White Shanghai

by Elvira Baryakina

  Nina shielded her eyes from the sun and watched the seagulls.

  “The main rules of the flock are to keep away from anything unknown and to do what those closest do,” Daniel explained.

  Nina nodded. “And we’re lone eagles, who can’t stand flocks bigger than two birds.”

  She offered him a share in her security agency, explaining she needed a partner.

  Daniel searched for the right words not to hurt her, but she took his pause as a doubt and started to convince him that everything was ready: Colonel Lazarev had found the necessary people, Binbin had helped with clients, and Tamara loaned some money.

  Then why do you need me? Daniel wanted to ask. But it was clear: Nina wanted to attach him to herself, at least with a business partnership. This would give her the right to see him, stay one-on-one and be a foolproof excuse for any bastard who dares to look at them suspiciously.

  Tender, strong, impossible and stunning, Daniel thought of Nina. How was he going to explain that her ways were not for him? She was certain that she lived outside the flock, but in reality she strived for the same things all people do. Daniel wasn’t one of them, he’s a creature of a different kind.

  He told her he was going away soon—for a long time.

  “Take me with!” Nina pleaded.

  “No.”

  “Why on earth?” Because a kitsune is always a succubus, a demon-woman who gives you wings, entrances you and, in return, sucks out your soul to bring you under her will.

  Never receiving an answer, Nina lowered her head. “It’s time to go back.”

  Daniel drove his automobile on an uneven country road. Nina sat next to him, dispirited, grasping the door handle every time the car jolted on a bump. The evil Chinese sun bit her hands and cheeks. Her locks flowed out from her hat and showered down her shoulders.

  Daniel felt she was leaving him, slipping from beneath his fingers. Ada’s image appeared in his mind: a wonderful girl, something real to dream about. But Nina, with all her energy and barely contained fury, smashed Ada’s image to pieces.

  Daniel did the right thing. He’d made his choice long ago. With Ada, it was still possible to create what was necessary. She was supple and pliant material.

  Now his kitsune will leave his car and disappear forever.

  Nina had brought him books of poetry, performed a shadow theater for him, deftly making figures from what was at hand. She told him old parables, Russian and Chinese or everything mixed together, and made them very funny. She gave him a Japanese Daruma doll for making wishes—the round papier-mâché creature with white eyes and no legs or hands. When you make a wish, you draw one pupil in its eye: if the wish comes true then you draw another pupil in the other eye. If the wish is not granted, then you burn the doll in a temple and replace it with a new one. Nina also had a Daruma on her table. It was not hard to guess what she held dear when making her wish.

  Nina led security men, read books in three languages, sang Russian songs—so beautiful and plaintive. Behind her ear, she wore a sophisticated comb made out of glass-beaded flowers. The shoulder straps of her camisole showed through her silk dress.

  Daniel will have none of this anymore.

  “Take me home,” Nina whispered.

  He glanced at her, clenching his teeth. “We’re going to my house now.”

  She understood, became quiet, frightened.

  Insanity, complete madness—here it was…

  Daniel stopped the car on the drive way, got out, grabbed Nina by her hand and almost forcefully took her to the porch. He threw open the door, saying, “Come.”

  Nina froze looking over his shoulder into the corridor.

  Daniel turned back and saw Edna, her sister Lissie and that Russian journalist he couldn’t remember the name of.

  4.

  Hi, Mom:

  This is your son, Klim, writing to you. I saw how Edna writes letters to her mother when she has no one to talk to. So, I’m writing, too.

  Do you know where I am? Who with?

  Nina is sleeping behind my back. A mosquito net draped around her like a misty veil. I look at her and can’t see the face of my woman, only her dark silhouette on a white sheet, a thawed patch on the snow. She’s a cutout shape in paper when the drawing is created by something that doesn’t exist, by missing details.

  Mom, my knee, my heart and plans are broken. I returned to Nina. Now I’m sitting behind her table, writing a letter on the reverse side of her papers and guarding my dear trophy.

