Now Fernando could hear the sound of iron hitting iron as the soldiers started searching the hold.
They’re bound to find the airplane, Fernando thought, his heart skipping a bit.
A Chinese officer entered the lounge. “Which of you is Madame Borodin?” he asked the women.
Nina looked at Fanya, but she said nothing.
“No point denying it,” Don Fernando whispered. “This way at least you become a bargaining chip. If the Chinese think you’re small fry, they’ll just throw you overboard to feed the fish.”
Fanya stepped forward. “I am Mrs. Borodin. Why?”
The officer looked at Nina. “And who is she?”
“She’s my cousin. I warn you, sir: touch one hair of our heads, and you’ll be in serious trouble.”
“Do you confirm what this lady says?” the officer asked Nina.
“Yes,” she replied hesitantly.
The hook-nosed young man came back into the lounge and, without a word, dragged Fernando out into the corridor.
“Who owns the airplane in the hold?” he hissed, grabbing the Don by his lapels.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Liar! The crewmen told me that you were in charge of it.”
The man shoved a docket under the Don’s nose.
“It says that the Avro belongs to Ms. Ada Marshall. I know that girclass="underline" she doesn’t have enough money to buy a pair of decent stockings, let alone an airplane.”
In a panic, Fernando looked back at the glassed door. Behind it, he could see Nina, hunched on the settee.
“It’s all her fault,” he whispered. “If you served in the police, you would know that Ms. Kupina has been engaged in arms smuggling before. I guess she used your friend as a front and put her name on the papers. Ms. Kupina is in cahoots with the crew and told them to blame it all on me if an emergency arose.”
“Are you talking about Klim Rogov’s wife?”
That was a bad idea, Fernando thought. It seems that all these Russians know one another.
“Klim kicked the whore out long ago,” Fernando said in a muffled voice. “She cheated on him with Daniel Bernard. He was arrested a week ago for espionage, but she managed to escape. By the way, did you know that Ms. Kupina is Mrs. Borodin’s relative? She just admitted it as much. Didn’t she?”
The man swore in Russian. “How do you know all this?”
“Oh, I know a lot. I’m a very useful person.” The Don forced himself to smile. “You can send a cable to the Municipal Council and ask Mr. Sterling whether he gave me the order to go to Wuhan or not.”
“You can depend on that,” the man muttered, releasing the Don’s lapel. “If you’re lying, I’ll personally stove your head in with a rifle butt, but if Sterling confirms who you are, you can go wherever you want.”
He paused, and his face softened a little.
“Thanks for the information about Borodin and her cousin. Without you, we would never have guessed who they were.”
“My pleasure.” Don Fernando looked into his eyes. “Can I give you a bit of advice? If you don’t want that young friend of yours involved in the case, you’d better destroy all the Avro papers and present your report saying that ‘The airplane was confiscated from an enemy spy, Nina Kupina.’”
The man nodded and escorted the Don back to the lounge.
Fernando felt weak from relief. He wished he could kneel down and thank the Holy Virgin for his miraculous salvation there and then.
Miss Nina has only got herself to blame, he thought, looking up at the ceiling. She shouldn’t have annoyed me. I feel sorry for her, of course, but what am I to do? I’ll say a prayer of penance for her and donate some money to the church for a new sacristy. But holy Mother of God, please, don’t desert me! I need you now more than ever!”
28. THE ANCIENT CAPITAL
“Where’s Mommy?” Kitty keeps asking me. “When will she come back home?” I tell her I don’t know and that makes her angry: “You must know! You must!”
How can I explain to a three-year-old what has happened between Nina and me?
We met each other when the whole world around us was crumbling. Both of us were looking for a pure soul to love and to be loved by, a soul that would deliver us from every evil. Alas, ideal people, like distilled water, don’t exist in the real world, and eventually our delight gave way to bewilderment. Far from behaving like guardian angels, we only brought trouble into each other’s lives.
I have finally been acknowledged for my professional achievements, but what now? I go to work, read the latest bad news to my audience, and then try to cheer them up with a new song, “I Hope You’re Happy Now.” I no longer perform monologues to my fictional girlfriend, Anna. Despite the constant demands from my fans to bring her back, I don’t have the heart.
Every day, my secretary drops a huge stack of letters onto my desk from local young ladies declaring their undying love for me. Who can honestly say that they have never dreamed of being the object of such sincere adulation and devotion? But now that I have achieved it all, I couldn’t care less.
The Chinese section of the city is full of armed bandits who are constantly fighting turf wars with each other, while here, in the foreign concessions, we are busy dealing with the white refugees arriving from the south-west. More than eight thousand of them poured into the city in January 1927 alone.
The only good news is that reinforcements have finally reached Shanghai, most of them colonial troops from India. It’s winter, and they arrived in short-sleeved shirts and khaki shorts, and after one night in an unheated barracks, almost all of them came down with a chill.
The people in the foreign concessions do everything they can to welcome the military. They try hard to be hospitable in the hope that these foreign soldiers will be more willing to fight for us and for Shanghai. The ladies sew them warm pants and jackets; the Holy Trinity Church has been turned into a lecture hall where the officers can learn more about our city, and the twenty-four-hour restaurant in the American Club welcomes our saviors with the best food available at the cheapest prices. Every night there are balls in the French Sports Club, the Majestic Hall, and the Astor House. Girls flirt with the officers, looking hopefully into their eyes and silently imploring them, “You won’t leave us to our fate, will you?”
Frankly speaking, I don’t care what happens anymore. If it weren’t for Kitty, I would join the Russian crew on the Great Wall armored train. I’m pretty sure that eventually either the NRA or the Red Guards will blow it up, and that is a fate that sounds quite tempting at the moment.
Klim had finally been invited to become a member of the Shanghai Club, the most exclusive club in the city.
Its main staircase was made of white Sicilian marble; its restaurant boasted a menu with fine roast beef, saddle of lamb, and steak and kidney pie. It had an array of forty rooms at its disposal, an army of servants, and ironed newspapers—so they would feel pleasing to the touch.
The Club’s main attraction was its famous mahogany Long Bar. The closer your place to the window, the higher your rank in the Club’s hierarchy. According to tradition, the best seats were reserved for the pilots who sailed the Yangtze River. Top managers and bank directors would sit in the middle and the furthest, gloomiest end was reserved for new members like Klim Rogov.
The sad winter twilight descended swiftly, and a gray-haired waiter lit the candles in the thick-walled glass candleholders.
The bar was empty, and Klim was sipping his pink gin by himself, half-listening to the voices floating in from the next room: “To defend the city effectively, we need at least a division.”