by Jody Shields
They climbed to the top of the Soskin grain mill, one of the tallest buildings in the city. From the small high window, they viewed the shadowy irregular line of the ravine obscured by dense clouds from twenty fires burning in Kharbin. It appeared that an artery had opened in the ground, gushing smoke. The Baron’s focus moved. Several verst away, in an area of desolate land, train tracks patterned a net of black lines and curves in snow. Small figures moved around a stationary line of boxcars as a constant stream of carts, wagons, and other vehicles arrived.
The Baron turned to Andreev. “I expected to see the fires. But what’s the activity around the train cars? Why are so many people in the field?”
“General Khorvat didn’t explain? No? You’ve been blinded by your grief for the patients. What you see is Khorvat’s solution. People with symptoms are picked up by the plague-wagon men and locked inside the train cars. If they survive three days, they’re freed.” Andreev’s words, delivered in a patient mocking tone, had an undercurrent of fear.
The Baron felt the glass in the window would shatter under his gaze, that the tower couldn’t hold his weight, that he’d plunge from this height. Flight was the only escape from this place.
During a calligraphy lesson, the Baron’s teacher Xiansheng had once described a Chinese painting of a storm—immense thick clouds, lightning, rain, dark sky—that represented lung, the dragon. The monster was there but not his physical image. The dragon was present only for those who knew how to translate the significance of the visual clues. The Baron nervously scanned the sky, certain a dragon would emerge from the smoke of Kharbin’s burning buildings, jaws unclenched, hungry for survivors.
Chang evaded the servants at the door and bustled into the Baron’s sitting room, still wearing his coat. “Look. Kharbin has marked me.” The dwarf raised his arm to display a red badge on the coat sleeve. “They’ve set up barricades. Divided the city into four quarters. Everyone must wear a colored badge according to where they live. Red, yellow, blue, or white. When you enter or leave your quarter, soldiers shove a thermometer in your mouth. If you have a temperature, you’re arrested. You disappear.”
So another system had been imposed. A vise tightened on the city. The poor would be imprisoned in Fuchiatien, the district with the greatest number of plague victims. A pressure across the Baron’s forehead pulsed. He would put aside his concern for now. “What else have you brought us, Chang?”
Chang set his satchel on the table, ceremoniously unwrapped yangxian tea for Messonier, Maria Lebedev, the Baron, and Li Ju. “This tea escaped the vigilance of inspectors. A precious tea from southern Zhili.” He’d feared this last shipment would be doused with disinfectant and ruined during customs inspection. “We might have a tea shortage someday but there’s never a shortage of water,” he said, indicating the sealed window. “Now I have a puzzle for you. Why is tea better than vodka in a crisis?”
Messonier answered first. “Tea isn’t better. Vodka brings forgetfulness. Oblivion.”
“Vodka is a dull liquid.” Chang continued unpacking.
Messonier was puzzled. “The answer to your question, please.”
Chang gracefully arranged the tiny cups around the teapot. “The aroma of tea brings memories. An escape to past pleasures. Tea leaves are alive, constantly changing in water as they do under sunlight. Tea changes in the pot and in the mouth. You must pay attention when you drink. No distractions.”
“He reminds us that even during these dark days, we can still savor delicacy.” Maria Lebedev was serene, supported by pale cushions on the only upholstered chair in the house. “Christmas was barely observed this year. St. Nikolas Cathedral was avoided by many who feared the plague. It was a somber place.”
“Not for those who trust and worship God,” Chang announced without looking up from his cups. He was a benevolent figure presiding over the table, cheeks flushed from the room’s heat.
The Baron ignored Chang’s comment, which was certainly not sincere. “When I was young, during svyatki, between Christmas and the end of the year, it was traditional to have your fortune told every day. To anticipate the new year.”
“The fortune-teller was kind to me,” Li Ju said, confidently adding, “She promised long life. I’m safe, so I can aid the sick.”
“Li Ju makes dozens of masks every day. She has a gift.” Her industry was a relief to the Baron.
