by Daniel Kalla
“The planes will return, Captain.”
“I imagine so, yes.”
Franz stared at Suzuki, desperate to crack his stoic fatalism. “Surely you must have influence with the major?”
Suzuki grunted another bitter laugh. “Aside from the Emperor himself, I do not know of anyone who has influence with Major Okada.”
***
Franz was nauseated and wobbly with fatigue by the late afternoon. He realized how prophetic Suzuki’s words had been: there never was any rest at the field hospital. The day after the air raid, trucks rolled into the camp with fresh casualties from the field. Franz couldn’t remember how long he had been awake, but it must have been at least thirty-six hours. He sutured wounds and reset broken bones, explosions pounding and heavy artillery fire drumming steadily in the background. Rumour around the camp was that the Kuomintang army of Chiang Kai-Shek had sent reinforcements to Hengyang for a massive counterattack.
Just as alarmingly, Franz’s dizziness had returned. Twice so far that day he had had to find an excuse to sit down during surgery. After the day’s last casualty had been removed from the table, Franz was heading out of the room when his legs turned to rubber and buckled. Just as he was bracing himself for the fall, a pair of arms enveloped his waist and eased him to the ground and onto his back.
Helen knelt down beside him, her face creased with concern. “Franz, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
He glanced around, relieved to see they were alone in the room. “Yes. Thank you.”
She squinted. “The episodes have come back?”
Embarrassed, Franz looked away. “I have not eaten today.”
“You must, Franz. You heard what the captain told you.”
“I was … preoccupied.”
She slid her arm out from under his back. “I will go find you some of that salty fish.”
Before she could stand up, Franz reached for her wrist. “Helen, last night …”
It was her turn to look away. “We don’t need to discuss it.”
Franz hung on to her arm. “Please.”
“I was in shock,” she said. “I acted without thinking. I am so sorry.”
“There is no need to be sorry.”
“You are married.” Her voice cracked.
He released her arm. “These are far from normal times.”
“That doesn’t excuse what I did.”
“What we did.”
She hovered beside him but continued to avoid his gaze. “After my marriage—after my husband left me—I was angry, of course. With Michael. But the person I blamed most was Marjorie. She was supposed to have been my friend.”
“You have never even met Sunny.” He realized how meaningless the words sounded as soon they left his mouth.
“And yet I feel as if I know her. I am certain I would like her.”
“I have no doubt the two of you would get on well.”
“You think so?” Helen laughed. “I’m not so sure she wouldn’t see straight through me, the way I should have with Marjorie.” She stood up and hurried toward the tent’s flap. “Don’t get up. I will bring some kusaya.”
Franz pushed himself up to sitting, fighting off the light-headedness. “Helen …”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, her cheeks flushed. “Yes?”
His tongue felt thick, and once again he couldn’t summon the right words. “Thank you for … catching me.”
After Helen had left, Franz got to his feet and took a few cautious steps to test his balance. Feeling steadier, he headed out of the tent without waiting for her to return. He wanted to escape his mortification and, he conceded to himself, further temptation. Helen’s vulnerability only made her that much more attractive. And he felt as confused as he was ashamed by the feelings.
Lost in thought, Franz found himself back on the path toward the officers’ quarters. He slowed when he spotted Captain Suzuki conversing with another man behind the row of tents. His companion’s back was turned, but Franz recognized Major Okada from the cane in his right hand alone.
Franz was about to turn away when he heard the major’s raised voice. “Okubyōmono,” he screamed.
Franz shuddered, recognizing the Japanese word for coward—the term Okada had repeatedly hurled at the poor private before the savage beating.
But Suzuki only bowed his head in calm resignation. Okada raised his cane above his head. Franz froze, resisting the urge to yell a warning to the captain.
“Okubyōmono,” the major cried again as he swung the cane.
Suzuki didn’t flinch as the handle whizzed through the air and struck the top of his scalp. He looked up momentarily in Franz’s direction before his legs gave way and he crumpled to the ground.
