White Shanghai

by Elvira Baryakina

  She cast a horrified look at the dirt-splashed motorcycle.

  “No, thank you. I don’t like how it rattles.”

  Felix was astonished, but didn’t argue.

  From then on, he accompanied Ada home by tram—Thank goodness the strike was over. The crowded tram glued them to each other; Ada was embarrassed, but at the same time happy with this forced closeness. She liked Felix: he was one of those guys who you wouldn’t feel scared to walk outside with, even at midnight.

  But talking to girls wasn’t his strength.

  “What are your masters babbling about?” Felix enquired. “Will the Municipal Council fire old Hugh or not?”

  “I don’t even want to think about him,” Ada winced. “He’s mean. Why don’t you tell me more about yourself? What’re you dreaming about?”

  “Well…hmm…”

  Will he confess that he wants to kiss me? she thought.

  “Will you laugh?” Felix asked, blushing.

  “I won’t.”

  A head taller than Ada, he held the handle on the ceiling of the tram, his worn-out cap blocking the dim lamp.

  “I read one book long ago…” he started.

  “Oh, you read?”

  “Not often. … In that book, it was about a deserted island and a seaman…”

  “Robinson Crusoe?”

  “Probably…I don’t remember the name. I want to live all alone, to test myself. Just imagine: there’s no one around in a thousand miles. If I find food, I’ll survive, if not, croak. I think I would do it, I would eat even mice.”

  Ada looked at him with eyes wide. A deserted island? Mice? What about me?

  She found it strange: he was so tall, broad-shouldered and strong— why did he become so timid in front of her? He respected her and treated her with care, as if she was not a governess, but a duchess. Since her mother died, no one looked at Ada like a miracle. Even Mr. Bernard, who saved her during the fire and spoilt her in every way, still viewed her as an inferior creature. But Felix told her he remembered her from his first glimpse.

  “You were standing on the quay with your mom: you like that, and she like this. And I…hmm…I don’t know how to say it…sort of… choked.”

  Ada was mesmerized with the fact that Felix wasn’t afraid of violence and was comfortable in his right to judge and punish. Blunt and unyielding, he didn’t doubt anything—a true sign of a dumb-head as her mother would say. But at the same time, there was a kind of romantic delight in this: to tame the beast, Ada thought, to make him eat from my palm.

  Sometimes Felix scared Ada.

  “They’ll remember us in Vladivostok,” he said. “Have you visited a café called Bih-Bah-Boh on the Svetlanskaya Street?”

  “At that time, we didn’t eat out.”

  “Really? Futurist-coke-heads had meetings there every Thursday. On May 20, 1921, we paid them an educational visit. There were about fifty of us, all cadets, and we demolished their cultural oasis. We caned their ringleader, the king of Russian futurism, David Burliuk, and smeared Varya Statnaya, his rather poetic girlfriend, with tar and covered her in feathers.”

  “What for?” Ada gasped.

  “To make the air fresher in Vladivostok.”

  If there was danger, Felix would not stab the enemy with scissors, but destroy him on the spot with no second thought or regrets.

  He’s a hero like in my books, Ada thought, D’Artagnan or Captain Blood.

  Felix had chosen her as his lady-love and was ready to serve her.

  4.

  Ada wasn’t sure of what to do when Daniel Bernard came back. Should she say she didn’t want to listen to his silly poems anymore? But what if he wants to take revenge and take away her airplane? Well, let him have it, she decided.

  She didn’t really need it anyway. After Daniel’s departure, Ada hadn’t visited the airfield. The damn machine cost money, but who cared?

  Oh God, please make Felix propose to me, Ada prayed. This was the only thing she wished for.

  All the way to the Wayers’ house Felix was silent. Immediately, Ada knew something was up.

  “How’s your work?” she asked, when they squeezed into the tram.

  “The power is changing again in the Chinese City,” Felix grumbled. “Now everything is under Sun Chuanfang, the Governor of Fujian Province. This guy went straight to the communists: some were arrested, some shot.”

  “Is that good or bad for you?”

