The night passed with Levi sitting in the pouring rain with the chimney bricks supporting his back. He tried to take his mind off his burning ankle and the agony of the gash to his leg, while still keeping an ear out for either the return of the intruder or a swarm of police.
He gazed at the gun he had picked up. Despite the dark night and pouring rain, he made out what it was.
"Enfield? A British gun?" he whispered.
Was this a hit job by the SIS? But then why target Eren?
He thumbed a switch on the side that opened the top-break. He inspected the cylinder and saw that all the chambers were loaded except for the one he had shot. He pulled out a bullet and turned it around between his fingers.
.38 S&W rounds.
How did a British gun with Allied bullets get into the middle of a German fortress?
He returned the bullet, locked the cylinder back into place, and tucked the gun away so it would not get soaked in the rain. He had no idea what this attack was about. Based on his training as a former assassin, everything about this was non-standard. Either this was an immensely sloppy hit job, or the goal had never been to actually kill Eren.
If Eren was meant to die by poison, the Allies would have used cyanide to make it quick with no chance of reviving him. If the intent was to kill him, they would not have merely drugged him and then sent an assassin into a hotel filled with Germans. If they sent the intruder to sneak into his room under the cover of night, it meant they knew he had not died from the drug, and it was only designed to knock him out for a few hours.
To have prepared a well-trained agent like that, they must have known the poison would not actually kill Eren.
But then, why only drug him? Was the goal to capture him alive? For what purpose?
He still wondered, was the target never meant to be Eren, but himself? After all, what reason would the Allies have to target Eren, of all people? He was not very high ranked or influential. Had the Allies planned to kidnap Eren and use him to force Levi to work for them? Then why not drug him as well?
Or did they not know the person in a wig and dress with Eren with Levi Ackerman?
Wouldn't Yelena have clued them into his disguise? Or was she even involved? She had sent Levi away, after all. If the Allies wanted to capture Eren to force Levi to work for them, Yelena would never have sent him back to Eren.
Yet, Yelena had hinted that something big was about to happen, something she either wanted Levi to assist in, or get him out of the way for his own safety. He was not about to risk his life for a group of wannabe soldiers, so she suggested he stay with Eren for a few days.
Was this at all tied to what she was talking about? Was there another organization involved in Metz?
Could this even be the Germans? Was the gun a red herring, meant to make it look like a job by the Allies? After all, it was not that hard for a German soldier to pick up a British gun off a dead enemy. Even Captain Kitz Woermann toted around a Webley from the last war. Eren said he was questioned by a Gestapo agent about the tea he had bought. Had they dug a little too deep?
But the intruder spoke at least one word in French. Unless the Gestapo hired a local, perhaps one of those pro-Fascist Milice, and gave the man a gun used by the Allies to make it look authentic.
That did not sound like how the Gestapo worked. The Germans were notoriously bad at feinting. Besides, if it was the Gestapo, why the theatrics, using slow-action poison in a restaurant, letting Eren leave the scene, allowing him to go back to the hotel, all to send an intruder. None of that sounded like how the Gestapo operated. They were too organized, too clinical, for all that.
That circled back around: why did the attacker have a British gun?
Nothing made sense, and that frustrated Levi.
Hours passed simply staring into the rain and ruminating over everything that happened that night, trying to find clues, but in his mind everyone was suspicious: Nicolo, Onyankopon, Yelena, Woermann, the Gestapo, even Floch. Danger was all around. Trust no one!
Levi began to twist his legs together. He had to pee, and being soaked with rain pattering all around him was seriously not helping. As his bladder twinged, he debated about simply letting it all out right there, let the rain wash the piss down the roof; however, knowing his luck, someone would be walking by right at that moment and wonder why the rain smelled of urine.
He estimated that it would be dawn soon. He could not stay up on the roof in the daylight or someone would see him. He debated about using the tree to climb down, but his ankle was far too painful to attempt it.
He had no other choice. He had to risk returning.
