The day of his departure arrived. On the radio, a British announcer said in a sober voice that Prime Minister Chamberlain had been replaced by Winston Churchill, a pugnacious politician. The tide of the war, it seemed, had taken another turn.
Fengshan turned off the radio and went downstairs to pay the hotel fees, and then the three of them, Grace, Monto, and himself, took a taxi to the train station.
In the car, he turned to the window. Outside, the grand art deco buildings, the Baroque apartments, the stately monuments, the cathedrals, the theaters, the coffeehouses, the palaces, and the parks passed by, all looking so real yet like a dream. For three years, he had lived in Vienna. He was familiar with the buildings, had studied their architecture and their history, and admired them. He loved Vienna, but he loved its people the most, their refined manners, their keen interest in culture, their delightful conversations, and their heart-throbbing music. With the Viennese, he had drunk coffee at coffeehouses, danced the waltz in chambers, and attended balls in palaces. Sadly, the era of Austria that he had admired was the past, and the people he had conversed with were either dead or gone, Mr. Rosenburg, Captain Heine, Miss Schnitzler, whom he barely knew, and other fine men, audacious women, the very people a country should feel pride in.
For them and many people who had been born here, grown up with its language, its culture, its customs, and its history, this city had been a cruel execution ground, a quagmire of death; they had been persecuted by a country they called home, had loved a country that denounced them, and had been driven to death by the people they called countrymen. Their faces, their names, and their struggles would fade into the unknown. The grand buildings, their former residences, now the homes of the persecutors, would not bear a trace of their blood or tears.
What was a country without its people?
It would merely be a landmark on a map without a heart and a soul.
How many visas had he issued? How many people found new lives with those visas? He would never know. His only regret was that he could no longer help them.
The Vienna train station appeared in the twilight, the brass signs, the poles with gaslights, and the platform full of people holding suitcases. He couldn’t help thinking that when he had stepped out of the station three years ago, greeted by the grand buildings on the Ringstrasse, the teeming cars, and the well-dressed pedestrians, his chest had swelled with optimism and confidence—this city would be the springboard for his diplomatic career. But he had been mistaken. Vienna was a trap for the honorable men and women in this city; it was a trap for him too. He had arrived at Vienna as a rising diplomat with a promising career, and now he was leaving Vienna as a disgraced official. Like the very people he had tried to protect, he was driven out, jobless, and denounced by his own country.
CHAPTER 67
GRACE
Finally, the train began to move, the floor quivering. I held on to the table’s edge and looked out the window. When I had first arrived in Vienna, I had been fearful and lonely; now, looking at the shadowy platform in the night’s darkness, the desultory figures of the passengers, and the solemn-faced men in uniforms, I still felt lonely but no longer fearful.
I had seen off Eva at this exact spot in the winter of 1938, and now Eva was out of my reach. Poor Lola never made it to this platform, but she would still be with me. Her words, at least. She was part of my Dickinson book now, safely tucked in the bottom of my suitcase, and she would be with me wherever I went.
On the train, Fengshan was deep in his thoughts. He would talk to me when he felt like it—his style, which I had grown accustomed to. And when he did decide to talk to me, I wondered if he would lash out at me. For my refusal to stop my friend. For my ineptitude. I would have welcomed it, but knowing him, there would be only silence, disappointment, bubbling and distant.
But who wouldn’t say that the disappointment wasn’t mutual?
We arrived in Trieste in the early morning and embarked on the ship, Saturnia, in the late afternoon. On the distant horizon, the Mediterranean sun shed brilliant strands of gold, the air fresh with the scent of the sea, and the water a pristine shade of blue. Had Lola been able to leave for Shanghai, she would have seen this sight.
On the ship crowded with many Americans going home, Monto was excited, asking about this and that, and Fengshan had answers for everything; I had none. Once again, I was the irrelevant parent, a stepmother, but Monto was happy; that was all that mattered.
The cabin was small, and there was limited access for people in wheelchairs. So for a good amount of time during the day, I stayed inside the cabin with a porthole the size of my hand, learning the sway of the boat, avoiding the risk of falling and tearing my muscles. Fengshan and Monto took daily walks on the deck, where they mused, read, and played.
When we stopped at the ports, we went sightseeing. Greece, Naples, Genoa and Gibraltar, and then Portugal. Always a father intent on education, Fengshan took the opportunity to teach Monto about everything, the volcano Mount Vesuvius, the Gibraltar sea lane under the watch of the British warships, and Lisbon with terraces and hills just like the Nationalist capital Chongqing.
Fengshan was polite to me, sometimes pushing my wheelchair on the gangway and assisting me with sitting in a chair at dinner. Other than that, we talked about the food on the liner, the heat in the cabin, and the spiffy Chinese man who was engaged to an heiress of the du Pont family and awaiting a visa to the US.
We didn’t talk about the last argument we had; we never talked about Lola.
We landed in New York on a quiet, foggy morning. It had been almost six years since I left my home country; everything, the one and only Statue of Liberty, the towering skyscrapers, the Pepsi-Cola sign in neon light, and even the giant toothpaste on the billboard, was a sight of pleasure. New York, America. English. Home.
I wheeled down the gangway, beaming at Monto, pointing at the skyscrapers here and there. I did not need to look at Fengshan to know how he felt. He had appeared to be in a somber mood since we’d docked, frowning. Before our disembarkation, he had heard the war in Europe had taken another turn. It seemed that France had been fighting with Germany when we left Vienna, and by our arrival, Paris had been lost to the Nazis.
At the pier, Fengshan complained about the mist and the bleak weather and the loud traffic noise in New York, but, capable as he was, and strategic, he booked a room at the Hotel Victoria in Brooklyn and went to rent an apartment. When he found an apartment with a For Rent sign, he called to express his interest. But when he went to put down the deposit the next day, the landlord rejected him on the grounds that colored people couldn’t be his tenants. Fengshan was stunned—this was the first time he had encountered racism. This encounter was repeated until he met a custodian who had visited Hong Kong and Shanghai and believed that he, a Chinese, was not a man of color and agreed to lease to him. The rent was expensive, sixty dollars a month for a one-bedroom apartment; for my convenience, Fengshan asked for the ground floor. We moved in the next day.
It felt like we were in Vienna again with the moving and packing, except I was happier, and Fengshan was disinterested. What mattered now, he said, was that I would regain my health.
Always concerned about education, Fengshan enrolled Monto in a public school in the neighborhood near the apartment, and then Fengshan spent his days in the library researching whether President Roosevelt would join the war in Europe—his topic. As he had agreed with his friend, he would write a report about the president and the public opinion in the US every two weeks. So each day, he perused the newspapers and listened to the radio. He was to be financed by his friend’s institute, which would be our only income. His salary as a diplomat had ended in May.