by S. J. Rozan
I smiled also, and asked, “Sixty thousand people rule the lives of one and a half million?”
“But isn’t that how things are done everywhere? In China ’s treaty ports the disparity is sharp because the rulers are foreigners. But”-again sweeping his hand-“in those thousands of miles, for thousands of years, it’s been millions of peasants sweating and starving while aristocrats sip tea. In most of the world, the few govern the many.”
“Now, take care what you say, or you’ll be thought a Bolshevik.”
“Oh, hardly. In fact,” said he in ironic tones, “my own home is in the International Settlement. My father trades in cotton and silk, as his father did, and his. I’m expected to continue this dynasty.”
“Are you? And yet in your voice I hear something else.”
He turned to me, briefly silent, and quite somber. Then he smiled. “Your hearing is acute. Come, let’s find your brother. When the gangway is lowered, chaos will descend with it.”
Mama, I’m told the lights will soon be turned off in this place where we’re staying. I’m quite exhausted. I’ll end here and post this letter tomorrow, hoping it crosses the path of the ship on which you and Uncle Horst are steaming toward Shanghai right now! Though were I assured you were on such a ship and would never see this letter, I’d still continue my account. I’m oddly comforted by the attempt to decribe this extraordinary place for you. To envision your smile as you read makes me feel less alone than, surrounded by the crowds and ceaseless bustle in this room and in Shanghai, I know myself to be.
Your Rosalie
Crowds and ceaseless bustle. That was Chinatown; that was Mary and me and the thirty-six other kids in our tumultuous first-grade class; that was my parents, my mother’s older sister, and my four big brothers in our walk-up apartment. I wanted to tell Rosalie, Don’t worry, once you get used to it it’s kind of fun. I reached for the next letter; maybe she’d found that out herself. But my hand had to detour to pick up the ringing phone.
“Ms. Chin? This is Leah Pilarsky. Joel’s sister-in-law. I’m so sorry to bother you, but…”
“Please call me Lydia.” I wrenched myself back to this familiar room. “And you’re certainly not bothering me. Is something wrong?” Besides the obvious, I thought.
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m not sure you can help, but we don’t know where else to turn. It’s about-Joel’s body.” Her voice caught. “I’m sorry, it’s just such an odd thing to say, his body…” After a tiny pause she went on. “ Lydia, I don’t know if you know this, but our religious laws call for burial within twenty-four hours of death.”
“I think I did know that. But that’s already past.”
“Yes. We also prefer not to do autopsies, but in cases like this, the rabbis permit it. Our laws are ancient, but we do live in the modern world.” Her tone was ironic, almost amused. In better times she was probably the funny relative, full of mordant humor. She was also, clearly, the competent, steadfast one you turn to in times like this. “We’ve been told the autopsy’s been done. But they won’t release the body.”
“Why not?”
“They say with violent crime it’s protocol to wait a few days. I understand that, but it’s a problem. Ruth is having a terrible time. She’s clinging to the rituals and laws-well, that’s what they’re for, to give you something to hold on to in bad times. She’s become obsessed with the funeral: a kosher burial, starting the shiva period. It’s the last thing she can do for Joel, and she really needs to do it. But all I get from the medical examiner’s office is ‘as soon as we can.’ I started to harangue them-sweetly-and they let it slip that if the police okay the release, it can be expedited. So I talked to that detective, Mulgrew.”
“Ah. But that was like talking to a stone wall in a bad mood, right?”
“Exactly.” I heard that faint amusement again, and I was glad I’d caused it. “ Lydia, I know you don’t work for the city-”
“But you’re hoping I know someone who does. I’ll call you right back.”
I clicked off and punched my speed dial.
“Hi, Lydia. What’s up?”
“Detective Mary Kee, this is your lucky day. Special offer, improve your karma with one easy phone call.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. Double karma points if you act without delay.” I told Mary about my conversation with Leah Pilarsky.
“What are you saying? I’m supposed to deal with that?”
“They’ll release the body on an okay from the NYPD.”
