How could she have doubted Klim? In less than a half a year he had settled in Shanghai and, apparently, was making a much better job than his ne’er-do-well wife.
There was a knock on the door, and Nina sprang to her feet.
But it was only Jiří. “Daniel Bernard has just escaped from captivity,” he said, excitedly. “He’ll be traveling to Shanghai on our train.”
Utterly crushed, Nina sank back down on the couch. She no longer gave a damn about Daniel Bernard.
The attendant appeared at the end of the corridor. “Ladies and gentlemen, the train will be leaving in fifteen minutes. Please, have your return tickets ready.”
Nina looked at her watch. It was half past one. Klim was not about to return. He had, after all, said that he wanted a divorce.
“Are you all right?” Jiří asked, looking into her eyes.
“Let’s just go home,” Nina replied, barely audible.
Every now and then, Jiří would knock at Nina’s door and tell her about Daniel Bernard. First, he went to the dining car, and then the train master visited him, and after that—
Nina couldn’t stand it any longer and rushed to the open smoking area at the end of the last car, just to have a chance to be alone.
The wheels clattered rhythmically, and the wind eddied over the vast green fields of sorghum. Nina stood, clutching the handrail, and wept silently.
Eventually, her remorse gave way to anger. “We’ll see who wins,” she whispered. “And boy, are you going to regret it.”
The doors parted slightly. Nina turned her head and recoiled as a man with a red scaly face stepped into the smoking area. To top everything, this was the “prince” she had been dreaming of—Jiří had already told Nina about Daniel’s misadventures in the forest.
Daniel lighted his cigarette, and he and Nina stood in silence for a while. From time to time, she gave him a puzzled look. In real life, Mr. Bernard was an angular, disheveled man with a rather abrupt way of moving. He constantly shrugged his shoulders, and the hand that held his cigarette jerked upward every now and then.
He had been sneaking secret glances at Nina, too.
“You know, you have a remarkable complexion,” he said. “I’ve really never seen anything like it before.”
Nina looked at her reflection in the glass door and gasped: her face was as filthy as a chimney sweep’s. The handrail she had been clutching had been smeared in soot, and she had soiled her face while wiping away her tears.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asked. “Do you have a handkerchief?”
Daniel smiled. “I do, but I daren’t give it to you. If you end up transforming yourself into a beautiful woman, I’d never be able to summon up the courage to talk to you. As things are, I think we rather complement each other. After all red and black do go rather well together.”
Nina was confused. Was he laughing at himself or her?
“We’ll just have to pass ourselves off as ‘a pair of rough diamonds,’” Daniel suggested. “Have you ever heard the story of the Imperial Seal of China?”
“Do you really have no one else to talk to?” Nina said, frowning.
Daniel shrugged. “I think I’d rather converse with you than the train master. He’s so dull, he could bore a man into an early grave. So I fear you have little choice but to listen to my story: A long time ago, a man called Bian He found a piece of jade in the hills and brought it to the king. Alas, the poor man was soon chased out of the palace without a word of thanks for his pains, his lump of jade tossed after him in contempt. When the king died, his younger brother ascended the throne, and Bian He repeated his long journey but again to no avail. Only the third king recognized the value of the treasure laid before him. Out of this stone, he ordered that a special ritual disc be made, known as bi, the symbol of the sky. It was so beautiful that it became an object of envy throughout China. Other rulers coveted it, and to obtain it, armies and even cities were lost. Many wars were waged for it and much blood shed for its sake. Long centuries passed, and the disc happened to fall into the hands of Qin Shi Huang, who turned it into the Heirloom Seal of the Realm. From that time forth, whoever possessed it was granted a mandate of power from the Heavens to rule the Empire. So the moral of my story is: Do not rush to reject a thing that might at first appear unsightly.”
Daniel was clearly referring himself, but for Nina it was another hint of her inability to see true value in people and things.
“What happened to the Seal afterwards?” she asked.
“For more than a thousand years, it passed from generation to generation, and then it disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The only thing that is certain is that the last two dynasties ruled without the Seal, and it all ended up with the collapse of the Empire.”
Daniel could talk endlessly about porcelain manufacturing, ancient scrolls, and China’s great libraries reduced to ashes by successive waves of barbarian invaders. His stories were so fascinating that Nina had even forgotten about the soot on her cheeks.
Two hours seemed to pass like a minute in his company, and she was amazed how quickly Daniel managed to win her over with his charm, wit, and erudition. She had always had a soft spot for self-confident, well-educated men with a delicious sense of self-irony.
But there was more to their meeting that just that. They were both in sore need of the balm that good company could provide to smooth over their recent troubles. Nina was desperate not to be left alone with her thoughts about Klim, and Daniel, it appeared, was just grateful to be alive and not brooding on the murders, the suffering, and the long hours of marching through the mountains. Now he could just smoke his cigarette and chat with a random fellow traveler about history and culture.
They agreed to have dinner together. Nina went to wash her face and came to the dining car a transformed woman.
“If the bandits hadn’t taken all my luggage,” Daniel said, “I would have made more of an effort to make myself presentable too. I had a remarkable German gas mask in my suitcase that I found at a flea market. I think it would have been just the thing to wear to dinner in polite company, considering the state of my face at the moment.”
Tamara was right: Mr. Bernard was an extraordinary man.
All the way to Shanghai, Nina and Daniel were almost inseparable, and they enjoyed every minute of each other’s company.
What if we are really fated to be together? Nina thought in dismay. She couldn’t imagine him as her lover, but she kept telling herself that his burnt face would heal up and that she’d get used to his strange gestures.
Finally, the train arrived at the North Station, and the passengers poured out onto the platform. Steam escaping from under the platform billowed onto the passengers’ feet. The crowd buzzed, the engines whistled, and the porters jostled from all quarters trying to attract the attention of their customers.
Nina had forgotten all the words she had wanted to say to Daniel before parting. He was silent, too, fiddling with her visiting card.
“It was a great pleasure meeting you—” he began, but at that moment a young lady in a checkered suit ran up to him.
“You’re alive!” she cried, throwing her arms around him.
Nina stared at her in amazement. Who on earth was this woman?
Daniel’s face didn’t betray the slightest emotion, as if he was at a business meeting.
“Edna, let me introduce you to Miss Nina Kupina. Nina, this is my wife, Edna.”
Nina was appalled. In her wild imaginings it hadn’t even occurred to her that there might already be a Mrs. Bernard.