Shanghai Story: A WWII Drama Trilogy Book One

by Alexa Kang

  Another round of applause interrupted his thoughts. The performers concluded their act and bowed. They collected their tips in the tin box as the crowd dispersed.

  “That was unbelievable.” Eden turned to take one more look at the performers as they continued on their way. “Shanghai is full of surprises.”

  “I’m glad to hear you like it here,” Clark said. “Still, I know how difficult it is to have to adapt to living in a foreign country. I had to do that myself when I went abroad to America.”

  “I’ll get used to it,” Eden reassured him.

  He looked at the streets and people around them. “Shanghai’s a great city. If China can become strong, if it can continue to advance and modernize, it can be as good as any other country in the world. Even better than Germany. You can settle here. You’ll never have to leave.”

  “Thank you.” She gazed at him. Her deep brown eyes so trusting. So relieved. They compelled him to want to make her believe what he said was true.

  “Those of us who are able, we’re doing everything we can to make that happen,” he said. “I’ll be working with the KMT. So are my friends. We’re going to strengthen our government. Build up our country. When we do, China won’t be a follower anymore. It’ll be a leader. When that happens, we can show Germany how Jewish people can thrive without them. You don’t need Germany. You’ll have a better home here.”

  As soon as he said this, an alarm went off in his mind. What did he just say? He’d just committed himself to work for the KMT. But he hadn’t made up his mind yet!

  “I believe you,” Eden said. “There’s so much hostility going on right now in Germany. Before I left, I felt like I was living in the shadow of death. It’s different here. I feel life and energy everywhere.”

  Clark tensed his chest. He couldn’t back out now. How could he face her next time if he had to tell her he wasn’t working for the KMT after all, and that he wasn’t doing anything to make this country a better place like he’d told her?

  Or maybe, deep down inside, he already knew this was what he wanted to do. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Tang Wei had said. As long as the government was weak, everything was vulnerable. Including his family and their business.

  Guess his father would have to hold the fort by himself for a little while longer. He hoped his parents wouldn’t be too upset by his decision.

  In the meantime, he only wished he could see Eden again. “Eden,” he said, feeling a little nervous, “would you and your family like to come to my home for dinner one night? We have an excellent cook. He makes niangao even better than most restaurants.”

  “Niangao?”

  “Yes. It’s a rice noodle dish. A Shanghai specialty.”

  “Why, thank you for the invitation. We haven’t been to a Chinese home before. We’d love to come. This will be a real treat.”

  “I’ll arrange it then,” Clark said. There was no harm in asking her and her family to come to dinner at his home with his family. A simple social gathering. Eden and her family were new to the city. He ought to do the part of a host. It was only right that someone made an effort to make them feel welcomed.

  Already, his mind was racing ahead thinking of the dishes he wanted to ask the cook to make.

  5

  A New Life in Shanghai

  The mannequin in the little black Chanel dress and white pearls stared out from the glass window of the store on Avenue Joffre. Eden stopped for a moment. What elegant pose and demeanor, and it was only a wooden figure. And the coy look with those half-opened eyes! Eden herself couldn’t have worn the dress better.

  Before she came to this city, she had no idea Shanghai was such a cosmopolitan place. From the luxurious lobby of the Cathay Hotel in the Sassoon House on the Bund, to the Grand Cinema on Nanking West Road which showed American films, to the Paramount Ballroom and Ciro’s Club where hundreds of people danced the night away every night. This city embodied splendor in ways she had never imagined.

  No wonder people called it the Paris of the Orient. In the Far East, the Cathay Hotel was universally known as the number one hotel. The Grand Cinema, too, was said to be the best.

  Influential people from around the world congregated here. European ambassadors riding in limousines. Taipans enthroned like kings on the seats of their private rickshaws. Their wives and daughters in designer gowns attending banquets and balls. In comparison, Munich felt so small. If she hadn’t left, she would’ve never known such sophistication and extravagance.

