Nightfall Over Shanghai (18 page)

The priest appeared so natural holding Joey in the crook of his elbow and rocking him back and forth
—more comfortable than Franz has ever seemed with the baby in his arms
, Sunny thought sadly. “Such a little treasure,” Diego gushed. “Were my life not dedicated to the Church, I would have a brood of my own.”

“Is your life really dedicated to the Church, Father?” Sunny asked.

Diego cocked his head, curious but not troubled. “I like to think so. Why do you ask?”

“Your connection with Brother Dominic and the … others. It was so unexpected. I wondered if you are everything else that you appear to be, Father.”

“Ah, I see.” Diego laughed. “Yes, I am very much a man of the cloth. I am even Spanish. From Seville.”

Sunny lowered her voice. “How does a Spanish priest get involved in espionage in Shanghai?”

He glanced over her head, as if to assure himself that the door was shut. “Purely by accident, let me assure you.”

“I have never heard of an accidental spy.”

Diego laughed again. Joey cooed happily. “Have you heard of a city called Badajoz?”

Sunny shook her head.

“Of course you would not have,” Diego said. “It's a small provincial city—hardly more than a town—in the west of Spain. Near the border of Portugal. My first seven years in the priesthood were spent in the United States, in Chicago. Badajoz was my first diocese on Spanish soil. I was pleased to be going home, though I had no idea that I was returning at the worst of times.”

“The Spanish Civil War?” Sunny asked.

“Yes. It was the summer of 1936. And Badajoz was one of the first cities to fall to the Nationalists.” Diego sighed heavily. “The fighting was fierce, but the Republicans never stood a chance. The city was overrun in a matter of days. To be honest, at the time, I was pleased.”

“Pleased?”

“I was apolitical. The Nationalists claimed to defend the Church, but I didn't pretend to understand the issues. It hurt me to see Spaniard killing Spaniard. I simply wanted it to be over. When the fighting ended, I assumed all would return to normal.”

“It never does,” Sunny said, thinking of her own city.

“Very true.” Diego tickled Joey's chin until the baby smiled for him. “Such a treasure,” he repeated before turning back to Sunny. “One hot and muggy Friday morning in Badajoz—it was August—a young girl burst into the church in the middle of mass. Anjelita was her name. Such a beautiful girl, from such a lovely family. Both parents were teachers.” He sighed. “Anjelita—she was perhaps nine or ten years old—was hysterical. She sputtered something about her mother and father having been taken away, but she was too upset to make much sense. She led me by the hand
to the town's central bullring.” He closed his eyes, reliving the incident. “I knew there was trouble when I saw the phalanx of soldiers surrounding the building. And the silence—such a haunting silence from inside. I will never forget it as long as I live.” He opened his eyes. “Of course, the soldiers refused to allow me to enter. I had to bluff my way in by telling them that I had been sent by the bishop at the request of their commander.”

Sunny waited silently, hanging on the priest's every word, while dreading the story's outcome.

“To be honest, I was never as much of an aficionado as I should have been. Seville is, after all, home to the world's greatest bullfighters. My father, now there was a true aficionado. He would often take me to bullfights when I was young. I found it so sad to watch the bulls taunted and weakened by the
banderilleros
and picadors. Sometimes, I would cry during the
estocada—
the matador's fatal thrust. I even once saw a matador gored. I was terribly frightened.” He shrugged. “My father, I imagine he was embarrassed. Or perhaps he knew I didn't have the stomach for it. Either way, he stopped taking me to the bullring.”

Diego pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course, nothing I had ever seen inside or outside a bullring prepared me for this particular summer morning. You see, the Nationalists, they had led the prisoners into the ring at dawn. Men and women, unionists, socialists, teachers, intellectuals—almost all of them civilians. I had no idea who they all were or what they had been accused of.” He drew a circle in the air with his free hand. “The commanders had set up a ring of machine gunners where the spectators normally stood for the bullfights. From what I understand, the soldiers didn't stop firing until their cartridges were all spent.” He closed his eyes again. “By the time I arrived, bodies were everywhere.
They covered most of the ground, like a bloody human carpet. I spent the morning moving from one person to the next, praying the Requiem Aeternam for their souls. One woman who had been shot in the belly, she cried out to me. I made the mistake of calling to one of the soldiers for help. That poor woman …” He crossed himself. “I stumbled across Anjelita's parents near the centre of the ring. They were lying together on their backs, her head turned to his, their fingers intertwined.”