CHAPTER 31
Hannah stepped out of her building to find Herschel Zunder sitting at the curb in the blazing midday sun. He looked up at her with an expression that was somewhere between hopeful and lost. “Guten Tag, Hannah,” he said, rising to his feet.
She instinctively tucked the envelope she was carrying further into the waistband of her skirt as she approached. “Hi, Herschel. I didn’t realize you were coming over today.”
“I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to surprise you. It’s just that Rabbi Hiltmann has called another meeting at the shul, and I was hoping …”
“For today?”
“Yes, in about an hour.” He looked down at his feet. “I thought maybe we could go there together.”
“Oh, Hersch, I would have liked to, yes. But I promised my stepmother I would run a few errands.”
“I see.” He continued to study the ground. “Will you be seeing Freddy again?”
Hannah hesitated. “Not straightaway, no,” she said, appreciating how unconvincing her words must have sounded.
Herschel squared his shoulders and looked back up at her. “All right, then. I’d better not keep you any longer.”
Hannah spotted the hurt behind his brave expression, and she felt her cheeks flushing. “Let’s plan to go to the rabbi’s next meeting together,” she said in a cheerful tone that she knew came off as forced. “I would like that.”
“Yes, all right,” Herschel said as he turned to walk away. “Goodbye, Hannah.”
“Herschel,” she called after him.
“Yes?” he said without looking back at her.
“I’m sorry.” Then she hurried to add, “That I couldn’t go with you today.”
He nodded without slowing his pace. Her heart sank watching him walk away, but as soon he rounded the corner, she headed in the opposite direction, toward the school.
Hannah was usually impervious to Shanghai’s punishing summers—Ernst teased her that she must be part cold-blooded to thrive in such heat—but today the sweat was dripping off her brow by the time she neared her destination. The envelope tucked in her skirt reminded her of the sheer terror she had felt the previous year while waiting at the ghetto’s entry checkpoint, her coat lined with illicit packages of cigarettes for Freddy. But with the fear came exhilaration. And this time, she was doing something important. And, of course, it gave her an excuse to see Freddy again.
Freddy was grinning from ear to ear when Hannah reached the clearing behind the school. She noticed that his pants were at least two inches too short for him, which confused her—usually he was the most fashionable boy in the ghetto. But she didn’t want to embarrass him, so made no comment.
“Hiya, Banana,” Freddy cried. “You ready to help win this war?”
“Sh, Freddy,” she cautioned, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her lips.
“There’s no one ever here in the summer.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Guess we might have to find a new spot when school starts again in September, huh?”
“It won’t matter then. They will only need our help for a week or two.”
He chuckled confidently. “We’ll see about that.”
“This isn’t a game, Freddy,” she said, trying to inject a gravity that she didn’t
feel into the conversation.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves.” He reached out and stroked her upper arm. “We’re spies now, Banana!”
A warm tingle spread across her chest. “Not really.”
“Yeah, this is real espionage stuff. Just like in the movies.”
“But this isn’t make-believe. We could get arrested or …”
Still, Hannah was sorry when he pulled his hand from her arm. “You got the list?” he asked.
She glanced furtively from side to side before extracting the envelope from her waist. Freddy snatched it out of her hand. “I better go set up the radio,” he said.
She shook her head. “That’s not the list they want you to transmit.”
He tore open the envelope and read from the slip of paper. “What’s this?”
“The address of the drop box.”
“Drop box? I don’t get it.”
“They say it’s too risky for me to carry the actual list.” Hannah pointed to the piece of paper. “That’s the location where you are to pick it up from each time. You’ll find it buried under four white stones arranged in a row.”
“Smart. A drop box. Yes.” He grinned again and showed the page to Hannah. “I know this place.”
She waved it away, having promised Sunny that she would never try to find out the location. “Don’t tell me.”