He pulled his bag up onto his back and crawled on his hands and knees back to the window. It was dark inside, and glancing around, he saw no movement. He was extra silent as he opened the window. He waited, prepared for an attacker to leap out from the side. He pulled his bag off his back and slowly eased it through the opened window. If anyone was going to shoot, better the bag than his head. However, nothing happened, and the bag landed on the attic floor with a moist slump.
Moving with fluid silence, he slipped inside. As soon as his foot hit the ground, he bit back a cry of pain. His heels were a shredded mess from slipping down the roof tiles, and his ankle had swollen to twice its size. Seriously, the worst injury when you were on the run was anything with your legs, and now both of his legs and feet were hurt. Pushing the pain aside, he fully slid in and closed the window. However, Levi had to immediately sit. Standing was far too excruciating.
The bedding where he had been sleeping was ransacked and the wall of boxes broken down. The small round table had been thrown to the side. Nearly every box, crate, and chest had been opened and searched, leaving contents scattered. He found the blond wig on the floor and the dress tossed into a pile with many other items from crates.
Levi slipped off the soaked jacket and pulled on the blue women's coat instead, since it was warm and dry. He had to crawl across the floor, his feet and ankle completely out of commission. He slowly crept to Eren's attic hatch, leaned down to put his ear to it, and listened cautiously to the room below. All was silent. No voices, not even snoring.
Was Eren okay? Was he even still in the hotel, or had he been moved to a hospital?
Had the attacker returned already to finish the job?
Panicked, Levi pulled open the hatch. Two seconds later, he realized how utterly foolish that had been. A police officer could have been guarding the room.
He froze, fearing the worst, but he heard no shouts of surprise. Slowly, he peeked inside and sighed in relief. Eren was sound asleep in bed, but he barely looked like he was breathing.
"Eren?" he whispered, but there was no response.
Levi looked around. He wanted to check on Eren, and he needed to disinfect his wounds. He saw the rope ladder had been pushed under a spare nightstand, overlooked when police ransacked the place. What sloppy detective work! Levi hooked the ladder on, but then he looked from the rungs to his grotesque ankle.
Maybe he could climb down using only his arms.
He slid over the edge of the attic, and his left foot tested it. He pulled back when the rope hit some of the scrapes on his feet.
Nope! Not gonna happen!
He slid out like molasses from a jar, and using his arms to take the full weight, he maneuvered his way down into Eren's room. His arms tensed as he climbed down the rope ladder.
This reminded him of military basic training.
He reached the bottom, but one problem: there was no way he could stand.
He crawled over to the bed and raised onto his knees. He reached forward and touched Eren's cheek. Eren did not even move, his mouth slightly open, breathing in an unnaturally slow pace.
"What did they do to you?" he whispered in anguish.
He looked over at the bedside, with many bottles of medicine lined up. At least the doctor had treated him. Leave it to the Germans to have superb health care.
Levi let Eren rest and decided he should treat his wounds now, as well as finally relieve his bladder. He crawled to the wardrobe, dug out Eren's medical kit, and dragged himself over to the bathroom. He had to remove his trousers, which were drenched and stained with blood. He gladly sat on the toilet, but then he worried. He would need to flush the toilet. Someone might hear that—heaven knows, they could hear every time the surrounding rooms flushed a toilet—and one of the soldiers could come in to check on Eren, thinking he was awake. Or they might come in the morning, realize he had been out all night, and yet see that someone had used the toilet.
Levi opted for the next best thing: peeing in the bathtub. He grabbed a drinking cup left on the sink, filled it with water from the toilet so he did not have to turn on any faucets, and brought it with him. He painfully moved over to the tub and sat down, with the medical supplies and cup of water ready, so they could rinse straight down the drain. The tub was cold on his bare ass, but he was half-frozen anyway from the rainstorm. He hardly even cared about whether it was improper or gross or smelled. He relieved himself, trying to be as quiet about it as possible. He then used the cup of water to wash down the mess.
That annoyance over with, he checked his legs. The gash on his shin had scabbed, but the skin around it had red inflammation streaking out.
Infection! He wanted to curse.
He soaked a cloth in the toilet bowl water and carefully cleaned away the flakes of blood. Then he opened a bottle that said Spiritus on the front. He recognized this bottle from when he had been whipped.
