The Song of the Jade Lily, page 1
Dedication
To my parents, Richard and Carolyn,
who showed me that family is always home
Epigraph
Yes, the past is in the present, but the future is still in our hands.
Elie Wiesel, “Bearing Witness, 60 Years On,” speech to the United Nations General Assembly, January 24, 2005
* * *
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
Confucius, 551–479 BCE
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
About the Book
Read On
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
SHANGHAI, OCTOBER 14, 1944
This was the first time she had broken Papa’s rules. Romy’s throat tightened as she fingered the refugee pass in her jacket pocket and stepped closer to the ghetto’s checkpoint. Her pass was to study at the university in Frenchtown, yet it was well past suppertime. She intended to make an infectious diseases evening class as an excuse and her textbook hung heavy in her satchel, the strap digging into her shoulder.
Romy held her breath as she stood before an expressionless Japanese soldier. She started to pull the textbook from her bag, but the young soldier sighed as he swatted a mosquito and nodded her through—he looked every bit as sweaty, tired, and bony as she did.
“Back before curfew,” he barked. “Otherwise . . .” He sliced his finger across his neck.
Romy nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Too scared to look back and too penniless to hail one of the pedicabs or rickshaws weaving between trolleybuses, she raced toward the Garden Bridge. The bag with the textbook thudded against her thigh. Romy wiped the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her mother’s jacket and tried to push all thoughts of her parents aside. They would have forbidden her from leaving the ghetto. The risk of being caught was too great, and after everything . . .
As she stepped onto the iron framework of Garden Bridge, smells from the sampans crowding Soochow Creek floated up. The warm air was thick with the scent of sewage and frying fish mingled with cardamom, cinnamon, and star anise. Families on tiny boats shouted and giggled. Rows of washing strung across beams flapped in the evening breeze and the clang of spoons hitting woks and pots rang deep into the evening.
As Romy reached the far end of the bridge, a hawker pulling dough into noodles gave her a toothless smile and asked, “You buy, missee?”
She shook her head. Romy’s stomach ached—she’d had nothing except a watery bowl of congee that morning.
To avoid all thoughts of food, she spent the ten-minute walk trying to work out how to sneak into Shanghai’s grandest hotel. Soon enough, she turned a corner and the Bund shimmered beside the black Whangpoo River. Romanesque-style banks and Renaissance-inspired office buildings leered over the pavement with Rising Sun flags dotted on their rooftops. She walked toward the art deco hotel lit up with an apple-green pyramid on the roof: the Cathay. Outside the revolving doors, Japanese soldiers laughed and lit cigarettes for lanky Russian whores with translucent skin, red lips, and silk dresses.
Romy inched past with her head down, careful not to make eye contact. She was thankful for her mother’s dowdy brown suit. She was so close now . . .
Romy walked nervously into the Cathay’s soaring atrium, making sure her heels didn’t clatter on the mosaic tiles. The lobby was filled with staff in white pressed linen carrying magnums of champagne and silver trays of whisky. Japanese soldiers mingled with German, French, and Chinese couples, the men in white dinner jackets and the women with pastel feather boas threaded over their arms, diamond necklaces at their throats. These couples chatted with elegant Chinese ladies buttoned into cheongsams and low-backed lamé ball gowns. The women preened and smoothed their dresses as Romy overheard a waiter say in English, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll follow me, the show is about to start. I’ll escort you to your tables.”
Romy’s eyes watered a little from the sting of smoke and cloying perfumes as she gazed at the roomful of silky decadence. She felt dizzy and frightened. But she was too close to back out now. The person she was so desperate to find—had risked her life for—was in that bar.
Romy was only a few steps away. A band started to play the opening chords of George Gershwin’s “Summertime.” Romy took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and followed the scent of smoke and whisky through the wooden door into the jazz bar.
No one must ever find out. They would both be killed.
Chapter 1
VIENNA, NOVEMBER 10, 1938
It was against Papa’s newest rules to look up, but when Romy stared along Wipplingerstrasse, shards of glass dangled like broken teeth from heavy wooden frames. Pretty shop windows had turned into scary Tatzelwurm monsters overnight. The wide, grand street was a sea of dark coats—black, brown, navy, and gray—weaving desperately between ornate stone buildings.
None of the adults knew where to go.
Some were trying to sweep up glass. Crowds gathered and swirled, chattering, crying, and screaming. Black cars honked in the teeming street. Instead of waiting for their path to clear, some cars plowed into crowds without slowing, forcing people to leap out of the way.
With her father grasping one of her wrists and her mother the other, Romy was dragged through the chaos like a small child, though she was twelve. Still, she made no noise except for the glass crunching under her boots. She tried following Papa’s rules, avoiding eye contact with any of the heads above the coats. Instead, she concentrated on the feet of her older brothers, Benjamin and Daniel, who walked an arm’s length in front.
