White Gardenia

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘We’ve got plenty of movies.’ I pointed to the crate of film reels that Captain Connor had resorted to using as a footrest. ‘We’ve just never had a projector.’

  ‘Come on, Anya,’ said Ivan, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. The nails were scrubbed, another change. ‘Those are old. The kind our parents would have watched. We need a good movie.’

  His good eye was clear like water. It was dark blue and bottomless. I imagined if I looked closely enough into that eye I would see Ivan’s past etched there. His dead children, his wife, his bakery, floating just below the surface. If I peered deeper perhaps I would see right into his boyhood and know who he was before his face had been disfigured. His eye belied the youthfulness of his voice, his boyish vigour, just as his scarred face belied the gracefulness of his body.

  ‘I need you to persuade him,’ Ivan said.

  It required no effort at all to convince Captain Connor of the value of Ivan’s plan. The captain was infuriated that we were still on the island with the typhoon season approaching and was determined to milk the guilty conscience of the IRO. I requested a recent movie; Captain Connor demanded no less than a Hollywood prerelease. He must have been convincing. We did not have to wait in disappointment this time for a barge that never arrived. The film was airlifted to us within a fortnight, under guard, along with medical supplies.

  The premiere of On The Town was announced in the Tubabao Gazette and everyone on the island talked of little else until the opening night. Ivan built seats for Ruselina, Irina and myself out of palm logs and we sat in style next to his projection box. Ivan was in high spirits. ‘We’ve done it, Anya!’ he said, pointing at all the people. ‘Look at this happy crowd!’

  It was like the old days, before the storm. Families set out blankets and cushions and spread before themselves miniature feasts of tinned fish and bread. Young boys dangled their legs from tree branches, couples reclined arm in arm under the stars, and the more ingenious gawked from their self-created ‘box’ seats, complete with bedsheet canopies in case of rain. Frogs croaked and mosquitoes nipped incessantly at our exposed flesh, but no one cared. When the movie began we all jumped up to cheer. Irina threw back her head and laughed. ‘You funny girl,’ she said to me. ‘You know most of us won’t understand this. It’s all in English.’

  Ivan glanced up from the projector and wiped his brow. He smiled at me. ‘It’s a love story. What’s there to understand?’

  ‘It’s a musical,’ I said, pinching Irina’s arm. ‘And it’s set in New York. So you’ll get to see the city you’ve been dreaming about.’

  ‘Good for you, Anya!’ Ruselina said, patting my back. ‘Good for you!’

  It was true that when Captain Connor had shown me the list of possible movies, I had chosen On The Town with Irina and Ruselina in mind. But when Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin sprang from their naval ship and began to dance and sing their way through New York, it was me who was watching them with amazed eyes. New York was a place such as I had never seen before, more dazzling than Shanghai. Its monuments loomed up like pillars to the gods: the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square. Everyone moved with energy and zest, the traffic buzzed and tooted, and even the office girls were dressed in haute couture. I drank in every movement, every note, every colour.

  When the leading men returned to the ship and their pretty girls waved them farewell, I had tears in my eyes. All the way back to my tent I sang numbers from the musical.

  The film ran for a week and I was there every night. The editor of the Tubabao Gazette asked me to write an article about the film for the paper. I wrote an enthusiastic piece about New York and went overboard by including sketches of all the outfits the female characters had worn.

  ‘You express yourself well,’ the editor said when I gave him my copy. ‘We should get you to write a fashion column for the newsletter.’

  The idea of fashion on Tubabao made us both laugh out loud.

  I was dizzy with a feeling I had not experienced for a long time. Deep-running optimism. Suddenly I had all sorts of hopes. Dreams that had been lost in the drudgery of my daily life. I believed that I could be beautiful again, that I would fall in love with a man as handsome as Gene Kelly, that I was capable of living my life with verve and in a world of modern appliances.

