by Daniel Kalla
Helen angled her head. “What could that possibly mean?”
“Sunny, she—we have adopted a child. It was all rather unexpected.” Franz went on to tell her about Joey’s sudden appearance in their lives.
Helen must have sensed his reticence about the adoption. “You didn’t want another child?” she asked.
“I would do anything for Sunny.”
She inhaled again from her cigarette before dropping the stub to the ground. “You don’t sound like the most exhilarated of new fathers.”
“How can I possibly be?” He shook his head. “I’m a prisoner here. Held at the front lines. I doubt I will ever see my wife or daughter again, let alone this baby. How will she be able to feed another mouth while living inside that miserable ghetto?”
Helen turned away. The silhouetted outline of her shoulder began to bob up and down gently and Franz heard soft sobs. He stepped closer. “Helen, I am so sorry. Don’t listen to my doom and gloom. I’m exhausted, you understand.”
She held up a hand to stop his approach. “It’s not that,” she said.
“No?”
“Michael and I, we were going to have children.” She sniffled. “And then he left … he just left.”
Hands dangling uselessly by his side, Franz felt tongue-tied, at a complete loss for words. By the time he stupidly blurted “So the Japanese didn’t intern your husband?” Helen had already disappeared back into the tent.
***
An hour passed before Franz caught up to Helen inside the convalescence tent that passed for a surgical ward. Ten full beds ringed its perimeter. Helen’s eyes were dry, and she even mustered a collegial smile for Franz, but her demeanour made it plain that she had no interest in continuing their discussion.
With Helen translating for Franz and the patients, they moved from bed to bed, adjusting dressings and examining sutures, looking for signs of infection or gangrene. Franz was struck again by the patients’ stoicism. Despite their massive wounds, broken bones and missing limbs, he didn’t hear a single peep or groan of pain. Even their expressions were remarkably calm, ranging from impassive to deferential. It wasn’t until Franz reached the third-to-last bed that he encountered an exception.
The skinny patient wore thick, round glasses and looked more like a shop clerk than a solider. Franz had earlier removed two bullets from his back. One had been lodged only a fraction of an inch from his spinal cord. The young man was sweating, and his head swung from side to side as though he was expecting someone to sneak up on him. Franz assumed he was suffering from post-operative delirium, possibly even hallucinating. He ran the back of his hand across the patient’s forehead but detected no fever to suggest an infection.
Helen laid a hand on the boy’s arm and spoke to him in Japanese. The man shook his head frantically as he answered. Helen turned to Franz. “I don’t believe he’s delirious, Franz,” she said. “He knows where he is.”
“Is he in pain?”
“He says not.”
“What is it, then?”
“He just keeps repeating that he had to turn back. He had dropped his glasses and he couldn’t see.”
“What does he mean ‘had to turn back’?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
The room began to swim around Franz, and he instinctively spread his legs wider and reached for the nearby intravenous pole to steady himself. He pretended to study the IV bottle until the light-headedness passed a few seconds later.
If Helen had noticed the episode, she didn’t acknowledge it. “Maybe the poor man is reacting to the morphine?” she asked.
“Perhaps.” It was possible. Some medications, especially narcotics, were notorious for causing behavioural side effects. “Let’s hold off the painkiller for a while.”
The patient in the next bed was trembling under his covers too, but his shaking came from fever, not anxiety. He had lost one leg just below his knee, and as soon as Franz pulled back the dressing, he appreciated how badly infected the wound already was. Franz saw from Helen’s eyes that she also recognized the gravity of the situation. “We will start him on sulpha drugs, of course, but he’s going to lose the rest of the leg,” he said. “There is no doubt.”
Helen explained this to the patient, who nodded as calmly as if he had just been told that he was going to need to change his socks.
They moved on to the last bed in the tent, where the badly burned man lay wrapped like a mummy. Franz was surprised to see him alive, let alone breathing comfortably and staring up attentively with his one exposed eye. Helen spoke to him in gentle tones, and he replied in a croak. “He claims not to be in any pain,” she told Franz.
