If it’s been a particularly bad day, I can get by on a couple of pickles for seven coppers or go to the French Catholic nuns who give out carrot soup if you can put up with their interminable sermons.
This is how all the unemployed live in Shanghai. The only way to earn more than a dollar a day is through crime. Some burgle apartments, others work as racketeers providing “protection” to the local small traders.
The stuffy dressing room was filled with taxi-girls preparing for the night ahead: getting changed, applying their make-up, and curling their hair. Any outsider might have been forgiven for thinking that they were speaking some sort of secret language, but Ada had already started to grasp their slang.
The best clients—young, rich, daring men—were known as “dragons.” Ugly but well-heeled ones were called “gold mines,” and the ladies on their arms “gold miners.” Boring men, who didn’t know how to dance properly, were known as “toe crunchers,” and men without money were called “false alarms.” “Locksmiths” was the name given to guys who put pieces of metal in their pockets to make them jingle so you’d think they were loaded.
Dark-eyed Betty, the wild and beautiful queen of the Havana, burst impetuously into the dressing room.
“Martha has told the cloakroom assistant to lock up my coat,” she cried indignantly, “so I won’t go running off to town with any of my goldmines.”
Ada watched her in admiration, not daring to say a word in her presence. Betty’s dress was red, with a side slit that reached right up to her thigh. Her lipstick was crimson and utterly shameless.
The manager barged into the dressing room without knocking. The newer girls squealed, covering their naked bodies.
“Hey, you, the Russian girl!” he barked, indifferently. “The Madam wants to see you.”
Ada made her way upstairs to Martha’s little office. The walls in the room were covered with porcelain plates showing pictures of various cities: Paris, Vienna and Florence. Martha was collecting them.
“Sit down,” she said, motioning to a brocade armchair. “The Municipal Council wants me to give details of all the people working here. What’s your full name and address?”
Ada told her.
“Nationality?”
“I’m an American.”
Ada had been to the American Consulate three times, hoping to secure some documents, but an evil-looking Marine wouldn’t even let her past the door. “Do you have a passport?”
“No.”
“Then beat it, lady.”
“But my father is from Texas, and I have Auntie Clare—” Ada protested each time.
“I said, scram!”
Martha wrote “Russian” in the box designated for nationality.
“Are you married? We’d better say yes. Hadn’t we?”
“Klim and I are only renting a room together and—”
“That doesn’t matter,” Martha interrupted. “Now, down you go and get back to work.”
Ada plodded dejectedly downstairs.
She had no one in this city, apart from Klim, and she wanted to put their relationship on an even footing for herself and for everyone else they met. But in reality it was all a big mess. She was sharing a room with a man who was eighteen years her senior and who was neither her husband nor even a relative.
Klim would walk her to the Havana every evening and always be at the entrance to meet her in the early hours after her shift was over. He took care of her, made her laugh, and taught her simple magic tricks, a skill that had provided her some decent tips. But at the same time, he acted towards her as if they were no more than good friends.
One day he mentioned to her, “Ada, there’s an orphanage in Xujiahui, and they have taken in some Russian girls. Do you want to go there? At least, they’ll teach you embroidery. The drinking and the tobacco smoke in the Havana really isn’t good for a girl of your age.”
“Well, it was you who brought me there,” Ada said, frowning. She was upset at the idea that he might be trying to get rid of her.
The other taxi-girls taught her to value herself for her feminine qualities, and she copied the tricks they used to win over their customers. But despite her efforts, Klim had not been tempted by her charms.
Sometimes Ada would change out of her clothes in front of him, waiting to see if he would say or do anything. But he would just sigh and silently go out into the corridor, leaving her seething with anger.
Who did he think he was? Some fine gentleman, who didn’t believe that she was worthy of him?
Ada decided to take a different tack. Once, while he was asleep, she crawled into his bed beside him. Then, intoxicated by her daring and debauchery, she placed her hand lightly on his thigh. Klim woke up instantly, shoving Ada onto the floor.
“Are you crazy?” she yelled, rubbing her bruised elbow.
He sat up on his bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ada, stop it! You would come to hate me, if anything were to happen between us.”
“I already hate you!” Ada spat back and started to cry. “You don’t love me.”
“Ada, you have your whole life ahead of you to learn about these things. You’ll find the right person and get married in your own good time.”
“To hell with you! I’ve sent a letter to Auntie Claire. She’ll invite me to America and send me some money. And you’ll be stuck here to rot in the House of Hope forever.”
Klim got a job at a tannery, which consisted of a few sheds standing next to a mountain of garbage and slimy waste. The land all around had been burned by the chemicals they used; the pools, where the pig hides were soaked, gave off an evil smelling gas, and the stench was so bad, that it would make anyone who wasn’t used to it retch.
The tannery owner told Klim and the other workers to drag the hides out of the pools and scrape off the semi-decomposed bristle on them. It was hard to imagine how this slimy, foul smelling skin could ever be transformed into a pretty handbag or an elegant pair of shoes.
Lime dust filled the air, obscuring the sun and covering the workers’ faces and clothing with a fine white powder. The pale figures moved around like ghosts in a hellish pall of smoke and fumes, waving their hooks, dragging stacks of hides, and carrying heavy barrels filled with dyes on their shoulders.
The Chinese workers laughed at Klim. “You’ve finally become a real white person.”
“Have you taken a look in the mirror yourselves recently?” he snapped back.
That evening, when everyone was lined up in front of the cashier to get their day’s pay, a shiny car appeared at the open gates, and a white lady stepped out. She was young, tall and slightly stooped, with a long narrow face and light-brown almond-shaped eyes. She was dressed in a small French beret, Oxford suede shoes, and a checkered suit that didn't really become her, even though it was obviously expensive.
The stench was so overpowering that she visibly flinched. The workers roared with laughter.
“Does anyone speak English here?” the lady asked in a loud voice.
Nobody answered. The Chinese looked at her as if she was completely mad and asking for trouble.
“I’m a journalist,” the lady introduced herself. “I work for the North China Daily News, and I’m planning to write an article about the children working in this tannery.”
Klim watched her silently. Had she just said “journalist”? He had almost forgotten that such a profession ever existed.