White Gardenia

by Belinda Alexandra

  I had already dismissed the fortune teller as a fraud, a charlatan I would give a coin to so that she could tell me what I wanted to hear. The regime in Russia will come to an end and your mother will come to Shanghai to find you. Or perhaps, if she were an imaginative fraud, she would spin a fictitious story to comfort me. Your mother will marry a kind hunter and live happily ever after in a house by a silver lake. She will always think fondly of you. And you will go on to marry a rich, handsome man and have many children.

  I wrapped the necklace in a scarf and hid it in my pocket. I decided that even if she turned out to be a liar it didn’t matter. I just wanted to talk to someone about my mother, to hear something that would stop me thinking about the terrible tales the soldier had told me. But when I snuck out the front door and across the garden, I knew in my heart that I was yearning for more. I was hoping the fortune teller would be able to tell me my mother’s real fate.

  Before I reached the gate I heard the Old Maid cry out. I spun around to see her standing behind me, her face pale and angry. ‘This is second time you disappear all afternoon. You make him worry,’ she said, jabbing her finger into my breastbone.

  I turned my back on her and hurried out the gate, slamming it behind me. But I was trembling as I did so. They were the first words the Old Maid had spoken to me since I had arrived in Shanghai.

  Out on the street the icy breeze dissipated and the day turned into summer again. The sun was a flame in the blue sky and heat simmered up from the roadway, burning my feet through the soles of my shoes. Oily beads of sweat prickled my nose and my hair stuck to my neck. I clutched the necklace in my pocket. It was heavy but I felt calmer for having it there. I retraced the path back to the Café Moskva, searching in every old woman’s face for the eyes of my fortune teller. But it was she who found me.

  ‘I knew you would come back,’ she said, stepping off the kerb in front of a bakery and falling into step with me. ‘I will show you where we can talk. I will help you.’

  The fortune teller linked her arm with mine. Her wrinkled flesh was soft and she smelled of talcum powder. Suddenly she didn’t seem so garish, just aged and world-weary. She could have been my grandmother.

  She led me to an apartment building a few streets away from the café, stopping every so often to catch her breath. A baby’s crying echoed around the courtyard and I could hear two women trying to comfort it. The building’s cement walls were cracked and weeds poked through the spaces. Water leaked out of a rusted drainpipe, creating pools of slime on the steps and pathway. A tabby cat was lapping up water from one. The scrawny animal blinked at us before clambering up a wooden fence and disappearing from view.

  The building’s entranceway was cold and piled with garbage. Hundreds of flies were buzzing over the food scraps that spewed from the overfilled cans. I squinted at the figure of a man at the end of the hall, backlit by the muted light of a single window. He was mopping the floor and I was surprised to see that the building had a cleaner. His eyes followed the old woman when we passed and I noticed there were crimson marks on his arms, one in the shape of a dragon. He rolled down his sleeve when he saw me looking at it.

  We stopped in front of a metal door with a grille at the bottom. The old woman pulled out a key tied around her neck with a piece of string. The lock required some jiggling and, when she finally unhooked it, the door groaned open in protest. The woman rushed into the basement apartment but I stood on the threadbare doormat, peering inside. Pipes ran across the ceiling and the wallpaper was stained. Old newspapers covered the floor. The sheets were yellow and ripped, as if some animal lived there, sleeping, eating and urinating on the paper floor. The smell of dust and bad air made me queasy. When the woman realised that I hadn’t followed her inside, she turned to me and shrugged. ‘I can see from your clothes that you are used to better. But this is the best I can offer you.’

  I blushed and stepped into the apartment, ashamed of my snobbery. In the centre of the room was a worn sofa, stuffing protruding from its seams. The woman brushed it with her hand and threw a musty-smelling rug over the cushions. ‘Please. Sit,’ she said. It was hotter in the apartment than it was outside. The mud-stained windows were shut, but I could hear footsteps and bicycle bells in the street beyond. The woman filled a kettle and lit the stove. The stove made the room even hotter and, when she wasn’t looking, I lifted my handkerchief to my nose, trying to find relief in the fresh, laundered scent of the material. I glanced around the apartment, wondering if there was a bathroom. I couldn’t understand how she could appear quite clean and yet live in such a filthy apartment.

