Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

“I do,” said Janek, his jaw shaking, “but it’s a dead-end alley. The only way out is on to the main street.”

Klim cursed and looked at the judge.

“Are the police after me?” Huo Cong asked, pressing the wads of money to his chest.

“They are,” Klim said, grimly watching a man in the distance talking to the policemen and pointing at Janek’s shop. “I guess the neighbors must have spotted you coming in.”

He noticed a number of rusty gas lamps standing along the wall.

“Are these carbide lamps?” he asked Janek.

“Yes,” the repairman said. “Why?”

Klim pushed him aside and took the lid off an iron box labeled with the chemical formula CaC2.

“Janek, I need a container—a jar or a vase—anything. We need to scare off the police.  ”

The repairman nodded, finally realizing what Klim was up to, and took a couple of empty beer bottles from under the table. Klim filled them with dull gray fragments of carbide, poured in some water, and shook the bottles.

“I’ll be right back,” he said running out into the street.

The policemen rushed towards him, blowing their whistles. Klim left the bottles on the sidewalk and ran back into the shop. Two explosions went off, one after the other, shattering the window, and the policemen scattered, shouting.

“They’ll kill us all!” yelped the judge.

“Janek, do we have any more bottles?” Klim barked.

At that moment there was a roar of an engine, and a black car stopped at the back door.

 “Get in!” Daniel shouted.

Klim, Janek, and Huo Cong got into the car, and it set off at top speed towards the main street. The policemen started to shoot at them, but it was already too late; the car had turned the corner and driven off, bouncing over the cobbled road.

Huo Cong was still clutching his money; Janek sat beside him, his hands pressed over his head.

“What happened back there?” Daniel asked.

Klim laughed nervously. “When I worked at the radio station, we used small amounts of calcium carbide to create the sound effect of explosions in our shows. I just repeated the performance for our police friends back there. Where’s Nina?”

“With Valdas,” Daniel said.

Klim was relieved. His mind was completely numb. How had they been able to make all this happen? He still couldn’t believe that everything had worked out fine.

They entered the Legation Quarter, and the car drove up to the gate of the Soviet Embassy, where journalists and photographers had already gathered.

Daniel stopped and let Klim and Janek get out of the car.

“Find out what’s going on here, and I’ll take the judge to the German Embassy,” he said.

His heart pounding, Klim approached the agitated crowd.

“Stand back!” the Red Army soldiers yelled at the crowd.

“Where are Fanya Borodin and her people?” someone shouted.

“We know nothing.”

Klim and Janek pushed their way to the gate and showed the guards their passes.

As they reached the porch with the stone lions, they met a stranger in a military jacket.

“Comrade Borodin and her companions have already left,” he said.

“Where to?” Klim asked in alarm.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know.”

“Where are Valdas and Levkin?”

“They have also left. All the embassy’s employees have been evacuated back to the USSR.”

Klim grabbed him by the shoulders. “Where are they?”

Pushing the man aside, Klim ran into the building, dashing from one room to another and throwing the doors open. A couple of guards chased after him. When they caught him, they pinned his arms behind his back and hurled him out of the gate.

Oblivious to the excited crowd around him, Klim stood frozen to the spot, staring at the embassy fence that looked as menacing and impregnable as a stockade of spears. How could they have taken Nina away, without even letting him say a word to her? Levkin must have realized a long time ago that he and Nina were more than “just friends.”

Maybe we just missed each other, Klim thought. Zhang Zuolin is bound to turn the entire city upside down to find Fanya Borodin and the other prisoners. They must be in hiding somewhere, I just need to figure out where.

Klim rushed to the German Embassy but the guards wouldn’t let him in. They told him they had never heard of Daniel.

7

Peking’s walls and fences were covered with portraits of the traitor judge Huo Cong and the political criminals he had released. A huge reward had been promised, but they had disappeared without a trace.

Klim felt as if his entire misadventure in Peking had been some sort of delirious dream. Depressed, he would drink himself into oblivion and wander the city for hours with no idea of where he had been and why he had gone there. He would then return to his hotel room and sit there hoping against hope that someone would call him.

Finally, Daniel Bernard appeared at the door of his room, thin, unshaven, and haggard.

“Any news of my wife?” Klim asked hopefully.

Daniel shook his head. “When I learned that you were still here, I figured that you’d been unable to find Nina either. So here we are with nothing to do but to live in the past.”

He took Klim’s “Receipts and Expenditures” diary out of his pocket and opened it at the middle page. He tore out the second half that was covered in his own handwriting and handed the front half to Klim.

“You keep the Russian part,” said Daniel, “and I’ll keep the German.”

Klim flipped through his mutilated diary. Its inside covers had doodles all over them—airplanes, cars, and portraits of Nina, some of them quite well executed.

“If you have something good to remember, then you have not lived your life in vain,” Daniel said, and he left without so much as shaking Klim’s hand.

A minute later a bellboy brought Klim a telegram from Tamara: “Kitty is missing you. Come back soon.”

The next day, Klim bought a ticket to Shanghai.

1

Klim was sitting in his studio in front of the microphone, reading the world news.

“In response to increasing tensions with Great Britain and the other Great Powers, the Soviet Union has organized a National Defense Week teaching the population how to shoot and use gas masks. There are continuing clashes between the police and socialists in Vienna.”

