Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

Nina went up to the second floor, where shelves with liquors stretched from the floor to the ceiling. A bottle of whiskey—that was all she wanted for Christmas.

She noticed a poster on the wall of a girl in a swimming suit about to dive into a wine glass. Let’s consider it an omen, Nina decided. She took a bottle from the shelf and turned to go to the checkout.

“Hello,” said Daniel Bernard, who had been watching her, his arms crossed. His hair was close-cropped, his face had grown thinner, and gray streaks had appeared at his temples.

“What are you doing here?” Nina said in amazement.

“I was just following your every move and waiting for you to be good enough to notice me,” Daniel said, smiling. “How are you?”

Nina didn’t know what to say.

“I’m fine,” she muttered finally and put the whiskey bottle back, blushing.

Daniel shook his head disapprovingly. “Let’s find a place to sit and talk.”

Klim had told Nina that this man was working for the NRA. It was clear that he had come to Shanghai for a good reason, yet she resisted the urge to call the police. Instead, she followed him to the third floor where there was a half-empty movie theatre.

The film started, and to the crackling sound of the projector and the accompaniment of an out-of-tune piano, Nina confided to Daniel everything that had happened to her over the last few months.

“It’s all your fault,” she whispered in despair. “You’ve ruined my life."

“Then it’s up to me to fix it,” Daniel said in a serious voice. “I have some business to see to in Shanghai, and then I’ll go back to Wuhan. You should come with me.”

“Are you kidding? It’s a nest of communists. I know that Mikhail Borodin has his headquarters there.”

“Believe me it would be better for you to stay away from Shanghai for the foreseeable future.”

Nina went cold. “Is there going be a siege?”

“I just strongly recommend that you buy yourself a ticket on the Pamyat Lenina. It’s a Soviet merchant ship. It will set sail for Wuhan next Thursday.”

“But Wuhan is in the middle of a war zone!”

“There are no front lines in China,” Daniel said. “Battles flare up wherever the opposing troops happen to run into each other. British and American warships are patrolling the Yangtze, and merchant ships are still free to sail up and down the river.”

Nina stared blankly at the screen. Rudolph Valentino was fighting valiantly to win the heart of his fair lady.

If Kitty went to Nagasaki, there would be nothing to keep Nina in Shanghai. And she couldn’t face having to swallow her pride and become Tamara’s kept companion again. The very thought of it made Nina sick.

Klim had refused to mend their relationship and ended up turning his worst suspicions into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Daniel might be a man of extremely dubious honor, but at least he was ready to help Nina escape the trap that was enclosing them.

If I go with him to Wuhan, she thought, I’ll meet new people and find new opportunities. What does it matter that Daniel is working for the NRA? If he can get along with these people, then so can I. I just need a break, and then I’ll be able to breathe again and think of something.

She sensed Daniel’s intense gaze.

“Well, will you come with me?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know.”

Nina took a deep breath. Should she leave everything behind? If she did, there would be no turning back. But if I stay in Shanghai, she thought, I’ll end up doing myself a mischief.

“I won’t promise you anything—” she began, but Daniel didn’t let her finish.

“I’ll see you on the ship.”

Nina didn’t wait for the movie to end but stood up and went outside. It would be better for both of them if no one were to see her with Daniel.

1

After Felix’s departure for the war, Ada counted down each interminable day. These slowly turned into months and eventually half a year.

At night she would imagine what their reunion would be like. She would return from the Bernards’, and he would be waiting for her at the gates of the House of Hope. These thoughts would rob her of her sleep, initially until midnight, then for an hour, and eventually just for a few minutes.

She had only received one letter from Felix; he had safely reached his detachment and joined his Russian comrades on the Great Wall armored train. She had no idea whether he was alive or dead by now.

To Ada, the very words “Battle for Shanghai” sounded like a doomsday knell. She timidly asked Edna if she was going to evacuate to the north, but her mistress didn’t even want to think about it.

At Christmas, Edna decided that the orphans should be given fifty sets of underwear and set her servants the task of sewing them.

