Night Angels(33)

In her quiet voice, she said the SS men were watching her husband and wouldn’t allow visitors. When Fengshan asked why, she said the SS men were trying to extract the contact information of Mr. Rosenburg’s wealthy clients from him, but Mr. Rosenburg, determined to protect his clients, had declined.

Standing in the hallway, halfway to a man carrying a rifle, Fengshan caught a glimpse of his friend. Once an eloquent man who defended the properties of the nobles—who made heartwarming toasts at dinner as his guests shouted “Prost!”—Mr. Rosenburg lay on a narrow bed, sedated, as the minutes of his life slipped by.



In his office, Fengshan stood by the window, smoking his cigar. In this corner of Vienna, outside his window, there were no bleeding faces, no brutal batons ramming into people’s eyes, no tormented men lying in beds. The bay windows were clear, the stones pristine, the fanlights and brass signs gleaming. Near the street, the hedges were pruned, the excess leaves trimmed, and the twigs chopped. All the undesirable branches had been discreetly removed.

There must be something he could do. All his friend needed were visas to avoid the fate of the Dachau camp, visas for him and his family to leave Vienna. He was the consul general of a consulate, familiar with the process and types of visas. If he ordered Vice Consul Zhou to start the visa process for his friend, it was unlikely the vice consul would object.

But would he risk defying the order of his superior, Ambassador Chen?

Fengshan expelled the smoke from his chest, the gray jet shooting in the air, hitting an invisible wall, and then dissolving.

When he turned away from the window, he saw Grace was sitting on a high-backed chair, her gloved hand pressed to her chin. She looked absolutely still, like a model for a painting.

“Grace, is everything all right?”

“I told you he was an honorable man.”

She had just returned from Lola’s apartment, she said. There had been a round of interrogations at the Headquarters last night. Josef, who had refused to make a confession that would incriminate his employer, had taken a handful of veronal, sleeping pills that he had hidden in the hem of his pants, and died.





CHAPTER 19


LOLA


I had come to the Headquarters hoping to speak to my brother and give him a word of hope and comfort, carrying with me a change of clothes, laundered and ironed by Sara, but I had returned with his possessions: a pair of glasses, a pair of trousers and a shirt, and a set of keys to his pharmacy. His clothes were torn near the shoulders, stained with blood, and those smudged lenses were the same glasses that he wore when he played chess with me, the same glasses that he took off his nose, pretending to clean, when he lost.

They wouldn’t tell me where he was.

I sobbed on the tram, burying my face in my arms; I held Josef’s possessions close as though they were him. His glasses slipped out of my hands, and I hastened to pick them up. But a shoe stepped on them; a string of vile slurs exploded around me. I didn’t want to listen. Josef had heard too much of them; they had driven him to die.

On the street, everything was strange. The shops, the gardens, the buildings appeared warped, glazed in a sea of waxy light. In the park, women sat for picnics; men read newspapers; children savored wiener sausages; musicians played accordions. An ordinary summer day, yet the chilliest winter of my life.

When I arrived at my apartment, I stopped short—there was Onkel Goethe’s face and his yelling again. I trembled, and hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a word to counter him.

I gave Mutter Josef’s belongings. “Mutter . . .” I couldn’t continue.

What could I say? What could I do? I had failed to find a visa for my brother, and now he was gone.





CHAPTER 20


FENGSHAN


All that evening, Fengshan couldn’t focus on the newspapers. A suicide, and Mr. Rosenburg was fighting for his life in the hospital, facing the dreadful prospect of a labor camp if he couldn’t receive a visa by the end of the day tomorrow.

Visas were lives.

Would he stand by, do nothing, and watch a man perish?

He knew the answer, and that left him with only one choice.



The next morning, Fengshan sat by the phone, waiting for Ambassador Chen’s phone call. His report had been prepared meticulously, but for the first time in his career, his mind was somewhere else. Ambassador Chen was not a superior who liked to be questioned, but he had to try.

“Fengshan?” The ambassador’s voice came through the phone. “I have good news, as per your suggestion to contact the secretary of the treasury in the United States. I relayed your idea to our foreign secretary, and Mr. Sun Ke, the president of the Legislative Yuan, has expressed great interest. He believed it was worth trying and ordered the ambassador to the United States to request a meeting with the secretary. I received a surprise telegram yesterday. It seems the American secretary of the treasury is rather sympathetic to our country’s plight. He recommended President Roosevelt extend the credit to us to improve our weaponry and purchase supplies. The amount the secretary offered is approximately twenty-five million American dollars.”

“This is wonderful news!”

Twenty-five million dollars would provide a massive boost of morale. With the credit, the ambassador could move forward with the arms deal with Germany. The army could replenish and train the pilots and they could defeat the Japanese in China.