He thanked them. He would need to find the post office later.
With morphine, the pain in his arm eased and he was able to play the piano again. Each morning he crashed in his apartment with jazz in his ears, and each afternoon before dusk he returned to play, basking in the smiles of the crowd. People treated him with cigarettes—Garricks, Red Peony, Front Gate, the local brands made of coarse tobacco, often soggy from the incessant summer rain. He was no longer called guizi, the ghost, but laowai, the old foreigner, a friendlier nickname; he loved it.
He was living in a dream where money, adoration, and friends surrounded him, where he was loved, valued, and accepted for being a jazz pianist. Aiyi raised his wage to forty fabi a day, and he was beginning to have savings.
With the money he made, he purchased a pair of shoes for Miriam. She had grown withdrawn and irritable since they’d talked months ago; she even stopped asking to go out, which he thought was a good change.
Then one day in June, when he returned, the room was empty.
“Miriam?” He spun around in their apartment. “Miriam!”
He raked his hands through his hair, feeling sick at heart. He should have understood it was too much to ask a teenager to stay inside an apartment all day. Miriam was lonely and bored, and she had run away. If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.
Alley by alley, street by street, he searched, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Miriam!”
It was just after dawn; the streets were empty and shops were not yet open. He asked the coal sellers, the noodle peddlers, the night-bucket collectors, the rickshaw pullers, the shoppers, and even the sanitary truck drivers collecting abandoned bodies. They couldn’t understand him.
No one would help. Chinese police were nonexistent; Japanese soldiers couldn’t care less. He rushed down the streets to the Settlement; near the barbed wire gate, he begged for the help of two enormous Sikh policemen in black turbans. One grabbed him. “I let you go and now you’re back!”
It took Ernest a moment to realize this was the Sikh who’d arrested him at the hotel. “You’re a good policeman,” he said, begging. “Please help me. Please find my sister—a girl with a beige shearling trapper hat.” The Sikh policeman turned his back on him.
Ernest staggered to his apartment, his eyes sore from lack of sleep, his right arm throbbing with pain from playing for almost twelve hours straight. It occurred to him how terribly he had ignored Miriam. With the warm weather, she wouldn’t be wearing her trapper hat. But he had not even noticed. She had wanted to talk to him, but he had refused. He didn’t pay attention to her; he was uncaring; he was not a good brother.
The smell of burning peanut oil made him nauseated, and his head ached. It was afternoon. Soon he would need to go work in the club, but he couldn’t play the piano while Miriam was missing. He slumped on a rock in front of his apartment building and dropped his head between his legs.
The image of Leah, bloody, unresponsive, appeared in his mind, and tears poured out of him. He had never told Miriam how Leah died, and in silence, in tears, he had grieved with his parents. He was determined to keep Miriam from the eyes of evil in this world, because Miriam, his innocent, quiet, bookworm sister, should have a life of joy and fairness. But what had he done? If something happened to Miriam, if she were beaten, or abducted or raped or murdered, like Leah, he would never forgive himself.
“Ernest.”
He raised his head sharply. There. Miriam, like a dream, stood in front of him, hugging her shoulders, topless. She didn’t have on her skirt or shoes, only her underwear. Blood trickled down her nose.
“Miriam! Thank God! You’re here! Where were you? What happened?” He ran to her.
Her large eyes were filled with tears. “A thug took my stuff, Ernest. He had a knife.”
“Good God.” He enfolded her in his arms. “Oh, God. I thought I lost you. I thought . . . I was so worried. I told you not to go out. I told you.”
“I’m sorry.” Miriam sobbed, her head on his shoulder. “I wanted to get a job like you. Why can’t I be like you? But no one wanted me. People aren’t nice to me. I tried. I tried so hard. I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s fine now. I’m here, Miriam. I’m here for you. I’ll figure something out for you so you’ll have things to do, okay? I’ll find a school for you.”
Her eyes widened. “There’s a Jewish school, Ernest. I passed it. Will you enroll me?”