Part 1 (2/2)
”To have our baby born in a prison camp?” He patted her belly. ”Never, Essie. It's better this way.”
Esther clasped his hand against her abdomen. ”She needs her father.”
”Soon, Essie.” Simon stroked her cheek. ”Meantime, his aunt and uncle will have to look out for the little fella.”
”Of course we will,” Sunny spoke up. ”After all, Essie and the baby will stay with us until your release.”
”I'm still not convinced that is necessary,” Esther murmured.
Sunny laid her hand on Esther's shoulder. ”Necessary or not, you are family.”
”There is more than enough room for you and the baby,” Franz said. ”We want you with us, Essie.”
”It will give me a whole lot of peace of mind, too.” Simon grinned. ”After all, what Jewish parent alive wouldn't want his kid living with a couple of doctors?”
”Besides,” Sunny added with a small laugh, ”Hannah has already decided for you. You do realize that she intends to be the baby's amah?”
Franz bit back a smile. His daughter would be a teenager in a few months. Despite her mild left-sided weakness-a consequence of her difficult birth, which had also claimed her mother's life-Hannah had adapted to life in Shanghai better than anyone else in her family. She spoke Mandarin and Shanghainese fluently. And ever since Hannah had learned of her aunt's pregnancy, she had been preparing for the new arrival as though the baby would be her own.
Esther nodded in grat.i.tude, but her expression showed little relief. She continued to speak softly in German so as not to be overheard by the guards and other prisoners. ”Simon, these camps . . . the rumours . . . How will you manage?”
”I'll be fine.” Simon winked. ”You'll see. I will be the one on the inside with all the cigarettes and chocolates. Silk stockings, too, if you need those.”
Esther was unappeased. ”The last time the j.a.panese took you away . . .”
Simon winced. Franz shared his friend's revulsion. The previous summer, the feared Kempeitai had arrested both of them on suspicion of spreading a rumour among the refugee community that the local j.a.panese government was complicit in an SS plan to exterminate Shanghai's Jews-a plan that, thankfully, had never come to fruition. Those six days of interrogation and torture at Bridge House still haunted Franz. Some nights he would wake in a cold sweat, still able to taste the mouldy towel that had been stuffed in his mouth and the foul water that had trickled down his throat, choking him.
Simon shook his head. ”This time is different, Essie. We're being interned, not arrested.”
”How does anyone really know?”
Simon cupped her face in his hands. ”We'll be one happy family-all three of us-in no time. Trust me, Essie.”
”I do, darling.” Esther switched to English. ”I am being selfish. I will miss you so much. I so want you to be here when . . .” She looked down at her belly.
Simon tapped his chest. ”They can't keep us apart.”
”No. Never.” Esther showed her first smile of the day. ”Besides, this is not so bad as the catastrophe that befell your precious Yankees.”
”You got a point there.” Simon laughed. He had sulked for days when the radio broke the news that his beloved Bronx Bombers had lost the 1942 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
One of the j.a.panese officers lifted a bullhorn to his mouth and shrieked, ”All American men line here for transport you to Civic a.s.sembly Center. All now! All others to go immediately.”
The soldiers advanced toward the prisoners with their rifles levelled. Sunny hugged Simon and kissed him on the cheek. ”We will bring you supplies as soon as we can.”
Simon grinned. ”I would never say no to more of Yang's treats, that's for sure. Kosher or not, I love your housekeeper's rice b.a.l.l.s.”
Franz stepped forward. Lost for words, he simply clapped Simon's shoulder and shook his hand.
”I give the n.a.z.is and the j.a.ps six months tops,” Simon said, though Franz doubted his friend believed that fantasy any more than he did.
Sunny reached for Franz's hand and guided him back a few steps, allowing Simon and Esther a moment of privacy.
Even after the other prisoners had fallen into line, Esther and Simon stood with their foreheads touching, exchanging whispered words. A j.a.panese soldier hurried over and jabbed Simon in the back with the b.u.t.t of his rifle. After regaining his balance, Simon kissed Esther on the lips, then turned and headed for the end of the line without a look back.
