The more Nina learned about Daniel, the more often she would glance at the picture on Tamara’s bedside table. A strange chain of coincidences seemed to be bringing them together, she thought. She had come up with the Czechoslovak Consulate idea, and Daniel was a Czech. He had gone to Europe soon after she had arrived in Shanghai, as if deliberately to give her time to get herself back on her feet. He was a friend of the Aulmans, and she would have every opportunity to meet him through them. Nina had an inkling that her mistress wanted to bring her and Daniel together, and, for now, she was fine with the idea.
When Nina learned from the newspapers that Mr. Bernard was among the hostages on the Blue Express, she immediately called Tamara.
“What do you think will happen to him?” she asked, shocked at the thought that her fragile hope for personal happiness might be crushed.
“The Chinese will buy their relatives’ freedom, and the representatives of the Great Powers will negotiate the release of their subjects,” Tamara said unemotionally.
There was no one to stand up for Daniel Bernard, a Czechoslovak national.
Nina announced to Jiří that they were going to Lincheng. “We have to save your countryman.”
“Are you out of your mind?” he cried. “What can we do for him? And why?”
“Get ready, I said!”
Nina couldn’t wait for the Chinese authorities to eventually see through their scam or for Tamara to get bored of her little games. Daniel Bernard seemed to offer Nina’s her best chance to take her destiny into her own hands.
At Lincheng, all she found was chaos and filth, and they learned that hostage release negotiations could often run for months.
“I knew that our journey would be completely pointless,” Jiří kept saying.
I really have lost my mind, Nina had to admit. There is no Daniel Bernard. I must have imagined it all.
She spent a long time moping in her compartment, convinced that her life was essentially over. Her past no longer existed, she had no control over her present, and the only realistic future that awaited her was a Chinese prison and not some imagined romance with a rich handsome stranger.
Just when Nina thought things couldn’t get any worse, the electricity had failed. But as she descended the steps of her car, she was met by a man she had never imagined she would see again.
Klim woke up and discovered that Nina had moved to her bed; the couch had been too narrow for the two of them.
Outside, in the world beyond the window shade, bustle, voices, and the snorting of a steam engine could be heard. The sun was shining and the morning was in full swing. But here, in the cocoon of the compartment, a gentle restorative twilight still reigned.
Klim leaned on his elbow and drank in the sight of his sleeping wife. What incredible and improbable circumstances had thrown them together?
Strong, stunning, and impossible, Nina hadn’t changed an iota. The shadow of her eyelashes flickered imperceptibly, and the skin on her neck and rounded shoulder shone like a dusky and ethereal pearl.
Klim looked around him. Someone had paid for Nina’s luxury compartment, her perfume and outfits. Most likely, she had had a fight with her sugar daddy and decided to cheat on him to get her revenge. Meeting Klim had just provided her with the perfect opportunity. What role could he ever play in her current life? An occasional guest lover? The ring on her finger alone cost more than he could earn in six months.
Klim glanced at his watch and hurriedly started to dress. It was five to eight, and he was in danger of missing the meeting with Roy Andersen.
He took his suitcase from the luggage rack, slipped out of the compartment, and stopped for a second in the middle of the corridor. Should I wake Nina up? he thought. No, let her sleep. We can talk when I get back, and then what will be, will be.
He went out onto the platform and squinted in the bright May sun. People were rushing past in one direction as if hurrying to see a house on fire.
“Have you heard the news?” Ursula cried, rushing up to him. “Daniel Bernard has managed to escape from the bandits.”
“Edna’s husband?”
“Come quickly. He’s just about to recount his story to the press. He’s very fair, and his face became so severely sunburned that the bandits thought he had contracted a dangerous disease. So they left him for dead in the forest.”
There was a huge crush of people by the station building, but the guards were only letting journalists in. Klim entered the waiting room where a blond man was sitting in a dense circle of photographers and reporters. Daniel Bernard was dressed in dirty striped pajamas, someone else’s coat had been thrown over his shoulders. His face was a livid red, and the skin on his nose and forehead was peeling in small white scales.
Daniel Bernard was dead on his feet: he had been wandering the mountains for two days before he met a search party of soldiers who finally brought him to the station.
“The bandits lined us up in rows and drove us into the mountains,” he said. “But with three hundred of us, they had bitten off more than they could chew. We didn’t have any food or water supplies, and many of us didn’t even have shoes. The gentleman who was walking by my side knew the local dialect, and he overheard the bandits talking about letting the women and children go free. To their way of thinking, men are much more valuable hostages and can command much higher ransoms.”
Ursula was too small to be able to see Daniel from behind the scrum of other reporters. “The authorities have tried to provide the hostages food and water supplies through envoys,” she cried from behind the reporters’ backs. “Did anything get through?”
Daniel shook his head. “The bandits threw everything away except the canned stew. They thought that the food might contain sleeping drugs.”
“Do they have any political demands?” Klim asked.
“No. These villagers haven’t become robbers because of politics. It’s purely out of desperation. The local peasants have five to eight children and live in utter poverty because they have no land rights. The bandits are young men who can only provide for themselves by robbing others.”
At that moment a short plump man with a doctor’s bag under his arm rushed into the room, barging through the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Dr. Piper and I must insist that you leave Mr. Bernard alone immediately. He needs medical attention and rest.”
Klim and Ursula went off to the telegraph office to send their cables, but there was a huge queue, and they ended up waiting for hours.
“Edna is so lucky that her husband has managed to escape from the bandits,” Ursula kept saying.
Klim nodded, but he was thinking about something else. What if he was to offer Nina a fresh start in life? Would she agree? What if she had meant it when she had said that they couldn’t get a divorce?
After sending his telegram, Klim raced back to the station, but when he reached the platform, he didn’t recognize the place. There were only empty freight cars on the tracks.
“Where is the Shanghai train?” Klim asked a young Chinese dressed in a railway uniform.
He looked at him over his round glasses. “I’m sorry, sir. It left a long time ago.”
A woman always knows when intimacy with her becomes very special for a man and when he is overwhelmed with happiness just because he has had a chance to hold her in his arms. That was what had happened between Nina and Klim that night, and she was surprised that he had disappeared, without saying a word to her.
She was sitting by the window, waiting for him, but an hour passed, then another, and another—and still Klim hadn’t shown up. There could only be one possible explanation: he had wanted nothing but to teach Nina a lesson and show her what she had lost.