“Precisely!” Edna exclaimed. “If you do nothing, the poor will turn into communists. Our librarian, Ada, has a friend who lives in Canton. He sent her a letter in which he described how he lived among the Bolsheviks—”
“What’s his name?” Daniel’s voice sounded so strange that Edna got scared.
“I don’t know. You should ask Ada. Why?”
Daniel threw his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and took Edna’s hand. “Let’s go to sleep. It’s too late to be discussing such things,” he said tenderly.
Edna looked at him, perplexed. A minute ago, he had been so distant and patronizing, and now suddenly everything had changed. He walked Edna to her bedroom and even kissed her goodnight.
He still loves me, she thought. He’s just tired and needs some rest.
Betty met Ada in the street and invited her to have a cup of hot chocolate in the café.
She took one look at Ada and demanded, “What’s up? You look worried.”
Ada admitted that Klim had left the House of Hope, and she could no longer afford to pay for her two-bedroom apartment. Time had passed, and the landlord had told her that he might have to start taking her household items to cover her debt.
In order to get Mrs. Bernard to increase her wages, Ada had suggested getting an aquarium. “I could take care of it for you,” she had ventured. But Edna had no interest in aquariums or anything else for that matter. Her relationship with Mr. Bernard was going nowhere, and the gossip among the house servants was that most likely, he would get himself a mistress again.
Listening to Ada, Betty laughed and then said in a serious tone, “If that Mr. Bernard is such a womanizer, you should seduce him. Then he’ll give you a raise and maybe some valuable presents as well.”
Betty’s idea had impressed Ada so much that from that moment on she could think of little else.
A couple of weeks previously, she had received a parcel from Canton with a sealed package inside it—Klim had asked Ada to pass it on to Nina. But Ada was in no mood to comply with his request. She missed Klim desperately. She had been so worried about him, and all he had written to her were a couple of lines ordering her to act as his messenger girl.
Ada didn’t know how she came to open someone else’s mail. She was just curious to know what Klim had sent to his wife.
Inside there was his diary, and when Ada started to read it, it reduced her to tears. Klim called her “an extra worry” and “an angry teenager.”
Oh, it would be wonderful if Mr. Bernard were to fall in love with Ada. Then she would be able to thumb her nose at Klim and his precious wife. Nina would probably turn green with envy, learning that Mr. Bernard had forgotten about her because of his beguiling and lovely young librarian.
Of course, Ada didn’t want to hurt Edna’s feelings, but it was not as if the Bernards had a happy marriage anyway. It was much better that at least two out of three unhappy people find love.
Daniel Bernard was working for German military intelligence, and he had been greatly relieved when his Berlin command had ordered him to move to the hustle and bustle of Canton, away from the increasingly irritating Edna—and some other unexpected complications.
He had never considered returning to Shanghai, but his major supplier, Don Fernando, had been seriously wounded in Xiguan when the shells the Don himself had brought to Canton started pouring out of the sky. The surgeon said that Fernando would have to spend at least six months in hospital, and Daniel had to go back to Shanghai to re-establish his connections with other smugglers.
Daniel guessed immediately that Ada’s friend from Canton was Klim Rogov. After all, it was he who had introduced her to Edna as a new librarian. Daniel was anxious to find out when Klim had sent his letter to Ada. If it happened after he had met Daniel at the airfield, it could jeopardize his entire operation in Shanghai.
Daniel watched Ada closely for several days and noticed that she had started wearing lipstick. As soon as he would leave his room, she would follow him out from the library and try to attract his attention.
“Mr. Bernard, did you check the new catalog from the bookstore?” Or, “Have you read Edmund Husserl’s works? He wrote Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phe—Phenimore— Oh, now I remember! Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. I have a feeling you’ll enjoy it.”
Out of mischief, Daniel began to tease the poor foolish child. Whenever he saw Ada, he would pass a weary hand over his eyes, sigh, and then abruptly turn his head away, as if her beauty were too overwhelming for him to behold. Without fail, Ada would blush and run back into the library.
One day when she was out for lunch, Daniel went into the library and found a blotting paper on the desk, covered with doodles of hearts, doves, and the letters “D. B.” next to them.
Edna had decided to go to a meeting of philanthropists and had let the house servants go home early. From his window, Daniel watched Ada as she headed towards the gates and out of the house.
“My car, please,” he told Sam.
Daniel caught up with Ada at the crossroads. She was trying to get into a grocery store but was surrounded by a gang of child beggars, no older than six or seven.
“No mama, no papa, no whiskey-soda,” they whined, stretching their dirty palms towards her.
Clutching her bag to her chest, Ada backed away, frightened.
“Go away!” Daniel snapped at the children and pressed the horn several times. The little ragamuffins scattered.
“Get in,” he told Ada, and swiftly she leapt into his car. “How on earth do you manage here in Shanghai if you can’t deal with some street urchins?”
“They scared me to death,” she said. “I heard they can bite you, and their saliva is full of rabies… What are you laughing at? I read an article about it in the newspaper.”
“Do you want me to take you home?” Daniel asked.
Ada was taken aback. “Really? I’ll be fine, you don’t need to waste all that fuel for my sake.”
However, Daniel ignored her protestations and insisted that he give her a lift to her home in the French Concession.
All the way Ada was as excitedly as a schoolgirl who has unexpectedly been given the top grades in her class.
“Edna told me that you only get twelve dollars a week,” Daniel let slip casually, once they had stopped outside the gate of the House of Hope. “How can you get by on such a small amount?”
Ada blushed. “Well, it’s not much, of course. To tell the truth, I’m a bit worried my landlord will kick me out of here soon.”
“Show me your bills,” said Daniel.
He followed her to her modest but neat apartment, which smelled of faded flowers, and Ada showed him a big pile of menacing messages from the landlord.
Daniel glanced through them. “Don’t you have friends or relatives to help you?”
“No.” Ada frowned. “Before I had a roommate, Klim Rogov, but he left for Canton.”
Daniel’s heart skipped a beat. He had been right about Klim.
“I know that Mr. Rogov sent you some papers,” he said. “May I see them?”
Ada’s expression changed. “But—why do you need them? They’re in Russian, and you don’t speak Russian, do you?”
“I have business in the south, and it would be very useful for me to have the latest first-hand news.” Daniel took a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet. “This will be your fee for translating it for me.”