S Rozan - Trail of Blood

I hope you approve of my decision, Mama; and if you don’t, I can’t wait to hear you tell me so yourself.

Your Rosalie

The alarm on my cell phone beeped. Ten minutes? That’s all? I felt like I’d been in Shanghai, walking beside Rosalie, for weeks.

When I called, Mary picked up right away. “You owe me, girlfriend. And you owe Captain Mentzinger, too.”

“Was he mad?”

“You mean how much do you owe? Actually, it was another chance to stick it to Midtown. Remind them they owe us. Still-”

“Okay, I just entered it in my karma ledger.”

She gave me the details, and I called Leah Pilarsky. “Midtown Homicide is contacting the medical examiner. You should be able to pick up Joel’s body by the end of the day.” She was right, it did feel weird to say “Joel’s body.”

“Oh, Lydia, thank you! This will mean so much to Ruth! If there’s ever anything I can do for you-”

“Just let me know when the funeral is. I’d like to be there.”

“Of course! We can plan now for tomorrow. I’ll call you. Now I’d better go. So many people have been calling, people who need to travel in-cousins from Seattle, his old partner in Florida, his college roommate in Zurich. I have to let them all-”

“Leah? Who’s in Zurich?”

“Joel’s college roommate.”

“The roommate’s in Zurich?”

“He’s lived there for years. David Rosenberg. He publishes a business magazine.”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“Yes, of course. But the police already talked to him.”

“I’m sure.” Three calls, Joel made the morning he died. Alice, me, and first, his college roommate. Mulgrew had said that. He hadn’t said the roommate was in Zurich.

I called the number Leah gave me, but David Rosenberg, as it turned out, had already left for New York.

“He wanted to be with Ruth,” Rosenberg’s wife explained, in accented English. “His plane will land eight at the morning. No, no, that is my time. In New York it will be night.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

I called Leah. “If you hear from him, will you ask him to call me?”

“Yes. And if not, the funeral’s tomorrow at ten.” She gave me the details.

“I’ll be there. But that’s not a nice thing, to bother Mr. Rosenberg at the funeral.”

“You’ll come back to the house afterward. You can talk then.”

All right. Joel’s friend in Zurich; that sounded like movement. Feeling a little less stuck, I went back to Rosalie.

24 May 1938

Dearest Mama,

I admit to an odd feeling of satisfaction today. I set off to sell Grandmother Gilder’s ring, and returned unsuccessful. But the very reason for my failure is the main source of my gratification.

This afternoon I approached three of Shanghai’s finest jewelers. Each made an offer, but I did not like their prices. They were low, Mama, they were the offers of men taking advantage of a young woman in need. And so, thanking each, I turned on my heel. With every abandoned transaction I found, to my surprise, a growing sense that life here might not be beyond my control after all.

Do you understand that, Mama? Until today disorientation and uncertainty have made me progressively more passive, deflated, and defeated, in ways I’ve not always recognized. But dealing, in German and English, with these arrogant men, and scorning their offers (politely, always politely!) began to restore me to myself.

Which sense was then magnified by the adventure that ended my day! As I left the third jeweler’s shop, the sky darkened and a torrential downpour swept in-that happens often here, as though the very air, impatient of the thick dampness, is trying to throw it into the gutters. Waiting beneath a colonnade for the sky to lighten, I noticed a foreign-language bookstore. What choice had I but to enter? I discovered shelves of volumes in English and German, as well as French, Spanish, Polish, and Russian. There was no question of a purchase-where would I keep anything, I whose home is a cot behind a bedsheet? and with what would I buy it, I who am selling a treasure?-but it cheered me to be in the presence of so many books. I was searching for the works of P. G. Wodehouse when voices erupted. A Chinese in military uniform was upbraiding the clerk in English. The clerk’s helpless “Bitte?” made it clear he didn’t speak the language, but the officer seemed to take his befuddlement as a deliberate affront. The officer’s rudeness was unfortunate, for his broad shoulders and erect bearing cut a handsome figure.

Before I was aware of myself I’d offered my help. The clerk accepted gratefully, but the officer disdainfully inquired whether I was employed in this establishment. I apologized for intruding and began to walk away.

“Wait!” he ordered. Now, Mama, you know how well I respond to orders, but I told myself he was a military man, so perhaps it was natural to him. And as I didn’t like to leave the poor clerk to be abused again, I turned.

The officer, bowing stiffly, introduced himself as one General Zhang. It seemed a young lady of the general’s acquaintance had expressed a desire to improve her English. “This fool’s idiocy has made me lose my temper. I should not have permitted myself the indulgence.”

On that poor excuse for an apology I would have given him a cold good-bye, but the clerk was following our exchange with eager eyes. Perhaps, I thought, I could enable a transaction that would leave the general’s money in the clerk’s hands, and bring joy to a young lady. If my assistance gratified the general also, that couldn’t be helped.

I inquired after the young lady’s tastes, concerning which the general was poorly informed. Left on my own, I suggested various English and American poets. General Zhang settled on a volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a costly binding. In German I recommended the clerk double the price, but though he smiled, he didn’t do so.

The general offered to repay my kindness by taking me to my next destination in his waiting car. The steady rain made the offer tempting, but the general’s eye had taken on an odd look. I thanked him, saying I hadn’t concluded my business in the bookshop. He declared he’d wait. I begged him not to trouble himself and turned back to the shelves. The general, after a moment, swept out.

During this operation a mustached European entered, shaking off an umbrella. He listened so closely as I extolled my poets that I thought I might make a second sale; but after the door slammed behind the general, this gentleman addressed me in English: “Splendid, my dear, simply splendid!”

Astonished, I laughed.

“Robert Morgan, at your service. Londoner by birth. Washed up on these shores a decade since. This misbegotten establishment, I’m sorry to say, is mine. Drinks money like water. I can’t afford to chuck out blighters like General Zhang, though I’d dearly love to, and I know Walter would also, eh, Walter?”

Walter, the clerk with no English, didn’t follow a word. Mr. Morgan repeated the salient points in German, making him laugh.

“This young lady saved my hide, sir.”

“Yes, well, I can see that. Perhaps the young lady will pause from doing God’s work rescuing doomed clerks, and favor us with her name?”

“Rosalie Gilder, sir.”

“Well, Rosalie Gilder, I hope you won’t say no to a cup of tea.”

I did not. For the next half hour, to each customer who entered, Mr. Morgan celebrated what he called my “adroit handling” of General Zhang. “Sent him away with his tail between his legs!” At first I demurred, as it was never my intention to offend my hosts, the Chinese; but I was informed the general was a well-known and widely despised collaborationist in the “puppet government” army. By the time the storm abated and I began the long trek to the Home, not even the prospect of kasha soup could dampen my pride in having bested four arrogant opponents in one afternoon!