Since moving to Grosvenor House two weeks earlier, Romy had tried her best to explore every piece of Shanghai so she could record it in her letters to Daniel. Their elegant Art-Deco building was straight out of a Hollywood movie set, with a central brown-brick tower flanked by two curved wings in the middle of a French garden. Grosvenor House stood opposite a popular sports and social club, Le Cercle Sportif Français, and the Lyceum Theatre was in the next block—they’d landed in the very heart of Frenchtown. Papa had started work at the Shanghai Jewish Hospital and Romy was to start at the French school next week. Papa had also promised to speak to Miss Schwartz to arrange a visit with Nina.

In the meantime, she spent her days trailing their new amah with the laughing eyes across the endless parquet of their apartment, learning to speak in a rapid-fire dialect of their own invention that incorporated English, German and Shanghainese.

Romy had taken to rising at dawn, dressing quickly in her pinafore and tiptoeing down the curved marble staircase with her shoes in one hand so she didn’t wake Mutti and Papa. She’d slip through the servants’ entrance to the kitchen and perch herself at the bench, waiting for Amah to hand over a little blue porcelain bowl of steaming chicken broth with slivers of shallots, ginger and chilli floating above a handful of soft rice noodles. Every other day Amah would crack an egg into her boiling soup and Romy would have to stir like crazy with her chopsticks until the egg set and drifted like ghostly noodles around the broth.

It had taken a few days to master eating with the strange wooden sticks. Noodles slipped back into the bowl, splashing soup all over the wooden bench and her pinafore. She’d eat breakfast wearing one of Amah’s starched white aprons over her tunics, so stained was her clothing after her first attempts at fishing for noodles and then lifting the bowl to her lips to swallow the soup. Mutti would have been mortified if she’d walked into the kitchen to see her daughter slurping soup straight from the bowl.

But, of course, Mutti was always asleep.

Most mornings, after the daily trip to the markets, Romy spent the day in the kitchen helping Amah to prepare food. The kitchen always smelled of steaming chicken broth or a clear soup made from fish heads.

Romy stood with her feet in ballet’s third position and her back straight, balancing her heavy cleaver between her thumb and forefinger while she diced green onions, garlic and ginger for the master stock constantly simmering on the cooktop. Her efforts always looked mushy, whereas Amah could julienne carrots into matchsticks, slice potatoes as thin as paper and dissect a lily bulb in seconds. Romy was mesmerised by the way the cucumber could be cut down to a frilly spiral resembling a dragon, or slices of bean curd could be cut and arranged to look like orchids.

None of this food ever made it upstairs to her mother’s bedroom. It was for Romy and her Papa to try in the evenings. Instead, they would prepare Mutti’s favourites—Papa had written a list—and tiptoe upstairs each lunchtime and evening, Amah with a silver tray set with a candle, fresh flowers, schnitzel or spätzle with potato salad and a sliver of strudel with clotted cream for dessert, Romy carrying the tea. Mutti preferred coffee, but Amah insisted she try the different brews she made each day, determined to find one her mistress might actually enjoy. So far they had tried the long green needles of lucha—green tea—from tiny cups with no handles, the olive wulong and the bitter black tea preferred by Amah.

Today they had placed a dried golden bud in a porcelain teacup. Romy hoped her mother would enjoy watching the chrysanthemum petals unfurl and become a flower when the boiling water was added. Amah had taken her to a tiny store on the way home from the markets, its shingle sign swinging overhead with some Chinese characters and then the English translation: CHINESE DOCTOR.

She’d leaned against the heavy cedar door and led Romy out of the chill into a dark, wood-lined room that was redolent of fresh flowers like lilies, bitter dried teas and some of the sweet, warming spices she’d smelled at the street stalls and on the docks. The far wall was lined with glass jars filled with dried herbs, mushrooms, seeds, flowers and even some flat dried frogs and grasshoppers. A cedar cabinet with more than a hundred tiny drawers and looped brass handles ran down the length of the shop, which was little wider than a corridor. Each drawer was neatly labelled with a set of Chinese characters. In front of the wall of jars was a teak cabinet with a chrome countertop and a set of brass scales.

The bell on the door had jingled as they walked in and a middle-aged man with flecks of grey hair at his temples stepped out to greet them. He wore a white coat similar to the one her father wore at the hospital, and his smile was broad and his eyes warm as he welcomed them.