Sunny had heard grislier stories than Diego's—blood curdling reports of child rape and live mutilations from massacres in places such as Nanking and Changjiao—but something in the priest's account moved her deeply. “I'm so sorry, Father.”

“It was a long time ago. And I witnessed other atrocities—the Republicans were no saints either—in the years that followed. But my view of the Nationalists—of all fascists—was forged that morning in Badajoz.”

“And your radio show, Father?”

Diego grinned coyly. “My radio persona is my cover, as they say in the Hollywood films.”

“Were you sent to Shanghai to spy?”

Diego held up his hand. “Pardon me, Sunny. I have already said far too much.”

“It's all right, Father,” she reassured.

He studied her, appearing far sadder and more vulnerable—older even—than ever before. “I have tremendous faith in you. I would put my life in your hands, my child.”

“It's all right, Father. You don't have to tell me anything.”

“It feels good to tell someone. My own confessor.” The smile returned to his lips. “In truth, my career in espionage began here through a chance encounter.”

“With whom?”

“An American who attended our church. I thought he was simply another of the many foreign businessmen in the city.”

“But he was a spy?”

Diego nodded. “I believe he worked for American military intelligence in some way, but he was vague about his precise role. Regardless, months before Pearl Harbor, he predicted the Japanese aggression and the fall of the colonies in Asia, including Shanghai. He correctly suspected that I, being Spanish and a priest, would have more freedom than most. He asked me if I would be willing to be his ‘eyes and ears' in Shanghai.”

“But the risk, Father.”

“It was an easy decision, really. I had already seen and heard enough from the Japanese to know they were no different from the fascists in Europe.” He grunted in disgust. “I was already on the wireless with my spiritual program, of course. The American, he was the one who suggested I become more political—more sympathetic toward the Axis powers—that in fact it would be prudent for me to appear so. And, as with everything else, the American was correct. I have been above suspicion thus far.”

“Doesn't it concern you that you might be influencing your listeners? Generating sympathy for the Axis?”

Diego chuckled and shook his head. “At first it did, Sunny. Very much so. I have since come to realize that people's minds were made up long ago. I am not recruiting anyone to the cause. The insightful ones can see through my message.” He shook his head. “The others—the sympathizers—they hear what they want to hear. Meantime, it permits me to do a modicum of good.”

“So you run the American spy ring in Shanghai?”

“Hardly,” Diego cried. “What I do is—what do they say?—small potatoes. We shelter a few downed pilots. And, before my radioman was arrested, we reported what we could observe from in and around the city. That is the very modest extent of my cloak-and-dagger activities. I swear to you.”

Joey squirmed, and Sunny held out her arms. Diego passed the baby across his desk to her. Joey continued to fuss until Sunny found him his thumb to suck on. “It's about the radio that I've come today,” she said.

“Then I am afraid you have wasted a trip.” Diego held up his hands helplessly. “It will be a few more weeks before our new transmitter arrives.”

“I know someone with access to one.”

“A radio?” Diego leaned forward. “That he will loan us?”

Sunny felt unease bubbling in her stomach. “He's willing to help, but he will not loan it to you.”

“I do not understand.”

“My stepdaughter has a friend.” Without mentioning his name, Sunny told Diego about Freddy's offer to transmit her surveillance records of the harbour.

“How can we involve a boy of that age?” Diego shook his head. “The risk …”

Despite her misgivings, Sunny persisted. “Apparently, he uses the transmitter once or twice a week anyway. He insists there would no more risk in relaying our messages than there would be in playing radio games with his friend in Frenchtown.”

