White Ghosts

32. THE SOVIET EMBASSY

Daniel and Klim were driving each other mad but they had to put up with each other in order to get to Peking in safety. By sticking together it was much easier to keep an eye on their suitcases, find food, and deal with Chinese officers keen to take their seats in their compartment.

However, Daniel didn’t miss a single opportunity to wind Klim up. He regaled him with the minutest details of his relationship with Nina and let him know that she had been ready to run away with him anywhere, to be as far away as possible from her lousy husband.

“The most ridiculous thing about this whole affair,” Daniel said with a sigh, “is that your suspicions were totally absurd. We’ve never been lovers. So, what do you plan to do when you see her again? Are you going to beg for her forgiveness? Or perhaps you’ll be more melodramatic and deliver your final ultimatum: ‘It’s me or him—you can’t have us both.’”

Sometimes Klim felt an overwhelming urge to punch him in the mouth and be done with it. However, if he was going to save Nina, he knew he would need Daniel’s help.

“Neither of us will get her,” Klim said to Daniel. “You’ve had every opportunity to steal Nina away from me, but you didn’t really want her, just like you never really wanted Edna or any of the women you’ve ever had for that matter. You have no interest in them as people. You want Nina just in order to prove to yourself that you’re no worse than me.”

Daniel laughed. “That’s what celebrity does to people. With all your pathetic besotted fans, you think the whole world revolves around you, don’t you? Well, sorry to disillusion you, old chap, but I couldn’t give a damn about you. Although I have to say, I’m fascinated by your extraordinary ability to ruin your own life.”

In Peking, Daniel and Klim rented a room in the Central Hotel, and Daniel immediately went to the Legation Quarter. He discovered that while they had been traveling up to Peking, Zhang Zuolin’s soldiers had conducted a search of the Soviet Embassy under the pretext that the Russians were sheltering Chinese communists. Zhang had violated every diplomatic rule in the book, but nobody cared. During the search, his soldiers had discovered conclusive evidence that the Soviet Union was conducting subversive activities in China.

The Soviets had always claimed their actions had no bearing on the struggle of the local proletariat to liberate themselves from oppression, insisting that any uprisings were purely the initiative of local workers. But here were papers documenting the shipments of weapons and the supply of money and instructions to saboteurs, lists of secret agents, cyphers, and all sorts of other paraphernalia. Soviet agents had been directly instructed to organize provocations, robbery, and murder, in order to turn the Chinese masses against the West and their own government.

Newspapers around the world had published these documents proving the Bolsheviks’ guilt and denouncing their perfidious actions. But it was all water off a duck’s back for the Soviets—they were incapable of shame or embarrassment. Pretending to be offended, Moscow sent a formal protest to the Peking government, declaring itself a victim of a misinformation campaign directed against all the working people of the world.

Zhang Zuolin became even more incensed after this impudent reply and ordered that every Chinese person found on the territory of the Russian Embassy should be shot. However, he refrained from harming Soviet citizens, fearing that this could lead to direct military reprisals.

“Mr. Rogov, we are out of luck,” Daniel declared on his return from another trip to the Legation Quarter. “Moscow has withdrawn its charge d’affaires and all its employees in protest. They only have a skeleton staff left, manning the consulate and working on the Borodin trial.”

“So the Soviets are at least trying to defend them?” Klim asked hopefully. “Is there any chance of us making an appointment with the Russian Embassy?”

“Are you kidding? The Russians have been stripped of their diplomatic immunity, and they now see every stranger who comes to visit them as a spy or assassin. I need to think of a way of reaching them.”

Klim found the city jail, but couldn’t find out if Nina was being kept there or somewhere else.

Peking is a city of walls, he thought. The houses, office buildings, theaters, and entire neighborhoods were all surrounded by insurmountable barriers. As he wandered through the Chinese capital, Klim felt as if he’d entered a labyrinth of stone rectangles and squares.

One day he managed to make his way to the top of an ancient Bell Tower overlooking half of the city. A huge bell hanging from a wooden frame had been used to keep track of time for centuries.

“If you throw a coin at the bell and make a wish,” the keeper hinted, “it will be bound to come true.”

Klim knew that the keeper had invented the legend in order to trick the incredulous “white ghost” into throwing away his money, but nevertheless he still took his wallet out. To the bell keeper’s great disappointment, Klim’s coin vanished into the shadows under the ceiling and silently fell into the thick layer of dust on top of the bell.

“Time’s up, the tower is closed,” the keeper said angrily.

With a heavy heart, Klim trudged back to his hotel. While he’d been in the Bell Tower, a crazy idea had occurred to him. What if he were to overpower the keeper and use the bell to send Nina messages in Morse code to let her know that he was in the city and looking for her? Unfortunately, she didn’t know Morse code.

When he reached the Central Hotel, Klim was met by Daniel.

