“Let’s go to sleep,” Nina told him, but he didn’t move, staring intensely into the darkness behind her back.

She turned and shuddered at the sight of a large junk approaching their ship. It had a carved dragon on its bow, and its Chinese sailors were lit an eerie red by the onboard lanterns as they bustled about on deck.

“Missy, guns! Me wantchee guns,” shouted one of them, dressed in a bowler hat and a quilted Chinese jacket.

“What does he want?” Nina asked Jiří, perplexed.

He shrugged. “They seem to be speaking English, but I can’t figure it out.”

The sailor made a gesture as if he was firing with his finger and then pulled a banknote from his pocket.

“I think he wants to buy a gun,” Nina guessed. “Ask him will a revolver do? I have a revolver.”

It would be nice to sell it and get some money, she thought.

The sailor fanned his fingers out on both hands.

“He needs more than one gun,” Jiří said.

“How much then? Ten?”

“More, more!” the sailor shouted.

The captain of the refugee ship came out on the deck, accompanied by the sailors on watch. “What’s going on here?”

“This man wants to buy guns,” said Nina excitedly. “Let’s sell him something from our arsenal and get some money.”

The captain looked at her as if she was crazy. “The Great Powers have imposed an embargo here: it is prohibited to import any arms into China. If they catch us selling guns, they’ll deport us immediately.”

“How much cash have you got?” Nina asked quietly. “I don’t mean worthless paper rubles, but real money, dollars, that you can actually buy something with.”

The captain frowned. “I don’t have the right to trade these arms. They are not my property.”

“But you do have the right to sign off anything that has gone out of service.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the captain invited the Chinese on board.

“Come on up, but don’t make any noise,” he said. “Our passengers are already asleep.”

The first to appear over the side was a fat man wearing a fashionable hat and an unbuttoned leather coat.

“Good evening,” he said in French.

Nina was delighted. She knew some French and would be able to talk to the guests.

The fat man kissed her hand. “Oh, what secret treasures are hidden on this boat! Don Jose Fernando Burbano at your service, ma’am.”

Two Chinese followed him, the one who had initiated the negotiations, and another one, a huge, terrifying one-eyed man with a hideously burned face.

Nina offered them her services as an interpreter, but Don Fernando declined saying that this was no business for a woman.

“Does anyone know English here?” he asked.

Jiří raised his hand enthusiastically, like a student in a classroom, and Don Fernando patted him on the shoulder. “Come on then, Redhead, let’s see what you’ve got for us.”

The captain told Nina to go to her cabin, but she held her ground and resolutely followed the men down into the hold. She had calculated that if she sold her revolver to Don Fernando, she might get five or even ten Chinese dollars for it.

The sailors took turns spinning the handle of the dynamo torch while the captain showed Don Fernando his wares.

“We have rifles made in Russia, Mills Bomb hand grenades, handguns, gun sights, and periscopes,” Jiří interpreted, and Nina was surprised that she could understand some of the English.

The haggling went on endlessly. Finally, Don Fernando’s patience ran out. “You’re in no position to make any bargains,” he barked at the captain. “You should take what you’re given and be grateful.”

One-Eye handed him a small abacus, and the Don began snapping the beads to and fro.

“Cartridge shells, twenty boxes; Mosin-Nagant rifles, dreadful old crap. I bet half of them are out of service. Sixteen caskets, plus the grenades… Sixteen hundred dollars for the lot, and I won’t give you a copper more.”

Jiří interpreted his words: “He’s only offering six hundred dollars.”

Nina instinctively wanted to correct him: Sixteen hundred means one thousand and six hundred—

But the captain had already offered the Don his hand. “Well, to hell with you. Just take everything away quickly and get out of here.”

Nina’s heart was thumping.

“You pay the captain six hundred dollars,” she said to the Don in French, “and I’ll collect the rest of the money. But we need to be discreet about it.”

Don Fernando looked at her, and a knowing smile lit up his chubby face. “As you wish, ma’am. Come over to my junk, and we’ll settle matters there.”

Nina watched the sailors and deckhands shift the crates from one vessel to another, her whole body trembling with fear and excitement. If her fellow refugees had learned what she was about to do, she would be tried and punished in accordance with martial law. However, if she succeeded she would have the money that she and Klim needed to get settled in Shanghai. She would ask for his forgiveness, tell him she had a mental breakdown, and they would make up.

