White Ghosts

5. THE BLUE EXPRESS

Edna led me into the holy of holies—the editorial office of the North China Daily News. Some people call this paper and its staff the “imperialists’ mouthpiece,” others a “bunch of blundering idiots in rose-tinted spectacles,” while others still simply dismiss it as a “sniveling, liberal rag.” But one thing is certain: the Daily News is the most popular, influential, and prestigious foreign newspaper ever created in another country’s territory.

Alas, its editor-in-chief, Mr. Green, didn’t believe that I was the sort of reporter he needed. Having been introduced and then ushered out of his office, I heard him explaining to Edna that I couldn’t write English fluently, and that he wasn’t going to hire a special editor just for my sake.

“If the man doesn’t have the necessary skills,” he said, “he has to work as a courier, not a journalist.”

“I’m fine with that,” Edna replied. “Enroll Rogov as a courier, and he can work as my personal assistant.”

Her husband regularly paid for ads in the Daily News, so Mr. Green wasn’t about to argue.

I do my best to pay Edna back. Previously, it used to take her half the day to run around the city and find a good story, and then the other half to write it up on her typewriter. But now we share the work: I bring her material about horse auctions, pickpockets on trams, illegal fight clubs, and the like, and Edna turns this raw material into clever, witty articles.

Shanghai journalism is very competitive, and the true sign of a successful hack is to have your articles copied and published by the Chinese press without your permission. It’s a big honor. As they say, plagiarism is the highest compliment, and at the moment, Edna is getting more compliments than any other journalist in Shanghai, which makes me feel very proud as well.

Once I was on the payroll, I told Ada that now it was my turn to pay for the room. She hopes and prays that I won’t lose my new job. She thinks that I work in paradise because I have the chance to meet the local celebrities every day. They never return my greetings, though, but that doesn’t bother me terribly.

What I want more than anything else is to work on my own. I have tried my hand writing an article about the Street of Eternal Happiness, which is the name of a few blocks down the Foochow Road. Rich Chinese men come there to visit the sing-song girls who sell the illusion of love for an hour or two. Neither the purveyors or consumers of this temporal happiness seem to see the irony in the street’s name.

I was sure that I had written a decent article but by the time Edna had finished with it, it was covered in red pencil.

“You have what it takes,” she said, “you have a great grasp of the necessary details and emotions. But your grammar is terrible. I don’t know what to do about you.”

For me, it’s obvious what I need to do—practice, practice, and more practice. I stay back at the editorial office well after working hours and write endless copy. First, I read someone else’s article and then try to copy it from memory. It’s tough and sometimes I feel desperate, but I keep telling myself that genuine talent will always triumph regardless of the failure and lack of progress on the way. Looking on the bright side, I’m beginning to make some real improvement on my verbs, and there was a time when I thought I’d never master the mysteries of English grammar.

Mr. Green said that he would raise Klim’s salary, if he took over the responsibility of corresponding with the Chinese subscribers who used the Daily News to practice their English. Half of all the mail coming to the editorial office contained questions regarding English vocabulary or grammar.

When Chinese subscribers received polite answers to their enquiries, they would be extremely pleased and provide the best sort of word of mouth advertising that the Daily News could hope for.

Klim had had no time to deal with the mail during the day; instead he would come to the editorial office well before office hours.

One morning he had no sooner sat down at his desk when the door flew open, and Mr. Green burst into the room.

“Where’s Edna?” he asked abruptly. “Still in Canton?”

Klim nodded. Edna had left a week ago for the South, hoping to organize an interview with the local Chinese nationalists.

Mr. Green went to his office but soon returned.

“Rogov, have you heard the news? The Blue Express has been captured by a gang of bandits. Three hundred passengers have been taken up into the mountains and among them are a lot of wealthy and reputable foreigners.”

Klim whistled in surprise. The Blue Express was the pride of the Chinese railways. It had recently been purchased from the United States to ensure safe and convenient communications between Peking and Shanghai, and tickets for it were so expensive that only rich businessmen and government officials could afford them.

Mr. Green began telephoning someone.

“I need to send a correspondent to Shandong Province,” he yelled into the receiver. “Michael is on leave, and Edna is in Canton, so you’ll have to go instead. You need to get to the town of Lincheng. They already have a situation room there for the hostage mission… So what if there are bandits?… Do you think just because they’ve attacked one train, they’re going to attack them every day? You don’t fool me, you’re just being a coward!”

After several similar calls, Mr. Green hurled the receiver back into its cradle.

“Rogov, what time is it?”

“Five minutes to seven.”

“Damn it! The train leaves in two hours, and I still have no one to send to Lincheng.”

