White Shanghai

by Elvira Baryakina

  “My name is Martha,” she said. “I’m an old friend of your father. He asked if I can look after you. Pack your things.”

  Frightened, Brittany sat on a sofa cushion. “I…don’t want…”

  “Let’s go,” Martha said patiently. “You can’t stay on your own. You’ll live with me—half my business belongs to you anyway.”

  An hour later, two figures walked down the street. A woman was carrying an awkwardly fastened suitcase with a skipping rope hanging out one side. Next to her was a girl holding a toy penguin in her hands.

  5.

  Johnny Collor pensively glanced down the Bund. He sat on the roof of an under-construction Customs building, drinking beer from a bottle. On his shoulder, Buster, his raven, shifted from one foot to another.

  Sunset. In the sky, yellow-crimson marmalade layers mixed with the witch tails of smoke.

  “Hey, Buster, a demonstration happened today, heard that?” Collor asked. “They demanded justice to whoever slaughtered the Workers Guard. But the military guys just shot them with machine guns. Sixty six dead, three hundred and sixteen wounded.”

  Wind ruffled the raven’s feathers.

  “They kicked their butts. The commies won’t pick themselves up any time soon.”

  Collor used to talk to Buster often. But when Mrs. Wayer appeared, he was always in a hurry to see her—cursing himself as he saw his lonely bird hovering in the sky. “Sorry, mate!”

  Everything had moved back into place now: a roof, a beer, sunset and long stories about this or that.

  “Chiang Kai-shek is now an enlightened, decisive and forward-looking political statesman—that’s what all the newspapers write. And not long ago they were wiping their bottoms on his portrait. They give him money and he guarantees there will be no change for white people in China. He set up his own National Government and oldie Britain with the USA supports him. Hey, mate, learn how to do politics!”

  Collor went silent; he remembered he’d brought a little present for Buster: a cookie that Lissie had put in his pocket the day before her death.

  “Here you go, mate. Not bad, huh? Something good came your way from Mrs. Wayer, too.”

  CHAPTER 78

  A CLASSIC TRAGEDY

  1.

  Klim managed to find a compartment in an overcrowded train to Peking.

  Nina didn’t believe in the benefits of radio—silly her. The story would have been very different if Binbin hadn’t heard Klim’s farewell speech.

  Thank God for Guo faking the letter of authority from Wang Shouhua at Binbin’s request. Thank God for Colonel Lazarev’s play acting in front of the Soviet Consulate. It was doubtful Sokoloff would have believed Klim without it.

  For better or worse, Kitty and Valentina were with him. He just couldn’t leave his daughter in Shanghai on her own. After three days on the train, they checked into a hotel in Legation Quarter.

  Peking, city of walls: from the tiniest house to the Emperor’s palace, all buildings were surrounded by tall fences. Glossy roof tiles flashed in the sun just visible above the walls.

  The heat and clouds of dust were as hostile to them as the local Chinese. Whites were the enemy, no matter whether from Soviet Russia or the West. Storekeepers looked aside, pretending they didn’t notice Klim and Valentina. They weren’t blatantly rude, but obviously despised the foreign devils.

  Klim looked up at the black cracked wood and green bronze handles of a large gate. He had no plan, just a note from Theodor Sokoloff, retouched by Guo. The note said Klim was on a mission to save an important political activist, Comrade Kupina.

  He lifted a heavy hammer hanging from a chain and knocked. A white lad opened the side door.

  “Who are you after?” he asked in English.

  “Pasha or Glasha Zaborovas.”

  “Just a minute.”

  The fellow closed the door. Klim waited ten minutes. Finally, he heard steps and the door flew open again.

  “Klim, it’s you!” either Pasha or Glasha said and rushed to hug him. “What brings you here? We would never have expected to see you in a million years. Come, come, have breakfast with us.”

  They walked into a small inner courtyard. Under the branches of a tree, next to a small pond, was a table with a samovar.

  A gray-haired man in an embroidered shirt stood up and looked sternly at Klim.

  “This is our comrade from Shanghai,” the other Miss Zaborova exclaimed pointing at him.

