‘There’s always been something there,’ he said, ‘but it took Sergei’s death to open the door.’
The twisting sensation inside me turned into a crushing pain. If I walk away, none of it will be true, I told myself. I turned my back on Dmitri and edged my way through the tables. People looked up from their meals or stopped mid-sentence to stare at me. I tried to hold my head high, to look like the perfect hostess, but tears mixed with face powder ran down my cheeks. ‘Are you all right?’ a man asked me. ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, but my knees buckled under me. I clutched at the passing drinks waiter. We toppled over together, a champagne glass splintering beneath me.
Some time later I came to and found myself in the apartment with Mei Lin tweezing pieces of glass out of my shoulder. She had numbed the area with ice, but my entire shoulder had swollen into a plumcoloured lump. The cheongsam hung over a chair by the cupboard; the bloodstained hole on the sleeve looked like a gunshot wound. Dmitri watched us from beside the fireplace.
‘If it’s clean,’ he told Mei Lin, ‘bind it up and we’ll call the doctor tomorrow.’
The girl stared at him, sensing that something was wrong. She pressed a wad of cotton gauze to the wound and secured it with a bandage. When she’d finished she gave Dmitri one final glare before scuttling away.
‘She’s becoming insolent, that little one. You shouldn’t spoil her so much,’ he said, pulling on his coat.
I stood up and swayed like a drunk woman. ‘Dmitri! I’m your wife!’
‘I’ve explained the situation to you,’ he said. ‘I have to get back to the club.’
I leaned against the door, unable to comprehend what was happening. How could Dmitri be doing this? How could Dmitri say he was in love with her? With Amelia? My face pinched and I started to cry. The tears were so savage against my inflamed ribs that I gasped for breath.
‘Come on,’ said Dmitri, trying to move past me. I blinked through my tears at him. There was a hardness in his face that I had not seen before. I knew then that all the tears in the world would not change anything.
One illness gave way to another. Mei Lin tried to make me eat breakfast the next morning, but I couldn’t keep down even a mouthful of scrambled eggs. A broken heart was much worse than a fever. Every part of me ached with pain. I could barely breathe. Dmitri had betrayed me and left me alone. I had no one. No father, no mother, no guardian, no husband.
Luba was at the door less than an hour after I called her. Her hair was usually impeccably groomed, but this morning strands were sticking up at the back. One side of her dress collar was tucked into her neckline. I felt a strange sense of comfort when I saw my confusion reflected in her appearance.
She took one look at me and rushed to the bathroom, returning with a damp washcloth and wiping my face.
‘The worst thing about this is that you tried to warn me,’ I said.
‘When you’ve had a rest and something to eat,’ she said, ‘you will see things are not as bad as they seem.’
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. How could things be worse? Wasn’t it Luba who had told me that Amelia had driven a woman to suicide and that she had some sort of dark influence over Dmitri’s soul?
‘You won’t believe me,’ she said, ‘but now that it’s happened, I can see there are a lot of things in your favour. Things I didn’t consider before.’
‘I did everything Sergei tried to protect me from,’ I said, sinking down onto the sofa. ‘I gave them the club.’
Luba sat down next to me. ‘I know, but the club’s the club, and with the war on who knows what will happen to it. The important thing is that you still own the house and everything in it.’
‘I don’t care about the house or the money,’ I said, beating my sore chest with my fist. ‘When you warned me, I thought you meant Amelia was after my money, not my husband.’ I took a painful breath. ‘Dmitri doesn’t love me any more. I’m all alone.’
‘Oh, I think Dmitri will come to his senses,’ said Luba. ‘He won’t want an immoral American for a wife. He’s more vain than Sergei ever was. He’ll come to his senses sooner or later. Besides, she’s almost ten years older than him.’
‘What good will that do me?’
‘Well, he can’t marry her unless he divorces you. And I can’t see him doing that. Even if he tried to, you could fight it.’
‘He loves her,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t want me. That’s what he told me.’