  I’ll tell you everything as it was. The sister-journalists, Edna and Lissie, brought me to the Bernards. We entered the house and saw Nina in the company of Edna’s husband.

  I can still see all our faces. Edna’s eyes rolled-up and her spouse looking embarrassed like a schoolboy, poor Lissie, Nina and me. Nina was the first one to come over and say to me, “Your knee is covered in blood. Let’s go, lick our wounds.”

  She has a new house in the French Concession. Everything is much simpler as there are now no traces of that Czechoslovakian Consulate affair. I told Nina that I’m leaving Shanghai. Police, Bolsheviks and bandits—I’m tired of it all, but especially of our one- way love.

  Mom, I still don’t believe what happened. After all, I caught her in that Czech’s arms…

  “You don’t have to leave,” she told me. “There was nothing between Daniel and me. There will be nothing. I wanted to offer him a business partnership, but he didn’t accept. He’s going away for a long time.”

  Mom, we talked all night, like in the good old days. Nina managed to sell the pornographic drawings to the Catholic Church. She’s become the boss of a security agency. Her brave fellows are keeping the peace by guarding cinemas, studios and escorting high-ranking children to school.

  We used to have no future, now we have no past. We’re old veterans from opposing sides in trench warfare. Someone started playing the harmonica on my side and they caught up the tune in the enemy trenches. It turned out that everything we were doing to each other over the years was not necessary. It was like the fraternization of soldiers I read about in the newspaper not too long ago.

  “We’re a fungus and an orchid,” Nina said. “We need to accept that we can’t be similar. Two funguses or two flowers don’t make a couple, but an orchard and a fungus do.”

  I don’t know what happened to her, where she got these thoughts from, but I agreed to be an orchid. We signed a declaration of independence. We don’t plan each other’s career and order each other’s days. We don’t give a damn about what others think of us. We agreed to be funny and not prestigious. We understand that personal happiness won’t suddenly fall on us, it has to be built stone by stone.

  Mom, Katya is now Kitty! She’s accepted me. Maybe she even recognized me? She is a year and three months old and doesn’t like skins on milk.

  Mom, we’re going to be just fine. I’m falling asleep. I’m going to bed with my wife. If you catch up with God over there, in the sky, hug him and kiss his beard.

  CHAPTER 51

  THE GENERAL STRIKE

  1.

  The world newspapers headlines read:

  The Nanking Road massacre claimed the lives of thirteen students with dozens more injured.

  More than two hundred thousand Chinese are on general strike.

  The foreign concessions have neither electricity nor phone services.

  Marines are ashore. The mobilization of the Volunteer Corps has been announced.

  Daniel flew over the city in his airplane.

  “Shanghai is dead,” he said to Edna. “Just an incredible feeling: you fly over the streets and there’s not a soul there.”

  Edna’s soul was dead, too. Daniel had claimed Nina Kupina was visiting on business. Was it true? Edna wanted to talk to Klim, he would know the truth. But how could she get to him? The Chinese garage owners had stopped selling petrol, trams didn’t run and rickshaw boys refused to carry white people.

  Everyone was sitting at home, stewing in t
he unknown.

  Mr. Green, Edna’s editor-in-chief and neighbor, visited to tell her that the strike had been planned a long time ago; the shooting of students was only the catalyst. The strike fund had gathered money across the whole of China; they needed a huge sum to persuade the Shanghai employees to refuse work. Warlords, merchants and governmental bureaucrats, all who previously lined their pockets with western bribes, began making donations. Overnight they become patriots, despite the fact that the wealth of every second one of them depended on cooperation with foreigners.

  Vicious rumors traveled from house to house: Peasants had stoned several white people.

  “My friend is a war doctor,” Mr. Green said to Edna. “He was called for identification of the corpses.”

  The doctor told Mr. Green that instigators in every village distribute leaflets and put up billboards. The Bolsheviks provide everything they need.

  Edna would have felt better if her sister was with her, but Daniel refused to lend her money for Flappers, so Lissie returned to Robert. Edna hadn’t heard from her since.

