“They are pork dumplings. A little like Leberknödel.” Nagy picks one up with his fingers, pops it into his mouth. Mohr follows his example, and chews slowly, nodding approval. Delicious.
Atop the Customs House, Big Chin’s six-ton chime erupts. The bell tolls, the city blazes. Off the Bund, the river is littered with ships and junks and sampans of all sizes. On Soochow Creek, boat traffic is at a standstill. Mohr begins to relax in a way he hasn’t been able to for a very long time. He imagines bringing Käthe and Eva up here and ordering these same dumplings and tea, showing them how to enjoy this big, exotic Oriental city. Nagy summons the waiter for more food and starts to talk about the recent visit to Shanghai of the German minister to China, Trautmann. “Just horrible,” he says. “Hitler Jugend and Bund Deutsche Mädel marching through the streets.”
Mohr had seen the pictures in the newspaper. “I thank god every morning that I don’t have to worry about the Roman Empire.” He smiles wryly, helps himself to another dumpling.
“That martinet! Did you see how he looked? Hair dangling in his eyes. Like he shares Hitler’s barber!”
Yes, he’s seen all the photos, and ignores them the way he ignores all the other things he struggles daily to put out of mind. A fresh breeze blows across the rooftop, on it a profusion of fragrances—food, tobacco, eau de cologne. He is only half-listening to Nagy, and sips his tea, letting his eyes wander to the other tables scattered among the inlaid lacquer screens and potted plants. The lushness is a little too metropolitan for his comfort, but he enjoys it all the same, and feels no compunction to talk. Why should he? It feels good not to be a talker, for a change. One of the unique aspects of life in the International Settlement is the way people make themselves over from the very moment of arrival. A curious and very rapid process.
Nagy is still talking, his mouth full, eating and talking. The incident that morning seems distant. So does the bout of nausea at the hospital yesterday. “Vacation,” Nagy is saying as Mohr’s eyes fall back into place.
“Excuse me? I didn’t catch the last part.”
“A vacation,” Nagy repeats.
Slightly addled by the strong tea, the buzz of talk, Mohr reaches for his cigarettes. A stylish couple at a nearby table has attracted his attention. The woman looks very familiar, but he can’t place her. A movie actress? Perhaps. Broad-shouldered, with hat fashionably cocked on her head, confident of her effect on the room. The man is older, slightly paunchy and gray. Mohr feels oddly displaced by their presence. “Vacation?”
A smile crests at the corners of Nagy’s mouth. “When did you last have a rest?”
Mohr eases back in his seat. “I can tell you exactly. It was between October and December, 1934. Aboard the Saarbrücken. Seven weeks on the open sea.”
“And since then nothing?” Nagy calls the waiter. “I’m having a whiskey soda. Will you join me?”
He glances again at the movie couple, feeling suddenly impelled to alcohol. He hardly ever drinks anymore. “Why not?” He lights a cigarette with a nightlife flourish, inhales deeply. “May I confide something?”
“Of course.”
“I came here to begin a new life.”
Nagy smiles. “Like everyone, I assure you.”
“I also came here to earn a living. As a doctor.” He puffs on the cigarette, taps the ash into the little porcelain dish at his elbow.
“Don’t tell me you’ve stopped writing!”
The formulation is slightly irritating. He doesn’t quite know how to respond, except with a shrug. “It’s more basic than that; something more fundamental.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Imagine this.” Mohr rocks back on his chair as the waiter sets the drinks down. “You are trying to escape. From what, exactly, you don’t know. You lack words to describe it, are totally bewildered. You come down from your mountain and see a huge, modern city in front of you, which you recognize as the place where all your contemporaries live. You realize that you no longer belong to a natural world. But you also don’t belong to the mass of humanity that lies before you, the big, noisy city. You stop and sit down to rest, pluck a handful of thyme from the ground, rub the leaves between your fingers, sniff. You can still smell the delicate aroma. But is it the same aroma that your ancestors, or even your parents, smelled? No. It isn’t. Something has disrupted a once clear relationship. You glance back at your mountain. Should you return? Give up on this expedition to the city? You can’t. A dark, heavy Nothing lies between you and all the things of nature. You can’t escape it, and there is no turning back.”
Nagy leans forward, taking in this flight of fancy. “Go on, go on.”
“So, you head down to the city to see what’s going on. You decide you would rather give yourself over completely to that dark, heavy Nothing, would rather experience complete, total alienation, than deceive yourself with false connections. So, forward march!”
“Into the city?”
“Into today! The middle of the century!” Mohr stops and glances around, aware that his voice is carrying, but also enjoying himself.
“So you’re saying this is a bad time for writers everywhere, not just in Germany.”
“Who’s talking about writers? I’m talking about all of us. You, me, those people over there.”
“But you have to admit, for writers times are especially bad,” Nagy persists. “Especially Jewish writers.”
Mohr turns his glass in his fist. “Times are bad for everybody. What matters is whether connections still exist between people, if there is anything left linking people at all.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking you these personal questions.”
“Personal?” Mohr smiles, shakes his head. “My dear Dr. Nagy, what you’re asking is far beyond personal. You’re asking me to speak to my condition. I’m not sure I can even comprehend it, much less speak to it.”
Nagy considers this for a moment. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”
Mohr looks down into his glass. “I feel foolish talking about it.”
“I see nothing foolish in what you are saying,” Nagy objects.
Mohr shrugs, slips another cigarette from the pack lying on the table. “A person like me must live without the will and the shall and the future. It’s the only way.”
“What about your work?”
“The same thing. Without the will and the shall and the future.”
The waiter stops by the table.
“Another?” Nagy asks.
“Why not?” The idea of becoming drunk has taken on a certain appeal. He stares for a moment at the glowing end of his cigarette. “I am a dilettante, Dr. Nagy.”
“You are too hard on yourself.”
Mohr shrugs, removes his eyeglasses and cleans them with an edge of tablecloth. “And I never could keep my mouth shut,” he says at last, taking in the fuzzy lights of the hanging lanterns strung underneath the roof awning, the laughter from the surrounding tables. “Never mind. Plenty of poets have worked for the water bureau.” He smiles, puts his glasses back on. “Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.”
A short time later they are walking together up Nanking Road, very pleasantly drunk, ambling along in crumpled, sweat-stained linen. Mohr’s stride is a challenge for the shorter man, who skips alongside, equally drunk