White Ghosts

17. THE CHINESE ACTRESS

Despite her enquiries and desperate search for Klim, Nina had never learned what had happened to him that night. One thing was certain: he had got in trouble with the police. Ada had told Nina that they had come to their apartment and searched the place looking for him.

That was it. Now Nina was alone, only with the baby by her side, and no one was there to back her up.

Anxiety and uncertainty were wearing Nina out completely. She was too depressed to do anything, much less start a business. But the bills kept coming, and Nina was forced to think about her situation.

She had noticed an article in a newspaper about a group of Jesuits who were collecting donations for an art school for orphans. According to the article, the monastery orphanage had produced many brilliant artists, and now their works were in demand not only in China but all over Europe.

Nina came up with a crazy idea: What if she were to offer Gu Ya-min’s collection to the Jesuits? Since they were engaged in the arts, they were bound to have connections with art collectors. Sure, the monks might hand Nina over to the police, but on the other hand, the church in China was not particularly famous for its rectitude. Nina had learned from Don Fernando that the monks were ready to trade anything from theater advertising to sausage skins if it meant income for their charitable works. Many of the gambling machines in the bars and restaurants of Shanghai were the property of the mission of Saint Francis de Sales. The Augustinians produced fake perfume, and other orders had no qualms about investing money sent by Mussolini for the promotion of the Italian language and the Catholic Church into real estate.

Nina tried to find out everything she could about the Jesuit monastery in the Siccawei district. It had been founded over sixty years before and had gradually become a city within a city. There were colleges, an observatory, a museum, a library, dormitories, hospitals, and several churches. The Jesuits were especially proud of their famous orphanages that took in more than four hundred abandoned babies every month. The mortality rate was very high, but those that survived were given an education and profession. Boys became carpenters or worked in the garden, while girls sewed, embroidered, or took up the fine art of lace-making that had been imported from Europe. Their life was hard but a life nevertheless. And the most gifted children could make a real career for themselves upon graduation from the art school, which was considered the best in China.

Nina went to Siccawei feeling like the bold little mermaid on her way to visit the sea witch. Leaving the car in the shade of a plane tree, she stepped up the hot porch steps with her heavy package under her arm and knocked on the entrance door. A young novice showed her to the office of Father Nicolas, a slender, white-haired monk dressed in a dark robe.

“Make yourself at home, please,” he said in French.

Nina rather felt as if she was in a school headmaster’s office. The room was filled with book cabinets, dusty stuffed animals, and there were maps rolled into tubes standing in the corner.

On her way to the monastery, Nina had decided that she would pretend to be a dispassionate art critic, but when she started telling Father Nicolas about her proposal, she became so embarrassed that she found it hard to look into his eyes.

“May I have a look at the things you’ve brought?” he asked.

Nina unwrapped the heavy bundle on the desk and gave Father Nicolas an intricately-carved piece of mammoth ivory.

He examined it carefully through his magnifying glass. “Do you have an inventory of your collection?”

Nina handed him several sheets of paper. “Yes, I do.”

Without hurrying, he read through the list. Nina waited nervously for him to get to the item entitled “purple amethyst male reproductive organ,” expecting him to send for the police in shock and outrage.

“I’ll have to talk to the brothers,” Father Nicolas said finally. “This is a delicate matter, but if the rest of your collection is of the same quality, then I’m sure we’ll be able to come to an agreement.”

Nina couldn’t remember how she made her way back outside and got into her car. Had her plan really worked out? Her relief was so great that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

For two weeks, Nina was on tenterhooks. What would the Jesuits decide? Would they come to a deal with her or report her to the police?

At long last, she got a call from Siccawei.

“We will accept your collection,” Father Nicolas said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have enough money to pay you in cash, but we can pay you in goods kind from our warehouses instead. Would you be interested in some lace collars or parasols? You are a business woman, and I’m sure you’ll be able to sell them easily.”

The wily old Jesuits had evidently guessed that she was in a desperate situation and were trying to palm her off with a load of old junk. However, she was willing to accept any product as long as she could sell it legally.

Nina came to Siccawei, and Father Nicolas showed her around the warehouses.

