Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

“The images of Jesus and the Holy Virgin are very popular,” he said, pointing at a stack of freshly printed posters. “Everyone is praying for peace these days, and I’m sure you’ll have no problems selling them.”

Nina was struck by the quality of the posters. They had been beautifully painted, and the printing had been done on the finest paper.

“These were done by our students,” Father Nicolas said. “We recently purchased the latest printing equipment from Europe, and we produce these posters right here, in Siccawei.”

Nina asked if he could take her to the workshop. There, in a large, brightly lit room, were dozens of young Chinese artists. Only a few of them were drawing religious subjects; the others were busy painting shop signs, playing cards, menus, and movie posters.

A short, bowlegged Chinese man entered the workshop and returned to his easel. Nina looked at his work: the mustachioed general peering out at her from the canvas was so lifelike he looked as if he would bark an order at her any minute.

“Who is this artist?” she asked.

“His name is Shao,” said Father Nicolas. “He borrowed a lot of money from us and had nothing to pay off his debt. So now he is working for us.”

Back at the office, Nina agreed with Father Nicolas that she would “donate” her collection to the monastery, if the Jesuits were prepared to pay her five hundred dollars in cash up front, let her use Shao’s and four other artists’ services, and give her three months credit for printing. She was going to start her publishing business after all.

The papers were signed, and a dozen orphan boys followed Nina to her house where they took Gu Ya-min’s boxes away for safe-keeping at the monastery.

3

Nina called Tony and asked if he knew any Chinese actresses who would be willing to pose for her calendars.

“Talk to Hua Binbin,” Tony said. “She’s an old client of mine—an educated, intelligent girl from a high ranking family.”

According to Tony, Binbin, who had been forcibly married off to an old man, had committed the most heinous crime imaginable for a woman: she had run away from her husband to Shanghai and become an actress. The success of her first film turned out to be a mixed blessing for her. Binbin’s relatives sued her for tarnishing the memory of the ancestors and bringing shame on the entire family. If Tony hadn’t defended her, Binbin would have been forced to return back to her family and dealt with as they pleased.

“A woman’s status in China is so low,” Tony told Nina, “that her folks would probably have murdered her for disobeying their traditions. But we managed to come to an agreement. Binbin was forced to change her surname to Hua and swore never to mention her relations with her well-to-do family in public.”

Nina sent Binbin a note, and they agreed to meet at the Bund.

4

Nina arrived early. She was anxious and paced up and down next to the bronze lions at the entrance to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The lions’ paws had been polished bright by countless passersby who had rubbed them for good luck. Nina couldn’t resist the temptation to stroke the claws that were warm from the rays of the sun.

Please, God, let things work out with Binbin, she prayed silently.

Nina wondered how she should behave with this woman. Should I treat her as an equal? Or would I be belittling my social position as a white lady? It was absurd: Nina had been living in Shanghai for a year and a half and, apart from her servants and shop girls, she had never spoken to a single Chinese woman.

Cars thundered past, coolies unloaded barrels on the quay, and workers at a nearby construction site were driving in piles for the new customs building. Slowly and inexorably doubts began to creep into Nina’s mind. Her enterprise was bound to fail. Binbin would either refuse to pose for her calendars or ask for a totally unrealistic fee.

“Hello,” Nina heard a woman’s voice behind her.

Binbin had a round face, thin eyebrows, and pale pink lips. Two black strands of hair poked out from under her cloche hat and curled in ringlets behind her ears.

Nina wasn’t sure whether she should offer her hand or not. Perhaps the gesture would not be accepted? Tony had told her that the Chinese couldn’t stand touching foreigners.

“Maybe we could go to the park to discuss our business?” Nina suggested.

Binbin gave her a puzzled look. “Didn’t you know? Dogs and Chinese are not allowed in the public parks here.”

Nina felt embarrassed. She was afraid that Binbin might think that Nina had been trying to humiliate her on purpose.

They crossed the road and walked along the waterfront. Thankfully, after a while, Binbin had the tact and good grace to break the initial awkward silence.

“I don’t know anything about Russia,” she said. “Isn’t it strange that our countries have such a long border, but even the most educated Chinese are unlikely to know more than two or three Russian cities.”

“We also know very little about China,” Nina replied cautiously. She felt relieved: it seemed that Binbin hadn’t taken offense after all.

Soon the conversation turned towards the whites’ perceptions of the Chinese and the Chinese perceptions of the whites.

“You never betray your feelings to the person you’re talking to,” Nina said. “We never know whether it’s because you don’t want to talk to us, have something to hide, or don’t feel anything at all.”

“In China, it’s not appropriate to reveal your feelings to a stranger, especially in public,” Binbin explained.

“I expect the whites seem terribly rude to you?”

“We understand that you’re different.”

When Nina described her idea, Binbin was delighted.

“I’m sure we can make money on this,” Binbin said. “Colorful posters are the only decoration available for the poor. And how many of them are living here, in Shanghai, let alone the rest of China?”

Binbin only asked for five dollars a day. To Nina’s great relief Shanghai’s film industry hadn’t yet started spoiling its actors with exorbitant fees.