Ethanol alcohol. Oh, this was going to hurt!
He braced himself, clenched his jaw, and slowly poured the alcoholic disinfectant over the gash. He slapped a hand over his mouth as screams of sheer agony bubbled up, yet he had to stay totally quiet as he poured it on. Blood washed down the bathtub, and pinkish-red fluid twirled down the drain.
He needed a moment to calm his heart. Once he was sure he was not going to pass out, he pulled out a roll of bandages and wrapped it around the gash. Next up were his heels.
He pulled the left leg up and twisted the foot to see the bottom heel. The skin was torn, and he sneered as he saw some tiny rocks embedded into the skin. He dug through the medical kit and found tweezers. He steadied himself, then set about pulling debris out of his foot.
There were beads of sweat on his brow, and he flinched again and again.
Yiddisher mazel! First his ankle, now the heels of his feet. What next? Seriously, this was the worst fucking luck!
He poured the alcohol on his foot, flinching, but his body was getting used to pain again. Then he looked at the other foot.
There was no way he could twist that swollen ankle around.
Levi carefully contorted, twisting his knee to bring his foot up enough to see the bottom without twisting the ankle. Luckily, since that ankle was hurt, he had not put as much weight behind it on the slide down the roof, so while scuffed up and dirty, he did not see as much damage. He used the toilet water again to carefully wash the foot, flinching again and again whenever he touched it just a little wrong, and cleansed the whole thing with alcohol. Then he wrapped bandages around both feet.
He searched the medical kit some more, found arnica, opened that, and rubbed it on the swollen ankle. He used the last bandage in Eren's supplies to wrap around the severe sprain, providing some compression.
Levi had to lean back for a moment and compose himself. He was shaky, sweaty, his lungs aching from holding back the screams, and his mind a swirl of chaos. He wished he could just sleep right there in the bathtub, but he knew that was suicide. Gritting his teeth, he sat up and yanked himself up and over the ledge of the tub. He looked at the soaked trousers and simply shook his head. There was no way he was going to put those clothes back on after disinfecting his leg.
He closed up the medical supplies, grabbed the ruined trousers and crawled back into the main room half-naked. He put the medical box away and went over to the bags of supplies he and Eren had just bought, including black clothes. Floch must have brought these up after the doctor arrived.
At least the clothes were dry and clean, so Levi changed out of his drenched clothes and into the new ones.
He sighed as he dressed. These were the clothes he was supposed to use to escape this city by racing across the railroad tracks and crossing the train yard.
He took the new backpack they had bought and crammed his wet clothes into it, as well as all the supplies he and Eren had bought that afternoon. These supplies were meant to help him as he walked hundreds of kilometers to the coast to find a ship to America. With his ankle sprained, possibly broken, and his feet reduced to bloody shreds, all of that was no longer possible, not for a long time.
If he had to wait in Metz until he healed...
Metz might not even exist by then. The Americans could launch their attack any day now.
Levi crawled over to the bed again. Stubbornly, his hands set on the mattress. Grimacing, pain burning his feet and ankle, he managed to pull himself up onto the bed. He seethed at the stinging from putting weight on his ankle, but then he sank onto the mattress. Through all that, Eren never stirred.
He picked up Eren's hand and checked the fingernails again. They were still pink and healthy, no sign of cardiac distress or lack of oxygen. He felt Eren's forehead. He was sweating, but not feverish. Perhaps the medications were forcing whatever this was through his system.
"Is it too much to hope that you've turned into Sleeping Beauty, they'll send you home because you can't wake up, and all you need is a kiss to return to normal?"
He thought to himself, that was a fairy tale worthy of becoming a Disney cartoon!
Levi gazed at Eren's face in the moonlight. He caressed the smooth cheeks, thinking about those adorable blushes Eren had all through dinner.
At the very least, they would always have that happy memory.
Levi had been in bad situations before. He had cleverly sneaked in and out of some of the most secure areas in Europe, yet that had never been with injuries to both legs.
Seriously, what was he supposed to do?
