Shanghai Shadows (15 page)

“Oy, the hat. So gorgeous,” Tanya said dreamily.

That's how dull our lives in the ghetto were. A clutch of red felt, a tight ribbon bow, a couple of inches of netting, and a feather—that's all it took to hold us enthralled at the window like spectators at a soccer match as the dummy head slowly rotated for our entertainment.

“Guess what, Tanya?”

“Hmm?” She had her nose pressed to the window to catch the hat at every angle.

“The rebbe from the Mirrer Yeshiva came to talk to my father about marriage.”

Tanya jumped back from the window as if I'd poked her with a stick. “You're going to marry the rebbe? He's at least fifty years old!”

“No, no, one of his ghostly boys.”

“But what about Dovid?”

“Who says we'll ever see each other again? And anyway, I'm not going to marry the yeshiva boy.”

“He's handsome?”

“How would I know? I never saw him, but he's seen me on the street, and to hear the rebbe tell it, the boy's totally love struck.” Okay, I was bragging, and pleased that Tanya fell for it.

“Oh, Ilse, that's soooo romantic.”

“Romantic? Tanya Mogelevsky, look at me.” I slid between her and the window, blocking the hat. “Do I look like a girl who'd marry a rabbi? I'm not a bit religious, and we'd never, ever go to movies, because my brilliant husband would be studying a hundred hours a day, and anyway, movies aren't allowed in the yeshiva world.”

“No movies? Well, I don't know. I'll have to think about it.” Tanya shouldered me away from the window and turned back to the hat. The peacock feather shimmered its rainbow colors as the dummy head turned. “I've given it a lot of thought.”

“Two seconds' worth.”

“Enough to know what I'd do. I'd give up movies to marry a handsome, brooding rabbi.”

“Tanya, you can't be serious!”

“Oh, yes, Ilse, very serious. I'll make a wonderful rabbi's wife. I'll take care of everything so he can study as much as he likes. I'll clean our cottage and cook delicious kosher meals and sew all his clothes after the babies are asleep. Lots of babies.”

“Sounds perfect … ly wretched,” I said, but she didn't hear, because she was floating in her own dream.

“And I'm going to wear that gorgeous red confection under the
chuppah
on our wedding day, you'll see. He'll lift the veil and see my eyes, so full of love.”

I pictured the magnificent hat on Tanya's profusion of black curls, its feather tickling the underside of the wedding canopy, and tried to dredge up some feeling of joy for my friend. Curiously, what I felt was … betrayed.

I told Erich about Reb Chaim and the yeshiva boy who had his eye on me. “Marriage to a scholar, it wouldn't be so bad. At least you wouldn't starve.”

“Erich!” I found myself drumming his chest with my fists, tears spilling down my hot face. So much to cry about. Losses piled on top of losses, and not a single gain. Erich let me carry on this way for a few minutes, then grabbed both my wrists and pulled me toward him.

“You're a wreck since Dovid left. You'd be no good to REACT this way.” He paused, considering his next words. “I can't stand seeing you so unhappy. A little brotherly advice? You need to get out of here. The King of the Jews, he has the key. Go get it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

1944

I waited so long in the sun outside Ghoya's office that I about melted into a puddle of hot jelly. But finally, a peek at the devil.

The loathsome man sat on the front of his desk, swinging his little feet. He looked cool, and why not? A powerful fan blew at him from each side, as if he were the meeting place of the east and west winds. Such extravagant cool air, and with electricity rationed for the rest of us! But the cool wind revived me, and I got to work trying to enchant the man, the way yogis charm snakes.

I smiled, waiting for him to speak. “Ilse Shpann, sir,” I answered when he asked my name.

“Ilse Shpann, it is supreme pleasure,” he said in his peculiar English where
r
's were
l
's, and vice versa.

He never asked me to sit down. “Kind sir, I need to visit a certain doctor outside, on Avenue Joffre.”

“You have many fine Jewish doctors in Hongkew.” He swung one ankle over the other knee. His eyes sparkled. The little reptile was flirting with me!

“Yes, sir, but I have a particularly delicate problem.” I let him draw his own conclusions.

“Ah, Ghoya understands. And not married?”

“No, sir.” I tried to look ashamed.

“This is a pity, such a pretty redheaded girl not married.”

