White Shanghai
Page 1
Elvira Baryakina
WHITE SHANGHAI
A Novel of the Roaring Twenties in China a historical novel
Glagoslav Publications
White Shanghai
By Elvira Baryakina
First published in Russian as “Белый Шанхай” in 2011
Translated from the Russian by Anna Muzychka and Benjamin Kuttner
© Elvira Baryakina 2011
© 2013, Glagoslav Publications, United Kingdom
Glagoslav Publications Ltd
88-90 Hatton Garden
EC1N 8PN London
United Kingdom
www.glagoslav.com
ISBN 978-1-78267-036-0 (Epub)
ISBN 978-94-91425-55-4 (Epub, The Netherlands)
This book is in copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Contents
Chapter 1. The Civil War
Chapter 2. An Orphan Girl
Chapter 3. The House of Hope and Emerging Career
Chapter 4. Arms Smugglers
Chapter 5. The Best City to Live in
Chapter 6. Taxi-Girls
Chapter 7. The American Journalist
Chapter 8. Russian Refugees
Chapter 9. The Cadet
Chapter 10. The Great Imposters
Chapter 11. The Business Plan
Chapter 12. AlmostWar Correspondent
Chapter 13. The Blue Express Case
Chapter 14. Loneliness
Chapter 15. Escape from Bandit Captivity
Chapter 16. Nanny Job
Chapter 17. The Marines’ Fighting
Chapter 18. The Peculiar Collection of Asian Art
Chapter 19. Chinese Legends
Chapter 20. The Old City District
Chapter 21. The Little Monk
Chapter 22. Magazine for Flapper Girls
Chapter 23. An English Detective
Chapter 24. Don’t Vote for America!
Chapter 25. Tell Me, What Is Love
Chapter 26. The War against Opium
Chapter 27. Good Interview Questions
Chapter 28. Tango Music
Chapter 29. Organized Crime
Chapter 30. Shanghai Race Course
Chapter 31. The Adventures ofPrison Guard
Chapter 32. The Newborn Baby
Chapter 33. Hit and Run
Chapter 34. Death, Grief and Loss
Chapter 35. Chinese Calendars
Chapter 36. Scandal at the Opera House
Chapter 37. The Jesuit Art School
Chapter 38. Chinese Actress and Model
Chapter 39. The Reasons for War
Chapter 40. Abduction
Chapter 41. Civilians, Refugees and War Criminals
Chapter 42. Blackmailing
Chapter 43. Russian Fascists
Chapter 44. An Unhappy Marriage
Chapter 45. Kitsune,Fox from Japanese Fairy Tales
Chapter 46. God Save the Tsar!.
Chapter 47. The Cossack General
Chapter 48. Family Violence
Chapter 49. The Cossacks Go Home
Chapter 50. Down with Imperialism!...
Chapter 51. The General Strike.
Chapter 52. The Guardian Angel
Chapter 53. The Communist Spy
Chapter 54. Jealousy
Chapter 55. Love Letters
Chapter 56. The Most Dangerous Job in Shanghai
Chapter 57. Radio Anchorman
Chapter 58. The Warrior’s Way
Chapter 59. Easter Holiday
Chapter 60. The German Arms Dealer
Chapter 61. The Crime Suspect
Chapter 62. Nagasaki Port
Chapter 63. Pilots of the Chinese Revolution
Chapter 64. The Double Agent
Chapter 65. The Bolshevik Girls
Chapter 66. The Northern Expedition
Chapter 67. Spiritual Healing
Chapter 68. The Communist Uprising
Chapter 69. The Green Gang
Chapter 70. Christmas Story
Chapter 71. The Soviet Steamboat
Chapter 72. Political Prisoner
Chapter 73. The Prostitute named Messalina
Chapter 74. The Great Wall
Chapter 75. The Kuomintang’s Victory
Chapter 76. The Nanking Incident
Chapter 77. Big Ears Du, Chiang Kai-shek and Foreign Devils
Chapter 78. Classic Tragedy
Chapter 79. Stalin’s Money
Chapter 80. Something to Hope For
CHAPTER 1
THE CIVIL WAR
1.
