For the Hartmanns, whose acquaintance with Japanese people had been limited to the courteous, kindly, German-speaking Kato family and their embassy colleagues, it was hard adapting to a world where the Japanese were the oppressors, the enemy.
Leo had at first tried to be polite to them, the occupiers, but when his friend Jin was spat on when asking for directions in broken Japanese, he had stopped. The men ruling Shanghai had nothing in common with the Katos. Leo explained as much to Emi in a letter when they first arrived, when their letters were reaching each other with ease. The last letter he had received from Emi was before Pearl Harbor but he still checked the communal mailbox outside their building in Hongkew, though he had no idea how Emi would even know they lived there. He still liked doing it, holding on to some hope that his past might still be part of his future. Most of that hope was gone, but checking the mail, that he could not stop doing.
“Just remember,” said Max when they first saw a Japanese officer berating a Chinese beggar on the side of Nanking Road, “they may be isolating us, but they are not persecuting us. They are letting the Jews in when no one else is. They may be allies of Nazi Germany, but they are, in many ways, friends to the Jews. That doesn’t make what they are doing to the Chinese right, but it’s something to remember before we complain about our conditions.”
But the Chinese, Leo knew, did not care if the Japanese treated the Jews better than they were treated in Europe. They hated the Japanese for what they did to them.
One of the few Chinese who did not appear to hate them was Jin’s father, Liwei Zhang, as some of his nightclub patrons after the war broke out were Japanese businessmen.
Leo, who had been heavily shielded from the realities of sex until he was having it, was still surprised that his parents let him work in a nightclub six days a week, but money was money and Leo was bringing more home than Hani or Max was.
“I don’t want handouts anymore,” was Hani’s answer when Leo had asked why she was letting him work in such a place. “You’re not a child. You will make your own decisions. But I am sure that the son I raised will not go from Emi Kato to a Russian prostitute in a snap.”
“A snap?” said Leo. “I haven’t seen Emi since 1938, and I haven’t received a letter from her since ’41. I can’t exist in a state of blind hope. Besides, if she really wanted to keep our childhood promises to each other, she would have found a way to contact me. With who her father is? This is Shanghai, which is essentially Japan.” He saw his mother’s face fall and started to laugh. “Don’t worry, you know I still think about her often. We promised that we’d find each other again after the war, and who knows, maybe a miracle will occur, but I’m less optimistic every year. Aren’t you?”
“We are indebted to the Katos and will see them again,” said Hani confidently.
“I wonder where in Japan Emi is right now,” said Leo, picturing her on the Ferris wheel in Vienna, her face so full of worry for him. “In Tokyo I assume. And safe,” he added.
The truth was, Leo’s lustful thoughts over his years in Shanghai had slowly been transferred from Emi to Agatha. Though nothing had occurred between them beyond Liwei’s dance floor, Leo’s days were now broken up into the hours before and after he danced with Agatha, and the perfect five minutes that he spent against her body every night. He wanted so badly to hold her outside of the club, to see what was underneath her homemade dresses, but he knew that the last thing she needed was to be involved with a Jewish refugee, even if, in a past life, he was very well-off.
“Mother,” said Leo, grabbing his one nice shirt, which Liwei had given him to wear at the club, “the women working in Mr. Zhang’s establishment. They’re not prostitutes. Just women who men enjoy chatting with,” he finished, parroting Liwei’s favorite line.
“Fine,” said Hani. “I will never again judge a woman for doing what she needs to do to stay alive, especially in a feral city like this one during a war.”
“Are you sure you’re my mother?” said Leo laughing, letting Hani kiss him on the cheek.
That night, when Leo had finished his shift, a nightclub regular named Hiroyoshi Asai, a wealthy Japanese businessman who had lived in Shanghai since long before the war broke out and still dressed as if he were off to the races instead of a home behind blackout curtains, beckoned to Leo to join him at his center table. Whenever he was sober enough to spot Leo, he would wave him over, as he loved practicing his German, which was very good before he began drinking and nearly perfect after.
Leo came over, prepared to discuss Hiroyoshi’s two favorite topics: Shanghai before the war and beautiful women.
“Ah, my favorite Austrian,” Hiroyoshi said, gesturing to the waitress to bring Leo a drink. Leo looked out across the crowded room at Liwei, who nodded. Yes, it was fine for him to be entertaining the customers, especially one as rich as Hiroyoshi.
“Sit with me,” he said, pushing a small glass of whiskey toward Leo. In Vienna, Leo had had a stocky, athletic frame, but he had grown skinny during his first two years in Shanghai. It wasn’t until he started working for Liwei that he started to gain back some weight, his cheeks filling out again.
“Remind me,” said Hiroyoshi, “when was it that you arrived in the wicked city of Shanghai.”
“January 1939,” said Leo, taking a sip of his drink. He had told Hiroyoshi this a dozen times, but he knew that he liked to use it as a segue into reminiscences of old Shanghai.
“Then you missed it all, young man!” said Hiroyoshi, throwing his hands up in the air, his sport jacket creasing perfectly at the elbow. “You missed the miracle city. You should have seen this town in the twenties, in the thirties. The Bund, the women with the blond curls living in the French Concession with their rich, boring husbands. The prostitutes. Those were the girls you turned to after the married French women all went to bed. It was something marvelous. The whole city, it was filthy and full of terrible people, but it sparkled. It was so full of life. What is it full of now?”
“Japanese soldiers,” said Leo.
Hiroyoshi shook his head and said, “I don’t care for those pompous men walking around here in their brown uniforms with that garish orange rim on their hats. With the swords, always with the swords, like they are going to slice off some poor man’s head in the street. I don’t like it at all. It’s not Japanese to spit on the world as if they own everything. That’s not the country or the people I know.” He took a long drink and put his glass down in front of Leo. “I’m a practicing Buddhist,” he said. He looked at the women around him and added, “Most of the time. This war, the Buddhist monks are against it. I’m against it.”
“War doesn’t seem in tune with any religion,” said Leo, and Hiroyoshi nodded.
“Except it is good for the women, it brings out the best in them,” he said, reaching over to Leo to straighten his wrinkled collar.