“The images of Jesus and the Holy Virgin are very popular,” he said, pointing at a stack of freshly printed posters. “Everyone is praying for peace these days, and I’m sure you’ll have no problems selling them.”

Nina was struck by the quality of the posters. They had been beautifully painted, and the printing had been done on the finest paper.

“These were done by our students,” Father Nicolas said. “We recently purchased the latest printing equipment from Europe, and we produce these posters right here, in Siccawei.”

Nina asked if he could take her to the workshop. There, in a large, brightly lit room, were dozens of young Chinese artists. Only a few of them were drawing religious subjects; the others were busy painting shop signs, playing cards, menus, and movie posters.

A short, bowlegged Chinese man entered the workshop and returned to his easel. Nina looked at his work: the mustachioed general peering out at her from the canvas was so lifelike he looked as if he would bark an order at her any minute.

“Who is this artist?” she asked.

“His name is Shao,” said Father Nicolas. “He borrowed a lot of money from us and had nothing to pay off his debt. So now he is working for us.”

Back at the office, Nina agreed with Father Nicolas that she would “donate” her collection to the monastery, if the Jesuits were prepared to pay her five hundred dollars in cash up front, let her use Shao’s and four other artists’ services, and give her three months credit for printing. She was going to start her publishing business after all.

The papers were signed, and a dozen orphan boys followed Nina to her house where they took Gu Ya-min’s boxes away for safe-keeping at the monastery.

Nina called Tony and asked if he knew any Chinese actresses who would be willing to pose for her calendars.

“Talk to Hua Binbin,” Tony said. “She’s an old client of mine—an educated, intelligent girl from a high ranking family.”

According to Tony, Binbin, who had been forcibly married off to an old man, had committed the most heinous crime imaginable for a woman: she had run away from her husband to Shanghai and become an actress. The success of her first film turned out to be a mixed blessing for her. Binbin’s relatives sued her for tarnishing the memory of the ancestors and bringing shame on the entire family. If Tony hadn’t defended her, Binbin would have been forced to return back to her family and dealt with as they pleased.

“A woman’s status in China is so low,” Tony told Nina, “that her folks would probably have murdered her for disobeying their traditions. But we managed to come to an agreement. Binbin was forced to change her surname to Hua and swore never to mention her relations with her well-to-do family in public.”

Nina sent Binbin a note, and they agreed to meet at the Bund.

Nina arrived early. She was anxious and paced up and down next to the bronze lions at the entrance to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The lions’ paws had been polished bright by countless passersby who had rubbed them for good luck. Nina couldn’t resist the temptation to stroke the claws that were warm from the rays of the sun.

Please, God, let things work out with Binbin, she prayed silently.

Nina wondered how she should behave with this woman. Should I treat her as an equal? Or would I be belittling my social position as a white lady? It was absurd: Nina had been living in Shanghai for a year and a half and, apart from her servants and shop girls, she had never spoken to a single Chinese woman.

Cars thundered past, coolies unloaded barrels on the quay, and workers at a nearby construction site were driving in piles for the new customs building. Slowly and inexorably doubts began to creep into Nina’s mind. Her enterprise was bound to fail. Binbin would either refuse to pose for her calendars or ask for a totally unrealistic fee.

“Hello,” Nina heard a woman’s voice behind her.

Binbin had a round face, thin eyebrows, and pale pink lips. Two black strands of hair poked out from under her cloche hat and curled in ringlets behind her ears.

Nina wasn’t sure whether she should offer her hand or not. Perhaps the gesture would not be accepted? Tony had told her that the Chinese couldn’t stand touching foreigners.

“Maybe we could go to the park to discuss our business?” Nina suggested.

Binbin gave her a puzzled look. “Didn’t you know? Dogs and Chinese are not allowed in the public parks here.”

Nina felt embarrassed. She was afraid that Binbin might think that Nina had been trying to humiliate her on purpose.

They crossed the road and walked along the waterfront. Thankfully, after a while, Binbin had the tact and good grace to break the initial awkward silence.

“I don’t know anything about Russia,” she said. “Isn’t it strange that our countries have such a long border, but even the most educated Chinese are unlikely to know more than two or three Russian cities.”