“The fire must have burned away his nerve endings. Fortunately.”
She nodded. “Should I remove any of his dressings?”
“There’s no point, Helen.”
The flap to the tent folded open noisily. Two young officers walked inside, followed by Major Okada. None of them acknowledged Franz or Helen, but the two officers fell behind Okada as he limped over to the bed at which Franz had begun his rounds. The major spoke briefly to the patient in his soft voice before moving on to the next bed, leaning heavily on his cane and dragging his right foot behind him as he went.
Franz had seen Okada only twice since the first night at the camp, and only from a distance. The major was young, perhaps in his mid-thirties, with sharp features—more aristocratic than handsome—and a bearing that commanded deference despite his hushed voice. Okada moved from bed to bed, spending no more than a minute with each patient.
Franz noticed that the scrawny, bespectacled patient grew more restless as Okada’s entourage made its way closer. When the major reached his bed, he simply stared down at the agitated soldier. Finally, the major spoke to him in his usual quiet tone. The patient shook his head adamantly and answered in a fearful voice. Franz glanced over to Helen, hoping for an explanation, but she was riveted by the conversation.
“Okubyōmono,” Okada said, deliberately enunciating each syllable.
The man responded with a flood of panicky words.
“Okubyōmono,” Okada repeated, raising his voice slightly.
“What does that mean?” Franz whispered to Helen.
“Coward,” she said softly without taking her eyes off them. “The major is accusing the boy of running away from the banzai attack.”
Again, the soldier tried to argue his case. The major cut him off with a shriek. “Okubyōmono!” In one motion, the major hoisted his walking stick and swung it down, the carved wooden handle smashing into the side of the patient’s head.
Screaming in surprise and pain, the man tossed his arms up to protect his face. Okada swung again, cracking the cane’s handle into the man’s nose. Franz heard the repulsive crunching of bones breaking as blood sprayed from the patient’s face and his glasses flew off his head.
“Are you out of your mind?” Franz cried in English. “This man just had surgery!”
He began to move forward, but Helen grabbed him by the arm and shifted to block his path. “Leave it,” she whispered frantically.
Even though the patient was now lying limp and motionless, Okada again cocked the cane over his head. Franz wriggled free of Helen’s grip and took two steps toward the bed. The rush of dizziness came out of nowhere. The room darkened and went black even before his head met the ground.
CHAPTER 23
I shouldn’t have come.
Curiosity, Hannah reminded herself. It was the only reason she had accepted Freddy’s unexpected invitation to meet. But it wasn’t curiosity that was making her chest flutter as she walked along the uneven sidewalk. The guilt gnawed deeper with each step she took toward the schoolyard. She felt rotten enough for not having told Herschel, but it was even worse imagining how disappointed her father would be if he knew. After Franz had been flogged for Hannah’s crime of smuggling cigarettes into the ghetto for Freddy’s family, she had vowed to never again associate with the dangerou
s boy.
Oh, Papa. A lump formed in Hannah’s throat, and she worried she might break into tears again. Papa had always been there, the only parent she had ever known. Before now, the longest she had ever been apart from her father was one week, but now he had been gone for over a month already. A pall had descended on their home. It was killing Sunny. Even Esther was struggling. Without his steadying presence, the two women bickered as never before. What Hannah wouldn’t have given to hear his calm voice or to see his understated smile.
I can’t do this, Hannah thought. Just as she was turning away from the school grounds, a voice called to her. “Banana! Over here.”
Hannah looked over her shoulder to see Freddy Herzberg standing at the side of the building, beckoning her with a friendly wave. She hesitated. “Come on,” he encouraged in English, the only language he ever seemed to speak despite his German upbringing. “Avi isn’t here. It’s only us. And I am just about to do it.”
Swallowing back her guilt, Hannah headed over to Freddy, pulling her sleeve down over her left hand. Only Freddy could ever evoke such self-consciousness in her, and she resented him as much as herself for the feeling. She followed him around the back of the school to the clearing in the shrubs, where the transmitter rested on a blanket, quietly hissing static.