Diego leaned back in his chair, considering the suggestion. “The Japanese would have no way of knowing to whom he was sending messages, would they?”

“No. And the boy claims that if a transmission is brief enough,
it's almost impossible to triangulate its source.”

The priest eyed her silently, lost in thought. Finally, he said, “It will only be temporary. A matter of a week or two, hopefully, until our own radio arrives.”

“And we would always keep an arm's-length distance from the boy,” she said. “I learned that much from my experience with the Underground. People must be kept separate in case someone is captured. He will never know who we are. And I will never share his identity with you.”

“Then how would you get the reconnaissance information to the boy?”

“I will secure a drop box of some sort.”

“Yes, I see.” Diego formed a steeple with his hands and gazed upward. “Can we, in good conscience, proceed with this?”

Sunny didn't know if he was asking her or God, but she answered anyway. “We might not have any other choice.”

***

By the time Sunny reached the Comfort Home, Joey was fussing inconsolably. Even a bottle of weak sugary tea didn't appease him. Apparently, Joey wasn't the only one out of sorts. When Sunny arrived, Jia-Li relayed a message through Ushi that she was refusing to see anyone, even her oldest friend.

Sunny insisted on waiting. After an hour, just as Joey finally settled back to sleep, Ushi returned and beckoned her to follow him. He led her downstairs and into the wine cellar. Sunny had to sidle through a secret passageway hidden behind a false wall in
the cellar to reach the basement hideaway. It consisted of a common room with bedrooms behind it.

Despite the late afternoon hour, Jia-Li was in pyjamas. She sat on a couch, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. Her usual jasmine fragrance was absent, replaced by the stale smell of unwashed hair. Her pale face was free of makeup and her lustrous hair was tied in a messy bun. Her cheekbones were even more prominent than usual. “You have lost weight,
băo bèi
,” Sunny observed.

“I hear that happens to prisoners,” Jia-Li snorted.

“Mama moved you down here for your own safety.”

Jia-Li laughed bitterly. “Chih-Nii moved me here for the same reason she does everything. Her own convenience.”

“Not so. We are all so worried about you,
băo bèi.
”

“Your worry is misplaced. And unwanted.”

Sunny turned Joey toward her friend, but Jia-Li wouldn't look up at either of them. “He's growing so fast, Sister. He won't be easy to carry much longer. Would you like to hold him?”

“No,” she murmured.

Sunny sat down beside Jia-Li and reached for her friend's hand. Jia-Li didn't pull away, but her fingers lay limp in Sunny's. “I need to ask a favour of you, Sister.”

Jia-Li chuckled. “You want help from a prisoner?”

“I just need to hear something from you,
băo bèi
. Something that will give me peace of mind.”

“What is it?”

Sunny squeezed Jia-Li's hand tighter. “If something were to happen to me, I need to know that you will look after Joey.”

Jia-Li's head snapped up. “Why would something happen to you?”

“This is Shanghai. You know as well as I do, anything can happen here.”

Jia-Li stiffened. “Stop it,
xiăo hè.
You can't fool me. Why are you asking me this now?”

“Esther would help, of course,” Sunny said, avoiding the question. “But if Franz and I are both gone, Joey cannot stay in the ghetto. Esther couldn't cope with two babies on her own. Perhaps your mother could help? Or one of the cousins, they—”

Jia-Li yanked her hand free of Sunny's and stood up. She pointed the cigarette accusingly. “Tell me,
xiăo hè
—you are not involved with the Resistance again?”

Sunny shook her head.

Jia-Li's face creased in suspicion. “Who, then?”

“Do you remember Father Diego?”

Jia-Li frowned. “The one who brought us the pilot?”

“He works for the Americans.” Sunny went on to describe her last conversation with him.

As Sunny was talking, Jia-Li reached out and eased Joey out of Sunny's arms and into her own. Cradling the sleeping baby, Jia-Li shook her head. “You can't do this. I forbid it.”

“I have to,
băo bèi.
”

“Anyone can spy on the port,” Jia-Li said. “You are the only one who can take care of this one.”