“We also know very little about China,” Nina replied cautiously. She felt relieved: it seemed that Binbin hadn’t taken offense after all.

Soon the conversation turned towards the whites’ perceptions of the Chinese and the Chinese perceptions of the whites.

“You never betray your feelings to the person you’re talking to,” Nina said. “We never know whether it’s because you don’t want to talk to us, have something to hide, or don’t feel anything at all.”

“In China, it’s not appropriate to reveal your feelings to a stranger, especially in public,” Binbin explained.

“I expect the whites seem terribly rude to you?”

“We understand that you’re different.”

When Nina described her idea, Binbin was delighted.

“I’m sure we can make money on this,” Binbin said. “Colorful posters are the only decoration available for the poor. And how many of them are living here, in Shanghai, let alone the rest of China?”

Binbin only asked for five dollars a day. To Nina’s great relief Shanghai’s film industry hadn’t yet started spoiling its actors with exorbitant fees.

“It’s a deal,” Nina said and, without a second thought, shook Binbin’s hand.

She froze, thinking that it was a very inappropriate move, but to her surprise, Binbin didn’t recoil and returned her handshake heartily.

Klim’s telegram came like a bolt from the blue, and Nina’s spirits immediately revived. It didn’t matter that they were separated by hundreds of miles and that their future was at best precarious. Nina didn’t dare rail against her fate. He was alive!

They needed money to move to another city, and Nina threw herself into her publishing business.

She rented a small house on Babbling Well Road for her office and art studio. Binbin invited her friends to be models, and Nina had her artists on easel duty.

They didn’t have much time. The calendar distributors usually gathered in Shanghai every November. They would meet up at the Green Lotus Tea House to examine drafts and set prices based on sales figures from the previous year.

Artist Shao, a grumpy pessimist, told Nina and Binbin that ten years previously somebody had tried selling calendars with Chinese models but it hadn’t worked out.

“We’re just wasting our time,” he muttered, chewing the end of his thin brush.

But Binbin wasn’t having any of it. “Times change! My first film came out in the middle of summer and they had to entice people in by offering them ice-cold wet towels. No one had ever made that kind of movie before, but we tried and we succeeded. The audience was given the option to ask for their money back in the interval if they didn’t like the film. But there wasn’t a single person who took us up on our offer.”

Nina was pleased that Binbin had stood up for her project. She wanted her to be a colleague and also a friend. They had a lot in common, but they had their cultural differences too. Nina was used to open exchanges of opinion, long working hours, and late informal conversation. But Binbin preferred a much more structured day and a guaranteed lunch at noon. Nina still couldn’t decide whether Binbin was just trying to please her because she was effectively her boss, or whether she really did want the business to be a success.

Binbin quickly realized that Nina knew very little about her target market.

“Why did you ask that model to put her hands behind her head?” she asked.

“What’s wrong with that?” Nina said. “I don’t want her to sit as though she’s in church.”

“It’s very important to keep everything decent. If the pose is too vulgar, the only people who will buy your calendars are drunken soldiers.”

“Is putting your hands behind the head vulgar?”

“Of course. It’s an inviting gesture.”

They had disagreements on politics as well. Binbin was convinced that China needed a revolution to sweep away the warlords and the “white ghosts” who funded and protected them.

“You have no idea how it will all end,” Nina said sadly. “Revolutions often start out with good intentions but always end in hunger and tyranny.”

“Don’t you think it’s a tyranny that Chinese people living in their own country are not allowed to go to their own parks?” said Binbin.

They soon realized that it was better not to talk about these things if they didn’t want to end up fighting.

After a lot of hard work, they had a dozen sample calendars ready by November, and the distributors from the Green Lotus Tea House agreed to give them a try. Nina and Binbin were so thrilled that they threw a party for the artists and models.

Shao cautiously tried one of the Russian pies Nina offered him.

“The world has gone mad,” he said. “People have no idea what they are putting into their bodies anymore, and they forget to pray to the spirits of the ancestors. There’s no good can come of it,” he muttered. However, he didn’t a refuse a second pie.

The next day, Nina sent a cable to Canton:

But she never got a reply from Klim—neither from this cable, nor the next one she sent.