The Far Side of the Sky Read online

  “I faced a few Hinkels in my school days.” Franz’s smile wiped the gravity from his eyes.

  “Dr. Adler has agreed to lend his time and talent to our little hospital,” Simon announced.

  “We are honoured to have you.” Max raised his shoulders helplessly. “But I fear your prodigious skill will be wasted. Our surgical facilities are so rudimentary.”

  “Dr. Feinstein, I have been banned from surgery for the past six months. I would be thrilled to offer whatever assistance I can, no matter how basic.” Franz looked down at his feet. “I had no idea how much I would miss being a doctor.”

  Max nodded his understanding. “Of course. I only wish we had better—any, really—facilities to offer you.”

  Simon glanced from one doctor to the other. “Let me talk to Sir Victor. He might provide some extra funds for surgical tools.”

  “And, Dr. Adler, I work with the surgeons at the Country Hospital,” Sunny added. “It is probably the best-equipped hospital in all of Shanghai. I cannot promise anything—”

  “Yes, yes!” Max said with sudden excitement. “Sunny and her friend, Dr. Huang, have been our oasis in this medical desert.”

  Franz viewed Sunny with a shy smile. “Miss Mah, I am beginning to suspect that you are an important person to know here in Shanghai.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Ernst stopped so suddenly on the sidewalk that the people around him had to lurch out of his way to squeeze and shoulder past. “My God, we’re in the midst of some kind of retail orgy!” he cried.

  Franz and Ernst had just turned off the Bund, past the green-roofed Cathay Hotel, and were walking down Nanking Road under overcast skies. The guidebook that Simon had loaned Franz described Nanking Road as one of the city’s main east-west arteries and the retail heart of Asia. The book had not exaggerated. The rows of specialty shops and department stores extended as far as the eye could see. Shoppers laden with colourful bags thronged the sidewalks. Ernst waved his hand at the beehive of consumerism swarming around them. “This could pass for Mariahilfer Strasse back in Vienna, ja?”

  Aside from a few traditionally dressed Chinese and the rickshaws interspersed among the Buicks, Chevrolets and Daimlers, the shopping frenzy could have been playing out in almost any European city. With one exception. “It smells different here,” Franz pointed out.

  “Indeed,” Ernst agreed with a wrinkle of his nose.

  More than the unfamiliar sights and sounds, Shanghai’s exotic smells constantly reminded Franz how far they were from home. Not all aromas were as putrid as the reek of the untreated sewage, rancid cooking oils or body odours wafting from hordes of pedestrians. Franz found the scents of burning incense, exotic perfumes and roasting meat at the ubiquitous street kitchens appealing but still equally as foreign.

  Out of nowhere, a black limousine screeched up to the curb in front of them. Two thick-necked white men in navy pinstripe suits and black fedoras bounded out. The first bodyguard, a giant with a machine gun slung over his shoulder, scanned the crowd. Suddenly, two young Chinese women burst out of the door of a nearby shop, giggling and screeching. Startled, the guard jerked his weapon in their direction. The girls froze. The nozzle of the machine gun twitched.

  Heart in his throat, Franz feared a massacre. But the guard slowly lowered his weapon, and the girls scuttled away with another eruption of nervous laughter. The bodyguard surveyed the street again. Satisfied, he signalled to someone in the car. A diminutive Chinese man climbed out of the back seat. The man wore a hat similar to those of his bodyguards, but he also had on dark glasses and a sable coat over a white silk robe that almost touched his white shoes.

  Gangsters? Franz wondered. He remembered the previous day’s orientation lecture at the Embankment House. A spokesperson from the CFA committee had gone to great lengths to point out all the potential hazards and pitfalls the refugees would face in the city. Ernst had dubbed the speech as the “welcome-to-Shanghai-where-everything-kills-you lecture.” The lecturer’s admonitions included, but were not limited to, the tap water, raw fruits and vegetables, shellfish, mosquitoes, pickpockets, casinos, brothels, street traffic and especially kidnappers. He warned that “abduction is so common in this city that the English have turned it into a verb—to be shanghaied.”

