White Gardenia (19 page)

Ludmila nudged Nina. ‘Anya looks terrified.’

‘Anya,’ Nina said, pulling at her hair, ‘soon you’ll look like us. Suntan and frizzy hair. You’ll be a Tubabao native.’

I woke up late the next morning. The air in the tent was hot and stank of burned canvas. Galina, Ludmila and Nina were gone. Their unmade beds still held the impressions of their bodies. I blinked at the crumpled army-issue sheets, wondering where they had gone. But I was glad of the peace. I did not want to answer any more questions. The girls were kind, but I was a million miles away from them. They had their families on the island, I was alone. Nina had seven brothers and sisters, and I had none. They were maidens waiting for their first kiss. I was a seventeen year old who had been abandoned by her husband.

A lizard wriggled along the inside of the tent. It was teasing a bird on the outside. The lizard blinked its boggle eyes and strutted past the bird several times. I could see the bird’s shadow flapping its wings and pecking at the canvas in predatory frustration. I flung my blanket aside and sat up.

A crate propped against the centre pole served as
a communal dressing table. Among the beads and brushes covering it was a hand mirror with a Chinese dragon on the back. I picked it up and examined my cheek. In the bright light the rash looked even more inflamed. I stared at it for a while, trying to get used to my new face. I was scarred. Ugly. My eyes looked small and cruel.

I kicked open my trunk. The only sundress I had brought was too elegant for the beach. Italian silk with a glass bead trim. It would have to do.

The tents I passed on my way to the district supervisor’s office were full of people. Some were sleeping off the night watch or San Miguel, the local drink. Others were washing dishes and clearing breakfast plates. Some sat in deckchairs outside their tents, reading or talking like people on holiday. Young men with sun-browned faces and clear eyes watched me walk by. I lifted my chin to show them my damaged cheek, warning them that I was unavailable, without and within.

The district supervisor worked from a Nissen hut with a concrete floor and sun-faded pictures of the Tsar and Tsarina posted above the doorway. I knocked on the flyscreen door and waited.

‘Come in,’ a voice called out.

I crept into the dark space. My eyes squinted to adjust to the dimness inside the hut. I could just make out a camp bed by the door and a window at the far end of the room. The air reeked of mosquito repellent and motor grease.

‘Careful,’ the voice said. I blinked and turned in its direction. The hut was hot but cooler than my tent. The district supervisor gradually came into view, sitting at his desk. A small lamp gave off a ring of light but didn’t shine on his face. From his
silhouette I could see he was a muscular man with square shoulders. He was stooped over something, concentrating on it. I moved towards him, stepping over bits of wire, screws, rope and a rubber tyre. He was holding a screwdriver and working on a transformer. His nails were ragged and dirty, but his skin was brown and smooth.

‘You’re late, Anna Victorovna,’ he said. ‘The day has already started.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘This is not Shanghai any more,’ he said, motioning for me to sit down on a stool opposite him.

‘I know.’ I tried to catch a glimpse of his face, but all I could see was his strong jaw and tightly clenched lips.

He took some papers from a pile next to him. ‘You have friends in high places,’ he said. ‘You’ve only just arrived but you will be working in the IRO administration office. The others from your ship are going to have to clear the jungle.’

‘I’m lucky then.’

The district supervisor rubbed his hands together and laughed. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. The lips relaxed. They were full and smiling. ‘What do you think of our tent city? Is it glamorous enough for you?’

I didn’t know how to answer him. There was no sarcasm in his tone. He wasn’t trying to belittle me, rather he spoke as if he saw the irony of our situation and was trying to make light of it.

He picked up a photograph from his desk and handed it to me. The picture was of a group of men standing by a pile of army tents. I studied their unshaven faces. The young man in front was
crouching, holding a stake. He had big shoulders and a broad back. I recognised the full lips and the jaw. But there was something wrong with the eyes. I tried to hold the picture closer to the light, but the district supervisor took the photograph back from me.

‘We were the first people sent to Tubabao,’ he said. ‘You should have seen it then. The IRO dropped us here without tools. We had to dig the toilets and the trenches with whatever we could find. One of the men was an engineer and he went around collecting bits of machinery the Americans had left from when they used this island as a war base. Within a week he had created his own electricity generator. That’s the kind of resourcefulness that wins my respect.’