“Why here?” Hannah asked him in a conspiratorial whisper. “Why not somewhere inside? Would that not be safer?”
Freddy swirled a hand around. “This is perfect. The place is abandoned over the summer. Besides, no interference. No tall buildings, walls or other radio antennae to block the signal.”
Hannah nodded. “So the sound is clearer?”
“That, and the signal travels a lot further.”
“How far does it go?”
Freddy shrugged. “Depending on the weather, up to fifty miles. But today, it only has to reach Frenchtown.”
“Why?”
He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and extended it to her. She declined the offer, and he tucked them back into his pocket without lighting one. “I have a friend in Frenchtown.”
“A friend of the family’s, I suppose?”
“Matter of fact, yes.” Freddy grinned widely. “I’ve missed that spunkiness, Banana.”
Her heart beat quicker, but she hid it behind a roll of her eyes. “Have you found another girl to be your lackey?”
Unperturbed, Freddy shook his head. “We don’t do that anymore. My pop promised your pop. Remember?”
“I do,” she lied. Her father had never spoken of the incident after his flogging. Sunny had once told Hannah how Franz had confronted Freddy’s father after her arrest, but even Sunny didn’t know the specifics of their run-in, certainly nothing about a promise between the two men. “So how do you get your cigarettes into the ghetto?”
Freddy winked. “Some mysteries are best left unsolved.”
Hannah turned again. “I think I should go.”
Just as she was ducking her head beneath a branch, Freddy said, “Coolies.”
“What about them?” Hannah asked.
“The coolies don’t need passes to get in or out of the ghetto. No one inspects their rickshaws.” He laughed. “They blow in and out like the wind.”
“I don’t know whether or not to believe you,” Hannah said without turning back to him.
“Verzeih, bitte,” Freddy said, surprising Hannah with German and with the contrition in his tone. “I really am sorry for the suffering we—I—caused you. And your father. If I had known someone was going to get hurt …”
“You would have done it anyway.”
“No, I wouldn’t have. I swear, Hannah.”
She wavered before heading back to him. “How does it work?”
“The radio?” He laughed.
“The business. With your friend in Frenchtown.”
“Oh, we agree on a time. He calls me. I tell him how much we need. And presto—a day or two later, the rickshaw shows up.”
She dropped her voice to a near whisper again. “What if the Japanese catch you?”
“Ah.” He brushed the idea away with a backhanded sweep. “I’m too slick for them. Besides, we are always careful.”
Nothing that Hannah had seen or heard so far supported the claim, but she was too intrigued to argue. Freddy stepped closer to her. “Is Herschel your boyfriend now?” he asked.
“No—well, yes.” Her cheeks heated. “Herschel is a good friend and a good person.”
Freddy tilted his head, amused. “But is he your boyfriend?”
“I suppose he is, yes.”
Still smiling, Freddy laid a hand on her upper arm and squeezed it, launching a jolt of electricity through her. “Then he’s a very lucky guy.” He stared into her eyes. A voice in Hannah’s head told her to turn and run, but she felt paralyzed. Herschel’s touch—even his sweet clumsy kisses—never brought the same rush of adrenalin that Freddy’s could.
A loud hiss of static broke the spell. “Tango, tango, are you there?” a disembodied voice asked.
Freddy pivoted and, in one motion, dropped to his knees. He grabbed the mouthpiece off the radio. “Go ahead, Foxhole.”
“How many?” the hollow voice asked.
“Forty cartons, twenty bottles,” Freddy said.
“When?”
“Tuesday.”
“Okay.”
Freddy switched off the dial. The speaker popped loudly, and then the static vanished as the radio shut down. He looked over to Hannah with another wink. “The key is to keep it short. The Japs, they know how to triangulate a radio transmission.”
