Soon, a famous British surgeon arrived at the hospital.
“Please save my best friend,” Don Fernando pleaded. “I’ll give you every penny I have. I’ll be in your debt for the rest of my life.”
But the surgeon curtly replied he knew perfectly well what needed to be done without the Don’s advice or inducements, and he ordered for Klim to be wheeled into the operating theater.
A little while later, at the Don’s insistence, a nurse was explaining the finest details of Klim’s medical notes to him. His friend had suffered a serious head injury, a stab wound to the chest, and an impressive list of minor cuts and bruises.
“That’s bad that he’s been hit on the head,” One-Eye told the Don. “If Klim survives, he might start acting weird.”
One-Eye had once been appointed an executioner and knew more about fatal wounds and injuries than any run-of-the-mill physician.
Much of the time, Klim was delirious, raving in Russian, Spanish, and English, and the Don was shocked to learn that his rescuer was married to Nina Kupina.
“You must be crazy to get involved with that sort of a woman,” he said indignantly. “Her breasts are undoubtedly magnificent, but to marry her! Her sort is nothing but trouble. Did you know she had an affair with Daniel Bernard?”
“I did,” Klim said in a quiet dangerous voice.
“Oh! You mustn’t take anything I’ve said personally. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”
When the Don received the telegram from Daniel, he replied that Rogov had been killed during the shelling. It was unlikely that Mr. Bernard was going to wish Klim a fast recovery.
In the meantime, Klim was getting sicker and sicker by the day.
“Send Nina a letter and tell her that I’m finished,” he asked the Don on many occasions.
“Don’t hex yourself,” Fernando whispered fearfully. “Relax, I’ve already sent her five letters and ten telegrams.” He was so superstitious he didn’t even want to mention death.
All day long, the Don would pray to the Holy Virgin for Klim. “It won’t cost you anything to save him. What do you want of me? I can recite the rosary a thousand times. How about I donate the consignment of leather that’s been in my warehouse to the priests? I’m sure the soles of their shoes need saving.”
Fernando even went so far as to promise the Holy Virgin that he would put himself on the path of righteousness and start a crusade against the criminal underworld. Not long after that, Klim miraculously began to get better.
“We are blood brothers now!” the Don yelled happily. “You’ve saved me from those Chinese butchers, and my prayers have saved you from death. Let’s face it, you’re not a Catholic and if it wasn’t for me, you’d be burning in hell now. However, you’ll be able to live and enjoy life for a while.”
But enjoying his life was about the last thing on Klim’s mind at that moment. He became taciturn and sullen, and every day after the letters were delivered, he would turn his face to the wall and refuse to talk.
Fernando knew that Klim was waiting for a letter from his wife, but didn’t dare tell him that there would be no answer. He was good at counting but had no head for writing, and his message to Nina had been returned to sender with its misspelled address circled and underlined. Every day Fernando promised himself that he would ask Klim to rewrite the address correctly, but every day he would “forget” out of embarrassment.
In the meantime, the country was hit by a whirlwind of unexpected events. Sun Yat-sen died of liver cancer, and his adjutants began to argue about who would be his successor. The Kuomintang split into two wings: the Leftists gravitated towards an alliance with the Bolsheviks and the Chinese communists, while the Rights headed by General Chiang Kai-shek preferred to avoid changing one kind of foreign “patron” for another.
For Klim, these were matters of complete indifference.
“Is there any news from Shanghai?” he would ask absentmindedly each time Fernando started talking about politics.
However, the Don would pretend that he hadn’t properly understood what Klim was really asking about.
“The city fathers want to prohibit child labor, to put up the fees for petty traders, and increase censorship in the Chinese press,” Fernando said. “The students are protesting and fighting with the police every day, so we’re pretty lucky to be out of that vipers’ nest. I think we should stay in Canton and turn over a new leaf. We’ll re-fit the Santa Maria and become honest fishermen. I hear there’s a good trade to be had in octopuses.”
But Klim was determined to return to Shanghai.
“What am I going do with him?” the Don complained to the Holy Virgin. “If I don’t take him to Shanghai, he’ll get into some rust bucket, pick up an infection from the other stowaways, and end up dying on me. You’ve seen him—he’s just a bag of skin and bones. Without me, he’ll be a goner for sure.”
Fernando was constantly crossing himself and blowing kisses to the ceiling, but the Holy Virgin didn’t answer his entreaties.
“All right, amigo, you win: I’ll go with you to Shanghai,” the Don decided. “But I warn you, don’t expect my piety to last forever when we get there.”
At dawn, as arranged, Daniel drove up to the House of Hope and signaled three times with his car horn. A minute later, Ada appeared at the gate and flopped down on the front seat next to him. “Good morning, sir!”
It was impossible to look at her without an indulgent smile. She had no taste or appreciation of her youthful charm and was doing her best to imitate some showy movie actress. Her eyebrows had been plucked into two thin lines, her lips had been rouged with a stationery pencil, and a pink satin bow hung around her neck. Daniel recognized it from a gift box that some of Edna’s friends had given to his wife.
Ada took a lollypop from her pocket and put it into her mouth. The air in the car began to smell of mint: a prudent girl, Ada was evidently making sure that she’d be prepared should Daniel surprise her with a kiss.
“Where are we going?” Ada asked.
“You’ll see.”
Despite the early hour, the streets were full of Chinese students in their traditional long-skirted coats. Some were carrying folded banners, while others were putting up posters. Many were gathered at the peddlers’ kitchens, discussing something excitedly.
Daniel drove into a narrow street, which was bordered on one side by a neat hedge and the other by rows of Chinese houses with their tiled roofs.
Ada spied a taut canvas wing through a gap in the hedge and almost jumped out of her seat. “Goodness me, it’s an airfield! Are you going to show me an airplane?”
“I’m going to do a lot more than show you one,” Daniel said.
He drove the car up to a gate made of thin bamboo stems bound with wire. The guard ceremoniously opened it for them, and the car drove along the airfield, the gravel crunching under its wheels.
Ada’s eyes nearly popped out of her head looking at the airplanes.
“Can we go a bit closer? Oh, I wish we could have our photograph taken here.”
“We can arrange that later,” Daniel said with a smile. “Today we’re going to fly to Suzhou.”
“What?” Ada was lost for words. “We will… I mean—”
Daniel got out of the car and took her to a hangar.
“Are you sure this is going to be safe?” Ada said in a weak voice. “What if your airplane falls out of the sky? What if we get lost?”
She was overwhelmed by a combination of fear, mistrust, and excitement.
“Oh, you’re probably just teasing me,” she complained, forgetting herself. “How could you be so mean?”
The technicians removed the canvas cover from the Avro and wheeled it out onto the runway. Daniel helped Ada put on a helmet and a warm leather jacket—it would be cold up there in the heavens.