Old Liang and his wife gave them a gift of eight sweet potatoes, enough to last a honeymoon of four days. The Chinese neighbors, in their tattered tunics, came to congratulate them too. Smiles on their sunbaked faces, they sang a sweet song with a lilt. It sounded like the song he’d once played, the song he’d once loved.
Golda, clad in a borrowed white chiffon blouse and a knee-length plaid skirt, sang and danced, her green eyes sparkling like a spring meadow. She was a good Jewish girl, whom his mother would have liked. And he would look after her, share with her the scraped taro skins and sweet potatoes; he would love her, like a new husband in an old world, like a good husband in a bad war, even though it was doubtful that he could love the same way he had loved before.
79
FALL 1980
THE PEACE HOTEL
Ms. Sorebi rests her elbow on the table, the fringe of her leather jacket draping like wilted straws. It has a strange appeal, I have to admit—the jacket suits her.
“When I interviewed the Jews, I was horrified to hear of the conditions in the designated area. The ghetto was horrendous, infested with scarlet fever, typhoid, and all kinds of diseases. Many got sick and died. They told me about the gravesite outside the ghetto and . . . it broke my heart. Did you know they had to reuse coffins?” Her voice cracks.
All the lives we’ve lost, all the love we’ve forgotten, and all the decisions we must live by. “I wish I could say war was cruel and we all had to endure. But the truth is no matter what hardship we went through, we eventually forget it after it’s over.”
Her head turns away, but her eyes grow brighter.
“Do you see why I want to make a documentary now? I want to remember; I don’t want to forget.”
A beautiful tune is wafting in the air, faint, drifting like a bed of clouds; it has that voice, innocent like a fairy tale, melancholy like the night breeze. It reminds me of the song I loved years ago. “When we’d just met, Ernest played the jazz song called ‘The Last Rose of Shanghai.’ I loved it, and I still remember the lyrics. It says in English, ‘There is a kind of love that strikes like a thunderbolt; it blinds you, yet opens your eyes to see the world anew.’”
I remember it was at that moment that I fell in love with him. He knew my music, and he played the tune like it was his. Had I explained to him the meaning of that song? That the lyrics have Buddhist influence? That a thunderbolt is also a weapon used by the thunder deity in Buddhism? That I firmly believed in karma?
Ms. Sorebi is quiet, gazing at a spot to my right, listening to the music, as if she has become part of my story, as if she can envision all the winding lanes in my memory. Is this a show of hers or her genuine interest in my story? I can’t tell, but I like this, this silence, this wordless reflection, this reach of a long lasso to the past.
“Ms. Shao?”
I’m not ready to answer, for I can see him right in front of me. His bright smile, his blue eyes. As if he had never left me.
“I’m sorry, but I’m dying to know. Was that the last time you saw Mr. Reismann?”
80
JUNE 1944
AIYI
I became a widow, a mother, a burglar, a thief, and an occasional garbage-bin diver. I did all tricks without shame, for life in the dank stone-arch-gate room, alone with a child, was hard. There were days when my stomach knotted in pain from hunger and Little Star screamed for food, days when I scrubbed our lice-infested hair with the kerosene from the lamp, days when I fled from the hooligans who tried to rape me, days when I reminisced about jazz and the luxury of my old life.
Let the war end, I prayed. Yet there were few signs of peace. On the street skittered the news of Japanese victories against the Nationalists and the Communists, all dispersed by the puppet government. No one knew anything about the war between the Americans and the Japanese. And the foreigners had all vanished from Shanghai. For half a year, I’d encountered not a single European or American on the streets.
Sometimes I thought of my encounter with Ernest and regretted my coldness. Yes, he had let me go, but yes, I was responsible for his loss. I should have told him that I had given away our daughter and apologized to him.
One night, a clunk from the courtyard awoke me. It was after the midnight hour; the buildings were quiet, and the alleyway was submerged in sleepiness.
I gently unhooked Little Star from my arms and slipped off the bed. My feet brushed against a low plastic stool. I picked it up. I had never faced a burglar before. Whoever was out there was not a Japanese, who would have made a ruckus.
The faint breathing from outside grew heavier as it came toward the bedroom. I swung the door open and flung the stool around. I couldn’t see what was in front of me, but I hit something.