By December, where the refugees had cursed the heat, now they cursed the cold, the rain, and the flooding that the rain created. It wasn't a European winter. The temperature rarely dropped below forty degrees and there was no snow. But a damp chill pervaded every place, and fuel was too expensive to use except for cooking. Even the wealthy European traders were uncomfortable, in their mahogany and marble mansions set graciously out in the outskirts of the International Settlement. They were forced to go more often to the posh Shanghai Club to savor the warmth of whisky served up along what was believed to be the longest bar in the world. The Japanese soldiers had their thick winter uniforms but huddled closely in their barracks.
But on the night of December 4, there was no cold in the world that could chill the spirits of a mass of yeshiva students who had gathered for a party. Six days a week, for twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, the yeshiva studied in the magnificent, high-ceilinged white sanctuary of the Beth Aharon Synagogue that never closed. The synagogue had been turned over to them by its founder, Silas Hardoon, an extremely charitable Sephardic millionaire with a Chinese wife and a dozen adopted children of several races. Hardoon had built the synagogue during the 1920s in response to a dream in which his father praised him for having done so much for the Chinese but chided him for doing so little for his fellow Jews. In spite of its beauty, the synagogue had never been put to much use. To the students and faculty of the Mir Yeshiva, it seemed that the building had been destined all along for their use. There were exactly the same number of seats in the sanctuary as there were students in the yeshiva. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Beth Aharon had been simply waiting for their arrival.
On this night, most of the school, and visitors from other yeshivas, were giving an enthusiastic send-off to one of their number who, miracle of miracles, would be sailing within the week for America and a waiting fiancee. The singing and dancing had already been in progress for hours, song after song, the young men dancing back and forth, swinging each other around with beards and jackets flying. After weeks of unrelenting dedication to studies, it was good just to feel one's body move again.
Yankel Gilbewitz and Gershon Cohen, who these days saw each other only on special occasions, had just finished a whirling rendition of the mitzvah tantz - eighteen boys circling round and round the groom-to-be, clapping in time to the increasingly rousing verses of Od Tishama till the room itself seemed to throb with the beat. The two boys collapsed, breathless, on a couple of chairs near one of the cloth-covered tables at the side of the room.
After the scare put into him by the combined forces of a Kobe police sergeant and God's own retribution, Yankel had retreated entirely from the world of commerce. Though he had continued to pick up the bread ration for his section till the yeshiva departed for Shanghai in late August, to the disappointment of the shopkeeper, he no longer stopped by the fruit store. Anyway, he had discovered that socks could be had for the asking from the Ladies Committee.
In Shanghai, at least, Yankel had less need of secular success. For one thing, the quality of life in the yeshiva was clearly much better than on the outside. The Orthodox congregations in America might not have had much clout with the Jewish community that Inuzuka was interested in: but they were totally and selflessly devoted to rescuing their religious brethren from the harsher rigors of refugee existence. With contributions coming in steadily from abroad, the students, teachers and families of the Mir Yeshiva were far more secure and comfortable than all but a few of the most wellconnected of their fellow refugees. Just as Yankel's interest in feathering his own nest had propelled him away from the yeshiva in Kobe, it encouraged him to retreat even further into it in Shanghai. He was quite content to be eating after-dinner cake and nuts here now while others in Hongkew scrambled for bread.
Yankel helped himself to a cup of the always-available tea. From the first day it had been crammed into their heads: don't drink unboiled water. It was important not to eat raw vegetables. It was important to slice the bread very thin to check for worms. But it was most important never to drink unboiled water. Luckily, tea was cheap.
Gershon, having caught his breath, was ready to fill Yankel in on what had happened to him in the months since they had last been together.
"Well, I have come to the definite conclusion that the Japanese are, without doubt, avodah zorah-niks."
"Ehhh?" Yankel had never concerned himself with the religion of the Japanese. But "polytheists?"
"Exactly. Just like the ancients. By them, different gods hold sway in different places. Just like the Canaanites or the Assyrians - I'm sure of it. 'Here, our god is powerful, so here we must act in such and such a way. But over there? Our god doesn't exist over there. So, over there the rules of our god don't apply! We can act any way we please.'"
