The Far Side of the Sky (27 page)

Max merely nodded and turned back to the microscope.

Franz trudged down the hallway to the makeshift clinic Simon and his men had constructed at the back of the building. Golda Hiltmann was already waiting with files neatly stacked on her desk. Frau Hiltmann had volunteered at the hospital ever since recovering from her ruptured ectopic pregnancy, but she would not be continuing the role for much longer.

“How are you today, Golda?” Franz asked.

“Wonderful.” Beaming, she patted the bulge of her abdomen that rose above her desk. “Only four more weeks to go.”

“So close.” He summoned a smile. “How many patients do we have today?”

“Six.” She gestured toward the closed door of the examining room as she handed him a chart. “The first patient is already inside.”

Without even glancing at the name, he opened the door and stepped into the room. The man in the navy three-piece suit stopped in mid-pace
and turned to face him. The sweet smell of pipe tobacco hit Franz like a slap.

Schwartzmann! Hans? No … Hermann. Hermann Schwartzmann!

Franz barely even noticed the slender woman who leaned forward in the chair behind Schwartzmann. The diplomat offered Franz a contrite smile. “You remember me from the
Conte Biancamano,
correct, Dr. Adler?”

“I remember you,” Franz said coolly.

Schwartzmann’s lip and moustache twitched together. “How have you been?”

Franz’s expression was stone. “I am still here.”

“Good, good. Yes. I’m glad to see it.” Schwartzmann swung an arm to the pale silent woman behind him. “My wife, Edda. We have been in Shanghai all this time too. The longest stint yet.” He laughed nervously. “Not even sure whether I would recognize Germany anymore. Especially now, with the war measures at home. All things considered, Shanghai is probably a safer place to be during such uncertain times …”

Franz stood silently with arms folded across his chest, allowing the man to trip over his stream of words. “What do you want, Mr. Schwartzmann?” he finally asked.

Schwartzmann looked down at his feet. “I need your help.”

“My help?”
Franz was too stunned for outrage. “Do you have any idea where you are?”

Schwartzmann looked back up at Franz with hands held open. “A hospital.”

“A hospital built for and run by the Jews
your
government drove out of Germany.”

“That … that is not my business,” Schwartzmann stammered.

Franz was dumbfounded. Schwartzmann waved a hand in front of his chest. “Please, Dr. Adler. I did not mean it that way. What I meant to say was—”

Franz regained his equilibrium and jerked his finger toward the door behind him. “My colleague has only just learned that his daughter, her husband and their three children were all dragged away by the SS for who
knows where!” He tasted the bile in his mouth. “Do you suppose he will ever see them again?”

Schwartzmann shrugged. “I … I don’t know.”

“And you have the gall to come here to ask for our help?” Franz’s voice rose with each word.

Schwartzmann looked up at him with plaintive eyes. “Edda is sick,” he said hoarsely.

Franz glanced over to the woman again. She was not so much pale as yellow. She was clearly suffering from jaundice. “That is not my business,” Franz said, but the words felt wrong even as he spoke them.

Schwartzmann cleared his throat. “Edda has a tumour in her bile duct. It is obstructing her liver. The doctors call it a ‘cholangiocarcinoma.’ Without surgery, they say she will not …”

Franz looked over to Edda again. Eyes downcast, she remained motionless. He turned back to Schwartzmann. “There are several Gentile surgeons in Shanghai. Even some capable Aryan Germans.”

Schwartzmann’s shoulders sagged. “They were the ones who told me you were the only surgeon who could give my wife a fighting chance.”

Franz had not resected a cholangiocarcinoma in well over two years, but he had once held the reputation as Vienna’s best at the procedure. It was a challenging operation under the best of circumstances, and the refugee hospital lacked the delicate tools required. Franz shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

“Dr. Adler, I have no right to be here. By rights, you should throw me out by my coattails.” He motioned to his wife again. “My Edda is a good woman. She has never harmed a soul. For her sake, not mine. I am begging you, as a doctor and a human being … please.”

