White Ghosts

7. THE BAR ROOM BRAWL

In the past, no white girl in Shanghai would have agreed to dance with a Chinese man, but with the arrival of the Russian refugees, all that changed. Speaking English was not a mandatory requirement to work as a taxi-girl, and hundreds of immigrants flooded the docks and port’s bars and taverns. These young women were able to provide for a whole family by dancing foxtrots and tangos and sweetly whispering the only English phrase they knew into their client’s ear: “Darling, just one small bottle of wine, please.” They didn’t care who they danced with as long as they got paid.

Young Asian men were burning with curiosity to learn about Western ways and were especially fascinated by riotous dance parties. Restaurant owners were quick to realize that there was a killing to be made by allowing Chinese men to dance with Russian girls.

With the bottom falling out of the market, things weren’t going so well at the Havana either, and Martha reluctantly ordered her doormen to let in people of all race and color.

“Our business is going to the dogs,” Betty said indignantly. “Does the Madam seriously think that any self-respecting white woman is going to let herself fall into the arms of an Oriental?”

Betty was Brazilian, and her credentials as a pure bred “white lady” required a serious stretch of the imagination, but no one was in a hurry to take issue, let alone offend her. Betty’s left hook was legendary.

She bluntly refused to dance with the “chinks,” and Martha was forced to accept the situation. Betty was popular with the regulars, and it would have been unwise to argue with her.

Martha told the rest of the girls to stop being so picky, but they secretly persuaded the manager to send all the Chinese men Ada’s way. She was too young to know how to stand up for herself, and she couldn’t even complain to Klim because he had been out of the city for a number of days now.

It was only on Fridays when the U.S. Marines received their pay packets that Ada was given a break. The Asians knew better than to go to a bar commandeered by the Americans for the night.

Initially, Ada had hoped she would meet a nice officer who would fall in love with her and take her away with him to the United States. She had heard rumors that a great Russian beauty from the Black Eyes restaurant had ended up marrying the captain of a battleship. If she could land herself a big fish like that, then why couldn’t Ada?

Martha overheard her talking about her plans and soon brought her down to earth. “American officers never marry taxi-girls,” she said to Ada. “The sailors and Marines might promise you the moon but they’re not allowed to marry anyone without their superiors’ permission. If you want to get married, you should look for a rich old-timer. The uglier and balder he is, the better. They’re the type of men who are usually ignored by women. If you surrender to their advances they’ll be so overjoyed they’ll happily propose. You could even get them to make their will out to you. Then, all you’ve got to do is put up with your catch for ten years or so, and when he dies, you’ll become a rich and merry widow.”

Listening to Martha made Ada shudder.

This particular Friday had got off on the wrong foot from the very beginning. The Italian sailors from the cruiser Libia were in town, and they had old scores to settle with the Americans. The taxi-girls had been nervous from the very outset: What if their clients started fighting again?

Ada hadn’t been invited to dance by a single customer, and she sat at the bar, nibbling sunflower seeds and watching an Italian sailor dancing with Betty. He circled her like a predator, while the beaded threads from her dress spun around her like a fan of shimmering water.

Ada couldn’t help but notice an American corporal slumped heavily on a table nearby. He was chain smoking and very much the worse for wear. Whenever any of his companions addressed him, he would start grumbling like an old bulldog. He had been dancing with Betty at the start of the evening, but when the Italians arrived, she had switched her allegiances to them. Now, the other Americans were teasing the corporal about it.

I’d better tell the manager to call the doormen and get this guy out of here, thought Ada.

The manager was talking to a young Japanese man and pointing at her. Judging by the fan of dance tickets the Japanese held in his fist, this was a punter who had money to burn.

Ada assumed a dignified air.

Making his way to her, the Japanese accidentally bumped into the corporal. The American grabbed him by the lapels and shoved him with all his might towards Betty and the Italian officer. Everybody sprang to their feet, and the music stopped with only the drummer continuing to beat out his rhythms oblivious to everything going on around him.

“Call the police!” Ada shrieked, but no one paid her attention.

The Italian moved Betty out of harm’s way, sent the Japanese sprawling across the floor, and took on the corporal. Taxi-girls squealed, Marines rushed over to break up the fight, and several Italians ran in from the street to join the fray. Ada peeked out at the Japanese, who had jumped to his feet, and saw him pulling a revolver out of his pocket.

