White Ghosts

9. JUST GOOD FRIENDS

Nina had been hoping to rekindle the bond and intellectual kinship that she and Daniel had enjoyed back on the train, but instead they fell into a strange and exciting game of feigning indifference towards each other.

Daniel was nothing Nina had imagined. After visiting Gu Ya-min’s treasure chamber, he decided that there was no need to be a perfect gentleman in her presence. He spent much of his time with her now making scabrous and unflattering comments about other people and made no pretense of the fact that he found Nina “really rather attractive.”

“Thank God I’m a cynic and a misanthrope,” he told her, “and I have the good sense not to have an affair with you.”

“It’s me, not you, who has the good sense here,” Nina said. “I prefer to steer well clear of cynical married misanthropes.”

Pretty soon she figured out that Daniel didn’t love Edna.

“The Chinese believe that it’s a great virtue if a woman has no talent,” he said. “Unfortunately, Edna is crazy talented.”

“What are you complaining about?” Nina asked, surprised.

“Because I can’t bury her talent in the ground. When I come home at night, I always find my wife inspired. When the muse starts hovering over Edna’s shoulder, she forces her to rattle away on her typewriter until two in the morning.”

“Have you tried buying a trombone and rehearsing in the next room?”

“I wish it would help, but during the Great War, Edna lived in London and soon learned to ignore even the bombs and sirens.”

It was obvious that the problem was not Mrs. Bernard’s talents. Her mother had died at childbirth, her father was a tough, uncommunicative man, and Edna had become accustomed to finding solace in the church, eventually becoming a religious prude. For her, everything related to sex was ugly and sinful, and she believed that a man and wife should “keep their minds and bodies pure.” Daniel had deemed it unwise to explain his feelings on the matter or try to persuade her otherwise, and it had all ended with his banal and sordid little trips to the brothels.

“Alas, the woman I married is a complete cold fish, as unfeeling, flat, and one-dimensional as a flounder,” Daniel sighed.

He had a weakness for lively, sensual women, and Nina shamelessly took advantage of it, constantly teasing him but not allowing him to get too close. Daniel returned the compliment by making fun of Nina’s dream of one day having a legitimate income. Every time she shared her latest business idea with him, he couldn’t resist the pleasure of cutting her down to size.

“For goodness sake,” he told her, “why are you so eager to engage yourself in men’s business? I can see the point of Edna’s writing—she has a gift after all—but what do you have to offer?”

These “jokes,” as he liked to call them, drove Nina up the wall. After each put-down she would promise herself that she would never discuss her business ideas with Daniel, only to seek his opinion again at the first opportunity. She felt too insecure too be alone with her dreams.

However, it was impossible to win approval or praise from Daniel.

“You’re such a nitpicker,” Nina raged after another put-down. “You’re constantly putting me in the shade.”

“I’m just protecting you from sunburn,” Daniel said, shrugging. “You do want to be treated and regarded as a white lady, don’t you?”

Still, he willingly helped with Nina’s consulate business and gave her good advice on financial matters and how to keep her scam a secret.

He had photographed each item from Gu Ya-min’s collection and sent the pictures to his friends in Europe, who were expert collectors and antique dealers.

“If you manage to strike a deal, you can keep the commission,” he told Nina.

She was certain that Daniel had a crush on her, because he would often talk about her femininity, which he found impossible to resist.

“Thank God, you don’t realize its power,” he said.

“Sure I do,” she protested.

“If you did, dabbling in something as banal as business wouldn't even occur to you. Can you imagine anything more absurd than Botticelli’s Venus with a briefcase under one arm and an abacus under the other?”

“But she’s butt naked.”

“And she carries it off very well. People should stick to where their talents lie.”

She felt that the inevitable would soon happen: Daniel would divorce Edna and ask Nina to marry him. But she was uneasy about her own divorce. Klim and Nina had had a church marriage and that wouldn’t be so easy to dissolve. Besides that, Chinese law favored men, and if a husband refused to let his wife go, there was nothing she could do about it.

Should I pretend I’ve never been married to Klim? Nina thought. He can’t prove we’re married without any documents. And anyway, there is no way he’s going to find out in this huge great city.

Just to be on the safe side, she asked Tony what the punishment in China was for a woman found guilty of having more than one husband. The answer was more than a little alarming: ninety lashes with the bamboo cane.

In summer 1923, not much was left in Nina’s memory besides fights with Daniel, reconciliations, and crazy flirtation. She had hoped to keep their relationship a secret, but Daniel told her from the very beginning that he was not going to sneak about in the shadows. He didn’t care what Edna or the rest of the world would think of him.

Whenever Nina began to worry—“People will see us!”—Daniel laughed at her. “How old are you? Thirteen? What are you afraid of?”

“You know perfectly well,” Nina snapped. “I shouldn’t draw attention to myself.”

Daniel assured her that as long as she was under his protection, she had nothing to fear. It seemed as though he didn’t realize how vulnerable Nina was, and there was no persuading him otherwise. He didn’t risk anything, but Nina had lost a lot: the ladies who had been happily attending her parties now saw her as a potential danger to their marriages and a bad example for their teenage daughters. Increasingly, Nina started receiving cards with polite notes: “Unfortunately, we can’t come to you tonight.”

Jiří believed that Nina had gone crazy, getting into an affair with Daniel.

“You’ll destroy both of us!” he yelled at her. “Do you want Tamara kicking us out of her house? If Daniel hasn’t proposed yet, he won’t do it.”

That made Nina scared. “Daniel can’t live without me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. His father-in-law is a police commissioner, and Mr. Bernard isn’t such a fool as to upset him.”

I should make Daniel choose, Nina thought again and again. This situation can’t continue indefinitely. Let him either marry me or leave me alone.

