Rising Sun, Falling Shadow

by Daniel Kalla

  Charlie tossed the saboteur’s body aside and yanked the gun from his waistband. He aimed at the second man, who was sprinting across the snow, making for the lane. But Charlie lowered his weapon without firing a shot.

  Franz stared at him questioningly.

  “The soldiers out front.” Charlie motioned to street. “If they hear more gunshots . . .”

  Franz watched the man disappear behind one of the apartment buildings in the lane. They could never catch up to him.

  Charlie struggled to balance himself upright. Dazed, Franz rose and retrieved Charlie’s crutches from where they had landed in the snow.

  “Go get your camera,” Charlie instructed.

  “There’s no time now.”

  Charlie gestured to the body of the young German, the snow around his head and shoulder stained red. “You must photograph this.”

  Franz knew that they would eventually need the evidence, but at that moment it was the least of his concerns. “He was lying, Charlie. I saw it in his eyes. There are other Nazis in the ghetto. Other targets, too.”

  Charlie’s eyes locked onto his. “The hospital?”

  “Sunny!”

  Chapter 48

  Franz’s heart pounded in his throat with every step as he sprinted for the refugee hospital. Rounding the corner onto Ward Road, he slipped on the snow and fell, landing heavily on his right shoulder with a crunch. The pain was sharp, but he picked himself up and set off in a run, holding his arm like a damaged wing.

  A soldier patrolling the street shouted and angrily gestured for Franz to slow down; he eased up for a few yards, resuming his sprint the moment the soldier’s back was turned. All he could think of were the explosives he had seen at the synagogue and how Sunny had insisted on overseeing the hospital that morning. “Please, God,” he muttered repeatedly under his breath.

  With every step, his dread rose. He expected to hear the crackle of an explosion at any moment, or to smell smoke. As he slid around the final corner, relief washed over him: the hospital was still standing. He raced up the pathway and burst through the doorway. “Sunny? Where are you?” he cried, running down the corridor.

  Even before he reached the ward, he heard a flurry of activity: the frantic voices of nurses barking instructions and patients calling out for help.

  Inside, Berta and Miriam were lining up gowned patients at the doorway. Franz had to scan the room twice before he spotted Sunny in the far corner, struggling to transfer an old woman from her bed to a wheelchair.

  He raced over and helped her lift the heavy woman, igniting a searing pain in his shoulder. “Sunny, we found bombs,” he said breathlessly. “Outside the synagogue—”

  “There were gunshots, Franz,” she interrupted. “Not more than five minutes ago. They came from behind the building.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Where is Joey?”

  “I haven’t seen him for maybe half an hour.” Her eyes were frantic. “Joey was outside, Franz.”

  “I was just outside. Everything is quiet now.”

  “Still, we must clear the building.”

  The old woman looked up at them in horror. “What is going on?”

  Sunny ignored her and waved toward the beds, several of which were still occupied. “None of those patients can walk. And we have just the one wheelchair.”

  Franz shook his head gravely. “We can only do what we can do.”

  “We can’t just leave them behind.”

  “Lower them onto blankets. We’ll drag them if need be. Can they crawl? We have to get out now!”

  Calmer now, Sunny held his gaze and then nodded. She shoved the wheelchair toward the exit.

  “Miriam, Berta!” Franz called. “Take the patients out front!”

  Just then, Charlie came rushing into the room on his crutches, his face pale and rigid.

  “There was gunfire behind the hospital,” Franz exclaimed. “We’re clearing the building.”

  “Come with me!” Charlie wheeled around. “There are footprints outside and . . .”

  Franz squeezed past the patients and raced out the door after Charlie. He followed him around the side of the hospital. Charlie came to a halt just as Franz noticed the body lying on the ground ahead of them. The man lay slumped on his side, his head turned into the snow. Franz couldn’t see his face, but he immediately recognized the old navy suit. “Oh no. Joey!” He lunged toward his fallen friend.

