Night Angels(54)

“Come in.” Fengshan pulled the door wider. “Come in, come in. It’s cold out.”

They looked at him with an expression with which he was familiar—they didn’t know what to make of him, an Asian man in a well-tailored coat, with folds of a navy-blue handkerchief visible in his breast pocket. It would not cross their mind that the consul general of the consulate would open the door for them.

In the lobby, they formed a line, their faces anxious. There were mostly men, but there were also a few women of various ages. When Fengshan asked how they had survived the horrible night, they broke into tears. Some had lost their fathers, some their siblings, and all had barely any possessions left. They were local Viennese who had lived here for generations, bakers, fishermen, fabric manufacturers, fur sellers, cabinet makers, meerschaum-pipe carvers, and store owners. Their businesses had been forced to go through Aryanization—sold at a fraction of their value or handed over to non-Jewish Germans.

The Viennese women, dressed in their long gowns and coats, broke down as they spoke. Their husbands, sons, or brothers had been arrested and sent to Dachau or Mauthausen camps, and the only way to regain their freedom was a visa that proved their intention to leave the country.

Mauthausen camp, Fengshan had heard from Captain Heine, was located in a market town in Upper Austria near Linz. Because Hitler had boasted about a transformation of the country that included many construction projects, such as apartments and military complexes, many building complexes had been built and the German industry had encountered dramatic shortages of materials. Mauthausen, rich with granite quarries, provided the much-needed resources, and the prisoners were sent there to excavate granite, often facing deplorable conditions, without proper tools or sufficient food.

Fengshan choked up. How many people would be imprisoned in the labor camps, and how many needed the visas for their freedom? He passed the vice consul’s desk, already piled with application forms, and opened the drawers in Frau Maxa’s desk. He took out a pile of blank application forms and handed them to the people in the lobby. When the vice consul arrived later, he would remind him to expedite the process.

In his office, taking out his seal and his fountain pen, Fengshan began to complete the visa forms that required his attention, starting with the visa number, then the destination, the date, and the applicant’s name, in Chinese and then in German, and finally, the consulate’s seal. He went out to check on the vice consul’s progress a few times, took a brief break at noon to replenish, and wolfed down a sandwich that Grace had prepared. At the end of the day, at eight o’clock, he put down his fountain pen.

In two days, he issued one thousand visas.

Flexing his fingers and massaging his wrist, he estimated that he could save twenty-five hundred people in five days, five thousand in ten days, which, regrettably, might not be sustainable.

But he would try. Even though he was unable to save China from the Japanese, he could keep the Viennese from the Nazis. And so long as he was the consul general of the consulate of the Republic of China, he would do all he could to save lives, one visa at a time.





CHAPTER 34


LOLA


I opened the door. The sunlight was sharp like a shard, plunging into my eyes. It was another day in a city of hate. In fact, I hated everything: the Baroque buildings, the shops, the people, the music dripping out of a window—the repulsive Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G major—and the greasy, malodorous smell of fried wiener sausages. Nietzsche was right. God is dead. God remains dead.

On the street, the tram had stopped running; taxis had disappeared; the newspaper kiosks and flower shops and coffeehouses were closed. A chilly winter gust hurtled toward the prancing statues and lunged toward the aloof pedestrians, their faces buried in their coat collars.

I kept walking, looking for a coachman, but the roaring of cars reverberated, and I felt the cobblestones quake beneath my feet. My heart trembled. Mutter! Mutter! What if I were struck by a motorcycle? But I couldn’t die; I must not die. They had crushed Mutter; they couldn’t crush me.

A coachman, whose bowler was pulled down to cover his face, agreed to carry Mutter to the graveyard on the outskirts of the city. Eva wouldn’t come, still hiding in the sanctuary of the suitcase, so I left her alone. In the graveyard, I passed the defaced tombstones and trampled flowers. I took off the pendants with the star and the cross, laid them beside Mutter, and buried her in my family’s grave next to Vater. I spoke the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Then I went to the Headquarters to deliver clothes and toiletries to Sara, just as I had looked after Josef, but I was turned away. Sara couldn’t be located; she was missing, I was told. She had been arrested a few days ago, and she had a deformed hand, I kept saying. Where else could she be?

So exhausted. And cold. My skirt was laden with snow and ice—when had it snowed? I leaned against a streetlamp pole, shivering, trying to sort out my thoughts. Mutter was gone, Sara was out of reach, but I still had Eva. I would take her to Shanghai, to safety, as we had planned. But my train tickets had expired, and the ocean liner had left yesterday. I needed to buy new ones.

The game of patience. Train tickets. Boat tickets. I could do this.

Pulling my coat tight, I walked to a travel agency to purchase the tickets to the ocean liner, holding the last few bills Sara had sewn in my coat—oh, Sara, Sara. Sara with the dexterous hand, Sara who pedaled her sewing machine like a magician. Where was she? After waiting for one hour in line at the counter, I was told that the ocean liners scheduled to sail in January, February, and March were sold out, and the tickets for the ships sailing in April must be purchased in person in Italy.