“Not from me. I don’t have the rank and it’s not my case.”
“No, your captain does and it’s Midtown’s.”
“Oh, now-”
“You didn’t want your apartment painted anyhow.”
“You want me to call in my chips for this?”
“To help a grieving widow. Like I say, the karma’s real good.”
Silence; then a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m falling for this. Call me back in ten minutes.”
I picked up the next letter, thinking, See, there’s something to be said for ceaseless bustle.
12 May 1938
Dearest Mama,
We’ve been here three days. At the beginning, sensations flew at me so fast my head spun; but now I believe I’m finding what sailors call “sea legs”-the knack of taking a ship’s motion into account as you move about. The streets and buildings of Shanghai don’t move, Mama, but I promise you they are the only things here that don’t. All is constant, frantic activity, day or night. It requires attention and a steeliness of will to step out one’s own door onto the churning streets. Though in truth it might be more difficult to do so, were the place we’re staying not, on a smaller scale, an exact mirror of Shanghai ’s chaos.
Oh, that sounds so ungrateful! And I’m not, Mama, really. The people who received us are doing the most they can with resources stretched to their limits. We’d be on the streets if not for their kindness. The reception of refugees is managed by a number of committees supported by wealthy Jewish families-British citizens from Bombay -who have seen the need and responded generously. Nevertheless, the need is so great, and so rapidly growing, that this generosity results in conditions which, while providing minimally for us, underline the dismal reality of our situation.
But Mama, reading over what I’ve written, I find I’m failing you as a journalist; my complaining has superseded my obligation to be your eyes and ears. I’ll stop my grumbling instantly, and take up my account from the moment the gangplank connected with the dock.
So, then: We descended in the same orderly chaos in which we’d boarded, though with considerably more trepidation. A small number of passengers were met by relatives or friends who’d come here earlier. (As you and Uncle Horst will be, by us!) Kai-rong had a car waiting, and offered to take Paul and myself to our destination. But we didn’t know our destination! So he left us with careful instructions on how to find him, and went off, his driver employing the car’s horn (with little success) to blast a path through the crowd. I watched until his car was swallowed up; then with Paul I joined the stream of refugees along the wharf. We had been told of a meeting point and were making for it, but before we reached it we were found and warmly greeted by men and women speaking German.
From here, the story becomes less fairy-tale-like, and more befitting the truth of our situation.
We were escorted onto open trucks-trucks, Mama!-and carried through the bumpy streets to our new home. Some people sat on luggage as we inched along, but most crowded the truck’s sides as we had the ship’s rail, to see Shanghai close-up.
Alas, the sight was not encouraging. Narrow lanes, torn pavement, low doorways; windows that were no more than gaping squares, having shutters but no glass; hanging wash; women stirring pots outdoors; children practically naked; men carrying burdens on poles across their shoulders. Debris, and worse, swirled through open gutters. Everywhere, the smells that had greeted us on shipboard, concentrated tenfold; and everywhere,
the dense, swampy heat. People who had dressed their best for disembarkation removed coats and loosened starched collars, and it became a contest, whether one’s hat was better used to shade one’s face, or fan it.
As we lurched on we learned our destination: Hongkew! That desolate bombed area we’d floated by on the Conte Biancamano. Which, half a week behind us, now seems like just a dream.
Finally we came to a halt. Gentlemen helped ladies from the trucks, and we faced our new home.
This shelter-there are a number, and they are called “Homes,” a well-meant but mocking title-fills an abandoned warehouse. Walls are bare brick and floors are concrete and all are in bad repair. On the ground floor are kitchens, a dining hall, and a medical clinic. Large rooms upstairs serve as dormitories, partitioned by hanging bedsheets. Beds are double-decked bunks or military cots; mine is in the family section, while Paul has been assigned to the room for bachelors. He’s proud to have been placed with the men and not with me as he would be if considered a child; but Mama, I believe he’s lonely, as I know I am.
