The Far Side of the Sky (31 page)

Sunny’s head spun. “The Country Hospital? Hannah’s school?” She squinted. “What do those have to do with us?”

“Mrs. Reuben is desperate for me to marry her niece. She persuaded the school to accept Hannah in the first place. And Clara can just as easily have her removed if she so chooses.”

“Mrs. Reuben is blackmailing you?” Sunny dropped back onto the seat beside him. “Franz, I had no idea.”

“How could you?” He reached for her hand again but stopped and pulled back before making contact.

Sunny dropped her gaze to her lap. Heart aching, she said, “You are right, Franz. We can’t endanger your daughter’s future for our sake. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Dr. Reuben has cancelled the afternoon surgeries,” the Country Hospital’s matron, Mrs. Bathurst, announced before Franz even had a chance to remove his jacket.

“Why is that, Matron?” Franz asked, concerned that Reuben might have already caught wind of the clandestine surgery on Edda Schwartzmann.

“A dignitary of some kind or another has arrived in town, and Mrs. Reuben has arranged an afternoon tea.” Bathurst glanced from side to side before adding, straight-faced, “The Reubens have been known to hobnob now and again, Dr. Adler.”

Franz was relieved to not have to face Reuben, but he couldn’t shake his despondency over how Sunny and he had left things between them. Anxious to avoid her while the wound was so fresh, he raced through his rounds on the post-operative patients and headed home.

Esther sat in the main room sifting through a wicker basket full of clothes that she had accepted on consignment. She pulled out a long black dress from the basket and appraised it in the natural light. “Home so soon, Franz? Have they closed both hospitals?”

“His Highness did not require my assistance today. I thought I would collect Hannah from school.”

Esther expertly folded the dress. “She will be excited to see you.”

Franz stepped closer. “Essie, I operated on her today.”

“The diplomat’s wife?
Ach so.”
She laid the dress beside the basket. “How did it go?”

“As well as could be expected. Fortunately, no one questioned her identity.” “Simon will be relieved.” A troubled look flitted across her face. “What is it, Essie?”

She unfolded a grey silk scarf carefully. “It’s not important.”

“Has something happened between Simon and you?”

Esther studied the scarf for several seconds and then slowly lowered it. “He told me he loves me,” she said softly.

“Oh, Essie, I could have told you that. Months ago, in fact.”

She shrugged. “I suppose I had my suspicions, but we had never discussed our feelings before. Simon caught me … unawares.”

“How do you feel about him?”

She balled up the scarf and dropped it back into the basket. “Simon is not Karl.”

“And he never will be. No one will.”

Her shoulders slumped. “What Karl and I had was once in a lifetime.”

Franz wrapped an arm around her. “Essie, I saw how special your relationship with Karl was. What you had was rare indeed. But it’s no reason to never try again.”

She gazed at the floor without comment.

“Simon is a good man.” Franz smiled tenderly. “I have seen how happy he makes you.”

“But, Franz, I cannot even begin to—”

He held up a hand. “Imagine for a moment that your destinies were reversed and you had died before Karl. Would you have wanted him to spend the rest of his life lonely and pining?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “That is not how I spend my life, Franz.”

“You are right. I apologize. But would you have wanted him to give up a second chance at love and happiness for the sake of your memory together?”

“I suppose not,” she murmured.

“Trust me, Essie. Karl would feel the same. He would be overjoyed that you found someone who made you happy in his absence.”

An anguished look crossed her face. “I understand what you are saying, Franz, but I still can’t help feel as though I am somehow betraying his memory.”

“Oh, Essie, Karl’s memory will never be threatened, no matter what happens between Simon and you. He is yours forever. Nothing will change that.”

Esther didn’t respond. Instead, she raised a pair of trousers to examine them but, after only a few seconds, let them fall back into the basket in a heap. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. “I think I might … I might love Simon, too.”

“You see.” Franz smiled, pleased for his sister-in-law.

Franz left Esther to her work and headed out to meet Hannah. Walking northward in the warm sunshine, he crossed over into the International Settlement. Under blue skies, the sidewalk bustled with pedestrians again. He continued along the fashionable Seymour Road, arriving at the Shanghai Jewish School before classes had been dismissed.