  Mouth agape, Ernst watched the two Goliaths and their sable-clad employer disappear into the Sun Sun Co. Department Store. The artist shook his head and heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Getting noticed in this city is going to take considerable effort on my part.”

  “I am confident you will manage,” Franz said.

  Ernst uttered a small laugh. “And so you should be, my friend.”

  They continued west along Nanking Road. After a few more blocks, the substantial brick and stone buildings gave way to lower-rise shops with more Asian flavour. Neon signs and brightly coloured banners adorned with Chinese calligraphy hung over the entrances. Silks, embroideries, linens and jewellery filled the windows. The thin wailing of Chinese music tinkled out through open doorways.

  Viewing the lantern-filled window of a shop, Franz stumbled over something hard. He looked down and saw a pair of legs jutting across the sidewalk. A gaunt man in frayed pants and a filthy shirt sat slumped against the storefront. Eyes open, the man’s head flopped onto his shoulder. He looked like other coolies—the young men who drifted into Shanghai from rural areas to drive the rickshaws and carry much of the city’s labour, literally, on their shoulders.

  Ernst jumped back a step. “Franz, he’s …”

  “Dead. Yes.”

  Ernst desperately patted his pockets for a cigarette. “The lecturer warned us about this. He said thousands of people die on the streets of Shanghai every year.”

  Franz knelt down to take a closer look. The man stared back, his face pale and lean. Franz doubted that he was much older than twenty.

  “Leave him, Franz,” Ernst urged, backing farther away. “You can get diseases from the bodies. Remember? Someone regularly comes around to collect them.”

  Despite his professional familiarity with death, Franz was chilled by the sight of the young man sprawled across the sidewalk while shoppers stepped over his corpse as though it were no more than mislaid trash. “Ernst, what kind of a place have I brought Hannah and Esther to?”

  Ernst inhaled his cigarette and then motioned to the corpse. “Clearly, no one was caring for this poor devil, but nobody was out to kill him either.” He pointed his cigarette at Franz. “Remember Kristallnacht? Don’t ever forget what you are shielding little Hannah from.”

  Franz knew Ernst was right, but he still pined for home—the Vienna before the Nazis, where welcome smells wafted from bakeries and cafés at every corner, and where there never was a need for corpse collectors. Franz thought of his father again. The guilt burned. He had yet to open Jakob’s letter.

  Ernst clapped him on the shoulder. “Come. Let’s find a place to call home. That will help.”

  They reached the corner of Nanking and Thibet Roads, where two massive department stores flanked the intersection, looming like giant sentries. Across the street, a park sprawled in front of them. Franz consulted the guidebook in his pocket. “This must be the Recreation Ground. Apparently, there is a wonderful children’s playground. I will have to bring Hannah.”

  “You see,” Ernst said, exhaling a puff of smoke. “Now all we have to do is find an adult playground for yours truly, and we can all live happily.”

  Franz and Ernst headed west until Nanking turned into Bubbling Well Road. Soaring buildings, as lofty as the ones fronting the Bund, lined the street. Franz nodded to the tallest of the skyscrapers. “The Park Hotel,” Ernst said before Franz could even check the guidebook. “They say the bar inside is well worth a visit.”

  “Have you ever come across a bar that wasn’t worth a visit, Ernst?”

  “Not really. But I’m absolutely committed to keep searching until I do.”

  They reached a wide road where a signpost read Avenue Edward VII. Erns
t indicated the Chinese man directing traffic. He wore the uniform of a Parisian gendarme. “Either we’ve arrived at Frenchtown, or the security is not so tight at the local asylum.”

  As soon as they crossed into the French Concession, the architectural rigour of the International Settlement gave way to the carefree grace of scattered villas and apartment buildings. The sidewalks were sprinkled with cypresses and plane trees, and the manner and style of the people were noticeably more relaxed, more French.

  A few streets farther, they turned eastward onto the thoroughfare of Avenue Joffre, where Franz saw Cyrillic lettering on the storefront. The odour of boiled cabbage filled the air, and several people spoke Russian. The deeper they headed into the neighbourhood, the more tightly clustered and rundown the buildings became.

  Ernst stopped outside one particularly ramshackle apartment block and pointed to the second floor. Hanging laundry obscured the balcony’s railing, while cracks ran like a giant cobweb across the window above. “I think we have stumbled into our price range.”

