Night Angels(51)

He went into their living room and sat on a couch, smoking his cigarette, listening to the heavy footfalls outside the door. He had not devised a plan to protect his friend’s family yet; he only knew one thing—he must protect them.

The violent pounding on the door came. Mrs. Rosenburg opened the door; the Gestapo demanded to search the apartment.

“We were already searched twice,” Mrs. Rosenburg said.

“You’ll be searched again!”

There were two of them, wearing black uniforms, their caps emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. They stomped through the narrow hallway to the living room and the two bedrooms in the back. They yanked open the cabinets, searched the wardrobes, and threw the chairs across the room as if the ghosts of criminals of all sorts indeed existed in this house.

When they found nothing, the Gestapo officers looked visibly frustrated. They ordered Mrs. Rosenburg to come with them; she dropped her shawl, staggering back.

Fengshan stood up, and in his fluent German he said, “Sir, excuse me, but as you see, there are no conspirators in this house. There is no need to arrest her.”

The two thugs tramped over to him. “Who are you?”

Fengshan took a drag of his cigarette. In their eyes, he was an irrelevant, wealthy, well-dressed Asian with a tie. Perhaps they regarded him as Japanese, but they knew he was not German or Jewish. He thought about how to divert their attention to leave Mrs. Rosenburg alone. “I’m a friend of Mr. Rosenburg. He is supposed to be on his way to the train station, and I’ve come to bid farewell. I hear he’s already been taken for interrogation.”

The man in front of him said, “Our Führer is right. The foreigners are a scourge! Our country is polluted by them. Where’s your identification card?”

“I shall be happy to show you, but by protocol, you must show me yours first.”

The man’s face was distorted with malice, his eyes wild—a bully, a small man. “Show me your identification card! Tell me your name!”

Fengshan took another drag of his cigarette; he remained calm.

The other Gestapo, shorter, grabbed his silver revolver from his holster and pointed it at him. “Speak! Who are you?”

The cigarette smoke burned in his throat. He was unarmed, alone, and the Gestapo—brutes, murderers who threatened and intimidated innocent people—could shoot him. But Fengshan spoke, in his voice that was accustomed to addressing an audience, firm and full of authority. “I’ve already told you, I’m a friend of Mr. Rosenburg. I’m here waiting to say farewell to my friend. If you wish to know who I am, by protocol, you must identify yourself first.”

It must have had something to do with what he said, or the way he carried himself. The despicable man in front of him leaned over to the other Gestapo and murmured something into his ear. The two hesitated, scrutinizing his face and suit. Finally, they kicked a side table near the couch and left the living room, and Mrs. Rosenburg hurried to close the door behind them.

“Who is that Asian man?” he heard one of their voices asking from the doorway. There came Mrs. Rosenburg’s reply, followed by an angry voice. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier!”

When Mrs. Rosenburg returned, Fengshan collapsed on the couch behind him. “May I take a seat, Mrs. Rosenburg?”



He stayed for hours while the chaotic clamor of crashing and screaming continued outside, a rising frenzy that didn’t seem to end. Sometime around midnight, Mr. Rosenburg finally returned home, the top buttons of his shirt missing, his face pale.

“Thank God you’re home. But you’ve missed the train,” Fengshan said. “When will you leave now?”

“Tomorrow, I hope, Dr. Ho. I shall call you when I have the new train tickets. The ocean liner is set to depart from Italy in four days. We can still make it.”

Fengshan was relieved, and he promised to see them off at the train station tomorrow, ensuring their safe departure.

“You have done enough for me, Dr. Ho. For your safety, you must go. This is going to be a long night,” Mr. Rosenburg said.

A long night, he agreed. For his friend and his family, for Miss Schnitzler and her family, and for many others in Vienna.

Fengshan gave his friend a pat and left. Outside, the streets were ablaze with flames, torches, and glaring lights from the apartments’ broken windows and doors. The neighborhood was deafening with ambulances and police cars screaming past, looters shouting and carrying bags and paintings, and Brownshirts hollering and brandishing torches. Rudolf seemed to have trouble discerning directions, swerving, stopping, and inching forward. A few times, Fengshan lurched forward as the car went over something lumpy, nearly unseating him.

Finally, Rudolf turned onto a broad avenue lined with shops, and there, the car stopped abruptly. Fengshan was about to ask why they had stopped, when the sound of glass crashing burst ahead of him. He looked up.

In his car’s headlights, in stark whiteness, men holding clubs were walking from shop to shop, smashing the windows, hollering and cheering as the glass crashed. Near them, a mob holding torches was striking two elderly men with thick clubs; another Brownshirt was hammering a youth trying to flee. And Fengshan saw a man, hatless, lying motionless near a pile of shattered glass, his face smashed beyond recognition.

Fengshan closed his eyes, shaken. Memories of another mob welled in his mind. But this was Vienna, not China. He was alive, and he was not twenty years old.