Rising Sun, Falling Shadow

by Daniel Kalla

  Sunny gave his shoulder another squeeze before letting go. “Just so long as you do not try anything reckless.”

  “I won’t,” he mumbled.

  “You must promise me—” Sunny began to insist, but a panicky voice cut her off.

  “Franz!” Esther croaked from the doorway.

  Sunny looked over to see Esther swaying at the threshold. Her face was ghostly pale against the collar of her black coat, and she propped herself up in the doorframe with a trembling hand.

  Franz rushed over and slid his arm behind Esther’s back. “What is it, Essie?”

  Esther fumbled for her belly and her coat flopped open. She clutched her bulging abdomen. “The baby,” she whispered.

  “Is it coming? Now?”

  Esther only grimaced. Sunny’s eyes were drawn to the woman’s legs, where dark red blood trickled down the inside of her knee.

  “When did the bleeding begin?” Sunny demanded.

  “Fifteen minutes, maybe,” Esther whimpered uncharacteristically. Her expression exuded sheer panic. “It keeps coming. Clots, too. What is happening to my baby?”

  Before Sunny could reply, Esther’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. Her legs buckled and she collapsed in Franz’s arms.

  Chapter 4

  Esther didn’t regain consciousness until Franz lowered her limp body onto the nearest stretcher. She stared up at him through glazed eyes. “Ach, Franz, will I lose the baby?”

  Franz knew it was not the time for false promises. Besides, he was even more concerned for her survival. “It’s too early to say, Essie.”

  “But it is likely?” Esther asked calmly.

  Sunny looked up from where she crouched at the bedside, preparing to insert an intravenous needle into Esther’s arm. She squeezed Esther’s hand supportively but said nothing.

  Franz ran his fingers along the firm mound of Esther’s abdomen, pausing every few inches to press deeper and to study her face for a response. “Does this hurt?” he asked.

  “There is no pain. Only bleeding. So much blood,” she said, panting heavily.

  Franz pulled his hand from her belly and glanced over at Sunny. “At least it’s not an abruptio,” he said as much to himself as to the others.

  Sunny continued to focus on Esther’s arm. She poked the needle through the skin and eased it deeper until a drop of blood formed, confirming the tip had entered a vein.

  “Abruptio?” Esther grimaced. “What is this, Franz?”

  “In the final months of a pregnancy, there are only two likely causes for such heavy bleeding: placenta previa or placenta abruptio.” He deliberately kept his tone clinical. “Both are related to complications with the placenta, or the afterbirth, which nourishes the fetus. In abruptio, the placenta separates from the wall of the womb and causes bleeding. The mother experiences pain and tenderness in her belly. In previa, the placenta lies low—too low—below the fetus, at the level of the cervical opening. It is painless, but the bleeding can be heavy. I suspect that must be your diagnosis.”

  Esther nodded bravely. “What is the treatment?”

  “We must deliver the baby by Caesarean section. Immediately.”

  Esther’s thin lips tightened until their colour almost vanished. “But Franz,” she murmured, “the baby is only seven and half months. It is too soon.”

  “There’s no choice, Essie. You have already lost too much blood.”

  “I have plenty more.” Esther mustered a small laugh. “Too much blood is a family curse. The doctors in Vienna used to have to bleed my Onkel Klaus regularly. Please, Franz. Can we not wait a day or two more and see if the bleeding stops?”

  Franz placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Essie, you will only continue to hemorrhage.”

  “I am willing to take that chance,” she said in a small voice.

  The intravenous connected to the bottle, Sunny rose to her feet. She tenderly pushed the hair away from Esther’s brow, but when she spoke her tone was firm. “Without you and your beating heart, there is no baby, Essie. We need to deliver right away. It is not a matter of choice.”

  Esther’s eyes defiantly held Sunny’s for a moment, and then her face crumpled. She raised her hands to cover her tears. “Yes, of course, you would know best,” she said, her voice breaking. “Do what has to be done.”

  “It’s for the best, really,” Franz murmured, embarrassed by the hollowness of his words.

