Night Angels(42)
This was good for her, getting out of her shell. Fengshan was heading to speak with the Czech consul general when Eichmann, conversing with a Wehrmacht official in an ornamented piped uniform fastened with a belt of silver stripes, turned to him. He stuck his long arm straight out like a stick. “Heil Hitler!”
Fengshan took a sip of the champagne. “Herr Eichmann, I’m glad to see you’re doing well. Congratulations on your promotion.”
Eichmann, in his black uniform and cap, was grinning. “Thank you, my dear friend. Is that Frau Consul General? She looks splendid. I’m pleased you’ve come to celebrate the creation of our country’s most important agency. You and all the luminaries of Vienna have accepted my invitation and come to see me! I’m flattered. The publisher of Der Stürmer also dropped by to congratulate me, and Sturmbannführer Hagen expressed his full trust in me. Have you read the article about me in the Reich’s most important newspaper? The reporters expressed their absolute faith in my talent and insisted on addressing me as the Czar of the Jews. I gave them the statistics and the numbers of Jews who should emigrate over the next six months, and I reminded them at this rate, very soon, our country will be judenfrei! They have never heard anything like that!”
It seemed the man could go on and on with his nonsense. His thin face looked puckered with the salt of perspiration under the glare of the light.
Fengshan decided to ask, “Herr Eichmann, in your opinion, how would a man stay safe at his own home, presuming he’s completely innocent?”
“Are you talking about Jews? Jews are not innocent.”
“Well—”
“You see, I have proposed a perfect plan to leaders of Jewish organizations. They must show me their willingness to cooperate and present their proof of departure in order to leave the city. But how many can leave is limited, as they must first surrender their wealth. You understand, Herr Consul General, I’m not called a genius for no reason!”
So it appeared that the Office would force deportation on those who were unwilling to leave and strip off their wealth as they departed the country, and that those who wished to leave must pay to receive their permission. Either way, the Office kept their wealth.
“Pardon me, I’m going to switch to another drink. This champagne doesn’t agree with me.” Fengshan turned around, blinking, feeling sick at heart. Nearby, Grace was speaking with a couple—a man wearing a white shirt and a yellow and green waistcoat and red sash, and a woman with an orange head wrap and a pineapple-colored dress with trim. They appeared to be islanders. Fengshan raised his flute and gave Grace a smile. When he went to switch his drink, he saw Captain Heine appearing in the hallway with a young woman. Fengshan nodded at him, put his champagne flute on a waiter’s tray, and made a beeline for him.
The woman, hooked on the captain’s arm, still bothered Fengshan, but he had warmed up to the captain since their latest meeting at the coffeehouse.
“Dr. Ho!” The Czech consul, Mr. Beran, came up to him before he got closer to the captain. Mr. Beran was an immense, thickset man with a long beard who always reminded Fengshan of one of the revolutionary bandits from the classic Chinese novel The Tale of Life at the Water’s Edge. He had a rough face like shriveled ginger, and he loved snacking on herring.
“Good evening, Mr. Beran,” Fengshan greeted in German.
Captain Heine shook his head, gave a brilliant smile that made women in the ballroom turn their heads, and walked away with his companion. He was not on good terms with the Czech consul. There appeared to be a feud between them.
“Do not trust that man, Dr. Ho,” Mr. Beran mumbled. “He’s devious, malicious. He has many faces.”
“Would you fancy a cigar?” Fengshan walked to a cigar box on a nearby small table. Eichmann’s party, not surprisingly, had the best cigars, the slim, long Habanos.
“This city is doomed, Dr. Ho! Doomed! Everyone has left, even our American friend,” Beran said in his heavily Bohemian-accented German.
Beran was well acquainted with Mr. Wiley, Fengshan understood, and the Czech, whose country bordered Germany, had expressed deep unease since the Anschluss. Fengshan understood his trepidation. When the British closed their embassy and withdrew diplomats from Austria, the English-speaking voices in the ballrooms had receded considerably, and now, with Mr. Wiley’s departure, the ballroom rumbled in German, French, Bohemian, Slavic, Spanish, and Italian. “He’s going to be missed.”
Mr. Beran sighed. “The British are asking us to hold a meeting again. Are you aware that Hitler is now demanding that we give him the Sudetenland, the frontier where our thirty divisions and the ?koda arms works are stationed? Czechoslovakia is the keystone of inner Europe; if we give it away, then all hell breaks loose!”
“The British?”
“Chamberlain and Daladier!”
Unfortunately, a weak country had no right to claim its own land—just like China’s loss of the Shandong peninsula, the hometown of Confucius, when Britain and France gave it to the Japanese at the Paris Peace Conference. Would history repeat itself, with Chamberlain presenting Hitler a gift at the expense of Czechoslovakia? It had seemed unthinkable months ago.
“My love.” Grace tugged him, her face pale.
“Grace. What happened?”
“I don’t really know. This waiter was talking to me in German . . . I couldn’t understand what he said . . . I think he was asking whether I’d like to have another drink. Eichmann grew angry and yanked him away. Look.”