  Charlie grabbed Franz’s shoulder, launching another wave of pain. “Leave him,” he snapped. “It’s too late. He is dead. Shot through the heart. We have to find the bombs.”

  Rage, sorrow and fear cascaded through Franz, jolting him into action. He followed Charlie past Joey’s body and behind the building.

  Charlie waved at the many footprints they could see cutting through the snow and leading to spots against the wall. “There. The explosives will be there.”

  Reaching the heavily marked area, Charlie dropped to his one knee and swept frantically at the snow in front of him, then leaned further forward and began to brush more gently.

  Leaning over Charlie’s shoulder, Franz caught a glimpse of the same green plastic they had seen at the temple. Charlie swept away snow until he exposed the protruding pencil detonators. He ran a finger up one cylinder. “The tip. It’s been crushed. The fuse is live.”

  Franz leaned back instinctively. “How much time do we have?” he asked.

  Charlie wrestled the first detonator out of the block and threw it over his shoulder. He had to struggle harder to free the other, but it finally slid free. He tossed it away. “No way to know,” he panted. “Could be any time now.”

  “But there were four bombs outside the synagogue.”

  Charlie reached for his crutches and pushed himself upright. “Follow the footprints!” He hurried along the wall, following the tracks in the snow.

  Franz rushed past him to the next accumulation of footprints. He fell to his knees and swept his arms back and forth through the powdery snow, trying to ignore his throbbing shoulder. Suddenly his hand came in contact with something hard. His breath caught in his throat. Following Charlie’s example, he delicately wiped the snow away from another half-buried explosive.

  Franz examined the detonators and saw the pliers’ teeth marks. The bomb is live! He fought the urge to scramble away.

  Willing his hand steady, he reached out for the icy-smooth detonator with his right hand while stabilizing the explosive block with his left. He tugged on the cylinder but it hardly budged; his shoulder burned. He switched hands and braced his left elbow against the ground, then jerked even harder. The detonator gave way. He tossed it aside and reached for the second one, but this one resisted fiercely. The cylinder wouldn’t budge.

  His heart hammered against his rib cage. Melted snow dripped into his eyes, obscuring his vision. Behind him, he heard Charlie moving past, searching for the next charge.

  Franz almost called to him for help, but there was no time. He considered grabbing the bomb and hurling it as far from the hospital as he could, but the thought of the grenades attached to the explosives at the synagogue stopped him.

  He wiped his eyes clear and jumped to his feet. Planting his right foot firmly against the bomb, he again took the slippery detonator in his left hand, yanking back as hard as he could. It came loose and he toppled backward as it flew free of the explosive.

  On his back, he arched his arm and threw the detonator with all his might away from the hospital. Just before it hit the ground, Franz saw it spark red, then explode.

  Chapter 49

  Light snow fell on the gathering in the clearing behind the hospital. The crowd was so big that people were forced to stand shoulder to shoulder to make enough room around the graveside.

  Sunny could not stop her tears as she watched three coolies lower Joey’s casket into the shallow grave
that they had chipped out of the frozen soil. He was being buried on what would have been his twenty-second birthday—though there was an arbitrary element to that date. Joey had known only that he was born sometime in early winter, and when Sir Victor Sassoon had insisted on throwing him a lavish nineteenth birthday party a few years earlier, they had settled on December 27, primarily because it worked best for the tycoon’s busy social schedule.

  Joey was an orphan without any known family, so his funeral arrangements had fallen to Sunny. He had been neither religious nor, unlike so many rural Chinese, even remotely superstitious. Sunny had opted for a traditional but non-denominational Chinese burial. The casket was covered with the white and yellow paper that, according to folklore, warded off evil spirits.

  Sunny was moved by the large turnout. The hospital staff stood in groups of two and three, a few patients were huddled under blankets, and a handful of coolies shivered in the cold. Others from the refugee community clustered around the gravesite, some sobbing openly. Only Simon was absent. It had taken every ounce of Sunny’s persuasiveness to convince him not to attend. Only after she had suggested that he write a sermon Esther could read, rather than risk his life to sneak into the ghetto to pay his respects, did he finally agree to stay away.