  “It’s very good. Before, what could we do to the Bolsheviks if they always escaped into the Chinese City? But now the Governor is going to attack the problem. Serious stuff is going to happen.”

  Serious stuff meant less time for Ada. But what if Felix was killed? she thought, terrified.

  They reached the House of Hope. Felix never came into Ada’s room, and she never invited him there, ashamed of her poverty. But maybe she shouldn’t be? Who was she trying to fool? As if Felix didn’t know how lonely governesses live.

  “Come up for a cup of tea,” she said.

  Felix cast a gloomy glance on her. “Will your roommate mind?”

  “What roommate?” Ada didn’t understand. “You mean, Klim?”

  Felix started to breathe heavily, his nostrils flared.

  “I thought you were an honest lady. I checked your address. I know this Klim Rogov. We’ve met before, and your landlord told me all your secrets, too.”

  Ada’s eyes went dark. “You talked to my landlord and forgot to ask me? Then keep company with him! He’ll tell you many things of interest: the way my premises are frequented by Philippine children, an unfrocked priest and a holy fool of a boy. By the way, Chen also comes up sometimes—did he mention that?”

  Felix just stood there, pale and embarrassed. With all her might, Ada slammed the gate behind her—the clang of iron rang in the air.

  “Ada!” Felix shouted, but she didn’t turn back.

  Bastard, scoundrel, ruffian, police pig! And this Chen—an old wretched gossiper!

  Mitya was sitting on the first step of the ladder.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Seraphim is very bad.”

  “What’s with him?” Ada asked. She was still boiling with resentment.

  “They shot him. He signed up as a bodyguard, and Klim’s wife sent him up to protect some Chinese from bandits. But Seraphim is so big that a bullet caught him. Come, we need to save him or he’ll die.”

  Ada grasped Mitya’s hand and dragged him outside. Felix was still at the gates. Ada walked past without even looking in his direction.

  5.

  Seraphim was on a couch, with his head wrapped in a rag. His shirt was smeared in blood. He wasn’t saying anything; he just took shallow breaths and made whistling sounds.

  Mitya rummaged in his sack and pulled out some smelly sticks. “I’ll pray.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Ada clutched his arm. “He needs to be in hospital!”

  Mitya shook his head. “We don’t have any money.”

  “Call Matushka,” whispered Seraphim. “Tell her to come…”

  Ada rushed to him and fell on her knees near the couch. “Dearest, dear…just, please, don’t die…I’ll call a doctor now.” She turned to Mitya. “Did he get here by himself?”

  “The landlord said some people brought him. I was passing by and recognized him.”

  “Call Matushka…” Seraphim moaned.

  Ada undid the collar of her dress and pulled out some rolled-up banknotes from her inner pocket, the money she’d saved for a ticket to America.

  “Mitya, run to Doctor Baldwin, he’s the best. The Wayers use him all the time.”

  The doctor arrived in under an hour once Seraphim had begun shaking.

  “To the hospital, now!” the doctor ordered.

  “Tell Matushka, I’m dying…” Seraphim whispered, grasping the hem of Ada’s dress. “Promise you’ll tell her…her address is…on a piece of paper nailed over there…”

  When they reached the hospital he was take
n straight to the operating theater. A clerk with a wrinkled face gave Ada the bill. “If you can’t pay now, your relative will be put in the queue—”

  “I’ll pay,” Ada interrupted.

  The clerk gave her a receipt and some change: one dollar and twenty five cents.

  “Was it all your savings?” Mitya asked when they left the hospital.

  Ada nodded, on the brink of tears.

  “Let’s go to Matushka,” she said. “Seraphim gave her all he earned. Let her at least pay some of the money back.”

  It was already dark. Rain started to fall and rickshaws passed by with their awnings up. Ada and Mitya ran under one umbrella.

  Seraphim often boasted that every successful fight would bring him fifteen or even twenty dollars. “My Matushka will be so happy: she dreams of buying a house,” he used to say.

  But what if Matushka won’t return the money? Ada thought. For some reason, she imagined her as an angry, ugly woman with a long face and pursed lips.

