White Shanghai

by Elvira Baryakina

  If you put a good apple in a basket of rot, pretty soon it’ll become covered with mould. I should get out of the police, Felix thought for the hundredth time, but where to?

  2.

  What a house Robert Wayer has!

  Felix and Collor put on an indifferent air, but neither of them could help casting glances at the portraits and bronze statues. There was a carved table with colorful inlays in the living room, without doubt imported from Europe. The two vases on the table were as big as horse heads—all silver. The wall-to-wall carpet was so thick that your feet sunk up to the ankles.

  Collor couldn’t resist himself and muttered inaudibly, “Bastards.”

  Lissie Wayer appeared and Johnny choked on his words, confronted with such beauty. She greeted them politely, strengthened her dress and sat down.

  Collor frowned, unaccustomed to interrogating such subjects. He showed her his badge and got down to business. “A woman works in your house called Hobu—”

  Mrs. Wayer interrupted him, “Does my father-in-law know you’re visiting?”

  Collor shook his head. “No, we came unofficially. We have information that Hobu is from the same village as the dangerous communist, Li Tianbao. We decided not to inform Mr. Wayer we would be talking to you. He’s a bit tied up after the massacre of the students and we don’t want to upset him anymore.”

  Mrs. Wayer lowered her head. “I understand.”

  “All white people should act together now; otherwise the strike will bankrupt us all. Is Hobu also on strike?”

  “No, she’s here.”

  A young white lady with a short hair appeared at the door. Mrs. Wayer beckoned her in, “Ada, could you please call Hobu?”

  The girl nodded and disappeared. Felix instantly recognized her: he’d definitely noticed her among the refugees in Gensan. She’s found a pretty good place to work, he thought.

  A minute later, Ada returned with a Chinese woman in a European style gray dress.

  “Hobu, these gentlemen would like to talk to you,” Mrs. Wayer said. “Ada, go and mind the child, please.”

  Collor asked Hobu questions, writing notes as she spoke.

  “No, I don’t know a person named Li Tianbao,” the nanny replied examining her nails. “No, I don’t have relatives. I never lived in that village. I was brought up in a convent.”

  Collor smiled ironically. “Your feet are bound. Did the nuns care for you like that?”

  “I became an orphan when I was five—my feet were already bound,” countered Hobu. “After that I was sent to the convent orphanage.”

  Mrs. Wayer was smoking, casting a black shadow on the wall; her mouthpiece looked like a reed pipe.

  “Can you confirm this woman’s words?” Collor asked her.

  She nodded. “Yes, of course. I wanted a Christian nanny for my daughter. Hobu is very devout and has no idea about communists.”

  Johnny stood up. “Let’s go,” he called to Felix. “Thank you for your time.”

  On the way out, he dropped his file, papers flew everywhere, and Hobu helped to gather them.

  “Here are your notes, sir,” she said.

  3.

  Outside, Collor spent a while trying to start his motorcycle. It just wouldn’t go. He kicked the wheel and, exasperated, sat on the ground.

  “What do you think?” he asked after a pause.

  “About who?” Felix answered, still thinking about Ada.

  “About Mrs. Wayer. The lady is sheltering her servant. I bet Hobu never went to a convent. Have you seen the string around her neck?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Usually, the Chinese use them to wear a jade Buddha or Guan Yin. I dropped my file on purpose. When Hobu started picking up papers her pendant fell out from her dress. She’s a Buddhist.”

  Felix listened as he sat on his dream motorcycle. The rickshaw he used to whistle for had now found employment serving the police typewriting girls.

  “But it doesn’t mean Hobu has connections with the communists,” Felix said.

  Collor shook his head. “It means Hobu and her mistress are lying. It’s interesting, why do they do it? Maybe they just don’t want problems, thinking they can bullshit the police and it will all go away. Maybe it’s not that simple…”

  4.

  Lissie was standing near an open window watching Hobu play with Brittany in her sandpit.

  “I’m not putting on your sunhat, Missy,” she could hear the nanny’s voice. “I look stupid in it.”

