Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

“Why don’t you come back to my house now?” Nina asked.

The temptation was great.

“I really need to go home tonight,” Klim said. “I have a translation to finish. Tomorrow I’ll come to you after work, and you can tell me what you’ve decided about our situation.”

“I already have.”

“Mull it over again. If you change your mind and don’t feel we can be soul mates, it doesn’t mean that we can’t be around each other.”

6

Klim had never expected his life would change quite so suddenly. He admitted to himself that all these months he had been shadowboxing with a woman who he thought was Nina, but was, in fact, a figment of his imagination. He had been exhausted by these phantom battles, like a soldier who no longer remembers or cares about the cause he is fighting for and wishes for only one thing—to throw his rifle down by the roadside and go home.

Klim guessed that Nina must also have rehearsed endless disputes with him in her head, finding hidden meanings in every word he uttered.

The only possible way we could get over it, Klim thought as he walked up the stairs to his apartment, is to accept that both of us were just looking for the best solution in the given situation. It doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong in the past; there’s a lot to blame on both sides.

Ada came out from the kitchen to greet Klim.

“What are you so happy about?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “Did you find a wallet full of money on the pavement or what? By the way, a courier from Mr. Green came over and told you to come into the office immediately. Will you go now or have your dinner first? I’ve cooked Chinese cabbage today.”

It was half past eight. Why on earth would Mr. Green summon Klim to a meeting this late?

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

7

The tram was filled with merry people returning from restaurants. While making a turn, the tram driver hit the brakes and a drunk young woman with a bright lipstick fell face first into Klim’s arms.

“I’m so sorry!” she mumbled, looking at the lipstick mark she had left on his lapel.

Klim swore under his breath. She had ruined his jacket. How was he going to get it clean before his meeting?

It was already dark when he reached the Bund, and there wasn’t a single light on in the recently-built editorial office building. Perhaps the meeting is over and everyone has gone home? Klim wondered.

The old doorman ushered him into the dimly lit lobby.

“Do you have anything for this stain on my jacket?” Klim asked.

The doorman gave him a jar with an impressive red inscription on its side:

SHINE The miraculous cleaning fluid for all your home needs. Flammable and harmful if swallowed.

In all likelihood Shine had been manufactured in a nearby basement out of rice vodka and ditch water, however there was nothing Klim or his jacket had to lose.

He went up to the sixth floor. It was all very strange: the editorial room was empty.

I guess Ada lied to me about the meeting, Klim thought. She probably invited Betty over and decided to keep it a secret from me.

Frustrated, he threw his jacket on his desk and poured some Shine onto the stained lapel. The fumes were so strong that he coughed. That was all he needed. It was unlikely the bad smell would be gone by the next morning when the typists came into work.

He heard footsteps coming from the corridor, and two burly Chinese men burst into the room.

“Who are you looking—” Klim began but stopped in mid-sentence as Captain Wyer appeared from behind their backs with a fat cigar in his mouth.

“Sit down,” he ordered Klim. “We need to talk.”

Klim rushed to the door, but the Chinese caught him, twisting his arms behind his back and forcing him to sit down at his desk.

Wyer’s square jaw was moving slowly as if he was chewing on something.

“What’s that smell in here?” he asked.

He opened the window, and a draft riffled the papers on the desks and swayed the lamps hanging from the ceiling, causing their shadows to swing along the wall like oversized pendulums.

“Did you seriously think those students would never betray you?” Wyer chuckled. “No Chinese would ever risk his life for a second-rate ‘white ghost’ like you.”

He made a sign to one of the Chinese, and the man pulled a brown bottle out of his pocket.

“I’m a kind and God-fearing man, and I will not kill you,” Wyer said, “at least, not immediately. I expect you’re wondering what’s in this bottle? Well, I’ll tell you. It contains cholera water—a very apt cure for your impudence. Since you’re so fond of writing all sorts of crap about me, you should find yourself expelling every ounce of it for the foreseeable future. I think that should teach you a lesson unless you croak from the diarrhea first.”

Klim stared at the blue smoke rising from Wyer’s cigar.