  Such wealth and success wasn’t reserved for only for certain groups of people either. Here, the Jews could rise to the top as much as anyone else. Like the Sephardi Jews from the Middle East. The Sassoons, the Kadoories, and the Hardoons had all come here long before her. They were the forebears who’d helped to bring this city into modernity and made it what it was today. The Hardoons had a street named after them. The Sassoons owned the first automobile in Shanghai. Today, they owned all the most coveted properties in town, including the landmark Sassoon House.

  But Shanghai had even more to offer. Beneath the opulence, a world of oriental charm lay, waiting for her to discover. Off the main avenue, she came upon a monk slurping his soup at a low wooden table on the sidewalk outside a noodle shop. She’d never seen a Buddhist monk in Germany. Behind him, a little old man brought along two baskets of vegetables to deliver to the shop next door. One basket hung on each end of the pole he was carrying over his hunched shoulders. How was he able to carry all that weight? The baskets looked heavier than he did.

  Her eyes fixed on the little old man, she nearly walked into the flock of geese scurrying across her path. “Sorry,” she instantly apologized as she hopped out of their way to avoid accidentally kicking one of them. The geese ignored her and waddled to the side. Didn’t their owner worry that some of them might wander away? Chinese people were so peculiar.

  They could be striking too.

  Striking. That was the first word that came to her when Clark Yuan showed up at her door yesterday. For one thing, he was taller than most Chinese men. He dressed better too. The stylish dark gray pinstripe suit he wore looked expensive, yet understated. His subtle mannerisms and the polite way he spoke set him apart. Everything about him reflected class.

  But what struck her most wasn’t his outward appearance. He had an enigmatic air she’d never encountered before in anyone. Yesterday, when they parted ways, it dawned on her that she and her family had told him a lot about who they were, where they’d come from, and what they were doing in Shanghai now. He, on the other hand, had said very little about himself. She didn’t even realize it until afterward when she returned home and told her family Clark had invited them to dinner at his home. He didn’t divulge much about himself in other ways either. The whole time he was with her, his expression remained slightly distant and courteous. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind his smile.

  There was a moment when, in speaking about his country, his passions broke through his formal self and she caught a glimpse of his inner sense of conviction. He spoke of China with so much pride. Even though he never raised his voice, she could feel the fire within him when he talked about strengthening his government and building up his country.

  It moved her, too, when he said the Jewish people would have a better home in China. Since the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, she’d felt like an outcast. People she’d once considered friends had stopped associating with her or any other Jews. People she’d grown up with, gone to school with, and lived next door to—they wouldn’t even talk to her. They all fell into the fold. Perhaps they were scared. Perhaps they didn’t care. Perhaps, like the Nazis, they thought they were superior. It didn’t matter. No one spoke up for her and people like her. No one offered so much as a kind word or an apology. Without any explanation, they quietly disappeared from her life.

  How heartwarming it was then for Clark to speak up for her and her people. He invited her family to his own home. He’d never know how much his word
s and invitation meant to her.

  She wondered what a meal in a Chinese home was like. She’d lived in this city for two months now, and still she hadn’t made any Chinese friends, mainly because the new friends she’d met here didn’t have Chinese friends either. The expat community was odd that way. Non-Chinese people here, or the Shanghailanders as they were known, could live their entire lives in China without getting to know anyone Chinese other than their servants, helpers, or business associates. From what she’d observed, their interactions with the Chinese went no further than business transactions and whatever else they found unavoidable and necessary.

  She hoped that wouldn’t be her case. She would love to make more friends with the people who had welcomed her into their country when so many others wouldn’t. She wanted to understand their culture and learn their language. She wanted to know their history too. Their ancient history went as far back as the Jews’.

  Besides, it would be interesting getting to know someone as intriguing as Clark.

  Lost in her thoughts, she continued on until a blue and white porcelain vase on the display table extending out of a souvenir store caught her eye. It looked like the ones in the photos in a book she’d read last week about ceramic art from the Chinese Tang Dynasty. She came closer and picked it up. The delicate painting of three men resting in a pagoda in front of a lake looked so idyllic.

