Chapter 14

14.
“Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in A Minor, Op. 28: Saint-Saëns”

Shanghai province juts off the eastern curve of the massive country of China like an unfortunately shaped nose covered in unsightly veins. It’s a bird’s nose, a beak, with a long wide nostril and a hump that curves down into an unattractive tip. It has blemishes, too. Great red spots to mark the cities, Wusong, Minhang, Nanxiang, the biggest spot of all being right along the vein, a pulsating artery known as the Wangpoo River, the capital city, Shanghai herself.

On closer inspection she is a port city even though the port sprawls so far inland many of its poorer inhabitants have never actually seen the ocean. Despite this, Shanghailanders dive gleefully into all the trappings of a seaside metropolis. They are a people who identify with brackish water, sloshing through the city three months out of the year when the river rises. They understand humidity and know the smells of low tide. They gaze at the water, the way seaside people do, and long more then most. Perhaps it’s to prove something to all the other port cities of the world that feel the pull of the ocean directly without the interruption of a land mass, but watching the ships come and go up the winding river is its own kind of seduction, like a dancer who removes a single glove and then leaves the stage. In Shanghai they are maddened by the lure of the river. Some of the infected follow its tides, but others are compelled to stay and project their longings inward. This resulting madness is manifested in opium dens and dance halls. Through crime, prostitution, sprawling industry, staggering wealth, and lowest poverty. It’s a city that seems to purr, “I dare you to dance with me, to come down the river and dance with me…”

In the days before America entered the war, the river’s seductive pull was that of the most indiscriminate of working girls, for not only could one enter the port of Shanghai without a visa, at the time you didn’t even need a passport. The only paperwork necessary to get to Shanghai was a visa to leave wherever it was you were coming from. And in the case of the German Jews, the Nazis were happy to oblige. In these early, modestly ambitious days of the war, they were still more interested in ridding Europe of Jews then ridding the world of them. In a diary Joshua kept during his years in Stone Village he would reflect on how lucky they were to have suffered the hardships of Shanghai in comparison to the horrors of what was going on back home, a reality he wouldn’t learn about for years.

But coming closer still, the map of their new world reminded Max of a revolver pointing east. Old City was the trigger, the handle was made up of the French Concession, and the barrel and shaft were known as The International Settlement. It was here in a small, dirt poor neighborhood known as HongKew, that most Jewish refugees settled, or at least started out.

The temporary room Anton had acquired was very close to the U.S. Consulate, its curtainless windows facing the bridge that crossed SooChow Creek and connected with the Bund. It was this road that Josh and Max took to get to the club every night, and the one they took back, on foot usually to save the money, in the frozen, early morning. They had just come in to a snoring Frau Schmetterling who had surrounded her small bed with a tent of sheets for privacy, and a rat who Max had nick-named Mickey, chewing a hole through the corner of one of Joshua’s suitcases.

Joshua gave Mickey a shove with the tip of his boot and the rat vanished into the wall. He was tired. Max could tell. The club, where they had been working for exactly four days, seemed to give him little joy. Max knew he felt like der kleine affe, the little performing monkey, and that he resented having to prove himself to room full after room full of drunken foreigners. He would retreat to the green room between sets and stare out the window watching the ships in the harbor. He spoke to no one.
Max, on the other hand, was enjoying his celebrity status. The club was alive with people and he liked nothing more than parading his blonde head around the room playing the role of wickedly handsome, talented, ex-patriate.

Charlie, with his slim grasp of English, had started teaching him phrases in Mandarin, which he used on groups of young women to make them laugh. Anton was the real liaison though. He introduced him to all manner of people who were excited by the performing pair and offered them more work, parties, dinners at the Embassies. There were rich Jews from Russia, and a group of Baghdadi Jews who had their hands full funding the refugee camps that Max and company were lucky enough to have avoided. Max would converse with these important men, he would tell their story and gracefully accept their sympathies. On Maestro’s behalf, he would promise engagements at their private clubs. He suggested a concert to raise funds for the people of HongKew. It was in this way, Max decided, that he would become a famous philanthropist.