‘Anya! Do you think that she really wants him? He’s a boy. She’s manipulating him to get back at you. And he’s all muddled with stress and grief.’
‘I don’t want him. Not after he’s been with her.’
Luba put her arm around me. ‘Cry, but not too much. It would be hard to be a married woman and not understand the nature of men. They find something to amuse themselves with in the most unlikely of women, then suddenly one day it’s all over and they’re back on your doorstep as if nothing ever happened. Alexei gave me so much grief when we were young.’
I cringed at her detached practicality, but I knew that she was trying to comfort me and that she was the only ally I had left.
‘I’ll make a lunch booking for us at the ladies’ club,’ she said, patting my back. ‘A meal and a drink will make you feel better. Everything will work out, Anya, if you behave calmly.’
Going out was the last thing I felt like doing, but I obeyed Luba when she insisted that I bathe and get dressed. I knew what she was trying to do. If I stayed in the apartment I would be finished. Anything that stopped in Shanghai was doomed. Sick beggars who fainted in the street perished in Shanghai, along with deserted babies and exhausted rickshaw boys. Shanghai was only for the strong. And the secret of survival was to keep moving.
I made it through the weeks after the demise of my marriage by shutting down. I did not allow myself the indulgence of thinking. If I thought about what had happened, I stopped. As soon as I stopped I could feel myself dying inside, just as a soldier who has stopped moving feels himself freezing in the snow. I tried to believe what Luba had said about Dmitri and Amelia’s affair being a temporary liaison, that they didn’t truly love each other. That illusion vanished the day I saw them together.
I was on the Bund, looking for a rickshaw to take me home after lunch with Luba. My head was light with the champagne I had been drinking to ease my loneliness. The weather was cold and I was wearing my full-length fur coat with the hood on, my scarf pulled up around my face. My heart almost stopped when I saw the familiar limousine pull up to the kerb just a metre away from me. Dmitri stepped out. He was so close to me and didn’t know it. I could have brushed my finger down his cheek if I wanted to. The sound of the traffic faded and he and I seemed alone, trapped in time. Then he reached inside the car. I flinched when I recognised the gloveless, sharp-nailed fingers that clasped his hand. Amelia slipped out, wearing a red cape with a sable wrap around her throat. She looked like a beautiful demon. I died inside when I saw the admiration on Dmitri’s face. He hooked his arm around her waist with the same intimate touch I had seen Alexei give Luba on Christmas Eve. Dmitri and Amelia disappeared into the city crowd, and I disappeared somewhere inside myself. Something told me that the Dmitri I knew was dead and I was a sixteen-year-old widow.
I slipped into a pattern of sleeping late into the morning. Around one o’clock I would take a rickshaw to Luba’s club and linger over my food, letting lunch spill into high tea. In the afternoons there was jazz or Mozart in the main foyer, and I would listen to it until the sun went down and the waiters began dressing the tables for dinner. I would have stayed for that meal too, if I hadn’t been so self-conscious. I was the youngest woman by at least five years. I’d even had to lie about my age on the membership form so that I could go to the club without Luba accompanying me.
One day, I was sitting at my usual table and glancing through the North China Daily News. There was nothing about the progress of the civil war in the paper, except to say that the Nationalists and Mao Zedong wer
e attempting a truce. A truce between such opposing forces was unlikely. I could never be sure what was true and what was propaganda in those days. I looked up from the paper and glanced out the window at the winter-bare rockery. I saw someone watching me in the reflection. I turned to see a tall woman in a floral dress, a matching scarf knotted around her throat.
‘I am Anouck,’ the woman said. ‘You are here every day. You speak English?’ Her own English was heavy, weighed down by a Dutch accent. She glanced at the chair opposite me.
‘Yes, a little,’ I said, gesturing for her to sit down.
There were wisps of gold in Anouck’s brown hair and her skin seemed naturally tanned. Her mouth was the only thing that marred her prettiness. When she smiled her top lip disappeared. It made her look severe. Nature was cruel. It created loveliness and then spoiled it.