  The fear of looking embarrassing—it’s so human. How difficult it was to accept that Chinese servants are also people with their own pride, interests and secret lives hidden from their masters’ eyes. You know it’s true, but your heart refuses to believe it. It’s easy to feel compassion for those who look like you, who feel what you feel. That’s probably why news about floods and mass epidemics in Chinese cities go unnoticed by whites as if these were articles about insects.

  Lissie was sure Hobu knew the communist—her lies were too awkward. Nevertheless, the woman was devoted to Brittany and she’d taken a blow to protect her mistress from Hugh. She didn’t even go on strike like everyone else. But could Lissie trust her? What did she really know about Hobu?

  What did she really know about anyone? Klim Rogov turned out to be the father of the girl Robert ran over. Now he would never help her with her magazine even if she had the money. Mr. Bernard, a distinguished person who spent more on charity than anyone else in Shanghai, had also refused to help her. Where had his kind-heartedness disappeared to? Or maybe it was all Edna’s doing? Who knows what she said to her husband? A little vengeance from big sister: You’re not like me, Lissie, you won’t get anywhere. Edna had never hesitated to point this out in their childhood.

  Robert began coming back from the office later and later, and Lissie was sure she could smell opium smoke on him. He used to wolf down his food, but lately he grimly poked his plate, lost in thoughts.

  “The police were here,” Lissie said. “Detectives suspect Hobu is connected with communists.”

  Robert was silent. Sauce dripped down his knife onto the tablecloth.

  “Then you shouldn’t have argued with my father,” he said dully. “We have problems. If you accepted the bracelet, we could have put it in as a pledge. You could have sold your non-existent magazine for a good price.”

  Dessert was served.

  “I met Nina Kupina in the street,” Robert continued. “She’s now under Fessenden’s protection, even Father can’t touch her. This lady helped us all: she found more than nine hundred Russians to work in the municipal factories. God knows I don’t wish her evil, although she haunts me.”

  Robert didn’t hear what Lissie said.

  “I want a divorce,” she uttered firmly.

  He just smiled in reply. “You can’t leave. Dockers are on strike, chauffeurs are on strike. You can’t return to your mother: motorboats don’t take white passengers—you won’t even get to a steamer. The Municipal Council is trying to turn up its nose with these Russians, but eventually we’ll have to swallow our pride and bow and scrape before the Chinese. So be polite with the servants. If a revolution starts, maybe Hobu will hide us from a furious crowd?”

  CHAPTER 54

  JEALOUSY

  1.

  In the Chairman’s office were a long table and a world map filling an entire wall. On his bookshelves, like in the cabinets of a good pharmacy, were cures for any political ailment. Three telephone apparatuses. Portraits of the American president, British king, Italian duce and Japanese emperor.

  Sterling Fessenden, the head of the Municipal Council, was simple and gallant to those he considered in his flock. Several days ago, Nina was infinitely far from his circle even though she knew his buddies Tony Aulman and Daniel Bernard. Now, she visited Sterling every day to have passionate discussions about the Russian question, the organization of labor employment offices and meetings with managers of factories.

  Out of nowhere, the forme
r Russian consul appeared and claimed that, as a head of the Russian Emigrant Committee in Shanghai, he, not Ms. Kupina, should negotiate the employment of the refugees.

  Nina didn’t object. She’d got what she wanted; she didn’t need unemployed ragamuffins, but Sterling Fessenden, a person who could help her with her license, a person who could destroy Klim’s file in the police records, a person who promised to find out whether she could obtain an American passport without quotas and without entering the USA.

  A fine-tuned game in finding similarities began: Sterling, I believe in the same things you do. Nina used to think up plots for balls and dress-up parties, now she imagined stratagems for business dates with Mr. Fessenden.

  “He likes American football,” she told Klim. “It seems I’m the only woman in all Shanghai who can discuss the Chicago Cardinals with him. I’ve read everything possible about the team.”

