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Chapter 5

Dairen, Manchuria

September 1941

Sarah Macneil wasted little time before calling on her paunchy future father-in-law Joseph Blum. (God, she thought, what chemistry of nature produced a marvel like Nathan from these loins?) Perfunctorily she kissed him on the cheek. “You wanted to see me?

“Sit, my dear girl.” His English was Frenchified but usually understandable. Unlike his son, Joseph had never learned Chinese. Knowing Russian—he was born there and had emigrated to France—French, and English were more than enough for one man, he always explained.

“You told Nathan you would be able to put some of your family money to our little project,” he said.

“I hope, sir, it will become more than a ‘little project.”’ Sarah’s voice was a lilting soprano.

“It will, I am sure. Anyway, that’s marvelous news.”

Sitting demurely beside Joseph Blum’s desk, Sarah waited. She knew there would be more.

“I’ve heard of a job I think you should apply for.”

“A job? I have a job, Mr. Blum. It’s an easy one and that gives me free time to be with your son. Once we’re married, I don’t expect to work at all.”

“Hear me out, Sarah.” Joseph Blum carefully lit one of the Havana cigars he was addicted to. “Colonel Kazuo Ishihara has let it be known he wants to employ a young, attractive, trilingual female assistant. He hasn’t found anyone with those qualifications yet.”

Sarah straightened up. “I know about Ishihara. In fact, I’ve met him. He’s supposed to be in charge of everything that goes on behind the scenes in the Japanese administration.”

“That’s right. He’s chief of the secret police—but he’s also General Doihara’s right-hand man. In fact, he has almost as much influence as the general.”

“And you think if I were his assistant, I could help promote Far East Zion?”

Joseph Blum nodded energetically. “That’s what we have in mind. You’re young, attractive—indeed, beautiful, and you speak Chinese, Japanese, and English. The one hitch is that you hold an American passport.”

Sarah nodded. After a moment’s thought, she said, “I also have a kind of Chinese citizenship. When my grandfather was Japan’s ambassador in Peking, his closest Chinese friend was governor of the province. In congratulating Grandfather on my birth in the embassy, he sent along a certificate of Chinese citizenship with a note saying it might be useful to me some day. I didn’t know governors could confer citizenship, but in China all things are possible.”

“Ishihara might take a Chinese citizen. For obvious reasons, he would not employ an American or Britisher.”

Sarah shook her head sadly. “I don’t know . . . After we marry, Nathan wants to go to America for more training.”

“I know. I’m trying to persuade him to postpone leaving for a year to help me get FEZ on its feet.”

“He’s very enthusiastic about that.”

“Especially now with all the talk about war. Jewish refugees have been streaming out of Europe for several years. They are living temporarily here and there all over the world. They desperately need a place like Manchuria for permanent settlement, with America almost impossible for them to enter.”

“But if war starts, won’t that interfere with the project?”

“It would, of course, but let’s pray actual hostilities won’t begin for a year or so at least.”

“But if they begin sooner?”

“Then we still have the problem of what to do with the sixteen thousand Jews already in Manchuria. Most of them are living hand to mouth with little prospect of decent jobs and homes. What we need in Manchuria is an industrial base—factories and businesses—where their skills and our capital can be put to good use.

“Nathan has talked of little else since I returned from Tokyo last month. By the way, where is he?”

“Isn’t he with you? He didn’t come home last night. I thought he . . . he might have spent the night with you.”

“Of course not.” Nathan had never spent the night in her apartment, and Sarah resented his father’s assumption. “He was supposed to call me last night at seven. I waited all evening.”

Joseph Blum was silent, but alarm was clear in his eyes.

Two days later, the ransom note reached the trembling hands of Joseph Blum. It was written in Chinese and demanded fifty thousand gold yuan. The packet containing the note also held the little finger of Nathan Blum’s left hand, spelling an end to the young man’s dreams of ever becoming a concert pianist.

Joseph ran about desperately trying to raise the fifty thousand. Sarah cabled her father to authorize the Dairen branch of the Macneil hong to advance her the thirteen thousand yuan Joseph had been unable to gather.

With the fifty thousand yuan in hand at last, Joseph Blum waited six more days for word from the kidnappers, but none came. He sought the advice of the French vice consul, who cautioned against paying anything without proof the son was still alive.

The second communication came in the form of a telephone call telling Joseph where to leave the sacks of gold coins. Hesitantly, Blum asked for proof his son was alive. The following morning an eight-year-old Chinese girl brought a carefully wrapped index finger to the Blum residence. (A doctor confirmed it had been cut from a living person.) Joseph’s keening was heard by the neighbors throughout the day.

Blum determined to deliver the gold as demanded, but reported the ransom call to the French vice consul. At the vice consul’s behest the Japanese Kempeitai or secret police and their Chinese myrmidons set a trap.

To everyone’s surprise they captured the three Chinese kidnappers. After a night of picturesque torture featuring sophisticated refinements that shocked even Colonel Ishihara, the police learned the whereabouts of Nathan Blum.

They found him in a hole in a field, but the gangrenous stumps of the pianist’s fingers had not been tended, and Nathan was dying from loss of blood and exposure. (Manchurian nights in October can be severe.) An ambulance rushed him to the Sisters of Mercy Hospital near the center of Dairen. When Sarah arrived, she found Joseph Blum incoherent in his grief, his body racked by sobs and shudders.

Sarah’s eyes blazed with rage when she heard the doctor’s despairing words. Only five foot two, Sarah appeared taller as she strode stiffly erect into Nathan’s room. There was a fiercely protective manner about her as she sharply motioned the others away from the bedside of her moribund fiancé.

She had come just in time.

“Darling, I—”

“Be quiet and listen, Sarah,” Nathan whispered. “I haven’t the strength for . . . for more than a few words. Do you love me?”

Sarah Macneil nodded grimly.

“Then hear my last wish. It’s about . . . FEZ.” Nathan’s voice dropped even lower. Spittle appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Sarah . . . please . . . help our Jews . . . Promise me you will . . . get them to safety. . . . somewhere. . . .”

“I promise, Nathan. I promise.”

“Very . . . well. Carry on, Sergeant . . . Macneil.”

That was one of their private jokes. He was the captain, she the sergeant in their comedy routines.

“Yes, my captain. You . . . you carry on, too . . .” Sarah choked on her words.

There was a final gurgle. Nathan Blum seemed to shrink within himself.

He had departed for another Zion.

For a long time Sarah slumped motionless beside Nathan’s bed. In her imagination Nathan sat at a piano on the stage of a concert hall in Paris. Before an elite audience he was playing a program of tuneful, sensual music. His ten slim fingers had a graceful touch and he played the music with a lilt.

For an encore, he played—after a bow to Sarah Macneil in the audience—one of her favorites, “La Paloma.”

“Well done, my love,” Sarah whispered to herself. “Without all ten fingers you had no use for this old body anyway. Now carry on, my captain, to more glittering triumphs. I know you will dazzle the celestial audiences. Oh, God,” she sobbed, “can I possibly live without him?”

Joseph Blum went mad with grief. His widow sold the Blum holdings in Manchuria, and the couple disappeared into oblivion.

Vowing to honor her promise to the dying Nathan Blum, Sarah “Chankoro” Macneil entered the employ of Colonel Kazuo Ishihara of the Japanese secret police. The colonel was satisfied with her certificate of Chinese citizenship.

He was also greatly impressed by her statement that she was a granddaughter of ex-Ambassador Tomoji Miyoshi, a senior advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo.