The Far Side of the Sky (17 page)

Jia-Li blew out a languid stream of smoke. “You cannot keep up this pace,
xiao hè”

Her friend was right. Recently, Sunny had put in almost as many hours at the Jewish refugee hospital as she had at the Country Hospital. As exhilarating as she found the volunteer work, it was exhausting. The day before, she had fallen asleep at the Country Hospital while charting at the nurses’ desk. She awoke, mortified to find Dr. Samuel Reuben hovering over her. “It appears, Nurse Mah, that you cannot stay awake long enough to care for your patients,” he gloated. “Perhaps you could borrow Mr. Hamilton’s bed for a nap while he is still in the operating theatre.”

Sunny shook off the humiliating memory. “I can’t stop now,
bao bèi.
They need me.”

Jia-Li stroked Sunny’s hand across the table. “Everyone always needs you,
xiao hè.
You will die of exhaustion if you don’t learn to say no.” “To everyone?”

“Never to me, of course!” Jia-Li said with a giggle. “Besides, I haven’t touched a pipe in over a month. You have cured me for good this time.”

“Is this time truly different,
bao bèi?
” Sunny asked.

“I can’t put Mother through that again. It would kill her.” Jia-Li tapped the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray. “Enough humdrum talk. Tell me more of your handsome doctor.”

Sunny felt a blush coming on. “He’s not mine at all.”

“Please,
xiao hè.
It’s me.”

“It’s over.” And then Sunny hurried to add, “Not that it ever really began.”

“I thought he had a good heart.” “That has nothing to do with it.”

Jia-Li sat up straighter, and her affected pose gave way to a more sincere expression. “It has everything to do with it,” she said softly.

“Wen-Cheng is married. He does not have the courage to face the consequences of choosing a life with me. Neither of us do.”

“Your father would understand.”

“I don’t believe he would.”

Jia-Li waved the cigarette holder in the air. “Your father, of all people, knows what it means to follow his heart in spite of what others think or say. His family is so traditional. Imagine what it must have been like for him to bring home a round-eyed wife. An American, no less!”

Sunny nodded. “Grandmother did not speak to him for five years. Even when they lived under the same roof. And his own sister still has not forgiven him.”

“Exactly! Your father would want you to be happy. He loves you that much.”

Sunny doubted Kingsley would accept such loss of face so easily. It didn’t matter, though; her mind was made up. But Wen-Cheng had never stopped trying to win her back. To prove his dedication, he had helped Sunny stock the refugee hospital with medical supplies. He had rounded up a surprising quantity of equipment, dressings and medication, and even managed to provide bottles of Ringer’s lactate solution. As touched as Sunny was by his commitment, she was determined not to waver in her resolve.

“And you?” Sunny asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“Me?” Jia-Li resumed her starlet pose with cigarette held high above her head. “Darling sister, my romances rarely last longer than an evening.”

Despite the pretense, during her fits of narcotic withdrawal, Jia-Li often admitted that she still clung to the fantasy of true love rescuing her from life in a brothel. Several men, including clients, had already auditioned for the role. But Jia-Li invariably fell for penniless musicians and artists who had neither the means nor the will to see her salvation through.

Sunny cocked her head. “So you no longer believe in love,
bao bèi?
” “Oh, it’s too late for me.” Jia-Li said matter-of-factly. “Not for you though.”

“I’m two months older than you.”

Jia-Li chuckled and took another drag from her cigarette. “You know,
xiao hè,
sometimes I think our problem is that I’ve lived too much and you’ve lived too little.”

“Maybe,” Sunny said, though she was thankful that her life had been so much more sheltered. “Perhaps we should both leave Shanghai?”

A flicker of excitement lit up Jia-Li’s eyes. “And go where?”

“Singapore? Paris?” Sunny smiled. “Or even New York. Remember how we always planned to go there when we were little girls?”

“I do,” Jia-Li said quietly.

“Why not then,
bao bèi?
”

Jia-Li motioned to the span of bare branches outside the window. “Because you and I are like those birch trees. Far too firmly rooted here to ever leave Shanghai.”

“It’s true,” Sunny sighed.

Jia-Li stubbed out the last of her cigarette. “Let’s go shopping,
xiao hè.”
Sunny glanced up at the clock and saw that it was already after three o’clock. “I have to go to work now.”

Jia-Li rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Which job?”

“The refugee hospital.”

“One simple little word:
fau. Non.
No.”

