“What else do they do during the Mid-Autumn Festival?” Nina asked, breaking a piece of a mooncake.
“People arrange an altar with smoke incense that burns for Chang’e, a woman taken to the Moon.”
“Who’s she?”
Binbin told her that a long time ago, there was a great tragedy: ten suns appeared in the sky. They scorched the earth and then Houyi the Archer shot down nine suns with his arrows. For this great deed the Western Goddess gave him an immortality pill. Houyi took it home and hid it to share later with his beautiful wife Chang’e. But Chang’e found the hiding place and took the pill herself: she thought half wouldn’t be enough for her. Suddenly, she felt her body become very light, and invisible forces flew her to the Moon. In vain, Houyi called for her, but Chang’e couldn’t return. She started to live in a gorgeous lunar palace where her only friend was a white rabbit.
“You see its shape there?” Binbin motioned to the moon. “The rabbit is leaning over a big mortar where it pounds herbs for the immortality elixir.”
Nina started to laugh. “True! I’ve never noticed it before. And what happened with Chang’e afterwards?”
“She stayed at the palace. Every year during the Mid-Autumn
Festival when the Moon is brightest, she looks at the earth in search of her husband.”
“Does she ever find him?”
“No.”
They talked till dawn. Binbin told her about herself, about the film she was working on and about her plans for the future.
Nina listened intently and then said, “I’d like to offer you a share in my business. I think together we stand a very good chance of becoming rich.”
CHAPTER 39
THE REASONS FOR WAR
1.
Collor spoke the truth: fighting crime in Shanghai was a pointless occupation: every policeman was either in the pockets of bandits or a bandit himself. No one could touch Lemoine. The case of the Czechoslovakian Consulate was closed as it wasn’t in the jurisdiction of the International Settlement. But the Chinese police didn’t even bother to open the case. Felix was given a bonus for good service and zeal at his work and that was the end of it all.
One day, Hugh Wayer called him in and offered him a place in the political department. “We need people here who can speak Russian and hate the Soviets.”
Moscow and Peking had drawn up the first equal treaty in the history of China. The building of the former Russian Consulate was given to the USSR. Felix had seen with his own eyes as they took off the double- headed eagle from the pediment.
Wayer told Felix what they didn’t write in the newspapers: while Peking was celebrating the first equal rights international treaty, Soviet Russia had secretly sent into Canton a bunch of experienced revolutionists to lay the groundwork for turning China into a new socialist republic. The Bolsheviks assigned the main part in their play to Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his followers who should overthrow the Peking government. An experienced revolutionary, Mikhail Borodin, started to reorganize Sun’s party, the Kuomintang, into a powerful organization like the Russian Communist Party. In the South of China, the Red commander, Vasily Blücher, was preparing an army to assault the North. On the island of Whampoa, they opened a military academy to provide the army with skillful officers.
“The communists have a special international organization to carry out such tasks,” Wayer said to Felix. “They call it the Comintern. They are supplying arms and money to the South—everything that is needed for a big civil war. Shanghai is their main transfer point. European governments don’t understand how serious the situation is: communists are dreaming about world revolution and they are ready to do anything to achieve success.”
“I’m ready to work in the political department,” Felix said.
In his pocket, he had a newspaper with an article about an unprecedented famine in Russia. The bastard Bolsheviks were spending money on their world revolution dream, while their own peasants were dying like flies. Five million people had perished in just two years.
Felix received several fat folders filled with reports, photographs and short-hand notes. The Comintern operated in grand style. Under the guise of the sham import-export company Metropolitan Trading Co, the communists distributed their literature and transported people, faked documents and counterfeited money.
The police had set up an observation post in front of the house of the Comintern’s head office. All the neighbors thought it was an average apartment rented by an old tailor. Hiding behind faded curtains, Felix spent hours watching through his binoculars the comings and goings from the enemy’s den.
The tailor, an Estonian called Urmas, would put a thread through a needle and say, “You, young man, have the patience of a nurse in a madhouse.” And would lose himself, telling stories about his youth and his job at the mental health hospital in Tallinn.
After his promotion, Felix went to work in the police office on Nanking Road. One day, by chance, he ran into Johnny Collor, who’d recently returned from Hong Kong.
“I know about your appointment,” Collor said. “It’s a pity you left our division, mate, but I understand it’s crappy stuff here. Well, you, guys, also do good things and your pay is better too.” He went silent, looking at his feet. “Have you heard about the disaster? They hired a new security guard who wasn’t told about the tame badgers wandering around our office. He thought they were wild and shot them.”
Felix sympathized and hurried home. He felt rotten, as if he betrayed a good friend. He didn’t change his job because the pay was better in the political department or because he wanted to take the fight to the Bolsheviks. It was because of his dealings with Lemoine. Felix had traded his life for machine guns: when he fractured the Japanese driver’s head, he had become a bandit himself. And it was impossible to be a bandit and work with Johnny Collor.
2.
Daniel brought Edna a golden purse with sapphire buckles. He said, “It has a writing pad and a mechanical pencil inside. Hope, you like it, my sweet journalist.”