“So, you can see why I must consult with this doctor at once, sir?”

“Doctor's name?”

I handed him a slip of paper with the name and address of a German doctor, one of the refugees allowed to live outside the ghetto, since he'd come to Shanghai before 1939. Ghoya read it and read it, as though it were an indecipherable poem. Now his feet were together, swinging like a pendulum, with his heels thunking the desk.

He looked up at me with a zigzag grin. “Many pretty girls like you in Hongkew.” He smoothed back his greasy hair and pointed to my head. “Ghoya loves pretty girls with pretty curls. Ha-ha!” He laughed at his clever rhyme, eyeing me luridly.

I lowered my eyes as if his so-called compliment had enchanted me instead of turning me nauseous.

His eyes still fixed on me, he slapped the desk behind him, knocking over a fishbowl full of red and white wrapped candies. My mouth watered for just one of those peppermints and the feel of sticky candy lodged in my teeth. He left the peppermints spread across the desk, never offering me one, of course, while he located a pad, scribbled something in Japanese, and pounded it with a red stamp. Handing me a slip of paper, he said merrily, “Come back to see me. Ghoya likes redheaded girls!”

I'd charmed the snake into a one-month pass. As I backed toward the door—we weren't allowed to turn our backs on Ghoya—he said, “You know the name REACT?”

My heart skipped about forty beats. “REACT, sir?”

He leaped to the floor, like a child jumping out of a swing. “Pretty girl like you don't talk to REACT men. Bad men, stupid men.” He stared up into my face, his eyes cold and mean, then shouted, “Next!”

Mr. Schmaltzer generously gave Mother an hour a day to work at the bakery, but it was only a matter of weeks until he'd have to close. How could you run a bakery without flour or butter or sugar? And no one had money for his pastries, anyway. Even humble black bread was out of the reach of most of us. Instead of customers, Mr. Schmaltzer had flies and cockroaches and rats. Mother's hour at the bakery was mostly spent sweeping up the droppings.

So, it was Mother's hour at Mr. Schmaltzer's, and as soon as Father went to join his fellow grumps at the cafe, I planned to flee Hongkew for a glorious day in the city. But before Father left, there came a knock at the door.

“Ilse, go and see who.”

It was Reb Chaim with a boy so thin, the rebbe could slide him under our door. As soon as the boy saw me, he cast his eyes to the back wall and pulled at his patchy beard with sinewy hands.

Reb Chaim blustered in. “You should excuse me, miss, your father is at home?” Well, it wasn't like we had a gracious front hallway, with thick carpeting and flickering sconces. Reb Chaim could hardly overlook the fact that Father stood two feet away.

“Come in, come in.” Father jerked his head to remind me to vanish—this was man-to-man talk. I ducked into my corner of the room and dropped to the floor, with the sheet-curtain yanked around me. We called this privacy in the ghetto.

“Reb Shpann, let me not hit around the shrub,” the rebbe said in a conspiratorial whisper. “This is Shlomo. I told you about him. You remember?”

“Yes, Reb Chaim, but I also told you my daughter has a mind of her own.”

“Of course, of course. What woman doesn't? Our curse, ever since from Adam's rib was formed Eve.” I heard him slap his knee, chuckling.

Father forced up a weak chortle. I peeked around the curtain. There was Shlomo standing in the center of the room, his hat brushing the fly trap that hung from the ceiling. Towering over Father and Reb Chaim seated at the table, Shlomo rocked to and fro, as if his feet were screwed to the floor.

“Reb Shpann, Shlomo is a very enlightened boy. A great scholar he'll be someday. Already he's memorized six tractates, and he studies fourteen, sixteen hours a day.”

Shlomo bent his chalk-white goose neck toward Father. His back was rounded from poring over the books so many hours.
By the time he reaches sixty
, I thought,
he'll be kissing his belly button
.

He wasn't at all like Dovid, who was so handsome with his back straight, his eyes dazzling, his cheeks smooth and rosy.

“Reb Shpann, here is the heart of the matter. Shlomo believes it is
beshert
that he should marry your daughter. You know
beshert
?”

“No, Reb Chaim, I do not,” Father said impatiently.

“Fate. Their marriage is ordained.” Reb Chaim looked up at the ceiling, then brushed his palms back and forth, as if to say, “
See, Lord? We've taken care of that little earthly task for You
.”

