The Last Rose of Shanghai(46)

Sassoon put his hands on the silver-crusted cane. “I had a good day, a very good day, young man. Something I’ve wanted for years finally happened. I could show you the photos, but I promised to keep them private. They are the best of my work, I shall vouch.”

He wanted to strangle Sassoon.

“You’re sulking, young man. Does this have anything to do with Miss Shao? Let me ask you, how long have you been in Shanghai, Ernest?”

“Over a year.”

“I’ve been in Shanghai for almost fifteen years. Life in Shanghai is not easy for a rich bachelor.”

Ernest snorted.

“I’m the richest bachelor in Asia, but also the loneliest man on this planet. Good women from honorable families do not sail across the ocean to find a husband, and those who do sail across the ocean want anything but a husband.”

So Sassoon was the prey of predatory women; didn’t that make him pitiful. But what was wrong with the world? Were there any decent women?

“Miss Shao is young, beautiful, shrewd, and a sensible businesswoman. There are not many like her. She’s not Jewish—a pity—but she deserves all my respect, and yours, rightly. I’m an old man, Ernest. She makes me feel young, and I believe I could love again.”

Ernest felt nauseated.

“I almost married a woman when I studied in Cambridge. But her family rejected me because I was a Jew. That’s ancient history now.” Sassoon sighed, as if he were capable of feeling anything. “The business world is tiresome, harsh, and precarious. It’s only through the lens I find beauty and joy. You’re a photographer. You understand what I’m talking about.”

No. He could never understand perversity, and he was wrong. Sassoon, a rich man collecting his trophies, could never be his friend. Ernest played on, seeking the note of veracity and companionship in music. Chopin, always his favorite, and Schumann. When he looked up from the keyboard again, Sassoon had left.

He shouldn’t blame her. She was only twenty-one, a girl still, but a businesswoman in this wolfish world run by men, in this precarious city ruled by the Japanese. She had done so much for him, helping him get on his feet, providing him a place to stay, showering him with support and protection when he least expected it.

A love that couldn’t accept a lover’s flaws was a selfish love. He wouldn’t be selfish. He would love her, all of her, her beauty, her smiles, her secrets, her mistakes, and her faults.

He began to play again, a tender tap, a loving stroke, and a lingering press, and using long fingers, he let his fingertips kiss the keys like his lips would fall on her. Gently, longingly, he began to play Debussy’s Clair de Lune.



Around midnight, he left the bar. The art deco buildings near the waterfront were tented in blackness, and the streets were illuminated only by lights coming from closed banks. Leica around his neck, he walked to the Japanese warship by the Garden Bridge. A movement caught his eyes.

A flashlight split the dead of the night. It came from a warship on the river, where a uniformed Japanese officer was climbing into a motorized boat near it. Then with engines growling, the boat cruised by, following a red beam sent from the bridge house.

He had a gut feeling. The Japanese were up to no good.

The boat reached a makeshift pier near the bridge house; the officer climbed out and raised the flashlight. At that signal, another gunboat with a wide hull and a gun turret slid close; from inside a group of eight Japanese servicemen leaped onto the pier. They bowed to the officer, jumped onto his smaller boat, and ducked under a canvas tent that covered a good portion of it.

Ernest held his camera and ran silently closer. He had just found a good spot behind a telegraph pole when the servicemen left the boat and jumped onto the pier, each carrying a bale of heavy machine guns. In a careful and disciplined manner, they transferred the machine guns from the motorized boat to the gunboat with gun turret.

Were the Japanese arming their forces in secret to prepare for an assault? His heart pounding, Ernest held up the camera. He was close enough to take pictures, but he had to turn on the flash, which would expose him. But he couldn’t let the moment slip. Jyo must see this; the Settlement must be prepared. He raised the camera, aiming at the group, and pressed the shutter.

The white light lit up the officer’s face, a mole visible under his eye. Rapidly Ernest took more photos as his ears filled with surprised shouts in Japanese.

A gunshot.

“Shit!” He turned around and ran.

Another gunshot.

The street before him seemed so dark and distant. It was a while later when he finally passed a row of art deco buildings and dove into an alley. Something was trickling down his arm.



In his apartment, he dropped on the bed. An excruciating pain raked his body. A bullet had grazed him; blood dripped from his shoulder to his arm to his scarred hand, and the taupe jacket and oxford shirt clung to his chest like a wet bathing suit. With sheer willpower, he peeled off his jacket and shirt and grabbed a small bottle of brandy he had received as a gift from a guest. He gulped down the alcohol and, gritting his teeth, poured the liquid on his arm. He screamed. Panting, he tied up the arm with a tie to stanch the blood. The entire process was like rubbing his flesh against a blade. In the morning, he would go see the Catholic nuns again. But this must be a curse: his right hand had been stabbed, and now his right arm was shot.

He lay flat on the bed. The Japanese were plotting something dangerous.