A split second later, Ada felt a searing pain in her left ankle.

“She’s been hurt!” Betty screamed, but Ada didn’t understand who she was talking about. Faces started floating around her, and she passed out.

3

On the way to the hospital, Martha cursed the Japanese and their idiotic habit of carrying guns around with them all the time.

“Well, at least he hit you and not one of the customers,” she said to Ada. “If that had happened, the authorities would have shut us down without batting an eyelid.”

Ada nodded, sobbing. She was shaking not so much from the pain, but from the horrific realization that several minutes ago she could have been killed.

A bald doctor with a monocle on a string stitched up and bandaged Ada’s leg. “No bones broken,” he said breezily. “You’ll be fine in a month.”

Ada gasped. “But how am I going to dance?”

“No dancing for you,” snapped the doctor. “You need to stay at home and rest, unless you want to lose that leg of yours.”

“Great,” Martha muttered, cursing under her breath.

She took Ada to the House of Hope and helped her up to her room.

“Where’s Klim?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ada said. “He left two weeks ago and didn’t even say where he was going.”

“If the police come here, tell them you caught your foot on a nail,” Martha said over her shoulder as she made her way down the stairs.

For a long time, Ada just sat in the dark. Not only was she now unable to go out to buy groceries, she couldn’t even fetch boiling water from the kitchen. Hopping up the stairs on one leg with a hot kettle was not an option, and even emptying the night pot was an impossible task. Ada was overwhelmed by a sick feeling as she calculated how much it would cost her to pay the neighbors’ kids to do it for her.

She tried to put a little weight on her injured leg but nearly collapsed. It was so painful!

That’s it, it’s over, she thought. I can’t work and soon I’ll die of hunger. In a week or so, Chen will come to collect the rent payment and discover my corpse under this blanket.

Ada lit a candle and took a crumpled paper icon from under her pillow.

“Lord, please, help me!” she whispered.

After she had had her fill of praying and weeping, she tried to climb up on to her top bunk, but even this was beyond her. She fell asleep exhausted on Klim’s bed.

4

The next morning, Ada was woken up by the sound of a loud argument coming up from the street. Betty, resplendent in a full skirt and red jacket trimmed with exotic tropical bird feathers, was standing at the gates of the House of Hope. Chen hadn’t wanted to let her in, but she gave him such a roasting that he soon retreated with his tail between his legs.

Betty marched upstairs to Ada’s room, flung the door open so that it banged against the wall, and stopped at the threshold.

“So, you’re ready to dance with any Oriental in order to pay for this bird cage? You’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

She walked over to the table and placed canned meat, biscuits, and smoked sausage onto it. “This should keep you going for a while. The other girls and I have decided to keep an eye on you until you get better.”

“Thank you!” Ada whispered, deeply touched.

Betty sat down on the stool and took out a cigarette.

“Now you listen to me. It’s not safe for you to be penniless in your situation. You need to seize the day, while you’re still young, and start working on the second floor. I know what I’m talking about. I had a hard time too, when I first arrived in Shanghai. I used to work as a waitress on a steamer, but was fired for soliciting the passengers. The captain told me that I’d die here but he’s not the first person I’ve proved wrong in my life.”

Ada looked at her with such pitiful eyes that Betty couldn’t help laughing.

“I’m only wishing the best for you, you silly girl! Men like beautiful, bold, and flexible women. Can you do the splits? No? Then you’ll need to start practicing. Here’s another trick that always works as well—”

Betty flicked her cigarette out of the window, took off her hat, and proceeded to do a handstand, her skirt slipping down over her head.

Ada stared in silence at Betty’s black silk stockings and white cami-knickers trimmed with blue ribbons.

“What do you think?” Betty asked from under her skirt.

“Very impressive,” Klim said, peering in from the door.

Ada gasped, while Betty calmly planted her legs back down on the ground, stood up, and straightened her hair.

