White Shanghai

by Elvira Baryakina

  I should pretend I’m the son of a millionaire. I’ll tell them that I’m traveling the world, and that they robbed and almost killed me in this cursed Shanghai. I’ll promise them Daddy will send me money from Paris.

  And all this horror because of damn Maria Zaborova!

  Nazar went to a charitable meeting organized to help Russian emigrants—he was hoping to find photography clients among the fat cats. Maria was sitting next to the aisle—thin, dry and pale like a pinewood chip. She came to him and said through her nose, “Young man, I’ve been watching you for a while now. I think you need a real goal in life.”

  Nazar bought into it. He went with her to somebody’s apartment where they sat on a secret meeting by candle light. They spoke beautifully—about the Motherland and the greatness of Russians.

  “Our plans are seizure of power in Moscow,” Maria said in a low voice. “We’ll set up a temporary dictatorship until the political situation stabilizes and all the enemies are purged. Then we’ll establish a rule of the All-Russian Assembly.”

  Nazar listened, growing excited. Three days ago in a cinema, he’d watched an emperor enter Rome. So beautiful! Young ladies were cheering his glory and rose petals flew everywhere. Oh, it would be amazing to enter Moscow like this. Okay, not on a chariot, but at least in an armored car, a tank.

  At the meeting, Nazar learned that the secret organization had an acute shortage of funds. A Czechoslovakian Consul used to pay for everything, but had recently kicked the bucket. Maria had decided to involve his cousin, Nina Kupina, and make sure she expressed some national consciousness.

  Nazar’s heart started to sing sweetly, Oh Ms. Kupina, wouldn’t it be lovely to pay you a visit and to participate in a joint struggle for justice?

  He wrote her three letters, but she didn’t reply to any.

  Maria snapped at him, “Why are you writing like you’re proposing to her? You need to be stricter: money on the table or there’ll be measures taken.”

  She called for another meeting. Nazar announced that he was ready to go to Nina to discuss her duty to the nation. To scare her properly, he could put a knife to her warm side. But Maria wouldn’t let him go by himself.

  And now Nazar was lying in the smelly ward, biting sheets so as not to cry out in pain. None of the bastards showed him any sympathy.

  I have to get some morphine, he decided. To hell with the bill, let them enslave me or take my hat and pants.

  A light flashed in a cleft under the door. Nazar lifted himself on his elbow. “Nurse…for God’s sake…”

  Five Sikh policemen entered the ward. “Here he is,” a doctor motioned to Nazar.

  The Sikhs took hold of the bed and lifted it. Nazar wanted to yell, but they put a gun to his nose. “Be quiet.”

  He felt as if it was a wild delirium. They carried him along the corridor, along the stairs and then down to a morgue. It smelled so bad, one could die just from the stench alone. Somebody’s legs were on a table.

  “A-a-ah…” Nazar squeaked. “Don’t touch me!”

  A shadow moved towards him through the darkness. A flashlight was shone in his eyes.

  “Now blurt it all out,” somebody said in Russian. “Who arranged the attack and to what purpose?”

  Nazar covered his eyes with his hands and started to cry, “I’ll tell you everything…it’s a secret organization…Revival of Russia, against the Bolsheviks. … They wanted money for good goals…” He named some people, but not all, biting his tongue just in time.

  “Well, if you don’t want to talk, you’ll stay here and chill out till morning,” the Russian sneered. “Tomorrow we’ll talk again.”

  He said something to the Sikhs and they all left, except one who Nazar saw by his turban showing in the little window on the morgue door.

  On the table next to him was a real corpse. Dearest people, what is going on in this world? What kind of moral rights do they have to put me, a living person, in with the departed?

  Nazar sat on the bed; he wanted to step on his leg but flinched in pain—ouch!

  “Hush! Be quiet,” a voice whispered.

  Nazar froze. A warm stream streamed down his thigh.

  “It’s me, Maria. I work in this hospital. There’s a door at the back— let’s go, I’ll take you out.”

  From pain and shock, Nazar started to cry again. Maria gave him her shoulder and he hopped along after her.

