Shanghai Shadows (25 page)

Thirty Jews were among the two hundred and fifty who'd died in the bombing. One funeral procession blended into the next. The streets, eerily still for Hongkew, echoed with the moans of victims still hanging on to life, the keening of Chinese mourners, and the Kaddish prayers of our people.

And yet, and yet, we clung to the belief that a hit this severe meant the war was coming to an end. Through the pain and grief we counted the days until there would be an Allied victory in the Pacific.

And it happened. Word sifted down to us: The war was over! Our six horrible years of exile from our own home, of being strangers in our new one, of isolation and starvation—finally it was coming to an end. We all poured out of our houses, wild with joy to find the streets clear of Japanese soldiers. We tore down Japanese flags from every public building, burned them or ripped them into strips as victory headbands, or rolled them into bandages. We replaced the dreaded rising sun banners with beautiful red, white, and blue American and British flags, rained down upon us from the Allied planes. Firecrackers turned the night sky into a brilliant kaleidoscope, and we danced up and down the Bund until dawn. Even Father danced, although I could swear that he'd lost his sense of rhythm.

Did Mother and the others in the camps have this glorious news? Surely they heard the riotous rejoicing in the streets, even behind their barbed-wire fences. They must have known that it was only a matter of hours until we stormed their gates and brought them all home to us. The war was over! We'd survived! Soon we'd all go home—wherever home was.

Mrs. Kawashima tapped lightly at our open door. “This is very happy time,” she beamed. Her voice rose just a bit, apparently to signal Mr. K, and then we heard the Kawashimas' door click open on the other side of the plywood wall. “My husband,” she announced proudly. “He has present for you, to celebrate.”

Mr. K came into our apartment with The Violin in his hand, bowed deeply, and silently placed it in Father's outstretched arms.

I can't imagine what the Kawashimas sacrificed to save Father's violin. I fell into Mrs. K's arms, releasing tears I'd banked for days, weeks, and Father's grateful tears oiled The Violin's thirsty wood. He held it across his knees, the bow pointed toward the floor, as if waiting for his cue to come in on a concerto.

Later, describing the scene to Erich, Father said, “My children, it was like a soldier thinking he'd lost his best friend in the heat of battle, then finding him alive.
Alive!
”

“Best friend?” I asked. “What about Mother?”

Ashamed, Father quickly said, “The only reunion that will please me more is when we have your mother home with us. All of us together again, very soon.”

And then we found out that the war
wasn't
over after all. What a cruel joke! In a final effort to subdue us, the Japanese streamed back into the city in full force, tightening restrictions and patrols in our bombed-out ghetto for another ten days. No one knew what horrors were going on in the last days of Bridge House and Ward Road Jail.

We gritted our teeth in fierce determination until, without fanfare, a notice was nailed to posts that the ghetto pass system had been canceled. Ghoya slithered away, and within two days we hardly saw a Japanese soldier anywhere in Shanghai.

In mid-August the internment camps were thrown open, and we brought Mother home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

1945

“I've seen you every day of the last year, but when I opened my eyes, you were always gone,” Mother said. “Now I can't get enough of your handsome faces.” She reached gnarled hands toward Erich's cheek and mine, on either side of the table.

“It's good to have you home, Mother,” Erich said. In time he'd have to tell her about Ward Road and typhus, but not this first day.

Her back was to Father, who refused to join us at the table. Though he'd sworn his happiness would be complete only when Mother came home, having her among us reminded him of how hurt he'd been by her betrayal. Those first strange hours he couldn't bring himself to welcome her home wholeheartedly, and so he lay on his bed,
their
bed, with his arm over his eyes, as if the ten-watt bulb might blind him.

