Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

“Nina is just trying to help her fellow countrymen find employment,” Klim replied coldly.

“Do you seriously think that justifies what she’s done? The moment you Russians arrived in Shanghai, you began stealing our jobs. You have no right to interfere in our affairs. Tell Miss Nina that as of today she doesn’t have a publishing house any longer. We all quit.”

The doors were opened with a crash, and a Chinese girl, her face wet with tears, ran past Ada out into the street.

Klim entered the hallway and stared at Ada. “What are you doing here?”

She immediately realized she had come at a bad time.

“Oh, hi… Is Miss Nina at home?”

“No. Why?”

Ada took the photographs from her purse and handed them to Klim. He fanned them out and then put them back into the stack.

“Where did you get them?” he asked in a low voice.

“Miss Edna threw them away, and my friend Sam gave them to me.”

“Go home,” Klim said thrusting the photographs back to Ada and disappeared behind the sliding doors.

She stood in the middle of the hallway, confused. Klim had neither invited her into the house nor asked her how she was doing. He didn’t even thank her for the information she had provided. Was he not even a little bit curious?

Annoyed, Ada threw the pictures on the floor and went out into the street, without even closing the door. Let thieves come and steal his daughter’s shoes. What did she care?

5

Nina came home very late.

She entered the dark bedroom, took off her robe, and got into the bed, naked. Klim didn’t move, but by the way he was breathing Nina could sense immediately that he was not asleep.

“Today we signed a contract to guard a parking lot for the municipal rickshaws,” she said, snuggling up to him. “We should think about setting up a transport company of our own. I’ve already made some calculations: a rickshaw costs a hundred dollars and has a service life of about five years. We could rent it out to a coolie for a dollar a day, and if it breaks, he would be responsible for its repair. So that means that within under a year and a half we will have clawed back our capital outlay and from there on everything we make will be profit.”

Nina ran her fingers over Klim’s chest, but he brushed her hand away. Her heart sank; never before had he been so brusque with her.

“Are you mad at me for being so late?”

“No.”

“What’s the matter then?”

“Stay out of the rickshaw business,” said Klim. “It’s the most base form of exploitation. A rickshaw boy runs in all weather twelve hours a day for twenty cents a job. Almost none of them reach the age of forty before dying from overexertion.”

“Nobody would be forcing them to work for me,” Nina protested. “There are plenty of coolies in Shanghai who are desperate for any kind of job. Otherwise, they and their families would just starve.”

Klim got up without a word. Frightened, Nina sat up in bed.

“Where are you going? Let’s forget about the rickshaw business. I’m not interested in it if you’re not happy about it.”

“I’ve got a sore throat,” Klim said. “I need to take something for it.”

Nina could tell from the sound of his footsteps that he hadn’t gone to the bathroom, where the cabinet with medicines was, but to Kitty’s room. She waited for ten minutes, twenty, and then she picked up her robe from the floor and followed Klim.

A nightlight was on in Kitty’s room, and soft toys were scattered all over the floor. Klim sat at the footboard of the bed, his back slumped, elbows pressed into his knees. He looked as though he had just learned about somebody’s death and still couldn’t believe it.

“Daddy, cover me,” Kitty said in her dream.

Klim covered her swarthy little legs.

“And give me the bunny.”

Obediently, he obliged.

Nina opened the door a little wider. She wanted to come in, but Klim waved her away with his hand. “Go, go. You’ll wake her up.”

He never returned to the bedroom and spent the night on the couch in his study.

In the morning, Nina found an envelope with the photographs on her desk. There was a note attached:

Hua Binbin told me that your publishing house was on the verge of bankruptcy and was kept afloat only thanks to Daniel Bernard.

I can see that you had to provide for Kitty and yourself, but I still need some time to process what has happened and decide what to do next.

6 SKETCHES ^{Klim Rogov’s diary}

As soon as the power to the Chinese factories was cut off, their owners sued for a negotiated settlement with the foreigners, and the strike came to the end.

The only beneficiaries of the strike have been the Russians who have managed to drag themselves out of abject poverty, and of course the Green Gang. The Chinese state is unable to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and organized criminal gangs have formed to fill the vacuum. They collect taxes from their territories, patrol them, and lay down the law. Their influence is growing by the day, and now the only branch of the state capable of coping with the Green Gang is the army. But our governor takes loans from the gangsters and is not going to pick a fight with them.

Nina and I are “fine.” Wyer has left for London, and we no longer have the burden of the unsuccessful publishing business on our shoulders. Nina’s security agency is flourishing, I still work for Reuters, and it seems that all our problems have been solved and we are finally settled.

But in reality, things have never been worse. Nina is constantly angry with me, one day crying then the next trying to explain that she and Daniel were just friends. But I can’t bear it when she starts telling me where they went and what they did together.

If I pretend that everything is all right again, it won’t change a thing. While I was dying in the hospital, unable to help Nina, she went running back to her sugar daddy to solve all her problems for her. She doesn’t see anything wrong or remarkable about this because frankly there is more of the courtesan about her than the dutiful wife.