CHAPTER 24
Sunny buried her face in the collar of her dress, trying to shield her mouth and nose from the plume of black smoke. It didn’t work. The taste of the coal dust made her cough, but she kept fanning the briquettes, hoping to keep them alight. The traditional Shanghainese stove resembled an upside-down flowerpot and was burning the only fuel available in the ghetto: briquettes recycled from burned coal and compacted river mud. Lighting the maddeningly inefficient briquettes used to be Franz’s duty, one of the few situations that could cause him to lose his temper. How she wished he were here now, tending the stove and muttering curses in German.
Behind her, Ernst and Esther sat side by side on the couch. Cigarette in hand, Ernst chatted away non-stop, while Esther nursed Joey under a blanket that covered her to her shoulders.
“Ach, this little one gets a little heavier with each meal, Sunny,” Esther said.
“Because you provide so well for him,” Sunny said.
“I’m just his bottle. Nothing more. You are his mother.” Esther smiled encouragingly. “That is what matters most in his world.”
Sunny’s cheeks flushed. She fanned the coals even harder, relieved to hear Ernst change the subject. “Are we not two short of a full house? Where have Hannah and Jakob gone?”
“Hannah has taken him to get hot water,” Esther said.
Ernst rubbed his hands together. “Ah, what are we cooking? Perhaps I can stay for lunch after all.”
“Bed bugs,” Esther said.
“Bed bugs?” Ernst groaned in disgust. “Honestly, I’m more of a Wiener schnitzel man.”
“We don’t eat them, Ernst. We douse the mattresses and railings in hot water. The heat chases out the bed bugs. Our feet finish the job.” Esther sighed. “Jakob loves it. He thinks it’s all one big game.”
“Can you imagine, Essie, if I had told you ten years ago in Vienna that this was to be our fate?” Ernst sighed. “Steaming out bed bugs in some Chinese hovel?”
“We are still alive,” Esther pointed out.
“Am I supposed to assume that’s preferable?”
“I think so.” Esther laughed, still beaming from her husband’s latest letter. “Simon swears he’s not going out anymore.” She looked hopefully to Ernst for confirmation. “Correct?”
“Not that I have witnessed. Of course, sometimes I’m gone much of the day.”
“Does he t
alk about ambushing von Puttkamer or any of the others?”
“Not to me, no. All I get is more of his infernal prattle about those Bronx Bombers of his. I tell you this: he has turned me into a Boston Red Sox enthusiast. And I have no idea who or what those even are.”
“Thank God!” Esther laughed happily.
“Besides, Essie,” Ernst said, assuming a gossipy tone. “Your husband is apparently not the only one with designs on assassinating Nazis.”
“Ernst, don’t even joke,” Esther admonished.
Sunny raised her head and looked over to Ernst. “Has something happened?”
“Not here. In Berlin—well, in Rastenburg, to be specific. They tried to kill him. Hitler himself.”
Esther’s eyes went wide and she slapped her hand to her mouth. “Who did?”
“His own officers. There was a bomb.”
“And?” Esther said, holding her breath.
Ernst rolled his eyes. “Of course he survived. With only minor injuries. You can’t kill an artist as talentless as that one. The gods of mediocrity will not allow it. They’re rounding up the conspirators all over Berlin.”
“Of all people to survive a bombing,” Esther groaned. She fumbled under the blanket and Joey emerged smacking his lips contentedly.
Sunny stepped over to ease him out of Esther’s arms. Joey looked up at her with a little grin that lightened her worries. She cradled him against her neck, enjoying the warmth of his cheek against hers as she burped him.
“And Franz?” Ernst asked. “Have you heard any news, Sunny?”
“No,” Esther answered for her.
“You still have no idea where they’ve taken him?” Ernst persisted.
Sunny shook her head. “I plan to go see Ghoya.”
“Not to poison his soup again, I hope.”
Sunny shook her head. “That wasn’t my idea, Ernst. You know that.”
Esther looked over to Sunny with a discouraging frown. “It won’t help to ask for anything from that monster.”
“Do I not owe it to Franz to try?” Sunny asked as she bobbed Joey up and down, lightly tapping his back. “If you didn’t know where Simon was—how he was—is there anything you wouldn’t do to find out?”
