Shanghai Shadows by Lois Ruby Page A

diminishing, I remind you that time, as always, is of the essence. I shall expect the package by Saturday, latest .
    Cordially yours ,
    MADAME LIANG
    â€œTranslate?” I said to Erich.
    â€œI have your instructions.” He stuffed the envelope under his shirt. “This letter is the go-ahead that says now’s the time to REACT. You’re to tail a woman called Beehive.”
    â€œBut, why?” I asked Erich as we walked back to our apartment.
    â€œFor once, can’t you just do as you’re told without a bunch of questions?”
    â€œOkay, but I won’t even know what to look for unless I know why they want me to follow her.”
    â€œNo more questions until we get home. The streets have ears.” So like Erich, suspicious of everyone and everything.
    It was a week before we’d have to move, and Mother was in Hongkew still scouting out a place for us to live. At home, Father practiced in his studio-closet. Erich leaned close to me in case Father should stop playing. “She’s a REACTor, but they suspect she’s also an informer. I don’t know any more, so don’t ask.”
    â€œDouble-crossing us?”
    â€œDon’t look so shocked. You can’t trust anyone.”
    â€œNot even you?”
    â€œYou can trust me.” He handed me a scrap of paper. “Her address. She has a REACT assignment on Saturday, eleven o’clock. Follow her. Get as close as you can, until you’re her second skin, but don’t let her know you’re on to her. Understand?”
    â€œBut I—”
    â€œ Understand ?”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” I said, but I didn’t really get it.
    Saturday morning. I needed courage for the REACT mission ahead, or so I told myself as I slid into the chair at the table I’d shared with Dovid. I hoped he wasn’t religious, that he wasn’t at the synagogue this Sabbath morning.
    Saturday or not, maybe he was as eager to see me as I was him because a minute later he arrived, as if he’d been watching for me from the corner.
    â€œGood morning, Dovid!” I got up to bring him a cup of hot water, transferred my tea leaves to his cup, and we continued right where we’d left off. That’s how anxious we refugees in China were to tell our stories of home.
    â€œSo, it is nineteen forty. As I said, I take the money to buy an exit visa and a ticket for the train to Vladivostok. But this I can do only if I have an end visa. Somewhere to go.”
    â€œOur problem, too. I wanted to go to America.” I clunked my elbow on the table. “But here we are.”
    He was impatient with the interruption. I promised myself that I’d be quiet and let him pour his whole story out.
    â€œYes, yes, everybody’s problem. So we cannot get an exit visa unless we have an end visa. This is where Chiune Sugihara comes into the story. He is with the Japanese consulate in Lithuania.” A smile spread across Dovid’s lovely face. I wanted to jump up and touch the half-moons of his cheeks and his chin, which quivered ever so slightly.
    â€œThis man Sugihara,” Dovid continued, “he sees what is ahead for the Jews of Europe, and he begins issuing Japanese exit visas. I am already on the train, doomed. I cannot stay, but I have nowhere to go. Ilse, I tell you, a miracle. The angel stamps my visa through the window just as the train is pulling out of the station.”
    â€œOh, Dovid.” I felt everything—the despair, the hope, the train clacking along the tracks. Then the little bell on Mr. Bauman’s door jingled, and there stood Erich—again.
    â€œHave a seat,” I said with a sigh. Erich took my cup to slurp the last of my tea. I heard Mother’s scolding voice ringing in my head: You were raised without manners ?
    â€œDovid is telling me how he came to be in Shanghai. We were just getting to the good part.”
    A hint of a smile softened Dovid’s face, and then