  ‘So many, many people in pain,’ the old woman muttered. ‘Everyone has lost someone: parents, husbands, sisters, brothers, children. I try to help, but there are so many of them.’

  The kettle boiled and the woman poured the hot water into a chipped pot, setting it and two cups on the table in front of me.

  ‘Did you bring me something of hers?’ she asked, leaning forward and patting my knee.

  I pulled the scarf from my pocket and unfolded it, placing the contents on the table. The old woman’s eyes fixed on the necklace. She picked it up and dangled it in front of her face, captivated by the sight of it.

  ‘It’s jade,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. And gold.’

  She cupped her other hand and dropped the necklace into it, weighing it in her palm. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘And very old. You can’t find jewellery like this now.’

  ‘It is beautiful,’ I agreed, and suddenly heard my father saying the same thing. A memory came to me. I was three years old and my parents and I were celebrating Christmas with some of their friends in the city. My father called out, ‘Lina and Anya! Come quickly! Look at this magnificent tree!’ My mother and I rushed into the room and found him standing by a giant evergreen, every limb decorated with apples, nuts and candies. I was lifted up in my mother’s arms. My tiny fingers, sticky with ginger cake, played with the necklace around her swan-like throat.

  ‘She likes that necklace, Lina,’ said my father. ‘It is beautiful on you.’

  My mother, in a white lace dress with mistletoe in her hair, passed me to my father’s shoulders so I could touch the glass snow queen at the top of the tree.

  ‘When she is old enough, I shall give it to her,’ my mother said. ‘So she can remember us both.’

  I turned to the old woman. ‘Where is she?’ I asked.

  The woman clasped the necklace in her fist. It was a while before she answered. ‘Your mother was taken away from you in the war. But she is safe. She knows how to survive.’

  A spasm gripped my shoulders and arms. I lifted my hands to my face. Somehow I sensed it was true. My mother was still alive.

  The woman sank deeper into her chair, pressing the necklace to her chest. Her eyeballs rolled under her lids like someone dreaming and her chest heaved. ‘She is looking in Harbin for you but can’t find you.’

  I sat bolt upright. ‘Harbin?’

  Suddenly the woman’s cheeks puffed out and her eyes bulged in a coughing spasm that rattled her small frame. She lifted her hand to her mouth and I saw bloodstained phlegm trickle down her wrist. I quickly poured some tea and passed it to her, but she waved it away. ‘Water!’ she gasped. ‘Water!’

  I rushed to the sink and turned on the tap. Brown mud exploded onto my dress and the floor. I turned the tap down and let the water run clear, glancing anxiously over my shoulder at the old woman. She was on the floor, clutching her chest and wheezing.

  When I had enough clear water for half a glass I rushed back to her side. ‘Shouldn’t I boil it?’ I asked, lifting the glass to her trembling lips. Her face was a terrible shade of grey, but after a few sips her convulsions settled and the blood came back to her cheeks.

  ‘Have some tea,’ she said, between gulps. ‘I’m sorry. It’s the dust. I keep the windows shut but it still gets in from the street.’

  My hands were unsteady when I poured the tea. It was lukewarm
and tasted of iron, but I took a couple of polite sips anyway. I wondered if she had tuberculosis, which was rife in this part of the city. Sergei would be furious if he found out I had been here. I took another mouthful of the foul-tasting tea and placed the cup back on the table.

  ‘Please continue,’ I said to her. ‘Please tell me more about my mother.’

  ‘I’ve had enough for one day,’ she said. ‘I’m sick.’ But she no longer seemed ill. She was studying me. Waiting.

  I reached into my dress, pulled out the notes I had hidden in my petticoat and laid them out on the table. ‘Please!’ I cried.

  Her eyes drifted to my hands. I could feel my fingers start to tremble. My arms were so heavy I couldn’t lift them.

  ‘Your mother,’ said the old woman, ‘has returned to Harbin to find you. But all the Russians there have fled and she doesn’t know where you are now.’

  I swallowed. My throat was tight and it was hard to breathe. I tried to stand up so that I could open the door for air, but my legs wouldn’t move. ‘But the Communists…they will kill her…’ I began. My hands twitched, my throat contracted. ‘How could she get out of Russia? The Soviets guard the border.’ The woman’s features were blurred in my vision. ‘It’s impossible,’ I said.

