The Last Rose of Shanghai(63)

The Buick kept going.





48


ERNEST


Gasoline. He heard it, each drop clear like glass shattering, the pungent odor choking him, and he could feel the scorching heat on his skin, the sizzling spark in the air. He opened his eyes yet only saw a blanket of blackness. Heaving, he hit something overhead. A coil of metal. Scalding.

He had rolled under a car after the fall. Groaning and wincing with pain, he crawled out from beneath the car and stood up. The sky had blended into the streets, a sea of smoke. He heard Aiyi’s voice but hoped it was his imagination. It was too dangerous for her to be around.

Still he shuffled toward the voice. Somehow, he bumped into a shoulder; his fingers caught some hair. By the shifting smoke, he could see it was a bloody-faced man. He withdrew his hand and stepped back, just as a spinning silver shell sliced through, taking the man’s head with it.

Ernest was about to scream when a car near him exploded. A boiling wave of heat swept over him, and he crashed against something hard and lost consciousness.



Sore. Everywhere. His shoulders, his back, his legs, his eyes, his nose, and his lips. He coughed, wincing. He had no idea how long he had passed out or what time it was. His jacket was in tatters, burned off in the blast; his oxford shirt was sleeveless, his right arm swollen, bloody. Across his chest still hung the brown leather messenger bag he had rescued from Sassoon’s studio. A miracle, considering the jacket.

An eerie silence had cloaked the street; a rapid session of gunshots came from a distance. He stood up. In front of him, the air was a rag of fumes; on the ground were littered hulks of burning automobiles. A few steps away from him, piles of fire were licking at clothed bodies; some people groaned on the ground, hatless, robes torn to shreds. In front of Sassoon’s hotel, a Japanese soldier was shooting upward. The windows cracked, and a brilliant, thunderous waterfall of glass cascaded. A blessing Sassoon was gone, or he would have a heart attack.

Wobbling, Ernest began to walk. He had destroyed the photos and studio; her reputation was unsullied. It was time to go home. On Bubbling Well Road, the throngs seemed to multiply by the minute. The jostling of the crowd propelled him along, squeezing him tightly. Near the racecourse, the Japanese navy flags fluttered on windows and fences; behind the fence, the officers were mounted on game horses, marking it the new headquarters for the Japanese marines.

He came to an intersection and heard a loudspeaker spluttering something. Then he was forced to make room for some gleeful people waving Japanese flags—ahead of him was a parade, a victors’ parade.

The uniformed Imperial Japanese Amy marched toward him, their leather ammunition pouches bouncing on their chests and grenades hung around their necks. Behind them rolled a dozen green trucks; inside were men in uniforms with the American navy insignia, cowering, their arms on the back of their heads.

Ernest recognized the officer’s visor. Colonel William Ashurst, who must have decided to stay for the ship. Helpless, Ernest watched the truck pass by, leaving a trail of leaflets in red, green, and yellow. The leaflets had a caricature of a soldier in a wheelchair named Roosevelt dressed in the Stars and Stripes flag and a big man named Churchill cloaked in a Union Jack shirt; the two embraced each other, watching in terror as two Japanese bombs fell above their heads.

The loudspeaker spluttered again, broadcasting in English. “Citizens of enemy countries—Great Britain, the United States, and the Netherlands—are now the enemy aliens of Japan. They must report to Hamilton House. Anyone who disobeys or flees will be shot. Repeat.”

Enemy aliens . . .

He was stateless, no one’s enemy. An irony.

A Chinese youth in a bomber jacket next to him was eyeing him and then his messenger bag with the Union Jack flag. “A Briton! Here’s a Briton! An enemy alien!”

Ernest shoved the youth, ducked into the crowd, and ran as fast as he could. When he stopped to breathe, he was in front of the towering apartment building of Hamilton House, where a line had formed. There were men in suits, couples holding hands, women wearing velvet pants, and children hugging stuffed animals, all standing in a stoic manner, their faces grave.

Near the line stood a Japanese soldier with a rifle. He raised his hand, and a trickle of people came out from inside the building, each carrying a suitcase, wearing armbands with letters: A, B, or N. Now that he heard the loudspeaker, Ernest understood those letters represented the countries of America, Britain, and the Netherlands.

“To the camp, the camp!” The soldier was shouting in English, herding them toward a truck parked on the street across from him.

It felt surreal. Ernest felt his head swim, taking it all in: the armbands, the rifles, the suitcases, the stunned faces, and the unkempt hair in the cold morning wind. He traced the faces in the truck, then jolted. The last woman climbing on the truck. The red wool scarf. She was seated at the edge of the truck, deep in thought.

The joints of his bones threatening to break, Ernest hobbled after the truck as it advanced through the crowd on the street. He needed to call out to get her attention but doing so would attract the attention to himself. He followed the truck as it passed the Metropole, a luxury hotel famous for Persian rugs and extravagant Jacobean furniture. Unable to catch up, he grew desperate. “Miss Margolis, Miss Margolis. Laura!”

She raised her head, and he swore, even with the growing distance, with all the crowds and cars on the street, she recognized him, and her eyes lit up with joy. Then unbelievably, she unwound the red scarf around her neck, tied it in a single knot, and flung it in the air.