’re a Jew, Mohr. Right now, your place is elsewhere.”

  “So now you’re a Zionist. I hadn’t realized.”

  “No, Max. Just another Jew trying to defend himself.”

  “What better form of self-defense is there than simply refusing to be provoked?”

  Vogel rolls his eyes. “Mohr, you are an escapist.”

  Mohr’s pulse rises. “I am nothing, Vogel. I didn’t come here to escape anything. I came because I wanted to come. I banished myself here.”

  “You banished yourself?” Vogel laughs. “And would you mind telling me what it is that you banished yourself from, Max?”

  “The odium of the times,” Mohr replies evenly, returning the sarcasm.

  Vogel’s laughter is hearty and derisive. “Odium of the times! That’s good. Odium of the times. I’m going to write that one down! Max! Where did you learn to be so pompously naive?” He takes a handkerchief from his pocket, blows his nose, wipes his watery eyes. “You’re the biggest ass I have ever known, Mohr! I suppose that’s why I like you. It takes courage to be such an ass.”

  IN MORITZ & SONS, the steamship ticket agency on Canton Road, Mohr listens as the bald Russian ticket agent describes the differences between first-class and tourist on both the NHK and the Dollar lines. He can’t make up his mind, asks for a moment to decide, and sits down in the waiting area. An American couple are now at the counter discussing their itinerary with the agent. Vogel is right. Getting out of this fata morgana of a city would be a good thing. But to Palestine? He thumbs through a stack of brochures. Imperial Hotel, Lake Yamanaka: a most beautiful setting for the viewing of Fujiyama.

  The gay unconcern that Vogel provokes—it isn’t a game, just the effect on Mohr’s nature of a man for whom everything is overdeter-mined, and on whom the world wreaks permanent havoc. Why suffer disasters in advance by living in continual anticipation? If suffering is the one thing we can count on, isn’t it better to leave the suffering for when disaster really happens? Furthermore, what is luck if, having escaped disaster, you haven’t been spared from suffering?

  Mohr turns to look out the window. Wong is waiting across the street, lounging against the front fender, fanning himself with his cap. A line of parked cars stretches all the way to the intersection, shimmering in the summer heat. Traffic today is horrible, worse than usual. He’s never been so late getting to the hospital. On the table are scattered brochures for the American Mail Line, Dollar Steamship Line, Hamburg-Amerika, Far Eastern Mail. A large bulletin board behind the ticket counter lists arrivals and departures. Hamburg via Port Sudan, Alexandria, Casablanca. Liverpool. Bombay. Hong Kong. Sydney, Genoa, Rotterdam, New York, Kobe, Yokohama—the whole world shriveled to a tightly observed schedule. His stomach feels hollow. Hands begin to tremble. Everything dissolves. He feels pulled the way thread is spun onto a spool, drawn into a larger, massing entity, takes off his glasses, wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand.

  The American couple and the ticket agent break off their discussion, turn to look, then glance away again. Mohr leans over, takes the handkerchief from his trousers pocket, wipes his face, replaces his glasses. Twisting the gold wires around each ear makes him feel frumpish, dowdy. The woman turns to look again, mildly sympathetic. A steady breeze blows down from the ceiling fan. Palestine? Why not Egypt? Alexandria. Ther
e is a ship leaving tonight. Would Käthe agree to meet him there? Or Palestine?

  NO. NEXT SPRING you’ll meet just across the Austrian border, in Tyrol. Yes. That’s what you’ll do. A long summer in the mountains. Achensee. Remember your last breakfast in Wolfsgrub? Delft-ware, fresh coffee, tins of preserves, a round red ball of Dutch cheese. You think back to that day whenever you try to imagine your future together. But there is no such thing as the future. The earth stands still and floats: today, today, today, nothing but today.

  “Two tickets,” you tell the agent.

  “First class or tourist?”

  “First class,” Mohr says without hesitation; then he watches the forms being filled out, then stamped, itineraries checked, carbons stapled. The office boy is called to fetch receipts, make change.

  “TO JAPAN?” AGNES stares at the ticket in her hand. Shanghai-Nagasaki-Shanghai. “With you?”

  “Separate berths, of course.”

  “I can’t go to Japan with you!”

  “Why not?” Mohr struggles to maintain an impish cheer. “To Fujiyama.”

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s a beautiful mountain. Come with me. I want to go to the top.”

  They are standing at the front entrance of the hospital. He worked late in order to leave with her when her shift ended. She presses the envelope into his hand, looking directly into his eyes. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “At least take some time and think about it.”

  Agnes shakes her head. “I can’t.”

  Mohr stands there awkwardly. The silence between them gives way to the clamor of traffic. The Sikh traffic policeman at the intersection blows his whistle. A rickshaw puller stomps past, cursing, barely able to control the momentum of his fat passenger. Mohr smiles; Agnes doesn’t. Wong pulls up to the curb. “I simply mean as a friend,” he says. “That’s all.”