‘I’m grateful for everything Dan Richards has done for me. I hope I will contribute to the island in some way.’

The district supervisor was quiet for a moment. I couldn’t help thinking that he was studying me. The mysterious lips curved into a grin full of mischief. It was a warm smile that lit up the hut in a flash. It made me like him, despite his harsh manner. There was something of a bear in the man. He reminded me of Sergei.

‘I’m Ivan Mikhailovich Nakhimovsky. But under the circumstances let’s just call each other Anya and Ivan,’ he said, reaching out his hand. ‘I hope my joking didn’t upset you.’

‘Not at all,’ I said, clasping his fingers. ‘I am sure you are used to dealing with a lot of haughty Shanghailanders.’

‘Yes. But you’re not a true Shanghailander,’ he said. ‘You were born in Harbin and I heard you worked hard on the ship.’

After I had completed the registration and employment forms, Ivan walked me to the door. ‘If you need anything,’ he said, shaking my hand again, ‘please come and see me.’

I stepped into the sunshine and he tugged me back by the arm, pointing with his rough finger to my cheek. ‘You have tropical worm there. Go to the hospital immediately. They should have treated you for it on the ship.’

But it was Ivan’s own face that caught me by surprise. He was young, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six. He had classic Russian features. A wide jaw, strong cheekbones, deep-set blue eyes. But running from his forehead down the corner of his right eye to his nose was a scar like a scorch mark. Where the injury had clipped his eye the flesh had healed badly and the lid was partly closed.

He caught sight of my expression and stepped back into the shadow, turning away from me. I was sorry for my reaction because I liked him.

‘Go. Hurry,’ he said, ‘before the doctor goes to the beach for the day.’

The hospital was near the market and the main road. It was a long wooden building with an overhanging roof and no glass in the windows. A young Filipino girl led me through the ward to a doctor. The beds were all empty except for a woman resting with a small baby asleep on her chest. The doctor was a Russian and, as I later learned, a volunteer from among the refugees. He and the other volunteer medical staff had built the hospital from scratch, begging the IRO and Filipino government for medicine or buying it on the black market. I sat on a rough bench while the doctor examined my cheek, stretching the skin with his fingers. ‘Just as
well you came to me now,’ he said, rinsing his hands in a bowl of water held up by the girl. ‘Parasites like that can live on for ages, destroying the tissue.’

The doctor gave me two injections, one into my jaw and another stinging one near my eye. My face prickled as if someone had slapped it. He handed me a tube of cream that read ‘Sample only’ on the label. I slipped off the bench and almost fainted. ‘Sit for a while before you go,’ the doctor told me. I did as he said, but as soon as I was out of the hospital I became nauseous again. There was a courtyard beside the hospital with palm trees and canvas chairs. It had been set up for day patients. I stumbled over to one of the chairs and collapsed into it, the blood singing in my ears.

‘Is that girl all right? Go check,’ I heard an old woman’s voice say.

The sun was hot through the leaves of the trees. I could hear the ocean rumble in the background. There was a rustle of material and then a woman’s voice. ‘Can I get you some water?’ she asked. ‘It’s very hot.’

I blinked my watering eyes, trying to focus on the shadowed figure against the cloudless sky.

‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I just had some injections and they’ve made me weak.’

The woman crouched next to me. Her curly brown hair was tied high on her head with a scarf. ‘She’s fine, Grandmother,’ she called out to the other woman.

‘I’m Irina,’ the young woman said, her smile full of white teeth. Her mouth was out of proportion to her face, but she emanated light. It shone on her lips, in her eyes, through her olive skin. When she smiled she was beautiful.

I introduced myself to her and her grandmother. The old lady was stretched out on a banana chair under a tree, her feet barely reaching the end. The grandmother told me her name was Ruselina Leonidovna Levitskya.

‘Grandmother hasn’t been well,’ said Irina. ‘The heat doesn’t agree with her.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Ruselina asked me. Her hair was white but she had the same brown eyes as her granddaughter.

I pushed back my hair and showed them my cheek.

‘You poor thing,’ said Irina. ‘I had something like that on my leg. But it’s all gone now.’ She lifted her skirt to show me her dimpled but stainless knee.