  Esther lowered her hands, then looked from Franz to Sunny and back to Franz again. “Please, you must promise me, Franz. Whatever happens during the surgery, you will save the baby first.”

  Franz and Sunny exchanged charged looks before Franz turned back to Esther. “You know we will do everything possible for you and—”

  Esther reached up and clutched his wrist with surprising force. “But if it anything goes wrong, you will save the baby! Please, Franz.”

  Franz clasped her hand in his and held it tightly for a moment. A silent promise.

  Another nurse, Berta Abeldt, arrived pushing a portable stretcher ahead of her. “The operating room has been prepared, Dr. Adler,” she announced.

  Together, they lifted Esther onto the stretcher and then Berta wheeled her away.

  As Franz scrubbed for surgery, his thoughts drifted back to the night of Hannah’s birth. His wife, Hilde, had been so excited when her water finally broke a week after her due date that she cried from joy rather than discomfort, at the first contraction. Between labour pains, Franz and Hilde playfully argued over names. They both favoured “Albert” for a boy, but they could not agree on a girl’s name; Franz preferred “Elise,” while Hilde had her heart set on “Hannah.”

  By Hilde’s sixth hour of labour, Franz sensed trouble. The baby’s head had hardly progressed down the birth canal. After twelve hours, Hilde was too exhausted to push any more. Franz’s mentor, Dr. Ignaz Malkin, had rushed into the hospital at four in the morning to perform an emergency Caesarian section. Franz had to beg the older surgeon to allow him into the delivery room; husbands were always kept outside. Franz had never felt as terrified or helpless. Hannah came out navy blue and not breathing. Dr. Malkin’s vigorous rubbing finally coaxed a breath or two from the tiny girl. But the damage had been done. The newborn’s brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long. Franz soon noticed how little his daughter’s left arm and leg moved compared with the limbs on her right side. He was devastated, but Hilde remained unfazed. She persuaded him to be grateful for the miracle of their daughter’s survival. And he was, too, until Hannah’s fourth day of life, when Hilde developed a fever. Less than twenty-four hours later, his wife was dead from an overwhelming post-operative infection.

  “Esther is on the operating table,” Sunny announced from over his shoulder, snapping him out of the memory. “We are ready, Franz.”

  His heart pounded in his throat. Esther and he were closer than most siblings. They had been the only adults in either of their families to escape Nazi-occupied Vienna, four and a half years earlier. During their first three years in Shanghai, Esther had lived with Hannah and Franz in a one-bedroom apartment. Esther was more a mother than an aunt to Hannah. Franz could not imagine life without her.

  Sunny reached a hand out to him. “I have performed several Caesarian sections, Franz. If you would prefer . . .”

  He smiled grimly. “I have to do this, Sunny. I promised her.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  As Franz stepped into the operating room, he reminded himself that there were no true medical parallels between Hilde and Esther’s conditions. Still, he had to force himself to slow his breathing and focus on the procedure, not on Esther, who was already on the table, covered from the neck down. Her pregnant belly rose from a gap left between two sheets. Her abdomen was painted with brown iodine in preparation for surgery, but her complexion better matched the white sheets draping her. She man
aged a quivering smile for him. “If it’s a girl, she must be “Ruth.” But if we have a boy, Simon and I both like the name “Jakob.” After your father, Franz.”

  “A good name, Essie.” The lump in his throat almost choked away his words.

  Jakob Adler had outlived his younger son, Esther’s first husband, Karl, by only a few weeks. Emphysema, not the Nazis, had taken his life, but it still troubled Franz that Jakob had survived long enough to witness his younger son’s lynching.

  Sunny stepped up to the operating table, across from Franz. Another nurse, Liese, stood at the head of the table, assuming the role of anaesthetist. She held a breathing mask and a bottle of ether that Simon had managed to secure through the black market just the day before he was interned.

  Franz leaned closer to his sister-in-law. “Are you ready, Essie?”

  “Not for any of it—not surgery, not motherhood or . . .” She uttered a small laugh. “But please do not let that stop you.”