He was still caring, wonderful, smart and elegant…but Edna sensed he did not feel at home. When he stood in front of his own wardrobe he had a confused expression on his face, not knowing where to look for his shirts or neckties. He even struggled with simple tasks such as finding a piece of cloth for wiping his pen’s nib. And he started to treat Edna not as his wife, but as a person he was paying an official visit to.
Four times Daniel sent Edna telegrams saying, Have to stay longer—in Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Moscow. She tried to imagine what kept him from home: maybe debts? No, their accounts were in perfect order. Edna couldn’t believe there was another woman. Who would Daniel choose over his perfect wife?
Usually in times of doubt she wrote to her mother, but now she couldn’t think of a word to start her letter with. Maybe this barely noticeable chill was just a natural alienation that happens between people who hadn’t seen each other for ten months?
At dinner, Edna asked him playfully, “How did you manage without me for all this time?”
Daniel answered, “I constantly thought of you.”
And she saw that it was true.
While Daniel was away, Edna became a media celebrity. She traveled all over the Chinese coast and was known at the warlords’ courts as well as in Peking Legation Quarter.
Her only rival was Michael Vesborough. In politics, Edna could compete with him: she had mastered the role of a daring and fragile lady, who would rush into the heat of things and write the most astute and exciting articles. But in economics, Vesborough would override her: he had more connections and big wigs were more willing to talk to him. Despite all Edna’s regalia and reputation, people still thought that railway rates and tax regulation were not a lady’s business.
Mr. Green, her editor-in-chief, said, “The governor of Jiangsu province, Qi Xieyuan, known as the Scholar, announced he wants to take over the Chinese part of Shanghai. He claims that historically it belongs to his land. The Scholar and
our Governor Lu are now hurriedly getting their armies ready. The question is where do they have the money for the war from? Taxes from peasants are already taken ten years in advance, and this is not an exaggeration. We need the article for the day after tomorrow. Can you cope or should I phone Vesborough?”
Mr. Green purposefully encouraged competition between his journalists: their rivalry motivated them much better than bonus payments and cost much less.
“Shanghai Club?”
“Yes, Missy.”
“Is my husband at yours?”
“No, Missy.”
“But I didn’t even tell you his name!”
“We never have husbands here, Missy.”
“How dare you talk to me like that! I’ll get you fired!”
“I doubt it, Missy. Have a good day.”
Edna could do nothing about it. The Shanghai Club was a stronghold of male chauvinism: the clerk knew for sure he wouldn’t be fired for rudeness to a woman. Moreover, the members of the Club would be happy to know that he had rebuffed one of their annoying little wives.
Edna could have phoned dozens of other places to find out the necessary information about the Chinese warlords, but she procrastinated till evening, trying to convince herself that no one but Daniel could explain the situation better.
He was late. Edna went to sleep not in her own bed, but in Daniel’s. She wriggled, trying to make herself comfortable. He will be pleasantly surprised when he discovers her under his blanket waiting for him, warm and sleepy.
Two hours passed. The house was so quiet that Edna could hear a clock ticking in the living room. Where is Daniel? she thought anxiously. What kept him for so long?
Edna crawled out, her nighty had crept up to her armpits. She arranged it and walked barefoot downstairs to the kitchen to take some water. Trembling, she felt for a switch on the wall and suddenly noticed Daniel at an open window, smoking a cigarette.
The air smelled of wet grass and tobacco. Edna came closer and sat on a stool nearby.
“Why are you not sleeping?” Daniel asked.
Edna wanted to tell him about her worries: how she missed him and how much she was scared realizing that with his arrival her yearning for him didn’t stop or lessen. He was close, but there was an invisible barrier between them, and she could not overcome it.
Edna remembered one of the letters from her mother, “I don’t trust people who always look and seem too smooth. A lacquered mask is usually worn by those who have something to hide.”
Can it really be true that her mother was right and that Daniel was hiding something? Maybe he goes to Europe to do more than discuss delivery of tea? But if Edna would mention her fears, it meant that she was questioning his honesty.
They never talked about each other’s weak points and never confessed their feelings. It was a kind of agreed matter between them that banal and vulgar sentimentality wasn’t up to their standards. They were both grown-up and strong people, who laugh at meaningless ceremonies that spouses adorn their lives with. Their love was simple and sensible. And to doubt it would mean to destroy its very foundation. It would mean that calm, poised, relaxed and good-tempered Edna didn’t differ from all other women who check on their husbands’ every move and are filled with jealously and anticipation for the I love you.
Edna didn’t do it. She didn’t gather enough courage. She just asked questions that could be discussed painlessly: questions about the warlords.
The light from the corridor created a slanted shape on the old wooden floorboards. The air was still and muggy. A bird cried outside.
“Wars in China are just attempts to control the only stable sources of income in the country: the customs and railways,” Daniel explained. “The Great Powers, of course, want all the money to flow into their pockets.”
Daniel’s voice is the most beautiful in the world, Edna thought. Let him just speak—it’s already happiness.
