CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

‘Qí hǔ nán xià [When you choose to ride a tiger, it is hard to dismount.]

—Chinese Proverb

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

—Anais Nin

Tarasova House, No. 71 Pekinskaya Street, Vladivostok, Far East Russia, June 15, 1879

Irina could not contain herself with the thrill of being a grandmother at such a young age. Even while Alexandra was in labor she planned a baby shower to beat every baby shower ever recorded in the Irkutsk oblast—which she knew was one of those new customs coming their way via Saint Petersburg. After all, she reasoned, there were two babies; and they were the most beautiful little creatures God had ever put upon the earth. No one she expressed that bit of unbiased knowledge to would have ever dreamed of contradicting her. Once again, she invited everybody who was anybody and a great many who were not, to share her joy. Alexandra was too happy to see how much it all pleased her mother to suggest that she had had a small role in the production. There was a mandatory wait—more a superstition, really—that mothers typically do not show their baby to anyone except the boys in the family, the midwife, and other close relatives for forty-eight hours after the baby is born. Husbands and fathers usually had to wait for two nervous days.

Irina investigated everything that might contribute to the reputation of the babies’ shower being the greatest ever. Prince Boris learned from a brief telegram from his mother that the tzar had ordered a massive photographic expedition of the entire Russian Empire. The photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, had business connections with the Yusupovs; and Tatiana suggested to Boris that the intrepid explorer/photographer would be interested in obtaining pictures of what the people and the towns of Far East Russia looked like. He was going to be in the Irkutsk oblast during the month of June. Boris wanted very much to get back in his wife’s good graces; so, he vowed to get Sergei Mikhailovich to photograph Tarasova House and its occupants and all the guests who came to the party.

Most of the residents of the oblast had seen black and white photographs, and many had framed pictures of themselves on their wedding days hanging in their homes. There were photos of the tzar and his family hanging in official buildings. However, no one had ever seen a color photograph, including Prince Boris. He saw examples of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photos and was nothing short of astounded.

He asked the gregarious photographer, “How did you perform such magic? These pictures will create a living history and will be of value for generations to come.”

The famous man was not only a marvelous artist and technician of the newest photographic art, but he was also self-effacing and engagingly humble.

He replied to Boris’s question, “It is simple, really. I have a wonderful camera which you see here. You can do almost anything if you have enough money, and my patrons certainly do have more than enough. What I learned to do through a lot of trial and error was to take three regular black and white pictures as fast as I can and use red, then green, then blue filters to get the colors I want. That’s where the work comes in. I have to mix and recombine the photographs and then project them with filtered very bright lanterns to show true color images.”

Boris said, “These colors are better than the real images of the people, the buildings, and the landscapes. I cannot thank you enough for taking pictures of our twins.”

The photographs showed two chubby babies in white baptismal gowns with their hands holding rattles and one boy holding a large feather. By a miracle of patience and rapid photo shooting, Prokudin-Gorskii was able to get one perfect picture of both boys sitting still, looking at the camera, and smiling at the same time.

Alexandra was so thrilled with the photographs Boris presented to her, that she threw her arms around his neck and whispered, “I can hardly wait for my lying-in time to be done. It is only five weeks more.”

It should have sounded most encouraging, but to Boris it sounded like a life sentence that had to be lived out before he and his wife would be able to be in bed face-to-face. However, things seemed to be going so well that his intention to demand an accounting by Alexandra about her dealings with the Chinese criminal, Hou Eadric, was sliding back further and further into his mind.

The man insinuated himself into Boris and Alexandra’s life even on that joyous day. Guests bought gifts for the babies—some mundane like the newest fashion in one-year-old clothing, and some showing more care like the tiny imperial army uniforms created by the seamstresses at the Balagansk Prison. Hou’s gift was by far the most interesting and entertaining. He brought forward a fairly large size gleaming white barrel and presented it to Alexandra.

“I understand your boys are lively and are likely to be a handful, Princess. Here is a gift to make you appreciate and enjoy the old saw that boys will be boys. Quick, now, open the top of the barrel,” Hou said with a full-face grin that showed his rotten and missing teeth at their worst.

Alexandra tried not to look at his face; so, she pried the top off the barrel. When the lid popped off, she looked in and gave a little shriek followed by a big whole body-laugh. Out jumped two very small white monkeys who celebrated their freedom by running around and jumping on skittish ladies and highly entertained men and boys.

Boris wiped tears from his eyes, and said, “So, boys will be boys; and they will be as full of fun as a barrel full of monkeys!”

A servant carried them away and secured them by a pretty silver chain attached to one foot and to a pole in the mansion room dedicated as a child’s play room.

As Boris was directing that activity, Hou took advantage of the moment to say to Alexandra, “I know you have a new voyage coming up, and I have a proposition for you. When you can, come to my place at Number 19 Admirala Fokina Street. It will be worth your while.”

With that Hou bowed and melted into the crowd of admirers of the new babies and out into the street. Boris saw him leave and realized that he had not told Alexandra of his trip to Millionka where he obtained paper money in value of ten million American dollars, but in a mix of nine different currencies. The bulk of money had filled the family Phaeton and was difficult to conceal. By special arrangements, he had been able to deposit the money in his and Alexandra’s account in the Irkutsk Oblast Bank.

When the guests had left, Boris and Alexandra agreed as they had now for several months to sleep in separate rooms to remove temptations to violate the conditions of the lying-in requirements. Actually–although they never spoke of it openly–both of them had gradually lost the youthful fervor for each other they once had. Boris was more than aware of that and was ashamed that he was beginning to look upon other young women with more interest than he knew was proper.

