The Last Rose of Shanghai(83)

I jerked. “You can’t mean that. Would you abandon your own?”

“You don’t get to ask me this question. You were engaged to a wealthy man, but you got pregnant with another man’s baby. If your mother were alive, she would have asked you to jump in the well.” She left my room.

I had a splitting headache. I didn’t want to have anything to do with this new life. But it would be despicable to give away a child of your own. Yet it would be despicable to live with this child, too.





67


ERNEST


He kept Miriam’s ashes in a jar near his bed. Each evening before he slept, he read a few words from the Webster dictionary like a prayer. A diligent student, Miriam had underlined many difficult words and made notes within the margins. Tears pouring down his cheeks, he traced the handwriting, thinking of her voice, her broad bony shoulders, her head hidden in the hood, and her lively, happy face in the bakery.

There was nothing else he could do other than work. He rose at four o’clock, ate a piece of bread with peanut butter spread and drank soy milk and cheap watermelon juice, and before dawn, he was supervising the baking, wrapping up loaves of bread, and checking the balance sheet. Work was good for him; it took his mind off Miriam.

But grief was a fat bread dough. You punched it down; it still rose up. When Sigmund talked about Miriam, Ernest teared up. When he saw the bike she rode, he broke down. He grew reticent, incapable of comprehending people’s questions, angry at other people’s smiles. All he thought of was his negligence that had cost Miriam’s life; all he saw was the absence of her.

He should have let her go with Mr. Blackstone.

At seven o’clock, Ernest went to bed, exhausted. Sometimes he slept well; sometimes sleep was hard to come by. Loneliness was a fair punishment, yet he wanted Aiyi—her soft hands, her teasing smile, her flowing voice like a spring stream. He wanted to see her put on her high heels, to touch those soft calves, to run his fingers over her naked body.

He slept less and less. And then he couldn’t sleep at all.

He washed his face in a basin, trimmed his stubble, and snipped off his knotty, shoulder-length hair. Then he stuffed all his possessions in his suitcase, locked up the room, and walked away.



In his bakery, he hung up a curtain in a corner near the kitchen and moved a table there. He could afford a large office or move into one of the apartments he’d purchased, but he felt more at home in the bakery; this, after all, had been Miriam’s favorite place in Shanghai.

One evening, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Ernest. Look at you. Are you sick?” Golda said.

It was quiet in the bakery; it was probably two hours after midnight. The workers were dozing off, catching some sleep. He stood up. “No. What time is it?”

She stood in front of him, wearing a red cotton skirt. Her hand traced his chest. He had not buttoned his oxford shirt to keep cool, and now he could feel her hot fingers and smell her scent. She untied his belt; she kissed him.

“What are you doing, Golda?”

“I want to see you happy.”

“It’s late.”

“I don’t mind, Ernest.”

He blinked. The warmth, the sleeplessness, muddled his mind.

She took his hand and slipped it under her skirt. She was not wearing stockings or underwear.

He shuddered. He didn’t know who he was anymore. A fire burst inside him; a carapace of impossible longing swallowed him. He longed to be lost in an agonizing oblivion, to forget his mistake, to be forgotten. He let his pants drop, pulled her close, and entered her.



A few days later, Ernest was groggy with sleep when he heard someone knocking on the door. Two Japanese soldiers in uniforms stood outside the bakery.

“May I help you?” He snapped awake. How long had it been since Yamazaki’s visit? Three months? Four months? But Yamazaki was still alive, he had been told.

The soldiers asked to see his passport and the passports of all the workers in the bakery. Explaining he was a German citizen who had lost his passport, Ernest gave them the only identification card he had, the one issued by the Settlement at the wharf when he arrived. He couldn’t make sense of what the soldiers were saying—their English was broken—but it was clear they were investigating the assault of Yamazaki.

They took all of them to a station nearby, where they sat for hours. Ernest was ordered to answer to someone on a phone. Over and over, he heard questions in German with a strong Japanese accent: “Was ist Ihre Nationalit?t und wo wurden Sie geboren? Wann sind Sie nach Shanghai gekommen?”

He tensed. “Ich bin Deutscher und wurde in Berlin geboren. 1940 kam ich nach Shanghai.”

“Haben Sie einen Offizier angegriffen?”

“Nein, ich habe keinen Offizier angegriffen.”

He was detained for two days, and finally, he was told to leave.



Mr. Bitker sent him a hunk of meat as a token of thanks for helping the refugees and in celebration of his release. Ernest shared it with his people in the bakery. Every living day was like a steak, they said.

It was the first steak he’d had for the past three years. He gathered it on his plate, sliced it into strips, then in cubes, and then put a piece in his mouth, and chewed. He tried to enjoy it, savoring every bit—the flavor, the texture. It was true. Every living day was a steak.