“More than two-thirds of our men are Chinese and Sikhs from India,” he said warming to his theme. “The same could be said of the French Concession, but they have Vietnamese instead of Sikhs.”
The reporters recorded his every word, and Klim who had heard his sermon many times before, went off to talk to Felix.
He found the young man sitting on a bench on the back porch, smoking and stroking a fat ginger cat at his feet.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Klim said as he sat down next to him.
Felix sniffed. “My pleasure.”
They got to talking. Felix had been an orphan from Omsk and had joined the cadets at a very young age. He and his fellow trainee officers had been among the first to be evacuated to Vladivostok and then to China after the outbreak of the civil war.
A Shanghai merchant had allowed the boys to stay in his house, and there they had lived in close quarters. Space had been so scarce that they had to take turns to sleep. It was hard to feed seven hundred teenagers, and the French Consul resolved to hold a lottery for the younger orphans, and that was how they raised funds. The majority of the boys dug graves and guarded warehouses for a living, and only a few, like Felix, had been lucky enough to find decent jobs.
“I really hope I’ll get promoted to inspector one day,” he said dreamily. “Inspectors get three hundred dollars a month and a paid vacation of seventeen days a year or, if you want, seven months every five years. But first I will need to distinguish myself.”
“Do you have any ideas how you’re going to do this?” Klim asked.
Felix nodded. “My friend works as a doorman at the Three Pleasures pub. He says that all the alcohol they sell there is bought duty-free and delivered by the local Czechoslovak Consul. I’ve suggested having him arrested a long time ago, but Johnny is reluctant to go there because it’s a French protectorate. But the consul, Jiří Labuda, is a resident in the International Settlement, and therefore he comes under our jurisdiction.”
“Who did you say?” Klim asked, stunned. “Jiří Labuda?”
“That’s his name,” Felix nodded. “If you want, we could track him down together. You’ll get an exclusive for your paper, and I’ll get my promotion. It’s a great story—a respectable diplomat turned small-time crook.”
Klim didn’t know what to think. What kind of people had Nina got herself mixed up with?
“There won’t be the slightest problem,” Felix persuaded. “This Labuda is a sickly individual. One punch and he’ll be done for. His driver won’t be so easy. He’s as big as an ox. But between the two of us, we’ll be more than a match for them.”
“Let’s go hunting then,” said Klim after a pause.
Felix beamed. “Good. I’ll see you at the Three Pleasures tomorrow at seven o’clock.”
11. THE HOUSE ARREST
As her pregnancy progressed, Nina stopped giving her parties.
Jiří was furious. “How are we going to pay our bills now?” he yelled at her. “You’re no more a mother than I’m Napoleon. Have an abortion before it’s too late.”
Nina could have killed him on the spot.
“Don’t ever talk to me about my baby again!” she whispered in such a cold fury that Jiří quickly retreated to the next room.
Don Fernando was also disappointed that Nina was bowing out of the liquor business and kept badgering her with new ideas for making money out of the Czechoslovak Consulate.
“I’ve got a brilliant idea,” he said to Nina. “Why don’t we ship liquor as a diplomatic cargo? They have brought in Prohibition in America, and the prices have gone through the roof. We can brew our own ‘French wine’ right here, in China, and smuggle it into the United States through Canada.”
Nina soon fell out with the Don as well. She felt that something amazing was happening to her, as if some immense tectonic shift was going on inside her body, and the idea of spending her time and energy on liquor seemed sacrilegious to Nina.
Her perception of the world was changing fundamentally. Street smells, such as car fumes, tobacco, and fried food, were all sickening to her, and the sight of homeless mothers with children would make her shudder with horror. Nina was incapable of thinking about anything except her baby. Her greatest pleasure was to visit the toy store or a workshop where they made adorable playthings for infants. The thought that caused her the most turmoil was the question of her child’s citizenship. When the baby arrived, she would need to make sure that its documents were in order. But how was she going to do this? Would she really have to buy fakes? She was determined that there should be nothing false in her child’s life.
The past and future took on a new meaning. Until recently, her fight with Daniel had seemed a complete disaster, but now she was glad they had broken up. It would be quite something, she thought, if he were to divorce Edna and then find out about my pregnancy.
Nina tried to shut Klim out of her mind. If she were to find him and tell him about their child, he was bound to assume that she was just trying to land him with someone else’s baby. With all the scandal that had followed her friendship with Daniel, Klim was sure to assume they had actually had an affair.
Nina wanted her baby to be important not only for herself but for other people too, and she couldn’t resist the urge to talk about it, if only to the servants. But they gave her such outlandish advice that she was left at a complete loss. According to them, an expectant young mother should never leave the house, wash her hair, or sew, and as for standing in the wind, well, that was totally out of the question.
Nina at least found some consolation with Tamara, who—thank God—had lost her interest in the parties and was happy to spend hours discussing matters relating to motherhood.
“I’m sure,” Nina said, “everybody is critical of me for having a baby by an unknown father. There isn’t a decent woman who will let me into her house anymore. Except for you, of course.”
“You don’t need anyone but me,” Tamara said.
Nina thanked her for her kindness and at the same time thought that she was more reliant on Tamara than ever. There was no way Nina was ever going to find a husband now and she could forget about making money of her own with a baby to look after. The only role she could play from now on was to be Tamara’s dependent.
“I want to buy something for Nina’s child,” Tamara said to her husband. “She and I will go to Yates Road.”
Tony was horrified. “Is it safe for you to go that far? What if you slip a disk? You know how fragile your back is.”
But Tamara was determined to take the risk, so he had a special chair made for her that two men could carry. He put an egg on its seat, chased the porters around the house several times, and only when the egg still remained on the seat intact was he satisfied. No automobile could have provided Tamara with such a smooth way to get around, especially on the Chinese roads with their cracks and potholes.
It was snowing when the servants took Tamara out for the first time that whole year. She squinted, laughed, and inhaled the cold air deeply.
“I can’t believe how long I’ve allowed myself to be cooped up in my own house,” she said.
The English called Yates Road “Petticoat Lane;” you could find every imaginable type of undergarment there for all occasions and for all ages—from the cradle to the coffin.
The porters carried Tamara at a sprightly trot past the decorated shop windows. Behind her Nina rode in the Aulman’s car followed by a number of servants pushing wheelbarrows that were to be used to deliver Nina’s purchases to her house.