  Would it look good in her home? Their dining table could use a centerpiece.

  “You like?” the grinning store owner asked.

  Eden didn’t answer, but smiled. She turned the vase in her hand.

  “Ten dollars.” The man crossed his two index fingers, a sign she understood to mean ten.

  “Ten?” Eden took a step back. That was equivalent to three U.S. dollars! How could he ask for such an outrageous price? In his beat-up cotton shirt and loose black pants, he hardly resembled a seller of fine china.

  “Hand painted. See?” The seller showed her the front of the vase. It was very pretty indeed, but ten dollars?

  A woman came up and whispered, “He’s fleecing you.”

  Eden turned to see who was speaking to her. The stranger looked about her own age. Her light beige summer hat, accessorized with a white rose and tilted to one side, hid part of her face. Her chestnut hair ran down the ruffled collar of her white embroidered dress.

  What a gorgeous outfit. It could’ve come out of a fashion magazine.

  The woman turned to the seller. To Eden’s surprise, she began haggling with him in Chinese. The man kept talking, but the woman kept shaking her head. In awe, Eden watched the Chinese words roll out of her mouth. Finally, the seller gave a wave of his hand. With a grumpy face, he grabbed a sheet of old newspaper and started wrapping the vase.

  “Four dollars,” the woman said to Eden.

  Although surprised, Eden understood her immediately. She opened her purse, skipping the tael, which she still could not intuitively convert, and took out a Chinese five dollar bill to hand to the seller. Oddly enough, the seller accepted the payment with a cheerful smile.

  “Come back next time.” He gave her the vase wrapped in newspaper in a bag along with the change.

  Confused, Eden took the bag. “What just happened?” she asked the woman as they walked away from the shop. “I thought he was angry.”

  “Oh, no,” the woman said with a knowing grin. “He’s happy to have made the sale. He’s just annoyed he lost the bargaining. You’re new to China, aren’t you? Haggling for the Chinese is a national sport.”

  Eden lifted the bag with the vase. He was upset about that? Not the price?

  “I’m Miriam Stein,” the woman said and lifted her hat, showing her full face. Her playful eyes immediately put Eden at ease. “What’s your name?”

  “Eden Levine. Pleased to meet you. You spoke fluent Chinese with the man just now. How’d you do that?”

  Miriam shrugged as if it were no big deal. “I was born here. My parents came to Shanghai twenty-five years ago from Odessa. Where are you from?”

  “Munich. My family and I arrived in Shanghai two months ago.”

  “Well! We must get to know each other then.” She slipped her arm around Eden’s. “My parents came to escape the Russian pogrom. As the Chinese would say, ‘tong shi tianya lun luo ren.’ We’re both people falling off the edge of the earth.”

  Eden chuckled. “Your blouse. It’s so beautiful. It looks like something you could only get in Paris.”

  Miriam tossed her head back and laughed. “Thank you, but don’t let it fool you. I promise you this is nothing expensive, and it definitely did not come from Paris. One of the best things about Shanghai is, you can get anything made by a Chinese tailor for a fraction of the price. All you have to do is bring a picture of what you want from the magazine, and they’ll make an exact replica of it. I’ll introduce you to my tailor. You’ll love him.” She glanced sideways at Eden. “You should come to my mother’s hair salon too. Her salon is one of the best in town. One thing a girl can’t do without, no matter where she goes, is a reliable hairdresser who won’t ruin her hair.” They stopped at the crosswalk. “Do you have any plan this afternoon?”

  “No.” Eden hopped back a step as a teenage boy on a bicycle zipped past in front of her.

  “Then let me take you to the White Horse Cafe. A few scoops of mango ice cream will relieve us from this heat.” Miriam waved her hand under her chin.

  “Mango ice cream?” Eden had never even tasted mangoes before coming to Shanghai. They make ice cream out of them too?

  “Yes. Coconut ones too, if you want,” Miriam said. Her arm still around Eden’s, she easily cut her way through the unending flood of bicycle traffic that always held Eden up and blocked her way every time she had to cross a busy street.