After Klim had bid his audience goodnight, Don Fernando stuck his head around the studio door.

“Hey, Klim, have you heard the latest about your crazy friend Martha? Some respected figure in the local church community ran up a huge tab at her brothel and refused to pay it. So last Sunday, Martha went to his church, and when they handed the baskets out for the offertory, she put every one of his signed chits into the basket. ‘The bearer of this note promises to pay for debts accrued in the Havana brothel.’ What a mad scandal that was!”

Klim chuckled. “That’s funny.”

It was only then that he noticed a technician waving frantically behind the glass screen.

“Oh no, we forgot to switch the mike off!”

Don Fernando roared with laughter and then let loose a long list of profanities, before declaring that the whole mishap must have been decreed by Virgin herself: now people would be talking about his honest mistake in every tram, providing free advertising for his radio station and Martha’s brothel.

Klim’s secretary, Olga, knocked and entered the studio, a Russian newspaper in her hands.

“Klim, look! I thought there was something here that you might find interesting.”

Klim took the paper. The front page headline read, “Escape from Chinese satraps: an interview with Fanya Borodin.”

Fanya had reported that she, Nina Kupina, and the diplomatic messengers had been forced to hide for a whole month at a Russian orientalist’s house in Peking. It had been too dangerous to leave the capital immediately: all the roads and train stations were being watched. Gradually, the dust had settled, and the fugitives managed to escape to the Soviet Union, along with diplomats, military advisers, and prominent members of the Chinese Communist Party.

Klim took a deep breath. So Nina was in Russia now.

He stood up decisively. “I have to go.”

Don Fernando grasped his sleeve. “Where?”

“To Russia.”

“Right now?”

“Yep. No time like the present.”

2

Klim was only able to get a Russian visa in October, and he immediately bought tickets on the first Soviet ship sailing to Vladivostok. From there he hoped to get a train to Moscow. His plan was to find Fanya Borodin and ask her Nina’s whereabouts.

He couldn’t leave Kitty for an indefinite period and decided to take her with him. All of his friends told him that he was crazy to return back to a country ruled by the Bolsheviks. The rumors coming from the USSR were frightening; in addition to military hysteria, the Russian economy had collapsed, stores were empty, and there were queues everywhere.

“If you want to commit suicide, why don’t you ask One-Eye?” Don Fernando told Klim. “He’ll give you some excellent advice on how to do the job properly.”

Klim shook his head. “There are plenty of American tourists visiting the USSR every year. Kitty and I will easily mingle in with the crowd. I’ve already got her name on my American passport. Of course, it’s illegal, but I don’t think anyone in Russia will be any the wiser about that.”

Klim prepared for his trip to his homeland as if he was organizing an expedition to the North Pole. The servants loaded twelve suitcases with canned food, soap, bedding, and other supplies for all events.

People who had previously visited the Soviet Union advised Klim to wear his best suit. Fine clothes provided travelers with good protection against the caprices of the local authorities, who were slightly in awe of “important foreign visitors.”

Klim made sure that he and Kitty were fitted out with the most magnificent outfits for their trip. Tony Aulman, who saw them off at the dock, could barely suppress his laughter when he saw Klim in an elegant dark gray coat, a Homburg hat, and a crimson silk scarf.

“Did you see that Russian reporter taking a photograph of you just then?” Tony whispered, pointing at a young man with a portable camera in his hands. “Now your portrait will be plastered all over the Soviet papers with the caption, ‘A typical capitalist running dog, looking to cash in on the honest labor of our brother workers.’”

“How do you know he’s Russian?” Klim asked.

“He came to meet some of my clients, the sailors from the Pamyat Lenina,” Tony replied, pointing to a group of men dressed in tattered clothes, who were also waiting to board. “Like a fool, I took up their case, and for half a year visited them in their prison. In the Shanghai Club, people have almost stopped talking to me. They’re convinced I’ve sold out to the Bolsheviks. But there was no way I was going to let those people rot in a Chinese dungeon for the rest of their lives without a trial. No evidence of any crime was found, and I finally managed to talk the Chinese into deporting them back to the USSR.”

“Say hello to Tamara for me,” Klim said, shaking Tony’s hand.

“I will,” Tony replied, smiling.

The customs officer called Tony over, and he ran off to arrange his clients’ boarding passes.

“So Mr. Rogov, you’re leaving as well?” said a vaguely familiar woman’s voice.

Klim turned round and was greeted by Ada, dressed in a traveling suit and a felt hat. Next to her stood a young Chinese man holding a suitcase in each hand.

“Sam and I are going to America,” Ada announced. “Mrs. Bernard managed to get visas for us through her Moral Welfare League.”

“So, your dream is coming true?” Klim asked in surprise.

Ada gave him a proud look. “All my dreams are coming true.”

A steam whistle sounded on the little launch transporting the passengers to the big ocean liners.

Ada crossed herself. “That’s us, we’re off. God willing, we’ll meet again.”

Sam tightened his grip on the suitcases. “Where to?”

“Follow me,” said Ada.

Sam followed her with adoring eyes, and Klim could tell that the young man was totally in love with Ada.

Russian Treasures Book 1 White Ghosts Book 2 The Prince of the Soviets Book 3

Visit Elvira Baryakina’s website to learn more about Klim Rogov and Nina Kupina: