As we became more adept at running each aspect of the company, our mothers ventured out more and more. They would return late at night, gossiping about the rumors they had collected—which families planned to test their luck in the countryside, which husbands had been seen negotiating with Japanese officials, eager for a better life by supporting their government. They brought home other news, too: battles won by the Chinese army, the Japanese allying with Nazi Germany. Our grandmother only condoned their nighttime ritual since the information they brought back was, indeed, valuable.

The Settlement was changing, though it remained preciously unoccupied. My grandmother read out the headlines from abroad—the war in Europe was taking a turn, France fell to Germany, and just like that, the French Concession was under new leadership. The French troops were leaving, followed quickly by the British, shipped off to Australia to train for their war. Only the Americans and Japanese remained—the former determined to stay out of it, the latter waiting to strike and accepting our bows in the meantime. But the Settlement was more crowded than ever, and not only with Chinese refugees. There were Jewish ones, too, fleeing the Nazis. Shanghai was now the only place in the world providing unconditional refuge for Jews. We rarely saw them, since they settled in the Chinese district, but we heard the stories of cramped spaces, starvation, disease.

At the same time many fled to Shanghai, others needed to flee.

One night, you and I were at the front of the store, boxing pencils. As always, we competed. Eight to a box, all facing the same direction. We had to read off your mother’s notes carefully to ensure each had the proper breakdown. The composition of a pencil was indicated by the phoenix logo—the more strokes on the logo, the more graphite the pencil had, the darker it was. The darkest pencil had a phoenix with a bushy tail, while the lightest pencil had a minimalist phoenix of a few strokes. I was behind, and so I was relieved when a knock on the door interrupted our contest.

We both peered out the window. It was raining. I could just make out a woman huddled as close to the door as possible. We glanced at each other.

“Maybe we should ask your grandmother,” you suggested.

But I was too curious and did not want to waste time going to my grandmother’s room, escorting her out at her slow pace. I raised my head higher, trying to get a better look.

“Hui-ling?” the woman called.

We exchanged another glance.

“She knows Mother,” I said.

“Then I guess we should let her in?”

We had received all sorts of warnings about letting people inside, especially men, especially police, especially anyone who could remotely be Japanese. But she did not seem to fall under any of these categories, so I opened the door.