Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

I still can’t figure out the way this man’s mind works and why he is trying so hard to soil his own nest. Even if he doesn’t care about the city he is living in and his ultimate plan is to retire to a life of luxury back home in London, he must surely understand that his daughter has no plans to abandon Shanghai and that she would be left living in a city of drug addicts, gangsters, and corrupt officials of his own making.

I don’t need to look hard to find material to ruin Captain Wyer’s reputation with the Chinese. A simple translation of the speeches he openly gives at the banquets in his gentlemen’s club is more than sufficient.

“Imperialism brings the backward peoples modern science, and the teaching of Christ,” he says. “We have no choice but to use force against the Chinese because they are not willing to give up their ignorance and lack of hygiene. Why is a Chinese life worth no more than a couple coppers? Because that is its true price. A coolie has no valuable skills, and he is easy to replace. If he dies, no one will mourn his departure. Indeed, the people he shares his quarters with are only too grateful to have the extra space.”

The student newspapers don’t have a very large circulation, but each issue is stuck to public walls and fences and read by a large number of people. The students use a special varnish, which sticks the newspaper firmly onto board or wall masonry, and it’s not easy to remove it. The authorities try to paint over these seditious articles, but within a couple of hours, a new sheet appears on a different wall around the corner.

Wyer knows that the Chinese harass him in the press, but he can’t do anything about it. The entire local population hates him, including the policemen who work under him and carry out his orders. Unsurprisingly, they aren’t exactly busting a gut to defend his “good name” either.

The irony is that Wyer himself has had a big hand in creating a society where any problem can be solved with a bribe. If he closes down one objectionable newspaper, it will only reappear a week later under a new title. The students have the money for it—partly from local patriotic merchants and partly from the Soviet government which hopes to shatter the corrupt colonial system.

Ten years from now, I’ll be telling my children amazing stories about how I and the Bolsheviks worked together to kick the Police Commissioner out of Shanghai.

Although it’s painfully presumptuous to talk about children in the plural at the moment. Children are hard to come by if, according to the script, the Lone Cowboy is not even allowed to kiss the Fair Lady. Like the films on show in the Shanghai cinemas, all content of the remotest sexual nature is censored out of our movie and there’s little chance of it ever being restored.

4

The deeper I dig into Wyer’s case, the more grisly the details that come to light.

He has created a small slave state in the International Settlement’s prison. Every prisoner has a job to do: some weave straw mats, some sew uniforms for the police, and some carve tombstones.

The lower ranking guards earn good money supplying the inmates with opium, tobacco, food, and letters from home. The officers get even more in bribes from the inmates to avoid heavy labor and to arrange visits from wives or prostitutes. But the biggest money is made by the firms owned by Captain Wyer, which use the free labor provided by the prisoners to fulfill big contracts.

I was told that there is a pond behind the prison where the convicts wash the dirty tablecloths from restaurants. When I went to investigate, it turned out that they were being guarded by none other than Felix Rodionov.

He was sitting under a tree, watching the prisoners chained to each other, crouching on a jetty, green with slime, while beating wet tablecloths with laundry paddles. It was an eerie sight—all those unkempt heads with their matted hair, sweaty backs, protruding ribs, and gray, cracked heels.

Felix was delighted to see me. He told me that last winter Wyer had seconded him to Hong Kong to learn from the local police there, but when Felix came back, he had been transferred to the prison staff. This certainly wasn’t the sort of “promotion” he had been expecting, but he wasn’t in a position to argue with Wyer. As an immigrant, Felix was grateful to have any job, no matter what it was.

I told him that I wanted to write an article about the prison system, and he provided me with a story of a Chinese woodcarver who makes decoy ducks that are almost indistinguishable from the real birds. The man has spent two years waiting for his case to be heard. He has no relatives to intercede for him, and he is illiterate and can’t write a petition for himself. When the committee from the Municipal Council visits his cell, he tries to attract attention to himself, but the translator from the prison administration won’t translate anything that might cast a shadow on his bosses. Captain Wyer loves duck hunting and has no intentions of parting with his woodcarver. He has ordered that the man should be kept detained for an unlimited period, but not hurt.

My article is translated and published in the Chinese student newspaper. I hope it’ll engender wide public outrage, and the poor woodcarver will be rescued by his fellow countrymen.

5

Felix sent me a note: “Come. It’s urgent.” I thought he had a new story for me and rushed to meet him at his pond. But what he had to say exceeded all my expectations.

“Today our senior warden got drunk and blurted out to me that Jiří Labuda was strangled on Wyer’s orders. I think that our ‘Czechoslovak Consul’ was planning to spill the beans on the wrong people and that was why he was sent to meet his maker.”

It appears that Wyer sent Felix out of Shanghai on purpose, so he wouldn’t ask awkward questions about his suspicions.

We wracked our memories to recall the complete chain of events that had led to Labuda’s death. Wyer had initially decided to make a scandal out of the Czechoslovak Consulate case and told me to write an article about Nina and Jiří. But later he realized that this was not in his interests and had ordered Jiří’s disappearance.