  ‘Not impossible,’ said the old woman, standing. She loomed over me. ‘Your mother is like you. Impulsive and determined.’

  My stomach turned. My face burned with fever. I collapsed back into the chair, the ceiling spinning above me.

  ‘How do you know these things about my mother?’ I asked.

  The woman laughed. It sent a chill through me. ‘I watch, I listen to conversations, I guess,’ she said. ‘Besides, all redheads have strong wills.’

  A sharp pain in my side jabbed me like a kick. I glanced at the teacup and understood. ‘My mother isn’t a redhead,’ I said.

  The woman held the necklace above me. I didn’t attempt to grab at it. I knew it was lost. I heard the door open and a man’s voice call out. Then nothing. Only blackness.

  Men’s voices brought me back to consciousness. They were arguing. My ears rang with their shouting. A light burned into my eyes and my chest ached. Something was lying across my stomach. I squinted at it and saw that it was my hand. The skin was scratched and bruised and the nails were broken and rimmed with dirt. My fingers were numb, and when I tried to move them I couldn’t. Something hard was poking into my leg. I attempted to sit up but my head throbbed and I lay back down again.

  ‘I don’t know who she is,’ one of the men was saying in broken English. ‘She wandered into my café like that. I know she is from a good family because she is usually well dressed.’

  ‘So you have seen her before?’ the other man asked. The inflection was Indian.

  ‘She has been to my café twice. Never said her name. Always asking about Russia.’

  ‘She’s very pretty. Perhaps you found her attractive?’

  ‘No!’

  After another attempt I managed to sit up and swing my feet to the floor. The blood rushed to my head and made me nauseous. When the blindness passed, the bars came into focus and I saw that I was in a prison cell. The door was open and I was sitting on a bench attached to the wall. A basin and a bucket were in one corner. The cement walls were covered with graffiti in every language imaginable. I glanced down at my bare feet. Like my hands, they were dirty and covered in scratches. A shiver passed through me and I realised that I was in my petticoat. I felt under the material, my underwear was missing too. I remembered the man in the hall. His vacant eyes, the scars on his hands. He must have been her accomplice. I started to cry, opening my knees and feeling between my legs for signs of injury. But there were none. Then I remembered the necklace and broke down weeping.

  The policeman rushed into the cell. He was young, his skin as smooth and brown as honey. His uniform was neat with elaborate braids on his shoulders and he wore his hair in a turban. He straightened his jacket before kneeling down to talk to me. ‘Do you have someone you can call?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid that you have been robbed.’

  Sergei and Dmitri arrived at the police station soon after. Sergei was so pale I could see the veins beneath his skin. Dmitri had to steady him with his arm.

  Sergei handed me a dress and pair of shoes he had brought from the house. ‘I hope these are all right, Anya,’ he said, his voice tense with worry. ‘Mei Lin fetched them for me.’

  I washed myself in the basin with the rough cake of soap. ‘Mother’s necklace,’ I wept, my airways choked with grief. I wanted to die. To climb into the sink and swirl away with the water. To never be seen again.

  It was two in the morning when I led the policeman, Dmitri and Sergei back to the crumbling apartment building. It looked sinister in the moonlight, its cracked walls jutting into the night sky. Prostitutes and opium dealers were waiting in the courtyard but disappeared like cockroaches into shadows and crevices when they saw the policeman.

  ‘Oh God! Forgive me, Anya,’ Sergei said, putting his arm around my shoulders, ‘for not letting you talk about your mother.’

  I was disorientated in the dim hallway, hesitating in front of one door and then another, unsure which was the right one. I shut my eyes and tried to recall what the hall had looked like in the afternoon sunlight. I turned to a door behind me. It was the only one with a grille. The policeman and Sergei glanced at each other. ‘This one?’ the policeman asked.

  We could hear someone moving about inside the apartment. I looked at Dmitri, but his eyes were turned away from me, his jaw set. A few months earlier I would have been excited to see him, but now I wondered why he had come.

