The Shanghai Moon (3 page)

“The official ran off with the jewelry?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know that, do I?” Her eyes sparkled. “But I have reason to think that he—Wong Pan is his name; this is his picture—arrived in New York two days ago.” She handed us photos of a round-faced man.

“Is the jewelry very valuable?” I asked.

“By jewelry standards, no. Each piece is probably worth between twenty and forty thousand dollars. But for a
Chinese bureaucrat, you can see the temptation. To my clients, of course, it’s priceless.

“So now you can see why I need you both. Under most circumstances, if I were trying to sell antique jewelry in New York, I’d head to the Diamond District.” She nodded at Joel. New York’s Diamond District on Forty-seventh Street is almost exclusively the province of Orthodox Jews.

“Except maybe if you were Chinese.” I began to catch on.

“Exactly. Then I might try Canal Street, even though I understand antiques aren’t Canal Street’s specialty.”

“No, those shops deal mostly in new pieces. Still . . .”

“Yes, exactly. So I’d like you to show these photographs around and see if anything’s turned up.”

Joel studied the photos. “And if it has?”

“If you find someone who’s bought any, let them know I’m in New York and interested in recovering it. Between us, the family’s prepared to buy the jewelry back, to save years of headaches. You might stress I’m not the long arm of Chinese law.”

“What if we get a lead on the bureaucrat? Wong Pan?”

“If he still has the jewelry, I’ll be willing to deal with him. I’m not crazy about someone profiting from a stunt like this, but my charge is the assets. Now”—Alice sat back—“I have to tell you, I have another, more personal reason for my interest in this case. I was born in Shanghai. In those years.”

Joel did the gallant thing. “How can that be? Someone as young as you?”

“You’re a very sweet liar. My parents were American missionaries. We spent two and a half years in a Japanese internment camp after Pearl Harbor. Of course I was very young—then.” She smiled. “Most of my memories are from the camp, not Shanghai itself, and they’re not particularly pleasant. Still, when this case came along, it did seem like something I’d want to see through. As if somehow it might, a tiny bit, redeem that experience. I’m not sure that makes any sense.”

Joel said, “It does to me.”

Personally, I had doubts about experiences being redeemable, but I kept them to myself.

We had more tea and coffee while the conversation turned to fees, expenses, and reports. Alice was Joel’s client, so he took the lead, and that was fine with me. I listened, put in my two cents when it was wanted, and tried not to yield to the hypnotic combination of jet lag and the Waldorf.

Finally, retainer checks and receipts having been written and passed around, Alice said, “You’ll have to excuse me. That Shanghai flight’s a long one, and my poor body’s not sure what day it is, let alone what time. And I’ve scheduled meetings with other clients over the next few days, since I’m in New York. Lydia, you just got back from California, didn’t you? You’re probably looking forward to the end of this meeting, too.” I tried to deny it, but she had my number. “I’ll go up to my room and let you two get started. Thank you.”

Joel and I stood, shook her hand, and watched her cross the lobby.

“Well, Chinsky,” Joel said, “ready to do the bloodhound thing?”

“Sure. Thanks for calling me in.”

“Chinsky, as far as Chinese PIs, you’re at the top of my list. I mean, it’s a short list, but still.”

“Gee, thanks.” I had taken a few steps when I realized Joel was still staring toward the elevators, chewing his lower lip. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I feel like something’s off.”

“Like what?”

“For one thing, she’s a shiksa. Her parents were missionaries. It’s an odd profession for a shiksa, Holocaust asset recovery.”

“Maybe she converted.”

He gave me a pitying look. “Trust me on this, bubbaleh.”

“Okay. But so? There must be money in it. She probably gets a percentage or something.”

“If she finds anything. And she’d be on retainer, in case she doesn’t. But it’s frustrating. Like she said, most assets can’t be traced. When they can, ownership takes years to prove. Half the time, you never do, and you don’t get your client’s goods back. Everyone I know who does that work thinks of it like a religious calling.”

“She does have that air about her.”

“Yes. The question is, why?”

“Because her parents were missionaries?”

Joel rolled his eyes. We turned and headed to the door. Casually, Joel asked, “Speaking of work, how’s your partner?”

“You’re subtle as a ton of bricks, Pilarsky. I haven’t seen
him in a while.” As though it explained anything, I added, “I’ve been away.”

