Part 3 (1/2)
Esther's hand fell to the bed. ”It is not safe for you to be here, Simon. Not for you.” She looked away, and when she spoke again, her tone was firm, almost expressionless. ”And especially not for Jakob.”
Crestfallen, Simon stared down at his sleeping baby and nodded. ”I just had to see you both. I didn't think it through. Essie, you know I would never endanger either of you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. ”I will go.”
CHAPTER 6.
”It's a little easier to get a table these days, isn't it?” Ko Jia-Li chuckled through a veil of exhaled smoke.
Sunny saw her point. The Peking Room of the Cathay Hotel was nearly deserted. The sight was surreal. Not long before, only celebrities and the ultra-wealthy stood a chance of securing a table for the hotel's high tea, which people still referred to by the old British term of ”tiffin.” The art deco gem, situated at the intersection of Nanking Road and the riverside Bund, had been the city's crowning glory. Sunny had recently heard an elderly Shanghailander widow reminisce reverently about the hotel's opening-night gala, thrown thirteen years earlier. According to the old woman, the guest list read like that of a royal wedding. Apparently, Noel Coward missed the party because of the flu, completing his play Private Lives while lying in bed five floors above the ballroom.
”Are you really so surprised?” Sunny asked. ”Who is left to even come for tiffin?”
Jia-Li waved her cigarette toward the gilded ceiling. ”Still, the occupation hasn't dampened the city's nightlife much.”
”I wouldn't really know. I never got out much, even before.” Between work, school and her apprentices.h.i.+p with her father, Sunny had never had much opportunity to take in Shanghai's bustling social scene. Besides, even before the j.a.panese occupation, she had never been interested in the city's myriad nightclubs, cabarets and discreetly welcoming opium dens. The one evening Jia-Li had dragged her out to a nightclub on Broadway, Sunny had not lasted long. She managed to swallow only two sips of her throat-burning martini and eventually found the sight of the gorgeous but aging Russian taxi dancer-who drifted from one table to another, haplessly soliciting men to purchase dances-too sad to bear.
”Trust me, xio he.” Although they were speaking English, Jia-Li still referred to Sunny by her Chinese nickname, which meant ”little lotus.” ”I would know.”
The nightlife had been Jia-Li's profession for almost half her life. At twenty-eight, she was still one of the city's most sought-after singsong girls. She had worked in Frenchtown's leading brothel since the age of fifteen, when her first boyfriend dragged her into a life of opium addiction and prost.i.tution and then abandoned her to fend for herself. She had battled addiction ever since. Sunny ruefully thought of the many episodes of opium withdrawal through which she had nursed her friend. But Jia-Li had impressed her of late with her longest run of sobriety yet, having not touched an opium pipe in nearly a year.
Eager to change the subject, Sunny asked, ”How is Dmitri, bao bei?” Jia-Li's childhood nickname meant ”precious.”
Jia-Li took another drag from her cigarette. She wore no makeup, but it made no difference. With her magnetic eyes and ivory complexion, she was the most beautiful person Sunny had ever seen.
”Depressing.” Jia-Li sighed. ”Aside from the j.a.panese, no one has it better in Shanghai than the Russians. But I think that bothers Dimi. He finds purpose only in suffering and pessimism.”
Sunny had nothing against the scrawny poet whom Jia-Li was dating, but Dmitri had always struck her as gloomy to the point of morbid. She could not see his appeal, but that was almost to be expected with Jia-Li's lovers. Ever since that first boyfriend, there had been a consistently self-destructive pattern to Jia-Li's choices in men.
Jia-Li flicked away her romantic concerns along with the ash of her cigarette. ”What about your das.h.i.+ng doctor? How is Franz?”
Sunny smiled sadly. ”He works himself beyond exhaustion.”
”And you?” Jia-Li blew out her cheeks. ”You worked two full-time nursing jobs while your father put you through his own private medical school. You have not slowed down since.”
”It's non-stop with Franz. He works at the refugee hospital seven days a week. When he's not tending to patients, he's trying to find enough supplies to keep the doors open.”
”That must be a struggle, with Simon in the camps.” Jia-Li nodded in sympathy. ”How will all those refugees cope without their American messiah?”
Sunny glanced over her shoulder and then leaned in closer. ”Simon is not in the camps,” she whispered.
Jia-Li's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She lowered her voice, too. ”What happened to him?”
”He escaped.”
”Escaped?” Jia-Li breathed out another curling tendril of smoke. ”Simon? A fugitive? I can't see it.”
”He was so worried for Essie and the baby.” Sunny told her of Esther's unexpected collapse and Jakob's urgent delivery.
”So he had no choice then,” Jia-Li said with finality.
”No, I suppose not.”
”Still, I don't know how much better off he is outside the camp.” Jia-Li shook her head. ”Shanghai is a mess. That is why I choose to keep my head firmly buried in the sand.”
Sunny knew better, but she didn't comment. Instead, she reached for Jia-Li's free hand. ”The hospital is the first place the j.a.panese will look for him.”
”And your home will be the second.”
”True.”
Jia-Li squeezed Sunny's hand. ”So what are we going to do with him?”
”I was hoping you might have an idea.”
Jia-Li bit her lip, deep in thought. Her pensive expression only heightened her beauty. After a few seconds, she broke into an amused grin.
”What is so funny?”
”Do you remember that night a few years ago?” Jia-Li asked. ”When Simon took us to that fabulous party at Sir Victor's mansion on Great Western Road?”
”Of course.”
”Simon played piano and sang us all those Cole Porter and Irving Berlin songs? Drunk as he was, he wasn't half bad.”
”I don't see how-”
”The Comfort Home could always use another piano player.”
Sunny's jaw dropped. ”You are not suggesting that we hide Simon in your brothel?”
”Why not?”
”Aren't the j.a.panese your best customers?”
”Hardly our best,” Jia-Li snorted. ”But perhaps our most dedicated.”
”So why would we ever take such a chance with Simon?”
Jia-Li smiled patiently. ”They might be the most tenacious and paranoid race in the world, but you must understand: the j.a.panese never mix work and pleasure.”
”Still . . .”
Jia-Li patted Sunny's hand. ”Not to worry, xio he. I'm only joking about the piano. The Rbn guzi will never catch sight of Simon. It will be just like with the others.”
CHAPTER 7.