‘No, you speak it well,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard you. A Russian with a slight American accent. My husband…he was American.’
I picked up the ‘was’ in her sentence and studied her more closely. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. When I didn’t react, she said, ‘My husband…he is dead.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Was it the war?’
‘I sometimes think so. And your husband?’ she asked, pointing to my wedding ring.
I blushed. She had seen me at the club more often than was seemly for a young woman with a husband. I glanced down at the intertwined gold bands and cursed myself for not having taken the ring off. Then I saw her mouth twitch and I caught on. We were both smiling but it was impossible to miss that we shared the same afflicted look in our eyes.
‘My husband…he is…dead too,’ I said.
‘I see,’ she said, smiling.
Anouck proved to be a lively distraction. My appearance at the club became less frequent after she introduced me to other young ‘widows’. Together we filled our days with shopping and our nights with dinners at the Palace Hotel or the Imperial. The other women spent their cheating husbands’ money by the handful. Anouck called it ‘the womanly art of revenge’. The money I had was mine, and I had no desire for revenge. But like the other women I wanted to escape the pain and humiliation my husband had caused me.
Anouck convinced me to join the ‘language and culture afternoons’ at the American consulate. Once a week, the consul-general invited foreigners to mingle with staff in the elegant drawing room of his house. For the first hour we would speak in English, discussing various artistic movements and literature. Never politics. Afterwards we would pair off with whichever staff member wished to learn our native language. Some of the participants were very serious about the lessons, but for most of us it was an excuse to meet people and gorge ourselves on the pecan pies that were served at each meeting. The only American who signed up to learn Russian was a tall, gangly young man named Dan Richards. I liked him the moment I set eyes on him. He had ginger hair, curly and closely cropped. His skin was freckled and his pale eyes were ringed by fine lines, which became deeper when he smiled.
‘Dobryy den, Mrs Lubensky,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Minya zavut Daniel.’ His pronunciation was terrible, but his earnestness was so charming that I found myself smiling sincerely for the first time in a long time.
‘Do you want to be a spy?’ I teased him.
His eyes flashed with surprise. ‘No, I’ve hardly got the nature for it,’ he said. ‘My grandfather was a diplomat in Moscow before the Revolution. He spoke highly of the Russians and I have always been intrigued by them. So when Anouck announced that she was bringing her lovely Russian friend, I decided to ditch the old gargoyle who has been trying to teach me French grammar and take up Russian instead!’
The language and culture afternoons became something to live for through the dreary, drizzly onset of spring. Dan Richards was funny and charming, and I regretted that we were both married for I could have easily fallen in love with him. His jokes and his gentlemanly demeanour helped me to forget Dmitri a little. He spoke of his pregnant wife with such fondness and respect that he made me want to trust someone. Listening to him, I could believe in the possibility of love again. I started to feel like the person I had been before my mother was taken away, someone who believed that people were good.
Then one afternoon Dan was late for his lesson. I watched the other groups engaged in their conversations and tried to occupy myself by memorising the names and dates of the presidents whose dour-faced portraits hung on the walls. When Dan arrived he was out of breath. There were beads of rain in his hair and on his eyelashes and his shoes were scuffed. He rubbed his hands nervously over his knees and forgot words a minute after I pronounced them for him.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him.
‘It’s Polly. I’ve just sent her back to the States.’
‘Why?’
He rubbed his lips together as if his mouth were dry. ‘The political situation here has become too uncertain,’ he said. ‘When the Japanese invaded they stuck plenty of American women and children in camps. I’m not taking any chances. If you were my wife I would send you away too,’ he said.
I was touched by his concern. ‘We Russians have nowhere to go,’ I told him. ‘China is our home.’
He glanced about the room before bringing his face close to mine. ‘Anya,’ he said, ‘this is confidential information but Chiang Kai-shek is about to abandon the city. The American government has told us that they will not be giving the Nationalist government any more help. Our weapons have been falling into the hands of the Communists each time one of the Nationalist generals decides to cross over to the other side. The British have instructed their citizens to stand by their businesses. But we’ve outdone our stay in China. It’s time for us to go.’
