It was too late to look for another telegraph office, and since I had nowhere to go, Nazar invited me to stay the night in his Soviet dormitory.
We ended up taking a couple of palanquins. Nazar apologized profusely for this exploitative, imperialist mode of transport, but the sun had already set, and it was unsafe to walk Canton’s streets at night. The locals here hate “white ghosts” so much that the Russians and the Germans have to wear an armband with a special insignia indicating that we are “friendly.” These work quite well during the day but are no good after dark.
Nazar and I got into the carved booths, the porters then picked us up and ran, their wooden sandals clattering against the pavement.
Canton’s streets are so narrow that in some places I could have stretched arms through the palanquin’s open windows and touched both walls. I had a feeling that we were traveling through a catacomb and that there was no way out.
Finally, we reached a three-story building with a balustrade, located in a quiet street. This was the Soviet dormitory.
Nazar lives in a room furnished only with a portrait of Lenin, a painted Chinese cabinet, and floor mats with blue porcelain bricks, which the locals use instead of pillows. Supposedly, they’re pleasantly cool to the touch when you rest your head on them.
The bathtub also made a big impression; it was a clay vat, half my height, but so narrow that you can only wash while standing.
Nazar gave me a piece of black sticky soap and a bottle of Lysol, the surest precaution against parasites.
“Put at least a tablespoon into the water,” he said, “or you’ll end up with scabies or maybe something even worse.”
When I returned to his room, it was full of foul smelling, suffocating smoke, which emanated from a glowing cord twisted like a snake in a clay saucer.
“This is to keep the mosquitoes away,” Nazar said. He had come equipped with a mosquito net but had put it in the closet before leaving for Whampoa Island, and now after a couple of days, it was covered with black mold. Neither Nazar nor I dared to touch it. Goodness knows what kind of pests it contained now.
We stretched out on our floor mats, and Nazar told me about the life and customs of the Soviet commune.
He seems to have two completely contradictory personalities that coexist within him simultaneously. One is a very sensible, intelligent young man who appreciates the benefits of civilization, the division of labor, and personal comfort. He is perfectly happy with the fact that the Soviets employ maids to clean the dorm rooms and do the laundry. He doesn’t consider this to be exploitation of the working people in the slightest.
However, Nazar’s alter-ego is not of this world at all. In this incarnation, he lacks any sense of irony or self-criticism whatsoever. He believes that private property should be banned and all exploitation nipped in the bud. This Nazar talks entirely in Soviet newspaper clichés. In his world, everyone who is poorly dressed is “an oppressed worker, looking with hope to their Soviet brothers.” Every slightly better-dressed person is a “puppet of world imperialism,” and every Russian immigrant can only be a “corrupt counter-revolutionary running dog constantly seeking to undermine the USSR.”
I wonder which category I would come under if he knew my real identity. Probably, the “bourgeois toady, trembling with fear and impotent rage at the sight of the unstoppable rise of the Soviet Union’s prestige and power.”
Soon Nazar was happily snoring, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I’m currently sitting at the window and writing my diary by the light of a candle stub.
There is a railroad nearby and trains rattle by every ten minutes. The cicada and frog choruses are in full song, and boat whistles float up from the river.
I have to admit that my life in Shanghai was paradise in comparison. I had a pleasant apartment that was marred only by Ada’s occasional teenage antics. I could put my clothes in closets without worrying whether they would have rotted by the next day from the humidity. I had a decent job, I could see Nina and Kitty whenever I wanted—and I still had the nerve to be dissatisfied with my lot. It seems the Chinese gods have decided to punish me for my ingratitude.
I have no idea what I should do now and how long my exile will last.
Back in the dark ages when Moscow had barely been established, Canton was already a thriving city with a thousand years of history. It was from here that the great Sea Silk Route started from China to the Middle East. It was here that the Chinese built their great ships and the world’s finest carvings in ivory, amber, and precious wood were created.
Canton is a city of craftsmen. The local men make embroideries of extraordinary beauty and the women the famous Cantonese shawls with their customary long fringes. This craft was brought here from Portugal and then exported back to Europe. The Chinese don’t wear shawls themselves but are quick to spot a business opportunity when they see one.
In the Xiguan area, every street is devoted to a specialized craft—silver, embroidered shoes, brocade robes, or turtle shell combs. The second floors of buildings jut out over the sidewalks, protecting the lower floors from the sun, and the townspeople busily make their way along these shady passages, carrying iron rings with hooks for their purchases, a kind of alternative shopping bag.
There are stores with stained-glass windows and counters of polished wood. There are little shops, where the pork carcasses hang from the ceiling, covered with flies. On the ground along the walkways, there are barrels of fish and cages with frogs, snakes, chickens, and crickets. A little to one side, there are small sculptures of the Buddha with gleaming thin candles and incense sticks devotedly placed in front of them. The stifling wind sweeps away the fallen petals and charred pieces of paper, the debris of yesterday’s offerings to the gods.
I wish I could share my impressions of Canton with Nina, but I daren’t write to her openly. If Wyer is checking her mail, he would soon be on to us.
My cryptic cable to Nina read as follows:
The item from your order 070489 (the date of my birth) arrived safely and will be delivered to you once it has been through quarantine.
Nina is a smart cookie and responded immediately:
Take all necessary insurance and ensure that the item is safe and sound.
It was such a relief to learn that she has at least partially understood what has happened.
By exchanging cables full of allegories and allusions, we agreed that I would secretly return to Shanghai, and then we would move to another city.
Here in Canton, there are daily clashes between Sun Yat-sen’s people and the traders who have been driven to their wit’s end by his extortionate taxation. It usually kicks off with the sound of distant shouting, the roar of drums, and the clatter of wooden sandals on the pavement. Before long the whole street is filled with two opposing protest marches—one side holding banners of Karl Marx and Chinese nationalists, and the other portraits of the leaders of the Chamber of Commerce. Soon a fight breaks out, and the locals watching from their second-story windows make bets on which side will be victorious. Once the fight is over, they throw their winnings to each other—directly over the heads of the fallen fighters.
Then the police come and lead away those who haven’t managed to escape, and within a few minutes the battlefield is flooded with small boys collecting up the junk, trampled portraits, and other debris that has been left behind.
I have decided to stay in Canton for another couple of weeks and will try to return to Shanghai in late October. I still have no idea where Nina, Kitty, and I will go. Since the Great War, there are migrants everywhere and, as a result, tighter borders, and I’m afraid we won’t be welcomed anywhere. So far, we have only been able to stay here, in China, because the Peking government has neither the power nor time to deal with us immigrants.