But the thought of her victory was equally frightening to Nina. She was attracted to Daniel not by passion but by her desire to arrange her future. She always found something annoying about him—the tobacco smell or his irritating laughter. When indignant at something, Daniel would roll his eyes, and his pupils disappeared under his upper eyelids. When Nina was a child, her mother had told her about a “white-eyed monster” who comes to naughty children and carries them into the woods. Now that was Nina thought about when she was looking at her Mr. Right.

What if I’m unhappy staying with him? she thought. She knew that he was capable of leaving her behind if she lost her “feminine charm” or simply did something he didn’t like. She couldn’t expect eternal love from him, similar to Aulmans’. He was not that type of a person.

Anxiety made Nina ill; she felt weak, suffering from headaches and nausea. Sometimes it was so bad that she was unable to leave the house.

Everything was clarified in the beginning of September, and not in the way Nina had hoped.

After Japan had had a major earthquake and Edna had gone to Tokyo for her newspaper, Daniel called Nina and asked her if she wanted to visit the Chinese Сity.

But the heavy rain interrupted their walk, and they found shelter under the archway at the entrance to the spice shop. Daniel took off his jacket and put it around Nina’s shoulders. They stood quietly in the moist dim, listening to the sound of the rain and inhaling the pungent herb aromas coming from the door to the shop.

“Should we run to the car?” Nina suggested.

She felt Daniel was looking at her in a new way, with annoyance and impatience, as if he had missed the target while hunting.

“Aren’t you tired of pretending to be bashful school children?” he said and suddenly pulled her to his chest. “We both know how it ends.”

Nina didn’t expect him to be so straightforward. She tried to wriggle herself out of his hands.

“Do you want to get warm holding me like this? I’ll give you your jacket back, or you’ll crumple my dress.”

Daniel didn’t listen to her. “God is my witness, I’d tried to stop it before it was too late.”

He ran his hand over her breast, and Nina, hardly realizing what she was doing, slapped him across the face. “Don’t you dare!”

Daniel stepped away from her.

“What the hell—” he began but didn’t finish and got out from the archway into the rain. A moment later his car speeded past her.

Stunned, Nina watched it disappear. Did he dump me just like that?

It took a long time for her to find a rickshaw, and Nina reached home only when it was already dark. Her dress was soaking and her teeth were chattering from the cold.

Now what? she thought in panic. But it’s not my fault! Daniel should blame himself for what happened. Who told him he could paw me about as though I’m a hooker?

While Qin was preparing a hot bath for her, Nina paced in her bedroom. She prayed incoherently, then threw things on the carpet or twisted her fingers, deliberately trying to hurt herself.

What if Daniel spills the beans about her fake consulate? Oh no, he’s not that sneaky.

I should calm down and develop an action plan, Nina told herself. Nothing is yet lost. Tomorrow Daniel will call me, we’ll make peace and forget about this stupid incident.

“Your bath is ready, Missy,” said Qin as she appeared in the doorway.

Nina took her clothes off and descended into the lavender-scented water.

“Today I went to the temple on Babbling Well Road,” Qin said. “I lit red candles and burned joss sticks for Guan Yin goddess, so your labor will go easily.”

Startled, Nina stared at her. “What labor? What are you talking about?”

A smile spread across Qin’s round face. “Oh Missy, you don’t have to hide from me. Do you think I haven’t seen anyone pregnant before? You’ll have a baby on the Chinese New Year, so you too should go to the temple and asked Guan Yin to give you a son.”

Nina rushed into Tamara’s room, pale and untidy.

“What’s wrong?” Tamara gasped.

Nina collapsed on the low stool and pressed her knees to her chest as if something was burning her from inside.

“It’s all over,” she whispered, looking up at Tamara, her eyes full of tears. “Daniel left me. This morning I’ve got this—”

She handed Tamara his business card.

“I’m going to Guangdong province for a few months,” he had written on its back side. “Take care of yourself.”

“I don’t get it—” Tamara began.

“That’s not all,” Nina said in a shaky voice. “I’m… I’m pregnant.”

Tamara was silent for a while, trying to realize what had happened.

“I don’t want any children!” Nina sobbed. “Maybe you know a doctor who… well, who can—” Her thoughts were scattering. “I should have guessed long ago. Oh, I’ll poison myself!”

“There, there…” Tamara felt so sorry for her that she was about to cry too. “You’ll be fine. How far along are you?”

“Five months.”

Tamara scrutinized Nina’s belly. It had just slightly rounded. “Keep the baby,” she said firmly. “I have no other advice for you. Children are the best thing in the world. An abortion could result in infertility or some nasty complication.”

“But how will I explain the child to everyone?” Nina moaned.

“We’ll figure something out. Promise you won’t make any rash decisions.”

“All right,” Nina replied almost inaudibly.

In the evening, Tony brought Tamara an orchid in a glossy pot.

“It’s for you. Now kiss your victorious husband. I won in court, in polo, and on the stock exchange.”

His head had a special smell, but it was so delicate that Tamara could feel it only on her first breath.

“Nina visited today,” she said. “What do you think of her?”

“She’s lovely.” Tony raised his smiling eyes. “Let’s have a chess match after dinner? If you win I’ll be amazed. Today I’m feeling as lucky and shrewd as Odysseus.”

Love and tenderness, thought Tamara. After all, it was very flattering that he, the best of husbands, was totally uninterested in the most fascinating of women.

“Nina’s pregnant,” Tamara said.

“Really? Who’s the father?”

“Daniel Bernard, who else? And he immediately left for Guangdong province in order to bear no responsibility.”

The news was such a shock for Tony that he lost a game of chess after all.