The sound of the shot was so loud that it made Ada’s head ring. She expected the Italian officer to fall to the floor, with a bullet wound to his chest, but he just kept on punching the American on the floor.

A split second later, Ada felt a searing pain in her left ankle.

“She’s been hurt!” Betty screamed, but Ada didn’t understand who she was talking about. Faces started floating around her, and she passed out.

On the way to the hospital, Martha cursed the Japanese and their idiotic habit of carrying guns around with them all the time.

“Well, at least he hit you and not one of the customers,” she said to Ada. “If that had happened, the authorities would have shut us down without batting an eyelid.”

Ada nodded, sobbing. She was shaking not so much from the pain, but from the horrific realization that several minutes ago she could have been killed.

A bald doctor with a monocle on a string stitched up and bandaged Ada’s leg. “No bones broken,” he said breezily. “You’ll be fine in a month.”

Ada gasped. “But how am I going to dance?”

“No dancing for you,” snapped the doctor. “You need to stay at home and rest, unless you want to lose that leg of yours.”

“Great,” Martha muttered, cursing under her breath.

She took Ada to the House of Hope and helped her up to her room.

“Where’s Klim?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ada said. “He left two weeks ago and didn’t even say where he was going.”

“If the police come here, tell them you caught your foot on a nail,” Martha said over her shoulder as she made her way down the stairs.

For a long time, Ada just sat in the dark. Not only was she now unable to go out to buy groceries, she couldn’t even fetch boiling water from the kitchen. Hopping up the stairs on one leg with a hot kettle was not an option, and even emptying the night pot was an impossible task. Ada was overwhelmed by a sick feeling as she calculated how much it would cost her to pay the neighbors’ kids to do it for her.

She tried to put a little weight on her injured leg but nearly collapsed. It was so painful!

That’s it, it’s over, she thought. I can’t work and soon I’ll die of hunger. In a week or so, Chen will come to collect the rent payment and discover my corpse under this blanket.

Ada lit a candle and took a crumpled paper icon from under her pillow.

“Lord, please, help me!” she whispered.

After she had had her fill of praying and weeping, she tried to climb up on to her top bunk, but even this was beyond her. She fell asleep exhausted on Klim’s bed.

The next morning, Ada was woken up by the sound of a loud argument coming up from the street. Betty, resplendent in a full skirt and red jacket trimmed with exotic tropical bird feathers, was standing at the gates of the House of Hope. Chen hadn’t wanted to let her in, but she gave him such a roasting that he soon retreated with his tail between his legs.

Betty marched upstairs to Ada’s room, flung the door open so that it banged against the wall, and stopped at the threshold.

“So, you’re ready to dance with any Oriental in order to pay for this bird cage? You’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

She walked over to the table and placed canned meat, biscuits, and smoked sausage onto it. “This should keep you going for a while. The other girls and I have decided to keep an eye on you until you get better.”

“Thank you!” Ada whispered, deeply touched.

Betty sat down on the stool and took out a cigarette.

“Now you listen to me. It’s not safe for you to be penniless in your situation. You need to seize the day, while you’re still young, and start working on the second floor. I know what I’m talking about. I had a hard time too, when I first arrived in Shanghai. I used to work as a waitress on a steamer, but was fired for soliciting the passengers. The captain told me that I’d die here but he’s not the first person I’ve proved wrong in my life.”

Ada looked at her with such pitiful eyes that Betty couldn’t help laughing.

“I’m only wishing the best for you, you silly girl! Men like beautiful, bold, and flexible women. Can you do the splits? No? Then you’ll need to start practicing. Here’s another trick that always works as well—”

Betty flicked her cigarette out of the window, took off her hat, and proceeded to do a handstand, her skirt slipping down over her head.

Ada stared in silence at Betty’s black silk stockings and white cami-knickers trimmed with blue ribbons.

“What do you think?” Betty asked from under her skirt.

“Very impressive,” Klim said, peering in from the door.

Ada gasped, while Betty calmly planted her legs back down on the ground, stood up, and straightened her hair.

“Hello, lover boy. We’ve been waiting for you.” She gave Ada, crimson with embarrassment, a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. “Just look at your handsome boyfriend with his fancy new suit and tie! Well, love birds, I have to go now, but you, Ada, have a good think about what I was saying to you earlier. Your boyfriend could disappear any moment, leaving you high and dry and without a friend in the world.”

“I’ve told her a hundred times that you’re not my boyfriend,” Ada said hotly after Betty had left.