I’m surprised it took me so long to figure out that she wanted to go to Canton with Daniel. Her commercial venture failed, and evidently, he offered her the chance to be his kept woman. I returned in the nick of time to spoil Daniel’s well-laid plans, and he was a bit unlucky. Or, maybe, on the contrary, I did him a favor, saving him from a load of unpleasant surprises in the future.

I need a home, a safe haven, a place where I can go back to knowing that my wife is waiting for me, accepting me for who I am. But living with Nina means being in a constant state of anxiety, wondering whether she is going to leave me for someone new. Today Nina’s heart belongs to me, tomorrow it could be Bernard’s, and the day after that anybody else who takes her fancy.

I ought to walk away from Nina and never look back, but I can’t leave Kitty behind and I can’t take her with me and deprive her of her mother and a home. Probably the wisest solution would be to stay calm, avoid conflicts, and not expect too much either from myself or Nina. Life is short, and we should enjoy what we have, instead of demanding the impossible.

Sometimes I wonder, what might have happened if I had never had the misfortune to chance upon Nina in Lincheng? I’d still be working at the Daily News and would probably have met another woman by now. There would have been no flight from Shanghai, and no near-death experiences in Canton. But, on the other hand, if everything had turned out differently, Kitty would have died the day she was born.

7

Unlike the public gardens in the International Settlement, the Chinese were allowed to visit the park in the French Concession—on the strict condition that they wore smart and tidy European-style clothes. An armed policeman was permanently stationed at the gates to ensure the rules were obeyed and the twenty cent tickets paid for and checked.

When Klim brought Kitty to the playground swings, the white moms would grab their children and move them away from her as if she had an infectious disease. Roaring with laughter, Kitty would chase after them and then come back and enjoy the deserted swings and slides all to herself.

“Let’s go throw some pebbles in the pond,” Klim told her, feeling uneasy.

Her delight knew no end when a flat pebble skimmed over the water to disappear under the branches of a willow tree.

“Now, look who’s here!” came a familiar roar.

Klim turned to see the indomitable Don Fernando striding towards him, arms wide open. In one hand Fernando held his hat and in the other an ice-cream on a stick. One-Eye and the other bodyguards scurried after him, uncomfortable in their European style garb.

“Wow, who’s this lovely little thing?” Fernando exclaimed as he noticed Kitty. “Hey, Klim, did you get yourself some Chinese piece with a child? Tut-tut! You’re right, the Chinese are more reliable, and if you ever fancy a white girl, you can always go to Martha’s. Her prices are outrageous but at least her hookers are checked by the doctor every week.”

Klim took Kitty up into his arms. “I’d be grateful if you watched your language in her presence.”

“Oh, come on!” the Don laughed. “We need to discuss business, amigo. Have you ever heard of Dame Nellie Melba?”

“No,” Klim said, frowning.

The Don rolled his eyes. “The world famous soprano? In the past, only the very rich could get tickets to see her, but now any fool can enjoy her wonderful voice. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

Klim looked at him, perplexed. God only knew what sort of crazy ideas inhabited that swarthy and irrepressible head of his.

“We need a radio station, that’s what!” roared the Don. “Here, in Shanghai. And you know who’s going to run it? You. I’ve already hired a room and installed the transmitter. We’ve got the technicians and what we need now is a journalist with the gift of the gab. It’s a job with your name written all over it. What do you say?”

“I’ve already got—”

“Don’t upset me, amigo. This is the future. From now on, ideas are going to be transmitted straight into people’s homes and you’re going to be in on the ground floor.”

1

Daniel didn’t send Edna a single letter, and gradually Ada realized that he wouldn’t be returning to Shanghai. She found herself in a preposterous situation: on paper, she was filthy rich, with a real airplane to her name, but in reality, she had to scrimp and save for several months just to buy herself a new winter coat.

Edna had a radio in her living room, and Ada was surprised to hear Klim broadcasting over the airwaves. Soon he was famous throughout Shanghai with his funny comments on political issues and reviews of the latest record releases. Ada was so disappointed that she hadn’t been able to win his affections that she began to lose faith in her feminine charms. She regarded her future and could only see herself becoming a dried-out, poor, old maid.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bernard had gone quite crazy.

It all started when the Chinese actress Hua Binbin brought two teenage girls to see Edna. Sam and Ada were standing at the door and overheard their conversation. The girls were prostitutes who had escaped from a brothel. Binbin had met them in the temple, learned that they wanted to commit suicide, and had decided to save them.

She told Edna that she too had been contemplating suicide. She had lost her job, and during the strike, thieves had broken into her film studio and stolen all the equipment. So her dream of making a movie was also in ruins.

“But we have no right to complain,” Binbin said to Edna. “These children’s lot is a thousand times worse than ours, and they have no means of escaping their tormentors, while you and I have never experienced true poverty or starvation.”

From that day, Edna and Binbin started a campaign raiding brothels that used underage prostitutes. With an ax in her hand and police officers behind her, Mrs. Bernard would break into the brothels, shattering the doors to the rooms where the children were imprisoned and frightening them to death in the process. Binbin would persuade them to go to a shelter at the church, where the girls were taught crafts and English. A few months later the former prostitutes would be able to earn their living with a respectable trade.