  It was already past five when Eden came home. Two hours she’d spent with Miriam at the White Horse Cafe, talking like old, long lost friends. And the mango ice cream! Could anything taste more heavenly? A perfect way to cap off a wonderful afternoon.

  “I’m home.” She closed the door behind her. Only Isaac was sitting on the couch. “Where’s everybody?”

  “Out.” Isaac looked up from the medical textbook on his lap. “Your parents went to the park to take a walk. Joshua’s out playing football.”

  “What are you doing home?” Eden took off her gloves. “It’s a beautiful day out. You should’ve gone outside and got some fresh air.”

  “It’s too hot.” Isaac closed his book and pressed the high button on the rotating fan. The fan grumbled back, as though it was voicing his displeasure with its mechanical hum. Eden wished he wouldn’t let such a thing as the weather bother him so much. What use was it to dwell on things one could not change? Why let the heat impede you when there was a whole new world out there to discover?

  Still, she didn’t have the heart to say anything to contradict him. Things were tough on him as it was. The rise of the Nazis had halted his lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. His parents’ whereabouts were still unknown. If she were in his place, perhaps she would be down and discouraged too.

  But that wasn’t true. Isaac would’ve had a hard time here regardless. He was used to his ways and change was difficult. Learning to live in China had been hellish for him. The crowds, the noise, the lightning-speed pace of life, not to mention being among people whose language he couldn’t understand and whose culture was entirely foreign to him.

  Eden put away her gloves and shoes. She could feel his eyes on her even though he was trying to be discreet. She and Isaac Weissman had known each other for a long time. She knew how he felt about her. Not that he’d ever said anything to her about it, nor had he ever done anything to make it obvious. That helped, or else it would be so awkward with him living here with them. So long as he kept it that way, she would pretend she didn’t know. He was a good person, only not someone she could see herself with.

  She unwrapped the vase she’d bought on the dining table. “I met a new friend today,” she said,
making conversation to lighten the mood. “Her name’s Miriam. She was born here. Her parents are Russian Jews and she speaks fluent Chinese. She’s studying psychology at Aurora University. She invited me to watch a Chinese opera performance with her tomorrow night. Would you like to join us?”

  “Chinese opera?” Isaac frowned. “The kind with all that screeching and shrieking? No, thank you. My ears can’t handle it.”

  Eden didn’t pursue it any further. She picked up the vase and held it up under the light. “Look at this. I found it on a side street off of Avenue Joffre. Isn’t it pretty?”

  Isaac glanced at the vase. “Why’s it only blue and white? Wouldn’t it be prettier if it was painted in different colors?”

  Eden lowered the vase. This was a good example of why she and Isaac would never be good together.

  “I’m going to a Betar meeting after dinner,” he said. The Zionist youth group was one of the few things Isaac had taken a serious interest in since they arrived. “Leo Hanin, the president, is hosting a reception for newcomers in Shanghai. Would you come with me?”

  No. Why couldn’t he understand that?

  “Isaac.” She tried to find the right words. “I know the idea . . . the Zionist movement, is important to you. But maybe we should work at settling down here first. The idea of a Jewish settlement is of course appealing. It’s a great dream. But we could be here for a very long time before that happens.” Maybe even for the rest of our lives, she wanted to say, but didn’t. “Until then, this is our home.”

  “This isn’t our home, Eden.” He stood up and walked over to her. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m grateful to the Chinese for letting us in. But this is not our home.” He looked her in the eye. “We need our own land. A place that belongs only to us. It’ll only happen if we support the cause.”

  Eden put down the vase. There was no point in continuing the subject. She didn’t want to argue with him over something so theoretical. “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?” She walked into the kitchen. “We had a visitor yesterday. He’s the son of one of Papa’s Chinese patients. He brought over something called zongzi. He said it’s a snack they eat for their May Festival.” She put two of the zongzi on the kitchen counter, unwrapped the lotus leaves, and placed them on a plate. “Here, try one.” She brought them out with utensils and gave one to Isaac.