The kitchen produces barely adequate and unpalatable meals, which nevertheless we’re grateful for. Sanitary facilities are shared, and there is no hot water. Never can you find a moment’s silence: Some child is always crying or some adult talking or coughing. If couples argue, everyone hears; and if they whisper tenderly to each other-the same.
So you can see why finding a place of our own-which from what I’m told is likely to possess many of the disadvantages of this Home but will have one great advantage, privacy-has suddenly become my heart’s desire.
And I suppose I’ll have to continue this account tomorrow, because once again, as-but not at all like-when Paul and I were children in the nursery and you came to kiss us good night, the lights are about to be put out.
Good night, dear Mama.
Your Rosalie
16 May 1938
Dearest Mama,
I know I have not written for days, but it’s so hard to put into words the bewilderment of our daily lives.
The thick, damp heat is unforgiving. Noise is constant, with many sounds unidentifiable and therefore disconcerting. Hongkew’s narrow lanes are so like each other that getting lost is inevitable and finding your way again all but impossible. Yesterday, searching for a vegetable market, I became so hopelessly confounded in an area all Chinese that I was almost brought to tears, rescued only by a Polish refugee child. She spoke no German, so could not direct me, but took pity and led me to a main avenue. In Shanghai the avenues bear English signs, and so I was able to locate myself. I returned to the Home grateful, though carrotless.
The streets are overwhelming, Mama. The heat and crowding combine to assure that life is lived out of doors, and thus publicly. Beggars abound, both adults and children, a sight I have not gotten used to; but also shoemakers, dentists, druggists, teahouses, and public letter-writers-a lending library, Mama, of Chinese books, attached to shelves by strings just long enough to reach nearby benches! All are on the streets, and one is expected to step around them, as work takes precedence over passing by. Everywhere we hear the competing shouts of vendors, the clack of mah-jongg tiles, and the clangs and mournful strings of Chinese music, as these are also activities for the street.
All this, I think, would be exotic and strange, and yet I’d square my shoulders and get on with learning to recognize a streetcar stop and distinguish the currency-as well as adjusting to boiling the water, and peeling what little fresh fruit I find-were it not for the intermittent intrusions of sounds and smells from home. Acrid smoke carries the stench of sewage and the unfamiliar aromas of Chinese spices-but then we catch a whiff of coffee or cinnamon from some lucky refugee’s kitchen. These things are not unavailable here, only beyond most refugees’ reach. People will save for weeks to buy enough coffee to brew a single pot, which they’ll sip slowly, not knowing when they’ll taste it again.
Mama, it’s these familiar things that make the heart pound. One feels as if in a dream, where the real and fantastic exist side by side, where it’s no good to determine to get on with anything, as one could be lifted into the sky, or houses in a lane could turn to trees in a forest, at any second.
Oh, I sound so foolish! And yet this is how I’ve felt this past week, as I make my way around Shanghai. More than once I’ve stopped still and tried, as I do in frightening dreams, simply to will myself awake. The Nazis never marched into Austria. Paul and I never fled to Shanghai – Shanghai, how absurd!-leaving you and Uncle Horst behind. The Nazis themselves don’t exist, but are monsters of my imagination. But my efforts result in no effect: I’m awake and all this is only too real.
Now you’ll worry I’m going mad. Please don’t fear. As long as I have Paul to look after I’ll keep my feet on the ground, I promise. And I don’t hesitate to admit I’ve been greatly aided by my friend, Chen Kai-rong. Though he made sure I had his address before we parted, I’d decided not to contact him until Paul and I were no longer living in these squalid, communal conditions. Pride, I suppose, made me want to meet him again as an equal, as aboard the ship. But two days ago, Paul and I were summoned from the roof where, on the lines that crisscross it, we were hanging out laundry. (This in itself is almost a joke, Mama, because nothing dries in Shanghai.) The child who’d run to fetch us said a Chinese gentleman was at the door in a fine car, asking if he’d found the Home in which the Gilders stayed. I hesitated, but Paul-who does not find laundry entrancing-let out a cheer and galloped down the stairs. I followed, to find Kai-rong standing beside a Mercedes-Benz. He quite beamed when he saw us, and I’m afraid I did the same, though propriety might have demanded a more restrained response. He requested the pleasure of taking us to tea. I was embarrassed by the state of my hands, my hair, my dress; but I couldn’t refuse Paul this treat. We set off, ignoring the pursed lips of some of our fellow residents, who seem to think a refugee girl entering a Chinese gentleman’s car can mean only one thing, even with her younger brother at her side.