“Get dressed for dinner,” he told him. “I’ve figured out a way of making contact with the Russians.”

Half an hour later Klim found himself in a small European restaurant next to the Legation Quarter. It was full of noisy foreigners gathered at round polished tables. Waiters ran to and fro with unimaginably large trays, dishes crashed, and the flags of the Great Powers swayed in the cigarette smoke under the high ceiling.

Klim and Daniel ascended the stairs to an open mezzanine area and sat themselves down at a tiny table near the railing where they had a clear view of the proceedings in the main room.

“China has become a magnet for every socialist from every country around the world,” said Daniel looking at the crowd below. “Most of them are wealthy romantics who don’t have to earn a living and can afford to travel to foreign countries. They have read rapturous and totally fictitious accounts of the Bolshevik coup in Russia and have now come here to witness the latest revolution, which, of course, is not going to happen now.”

“What are we doing here?” Klim asked, perplexed.

Daniel gave him a mysterious smile. “Moscow believes that these gentlemen represent ‘progressive opinion.’ Half of them are freelance writers for leftist rags with a circulation of about five hundred copies, and when the Bolsheviks need to spread the word about something, they send their man here. See the curly-haired boy in the striped tie? That’s Anatoly Levkin, a lawyer working for the Soviet Embassy. From time to time he invents another fake story, leaks it to the ‘progressive press’ here, and they dutifully file it as copy for their editorial offices. When their articles become mainstream news, Moscow is overjoyed. The world revolution is on course, the workers of the West are marching in solidarity with the great Russian proletariat, and the wise Soviet leader’s great plan is running like clockwork.”

“Is this lawyer working on the Fanya Borodin’s case?” Klim interrupted impatiently.

“Exactly.”

To Klim, Levkin had all the attributes of a mosquito. This small, long-nosed and bug-eyed young man would buzz from one table to another with his interpreter, fussing around, offering handshakes and cigarettes. Even up in the mezzanine, Klim could hear Levkin fervently arguing that the bourgeois press was publishing thinly-veiled lies about the recent raid on the Soviet Embassy.

“The only documents the Chinese found were harmless business papers,” he said. “Then they swapped them for fakes in order to blacken the name of the world’s first socialist state. It has never been the intention of the Soviet Union to meddle in the affairs of other sovereign nations.”

How can he be such a shameless liar? Klim wondered. But, judging by the reaction in the main room, the “progressive press” were happy to believe him.

Levkin paid for his dinner, dismissed his interpreter, and was about to head for the exit.

“Go up to him and introduce yourself as a communist from Shanghai,” Daniel whispered to Klim. “Tell him that you have connections with German diplomats and they have hinted that soon there will be similar raids on some Soviet embassies in Europe.”

Klim stared at Daniel. That was all he needed—to make himself a pawn in Daniel’s great game.

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Klim asked.

“I don’t speak Russian.”

Klim didn’t budge, and Daniel became angry. “What are you waiting for? If you miss this opportunity, we won’t be able to make contact with Levkin until it’s too late. Why did you bother coming here to Peking if you’re not prepared to stick your neck out?”

Klim got up, cursing, and walked briskly toward the stairs.

He overtook the Soviet lawyer just as he was about to get into his car, but Levkin appeared unimpressed by Klim’s claims.

“Sorry, I have no time at the moment,” he said dryly and told the driver to start the engine.

Daniel joined Klim just as Levkin’s car was disappearing around the corner.

“The ball is well and truly in motion,” he said, slapping Klim on the shoulder. “Give the bartender your address and wait. Soon Levkin will be calling on you.”

Klim spent several agonizing days doing nothing but sitting in his room and reading the newspapers. With the Soviet Embassy scandal, Zhang Zuolin now had every justification he needed to start hunting down communists, and soon anti-Bolshevik hysteria began to spread throughout the whole of China. Chiang Kai-shek joined in, persecuting his former allies and claiming that the massacre of the Red Guards in Shanghai had been a cruel but necessary evil.

Mikhail Borodin, who was still in Wuhan, was powerless to do anything to stop it. His social experiment had failed, and he had neither the money, nor allies to prevent the catastrophe that was unfolding before his eyes.

Russian political and military advisers were hastily evacuated from China. The Soviet Consulate in Tianjin was raided, and former White Army men laid siege to the consulate in Shanghai. In provincial towns, things were even worse: suspected communists were lynched in the streets by the mobs, and girls with short hair were accused of being Bolsheviks and summarily beheaded.

In these circumstances, there was little or no point in hoping for any leniency in Nina’s case.

A week passed, and finally, a bellboy presented Klim with Levkin’s card. “He’s waiting for you downstairs, sir.”

Klim dashed out into the lobby and almost collided with Levkin.

“I’d like to invite you to our embassy,” the Soviet lawyer said. “Please get into my car.”

