Chapter 19

19.
“Cello Concerto in A Minor Op. 129: Nicht zu schnell: Schumann”

BaiLan was in tears. That night before dinner HongWei had come round with all sorts of disturbing news about the Japanese. In small towns not far from where they sat, people were being hunted and executed by the hundreds. In order to save bullets, in some places, birds were released that were riddled with plague-infested fleas. Typhoid and cholera cultures were systematically being infused into the water supply to take out entire villages. It was an evil she had never known, and if this wasn’t enough to invoke tears, it had been two weeks since Joshua and company had relocated to the ghetto in HongKew and BaiLan hadn’t heard a word.

“My family is planning a relocation to Hong Kong. This invitation is extended to you, Mr Bai, and to your family, which, after the wedding, will be one and the same. I suggest you join us.” HongWei didn’t even look at her.

It was this remark that sent BaiLan up the stairs to her room fleeing the awfulness of it all. She was knee deep in self-pity and sinking fast. How was it possible that Joshua be taken from her so soon? And how could she possibly continue without him?
She didn’t sleep that night. When she tried she was stirred by dreams involving infected fleas and woke up itching. She dreamt that she had forgotten how to play her cello, that it had twenty strings around a circular neck so close together her fingers couldn’t isolate them. She dreamt that the strings were razor sharp and cut her hands to shreds. She dreamt of Joshua. In the dream he sat in his chair not looking at her as her hands bled, his face hidden behind pages and pages of music. “Weider,” was all he said, “again.”

As the days passed things only got worse. Her parents decide to close up house and relocate to Hong Kong. It would be safer there for the time being. They could see their daughter married in peace, until the war reached them, if the war reached them.
From her favorite hiding place under the piano, BaiLan tried to put Joshua out of her head, a task she found to be quite impossible. For the more she tried not to think about him the more his face appeared in her mind’s eye. She had left a part of herself in his music room, a stubborn part that refused to rejoin its owner.

The thought of marrying HongWei was repulsive to her now, for she knew herself to have but one soul belonging in totality to Maestro Streng. A wedding to HongWei was out of the question, still, she was unable to inform her parents of her decision. Perhaps it was because BaiLan knew--the pragmatic BaiLan that is--that life is not a series of absolutes, and that even love cannot be trusted blindly.

Under the piano she debated with herself as to the very origin of love. In some scenarios she and Joshua had lived many lives together, their souls struggling towards an incarnation where harmony exists, and in others he was simply a series of angles, that for some reason, pleased her series of angles. No history, no destiny, just a cruel illusion of nature to trick humans into procreation. She wondered with what intensity a bee loved a flower, then stopped herself to question the very nature of her questioning arriving at the same answer every time; whatever the reasons, she loved him. And she was doomed to love him until she didn’t love him anymore.

It was in this fashion that BaiLan stayed out of the way as her childhood home was put into boxes around her. She was afraid to leave the house, afraid to eat, to drink. She was afraid of the air, for she was convinced, as many were, that the Japanese would somehow poison that next. The housekeeper fed a little of everything they ate to the cat first as a precaution, and BaiLan cried every time; maybe not as it was being done, but afterwards to herself, into the fur of the animal who she had known since childhood.

One day, maybe a week later, BaiLan found herself alone beneath the piano. Alone except for the cat who had hung around despite the precariousness of his situation. The room was bare. The only piece of furniture remaining wasn’t furniture at all, it was the white piano, which gave the room the distinct feel of a ballet studio. Setting the cat loose, BaiLan sat behind it and played a waltz by Chopin, one Max had taught her in a minor key. It was strange that this was all it took to summon him, for when she missed one too many notes and decided to start again, she heard her name being called out from the street below. It was Max in the guise of his alter ego, XinSi.
Moments later, braving the threats of biological warfare, she found herself sitting with him in a secluded part of the frigid and silver garden.

“We share a room with a married couple, you may remember them, he was a substitute in the orchestra. A brass player named Horowitz. They’re fine but the woman snores like a sailor.”

“Five of you in one room?”

“And their kid.”

“How awful.”

“We’re better off then most,” Max sighed and looked at his feet.

“How did you get here?” She asked, but the answer was starring her in the face. As XinSi, Max was able to blend. With his hat pulled down and his glasses on it was easy to mistake him for a local if you weren’t paying close attention.

“I can get away with it for the time being but it won’t be long before they catch on. If you really want out the only way is to get a pass and those are only good for work. You need a sponsor on the outside.” Max met her eyes. “If you sponsor him, you can see him again. It’s an option.”