“Could I have a smoke first?” he asked hoarsely and pulled the packet of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket. “Damn, I forgot my lighter.”

Wyer tossed him his matches. “Yes, you can, if it helps you to calm your nerves.”

Klim struck a match and threw it onto his jacket soaked with Shine. The draft blew the flame up to the ceiling, the Chinese jumped back, and Klim darted out of the room.

“Don’t let him out of the building!” Wyer yelled.

Klim dashed down the stairs, taking several steps at the time. He hit the heavy front door with all his weight and found himself on the Bund.

Pushing passersby out of his way, Klim ran towards the bridge over the Suzhou Creek.

“Stop thief!” he heard the voices behind his back. He looked back and saw the Chinese thugs chasing after him.

Narrowly avoiding a car, he crossed the street, but a Sikh policeman who was directing traffic on the bridge blocked his path, hitting him on the neck with his bamboo stick. Klim fell onto the warm road that smelled of iron. The policeman gave a shrill blow on his whistle, and the traffic stopped.

Klim quickly got back up onto his feet and rushed to the railing on the bridge. Down below was an endless stream of boats and sampans. Without a second thought, he jumped over the railing and onto a motorboat.

He hit the deck so hard that the boat almost capsized. The Chinese woman sitting at the stern gawked at Klim.

“Who are you?” she shrieked. “What do you want?”

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” someone yelled from the bridge.

“Get out of here quick, or they’ll kill us!” Klim shouted to the woman.

The boat jerked forward, and in a few seconds, they were in the middle of the Huangpu River, gunshots ringing out after them.

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

The boat woman took me to the Santa Maria.

When Don Fernando learned that Wyer’s thugs were after me, he offered to take me with him to Canton immediately. Feverish after the chase, my head foggy, I didn’t have much time for reflection. At the time, it seemed to make sense to me to disappear from the city and draw the heat from Nina, Kitty, and Ada.

I was worried crazy about what might happen to my girls. What would Nina do with Gu Ya-min’s collection? How were she and Kitty going to survive while I was away? What would happen to Ada? What if Wyer decided to take petty revenge on them? But there was no way I could take them with me to Canton on a smuggler’s boat that might come under fire from the patrol ships at any moment.

It was agonizing that I didn’t have time to let them know what had happened. In any event, Wyer might have had my apartment watched, and Nina would never have agreed to drop everything and make a break for it with the baby to consider. I could imagine what she must be thinking about me. She had told me a hundred times not to provoke Wyer, and now I’d gone and ruined everything again.

I can only hope that she’s put two and two together and guessed that I had to leave Shanghai because I had no other choice. It’s such bad luck to be finally reconciled with Nina only to lose her the very next moment.

2

The Santa Maria is three days into the East China Sea, and Don Fernando and I kill time playing cards.

I will have no means of supporting myself in Canton, and the Don has offered me a job as his interpreter. There are dozens of Russian military experts in Guangdong province, and Fernando wants to make friends with them to get orders supplying arms to Sun Yat-sen’s army.

I can’t stand the idea of playing a part in another civil war, but Don Fernando has no time for my protests. “You have no choice,” he laughs at me. “By the way, why don’t you learn some German while you’re at it, since you’re so good at languages? I really need a German interpreter.”

According to the Don, Germany is keen to get involved in Canton’s political affairs. The Germans were expelled from China, and now they want to get back in with the help of Sun Yat-sen. After the Great War, the victorious Allies forced Germany to disarm, but Berlin had no intention of giving away everything for free. Now they are trying to sell whatever they can, and are secretly bringing shiploads of the stuff to neighboring ports, which the Don then obligingly smuggles into Canton for them.

He told me that previously he used to register everything as “diplomatic cargo,” but this loophole had been closed after Jiří Labuda’s untimely death. I remember the little Czech saying that he had got his guns from the Germans, but so far I haven’t been able to glean any more details from the Don. Despite our agreement, Fernando has refused to grant an interview or answer any of my questions. “We’re quits,” he told me. “I haven’t charged you for your passage out of Shanghai, have I? And I don’t think you’re in any position to lay down the law with me at the moment.”