"I thought the Japanese were rather nice," Yankel began, remembering the old lady with the shining gold teeth.
"Absolutely, in Japan they were very nice. That's the point! The gods of Japan tell them: be nice, be polite, be gentle. But here in Shanghai - no gods of Japan. So, no more 'nice,' no more 'polite,' no more 'gentle.' Listen, I'll tell you what happened to me, how I know." Gershon stuffed an entire piece of cake into his mouth and began his story.
"We are staying at the Jewish Club, right? Us from Ramailes, a few from Tels, Lubavitch, the other yeshivas? Well, you know that. But there are a couple of married boys, right? Naturally, they don't live in our dormitory but they have little apartments, rooms really, alone to themselves near the club. So, one night I am visiting one of them and there's an air raid drill. Well, we all have been told what to do. We put up dark curtains over the windows and shut all the lights and sit there, maybe talking a little, very quietly in the dark. Suddenly," Gershon paused for effect, "suddenly there comes a terrific pounding on the door and a lot of yelling. None of us understood Japanese of course, but we can tell it's the police. But what have we done? I open the door a crack. They burst into the room, push me back against the wall and start waving their red flashlights all over. They're slamming the furniture all around, overturning everything, scaring the wife half to death and my friend and me too, I must admit. Suddenly one comes back to me, probably thinking it's my room since I opened the door, and starts slapping me back and forth and pointing to his flashlight, and finally we figure it out, that they are looking for a light. One of us says the word in English, and the policemen at least understand that. But there is no light on. We had shut everything. Suddenly the other one starts jabbering and pointing out the window, first up at the moon, and then down the street. So the one holding me stops slapping, and finally we all see what happened; from down in the street, they've seen the reflection from the moon on our window, and they thought we were violating the blackout. So, of course, we're all waiting for some kind of explanation, apology, or something. Did we get one? No, all that happened was that the guy holding onto me throws up his hands like he is very impatient with the whole thing, grabs me by the shoulders, throws me out of his way and stalks out of the door. Then they're both gone, pounding down the stairs and out the door. No apologies, no bowing, no helping us pick up the furniture. Avodah zorahl"
His point proved, Gershon stopped talking and reached for the tea. Yankel could scarcely believe the story. The same Japanese who had been so nice to all of them - letting them come to their country in the first place, giving them gifts of apples or eggs, personally leading them home when they'd gotten lost. . . . Even that farshtunken police sergeant, Okuda, hadn't done anything really violent. Yet, he thought, on the rare occasions that he'd been out walking in Shanghai, hadn't he sensed a different feeling on the part of the Japanese here? Had any of them gone out of their way to help him here like they did in Kobe? And when he happened to be walking toward a Japanese on the sidewalk wasn't it always he who had to step aside and let the other go straight on? Such little things. But maybe Gershon was right.
"Avoda zorah-niks, I tell you, Yankel," Gershon said, absolutely sure of his i
nterpretation. He stood up. "Come on, they're giving Binyomin the send-off present. Oh, how I envy him, going to America in less than a week!"
Yankel agreed, with his whole heart and more. He didn't want to stay here. He didn't like the city or the weather. And now that Gershon had made him think about it, he didn't care so much either for the Japanese in Shanghai. He also stood up and followed his friend over toward the head table. But, if Binyomin can get to America, he thought, maybe, somehow, some way, others of us can too. And if others, why not me? It will just take time. Just be patient and give it time.
It would take a great deal of patience and more time than Yankel had ever imagined. In fact, even Binyomin himself would never leave for America; never join his fiancee . . . and never fully recuperate from the trauma of the disappointment.
On December 8, at 1:58 in the morning Shanghai time, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
When Yankel heard the news, all he could think about were the words of a letter the Mir Yeshiva had recently received from Europe: "There remains but one thing you can do for us now: Say kaddish for us, and mourn." Trapped here, under the rule of Germany's ally and America's enemy, weren't they, too, as good as dead? Who was there left to say kaddish for the Shanghai refugees?