  They arrived at a six-story house with a steep stairway. Yellow and brown tiles covered the floor, arranged like a chessboard. Ada looked again at the address on the piece of paper and found the flat number. The letterbox was brimming with letters and adverts.

  “They haven’t checked their mail for a while,” Mitya said.

  Ada spent ten minutes pressing the doorbell button. Finally the neighbor’s door opened.

  “There’s no one there,” said a trim looking housemaid in a laced apron. “They left a week ago.”

  “Where to?” Ada exhaled.

  “To Manila. The master was transferred there.”

  “And where is their nanny?”

  “They took her with—how could they go without a nanny? They have two children, the mother can’t manage them on her own. They’d got used to her.”

  Ada slowly moved down the stairs.

  “The old fool, Seraphim, is waiting for her,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “What a swine his wife is,” Mitya uttered. It was the first time he’d said anything bad.

  CHAPTER 57

  A RADIO ANCHORMAN

  1.

  If the Chinese were wearing nice European style clothes, they were allowed to visit the park in the French Concession—unlike most of the public gardens in the International Settlement. An armed policeman at the gates watched that they followed the rules.

  As Klim brought Kitty to the playground swings, white moms grabbed their children and took them further away. Kitty chased after them, roaring with laughter.

  “Let’s go throw pebbles in the pond,” Klim said, catching her little arm.

  It was her favorite entertainment. Her delight knew no end when a flat pebble skimmed over the water to disappear under the willow tree branches. Klim’s thoughts drifted to his wife. It seemed to him Nina didn’t love Kitty. She spent time with her and bought her the best clothes, toys and books, however, one accidental phrase crossed all her good deeds out. “Kitty embarrasses me,” Nina once said.

  She cared much more of her snobby acquaintances’ opinion, not liking people or things she couldn’t boast about during tiffin. Nina would never see Kitty’s hair gleaming with a bluish-pearl reflection around the crown of her head. She would never notice that her adopted daughter was a berry-caramel creation of colors: the white shine of her teeth, the ruddy freshness of her cheeks and her eyes like big black currants. Not a child, but a sweet fruit desert.

  Nina kicked Ada out when the girl came asking for the money she’d spent saving Seraphim’s life. According to Nina, everything was in order: here was the contract; here was the small clause stating that her company was not responsible for an employee working out of usual hours. Seraphim took a client to a shop in his own time and had the misfortune to run into robbers. If the client wished, he could compensate expenses incurred in the operation. Ada should contact him.

  Ada’s head hung lower and lower as she listened. After she left, Klim dragged Nina out of the room so Kitty and her nanny wouldn’t hear his words.

  “Why do you do it to yourself?” he asked, furiously. “Why do you do everything to make it impossible to love you?”

  Nina turned pale and raised her thin eyebrows. “Why on earth do I have to spend money on that girl? It was her decision to pay for Seraphim’s treatment!”

  “He baptized your daughter.”

  “He’s unfrocked. I don’t see anything holy in this person. If he preferred to become a boxer and a bodyguard, he knew what he was getting into. And if they beat his brains out on the boxing ring, why should I have to deal with it?”

  “It’s not about Seraphim, it’s about Ada!” Klim shouted. “You still can’t forgive her for Daniel Bernard. You’re mean-spirited for revenge.”

  Nina flinched. “You can go back to her anytime; I’m not holding you here.”

  “Daddy!” Kitty screamed. “Here. It’s for you—a bug. Look, it’s dead!”

  Her pink dress was covered in mud—Nina would be horrified.

  “Oh, look who is here!” Klim heard Fernando’s roar.

  Not believing his ears, he turned to see the invincible Don heading towards him, arms wide. In one hand the Don had a hat and in the other—an ice-cream on a stick. Ruben and his other bodyguards scurried after him.

  “Klim, my darling, I haven’t seen you for ages,” said the Don. “I was almost thinking they’d jailed you.”

  Kitty hid behind her father’s leg.

  “Wow!” Fernando exclaimed. “Who’s this pretty creature? Hey, Klim, did you marry some Chinese flirt? Tut-tut. … Hello, little one, don’t be scared. Uncle Fernando is a good one; he’ll find you a husband when you’re all grown up. Let’s talk,” he said, taking Klim to the nearest bench.

