Republic.
“Lady Marlowe, please, listen to me. You don’t understand what’s happening to Jews in Germany. The nightly arrests, the forced-labor camps—”
“Rumors, all rumors.” I avoided her eyes, not believing her theatrics. Didn’t all young girls go through a stage of dramatics? I couldn’t help her, I insisted, walking away, my eyes going again and again to the boarded-up building I’d known as Bar Supplice. I haunted the street with a vacant stare in my eyes. Hoping, dreaming it was all a mistake and Ramzi would return. I couldn’t bear the thought that the sumptuous den of decadence where I’d stripped down to my soul was dirty and crude, infested with rats, their vermin sticking to me like broken promises.
So absorbed was I in my plight, I barely listened to the mournful tale of the young Jewess following me. She implored me to tell the world what was happening to Jews, the camps, the deaths, the rape of Jewish women by the Gestapo.
“I wouldn’t have gotten out of Germany,” she said, “if a man hadn’t taken me to Genoa with him.”
“A man?” I asked, interested. “Then why are you asking me for help?”
“You don’t understand. He—he gave me a passport and said I was to tell anyone who asked I was a dressmaker.”
“A dressmaker? Why?”
“He promised me there’d be no trouble getting through customs and immigration if I did as he asked.”
“And did you?” I said, aware of the implication in my voice.
She lowered her head. “Yes. I had no choice.”
I thought about how I’d been young once and had nearly fallen for that same trick in the back alley behind a Berlin bar. In my case, the man met an untimely end when he was robbed by local thieves. And me? I ran and ran and ran, never looking back.
“Don’t you see, you must help me, Lady Marlowe,” she pleaded, her fearful eyes darting everywhere. “Without family or papers, I—I will have no way to pay for what I need in Shanghai except—”
“Yes. I understand.” I opened my purse, wrapping my hands around some bills. I was about to give her some money and be on my way, when a commotion caught my attention.
“Lady Marlowe, you’ve retrieved my hat!”
I spun around, surprised to see Lady Palmer bouncing down the dirty street hatless with both her sagging bosom and her daughter in tow. But who was that man in the dark jacket, bow tie, white pants and Panama hat behind them? His gait was uneven, as if he had a crippled leg, and his right hand was in his pocket in a way that disturbed me. Was he reaching for a gun?
“My pleasure, Lady Palmer,” I said, plopping the hat on her headand trying to smile, though I cast a wary eye toward the man observing us. I turned my back and chatted with Lady Palmer about the impudent camel who dared to pluck her designer hat off her head. Silly, infusive talk, but I was grateful to once again enter that parallel dimension I lived in whose portal was accessible to a privileged few.
When I turned around to give the Jewish girl some money, the man in the Panama hat had her by the elbow and out of my reach. Then she was gone. Off to Shanghai, I imagined.
I recounted the girl’s story over tea to Lady Palmer, if only to assuage the guilt burning in my soul. I knew what happened to white women in Shanghai. Not even a heated fainting spell from Lady Palmer kept me from telling her how disease was rampant in the miserably squalid, decadent city. And how procurers of human flesh forced women to service customers in dirty backrooms, lying in a bunk in a cloud of smoke while one, two men fondled them, opening them to the probing of fingers, mouths, with only opium to help them forget. Intense nausea gripping them from the drug, their skin turning sallow, their bodies growing thin and frail until they took their last breath and found release.
Lady Palmer dismissed the entire incident as a scheme to cheat me. The whole thing was an act, she insisted, admitting she’d also been
“Lady Marlowe, please, listen to me. You don’t understand what’s happening to Jews in Germany. The nightly arrests, the forced-labor camps—”
“Rumors, all rumors.” I avoided her eyes, not believing her theatrics. Didn’t all young girls go through a stage of dramatics? I couldn’t help her, I insisted, walking away, my eyes going again and again to the boarded-up building I’d known as Bar Supplice. I haunted the street with a vacant stare in my eyes. Hoping, dreaming it was all a mistake and Ramzi would return. I couldn’t bear the thought that the sumptuous den of decadence where I’d stripped down to my soul was dirty and crude, infested with rats, their vermin sticking to me like broken promises.
So absorbed was I in my plight, I barely listened to the mournful tale of the young Jewess following me. She implored me to tell the world what was happening to Jews, the camps, the deaths, the rape of Jewish women by the Gestapo.
“I wouldn’t have gotten out of Germany,” she said, “if a man hadn’t taken me to Genoa with him.”
“A man?” I asked, interested. “Then why are you asking me for help?”
“You don’t understand. He—he gave me a passport and said I was to tell anyone who asked I was a dressmaker.”
“A dressmaker? Why?”
“He promised me there’d be no trouble getting through customs and immigration if I did as he asked.”
“And did you?” I said, aware of the implication in my voice.
She lowered her head. “Yes. I had no choice.”
I thought about how I’d been young once and had nearly fallen for that same trick in the back alley behind a Berlin bar. In my case, the man met an untimely end when he was robbed by local thieves. And me? I ran and ran and ran, never looking back.
“Don’t you see, you must help me, Lady Marlowe,” she pleaded, her fearful eyes darting everywhere. “Without family or papers, I—I will have no way to pay for what I need in Shanghai except—”
“Yes. I understand.” I opened my purse, wrapping my hands around some bills. I was about to give her some money and be on my way, when a commotion caught my attention.
“Lady Marlowe, you’ve retrieved my hat!”
I spun around, surprised to see Lady Palmer bouncing down the dirty street hatless with both her sagging bosom and her daughter in tow. But who was that man in the dark jacket, bow tie, white pants and Panama hat behind them? His gait was uneven, as if he had a crippled leg, and his right hand was in his pocket in a way that disturbed me. Was he reaching for a gun?
“My pleasure, Lady Palmer,” I said, plopping the hat on her headand trying to smile, though I cast a wary eye toward the man observing us. I turned my back and chatted with Lady Palmer about the impudent camel who dared to pluck her designer hat off her head. Silly, infusive talk, but I was grateful to once again enter that parallel dimension I lived in whose portal was accessible to a privileged few.
When I turned around to give the Jewish girl some money, the man in the Panama hat had her by the elbow and out of my reach. Then she was gone. Off to Shanghai, I imagined.
I recounted the girl’s story over tea to Lady Palmer, if only to assuage the guilt burning in my soul. I knew what happened to white women in Shanghai. Not even a heated fainting spell from Lady Palmer kept me from telling her how disease was rampant in the miserably squalid, decadent city. And how procurers of human flesh forced women to service customers in dirty backrooms, lying in a bunk in a cloud of smoke while one, two men fondled them, opening them to the probing of fingers, mouths, with only opium to help them forget. Intense nausea gripping them from the drug, their skin turning sallow, their bodies growing thin and frail until they took their last breath and found release.
Lady Palmer dismissed the entire incident as a scheme to cheat me. The whole thing was an act, she insisted, admitting she’d also been
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