Page 47

When they stepped onto the street outside the shop, the sun, which had spun glorious golden rays above the tiled roofs, had vanished.

A vast cloud shaped like a claw hung above the buildings.

The air looked gray like metal, noisy with a cacophony of wheels squeaking and cars honking, but the breeze was pleasant, with a hint of summer heat.

Maison Iwar, located in the French Concession, was just a short ride away.

Anyu hailed a taxi and got in first, and Isaac, holding the briefcase with the Kawashima Egg wrapped inside a jewelry case, sat beside her in the back seat.

The street near the shop was busy, as always, crowded with laborers carrying bamboo sticks and pedestrians and rickshaws and cars. And some Japanese military jeeps.

Anyu took out her cigarettes and lit one. It was no small responsibility to ride with two thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. And in a stranger’s vehicle.

“Is it paranoid to say that the sight of the Japanese soldiers always brings me unpleasant memories of Harbin?” Isaac said.

Anyu knew what was in his mind—he had not forgotten the Japanese officer. The pressure of delivering the expensive egg must have caused him additional stress. “It’ll be all right. We’re almost there.”

At the intersection near the apothecary, the car careened sideways and turned onto a narrow lane where the sky was sliced by long laundry sticks poking out of the windows from the building’s second floor.

Once they exited, they came to a wide avenue where a group of men in crew cuts were weighing sacks of rice on a massive scale.

The laborers slid the weight on the scale, arguing and shouting.

There was not enough room to pass. The taxi stopped; the driver growled and slowly reversed.

Anyu looked behind her. Near the lane they had just left emerged men in long black mourning garments carrying banners, Buddhist monks holding wooden fish, and musicians playing cymbals, trumpets, and suonas —a funeral procession.

With paths blocked in both directions, the car turned onto the lane to their right and crawled forward and again came to an abrupt stop.

She craned her neck, looking behind, wondering if the rice sacks had been moved out of the way, but there, she saw two figures, in Western suits and hats, racing toward her car.

Maybe it was the way the men pulled their hats so low to cover their eyes, or maybe it was the way they swung their arms. Anyu was alarmed. “Look. Those men.”

Isaac’s eyes grew alert. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know.” Anyu knocked at the driver’s seat. “Could you please drive?”

But it was too late. The two men were already beside them. One rapped on the window on Isaac’s side.

Anyu was about to warn Isaac not to roll down the window when it shattered and a torrent of sharp glass burst into the taxi. Screaming, Anyu raised her arm to shield her face.

“What is this? Who are you?” Isaac shouted, his body twisting, fighting the hand that reached in to open the door. The other man had lunged to her side.

“Drive, drive!” Anyu cried out.

But the driver’s door opened. The driver fled.

They were trapped.

Breath caught in Anyu’s throat. They had no weapons to protect themselves, and Isaac was losing the fight.

Then the window on her side was smashed, and a hand shot out to grab her neck. She was lifted off the seat, her head knocking against the ceiling. She wanted to scream, but her throat was constricted. Through her blurred vision, she could see a hand near Isaac fling the door open. A pistol.

“Let her go! What do you want? Money? I’ll give you the money. I have money. Let her go!”

She couldn’t breathe with the man gripping her throat. She could hear the funeral music, pierced by a distant wailing, blasting, merciless, and mirthless, and a man’s voice, barely audible, rose above the chaotic mania, saying, “Fabergé, Fabergé.”

“I don’t have it,” Isaac said.

She kicked, fighting for air, but her head was thrust to the side, and a spear of sharp pain shot through her neck, paralyzing her.

“You let her go!”

The entire car rocked. She saw flames, scalding, bursting like the tip of a blowtorch. This was not how she envisioned death, and no, she couldn’t die, and she wanted to keep making jewelry.

Suddenly, she could breathe. Fresh air sailed into her lungs, and she dropped to the seat, coughing, inhaling, sightless.

Isaac was calling her. “Anyu, Anyu, are you all right?”

She struggled to sit up, fumbling to find him, still unable to see, but she felt him embracing her, his body shuddering, his face wet with tears. He kissed her, her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her lips. “God, I almost lost you. I can’t lose you.”

It dawned on her. What he had done. “Oh no, Isaac.”

“It’s going to be fine. It’ll be fine.”

She wept, yet felt grateful. To have narrowly escaped the crazy hijacking, to be so close to Isaac, to see the depth of his love for her. He was right. It would be fine. She was still here with him; they were safe; they were alive.

A sudden crash of glass. Anyu looked up, and this time, her vision was as clear as crystal—like a diamond: outside the car, a pistol was aiming at her.

Bang.

A sharp pain pierced her chest, and the force threw her backward against the door.

It crashed open, and she fell out of the car and crumpled to the ground.

All she could hear was Isaac’s angry cries and the fading music of suonas .

And she cried out—seeing Isaac, his face bleeding, half lying on the back seat, his mouth moving and his hand raised in the air as if demanding this barbaric violence to stop.

Then came an explosion of another gunshot, and Isaac’s chest bloomed.