  Franz looked over to Liese and nodded.

  “I am going to put you to sleep now, Frau Lehrer,” Liese said as she lowered the mask over Esther’s face and tilted the bottle, slowly dripping the ether.

  The sweet, acrid smell of the anaesthetic filled the room. After seven or eight drops had saturated the mask, Esther’s eyelids began to flutter, and soon her eyes closed altogether.

  Franz’s stomach flip-flopped as he realized again that, despite the routine nature of the procedure, so much would be beyond his control. He lifted a scalpel from the surgical tray, surprised by the steadiness of his hand as he lowered the blade to the skin below Esther’s navel. He poked the tip through, drawing blood, and waited for Esther’s reaction. She remained still and silent, so he dug the blade in deeper and sliced vertically downward until he reached the level of her pelvic bones.

  Sunny followed the blade with a sponge, dabbing away the blood. As soon as Franz pulled the scalpel back, she eased two retractors inside the long incision and spread the skin apart. Franz reached his gloved hand into the wound until he touched the firm bulge of Esther’s uterus, which tightened against his fingers in a sudden contraction. Once the spasm passed, he placed the scalpel against the womb and cut through the brownish-red muscle, being careful not to let the blade penetrate too deeply and nick the baby tucked inside. Once the scalpel pierced the uterus, dark blood gushed out through the incision, obscuring Franz’s view

  Sunny sponged up as much of the blood as she could, and Franz glimpsed a tiny hand and arm poking through the incision. He dropped his scalpel on the tray and slid his hands inside Esther’s uterus until they wrapped around the infant’s warm, slippery body. Franz resisted the urge to yank the baby free. Instead, he gingerly eased it out, while Sunny clamped off and then cut the umbilical cord.

  The tiny boy weighed no more than four pounds, but those details hardly registered with Franz. Covered in mucus and blood, the baby flopped limply in his hands. His skin was as blue as the Danube, and he neither moved nor breathed.

  Franz went cold. For the first time since Hannah’s birth, he froze inside the operating room.

  Berta plucked the child from his hands, then swaddled him in a towel and laid him on the pillow on top of the table that had been set up as a makeshift cradle.

  Franz held his own breath as he studied the baby’s chest, desperate to see a sign of respiration. But the boy remained absolutely still.

  “Is he?” Sunny asked slowly.

  Unwilling to meet her eyes, Franz just stared at the table.

  Berta applied her knuckles to the baby’s small chest, her fist covering its entire surface as she rubbed. “Take a breath, Kleiner.”

  Nothing.

  “Please, Schatzi,” Berta cooed. “Breathe for your auntie.”

  Drops of perspiration ran down Berta’s brow as she continued to rub, murmuring gentle words of encouragement.

  “Franz!” Sunny called. “We have an arterial bleed!”

  Franz spun and saw that Sunny had plunged her hand wrist-deep through Esther’s incision. Bright red blood was welling up around Sunny’s arm and running down the sides of Esther’s abdomen.

  “Damn it to hell,” Franz muttered, realizing that one of the arteries that fed the placenta must have ruptured spontaneously once the pressure of the fetus’s head against it had been released. He grabbed for the biggest clamp on the tray and swung back toward Esther. “Let go, Sunny.”

  She hesitated. “You won’t be able to see anything through all the blood.”

  “Then I will do it blindly.”

  Sunny pulled her hand free. Almost immediately, the blood began cascading over the edges of the surgical wound like the overflow from a backed-up sink.

  “Dr. Adler.” Liese spoke in a hush from where she stood at the head of the operating table, her fingers against Esther’s neck. “The pulse is very weak.”

  Franz thrust his hand back inside the wound, blood engulfing his glove and warming his hand. He felt around until his fingers found the left uterine ligament, and the artery and vein below it. He firmly clamped them off. He shot his hand over to the other side of the womb and explored until his fingers gripped the structures on the right side. Sunny handed him a second clamp, which he fastened onto the blood vessels. He hesitated before slowly withdrawing his hand.