Klim sat down beside her on the bed. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

Ada told him all about the shooting at the Havana.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, lowering his eyes. The expression on his face suggested that he held himself personally responsible for what had happened. “I have some good news, though. I was promoted at work, and now I’m going to get thirty dollars a week. After that, I hope I’ll be getting even more.”

Ada couldn’t even imagine having so much money. “Does this mean we’re both out of the woods now?” Her lower lip started shaking. “Betty tried to persuade me to become a prostitute, and for a moment I almost thought I would agree.”

Klim frowned. “You must promise me that you’ll never do that.”

“And you must promise you’ll never leave me on my own for so long again. You do love me, don’t you?”

“Well, how would it be possible not to?”

As if he was afraid that Ada would throw herself on his neck, Klim got up and walked to the window.

“You know,” he said pensively, “sometimes I think that if we weren’t so foolish, we might be happy together. But we’d need the moon to fall into our laps. You’re dreaming about America, and I would need— Well, it’s not important. Forget it.”

“You’re the only fool around here,” Ada snapped. “Are you going to remain faithful to that worthless wife of yours for the rest of your days? She cares about you about as much as she cares for last year’s fashions.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” retorted Klim and he stalked out of the room.

Ada hurled a pillow after him.

Thanks to my reports from Lincheng, the sales of our newspaper have doubled, and Mr. Green has officially taken me on as a journalist. As a member of this exclusive little club, I now have my own desk, mailbox, and press card. The smug expression on my photo reminds me of the soldier who’s just enlisted for the army on a recruitment drive poster: “He’s Happy & Satisfied. Are You?”

So, this is our news:

Edna has returned from Canton, and her story about the local nationalist governor named Sun Yat-sen caused a great stir. He has far-reaching plans to unite China which was divided up among all sorts of warlords and kick the white ghosts, as the Chinese call the expatriates from Europe and America, out of the country.

Sun Yat-sen’s political party, the Kuomintang, was denied recognition by the Great Powers, and he has found a new ally in Soviet Russia. Moscow has not only promised him funds to keep up the good fight against imperialism, but also political and military advisers.

Here, in Shanghai, some people find the news from the South a source of amusement, and some are genuinely scared. As for me, all this is a far cry from what really preoccupies me.

I still feel the touch of Nina’s soft hands on my skin.

My wife weighed my heart up in her palm and tossed it carelessly into the trash can, and I now have an uncontrollable urge to find her and demand an explanation: What was it then between us that night on the train? I still don’t understand a thing.

Ada has persuaded me to rent a two-room apartment on the floor below our old one, and now we have our own kitchen, but still no electricity, though. Ada’s wound has healed up, but I have dissuaded her from going back to the Havana and promised that I would provide her with a small allowance.

My good intentions will end up being my downfall. The first thing Ada did with her money was to buy provocatively lacy knickers, and now she spends much of her time learning to do handstands, with the obvious intention of trying to seduce me. I spend much of my time these days hiding from her in my room, but she is constantly banging on my door, demanding that I hold her legs. “You wouldn’t want me to fall and break my neck, would you?”

Despite her age she is only too aware that I’m no saint. I constantly have to remind myself that Ada is little more than a silly infatuated child, and I definitely don’t want to have another sin on my conscience.

Today we made a deal: she swore that she would stop pestering me, if I found her a job. I forced her to agree that the moment she breaks our agreement, I will immediately take away her allowance and move to another apartment. Ada gave in but on condition that our agreement will only be valid until she comes of age. She is convinced that in a year I will forget about Nina and be looking to marry again—a successful, caring, albeit mildly grumpy potential husband.

I feel as if I’m standing at the cinema box office; I really want to see the Fair Lady, but the only tickets available are for The Extra Girl.

Klim bounded into the apartment with the news that he had found a job for Ada. Mrs. Edna Bernard needed a competent and well-organized person who could keep her library in order.

“Be sure to mind your p’s and q’s,” Klim told Ada, “and whatever you do, don’t mention a word about the Havana. Edna is a member of the Moral Welfare League, and she would never dream of employing someone who used to work as a taxi-girl.”

Ada had heard the other girls mention the League: it was largely made up of rich ladies on a crusade to rid China of prostitution. They would regularly publish damning articles in their church bulletins, organize propaganda meetings, and even picket the Municipal Council. But no matter how hard these upstanding and well-meaning ladies fought against vice, they achieved little or nothing. Unknown to them, most of Shanghai’s legislators were regular patrons of the city’s brothels.