Later, during the cakes and refreshments, Dan slipped a note into my hand and pressed it there. ‘Think about it, Anya,’ he said. ‘A Cossack named Grigori Bologov has been negotiating with the International Refugee Organisation to get your people out of Shanghai. There is a ship leaving soon for the Philippines. If you stay, the Chinese Communists will send you to the Soviet Union. The last group of Shanghai Russians who returned there after the war were executed as spies.’
I ran home in the rain, clutching Bologov’s address in my hand. I was depressed and frightened. Leave China? Where would I go? Leaving China would be abandoning my mother. How would she ever know where to find me? I thought of the happy and pregnant Mrs Richards, safely on her way back to America and soon to be joined by a kind-hearted, faithful husband who loved her. How random a thing was fate. Why had I been destined to meet Dmitri? I placed my hands on my flat stomach. I no longer had a husband, but perhaps I could be happy again with a child. I imagined a little girl, dark-haired and with amber eyes like my mother.
The apartment was gloomy. Mei Lin wasn’t there and I assumed she must have gone shopping or be taking a nap in the maid’s room. I closed the door behind me and started taking off my coat. A chill prickled my neck. The spicy smell of tobacco stung my nose. I squinted at the shadow on the sofa until it took form. Dmitri. The red tip of his cigarette glowed like a coal in the blackness. I stared at his faint outline, trying to decide if he was real or an apparition. I switched on the light. He glanced at me but said nothing, drawing in and out on the cigarette as if he couldn’t breathe without it. I walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. The steam hissed from the spout and I made myself a cup of tea without offering him anything.
‘I put the rest of your things in a trunk in the hall closet,’ I told him. ‘In case you were wondering why you couldn’t find them. Lock the door when you go.’
I shut the bedroom door behind me. I was too tired for words and in no mood to be hurt any more by Dmitri. I kicked off my shoes and tugged my dress over my head. The room was cold. I slipped under the bedcovers and listened to the rain. My heart was thumping in my chest. But I wasn’t sure if it was Dmitri or Dan who had caused that. I stared at the clock on the bedside table, the gold miniature that t
he Michailovs had given us on our engagement. An hour passed and I assumed Dmitri must have left. But just as my eyes began to droop, I heard the bedroom door open and Dmitri’s step on the floorboards. I rolled on my side, feigning sleep. I held my breath when I felt the weight of his body sink into the mattress. His skin was like frost. He rested his hand on my hip and I turned to stone.
‘Go away,’ I said.
His hand gripped tighter.
‘You can’t do what you did and then come back.’
Dmitri didn’t say anything. His breathing was the sound of a man spent. I pinched my arm until the skin bled.
‘I don’t love you any more,’ I said.
His hand moved across my back. The skin was no longer soft like suede. It was sandpaper. I slapped him away but he clasped my cheeks in his hands, forcing me to face him. Even in the darkness I could see his gauntness. She had taken him whole and returned him empty.
‘I don’t love you any more,’ I said.
Hot tears dripped onto my face. They burned into my skin like sulphur.
‘Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you,’ he sobbed.
I pushed him away from me and struggled out of the bed. ‘I don’t want you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you any more.’
Dmitri and I ate breakfast the next morning at the Brazilian café on Avenue Joffre. He sat with his legs stretched out in the streak of sunshine gleaming through the window. His eyes were closed and his mind seemed far away. I picked out the mushrooms from my omelette with a fork, saving them for last. Mushrooms in the woods lie hidden like secret treasures, waiting for eager hands to pluck them. I remembered my mother singing to me. The café was empty except for the moustached waiter who hovered at the counter, pretending to clean it. The air smelled of wood, oil and onions. Even now, whenever I come across that combination of aromas, I remember the morning after Dmitri came back to me.
White Gardenia Page 16