The Last Rose of Shanghai(75)

“Two hundred twenty-two Bubbling Well Road. Run, Ernest. Run!”

Another shot.

He dove behind the empty barrels and ran. He didn’t stop until he found the boat near the jetty and leaped in.



Mr. Bitker was a man with gray hair, dressed in a gray suit and tie and wearing gray-framed glasses. A Russian, he had been in the legal business for over three decades in Shanghai. His office had a staff of six people, all working in secret to avoid getting arrested by the Japanese. He talked rapidly, as though he were on the run, and carried with him an air of efficiency. He looked relieved, holding the paper with Miss Margolis’s signature. He had been trying desperately to get ahold of her but was unable to find her, he said. Now he would be able to move forward to release the relief fund.

“Who would’ve known, half a million dollars isn’t worth that much today, and we have so many problems.” Mr. Bitker pushed up his glasses.

“What kind of problems?” Ernest was thirsty from running, but it would be rude to ask for water. Drinking water needed to be boiled these days, and coal was precious.

“We were short of funds, and now we have a scarcity of everything: food, restaurants, manufacturing companies, and people.” The British bakeries he had contracted were out of operation with the imprisonment of the owners, the Swiss bakeries had decided to hoard their output, and the fund would likely be burned through in a few months with the rising inflation.

“A few months. It sounds good to me.”

Mr. Bitker shook his head. “The war between Japan and the Allies will likely last for a few years. Have you heard the Doolittle pilots tried to bomb Japan last month?”

“What Doolittle pilots?”

“The Americans. People said they attempted to retaliate, but it didn’t work out as planned. The planes crash-landed, and no one knows where the pilots went. It looks like the war will go on, Ernest. We must make the money last as long as possible, for a year if we can, and we need bakeries that can produce eight thousand loaves of bread daily at the lowest cost possible. I wouldn’t ask you if this weren’t such a critical situation, Mr. Reismann. You’ve already helped so much. But you have a bakery, as you said—perhaps you can help again?”

He wanted to; he couldn’t walk away from the helpless refugees, but there was not much he could do. The small oven he had only produced about one hundred loaves of bread per hour. For ten hours of labor, it could only produce one thousand loaves. He would need everyone to work twenty-four hours nonstop in the rising heat of summer, provided that he could have sufficient fuel and ingredients. “I’ll do my best. But I’d say my bakery can produce two thousand four hundred loaves a day at most.”

“That is better than nothing. We’ll ration them; the sick, the elderly, and the children will have priority. It’s unfortunate. People have been complaining, since we have been forced to do that for a week.”

He didn’t realize the situation was so dire.

“You’re an angel, Ernest. I hate to impose on you again. But as you know, the American dollars have been depreciated, and the shortage of flour has hit us hard. Would you happen to have any flour in your storage before I secure anything from the Red Cross?”

The flour he had was enough to last his shop for four months, given the current rate of production. If he were to make thousands of loaves a day, it would last for one month at most. But he didn’t have the heart to decline Mr. Bitker’s request. “I do. I’ll get to work now.”





60


AIYI


“Here? Here? That fucking pianist can’t even get you a decent room?”

Cheng was immaculately fashionable even in the rising heat, wearing white trousers and a white hip-length jacket with four patch pockets, a printed foulard scarf loosely draped around his neck. He made the peeled walls and termite-infested door look like a dungeon, and his eyes flashed with the glint of an executioner.

“How did you find me?” I clutched the sheet. I didn’t like it, to be alone with him.

“I saw you drive by and followed you. You didn’t see me?”

“I don’t want to see you, Cheng. Get out.”

He kicked the door shut and bolted it with the latch. “Do you think you’ll hide forever? Do you know my mother canceled the wedding? What a joke, to have a wedding without a bride.”

“I want you to leave, Cheng.”

His handsome face reddened. He kicked the bed in the typical Cheng temper that made my heart tremble. “Our wedding was supposed to be two months ago, and you’re fucking another man. Where is he?”

“Please get out.”

“Is this all you can say to me? ‘Get out’? Not a word of apology? You cheater, adulterer! You should be ashamed of yourself.” He stomped closer to me, his eyes raw, savage. I stepped back. The sheet slipped off my hand, exposing me wearing only a pair of silk underwear and a bra. The memory of him in the car appeared in my mind. If he forced himself on me . . .

“Did you know what I went through? All the relatives know you disappeared. I’m a laughingstock! Why did you do this to me? I tried to protect you! For my entire life I’ve tried to protect you!” He shook my shoulders. “What did I do wrong, Aiyi? Tell me. What did I do wrong?”

There was something unexpected in his voice—it was almost like pleading. I looked at him.