Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

Nina had secretly hoped that she and Tamara would become soul mates, but that was out of the question. Tony Aulman was hiring Nina in order to divert and cheer up his wife.

I have no other choice, Nina repeated to herself. My main goal now is to get my foot in the door, and then we'll see how things turn out.

5

As soon as Tony Aulman got back from work, dinner was served. It turned out to be a boisterous and fun affair. Tamara showed the boys how to catapult peas with their spoons and make ballet dancers’ legs out of their napkins. Tony had almost lost his voice after a three-hour deposition at the court, but he ate with a huge appetite and laughed more than anyone at the antics around him. He was in high spirits and recounted the day’s case with great humor.

The police had raided a warehouse packed with counterfeit records that had been worth over twenty thousand dollars. Tony explained that the Chinese would forge and illegally copy practically every product that had ever been advertised in the press, from cough medicine to sheets of music. He was representing the interests of the affected companies and had hired several sleuths to snoop around the Chinese warehouses. Then Aulman would either settle the case in his client’s favor, with a big payout, or demand the destruction of the fake goods.

“How can you tell a legal copy from an illegal one?” Nina asked.

“We look at the labels,” Tony explained. “The Chinese typesetters don’t speak any foreign languages and often they put the letters upside down or mix up the word order. Another giveaway is a lack of spaces between words or punctuation marks. When my sleuths find a forged item in a store, they will pose as a big wholesaler and discover who the manufacturer is via the entire chain of suppliers.”

“Why don’t the police carry out the investigation?”

Tony and Tamara exchanged knowing glances and laughed.

“Because the purpose of holding any official position in China,” said Tamara, “is to provide for yourself, not the public. If you don’t give the police a bribe, they won’t lift a finger for you.”

“What if the counterfeiters provide them with an even bigger bribe?”

“In that case, we ask Don Fernando to intervene,” said Tony. “He knows how to resolve that sort of issue.”

Nina recalled Fernando’s innuendoes at the funeral earlier that week. So that was why Aulman was friends with a murderer and a gangster.

Throughout the entire evening she observed Tony closely. It was clear that he really adored his wife and that his entertaining stories were largely meant for Tamara’s amusement. He didn’t wait for the servants to pour her orange juice, preferring to do it himself, and assiduously made sure that she wouldn’t get cold sitting in a draft. For the first time in her life, Nina was looking at a man who was successful, strong, and wealthy and utterly loved a woman regardless of her health and beauty. The impression was strange and delightful.

When the maid announced the arrival of the taxi, Tony accompanied Nina to the porch. It was dark outside, and the servants had lit a garland of Chinese lanterns along the driveway.

“Thank you,” Tony said quietly, shaking Nina’s hand. “I’m so glad Tamara has met you. I haven’t seen her so cheerful for a long time.”

Nina felt confused. “It’s my pleasure.”

Klim had once told her that the most important things in life were to be loved, to be healthy, and to be capable of doing good deeds. Tamara could only boast one of these three—the love of her husband and children, but this didn’t seem to be enough for her to be happy.

Nina had nothing but her health, and if tomorrow she were to break her spine, she would have no one willing to take care of her.

1 RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES ^{Klim Rogov’s Notebook}

Edna led me into the holy of holies—the editorial office of the North China Daily News. Some people call this paper and its staff the “imperialists’ mouthpiece,” others a “bunch of blundering idiots in rose-tinted spectacles,” while others still simply dismiss it as a “sniveling, liberal rag.” But one thing is certain: the Daily News is the most popular, influential, and prestigious foreign newspaper ever created in another country’s territory.

Alas, its editor-in-chief, Mr. Green, didn’t believe that I was the sort of reporter he needed. Having been introduced and then ushered out of his office, I heard him explaining to Edna that I couldn’t write English fluently, and that he wasn’t going to hire a special editor just for my sake.

“If the man doesn’t have the necessary skills,” he said, “he has to work as a courier, not a journalist.”

