Don Fernando looked into Daniel’s eyes. “I have a message for you from Big-Eared Du.”
“The Green Gang ringleader?”
“The very same. We know that Chiang Kai-shek is not happy with his Russian advisers but can’t oppose them openly because they are paying his bills. But if Chiang Kai-shek promises to leave the foreign concessions alone and purge the commies in his army, Shanghai will surrender without a fight, and your commander-in-chief will be provided with a different source of income.”
“From the opium traders?”
“Not only them. The Great Powers want to negotiate peace, which could mean international support and loans for Chiang Kai-shek.”
“I’ll find out if he’s ready to negotiate,” said Daniel.
In the evening he sent a coded cable to Berlin, and the answer returned immediately: Daniel was to take part in the negotiations and gather as much intelligence as possible.
Soon after, he and Fernando paid a visit to the commander-in-chief's headquarters, and several days later the two of them returned to Shanghai with the news that Chiang Kai-shek was willing to listen to the representatives of the foreign concessions and the Green Gang.
Throughout dinner, Klim read his newspaper while Nina looked at him, feeling dejected and miserable. She had been waiting for him to ask her about her day in the office, but instead, he had been studiously ignoring her.
The candles flickered inside the carved lanterns on the table casting moving shadows onto Klim’s newspaper. Its headline read: “Forty warships with reinforcements from the Great Powers expected to arrive by March.”
It was highly unlikely they would reach Shanghai before the NRA.
“Did you hear that the Defense Committee commandeered all my employees?” Nina asked.
“Yes, I know,” Klim said. “They need every man capable of bearing arms to guard the barricades around the concessions.”
“But they’ve ruined my business! I have nothing left but an empty office, and my telephone is ringing off the hook. My customers are expecting their bodyguards to turn up for duty, and now they are threatening to sue me for breach of contract.”
Klim didn’t even look up from his paper.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Nina asked, her voice shaking.
“What do you want me to say?”
She snatched his paper from him and hurled it to the floor.
“Wake up, for Christ sake! There’s a war on. We could die. Don’t you realize that we have to patch up our quarrel and do something about our situation? For the sake of our own survival, if nothing else.”
Klim took a coin out of his pocket and put it on top of one of the lanterns.
“Pick it up,” he suggested.
Nina looked at him, puzzled.
“Go ahead, don’t be scared,” Klim encouraged. “It’s solid silver. It’s very valuable.”
“But I’ll burn my fingers.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know that’s what’s going to happen if I touch that coin.”
“And I know exactly what’s going to happen if we patch things up.”
Klim stood up.
“I’ll stay in Shanghai as long as possible,” he said. “We have no other anchorman left, and someone has to read the news to the public. Tamara and her children are going to move to her other house in Nagasaki, and she has offered to take Kitty with her. I’m sure you can go too if you want.”
The shop owners wanted to sell as much of their stock as possible before the war reached Shanghai, and Sincere Department Store announced a huge Christmas sale.
Nina wandered aimlessly from one department to another until she stopped in front of a display containing a big wrapped gift box tied with a red satin bow. To all appearances, it contained a valuable present, but Nina knew it was empty. It was the perfect metaphor for her own life.
No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t save her marriage and business, and the only thing she had to look forward to was to return to the humiliating situation of living off Tamara’s charity.
Nina went up to the second floor, where shelves with liquors stretched from the floor to the ceiling. A bottle of whiskey—that was all she wanted for Christmas.
She noticed a poster on the wall of a girl in a swimming suit about to dive into a wine glass. Let’s consider it an omen, Nina decided. She took a bottle from the shelf and turned to go to the checkout.
“Hello,” said Daniel Bernard, who had been watching her, his arms crossed. His hair was close-cropped, his face had grown thinner, and gray streaks had appeared at his temples.
“What are you doing here?” Nina said in amazement.
“I was just following your every move and waiting for you to be good enough to notice me,” Daniel said, smiling. “How are you?”
Nina didn’t know what to say.
“I’m fine,” she muttered finally and put the whiskey bottle back, blushing.
Daniel shook his head disapprovingly. “Let’s find a place to sit and talk.”
Klim had told Nina that this man was working for the NRA. It was clear that he had come to Shanghai for a good reason, yet she resisted the urge to call the police. Instead, she followed him to the third floor where there was a half-empty movie theatre.
The film started, and to the crackling sound of the projector and the accompaniment of an out-of-tune piano, Nina confided to Daniel everything that had happened to her over the last few months.
“It’s all your fault,” she whispered in despair. “You’ve ruined my life."
“Then it’s up to me to fix it,” Daniel said in a serious voice. “I have some business to see to in Shanghai, and then I’ll go back to Wuhan. You should come with me.”
“Are you kidding? It’s a nest of communists. I know that Mikhail Borodin has his headquarters there.”
“Believe me it would be better for you to stay away from Shanghai for the foreseeable future.”
Nina went cold. “Is there going be a siege?”
“I just strongly recommend that you buy yourself a ticket on the Pamyat Lenina. It’s a Soviet merchant ship. It will set sail for Wuhan next Thursday.”
“But Wuhan is in the middle of a war zone!”
“There are no front lines in China,” Daniel said. “Battles flare up wherever the opposing troops happen to run into each other. British and American warships are patrolling the Yangtze, and merchant ships are still free to sail up and down the river.”
Nina stared blankly at the screen. Rudolph Valentino was fighting valiantly to win the heart of his fair lady.
If Kitty went to Nagasaki, there would be nothing to keep Nina in Shanghai. And she couldn’t face having to swallow her pride and become Tamara’s kept companion again. The very thought of it made Nina sick.
Klim had refused to mend their relationship and ended up turning his worst suspicions into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Daniel might be a man of extremely dubious honor, but at least he was ready to help Nina escape the trap that was enclosing them.
If I go with him to Wuhan, she thought, I’ll meet new people and find new opportunities. What does it matter that Daniel is working for the NRA? If he can get along with these people, then so can I. I just need a break, and then I’ll be able to breathe again and think of something.