When the last crate had been transferred to the junk, Nina quickly jumped onto the gangway connecting the two ships.

The captain grabbed her by her elbow. “Where are you going?”

Nina gave him a forced smile. “I want to sell my revolver to Don Fernando. I don’t have any money left.”

The captain let her go, reluctantly. “Don’t stay there too long.”

But as soon as Nina jumped down onto the junk’s deck, a searchlight from the distant patrol ship flashed in the darkness, and a voice boomed over the river, speaking in English through a loud-hailer. “Don’t move! You are under arrest!”

A moment later, Don Fernando’s men had pulled up the gangway, and the anchor chain clattered.

“Wait!” Nina cried, but nobody paid her the slightest attention. Sailors ran to their stations on deck, the sail filled above her head, and the junk moved irrevocably away from the refugee ship.

“Miss Nina!” a frightened voice called out to her.

She turned her head and saw Jiří sitting on the deck, holding his travel bag.

“What are you doing here?” Nina asked.

“Don Fernando promised to take me to Shanghai,” Jiří whispered. “I’m sick of wasting my time on that rotten steamer.”

There was a gunshot, and the searchlight from the patrol ship shone straight at the junk’s deck.

“Damn it!” Don Fernando roared in the darkness. “Drop the anchor! That’s Captain Eggers. I’ll have to talk to him.”

3

Don Fernando made a courtesy visit to the patrol ship, returning only at dawn, drunk and in high spirits.

“Let’s go home,” he told the deckhands. “Captain Eggers and I had a talk. There are no hard feelings.”

Shivering with fear and cold, Nina sat next to Jiří on a coil of cables, not daring to attract the attention of the smugglers.

There’s no way I can get back to the refugee ship, she thought in panic. What if these smugglers rape and kill me? Well, it would serve me right—I’m always asking for trouble.

A Chinese pilot stood impassively on the high, painted stern, moving the heavy steering oar with considerable effort. The timbers shivered above Nina’s head, and the moist air smelled of seaweed and smoke.

“We’re lucky to be the first into Shanghai,” Jiří said quietly. “Do you realize what will happen once the city becomes inundated with all these penniless refugees? The Shanghailanders will come to hate us as intruders. We need to settle in as soon as possible before our accents turn us into pariahs.”

“What are you going to do in Shanghai?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know… Maybe we should try to find a homeless shelter.”

Don Fernando lurched unsteadily around his newly acquired weapon crates.

“Hey, ma’am, come over here,” he called to Nina, pulling a wad of banknotes out of his pocket. “Here’s a thousand dollars. Count it. It’s all there.”

Nina looked at him in amazement. She wasn’t expecting the Don to keep his word.

“I don’t know what’s come over me,” Fernando sighed. “Perhaps I have gone soft and taken a shine to you, with your pretty eyes shining like little stars. Hey, One-Eye!” he called his sidekick. “I’ll go take a nap. Wake me up when we get there.”

Nina hid the money in her pocket. She still couldn’t take in what had happened. I’ve got a thousand dollars, and I didn’t have to lift a finger to earn it.

Things weren’t looking too bad, after all. With money in her pocket, she would be able to start a business and find Klim as soon as the other refugees got ashore. She would probably be able to get his address at the Russian Consulate or the local Orthodox church.

Nina moved to the junk’s bow, a carved dragon head jutting proudly above her. She felt the fresh sea breeze on her face as the junk skipping at a good clip over the waves.

The closer it got to the city, the more wharves and warehouses she could make out along the embankment. Billboards with exotic slogans in English were on display above their tiled roofs: “Buy Great Wall cigarettes,” “Tiger Balm—the best remedy for all illnesses.” Smoke-stacks, factory shops, building cranes… The river was packed from bank to bank with boats of all shapes and sizes. One-Eye took up a position next to Nina and began shouting at the other boats through a megaphone.

Soon a large steel bridge appeared on their starboard side, surrounded by enormous buildings capped with domes and adorned with towers and columns. The streetlamps on the promenade were still alight and were reflected in the countless windows around.