Klim explained to Ada how to get to the Bernards, and after a delightful ride on a tramcar, she reached a quiet leafy street, where she saw nobody except a Chinese gardener trimming hedges.

Ada looked in wonder at the follies with their towers, weather vanes, and gates decorated with cast-iron curlicues. She felt as if she had entered into some fairytale kingdom, and that sooner or later someone would chase her away. Mere mortals evidently didn’t belong here.

When a young servant let Ada into the house, she almost panicked. There were statues in every corner, the walls were decorated with paintings, and huge fans the size of windmill sails spun from the ceiling.

Goodness me, Ada thought, what do these people do to earn the money to buy all this?

The servant ushered Ada into a cramped studio, bowed, and disappeared. The mistress’s appearance shocked Ada to the core. Mrs. Bernard’s hair was twisted into a bun and fixed with a couple of pencils instead of hairpins. Her hands were smeared with ink, and a black telephone wire was coiled around her bare foot. She was sitting at a desk and talking on the phone.

Mrs. Bernard made a sign for Ada to wait. “We have established a rescue fund for the hostages from the Blue Express,” she yelled into the receiver. “The bandits have requested two million dollars in ransom, but we have found a middleman who has negotiated a smaller amount.”

Finally, Mrs. Bernard hung up and turned to Ada. “Miss Marshall? Klim Rogov gave you glowing references. What can you tell me about yourself?”

Ada had never been good at talking about herself. What did people expect her to say: “I’m a pretty, kind, and bright… modest sort of girl”?

Thankfully, Mrs. Bernard asked the questions, and with a little expert coaxing Ada told her all about her childhood and her odyssey from Izhevsk to Shanghai.

“I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been through so much, and at such a young age,” Edna said. “But if you work hard, you’ll be fine here.”

She took Ada to a large sunny room filled with boxes of books. Books were littered all over the floor and piled precariously on the chairs. Some of them had been carefully stacked on the shelves, while others had been hurriedly stuffed into bookcases.

“Your task is to make a detailed catalog of all these books and arrange them so that they’ll be easy to find,” Mrs. Bernard said. “I can pay you twelve dollars a week. Is that alright with you?”

Ada nodded, stunned. She tried to find the right words of gratitude, but the telephone rang again from the studio, and Mrs. Bernard rushed off to answer it.

“You can start right now,” Ada heard her calling from the corridor.

Twelve dollars a week—a princely sum. And Ada was going to earn it for the pleasure of sorting out books in a stunning library.

With trembling hands, she picked up the first book, then the second, and the third… To be honest, she was surprised and disappointed at the Bernards’ taste. The library was filled with a hodgepodge of different topics that ranged from Agriculture in Central China to The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. How could this couple possibly be interested in such dull topics?

Ada spent the whole morning repairing torn book covers and replacing missing pages. By twelve o’clock, a neat-looking Chinese lad knocked at the library door.

“Hi! My name is Sam, I’m boy number five,” he introduced himself. “Our cook, Yun, told me to invite you down to the kitchen for lunch.”

On their way, Sam told her that there were five Chinese boys, three maids, two grooms, a gardener, a laundress, a dishwasher, a chauffeur, a kitchen boy, a housekeeper, and a messenger boy all serving in the house.

“And all this for a family of two people?” Ada asked.

“It’s good to have a lot of servants,” Sam said proudly. “It shows that you are rich and can afford to invite lots of guests over. Did they hire you part- or full-time?”

Ada shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’d like to stay here.”

“Then find yourself extra work, and when you’re done with the books, try to persuade Missy to keep you on. But don’t go taking on other people’s work. If they start hating you, they’ll drive you out within a week. Not long ago, Yun fell out with one of the maids. He ended up putting special herbs into her food, which made her gassy. It became impossible to be in the same room as her, and Missy had to discharge her.”

“I really have no intention of stealing anyone else’s job—” Ada began, but Sam reassured her that she had nothing to be afraid of.

“Just be nice to everybody and you’ll be fine.”

He took Ada to the small kitchen, not the one that was used for cooking the masters’ food, but the one with a whitewashed Chinese stove and a brood of blackened pots huddling in the corner.