December 1922
Father Seraphim was built like a bear, with cannonballs for fists and a grand bushy beard—white around the lips and dark on the cheeks. His parish was the church of Saint Nicholas the Miracle-Worker in St. Petersburg.
In 1917, the Bolsheviks disemboweled Russia. The Father and his wife, Matushka Natalia, fled eastward to join the White Army of Admiral Kolchak and pray for its victory. Normal life as Father Seraphim knew it was over. Private property was confiscated, and even God was declared a lie that rich people used to oppress the working class. One couldn’t argue with the Bolsheviks: freedom of speech and conscience had been abandoned as bourgeois prejudices.
The road was hard. Father Seraphim’s first memento was a foolish bullet pierced his hat; second—a Red Cossack’s saber rent across his back. The White Army took many losses and retreated toward the Pacific Ocean. The emperor had been murdered, Kolchak—shot, and the top brass at Vladivostok, the last stronghold of opposition, didn’t know whether to grab their rifles or their suitcases. There was nowhere to retreat except the stormy Sea of Japan.
Matushka Natalia wept. It was in her character to weep for everybody.
They’d lost Russia not on battlefields, but in endless arguments and ego clashes.
The remnants of the White Army, along with refugees, were thrown into old rusting ships. The holds were filled to the brim with people staking out their living spaces. Women built blanket partitions. No one knew how long the journey would take, but life demanded privacy.
Father Seraphim stood on the stern. A faded Russian flag whipped in the wind. The ship dragged tugboats, gunboats and icebreaker in its wake—all that could be amassed from the Vladivostok harbor.
“We’re leaving territorial waters,” the captain bellowed through his megaphone.
Raw cadets, with lips trembling, eyes desperate, threw their hands to salute the distant Motherland on the horizon. The rest of the military followed. A Cossack officer took off his cap and crossed himself three times. A nurse in a white headscarf wept as if for the dead.
“Where do we go now?” Father Seraphim asked.
The captain’s voice quivered, “Stark will let us know.”
Rear Admiral Stark was the head of it all. Nine thousand souls he led out of Vladivostok into the complete unknown. Where now? Japan? The Philippines? Hawaii? But what sort of people live there and to which God do they pray?
They finally pulled into Gensan, a Korean port under Japanese rule, to beg for mercy. At the break of day, the senior officers would go to negotiate with local authorities for the Russian refugees to be freed from their hastily-pitched shore camp. The rest went to digging irrigation ditches. This was paid for with flat breads and Japanese soup made with…Lord have mercy…seaweed!
In the barracks of the Red Cross, Father Seraphim met a former reporter,
Klim Rogov.
“A special person, an inspiration,” Matushka Natalia said about him.
Klim looked like this: his shoulders—broad, but bony; height— almost up to Father Seraphim’s ears; face—a noble knight, poor and worn-out, not a real knight, but the type they depicted on posters and in the cinema.
Before the revolution, Klim Rogov had been places with names one wouldn’t remember offhand. Every night he’d start an unauthorized fire outside the barracks and tell stories to the big crowd of refugees about America, China and his days back in Russia.
Klim and his wife had fled their native town of Nizhny Novgorod. Only God knew the terrible ordeals they endured to escape the accursed Civil War. Once, Klim found a silver bust of a satyr in the tramcar destroyed by an artillery shell. For a while, it was their only source of income as they sawed off little pieces to trade for bread.
Was Klim telling the truth? Who knows? His wife, Nina Kupina, was nodding her head in a little astrakhan hat, confirming what he said. She also was a special person. Her lavender-colored coat accentuated her slender, shapely curves. On her feet were pink ballet slippers with ribbons—and in the middle of winter! Dark eyebrows framed her pleasant face. Cunning she was: she had negotiated with Japanese authorities to distribute leaflets among the refugees: Fellow Russians! Go home! There’s nothing for you in Korea or Japan. Paper for these leaflets was made of rice straw, soft and durable. One couldn’t think of a better insulation for boots and greatcoats. A lot of people were grateful to Nina: what a help to get through the winter!