  A week later I received a letter from Dan Richards saying that he would help Ruselina and Irina to get to America too, and Captain Connor received notice that immigration officers from the countries of settlement would be arriving the next month to process our visas and arrange transport off the island. Suddenly it seemed as if everyone’s wishes were coming true.

  ‘When we go to America,’ I told Ruselina and Irina, ‘I’m going to study and be an anthropologist like Ann Miller. And you, Irina, should learn to dance like Vera-Ellen.’

  ‘Why would you study boring anthropology when you write such good articles?’ Irina said. ‘You should be a journalist.’

  ‘And what will I do while you two career women are gallivanting about with young men?’ asked Ruselina, fanning herself and feigning indignation.

  Irina threw her arms around Ruselina’s shoulders. ‘Grandmother, I guess you will just have to drive cabs like Betty Garrett.’

  Ruselina and Irina laughed until Ruselina had a coughing fit. But I was serious.

  No matter how sophisticated we had been in our past lives, every man, woman and child waited on the beach to watch the representatives from our countries of settlement disembark from the United Nations’ ship. We stared, open-mouthed, with the awe of people who had lived too long in isolation and had forgotten how dark the sun had made their skin. The serious-looking men and women who stepped onto the barge wore pristine suits and dresses, while our clothes and hair were stiff with salt. A joke started among us: ‘If you are in New York or San Francisco and you see a man walking by with a package under his arm, don’t ask him, “What are they issuing today?”’

  We laughed at ourselves, but secretly I think we all wondered if we could ever adjust to normal life again.

  The first night the IRO officials treated the guests to pig cooked on a spit. Filipino chefs were brought in and a white marquee was erected. While the representatives dined at tables with linen cloths and crystal glasses, we looked on and trembled, our future in their hands.

  Later I met Ivan on the way to my tent. It was dark but there was a full moon and his shoulders were silhouetted against the sky.

  ‘I’m going to Australia,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to find you to tell you.’

  I hardly knew anything about that country but I imagined it was wild and hard. Such a young country would welcome an industrious, hardworking man like Ivan. But I was frightened for him too. America was largely tame. Australia was supposed to be writhing with beastly things: dangerous snakes and spiders, crocodiles and sharks.

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going to a city called Melbourne,’ he said. ‘They say you can make a fortune there if you work hard.’

  ‘When do you leave?’

  Ivan didn’t answer me. He stood with his hands in his pockets. I lowered my eyes. It felt awkward between us. Saying goodbye to friends hadn’t got any easier for me.

  ‘You will succeed at anything you put your mind to, Ivan. Everyone says that,’ I told him.

  He nodded. I wondered what he was thinking, why he was being so strange and why he wasn’t making his usual witty remarks. I was about to make some excuse to go back to my tent when he suddenly said, ‘Anya, I want you to come with me!’

  ‘What?’ I said, stepping back.

  ‘As my wife. I want to work hard for you and make you happy.’

  The situation seemed unreal. Ivan was proposing to me? How had our friendship suddenly come to this? ‘Ivan…’ I stumbled, but I had no idea how to begin or end. I cared about him but I didn’t love him. It wasn’t his scar, it was that I was sure I would never feel anything more than friendship for him. I
hated Dmitri but I still loved him too.

  ‘I can’t, Ivan…’

  He moved closer to me. I could feel the heat from his body. I was tall for a girl but he stood a foot above me and his shoulders were twice as wide. ‘Anya, who is going to take care of you after this? After the island?’

  ‘I’m not looking for someone to take care of me,’ I said.

  Ivan was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘I know why you’re afraid. But I will never betray you. I will never desert you.’

  The skin around my hairline prickled. There was something behind his words. Did he know about Dmitri?

  I tried to protect my threatened heart by being angry. ‘I won’t marry you, Ivan. But if you have something more to say then you should say it.’

  He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck and looking towards the sky.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘You never talk about it. I respect you for that…but I know what happened with your husband. The American consulate had to give a reason to the IRO for sending a seventeen-year-old girl to Tubabao on her own.’