A warped and grease-stained image of the kitchen god, the patron of the hearth and household, stood in a wall niche. Yun, an old man with a copper-colored face and a gray beard tucked into the collar of his jacket, was busy at the chopping board. He took an onion out of a basket and had it cleaned and sliced into translucent rings in a trice. The staccato of his chopping knife resembled the sound of a sewing machine.

Most of the servants had already had their lunch and had returned to their duties, leaving the kitchen boy to clean their plates. As Sam and Ada entered the kitchen, Yun ladled them bowls of soup with yellow noodles.

“May I have a spoon?” Ada asked timidly, looking down at the chopsticks that had been placed next to her bowl.

“No, you can’t,” Yun cut her short. “Learn to use chopsticks, like everybody else.”

Frightened out of her wits, Ada sat next to Sam, trying to pick up her noodles with her chopsticks.

“Praise Yun’s cooking,” Sam whispered.

“Mmm, this is lovely!” Ada said. The noodles were delicious, but it was fiendishly difficult to pin them down with the chopsticks.

She tried lifting her bowl to her mouth, like Sam, but this was even worse, and she ended up spilling half the soup down her dress.

“Here comes the second course,” said the kitchen boy.

Yun took a round basket from under the table, picked up a fork with a long handle, and used it to pull out… a live snake. In one deft movement, he cut its head off and skinned it.

The oil in the frying pan sizzled, flames shot up from the stove, and a cloud of steam enveloped the portrait of the kitchen god. A minute later, Ada was presented with two pieces of perfectly fried meat on her plate.

“Now, eat!” Yun ordered.

She stared at her plate, feeling more dead than alive.

“You’d better not upset the cook,” said Sam.

At that moment footsteps came echoing from the corridor, and a man in a riding coat entered the kitchen, his pith helmet under his arm.

“Here, Yun, can you give me some apples?”

Sam stood up and bowed to him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Bernard.”

Ada was dumbfounded: only a few weeks previously, she had seen this man in the Havana. He had caught her attention because his face had been unnaturally red, but now he looked fine.

“Are you going to spoil your horses again?” Yun muttered, filling the pith helmet with small yellow apples. “White people are nuts, riding horses in the midday sun or chasing golf balls all day long.”

Mr. Bernard crunched an apple. “Stop grumbling. It’s for a new horse I bought, but it’s wild and needs to be tamed.”

“And we are taming your young librarian here,” said Yun, pointing to Ada.

Mr. Bernard turned to her, and she realized that he had recognized her, too.

“What have you given her?” he asked, looking at Ada’s plate. “Chinese rat snake? Yun, give her a break. Don’t torture the poor girl.”

“Me? Torturing her? It’s one of the finest delicacies in China!”

Mr. Bernard winked at Ada. “If he gives you any more of that muck, just ask him for tea with milk in it.”

“It’s barbaric to pour milk in tea!” Yun screamed. “You might as well pour it into beer.”

“I can eat your rat snake,” Sam whispered to Ada after the master had left and Yun’s back was turned.

She nodded silently. Her heart was trembling. What would happen now? Would Mr. Bernard kick her out?

As Ada made her way back to the library through the gallery surrounding the courtyard, she noticed two grooms holding the reins of the black horse below while Mr. Bernard tried to coax it towards him with an apple. The trick didn’t work, though. The horse looked at him with wild rolling eyes and kicked out in all directions.

Mr. Bernard noticed Ada. “Come over here,” he ordered.

Her heart almost bursting out of her chest, Ada descended the stairs to the court yard.

“What an exceptional breed,” said Mr. Bernard, approaching Ada. “These horses are caught in the Mongolian steppes, and when they come to Shanghai, it takes at least four months for them to get used to good fodder. Out on the steppe, they eat nothing but dry grass and don’t want to try anything else.”

Mr. Bernard took off his dusty gloves and threw them into his hat.

“Your name is Miss Marshall, isn’t it? You know, my wife would be furious if she were to find out where you used to work.”

“Please don’t tell her,” Ada pleaded. “Otherwise, she might ask how you know me, and it would become obvious that you’ve been to the Havana.”

Mr. Bernard laughed. “That’s true. Well, in that case you’d better get back to work, hadn’t you?”

Back in the library, Ada collapsed into an armchair. She had been so brazen with her new master on her very first day at work. It was almost as if she had been blackmailing him: “If you don’t betray me, I won’t betray you.”

But Mr. Bernard hadn’t seemed to be offended. Betty was right: men like bold spirited girls.