  Sunny wadded sponges into the wound. The blood soaked through them on contact. She prepared to stuff more inside, but Franz waved her off. “Wait, Sunny.”

  They both stared at the incision. No fresh blood appeared.

  “The pulse, Liese?” Franz addressed the anaesthetist.

  “There is little change, Dr. Adler.” Liese paused. “Perhaps a smidgeon stronger.”

  Franz pointed to the clamps protruding from Esther’s abdomen. “Even if she survives, I have to remove her uterus now. Ach, there will be no more children.”

  “What choice was there?”

  He dropped his chin to his chest, defeated. “I promised her.”

  Sunny’s gaze shifted to Berta. Her eyes lit up. “Franz, look!”

  He turned to see Berta cradling the baby in her arms and singing softly. For a moment, Franz wondered if the song was a prayer of mourning that he didn’t recognize, but her words were in Yiddish and the tune was that of a lullaby. Then Franz heard what sounded like mewing. And then he saw something move. It was the baby’s hand.

  Chapter 5

  February 23, 1943

  Sunny peeked through the curtains that separated Esther’s bed from the others on the ward. She watched with affection tinged with envy as Esther eased little Jakob’s head up to her breast. The infant rooted around for a moment or two before his mouth latched on to the nipple.

  Sunny had not expected either mother or child to survive the traumatic birth. And yet, less than a week later, both were thriving. Esther’s skin was still pale, almost translucent, but she had recovered as quickly and resiliently as her son had.

  Esther smiled bashfully. “He seems to be finally grasping the concept.”

  “I would say so,” Sunny said as she watched the baby suckle with gusto. “How are you, Essie?”

  “Tired. Lost. Useless.” She sighed contentedly. “And still so very grateful for the nes—the miracle—of this little one’s survival.” She shook her head. “Sunny, if not for you and Franz . . .”

  Sunny raised her hands in mock denial. “It had far more to do with your stubbornness. Both of you. Your insistence on surviving, despite the odds.” She stepped forward, letting the curtains fall shut behind her. “Do you have any pain?”

  “Nothing worth complaining about.”

  “Have you been eating?”

  “Here and there,” Esther said as she gently rocked Jakob. “He doesn’t give me much time for such luxuries.”

  “But you must, Essie. Otherwise there will be no milk for Jakob.”

  “Of c
ourse.” Esther wrapped her other arm protectively around her son.

  Sunny studied the baby’s face. His rosy cheeks stood out against Esther’s pale flesh. “He’s beautiful.”

  Esther laughed. “You really think so? To my eye, he looks a little too much like his father.”

  “He could do worse.”

  The smile slid from Esther’s lips. “I wonder if Simon even knows.”

  “Joey went out to the camp to tell him.”

  Esther looked away. “Knowing might only make it that much harder for him.”

  Sunny could not disagree and lapsed into silence as she continued to watch Esther feed her baby. After a few minutes, Jakob’s eyes closed and his lips stopped smacking. Esther gently pried him free of her breast. She looked up at Sunny. “Would you burp him for me?”

  Sunny eagerly tucked Jakob against her chest. As his warm body undulated with his gentle breathing, the longing for a child of her own stirred inside her.

  Esther’s eyes brimmed. “He likes you.”

  Sunny patted Jakob’s back and rocked him back and forth. She pressed her cheek to his smooth head. The scents of talc and baby only intensified her heightened emotions. “Let’s hope he does. The poor little fellow has to live with us for the foreseeable future.”

  Esther frowned. “Sunny, I have been thinking about our living arrangements. I wonder if it would not be best—” She stopped in mid-sentence as the curtains swooshed apart.

  “Simon?” Sunny gasped, shocked to see his tall frame filling the gap.

  Simon’s hair stuck up in messy spikes. His pinstriped suit was stained across the sleeves and torn below one pocket. He looked thin, frail and exhausted. But he sported a huge smile as he rushed to his wife’s side. “Gorgeous! Oh, I can’t even trust my eyes! I must be dreaming!”

  “Simon, I . . . I don’t . . .” Esther sputtered as he swallowed her up in an embrace.