Эльвира Барякина - White Ghosts

“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.”

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.

Nina looked at One-Eye, puzzled. “Am I really in China?”

He grinned. “This is Band, this where the International Settlement works and lives. China is a bit further upriver.”

At last, the junk moored up to one of the piers. The disheveled Don Fernando emerged from his cabin, scratching his belly.

“You should get a passport for yourself,” he said to Nina genially. “People in your line of business need documents.”

“How much does one cost?” Nina asked.

“Three hundred Chinese dollars.”

“For a fake? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Don Fernando shrugged. “Well, as you wish. Let me kiss your pretty hand goodbye?”

Nina put her hands in her pockets. “I’d rather you told me what the best hotel in Shanghai is.”

“The Astor House. Why?”

“Just curious.”

Nina and Jiří crossed the gangway onto the promenade and froze, stunned by the sight of the shiny cars parked along the snow-covered street.

“I’ve never seen so many cars in one place,” Nina whispered.

Brown smoke curled from chimneys; large buses forged their way through swarms of rickshaws, single-seated passenger buggies pulled by Chinese men dressed in quilted jackets and pants, and canvas shoes. They would pick up the thin shafts and start to jog, easily outstripping the heavily laden single-wheeled carts.

Despite the early hour, the sidewalks were already crowded. White gentlemen in expensive coats with fur collars were buying newspapers from Chinese boys who yelled in English: “Breaking news! Soviet Russia is now called the Soviet Union.”

Chinese clerks wearing almost identical blue coats and black satin caps hurried to their offices and shops. Workers were working hard removing Christmas wreaths tied with red ribbons from street-lamp posts. Unlike Russian Orthodox Christians, who celebrate Christmas on January 7, Shanghai’s Catholics and Protestants had already celebrated their feast thirteen days earlier.

A detachment of black-bearded horsemen in blue coats and red turbans galloped by.

“Those are Sikhs,” Jiří told Nina. “I read that the British brought them over from India to police their colonies.”

They heard a little bell jingling as a street peddler pushed his cart with a steaming brazier piled high with pots, bowls, and teapots.

Jiří gave Nina a pleading look. He was evidently very hungry.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said sternly. “Today we will be breakfasting at the Astor House.”

“Are you out of your mind?” gasped Jiří, “We are illegal immigrants. The police will catch us there for sure.”

“A fancy hotel is the last place they’ll be looking for illegal immigrants.”

Nina boldly headed toward a row of parked rickshaws. “Astor House!” she called.

Several men immediately ran up to her. “Here, Missy! Come with me, please!”

Pretending that she was not in the slightest bit embarrassed, Nina climbed into the cart, and the rickshaw puller, a young man in a torn quilted jacket, covered her lap with a leather lap-robe.

Nina turned to Jiří. “Are you coming with me or not?”

He hesitated. “I can’t ride a cart pulled by a human being.”

“Just arrived in Shanghai?” the rickshaw man asked him in broken English. “People power is good! People need food. I bring money to my family.”

Jiří resignedly waved his hand, got into the cart, and they drove on along the elegant promenade.

Shanghai was lit up with the morning sun. Tram bells rang, horns blared, horseshoes clattered, and Nina’s head spun from the sheer din of it all.

Suddenly she noticed a Chinese girl walking with a very strange gait, followed by another and then another. Instead of normal feet, they all seemed to have tiny hooves wrapped in embroidered shoes.

It took Nina a while to construct her question in English, and when the rickshaw stopped at an intersection, she asked: “What’s wrong with these women? Why do they have such small feet?”

“Here, all girls have their feet bound,” the rickshaw man said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “We don’t want their feet to grow; it’s ugly.”