Mother inspected every corner of the apartment from her throne at the head of the table. I'd tried to tidy up, but she must have noticed the corners of the room blackened with accumulated dirt that I'd never quite scraped clean and the light fixture above the table speckled with dead bugs. In Vienna, Father used to say, “Frieda Shpann was born with a dishrag in one hand and a mop in the other.” Now she generously ignored the grime and disorder of our apartment. Nor did she mention all her beloved books, which I'd sold, or the way our room-divider sheets hung haphazardly, or the mattresses with cotton stuffing and straw poking through little holes I'd never gotten around to sewing up. She simply said, “Can you imagine how happy I am to be home? All we did, the other women and I, was talk about our families waiting for us on the outside.” She paused, hoping Father would say something, but he didn't. Mother motioned toward him, as if to ask,
Is he always like this? What should I do
? Glances bounced among the three of us, but no one said a word about Father.

We heard the Kawashimas next door quietly padding around their room in their stockinged feet, their teacups tinkling and their companionable voices rainwater-soft. Since the bombing, Mr. K's speech was a bit slurred.

On our side of the plywood wall, the tension grew thick.

Mother and Father needed time together alone, that's all, I reassured myself. Look how much time I'd needed to stop crying about Dovid; how many sleepless nights, how many mental boxing matches, to give up my own hurt and anger, to forgive Mother.

She was so frail, a gust of wind could have blown her over. Her hair was nearly white with a few auburn streaks. Making up for Father, I reached over and hugged her. “I'm so glad to have you home!” My eyes jumped to Father, back to Mother. We would have to leave them alone to talk to one another before the tension cracked our crumbling walls. I yanked Erich's arm and said, “We have deliveries to make, so we'll just take off and be back in an hour or two.”

Mother's eyes widened in alarm:
Don't leave me alone with him
, she seemed to say, and Erich pointed to the second chair.

“Sit,” he commanded.

Mother cleared her throat. “Jakob, come to the table. This is a family matter, and we must discuss it. Jakob? Can you hear me?”

“I can, Frieda.”

“Come, then.”

I jumped up to give Father the chair. It took monumental strength for Father to make the short trip from the bed to the table, but he managed it. He hadn't shaved in two days, and his eyes seemed to have sunk farther into their skeletal sockets.

“Jakob, it has been too long since I've heard a violin played with any artistry. Please, as a homecoming gift, will you play for us?”

Father glanced over at The Violin resting atop two rolled-up mattresses. Maybe he was conjuring it to leap across the room and tuck itself under his chin, since the divide between him and that corner of the room was so enormous. Mother sensed this and brought him The Violin, unsnapping its case and lifting it gently into his arms. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and placed it on the chin rest. I knew she would stand there for an hour, for a week, if necessary, until he raised The Violin to his chin and began to play.

His eyes were hauntingly sad. He drew the bow across the strings, frowning at the impure notes that forced him to tune the instrument. And then he played an adagio from a Brahms sonata, so sweet and melancholy that even Erich had tears in his eyes.

“That was sublime, Jakob,” Mother said, pulling her chair over next to him. “Now we will talk, yes?”

Father rested The Violin on the floor between his knees, and we four began a heartbreaking conversation, the gist of it being this: Michael O'Halloran had arranged for all of us to go to America. Mother said, “There are certain privileges that go with this sad situation, just as there were consequences this past year I've been separated from you, my dear ones.” He'd borrowed money, which he would wire to us by the end of September for our passage. Once we got to America, to that place called Santa Rosa, he'd have official divorce papers ready, and Mother and Father would immediately marry according to the laws of California, America.

I watched Father trying to form the question that plagued us all. “And he still loves you, this Michael O'Halloran?”

Mother shook her head. “No, Jakob. He remembers the girl I used to be, but I am not that person anymore. He knows where my heart is.”

“Then why is he doing this for us, Frieda? He is not a Jew. Tell me, why?”

“Michael O'Halloran understands what Hitler—may God curse him a thousand times—what this monster has done to Europe, to all of us Jews. Michael only wants to help.”

“I do not understand such a man, such a saint,” Father said gruffly.

“God knows, we've seen enough cruel people through these war years, haven't we, Jakob? Why should we question one who behaves like a decent human being? Now, first thing tomorrow, we must apply for proper papers so we can sail to America as soon as possible.”