“I’m fine with that,” Edna replied. “Enroll Rogov as a courier, and he can work as my personal assistant.”

Her husband regularly paid for ads in the Daily News, so Mr. Green wasn’t about to argue.

I do my best to pay Edna back. Previously, it used to take her half the day to run around the city and find a good story, and then the other half to write it up on her typewriter. But now we share the work: I bring her material about horse auctions, pickpockets on trams, illegal fight clubs, and the like, and Edna turns this raw material into clever, witty articles.

Shanghai journalism is very competitive, and the true sign of a successful hack is to have your articles copied and published by the Chinese press without your permission. It’s a big honor. As they say, plagiarism is the highest compliment, and at the moment, Edna is getting more compliments than any other journalist in Shanghai, which makes me feel very proud as well.

Once I was on the payroll, I told Ada that now it was my turn to pay for the room. She hopes and prays that I won’t lose my new job. She thinks that I work in paradise because I have the chance to meet the local celebrities every day. They never return my greetings, though, but that doesn’t bother me terribly.

What I want more than anything else is to work on my own. I have tried my hand writing an article about the Street of Eternal Happiness, which is the name of a few blocks down the Foochow Road. Rich Chinese men come there to visit the sing-song girls who sell the illusion of love for an hour or two. Neither the purveyors or consumers of this temporal happiness seem to see the irony in the street’s name.

I was sure that I had written a decent article but by the time Edna had finished with it, it was covered in red pencil.

“You have what it takes,” she said, “you have a great grasp of the necessary details and emotions. But your grammar is terrible. I don’t know what to do about you.”

For me, it’s obvious what I need to do—practice, practice, and more practice. I stay back at the editorial office well after working hours and write endless copy. First, I read someone else’s article and then try to copy it from memory. It’s tough and sometimes I feel desperate, but I keep telling myself that genuine talent will always triumph regardless of the failure and lack of progress on the way. Looking on the bright side, I’m beginning to make some real improvement on my verbs, and there was a time when I thought I’d never master the mysteries of English grammar.

2

Mr. Green said that he would raise Klim’s salary, if he took over the responsibility of corresponding with the Chinese subscribers who used the Daily News to practice their English. Half of all the mail coming to the editorial office contained questions regarding English vocabulary or grammar.

When Chinese subscribers received polite answers to their enquiries, they would be extremely pleased and provide the best sort of word of mouth advertising that the Daily News could hope for.

Klim had had no time to deal with the mail during the day; instead he would come to the editorial office well before office hours.

One morning he had no sooner sat down at his desk when the door flew open, and Mr. Green burst into the room.

“Where’s Edna?” he asked abruptly. “Still in Canton?”

Klim nodded. Edna had left a week ago for the South, hoping to organize an interview with the local Chinese nationalists.

Mr. Green went to his office but soon returned.

“Rogov, have you heard the news? The Blue Express has been captured by a gang of bandits. Three hundred passengers have been taken up into the mountains and among them are a lot of wealthy and reputable foreigners.”

Klim whistled in surprise. The Blue Express was the pride of the Chinese railways. It had recently been purchased from the United States to ensure safe and convenient communications between Peking and Shanghai, and tickets for it were so expensive that only rich businessmen and government officials could afford them.

Mr. Green began telephoning someone.

“I need to send a correspondent to Shandong Province,” he yelled into the receiver. “Michael is on leave, and Edna is in Canton, so you’ll have to go instead. You need to get to the town of Lincheng. They already have a situation room there for the hostage mission… So what if there are bandits?… Do you think just because they’ve attacked one train, they’re going to attack them every day? You don’t fool me, you’re just being a coward!”

After several similar calls, Mr. Green hurled the receiver back into its cradle.

“Rogov, what time is it?”

“Five minutes to seven.”

“Damn it! The train leaves in two hours, and I still have no one to send to Lincheng.”