Night Angels(88)

“Grace, I need to go, but I’ll see you again,” she said at the door.

I didn’t say anything. She couldn’t hear anyway.

Fengshan left with her. The bedroom, once again, sank into an empty socket of dimness; the thrumming of the machines began to drone from the adjacent building, mixed with the creaking of Fengshan’s office door. And then the door was shut.

There was silence, and then from somewhere came the clatter of doors and the harsh commands in German.

I looked outside. The sky looked like a damp handkerchief, and the trees were bare like bones. I needed more morphine.





CHAPTER 60


FENGSHAN


He could hear what Lola wasn’t able to: the boots outside the window and the Gestapo’s questions to the apartment’s doorman, and he urged Lola to leave. But all she wanted to know about was Grace’s accident and how it had happened. When. Who. When she saw Eichmann’s name, Lola unleashed a string of curses in German and swore, “I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him!”

Fengshan had to be brief and forceful in order to lead her to the back door of the apartment building. Thank God she trusted him, following him out of the hallway. By the time he returned to his room, the two officers had entered the hallway, imposing a lockdown on the entire building.

They were looking for a female smuggler with a scar on her face, they declared, and they would search from door to door.

Fengshan locked the room behind him and looked out the window. The snow was storming outside, bending the thin limbs of sycamores and chestnut trees; the black Mercedes was parked near a pile of white snow. There was no sign of Miss Schnitzler in her oversized black coat. He held the cross in his hand, praying that she would be safe.



The next day, the snowstorm gathered force, turning into a blinding blizzard. The vicious wind whipped the windows; heaps of snow reached the windowsills. The fire in the fireplace wouldn’t ignite; all the logs appeared to be damp. The temperature in the apartment plunged below five degrees Celsius. His feet freezing, he paced the room, wearing layers of coats. Monto’s school wouldn’t close, so Monto had gone to school as usual; Grace was shivering on her bed. He piled on her all the blankets they had in the apartment.

Still, not a single Viennese came to apply for visas.

If what Miss Schnitzler said was true, that many Viennese Jews, confined in camps, were unable to come to apply for visas, then he should be accustomed to resting his pen on the desk from now on. And in fact, without visa issuance, with few staff and little news to report, his consulate was playing a negligible role for his country. For the first time in his five-year career as a diplomat, he wondered if the Ministry, or the ambassador, had laid out a design he wasn’t aware of. It was likely that he would be reassigned.

There was nothing else to do, so he spent his entire day reading newspapers in German and listening to the radio.

The conflicts between the countries intensified. The German newspaper declared that Germany would torpedo enemy British merchant ships they encountered on the sea; all British ships, which had aided the transfer of British soldiers, would now be regarded as warships. The British radio avowed that the government supported the merchant ships and armed them with weapons. A few radio channels also broadcast the French people’s displeasure at the Daladier administration. If this continued to escalate, Fengshan predicted a revolt against the president was on the horizon. But to his disappointment, there didn’t appear to be a strong voice or the emergence of a pivotal force to counter the growing power of Hitler.



The phone rang.

Fengshan put down the pair of long metal tongs he was using to stir the fire—the logs in the fireplace wouldn’t ignite. In his hurry, his tongs knocked on the fender and overturned it, spilling a tray of soot and ash. Frau Maxa was the one who took care of the fire. Had she been here, she would know what the problem was. Maybe the chimney was leaking.

Fengshan answered the phone. It was Ambassador Chen, who called to inquire about the annual evaluation process.

Yes, it was ready and would be mailed soon, Fengshan replied. It was likely that the ambassador’s evaluation of him was ready, too, but Fengshan held his tongue. He didn’t know what conclusion Counselor Ding had reached in his investigation—if the conclusion were unfavorable, then he would earn a demerit that would tarnish his entire diplomatic career.

He wasn’t an optimistic man, but he hoped that his superior, despite his personal feelings, would still give an accurate description of his job performance. After all, it was at his suggestion that his country was able to receive the twenty-five-million-dollar loan.

“I reckon you’re concerned about my evaluation of your job performance, Fengshan, and I shall be frank with you. I’m drafting it at the moment. Would you care to explain your relationship with a female fugitive?”

“A female fugitive?”

Grace, in her wheelchair, appeared at the door. She looked sluggish, her long hair draping across her face, her lips purple. She had been wearing two coats, covered with two blankets, but was still cold. Slowly, inch by inch, she wheeled toward the unlit fireplace.

“A Viennese Jewess. She has a scar on her face. She smuggled two hundred Jews across the border, and the German police are searching for her,” the ambassador said.

He hadn’t known this.

“It was reported that she came to your apartment and had interactions with you.”