  3.

  China in November was quite pleasant, almost like August in Moscow. Just look out the window: squeaky-clean sky, white clouds float by, reflected in still and clear puddles. A red leaf on top. … Watching the jubilation of nature is by far the most wonderful thing.

  Makar Zaborov, a former artilleryman and former faithful subject of the Russian Empire, was going to visit his daughter’s friends and waited as she attached her hat to her head.

  His daughter, Maria, said that her pals were all noble officers, faithful sons of the Motherland. She was such a tough cookie, that gal! Thank God, she couldn’t fistfight like her mom used to. The baby got an education, after all. But, if something didn’t go her way—everyone had better take cover.

  How to find a husband for a young lady with such a temperament? Her height did not help her situation either—she was as tall as a bell tower.

  When she was small, Makar could order her to, “Give me some milk!” or “Close the window, it’s drafty in here.” She would obey with no objections. But now…

  “You’re a fuddy-duddy, ignoramus worse than a Chinese coolie,” Maria dared to tell her father. “Take this newspaper and educate yourself.”

  Maria was a smart girl, nobody could argue with it, but she was too harsh on her younger sisters. The twins Pasha and Glasha took after their Kalmyk mother with her black hair, round faces and narrow eyes. They could not stop talking about returning to Russia. “If our people accept the Soviets, then we’ll do the same,” they would say.

  Maria was furious with them. “Don’t dare ever mention that! You’re daughters of a White Army soldier and you should never go cap in hand to the communists.”

  The children made such a fuss it almost turned into a punch-up. Maria was stronger and Pasha and Glasha ran to the neighbors. And what should a father do? If their mother was alive, she would have slapped their bottoms. But, no, our darling Zoya was not with us any more: the evil consumption took her.

  During the whole civil war, Maria nursed the wounded White Army soldiers in the field hospital. She moved her family from Harbin to Shanghai hoping to join a patriotic organization there and continue her struggle against the communists. So they came and what did they see? There were more Russians on Broadway than grains of sand on the beach, but no traces of the Great White Movement. Politics take time and money, and who cares about it if you work from dawn to dusk to feed your family and have no time even to play solitaire?

  Every week, Pasha and Glasha went to shady meetings to listen to speakers who called on the youngsters to return to the Soviet Union. “You’re just wasting your youth in China,” they asserted, “but in the USSR, you’ll go to an institute. They’ll teach you to become an engineer or a dentist.”

  This, Makar supposed, was pie in the sky, but the girls needed to get married. There were very few decent bachelors in Shanghai. The Russian men were either unemployed or drunk. But rich foreigners were no better. Those Englishmen, for instance, would promise a girl a life of luxury and then scarper away. Treachery was in their nature: they swore to help the White Army, but decided to step aside as soon as they smelled trouble. They even let the Reds kill the Emperor, who was blood relative to half of the European monarchs.

  Sometimes Makar was in doubt: maybe the communists were not such savages after all? What if a decent communist came up, who never touched drink and had a stable occupation, say, a cobbler or a locksmith? Then why not become relatives? But first, he should show respect, do it all properly and send a matchmaker. Then he’d come round himself and talk about some clever topics mentioned i
n the newspapers, say, a revolt in Bessarabia. Then Makar would give him his blessing, “Choose, good fellow, any daughter, whoever you’d like better.”

  But Maria didn’t even want to hear about the communist suitors: neither for herself, nor for the twins. No one could disobey her, because she’d inherited her mother’s temperament, God bless her soul.

  That’s how they lived, the Zaborovs, little by little making some kind of a living. Makar fixed the equipment at an ice-cream factory. He would bring his daughters presents: ginger ice-cream, with nuts or fruit syrup. Pasha and Glasha went to work at a tea company and Maria washed patients and changed the dressings on their wounds in the General Hospital.

  She also went to the meetings, but of a different kind. Makar understood why she had a longing for them. Sometimes such respectable bachelors showed up, Makar felt like standing attention if front of them.

