Free Nightfall Over Shanghai by Daniel Kalla Page B

sighed. “Baron von Puttkamer and his motley crew. Simon watches for them night and day. Like a dog at the window waiting for his master to return.”
    Simon paid no attention to the artist and instead consulted his wristwatch. “Three o’clock. Could practically set my watch by that creep.”
    â€œLeave them be, Simon,” Ernst said. “They’re merely overgrown children. Parading around in laughable uniforms with their ridiculous titles. Playing war while the real soldiers fight. The fools are as harmless as they are pointless.”
    â€œHarmless?” Simon spun from the window, his cheeks suddenlyblotchy. “Last Hanukkah—on Christmas Day!—when von Puttkamer and his cronies came within a hair’s breadth of blowing up the synagogue and the hospital—was that harmless too?”
    â€œAnd Joey,” Sunny added.
    â€œYeah, Joey,” Simon said. His former protegé, the baby’s namesake, had died protecting the refugee hospital from the Nazi saboteurs. “They murdered the poor kid in cold blood.”
    Ernst held up his hands in surrender. “Perhaps not harmless. But most certainly pointless. Even they are not stupid enough to attack the ghetto again.”
    Simon resumed his watch at the window. “If you just got me a rifle, Ernst, I could do the rest.”
    â€œAnd by
the rest
you mean shoot up the street and kill no one but the odd stray dog or unfortunate coolie?”
    â€œI know my way around a rifle,” Simon said matter-of-factly. “I used to hunt squirrels on my uncle’s farm in Upstate New York.”
    â€œThe great American hunter, of course. I pity any goose-stepping squirrel who dares to enter our street.” Ernst looked over at Sunny. “If he fires a single shot, every soldier in the vicinity will be here instantly.”
    Repositioning the baby under her arm, Sunny rose and joined Simon at the window. She wrapped an arm around his chest, feeling nothing but ribs. “It would be suicide, Simon.”
    â€œMaybe it would be worth it,” Simon muttered.
    She rubbed his back. “Not to Esther or Jakob, it wouldn’t.”
    Simon stared out the window for a while longer before he turned to her, his face lighting up with the warmest smile she had seen from him in a while. He held his hands out to Joey. “Could I hold him, Sunny?”

    ***
    The sun had disappeared behind a canopy of ominous grey clouds, making Germantown seem even more menacing than usual. Swastikas flapped from windowsills and flagpoles. Men marched about in uniforms of varying colours and styles, some wearing the distinctive brown jodhpurs and high black boots that Sunny had once found comical. Not anymore.
    Most of the passersby ignored Sunny. The ones who acknowledged her did so with cold disdain or open sneers. As she hurried along the street, she kept her head down and Joey nestled against her chest. Aside from the uneasiness she felt in the hostile neighbourhood, she was also in a rush to get the baby home. He was squirming more now, and his plaintive cry told her that he was hungry. She prayed that Esther would be home and ready to feed him.
    She rounded a corner and came to a jerking halt as two hands gripped her roughly by the shoulders. She looked up into the eyes of the man she had almost bumped into and froze, recognizing the brawny Korean who was Baron Jesco von Puttkamer’s bodyguard.
    â€œWatch out,” the man snapped in English, squeezing her arms hard before letting go.
    â€œMost solly, mister, most solly,” Sunny said, falling into an accented pidgin English and averting her eyes.
    â€œClumsy Chink,” the bodyguard grunted.
    Sunny stared at her feet, desperately hoping he would lose interest. Realizing von Puttkamer had to be nearby, she involuntarily pictured him, tall and icily handsome with perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper hair and intrusive eyes. She prayed he wouldn’t recognize