A dented bucket gurgled with boiling water. Nina made tea, the green kind from China. Klim was busy doing card tricks. He pulled a seven of hearts out of Colonel Terekhov’s sleeve and a queen of spades from under Madame Panova’s hat.
Once a week he would organize a dance party. Jiří Labuda, a Czech POW, would play the harmonica, Cavalry Captain Mitrokhin handled the accordion, and a nameless Jew sawed away on his long-suffering violin.
Matushka Natalia sang of the free grassland; she had a glorious voice. People listened in silence, afraid to breathe. Klim Rogov jotted down words on the back of a leaflet for a sergeant left deaf after a war injury. The man’s face lit up as he read the lyrics.
The next morning a Japanese inspector arrived in a car, spoiling the air with the stench of gasoline. His interpreter made the message clear: “Leave. I don’t care where you go.”
This started the women wailing again.
Rear Admiral Stark loaded everyone back onto the ships. There were fewer of them now. Many had died. Some had snuck into Harbin, while others were picked up by the Japanese for construction and agricultural work.
Sixteen ships left Gensan; only fourteen made it to China. The Lieutenant Dydymov and the Ajax sank during a storm. There were no survivors.
“The Yangtze River flows in here,” the captain said, pointing at waves brown with silt. “The Huangpu tributary will be to our left. We’ll take it straight to Shanghai. Maybe they’ll let us stay.”
The cadets read from their geography textbook:
Shanghai is the main point of foreign trade in the Far East. The population is one and a half million. The city is split into three parts: Chinese, French and International. The latter two boast predominantly European-style architecture.
The French Concession reports to the Governor-General of Indochina and through him to the Paris authorities. The International Settlement is governed jointly by Great Britain, the North American United States, Japan and the other powers.
The main language spoken is English. The natives communicate with the foreigners in pidgin—broken English. French is widely known and spoken as well.
Klim Rogov was no stranger to Shanghai. He explained that white people felt right at home in the city, while Chinese and others of color were treated like second-class citizens. All male servants were called boy, no matter their age. And each was given a number: boy one, boy two, boy three.
Klim also mentioned that, since Shanghai was a large industrial city, home to a mix of many races, the Russians would have no trouble blending in.
As it turned out, Klim Rogov was about as good at predicting the future as Father Seraphim was at warfare. Stark’s fleet was stopped by authorities at the Huangpu River mouth twelve miles short of Shanghai. There they waited: two thousand refugees, mostly soldiers and officers with no useful trade skills. Among them were seven hundred cadets, aged between twelve and eighteen. Moreover, in their holds, the ships were filled with grenades, projectiles and military equipment.
“We don’t want any more crime,” said an English officer sent to the flagship by the concerned city leaders. “When hunger hits, you’ll go robbing people. Get the hell out of here.”
Stark slammed his fist. “We have two weeks’ supply of drinking water. And barely enough coal to cook with. The steamers are in need of urgent maintenance. We’re not going anywhere!”
Two warships were dispatched to keep the crazy Russians in check.
Weeks went by. The sky was a decayed gray haze, revolting to the eyes. Frost gripped the railings and puddles of thawed snow pooled on the decks. Stark took a motorboat to the local authorities and declared that hunger was setting in amongst his fleet. The locals took pity, Chinese yams came shortly after. But all landing requests were denied.
Did these British and French believe in Christ? Father Seraphim thought. They didn’t seem to care that only twelve miles from Shanghai people were dying. The Chinese were allowed to live in Shanghai, but the Russian warriors were not. We saw your Chinese in Vladivostok: low-life hillbillies—selling stolen junk, eating their noodles with sticks. Why are they better?
The ships communicated via signal flags to conserve electricity. An occasional dinghy was lowered so people could meet and swap news. But really, what news was there to swap? In place of coal, the charities sent coal dust. The benefactors themselves were trying to drive the ships away, but backhandedly.