I had wondered at the time why Wyer had allowed Nina to remain under house arrest: he wasn’t exactly known for his leniency or pity, especially to a woman who had led his son-in-law astray. The only logical explanation was that he didn’t want to draw any attention to the false Czechoslovak Consulate. In a sense, Nina belongs to Shanghai high society, and if she had gone to prison, especially with a baby, reporters would have been eager to delve more deeply into her case.

Wyer had even been prepared to leave Nina alone if she agreed to get out of town, but she refused, and then the captain had arranged a car accident to get rid of Katya. Jiří Labuda’s case was buried for good; the child who represented a threat to any legitimate heirs Edna might have was dead, and getting rid of Nina was just not worth the trouble as far as Wyer was concerned.

No matter how hard we tried, Felix and I couldn’t figure out what kind of information Jiří might have had on Wyer. Apparently, his testimony was related to the weapons in the crates, so I decided to ask Nina if she could possibly guess who Jiří might be selling arms to.

When she heard my question, Nina turned white. “It’s none of our business. For your sake and mine, please, don’t go into it, or Wyer will destroy you.”

Perhaps, from a pragmatic woman’s point of view, Nina is right. She is prepared to accept life with all its injustice and not challenge the rich and mighty. But I can’t do that. My male pride screams out for revenge.

Wyer has killed Katya, and if the authorities can’t provide me with satisfaction, then I’ll have to find it myself.

6

Two days passed, and then I got an unexpected message from Nina telling me that we needed to talk about Jiří. Like me, she hasn’t been able to forgive or forget anything.

“I know a smuggler, his name is Jose Fernando Burbano,” she said. “He used to be into weapons, and I think he and Jiří were trying to do a bit of business together.”

Now that was a name from the past. I remembered Don Fernando from my early days in Shanghai. Fifteen years ago we had played cards together and enjoyed every moment of each other’s company.

“Don’t have any dealings with him without telling me first,” Nina implored me when I told her about our previous acquaintance. And then she suddenly added: “I didn’t even think that you were giving Katya a thought.”

Like many unhappy couples, Nina and I often fail to see things that are obviously good about each other, instead choosing to concentrate on vices that end up being a figment of our imaginations.

Tomorrow, I’ll give Don Fernando a visit and try to figure out what the link is between him, Jiří, and Captain Wyer.

1

The dazzling sun was shining over the river, which reeked of mud and machine oil; the merchant ships in the dock were nearly melting from the heat. The tackle creaked, the seagulls squabbled, and the sound of hammering could be heard as the riveters fixed the outer hull of a ship.

Klim reached the dock by sampan and ordered the boatman to take him to an overloaded junk with the inscription “Santa Maria” emblazoned across its stern in gold.

“Do you see the rope ladder hanging from the side?” Klim said. “I’ll try to climb up it, then you wait for me here in your sampan.”

The boatman nodded, but when Klim pulled himself up onto the lowest rung, right above his head he heard the sound of a revolver being cocked.

“Who are you?” a one-eyed Chinese asked quietly, aiming his revolver at Klim’s forehead.

The boatman let out a gasp and began to row back to the shore, leaving Klim hanging helplessly over the water.

“My name is Klim Rogov,” he said hastily. “I’m an old friend of Don Fernando.”

The one-eyed man glanced over his shoulder and shouted something in an incomprehensible dialect. Steps thundered on the deck above, and after a few agonizing minutes, Klim was allowed on board.

Santa Maria’s deck was buried in crates and bales. Small birds fluttered from one perch to another, chirping and pecking at the sacking and shaggy hemp ropes.

“The master is waiting for you,” One-Eye said, and he chaperoned Klim through the narrow passage between the crates.

Fernando was dressed in a hat, a dirty shirt, and pants that were rolled up to his knees. He was sitting under a canopy, eating a watermelon, his Chinese crew standing at a respectful distance to one side.

“Now, look who’s here!” the Don roared as he threw the watermelon rind overboard and rushed to give Klim a hug. “Where on earth have you been all this time?”

“En Argentina y Rusia,” said Klim, smiling.

“Wow, you’ve learned to speak our language!” Fernando said, changing to Spanish. “Now tell me everything. Would you like some coffee? But not just any old coffee, this stuff is instant. It’s made using the latest military technology.”

The Don listened to Klim’s story and cackled happily.

“Listen, can you translate technical documents into English?” he asked. “You can see how much stuff I’ve accumulated?” Don Fernando pointed at the crates on the deck. “Tomorrow morning I’m going to Canton, and half of my papers are in Russian which nobody there understands at all.”

Klim shrugged. “I can try.”

It would be good to provide the Don with a service, he thought, and then ask him to return the courtesy.

A Chinese boy brought them a binder, and Klim looked through the creased pages covered with scribbles in pencil. It was a list of military equipment—grenades, artillery shells, gas masks, field telephones, etc. The list had been compiled using the old Russian spelling rules that had been common before the revolution.

“Where did you get all these?” Klim asked the Don.

“I bought it from your countrymen, the Cossacks. Their steamer, the Mongugai, lies anchored right across from the Wusong fortress at the mouth of the Huangpu River. It was the last White Army ship to arrive in China, and the authorities refused the Cossacks permission to go ashore. They’re stuck on board, their engine room is completely ruined, and they have nothing to eat, so they’re selling off their arsenal.”

“And you’re planning to resell it in Canton?”