White Ghosts

3. OUTSIDERS

Shanghai’s pawnshops are making a killing out of us Russians—the refugees have no choice but to pawn what few valuables they have. Wedding rings, fur coats, icons, and even their baptismal crosses are all exchanged for a song.

The Church of the Holy Epiphany, the only Russian place of worship in Shanghai, has become a temporary refugee camp, where people live in makeshift tents and huts made out of plywood. The stench, noise, and dirt hangs like a pall over the enclosure around the church. Father Seraphim ladles soup from a large cauldron; a queue to his mobile kitchen stretches across the churchyard and disappears up the street. The refugees use a chemist’s scale to weigh tiny bars of laundry soap, one minuscule piece per person. There are queues for everything: queues to use the bucket to fetch water and queues to dry laundry on the washing line.

A local neatly-dressed business owner, keen to cut back on his labor costs, appears at the gates. “I need ten men at the slaughter-house to help load discarded guts. Anyone interested?”

The crowd rushes to their benefactor. “Me! Me! I am!”

The refugees have to go to Chinese public bathhouses where the second floor is for the rich, the first floor for the poor. The hot water from the second floor pours downstairs through a wide stone-lined gutter, and the poor wash themselves with it, picking up all sort of skin diseases in the process.

Everybody is desperately trying to make ends meet. Women who set themselves up as fortune-tellers were the first to start earning. Their services are in huge demand among their fellow countrymen. Divination and clairvoyance are prohibited on the territory of the International Settlement, but the colonial authorities can’t do anything about the Russians because they are stateless and come under Chinese jurisdiction, and according to Chinese law and custom, fortune-telling is an honorable occupation.

Starting from scratch is the most difficult thing for the exile. No one cares that you used to be a successful journalist, or a general, or a well-known politician. Life hurls you back down to the first rung of the ladder, back with the inexperienced and the young, who, incidentally, are much more adept at picking up the local language and customs. But you are no longer eighteen; at your age, you should have at least a few accomplishments to boast of. If you really have nothing to justify your years in this world, your value depreciates, as does your esteem, not only in other people’s eyes but in your own.

All of us Russians, including myself, hate Shanghai with an impotent rage. Deep down inside, each of us believed that we had some God-given right to a certain status in China, at least as a sign of respect for our race and the fact that our country had once been one of the Great Powers. But in reality, we are now the lowest of the low in China’s social hierarchy. Like all fallen gods, the Russian refugees are not even granted mortal status and certainly no forgiveness. Our place is to dwell out of sight in hell.

In search of a miracle, I visited all the English-speaking editorial offices in the city, but the doormen didn’t even let me in. The Russian accent is a curse. Before I can even get a sentence out, the door is slammed in my face: “No Bolsheviks in here!” How am I meant to convince them that I’m not a Bolshevik? It requires time and effort to find out who is White and who is Red, and it’s really much simpler to sling every single one of these Russian tramps out on their ear, just in case.

I was lucky enough to find a temporary job and spent several days working for a furniture workshop. This involved sawing hard teak wood using an enormous eight-foot, two-man saw until your muscles are screaming for respite. As soon as one man begins to lag, the owner kicks him out and replaces him with a fresh Slav(e). Nobody bothers with sawmills here when the manual labor is so cheap.

However, I’m slowly learning to survive in Shanghai, too. If I’m lucky enough to earn a silver coin, I have learned not to spend it immediately but exchange it for a larger number of copper coins. That way, after scampering around the city for hours, I can usually find a money changer that offers good rates and end up making about ten cents for my pains. For me, this is the difference between dinner and hunger. Ten cents can buy you a princely feast of noodles or sugar-roasted nuts. But you always have to keep your eyes open: those scumbag street hawkers sometimes add sand to the food to make it heavier.

If it’s been a particularly bad day, I can get by on a couple of pickles for seven coppers or go to the French Catholic nuns who give out carrot soup if you can put up with their interminable sermons.

This is how all the unemployed live in Shanghai. The only way to earn more than a dollar a day is through crime. Some burgle apartments, others work as racketeers providing “protection” to the local small traders.

The stuffy dressing room was filled with taxi-girls preparing for the night ahead: getting changed, applying their make-up, and curling their hair. Any outsider might have been forgiven for thinking that they were speaking some sort of secret language, but Ada had already started to grasp their slang.

The best clients—young, rich, daring men—were known as “dragons.” Ugly but well-heeled ones were called “gold mines,” and the ladies on their arms “gold miners.” Boring men, who didn’t know how to dance properly, were known as “toe crunchers,” and men without money were called “false alarms.” “Locksmiths” was the name given to guys who put pieces of metal in their pockets to make them jingle so you’d think they were loaded.

Dark-eyed Betty, the wild and beautiful queen of the Havana, burst impetuously into the dressing room.

“Martha has told the cloakroom assistant to lock up my coat,” she cried indignantly, “so I won’t go running off to town with any of my goldmines.”

