“Herr Consul General, it is such a pleasure to see you again,” she said in English. Her voice was surprisingly loud. Perhaps it was because of the thrumming of the machines from the Laundromat, which had annoyed him initially but which he had grown used to.
“May I come in?”
“Of course!”
She slid in, wearing a pair of tall black galoshes and carrying with her a particular odor. And she glanced behind her as if to ensure no one was following her.
“Where have you been? Grace was so worried about you. She’ll be pleased to see you. Come, take a seat.” He took her to a chair near his desk.
She went to the window instead and peered out. Then she pulled the curtains across the windows. Her caution alerted him. For months, he had been watching the street piled with snow and the nearby shops, but he had not spotted the attacker in the navy jacket. He hoped that the consulate was no longer a target.
He said softly, “Are you in danger?”
“Those bloodhounds. They are everywhere.” The volume of her voice didn’t lower in pitch. “It took me a while to find this apartment. I went to the consulate’s old building. It’s a pile of rubble—rubble! What happened? Where’s Grace?”
The machines from the Laundromat were winding down. “Eichmann demolished it. I’m glad you found us. Grace is sleeping; she just had some morphine. Something tragic happened. She’s in pain. I’m sure seeing you will cheer her up.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s a long story. Maybe Grace will tell you herself. She’s sleeping. Where have you been, Miss Schnitzler?” he asked again.
“Where’s Grace? How is she?”
She was woozy with morphine, he wanted to say, but didn’t; instead, he watched Miss Schnitzler, alarmed by her eccentricity. She was asking questions, but it almost seemed she was ignoring him. “You must be eager to see her. Perhaps you can wait until she awakes. But I’m warning you. Grace has been relying on morphine for a few months, and it’s taken a toll on her. She made an effort to withdraw from it, but it hasn’t been successful. Perhaps you could persuade her to wean off it.”
Miss Schnitzler nodded but appeared preoccupied with something, leaning over to read the newspaper on the desk. She picked it up, mumbling something in German.
He studied her. Miss Schnitzler carried an air of indifference, almost akin to disinterest, even as she appeared ardent. It was contradictory and baffling. She was Grace’s friend, and a good friend, whose friendship had nurtured his wife and strengthened her mind, but he didn’t know her very well. “This may sound personal, but I believe Grace would like to know as well. Why did you disappear, Miss Schnitzler?”
She didn’t reply, reading the newspaper, ignoring him.
“Grace said that all the people in your building disappeared. What happened to them? What have you been doing these months?”
Miss Schnitzler didn’t speak until he put a hand on the newspaper. “Herr Consul General, are you still issuing visas to Jews? Is this your office?”
“It is. I haven’t seen any applicants since December.”
“Pardon?”
With great patience, he repeated himself.
“I heard you were recommended by many desperate Jews. Many people are talking about visas to Shanghai. How many visas do you approve every day?”
“I’ve lost count.”
She appeared to be thoughtful. “Have you heard that Eichmann has arrested eighteen hundred Viennese men without visas and sent them to Nisko to drain a swamp?”
“Nisko?” This was not the camp Eichmann mentioned last year.
“Near the eastern Galician border. Nine hundred Jews from the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were sent first.” She dug into her coat pocket and produced a crumpled piece of a newspaper with the headline in bold: Under Hauptsturmführer Eichmann’s command, Jews are ordered to be deported to the Nisko camp.
That explained why no one had come to the consulate for visas.
The thrumming cycle of the machines in the Laundromat stopped temporarily; the room grew mercifully quiet, and there from their bedroom came Grace’s hoarse voice, asking whom he was talking to.
“Miss Schnitzler, I think Grace is awake.”
But Miss Schnitzler, standing right next to him, didn’t seem to hear him, or Grace. Suddenly, he understood—it was the only explanation to her eccentricity and indifference. He gave the newspaper back and told her again that Grace was awake, and just as he thought, Miss Schnitzler appeared oblivious to his words. He gestured toward the bedroom, and finally, she turned around.
How had it happened?
Grace could use a warning; he was ready to follow Miss Schnitzler into the bedroom when the squeak of a car came outside from the street. Fengshan went to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and looked out. At the intersection where few cars and pedestrians had passed, a black Mercedes stopped, and out stepped two Gestapo officers.
His heart raced faster. The Gestapo had made routine arrests of Jews on this street last year but stopped coming, since many Jews had either fled or been arrested. They couldn’t possibly come here to visit empty apartments.
CHAPTER 59
GRACE
“Grace?”
That voice. Loud and clear. A light piercing the fog of my mind. I snapped upright, struggling to rise—the dagger of pain, ever-present, seesawing in my abdomen. My recovery had been slow and painful. For two months, I could not ingest any solids, suffered spells of headaches, cramps, and constant bleeding, and remained bedridden. To ease the pain, I relied on morphine, and I had become addicted to it.
Tearing my gaze away from the bottle, I could see at the door, where only Fengshan and Monto came, a figure, shadowy, feminine, and familiar. But I could be imagining it. It had been almost a year since her disappearance. In all likelihood, Lola was gone.
She sprinted toward me, a shadow of speed and surprise, and then that face with the seam of a scar, with those placid green eyes, was beside me.
“Lola? Lola? Is that you? Oh my God. It is you. I can’t believe it. Where have you been?”
She tossed away something in her hand and embraced me. Almost violently. Engulfing me with tears and groans and a firmness that almost hurt. Oh, how stiff I was, how awkward I was. I wished I had grown stronger, for every tremor from her body shook my body, the body that I was no longer in control of, but how I wanted to embrace her, to grip her with power and earnestness so she would know she had been missed. Fengshan had said she must have become a victim of the Nazis, but except during my darkest days, I had held the steadfast belief that she was alive.
“Lola! I was worried about you. What happened to you? What have you been doing?” I stammered, my voice hoarse, my throat rusty after months of disuse.
She straightened, laughing, dabbing at her eyes. “You’re so thin. Your face. Your arms. So thin,” she said.
Her voice. So loud. Intimidating. Confusing. Had I been in isolation for so long, sick for so long, that I was too weak to accept a human’s voice? “I’ve been sick.”
“I can’t hear you, Grace.”
“I don’t have much strength. I can’t raise my voice that much. Can you hear me now—？”
“I’m almost deaf. I lost my hearing.”