BaiLan’s heart rose into her throat then fell with the weight of a led balloon. “I… I can’t. I’m going to Hong Kong with my family. The arrangements--they’ve been made. I’m so sorry.” She could hardly believe the words as she spoke them for they went so violently against what was in her heart.

“As I said, it’s only an option. Hopefully all this will be over soon and we can get back to normal, whatever that is. BaiLan…” Max wanted to say more. He wanted to confide in her about Berlin, as that weight was growing heavier by the day, but looking at her now he thought perhaps he had put to much faith in her friendship. She was leaving. Hanna wouldn’t have left in a million years. So as politely as he could he rose to excuse himself, leaving Miss Bai and her black fur lined coat to weep crocodile tears that froze before they hit the ground.

In a way he hoped she felt written off. He hoped she heard the gate slam as loudly as he did. He decided not to tell Maestro of his visit, her apathy would have crushed him. He would report that he found the house empty. That she simply wasn’t there. And she wasn’t, not really.

The ghost of BaiLan floated back into the ghost of a structure she had once called home and shivered with grief. Her father had returned. He floated too, from room to room bidding farewell to the life he had worked so hard to build. They met each other in the living room, regarding one another with detached respect and suspicion. Mr. Bai was no fool. He knew of his daughters affection for the German and while a small part of him was impressed, if not amused, by the change in his daughter, he knew as well as she did that it would not be indulged. That plans had been made, plans that neither of them had any control over.

They didn’t speak. BaiLan sat at the piano and continued to play the Chopin while Mr. Bai stared out the window into the garden below. When she hit a snag he regarded her with a nod and left her alone with her music that echoed eerily in the emptiness of the room.

I am doomed to love him until I don’t love him anymore. This simple statement, was it enough to shield her from the hardships and terrors of war? Was it a force so strong and selfish that it would will her to destroy everything she had known to be certain? Would it rule her or would she rule it? Was there even a choice?

She played till it got so dark that she could no longer see the keys. When the piano disappeared she went for her cello, for she didn’t need any light to play it. In the dark she was able to quiet her mind, to be with him and his nimble fingers on the neck of his violin, on her neck when he kissed her, and when dawn broke, she felt less afraid and more doomed, which was somehow a marked improvement.

That day, after not having slept a wink, the Bai family made their way to the Shanghai train station. BaiLan felt much the way Max did in the opium den as the car carried her family to their fate, she felt trapped inside of herself, more like an observer of her own actions rather than a controlling force in them. The movie of her life was rapidly approaching a turning point of some kind but she had no idea how it was destined to play out. She was exhausted from playing all night. Too exhausted to do much of anything except float with the tide. Doomed to do so until she no longer was, until something caused her to put her feet down, to find bottom and stand.

The train station was over run with people caught up in the confusion and desperation of war. Loss could be seen on so many faces, horrible sudden loss, sadness, and despair. People rushed to get where they were going. Both anger and empathy were at unusually high levels. Some people seemed stretched like strings ready to snap, while others were zombies. Then there were those who seemed unaffected, as if no one told them there was a war going on. BaiLan followed behind her parents, wheeling her cello in front of her. She felt like one of those people suddenly. A few days ago she was a terrorized ball of nerves, and today she felt as light and inconsequential as a feather, untouchable, free. And with that, on the platform inches from the train, her feet grew roots.

“BaiLan?” Her father looked at her, but he already knew. He spent the whole night listening to her play and realized that he was wrong about his daughter. She would not transition well into marriage, at least not with HongWei. His daughter was ruled by the same forces that tortured him as a young man, and though it saddened him, he would have to let her go.

“Father, I…”

Mr. Bai reached into his pocket and produced the house keys and an envelope containing cash. He took some of it for himself and his wife, and gave the remainder to his daughter. “I would keep to the back of the house if I were you. Don’t give them any reason to come calling. And play by the rules, LanLan. If you want to see Streng, get a pass for him. I promised your mother you would stay out of HongKew.”

“I will.” BaiLan’s eyes filled with tears when she saw her mother in profile, sitting on the train staring straight ahead.

“She doesn’t agree with my decision to let you stay. I told her it wasn’t my decision to make.”

“Thank you, father.”

Mr. Bai kissed his daughter and boarded the train. And for a moment, as the train was pulling away, the platform thinned out leaving BaiLan standing by herself with her cello, more alone and more valiant than she had ever been in her whole life. And once the platform began to congest again with bodies desperate to flee, she turned, faced the fire, and began the race back into Joshua’s arms.