Franz stared at the man for a long moment. As he was about to speak, Edda pushed herself up with considerable effort. She smoothed her coat out and then took a halting step toward her husband. “Come, Hermann, we have taken enough of the doctor’s time,” she said in a gravelly voice. She turned to Franz with a weak but apologetic smile. “Please excuse us, Dr. Adler. I told Hermann it was an ill-conceived idea to come.” She
glanced over at her husband, and her eyes filled with the kind of disapproving affection that only a lifelong spouse could muster. “He wouldn’t listen to me.”

Schwartzmann’s head dropped. “Yes, yes. Of course, dear.” Without looking at Franz, he said, “Thank you for your time, Dr. Adler.” He took his wife’s arm and turned for the door.

Franz looked down and studied his hands as the couple shuffled past him. “Please, Mrs. Schwartzmann,” he said, indicating the examining table. “Won’t you have a seat?”

Breakfast time was the hardest. Before her father died, they had eaten together every morning. Sometimes they exchanged only a smattering of words, preoccupied by traded sections of the newspaper and their days ahead, but breakfasts without him were beyond lonely. Sunny had tried skipping them altogether. It didn’t help; the anguish would catch up to her later in the morning anyway, along with a headache.

Yang felt the emptiness too. The once quiet housekeeper had taken to filling in the sorrowful silence with incessant chatter. “Look at you, Soon Yi,” she said as she piled sticky rice dumplings and steamed fish onto the plate. They both knew Sunny would only peck at the food. “What man would want a skeleton for a wife?”

Sunny had always been slight, but she had not weighed under a hundred pounds since her fifteenth birthday. While she had pulled out of the worst of her grief, her appetite had yet to recover. The scale read ninety-seven pounds. Sunny didn’t care, but to appease Yang she forced down a few bites.

“Your auntie sends more letters,” Yang muttered.

Kingsley’s sister, Bing-Qing, had written to insist again that Sunny
move in with her and her husband in their apartment in the International Settlement. Bing-Qing’s own children were married and long flown from the nest. Kingsley had never had much time for his older sister. Though raised under the same roof, as adults they were night and day in terms of their attitude and lifestyle. As much as Kingsley had embraced science and the Western way, Bing-Qing had veered in the opposite direction, gravitating toward an existence more traditional than even their parents had lived. Bing-Qing had disowned her little brother when he married the
yang guiz
—or “foreign devil,” as she referred to Sunny’s mother—and only reappeared to meddle in Sunny’s upbringing after Ida’s death.

Now Bing-Qing was at it again. In her latest missive, she decried it as shameful for an unmarried young woman to live alone in the city. She argued that Sunny’s dubious living circumstances brought dishonour to the entire family. Sunny suspected that, behind the indignation, her aunt had her eye on her inheritance, especially the family home in the upscale neighbourhood.

“Do not worry, Yang,” Sunny reassured her. “The Whangpoo will freeze over before I move in with my aunt and uncle, or let them move here.”

Yang nodded, hiding her relief in a flurry of tidying. “Sometimes,
xiao hè,
when you were not present, your father would call your auntie ‘The Padlock.’”

Sunny frowned. “Padlock?”

“Like the ceremonial ones parents place around their babies’ necks to ward off evil spirits.” Yang showed a rare smile. “Your father said that your auntie was as protective as a padlock because no evil spirit would ever have the patience to sit through one of her lectures.”

Sunny laughed, reminded again how glad she was to still have Yang with her. The tiny woman helped keep her father’s memory close. After his death, Sunny and Yang had reached the tacit understanding that she would stay on in her role, though Sunny didn’t require a full-time housekeeper. Her inheritance also allowed Sunny to keep Fai on as her driver. She felt indebted to Fai for his devotion to her father and for his bravery on the night of the attack. Besides, she was terrified of the prospect of
walking alone through Hongkew after dark, knowing that her father’s murderer was still stationed somewhere at the docks. Everywhere Sunny went, especially in Hongkew, she kept an eye peeled for the sailor with the scarred lip, fluctuating between an intense desire to avoid him and a longing to find him. She had no idea how she would respond if they ever did meet, but for the first time in her life, she knew how absolute hatred tasted.

Sunny forced down a few more bites of dumpling and rose from the table. Outside, she spotted Fai standing at the curbside polishing a nonexistent smudge on the hood of the Buick. The street was dry for the first time in weeks, but grey clouds hovered above, threatening to correct their oversight at any moment.

“Hello, Missy,” Fai said. “Country Hospital or the other?”

