by Jody Shields
“How does the dwarf have time to dawdle with a fortune-teller? Has he stopped work at Churin’s store?”
Li Ju was puzzled. “I didn’t ask. Chang was happy to visit the fortune-teller. She predicted long life for both of us. He always attracts attention.”
“It’s safer to pass through the streets unnoticed.”
They could be mistaken for children because of their diminutive size, the two of them wearing nearly identical fur coats, faces blanked with clumsy, confining masks. As fear of infection spread, it seemed suddenly everyone on the street wore a mask, as if a single white line had been broken and re-fastened across a multitude of faces. Moisture from the eyes, nose, and mouth condensed in the cold, turning men’s beards and mustaches into thick twists of ice and eyebrows into bristling spikes. Some wore masks with foolish bravado, leaving them to dangle uselessly from their ears or around their necks. Bundled in heavy furs, heads covered, faces hidden, men and women, Chinese and Russians, were indistinguishable.
The Baron was torn between the desire to keep Li Ju always in his sight and the need to have her remain isolated and secure, locked in the house. He watched as she silently unpacked her satchel on the table. She unfolded paper packets to show him silver fungus, mushrooms, bear paws, dried centipedes, mollusks, frogs’ legs, and shark fins from the South Seas. Tiny envelopes held cardamom, licorice, saltpeter. Small dark pottery jars were filled with pig gall, wine made from tigers’ tendons, quince from Canton. The most delicate materials—dried skins of field mice, velvet from stags’ antlers—were stored in tiny tin boxes.
The Baron marveled at the display of precious goods on the table. “What will you do with these supplies?”
“They’ll be useful medicine someday.”
“But you don’t know how to prepare them.”
She stared at the floor, hands folded together in a gesture of respect, still smiling, but her mouth was tight.
He wanted to pry her hands apart. Break her repose. Where had he acquired this demanding impatience? This abruptness? He was aware of a sense of urgency, as if these were his last hours and days. The patients had become his timekeepers. “Forgive my words. We can find someone who knows how to prepare your materials from the apothecary.” He touched Li Ju’s shoulder and she blinked her agreement.
Li Ju pushed aside the packets and emptied a flurry of yellow paper strips from an envelope on the table. “You see? ‘Jiang Taigong is present, a hundred evils are warded off’ is written on each strip. Jiang Taigong was a legendary fortune-teller long ago. We will paste the papers across the top of the door frame to guard against ill fortune entering our house.”
“I also have something to show you,” the Baron said. “For us. Blessed by the priests at St. Nikolas.” He unwrapped the two sponges, still damp in the stained silk wrapper. Next to the silvery deer velvet and the parchment-thin mouse skins, the sponges looked ugly, coarse. But now they had an arsenal of charms against misfortune. To make amends for his earlier criticism, he surprised Li Ju with an invitation to an operetta at the theater.
Pleased, she dressed herself without a servant’s help. A one-piece dudou of printed flannel was an intimate garment worn next to her skin, fastened at the waist with thin ribbon. A long fur-lined skirt was wrapped over two pairs of narrow flannel trousers, one of moleskin. On top, a tunic and a jacket lined with rabbit fur. Before they left the house, she put on a sable hat and a voluminous cape from Scotland, her husband’s gift, made of wool felt pressed thick and dense as pine needles.
The Ves’ Mir Theater was in Novy Gorod, but its decor was taken directly from St. Petersburg, with its chandeliers, red velvet curtains, gold-painted box seats, and exclusively Russian audience.
It wasn’t until the Baron and Li Ju were seated near the orchestra that he panicked at the sight of so many bare unprotected faces. A few men and women had white cotton masks, and some discreetly held up handkerchiefs to their noses. Others used fans of silk or feathers, confident the rapid movement of air would stop the spread of infection, drive floating bacilli away from the face. At quieter intervals during the performance, the constant rhythmic whisk of fans was a tense counterpoint to the music. Still, there was a sense that the Russian theater was a refuge.
