Night Angels(2)

“May I ask which country your husband represents?”

The look in her eyes. She couldn’t be twenty; she had to be older than that, even older than me. “He . . . is Chinese.”

It occurred to me I had not told Fengshan that I’d meet Lola today, but then things like this couldn’t possibly attract his attention, so busy was he.

“Oh, you’re Chinese.” She looked curious, a different reaction from all the harsh and judgmental stares I had received.

“I’m . . . from the United States.” I picked up my handbag.

“American. No wonder your English is so good. Do you like Vienna, Miss Lee?”

I held tight to my handbag. Miss . . . I had forgotten her last name. “It’s a fine city.”

“You don’t like Vienna?”

I pulled down my hat, then pushed it up and pulled it down again. I had hurt her feelings; now I couldn’t leave.

“Vienna is special. Have you heard of this: ‘The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt’?” she asked.

“I’m sorry . . .”

Her hand swept in a dramatic and almost indignant way, gesturing at the Baroque buildings facing us across the street. “Everyone loves Vienna. We have magnificent architecture and many palaces in Vienna. The Hofburg, for instance. It has the Imperial Apartments, the collections of Empress Sisi, and the Imperial Treasury, with relics that date to the Holy Roman Empire. And Schloss Sch?nbrunn. Have you visited it? It’s not that far. You’ll also adore the Marble Hall in Belvedere Palace, and of course, you know every Austrian enjoys the operas and ballets in the Wiener Staatsoper.”

All those foreign names. Who could remember them all? I had been to a party in the Hofburg, or maybe it was the apartment of Empress Sisi or Empress Maria Theresa. Same thing. “Miss—” I wrung my hands. Her last name finally jumped to my mind. “Miss Schnitzel, I’m afraid—”

“Schnitzler. Schnitzel is a type of food.”

“Oh.”

“No relation to the well-known author.”

My face heated up. Now that I was growing embarrassed, I couldn’t stop. “Of course . . . Miss Schnitzel—Schnitzler . . . I’m terribly sorry. It’s hard to remember German names . . . And you know it’s difficult to get around if you don’t understand the language. The names of the shops are unpronounceable, and so are the streets. I can’t read anything. This. This here. Look. What does it mean?” I pointed at the Germanic scribble etched on the back of the bench.

She fixed her gaze on the words. A light flashed in her green eyes, and then she jutted her chin up. “It means it’s for Aryans.”

“Pardon?”

“We’re not allowed to sit on this bench.”

“It’s a public bench. Everyone can sit here.”

Her head turned to the benches across the street. They were also inscribed in German, not the word for Aryan but one starting with J. “As it should be.”

“Yes, of course. I agree . . . But pardon me. Did you say we are not allowed to sit on this bench?” I had sat here before she arrived, and I had not paid attention to the inscription, unable to comprehend it.

“It’s the new law in Vienna, Miss Lee.” She was quiet, staring at a giant tram squeaking past us, its windows flanked by flags with a swastika, making a clack-clack noise. I couldn’t recall if I’d seen these flags when I arrived in Vienna last year, but lately, they were everywhere. It was politics, Fengshan had said about the flags, barely lifting his gaze from the German newspaper he was reading.

Of course, these days, Vienna was only about politics. At the last party in an empress’s apartment, the diplomats with thick mustaches, their wives in sequined gowns and feathered Tyrolean hats, and even those footmen in white wigs and jabots with layers of white lace whispered about the Führer. A welter of apprehensive faces, a noisy tableau of glee and gloom. And I sat at the end of the table, smiled and nodded, unable to understand their words, couldn’t care less. This city had nothing to do with me; it had no need of me, a stranger, an outsider.

Not so for Fengshan, the diplomat with an impossible mission to save his country. Oh well.

“I don’t quite understand, Miss . . . Schnitzler.”

“It’s hard to believe, I know.” Her gaze traced a green squad car—a police car; it had to be, with the logo Polizei, and inside were two men wearing beige trench coats and swastika armbands. The car was driving along, following the tram, passing us, when one of them turned to me and cast me a long, piercing look. That was just the way they were, policemen, stiff and humorless; they often stood guard in ballrooms with dead eyes, but they held Fengshan in high regard, like many Viennese professionals.

Suddenly, from the ocean of dust, there came a squeal of brakes, loud and startling, and in a blur of sensation, among the rush of horse carriages and pedestrians, the car with the unremarkable policemen screeched to a stop right in front of me.

The two men jumped out, all menacing poses and harsh, angry voices, and I stared, frantic, speechless, wringing my handbag’s strap, which seemed to enrage them even more. The awkward moment must have lasted for an eternity, and I had nearly torn the strap off my handbag in nervousness when Lola, the girl with a fresh face, the girl who wouldn’t stop asking me questions, stood up and delivered a long speech in German.