Part 6 (1/2)

”There is a war, girlie! A war!” He raised his hand and let it hover near her cheek. ”We did not create the Designated Area for you to wander off to a friend's home for tea and playtime.”

”I . . . I . . .”

”Do you have any idea who I am, girlie?”

She looked down her feet. ”No, sir.”

”I am Ghoya, a.s.sistant director of the Bureau of Stateless Refugee Affairs. But everyone in Shanghai knows me by a different name.”

Silence descended between them. Finally, Hannah felt compelled to ask. ”Which name, sir?”

He dropped his arm to his side. His eyes lit up, and his face broke into a Ches.h.i.+re catlike grin. ”Here in Shanghai, I am King of the Jews!”

CHAPTER 10.

Charlie's eyelids flickered a few times before opening. The rice wine combined with three drops of anaesthetic that Sunny scavenged from the bottom of a discarded bottle of ether had turned out to be more than enough to sedate the gaunt young man, who had been unconscious for almost four hours since his surgery. Sunny suspected that the raging infection contributed to his post-operative stupor.

Charlie's face remained remarkably placid as his eyes focused and then s.h.i.+fted from Ernst to Sunny. Sunny knew that he must have been suffering intense pain from his wound, but he didn't show it. Instead, he summoned a rubbery smile. ”My leg,” he croaked in English. ”I can still feel it.”

”Largely because it is still attached to the rest of you,” Ernst said through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Sunny shot her friend a sharp look before turning back to Charlie. ”We removed the bullet and drained a lot of pus from the site of the infection. We had to excise-to cut out-a fair bit of flesh around your thigh.”

”You did not have to amputate,” Charlie said in an almost detached tone.

”No.” Sunny hesitated. ”But we do not yet know how the wound will heal or, Charlie, if it will.”

”I understand.” Charlie s.h.i.+fted slightly.

Sunny lifted the gla.s.s syringe she had been clutching in her palm and held it up to the light. She tapped it with her fingernail, knocking the air bubbles to the top and expelling them. ”A dose of painkiller,” she explained as she pinched the skin over his shoulder and injected the morphine.

Charlie was stoic. ”Today I still have two legs, which is more than I expected.”

Ernst sucked heavily on his cigarette. ”And really quite advantageous from the point of view of balance.”

”Ernst, please,” Sunny said.

Charlie waved off her concern with a chuckle. ”Without Ernst, we would have little opportunity for laughter in our village.”

”Marxists.” Ernst rolled his eyes. ”Never will you meet a more sanctimonious or humourless bunch. They will stamp out every last trace of irony and sarcasm long before they get around to addressing the cla.s.s system.”

Charlie viewed his friend straight-faced. ”That's entirely possible.”

Sunny wondered again where Charlie had learned his flawless English. She could tell from the few words he had uttered in Mandarin, together with his features and darker complexion, that he was not Shanghainese. She suspected that he came from somewhere much further north. Although his heritage remained a mystery, she could not shake the sense of familiarity she felt looking at him.

The curtains parted and Franz approached the bed wearing a lab coat that had begun to fray at the sleeve from repeated was.h.i.+ngs. ”Ah, Charlie, good afternoon. No doubt Sunny already informed you. The operation went as well as it could, all things considered.”

”Thank you. Both of you.” Charlie struggled to raise his head and shoulders but, exhausted by the effort, flopped back down to the bed. He looked over to Ernst. ”An hour or two, and I should be ready.”

”Ready for what, Charlie?” Sunny asked.

”To go home.”

Franz squinted at him. ”Home? That is out of the question. You will not be leaving the hospital for weeks.”

”I am afraid I must,” Charlie said.

Franz folded his arms across his chest. ”If you leave now, you will surely lose your leg. Provided you survive long enough for even that to happen.”

”Dr. Adler, I have the highest regard for your medical opinion, but I can a.s.sure you that my life will be in even more danger if I remain here.”

Ernst sighed. ”Sadly, Franz, he might be correct.”

”Besides . . .” Charlie yawned as the morphine took effect. ”The sooner we leave, the better for your hospital.”

”Our staff is capable of extreme discretion,” Sunny said. ”No one else need ever know that you are here.”

”Trust me . . .” Charlie yawned again. ”They will find out.”

”Find out what?” Sunny grimaced. ”None of us even know who you are.”

Charlie's eyes drifted shut. ”They will,” he murmured.

They watched him doze for a few moments before Franz motioned toward the door. ”Maybe a good sleep will bring him to his senses.”

Ernst and Sunny followed Franz through the ward and into the deserted staff room. An empty cup, dried tea leaves stuck to the bottom, stood on the table as testament to the last time a nurse or doctor had had an opportunity for a rest. As soon as Franz had closed the door behind them, he wheeled around to face Ernst. ”Who is he?”

Ernst shrugged. ”I told you-”

Franz stabbed a finger at him. ”Nonsense. We need to know who we are dealing with here.”

Sunny touched his elbow. ”Please, Ernst.”

Ernst looked at each of them in turn before pulling out another of his hand-rolled cigarettes and igniting it with the lighter that never seemed to leave his hand. ”His name is Bao Chun. More precisely: General Bao Chun.”

”The Boy General, of course!” Sunny almost slapped her forehead. ”That's why he looks so familiar.” She could picture old newspaper articles and their grainy photographs of the young officer.

”He can't even be thirty years old,” Franz pointed out. ”How is it possible that he's already a general in the Chinese army?”

”There is no Chinese army per se,” Ernst said. ”There are the Kuomintang and the Communists. And despite the so-called Unified Front, the two sides expend far more energy, bullets and lives fighting each other than they do the j.a.panese.”

”So Charlie and you are both Communists, then?” Franz asked.

”Me a Communist? Bite your tongue, Franz! I'm just a queer painter. A lapsed bohemian. Nothing more.” His cheeks flushed. ”Most nights I fall asleep on a dirt floor praying that I will wake up on my lumpy old bed in my studio in Vienna. Before the j.a.panese, the n.a.z.is and the Communists conspired to banish me to a village-not even-a camp, really-a thousand miles from the nearest whiff of civilization-” He stopped mid-tirade. The storm left his eyes and a more familiar devil-may-care expression settled on his face. ”As for Charlie, he fights for the Communist army. Whether he is truly a Marxist at heart, I cannot say. But he is the exception to the infighting rule among the Chinese. He never wastes a bullet on the Kuomintang. He focuses all of his effort on the j.a.panese.”

”Charlie is from the north, isn't he?” Sunny asked.