  “Why didn’t you help her?” Edna shouted at Daniel. “I’ve explained to you, she has an unbearable situation at home!”

  “If she was in physical danger, I would have helped,” he replied. “But her unbearable situation is right here,” he pointed to his forehead.

  Daniel allowed the servants’ families into the house. It was very unstable in the Chinese City: revolutionaries were pillaging houses and did whatever they liked.

  All corners of Yun’s kitchen glittered with dozens of children’s eyes, their mothers sat nearby, some almost girls themselves.

  Every time they saw Edna they would jump and bow, pressing their palms together.

  “They are my nieces,” Yun said, introducing them one by one to the mistress.

  Edna looked at their shiny black plaits, high collar bands and tiny little hooves.

  “Where are your husbands?” she asked.

  One was pregnant and could speak English. “They are in the army,” she said.

  Edna felt uncomfortable with them watching her like she was some mystical bird from a fairy tale. Suppressing her feelings, she ordered tea. “I’d like to stay here with you for a little while.” After all, this place wasn’t as empty as the living quarters upstairs.

  All the women worked at a match factory; they didn’t go to work because no one else did. Even if they wanted to, there would be nothing for them to do. They supported the strike in the hope their foremen would treat them better.

  “We are sorry for all these hardships you suffer because of us,” said pregnant Qiu Ju. “In fact, we like kind foreigners, it’s just—” She became embarrassed and blushed.

  “Ask her about Li Lisan, Miss Edna,” grumped Yun. “He’s the man on the trade unions there. Why are you silent, Qiu Ju? You’re the clever one, aren’t you? Two years you ate through your parent’s money in university. What did this rascal Li promise you?”

  A rueful smile appeared on Qiu Ju’s lips. She and her sisters belonged to a different world, a world that was at war with Edna’s. No one wanted to harm anyone; everyone just wanted the best for themselves and their families. That’s why Qiu Ju and her relatives were hiding in the enemy’s house.

  “Are you from America?” she asked.

  Edna nodded. “From San Francisco.”

  “Do you have factories there?”

  “Yes, we do. And we have a China Town too: that’s the area where the Chinese live.”

  The women gathered around the table to listen as Qiu Ju translated.

  “Is it true that in Europe and America, they have special things not to have children if you don’t want to?” they asked.

  “Why do foreigners have huge scary hounds, when they could have song-birds and beautiful little dogs?”

  “What do you think is better: to have official concubines like here or secret lovers like foreigners have?”

  2.

  Daniel had a hiding place on the lower shelf of his wardrobe. It was locked in a way that it looked like protection from his nimble little niece, Brittany. Everything he needed for tomorrow was ready there. Ada graciously said yes and promised not to be surprised by anything.

  Once again, Daniel went through all the items packed in his yellow gripsack and made sure he didn’t forget anything. He locked the door and lay on a sofa. Mucha came up, claws clattering on the parquet floor. Daniel stroked the bony back of his head.

  A servant knocked. “Master, Missy’s calling for you.”

  “Tell her I’m asleep.”

  Daniel wanted to spend the whole night with his expectations. The stuffiness of the spousal bedroom should not tarnish his good mood.

  He fiddled with the netsuke given to him by Nina. After all, it saved him and he hadn’t fallen into the forbidden. Run, little fox kitsune, run, cover your tracks with your tail. You have your own charmed life and

  Daniel Bernard has his own.

  In the morning, as arranged, Daniel drove up to Ada’s house and signaled three times. After five long minutes, she appeared. The old Filipina women in the backyard followed her with amazed stares.

  Daniel started the engine.

  “Where are we going?” Ada asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  She put a lolly into her mouth. Daniel glanced at the sharp outlines of her knees under her rumpled skirt, at the bulging lolly under her soft peachy cheek, at the smooth rim of her ear. With her left palm, she supported the elbow of her right arm and Daniel could only just stop himself from laughing. She looked so similar to the traditional Japanese sculpture of the cat Maneki Neko who invites good luck!

