“Time’s up, the tower is closed,” the keeper said angrily.
With a heavy heart, Klim trudged back to his hotel. While he’d been in the Bell Tower, a crazy idea had occurred to him. What if he were to overpower the keeper and use the bell to send Nina messages in Morse code to let her know that he was in the city and looking for her? Unfortunately, she didn’t know Morse code.
When he reached the Central Hotel, Klim was met by Daniel.
“Get dressed for dinner,” he told him. “I’ve figured out a way of making contact with the Russians.”
Half an hour later Klim found himself in a small European restaurant next to the Legation Quarter. It was full of noisy foreigners gathered at round polished tables. Waiters ran to and fro with unimaginably large trays, dishes crashed, and the flags of the Great Powers swayed in the cigarette smoke under the high ceiling.
Klim and Daniel ascended the stairs to an open mezzanine area and sat themselves down at a tiny table near the railing where they had a clear view of the proceedings in the main room.
“China has become a magnet for every socialist from every country around the world,” said Daniel looking at the crowd below. “Most of them are wealthy romantics who don’t have to earn a living and can afford to travel to foreign countries. They have read rapturous and totally fictitious accounts of the Bolshevik coup in Russia and have now come here to witness the latest revolution, which, of course, is not going to happen now.”
“What are we doing here?” Klim asked, perplexed.
Daniel gave him a mysterious smile. “Moscow believes that these gentlemen represent ‘progressive opinion.’ Half of them are freelance writers for leftist rags with a circulation of about five hundred copies, and when the Bolsheviks need to spread the word about something, they send their man here. See the curly-haired boy in the striped tie? That’s Anatoly Levkin, a lawyer working for the Soviet Embassy. From time to time he invents another fake story, leaks it to the ‘progressive press’ here, and they dutifully file it as copy for their editorial offices. When their articles become mainstream news, Moscow is overjoyed. The world revolution is on course, the workers of the West are marching in solidarity with the great Russian proletariat, and the wise Soviet leader’s great plan is running like clockwork.”
“Is this lawyer working on the Fanya Borodin’s case?” Klim interrupted impatiently.
“Exactly.”
To Klim, Levkin had all the attributes of a mosquito. This small, long-nosed and bug-eyed young man would buzz from one table to another with his interpreter, fussing around, offering handshakes and cigarettes. Even up in the mezzanine, Klim could hear Levkin fervently arguing that the bourgeois press was publishing thinly-veiled lies about the recent raid on the Soviet Embassy.
“The only documents the Chinese found were harmless business papers,” he said. “Then they swapped them for fakes in order to blacken the name of the world’s first socialist state. It has never been the intention of the Soviet Union to meddle in the affairs of other sovereign nations.”
How can he be such a shameless liar? Klim wondered. But, judging by the reaction in the main room, the “progressive press” were happy to believe him.
Levkin paid for his dinner, dismissed his interpreter, and was about to head for the exit.
“Go up to him and introduce yourself as a communist from Shanghai,” Daniel whispered to Klim. “Tell him that you have connections with German diplomats and they have hinted that soon there will be similar raids on some Soviet embassies in Europe.”
Klim stared at Daniel. That was all he needed—to make himself a pawn in Daniel’s great game.
“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Klim asked.
“I don’t speak Russian.”
Klim didn’t budge, and Daniel became angry. “What are you waiting for? If you miss this opportunity, we won’t be able to make contact with Levkin until it’s too late. Why did you bother coming here to Peking if you’re not prepared to stick your neck out?”
Klim got up, cursing, and walked briskly toward the stairs.
He overtook the Soviet lawyer just as he was about to get into his car, but Levkin appeared unimpressed by Klim’s claims.
“Sorry, I have no time at the moment,” he said dryly and told the driver to start the engine.
Daniel joined Klim just as Levkin’s car was disappearing around the corner.
“The ball is well and truly in motion,” he said, slapping Klim on the shoulder. “Give the bartender your address and wait. Soon Levkin will be calling on you.”
Klim spent several agonizing days doing nothing but sitting in his room and reading the newspapers. With the Soviet Embassy scandal, Zhang Zuolin now had every justification he needed to start hunting down communists, and soon anti-Bolshevik hysteria began to spread throughout the whole of China. Chiang Kai-shek joined in, persecuting his former allies and claiming that the massacre of the Red Guards in Shanghai had been a cruel but necessary evil.
Mikhail Borodin, who was still in Wuhan, was powerless to do anything to stop it. His social experiment had failed, and he had neither the money, nor allies to prevent the catastrophe that was unfolding before his eyes.
Russian political and military advisers were hastily evacuated from China. The Soviet Consulate in Tianjin was raided, and former White Army men laid siege to the consulate in Shanghai. In provincial towns, things were even worse: suspected communists were lynched in the streets by the mobs, and girls with short hair were accused of being Bolsheviks and summarily beheaded.
In these circumstances, there was little or no point in hoping for any leniency in Nina’s case.
A week passed, and finally, a bellboy presented Klim with Levkin’s card. “He’s waiting for you downstairs, sir.”
Klim dashed out into the lobby and almost collided with Levkin.
“I’d like to invite you to our embassy,” the Soviet lawyer said. “Please get into my car.”
Klim was desperate to ask Levkin about Nina, but he knew this was not the right time for questions.
The car drove up to the high walls surrounding the Legation Quarter. The guards checked Levkin’s pass and opened a heavy gate covered with armored metal plates.
As they passed through, Klim could barely believe his eyes. As if by magic, they had left the sprawling Chinese city behind them and now found themselves in a neat European town with wide tree-lined streets of elegant mansions and imposing office buildings belonging to banks and insurance companies. The sound of splashing water emanated from the picturesque fountains, and elegantly dressed people dined calmly in the street cafes.
The only thing that reminded Klim that they were in China were the rows of rickshaws gleaming in the sun with their black lacquer and brass ornaments. The rickshaw boys stood to attention next to their carts in cleanly-laundered blue shirts and trousers, their heads covered with new straw hats.
Levkin’s car drove through a latticed gate guarded by Red Army soldiers and stopped next to a large white house with a pair of fierce-eyed stone lions standing sentinel on the porch.
Klim got out of the car and looked around. The lawn was dotted with forlorn brown bald patches, and the flowers in their tarnished green bronze vases had long withered.
“We have no time for gardening here,” said Levkin registering Klim’s look of disapproval.
An old Chinese man in a faded tunic silently led them into a dimly lit lobby and immediately went back to his job of dusting a marble bust of Lenin that stood in the corner.