“I will not go to America.”

Mother didn't respond for a long time. The Kawashimas next door grew as silent as snow so we'd forget they were there. Then Mother said firmly, “The children and I are going to America. There is no place else for us. I would like you to come with us.” She touched Father's arm; he shrank away. “But if you cannot, Jakob, please understand this clearly: We are going anyway.”

The shock of that statement was enough to propel Erich and me out of the apartment so our parents could have time to work all this through.

Our days passed in a fury of activity, and we were never sure how things rested with our parents. Who could think about it, with so much to do? We all needed to get our papers processed, book passage, and buy a few clothes with the newly released Hebrew Benevolent Society money so we wouldn't look like paupers when we landed in prosperous America. I wished I could step on American soil in loafers with shiny copper pennies on their tops; but instead, I'd be wearing the shoes I got for my harrowing Hangchow train trip in the autumn of 1943. Father nailed the heel back on crooked, so I looked a little drunk when I walked.

Also, we had to sell our few possessions to the even-poorer Chinese—our mattresses, our patched clothes and much-darned woolly socks, our rickety table and chairs and bookshelf, and one tin pot. The only thing left was Peaches.

“Erich, how much do you think you can get for a rusty, old, oil-guzzling bike like Peaches?”

He pretended to think hard. “It's got one good tire on it, not too patched. The bell works, if you like buzzers. I'd say, optimistically, it's worth about a bucket of stale sweat.”

“I know where I can get that much for you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

1945

“Prepare yourself for the chickens and the spitting tobacco,” I warned Mother and Father on their way to the train for an overnight in Hangchow.

They'd get to see the West Lake that I'd missed entirely when I made my odd little trip to that city for REACT. Erich and I hoped that twenty-four hours together would help Mother and Father work things out before our ship was to sail. Positive sign—Father actually left The Violin behind, which meant Mother would only have to compete with the music in his head, not in his hands.

As soon as they left for the depot, I packed our few remaining things while Erich fiddled some Viennese tunes, not too badly.

“Why, you
do
have some musical talent. You've done a terrific job of hiding it from Father all these years. I'm still hopeless, though.”

“Maybe I'll take up the violin again in America,” he teased. We were both giddy with freedom from our parents and with the limitless possibilities awaiting us in America. Still, we worried about Mother and Father.

“Oh, Erich, I can't bear to leave Father behind. Do you think he'll come with us?”

“Don't know. I haven't understood a single move he's made in years. Tell me I'm not like our father, Ilse.”

“He can be very sweet.” I remembered the times he saved me from Reb Chaim's clutches, and how readily he'd sacrificed The Violin, his most precious possession, for Erich's safety. “It wouldn't hurt you to be a little sweeter, you know.”

“Ach, what for?” Erich said, dispelling the sappy thought.

“Because no American girl will want to marry such a serious grouch.”

“Marry? Who said anything about marriage?”

“Erich, be honest. Are you in love with that—I don't know what to call her—Yuming person?”

His answer was one of those saucy American expressions we'd been practicing: “You've got rocks in your head!”

“Come on, I saw the two of you together that day. She likes you, and you looked at her, well, not the way you glare at Tanya.”

“Tanya's a pain in the neck!” Erich glanced off in the distance, or maybe in the past, and said, “Yuming is an interesting girl, if you like tripping on the edge of a cliff. She won't live to see twenty. Not for me anymore.” He pulled himself back to the present and waggled his eyebrows à la Groucho Marx. “I'll forget her when some busty American girl wraps her arms around my skinny body.”

This lighthearted banter felt wonderful after so many years of urgency and growling bellies. I stacked our few dishes to give to Mrs. Kawashima. My wild curls were visible in the mirror of a dinner plate, gleaming again since Mother had come home. The relief of turning all the domestic responsibilities over to her made me feel almost like a carefree girl again. And I'd thought I might not want to give up the
power
? Ha!