Hiding under Eren's bed was out of the question. He could dress up as Louise and try to leave, but there was no way he could walk down those stairs on his own, and if anyone tried to talk to him, he was dead. He could stay in the attic, but police might return to check more thoroughly. He also worried that whoever had tried to kill Eren might come back, so he wanted to stay nearby to protect Eren; however, being too close could be dangerous for him.
If he couldn't walk, how could he escape? Who could possibly help him?
Yelena!
He glanced at the telephone. The operator was probably German. If he tried to make a call in French to a random wine shop in the middle of the night, the Gestapo would be all over this room and the wine shop. However, if he could stay in the attic until morning, and if Eren could make the call...
It was risky, and it was putting the French Resistance in danger, as well as Eren.
No, he was not going to put Eren's life at risk. No matter the cost to himself, this young man had to survive!
"You at least have to live on, takhshet ... my neshomeleh."
He bit his lip, determined not to cry and never to give up hope. Still, he gazed at Eren, full of worry, grief, and angry at some invisible enemy that seemed to be doing everything possible to separate them.
With pain burning his heart, he stroked Eren's hair, playing with it. It felt so soft. Levi realized he had taken for granted all the times he could have touched Eren, but was too afraid.
Somewhere in the hotel, he heard a toilet flush, and Levi jolted up. It was not yet dawn, but he should not linger here. Still, he gazed down at Eren, trying to rip himself away.
Was this really how they would be separated? One unconscious, the other injured and beyond hope?
"I can't die yet," he whispered as a promise to Eren. "I refuse to die regretting anything, and right now..." He gulped hard as his lower lip trembled. "Right now, I regret so much. So you don't need to worry about me. I can't die yet. That means, you can't die either. Understood? That's an order," he whispered.
He wished Eren would open his eyes and quip back with something cute, or annoying, or sickly romantic. Instead, Eren made no motion beyond slow, even breaths.
Levi leaned over Eren, gazed wistfully at his face, and gave him a soft, lingering kiss. He half wished it really would wake him up, but real life was never as happy as a fairy tale.
"Adieu, mon petit ami."
He straightened up, took a deep breath to shove all the emotions somewhere deep down inside, and pulled away. Still, his hand lingered on Eren's cheek, like it alone protested with Levi's pragmatism.
He slipped down off the bed, being careful of his ankle. He pulled on the backpack and crawled over to the rope ladder. One hand over another, he climbed up using just his arms, until he pulled himself back up into the attic. He yanked the rope ladder up, shoved it away into the bottom of a box, and gave a final look down at Eren.
He stared, wondering if this might be the last time he would see him.
No! They would both survive this. They had to!
With that determination fortifying his heart, Levi slowly closed the hatch door.
He would be okay. The doctors would care for him. He had to believe that Eren would be okay.
Levi glanced around at the ransacked attic. The wall of boxes was gone, leaving no good place to hide. If he could have moved crates around, he could build some sort of barricade, but that would cause noises and attract even more attention.
He crawled, his knees starting to hurt, and went over to the window. The sun would be rising soon, but with the storm, all was dark gray. Freedom lay out there, yet he could not climb off the roof. He had to hope for a miracle.
He hated the idea, yet he emptied a crate and climbed inside. He rolled up his wet black trench coat as a pillow and pulled around the blue wool lady's coat to wrap up against the chill. He curled around his bag, drew his knees up to fit, and pulled the lid down over him.
At least he would be hidden if anyone went up there to look around. If someone found him, he had his knife, and now he had a gun. He was also close enough to the window to leap out. How he could possibly get down off the roof ... he had no choice but to leave that up to God.
If by some miracle he was not discovered...
He barely dared to hope anymore. All of his hopes seemed to shatter.
He was exhausted, in pain, and had almost no sleep that night. He kept an ear out, but he heard nothing through the thick wooden crate. No light, no sound, no smells. It was close to being dead.
A morbid thought went through his mind: this crate could be his coffin.
He stared into the darkness, trying to make peace with the life he had lived, yet there were many regrets that nagged in his mind.
For one, he had really wanted to have one last night with Eren. He had no idea how far they would have gone, what he was okay with, or even what two men could do (besides a few obvious ideas). Still, a part of him was curious and wanted to figure it out.