  It all puzzled Klim. “I think Mr. Fessenden is just flattered that you run after him, and you’re flattered that he allows you to do it.”

  “Ungrateful bore,” Nina laughed and kissed Klim’s lips.

  2.

  A dog breeder brought Nina two puppies from a Russian wolfhound. She lifted them to her face; their eyes watching her sweetly as their long paws swung and tails pummeled the air. Their owner, an old hunter who used to serve Princes Golitsyns back in Russia, claimed that without dogs a lady’s house is not complete.

  Nina was thinking which one to take. Or should she just take both? She was imagining how lovely she would look walking them on a short double leash.

  Binbin arrived and as she waited impatiently for the dog breeder to leave, she pulled her gloves off and put them on again.

  She couldn’t wait any longer and said, “We need to discus something.”

  “Talk,” Nina replied, playing with the puppies. “This person doesn’t speak English.”

  “You helped Fessenden to hire Russian strikebreakers? I’ve been told everything.”

  “Who?”

  “You, the whites, don’t notice the Chinese servants, but they notice everything.”

  Such a temper, such a look, as if it was Binbin worked at a power station and had just lost her job.

  “I’ve helped my countrymen to find work. Does that change anything?” Nina asked.

  Binbin threw her glove on the floor.

  “It changes everything! Students were killed, and no one was punished. We have only one opportunity to influence imperialists and it’s a strike! And you…you have no morals!”

  One of the puppies growled at Binbin. Nina patted its back. “It’s okay, cutie, it’s okay…”

  The dog breeder smiled—a person who didn’t want to witness an argument.

  Nina turned to Binbin, ready to say, Who are you to tell me what to do? But she stopped herself. As Nina had immersed herself in her security business, Binbin managed the studio all on her own. She was posing, translating and advertising in Chinese newspapers. Plus she’d introduced Nina to her first clients who needed bodyguards. She protected her when the bandits attacked her.

  But Binbin skimmed the cream off the sales and left Nina without means. And now she had suddenly remembered about morals.

  “So what do you want from me?” Nina uttered in a dry voice.

  “When the strike started, I persuaded our artists to keep working. After all, you’re not an American or British. But you—”

  “So you’re allowed to stick up for your people, and I am not?”

  Binbin stood tall and pursed her lips. “There is a conflict of interest. I’m leaving and Guo as well. I think the others will also support us.”

  “As you wish.”

  Nina didn’t take the puppies.

  “Binbin used me,” she raged to Klim that evening, “She got the money and then invented a reason to do a runner. She knows that I don’t care about politics. All I wanted was a license and citizenship.”

  Nina felt betrayed. She’d forgiven Binbin a much bigger fault and now Binbin didn’t even want to understand her.

  “I won’t be surprised if there is cash shortfall,” Nina kept saying. “I bet Binbin pocketed the money she scrounged off the actresses.”

  She spent the whole of the next day sorting out ledgers and comparing signatures on receipts. But everything was in order.

  The studio was shut down: Nina had neither the time or desire to deal with it.

  3.

  “I wouldn’t have judged Binbin too hard,” Tamara said. “Chinese people have a much more developed team spirit then we do. Especially you. You’re a total individualist, that’s why you can’t understand her patriotic urges. The word nation will always mean to Binbin more then friendship.”

  This didn’t placate Nina. “What did this nation give her? According to its laws she should have been the young wife of some fat caveman. Everything she has, everything she is as a person is all a gift from our civilization.”

  Tamara stroked Nina’s arm, hot and dry.

  “Let’s not talk about that. You want to hear some news? Tony was appointed consul of Mexico. Isn’t it funny? He’s a citizen of the United States, but the Mexican government is interested in buying green bacon from China and they need someone to look after the trade deals.”

  “Now you’re going to sell champagne yourself?” Nina chuckled.

  “I doubt it. But I’m glad we have consular status. It could come in useful one of these days.”

  Nina congratulated her and hurried home. “I promised Klim to be back at five.”

  “Say hello from me. Is everything well with you two?”

  “Yes.”

