Night Angels(7)

Fengshan let out his breath, and out of politeness, he smiled to express his gratitude. But he was warier than ever—Adolf Eichmann was not only sleazy but also callous. “Ich bin Ihnen dankbar. I’ll wait in the car.”

He went out to his car and sat next to Grace, nodding at her, willing her tutor to come out as soon as possible. It occurred to him that the Jewish business was also part of the Führer’s domestic policy. He had made a careless request that might have inadvertently conflicted with his superior’s order; he prayed he wouldn’t regret this.

It was growing dark when finally a figure staggered out of the hotel—a young woman in a dirndl and a black jacket. Stumbling, she didn’t see the car parked by the curb and hurriedly passed it. Grace bolted upright and called out, and the woman turned around, shielding her eyes with her hand against the bright headlights. Her face, Fengshan could see, was thrashed with red lines like whips, and there was a bruise on her forehead. With a gasp, she came to Grace, held her shoulders, and gave her a tight embrace, and Grace, his introverted wife who preferred to sit quietly on a chaise in the corner of a ballroom and who could only utter a few perfunctory German phrases, didn’t let the young woman go. They had just met, Grace had said, but he would have believed they had known each other for years. What had happened to these two in the dungeon?

After Grace’s tutor waved to leave, Fengshan told Rudolf to drive. His car started to roll, and he caught a figure in the rear mirror—Adolf Eichmann, a lizard of a man, lurking behind his car. There, in the stark light, turning up on his face was a smile, crooked, like a hook.





CHAPTER 3


GRACE


I turned around in the car and craned my neck to trace Lola’s figure weaving through the opaque haze of streetlights, diminishing as the distance between us grew and finally sliding into the dark velvet of the night. It occurred to me that I should have asked where she lived and how she could find a taxi or a coach at this hour. It was late, and it would be dangerous for a single woman to walk on the streets.

When we arrived at the hotel, we had been forced down a winding metal staircase to a claustrophobic dungeon in the basement with a bare light bulb. The air was musty, stifling, thick like leather; coils of shadows clustered in the corners. There was no chair or bench. Lola sat on the ground; I stood some distance away, feeling the strength drain from my legs, paralyzed by waves of regret and fear. I shouldn’t have come out today; I should have put off hiring a tutor for another year. And now, a simple mistake of sitting on a bench had gotten me arrested. What if Fengshan found me here? What if Fengshan couldn’t find me here?

“You should sit, Miss Lee.”

“I can’t.” The floor was certainly not an appropriate spot for a diplomat’s wife.

“You can’t stand there all night.”

“All night?”

Lola pulled her legs together and rested her head on her knees. “You were right. Vienna is strange these days. We have new laws devised every day. They are baked and rolled out faster than Apfelstrudel. But don’t worry. It’s temporary. Vienna is a lawful and sophisticated city. This will pass.”

Maybe it was the sincerity of her tone—no one in Vienna, or Istanbul, or China, had spoken to me this way—or maybe it was that she spoke in English, my mother tongue, the only language I knew. She sounded like a friend I hadn’t had in so long.

“I’m sorry I got you arrested.” Her voice was gentle, swelling to fill the room.

I looked down at my hands—my silk gloves were smudged. “It wasn’t your fault. I chose that bench. I couldn’t read German.”

“It wasn’t you.” She played with the two pendants on her necklace again, a cross and a star. “They don’t like me. I’m a Mischling.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Oh. It means a half-breed.”

I had met one of my kind. Here, in Vienna, of all places. That was unexpected. I wondered if she grew up like me, alone and lonely, with no companions other than a book of poetry; I wondered if her mother slapped her for calling her Mother in front of others.

The light bulb was flickering. I stepped closer to Lola, nearly touching her shadow. Somehow, despite this injustice, this captivity, for the first time in four years since I’d left America, I thought I was close to someone.

Later, two policemen in black uniforms interrogated us. Each time I tried to say something, they shouted impatiently; each time I leaned on the wall for support, they whipped my shoulders with a stack of newspapers. Lola suffered more. They slapped her when she answered; they smacked her when she refused to answer. And I turned to her, catching her gaze whenever she stopped to breathe. They had beaten us to break us, yet each blow, each groan had tied us together.

“Grace?”

Fengshan’s voice brought me back to the car. I straightened, wanting to look at him but facing ahead instead. It was almost pitch-black, save for a few cars flashing white beams in the distance and pricks of light emitting from shadowy coaches in front of towering buildings. My chin was burning, and my arms were sore. I’d rather lie down and sleep a little. “How did you know I was there, my love?”

“Captain Heine called me.”

He sounded calm and didn’t appear angry at me for disgracing him and his country. Or did he? His mood had once been easy to understand, clear as a mirror; not so these days. I could imagine his shock, him holding the phone and hearing I was arrested. And indeed, paying more attention, I could hear a trace of his anger, his disapproval, above the rumble of the engine. I said weakly, “I didn’t do anything wrong; neither did Lola. It doesn’t make sense.”