He shook the paper at her. “Come on, Banana, aren’t you a little curious?”
After a brief hesitation, she took it from his hand. Written there was the address of a quiet alleyway, directly across from the school.
“So the list is waiting there?” he asked.
She nodded.
He stuck the paper into his mouth, chewing it into a wad that he eventually spat into the bushes beside him. “Can’t be too careful, right?” he said with another smile. “Stay here. I’ll go get it.”
“I’m not supposed to be here when you transmit.”
“Makes sense. Probably for the best.” He jutted out his lower lip. “Too bad, though. Would have been nice to have you by my side for our first real mission.”
“I can’t, Freddy.”
“It’s okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m sure I can tell you about it later.”
Hannah could feel her guilt mounting. She had already lied to Herschel and broken one promise to Sunny. The voice in her head told to turn and run, but she was desperately intrigued. And she was thrilled by the conspiratorial intimacy. “So long as no one comes around, I guess I could wait a few minutes.”
“That’s the spirit.”
As soon as Freddy trotted off, Hannah began to have second thoughts. It was foolish to defy Sunny. She paced the clearing, her nerves frayed. Every sound startled her, even the rustle of the leaves in the wind. Her pulse thudded in her ears, and she half expected Ghoya and his men to appear at any second.
In a few minutes—which to Sunny felt more like a few hours—Freddy came racing around the side of the school, his face damp with sweat.
“Found it,” he announced as he marched past her and disappeared into a clump of bushes. He emerged seconds later with a blanket tucked under one arm, his body tilted sideways under the weight of the black sack that he carried by a strap over the shoulder of his other arm. After he spread the blanket on the ground, he carefully set the sack on top of it and extracted the body of the radio transmitter. He uncoiled a loop of copper wire and ran it along the ground to a nearby tree.
“Where did your father get the transmitter?” Hannah asked in a whisper while Freddy continued to assemble it.
“One of our neighbours, Herr Silbermann, used to be a radio engineer in Munich. He brought with him two sets that he made over there.” Freddy laughed. “Herr Silbermann loves his cigarettes. Besides, Pop paid him top dollar for this one. Everyone wins.”
Sunny heard the whine of brakes out on the street. Her legs tensed and her back stiffened. “How much longer, Freddy?” she demanded.
“Relax, Banana. No one’s looking for us.” He stopped to admire his work before pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. “I just have to tune into the right frequency.”
Hannah anxiously watched as Freddy dropped to his knees and fiddled with the dials on the front of the machine. A red light glowed and the speaker began to spit static. Freddy lifted the microphone to his mouth and read from the page. “Alpha echo foxtrot. Alpha echo foxtrot.”
Hannah held her breath, but the speaker only hissed static in response. Freddy adjusted more dials and repeated the greeting. After a few seconds of dead air, a tinny voice replied, “Alpha echo foxtrot, go ahead, delta bravo victor.”
With a glance at his wristwatch, Freddy raised the sheet in his hand. He began to read off a series of alpha-numeric code in a slow, calm voice, but Hannah noticed a tremble in his hand. Her heart pounded, and her eyes darted around, on the lookout for unexpected movement.
Finally, Freddy lowered the page and said, “Confirm, alpha echo foxtrot.”
“Confirmed,” the ghostly voice echoed.
Freddy switched off the dial. The static disappeared and the bulb’s glow faded. He checked his watch again. “Under a minute,” he announced, hopping to his feet.
“It’s done? Already?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and danced her around in a circle. “Under a minute, Hannah. Can you believe it?”
“Like real spies.” She laughed, giddy with relief and elation.
Suddenly, Freddy held her still. Before Hannah even realized what was happening, his lips were on hers.
No, Freddy, this is wrong.
But she couldn’t help herself from responding to the kiss. Her face heated as his tongue darted between her lips. Then she felt his hand gently squeezing her breast through her blouse. The prickly warmth spread all the way down to her toes.
