The Last Rose of Shanghai(80)

Yamazaki hiccupped. “What’s that?”

Ernest could feel a wave of nervous heat boiling from his people. Pounding on the piano, he was going to reply when he realized the man had staggered away and yelled at someone at the door. Ernest looked up.

At the entrance stood Aiyi, holding a silver purse with studs like diamonds, gold leaf earrings swinging. Her face was pale, her entire body stiffened with fear.

“Miss Shao?” The officer suddenly whirled around. “I know who you are. You’re the pianist from the One Hundred Joys Nightclub!”

Ernest stood. “The bakery is closed, sir. Would you please leave?”

All Yamazaki’s friendliness and courtesy vanished. Looking murderous, he pointed angrily. “You killed a soldier. You, a foreigner! Now you’re colluding with a Chinese. Colluding with a Chinese deserves death! You! Deserve death. All of you deserve death!”

Ernest could feel the hair rising on his nape. But Aiyi. He signaled her to slide out the door. She took a step.

“Don’t move! No one moves!” Yamazaki whipped out the Mauser, aiming at her.

“No!” Ernest lunged at Yamazaki and wrestled for the pistol in his hand.

A gunshot rang out. It was so loud it hurt his eardrums. Ernest stepped back and shouted, warning everyone to duck for cover. But Yamazaki raised his Mauser again. Ernest grabbed a rolling pin from a baker and swung it at Yamazaki. Another gunshot exploded. Somehow Miriam had lost her footing and collapsed in front of him.

“Miriam!” Fear pierced his brain; he smacked the rolling pin harder on Yamazaki’s head. He had never assaulted anyone in his life, but he wanted the man to die. The drunkard moaned, flung out his arms, and finally sagged to the floor.

Ernest dropped the rolling pin and held Miriam. “God, God. Oh, God.” A bolt of chills shot down his spine. He couldn’t see her face very well, and her French braid was wet. “What’s going on. What happened. Miriam?”

Something red ran out of her mouth. But she said nothing.

A violent storm of horror slammed him; his entire body spasmed. “Say something, Miriam. Come on. You’re all right. Say something. It’s going to be fine. Miriam? Miriam?”

But she didn’t answer, not even to give him a scoff or a taunt. He held her tight to his chest; he kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, begging her to answer, to say something. “Please, Miriam, please, please. Someone! Please! Help! Help me!”

The bakery was strangely quiet. He could only hear his breathing, his sobs, his voice. Then someone was calling him. He couldn’t understand why people called him when they should be saving her. But then came a wail and a wave of sobs. He was drowning, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t stop shivering. He looked down at Miriam’s pale face marred with streaks of blood. It hit him: Miriam, his sister, with whom he had sailed across the oceans, whom he had refused to let go, whom he had sworn to protect, was gone.





64


AIYI


She took her last breath in his arms. Still he wouldn’t let her go; blood smeared his chest and face and soaked his shirt. He was paralyzed; he couldn’t see me or hear me. I stepped aside as people removed Yamazaki and carried him out of the bakery. They needed to get rid of him or they would all be killed if the patrolling soldiers found out they had assaulted an officer. The murderer was unconscious, drunk, but still alive, unfortunately.

I went to Ernest and held his shoulder. His face was ashen, his eyes dead. I wanted to say something, but what could I say? He had protected me from the Japanese, and his sister had protected him. Now she’d been killed, and I was still alive.

I had brought this tragedy to him, to her, to all the people in the room. I felt nauseated, ashamed, standing in the plain Western-style bakery with the pool of blood around me, right next to the people in aprons who knelt, wept, and keened. I could smell the acrid odor of gunpowder and feel the rushing panic, the weakness of my limbs.

“Miss Shao?” said a woman’s voice.

She had astonishing moss-green eyes, a pale face with freckles, and jujube-red hair wrapped in a handkerchief. A foreigner, but unlike Emily, who had black hair and black eyes like me. This woman’s mannerisms were different from Emily’s too. Whereas Emily acted like an emotional, spoiled writer, this exotic beauty held a sensual, dramatic air. She gave the impression that the bakery, and the world, were simply a stage. Golda, I recognized from Ernest’s descriptions of his employees.

I wished she could be my friend. I’d not meant them harm by coming here. I’d only wished to tell Ernest of the news of our beautiful future.

The beauty tucked a stray strand of red hair beneath the head wrapper, a gesture of grace and drama, but her green eyes were sharper than a blade. “Please leave.”

Just another person who treated me with hostility. I turned to Ernest, tormented statue that he was, his head bowed, back curved. His body was a crooked shadow, his sobs a trail of sorrow in the air, each a hammer in my heart.

I couldn’t leave him like this. “Just a minute.”

Her ample bosom swelled, her green eyes flashing. A sob escaped her before she said, “She died because of you. You brought us this disaster. This is your fault.”

I fled outside.

It was dark on the street and soon it would be curfew; the area was soundless, save for the sporadic shouts of the patrolling soldiers in the distance. At the end of the alley were two shadowy figures, the old man, Mr. Schmidt, and the boy, Sigmund, illuminated by the faint light from the bakery, propping up Yamazaki against the wall.