was much smaller. It consisted of Sergei, Olga and Tatiana. Even though the Relnikovs eventually acquired a social circle in Shanghai, it did not make up for Katarina's loss.
Tatiana was especially saddened by her mother's unhappiness. She would one day come to realize that her mother had made the best of her new and unwanted life in Shanghai. But what does a child know of her mother's unhappiness? For Olga and Tatiana, Shanghai was a beginning, the future their father had promised them. They could still make a game of life. They cried when they said goodbye to friends and cousins, but they had no concept of forever. Far away meant nothing to them. In Russia, everything was big and far away. They thought everybody would come and visit, just like before. Sergei had painted such a vibrant picture of the future for them in the months before they left that they thought they were going to the most exciting place in the world. Who wouldn't want to go to China?
To Tatiana, with her nine-year-old eyes, Shanghai was an adventure. If she saw the stinking poverty and the filth of dead rats and human excrement, she turned her head and looked elsewhere, at the hustle of the marketplace and the single-minded activity of pyjama-clad men pulling exotic ladies in rickshaws. If the buildings were black from the dirt and smoke of charcoal fires, if the paint was peeling and the wood was splitting, she didn't see it. Her eyes focused on the rich, jewel-coloured silks that rushed by in those ubiquitous rickshaws; she saw the yellow and pink of flowers and the orange and green of vegetables in the market stalls. Tatiana wanted Shanghai to be beautiful. She willed it to be beautiful. If not for her own sake, then certainly for her mother's.
From the moment they had stepped off the steamship in Shanghai harbour, Katarina's face had become a mask. For her, the city was a dung heap, the end of nearly everything. She recoiled at the stench from pools of urine and piles of excrement, rotting vegetables and, worse, the not so occasional rotting corpse of a dog or an unwanted baby, and she recoiled at the incessant noise and activity that filled the harbour area and the city. It was as if she froze on the spot, her muscles refusing to move. Sergei had to take her by the arm and pull her along. Her expressionless face refused to reveal the intense jumble of emotions she must have been feeling.
There was nothing about Shanghai that could ease the pain of leaving her beloved home. Katarina no longer sang when she performed a task. Her family rarely heard her laugh, and they occasionally heard her cry, but only when she thought they weren't listening. Tatiana prayed every night that her mother would be happy and yet, even then, with her unformed emotions and her lack of experience, she knew it was futile. Deep in her heart, Tatiana felt an ache whenever she looked at her mother's blank, unchanging expression.
Sergei, on the other hand, refused to be anything but cheerful and positive. He was determined to succeed in China as a businessman. The country was ready, he said, to become a powerful and wealthy nation. The government was instituting reforms in education, sending young men versed only in Chinese classical literature and calligraphy to Japan to learn the ways of the world. If he knew about the young Chinese revolutionary students who were studying the writings of Marx and admired the Russian Narodniks who espoused violence and anarchism, he said nothing. If he encountered merchants who wanted to rid China of foreign capitalists and goods, he never spoke about it. He believed Dr. Sun Yat-sen wanted to oust the Manchus and establish democracy. When the infant Pu-yi succeeded the hated Dowager Empress in 1908, Sergei said that the doors to the new China were opening, that the monarchy was on its last legs. The revolution that was underway could only bring enlightenment and prosperity. China was not about politics, he said, it was about business and commerce. All the men Sergei knew in Shanghai wanted either to get rich or to stay rich.
“‘Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired,’” he said, quoting Tolstoy once again. Even though Olga and Tatiana loved their irrepressible father, there were times when they looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Usually when he quoted Tolstoy for the umpteenth time in a day.
“Nothing is ever accomplished by writers and poets,” said Olga in a world-weary tone. By the time she was eleven, Olga considered herself quite adult and therefore wise.
“Who said that?” her father asked, arching his eyebrow suspiciously.
“I did,” said Olga.
Sergei laughed, which made Tatiana giggle, although she wasn't sure why. “I've spawned a philosopher,” he said. “And what's worse, a female philosopher. ‘Woman is more impressionable than man. Therefore in the Golden Age they were better than men. Now they are worse.’ That's what Tolstoy said about women philosophers, and now I understand why.”
“Oh, Papa,” said Olga. “You're impossible.”
“‘It is by those who have suffered that the world has been advanced.’ When you have suffered enough, Olushka, then perhaps you'll do something worthwhile. I am only trying to contribute to your future greatness.”
“I don't want to be great,” said Olga, importantly. “I only want to be happy.”
“Ah,” said her father. “Happiness can be even more elusive than greatness, Olushka. Our greatness is judged by others, whereas happiness we judge for ourselves. And who do you think is harder to please?” Olga frowned but didn't answer. Sergei laughed, and she knew he must be teasing her. “As your father,” he said, kissing the top of her head, “I shall do everything in my power to bring about your happiness.” Satisfied, Olga curtsied and said, “Thank you, Papa.”
“Papa,” Tatiana said, lines of worry creasing her young forehead, “do you think Mother is suffering?”
Sergei's expression changed, and he looked at her sadly. “Yes, Tatushka, I think she's suffering. But her suffering is not the kind I can fix like a bicycle.”
“She wants to go home, I think.”
“This is our home now, Tatushka. We can't go back to Russia.”
“I wish there was something I could do,” she said. She wanted so badly to be able to fix whatever was wrong with her mother so they could be a happy family again.
“So do I, my child. So do I.”
Chapter Two
Sergei enrolled his daughters in a convent school run by nuns. Les Soeurs de Notre Dame were among the most devout, and they taught the girls religion, catechism, French and mathematics with a rigor that both scared and impressed them. A few of the nuns didn't hesitate to use a whip-like willow branch if they caught the students chattering or thought they were slow to answer. Sister Thérèse was the worst. Although the girls went to confession every day, Tatiana never confessed her evil thoughts about Sister Thérèse and what she wanted God to do to her. She was even more afraid of Sister Thérèse than she was of God.
The classrooms were situated at the front of the convent, a two-storied wooden firetrap of a building with rickety stairs that creaked and complained when the young students ran up and down them. The private business of the nuns—their secret life of silence and prayers that the students knew nothing about—was conducted in the back of the building, at the end of a long corridor the children were forbidden to enter. Every inch of the convent had been scrubbed and polished over and over by nuns past and present, until its floors and stairs and banisters shone like their black leather boots from layers of linseed and lemon oil and elbow grease. The wood had absorbed the smoky odour of incense over the years that smelled, combined with the fragrance of candle wax and the sharp citrus oil, the way Tatiana imagined heaven must smell. She pictured God sitting on a solid wooden throne that angel nuns, hunched over like black beetles, had polished to the same ebony hue as their desks.
Olga and Tatiana had spoken French all their lives, so they had an advantage over the British, American and Chinese girls who attended the school. It was easy for them to pass the regular examinations the nuns thought so essential to learning. But most of the students were from the French concession. They had been born in France and could talk circles around the two Russian girls, who struggled with reading and writing the unfamiliar alphabet. It was harder for Olga, because she was in a more advanced class. Occasionally, they were able to persuade their mother to help them