  Maybe, Maria’s face was not a work of beauty, but she could impress with her smarts. “We will be acting in the following directions,” she would say, her eyes bright and fiery. “We’ll divide our enemies and put them at odds with each other. We’ll instill fear into them and a thought of their inevitable defeat. We’ll turn the neutral citizens into sympathizers and then into fascists. That’s how our organization will gain influence and eventually seize power.”

  Her friends, many of them gentlemen, would applaud her with respect. What a daughter I have! Makar would think proudly.

  But anyway, it was no good letting her go into men’s company by herself. If she wanted to show off in front of them, she could go, but only with her daddy.

  4.

  Before the next meeting, Maria said, “You stay at home, Daddy. Your loose tongue will blab out everything you hear. We’re discussing very dangerous matters.”

  Oh darling daughter, who is there to talk to in our boarding house? Makar sighed to himself. On one side we have the Chinese, at the top—Japanese, the mistress—Madam Penelope is either a Greek or a Gypsy, or some other nationality. You greet them with Russian zdravstvuite, and they give you an empty stare in reply.

  And don’t talk about danger—police wouldn’t waste gas on you, to drive all the way on motorcycles to arrest you. I say this not to degrade you, but to encourage you to think with your clever head.

  In the end they went to the meeting together. The owner of the apartment was Captain Prosilkin, a bearded fellow, with a sense of humor.

  “Now I work as a cemetery watchman,” he explained to Makar. “When I was young I dreamed of rising to the rank of general and having an army corps under my command. Now I’m a corpse commander. But neither I nor my subordinates complain of the situation.”

  He had a huge purple bump on his forehead. Interesting: who had dared to hit such a good man? But it was awkward to ask—maybe it’s an intimate matter?

  Colonel Gorokhov arrived, another great man, but with such a muzzle—God forbid! Either it was grapeshot that hurt him so badly, or he was tortured in the Red’s prison. In a word—not a marriageable candidate.

  Gorokhov said he was delivering Russian newspapers and even thought up a rhyming slogan,

  Hey, hurry up people,

  pick up your pace,

  Trotsky will soon

  look like my face!”

  People sympathized—sales went up.

  Then two others appeared: one was phone operator Kobets and another—Baron Sherikh. But nobody called him baron anymore: now he worked as a pharmacist on Avenue Foch. Altogether there were twelve people including the owner of the apartment.

  The Captain offered his companion-in-arms cups of tea with no sugar. Maria stood up with such an air—a minister, no less.

  “Our ranks suffered irretrievable losses,” she said. “Our dear Nazar had a baptism of fire with a bullet in his leg. He was interrogated in the hospital by police, but didn’t rat on anyone. We managed to get him out to a safe place.”

  Who is she talking about? Makar thought. The guests’ faces were somber, like at a funeral.

  Maria went on to the agenda. First, she reported an important ideological event: the devastation of the sculptor Karsitsky’s studio. The treacherous artist accepted the order from the Soviet Consul General to remodel the bas-relief on the consulate building.

  Then, glancing at her notes, Maria spoke of the power of statehood and of the God-bearing people of Russia. Noble officers were listening, smoking roll-ups.

  Then they sang a song quietly, Our Dearest Nation Gave Us a Sign.

  Makar also sang, even though he was worried he would forget the words. But it went well. Baron Sherikh even praised him and paid Maria a compliment, “It’s very good you involve your father. We should start agitation work among the common folks.”

  For the whole hour, they debated on what to do with some woman, either Nina or Neina. From what he heard, Makar worked out she was the one to blame in Nazar’s misfortune. They never did decide what to do, though.

  “We need more tea, but the boiling water’s all finished,” Maria said. “Dad, let’s go and bring some from a tavern.”

  The Captain protested, “I’ll go myself, you’re my guests.”

  But Maria didn’t bulge, “Everyone brought something to the table and we arrived empty-handed.”

  Makar and his daughter went down the street to find some boiling water; but were delayed by the owner of a tavern who wasn’t keen to lend a kettle, asking for something in pledge. When they returned, there was nobody in the apartment. The neighbor’s little boy, also Russian, said the police had arrested everyone.

  5.