“Mmm. I heard you guys were having problems.”

“Did you? Where?”

“Around. It’s true?”

“Why? You want to go into business with one of us?”

“With you, in a minute. We’d be unstoppable. Cute little Chinese chick and a fat Jewish alte kacker, clients would be falling over each other. No, seriously, it’s just that you guys work well together. That’s not so easy to find.”

That showed a surprising sensitivity, coming from Joel, but I didn’t want to get into it. “He seems to think I’m better off without him.”

“Who asked him?”

“Certainly not me. Listen, is this important? Like, does it have to do with this case?”

Joel smiled and suddenly bellowed,

“You’re nothing without me!
Without me you’re nothing at all—”

“
No
!” I put my hands to my ears. He stopped, and I asked, “What?”

“
City of Angels
. Coleman and Zippel. Last of the great Broadway musicals, and it’s about a private eye, too! You should see it, Chinsky.”

“Where’s it playing?”

“Nowhere. Closed years ago.”

“Then how do I see it?”

“Your problem, kiddo. You need anything before we start?”

“No,” I sighed. “I’m good.”

“Okay.” Joel smiled beatifically. “Go. Have fun.”

It was too late to start working my way through the jewelry shops of Canal Street; by the time I got downtown they’d all be closed. I was tempted to go home to bed. If I did, though, I’d spring wide awake in a few hours and spend the rest of the night staring at the ceiling.

I headed for the dojo. I’d worked out in California, but that wouldn’t cut much ice with Sensei Chung. All he knew was I hadn’t been around for a month. I suited up, stretched, and offered to take a class of younger students through their forms. Sensei bowed, accepting the offer. I worked with the kids for forty minutes, until they, and I, were sweaty and panting. Then Sensei dismissed them and smiled, ready to show me why it wasn’t a good idea to disappear.

I got home exhausted enough that I had hopes of falling asleep and getting back on New York time. I found my mother watching a soap opera on the Cantonese cable channel.

“Oh, will you be home for dinner?” she asked innocently. “I think there are vegetables.” I peeked into the kitchen and saw mountains of chicken, broccoli, peppers, and ginger chopped and ready to stir-fry.

Sometimes this transparent kind of thing flips my switch. Our deal is, I’ll live here as long as she lives here, so she
won’t be alone; but she doesn’t get to give me a hard time about where or when I come and go. Or whether I’m home for dinner.

But I
had
been away a month. Besides, I was starving.

“Ma, it looks great. Let me change, and I’ll cook.”

“You make the chicken dry. Go shower. Dinner will be ready when you come out.”

Which meant she’d already made two people’s worth of rice.

Clean, dry, and full—truth be told, my mother’s a great cook—I headed for bed at a ridiculously early hour. Which turned out to be a mistake. Sensei Chung’s private lesson and my mother’s stir-fry were no match for jet lag, and though I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow, by midnight I was, in fact, staring at the ceiling.

I tried deep breathing, Advil, counting sheep, and everything else I could think of, but I couldn’t get any closer to sleep than a stone skimming the surface. Around two I gave up. I switched on the light and looked for something to do.

The image of the skimming stone brought to mind a vast ocean, and that brought a ship. I went to my desk and looked at the photos: the jewelry, Rosalie and Paul Gilder, Wong Pan. I reread the letter. I wondered if there were others at the Jewish Museum. I wondered what had become of Rosalie, of her brother. It wasn’t relevant to the job I’d been hired to do, but I wondered.

Ah, the magic of what my mother refers to as the Interweb. A search for “Rosalie Gilder” on the Jewish
Museum Web site brought me to Holocaust/Survivors/Documents/Shanghai/Gilder.

Rosalie Ruchl Gilder. Salzburg to Shanghai via the
Conte Biancamano,
April 1938, age 18. Accompanied by brother Paul Chaim Gilder, 14. Letters to Elke Chana Gilder, mother, 1938–1941. Acquired 1967. In German. English translation available.

There were fifteen more. I clicked on “English,” then hesitated. Read someone else’s letters? That wasn’t right.
But these are historical documents,
I told myself.
In a museum collection.
Yes, but they weren’t written that way. A young girl wrote them to her mother, who she never saw again.

In the end my curiosity overcame my scruples. It’s one of the things Bill always liked about me. Though why I should care what Bill liked now that we didn’t seem to be speaking, I had no idea.

