S Rozan - Trail of Blood

Be safe, Mama!

Your Rosalie

10 June 1938

Dearest Mama,

I apologize for my silence. For over a week I’ve been incapable of anything but collapse at the end of each day-but for many wonderful reasons! First: I’ve found a school for Paul. He’ll attend the Shanghai British School, to be educated in English-hurrah, Mama, for your insistence on “treasure Island” and “Robin Hood!” This good fortune was made possible by Grandmother Gilder’s ring; and by Kai-rong, who suggested the place, and, as an alumnus, had a word with the headmaster. (I believe, Mama, he was prepared to pay the school fees himself, but after I ignored his hints to that effect, he gave the subject up and waited until I told him we had the sum in hand.)

And equally important: We’ve found and moved to a place of our own!

I say “we,” but it was Paul’s doing, I having been a total failure at the project. Since a few days after our arrival here, Paul has been busy in an unexpected and enterprising way. Once we began somewhat to understand the city, he and I embarked upon serious negotiations, coming eventually to an agreement over where he may venture and which streets, on the other hand, he may under no circumstances cross. (I felt the dangers of Shanghai’s streets to be less than the dangers of being confined all through the day in the wretched Home; I hope you’ll agree.) The streets on which he is allowed he wanders daily, in the company of other boys. He returns with odd treasures-two fresh apples, a bicycle tire-for which he has traded yesterday’s treasures. Today’s will be assessed, and, if not eaten (and I believe if he put his mind to it he could eat a bicycle tire) will be taken tomorrow to some shop keeper of his acquintance who needs precisely that item and will offer in trade another item which Paul knows is needed at a shop across town. A yuan or two often finds its way into Paul’s pockets in the course of these transactions. The yuan is almost worthless, but with a pocketful of them certain items may be obtained: Yesterday, in celebration of our new home, Paul presented me with a single gingersnap! Mama, I was touched to tears. Something to which at home we gave not a second thought here becomes a gem to be marveled at. I did marvel; then I shared it with him, and in four bites it was gone. One does not save food in Shanghai. Refrigerators are unknown except to the wealthy, and too many of God’s creatures-flies, worms, mice, and rats-are as interested in your comestibles as you are.

Oh, but how far afield I’ve flown! But you see, flies and rats aside, I’m happy today, and want to share that happiness. Paul’s trading expeditions led to the discovery of the rarest treasure of all: a room to let. The owner of a typewriter shop in the International Settlement which he supplies from time to time with screws and bolts had lost a tenant, bound for Australia. As he remembered Paul inquiring about rooms, he telephoned to the Home requesting the honor of Paul’s presence. We set off immediately! The room in question is the rear of two above the shop, facing a courtyard used for cooking and washing, as I imagine we will use it. It is not large-nothing in Shanghai is large, Mama, nothing! with the exception of the banks and great villas-but it is irregularly shaped, with an alcove for a bed. So Paul and I will have privacy now not only from the population of the Home but, up to a point, from each other! We have a basin with cold running water and wonder of wonders, in the hallway, shared with the room at the front, a water closet! Indoor plumbing, whoever would have thought that something to aspire to? But the norm is a bucket, whose contents are taken off each morning by night soil collectors. So a flush toilet, shared with but one other family, is very heaven! The past days have been a matter of scrubbing and airing, of negotiating the price of beds, chests, and linens, of finding coolies to pile them on carts and push them through the streets. This morning we said our good-byes at the Home, with little regret. Friends we’ve made we’ll continue to see, and as for kasha soup, I hope never to see another bowl!

And Mama, it is Shabbos here. Though I do not expect to continue observances, it does seem fitting that on our rickety table in our odd-shaped attic I have set out the pewter candlesticks. I’ve sent Paul out with a few yuan for candles; when he returns, we’ll light them, and say a barucha, in thanks for our new home and in hopes to see you speedily in it!

Stay well, Mama.

Your Rosalie

17 June 1938

Dearest Mama,

Oh, I am tired! But I could not go to sleep without writing to tell you what a lovely dinner we’ve had!

Dinner, you say? I’m writing about a meal?

Well, first, a meal in Shanghai is not a small thing. Wait, that’s phrased incorrectly: Often it is a small thing: some rice, a carrot boiled with an onion, and there you have it. (Though I have not yet had to resort to kasha.) But after a complicated transaction that began yesterday with a shoemaker’s awl and proceeded through several shop keepers, Paul marched triumphantly up our stairs this afternoon with a chicken! Plucked, cleaned, and ready for the stewpot, the bird became the centerpiece of a Shabbos dinner at which we had our first guest. No, Mama, I am not taking up religion, I assure you. But Kai-rong had expressed a desire to attend a Shabbos dinner, and after his kindnesses, how could I say no? We lit candles, washed, and said the correct prayers, Paul explaining the meaning of the various rituals to Kai-rong. (And he has absorbed much more from his bar mitzvah preparation than I’d have suspected!) We ate chicken, stewed with onions on our charcoal stove in the courtyard, and challah, a great delicacy, purchased from a Viennese bakery. I even managed to sauté some thin Chinese beans into a reasonable side dish. Kai-rong brought linzer torte and a pound of coffee! We sat and ate and talked in our tiny room, at which Kai-rong showed no dismay but also, to my relief, no false cheeriness. We never ran out of conversation, the three of us, and the hour at which Kai-rong finally took his leave would have scandalized our neighbors, had they not been scandalized already by the fact of his unchaperoned presence. Luckily, I and Paul-who in any case considers himself as much of a chaperone as we could ever need-remember your own attitude toward the opinion of neighbors, and are fashioning ours after it.

Mama, it was so lovely, to have a guest for dinner, as we used to at home; it made us feel, nearly, that this could be home, too. All that’s missing is you and Uncle Horst, but the day is fast approaching when your train leaves! Oh, Mama, I cannot wait to see you again!

Your tired but happy! Rosalie

That was it.

That was it?

Apparently so. I’d reached the end of the stack of printouts. Suddenly Rosalie was silent. Her romance, her marriage, the birth of her son-I wanted to follow her through that. I knew her now, and I wanted to stay with her. But I couldn’t. She was gone.

I stared into the dimness of my office, feeling the cloud that had begun to lift rolling back in. In my growing affection for Rosalie, my joy in watching her find, as she said, her sea legs in Shanghai, I’d almost let myself forget that at least part of her story had a tragic ending.

Elke and Horst never made it out of Austria.

That must be why the letters stopped. Rosalie must have learned there was no one to write to.

I don’t know how long I sat there, feeling simultaneously terrible for my eighteen-year-old Rosalie and like an idiot for caring so much. Terrific, Lydia. Here you are, all depressed over a sad story from sixty years ago. What’s wrong with you?

Well, it could be what was wrong with me was the sad story from yesterday.