White Gardenia
Page 49
One of the most enjoyable aspects of writing White Gardenia was creating a story about the bond between a mother and daughter in a wider historical setting. I have made every attempt to be accurate and authentic in detail, however there were a couple of places where I had to play God and condense history to keep the story flowing. The first instance was where Anya arrives in Shanghai soon after the announcement of the end of the Second World War. Chronologically speaking, while there would have been some Americans in Shanghai, Anya arrives there a couple of weeks before the main part of the American navy arrived to set up newsreels and get the city moving again. But because the main purpose of the scene was to show the jubilation at the end of the war, and how quickly Shanghai was able to recover, I felt comfortable pushing the events closer together. The other place I condensed history was on Tubabao. The refugees on the island endured more than one typhoon during their stay, but to describe every storm in detail would have shifted the focus away from Anya’s emotional survival and her growing attachment to Ruselina and Irina.
George Burns once said, ‘The most important thing about acting is honesty. And if you can fake that, you’ve got it made!’ There are some places in White Gardenia where fictional settings were more suitable than real ones. The first example is the Moscow-Shanghai. While this nightclub is a creation of my imagination, based on the architecture of several of the Tsar’s palaces, it is nonetheless true to Shanghai’s spirit of decadence at that time. Similarly, the migrant camp Anya and Irina are sent to in Australia is not intended to represent a particular migrant camp in the central west of New South Wales, although most of my research revolved around the Bathurst and Cowra migrant camps. My reasoning here was that I wanted Anya to interact on a personal level with the camp director and didn’t feel it would be fair to bring any of the real camp directors into the story in such a personal way. For this same reason, I created a fictional metropolitan newspaper for Anya to work on, the Sydney Herald, rather than use an actual paper of the time because I needed Anya to form a close relationship with her editor, Diana. The society families are also fictional and do not represent any real personalities of the time, although Prince’s, Romano’s and Chequers nightclub were the places to be seen in Sydney in the 1950s. I could describe my approach to these fictional creations in terms of the creed a fashionable friend once shared with me: ‘If the hair and shoes are right, everything else in between will fall into place.’ By this I mean that as long as my historical context was accurate and the day-to-day details of what people were eating, wearing and reading were true to the times, I was able to allow myself some freedom with the story in between.
Following on from this, I would also like to say that while the inspiration for the novel came from the journey my mother and godmother made from China to Australia, all the characters and situations in the novel are works of my imagination. The book is not a family history in fictional form and none of the main characters are meant to represent any actual person living or deceased.
It was a great pleasure researching and writing White Gardenia. I hope that reading it has brought you much pleasure too.
Acknowledgements
It has often been said that a writer’s life is a solitary one, but it seems to me that the moment I put pen to paper (actually, fingers to keyboard) to write White Gardenia I was blessed with an incredible array of people willing to offer inspiration, information and support for the project.
To start out with, I would like to express gratitude to the two women who inspired me to write a novel about Russians in the first place: my mother, Deanna, and my godmother, Valentina. The tales of their lives in Harbin, Tsingtao, Shanghai and Tubabao captivated me as a child and enthralled me again as an adult. But it was more than the exotic locations that inspired the themes of the novel, it was their example of true friendship and love of life. Despite all the terrible things they have seen, the loved ones they have lost and the hardships they have endured, they have never lost their capacity to love, and to love fiercely. Their kindness and their sense of charity towards others is what makes them truly amazing. I would also like to convey my appreciation to my father, Stan, and brother, Paul, who believed that I could accomplish the task of researching and writing a novel with so much historical background, even before I had started!
I’m not sure if I can find the right words to say thank you to Selwa Anthony, who is such an enthusiastic, insightful and talented literary agent that some days I think I must have dreamed her up. Her faith in me is one of the most precious gifts I have ever received, and over the course of the novel’s development, I am proud to say that Selwa has been not only a terrific agent but a wonderful mentor and friend.
Further to my list of blessings, I have to add my publisher, Linda Funnell, and my editor, Julia Stiles. What first-time novelist wouldn’t be thrilled to find herself under the guidance of two of the most brilliant women in publishing? Their sensitivity, intelligence, care and sense of humour were tremendous gifts during the long and sometimes demanding process of rewriting and editing. I’d also like to thank Nicola O’Shea, senior editor at HarperCollins, whose organisational skills, diligence and passion for what she does made her a pleasure to work with. In fact, whenever I think about the collective talent, professionalism and enthusiasm of the HarperCollins team I can’t help but be amazed. In particular I would like to mention Brian Murray, Shona Martyn, Sylvia Marson, Karen-Maree Griffiths and Vanessa Hobbs.