“Customs makes about sixty million dollars a year. From this sum the Chinese pay interest on their foreign debt and after this there’s nothing much left for the Peking government. Without the money it can’t effectively rule the country. If a president or one of the governors wants to snatch control of the customs, almost immediately the foreign banks give a loan to a neighboring warlord to wage a war with the rebel. And at the same time, the banks rope China into new debts.”
Daniel pulled another cigarette out of the pack.
“But if the customs profit goes to the Chinese, it will only fund political bureaucracy, bandit armies and harems. When warlords take a loan, they never think whether the country needs these new debts. It’s them who are craving for money—here and now. And who cares about the recovery of debts and interests? As always, the peasants will pay it off.”
A light from a match lit Daniel’s sad face. The clock in the living room chimed midnight.
“In this Chinese mess, we all are cornered,” Daniel continued. “If the foreigners surrender, they’ll lose everything they built and earned. If the warlords lose a battle, they’ll lose power. If Dr. Sun Yat-sen steps back, his life’s work will be ruined.”
“So, it’ll be war?” Edna asked, feeling a cold drop of sweat run down her spine.
“And a much more serious one than you think,” Daniel answered. “The fight between the Scholar and the Shanghai governor is only the beginning.” “
But the war could be prevented? We should write about it, reveal the scumbags who make people fight with each other!”
Daniel laughed. “You really think wars happen because somebody wants war? No propaganda in the world would eradicate the existing problems. They are only solved through crisis in the form of wars and revolutions, and there is no other way. And the side that has the most advantageous position usually wins.”
Edna frowned. “You’re talking as if wars start by the will of gods. People are the ones who sign the orders to buy weapons; people are the ones who promote misanthropic ideas, and they give the orders to start the charge…”
“And if they didn’t, then the enemy would come into their house and kill them. Conflict is a natural state. Say, pacifists are trying to conquer militarists: this fight for peace is also a war. There is a disagreement between them, and they are trying to solve it to the best of their abilities. But the outcome is not so important to make both parties take arms. When the stakes are really high and one has to win by all means, then they won’t do without guns. Our argument is also a war. We can’t sacrifice our principles and that means we’ll live in peace until our interests cross over. And then the strongest wins. If people are expected to fight, they’ll fight.”
“Which argument you are talking about?” Edna asked in surprise.
Daniel looked a bit confused. He didn’t answer and ditched his cigarette. Edna was still sitting, not daring to move. Did he mean our disagreement about pacifists or our relations in general?
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Enough about politics. But you personally? Ask yourself, are you ready to become a thug and a killer only because you are surrounded by them? Yes, the world is not perfect and you cannot mend it, but you can be responsible for yourself. Any person can if he wants.”
Daniel sighed. “Edna, I’m a realist. I’m not interested in idealistic thoughts and claims. In life, there could be circumstances when you or I, or any other person could become a thug and a killer. It’s called force majeure.”
“It’s not true!” exclaimed Edna. “I personally will never go to the front to shoot people who haven’t done me any harm!”
“Then they will do it. And you’ll die, because you won’t be prepared to fight back.”
Having noticed Edna was struggling to contain her fury, Daniel drew her close.
“Okay, let’s not talk about it. It’s an eternal argument between a little boy and a little girl about war games.”
But Edna couldn’t stop. “Do you know what I think?” she said dryly. “All wars are started by men. They shape the destinies of the
world without even asking the opinion of the other half of humankind. You don’t let us into your closed clubs or into your only for men jobs. You do whatever you want, just letting us know at the very end.”
Daniel looked at her, amused. “As the great rebel Gandhi said, ‘It’s not the English who conquered India, it’s we who gave away our country.’ Women themselves gave us power over them.”
“What about a boycott following Gandhi’s example?” Edna snapped.
“You know, my dear, the British have no other India. But here the situation is different: there are tons of other women in the world.” He stood up and gave Edna his hand. “Let’s go to sleep. You know I’m only joking, don’t you?”
3.
During the day, Nina thought only about printing machines and prices of paper. The Jesuits were keeping her on a string. The art collection had been sold long ago, and they’d received money for it; now the monks weren’t too eager to complete the agreement with Nina. They knew very well that she would never go to court: a lady without citizenship didn’t have a chance to combat a religious institution with extraterritorial rights.
Time was running out and the Jesuits still wouldn’t put Nina’s order in line at the printing shop. They kept finding more important clients who paid money here and now. Every day she went to Siccawei to battle Father Nicolás, his assistants and the head of the printing office, an indifferent monk with a stony face.
Nina didn’t dare to ask Aulman for help. Sometimes, she worried that the art collection wasn’t a present and Tony gave it to her just for safekeeping. And if she did get him involved with the printing business then he would know the truth about her selling his stuff.
Nina used to convince herself that she’d pay him back out of future profits. But the current situation suggested there would be no profits at all and she was just a thief who robbed her friends.
“Do you understand that I’ll go bankrupt if I don’t have calendars before the distributors’ meeting?” Nina harassed Father Nicolás.
White Shanghai Page 29