Ada had been sent to the department store to buy some thread, but she wasn’t keen to return immediately and decided to take a look at the movie posters on the third floor.

Suddenly she noticed Mr. Bernard entering the cinema, and almost jumped out of her skin. Not so long ago, she had been visited by Felix’s friend, Johnny Collor, who had told her that the new Police Commissioner had ordered an investigation against Daniel.

“We’ve found out that this man is behind weapon shipments to the south,” Johnny told Ada. “If your master comes back, let me know immediately.”

That day Ada had assured Johnny that Mr. Bernard would never return home, and now here she was staring at the revolving doors as they continued to spin after he had entered the cinema.

If I don’t report him to the police, they might think I’m his accomplice, she thought and rushed straight to the police station.

2

“My master is back,” she told Johnny after the guard on duty had called him down to the waiting room. “I saw Mr. Bernard entering the cinema in the Sincere Department Store.”

Johnny grabbed the telephone. “I need a dozen armed men,” he yelled into the receiver. “Stay here,” he told Ada and he ran outside.

Soon Daniel was brought in, in handcuffs. They interrogated him for a long time and then asked Ada to identify him in a lineup. Then Mrs. Bernard arrived, almost dead with the worry and the shame of it all. She was also interrogated.

“Can I go now?” Ada asked Johnny when he walked hurriedly by.

He told her to stay in the waiting room.

Ada went back to her bench. She watched people rushing by and listened to the typewriters rattling away on the other side of the wall. A Chinese woman was sobbing quietly at the window, her baby tied to her back. It looked curiously at Ada and chewed on the hem of its swaddling clothes.

Ada heard Johnny shouting to someone, “Under martial law, we’d be within our rights to take him out and shoot him.”

What if they do execute Daniel? Ada thought in horror. She felt so bad that it made her heart hurt.

Mad with anger, Edna slammed the door as she entered the waiting room.

“I trusted you!” she shouted at Ada. “I fed you, and now you have betrayed my husband.”

“He’s been—” Ada tried to defend herself but Edna wouldn’t let her finish.

“Don’t ever set foot in my house again!” she yelled. “You’re fired!”

3

Dusk fell. Ada was sitting in her room, crying. She had no work, no money, and no family.

Maybe Klim might have been able to help her or at least give some advice, but it had been impossible to get into the radio station see him.

“Do you have an official invite?” the security guard had asked Ada.

“No.”

“Then go away.”

“But I’m his friend.”

“That’s what all his fans say. No one is allowed in, and that is that.”

Ada didn’t dare go to his house, afraid that she might meet up with his wife. Nina would definitely have worked out who had brought Klim those incriminating photographs.

Ada knew what she would have to do: she would have to sell all her possessions for food until she was left with nothing but the shirt on her back, and then the landlord would throw her out onto the street.

Behind the wall, she heard laughter and the strum of a guitar. Despite the war, everybody in the foreign concession was carousing and celebrating Christmas.

I need to go to the Havana, Ada decided.

Betty was most likely working tonight. A lot of the men had sent their wives to safety in the north, and she would have a lot of clients on her hands.

Anything was better for Ada than sitting on her own in the dark. She grabbed a coat and went out into the street. Huge snowflakes fluttered through the sky, melting the moment they touched the ground. Three frozen rickshaw boys shared a solitary cigarette. The gleam of the streetlights poured onto the road, diffusing with the shadows of the trees.

Two Japanese girls came around the corner, their wooden sandals clacking as they hit the road.

“Hey, ladies! Fancy a good time?” some sailors shouted.

The girls giggled, covering their mouths with their hands, and scuttled off in the opposite direction.

The closer Ada went to the Northern Sichuan Road, the thicker the crowds became.
Drunken couples were dancing in the street. Boxers Café-Buffet, Crystal Garden, El Dorado—music and the crashing of dishes could be heard from every door.

I hate you all, thought Ada. I hope General Chiang Kai-shek comes and slaughters the lot of you.

The Havana was packed. There was a real Christmas tree in the corner and the air was heavy with the smell of fir needles and tobacco. A monkey wearing a red wig was chasing a clown on the stage. The audience roared with laughter.