  I saw spots before my eyes. There was a lump in my throat. I tried to swallow it but it remained there, choking me. ‘Who else have you told?’ I asked. My voice quivered. I was still trying to sound angry, but it wasn’t convincing.

  ‘People from Shanghai know about the Moscow-Shanghai, Anya. You were in the social pages. Those from other cities probably don’t know.’

  He took another step forward, but I slipped back further into the darkness.

  ‘Why hasn’t someone confronted me then?’ I asked. ‘Seeing that I’m such a liar.’

  ‘You’re not a liar, Anya. You’re just scared. Those who do know like you too much to force you to talk about things you’d rather forget.’

  I thought I was going to be sick. I wished that Ivan had not proposed to me. I wanted to go on pretending that I had been a governess so I would never have to think of the Moscow-Shanghai again. I would have liked to have kept the memory of Ivan as the kind man who sat with me on the rock ledge the night I found out about the Pomerantsevs. But what had been said was of such magnitude that it couldn’t be undone. In a few moments our relationship had changed forever.

  ‘Ivan, I won’t marry you,’ I said. ‘Find someone else. Someone who isn’t already married!’

  I made to run past him but he blocked me, grabbing my shoulders and holding me against his chest. I stayed there for a moment before I began to struggle against him. He let me go, his arms falling to his sides. I ran through the dark back to my tent, groping my way like a frightened animal. I wasn’t sure what had scared me most: Ivan’s proposal or the idea of losing him.

  The foreign consulates set up tents to facilitate immigration interviews and the issuing of visas. We were allocated numbers and waited our turn outside in the hot sun. Ruselina, Irina and I were only required to fill in official forms and take a medical examination. We were not grilled about Communist affiliations or family history as the other immigrants were. When I heard that many of the applicants wishing to go to the United States had been rejected, I could only close my eyes and silently thank Dan Richards.

  ‘It’s finally happening,’ said Irina. ‘I can’t believe it.’ She clutched the forms in front of her as though they were fistfuls of money. For the weeks following she practised her scales while I sat on the beach, staring out to sea, pondering then dismissing the thought that Dmitri might try to find me. My life on Tubabao was so far removed from the one I had lived in Shanghai, I thought I had forgotten him. But Ivan’s proposal had dredged up the pain. I listened to the sea swell in its lazy rhythm and wondered if Dmitri and Amelia were happy together. That would have been the ultimate betrayal.

  A short time later the naval transport vessel, the Captain Greely, arrived to take the last of the immigrants who were going to Australia. The rest had left earlier on other transport ships. Those going to the United States travelled by sea to Manila, and from there by army transport plane or boat to Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York. Those of us left behind watched the camp shrink. It was the end of October and we were still in danger of typhoons, so Captain Connor moved the camp to the sheltered side of the island.

  Ruselina was unwell the day the Captain Greely left and Irina and I took her to the hospital before rushing to Ivan’s hut to help him pack. I hadn’t told Irina and Ruselina about Ivan’s proposal, hoping to avoid any further embarrassment for the both of us. I was also ashamed that I had lied to them about being a governess in Shanghai, although I wasn’t sure if they had learned the truth or not. Since the night of the proposal Ivan and I had avoided each other but I couldn’t not wish him farewell.

  We found him standing outside his hut, looking over it like a man about to put down his favourite horse. My heart stung for him. He had done so much to be proud of here, it must have been hard for him to leave.

  ‘Australia will be just like one big Tubabao!’ I blurted out.

  Ivan turned to me with an unfamiliar expression, a distance in his eyes. I flinched but didn’t let it wound me. All my life precious people had come and gone and I was learning not to cling to anyone any more. I told myself that Ivan was just one more goodbye and that I ought to get used to them.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve packed everything already,’ said Irina.

  Ivan’s stony face broke into his usual smile and he held up a box for us to see. ‘I’ve packed everything I need in here,’ he grinned. ‘I challenge you to do the same.’