  The girls hadn’t changed at all—loud, impulsive and impetuous. Only their hair was cut short.

  Klim was polite and reserved. He told them he was ready to visit the Soviet Embassy and start his work. They all exchanged glances.

  Did I overplay it? he thought feeling uneasy.

  “You don’t know?” asked Valeriy, the fellow who opened the door. “Our embassy was raided. Marshal Zhang Zuolin ordered all the Chinese employees shot. Many Russians were arrested for instigating rebellion, and now we’re almost illegal staying here. We’d never dream of provoking the Chinese by going to the Embassy.”

  A gust of wind moved a thin branch above and little cones fell onto the table.

  “So…and what now…” Klim managed to utter.

  You try everything possible to keep your dearest from danger. But for the mighty, your troubles are the affairs of ants. The mighty are only interested when the whole world is at stake. And who cares if Nina Kupina is the whole world for you?

  Rubtsoff, the gray-haired man in an embroidered shirt, told Klim the Revolutionary Army commanders used to swear loyalty to Lenin’s ideals, but as soon as Chiang Kai-shek took over, they flocked to his side. It was now dangerous for Soviet people to stay in China and they fled in droves.

  “Our enemies wage an all-out attack against us,” Rubtsoff said. “British police raided our trade representation in London; a Soviet ambassador was killed in Warsaw; provocations happen every day on the Chinese borders.”

  “Imperialists around the world conspire to destroy us,” Valeriy added.

  On his wrist, he had long black hair, so out of place with his child-like face.

  “I need to compile a report on Fanya Borodina’s case,” Klim said. “Who can I talk to about it?”

  No one answered. Rubtsoff again reread the letter from Sokoloff. He raised his eyes. “It says here you speak Shanghainese. Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Rubtsoff stood up and went to the house. Klim watched his back.

  “Very good,” Valeriy repeated. “You arrived just in time.”

  2.

  Nina told Felix Rodionov he’d be a rich man if he let her go. “Believe me, I’m not a communist!”

  He only cursed her in reply, reminding how she refused to pay Seraphim’s hospital bill.

  As his people searched Commemoration of Lenin, all the passengers and crew were imprisoned onboard. The soldiers found nothing in the hold or the luggage of the diplomats; the only suspicious evidence was a dissembled airplane. Felix decided it belonged to Fanya Borodina even though the documents said it was in Paul Marie Lemoine’s possession.

  Fanya whispered to Nina, “When they question you again, tell them you’re my cousin—I’ll confirm it. Or they’ll put you in a dungeon.”

  Felix ordered the passengers to pack up and get on deck. Nina returned to her cabin. Lemoine was waiting there for her.

  “I told you, you shouldn’t have come with me. They’ll let me go, but you’ll be taken to Nanking prison.”

  “What lie did you tell Rodionov?” Nina asked.

  “None of your business. Soon I’ll be back in Shanghai. Do you have at least one person I can ask to help you? I’ll deliver the message.”

  Nina dropped her head into her hands. Klim? He’d never forgive her. Colonel Lazarev? He’s busy with his Russian Regiment. Fessenden and her acquaintances from the Municipal Council? They won’t show their nose outside the foreign concessions.

  “I’ll write to Tony Aulman,”
Nina said, finally.

  “Okay.”

  Lemoine took the note and hid it in his pocket.

  “Can you send a telegram to Daniel?” Nina asked.

  Lemoine looked at her with reproach. “Daniel would stick up for you as a friend. But to get you out of this mess, one would have to love you dearly. So, don’t expect too much from him. So long, farewell.”

  Tamara had once said, “You get what you think most about.” Not long ago, Nina was so afraid of being arrested, she’d constantly thought of what she would do if the police burst into her house. Now, she was sure she’d jinxed herself with these thoughts.

  Fanya and Nina were kept in the house of some official and allowed no news from the outside world. Their world shrank to the size of a tiny yard where the prisoners were allowed to walk.

  In Nina’s heart, a passionate desire to be free changed to apathy.

  “All your life, you live thinking that you’re the hub of the universe,” Fanya sighed, “and here we are—no one gives a damn about us.”