The Baron coughed. Coughed again. Heads immediately turned, searching for the guilty. You? Are you sick? The Baron began to sweat. He abruptly stood up, aware of Li Ju’s distress, forced his way through the row of seats. In the lobby, he waited, breathing heavily, for the attendant to bring their coats. He would have been driven from the theater if the audience had known he worked with plague victims. His safety was compromised. He was chumore, unclean, a man who tended the dying. There was no protected place.
Li Ju followed him outside. The walk in front of the Ves’ Mir Theater had been swept clear but the air was filled with blowing snow, thick as confetti. The Baron turned, squinting, at a fire burning in a huge barrel on the street and the dark shape of a vehicle beside it. A movement against the field of white as two men stepped forward. The snow was deep and they moved slowly as if with patient politeness toward the Baron and Li Ju. They didn’t respond to his greeting.
The men were very close. “You have a fine coat. And the lady does too.” Their words a challenge.
The Baron and his wife were silent; the space between them and the strangers held a waiting pressure. He automatically pulled her against his side, her arm stiff in his grip. An encounter in extreme cold required absolute clarity. Each movement must preserve the body’s heat.
“We heard you cough.” The taller man noisily cleared his throat and spat, the gob frozen as it arched into the snow. “You should be in quarantine.”
Plague-wagon men. They’d moved into the wealthy heart of the city, patrolling for the infected and the opportunity to rob others. Let them see your face. The Baron pulled back his hood, slightly loosening his mask, and the frigid air had the force of a slap on his skin. “Vodka would be welcome now, wouldn’t it? To break the cold?” Uncertain of the men’s intention, his words strained to extend the measure of time. Perhaps the constellation of his fate waited to shift within the span of these seconds and minutes. The only stability was constant change, as his teacher claimed. It had a fixed course.
The Baron began to sweat inside his coat. “What are your names?”
The taller man said, “I’m Piotr. This is Sergei.”
“What can I offer you?” Should I tell Li Ju to run, now? They were in an open space at the side of the theater. Trying to escape was useless, as they’d flounder in the snow. They must remain standing within the light from the theater lamps or no one would see them. He scanned the street for a witness, someone exiting the theater or a droshky. Unlikely anyone would leave the theater until the performance was over. “I freely give you what we have. Without argument.” His hand reached inside his coat for money. “Let us walk away.”
“What do you have worth that trade?” Piotr turned to Sergei, who was holding a thick net. “Take a gift from the sick? They want to leave. They seem cold here.”
The second man shook out the net. “They’ll be warm after being thrown in the wagon.”
“But he’s a doctor!”
Li Ju’s error. Now the plague-wagon men must get rid of him, an official witness who knew their names, to stop him from reporting them to the authorities.
Piotr raised his voice. “You, infected stranger. How did you escape quarantine?”
“An infected person is a murderer. Infecting others,” the other said.
“I’m a doctor. I know the cure for plague.”
“You need a lesson, braggart.”
For a moment, the Baron imagined suffocating Li Ju, holding her head in the snow to spare her from quarantine, where she would die. Suffocation was a quicker death, the numbing thickness of snow. He shouted, refusing them.
He shoved Li Ju facedown in the snow. Confused, the two men didn’t move. The Baron extended his hand to lift her up, waited a moment, th
en swung around and flung himself at the tall man’s torso, sending him sprawling. Li Ju crawled forward and threw herself across the fallen man’s legs as he struggled to stand. He kicked her off and she rolled in the snow.
The second man held the heavy net open in both hands, nervously shifting from side to side, waiting to toss it. Wheezing, the Baron staggered to his feet, unsteady in his boots, the snow untrusted as sand. Li Ju crept toward the burning barrel. She pulled off her face mask and thrust an end in the fire, and it instantly ignited. She hurled the blaze at the man with the net. He ducked but the net slowed his movement and his fur hat erupted into a fiery circle around his head as he stumbled, then plunged into the snow to extinguish it. Li Ju and the Baron struggled through the snow back to the opera house.
That night, he couldn’t free himself from the encounter. A memory remained, like a reddened finger held too close to a flame. He embraced Li Ju but the dear intimate familiarity of her body had been altered. How could he protect her when he recognized his own fragility? It seemed his bones were draped with silk not skin.