Romy glanced sideways from under her navy beret. The smashed and battered doors had scraps of paper pinned to them, flapping in the breeze.
WEHRT EUCH! KAUFT NICHT BEI JUDEN!
DEFEND YOURSELVES! DO NOT BUY FROM JEWS!
KEINE JUDEN!
NO JEWS!
There were twice as many signs as yesterday. “Why do they keep putting up these signs?”
Papa looked at her with tears in his eyes and shook his head without breaking his stride. “Herr Hitler hates Jews. I fear nothing will be the same while the Nazis are in charge of Austria.”
“But I don’t understand why the Führer hates us. Why—”
“This is not the place to talk,” Papa said, cutting her off. “The streets aren’t safe . . . Hurry. Remember the rules, Romy.” Papa usually had an answer for everything, but today he looked as lost as Romy felt.
She stumbled on an overturned chair as Mutti tugged at her arm. The Bernfelds just needed to get home.
Three blocks behind them, all that remained of their synagogue were charred bricks, gray tiles, and still-burning wooden planks collapsed beneath the debris. The synagogue’s library of rare books and manuscripts lay in a pile of smoldering cinders on the footpath.
They weaved between piles of rubbish. Romy coughed—her throat burned and her eyes stung. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke and gasoline and it hurt to breathe. She wished her parents would slow down. She had a nasty blister on her heel from her new patent leather boots, and her thick, double-breasted peacoat with the shiny gold buttons—such a treat last week—scratched her arms and rubbed the back of her neck.
From the corner of her eye Romy saw Papa pat the inside top pocket of his own coat, whic h bulged with their passports. They had walked miles to the British consulate to plead for visas.
“I studied at Oxford for my doctorate. I taught surgery in their hospital for a year. We all speak English. Does this mean nothing?” Papa had demanded.
The consular official with the mousy hair and gold pocket watch was apologetic. “We have our orders, I’m afraid, Dr. Bernfeld. Britain has strict immigration policies. There is a waiting list for visas. No exceptions. Not even for specialist skills.” He swallowed and looked at his shoes as his ears turned pink. “America has the same rules. Even Palestine won’t take any more boatloads at this moment, I hear. I’m terribly sorry . . .” He shrugged and raised his palms helplessly.
Papa nodded, put the passports back in his coat pocket, and turned away to grab his brown felt hat off the desk.
The official coughed. “You know,” he said, “there is somewhere you don’t need a visa.” His voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned toward the family. “Shanghai. You . . .” He hesitated.
Mutti blanched and shook her head.
“It might be worth . . .” His voice faded.
Papa shook his head and muttered, “Danke.”
Romy thought Mutti was going to crush her hand as she whipped her out of the office, heels clip-clopping across the parquetry.
Mutti had barely slowed down since they had left the consulate, but as they approached Romy’s favorite café she hoped they might stop for afternoon tea. She opened her mouth to ask, then remembered Papa’s rules: No speaking.
As they marched past the café Romy peered in at the dark wooden bar and saw gentlemen in dark suits sipping their coffee and reading newspapers, ignoring the mess and chaos outside. She pictured herself and Mutti sitting at one of the small marble tables, a dainty coffee cup in front of Mutti and, for Romy, a dark hot chocolate piled high with cream. It was their ritual after her Saturday afternoon piano lessons. Romy suspected Herr Bloch tolerated half an hour every week out of loyalty to her brothers. Daniel played in a jazz band at his university and Benjamin had applied to study at the prestigious Wiener Staatsoper—the state opera—before the new government said he wasn’t allowed. Last week her stumpy fingers had stretched themselves to a D-major arpeggio without stopping, plus passable opening bars of Mahler. Herr Bloch had applauded and said, “Bravo!”
As the Bernfelds approached Herr Bloch’s piano shop through the bitter smoky haze, Romy strained to see the gleaming black baby grand perched in the window. Instead, twisted ebony piano legs dangled through broken glass.
“Look!” said Romy, pointing with alarm. Herr Bloch was being dragged out by his hair to join a handful of middle-aged men on their hands and knees, picking up the glass and scrubbing the street clean. A pair of blond soldiers threw Herr Bloch onto the ground, but as he righted himself the smaller of the two soldiers swung his military boot into his stomach and sent him sprawling onto his back.
“Halt! Bitte hören Sie auf!” Stop. Please stop!
Romy’s head swiveled as Benjamin stepped off the footpath and reached out to help Herr Bloch sit up. Papa cursed as Daniel followed his older brother. Romy held her breath as Mutti squeezed her hand. The boys were going to be in big, big trouble when they got home.
One of the soldiers walked over to Benjamin and Romy stiffened, then relaxed as she recognized him; it was Franz, a baritone from Benjamin’s choir. There was obviously a misunderstanding with the music teacher and Benjamin would be able to sort it out with his friend. But when Franz looked across at Benjamin the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Nor did he greet him with a handshake. Instead, the soldier flipped his long rifle upside down and whacked Benjamin in the head with the butt.