CHAPTER 32
Is it fair to say the tables have turned?” Suzuki asked.
“Literally, Captain.” Franz chuckled as he ran another suture through the gaping wound on Suzuki’s scalp. The cane’s blow fortunately hadn’t fractured the captain’s skull. It had been less than forty-eight hours since Franz had lain on the same operating table while Suzuki stitched his head closed. “However, I doubt salty fish will solve your problems.”
“Unlikely.”
Franz cut the suture and rethreaded the needle. “Thank you, Captain,” he said.
Suzuki sighed. “I do not wish to have this conversation again, Dr. Adler.”
But Franz persisted. “For speaking to the major about relocating the field hospital.”
Suzuki craned his neck to look up at him. “What makes you think this had anything to do with that?”
“I am assuming, Captain.”
Suzuki only grunted as he relaxed his head on the table.
“Is it safe to assume that we will not be moving camp?” Franz asked.
“It is.”
“And if the enemy planes return?”
“Then they return, Dr. Adler.”
“And then more lives will be lost.”
Suzuki laughed grimly. “How does that possibly matter anymore?”
The captain was right. It had stopped mattering long ago. Franz ran another stitch through the scalp wound, the rhythm of the surgical procedure his only reprieve from the misery he felt.
“We are not all blind, Dr. Adler,” Suzuki said.
“Excuse me, Captain?”
“Many Japanese, perhaps most of us, realize the war is already lost. And has been for a long time. Some people refuse to recognize or acknowledge this truth. Others …” Suzuki sighed. “To them, it doesn’t matter.”
“Martyrs?”
“They consider themselves traditionalists. Like the samurai of old, who found honour in death through hara-kiri preferable to surrender.”
“People like Major Okada?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“But not you, Captain?”
“As a doctor, such waste of
life is contrary to my teaching.”
“Mine too, Captain.”
Franz ran a few more stitches in silence. Suzuki had refused anesthetic and, as Franz had expected, didn’t show a flicker of discomfort.
“You asked me once about my attention to burn victims,” Suzuki offered.
“Yes,” Franz said, confused.
“I was not entirely truthful with you, Dr. Adler.”
“How so?”
“Have you heard of Guadalcanal?”
“Yes.” Franz had heard of the island on Voice of America broadcasts. “It’s in the Solomon Islands, is it not?”
“I was stationed at Guadalcanal for three months before I learned that my son, Ichiro, was on the same island.”
“He was in the army too?”
“Ichiro was a medical student at the University of California. An American citizen. His friends there used to call him ‘Ike.’ He was never supposed to enlist. But after I went off to war, Ichiro badgered my brother, who worked for the High Command in Tokyo. My brother found a way in for my son, as a medic.”
Franz ran in another stitch, waiting for Suzuki to continue.
“His commanding officer told me Ichiro was an able medic. Very able. The squadron felt as though they had their own physician. Ichiro, he never did anything in half measure.” Suzuki sighed. “By January of 1943, the Americans had secured much of the island, but the fighting had reached a stalemate. On January 15, Ichiro was in a bunker at the front, attending to the wounded. It was the same day the Marines introduced a new weapon to the war in the Pacific.” He lapsed into silence.
“Which weapon?” Franz finally prompted.
“The flamethrower.”
Franz wished he hadn’t asked.
“They incinerated the bunker,” Suzuki continued. “They told me Ichiro was on fire as he ran twenty yards across the beach to the jungle.”
Franz pictured the skinny boy from the photo on Suzuki’s desk.
“Ichiro … his flesh might have been destroyed, but not his spirit.” Suzuki closed his eyes momentarily before continuing. “He was still alive when I reached the field hospital five days later. The doctor there—a wise country man from the south—told me he had never seen anyone fight death with such ferocity. Only the skin on Ichiro’s feet had been spared. He looked as if he had been dipped by the heels into a vat of boiling oil. But his eyes, they were as bright as ever.”