Boxes of supplies were unexpectedly delivered to the Baron’s house by Andreev. The two men watched Russians and a Pole carrying the goods into the house, tracking wet snow over the floor, closely supervised by disapproving servants. They unloaded bags of dried soybeans, mushrooms, and fish, jars of oil. Caviar. Tins of food from America. Candles. Kerosene for lanterns. A length of brocade for Li Ju.
“Where are your Chinese workers?” the Baron asked.
“Russians refuse to have Chinese in their buildings. They’re afraid they bring the sickness. I had to replace them with Russians. They’re drunken sods. Learned to be lazy in the army. But you can thank them for saving your servants. It isn’t safe to walk among the crowds in the market. It’s the last visit before the cemetery.”
The Baron took Andreev aside when he recognized the Slav with the white-blond hair from Central Station. “Watch the Slav.” He pointed as the man crossed the courtyard. “Not to be trusted.”
Andreev shrugged. “He’s got working arms and legs.”
“Fine. You’re the master.”
Andreev turned aside the Baron’s offers of money and gratitude but accepted a bulky package of folded white cloths from him. He was puzzled by the gift.
“My wife made them for you. There are enough masks for you and your workers.” The Baron was unable to keep the scolding tone from his voice. “Your life will be saved by masks and disinfectants. Doctors won’t save you.” Andreev would probably throw the masks away or sell them. If there was time. Relationships, familiar situations, changed unexpectedly, as the end of life could arrive without warning, like a book with the last page torn out.
After all supplies had been stowed away, the Baron insisted they visit a nearby chaynaya for tea. Fewer lights interrupted black winter on the streets, but Andreev brought him to a good restaurant. Cautioning the Baron not to tell anyone he was a doctor, they passed the inspection of the guard at the door.
“I’m grateful you’ll still drink with me.”
The tables in the restaurant were widely spaced and without white cloths. The chairs had no cushions that could anchor bacilli or dust. A few patrons wore masks, removing them only to drain a glass of vodka.
The Baron gazed around the barely occupied room. “I wonder what happened to the children who sold newspapers here? They’ve all disappeared.”
A line of sweat trailed down Andreev’s cheek as he tugged off his fur hat. He sneezed and the Baron winced, quickly turned away. “Some questions are better not asked. Another drink? Let me distract you.” Andreev traveled with treasure in his pockets, a tiny pouch around his neck or hidden in a book. He pulled a jewel glittering on a gold chain from inside his coat. “This is a valuable from a German merchant. His soybean warehouse was forced to close. There’s a strict new customs inspection for goods exported from Kharbin. Everyone is afraid plague hides in grain, blankets, furs, even bamboo baskets. The inspection of the German’s soybeans was delayed, and the shipment rotted.”
“To your good fortune.”
“Don’t congratulate me so quickly. I rescued the grain merchant. I paid him enough for the business to survive. Unless plague gets him first. And then I claim his entire warehouse.” He slipped the jewel back into his coat. “Many precious things float loose these days. Brought back into exchange. Everyone is a sentry, guarding their snowy plot of land. Lucky if they have coin, gold bars, gold dust, and not fragile things, like paintings, that won’t stand up to disinfectant. Merchants only accept payment in silver pesos these days, since metal can be sterilized in vinegar. You trade your paper money for coins as I advised?”
“Yes.”
“A train ticket out of Kharbin will soon be more valuable than currency or gold. The price of a ticket increases with demand. You’ll see. Thousands of panicked people will try to escape. You remember during the Boxer Rebellion, people traded their jewelry for a place in a train?” Andreev leaned closer. “With bribes, the rich buy train tickets and pass health inspections at Central Station. Rich Russian ladies and gentlemen are too elegant to be infected with plague. Only the poor will be forced to stay here and die or get out any way they can.”
The Baron was sobered by this mercenary vision but accepted it as truth.
“The passengers refused by CER trains will need transportation. I’m buying up wagons and carts as a new business. My drivers can go south to Beijing or east to Vladivostok, where you catch a ship. Secret routes. Anyplace to avoid plague and inspection.”
“Who are your clients?”