Klim was desperate to ask Levkin about Nina, but he knew this was not the right time for questions.

The car drove up to the high walls surrounding the Legation Quarter. The guards checked Levkin’s pass and opened a heavy gate covered with armored metal plates.

As they passed through, Klim could barely believe his eyes. As if by magic, they had left the sprawling Chinese city behind them and now found themselves in a neat European town with wide tree-lined streets of elegant mansions and imposing office buildings belonging to banks and insurance companies. The sound of splashing water emanated from the picturesque fountains, and elegantly dressed people dined calmly in the street cafes.

The only thing that reminded Klim that they were in China were the rows of rickshaws gleaming in the sun with their black lacquer and brass ornaments. The rickshaw boys stood to attention next to their carts in cleanly-laundered blue shirts and trousers, their heads covered with new straw hats.

Levkin’s car drove through a latticed gate guarded by Red Army soldiers and stopped next to a large white house with a pair of fierce-eyed stone lions standing sentinel on the porch.

Klim got out of the car and looked around. The lawn was dotted with forlorn brown bald patches, and the flowers in their tarnished green bronze vases had long withered.

“We have no time for gardening here,” said Levkin registering Klim’s look of disapproval.

An old Chinese man in a faded tunic silently led them into a dimly lit lobby and immediately went back to his job of dusting a marble bust of Lenin that stood in the corner.

Klim followed Levkin along the corridor. The building appeared to be completely empty. The doors hung open; the carpets and curtains had been removed, and the sound of their footsteps echoed right up to the ceiling.

Levkin showed Klim into a small cheerless room that smelled of charred paper. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

There were empty folders piled up on the desk and a tin pail full of cigarette butts and scraps of burned documents.

Klim scrutinized an array of photographs of the most prominent members of the Bolshevik Party hanging on the wall. They were arranged in the form of a pyramid. Sitting at the apex was a portrait of a dark-haired mustached man called Stalin.

A moment later Levkin returned with a gloomy tall man in a traditional embroidered shirt.

“My name is Valdas,” the man introduced himself. “Pleased to meet you.”

His round head was shaved bald; he had a gray mustache, and his strong neck was red from sunburn.

“Unfortunately, your information about the attacks of the Soviet missions has been confirmed,” Valdas said as he sat down on a creaky chair. “Yesterday, the British raided the Soviet trade mission in London. Their police acted in much the same way as Zhang’s here and have seized documents, exposing our work in the United Kingdom.”

“Has our foreign office sent a formal note of protest?” Levkin asked.

“The British government doesn’t give a damn about our protests,” said Valdas. “They have declared the Soviet Union a pariah state and will insist on an economic blockade. Our main task now is to prove them wrong, and it would be a great help if some third neutral party, for example, Germany, could do the job for us.”

Valdas fixed his pale blue eyes on Klim.

“From what I understand, you have a friend in the German Embassy who is sympathetic and ready to help the Soviet Union. May I ask his name?”

Klim gave him one of Daniel’s aliases.

“We appreciate your friend’s intentions,” said Valdas. “I assume that he is linked with their intelligence service since he knew about the raids in advance. Tell him that if the Germans can help us get out of this mess, military cooperation between our countries will move up to a new level.”

Klim finally realized what was going on. People in the know at the Shanghai Club had mentioned that Moscow had invited the Germans to carry out weapon tests in the Soviet Union. Germany was craving revenge after its defeat in the Great War and was now doing everything in its power to develop new aircraft, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons—thus circumventing the Treaty of Versailles that prohibited it from rebuilding its armed forces. The Allies knew that something was going on, but they couldn’t prove anything since the Soviet Union refused to allow any international commissions over its borders.

In all likelihood, Daniel was indeed working for German intelligence and trying to broker a military agreement with the Russians. But in order not to deflect the heat if something were to go wrong with the crazy Bolsheviks, he had sent Klim in his stead.

“What exactly do the Germans need to do in order to help you?” Klim asked.

“They could start by finding a printing press in Berlin,” Valdas said. “For example, one run by former White Army officers, which has been producing the compromising documents found in our missions. There will need to be arrests, and the international press will need to be fed the spectacle of a couple of angry Russian immigrants who have been surreptitiously trying to harm and besmirch the good name of their former Motherland.”

Speechless, Klim looked at Valdas and Levkin, who smiled calmly. He had always known that politics was a dirty business, but there were limits.

“May I ask how these ‘fake documents’ managed to find their way into the Soviet trade mission in London?” Klim asked sarcastically.

“Our enemies planted them there too of course,” Levkin said grinning. “We’ll arrest some recent returnees who will be only too happy to confess to the deed once we have finished with them.”

They are true criminals, Klim thought in impotent rage. Only they are acting on behalf of the state, not some Green Gang.