Ada watched her in admiration, not daring to say a word in her presence. Betty’s dress was red, with a side slit that reached right up to her thigh. Her lipstick was crimson and utterly shameless.

The manager barged into the dressing room without knocking. The newer girls squealed, covering their naked bodies.

“Hey, you, the Russian girl!” he barked, indifferently. “The Madam wants to see you.”

Ada made her way upstairs to Martha’s little office. The walls in the room were covered with porcelain plates showing pictures of various cities: Paris, Vienna and Florence. Martha was collecting them.

“Sit down,” she said, motioning to a brocade armchair. “The Municipal Council wants me to give details of all the people working here. What’s your full name and address?”

Ada told her.

“Nationality?”

“I’m an American.”

Ada had been to the American Consulate three times, hoping to secure some documents, but an evil-looking Marine wouldn’t even let her past the door. “Do you have a passport?”

“No.”

“Then beat it, lady.”

“But my father is from Texas, and I have Auntie Clare—” Ada protested each time.

“I said, scram!”

Martha wrote “Russian” in the box designated for nationality.

“Are you married? We’d better say yes. Hadn’t we?”

“Klim and I are only renting a room together and—”

“That doesn’t matter,” Martha interrupted. “Now, down you go and get back to work.”

Ada plodded dejectedly downstairs.

She had no one in this city, apart from Klim, and she wanted to put their relationship on an even footing for herself and for everyone else they met. But in reality it was all a big mess. She was sharing a room with a man who was eighteen years her senior and who was neither her husband nor even a relative.

Klim would walk her to the Havana every evening and always be at the entrance to meet her in the early hours after her shift was over. He took care of her, made her laugh, and taught her simple magic tricks, a skill that had provided her some decent tips. But at the same time, he acted towards her as if they were no more than good friends.

One day he mentioned to her, “Ada, there’s an orphanage in Xujiahui, and they have taken in some Russian girls. Do you want to go there? At least, they’ll teach you embroidery. The drinking and the tobacco smoke in the Havana really isn’t good for a girl of your age.”

“Well, it was you who brought me there,” Ada said, frowning. She was upset at the idea that he might be trying to get rid of her.

The other taxi-girls taught her to value herself for her feminine qualities, and she copied the tricks they used to win over their customers. But despite her efforts, Klim had not been tempted by her charms.

Sometimes Ada would change out of her clothes in front of him, waiting to see if he would say or do anything. But he would just sigh and silently go out into the corridor, leaving her seething with anger.

Who did he think he was? Some fine gentleman, who didn’t believe that she was worthy of him?

Ada decided to take a different tack. Once, while he was asleep, she crawled into his bed beside him. Then, intoxicated by her daring and debauchery, she placed her hand lightly on his thigh. Klim woke up instantly, shoving Ada onto the floor.

“Are you crazy?” she yelled, rubbing her bruised elbow.

He sat up on his bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ada, stop it! You would come to hate me, if anything were to happen between us.”

“I already hate you!” Ada spat back and started to cry. “You don’t love me.”

“Ada, you have your whole life ahead of you to learn about these things. You’ll find the right person and get married in your own good time.”

“To hell with you! I’ve sent a letter to Auntie Claire. She’ll invite me to America and send me some money. And you’ll be stuck here to rot in the House of Hope forever.”

Klim got a job at a tannery, which consisted of a few sheds standing next to a mountain of garbage and slimy waste. The land all around had been burned by the chemicals they used; the pools, where the pig hides were soaked, gave off an evil smelling gas, and the stench was so bad, that it would make anyone who wasn’t used to it retch.

The tannery owner told Klim and the other workers to drag the hides out of the pools and scrape off the semi-decomposed bristle on them. It was hard to imagine how this slimy, foul smelling skin could ever be transformed into a pretty handbag or an elegant pair of shoes.

Lime dust filled the air, obscuring the sun and covering the workers’ faces and clothing with a fine white powder. The pale figures moved around like ghosts in a hellish pall of smoke and fumes, waving their hooks, dragging stacks of hides, and carrying heavy barrels filled with dyes on their shoulders.

The Chinese workers laughed at Klim. “You’ve finally become a real white person.”

“Have you taken a look in the mirror yourselves recently?” he snapped back.

That evening, when everyone was lined up in front of the cashier to get their day’s pay, a shiny car appeared at the open gates, and a white lady stepped out. She was young, tall and slightly stooped, with a long narrow face and light-brown almond-shaped eyes. She was dressed in a small French beret, Oxford suede shoes, and a checkered suit that didn't really become her, even though it was obviously expensive.

The stench was so overpowering that she visibly flinched. The workers roared with laughter.

“Does anyone speak English here?” the lady asked in a loud voice.

Nobody answered. The Chinese looked at her as if she was completely mad and asking for trouble.

“I’m a journalist,” the lady introduced herself. “I work for the North China Daily News, and I’m planning to write an article about the children working in this tannery.”

Klim watched her silently. Had she just said “journalist”? He had almost forgotten that such a profession ever existed.

