by S. J. Rozan
Until the border! As the whistle blew and the train chugged from the Italian customs station, such cheers erupted! Strangers hugged and champagne bottles appeared by magic. One gentleman jumped from his seat and burst into Italian song. I allowed Paul champagne because I imagined you would have, and took a small glass myself. Briefly we celebrated; then the tumult died down, as all of us, exhausted by worry and weakened by relief, turned to quiet conversations or private thoughts.
Are you well, Mama? I must tell you, as the train pulled out of the Hauptbahnhof I very nearly leapt from it and refused to leave Salzburg without you! But I forced myself to remain. You’ve made me responsible for Paul’s safety and I intend to carry out my charge so you will be proud of me when you arrive. And I hope and pray that will be sooner than we expect. Three months is not fast enough! Please do whatever you must—sell everything, badger the steamship lines, cause a nuisance at travel offices—until you book an earlier passage! Please, Mama, I won’t rest until I hear that you and Uncle Horst have cleared the border.
Now, as to Paul and myself, you mustn’t worry. People show great kindness when they learn we’re traveling alone. The situation on this ship, in any case, is quite extraordinary. Everything is teak, glowing brass, and thick carpets. As we boarded this morning, streamers flew and in the Grand Saloon the ship’s orchestra played merry tunes—quite well, I’m sure, but unnervingly discordant in the circumstances. Our stateroom is small but well appointed. Our suitcases, though battered, are intact and holding up nicely. The passengers are looked after by stewards who treat us as guests traveling for business or pleasure, though fully two-thirds are fellow Jews in our situation—refugees, let us use the word.
The emotions among us are so mixed, Mama, so hard to describe! Relief. Sorrow. Anger. Fear for the future. Horror and disgust, as we hear whispered stories of brutalities perpetrated in Germany. Can it be that Austria, now that we have lost our independence, could stoop as low? None believe it, but Mama, guard your tickets! If you and Uncle Horst cannot find an earlier ship, then train it must be, and please take great care until you depart. Urge Uncle Horst to rein in his temper and live in a way so as not to be noticed—oh, Mama, I’m serious but I laugh to see what I’ve written! The very words you spoke to me! And here I repeat them to you for Uncle Horst, as though you need them.
I can’t wait for the day when we’re together again! In Shanghai Paul and I will ready a home, and when you arrive we’ll rush to meet you. Perhaps, in years to come, bedtime tales of the Chinese adventures of the Gilder family will be told to wide-eyed children, who will then dream wonderful dreams.
Paul sends his love, and promises to write though I think he will not. But no matter; I will faithfully correspond for us both. Please, please, Mama, come soon!!!
With all my heart,
Your Rosalie
In the silence I became aware of comings and goings in the Waldorf lobby. A bellhop pushed a luggage cart across the carpet. Well-dressed men and women read newspapers and sipped coffee. If you ignored the taxis beyond the doors, this could be the saloon of a great ocean liner itself.
I looked at Alice Fairchild. “I don’t understand. These were Jews escaping the Nazis? But—they were going to Shanghai?”
“It was their only choice.”
“What do you mean? I thought they went to other countries in Europe, or came here.”
“Survivors did, after the war. But as the Nazis rose in the thirties, countries all over the world closed their doors. Everyone knew what was happening, but no government was willing to deal with a flood of desperate refugees.”
“Even the U.S.?”
“The U.S. had small quotas by country and looked at the Jews as Germans, Austrians, Poles, wherever they were from. All the normal paperwork was required.”
“This is a surprise?” Joel asked me. “There were Chinese quotas, too, you know.”
“I know that. But I thought—”
“It was just you? Wrong.”
I sipped tea to hide my annoyance that Joel had caught me out being ignorant, and in front of the client, too. “Well, but Shanghai? It seems so . . . unlikely.”
“I’m sure it did to them, too,” Alice said. “But visas were relatively easy to get, and often passengers off ships weren’t asked for papers in any case. Anyone who could get there could stay. It was the only place.”
“How many refugees went?”
“Twenty thousand.”
“Twenty thousand?” Where had I been during world history class?
“The story’s not well known.” Alice read my mind. “It’s been eclipsed by the war, the concentration camps. They began arriving in numbers in 1937. By 1942, fighting in Europe and the Pacific had closed the routes.”
“But 1937—that’s when Japan invaded China.” I hadn’t slept through world history completely, after all. “The Japanese let them in?”
“Shanghai’s open port was what made it wealthy. That early, Japan wasn’t planning on war with the West and saw no reason to change anything.”
Alice looked at Joel, then at me. “Rosalie Gilder was eighteen, her brother Paul fourteen, when they fled Salzburg by train for Trieste, to board the Conte Biancamano. Their mother, Elke, a widow, and her brother, Horst Peretz, had tickets to Shanghai three months later by the overland route—Trans-Siberian Railway to a ship at Dairen.”
I asked, “Why didn’t they all go together?”
“Germany had annexed Austria a month before. Extermination wasn’t yet the Nazis’ plan for the Jews; they meant to force them out. They’d arrest Jewish men, and only let them go once their families produced travel documents. That happened to Horst. Elke was able to get train tickets, so he was released, but three months was a frighteningly long time to wait. She moved heaven and earth to get berths on a ship leaving sooner, and managed two. She sent her children. She hoped she and Horst could follow on another ship.”