One last night. One last experience. One last adventure together to let their minds dream of the possibilities of things to come. Some day. In a land far from this war zone. A final chance, and then a farewell.
It was one of his regrets. He could not properly say goodbye, and he could not get closure.
He closed his eyes and drifted off silently praying for a Hanukkah-level miracle.
# # #
# #
#
The Enfield No. 2 was a British top-break revolver using the .38 S&W round, manufactured from 1930 to 1957. It was the standard British/Commonwealth sidearm in World War II, alongside the Webley Mk IV and Smith & Wesson Victory Model revolvers. Reloading an Enfield is fast thanks to its automatic ejector, which spits out all six shells from the cylinder at once. Combat experience during World War II seemed to confirm that the Enfield was far more effective than the bulkier and heavier Webley revolvers that had been issued during World War I. (That's the British gun Kitz Woermann took as a trophy when he fought in WWI.)
"a fairy tale worthy of becoming a Disney cartoon" - Sleeping Beauty would not become a Disney film until 1959. As of 1944, Walt Disney Animation Studios had created only six films: Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, and Saludos Amigos.
Once again, we see Spiritus, concentrated ethanol alcohol, part of a medical kit for German soldiers. Eren would also have some compresses and bandages at the ready. While a common soldier would not have the full kit of a field medic, they would have basic stuff, enough to help keep a fellow soldier alive until a medic could arrive, stabilize him, and send him to a field hospital.
HAPPY HANUKKAH!
CHAG URIM SAMEACH!
On this Festival of Lights:
I wish to remember the Jews who never made it past 1945, and those who suffered long afterward by the atrocities they witnessed.
I wish to remember those who bravely left behind everything to save their families, and those who protected the ones who could not escape in time.
I wish to remember the past while holding hope for the future and showing love and compassion in the present,
Because, like the miracle that marks this day...
...There can always be light.
(1945 holiday card for Jews still living in the Shanghai Ghetto, source)
I found the above Chanukah (Hanukkah) card from 1945, and I wanted to share the story behind it.
First, we go back to the 1930s. As Jews tried to flee the rising antisemitism in Germany, they found nearly all countries were closing their borders. France, England, the United States, Canada: no one was willing to increase the number of refugees they accepted per year.
The Évian Conference of 1938 showed just how bad the problem was. With Jewish refugees clogging the ports in America, President Roosevelt hosted this conference, hoping to rally other countries to help with the crisis. Of the 32 countries to attend, only the Dominican Republic agreed to take more Jews.
Hitler's response to the conference was, "We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals [Jews] at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships." At that time, Germany was allowing Jews to leave. They would have let them go! Later, Hitler slammed the borders shut, refused to let Jews leave German-occupied lands, so they could enact their plans for mass genocide. Decades later, Walter Mondale would state the brutal truth of the utter failure of the Évian Conference and the price of such lack of empathy: "If each nation at Évian had agreed on that day to take in 17,000 Jews at once, every Jew in the Reich could have been saved."
(As we face a similar humanitarian crisis today, with countries slamming closed their borders rather than accepting those fleeing starvation and persecution, let this be a lesson. STOP REPEATING HISTORY.)
Anyway...
As Jews tried to find a place to go to escape the Nazis, somehow a rumor started up. Russian Jews were fleeing Stalin and his pogroms by heading to Shanghai, which did not require a visa to enter. Many German and Austrian Jews were unable to get visas and passports, which was one of the biggest reasons so many could not escape in time.
After the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, Japan occupied the Chinese sections of the city, while European powers controlled the Shanghai International Settlement and French Concession. At first, the Japanese government allowed the European powers to continue as they were.
As Europe plunged into war, the waves of refugees increased. Soon, tens of thousands of European Jews were traveling to China. Jewish American organizations funded these refugees, providing food and clothing. The Russian Jews who arrived in Shanghai long before Hitler rose to power, many of whom had established successful businesses by this time, held fundraisers to aid their fellow German Jews.
This all changed in December 1941. Shortly after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, they attacked Shanghai's foreign concessions, until they occupied the entire city.