“And a charmed life.” Messonier smiled.
“Some people have only dirty cloths to wear over their faces as protection. I’ve seen them on the street.”
Chang said he’d take a packet of Li Ju’s masks and hand them out to the distressed.
The Baron was always startled, momentarily, when he returned home from the hospital and Li Ju and the servants greeted him with bare faces. An uncovered face was as dangerous as a weapon. A loaded gun. Everyone sitting here at the table shared a risk. Was one of them an assassin who would innocently infect the others, take their lives? Even the simplest interactions and those who were dearly beloved were suspect. He panicked, gripped by an urgency to stop the process he sensed unfolding around him. He stood up, glanced wildly at the others. Concerned, Li Ju tugged at his sleeve to bring him back to the table and their circle. His hand swung his empty teacup.
His breathing returned to normal. “Nazdorovie, to your health.” He would put aside his concerns for now.
The dwarf immediately spoke to cover the Baron’s odd behavior. “Yes, to everyone’s health. I crave the wait before tea is poured. The anticipation.” He shifted in his chair and described the three famous springs at Mount Huqiu: Sword Pond, Stone Well, and Tiger Running. “The water! Its clear brightness soothes the mind. Pure as a mirror. Like drinking a reflection. People make pilgrimages to drink tea made with the water. Perhaps we’ll drink there together one day.”
“I feast on your image of water.” Maria Lebedev smiled and Chang grinned back, pleased by her teasing. His dark head and her blond braids moved closer together, inclined at the same angle over the cups in their hands.
“I wonder what they speak about,” Messonier murmured to the Baron later when they were alone in the next room. “It’s agreeable to watch Maria and Chang in conversation.”
“You’re not jealous?”
Messonier turned and his blue eyes widened. “Oh no. That’s why I love her.” He looked away.
“What troubles you?”
“Nothing. Just fatigue.” He coughed.
The Baron studied his friend’s face. “Let’s sit down. Now tell me.”
“I have no peace. I’m devoured by my worry for Maria.”
She had agreed to monitor patients, mostly children, housed in a boys’ school and a theater. The buildings had been fitted with rough plank beds, and tea and rice were provided, but the heat and disinfecting systems were inadequate.
Messonier slumped and he spoke directly to the floor. “Maria could have worked in the hospital with me and I could protect her. But she’s in a primitive place that isn’t properly equipped. Not even a hospital. Why would a woman voluntarily make this choice? Why?” He looked up and his face was anguished. She’d recently grown into greater independence, a reluctance to compromise, and he knew better than to plead or argue with her. She had no wariness, no guard.
The Baron chose a practical answer. “Maria is a doctor. She’s careful. She knows all there is to know about disinfectants and sterile precautions.”
“I’m a doctor. I can’t live with this risk. With her risk. I want her to quit. Stay home. But she would leave me if I dared make that demand. Why can’t everything be controllable? Fit in the palm of my hand? And I have other concerns.”
The Baron understood he meant a possible pregnancy. Maria had quietly moved into Messonier’s house after the medical staff had been evicted from hotels in Kharbin. Relations outside of marriage were a sin and she could have been dismissed, but many behaviors were forgiven during the crisis. Messonier was shy about their situation and, to protect her good name
, never discussed it with anyone except the Baron. “All doctors are at risk,” he said. “No need to remind you.”
“I obsess about my own health every day. Every hour I ask myself, Have I escaped infection? I would gladly trade my life for Maria’s if she was in danger. But how can I freely embrace her when she returns? Surely you fear carrying infection home to your innocent Li Ju?”
“The fear never leaves me.” It was impossible for the Baron to offer comfort. Optimism was false.
Messonier blinked and looked away. “And yet, I’m happy,” he whispered. “She embraces even my sorrow. Here.” A small box in his hand. Inside, a gold ring. “It belonged to my mother. It was shipped here from Paris, sealed in a book. For Maria.”
The Baron smiled and touched his friend’s shoulder. The contact brought a whiff of formalin.