My discomfort at having been discovered in our meager circumstances found no echo in Kai-rong, who was full of practical questions: Was the food passable, were we learning our way around, did we understand the bank notes? We spent a lovely hour at a lakeside teahouse occupied, except for Paul and myself, exclusively by Chinese. Paul devoured the tea cakes; as for me, even the mediocrity of my recent diet hasn’t increased my enthusiam for these dainties. But the tea was sweet, and swans floated by, and I suppose I’m growing used to Chinese music because I found the quartet quite pleasing. Kai-rong explained the instruments and their tuning, we discussed Mozart and literature, and I was very sorry when we had to leave.
Kai-rong had his driver take us back on a wandering path, as he pointed out landmarks to familiarize us with our new home. The tour was enlightening; but it was the comfort of Kai-rong’s presence that made me feel, as on shipboard, connected to this time and place.
Your foolish, but entirely rational,
Rosalie
23 May 1938
Dear Mama,
We’ve been here two weeks and it seems a lifetime.
Who could ever have imagined? The Pesach tales of oppression, which I once dismissed as part myth, part ancient history, and wholly unrelated to our enlightened age, have risen from the pages of the Haggadah to come howling after us. Once again we’re fleeing, scattering to the winds. Over the thin kasha soup and rough bread that serves as dinner at the Home, one hears of relatives making for Australia, Argentina, the Dominican Republic-oh, Mama, I don’t believe I could find that island on a map, and yet it’s rumored that, alone in the world but for Shanghai, its doors remain open.
And reverently people speak of the Promised Land, America. America? Which issues only a miserably few visas to refugees, desperate as we are? Why does anyone believe America will be more hospitable once they pry open its doors? And yet so many plan and scheme and hope: A former employer who fled to Chicago will send for them, or cousins in New York will sponsor them, and
the gates of paradise will swing wide.
No, I say. Shanghai is mystifying and often harsh; nevertheless, it’s welcomed us. Until insanity is overthrown and our homes restored, my home is here.
Oh, what a demagogue I’ve become! I’m sorry; worry over you and Uncle Horst, over the future, over how to know I’m doing the right things for Paul-over whether I’ll find kasha soup in my bowl again tomorrow-combines with a helpless anger, and leads to a darkness I haven’t known before.
Others feel this darkness, too, the result of worry and the inability to find work, a place to live, decent food-to take any action in any direction. At the Home you see people-a small number, but real-who sit all day in the canteen or on their cots, who have little to say and will not try the streets of Shanghai, who no longer spend effort to stay clean and groomed-and it is an effort here, Mama, but one I force myself to make and demand of Paul. This darkness thickens imperceptibly: I didn’t realize I had fallen into its shadow until our outing with Kai-rong. For the brief period of that afternoon, Shanghai seemed not like a frightening dream, but merely a place. Bizarre and mystifying, admittedly, but nevertheless a solid, daytime place whose streets and customs could, with application, be understood.
I’m telling you this, Mama, because I want you to understand a decision I’ve made: after wrenching consideration, I’ve determined to sell Grandmother Gilder’s ruby ring. I’m afraid to stay too long at the Home, afraid of what the dreariness will do to my heart and Paul’s. The price of the ring should enable us to pay what’s called “key money”-pure extortion, but every landlord demands it-and also, I hope, to pay Paul’s school fees when I find him a place. He claims to be perfectly happy in his truancy, and asks that I not sell anything for his sake; but I don’t believe him. He hasn’t seen the inside of an incomprehensible science text since we left the ship, so how could he be happy? And even if he were, nevertheless he should be in school.