They even had a fan. BaiLan was the cellist who had approached them on their first night. The pretty girl in black who had liked their playing. She came to the club every night that first week and sat alone at a table near the front. It turned out she was friend of Charlie’s and he had arranged with Mr. Jin, for the early part of that Friday night off so they could all go over to the music conservatory and watch her play with her trio. A concert in the wealthy Jessfield Park promised great connections for Joshua, maybe even a teaching internship or a guest conducting spot.

On the long, cold, walk home Max broke the news gently to Maestro who took it better than he had expected. “If it gets us out of that pit,” was his only reply.

Above in their room, Max rolled a cigarette and watched the traffic on the bridge. For reasons he didn’t yet fully grasp, it was patrolled by Japanese soldiers who seemed to take great pleasure in abusing the poor Chinese of HongKew who used the bridge as a means to get to the Old City for work. They were forced to bow their heads as they passed. If they didn’t they would receive the butt of a gun to any number of places on their person. Max thought of the SS man who had made him burn his book on the street.
He didn’t understand the politics here any more than one of the people below would have understood what was going on in Germany, but he felt for them. Was this balance? Is cruelty and suffering perhaps necessary in someway, the way a piano needs both black and white keys? No, he refused to believe the world was as malevolent as that and in a wave of selflessness was moved to thoughts of action. What could he do, throw himself between the victim and the oppressor? Grab his gun and shoot them all? He thought of Maestro’s roaches; how even if you crush one another will take it’s place.

He thought about Bruno Pesch, another little weasel with a gun. He hadn’t thought of Bruno in a while, but this association, the way he looked at the soldier below and saw Bruno’s face, it brought him one step closer to a realization that would redirect the course of his life yet again.

Maestro was already asleep when the incipient philanthropist crawled into bed beside him. It was in these moments that Max felt for him the most. How painful it must have been for Maestro to wake and find his body and not Hanna’s beside him. He pondered this awesome cruelty. He imagined the hole that was left in this man beside him, this man that he loved like a father. He closed his eyes. And for a while the room fell quiet.



Joshua was wide awake. He would often feign sleep with Max around; he didn’t want to have to get into a line of questioning regarding his current state of being. He had been suffering from insomnia since they left Europe but kept his ailment close to his chest so as not to alarm his patient travel companions even further. He would close his eyes and wait till the coast was clear.

Joshua always knew when Max was asleep. His breath would slow and take on the sound of wind whistling through a pipe organ. Combined with the low guttural rumblings of Madame Butterfly’s snores they formed a sonic platform of relief for Joshua. He could be alone while they slept. He could compose.

It started on the Conte. That candle, star and bulb lit night, when Madame Butterfly had given her concert. He had a dream the night before. A dream of Hanna guiding him along the side of a cliff in Argentina. She had worn a dress that was too colorful, something he had found wildly offensive. All through the concert he sat with his eyes shut and prayed for her forgiveness. He wanted her to know that he thought she was beautiful. He wanted to tell her, so he began composing a symphony in his head, one movement for every color in that awful dress. That morning was green.

But before he could begin in earnest, before he could let the colors wash over him and get lost in the folds of her dress, he found himself processing a most bizarre occurrence that had taken place at the club involving the young lady in black who had taken to staring at him every night while he played.

It was after their first set, an impassioned version of the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Saint-Saens. Max insisted they play the piece for their audition after much heated debate from Anton who, being Russian, of course wanted to hear Tchaikovsky. Like the Germans, the Russians believe their composers to be the best, but unlike the Germans they were wrong. Joshua didn’t care what they played as long as it wasn’t Russian, honoring a promise he made to his dead wife. So they decided to play something French.