The most ridiculous thing was that the “progressive press” will lap all this up because they would prefer to believe in mysterious conspiracy theories, rather than the blatant evil that was parading itself before their eyes.

Klim was tempted to leave there and then without even shaking Valdas’ and Levkin’s hands, however, he managed to master his revulsion.

“I will convey your words to my German friend,” he promised.

Levkin accompanied him into the lobby.

“I was told that you will be defending Mrs. Borodin and her people,” Klim said. “There is a woman, her name is Nina Kupina. She and I are old friends, and I’d like to know how she’s doing—”

“I’ll be seeing her soon,” said Levkin. “Zhang Zuolin wants to keep up the appearance that justice is being served, so the accused have been granted lawyers.”

Klim was relieved a little.

“Can I give you something for Nina?”

“I’m afraid not. The Russian prisoners are carefully guarded and searched. But if you want, you can write a few words for her. I’ll try to show your note to Ms. Kupina.”

Levkin produced a pencil and a blank sheet of paper.

“I’ll get a power of attorney typed on the other side and take it with me to the jail,” he said after Klim had written a short message for Nina. “Don’t you worry about your friend. Comrade Stalin has ordered us to do everything possible to save our people.”

Klim thanked him and went out into the street.

The sun was shining, the cicadas were singing, and the air was filled with the heady scent of jasmine and hot dust.

Don’t get your hopes up, Klim thought trying to suppress his joy. What could a Soviet lawyer possibly do against the entire Chinese judicial system?

Back at the hotel, Klim told Daniel all about his negotiations with Valdas.

“Well done,” Daniel said, beaming. “We’ll rustle up the finest quality fake story about the production of fake documents.”

“Why has Stalin decided to try and save Fanya Borodin?” Klim asked. “After all, her husband failed to seize power in China. Why would the Bolsheviks waste time and resources on the wife of a man who has failed the revolution?”

Daniel smiled condescendingly.

“You still don’t understand what makes them tick, do you? By saving the Borodins, Stalin will be demonstrating to his supporters that he will never leave them in the lurch, even if they are superfluous to his needs. That way he plans to create a loyal and fanatical faction of his own within the Soviet communist party. These men will be completely devoted to him and help him get to the top. Do you remember Big-Eared Du? How do you think he became the top gangster in Shanghai? The same way; it’s a time-honored formula.”

The old woman with the claws escorted Nina to the visiting room, where she found a well-dressed, dark-haired young man waiting for her.

“My name is Anatoly Levkin.” He introduced himself in Russian and shook Nina’s hand. “I will be your attorney during your trial.”

“Who sent you?” Nina asked in amazement.

“The Embassy of the USSR; I’m a legal advisor there. The investigation of your case is completed and has been submitted. You’re being charged under article one hundred and one of the criminal code, and you’re facing either a life sentence or the death penalty.”

Levkin was glowing with pleasure at the prospect of the trial, like a trainee surgeon who has finally been entrusted with a life or death operation.

“You probably want to know how Fanya is,” he said. “She’s fine and asked me to say hello.”

Nina could barely understand a word he was saying. Dear Lord, the death penalty… What on earth for?

“They are charging you with an attempted coup and the smuggling of weapons,” Levkin explained. “Please sit down and make yourself comfortable. You shouldn’t worry too much. The indictment is ridiculous, the prosecutor has no evidence, and I don’t think there’s going to be a public trial. We have hired the best Chinese lawyers for you, and we are hoping the judge will be willing to listen to their arguments. I’m going to need you to sign powers of attorney for Mr. Ma Dazhang and Mr. Guo Tingbao. It’s good that they have agreed to represent you. They never take a case that they are not sure about.”

“All my money is in Shanghai,” Nina said. “How am I supposed to pay them?”

Levkin looked at her reproachfully. “The Soviet authorities will pay for everything.”

He took some papers out of his briefcase and slipped them to Nina, but she was unable to make out the writing, which swam before her eyes.

Levkin pushed the inkwell towards her. “I’d appreciate it if you could be a bit quicker. I still have to go to the men’s prison.”

Nina signed the first copy, then the second, and finally the third, but then suddenly noticed an inscription in pencil on the margin:

It was Klim’s handwriting.

The pen fell from Nina’s hands.

“Is he really here?” she asked Levkin.

He motioned towards the guard standing at the door and quickly rubbed out Klim’s words with an eraser.

“Well, I have to run.”

Once he had left, Nina was taken to her cell and searched again. She could hardly wait to be left alone. She was brimming over with joy and, at the same time, disappointment that she hadn’t had a chance to write anything to Klim in reply.

Everything was the same—the gray cell, the bunk bed, and the shabby door. Nina was facing the death penalty or an indefinite prison term, but a few words from Klim had given her life new meaning.

Nina covered her face with her hands and wept with happiness.