I would also like to thank Fiona and Adam Workman. If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then Fiona and Adam are best friends of the highest clarity and the ideal cut, depth and carat weight. Not only were they terrific sounding boards whenever I felt stuck, nurturing my creativity back to the surface with their gourmet cooking and sense of joie de vivre, but they sent me a treasure chest of primary sources, including the wonderful Kay Campbell and Theo Barker, who put together information for me on the Bathurst Migrant Camp and migrant camps in general while I was living in New York, and Joan Leyda and Peter Workman, who took time to share with me their lively and entertaining memories of Sydney in the 1950s. On the subject of Sydney in the 1950s, I would also like to thank legendary Australian fashion designer, Beril Jents; journalist and author, Kevin Perkins; Gary A Shiels and Aran Maree of North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club; and John Ryan of the Australian Jockey Club for the invaluable information they all shared with me.
Thank you also to my other sources of information for their enthusiasm and time in answering my questions: Levon and Janna Olobikyan for first-hand accounts of Moscow in the 1960s; Andrea Lammel for dance terms and German phrases; Doctor Ludmila Stern of the University of NSW and Svetlana Aristidi for checking my Russian terms and patronymic names; Jan Wigsten of Nomadic Journeys and Graham Taylor of Karakorum Expeditions for explaining to me the practicalities involved in crossing the Gobi Desert; and Vicky Robinson for her insight into Polish.
There is also a multitude of people I would like to thank for making the rough parts of this writer’s journey smooth and the joys even sweeter. Unfortunately, because of space I can’t list them all, but I would particularly like to mention:
Jody Lee, Kim Swivel, Maggie Hamilton, Professor Stephen Muecke, Bruce Fields, Jennifer Strong, Alain Mentha, Andrea Au, Brian Dennis, Shilene Noé, Jeffrey Arsenault, Kevin Lindenmuth, Tom Nondorf, Craig Smith, Phyllis Curott, Arabella Edge, Christopher Mack, Martin Klohs, Kai Schweisfurth, Virginia Lonsdale, Olivia Rhee, and the members of Women in Publishing, New York. I would also like to thank my New York roommate, Heather Drucker, for not only generously giving me full use of her communications and word-processing equipment but for sharing the companionship of her two delightful cats. Sitting on my bed with my laptop, Sabine and Chaplin curled up and purring on either side of me, the snow piling up outside the window, created the perfect atmosphere for writing White Gardenia.
Thank you all!
About the Author
Belinda Alexandra has been published to wide acclaim in Australia, N
ew Zealand, France, Germany, Holland, Poland, Norway and Greece. She is the daughter of a Russian mother and an Australian father and has been an intrepid traveller since her youth. Her love of other cultures and languages is matched by her passion for her home country, Australia, where she is a volunteer rescuer and carer for the NSW Wildlife Information and Rescue Service (WIRES).
Discover the world with Belinda Alexandra …
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The dazzling story of Adéla and Klára, two exceptional sisters searching for success, love and salvation in the Australian film world of the 1920s. Buy it now.
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As Mussolini’s grip tightens around beautiful Italy in the 1930s, the young orphan Rosa must discover exactly what she is willing to sacrifice for survival. Buy it now.
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When talented ballerina Paloma delves into her family’s history she unravels the secrets of the past and discovers a shocking story of passion, betrayal and flamenco in the Spanish Civil War. Buy it now.
Sapphire Skies
What really happened to Soviet fighter pilot Natalya when her plane went down in WWII? Secrets and lies, enduring love and terrible sacrifice all combine in this story of a love to defy the decades. Buy it now.
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2002
This edition published in 2014
by HarperCollinsPublishers Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
A member of the HarperCollinsPublishers (Australia) Pty Limited Group
www.harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Belinda Alexandra 2002
The right of Belinda Alexandra to be identified as the moral rights author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 (Cth).
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Alexandra, Belinda.
White gardenia.
ISBN 0 7322 8075 3 (pbk).
ISBN 978 0 7304 4384 1 (epub)
1. Missing children – Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters –
Fiction. 3.World War, 1939-1945 – Children – Fiction. I.Title.
A823.4
The lines from Anna Akhmatova’s ‘Requiem’ on page 136 are reproduced by permission of Ardis.