Night Angels(62)

Fengshan exchanged a glance with Mr. Lord, aware that after the Munich Conference, Hitler had promised that the Sudetenland was his last demand. But from what Mr. Beran said, it seemed that Hitler wouldn’t stop at the Sudetenland, and very soon, Prague, Bohemia, and Moravia would be another Vienna.



Two days before the new year, Fengshan received a message about the war in China. The Japanese were bombing Chongqing, the new capital, systematically. In two months, they had attacked the city twenty times, and the Japanese Imperial Army had flooded the cities near the region with their cavalries and tanks.

If the Nationalist government failed to hold Chongqing, and China capitulated, the consulate in Vienna would cease to exist, and he would not be able to issue visas to the desperate Viennese.





CHAPTER 41


GRACE


I greeted the year 1939 from behind the frosted windows festooned with sparkles and splendors of a ballroom; my thoughts, however, couldn’t be farther away. All the entertainment, the live music, the invigorating waltzes, and the abundant food, the caviar, the roasted venison, the crispy-skinned capons, the steamed fish astride a bed of asparagus, reminded me of Eva—once she had asked me whether the diplomats only dined on foie gras—and the lush orchestral music reminded me of Lola; she would have enjoyed playing her violin. Would she be able to play her violin in the slum?

Lola had not called me again. I didn’t know why she had failed to see off Eva, and, unable to recall the German address, I didn’t know how to find her. Pacing inside the ballroom, I wondered how long she would remain in the slum, and when she would be able to go to Shanghai.

Outside the ballroom, the wind screamed; the air, once vibrant with overtures and operas, was now pierced by shrieks and trucks and gunshots. In the morning, rays of sunlight shuddered on the snowy rooftops; in the early afternoon, the streets descended into a crevasse of gloom, the parks paved with a scattering of broken ice, and the city bleak with deserted buildings.

I was bleeding again but had none of the spells of dizziness and headaches that used to debilitate me. In fact, I felt healthier. When I walked in the snow, I didn’t tire quickly. I began to dream of being a mother again—I was still young, just twenty-six.

Monto turned twelve after the new year, grew taller, and appeared melancholy. With the consulate closed, he couldn’t pester Frau Maxa and the vice consul with signatures and predict their futures. He had stopped playing with his toy soldiers.

One morning while eating breakfast, he asked me, “Where is Mauthausen, Grace?”

“What house?”

“Mauthausen. Ugh. Your German is so bad.”

“I don’t know. Somewhere close by, maybe.”

“Do kids go to school there?”

“They might.”

Monto looked down at the plate of sausages that he hadn’t touched.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“I want to go to Mauthausen.”

“Why?”

He wouldn’t say.



One day when I was cleaning Monto’s room, I found a few envelopes that contained his transcripts of grades in his desk’s drawer. It seemed he had collected them all over the past few months. I rarely checked his grades; that had been Fengshan’s job—Fengshan was a strict father, holding a high academic bar for Monto. He had said, jokingly, that ninety-nine was an A for a Chinese boy, while ninety was a German A and a Chinese B. It was a high standard to keep, but Monto had never received anything below ninety. I opened an envelope. There were many absences, and the grades were not nineties; they were sixties.

I wondered if Fengshan was aware of Monto’s grades; maybe not, with him so busy with the consulate. But something was happening with Monto.

Still no phone call from Lola.



February was a heartless month in Vienna. The snow fell incessantly, like a swarm of trapped birds, coating the streets, skeletal trees, and benches. The lukewarm daylight skirted around the windows and the consulate’s front entrance for a few hours during the day and then hastily made way for the night. By four o’clock in the afternoon, the sconces and lamps in the consulate lobby were turned on; their golden glow brushed the cheeks of Empress Joséphine on the wall but failed to warm up the crowd of applicants, who shivered in the chill.

To my delight, Lola finally called me. I jotted down her address and rode in the consulate’s car to see her, since the tram was no longer safe. I had many questions in mind—why did she fail to see Eva off? How could she leave the slum?

The vehicle passed the opera house, veered north to the roundabout at das Tegetthoff-Denkmal, then crossed the canal. The giant Ferris wheel in the amusement park was immobile. The park, which had been crowded with festivalgoers, sausage vendors, and frolicking children, was blanketed in snow and ice. When we approached a tower, a gunshot sounded, and two Nazi guards in uniforms asked us to stop the car—this was why Lola couldn’t leave, I realized. Entry and departure of the area were restricted.

I couldn’t understand what Rudolf told the guards, but he kept pointing at the Chinese flag Fengshan had placed near the car’s rearview mirror. We were finally let through.

When I came to the building Lola had told me about, I was shocked. A slum, she had said, but I had not expected it’d look like this. The buildings looked to be part of a factory, and there was also a sour smell of rotten meat permeating the air. Many adjacent buildings were graffitied with black paint, the windows smashed, and guards carrying rifles seemed to pop out when least expected. I was glad that Lola was outside a building, drinking a bottle of beer.