CHAPTER TWENTY

1944

I waited so long in the sun outside Ghoya’s office that I about melted into a puddle of hot jelly. But finally, a peek at the devil.

The loathsome man sat on the front of his desk, swinging his little feet. He looked cool, and why not? A powerful fan blew at him from each side, as if he were the meeting place of the east and west winds. Such extravagant cool air, and with electricity rationed for the rest of us! But the cool wind revived me, and I got to work trying to enchant the man, the way yogis charm snakes.

I smiled, waiting for him to speak. “Ilse Shpann, sir,” I answered when he asked my name.

“Ilse Shpann, it is supreme pleasure,” he said in his peculiar English where r’s were l’s, and vice versa.

He never asked me to sit down. “Kind sir, I need to visit a certain doctor outside, on Avenue Joffre.”

“You have many fine Jewish doctors in Hongkew.” He swung one ankle over the other knee. His eyes sparkled. The little reptile was flirting with me!

“Yes, sir, but I have a particularly delicate problem.” I let him draw his own conclusions.

“Ah, Ghoya understands. And not married?”

“No, sir.” I tried to look ashamed.

“This is a pity, such a pretty redheaded girl not married.”

“So, you can see why I must consult with this doctor at once, sir?”

“Doctor’s name?”

I handed him a slip of paper with the name and address of a German doctor, one of the refugees allowed to live outside the ghetto, since he’d come to Shanghai before 1939. Ghoya read it and read it, as though it were an indecipherable poem. Now his feet were together, swinging like a pendulum, with his heels thunking the desk.

He looked up at me with a zigzag grin. “Many pretty girls like you in Hongkew.” He smoothed back his greasy hair and pointed to my head. “Ghoya loves pretty girls with pretty curls. Ha-ha!” He laughed at his clever rhyme, eyeing me luridly.

I lowered my eyes as if his so-called compliment had enchanted me instead of turning me nauseous.

His eyes still fixed on me, he slapped the desk behind him, knocking over a fishbowl full of red and white wrapped candies. My mouth watered for just one of those peppermints and the feel of sticky candy lodged in my teeth. He left the peppermints spread across the desk, never offering me one, of course, while he located a pad, scribbled something in Japanese, and pounded it with a red stamp. Handing me a slip of paper, he said merrily, “Come back to see me. Ghoya likes redheaded girls!”

I’d charmed the snake into a one-month pass. As I backed toward the door—we weren’t allowed to turn our backs on Ghoya—he said, “You know the name REACT?”

My heart skipped about forty beats. “REACT, sir?”

He leaped to the floor, like a child jumping out of a swing. “Pretty girl like you don’t talk to REACT men. Bad men, stupid men.” He stared up into my face, his eyes cold and mean, then shouted, “Next!”

Mr. Schmaltzer generously gave Mother an hour a day to work at the bakery, but it was only a matter of weeks until he’d have to close. How could you run a bakery without flour or butter or sugar? And no one had money for his pastries, anyway. Even humble black bread was out of the reach of most of us. Instead of customers, Mr. Schmaltzer had flies and cockroaches and rats. Mother’s hour at the bakery was mostly spent sweeping up the droppings.

So, it was Mother’s hour at Mr. Schmaltzer’s, and as soon as Father went to join his fellow grumps at the cafe, I planned to flee Hongkew for a glorious day in the city. But before Father left, there came a knock at the door.

“Ilse, go and see who.”

It was Reb Chaim with a boy so thin, the rebbe could slide him under our door. As soon as the boy saw me, he cast his eyes to the back wall and pulled at his patchy beard with sinewy hands.

Reb Chaim blustered in. “You should excuse me, miss, your father is at home?” Well, it wasn’t like we had a gracious front hallway, with thick carpeting and flickering sconces. Reb Chaim could hardly overlook the fact that Father stood two feet away.

“Come in, come in.” Father jerked his head to remind me to vanish—this was man-to-man talk. I ducked into my corner of the room and dropped to the floor, with the sheet-curtain yanked around me. We called this privacy in the ghetto.

“Reb Shpann, let me not hit around the shrub,” the rebbe said in a conspiratorial whisper. “This is Shlomo. I told you about him. You remember?”

“Yes, Reb Chaim, but I also told you my daughter has a mind of her own.”

“Of course, of course. What woman doesn’t? Our curse, ever since from Adam’s rib was formed Eve.” I heard him slap his knee, chuckling.

Father forced up a weak chortle. I peeked around the curtain. There was Shlomo standing in the center of the room, his hat brushing the fly trap that hung from the ceiling. Towering over Father and Reb Chaim seated at the table, Shlomo rocked to and fro, as if his feet were screwed to the floor.

“Reb Shpann, Shlomo is a very enlightened boy. A great scholar he’ll be someday. Already he’s memorized six tractates, and he studies fourteen, sixteen hours a day.”

Shlomo bent his chalk-white goose neck toward Father. His back was rounded from poring over the books so many hours. By the time he reaches sixty, I thought, he’ll be kissing his belly button.

He wasn’t at all like Dovid, who was so handsome with his back straight, his eyes dazzling, his cheeks smooth and rosy.

“Reb Shpann, here is the heart of the matter. Shlomo believes it is beshert that he should marry your daughter. You know beshert?”

“No, Reb Chaim, I do not,” Father said impatiently.

“Fate. Their marriage is ordained.” Reb Chaim looked up at the ceiling, then brushed his palms back and forth, as if to say, “See, Lord? We’ve taken care of that little earthly task for You.”

Father beckoned Shlomo to come closer, and the ghost shuffled over toward Father, who asked, “He speaks German, Reb Chaim?”

“Enough like Yiddish, he’ll understand.”

Father stood up and put his arm around Shlomo. I thought the ghost might flicker away with human touch. Father said, “I’m sure you’re a fine boy, a brilliant learner, and you’ll make a kind husband, but not for my daughter, you understand? With my daughter it is definitely not beshert.”

“So you say,” Reb Chaim singsonged like a warning. “Come, Shlomo.” At the door Reb Chaim said, “You’ll call me if you change your mind? You can find me at the Beth Aharon shul.”

Once they were gone, Father fished me out of my corner. “You heard?”

“Every word. Thank you, thank you, Father.”

“Ilse, my daughter,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Believe me, I have higher hopes for my grandchildren than Shlomo. The boy does not look at all musical.”

“My thoughts exactly, Father.” Well, not exactly.

Then Father said, “When the day comes, Daughter, you will choose your own husband, and I trust you will choose wisely. Look how well your mother did.” His weathered face crinkled in a smile that made my heart flood with love.