“Did they?”
“No.”
“So they went by train?”
“They never got out.”
My gaze fell to the photo again, sister and brother smiling on a windy day. I looked at Joel. His face was carefully blank. It occurred to me he must have grown up hearing countless tragic variations on this same story.
“In the letter you see a reference to their suitcases,” Alice resumed briskly. “Jews who left weren’t allowed to take much money, or anything valuable. Paul and Rosalie packed only clothing and a few household items—a pair of pewter candlesticks, for example.”
“What happened to things people left behind?”
“The Nazis seized them. Most can’t be traced. My work involves trying to recover the ones that can—paintings, antiques. In this case, though, that’s not what I’m after. As Rosalie predicted, Paul turned out to be not much of a correspondent. But he was good with his hands. He’d built hidden compartments into the suitcases, where they concealed their mother’s jewelry.”
Joel raised his eyebrows. “That’s why she says the suitcases are intact.”
“Yes. She was telling her mother they’d held on to the jewelry. Earning a living in Shanghai was hard for the refugees, and these were teenagers. The jewelry was their safety net.”
“What happened to them? Rosalie and Paul?”
“That’s actually unclear. After the end of the war they can’t be traced. You can imagine what chaos those times were. Record-keeping wasn’t anyone’s priority. Now, as I’m sure you know, Shanghai’s in the middle of a building boom.”
I nodded. That was something I did know.
“A month ago, excavation for a tower in what had been the International Settlement, in a place called Jiangming Street, unearthed a carved box containing five pieces of jewelry. I was able to identify it as Rosalie Gilder’s.” Reaching into her briefcase again, she handed us photographs of a necklace, two rings, and two bracelets. “I represent the grandchildren of Horst Peretz, Rosalie and Paul’s uncle. He’d sent his daughter to live in Switz
erland in 1935. She survived the war. My clients are her sons.
“The Chinese government considers anything found on their soil Chinese cultural patrimony, not to be removed from the country without permission. In this case, because the jewelry is so clearly European in origin, I was able to persuade them to negotiate. I went to Shanghai, and things were going smoothly until a few days ago, when the jewelry, and a midlevel official from the Shanghai Ministry of Culture, disappeared.”
“The official ran off with the jewelry?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know that, do I?” Her eyes sparkled. “But I have reason to think that he—Wong Pan is his name; this is his picture—arrived in New York two days ago.” She handed us photos of a round-faced man.
“Is the jewelry very valuable?” I asked.
“By jewelry standards, no. Each piece is probably worth between twenty and forty thousand dollars. But for a Chinese bureaucrat, you can see the temptation. To my clients, of course, it’s priceless.
“So now you can see why I need you both. Under most circumstances, if I were trying to sell antique jewelry in New York, I’d head to the Diamond District.” She nodded at Joel. New York’s Diamond District on Forty-seventh Street is almost exclusively the province of Orthodox Jews.
“Except maybe if you were Chinese.” I began to catch on.
“Exactly. Then I might try Canal Street, even though I understand antiques aren’t Canal Street’s specialty.”
“No, those shops deal mostly in new pieces. Still . . .”
“Yes, exactly. So I’d like you to show these photographs around and see if anything’s turned up.”
Joel studied the photos. “And if it has?”
“If you find someone who’s bought any, let them know I’m in New York and interested in recovering it. Between us, the family’s prepared to buy the jewelry back, to save years of headaches. You might stress I’m not the long arm of Chinese law.”
“What if we get a lead on the bureaucrat? Wong Pan?”
“If he still has the jewelry, I’ll be willing to deal with him. I’m not crazy about someone profiting from a stunt like this, but my charge is the assets. Now”—Alice sat back—“I have to tell you, I have another, more personal reason for my interest in this case. I was born in Shanghai. In those years.”
Joel did the gallant thing. “How can that be? Someone as young as you?”
“You’re a very sweet liar. My parents were American missionaries. We spent two and a half years in a Japanese internment camp after Pearl Harbor. Of course I was very young—then.” She smiled. “Most of my memories are from the camp, not Shanghai itself, and they’re not particularly pleasant. Still, when this case came along, it did seem like something I’d want to see through. As if somehow it might, a tiny bit, redeem that experience. I’m not sure that makes any sense.”
Joel said, “It does to me.”
Personally, I had doubts about experiences being redeemable, but I kept them to myself.
We had more tea and coffee while the conversation turned to fees, expenses, and reports. Alice was Joel’s client, so he took the lead, and that was fine with me. I listened, put in my two cents when it was wanted, and tried not to yield to the hypnotic combination of jet lag and the Waldorf.
Finally, retainer checks and receipts having been written and passed around, Alice said, “You’ll have to excuse me. That Shanghai flight’s a long one, and my poor body’s not sure what day it is, let alone what time. And I’ve scheduled meetings with other clients over the next few days, since I’m in New York. Lydia, you just got back from California, didn’t you? You’re probably looking forward to the end of this meeting, too.” I tried to deny it, but she had my number. “I’ll go up to my room and let you two get started. Thank you.”