I printed out the translations of the first half-dozen letters and curled up with them in bed.

18 April 1938

Dearest Mama,

This will be the briefest of notes, because the tender is leaving soon to take the ship’s mail. But I can’t give up the chance to describe the scene before us: We’ve docked at Port Said, and the setting sun is bathing the Sinai range with gold! Along with many fellow Jews, I stand at the rail, my heart stirred at the sight. Paul laughs at me, his skeptical sister; and truthfully, I have no idea which of the peaks
before us might be Mt. Sinai itself. Nor does he, I might add. Nor do any of the crew seem to know, though they’ve made this voyage before.

The crew, by the way, treat us quite respecfully. An Italian steward confided, in poor but heartfelt German, that he was grateful to be at sea. On land, as he put it, “She’s all gone crazy!” This cordiality extends to the ship’s engineer, a Bavarian. He seems amused by Paul’s fascination with the machinery, and is pleased to have someone with whom to discuss it in German. He’s invited him to visit the engine rooms at any time. I take hope from the attitudes of these men that the madness sweeping Europe will soon come to an end.

But until it does, and despite my own impatience with the Talmud’s more ridiculous tales and constricting injunctions, I stand at this rail with my fellow refugees, and declare myself a Jew.

Your Rosalie

You go, girl,
I thought. I snuggled more deeply into my blanket and went on to the next letter.

23 April 1938

Dearest Mama,

I hope you and Uncle Horst are keeping well, and are at this moment racing to Trieste
to board a ship! Paul points out that if you are, of course, this letter will miss you. But I won’t mind having written in vain, if it means we’ll be together soon. I would gladly repeat myself as we sit over coffee—or fragrant flowery tea, as taken by the Chinese.

Now, you ask, how is it I can speak about Chinese tea, still three weeks from China’s shore? Mama, I’ve had the most fascinating encounter! Here is what happened:

As I wrote you, most of our fellow passengers are also refugees heading to the Orient with no more experience or knowledge of the place than we have. Many are families with children, who, with their natural high spirits, are treating this voyage as a great adventure. I don’t mind—in fact I find their sunniness reassuring—but not all my fellow passengers feel the same.

Aboard also are some dozen Chinese men, returning home. They look like the illustrations in that lovely poetry book; if anything, more elegant and impressive, with their pale skin and slanted eyes. The two most elderly dress in long dark gowns; all the rest wear jackets and trousers, but still, they’re quite exotic and I’ve had to be strict with Paul, that he must not stare at them.

Now, this morning, as I sat on deck with a novel from the ship’s library—it’s quite
large, Mama, with books in so many languages!—I observed a young Chinese man run afoul of some boys playing with a ball. Almost knocked over by their pandemonium, he shouted that they were ill bred and worse behaved, and that as they were no credit to their families, they ought to be ashamed.

With my usual self-restraint I was on my feet in seconds. I thundered that it was he who ought to be ashamed, for frightening small children. He spun around, finger raised to scold me—then stopped, as if in confusion. Then he smiled, Mama, and bowed to me, a deep Oriental bow!

“Well,” said he. “I was under the impression that with the exception of my countrymen, the passengers on this voyage were largely German and Austrian. I suppose I shall have to watch my tongue.”

It was only then that I realized with astonishment what he’d grasped first—that we were both speaking English.

“If you intend to continue berating the children, indeed you will,” I drew myself up and answered, as though conversing in English with a Chinese aboard an Italian liner plowing the Red Sea were an everyday thing. “Perhaps you’d at least consider insulting them in your native language, so they might learn something they’ll find useful in their new home.”

At this he smiled again, but looked quizzical, and inquired where their new home might be. When I told him Shanghai, he seemed truly surprised.

“Madame, Shanghai is under Japanese occupation. Civil war rages in the countryside, and foreigners abandon China on every ship that sails. I understood my fellow passengers to be refugees from oppression, but Shanghai seems an odd choice of new home.”

“Choice? We are Jews, sir—we have no choice! The countries we leave hound us, steal from us, throw us behind bars. We’re ordered into exile and would gladly go, but no place will have us—except Shanghai!” I swept my hand toward the boys. “These children leave home, family, and friends for an unknown place where the language, the streets, the very food will be wholly new to them. Yet they laugh and play. And you dare take them to task for it!”