He pointed at a gang of grubby-looking boys who were sitting near the fence. “Those are the characters you’re looking for.”

“Oh, thanks!” she said delightedly. “Could you—”

“Who let you in?” the tannery owner yelled in broken English, running up to her. “Get back to your settlement and stop sticking your nose in around here! This is our territory and none of your business.”

“Yeah, right!” the workers echoed in Shanghainese. “Go away!”

The lady took a step back. “But I wanted to—”

“Get out of here!”

She hastily got back into her car to a chorus of cat calls and whistling. The driver started the engine, and they drove away in a cloud of dust, clods of dirt following in their wake.

Annoyed, Klim frowned at the jubilant workers. At one point, he really thought this might have been his lucky break to meet a fellow journalist from an English language newspaper. He might have been able to help the lady as an interpreter—his Shanghainese had improved significantly over the last few months. Apparently, it wasn’t to be.

Klim received his pathetic wages, went out of the gate, and walked along the road lined with the huts of the poor. The coolies, their faces red with effort, pushed big carts with three or four women sitting on them. The women were match factory workers whose feet were so deformed that they had had to hire carters to drive them to and from work.

Old men played mahjong on their porches, little children watching by their sides. There was a slit in the rear of the children’s pants, and if they needed to relieve themselves, they would squat and do their business right in the middle of the road.

Klim’s whole body was numb with fatigue. The lime dust was still tickling his throat, and the skin on his face and neck felt as if it was on fire. Another month of this work, he thought, and I’ll be a prime candidate either for asthma or tuberculosis.

A car horn blared behind Klim, and the lady journalist’s car stopped right next to him.

“Get in,” she said as she opened the rear door for him. “I’ll give you a ride.”

Klim stared at her in amazement. “Are you sure? I’ll only dirty your car—” he began, but the lady waved her hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry, the servants will clean it up. My name is Edna Bernard. What’s yours?”

Klim introduced himself.

“So, I was right in guessing that you’re a Russian,” Edna said. “Where are you going now?”

“To the French Concession.”

“Great. You can tell me what’s going on with the children in your tannery on the way.”

When was the last time I rode in a car? Klim thought as he took the rear seat next to Edna. It must have been at least several years ago, when he had been given a ride on a half-broken boneshaker belonging to a White Army official. Edna Bernard had a brand new Buick with a polished dashboard, shiny door handles, and comfortable leather seats. I bet she has no idea how the leather on these seats was made, Klim thought, smiling to himself.

He told her that the children working at Chinese tanneries were set the job of stretching the skins out to dry. Each hide had to be nailed to a wooden board with a dozen nails to prevent it from wrinkling. It was not a very difficult job, but the children had to work at it from twelve to fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, constantly breathing in the lime dust and the poisonous fumes.

The children were supposed to get seven dollars a month, but very few of them ever received their full salaries, since the owner would fine them for the most insignificant misdemeanors. Daydreaming or dozing during working hours would cost them five cents, going to the toilet without permission twenty cents, and any homesickness or crying would set them back as much as a dollar. The owner had lied to their parents, telling them that the children would get sixty dollars and three changes of clothing during their apprenticeship. In reality, all he and his foremen did was rob and beat them.

“Few of these factory kids will ever make it to their twenties,” Klim said. “And those who do will be illiterate, angry, and hard-bitten adults.”

“But how do you manage to survive there?” Edna asked, shocked.

Klim shrugged. “The same way everybody else does.”

The chauffeur drove them to Avenue Joffre.

“I still have to pay a visit to the silk factory and then to the match factory,” Edna said. “I want to investigate what’s going on there. Will you go with me?”

Klim shook his head. “Mrs. Bernard, my work starts at six in the morning.”

“I’ll pay you. How much do you want? Five dollars? Ten?”

Klim made five dollars a week maximum, but for Edna this sum was nothing, a trifle.

She gave him an advance, and they agreed to meet the next day at nine in the morning at the same place.

When her article about the Chinese factory children was published, Edna received one hundred and fifty letters from her readers. This was a bumper response for her.

She was commissioned with a new assignment to write an article on refugees, and she and Klim spent several days in the markets and shanty towns, talking to the Russian immigrants.

Previously, the poor had not been particularly eager to tell Edna about their troubles. They either saw her as a false friend who was only pretending to be kind, or rather as an eccentric who was sticking her nose into other people’s business.

But with Klim, things were different. He was observant, able to get in with the people, and he had an eye for details that gave Edna’s reports a vital element of spice.

With the money she paid him, he bought a new outfit for himself, complete with a hat and canvas shoes, and he took on a new lease of life.

“What were you before the revolution?” she asked him one day. “A Tsarist officer?”

“You’ll never guess,” he replied. “An Argentine journalist.”

He recounted his story to Edna, not mentioning Nina, of course.

“If your English was up to scratch,” Edna said, “and you could provide the editors with letters of recommendation from your previous employers, you wouldn’t be unemployed for a single day. Let me think how I can help you.”