so they arrived in Shanghai in 1906 to begin a new life. Sergei went into business and began manufacturing and selling bicycles and bicycle parts. He knew enough about business to know that the best way to make money, anywhere, was to sell a product that people either needed or wanted, or thought they needed or wanted. He recognized that the bicycle was a valuable commodity in that part of the world, and that people would pay for a bicycle and, later, would pay for the parts they needed to fix their bicycle and keep it going.
The Relnikovs were still a happy family, but Katarina's happiness was no longer as great. To take such a woman out of Russia, even a Russia that was becoming a frightening monster, and to move her to a place as far away and foreign as China, was to take a flower out of a garden full of beautiful flowers and put it in a pot of dirt. Katarina's garden was her family of seven sisters and brothers, cousins and second cousins, cousins once and twice removed, aunts and uncles, and even some great-aunts and great-uncles. Her garden was as vast as Russia, and its roots went deep. It had nourished her and renewed her, and she had woken up every morning with a hundred things to do. In Shanghai her world 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