“I wait for the right moment and place to propose. A romantic location. Not the hospital. The restaurants and public spaces are too dangerous. But Father Orchinkin promised the first wedding at St. Nikolas will be ours. Once this crisis passes. As surely it will.”
“Bless thee and Maria.”
* * *
Xiansheng announced that the day’s lesson would begin with ink. The character for ink was written with tu, meaning “earth,” and hei, “black.” The Baron ground the ink stick with water on the inkstone, leaning close to examine the lustrous black liquid, willing himself to focus on this task at his desk.
Xiansheng had another instruction. “Hold the ink stick to your nose.”
“Pine. Why, it has an odor of pine.” The Baron had never noticed.
“Ink has been made from the same materials for hundreds of years. A hole is carved into the base of a pine tree. A small lamp is fit inside. The heat of the lamp encourages the resin to flow from the tree. After the resin has been drained, the tree is cut down and burned for several days in a kiln. The black soot is scraped from the kiln walls and mixed with glue made from animal hide or fish skin to make the ink. The different qualities of ink depend on the type of pine or fir that was burned. A skilled eye can distinguish between them. The finest ink is dongquan, made with dark amber-colored glue, molded into sticks, and elaborately carved. Rich men hoard these ink sticks like jade and never use them.”
“I know the words for pine-soot ink. Songyan mo,” said the Baron.
Xiansheng had gradually introduced the different brushstrokes used in calligraphy so as not to overwhelm his student. Always hold the brush vertically. Stroke it left to right, top to bottom. “Master calligraphists have described the three characteristic brushstrokes for calligraphy and painting. Long strokes are bones, muscles the short strokes, flesh forms the connecting strokes.”
The Baron learned by copying, tracing the characters faintly visible on a second paper underneath the top sheet. He touched the brush to the ink. Every muscle in his back held him tense as he worked the brush. His fingers strained and tightened. He criticized himself. Frustrated and angry, he set the brush down.
Teacher offered little comfort when his student struggled but he acknowledged his decision to stop with a nod of approval. He waited in silence until he had the Baron’s full attention. “There are beautiful ways to describe the act of writing,” he said. “Li Ssu, a master who created a style of calligraphy, wrote, ‘When you swing the strokes outward it is as if the clouds were rising from behind the mountain.’” After a moment, he recited another quote. “‘A vertical stroke should resemble the stem of a dried vine myriad years old. A horizontal brushstroke should resemble a cloud a thousand miles long.’”
How could such a concentration of information be deciphered from small black lines? The Baron’s focus wandered. He recollected a singing lesson when he was a child in which his music teacher instructed him by using metaphor after metaphor. Sing as if your lips were soft as a cushion. Weightless. First, think the sound, because once it leaves your throat it’s too late. After a moment of hesitation, the Baron loaded the brush with ink. How simple to hold a brush. Not simple.
A brushstroke must be simultaneously spontaneous and deliberate. His awareness became joined to the movement of his hand wielding the brush as he wrote the first character, then another. He completed a line. He squinted at the brushstrokes he’d just made on the paper. Xiansheng made the slightest gesture of approval.
The intensity and anxiety of the lessons sometimes left the Baron exhausted. Occasionally, he felt a lightness, a growing exhilaration, but suspected even this state wouldn’t have met with Xiansheng’s approval. His teacher wanted something indefinable and elusive, and the Baron failed to understand this mysterious demand.
Sometimes the Baron believed that he created meaning with his hands as a healer. Brought peace to others as he desired it himself. He remembered a dream. He had stood next to a painted Chinese character—he couldn’t read it—enlarged to the size of his own body, standing upright, solid as a statue, although flat and without depth. He had walked around this huge black character and had instantly understood the brushstrokes that created it as if some mechanical thing had been taken apart to reveal its workings. It was as clear and simple as the gesture of a blade, the movement of cloth in wind.
* * *
On the second floor of Central Station, Alexeievich Nikolaevich Nestorov, stationmaster of the CER, welcomed his visitor. The Baron introduced himself, squinting at Nestorov silhouetted against the wide windows overlooking the snow-whitened rail yards behind him.
