Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

But with Klim, things were different. He was observant, able to get in with the people, and he had an eye for details that gave Edna’s reports a vital element of spice.

With the money she paid him, he bought a new outfit for himself, complete with a hat and canvas shoes, and he took on a new lease of life.

“What were you before the revolution?” she asked him one day. “A Tsarist officer?”

“You’ll never guess,” he replied. “An Argentine journalist.”

He recounted his story to Edna, not mentioning Nina, of course.

“If your English was up to scratch,” Edna said, “and you could provide the editors with letters of recommendation from your previous employers, you wouldn’t be unemployed for a single day. Let me think how I can help you.”

1

As soon as the Shanghai authorities had allowed the refugees to go ashore, Nina started looking for Klim. But he had never registered himself in the Russian Consulate, and when she went to the Orthodox church, she met some ladies who knew her from the refugees’ ship.

“Look at that shameless woman all dressed in fur!” they spat at her. “How dare you step foot in this church, you hussy? Where’s your Czech lover boy?”

What should I do now? Nina thought, at a loss.

Her money and confidence were dissipating rapidly. Initially, Shanghai had almost seemed like a fairy tale to Nina, but she was soon hit with a sobering dose of reality. Time was passing, and she still hadn’t come up with a single good idea about how to make a living. For all her fine clothes, Nina found it difficult to slip into the glittering fast stream of connections, opportunities, and wealth that the city had to offer. Firstly, she was a woman, and a woman, according to the established order of things, shouldn’t be involved in business. Secondly, she was a stateless person with no start-up capital; and thirdly, she didn’t have much of a head for business.

Jiří was convinced that Nina would soon fritter away all her money and turn to petty crime, while he would end up drinking himself into an early grave. He was angry at his own impotence, and even more angry with Nina—for trying to do something about their situation, thus emphasizing his lack of courage and application.

“Let’s open a cinema?” she proposed. “We could rent a place and hire benches and a projector.”

“You’ll spend your whole time haggling with the censor committees,” Jiří said. “Each district of Shanghai has its own and each of them will insist on censoring your film themselves.”

But Nina was not about to give up.

“Why don’t we try to win a municipal order to repair their roads properly? You’ve seen how they fix the pavements here: if a cobblestone comes lose, they call in a gang of coolies who fill the hole with clay, and it only lasts until the next rain storm.”

Jiří looked at her pityingly.

“You’ll never get into a business like that; it’s much too lucrative. Clay is free, the coolies’ labor costs less than a dollar a day, and the local authorities pay a lot of money to have their roads repaired. The contractors bribe the city fathers with huge sums and deliberately do a poor job so they’ll be asked to fix it again at the earliest opportunity.”

Sometimes Jiří’s resignation and pessimism irritated Nina so much that she was on the verge of throwing him out altogether.

She went to the bank to ask about a loan, but being a Russian did nothing for her credit status. The bank teller refused to even speak to her. “We reserve the right to refuse service to stateless people,” he said curtly and closed his window.

Nina was becoming increasingly despondent. I just can’t cope with it by myself, she thought. Should I look for a new husband?

Hoping to put her plan in motion, she ventured out to join the elite throng at the Astor House tiffin room but it never worked out. Nina couldn’t understand what she was doing wrong. In her silk and pearls, she looked better than any other woman in the room; men were quick to invite her to dance, but none were keen to ask for a second.

She would storm back to her room, mad with rage. “They’re all crazy there,” she complained to Jiří. “At first, they listen to me in polite silence and then all they want to do is run away.”

He laughed. “I know exactly what they’re thinking. Men like their women to be funny and carefree, but you behave like an evil sucker… No, no… That’s not right. What’s the word for that creature that drinks other people’s blood in Russian?”

“A mosquito,” Nina replied crossly.

2

Nina didn’t dare to go back to the Orthodox church, and Jiří advised her to go to the Catholic one instead.

“You’ll be fine as long as you do the same as everybody else,” he reassured Nina, and so she agreed.

St Ignatius Cathedral was the tallest building in Shanghai, and every day tour guides would bring visitors there to admire its twin spires and stunning stained glass windows.

The sound of the organ and the smell of incense were welcoming, but when Nina entered the cathedral, she discovered that it wasn’t a mass that she had come to but a funeral.

Feeling deflated, Nina sank down on the nearest pew, her prayerful mood gone. The coffin, decorated with wreaths, seemed to be a bad omen to her.

Nina heard somebody puffing up the aisle, and a fat man in a leather coat came and sat next to her.

“Oh, what a coincidence!” whispered Don Fernando, kissing Nina on the cheek without even asking her permission. “Do you know the man in this coffin? He was my closest friend, Augusto.”

Without a shadow of sadness on his face, Don Fernando began to tell Nina how Augusto had failed to listen to his advice, involved himself in other people’s business, and ended up with a knife in his back. Nina had a sneaking suspicion that the Don had had a hand in this.

She listened to him in silence. The irony of it! The only person in the whole of Shanghai who was genuinely glad to see her was a local gangster kingpin.

A thin old man sitting on the bench in front of them turned round and put his finger to his lips to remind them of the coffin, but Fernando gave him such a withering look that the poor man quickly moved to another pew.