The piece stuck like a poppy seed into the tooth of their repertoire and seemed eternally lodged there. It drove the crowd wild and as Charlie so eloquently put it, “if it aint broken, don’t have to fixing it.” Well, they didn’t, and played the piece every night around nine. Afterwards Joshua would retire to the little smoky green room with the pleasant view of Jazz Street and compose quietly while waiting for Max to call upon him for their second set, usually a repeat of the Saint-Saens, as by then the room had turned over and a whole new crowd was waiting to hear what everybody was talking about. Joshua found the whole thing sickly comical and wondered how long he would be able to bear it. It had only been four days but it felt like a lifetime, as if everything before had been some bittersweet dream that haunted him endlessly and that this was and had always been, his reality. He remembered reaching out and pressing his hand against the cold glass of the window. For a moment he forgot where he was, what city, what decade. He felt viciously lost. But something changed. He turned and saw her standing in the doorway. The girl in black.

She was a tiny little thing, so petite and well proportioned, like a doll almost. Everything about her was meticulously put together, from the veil on her hat, to her fur lined coat, to the seam in her stockings ending in a perfect pair of little shoes that were so pristine they might never have touched the ground. This creature, for she seemed otherworldly, stood gracefully in the doorway gazing at him. Joshua looked at her and she lowered her eyes. Something about her presence there with him seemed to fill her with shame, as if she had been forced to come. Maybe she had, he thought, or maybe she was there to deliver bad news, for not once did she smile or step past the door frame into the room.

Joshua stood and bowed, as was the custom, and greeted her with the compulsory, “Nihao,” for Max was learning quickly and forcing Chinese phrases down their throats with vigor. “How are you?” He had said, and smiled.

The girl’s eyes met his. They were filled with a sadness so profound, that it furrowed his brow. She bowed in return, ever so slightly, ever so ladylike, grinned, then closed up like a fan. With a gloved hand she took a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it, and after a heave of her dainty chest she read in German, “the refined, indignant, and impassioned music reveals Maestro Streng exquisite and consummated skills.” She kept her eyes on the paper.

Joshua stood by the window, dumbfounded. “Thank you, Miss, Lan, was it?”

BaiLan continued what she had rehearsed, “BaiLan gazes at Maestro Streng with wonders and admirations.”

“I’ve noticed. I’ll play you something else sometime, you must be getting awfully sick of Saint-Saens.”

“BaiLan is filled with indignation and sadness.”

“Why?”

“Music touches heartening, inspiring and courage, causes to ponder long and deeply; immersing in utterly soul to it. The history, the ancient and the modern; the war and the peace; the humanistic and the inhuman; the western and the eastern. The past and present, the length and breadth sweep through the humankind entire world courses. Life‘s annual ring in accordance with its intrinsic regular pattern revolves.” She took a deep breath after that and looked at him with utter seriousness. These words held weight for her, grave weight, and Joshua searched for a response that would honor them.

“Danke,” he said and bowed deeply.

This seemed to both satisfy and startle the girl as she quickly folded the paper, stuffed it back into her pocket, turned on her heel, and left. Joshua could hear her carefully negotiating the narrow staircase. Something inside of him wanted to watch her do this but he didn’t want to embarrass her so he remained by the window listening.
It was odd. The whole exchange. He wished she had left him the paper from which she read. He would have liked to dissect her words, to sift them down an examine their true meaning. He could pour over them while sleep evaded him, and tie them into little bows to adorn her with, this white and black China doll shrouded in shame. Now Max was taking them to see her play. He thought of writing her a note of his own in Chinese and attaching it to a dozen red roses, “Dear Miss Lan, Don’t fall in love with me. Joshua.” And with this thought he felt the lure of sleep. Hanna’s Green Movement would have to wait till tomorrow night.

For a while they all slept, their breath wheezing away in three-part harmony.



Frau Schmetterling was an early riser. She had accompanied the boys to the club only once earlier that week and having seen it, decided she didn’t need to see it again. Her sights were set on improving their situation and would spend her mornings down at the Russian café nosing around for opportunity. She had become somewhat of a gentle thorn in Anton’s side, his friends referring to her as Mutter. She would take her coffee black and regale them with stories of the Quartett des Pazifiks, the ship and their escape from Berlin. She told them about Leonard and in a private moment with Anton, revealed his shiny secret.

When Max heard about what she had done, he was livid. He couldn’t believe that she had trusted the Russian with their future, but she brushed him off. Anton had arranged a meeting with a jewelry dealer for later in the week who promised top dollar, all Anton asked for in return was a small finder’s fee. This calmed Max a bit, but he insisted on going with her to meet this so-called dealer and Frau Schmetterling agreed with him to shut him up. The fact of the matter was that the meeting was scheduled for the morning and Max, having worked all night, would still be asleep. The dealer was willing to meet in the afternoon but he didn’t have one free for nearly two weeks and Frau Schmetterling refused to sleep any more nights on that tiny bed that weren’t absolutely necessary. So she rose, dressed in her finest Emerald suit and went down to the café to meet Anton.

It’s funny how people adapt to their situations so very quickly, she thought. As she walked her new friends greeted her. There was Ivar who ran the newsstand; he had a daughter Max’s age. And Mina from Berlin who grew up only blocks away from her and Leonard but never knew them. Hadasa had five children who found Frau Schmetterling’s velvet suits fascinating and would follow her down the street grilling her with questions. They were good people; she would miss them when she moved to a nicer part of town.

The café was nearly empty when Frau Schmetterling appeared in the doorway, casting a grand silhouette. A couple sat picking at some soup and otherwise ignoring each other, and the pretty counter girl and her not so pretty sister bickered near the coffee maker. Anton was at his usual table in the rear talking with a man whose back was to her, the dealer, she assumed. Fluffing up her feathers and gripping tightly to Leonard--who she had lightened significantly before this meeting just in case Max’s ascertains about the scarred Russian were true--she swanned over to the table as the men rose to greet her.

Now, before the dealer turned, before she saw his face, you must first picture an outpost at the base of The Himalayas some forty-five years earlier. It was 1892 and Agnieszka Tyc was twenty-seven years old. She was Budapest born, the youngest sister of seven brothers, and had been infected, if not wholly by them then at least partly, with a daredevil streak that took her to the far reaches of the globe in search of adventure.

In her late twenties she was still unmarried and though she had a sprinkling of suitors, she hadn’t yet met the man who could keep up with her. Also, she tended toward a kind of masculine vulgarity, having been raised in a litter of boys, she was quick-witted, lewd, and a little too amused by bodily functions involving excretions of gas. That being said, she was also beautiful, confident, and viciously intimidating to most people, especially men.

The Tyc siblings had formed a daredevil club, The Thin Air Society, a group of wealthy young people who would plan trips and expeditions, that spring, to India for mountain trekking in the Himalayas. It was to be a joint venture with daredevil clubs from all over Europe. They would be joined by The Condors from Berlin, The Metal Hats from Prague, and a group of English and American daredevils, who defined themselves individually, with names like The Spider, The Fly and The Red Torpedo. It was all frightfully exciting; the concept of meeting like minds a thrill in itself.

The Tycs, Agnieszka and three of her brothers, set off with their Polish brethren and arrived at the first meeting place, a small English hotel in Darjeeling with a breathtaking view of their proposed trek, Mount Kangchenjunga. In those days Darjeeling was frightfully continental, more like Switzerland then India. It sported a plantation style hotel with boutique rooms and carved wooden balconies. The restaurant served charming little Euro-style dishes that had absolutely no place in Indian cuisine. Agnieszka remembered being appalled by this forced westernization, debating the temperate nights away with the Thin Air Club as they awaited the arrival of the others and practically drowned themselves in tea.