“Hello, lover boy. We’ve been waiting for you.” She gave Ada, crimson with embarrassment, a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. “Just look at your handsome boyfriend with his fancy new suit and tie! Well, love birds, I have to go now, but you, Ada, have a good think about what I was saying to you earlier. Your boyfriend could disappear any moment, leaving you high and dry and without a friend in the world.”

“I’ve told her a hundred times that you’re not my boyfriend,” Ada said hotly after Betty had left.

Klim sat down beside her on the bed. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

Ada told him all about the shooting at the Havana.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, lowering his eyes. The expression on his face suggested that he held himself personally responsible for what had happened. “I have some good news, though. I was promoted at work, and now I’m going to get thirty dollars a week. After that, I hope I’ll be getting even more.”

Ada couldn’t even imagine having so much money. “Does this mean we’re both out of the woods now?” Her lower lip started shaking. “Betty tried to persuade me to become a prostitute, and for a moment I almost thought I would agree.”

Klim frowned. “You must promise me that you’ll never do that.”

“And you must promise you’ll never leave me on my own for so long again. You do love me, don’t you?”

“Well, how would it be possible not to?”

As if he was afraid that Ada would throw herself on his neck, Klim got up and walked to the window.

“You know,” he said pensively, “sometimes I think that if we weren’t so foolish, we might be happy together. But we’d need the moon to fall into our laps. You’re dreaming about America, and I would need— Well, it’s not important. Forget it.”

“You’re the only fool around here,” Ada snapped. “Are you going to remain faithful to that worthless wife of yours for the rest of your days? She cares about you about as much as she cares for last year’s fashions.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” retorted Klim and he stalked out of the room.

Ada hurled a pillow after him.

5 RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES Klim Rogov’s Notebook

Thanks to my reports from Lincheng, the sales of our newspaper have doubled, and Mr. Green has officially taken me on as a journalist. As a member of this exclusive little club, I now have my own desk, mailbox, and press card. The smug expression on my photo reminds me of the soldier who’s just enlisted for the army on a recruitment drive poster: “He’s Happy & Satisfied. Are You?”

So, this is our news:

Edna has returned from Canton, and her story about the local nationalist governor named Sun Yat-sen caused a great stir. He has far-reaching plans to unite China which was divided up among all sorts of warlords and kick the white ghosts, as the Chinese call the expatriates from Europe and America, out of the country.

Sun Yat-sen’s political party, the Kuomintang, was denied recognition by the Great Powers, and he has found a new ally in Soviet Russia. Moscow has not only promised him funds to keep up the good fight against imperialism, but also political and military advisers.

Here, in Shanghai, some people find the news from the South a source of amusement, and some are genuinely scared. As for me, all this is a far cry from what really preoccupies me.

I still feel the touch of Nina’s soft hands on my skin.

My wife weighed my heart up in her palm and tossed it carelessly into the trash can, and I now have an uncontrollable urge to find her and demand an explanation: What was it then between us that night on the train? I still don’t understand a thing.

Ada has persuaded me to rent a two-room apartment on the floor below our old one, and now we have our own kitchen, but still no electricity, though. Ada’s wound has healed up, but I have dissuaded her from going back to the Havana and promised that I would provide her with a small allowance.

My good intentions will end up being my downfall. The first thing Ada did with her money was to buy provocatively lacy knickers, and now she spends much of her time learning to do handstands, with the obvious intention of trying to seduce me. I spend much of my time these days hiding from her in my room, but she is constantly banging on my door, demanding that I hold her legs. “You wouldn’t want me to fall and break my neck, would you?”

Despite her age she is only too aware that I’m no saint. I constantly have to remind myself that Ada is little more than a silly infatuated child, and I definitely don’t want to have another sin on my conscience.

Today we made a deal: she swore that she would stop pestering me, if I found her a job. I forced her to agree that the moment she breaks our agreement, I will immediately take away her allowance and move to another apartment. Ada gave in but on condition that our agreement will only be valid until she comes of age. She is convinced that in a year I will forget about Nina and be looking to marry again—a successful, caring, albeit mildly grumpy potential husband.