  Sunny crouched down, scooped up a handful of cold dirt and tossed it onto the coffin. Franz stepped up beside her and did the same. The other mourners formed a line to repeat the Chinese ritual. It reminded Sunny of the Jewish custom of mourners placing dirt back into a grave during the funeral ceremony. Again she was struck by the parallels between her native and adopted cultures.

  Sunny took a last look at Joey’s coffin, then stepped back. Franz’s hand tightened over hers. She squeezed back, incredibly grateful that her husband had survived the recent events with no more than a broken collarbone. But her relief dissolved into melancholy as she thought of the last time she had seen Joey alive, a huge grin on his face as he had headed out the hospital’s door promising to “sweep the Nazis away like fallen leaves.”

  “Thank you, darling,” Franz murmured.

  “For what?”

  He motioned to the mourners. “You gave Joey a hero’s funeral. No less than what he deserves.”

  “He deserved to live.”

  He held her hand tighter. “So true. But think of the lives he helped to save.”

  “Charlie and you did too. You are all heroes.” Sunny wiped her eyes. “It’s just that . . . Yang, Max, Wen-Cheng and now Joey. They are all gone.”

  Franz caressed her cheek with his free hand. “I know.”

  She caught his hand and gently pulled it away from her face. “Franz, how can we be sure that von Puttkamer will not simply try again?”

  “We can’t be sure. Not really.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  Franz exhaled heavily and his clouded breath obscured his features. “I must speak with him.”

  “Von Puttkamer? You can’t be serious, Franz.”

  “I don’t see another way.”

  Sunny tensed. “How would you even get a pass to leave the ghetto?”

  “I will have to get von Puttkamer to come to me.”

  “Why would he agree to that?”

  “I’ll offer him certain . . . incentives.”

  “What kind of incentives?”

  “Photographs,” he said. “Listen, Sunny. You must take a message to Ernst. Something he can relay to von Puttkamer.”

  She shook her head. “We cannot involve Ernst. If von Puttkamer even suspects that he was the one who told you . . .”

  Franz’s forehead creased. “Ja, this is true.”

  “Let me do it,” Sunny said.

  “Walk into Nazi territory with a message from me, a Jew? You must be joking.”

  “Now that Joey is gone, who else can leave the ghetto?”

  “We will find someone,” Franz said. “One of the other refugees. Someone with one of Ghoya’s precious passes.”

  She reached for his right elbow, and he winced in pain. “Sorry, darling.” She released his arm. “Let me, Franz. I can do this.”

  He shook his head. “It is too risky.”

  “I will only be the messenger.” She feigned a thick Chinese accent and continued in pidgin English: “I bring chit to master. He pay my cumshaw.”

  Franz’s smile was fleeting. “No. It is too dangerous. I cannot allow it.”

  “And I will not allow Joey’s death to have been in vain.” Sunny put her hands on her hips. “I must do this, Franz.”

  * * *

  Sunny had never worn this much makeup before. Her face was caked in powder, lipstick and rouge, and her hair tied in a constricting bun. She could feel her skin tighten every time she moved her lips. She felt as if she could have almost passed for one of the wild pheasants on the dock. Even though she barely recognized herself in the mirror, she still felt vulnerable. What if he recognizes me from Ernst’s flat?

  As she walked through Germantown, she imagined running into Ernst or Simon in this getup. She could picture Ernst’s look of horror, and almost hear Simon’s laughter. It calmed her to think of her friends.

  The further she ventured into Germantown, the more uniformed men she encountered. She forced herself to sashay theatrically down the street, drawing both scowls and leers from the men she passed.

  Von Puttkamer’s building was the grandest on his block. A sign out front of the ground-floor office advertised itself as the German Information Bureau. A bell tinkled as Sunny opened the door and entered the office.

