Night Angels(56)

“Ich will nicht nach drau?en!”

She was afraid, and so was I. If they found her, they’d take her, maybe even me. What should I do?

I begged. “Please, Eva. Please come with me. Here, Eva, come with me, and I promise no one will see you. You’ll be safe. Here”—I unbuttoned my astrakhan coat, the coat that was too big for me—“you can hide under my coat; it’ll cover you up. Hold on to me and I’ll carry you, all right? No one will see you.”

Eva sat up finally, and I flapped my coat open, crouching for her to hitch onto me, gesturing, encouraging her as she looped her slender arms around my neck, her legs around my waist. I straightened—she was not heavy at all. As I buttoned up my coat, my fingers kept missing the holes—the German voices sounded louder now. When Eva’s shape became a small bump under my coat, I let my scarf drape loosely around my neck to hide her, picked up the suitcase, and rushed out of the apartment.

The sky was frighteningly vast and chilly, under which swarmed uniformed men and motorcycles, sedans, and trucks. My knees grew weak. If I were caught, it would be a disaster—a diplomat’s wife carrying a Jewish child. Would the SS men shoot me?

“Don’t be afraid,” I said to Eva, and myself. “Don’t be afraid.”

My right hand grasping the suitcase, my left hand on my coat over Eva, I sidled along the buildings, past the Brownshirts holding rifles, the SS men with hard looks, and the trucks loaded with people like Lola, locking my gaze on the consulate’s car at the intersection about a block away. I felt Eva’s heart thumping against mine, the warmth of her breath against my skin, and her sweaty hands around my neck. I was wrong. Eva was heavier than I’d thought, and she was slipping. Oh, God. She was slipping.

A man in a beige uniform came out of a door near my right and barked at me in German. Did he detect Eva under my coat? I dropped the suitcase and fled. I didn’t look back, didn’t stop until I reached the car. Once inside, I told Rudolf to drive, took off my scarf with my shaking hands, unbuttoned the top of my coat, and the child’s face, pink, perspiring, rose to greet me.



In the consulate, I had to button up Eva under my coat again to avoid attention from the visa applicants and the consulate staff. Once I reached my bedroom, I helped Eva settle down on the couch, gave her my poetry book to read, and made her a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

Later, when Fengshan stood in front of Eva in the bedroom, he looked pensive; before he asked, I said, “I know how this looks, my love. But it’s temporary. Lola will come to fetch her.”

“Where is she?” Fengshan asked.

I explained what I had witnessed and looked at Eva; she murmured something in German.

“So Miss Schnitzler was taken to Leopoldstadt,” Fengshan said.

“Where is that?”

“Across the Danube River.”

It was not the Headquarters. I breathed out. “She’ll come back. Right?”

Fengshan sighed and left without answering me.





CHAPTER 36


FENGSHAN


He went downstairs, thinking about Grace’s question, to which he didn’t have an answer. It had only been a few days since the violent night, and now the Nazis had rounded up a large number of innocent people, dislocated them, and separated a family. He hoped he was wrong, but he feared there were more miseries and calamities that awaited the Viennese Jews.

When he went into his office, through the windows he could see people shivering in the cold, their gloved hands holding bags, their hats pressed low to fend off the chill. They were forced to wait outside since the lobby was too crowded—the number of applicants had increased tenfold.

He took his pen and began to work.



In December, a few weeks after Grace took in the Jewish child, the ambassador called. “How many visas did you issue in November, Fengshan?”

His superior rarely started the phone call with a preamble, but he had not bothered to talk about the government’s retreat to Chongqing this time. That was rather concerning. Fengshan rubbed his eyes, glancing at the mound of visa forms that he had just approved. He had been signing ten hours a day, five days a week for three weeks, but he didn’t keep track of the number of visas he issued. The total was easy to calculate, however, given that each had a visa number. But Fengshan said carefully, “Ambassador Chen, my apologies. I must look up the numbers to give you an accurate count. Have you heard the devastating reports of crimes in Vienna? It’s—”

“This is why I asked, Fengshan. I hear there’s a surge of visa seekers in many foreign consulates all across Greater Germany. It came to my attention that many have flocked to our consulate in Vienna. Now, I recall I gave permission to issue a small number of visas, Fengshan, a small number, but I’ve heard a rumor saying that almost four thousand visas were issued by your consulate. Is that true?”

He was caught off guard. He hadn’t been aware the ambassador was watching him closely. “Ambassador Chen—”

“This is unacceptable, Fengshan. We discussed the Jewish rescue plan, which was aborted due to our country’s situation. It is regrettable, but the plan was doomed to fail from the very beginning, if I must say. Now I would like you to halt the visa issuance to Jews.”

Fengshan’s mouth went dry. Ambassador Chen’s view on Jewish immigration had been unfavorable since the Anschluss, yet to hear his reiteration, as the entire Jewish population in Vienna descended into chaos after the deadly evening in November, was confounding. Every fiber of his being resisted. “With all due respect, Ambassador Chen, surely you’re aware of the atrocities the Brownshirts and Gestapo have committed—”