Father beckoned Shlomo to come closer, and the ghost shuffled over toward Father, who asked, “He speaks German, Reb Chaim?”

“Enough like Yiddish, he'll understand.”

Father stood up and put his arm around Shlomo. I thought the ghost might flicker away with human touch. Father said, “I'm sure you're a fine boy, a brilliant learner, and you'll make a kind husband, but not for my daughter, you understand? With my daughter it is definitely not
beshert.”

“So you say,” Reb Chaim singsonged like a warning. “Come, Shlomo.” At the door Reb Chaim said, “You'll call me if you change your mind? You can find me at the Beth Aharon shul.”

Once they were gone, Father fished me out of my corner. “You heard?”

“Every word. Thank you, thank you, Father.”

“Ilse, my daughter,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Believe me, I have higher hopes for my grandchildren than Shlomo. The boy does not look at all musical.”

“My thoughts exactly, Father.” Well, not
exactly
.

Then Father said, “When the day comes, Daughter, you will choose your own husband, and I trust you will choose wisely. Look how well your mother did.” His weathered face crinkled in a smile that made my heart flood with love.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

1944

I walked around the International Settlement, absorbing the sights and sounds and smells. I caught glimpses of Liu here and there, negotiating a variety of schemes, and once nabbed him by the back of his shirt.

“Have work to do, missy,” he said, squirming away from me. “Important job for big lady on Bubbling Well Road.”

“Wait. Have you eaten today?” The customary, polite Chinese greeting.

He tapped the ground with his crusty boot toe and thrust out his skinny belly with the knife tucked into his waist. “Liu don't eat much,” he said jovially, as though starvation were a badge of honor.

Survival, war was all about survival. I thought about Dovid. Somehow his giving me permission to be selfish for my own survival freed me to be curiously generous.

I reached into my pocket for a thin coin. So what if I went without lunch? I was used to hunger gnawing at my belly. I offered the coin to Liu.

“No no no no no no no!” he said. “Beggar! Not Liu! I work job. You got job for me, missy?”

“Not today.”

He shrugged his sharp-boned shoulders. “Okay,” and he scampered away in search of a paying customer.

In the Old City, I watched a group of artisans carve ivory and jade into incredibly intricate tiny figures. A few steps away, professional letter writers enticed customers with chants that I could only guess at: “Your mother in the provinces wants to hear from you one last time before she closes her eyes to join the ancestors.” “If your sweetheart doesn't get a letter, she'll marry Wang from the glassworks.” “There is an inheritance waiting, you only have to write and ask for it.”

I walked through the street market and marveled at the wild fowl in bamboo cages, their feathers snowing all around me. A woman who looked like she'd been alive for centuries tucked a skinny live chicken under her arms, trapping its wings. She hailed a rickshaw boy, who already had a customer, but he lowered the shaft to the ground anyway so the woman could tie the chicken to the bar of the rickshaw. The barefooted boy lifted the rickshaw and trotted with the chicken flapping up and down and protesting noisily. The passenger plugged his ears as the chicken screeched, “Quawk! Quawk!”

The woman tried to hold the chicken in place, plodding as best she could alongside the rickshaw. But the poor old thing hobbled on bound feet in threadbare silk slippers no bigger than a baby's shoes. I wanted to help, but how? Help the chicken? Help the rickshaw runner? Help the old woman with the broken feet? I inched closer until the woman took notice of me. She shouted something to the boy, who dropped the rickshaw bars with a resounding clatter and stared at me. The woman, her face as creased as a walnut, gawked at my crowd-stopping nest of red hair. She smiled, not a tooth in her head. Even the chicken stopped flailing and peered at me as if he'd never seen a redhead, either.

Four years in China, and I was
still
every inch a foreigner.

Back in Hongkew that evening, I couldn't wait to get Erich alone to tell him about my day. We'd set up a chessboard on the curb, and while he studied his moves, I described the junks and sampans in Soochow Creek as though he'd never seen them before.

“The houseboats are jammed together, square and brown, with planks from one boat to another, so people can cross over. Each boat has a different gigantic eye painted on either side of the bow. Without those eyes, the boat couldn't see where it was going. That's what they say.”