  Simon had recommended Hongkew as offering the most affordable housing, so Franz and Ernst had spent most of their morning wandering the neighbourhoods near the refugee hospital. In the narrow lanes, they passed countless plain apartment blocks, many advertising vacancies in German. Placards in the windows promoted tailors, grocers and even physicians with Jewish-sounding names. They walked by two cafés and a makeshift bakery that exuded the welcome smell of home. German refugees were everywhere—men in suits, women pushing strollers, and old people propped up by canes—all of whom could have just stepped off an Austrian tram. Franz was simultaneously disoriented and moved by the incongruous sight of Vienna replicated in Asia. He would have happily relocated to Hongkew if not for the clusters of Japanese soldiers. Though they seemed utterly indifferent to the refugees, the soldiers reminded Franz too much of the Nazis at home. He would never feel secure settling Hannah among them, so Ernst and he continued on to Little Russia, Simon’s alternative recommendation.

  Walking along Avenue Joffre, Franz stopped to assess several buildings. They visited two that advertised vacancies. The first flat was oppressively dark, dingy and grimy. They lasted only minutes at the second, which reeked so much that Franz wondered if something or someone was decomposing behind the walls.

  A block farther east, Franz spotted a plain, five-storey brick building that also displayed a vacancy sign. Something about the structure caught his eye and he longed for his old camera, mentally aligning the perfect spot from which to photograph it. He looked up and noticed an older Chinese man staring at him from the second-floor window. Franz pointed to the vacancy sign. The man nodded and disappeared from the window.

  Moments later, the man opened the front door. A long braid secured his grey hair behind his head, and wire-rimmed glasses covered his watery brown eyes. He wore a collarless, black Sun Yat-sen jacket, similar to those Franz had seen on several other Chinese men. Behind him stood a thin young man in a Western-style collared shirt and khakis, watching warily.

  “Good day, gentlemen. May I help you?” the older man said in impeccable English.

  “Are you the landlord?” Franz asked.

  The man shook his head. “I am not. However, I help care for the building when he is away. My name is Zhou Heng,” he said, stating his family name before his given name, as is the Chinese practice. “And this is my son, Shan.”

  Franz introduced Ernst and himself. Heng switched unexpectedly to German. “Herr Adler, möchten sie ein zimmer mieten?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Zhou, we are searching for a flat,” Franz said, surprised by Heng’s near-perfect pronunciation. “There are four of us in total.”

  “Would you gentlemen like a tour?” Heng asked.

  Ernst held up his hand. “Where in God’s name did you learn your German? You’re not from Cologne or Essen, are you?”

  Heng chuckled. “Not quite so far west, Herr Muhler. Nanking, in fact. However, I am a professor of languages. Or rather, I used to be.”

  “Nanking?” Ernst said. “Isn’t that the capital of China?”

  Shan squinted hard at Ernst, but Heng smiled good-naturedly. “Perhaps in the Japanese’s eyes, but it is not our capital, Herr Muhler.” Heng exhaled slowly. “In China’s five-thousand-year history, Nanking was only the capital for ten forgettable years.”

  Ernst glanced over to Franz with a raised eyebrow. “I stand corrected.”

  “Please follow me.” Heng spun and headed back into the building. He walked briskly down the narrow corridor and almost bounded up the stairs to the third floor.

  Reaching the door to the first apartment, Heng pulled a key chain from his pocket and opened the door. Looking over his shoulder, Franz saw that Shan had not accompanied them.

  The room was compact and sparsely furnished with a table and chairs and one worn brown sofa, but it looked relatively clean and was free of unsavoury odours. Heng pointed out the galley kitchen with its icebox and single gas-element stove before he guided them to the bedroom. Studying the double bed that barely fit inside, Franz wondered how three unmarried adults and one child might coexist inside such a cramped space.

  Heng led them to the tiny bathroom. He pointed to the low toilet. “Please notice the indoor plumbing,” he said proudly.

  Ernst grimaced. “Are you suggesting that some flats here do not have plumbing?”

  “This is China, Herr Muhler,” Heng said. “Only the newer buildings have indoor plumbing. The night soil men are still very busy in Shanghai.”