“The refugee hospital. But Fai, first I am going to visit Father.”

As they drove, Sunny noticed that the trees had still not blossomed. Most years by April, the French Concession was at its loveliest, with cherry blossoms bursting out along the boulevards. However, this year, after a month of near-constant rainfall and cool temperatures, the trees were mostly still bare. To Sunny, they reflected the spirit of Frenchtown. The sidewalks bustled as busily as ever, but the collective mood had dampened as much as the blossoms. With Europe at war and the Japanese army surrounding the concessions in an undeclared siege, people wore their worry as plainly as their overcoats.

Fai slowed the car to a halt on the Bund in front of the Cathay Hotel, where Simon stood waiting with a small bouquet of white lilies in his hand.

Sunny had once regularly accompanied her father to visit her mother’s graveside. After recovering from her stab wound, she had ventured out to the graveyard once or twice a week. Today, though, was the first time that she would not be going alone.

As Simon climbed into the back of the car, he said, “Hope it’s kosher to bring flowers.”

“Of course.” Sunny smiled. “Thank you for coming, Simon.”

“Are you kidding? Thanks for letting me tag along. Your father was a good, good man. I’m honoured to go pay my respects.” She touched his elbow. “I’m glad you’re here, Simon.” “Anything for you, kid.”

Simon treated her as a concerned big brother would, and she loved him for it. However, in the weeks following her stabbing, she had felt smothered by her friends’ sympathy and concern. Simon hovered. Jia-Li hardly left her side. And Wen-Cheng and Franz practically tripped over each other on their frequent visits. Though she loved them all, what she craved most in those early months was solitude. Sunny did not want to think about what had happened to her father, let alone discuss it. She just wanted to withdraw from the world and from anything that reminded her of him. But as time passed, more and more, she came to relish the memories and wanted to share them with the people closest to her.

Fai pulled into the driveway of the old cemetery on the outskirts of the International Settlement just as the skies began to drizzle again. Only a few visitors remained, scattered throughout the sprawling grounds. Sunny and Simon walked past rows of crosses, headstones, statues and a few mausoleums before reaching her parents’ side-by-side graves. Simon turned to Sunny, silently seeking permission to place the flowers. She nodded, and he laid the bouquet between the matching black marble markers and then backed away, giving Sunny privacy.

She knelt at the foot of the graves. She hung her head and closed her eyes but did not pray. Instead, she silently spoke to her parents, though she directed most of her words to her father. She summarized Bing-Qing’s letters. She also told him about the goings-on at both hospitals and her nervous excitement at the idea of performing as the lead surgeon. She finished by telling both parents how much she loved them.

As she straightened up, she paused to wipe away the tears and to murmur under her breath, “I miss you so much, Father.”

She turned and walked toward the car. Neither of them spoke until the car was back on the road. “Does it help?” Simon asked. “Visiting them?”

Sunny looked out the window at the slate grey skies. “I always feel a little better.”

“We Jews have a similar ritual,” he said. “Then again, I guess all religions must. After all, who wouldn’t want to pray for loved ones they had lost?”

Sunny didn’t explain that she never went to the graveside to pray. “In the Chinese culture, regardless of religion, respect of ancestors is the cornerstone of all belief systems. Apparently, it’s what makes us such a filial society.”

He laughed. “You folks really are the lost tribe of Israel.” “We do like our pork, though.”

The smile left his lips. “Sunny, can I ask you for some advice?” “Always.”

“It’s been a year and a half since I first laid eyes on Esther, and I still feel the same way about her. I can’t get her out of my mind.” He looked down at his interlocked fingers. “I’m just not sure if I should tell her.”

“Why not, Simon?”

“Because she’s still so in love with her late husband.” Sunny squeezed his arm again. “That doesn’t mean she can’t love you too.”

“I guess.” He chewed his lip. “Sometimes when I’m with Essie, I feel this closeness. And other times, I figure I must be screwy to even think it.” “How will you ever know unless you tell her how you feel?” Simon chuckled. “Holy cow, I knew you were going to say that!” “Then why did you ask?”

“I guess I wanted to hear it. Helps me get the nerve up. After all, what did that Shakespeare guy say?” He snapped his fingers. “‘Better to have loved and lost …’ and all that jazz.”