  She and Nina became friends. They both shared one room, a bedroom in the women’s part of the house. Fanya gave the bed to Nina and slept on a long chest. She was either trying to show Nina she lived a true revolutionary’s life of hardships or was really more comfortable there.

  “You think your husband will help us?” Nina asked anxiously.

  Fanya shook her head, “It’s a pity that Dogmeat won’t understand it. There are things in this world more important than loving one’s wife.”

  Nina also didn’t understand. When Klim loved her, he was ready to do anything to make her happy. Fanya only chuckled. “It’s because he’s not into politics.”

  She talked with disdain, not to attack Nina, but to justify her Mikhail. She wanted his actions to have higher meaning.

  Inspectors, translators and military men came, often promising something, but day after day nothing changed. The convoy soldiers kept playing cards in the shadow near the gates, and the diplomatic courier, Greibus, sang songs—now without his guitar, which he had to leave on the steamer. The Dogmeat General still hadn’t decided what to do with them.

  Fanya couldn’t sleep at night. She wriggled and the lid of the chest squeaked under her heavy body.

  “Nina, are you asleep? Why did you leave Russia? Did you ever feel sorry for it?”

  Nina hadn’t gone deep into the details of her life; she only told Fanya she worked in a Shanghai publishing house. Nina was sure that Comrade Borodina considered her a nice, but silly woman who was stuck with White Army by accident.

  When Fanya felt particularly depressed, she tried to put Nina on the right track, persuading her that happiness is a constant battle with evil, and suffering strengthens a person.

  “The working class are the only worthy people,” she preached. “Without them, there would be no products for us to use…”

  Sometimes Nina argued, “And without engineers there would be no factories, and the workers would have to go back to their villages to mind cows. No businessmen—no factories; no bankers—no bank loans.”

  But there was no use arguing with Fanya, and Nina would always relent. Having won another victory, Fanya would launch into one of her lectures about the history of revolutionary movements. Nina started to think her own thoughts without voicing them.

  Lemoine was right, Daniel would never do anything for her that is done out of love. Aulman couldn’t help either—why would he put himself in danger because of someone else’s woman? Nina used to have Klim, but she’d tread on his feelings so many times that she’d got what she deserved in the end.

  How did this happen? How could it be in Nina’s destiny that no one cared about her? She used to have everything: love, friendship… but somehow, she’d started a ticking bomb, a mechanism of slow self-destruction.

  “…The most important is to define what the norm is,” Fanya continued her socialist lectures, full of enthusiasm. “Communists consider the norm to be—”

  Yes, this was right. For Nina, the norm was money. By changing annoying faults in her reality, she had grown to be rich. At the same time, she considered the norm was to have a constantly tormented soul. And that was what her private life was about: she’d become comfortable with drama and gnawing feelings of pity towards herself, towards Klim, towards Daniel and even to that silly Pan Labuda.

  As soon as something went well in her life, she’d bring everything back to her norm, to that state of battle, where theoretically she would find happiness.

  She got exactly what she ordered—a classical tragedy. In Ancient Greece, tragedy was what they called a ritual dance before the slaughtering of a sacrificial goat.

  3.

  Once the Dogmeat General realized he wasn’t going to get anything out of blackmailing Mikhail Borodin, he passed his captives to Zhang Zuolin. They spent several days in Nanking prison then were put on a train to Peking.

  Nina saw Fanya and her diplomatic couriers for the last time outside Peking jail.

  She was kept in a solitary cell stinking of Lysol disinfectant. An iron bed and a kerosene lamp were her only furniture. Her warden was an old crone with rotten teeth and claws of unimaginable length. Her skin was yellow with brown spots, more mottled than an overripe banana.

  The crone spoke some English, “Search, search…”

  Nina wanted to undress herself, but the warden explained that only she could take clothes off the prisoners. Cold claws moved over Nina’s body. She closed her eyes thinking, It’ll pass soon...it’ll pass…

  Other female wardens checked her clothes and shredded every button of her jacket, because the buttons were wrapped in fabric. They left Nina a skirt and a shirt—everything else was taken away.