‘Have you seen the beach?’ Ruselina asked.

‘No, I only arrived yesterday.’

She clasped her hands to her face. ‘It’s beautiful. Can you swim?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’ve only ever swum in a pool. Not the ocean.’

‘Then come,’ Irina said, stretching out her hand. ‘And be anointed.’

On the way to the beach we stopped by Irina and Ruselina’s tent. Two rows of conch shells marked the path to the door. Inside, a crimson sheet draped from corner to corner across the ceiling gave everything a warm pink hue. I was amazed at how many clothes the women had managed to pack inside a plywood wardrobe. There were feather boas, hats and a skirt made from bits of chipped mirror. Irina flung me a white swimming costume.

‘It’s Grandmother’s,’ she said. ‘She’s stylish and slim like you.’

My sundress was sticky against my hot skin. It felt
good to peel it off. The air rushed over my body and my skin tingled with relief. The costume fitted around my hips but was tight over my bust. It made the flesh of my breasts swell upwards, like a French corset. At first I was embarrassed by it, but then I shrugged and decided not to care. I hadn’t worn so little in the open since I was a child. It made me feel free again. Irina slipped on a suit that was magenta and silver-green. She looked like an exotic parrot.

‘What did you do in Shanghai?’ she asked me.

I told her my governess story and asked her what she did. ‘I was a cabaret singer. My grandmother played the piano.’

She saw my surprise and blushed a little. ‘Nothing fancy,’ she said. ‘Not the Moscow-Shanghai or anything as classy as that. Smaller places. Grandmother and I made dresses between jobs to support ourselves. She made all my costumes.’

Irina didn’t notice me flinch at the mention of the Moscow-Shanghai. The recollection of it was a shock. Had I really believed that I would never have to think of it again? There must be hundreds of people on the island who had heard of it. It had been a Shanghai icon. I just hoped none of them would recognise me. Sergei, Dmitri, the Michailovs and I had not been typical Russians. Not the way my father, mother and I had been when we lived in Harbin. It felt strange to be amongst my people again.

The path to the beach passed a steep ravine. A jeep was parked on the side of the road and four Filipino military policemen crouched around it, smoking and sharing jokes. They straightened up as we walked by.

‘They keep watch for pirates,’ Irina said. ‘You’d better be careful on your side of the camp.’

I wrapped my towel over my thighs and used the ends to cover my breasts. But Irina strode by the men with her towel over her shoulder, aware but unashamed of the electric effect her voluptuous body and swinging hips had on them.

The beach was a dreamscape. The sand was as white as foam and dotted with coconuts and millions of tiny shells. It was deserted except for a couple of brown retrievers sleeping under a palm tree. The dogs lifted their heads as we passed. The water was flat and clear under the midday sun. I had never swum in the ocean before but I ran towards it without fear or hesitation. Goosebumps of pleasure pinched my skin when I broke the surface. Schools of silver fish flickered past. I threw my head back and floated on the crystal mirror of the ocean’s skin. Irina dived and resurfaced, blinking away drops of water from her lashes.
Anointed.
That was the word she had used. It was how I felt. I could feel the worm on my cheek shrinking, the sun and the salt acting like antiseptic on the wound. Shanghai was washing off me. I was basking in nature, a girl from Harbin again.

‘Do you know anyone from Harbin here?’ I asked Irina.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My grandmother was born there. Why?’

‘I want to find someone who knew my mother,’ I said.

Irina and I lay on our towels under a palm tree, sleepy like the two dogs.

‘My parents were killed in the bombing of
Shanghai, when I was eight,’ she said. ‘My grandmother came to take care of me then. It’s possible she knew your mother in Harbin. Although she lived in a different district.’

A motor rumbled behind us, disturbing our peace. I thought of the Filipino police and jumped up. But it was Ivan, waving at us from the driver’s seat of a jeep. At first I thought the jeep had been painted in camouflage, but when I looked at it more closely I saw that it was moss and corrosion that gave the panels their mottled appearance.

‘Do you want to see the top of the island?’ he asked. ‘I’m not supposed to take anyone there. But I’ve heard it’s haunted and I think I might need two virgins to protect me.’