“How do you like Shanghai so far?” the Don asked Nina. “Are you prospering? Or still finding your feet?”

“You were right,” she said almost inaudibly. “I do need documents.”

“No problem. Do you want a Spanish passport? We’ll get it sorted right here, in Zhabei.”

“I’m not interested in fakes,” Nina interrupted. “I need a genuine proof of identity, that will persuade a bank to give me a loan.”

“Oh well, that’ll be at least three hundred dollars.”

“Why so much?”

“Because Shanghai is infested with refugees from all over the world. Without a passport you won’t even be able to get into a library. The consuls here don’t want the risk of issuing a passport to every adventuress that comes running to them.”

“So, legal papers are in great demand?”

Don Fernando grabbed Nina’s hand. “Let’s go outside. I don’t want to disturb the relatives of the deceased.”

They went outside and sat on a bench in the churchyard.

“Only the documents from decent European and American countries are valued,” Don Fernando explained to Nina. “For example, with a Belgian passport, you could get a visa to any country in the world. But it’s better to be a citizen of one of the Great Powers, with their extraterritorial rights.”

“What are they?” Nina asked.

“Extraterritorial rights are the rights that the white people of the imperial powers enjoy. Let’s say you’re a British citizen, then the Chinese authorities won’t be able to touch you, and you can only be tried by a British Consul. The same goes for the French, the Americans, and one or two other nations. The Russians also used to have these rights, but they frittered them away when they had their revolution.”

For a while, Nina was deep in thought. “Is there a Czechoslovak Consulate in Shanghai?” she finally asked.

“Cze… what?”

“I mean Czechoslovakia—it’s a new country. It used to be a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after the Great War it declared independence.”

Don Fernando pushed his hat to the back of his head. “Never heard of it, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a consulate. There’s a lot going on now in Europe at the moment, so I don’t imagine your Czechoslovaks are going to be arriving in China any time soon.”

“Then I’ll set up a Czechoslovak Consulate myself,” Nina declared. “And produce and sell passports. What will I need for people to take me seriously?”

For a moment, Don Fernando was at a loss for words. “You are joking, right?”

“No. If you can forge me a passport, then you can easily sort me out with consulate papers and stamps. It will all seem perfectly feasible and legitimate. After all, why shouldn’t a small new republic wish to protect its citizens in China? If no one here has ever heard of Czechoslovakia, then no one will question the validity of my enterprise. I can provide a genuine Czech Consul who can talk about whatever you desire: politics, culture, or history.”

“You’ll almost certainly be thrown into prison,” Don Fernando said with confidence. “But, you know what? I admire your guts. If you’re going to do this, you’ll need to talk to a proper lawyer, and I know just the right one. His name is Tony Aulman. He’s saved me from all sorts of trouble on many an occasion.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“Criminal, of course.”

“Is your Aulman an expert in international law?”

Don Fernando started counting on his fingers. “He knows International Law, Maritime Law, the Code Napoleon, every single one of the decisions handed down by U.S. Supreme Court, all the laws of the forty-eight American states, the Law of the District of Columbia, and even the Philippines. What’s more, he’s a great horse rider, which is essential if you want to be a Shanghai lawyer.”

“Why?” asked Nina.

“Because most of the local judges are crazy about polo, and if a lawyer can play well, he’ll have all the right connections.”

3

Don Fernando hired two rickshaws and ordered the rickshaw boys to take him and Nina to Peking Road.

“I always thought that men do big deeds out of courage, but women out of despair,” he roared over the racket of the street. “If you want to witness a truly heroic act, then scare the living daylights out of a lady.”

Nina didn’t answer. The Don had been right: if her scam was discovered, she would end up in a Chinese prison, which was tantamount to a certain death for the likes of her. But she was desperate and she had no “Plan B.”

The offices of Aulman, Bormann and Pevzner, Attorneys at Law were located in a stunning five-story building with an elevator. Without even knocking, Don Fernando barged straight through the reception and into one of the offices, beckoning Nina to follow him.

“Allow me to introduce the best lawyer in Shanghai!”

A short, neatly dressed gentleman with a curled mustache was standing on his desk, hanging a scroll on the wall. Two Chinese clerks in European suits were assisting him.

“Don Fernando, is that you?” he exclaimed, jumping off his desk.

Standing before them was Tony Aulman. In excellent French, he explained that his Chinese clients often brought him valuable presents for successfully resolving their difficulties: ancient calligraphy, poems, and artwork. Naturally, his clients wanted to see their gifts on display, but the office lacked the wall space to show them all. So, every day they had to re-hang these works of art depending on who was coming.

Aulman motioned his visitors towards two wide oxblood armchairs.

“What can I do for you?”

Nina felt like an unfaithful wife at a venereal clinic. She was trying hard to pretend that she was a respectable lady but still had to admit her sinful deeds.

Aulman listened to her, showing no surprise, as if confidence tricksters dreaming of making money out of fake passports were frequent visitors to his office.

“It shouldn’t be a problem to set up a consulate,” he said. “We’ll draw up a fake state decree of foundation for you, but the permission documentation will be genuine. We can get it done at the Chinese Foreign Affairs Office. How long do you think you’ll last?”

“As long as luck allows,” Nina replied, growing a little bolder.