Oh sorrow, what sorrow! All through the night Father Seraphim couldn’t sleep a wink. He wandered among the sleeping, praying quietly and thinking of the future. He went outside for a breath of air and sat on a gun carriage. The fog lay heavily around him, with only the dim lights of the Wusong fortress visible from the far coast. Baby linen was hung to dry on a gun barrel: recently Madame Baranova had given birth.
A beam of light flashed across the deck. Some voices were heard— not Russian. Father Seraphim hid behind one of Madame Baranova’s quilts.
Two figures passed carrying a crate with great caution. Shortly after, another figure followed, then another one, and another—very quietly, like thieves in the night. Father Seraphim was about to shout an alarm, when a lantern threw light on a lilac coat. It was Nina Kupina with Jiří Labuda, the Czech POW. They were both talking to a stranger in a white yachtsman cap.
The flashlight died and the figures disappeared. Father Seraphim waited and listened to the distant voices and the splash of the waves. Tiptoeing to the side of the ship, he saw a large Chinese junk heading silently towards Shanghai.
Early in the morning, when the refugees gathered on deck for their yam rations, Father Seraphim found Klim Rogov.
“What was that all about?” he whispered. “Last night I saw your wife talking to strangers carrying crates. Jiří Labuda was with her.”
Klim didn’t look at Father Seraphim. His bloodless face was that of a wounded man.
“A Shanghai trader talked our captain into selling several crates of weapons,” he said. “Nina and Jiří Labuda left with him.”
Father Seraphim was dumbfounded.
“What? Are you saying she left you?”
Klim didn’t answer and went to his spot on folded banners under a table in the wardroom.
After the sale of the weapons, gossip and arguments occupied the refugees for days. What gave the captain the right to sell their military equipment? Where would the money go? Why on earth had Nina Kupina left her kind and upbeat husband for this pallid J
iří Labuda? And what gave them the right to go ashore before everybody else?
2.
Nina Kupina was smart, shrewd and vain. As a child she wanted to be an enchanting stranger from an Alexander Blok’s poem: a mysterious lady who appears in men’s dreams, captivating and luring with her veil, silk skirt and silver rings on her slender hands.
Her parents were working class. They hadn’t given her much, but Nina found everything she lacked in books: how to conduct herself, what to say, to whom to smile. She literally stole her first husband, Count Odintsov, from the high society of Nizhny Novgorod. The poor man was far too bewitched to stand a chance.
“Did you love him?” Klim asked her once.
Nina nodded. “He saved me. Pulled me out of a hole.”
She became Her Excellency and moved into a white mansion on the top of Grebeshok Hill with a breathtaking view.
But her Count was killed at the front of the Great War, and enchanting fairies went out of style. Nina was reborn a sly woman of cunning, a wily fox from a Slavic fairytale—one that feasts on someone else’s fish and makes a fool of every big bad wolf that gets in her way.
Whenever in Nina’s company, men invariably became hot under the collar. She made the air come alive and swirl with emotions. With her, one always had some thoughts to cherish at the end of the day.
Klim had been a nomad all his life. He ran away from home before finishing high school. His mother had died long ago, and his relationship with his father, a state attorney, was rocky at best.
While in Persia, Klim had worked as a telegraph operator. Then in Shanghai, he’d slaved away for a tea company. Oh Nina, sweet Nina…you know nothing of that city. If the Lord so insists on letting Shanghai stand, he’d better apologize for Sodom and Gomorrah.
In Buenos Aires, Klim got the knack of writing in Spanish and became a journalist. His satirical columns were published weekly in La Prensa, the nation’s most influential newspaper. He became an Argentinean citizen and was sure he would spend his life between the elegant editorial office and artistic cafés.
In spring of 1917, Klim received a telegram informing him of his father’s death, so he headed home to claim his inheritance. It took him two months to get from Vladivostok to Nizhny Novgorod, as the trains generally operated on a schedule of whenever the engine driver could be bothered. Over the cities of Russia hung a deep provincial boredom seasoned with revolutionary ardor. Fences were plastered with posters; rallies formed on every corner. Klim felt like a foreigner: either he’d forgotten Russia or it had changed beyond recognition.