They left the club together. The doorman hailed a taxi for Jia-Li, but Sunny declined her offer of a ride and instead rode a bus into the International Settlement. She crossed the Garden Bridge on foot, where she faced the usual tense, humiliating bowing ritual. She arrived at the refugee hospital just before four o’clock. The roof of the old structure had been patched and its exterior painted but, as Simon had predicted, from the outside it still looked more like a derelict building than a hospital.

On the open ward, Sunny saw that the beds were still full after an outbreak of salmonella poisoning had overrun the hospital. The culprit
had turned out to be contaminated eggs served four days before at the local synagogue luncheon. The mood of the small hospital was surprisingly upbeat, since none of the sickened patients, even the small children, had died. Dr. Max Feinstein credited Sunny for saving lives with her unorthodox technique of rehydrating patients. Instead of forcing down large amounts of fluid, which the patients invariably vomited up, Sunny had them sip every three to five minutes a few tablespoons of a solution she constituted from water with small amounts of baking soda, salt and sugar.

Several smiling, grateful faces greeted Sunny on the ward. She could tell from their robust colour that many were near ready for discharge.

“Miss Mah!” Dr. Feinstein called from the small laboratory down the hallway.

Sunny found him hunched over his microscope. “Here, quickly!” His bald head gleamed. “Look here.”

As Max moved out of her way, she picked up a whiff of iodine cleanser, a scent he carried like aftershave. She peered through the monocular lens and saw the magnified cluster of violet, ovoid cells. “Do you see them?” Max demanded.

Sunny looked up from the microscope. “Are those
Diplococcus pneumoniae?
”

“Exactly so!” Max laughed. “Good for you! Few of my medical students in Hamburg would have been able to recognize the bacteria.”

“Is this sample from Mrs. Gimbelmann?” Sunny asked. “The young lady with the fever of unknown origin?”

“Not unknown anymore!” Max trumpeted. “I performed a lumbar puncture this morning. The woman clearly has meningitis.”

Sunny nodded. “Do you have enough antibiotics to treat her?”

Max flashed a paternal grin. “Your friend, Dr. Huang, brought me a fresh supply only yesterday.” He shook his head. “It’s not as though we are working in the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf here, but this would be no hospital at all without the assistance of Dr. Huang and yourself.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Simon said from behind them. “Without Sunny, we might as well lock up the doors and turn off the lights.”

Sunny turned to see Simon smiling at them from the doorway. “Dr. Feinstein, Sunny.” He beckoned them out to the hallway. “I want you to meet someone.”

Simon’s guest was as tall as him but broader across the shoulders. The handsome newcomer had a square jaw, dark curly hair and grave hazel eyes, and appeared to be five or ten years older than Simon. “Allow me to introduce Dr. Franz Adler,” Simon said.

The name meant nothing to Sunny, but Max’s eyes widened. “You are not
the
surgical professor from Vienna, are you?”

Franz nodded. “I am a surgical professor or, at least, I used to be.”

Max pumped his hand. “It’s an honour, Dr. Adler. Truly. Your reputation for surgical innovations precedes you. I am Maxwell Feinstein from Hamburg.”

“The internist?” Franz said. “I read your fine paper on electrolyte management in patients with shock.”

Max shrugged modestly. “So Hitler forced you to flee to Shanghai too?”

“We were very lucky to find passage here.”

Max sighed heavily. “Not so lucky as you might think.”

Simon chuckled. “Dr. Adler, you’ll have to excuse Dr. Feinstein. He is not one of our most optimistic arrivals.”

“It is true. In spite of the Nazis, I’m still very homesick.” Max cleared his throat. “Our … our eldest daughter and her two sons are still in Hamburg.”

“They did not accompany you to Shanghai?”

“Her husband was convinced the Americans would open their doors to downtrodden Jews.” Max glanced over to Simon, but there was no judgment, only worry, in his expression. “Now they cannot leave.”

Franz nodded solemnly. “I know how it feels to leave family behind, Dr. Feinstein.”

Simon gestured to Sunny. “Dr. Adler, allow me to introduce our brightest and loveliest nurse, Sunny Mah.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Mah,” Franz said in English.

“Miss Mah is not merely a good nurse, Dr. Adler,” Max said in German, his only tongue. “She is more capable than most junior physicians. Only this past week, she single-handedly managed an outbreak of dysentery that could have proven disastrous.”

Sunny’s cheeks burned. “My father is a doctor, a diabetes specialist. He has taught me a few approaches for treating dehydration.”

Franz viewed her with disconcerting intensity. “Where did you learn to speak German so well?”

Her face heated even further. “I had a terrifying languages teacher at school—Mr. Hinkel. He seemed to be about seven feet tall. When Mr. Hinkel told you that you were going to learn German, you learned German.”

“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.”

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.”