“Restaurant owners and gamblers. Officials and their wives. Merchants. There are fur traders who trust my word. I get a large fee for supplying these escapes. I guarantee surviving this travel even during winter in Manchuria.” It was vodka speaking for Andreev, who was gratified to have an audience. “Why stay here? You can do nothing. Save yourself and serve others elsewhere.” The Baron didn’t reply. “Friend, I can offer train tickets from Kharbin to St. Petersburg. Or Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo. Anyplace that puts distance between you and Kharbin. You’d arrive by New Year’s Eve. Bring your wife and servants. A favorite nurse. I’m discreet.”
The Baron had only to waver to say yes. “The Chinese believe fate is fate. The one unchanging certainty in the world.”
“You talk to too many Chinese.” Andreev was never interested in hearing about Chinese customs. He raised his voice, disregarding stares from the others in the restaurant. “Soon, Kharbin will be nothing but a death pit. Piles of corpses inside and outside the city with a few creeping survivors. No one left to bury the dead. What do they tell you at the hospital?”
Andreev’s words struck him like a stone.
“At least save your wife. Send her away. Give her a choice.”
“It’s a war,” the Baron finally managed to say. “I serve in the war.”
Andreev pulled his hat back on his head. “Let’s leave while there’s enough light.”
Outside, the snow reflected the sun and the two men blinked, dazed by its sharpness, standing without a sense of direction. There was an odor of burning, and a pale yellow glow was visible above the rooftops. They followed a few others to the next street, where the silhouette of a house was visible inside sheets of brilliant orange and yellow flame. The building stood isolated on a jagged black shape, an island, as the surrounding snow had melted from the fire.
The number of buildings burned in the city had rapidly increased, as it was more expedient to destroy them than disinfect them. But buildings that had been made uninhabitable, doors nailed shut, roofless like a mouth open to the sky, had their use: the plague-stricken crawled into these poor shelters and died anonymously. Fewer crowds gathered to watch the fiery spectacles, since they feared smoke carried bacilli, a gray and weightless veil of infection that breath drove deep into the lungs.
There was a struggle near the flames as dark figures and soldiers fought over goods salvaged from the house.
The soldiers threw furniture back into the blaze. A man with a bayonet tore a bundle from the arms of an old woman.
“Why burn good clothing?” she cried, her fur coat whitened by intense light from the fire.
“They belonged to the plague dead. They’re poisoned,” the soldier shouted.
A boy grabbed a blanket off the ground and darted away with it. A soldier seized the child and shook him until he dropped it.
“Easy to throw you into the fire.”
The Baron stepped forward and the soldier released the boy.
A boom as a supporting wall of the burning house collapsed, slid at an angle, raising a cloud of sparks fine as insects.
The Baron pivoted away from the fire and was immediately chilled.
“Look.” Andreev nudged the Baron. “A corpse carrier.”
A flat wagon carrying lumpy cargo under a tarp moved slow as a barge between two snowbanks. The crowd immediately turned away or fled in the opposite direction. Puzzled, the Baron waited. The tarp haphazardly roped over the wagon blew free, exposing dangling white arms and intertwined bare limbs, frozen together, the corpses shaking obscenely with every jolt of the wheels on the road.
Andreev’s hand on his shoulder and his voice. “The fear is that you’ll recognize someone’s face in the wagon.”
The Baron closed his eyes, wishing away the wagon and its terrible burden. Andreev continued talking. “I’ve seen families of the dead running after the corpse carriers on the street. They bribe the drivers to release the body. Or offer something in trade.”
“It will bring their deaths.”
“The corpse carriers are desperate railroad workers and servants who lost their jobs. Nothing else pays in Kharbin except picking up the dead or sick.”
The Baron crossed himself and whispered, “Where do they take the dead?”
“Outside the city. Some corpses are dumped on an island in the Sungari. Others are dumped on the ice until the river thaws.”
Andreev’s face was barely visible inside the fur hood but his scornful expression was obvious. “The bodies must be destroyed or the dead will return to haunt us with plague.” He proposed visiting another destination, where he said the Baron would see something of interest. They crossed the city without conversation in a droshky, stopping near a wharf on the river.