She wondered what her younger self would have thought of Shanghai, how it would have mutually crushed and amazed her. This grafting of cultures, one top of the other, she had seen it in Darjeeling and was seeing it again here, it was no wonder he showed up. In many ways it made perfect sense.

The Germans arrived in Darjeeling three days into their stay and not a moment too soon. The Tycs were getting restless and had started in on a string of vicious practical jokes that more often then not ended in trips to the hospital. Agnieszka was in the process of gathering interesting looking insects to deposit in her brother’s bed when she heard them coming up the path. Covered in dirt, and tired from being chased around all morning by her brothers wielding a dead and rotting bird on a stick, Agnieszka greeted the polished and handsome Germans from a muddy Indian ditch.
There were three of them, two men and a woman, all dressed alike, in boots, riding pants and fitted leather jackets with two rows of shiny black buttons running parallel down the front. The woman was blonde and stoic, but the men were both dark. They could have been brothers, she remembered thinking, but they weren’t. They were Leonard Schmetterling and Jonas Holstein, the girl didn’t have a name or if she did, it was lost in the annals of her memory.

Agnieszka brushed the dirt and insects from off her hands and extended them to the three members of the Condors. It was Jonas who reached back, he had always been the warm one, and it was Jonas who stood before her forty-five years later in that drafty Russian café, she would have bet her life on it.

“Jonas,” she whispered.

“Madame Schmetterling, this is the man I was telling you about, Mr. Armand. He deals in trinkets,” Anton winked.

Frau Schmetterling stepped back. Did he wink because he knew the man’s real identity? Was Mr. Armand a code name? Or perhaps he had changed it, anything could have happened; it had been so many years. But it seemed they were all in on the joke.

“Armand,” she ventured, “no, Holstein. Jonas Holstein. You don’t remember me?

Agnieszka Tyc. I married Leonard, you were at our wedding.”

“Madame, I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else. My name is Armand.” Mr. Armand smiled and offered her a seat, but Frau Schmetterling just stood, frozen in disbelief. Why didn’t he know her? “Frau, have a seat, don’t you have something you’d like to show me?”

She sat beside him and whispered; closeness would bring it all back for him. “On that path in Darjeeling, I met you and Leonard. I was covered in mud, what was the girl’s name? She was a Condor.” She held his arm as if holding tight to the memory, she squeezed, “was it Ilsa?”

“I’ve never been to India, Frau.”

“Jonas, please,” she said, raising her voice.

Armand and Anton exchanged looks. The woman was eccentric, and eccentric people tended to become alarming on occasion.

“Frau,” Anton attempted, “Let’s have a seat and Jonas can explain himself, no? Do you have the broach?”

“Of course I have the broach, Leonard has the broach…”

She could hear him speak, but it seemed projected, perhaps through some kind of primitive amplification device, deep into her past. Anton was on that quaint balcony with a megaphone while Agnieszka stood with dirty hands on the path beside the hotel. She could see down the road. There was a temple adorned with hundreds of prayer flags meant to ward off evil spirits. There were flags here too, in Shanghai. There were more flags here then there were in India. She wondered about this, why places she went always had so many flags. Maybe she had something to do with it.

She looked at Anton and his companion; her heart fell. His name was Armand and he was around forty-years-old. It was as if the light had changed, for suddenly he looked nothing like Jonas. The cold morning hit her and she glanced down at her gloved hands.
“I’m sorry. I have to be getting back now. We’ll meet in the afternoon, next week, when you have time.”

She left the café in such a hurry that she didn’t give Anton a chance to follow her. She couldn’t let anyone know what was happening, most importantly the boys, she had to look after them, she had to keep her wits till she knew they were alright.

She kept her head down, she kept her eyes off the flags and when she arrived back at the room, Max and Josh were still asleep. So she brewed some tea--the box said Darjeeling--and waited for them to wake up.