Brooklyn, with many redbrick buildings, felt different from Vienna. There were no policemen in Nazi uniforms or street signs in long, indiscernible German. Each morning, listening to the chatter from the neighbors’ radios, all in easy, familiar English, I freed myself of my wheelchair, held on to the wall, and took small steps.
The day I edged away from the bedroom, entered the small kitchen, and reached for the door’s handle was the first day of July in 1940. I opened the door and gazed at a wooden fence on top of which sat a pot of colorful zinnias in an explosion of red, yellow, and orange, their slim stems straight toward the sun. I took a step, a small step to the street, but a giant leap in my life. Start anew.
CHAPTER 68
FENGSHAN
A year after his arrival in America, on a cool afternoon in May 1941, Fengshan walked out of Prospect Park, perspiring. He had just jogged in the park for hours to clear his mind. This morning he had read a telegram from his friend in China; it had indicated that the consulate of the Republic of China in Vienna had been abolished and relations between China and Germany were officially severed. And Ambassador Chen, who had so doggedly pursued ties with Germany, had been reassigned.
Out of the park, on the pavement, Fengshan stared at the busy street teeming with taxis and pedestrians. When he had heard the news that Japan had signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in September last year, forming the Axis alliance, he had predicted the inevitable fate of the consulate in Vienna. But still, to hear of the abolition of the consulate was a shock. For three years, his Nationalist government had resisted the unrelenting Japanese assault in Chongqing, depleting the twenty-five-million-dollar loan received from the US, but he had remained hopeful that his country would reemerge on the world diplomatic stage. This sad retreat was a hopeless setback, a heartbreaking defeat, and, to him, a reminder that a chapter of his life had been forever closed.
What would happen to China’s diplomatic future?
For almost a year in Brooklyn, he had thought of his country and dreamed of China. Now his analysis of whether Roosevelt would join the war in Europe had been submitted with a foregone conclusion. His work in this country was nearing completion, and he was only making ends meet with the small fees he earned by writing the biweekly reports about American history and economy for the Institute.
“Dr. Ho?”
A man’s voice came from somewhere. Fengshan was not certain if he had heard right. These days, people called him Mr. Ho, rarely Dr. Ho. In and out of the public library, passing little shops with greasy glass windows, he conversed with custodians, librarians, fellow Chinese laborers, and Chinese cooks in cheap Chinese restaurants. They were all decent human beings, but he found his attention drifting elsewhere. In this borough crowded with people of different races, he was no longer a distinguished diplomat following protocol; he was just another Chinese man, approaching forty, unshaven, with a balding head, clad in his sweat-stained white shirt and a rumpled black tie with white dots, puttering around in his cloth athletic shoes.
It frightened him. That after years of studying, learning, cultivating himself to be a knowledgeable man, he would live the rest of his life like this, anonymously, unfruitfully. That he would struggle like many people in Brooklyn, as a civilian, as an impoverished immigrant, as a man who would make a living with his hands rather than his mind. That his dream to serve his country, to represent his country, was simply a dream.
“Dr. Ho!”
He turned around and gave the man walking toward him from under a ginkgo tree a good look. “Mr. Wiley!”
What a surprise to see an old friend from the past—although strictly speaking, they were only acquaintances. But still. Mr. Wiley’s smile looked genuine, and God knew how the memory of the American diplomat had warmed his heart.
“I thought that was you, Dr. Ho.” He was dressed in a white suit, with a pale-blue tie and a bowler. His eyes flashed behind the black-rimmed glasses, friendly, beaming with a warm glow. “How have you been? What brought you to Brooklyn?”
“Well, I was going to ask you the same thing. How wonderful to see you! Would you like to grab a drink and chat?”
Mr. Wiley looked at his watch. “I have about an hour. When did you come to America? How’s Mrs. Ho?”
“Grace is doing well. I’ve been here for about a year. I recall you were dispatched to Latvia and Estonia. How wonderful to see you here!” They walked to a neighborhood convenience store and sat at a small iron table outside. It was not what he would have imagined as a proper place for a diplomat, but Mr. Wiley didn’t seem to mind. He asked for a bottle of Coca-Cola; Fengshan ordered the same thing.
“Coca-Cola. It’s my sin. I’ve been craving it in Latvia. Did you know there was an illegal trade in Coca-Cola in Europe? These bottles were hard to come by.”
He smiled. “Of course. So what brought you to Brooklyn, Mr. Wiley?”
“Visiting family. My mission as envoy extraordinaire and minister in Estonia and Latvia has been terminated. Irena and I decided to come home to handle some family business before my next assignment.”
Mr. Wiley’s manner was impeccable, but, knowing his background and his enviable posts to Russia and Antwerp and then Vienna, Fengshan could tell the American was holding back on his next post. Perhaps it was an ambassadorship. Would he dare to dream of such a position? His government was embroiled in war, and its own survival was in question.
“How are affairs in Vienna, Dr. Ho?”
He didn’t know. Fengshan grimaced. “Ah, I’m not sure if this has come to your attention. I was dismissed from my consul general’s duty in 1940. Since then, I’ve been in Brooklyn for Grace. And I just heard the consulate of the Republic of China in Vienna has been abolished.”
Mr. Wiley sighed. “The Department of State has also decided to suspend its involvement in Greater Germany temporarily. The American consulate in Vienna was closed last week due to the escalating tension in Europe.”
He had not been aware of that. “This is truly devastating.”
What was happening to the Jews in Vienna? Where did they immigrate to? Although it had been almost a year since his departure, Vienna and the fate of the persecuted Jews never left his heart. Even in the library during his research, when he encountered a mention of immigration, or an argument about the refugees in Europe, he would stop and peruse the entire article. However, with the intensifying tension in Europe, there was little news about the Viennese Jews. As far as he could tell, the German Jews were left in limbo, and those who lived in Poland, in the neighboring countries, and in warring France had receded into the unknown.
“May I inquire, Dr. Ho, where is your next post?”
He was not a sentimental man, but he almost felt tears sting his eyes. “Regretfully, I’m no longer involved in diplomacy.”
Mr. Wiley put down his bottle, looking thoughtful. “It was Vienna, wasn’t it?”
Of course, Mr. Wiley understood politics well. Arranging a path out of Vienna for Dr. Freud had cost Mr. Wiley the consul general job, and his own effort to issue visas to Jews had dissolved his career. They had something in common at least. Holding his Coca-Cola, Fengshan recounted his visa issuance to Jews in Vienna from 1938 to his departure, his superior’s anger, and ultimately the order to send him home. He tried to sound as unflappable as he once had been in the bar in Vienna.