  Nina stretched to pick her purse off the floor.

  Tamara paused, thinking, Should I tell her or not? She wished the best for her darling friend and wanted her to realize that sins are different and some really shouldn’t be forgiven.

  “I almost forgot to tell you one secret.”

  Nina looked intrigued. “Which one?”

  “Before Daniel Bernard left, he asked my husband to help him with some documents. He gave an airplane to Adelaida Raisa Marshall, a governess for his niece.”

  Silence.

  “What kind of airplane?” Nina finally managed to utter.

  “An Avro-504.”

  What Tamara saw in Nina’s gray-green aventurine eyes scared her. “Have a good evening,” Nina said, barely containing her icy fury.

  4.

  Dear Mom:

  It’s me again, your son Klim.

  Nina turned up today asking where Ada was.

  She said Daniel Bernard and Ada were lovers and he’d given her an airplane. So, Ada has finally found her prince.

  Nina even came to the House of Hope, but didn’t find anyone there. Poor little Ada, if she happened to be home, she’d have been murdered on the spot.

  My woman is so jealous of another man. She threw her Daruma doll into the oven, the one with one painted eye pupil: it seems her wish didn’t come true.

  She didn’t consider it necessary to keep it a secret from me. to keep it a secret from me. She’s insulted that a present, totally useless for her, fell to another of Daniel’s sweethearts.

  What to do? Steal Kitty and run? Attempt number a hundred and fifty? Or I have to persuade Nina about how good I am again? Try to prove to her that if she gets a grip of Mr. Bernard then her destiny won’t differ much from Edna’s? He would betray her in the same way, because he’s capable of betrayal.

  Goodness gracious, what am I talking about? It’s all clear: Mr. Bernard gives airplanes and it’s completely shadows the fact that he cheats on his wife and seduces a juvenile chick? Scale always distorts the meaning. Killing millions is not killing, but an act of grandeur. Mediocrity written in huge letters, especially if it’s carved in stone, deserves to be read. A high-society bastard deserves to be loved; any ardent feelings toward him are not a pompous triviality, but unfading passion.

  It’s as old as the hills, though I’m amazed as if I’ve just open
ed my eyes.

  But maybe it’s all for the best? When our train was going across the taiga, train drivers kept blackmailing us: “Get some vodka— the train will go, no vodka—we won’t move.” While I was running around the station looking for some home-brew, another train passed. Later, we discovered rains had washed the tracks away and the train that passed before us had plunged from a bridge into a mountain river. Almost all the passengers died.

  You know what I mean, Mom? Maybe it only seems that it’s all over?

  CHAPTER 55

  LOVE LETTERS

  1.

  Even outside the House of Hope, Klim could hear the depraved screech of the Victrola with Ada’s thin voice singing along. Carried away by the music and a little dancing, she hadn’t noticed somebody watching her through the gap in the floor hatch.

  “Klim, is it you?” Ada threw the pillow with Carlos Gardel to her bed and hurriedly lifted the needle off the Victrola. A record kept revolving with a soft rustle. Klim pulled himself through the hatch.

  “Decided to visit me, after all?” Ada uttered, battling her shyness.

  It was only then Klim realized how much she had matured. A very thin, but gracious little woman with almost no breasts. A round face, big eyes and puffy lips, as if kissed too much.

  Klim didn’t know where to start. Pain for Nina—destroying, ruining him—was now joined with the tired thought, And this one with Bernard, too.

  Ada was asking something, smiling. Her words reached Klim in patches, making no sense.

  “You mentioned your wife deals with documents. … Could she help me with an American passport? How much would it—”

  Klim interrupted, “Have you become Daniel Bernard’s lover?”

  Ada retorted, “You’re not my daddy to watch over my virtue.”

  Klim grasped her hand and by force sat her on a stool. “Do you actually understand what he’s got you into?”

  Ada tried to escape and they began screaming at each other, it took a split second to go ballistic. Only the knocking of Chen’s broom—“Calm your woman down!”—made them go quiet, breathing heavily.