Klim’s heart started pumping fast. What if this was his chance, a real opportunity to show his true colors?

“I can go to Lincheng,” he said.

Mr. Green looked at Klim with irritation. “And what experience do you have?”

“Well, I’ve been through a war and I’m definitely not going to run away at the first sound of gun shots. Just ask Edna if I have the ability to sniff out and report back a good story—”

“I know, I know!” Green interrupted testily. “Well, we don’t have time anyway. Take my car and go to Yates Road. I hope the stores are open. Get yourself a decent suit and go to the station immediately. Tell the shop to send the chit to the editorial office. As soon as you get to Lincheng, send me a cable.”

Having received his long-awaited press ID from Mr. Green, Klim ran headlong down the stairs.

A hastily assembled train was to take journalists, military experts, and officials to Lincheng. The railroad car shook slightly as it passed the peach orchards and the first shoots of rice peeping up through the water-flooded paddy fields.

Klim still couldn’t believe his luck. That morning he had been a nobody answering inane correspondence in the office, and now he was a reporter for a respectable newspaper, the owner of an elegant gray suit, a hat, and a second-hand silver watch with an inscription on its cover: “To a great sharpshooter.”

Klim stepped out into the corridor and met Ursula, a petite, dark-eyed correspondent from the New York-based International News Service. They chatted for a while about mutual acquaintances and agreed to pool their resources.

“Do you think it’s possible that the Blue Express has been taken over by Bolsheviks?” Ursula asked. “I visited Russia recently and interviewed some of the new political leaders there. Their ultimate goal is to start a world revolution and impose their Soviet system on every country on the globe. They told me that China is a particularly weak spot for the capitalist West, and that if there was a rebellion against us here, it would be a huge blow to the Great Powers.”

“I don’t think they would be stupid enough to attack a train with foreigners on it,” Klim said.

But Ursula was convinced the Bolsheviks were capable of anything. “I’m so worried there’s going to be another great war.”

Very casually, she put her hand on Klim’s shoulder, and he couldn’t help but smile. Apart from Ada’s teenage advances, he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had flirted with him. It seemed so long ago that it belonged to a past life.

Evidently, a new white shirt and a smart silk necktie could do wonders for a man.

With its steep slopes, impenetrable forests, and low clouds looming over its forbidding mountains, Shandong Province looked a wild and inhospitable place.

The local officials showed the press the wreck of the Blue Express and told them what they knew about the attack.

At 2 a.m., the engine driver had spotted suspicious shadowy figures on the tracks ahead. He tried to hit the brakes, but it was too late—the rails had been sabotaged. The train flew off the rails and came to a stop at a precarious angle. As its sleeping passengers fell from their berths, their luggage tumbling down on their heads, shots were fired, and soon horses’ hooves and a war cry could be heard. The security detachment aboard the Blue Express had been the first to realize what was going on and made a run for it, while the attackers smashed the car windows with the butts of their rifles.

The bandits then jumped into the compartments from their saddles, throwing passengers and luggage onto the sidings. Barefoot and dressed only in their night clothes, the hostages had been led up into the mountains. The looting had carried on all through the night and well into the next morning. The Governor had sent officials to investigate the incident, but the only information they had discovered so far was that the attackers were local.

As Klim made his way through the bullet-scarred railroad cars, he noticed a piece of glass in a broken window, covered with dried blood. Next to it, on the wall, were smeared bloody handprints; someone had tried to escape but never made it.

The journalists were taken to Lincheng, a small town surrounded by high walls.

Dazed soldiers and officials rushed around the dirty crooked streets. Local elders with their brown faces furrowed with deep wrinkles sat on the porches of their huts and followed the unwelcome visitors with their bleary eyes, their sunken mouths emitting clouds of evil smelling tobacco smoke.

Klim cabled Mr. Green a telegram describing the accident and the initial reports provided by the local officials. The garrison at Lincheng had already sent a detachment to the rescue, but the soldiers had been unable to approach the hostages because the bandits were using them as human shields.

At the telegraph office, Klim bumped into Ursula, and she told him that a representative of the American diplomatic mission, Roy Anderson, had arrived from Peking and been put in charge of negotiating the hostages’ release.

“Where is he staying?” asked Klim.

“In his railroad car. All the inns in town are packed. Mr. Andersen is promising to hold a press briefing tomorrow, at eight in the morning.”

Klim and Ursula wandered around the town, trying to find somewhere to stay. Eventually, some Italian journalists were persuaded to let the lady spend the night in the wagon they had rented. There was no room for Klim, so he went back to the station.

Campfires were blazing everywhere; some people were arguing near one of them, others were singing around another. Local traders offered firewood, tea, and cold rice for sale. Even the shelter under the railroad cars was occupied. Klim took out his flashlight and spotted a gaggle of small children snuggled up next to one another among the wheels.