Not too surprisingly, the Nazis tried to turn the Japanese government against the Jews. Although the Japanese were not antisemitic, they were paranoid of espionage, and the Nazis were prepared to manipulate that fear. Gestapo agent and a leader of the Einsatzgruppen (AKA, death squad) Josef Meisinger, who would later earn the name The Butcher of Warsaw, traveled to Shanghai and told the Japanese military governor that tens of thousands of "Anti-Fascists" escaped Germany and came to Shanghai. These Anti-Fascists were, he claimed, also Anti-Japanese. Meisinger even came prepared with a list containing the names of all Jews with a German passport now living in Japan.
Meisinger succeeded in convincing the Japanese government that Jews were, at the very least, a risk potential. They closed Shanghai to any further Jewish immigration. Some British-Jewish families with thriving businesses in the foreign districts were imprisoned, while American charities to the refugees were cut off. Japan forced 26,000 Jews to live in a 3/4 square mile area centered around the Ohel Moshe Synagogue. That was on top of the 100,000 Chinese residents who already lived in this crowded, squalid area of Shanghai.
They called it the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees, better known as the Shanghai Ghetto.
That was not enough for Meisinger. He returned (with a promotion for his success in getting the Japanese to target Jews) and he tried to convince the Japanese to exterminate all Jews within the Restricted Sector, or at least hand them over to the Germans to be thoroughly exterminated as criminals of Germany.
This time, the Japanese decided to investigate on their own. The military governor of Shanghai sent for leaders of the Jewish community. The delegation included Shimon Sholom Kalish, a Polish rabbi who led an exodus of thousands of young Jews from Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus.
The Japanese governor asked, "Why do the Germans hate you so much?"
Knowing the fate of his people hung on his answer, Rabbi Kalish replied, "They hate us because we are short and dark-haired."
The governor, whose face had been stern throughout the meeting, broke into a smile. After all, Japanese themselves were short and dark-haired compared to the Nazis.
Despite the military alliance Japan had with Germany, they did not accede to the Nazis' demands, and the Shanghai Jews were never handed over. Instead, there was a curfew, food was rationed, barbed wire was set up around the Shanghai Ghetto, and everyone needed passes to enter or leave the sector.
As the war went on, Americans bombed Shanghai. This included the ghetto, where there were no bomb shelters. 38 Jewish refugees and hundreds of Chinese civilians living in the ghetto were killed in air raids. Some of the Shanghai Ghetto Jews took part in resistance movements against the Japanese, participating in an underground network to obtain and circulate information, as well as sabotage and providing assistance to downed Allied aircrews.
Back to that holiday card.
After the war ended in 1945, it was the first time the Jews in Shanghai could celebrate Hanukkah/Chanukah freely. To commemorate it, the Jewish Welfare Board in Shanghai distributed this Chanukah greeting card, along with a one cent banknote issued by the Central Bank of China as the traditional Chanukah gelt (gift-money), and a message of support written by their "big brothers" among the Jewish-American soldiers.
The celebrations were sadly short-lived.
In 1949, China plunged into a civil war, and the Communist Party emerged victorious. Ohel Moshe Synagogue was confiscated by the Communist government and converted into a psychiatric hospital. Jews who had managed to establish successful businesses had their stores taken away, and some were imprisoned by the Communists. Once again, the Jews had to flee for their lives.
By 1956, almost all the Shanghai Jews escaped, some heading back to their homelands, some hoping to reconnect with their roots in the newly established State of Israel, while some went on to other nations.
Through all that, there are two men who deserved some recognition: Sugihara Chiune, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania; and Ho Feng-Shan, a Chinese diplomat and consul-general in Vienna during World War II. Both were bestowed with the title Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel for aiding Jews during the Holocaust, with Sugihara being the only Japanese national to receive this great honor. Both men disobeyed orders and issued tens of thousands of visas to Jews so they could flee to Japanese-occupied territories. Such insubordination could have cost them their lives. There are now over 100,000 people alive today who are the descendants of the Jews these two men saved.
It really drives home the Talmudic line, "whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world."