  The bodyguards hovered nearby.

  Klim lifted Kitty into his arms. Every time Fernando appeared, life turned into one huge mess.

  “Have you heard about Madame Nellie Melba?” the Don said in a sweet tone. “The world famous soprano? Before, this Melba could only be heard in theaters where it was simply impossible to get tickets. But now every fool can enjoy her singing. Do you understand where I’m heading?”

  Klim was looking at him, frowning. God knows what crazy ideas wander around that gregarious head.

  “We need a radio station—that’s what!” roared the Don. “Here, in Shanghai. And you know who’s going to run it? You! I’ve already hired a room and installed the transmitter. We’ve got technicians, we just need a blabbermouth like you. What do you think about it?”

  “I’ve already got—”

  “Don’t upset me. Klim, it’s a miracle, a cordless thought-transfer!”

  2.

  On December 23, 1925, all the foreign newspapers in Shanghai reported that police commissioner McEuen, his deputy Wayer and inspector Everson, who ordered the student demonstration shootings, would all resign from their posts.

  The Chinese press was resentful: “Murderers must be murdered. The Municipal Council pretends that it disapproves of the criminals, but each of them was given a huge pension.”

  To keep on the safe side, Fessenden required all three to leave Shanghai. The farewell was pompous: a banquet with memorable gifts, speeches and vows. The fathers of the city said Everson did what any true Englishman would have done: he fulfilled his duty to protect the office entrusted to him.

  Fessenden shook hands with McEuen and Wayer. “Gentlemen, I’m struggling to find the right words to express my sympathy. You’re all victims of big politics. Unfortunately, at present we have to be patient with the natives, otherwise huge troubles await. If I can do anything for you—”

  Wayer moved close to Fessenden’s ear and whispered, “You can employ my son in that new assistant position that’s opened. Robert can easily manage the role.”

  Fessenden assured him everything would be arranged.

  3.

  Menacing Hugh Wayer, old Hugh Wayer, sat on the motorboat taking him to the steamer heading to England. People on
the quay waved to him. He didn’t look at anyone.

  The engine of the motorboat rose to a roar and brown water boiled beneath the stern. Hugh took his police helmet off and threw it overboard.

  Robert thought his father had taken his head off. Opium played funny tricks on him, including side effects of a constantly runny nose and teary eyes.

  That evening at dinner, he heard his fingers talk to each other. They discussed draft legislation concerning the introduction of three Chinese representatives onto the Municipal Council, then fought about who was going to hold the spoon.

  Lissie turned into a queen of spades and her magical voice sounded like a song, “What are you going to do? We’ve sold our house and moved into this shed, we live in debt…”

  What song is it? Some kind of march?

  “Because of you I lost my magazine…”

  No, probably, an elegy. Lissie told him she played elegies on her mandolin—elegies meant sad songs in Greek.

  “Are you going to keep chuckling in my face or answer?” she exploded with anger. “How are you going to provide for your family?”

  “I have a share in a brothel.”

  “Stop it, I’m serious!”

  A two of spades, Shao, peeped in the door. It was slammed shut by

  Lissie who screamed, “Get out! Don’t you see we’re talking? Robert, I don’t have money to pay the servants. You don’t want to deal with it, but

  I’m ashamed to look them in the eye.”

  “You have a trump suit, you’ll tackle anything.”

  “Okay, great, I’ll fire them all. But, you’ll tell them yourself it’s your decision.”

  If Lissie is a queen of spades, then who is Robert? He’s not from this game. He’s a kite, made of fine paper and silk ribbons.

  4.

  Robert didn’t say anything to the servants. He forgot. Lissie had to do it all by herself. She called Hobu and Ada in and told them about her talk with her husband.

  “I really love both of you, but you know the situation we’re in at the moment. We won’t be able to keep you both.”

  Ada quickly glanced at the nanny. “Who’re you going to fire?”

  Lissie lit a cigarette, choked on the smoke and coughed till tears came.