It was impossible to look at her without an indulgent smile. She had no taste or appreciation of her youthful charm and was doing her best to imitate some showy movie actress. Her eyebrows had been plucked into two thin lines, her lips had been rouged with a stationery pencil, and a pink satin bow hung around her neck. Daniel recognized it from a gift box that some of Edna’s friends had given to his wife.

Ada took a lollypop from her pocket and put it into her mouth. The air in the car began to smell of mint: a prudent girl, Ada was evidently making sure that she’d be prepared should Daniel surprise her with a kiss.

“Where are we going?” Ada asked.

“You’ll see.”

Despite the early hour, the streets were full of Chinese students in their traditional long-skirted coats. Some were carrying folded banners, while others were putting up posters. Many were gathered at the peddlers’ kitchens, discussing something excitedly.

Daniel drove into a narrow street, which was bordered on one side by a neat hedge and the other by rows of Chinese houses with their tiled roofs.

Ada spied a taut canvas wing through a gap in the hedge and almost jumped out of her seat. “Goodness me, it’s an airfield! Are you going to show me an airplane?”

“I’m going to do a lot more than show you one,” Daniel said.

He drove the car up to a gate made of thin bamboo stems bound with wire. The guard ceremoniously opened it for them, and the car drove along the airfield, the gravel crunching under its wheels.

Ada’s eyes nearly popped out of her head looking at the airplanes.

“Can we go a bit closer? Oh, I wish we could have our photograph taken here.”

“We can arrange that later,” Daniel said with a smile. “Today we’re going to fly to Suzhou.”

“What?” Ada was lost for words. “We will… I mean—”

Daniel got out of the car and took her to a hangar.

“Are you sure this is going to be safe?” Ada said in a weak voice. “What if your airplane falls out of the sky? What if we get lost?”

She was overwhelmed by a combination of fear, mistrust, and excitement.

“Oh, you’re probably just teasing me,” she complained, forgetting herself. “How could you be so mean?”

The technicians removed the canvas cover from the Avro and wheeled it out onto the runway. Daniel helped Ada put on a helmet and a warm leather jacket—it would be cold up there in the heavens.

“I reckon I must look like a dragonfly.” She giggled nervously as she adjusted her goggles.

“You do,” Daniel replied bluntly and pointed to the back seat of the airplane. “Now get in.”

He helped her into the cabin, sat down in the pilot’s seat, and gave the orders for the engine to be started. The Avro coughed into life, bumping precariously along the airfield until finally with a mighty roar it soared into the sky.

“A-ah-ah!” Ada squealed excitedly.

Daniel made a turn and flew over the city, spotted with the shadows of the clouds. Its rivers stretched like rolls of exposed camera film glittering in the sun and its buildings like a set of multi-colored domino pieces that has been scattered over the ground by a fractious child.

As was his custom, Daniel flew over Nina’s house, but this time he imagined he was dropping an invisible bomb that would destroy her past with all its bad memories.

“Don’t worry darling,” he whispered. “I’ll arrange everything. You’ll never need to worry again.”

3

When they reached Suzhou, a city of humpback bridges and weeping willows, Daniel took Ada for a boat ride along the narrow canals that had been built the previous millennium.

The swarthy young boatman rowed slowly but deftly, each stroke of his oar creating small eddies in their wake.

The steps of the whitewashed homes ran down from the doors to the water’s edge where carved, age-darkened boats were moored next to the banks. Children’s voices and women’s laughter wafted down from the open windows.

Weak with excitement, Ada was sitting in the prow near Daniel, his wrapped gifts at her feet—a silk robe, a hand mirror, and an embroidered fan which they had bought in a little shop on their way.

“This city is two and a half thousand years old,” Daniel mused. “The same age as Confucius. Once Suzhou was the capital of the state of Wu, praised for its silk and beautiful women.”

“Like her?” Ada smiled, glancing at a fat woman rinsing linen in the canal. “What sort of woman do you go for?”

He motioned towards Ada’s reflection in the water, “I’m into this type. You know there is a piece of poetry:

Soft lilac twilight. I’m alone,

As I watch paper lanterns in the sky.

Again I’ll stay awake till dawn

Observing boats go gliding by.

I wish for temple bells to sing you songs

About my heart so full, so high.”

“I know what you’re implying,” Ada said, frowning, “but you’re not going to leave your wife and business because of me. You’ve got too much to lose.”

“One day you’ll understand that this can all be easily exchanged for—”

“Would you even exchange it for your airplane?”

“If you want, I can give it to you,” he said after a pause. “Did you never want to learn how to fly in your childhood? Let’s make that dream come true.”

The idea was so ridiculous that Ada just shrugged. “Oh, stop it! You’re making fun of me.”

“I’ll make a gift deed out in your favor—now. The only thing I’m asking is for you to await my return. I’ll be going on a business trip soon, and it will last for a few months.”

Ada blinked in confusion. “You’re either one heck of a liar or you’re completely mad.”

“I’ve gone completely mad and I’m very happy about it.”

Ada was sure that he’d been joking until they went to a Chinese official and she received a document testifying that she was now the proud owner of an Avro 504.

4

Daniel persuaded Ada that it would be better to leave the airplane in Suzhou to keep their adventure a secret from Edna, and they hired a car to return to Shanghai.

