Did Ernest turn them off? Would they refuse to step into my club because of him? They didn’t know what they would hear yet—the breathtaking, toe-tapping stride piano. Besides, I had twenty cases of imported gin and whiskey!
Mr. Wang took the new arrivals to their seats, and Mr. Li started to play on the stage. I let out my breath, gave one more look at Ernest tuning the piano, and went back to my office.
I was calculating on my abacus when a howl, full of pain, roared in the ballroom. The music had stopped.
I rushed out. Under the eighteen thousand glittering lights, a crowd had gathered, peering at a figure on the floor—Ernest. He writhed, holding his right hand, still gloved, a knife piercing through it.
12
ERNEST
The pocketknife was completely embedded in his hand, his scarred hand. Was this an irony or a curse, he wondered. He had kept it gloved to help repress the memory of being mutilated, the fear, the despair, and the hatred, and now again it was a target. Blood gushed out; a trail of deep red splashed across the keyboard. God. He would never play the piano again.
He staggered back, his ears filled with a storm of strange words, gasps, and shouts. The man who’d plunged the knife into his hand was flinging his arm, and the dancers and the band watched with curiosity and something like excitement.
It had happened so fast, so confusingly. When Ernest had entered the building, he was dazzled by the grandeur of Aiyi’s club, the sophistication, the decor, the lights, and the dance floor, all reminding him of the imposing music halls in Berlin. Seeing her face, her aplomb, and her poise steadied him. She was now his boss, a privilege, but he could sense, too, the distaste of the people glancing at him. Never a stranger to hostility, he worked on the piano with the tools a manager gave him as quietly as he could, as quickly as he could. He just wanted to play his music.
But his tuning, or perhaps his presence, must have distracted the customers, because the man holding a knife had come to kick him. Ernest raised his hand, giving an apology, but the man seemed irritated, unleashing a torrent of Chinese. Ernest raised his hand again, and before he knew it he was thrown against the piano and a knife stabbed his hand.
The floor was now slick with his blood and he slipped, falling on his back. When he opened his eyes, Aiyi’s face appeared above him; she said something rapidly in Chinese, and then he was helped to his feet and out of the ballroom to the atrium. “It’s not that bad.” He slid into her car. The blade felt chilly in his flesh, his fingers numb, and the blood had pooled and dripped out. It was hard for him to focus. “Sorry I gave you trouble.”
She sighed. “I should apologize. I was worried about this. That man is a gangster, Ernest. I’m sorry he picked on you.”
“Because I’m Jewish?”
“Because you’re a foreigner.”
It felt silly, but that was the most comforting thing he had heard. “I didn’t know this would be a problem.” This must be Shanghai.
“You’ll have to get used to it, Ernest. Foreigners and the locals are not best friends. We live separate lives. You’ll learn. You’ve lost lots of blood. Try not to talk.”
His teeth were chattering. He closed his eyes for a moment. Fresh fear pierced him again—he had been forced to give up the piano after his hand was scarred, and now it looked like he would never be able to play the piano again. What could he do? He had a sister to care for.
When he opened his eyes again, the chauffeur was telling him to get out. He managed to stand; in front of him was a red-brick building, H?pital Sainte Marie. He almost collapsed when a Catholic nun wearing a cross rushed to support him. Rapid French rang in his ears; arms supported him as he entered the hospital. All was a blur: the pungent alcohol smell, the calmness induced by morphine, and the confusing French spoken by the Catholic nuns. When the knife was extracted, his cries sounded like ramblings of a madman. But no bones were broken, no nerves were severed, fortunately. He swallowed a handful of pills he couldn’t identify, gulped down a lot of strong liquids, and slept.
When he left the building, dawn was breaking, and a few rickshaws squeaked past. Aiyi’s car was still there.
He opened the door gently. Aiyi was sleeping, leaning against the back seat; her chauffeur was also dozing off in the driver’s seat. She could have left after she dropped him off, or told him to take care of himself after being stabbed, or not hired him at all, a stranger, a foreigner. But she had treated him with dignity, given him a refuge when he was homeless, taken him to a hospital when he was wounded. Had anyone else cared for him like she did? Had he dreamed of anyone like her, a woman of another country, of another race?