“It’s a deal,” Nina said and, without a second thought, shook Binbin’s hand.

She froze, thinking that it was a very inappropriate move, but to her surprise, Binbin didn’t recoil and returned her handshake heartily.

5

Klim’s telegram came like a bolt from the blue, and Nina’s spirits immediately revived. It didn’t matter that they were separated by hundreds of miles and that their future was at best precarious. Nina didn’t dare rail against her fate. He was alive!

They needed money to move to another city, and Nina threw herself into her publishing business.

She rented a small house on Babbling Well Road for her office and art studio. Binbin invited her friends to be models, and Nina had her artists on easel duty.

They didn’t have much time. The calendar distributors usually gathered in Shanghai every November. They would meet up at the Green Lotus Tea House to examine drafts and set prices based on sales figures from the previous year.

Artist Shao, a grumpy pessimist, told Nina and Binbin that ten years previously somebody had tried selling calendars with Chinese models but it hadn’t worked out.

“We’re just wasting our time,” he muttered, chewing the end of his thin brush.

But Binbin wasn’t having any of it. “Times change! My first film came out in the middle of summer and they had to entice people in by offering them ice-cold wet towels. No one had ever made that kind of movie before, but we tried and we succeeded. The audience was given the option to ask for their money back in the interval if they didn’t like the film. But there wasn’t a single person who took us up on our offer.”

Nina was pleased that Binbin had stood up for her project. She wanted her to be a colleague and also a friend. They had a lot in common, but they had their cultural differences too. Nina was used to open exchanges of opinion, long working hours, and late informal conversation. But Binbin preferred a much more structured day and a guaranteed lunch at noon. Nina still couldn’t decide whether Binbin was just trying to please her because she was effectively her boss, or whether she really did want the business to be a success.

Binbin quickly realized that Nina knew very little about her target market.

“Why did you ask that model to put her hands behind her head?” she asked.

“What’s wrong with that?” Nina said. “I don’t want her to sit as though she’s in church.”

“It’s very important to keep everything decent. If the pose is too vulgar, the only people who will buy your calendars are drunken soldiers.”

“Is putting your hands behind the head vulgar?”

“Of course. It’s an inviting gesture.”

They had disagreements on politics as well. Binbin was convinced that China needed a revolution to sweep away the warlords and the “white ghosts” who funded and protected them.

“You have no idea how it will all end,” Nina said sadly. “Revolutions often start out with good intentions but always end in hunger and tyranny.”

“Don’t you think it’s a tyranny that Chinese people living in their own country are not allowed to go to their own parks?” said Binbin.

They soon realized that it was better not to talk about these things if they didn’t want to end up fighting.

After a lot of hard work, they had a dozen sample calendars ready by November, and the distributors from the Green Lotus Tea House agreed to give them a try. Nina and Binbin were so thrilled that they threw a party for the artists and models.

Shao cautiously tried one of the Russian pies Nina offered him.

“The world has gone mad,” he said. “People have no idea what they are putting into their bodies anymore, and they forget to pray to the spirits of the ancestors. There’s no good can come of it,” he muttered. However, he didn’t a refuse a second pie.

The next day, Nina sent a cable to Canton:

The samples are on their way. Looking forward to seeing the provider to discuss our plans.

But she never got a reply from Klim—neither from this cable, nor the next one she sent.

1

Daniel returned home, and Edna decided not to reproach him for his affair. They needed to make a fresh start, but things didn’t go quite as she had expected. During the day, Daniel was always in a hurry, and he spent his evenings at the Shanghai Club where women were denied access.

Every day Daniel would insult Edna—not directly with his words but with his coldness and reluctance to spend any time alone with her. She could tell that he no longer felt at home in Shanghai. She could see it in everything he did—the way he talked to servants and the way he couldn’t even remember where his neckties were in his own dressing room. Daniel wasn’t even pretending to “visit Edna”—her house was no more than a temporary shelter for him.

Edna began to lose sleep over her predicament.

It was late. She had already gone to bed, but Daniel had still not returned from the club yet.

She was listening out for the slightest sounds from the street—the sound of a car parking, somebody’s steps echoing along the pavement. Was it Daniel? No, it was only the neighbors.

Edna felt terribly thirsty. She pulled down her nightgown, which had rolled up around her armpits, and headed downstairs into the dining room. The house was as dark and quiet as an old cemetery. The carpets seemed as soft as moss, and the dark silhouettes of the heavy furniture looked like ancient tombstones.

Edna saw a man standing by the window and shrieked.

“It’s me,” Daniel said flatly. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

She approached him and sat on the window sill. A night bird was chirping in the garden. The air smelled of cigarette smoke and damp earth.

Daniel moved into the shade where Edna couldn’t see his face.

“Is there something you wanted to ask?” he said.

“Yes… I need your help,” Edna hurriedly said. “It’s about a bill. My friends and I are trying to impose a ban on child labor, at least within the International Settlement limits. But we’re at a deadlock.”

“What are you talking about?” Daniel said, annoyed.

Edna knew that her words sounded out of place. Should they really discuss bills in the middle of the night? But what else could she say to her husband? Since his return home, they’d had little to talk about.