In Danger's Path (2 page)

[ONE]
Shanghai, China
November 1941

Countess Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov, formerly of St. Petersburg, was united in holy matrimony to Captain Edward J. Banning, USMC, of Charleston, South Carolina, by the Very Reverend James Fitzhugh Ferneyhough, D.D., canon of the cathedral, in a 10:45
A.M.
Anglican ceremony on 12 November 1941. It was the first marriage for both.

Throughout the ceremony, the tall, black-haired, blue-eyed bride, age twenty-seven and known as Milla, wondered when and how she would take her life.

She loved Ed Banning madly; that was not the problem. She had felt something special the moment he walked into her small apartment off the Bund. And this spark had almost immediately, almost frighteningly, turned into excitement and desire.

The problem was that they really had no future; and she was fully aware of that. Ed Banning was an officer of the United States Corps of Marines, about to leave Shanghai, almost certainly never to return, and she was an escapee from what was now the Soviet Union. In Imperial Russia, she had been born into a noble family. Now she was a stateless person without a country. Her Nansen passport—issued to stateless Russians who had fled the Revolution and from whom the Communist government had withdrawn citizenship—was a passport in name only. It was not valid for travel to the United States, or, for that matter, for travel anywhere else.

The Japanese army in Shanghai was poised to take over the city. This might happen in the next week or two, or else somewhat later. In any event, it was going to happen, and when it did, she would be at their mercy.

Once American, French, British, German, and Italian troops had been stationed in Shanghai to protect their own nationals—but de facto all westerners, including the “Nansen people”—against Japanese outrages. That protection was in the process of being withdrawn.

At the start of the war in Europe, the Italians, the Germans, and the Japanese had become allies, called the “Axis Powers.” Soon afterward, the Italians and Germans left Shanghai; yet even before that, it was clear they were not going to challenge Japanese authority in the city in any way. Meanwhile, following their defeat in Europe, the French had withdrawn their troops from China and had signed a “Treaty of Friendship” with the Japanese that permitted the Japanese to use military air bases and naval facilities in French Indochina. Finally, in August 1940, the British had announced their withdrawal from Shanghai and northern China.

That had left only the Americans in Shanghai.

Now they too were leaving. War between the Japanese and the Americans was inevitable. Until war actually came, the Japanese in Shanghai would probably behave no more badly than they had when the Americans were stationed in the city. They were still paying lip service to the “Bushido Code of the Warrior” and were not entirely deaf to world opinion. But when war came, that would be the end of any pretense. Meaning: every westerner, except Germans, Italians, and the rare citizens of neutral powers, would be at the mercy of the Japanese. It would be rape in every sense, not just the physical rape of women. They'd ravage bank accounts, real estate, everything.

All the property that Ed had turned over to her—the convertible red Pontiac of which he was so fond, the furniture in the apartment, and the paid-three-years-in advance lease on the apartment—would disappear.

And Japanese officers liked white women. If they were now willing to pay a premium for Russian whores, what would happen to her when rape was the norm?

If her future offered nothing but becoming a whore for some Japanese officer, Milla preferred to be dead.

The first time Milla saw Ed Banning, he had a long, green cigar clamped between what she thought of as perfect American teeth. He was in uniform, tall, thin and erect, and just starting to bald; and, she learned a little later, he was thirty-six years old.

Earlier, Banning had telephoned Milla in answer to her advertisement in the
Shanghai Post
: “Wu, Cantonese and Mandarin Conversation offered at reasonable rates by multi-lingual Western Lady.” On the telephone, he told her that he was an officer of the 4th Marines. His voice was very nice. Deep, soft, and masculine. “You sound British,” he went on to say.

She recognized that as a question and answered it: “Actually, I'm Russian,” and added, “Stateless.”

She knew that any sort of a relationship between stateless people—sometimes called “Nansen people”—and American diplomatic and military personnel was frowned upon or outright forbidden. It was better to get that out in the open now, she knew, rather than opening up the possibility of an embarrassing scene when they actually met.

To a great many Nansen women, forming a relationship with an American officer—becoming his mistress—was a far better way to earn their living than any of their other options. But Milla wished to make it clear from the beginning that she wanted nothing but a professional, student-teacher relationship. She didn't want to become the girlfriend of an American officer, much less his mistress. She wasn't quite that desperate. She knew it wasn't likely that she could turn her at-home language classes into a real school that would support her. But she had some jewels hidden in her underwear drawer, sewn into her mother's girdle when they fled St. Petersburg. A few of these still remained. When the last of them was gone, then she might have to consider something like that. But not yet, not now.

In fact, her Nansen status did not seem to bother him. Later, when they actually discussed it, he explained to her that he was the intelligence officer for the 4th Marines, and as such judged “other officers' inappropriate relationships.” Any relationship he had himself, he said, smiling smugly, was of course appropriate.

Anyhow, when he asked over the phone if he could come right over, he could be there in fifteen minutes, she told him, “yes.” Then she stationed herself at her window, curious enough to peek through the curtains, waiting for him to arrive.

He drove up in a bright-red Pontiac convertible, the top down. And a moment later he hired a man on the street to watch his car while he was inside—demonstrating to her that he was not entirely ignorant of Wu, the Chinese language most commonly used in Shanghai.