  Two days ago on this very seat sat a little fox kitsune, Daniel thought. And to both enchanting ladies I’m the Chinese symbol of prosperity, the three-legged Money Toad Chan Chu, resting on a pile of coins. We have a whole Asian souvenir store here.

  “Why are you laughing?” Ada asked, surprised.

  “Nothing…”

  She felt uncomfortable about the secrecy of their trip. She wriggled on her seat, pulled her neckband and constantly turned around.

  “How long do you think the strike will last?” she asked, when they stopped at a crossroad.

  There were dozens of handmade political cartoons on the fence: a fat Englishman in a top hat telling police to fire on a crowd of factory workers. Close to him was a sly gentleman with slanted eyes, most likely Japanese, who pulled threads attached to Chinese warlord puppets.

  A road officer swung his bamboo baton and Daniel hit the gas.

  “Why do you care how long the strike lasts?”

  Ada looked warily at him. “Don’t you think about it?”

  “I think about you.”

  She wanted to return the comment with a barb, but couldn’t come up with anything witty enough.

  The wheels swished on gravel and the wing of a plane flashed from behind the hedge.

  “What is it?” Ada asked.

  Daniel turned towards the gates. “Open,” he ordered a watchman who stood to attention.

  He drove the car near a runway field stopping next to a row of airplanes covered in canvas sheets.

  Daniel helped Ada out. She stared with the eyes of a child who stole behind a circus curtain.

  “Are we going to watch airplanes?” she whispered.

  Daniel struggled to keep his serious tone. “Did you want to learn to fly in your childhood?”

  She scurried behind him, her heels sinking into the damp ground. “What if it falls out of the sky? What speed does it fly?”

  The watchmen lifted the canvas off the Avro and wheeled it out onto the runway.

  “The weather is great today,” one of them said, cheerfully looking at Ada.

  She was almost dancing on the spot, touching the fuselage of the plane. “Is it alright that it’s so hot in the sun?”

  The poor, but proud little girl has already forgotten mommy’s warnings that they’re all the same and her own inten
tions to show this womanizer his place.

  “But I have nothing to change into,” Ada said. “I’ve read in one book it’s freezing up there and you can catch a cold in no time.”

  Daniel took a leather coat and a helmet out of his yellow gripsack.

  “Wow!” Ada gasped. “You’ve got everything ready.”

  He helped her into the cabin.

  “Do I look like an alien from Mars?” she asked, putting on her goggles. “My God, I’m about to fly in the sky!”

  Those who lived below would never understand the contrast of sun and blueness compared to the flat dusty ground; up here was the real world.

  The smoggy city spread under the plane like an addict wreathed in opium smolder, seeing dreams that only seemed to be true. But in reality there was nothing—neither war, nor strikes. Wind and blueness enveloped Daniel’s face, and behind him lost in the roar of the engine, the little girl Ada was trilling with happy laughter.

  3.

  Suzhou. Channels with black-green water, humped bridges, weeping willows and ancient roofs with sharp corners turned up to the sky.

  Ada, weak from excitement, sat in the prow of a boat near Daniel.

  They looked on white walled houses and steps ran from doors straight down to the water. A boatman in the stern effortlessly steered the boat with a polished oar.

  “This city is the same age as Confucius: almost two and a half thousand years old,” Daniel told Ada. “Long ago, it used to be the capital of the state of Wu. From time immemorial it has been praised for its beauties.”

  Ada noticed an old woman, rinsing linen in the canal. “Like her?” Daniel smiled, shaking his head. “Not really.” He motioned to Ada’s reflection in water, “Like her.”

  She laughed. “But I’m not Chinese!”

  “It’s not important, Ada. You know there is a piece of poetry:

  Soft lilac twilight. I’m alone.

  The golden lanterns float in the sky.

  Again I’ll stay awake till dawn

  and will be watching boats gliding by.

  I wish for temple bells to sing you song

  about my beating heart that is so nigh.

  Ada brushed it off, “Don’t be silly. You’re not going to leave your wife and business because of me: you’ll lose money.”