“Mr. Bernard, I can’t handle it,” Ada said. “You keep doing good things for me, and I don’t even know how I can pay you back.”

Daniel smiled. “Don’t worry about that.”

They entered the city and drove along the Babbling Well Road, but as they went around the race track, the traffic ground to a halt because a crowd of students was blocking the Nanking Road. Drivers honked, rickshaw boys swore, but the young people didn’t pay them the slightest attention, shouting their political slogans in one voice.

“What do they want?” Ada asked Daniel.

“Equality, justice, and the abolition of laws that worsen the living conditions for the poor,” he said.

Daniel paid the driver and got out of the car.

“Let’s go, Ada, or we’ll be stuck here for a long time.”

She followed him between the honking cars, holding the package with her gifts tight to her chest.

As they reached the police station, the crowd became denser.

“Make way!” Daniel snarled at the Chinese—students, monks, clerks, and coolies—but no one listened.

A puny young man gave a rousing speech standing atop a column covered with advertising. The crowd applauded him wildly.

By the time Daniel and Ada had reached the opposite side of the street, a fist fight had broken out near the gates of the police station. The students began to throw stones; someone was knocked down and kicked by the crowd.

Looking back, Daniel saw an officer in a pith helmet.

“This is your last warning!” the policeman shouted pointing at the line of Sikhs armed with rifles. “If you don’t stop, I won’t be responsible for the consequences!”

What’s the point yelling? Daniel thought. They don’t understand English anyway.

He grabbed Ada’s hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

It was then that the first volley exploded.

Startled, the crowd let forth an animal howl and scattered in all directions, smashing anything in its path.

“They’ll crush us!” Daniel shouted, choking, as he was pressed flat against the wall.

He and Ada ran into a narrow doorway and found themselves in a small restaurant full of Chinese dressed in long blue robes. The steam was rising above their bowls, and an old ceiling fan was spinning with a quiet swishing sound.

A servant, as big as a wild boar, moved towards Daniel and Ada. “You are not allowed in here!”

He was about to kick them outside when a torrent of terrified people poured in through the door. Daniel noticed a disheveled white woman among them. She slid to the floor, holding her head in her blood-stained hands.

“Edna!” he yelled.

Forgetting about her gifts, Ada rushed to her. “Mrs. Bernard! What’s happened to you?”

They dragged Edna into the kitchen.

“Give me a towel,” Daniel snapped at the stunned cook. “Can’t you see—she’s bleeding!”

The cook threw him a damp cloth.

“What the hell are you doing here?” said Daniel angrily as he wiped a deep cut on Edna’s forehead.

She looked at him, her eyes wild, her lips trembling, her bangs matted with blood.

“News is my job,” she said.

“We need to get her out of here,” Ada whispered. “What if the Chinese find out that she’s Captain Wyer’s daughter?”

They took Edna by her arms and carried her through the back door into a yard that was littered with garbage. Having wandered through a rat run of back alleys, they finally turned onto a nice-looking empty street.

The bright sun shone through the treetops. Police whistles and car horns could be heard nearby.

Daniel had never been on this street on foot, and only when he saw the familiar white house did he realize that they had arrived at Nina’s.

Edna suddenly lost consciousness.

“She’s dead!” Ada screamed.

“Be quiet, for God’s sake,” Daniel snapped at her.

They put Edna on the grass.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” he told Ada.

He ran up to Nina’s house and banged on the door with his fist. A skinny dark-haired man appeared on the porch.

“What do you want?” he said with a Russian accent.

“Is Nina there?” Daniel asked, and only then recognized Klim Rogov staring at him.

5 SKETCHES Klim Rogov’s new diary

As a teenager, I often wondered what my own funeral would be like. In my mind’s eye, I imagined there would be at least five hundred mourners, a military band, and a heartbroken fair lady at my coffin. Who would have turned up if I had given up the ghost in Canton? The best I could have hoped was Don Fernando, One-Eye, and a couple of coolies impatiently leaning on their shovels. Some send-off that would have been.

Perhaps it was this prospect that helped me survive, an act of protest against having the sum of my life marked in such an unseemly way. Besides, I had to find out what had happened to Nina and why she hadn’t written to me after receiving so many of my letters via Don Fernando.

I tried to send her a cable before my departure but quickly came to an impasse. Canton was busy fighting spies, and they weren’t allowing any Tom, Dick or Harry to send a telegram anywhere without authorization and ID.

On my way home, I prepared myself for the worst. Was Nina alright? Or perhaps she had found another admirer and forgotten all about my existence?

On May 30, 1925, the Santa Maria sailed into Shanghai, and Don Fernando generously agreed to drive me to Nina’s.

“If you find your wife with a lover, come back and join me,” he said as he left.

I was as tense as a coiled spring. The weather was clement, the sun shining, and the birds chirruping without a care in the world, but here I was feeling as if I was about to be read a death sentence.

When I came in, Kitty and her amah had just returned from a walk. My daughter had grown so much that I could hardly recognize her. When I left she couldn’t even walk.

Kitty picked up a twig and gave it to me, saying, “Take this!” I squatted down, deeply touched, and asked her how she had been doing. She answered me in her baby language, which was absolutely incomprehensible to me.

The amah called Nina, and my wife ran to the porch, still in her white bathrobe, her hair dripping wet. Before I could say a word, she threw her arms around me and cried, “Why didn’t you write to me?”