The Last Rose of Shanghai(104)

“You should go shopping.” I couldn’t hold back my sarcasm, irritated by his stubbornness.

“I need men too!”

“Are you going to help me find Ernest or not?”

He released a loud groan and turned to his radio transceiver. “No.”





85


FALL 1980


THE PEACE HOTEL

“I saw him at the border of the ghetto. It was a surprise. I wish I had forgiven him.” The music. It’s gone.

Ms. Sorebi clears her throat. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to tell you this, Ms. Shao. After our meeting yesterday, I tried to find more information about you, and I went through the photos I brought in my hotel room. Guess what I found.”

She digs into her handbag and takes out a manila folder. From inside she retrieves two photos and places them by my hand. “I hope these will bring you fond memories. I might be able to use them for the documentary as well. However—forgive me, Ms. Shao—it appears I have more questions.”

I put on my glasses and squint. The photos are black and white. The first photo is me inside the Jazz Bar with Sassoon. The caption, in Sassoon’s handwriting, says, Shao Aiyi, the owner of One Hundred Joys Nightclub, 1940. The second photo is an image of a woman and a little girl beside an old-fashioned rickshaw, dated 1946. The woman appears to be dirty and tired, like a refugee, but anyone can tell this is still me. The girl next to me has messy hair and wears a tunic that looks like a trash bag.

I don’t want to make a fool out of myself, but tears run down my face despite my effort. “I can’t believe it. This picture. She’s perfect . . . Where did you get this?”

Ms. Sorebi takes a napkin from a table next to us and hands it to me, her eyes glowing. “As I’ve mentioned, I found a treasure trove in Sassoon’s collection in Dallas, Texas. He took many photos. There were photos of Mr. Reismann playing the piano, photos of Sassoon himself and his friends at parties, photos of street scenes. This picture of you and the little girl appears to be part of a street scene in Shanghai. But look at the child. She looks about four, and she is the spitting image of you. And you said you regretted giving your daughter away and you were looking for her.”

“Yes, I was looking for her, my daughter . . . I have done the most unforgivable thing, I gave her away . . .”

She leans over. “Now, Ms. Shao, I can’t help asking, is the girl in the photo the daughter you were looking for?”





86


JULY 1945


AIYI

Over the past few months, I went to the rattling Garden Bridge a few times by myself. Standing by a building with a collapsed wooden door, I watched the sentry tower on the other side of the bridge; inside it a Japanese soldier was drinking from a canteen and another, carrying a rifle with a bayonet, was checking people entering the area. Behind them were low wooden houses and narrow lanes, where several foreign women with blond hair wearing black skirts were picking at cabbages.

The ferries had stopped running.



One afternoon, Ying came out from under the bed, cradling the transmitter. After clicking the switch off, which had been lowered to a whisper, he jumped, his arms sweeping wildly in the air. His victory flea dance again. For months, he had been secretive, listening intently to the radio and then hurrying to leave the house.

“Are you going to tell me?” I asked, sitting on the stool beside the charcoal stove. I should wash Little Star’s hair with the kerosene again, but I was feeling sick. It was probably because of water or the sour noodles I’d eaten. All morning, I’d had a racking pain in my stomach that made me unable to stand straight.

Ying whispered in my ear. “I just received a message, an important message.”

The Americans had shifted their strategy in the Pacific theater. Their B-29 bombers would soon mount a massive attack on the Japanese in Shanghai while the Imperial Japanese Army poured their forces into central China to protect those thirty-plus cities they had won. The Japanese had even pulled the majority of their forces from the east coast, including Shanghai. Only a few Japanese soldiers, led by Yamazaki, stayed in Shanghai.

“He’s alone. Alone in Shanghai. His days are numbered. I’m going to kill him.” Ying put a pistol in his belt and covered it with the coat. “You must leave Shanghai.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? The Americans will bomb Shanghai! They are helping us drive the Japanese out. While they attempt to take over the sky, my people will attack the Japanese on the ground. So together with the Americans, we’ll rid Shanghai of the Japanese.”

“Why would the Americans help us? Besides, the Japanese are powerful. They have the military base in Hongkou and their warship . . . Don’t forget the warship.”

When the Japanese attacked the Settlement almost four years ago, the Izumo had bombed the British HMS Peterel and captured the American USS Wake. Equipped with many machine guns, the warship was heavily guarded; any crew and ships, even sampans loaded with animals for sale, that approached within a radius of half a kilometer would be shot. And destroy the base? That was as unlikely as destroying Tokyo.

“That’s why we’d help the Americans. My men have a plan. We will destroy the warship and the Japanese military base and distract the Zero fighters. Everything is in place.”