15
AS THE FIRST BOMBS dropped on Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops and artillery in Shanghai were taking up positions along the Bund and beginning to fire on the Royal Naval gunboat "Petrel" moored offshore. The attack was quickly over. The Petrel expired in flames, her crew swept rapidly downstream on the outgoing tide. The only other Allied ship on the river, an American gunboat at anchor nearby, surrendered without resistance. At last all of Shanghai, even the International Settlement and French Concession belonged to the Japanese.
The midnight rattle of distant artillery seeped into Avram Chesno's sleep, creating a semiconscious nightmare: his wife, his lovely, lithe, brown-haired beauty slowly disintegrating, exploding in a long, silent, macabre death before his eyes. But the bombing was brief, and when Avram awoke shortly after dawn, his deep inner unhappiness had been supplemented by a surface annoyance at the mechanical sputtering which had disturbed his sleep. Unaccustomedly claustrophobic in his small room, Avram rose and began dressing. The noisy sputtering that had drifted off returned. Now fully awake, he recognized it as the sound of a small plane flying very low overhead. He went downstairs and outside.
Groups of excited Chinese crowded the narrow streets of the neighborhood, jabbering, gesturing, some weeping, a few laughing nervously. Recognizing one fellow, a tall thin pharmacist named Chin with whom he occasionally had exchanged some simple sentences in English, Avram hurried over to him.
"It is war!" Mr. Chin called out as he recognized Avram. "From last night; Japan has struck America. Now, Japan is at war with America, England, Australia, Holland. . . ." Folding his long fingers over his palm one by one, Mr. Chin ticked off the names of the Allies. "You look worried, Mr. Chesno. I am also. Now it is war for everyone. The world. . . ."
The remainder of Chin's thought was drowned out in the racket of the returning biplane. Passing directly over their heads, the machine suddenly dropped a batch of leaflets which fluttered down like giant snowflakes onto the rooftops and into the streets. The leaflets' message, translated meticulously into Chinese, French and English as well as Japanese, was brief. "Due to errors and failings on the part of the Allies - and in small part to errors and failings of Japan, an unfortunate state of war has come about between Japan and the Allies." As a result of the unfortunate state, the Japanese authorities were now responsible for administering all of Shanghai. There should be no panic, the pamphlet concluded - all necessary information will be given out in good time.
As Avram stood studying the minimal information offered by the pamphlet, he wondered what difference this would make. Two years ago, he had fled from one war, his war, to a haven half a world away. The fact that Japan was even then at war with China had had little meaning for him: it was someone else's war. Now, as Chin said, it was the whole world. Now there was nowhere left to run to. But what an idiotic thought that was. Really, there never had been any secure refuge from the beginning! This expanded war, this world war, only made the inaccessible unattainable.
More Europeans were out on the street now, jabbering and gesticulating, in their own way very much like the Chinese. How the war might affect their already meager chances of moving on to the United States was one thing. How it would affect their immediate lives and their strange incomprehensible relationship with the Japanese was another. Avram glanced briefly at the sky. The light had not brightened appreciably since sunrise. It promised to be a very gray day - cloudy, damp and chill.
Several blocks away, from his office, Captain Inuzuka also briefly studied the day. It was indeed inauspiciously dark and cloudy. But from his higher vantage point, he could see that it was graced by not one but two rainbows. Pleased with the omens, he began to dress.
Although he had not been briefed in advance on it, the attack on Pearl Harbor had scarcely come as a surprise to Inuzuka or to any of the other Japanese officers. Preparations had long since been made, wall posters and the aerial-drop leaflets had been printed up; soldiers and tanks were already being organized for a prearranged parade of strength. Within hours, to the extreme gratification of the Japanese, the previously inviolate International Settlement and French Concession would be brought officially under their direct rule. Inuzuka, as director of refugee affairs, would of course take part in all the historic activities. But first, he had a personal score to settle.
The office of Sir Victor Sassoon was, appropriately, in Sassoon House. Covering nearly an acre of the most expensive real estate in Shanghai and housing the grand Cathay Hotel, this building was one of the largest and easily the most luxurious on the Bund. Inuzuka could hardly wait until the start of the business day. Then he marched into the sparkling glass lobby and took an ornate elevator up to the third floor, headquarters for the entire multi-million-pound-sterling Asian financial empire of E.D. Sassoon and Company. At Sir Victor's very British office, he paused only momentarily before stomping across the carpeted floor, seating himself proprietarily in the leather desk chair and swinging his feet up onto the desk to survey the scene.