Joel and I stood, shook her hand, and watched her cross the lobby.
“Well, Chinsky,” Joel said, “ready to do the bloodhound thing?”
“Sure. Thanks for calling me in.”
“Chinsky, as far as Chinese PIs, you’re at the top of my list. I mean, it’s a short list, but still.”
“Gee, thanks.” I had taken a few steps when I realized Joel was still staring toward the elevators, chewing his lower lip. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. I feel like something’s off.”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, she’s a shiksa. Her parents were missionaries. It’s an odd profession for a shiksa, Holocaust asset recovery.”
“Maybe she converted.”
He gave me a pitying look. “Trust me on this, bubbaleh.”
“Okay. But so? There must be money in it. She probably gets a percentage or something.”
“If she finds anything. And she’d be on retainer, in case she doesn’t. But it’s frustrating. Like she said, most assets can’t be traced. When they can, ownership takes years to prove. Half the time, you never do, and you don’t get your client’s goods back. Everyone I know who does that work thinks of it like a religious calling.”
“She does have that air about her.”
“Yes. The question is, why?”
“Because her parents were missionaries?”
Joel rolled his eyes. We turned and headed to the door. Casually, Joel asked, “Speaking of work, how’s your partner?”
“You’re subtle as a ton of bricks, Pilarsky. I haven’t seen him in a while.” As though it explained anything, I added, “I’ve been away.”
“Mmm. I heard you guys were having problems.”
“Did you? Where?”
“Around. It’s true?”
“Why? You want to go into business with one of us?”
“With you, in a minute. We’d be unstoppable. Cute little Chinese chick and a fat Jewish alte kacker, clients would be falling over each other. No, seriously, it’s just that you guys work well together. That’s not so easy to find.”
That showed a surprising sensitivity, coming from Joel, but I didn’t want to get into it. “He seems to think I’m better off without him.”
“Who asked him?”
“Certainly not me. Listen, is this important? Like, does it have to do with this case?”
Joel smiled and suddenly bellowed,
“You’re nothing without me!
Without me you’re nothing at all—”
“No!” I put my hands to my ears. He stopped, and I asked, “What?”
“City of Angels. Coleman and Zippel. Last of the great Broadway musicals, and it’s about a private eye, too! You should see it, Chinsky.”
“Where’s it playing?”
“Nowhere. Closed years ago.”
“Then how do I see it?”
“Your problem, kiddo. You need anything before we start?”
“No,” I sighed. “I’m good.”
“Okay.” Joel smiled beatifically. “Go. Have fun.”
2
It was too late to start working my way through the jewelry shops of Canal Street; by the time I got downtown they’d all be closed. I was tempted to go home to bed. If I did, though, I’d spring wide awake in a few hours and spend the rest of the night staring at the ceiling.
I headed for the dojo. I’d worked out in California, but that wouldn’t cut much ice with Sensei Chung. All he knew was I hadn’t been around for a month. I suited up, stretched, and offered to take a class of younger students through their forms. Sensei bowed, accepting the offer. I worked with the kids for forty minutes, until they, and I, were sweaty and panting. Then Sensei dismissed them and smiled, ready to show me why it wasn’t a good idea to disappear.
I got home exhausted enough that I had hopes of falling asleep and getting back on New York time. I found my mother watching a soap opera on the Cantonese cable channel.
“Oh, will you be home for dinner?” she asked innocently. “I think there are vegetables.” I peeked into the kitchen and saw mountains of chicken, broccoli, peppers, and ginger chopped and ready to stir-fry.
Sometimes this transpar
ent kind of thing flips my switch. Our deal is, I’ll live here as long as she lives here, so she won’t be alone; but she doesn’t get to give me a hard time about where or when I come and go. Or whether I’m home for dinner.
But I had been away a month. Besides, I was starving.
“Ma, it looks great. Let me change, and I’ll cook.”
“You make the chicken dry. Go shower. Dinner will be ready when you come out.”
Which meant she’d already made two people’s worth of rice.
Clean, dry, and full—truth be told, my mother’s a great cook—I headed for bed at a ridiculously early hour. Which turned out to be a mistake. Sensei Chung’s private lesson and my mother’s stir-fry were no match for jet lag, and though I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow, by midnight I was, in fact, staring at the ceiling.
I tried deep breathing, Advil, counting sheep, and everything else I could think of, but I couldn’t get any closer to sleep than a stone skimming the surface. Around two I gave up. I switched on the light and looked for something to do.
The image of the skimming stone brought to mind a vast ocean, and that brought a ship. I went to my desk and looked at the photos: the jewelry, Rosalie and Paul Gilder, Wong Pan. I reread the letter. I wondered if there were others at the Jewish Museum. I wondered what had become of Rosalie, of her brother. It wasn’t relevant to the job I’d been hired to do, but I wondered.
Ah, the magic of what my mother refers to as the Interweb. A search for “Rosalie Gilder” on the Jewish Museum Web site brought me to Holocaust/Survivors/Documents/Shanghai/Gilder.