But that was a minor detail just then. What really hit her the moment she saw him walking across the street to her building was the certainty that he was going to change her life.

And she knew as soon as he saw her that his reaction was similar.

When she opened the door to his knock, he blurted, startled, “My God, you're beautiful!”

“You wish, as I understand it, to improve your conversational Chinese?” she replied coldly.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I didn't mean to offend.”

Milla ignored that.

“You already speak some Chinese,” she said, and without thinking, added: “I saw you speaking to the man about your car.”

“What were you doing,” Banning asked, chuckling, “peeking out from behind the curtains?”

“I just happened to be looking out the window.”

“Of course,” he said. “Yeah, I speak some Wu and Mandarin. But I'd like to perfect it.”

“Speak only? Or read and write?”

“I read a little, but I have not mastered much writing.”

“We could work on that, too, if you like,” she said.

Their first session proved that he was serious about perfecting his Chinese. It was also apparent that he was highly intelligent. So when he asked if they could meet twice a week, maybe more often if he could find the time, she readily agreed.

When he came back, he was a perfect gentleman. There was not the slightest hint that he thought she was a Nansen girl looking for an American benefactor.

After their fifth session, very correctly, he asked her if she would have dinner with him. She accepted uneasily. This man was exciting in ways she had never experienced with other men.

Over dinner, she learned a little bit about him. The enormous ring on his finger, for instance, signified graduation from a private military school called The Citadel. His father—who had been an Army officer, a colonel—had also graduated from The Citadel. As had his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. They had all been soldiers; he was the first Marine in the family.

Though she had also come from a military family, she didn't tell him everything there was to say about that. She did tell him that her father had been an officer, but not that he had been a lieutenant general on the General Staff of the Imperial Army, for fear he would not believe her, or else think she was boasting. Neither did she tell him that her father had been a count, and that, on the death of her parents, she had come into possession of the title.

Every other Russian in Shanghai with a Nansen passport claimed he was a Count, or a Grand Duke. So what? That life was gone forever anyway.

All through dinner, Ed Banning behaved with absolute correctness. And when they danced, he carefully avoided all but the most necessary body contact.

At her apartment door, he very properly shook her hand, thanked her for the pleasure of her company, and asked if they could have dinner again sometime soon.

When she went to the window to watch him leave, he was already gone. The depth of her disappointment surprised her.

Twenty minutes later, just as she was about to slip into bed, the telephone rang.

“Milla, this is Ed,” he said. His voice sounded strange.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, I'm afraid so.”

“What?”

“I probably should have told you this at dinner, but I couldn't work up the courage.”

Oh, God, he's going away! Or, just as bad, our perfectly innocent, wholly businesslike relationship has come to the attention of his superiors, and despite his claims to be able to discern inappropriate relationships for himself, he has been told to sever his relationship with me
.

“Tell me what?”

“I'm in love with you,” Ed Banning said, and the phone went dead.

That's insane, if it's true. If it isn't true, then he wants me for his mistress—the proposition he's been hiding behind his gentlemanly mask. If he really means what he said, about being in love with me…that's hopeless. People in love get married…unless the people concerned are a Russian refugee with a Nansen passport and an officer in the United States Corps of Marines. For them marriage simply is not possible
.

Milla got very little sleep that night, as she ran the possibilities through her head over and over again. None of them was appealing.

What she would do, she finally decided, was speak to him the next day when he showed up for his lesson. She would tell him that under the circumstances it would be better all around if he found someone else to help him perfect his Chinese.

But when he appeared next day at her door, she was suddenly struck dumb. All she could do was smile—carefully not looking at him—and motion him into her living room. Their conversation session was perfectly routine. Afterward, all she could remember was that he was wearing an aftershave lotion that smelled like limes. When the time was up, he stood up and offered her his hand. Touching it made her feel very strange in her middle.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don't be silly,” she said.

“And thank you for not being offended by my call last night.”

“Were you drinking?” Milla asked.

“Not then, except for the wine we had at dinner. Afterward. Yeah.”

He let go of her hand and walked to the door.

Milla suddenly knew what she wanted to do. Had to do. No matter what the ultimate cost.

“Just a minute, please, Ed,” Milla said.

“What?”

“It won't take a minute,” she said, then walked into her bedroom and closed the door.

And then she stared at the closed door and glanced around the room.

It was, of course, insane.

Her eyes fell on a faded photograph of her father.

“
Life is a gamble, Milla
,” the former Lieutenant General Count Vasily Ivanovich Zhivkov had told her many times. “
Sometimes, if you want something very much, it is necessary to put all your chips on the table, and wait to see where the wheel stops. If you understand that the ball will probably not fall into your hole, you will know, when it does not, that you at least tried. It is better to risk everything and lose than not to take the chance
.”

Looking at herself in the faded mirror of her dressing table, she unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged out of it and let it fall to the floor. Then she slipped out of her skirt and underwear and leaned over to pick up her only—and nearly empty—bottle of perfume. She dabbed perfume behind her ears and between her breasts and then—embarrassed, averting her eyes from her reflection—between her legs.

Then she threw the cover off her bed, crawled in, and pulled the sheet up under her chin.

She called his name. She didn't seem to have control of her voice. She wondered if he had heard her through the closed door.