"This is now my office," he announced loudly to the employees who stood nervously at hand. "This is now my building. Henceforth you will, all of you, follow Japanese policy!"
So much for you, Sir Victor, with your arrogant and never-concealed disdain for the Japanese. The times have changed, Sir Victor; we Japanese have made them change. No more are your kind the ones in charge; no more will you lord your ways over us. From now on, Asia, free and united in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, will go her own way under her own banner!
The British employees stared with horror at this crude defiance of their established world. The man was a barbarian, a monkey! But they had all seen the posters in the streets and heard the newscasts over the radio. Whatever was right or wrong, there was an unassailable reality to the situation. No one said a word to oppose him.
Sassoon's Chinese employees found Inuzuka's performance equally tasteless. After four and a half years of war against the Japanese, the Chinese despised and detested them. But of all the Asian peoples, only the Japanese had been able to stand up against the ta-piza (big noses). What Inuzuka had just done individually, his countrymen were doing on a grand scale. Hadn't they already liberated the southern provinces, which the French had called "Indochina?" And weren't they at this very moment shelling the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong? At least the crude Japanese were freeing China from its one hundred years of slavery to Western economic interests, Asia would again be, in the words of the Americans, "of and by and for" Asians.
But what a pity, they and Inuzuka himself, thought, what a gross injustice against the order of the world that Sir Victor himself is not here to witness his own demise! Pearl Harbor had caught the chief Sassoon on a business trip in Bombay. Unlike le
sser known "enemy nationals" in Shanghai, Sir Victor would not have to wear a red armband or personally oversee the Japanese usurpation of his holdings. He would spend the next five years in Bombay, another stronghold of his financial empire.
Inuzuka savored his moment of glory in Sassoon's office all the more because he knew his days in Shanghai were about over. With the declaration of war, his Jewish contacts and Jewish expertise had become meaningless. All his work, his patient, exhausting manipulatory deals had come to naught. The Jews were supposed to have persuaded Roosevelt to yield gracefully to Japanese domination of the East. Japan should not have been forced to war with the United States. Hadn't that been the purpose of the fugu plan? But the Jews had failed the fugu plan totally; and in their failure, they had kept Inuzuka from achieving his life-long goal of entree to the high-level policy-making circles of Tokyo. Even forty-eight years of training in the fine Japanese art of concealing emotions could not completely overcome the fury of his disappointment. The first time thereafter that he met with representatives of the Shanghai Jewish community who were courteously requesting permission to undertake a major fund-raising project - Inuzuka practically threw them out of his office. Theyudayajin would get nothing more from him! A few days later, however, after he calmed down, when Laura Margolies, the Joint Distribution Committee's representative, came for the same purpose, he responded politely, not only giving her permission for the fund-raising but also turning over to her five thousand sacks of cracked wheat from the International Red Cross.
But Inuzuka had been correct about the events that would flow from Pearl Harbor. In a matter of weeks, communiques began coming down from Tokyo. From Shigenori Togo, the new foreign minister: "Since the outbreak of the great East Asian war, it has been necessary for us to reconsider the problem of the Jewish population; the resolution of the Five Ministers' Conference must be set aside. . . ." Henceforth, the Jews of Shanghai would have no special place in the scheme of things. From the headquarters of the Bureau of Military Affairs: "Jews are to be treated according to their nationality, but considering their unique character, it will be necessary to keep them under strict surveillance. . . . Those antagonistic are to be suppressed and dealt with." Thus, all "enemy nationals" - including most of the wealthy Sephardim who held British citizenship - were to be transferred to special internment camps on the outskirts of the city. The others - virtually all the seventeen thousand refugees and the four thousand Russian Jews would be protected according to the "principles of universal harmony" (the same principles that had "protected" three-hundred thousand Chinese who had been killed in Nanking four years before).
The Fugu Plan Page 25