  At night, Nina was interrogated. Three men sat in a smoky room; the area for the accused was outlined on the floor.

  “Come into the center of this square,” said the narrow-headed translator, stooped like a heron.

  An investigator asked questions, and a scribe quickly drew columns of Chinese characters on paper.

  “What’s your relationship with Mikhail Borodin? What was the purpose of your visit to China? Who pays your salary?”

  Tell them the truth and they’ll kill you on the spot, in this cell, to avoid losing face. They’d fed Nina dumplings for so long, kept her under arrest and it would all be for nothing. Nina repeated what she’d said a hundred times before, “Yes, I’m Borodina’s relative. I’ve lived in Shanghai for four and a half years. I haven’t been involved in any revolutionary activities and was going to Hankou to visit darling Mikhail”.

  The scribe drew endless Chinese characters forming in tiny cobwebs across the trial book. Nina now knew she was a witch in an Inquisition trial.

  During the night—bedbugs. During the day—heat and exhausting waiting. Meetings with accomplices was strictly forbidden; be grateful you’re allowed out for a walk.

  A white stone yard lined by walls and narrow windows was Nina’s world. Dozens of bodies moved in each cell. Someone coughed, a stench rose, a baby cried.

  Nina found a little plant in the wall that had fought its way between the stone slabs. She brought water to it and watered its withered stalk. In several days, it sprouted stronger leaves, but someone pulled it out. She felt such sadness as if a little bird had been killed.

  Early mornings before sunrise were her best hours. Nina would get up, walk to the window and watch the roofs of the Legation Quarter. Free people lived so close, not even aware of their luck.

  Once, Nina and Klim were caught in a thunderstorm. It was scary in the beginning: thunder, lightening and walls of rain. They started dancing the tango in the middle of the street, soaked. Water running off their hair; Nina pranced barefoot in puddles, her broken sandals in her hands. Klim roared with laughter, circling her. On a dry porch, a perplexed cat watched them.

  Or another memory: Klim lying on their bed, Nina knelt, bending over to kiss him. He pulled a white feather out of his pillow, blew on it and
it flew through the neckline of her short blouse, between her breasts, and slipped onto his stomach. Such a silly thing, but it was so funny!

  Would Klim remember? Probably not.

  Every morning, Nina savored these details. During the day, she tried to occupy herself with something else—not to waste precious thoughts on the heat and stuffiness. At first, she thought she’d run out of memories, but to her surprise an amazing amount of stories flooded into her mind from the ten years of living with Klim.

  Nina tried to find something similar with Daniel. Empty. … Ideas, concepts, sayings—tons of those things. But Daniel would never dance with her in puddles or call for an echo in the mountains: Hey-ho! Goblins, where are you? Oh no, goblins are in the forest. … Who’s here? Red partisans? Hey-ho, partisans! Okay, okay, I’ll be quiet…

  4.

  The crone with claws escorted Nina to the interrogation room. A well-dressed young man with a large mole on his cheek waited there. He greeted her and squeezed her hand.

  “My surname is Kantorovich,” he said in Russian. “I’ll be defending you in court.”

  “Sorry?” Nina breathed out in surprise.

  “The investigation of your case is closed and passed on to the preliminary court. You’ve been charged under article one hundred and one of a Criminal Code. The verdict is either life in prison or execution. Have a seat, please.”

  He was shining with joy, like a young surgeon finally about to operate on his own. “You probably want to know how Fanya is. She’s well and sends her regards.”

  Nina barely understood what he was saying. Execution! What for?

  “The bill of indictment they made is so messy that it doesn’t have a shred of evidence. This is why I’m sure there will be no public hearing,” Kantorovich babbled on. “We’re inviting several independent Chinese defense lawyers—the judge will be more willing to listen to their arguments. I need you to write a letter of attorney for me, Mr. Ma Dezheng and Mr. Guo Tingbao. It’s very lucky they agreed to represent your interests: they never take on cases they think can’t be won.”

  “All my money is in Shanghai. How am I going to pay them?” Nina uttered.