  “The night soil men?” Ernst pulled his head back as though fearful of the explanation.

  “In the early morning, you will see them all over the city,” Heng said. “They carry out their loads on bamboo poles to the barrels on carts. The farmers outside the city pay handsomely for the product. There is no finer fertilizer than human waste.”

  Ernst’s face greened slightly, but Franz appreciated the scientific rationale. Still, he realized the lecturer had not exaggerated; washing and cooking all produce would be essential.

  Back in the main room, Franz asked, “Have you lived in Shanghai for long, Mr. Zhou?”

  “Eleven months. Since January 15, actually.”

  “Just you and your son?” Franz asked, surprised by the exactness of his answer.

  Heng turned away, quiet for a moment. “Neither my wife nor our daughter ever reached Shanghai.”

  “Are they still in Nanking?” Ernst asked. “No, Herr Muhler, they are not.”

  Heng’s implication was unmistakable. Empathy for the genteel man welled in Franz, and his thoughts turned to his own brother and father. “I’m sorry,” Ernst stammered, embarrassed.

  Heng cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “The rent for the apartment is one hundred and twenty mex—or Chinese dollars—per month. Roughly forty American dollars, depending on the bank and the given moment. The exchange rates in Shanghai fluctuate like the wind.”

  Franz turned to his friend. “What do you think?”

  Ernst nodded his approval. “As far as I am concerned, anywhere we do not have to endure a visit from the night soil man is acceptable to me.”

  In a hurry to return to Embankment House to share the news, they hailed a rickshaw. While Ernst absorbed the sights and sounds around them, Franz focused on the man pulling them. He appeared to be of a similar age as the dead man on the street and wore similarly tattered clothes. His exposed muscles in his forearms and calves contracted with each stride, and he chanted a steady stream of “hey-haw, hey-haw” as he ran.

  The runner dropped them off a few feet from the Garden Bridge. The memory of the dead man still haunted Franz and he tipped the runner more than double the cost of the ride, ignoring the lecturer’s warning that, in business, the Chinese misinterpreted generosity for stupidity.

  On the south side of the bridge, the British soldier waved them past with a stalwart nod. At the opposite guard post, the Japanese guard barely glanced in their direction. Instead, he
focused a withering scowl on the old Chinese couple bowing before him. Ernst turned to Franz with a snort. “I am beginning to appreciate why the Nazis and Japanese get on so famously.”

  Stepping off the bridge, they headed west on North Soochow Road toward Embankment House, where the day before the rickety pickup truck had dropped his family off. While the second floor of the massive art deco building served as a clearing house for refugees, it otherwise functioned as an upscale apartment block. At the entrance, Ernst veered across the street to the tobacconist to replenish his supply of cigarettes.

  Franz had barely stepped into the second-floor gymnasium-sized room, half-filled with rows of steel bunk beds, when he heard Hannah’s voice. “Papa!”

  Franz spotted her emerging from a group of people clustered near the communal kitchen in the corner. Clutching her doll, Hannah rushed toward him. He knelt down and caught her in open arms. “Did you find a flat for us, Papa?”

  “I think so, liebchen.”

  She hugged him happily. “Can we go now?” “Is something wrong here?” he asked.

  “No. Everyone is nice, but I …” She searched for the right words. “I just want to be in our own home, Papa.”

  “Me too.” Franz kissed her on the forehead. “Let’s go find your aunt and we can pack up our belongings and go see our flat.”

  Hannah hugged him again.

  “Franz!” Esther called from nearby.

  He freed himself from Hannah’s embrace and looked up to see Esther approaching alongside a woman he did not recognize. Wearing a fur coat and feather-capped hat, the stout middle-aged woman had a hawk-like face and carried herself with an air of solemn importance. Before Esther had a chance to introduce her, the woman thrust out a hand. “Dr. Adler, I am Mrs. Clara Reuben,” she announced as though the name should resonate with him.

  “A pleasure, Mrs. Reuben.”

  “I volunteer with the CFA.” Clara spoke German with an English accent. “I help to run the refugees’ school that the Kadoorie family has established. And, of course, I sit on the board of the Shanghai Jewish School.”