  Hugh Wayer marched down a dim prison corridor, his cane echoing on the stone floor. He was followed by two scurrying assistants and a prison warden who bowed constantly.

  “They went on a hunger strike,” one of the assistants was reporting. “They demand to hold an official investigation of their case.”

  “Russians?” Hugh asked, wincing. The smell of unwashed bodies, piss cans and bad food was nauseating. The days he had to visit prison cells always ended in a migraine.

  “Yes, they are Russians,” the warden confirmed. “The report on them was signed by Felix Rodionov, also a Russian.”

  The day before, Hugh had received a note from a trusted informant that the Municipal Council was going to inspect city jails to reduce expenses on penitentiary organizations. The prison administration was in a panic: they had too many people imprisoned through private requests of officials and merchants. There was no need to worry about the Chinese, they didn’t know English and wouldn’t complain to the inspectors. But the whites were a different matter.

  Hugh looked through a peek-hole at the Russians stuffed in the tiny dim cell, “How many?”

  “Ten, sir.”

  “What’s the reason for the arrest?”

  The warden pulled some papers out of his pocket. “There’s something strange... it’s seems they’re political offenders, but here, it’s written a blackmailing attempt. The investigation hasn’t started, though.”

  Hugh turned to his assistants, “Interrogate them and report back to me in an hour.”

  Felix Rodionov explained the situation. Yes, he had arrested the Russians for a valid reason. These gentlemen were fascists who had recently made a raid on Nina Kupina’s office, wanting money. One of the gang members, Nazar, had been stalking her for a sometime and found she had large amounts of Chinese calendars in her storage. The fascists decided the dame had funds to share and made an attempt on her. It was not the fascists’ first action—they went after any Russians who they believed had betrayed the White Movement. This group recently destroyed the sculptor Karsitsky’s studio. The victims never complained as they were afraid of charges connecting them with the Bolsheviks, and rightly so: there would be an investigation, interrogations and court hearings—a big hassle when you have no proper citizenship. Unfortunately, Nazar had escaped and they hadn’t been able to find him to ask more questions.

  “Why didn’t you write a proper report?”
roared Hugh.

  Felix looked him boldly in the eyes. “I didn’t have time, sir. You said the priority should be on Comintern surveillance and recruiting new agents.”

  “Then, why the hell did you get involved in this criminal matter? If you found out about a breach of law, you should have given it to a relevant department.”

  Hugh stopped short as he suddenly remembered a telegram from his son. Robert was in Hong Kong and would be back in Shanghai in a week’s time.

  “Go, Rodionov,” said Hugh and changed his tone, “Remember, it’s your last warning.”

  One of inspectors from Drug Enforcement Division appeared in Wayer’s office fifteen minutes later. Hugh asked for an update of his work and mentioned in passing, “I have information that a large amount of opium is hidden in a storeroom rented to Nina Kupina. Send your fellows around and search the place.”

  “Do I have to find something?” the inspector asked.

  Hugh weighed the pros and cons. “Not necessarily. But look carefully. The storage is full of paper produce—maybe something is hidden between the sheets. Don’t worry about mess. If you don’t find anything, apologize for the destruction.” Hugh stressed the last word. “And invite the lady to visit me—to complain.”

  When the inspector left, Hugh initiated a criminal case against the Russian fascists for an attack on the sculptor’s studio—to make sure they wouldn’t make a noise about having been detained for so many days without reason.

  CHAPTER 44

  AN UNHAPPY MARRIAGE

  1.

  Klim pressed the button and an electric doorbell rang.

  “It’s open!”

  Nina was standing in the corridor near the telephone. She wore a green silk dress with gold tassels on the belt.

  “You?” she gasped, but immediately turned her attention to the voice on the receiver. “Hello, I’m here!”

  Klim looked at her like a soldier returning from the front. I wish you knew how much I missed you.

  “Hello!” she raised her voice. “I can’t hear, repeat, please.” Nina turned awkwardly and hit her elbow against a shelf. “Oh damn! Yes… yes…” And suddenly frightened, she exclaimed, “Do nothing without me! I’m coming over.”