With time to spare, he admired the school grounds. Across the courtyard stood the stunning neo-classical synagogue, the Ohel Rachel, where the most prosperous and established of Shanghai’s Jews—the Baghdadi Sephardic families—came to worship. He considered returning with Kingsley’s old camera. But as he studied the ornate building, imagining how it would look through his lens, he realized he had no interest in photographing it. To his eye, the temple was too perfect, lacking the character and dignity wrought only by time and the elements.

A bell chimed and, moments later, the school doors opened. Students of all ages, from tots to grown teens, flooded out. A few teenage boys were already lighting up smokes on the school steps. The girls were dressed in
navy tunics with white blouses; the boys wore matching blazers and ties, several sporting yarmulkes.

Franz spotted Hannah before she saw him. She was walking between a girl of her height and a boy who was half a head shorter. They were all smiles and giggles. Hannah saw her father and broke free of her two friends. She shouldered through the crowd and rushed toward him.

“Papa!” She hugged him. “Why did you come? Is Tante Esther all right?”

“Esther is fine. I finished early today.”

She kissed him on the cheek, her warm breath tickling his ear. “I’m glad you came.”

Hand in hand, they headed back home, Hannah bubbling non-stop with details about the classroom, her teacher and her friends. At one point, she looked up at him and asked, “Papa, will we have a Seder dinner this year?”

Franz realized that Passover was only three days away. “I think so, Hannah. Yes.”

“Lotte told me we might be going to her home for Seder.”

“Not this year. Your aunt has made alternate arrangements.”

Hannah accepted the news with a shrug. “Today Mrs. Goldbloom taught us more about Passover and the story of Exodus.”

“Did she?” The specifics of the Israelites’ escape from Egyptian slavery had dimmed in Franz’s memory. Lately, Hannah often referenced Jewish customs and biblical stories of which he had little or no recollection. He had attended a secular public school as one of only three Jews in his class. He found it ironic that his daughter, who was half Christian by birth, was growing up far more Jewish than he ever had.

“Mrs. Goldbloom compared the pharaoh who tried to stop the Jews from leaving Egypt to Adolf Hitler,” Hannah said. “What do you think, Papa?”

“I suppose it’s a fair comparison,” he muttered. She stopped walking. “In Egypt, God helped Moses free the Israelites. He sent down the ten plagues until the pharaoh had no choice but to let the Jews go. And then
God parted the Red Sea to let them escape.” She paused. “Papa, how come God isn’t helping the Jews now?”

Franz had heard adults pose a similar question. For him, the answer was easy, but he did not share his atheism with his daughter. Instead, he said, “Hannah, look at Shanghai. There are over twenty thousand German Jews here already.”

Hannah’s face lit with sudden insight. “Do you mean Shanghai is for us what the Sinai desert was for the Jews of Egypt?”

Franz had not thought of it that way, but he nodded. “Perhaps.”

Her eyes went wide. “Or maybe, Papa, Shanghai
is
our Promised Land?”

Franz gently tousled Hannah’s hair and laughed. “Time will tell,
liebchen.”

His daughter abruptly switched topics to her school’s upcoming track meet. Her disability prevented Hannah from running in the events, but she was ecstatic to have been chosen as one of the cheerleaders. She spent the rest of the walk speculating on how the new dress that Esther had promised to make would turn out.

As they reached their street, Hannah jerked her hand free of Franz’s grip and raced toward the building. He looked over and saw Ernst Muhler and Shan Zhou at the entrance.

“Onkel Ernst!” Hannah cried as she jumped into his arms.

Cigarette in hand, the slender artist hoisted her higher with obvious effort. “Oh, puffin, if we’re going to keep this greeting up, either you have to stop growing or this weakling will have to lift some weights.” He lowered her. “Now let me have a look at you.”

Hannah giggled as Ernst clutched his chin in his hand and squinted as he studied her as though assessing a piece of art. Ernst, who had added a Sun Yat-sen jacket to his black ensemble, clasped his hands together and shook them. “Those poor boys don’t stand a chance. You get more and more glamorous with each passing day.”

“Oh, Onkel Ernst, you’re being silly.”

“I’m an artist, Hannah. And if there’s one thing I recognize, it’s true beauty.”

Franz shook hands with both men. “Will you come up and see Esther too?” he asked.

“We’ve already been,” Ernst said. “We were just leaving.” “Where are you off to?” Franz asked.

Ernst subtly nodded in Hannah’s direction. Franz understood. “Go on upstairs,
liebchen,”
he said. “See how your aunt is coming along with your costume.”