His torchlight slid over a footboard, and he caught a glimpse of a lady’s shoes and silk dress decorated with red poppies.

Good God, it was Nina!

She covered her face with her hand. “Turn that light off, please,” she said in English.

“Hello, my dear,” Klim said.

Nina shuddered. “You?”

Klim turned off his flashlight. First, a white dress emerged from the darkness, then Nina’s face, framed by her tresses of curls. A miraculous spirit had descended down to this godforsaken corner of the earth.

At a loss for words, each waited for the other to say something.

“There’s no electricity in my sleeping car,” Nina said finally, “and the attendant has run off somewhere.”

Surprised at his own composure, Klim offered her his hand. “Let’s go find your car attendant.”

She didn’t push him away. She took his arm while descending the steps.

Klim followed her at some distance, listening pebbles crunching under her feet. Other cars still had electricity, and Nina appeared like a vision in the golden squares of light they shed on the siding, and then just as quickly she disappeared in the darkness. Klim breathed in the cool air filled with Nina’s perfume.

How could this meeting be possible? He felt wave after wave of hot flushes roll over his body. His heart was pounding, and his face was covered with an incredulous grin.

“Do you have some business in Lincheng?” he asked.

“Yes,” Nina replied without turning her head.

“Where do you live now?”

“In Shanghai.”

“How do you keep yourself busy there?”

“With this and that.”

Nina didn’t want to talk about herself, and Klim had no right to expect detailed answers. The only thing he could do now was simply look at his wife and shudder at the exhilarating realization that nothing had changed. He still loved her as much as ever.

“Let’s forget the attendant,” Nina said suddenly. “I only wanted to read a little before going to sleep, but it’s too late now anyway.”

That’s it, Klim thought. The miraculous spirit will now disperse into the ether.

“Where are you staying?” Nina asked. “If you want, we can go to my compartment.”

“Will Jiří mind?”

“Do I have to ask his permission?”

They returned to Nina’s car, and Klim switched on his flashlight to help her find her compartment in the dark corridor. He was still waiting for this dream to be interrupted with the appearance of Nina’s sleepy lover or her mocking words: “I’m sorry, I only invited you in as a joke.” But nothing of the sort happened.

She turned the bronze door knob and pushed the door to the side. “Come in.”

It was a first-class compartment with a shade covering half of the window, a single bed with rumpled bed clothes, and a useless lamp over the headboard.

“You can put your suitcase on the top shelf,” Nina said. “The couch is all yours.”

Klim hung his jacket on one of the hangers and loosened his necktie. Good God, why had Nina invited him in?

“You can turn the flashlight off now,” she said as she put her knee on the bed and pulled down the window shade.

The darkness was so dense that it felt as if they were surrounded by nothing but an endless and eternal void.

So many months had passed, yet the rustle of Nina’s dress and the collected evenness of her breathing were as familiar to Klim as ever. He knew by the sound of her movement that she removed her comb from her hair and slipped off her shoes.

“Did you get a good job?” Nina asked.

“Yes.”

“And where exactly do you work?”

“You know, with a newspaper,” said Klim involuntarily echoing her terse answers.

What could he say to Nina? That he was listed at the paper as a courier and shared a room in the House of Hope with a fifteen-year-old girl? That all these months, he had been wandering around the city, peering at the faces of passersby in the vain hope of catching a fleeting sight of his wife?

He could sense Nina standing in front of him—his darling, invisible, and inaccessible wife. What was the point of deluding himself? She would never come back to him.

“We should get a divorce,” Klim said flatly. It was better not to wait for Nina to broach the subject.

“Have you already found someone else?” she asked.

“Marriage is like a house; if you’re not using it, you should either get new tenants in or knock it down completely and build everything up again from scratch.”

Klim could hear the floor creak, and Nina’s silk skirt slide against his knee. She was so close that he could feel her breath on his temple.

“Our marriage certificate is lost,” Nina said, “so the only way we could get a divorce would be to get married again.”

Klim could not stand it anymore. He pulled Nina close to him, making her sit on his lap. She shrieked faintly: “What are you doing?” but he pressed her head against his shoulder and kissed her on the lips.

The window shade turned red with a pulsating glow; the people outside had poured new fuel onto their fire and started chanting a barbaric, incomprehensible song.

Klim’s head was full of jubilant horror. I don’t care anymore. What will be, will be.

His hand travelled along the Great Silk Road—down to Nina’s waist and then her thigh, tightly sheathed by her dress. At first she grasped Klim’s hand as if not wanting him to go further, but then she let out a short gasp and started to unbutton his shirt.