  The policeman knocked on the door. The rustling inside stopped but no one answered. He knocked again, then pounded the door with his fist. It was unlocked and swung open. Inside the apartment was dark and silent. Pale streaks of light leaked through the tiny windows from the street lamps outside.

  ‘Who’s there?’ called the policeman. ‘Come out!’

  A shape scurried across the room. The policeman flicked on the light. We all jumped when we saw her. Her face was startled, like a wild animal. I recognised her mad eyes, the jewelless tiara perched lopsidedly on her head. The woman cried out as if in pain and sank into a corner, clutching her hands over her ears. ‘Dusha-dushi,’ she said. ‘Dusha-dushi.’

  The policeman sprang on her and dragged her up by the arm. The woman howled.

  ‘No! Stop it!’ I cried out. ‘It’s not her!’

  The policeman let the woman go, she dropped to the floor. He wiped his hands on his trousers with disgust.

  ‘I know her from the café,’ I said. ‘She’s harmless.’

  ‘Shh! Shh!’ said the woman, holding her fingers to her lips and limping towards me. ‘They’ve been here,’ she said. ‘They’ve come again.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  The woman grinned at me. Her teeth were yellow with decay. ‘They come when I’m not home,’ she said. ‘They come and leave things here for me.’

  Sergei stepped forward and helped the woman into a chair. ‘Madame, please tell us who has been in your apartment,’ he asked. ‘There has been a crime.’

  ‘The Tsar and Tsarina,’ she said, picking up one of the teacups from the table and showing it to him. ‘See.’

  ‘I’m afraid we probably won’t find your necklace,’ said the policeman, opening the doors of the car for us. ‘Those thieves have most likely already broken it up and sold the stones and chain separately. They spied on you and the old woman from the café. They won’t return to this part of the city for some time.’

  Sergei tucked a roll of bills into the policeman’s pocket. ‘Try,’ he said, ‘and there will be an even bigger reward waiting for you.’

  The policeman nodded and patted his pocket. ‘I will see what I can do.’

  The next morning I opened my eyes and felt the sunlight dancing over me through the shifting curtains. There was a bowl of gardenias on the bedside table. I remembered putting t
hem there a few days ago. I stared at the flowers and had a flash of optimism that I had been dreaming and that none of yesterday’s events had really taken place. For a moment I believed that if I slipped out of bed and opened the top drawer of the dresser I would find the necklace again, safe in its box where it had been since I came to Shanghai. But then I caught sight of my leg poking out from under the ruffled sheets. Purple scratches crisscrossed over it like cracks on a porcelain vase. The sight of them brought reality bearing down on me. I pressed my fists to my eyes, trying to block out the images that came to torment me: the Soviet soldier, the derelict apartment stinking of faeces and dust, the necklace dangling from the gypsy’s hand moments before I lost it.

  Mei Lin came to open the curtains. I told her to leave them shut. I saw no point in getting up and facing the day. I could not imagine myself in school, the nuns looking at me with their bare, pale faces, asking why I hadn’t been in my classes the day before.

  Mei Lin put my breakfast tray on the side table. She lifted the cover before scuttling away like a thief. I had no appetite, just a pain in the pit of my stomach. Through the window the faint sound of Madame Butterfly’s ‘Un bel di’ drifted in on a ring of opium smoke. The realisation that Sergei was taking his fix early did nothing to lift my spirits. It was my fault. He had come to me late in the night. In the shadows, with his dark brow and worried eyes, he had looked like a tormented saint. ‘You’re too hot,’ he had said, putting his hand on my forehead. ‘I’m worried that the drug the old hag gave you is turning into poison.’

  I was his nightmare relived again. He was terrified that I might slip into death unnoticed. Sergei’s first wife, Marina, contracted typhoid during the epidemic of 1914. He was by her bedside every day and night for the worst of her illness. Her skin felt like fire, her pulse beat erratically and her bright eyes turned dull and deathlike. He called in the finest physicians to save her with their forced-feedings, cold baths, fluid infusions and mysterious medicines. They managed to fight the primary infection but she died two weeks later from a massive internal haemorrhage. It was the only night Sergei had not been by Marina’s side, and he had only left her then because the doctors and his staff had assured him that she was recovering and that he should sleep in a proper bed.