Night Angels(81)

“Monto—” I was just about to warn him when the man in the navy jacket grabbed his shoulders.

“Get your hands off my boy!” I shouted, lunging forward, and struck the man with the box of pastries. Since the encounter in the park, I had been cautious, observing the people outside the window; every German man in a navy jacket gave me pause. And now, my nightmare was unfolding in front of me.

The man let go of Monto, cocked his head, and, in a threatening voice, unleashed a string of German.

“Go away, go away!” I put my arms around Monto, stepped over the crumbled apple strudel, the shattered crust of Topfenstrudel, and hurried off. I was short and small, and with my jacket and a long skirt, I still looked slim, but my stomach was growing round, impeding my speed.

With a violent barrage of German chasing me, I walked as fast as I could, holding Monto’s hand. One more turn and we would reach our apartment. I could see the visa seekers who had gathered outside the apartment and the German sign that Fengshan put out every day—The Temporary Office of the Consulate of the Republic of China.

The force on my back came so suddenly that I lost my footing, pitched forward, and crashed onto the cobblestones. A sharp, paralyzing pain stabbed my abdomen. My vision blurred.

“Grace! Are you all right, Grace? Grace?”

I’m fine, I wanted to say, but the pain. It was hot and vicious, shooting inside my stomach like a gun, and I sweated, soaked in a pool of stickiness. I tried to get up but couldn’t, and Monto’s voice, childish, innocent, flew in my ears like a bird’s cry.

“Grace! Grace! Father! Father! Help, someone help!”



On the ceiling, a white sun burned; sharp rays spread, ferociously. There was a deafening silence, a black seed of venom. Then suddenly, tendrils of flames flared, then congealed and flickered.

There were wheels squeaking, glasses clinking, people smacking their lips; the radio was playing the accordion. Or was it a violin? I wished it would stop. Let it stop, let it stop. But it went on and on. I wanted to cover my ears but couldn’t lift my hands. I dozed off again.

When I awoke, I saw Fengshan, a black shadow with a white face, slipping through the door. He quietly closed the door behind him and put his hands on the wall. For a long moment, he rested his head there, as if he had been shattered into pieces and must gather all of them before he could talk to me again.

“My love?”

“Grace. You’re awake. It’s so dark in here. Do you want me to open the curtain?”

His voice sounded strange, shattered, like glass. But what was he talking about? It wasn’t that dark at all. And what did it matter? There was something important I wanted to know. But I was frightened.

“The baby, my love . . .”

He turned to the window.

All these years of hope, all these months of happiness.

A woman in a white gown appeared beside him. “Herr Consul General, your wife needs rest. She’s agitated. She’s too weak. I’ll increase the dose.”

Fengshan’s voice, faint: “Let me speak to her about one more thing, please. It’s important, Grace. Grace? Can you look at me? Can I tell you something important? I know this is devastating. You always wanted to have a child. But we’ll get through this. We have Monto. He loves you. We’re a family.”

Poor Fengshan. After five years of marriage, he still didn’t understand how much I wanted to have children. Monto was a good child, and I had grown to love him and treasure him. But one more child of ours. That was all I wanted. And now, after so many months of conceiving, hoping, dreaming, my unborn child had perished at the hands of a despicable man.

How long had Eichmann’s man been targeting us, lurking outside the building to pounce on us, in order to threaten Fengshan to stop issuing visas?

Visas.

It was all because of visas. A ticket to freedom to some, a passage to the future for many, but a push on my back to me. It had taken me so long to conceive, to carry the life this far.

“Grace, Grace, what did you say?” Fengshan was asking.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know . . . if I get pregnant again . . . Even if I get pregnant again . . .”

He came to sit beside me, the gold cross on his necklace suspended below his chin. He closed his eyes for a moment and then said, “There is something else you need to know, and I want you to hear it from me. You had an infection, Grace. The doctor had no choice. Believe me. I didn’t have a choice either; I can’t lose you.”

His voice was placid, his hands warm like gloves lined with fur, but my heart was chilled like a stone at the bottom of a lake.

In order to save my life, they had removed my reproductive organs, including my uterus.



Snow appeared out of nowhere, a thick curtain of white flakes, a thousand feathers from heaven, pouring down and vanishing at the edge of the windowsill outside, into the bottomless world of the unknown.

Then there was no snow, no wind, no sound. The silhouettes of the trees crept up to the pale sky like dark veins, with a wilderness of bristles and bones sprawling in the distance. So distant, desolate, and cold the void looked. One could wander in that blank space and walk forever without encountering anyone; if one screamed, the voice would perhaps fade and vanish, heard by no one.

Days came and went; darkness came and went. My eyes stung from staring at the blade of light thrust through the curtains’ gap, piercing my head, an endless wheel spinning with spokes of darkness.