“An honor, Baron. What brings you here? A quest for train tickets?” Nestorov was a large man with a reddened face and pale dry hair, evidence of long days exposed to the sun.
“No. Although perhaps I’ll need your help later. Do you anticipate any travel difficulties in the near future? This winter?” He caught Nestorov’s hesitation, quick as the dilation of the pupil.
“Only if something unexpected happens.”
“Such as?”
“The whims of men. Of passengers. Crowding, yes, a lack of seats can be a problem in the winter, and trains suffer delays because of the snow. But you’re with the Russian hospital. You’ll always be accommodated. Others must wait.”
“I had the pleasure of meeting your mother, Polixena Nestorovna, and her sister Agrafena at St. Nikolas Cathedral. We spoke about your travels in Manchuria.”
Nestorov was delighted to discover a thread between them. “I believe the sisters were jealous that they couldn’t join my expedition. But please be seated.” He enthusiastically called for tea and beckoned at a leather armchair draped with a tiger-skin rug. The floors were also covered with animal skins, many boldly patterned, and the walls were filled with mounted heads of wild boar, black bear, and roe deer.
“I tell you, Manchuria is a Garden of Eden. I saw meadows of blue gentian. Orange lilies high as your shoulder. Rhododendron. Campanula and peonies. Fields of bluebells where no man has ever walked.”
“You seem to be a hunter rather than a plant collector.” The Baron’s curious fingers had found the teeth on the tiger skin slung over his chair.
“We ate what we shot. Pheasant, pintail snipe, boar. They were practically tame, as they’d never encountered hunters. We also spotted the kingfisher and the rare oriental roller, Eurystomus calonyx, with its extraordinary green and blue plumage. I fancy myself something of an expert taxidermist. I prepared bird skins in the field, although rain made it almost impossible to keep the bodies from rotting.” His hand waved at the stuffed birds arranged behind the glass doors of a case.
“I admire your spirit of adventure. You traveled far north as Manchouli, yes? When did you return?”
Nestorov lunged across his desk and yanked a stained journal from a shelf. “August. End of August. Or early September.” His thick fingers tapped the book, and a heavy gold ring flashed.
A uniformed young clerk silently entered, balancing cups and a teapot on a tray. Nestorov quickly drank his tea with a sugar cube clenched between his teeth.
“Surely you had a guide in that wild
erness?” The Baron worked toward his target.
“Father Jartoux. A Jesuit explorer. He’d crossed the territory years ago. Prayed as he hiked. Tiresome. But good to walk with a holy man.” Nestorov abruptly dug under the files on his desk, pulled out a paper fan, and used it even though there was a strong draft from the unusually large windows behind him. “Now, if you wish to see something beautiful, I recommend Laolongwan Lake in the Pai Shan Mountains. You climb for two hours and at the top, there’s a completely transparent lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. Water like crystal. There are seventy-two of these dragon pits, the longwan, in the area.” His eyes narrowed with pleasure. “Why are you so interested in my travels?”
“I’m considering an expedition to Manchuria myself. Andreev, an acquaintance, described outfitting your expedition.”
“Andreev? Has he been arrested?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Nestorov seemed disappointed. “He’s a well-known smuggler, you know. Black marketeer. Appears and disappears. Reliable when it suits him.”
“Your dealings with him were unsatisfactory?”
The stationmaster broke eye contact. “He always remembers certain people, his sources, with gifts.”
Clearly there was something between Nestorov and Andreev. The Baron shifted in his chair, smoothing the tiger skin under his legs so he wouldn’t crush it. “Andreev is a useful contact these days. But so are you, with the railroad under your command.”
“Yes. If you plan to travel. Or escape.” A nervous chuckle from Nestorov. “Andreev always told me he was in the business of selling animals to animals. His joke. He sold sable and tarbagan pelts, horn and bone. Bear paws. Live tiger and fox cubs. Perhaps the creatures were to be raised as pets in a brothel.” He blushed. “I’ve heard of such practices.”