Sunny, Esther and Franz trudged down Bubbling Well Road in sombre silence. Tall neocla.s.sical and art deco buildings loomed overhead, including the city's tallest skysc.r.a.per, the Park Hotel. Rickshaws and pedicabs rushed down the four-lane road. Until recently, roaring American automobiles and coughing trucks had lined the thoroughfare, but the j.a.panese, in their need to stockpile fuel, had since prohibited the use of non-military vehicles in the city.
They reached the main road, named Avenue Edward VII on the north side and Avenue Foche on the south. Until Pearl Harbor, it had served as an informal border between two separately administered ent.i.ties within the city: the International Settlement and the French Concession, known by most as simply Frenchtown. The sovereign distinction was long gone. Still, it was hard to ignore the sudden s.h.i.+ft in architectural style from the prim and proper British rigour that dominated the International Settlement to the more laissez-faire approach of Frenchtown.
”Why don't you come home with us, Essie?” Sunny asked. ”We can collect your belongings later.”
”No, thank you,” Esther murmured. ”I need a little time to organize my home first.”
Franz suspected that she also needed private time to grieve. His heart ached for Essie. After more than a decade as a widower, he could not stomach the idea of being forcibly separated from Sunny again. Their eight-month marriage had been the bright spot in an otherwise dark and difficult few years. During the week that he had been held captive in Bridge House, the idea that he might never see her again was harder to endure than the physical torture.
Franz had met Sunny on his first visit to the refugee hospital more than four years earlier. She was the only volunteer nurse there who was neither German nor Jewish. After years of unofficial apprentices.h.i.+p at the side of her father, a prominent local physician, Sunny was as knowledgeable as any doctor. Franz offered to mentor her in surgical technique and, within a few years, she was performing at the level of a junior surgeon or better. He had been struck from their first encounter by her delicate Eurasian features: her teardrop-shaped eyes, sloping cheekbones and glowing alabaster skin. But it was her poise, compa.s.sion and empathy-the way she could read his mood in a glance and know exactly when to offer him a rea.s.suring smile-that had stolen his heart.
Franz and Sunny walked Esther home through the damp, littered streets of Frenchtown, pa.s.sing luckless merchants and skeletal beggars, but like most others in the street, they had nothing to offer them. Eventually, they reached Avenue Joffre in the heart of Little Russia: a neighbourhood populated with White Russians who had fled to Shanghai after the Russian Civil War. Since j.a.pan and the Soviet Union had signed a neutrality pact, the Russians-including a large Jewish contingent-were faring better than most, but even Little Russia had suffered in the face of constant rationing, inflation and shortages. The broken windows, backed-up gutters and stench of stale garbage reaffirmed for Franz that Shanghai was a sh.e.l.l of her former self, little more than a ruin in the making.
A girl rushed down the street toward them. Even before Franz could make out her features, he recognized his daughter by her slightly lopsided gait. He opened his arms to greet her, but Hannah stopped short and thrust a sheet of paper out to him.
”Papa, have you seen this?” she panted.
Franz took the page from her. ”No, Liebchen.”
”What is it, Hannah?” Sunny asked.
”A proclamation! The j.a.panese have posted them all over.”
Sunny and Esther crowded in while Franz read the English words aloud: ”Proclamation concerning restriction of residence and business of stateless refugees.” The hairs on his neck stood up. ”Due to military necessity, places of residence and business of stateless refugees in the Shanghai area shall hereafter be restricted to the under-mentioned area.”
”They mean the German and Austrian Jews, Papa,” Hannah murmured. ”Us.”
Franz locked eyes with his daughter. He considered telling her that everything was going to be fine, but he realized she would see right through the lie. All he could muster was a meek ”Yes, Hannah-chen.”
The proclamation went on to declare that all stateless refugees had until the eighteenth of May to sell their homes and businesses and relocate to a narrow area within Hongkew, one of the most crowded boroughs in the city. It concluded with an ominous threat-”Persons who violate the proclamation or obstruct its reinforcement shall be liable to severe punishment”-and was signed by the military governor.
Sunny squeezed Franz's hand until her nails dug into his skin. Franz knew that she must be thinking about her parents' house-the only home she had ever known-but all she said was ”Three months, Franz.”
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