“ Lydia, we were right.”
“We’re always right. About what?”
“A few days ago a pay phone a block from Wong Pan’s hotel made a call to the Waldorf.”
“To the Waldorf? Wong Pan called Alice? But she never said anything. She wasn’t even positive he was in New York.”
“The call was short. He might have tried, didn’t get her, and hung up. The point is, he knows where to find her.”
“If it was him. All you have is a pay phone calling the Waldorf.”
Mary ignored my magical thinking. “I’m here, but she’s not. Have you heard from her?”
“Here, the Waldorf? You’re there? And she’s not? Now you’re worrying me. I just called and got voice mail. I was about to go up there. Was that pay-phone call before the Chinese cop was killed or after?”
“His death can’t be pinned down that exactly, but it was probably within a few hours. Let me know right away if you hear from her.”
“I will. And Mary? I have a couple of other bombshells.” I told her about Mr. Chen, Rosalie’s son, and Mr. Zhang, Rosalie’s nephew, and about Alice ’s clients, not Rosalie’s relations at all.
“Oh,” Mary said slowly. “Oh, Lydia, I’m not liking this.”
“Me either.”
“I’m going to alert the sector cars to look out for her. Meanwhile, Shanghai ’s sending a new cop over.”
“They are?”
“Hey, it’s a homicide of one of their own, plus a theft from the Chinese people. It wouldn’t surprise me if they sent a whole squad. Inspector”-a pause-“Wei De-xu. The e-mail says, ‘Inspector Wei is one of Shanghai Police Bureau’s most esteemed officers.’ I’m going to the airport in the morning to collect him.”
“How come you get to go? Instead of someone from Midtown Homicide?”
“Captain Mentzinger’s squeezing this. Technically, once the John Doe was identified, I was done, but he wants me to stay with it. After the screw-up on the room, Midtown can’t really object. They’re saving face by saying it’s okay for me to collect this guy because I can talk to him.”
“In Shanghainese?”
“What do they know? Besides, would Shanghai send a cop here who didn’t speak English? But don’t tell them.”
After we hung up I redirected myself again, back to my office; there was no point in going to the Waldorf if Mary was already there and Alice wasn’t. At the office I put on water for tea and called Bill, repeating for him everything I’d told Mary and what she’d told me. His reaction was a lot like hers: He didn’t like the sound of things either.
“That seems to be the consensus,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“I’m waiting for a call. And reading a book.”
“A history of Shanghai?”
“Am I that transparent?”
“I’m afraid so. What call?”
“A friend of a friend. An expert on modern Chinese history. I’m hoping he can give us some background.”
“That’s very enterprising.”
“Am I stepping on your toes? I don’t want-”
“No, I meant it. Did I sound sarcastic?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
I was taken aback. Bill, unable to read the tone in my voice? “No, I think it’s a great idea. Let me know if he calls.”
“Where will you be?”
“I think I’ll do some reading, too. I’m going to print out the rest of Rosalie’s letters.”
“They’ve been public property for years. You won’t find anything in them that Chen and Zhang don’t already know.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m looking for a map with a big X on it. But Mr. Chen caught me flatfooted when he said he was Rosalie’s son. I don’t want that to happen again. Right now the letters are the only thread I have.”
I took my tea to the easy chair and settled in.
29 April 1938
Dearest Mama,
Well, your ignorant Rosalie is only slightly less ignorant today, as regards China. But having sat with Chen Kai-rong yesterday long into the afternoon-over coffee and linzer torte, which I’m afraid I devoured greedily; he suggests we alternate the foods of our peoples, a charming offer-I am considerably less ignorant about my new friend.
He made, I must say, a valiant effort to unravel the history of forty centuries. But I became hopelessly lost among the states and dynasties. My floundering amused him, which he tried to hide. (And failed!) His own family traces its roots to a time called “the Warring States”-two thousand years ago, Mama! When our people had already been scattered for millennia, when Christianity was about to rise and scatter us again-Chen Kai-rong has visited the graves of his ancestors from that time!
I confessed to envy, and a wistful longing for a similar homeland. Our books tell us the history of our people is as long as China ’s, but what Jewish family knows the names of its forebears beyond half a dozen generations, or could find their graves?
Chen Kai-rong questioned me about Zionism, and though he pleaded ignorance, he was well informed on the subject. I told him I consider Zionism a collective opium dream of the Jewish people; and then I quickly apologized for the mention of opium, as I understand the drug to be a scourge of the Chinese. The Chinese people carry many burdens, was his answer, and opium, though a curse, at least provides a temporary joy.
The conversation having taken this doleful turn, I moved to another subject entirely, asking how he came by such a fine command of English. English, he said, is the lingua franca of commercial Shanghai. Since I have been finding the prospect of conducting myself in Chinese a daunting one, you might imagine my delight in hearing this! Kai-rong attended the Shanghai British School and has spoken English since he was a boy. He now returns home from two years’ study at Oxford. I asked what his field had been.
“I was reading law,” was his answer. “Though from what I hear, law is a discipline very much needed in Shanghai at the moment, and very little in demand.” He fell silent, staring over the water.
“I’m sorry,” I ventured. “I seem to be touching today only on subjects that distress you.”
At this he stirred himself. “No, no, I’m the one who must apologize. I was… brooding.” And he smiled.
“Over what, if I may ask?”
“Ah, Rosalie. You’ve left a country where your people have lived for centuries, but are no longer welcome. I fear I return to one.”
“How can that be? You’re a Chinaman going to China.”
His smile broadened. “First, you must not say ‘Chinaman.’ ” (Mama, this word has no German equivalent, but is in common use in English. I never knew it was offensive before this.) “It’s a word used by Europeans and carries a condescending odor. You’ll find more friends in Shanghai if you say ‘Chinese.’ I know this seems trivial-”
I assured him it did not, having been myself rudely awakened in the past months to the pain words can cause. “I can’t pretend to understand the nuance, because my English is so poor,” I told him. “But if the word offends you, I shall strike it from my vocabulary!”
“I and my countrymen thank you. And permit me to say, if you’re able to slip ‘nuance’ so neatly into a sentence, you must stop thinking your English poor.”
I thanked him for the compliment (though, Mama, his English really does outshine mine) and asked what he meant by being unwelcome in China, whether he referred to the Japanese occupation.
“The occupation, yes; though I can understand foreign invaders better than I can the puppet government-Chinese so hungry for power and wealth that they take orders from invaders, against their own people.”
“But what of the government this puppet one replaces? Is there no resistance movement of loyal Chinese, working to retake the country?” I was of course thinking, Mama, of the situation at home, of those loyalists who refuse to accept Herr Hitler’s Anschluss.