Years later—when she was an old woman—Romy would still be trying to forget what happened next, but the memory was seared into her brain.
Benjamin and Herr Bloch were knocked sideways onto the cobblestones. Blood dripped from their ears, down their chins. Mutti let out a high-pitched scream and all around them the crowd fell silent. Romy’s breaths were shallow, filled with the smell of sweat, smoke, piss, and fear, as the soldier lifted his rifle to his shoulder.
A shot.
“Benjamin!” Romy’s skin turned cold and clammy as part of Benjamin’s forehead and ear exploded. Warm blood splattered her face. She moaned.
Another shot.
Herr Bloch’s limp body fell onto the cobblestones.
Beside her, Mutti collapsed to the ground. Daniel lunged forward to run to Benjamin but was grabbed around the neck by Franz.
Romy stood frozen. Her brother—was he—?
Benjamin was dead.
Papa was howling like a wolf as he tried to claw his way through the crowd to reach his sons, but he was held back by a wall of shoulders. There was a crack in the air, more rifles fired, and this time everyone crashed to the footpath. Romy felt her knee grind into a shard of glass and let out a cry.
A hand pulled her out from under the person sprawled half on top of her, and she crawled across to a freezing stone wall between shopfronts and leaned against it.
Papa was on his haunches, cradling his head in his hands. Mutti was trying to sit up but was having trouble breathing. Romy remained still. Empty and in shock.
She held her breath as the soldiers lined up all the young men in the middle of the street.
Romy began to cry. Surely they weren’t going to shoot Daniel too?
The leader waved his arm, and three covered trucks pulled forward and all the young men—including Daniel—were instructed to climb in. As Daniel clambered onto the truck, he looked over his shoulder at Mutti and Papa, his eyes full of fear.
“Daniel!” Mutti screamed.
Papa reached for Daniel, but all at once their neighbor Herr Gruber was charging through the crowd toward them. His face was drawn and pale as he put both his hands on Papa’s shoulders.
“You must go, Oskar. Now! For Romy and Marta. They will kill you too. Leave Vienna. Austria has lost her mind.”
Papa shook his head. “I—Benjamin. Daniel. My boys . . .” His voice was cracked and broken. “I won’t leave them,” he croaked. “I—I can’t.” He bowed his head and began to sob as, around them, people started to help each other up. Some avoided looking at Papa, as if his misfortune might infect them, while others shared teary glances filled with sympathy.
Mutti crawled toward Papa and they huddled together, sobbing and rocking back and forth.
Herr Gruber bent down. “Let me help you,” he whispered. “You must get over the border. We should leave at once.”
Romy’s skin was clammy and her heart was beating too fast. Her knees throbbed where they had been cut. She felt faint. Then darkness . . .
* * *
When Romy awoke, her face was buried in Papa’s neck as he carried her along Wipplingerstrasse. Her mother—ashen-faced—walked close behind them, a protective hand on Romy’s shoulder. Her head throbbed with each of Papa’s steps. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Were they going home or leaving?
Romy peered over her father’s shoulder. It was evening now, and a flickering yellow horseshoe was lit up by one of the few unbroken lights in the street. A faded picture of a chimney sweep dangled over the awning. Beneath it—in cheery green and red letters—Geh nicht am glück vorbei.
Don’t let luck pass you by.
Chapter 2
MELBOURNE, APRIL 9, 2016
Alexandra smiled and nodded at the palliative care nurse Sally—who was busy writing on charts—as she tiptoed into Oma and Opa’s grand sitting room. She caught a whiff of something woody; it was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite place the smell.
Opa was propped up in a hospital bed. When she’d arrived home last night Alexandra hadn’t recognized this withered man with the sallow face. The rhythmic whistle of the oxygen machine and the tiny beep of the heart monitor screen filled every corner of the room, nearly drowning out the tick of the mahogany grandfather clock.
Alexandra stared at walls of screens all day, watching for the faintest nudge in the graph—a variation—that told her to swoop on gold in Shanghai at breakfast and trade it in London by lunch. She spent eighteen-hour days under fluorescent lights searching for volatility. Hunting numbers. Alexandra didn’t need to study the beeping screen to know her beloved opa’s number was up. She’d been home for twelve hours but she was yet to see him conscious.
She shuddered. Perhaps she was too late?
Alexandra sank into the cushions of the old peacock-blue armchair by the fireplace and traced the curve of the arms, circling the rough patches. Burlap stuffing poked through threadbare velvet and the springs had gone in the base. She shivered and sneezed—so typical of her to pick up a bug in transit. She rubbed her cheek on a cushion. So many hours spent in this very chair snuggled onto Oma or Opa’s lap for Aesop’s fables and Grimm’s fairy tales and—as a teenager—curled up with a textbook, practicing endless algebra and algorithms with a lead pencil.