  ‘You can always find what you want,’ I said, recalling the scavenger hunts. ‘You’ll have no problem in your new home.’

  It was sunny but a choppy wind was whipping the ocean into bumps of white froth. The breeze absorbed all other sound. Only in the distance could we hear the cries of the sailors calling out instructions as they prepared to load the ship. By the time we reached the jetty, it was already crowded with people and baggage. Everyone was animated. They spoke in high voices and, although they nodded enthusiastically to one another, no one was really listening to what anybody else was saying. Everyone’s attention was fixed in one way or another on the ship dipping on the ocean in the distance, the vessel that was going to take them away to a new country and life.

  ‘How will we write to you?’ Irina asked Ivan. ‘You’ve been such a good friend, you must never be a stranger.’

  ‘I know!’ I said, grabbing the pencil Ivan had perched behind his ear. I wrote Dan Richards’s address on Ivan’s box. When I stood up and handed back the pencil I saw tears in Ivan’s eyes and quickly turned away.

  I loathed myself. Ivan was a good man and I had hurt him. I wished he had fallen in love with Irina. She had a purer heart. Shadows from the past didn’t haunt her the way they did me.

  It took the sailors over three hours to load the people and luggage onto the ship. Ivan waited for the last barge. When he stepped onto it, he turned to wave to us. I stepped forward, wanting to say something but not knowing what. Perhaps if I had been able to swallow the stone-like obstruction in my throat, I would have told Ivan that nothing was his fault, that I was in so much pain I wasn’t much good to anyone. At the very least I would have liked to thank him, for I would never see him again. But all I could do was smile stupidly and wave back.

  ‘We’ll miss him,’ Irina said, putting her arm around me.

  ‘I am always thinking of America,’ I said. ‘How different our lives will be. It scares me to think that we could be so happy.’

  Ruselina was waiting for us on the hospital steps.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ Irina asked. ‘It’s too hot. You should be inside.’

  Ruselina’s face was ghastly. There were black shadows beneath her skin. The expression in her eyes stopped us short. A nurse hovered behind her in the darkness of the doorway.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Irina, her voice cracking with agitation.

  Ruselina swallowed, then with a raspy breath said, ‘My X-rays came back. I don’t understa
nd. I was clear when I left China.’

  I gripped the balustrade and looked down at the sand. The sun made it glisten like diamonds. I knew she was about to tell us something terrible, something that would change everything. I stared at the shiny grains of sand and imagined them opening up and swallowing all my hope.

  Irina looked desperately from her grandmother to the nurse. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  The nurse moved into the sunshine where her freckles stood out more boldly. Her eyes darted about like a frightened horse. ‘Teebeeshnik. TB,’ she said. ‘Very sick. Might die. Can’t go to America no more.’

  For two weeks Irina and I waited anxiously for the final word from the United States Immigration Department. Although Captain Connor was usually aloof and professional, I could see how thoughtfully he spoke to Irina and I was grateful. The problem was that the United States would not accept people with tuberculosis and, although there had been exceptions made on humanitarian grounds, such cases were rare.

  The message came in early one morning and Captain Connor called us to his office to deliver it.

  ‘They won’t take her in America,’ he said, biting his pencil, a habit he detested in other people. ‘We’ll be moving her to France in the next few days.’

  I thought of Ruselina in the hospital, doped up on streptomycin, and wondered if she could survive such a long journey. I tore the skin from around one of my nails and didn’t even notice until the blood began to run down my hand.

  ‘I don’t care where I have to go,’ said Irina. ‘As long as she gets better.’

  Captain Connor cringed and stood up. ‘That’s the problem,’ he said, rubbing his brow. ‘France won’t take you. Only the sick. You and Anya can still go to America but I can’t guarantee that they will take your grandmother, even if she gets better.’

  I asked Captain Connor to telegram Dan Richards, but Dan could only give us the same answer.