  The baron’s Korean bodyguard stepped out from behind a desk to meet her. “Haben Sie sich verlaufen?” he grumbled.

  She pretended not to understand German.

  “Are you lost?” he asked sharply in English.

  Sunny dug into her coat and produced the envelope Franz had given her. “My come to see Baron. I bring chit.”

  The man extended his hand. “Leave it with me.”

  “I supposed to give baron.”

  “The baron is not here,” the man snapped.

  “Jewish doctor say give only baron.”

  “Give it to me now!”

  A door behind the desk opened and von Puttkamer entered the room, impeccable in a grey three-piece suit. He smiled disarmingly at Sunny without so much as a glimmer of recognition. “Good afternoon, young lady,” he said in smooth English. “Do I understand that you are carrying a letter for me?”

  Sunny squinted and shook her head in mock confusion.

  “The envelope, Fräulein.” He touched his chest. “I am Baron von Puttkamer. Is that for me?”

  Sunny thrust her hand out. “Yes, good Mr. Baron, yes.”

  “Thank you.” Von Puttkamer bowed his head. When Sunny showed no sign of leaving, he shooed her away. “Go now. You can tell your master I have received his letter.”

  “Jewish doctor, he say wait for answer.”

  “Answer?” Von Puttkamer grimaced. He tore open the envelope and pulled out what was inside. A photograph fell out from the folded page and fluttered to the ground, landing face up.

  Even in black and white, it was still ghoulish. The dead Nazi lay with his throat slashed against snow that was stained with his own blood. The bomb was visible above his head, eerily resembling a tombstone.

  Von Puttkamer read Franz’s note. After a long tense moment, he reached for the photograph. When he looked again at Sunny, his face was tight and his cheeks flushed. “Tell that Jewish doctor of yours that I will be there.”

  Chapter 50

  Esther and Hannah exchanged worried looks but remained grimly silent as Sunny stepped inside the flat. Only after Sunny had scrubbed off her makeup and changed into regular clothes did Hannah speak up. “What did he say, Sunny?”

  There was no point in trying to shelter Hannah. She was already aware
of the bomb plot and her father’s role in averting that disaster—it was the talk of the ghetto. “He will meet your father,” Sunny said quietly.

  “Got hilf im.” Esther reverted to Yiddish and laid a protective hand on Jakob, who slept on the couch beside her. “Who knows what the madman will try.”

  “Von Puttkamer will not try anything,” Sunny said. “At least not in such a public setting.”

  “But he won’t just forget, will he?” Hannah said.

  “No,” Sunny conceded. “That is why your father has to speak to him.”

  “To talk some sense into him?” Hannah scoffed. “To make him see the errors of his Nazi ways?”

  “Hannah!” Esther cautioned.

  Sunny understood that behind her angry words, Hannah was terrified for her father’s safety. “Your papa knows what he is doing, Hannah. What he must do, to discourage the Nazis from striking again.”

  Hannah’s confident expression gave way to one of sheer anxiety. “How can he possibly know that?”

  Sunny was weighing how to answer when someone knocked lightly at the door. She glanced over at Esther, who just shook her head.

  Sunny crept over and cracked open the door. It took her a moment to recognize Wen-Cheng. Typically fastidious about his appearance, Wen-Cheng was a mess: his hair was dishevelled and a patchy beard spotted his cheeks. She could smell unwashed hair and clothes, rather than his usual cologne.

  She yanked the door open and moved to hug him, but he shrank from her. “Where have you been all this time?” she demanded.

  “We must speak,” he said in a hush.

  Sensing his urgency, Sunny didn’t bother to invite him in. Instead, she grabbed her coat and followed him outside.

  They walked a few blocks in silence. Looking anything but calm, Wen-Cheng reminded Sunny of how jittery Jia-Li used to become during her episodes of opium withdrawal, but she doubted drugs were to blame. Wen-Cheng suddenly ducked down a narrow lane and Sunny followed. He halted after about ten paces and surveyed the homes on either side of them. “I have very little time,” he muttered.