‘Nong hao,’ said Romy and Amah in unison as Amah launched into a conversation in her native language, pointing at some jars filled with apricot kernels, tiny brown stars she used in her soups and golden petals. The man set about pulling jars from the shelves and scooping powders, leaves and seeds into silver bowls, then weighing them on the scales before pouring them into paper bags.

Amah and the man seemed to be debating something rather vigorously, as Amah’s tone rose when she pointed at some of the drawers in the cabinet. The man stepped from behind the counter to open and close various drawers, pointing, smelling and discussing as they went.

Amah was convinced she could make Mutti feel better if only they had the right blend of herbs and spices. At one stage she placed her hand on Romy’s shoulder and fingered her brown curls, as if proving something to the man, who looked at Romy with a mix of curiosity and kindness. As more drawers slammed closed and the weighing continued, Romy wandered over to the counter and glanced into a tiny room next door.

A boy—perhaps a little younger than Daniel—was sitting at a round cedar table with scrolls of parchment unwound in front of him. To one side were a small pile of creamy cockleshells and some green stems of leaves with tufts of a purplish flower. She could smell the fresh mint. The boy was drawing the mint stem, making some kind of annotation as he went. Then he did the same with a shell, turning it over in his hands and tracing a long finger across the corrugations along the back. After he had finished with his ink drawing, he reached quickly into the bag at his feet and drew out a camera. Working with speed, he rearranged the cockles so their curved backs caught the light of the window then he stood up to take the picture. The flash blinded her for a second. Stunned, she knocked the lid of a jar near her wrist. As the steel lid clattered onto the counter, the boy lowered his camera and turned to face her. His black eyes glittered then looked down, and she was struck by the length of his eyelashes.

Her cheeks started to burn.

The shop owner stepped behind the counter and spoke quietly but firmly to the boy—who put his camera back into his satchel—and waved at the parchment. The boy nodded, sneaking a sheepish sideways glance at Romy before resuming his seat and picking up his pen.

Amah gently tugged at Romy’s wrist—‘Come, come’—and she was led from the shop holding a bag of chrysanthemum buds and some dried herbs for Mutti.

Romy carried the teacup, chrysanthemum buds and silver bowl with sugar cubes upstairs to her mother as Amah walked ahead with the breakfast tray of croissants, butter, jam and hot water.

Mutti would sit up in bed in her silk housedress, surrounded by dark oak-panelled walls lined with padded silk panels featuring stylised peacock tails, the floral chandeliers and wall sconces dimmed, matching blue silk curtains drawn. Afterwards, she would step into her marble-lined bathroom and relax in the deep claw-foot bath sprinkled with a mix of dried herbs ground in the brass mortar and pestle—the cinnamon or ginger and dandelion stirred into the steaming water by Amah were designed to make Mutti feel ‘largee’.

The bath salts must have worked, because Mutti spent most afternoons at the large French oak desk in the sitting room, shuffling reams of paper and writing letters to try to secure Daniel’s release.

Mutti was uncomfortable having an amah living in quarters at the back of their apartment—their maid in Vienna always went home before supper—but Romy was grateful to have made a friend. Today, she was worried their little ritual was about to end, though, as the night before she’d eavesdropped on her parents as they took a cognac together in the library.

Her mother had said again that she didn’t think it was necessary to have live-in servants, and her father had replied, ‘Please, darling. The Sassoons have been so kind, I don’t want to appear ungracious. Besides, the amah was nursemaid for the family who lived here before us, but she is happy to stay on as housekeeper and cook. It will be good for Romy to have a companion.’

‘But there is just the three of us now—until Daniel arrives.’

Peering around the corner, Romy saw her mother gazing around at the strange rooms, with the oversized cedar dresser, plush velvet sofas and gold-patterned carpet commissioned by their benefactor. On the dresser sat their only adornment from Austria: twin silver candlesticks that had been hidden under the false bottom of Papa’s suitcase—thanks to the clever Herr Gruber. A wedding gift from Mutti’s parents, they had been crafted by the most famous silversmith in Vienna.

Papa had taken Mutti into his arms and hugged her tight. But Romy had seen Papa raise his eyes to the ceiling in a silent prayer. She knew what he must be hoping for. Please let Daniel join us soon.