She hesitated. “But I haven’t seen Onkel Ernst in so long.”

“Oh, puffin, you will see me tomorrow night when I come for dinner.” Ernst winked at her. “Now go tell your aunt that your father just invited us over for dinner tomorrow.”

After Hannah left, Franz glanced from Shan to Ernst. The pair had become inseparable over the past year. Franz assumed they were lovers, but Ernst had never said as much, and Shan rarely spoke at all. “What is it, Ernst?” he asked.

The artist’s eyes narrowed. “You remember Colonel Kubota?”

“Of course.” Franz had sat through several dinner parties at the Reubens’ with the colonel, but Clara had never invited Ernst back after the stir he had caused at their first dinner there. “What about him?”

“Lawrence Solomon,” Ernst grumbled. “That soulless fraud who calls himself my art dealer sold Kubota one of my paintings.”

“Is that not what an art dealer is supposed to do?”

Ernst grimaced. “He’s not supposed to sell my work to the goddamned enemy!”

“Since when is Colonel Kubota your enemy?”

Ernst glanced at Shan, who stood as impassively as ever with a cigarette smouldering between his lips. He turned back to Franz. “Kubota and all his refinement and genteel rationalizations … He’s no better than my Gestapo captain back in Vienna. Down deep, the Japanese are no different from the Nazis. Thugs and bullies, the lot of them. And I won’t allow Kubota to use my art as part of his cultured disguise.”

Franz’s unease rose. “How do you intend to stop him?”

Ernst shrugged. “I am going to go and refund his money.”

“And if he doesn’t want a refund?” “I will take my painting anyway!”

Shan eyed Ernst with a rare smile, but Franz’s concern mushroomed. “Listen to me, Ernst. This is a mistake.”

“I have built a career on mistakes.” Ernst shrugged. “What is one more?”

Franz saw that his friend would not be swayed. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

“Suit yourself,” Ernst said. “Of course, Shan can’t join me for obvious reasons. Who knows what they would do to a Chinaman on their own turf.”

Franz and Ernst rode a rickshaw to the Garden Bridge and then crossed through the military checkpoints on foot. Just beyond the bridge, the Astor House Hotel—once known as the Waldorf Astoria of Shanghai—stood on the prime Broadway corner lot, fronting both the Whangpoo River and Soochow Creek. The low-rise Edwardian building had lost much of its lustre: sun had faded the walls and mortar had damaged the embossments and cracked many of the windows. A massive Rising Sun flag flapped lazily over the entrance. Out front, two Japanese soldiers stood rigidly on guard in their khakis and puttees, bayoneted rifles held across their chests.

Ernst strode straight over to the two guards. As he neared, they closed the gap between them. “I need to see Colonel Kubota,” he demanded.

The soldiers’ expressions remained blank, but the taller one shook his head and made a shooing gesture with his fingers.

Ernst put his hands on his hips. “I demand to see Colonel Kubota!”

Both soldiers raised their rifles higher. Franz grabbed Ernst by the arm and began to gently pull. “Ernst, this is not working.”

Ernst shrugged free of Franz’s grip. He turned back to the soldiers. “I am not going anywhere until I speak to Colonel Kubota!” he said, raising his voice.

The shorter guard began to swing the barrel of his rifle out toward Ernst. He stopped halfway through the arc. The two men suddenly parted.

Another soldier, wearing a green officer’s uniform, stepped out between them. He had a weak chin and high cheekbones that made his face look almost triangular. “I am Captain Yamamoto,” he announced in serviceable English. “What is your meaning?”

“I need to see Colonel Kubota,” Ernst said.

“Who are you?”

“I am Ernst Muhler. This is Dr. Franz Adler.”

Yamamoto nodded. “Why do you require to see Colonel Kubota?”

Ernst puffed out his chest. “That is between the colonel and me.”

Yamamoto eyed him for a long cold moment and then turned for the entrance. “You will stay here.”

They waited in front of the hostile guards for ten tense minutes before Yamamoto returned. “Come,” he ordered.

Ernst and Franz followed him into the lobby of the hotel. The carpets were frayed and the textured wallpaper torn and peeling in places, but the massive chandelier that hung above the spiral staircase hinted at the building’s former grandeur. Yamamoto led them upstairs to the second floor. Near the end of the hallway, he stopped and knocked on a door.