It was a month before Alexandra felt fully ready to take Hou Eadric up on his offer to go into Millionka to talk business with him. Physically, she was in good health and had been from four weeks postpartum. Initially she had some postpartum depression; but as her body healed, so did her mind. She was ready to return to her husband’s bed physically, but the pulsating desire for him which permeated their early months of marriage had gone. She knew it was ridiculous; but at age twenty, she felt like an old married woman for whom girlish lust had settled into a willingness to be a proper but unenthusiastic–maybe even grudging—wife. She was admitting to herself that the excitement of doing international business and having seagoing adventures was more alluring that being a wife. She adored her babies but was beginning to think about arrangements for them to be properly cared for when she went back to sea.

As opposed to her first foray into Millionka when she wanted to have her personal body guard—the massive Don Cossack, Stenka Mazepa—hold onto her arm, Alexandra was not only over her fear of the denizens of Chinatown, but confident that she could hold her own. However, she was not a giddy girl either; so, when she went to Millionka this time, she again had Stenka accompany her.

The length of time spent on polite chit-chat with the tong—or Chinese highbinder—leader was abbreviated; so, they could get down to business. It was difficult to hear each other because of the noise coming from the common room outside Hou’s placid office. There was shrill string music of a Chinese fiddle and the squeak and tempestuous outcries of Chinese wind instruments.

“What is that racket?” Alexandra asked.

“Oh, pay no mind, Missy. Just other tongs making sacrifices to gods because they must make war of vengeance against other tongs like the Wah Ching and Joe Boys. Unfortunately, all not so peaceful and business like as the Three Families Benevolent Society.”

Alexandra raised one eyebrow but just in her mind. It was none of her business.

Hou put his business proposal to her, “Will need three good ships, one big one for merchandise and two fighter vessels for to protect. Do you have those protect kind of ships, Missy Yusupov?”

“We will have them in another month.”

“Good. Plans will take that long. We have goods to transport through Red Flag Fleet territory and then into Honorable British East India waters. Hard to say which is the worst bunch of pirates. Cargo is like the good one you brought back to Shanghai. Am happy to report that the first cargo has been sent on to San Francisco to accommodate the needs of Chinatown there. Seems that the need is eternal and will be source of good business and good joss for long time to come. We will become…how do you round-eyes say?...feelthy rich, no?”

“Yes, if Zhèng Yi and Ching Shih of the Red Flags or Sir Michael Forbisher of the HEIC don’t kill us first, or the Chinese or British law enforcement authorities don’t capture us and hang us for piracy,” Alexandra said, posing the risks succinctly.

“And cannot discount typhoons, or other acts of the gods, Missy. Not say that venture is without risk. Old Chinese proverb which say, ‘Yīn yè fèi shí’ [Is foolish to refuse to eat just because of the chance of choking.]’ I say, ‘Life does not come without risks. Risk of failure is not an argument for not giving good try.”

“Good proverb Master Hou, but also recall, ‘Qí hǔ nán xià [When you choose to ride a tiger, it is hard to dismount.]’ I needn’t tell you that we–like anyone else–must remember that when you take chances you have to live with the consequences. It is difficult to back out.”

Silently to herself, she thought of her dealings with Hou Eadric in terms of another Chinese proverb, ‘When you sup with the Devil be sure to use a long spoon’.”

Hou looked directly at Alexandra’s eyes and said, “‘Qián pà láng hòu pà hǔ’ [It is a problem to fear wolves ahead and tigers behind.] That is to be obsessed by fears of attack from all sides. Remember, we are not without our spies and our gunships and brave men. It is true ‘Qiáng lóng nán yā dì tóu shé’ [that even a dragon finds it difficult to conquer a snake in its hiding place], we have a great knowledge of the area where we are going, and the people who wait for us there. That makes us strong and gives us a definite advantage even against an apparently stronger enemy. I must now ask you the simple and straight question, Missy Alexandra; are you in or out?”

Alexandra paused only a minute before replying laconically, “Za.”

The potential for great ongoing profit and the guarantee of adventure were too much to pass up. She was ‘in’.

Two months later, Alexandra and Boris finalized their plans to take separate commercial voyages. Alexandra would go to Colombo, Ceylon and the Bay of Bengal and make a trade with the Bengali pirates who worked hand-in-glove with that pillar of British Ceylon’s high society, Glenleven Armitage.

He dreaded getting any further involved, especially with the drug trade, and most especially with the so-called “ivory” trade. But he had to keep up his end of the company’s business, just as Alexandra had to keep up her end by dealing with that cut-throat, Hou Eadric, in transportation of illegal drugs. He longed for the day when the two of them could accumulate enough to retire where the criminals could not find them, with enough money to be comfortable for a lifetime, and where their children could receive an education in safety with decent Christian people—maybe the Bahamas, a place in the West Indies that some of the seafarers had described to him–a paradise run by the British.

Ostensibly, Boris was scheduled to take a voyage to Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Jakarta and back. He would leave with a full cargo and return with a different full cargo. There was nothing unusual about his plans or the cargo on the manifest. The dangers were not significant compared to those Alexandra would likely encounter. According to his ship’s manifest, most of his cargo consisted of fine European and British linens, Chinese and Chosŏn silk and porcelains, Japanese nanbangashi [southern barbarian confectionery], with candies including those made from Portuguese sugar like castella, konpeitō, aruheitō, karumera, keiran sōmen, bōro, and bisukauto, precious metals—especially copper and silver—finely crafted steel swords, harquebuses, to be sold at ports along the way, and other products to be obtained in Nagasaki.

Alexandra felt guilty about having engineered the arrangement for her and Boris to have separate voyages, not because she had personal misgiving about shirking her wifely duties; but she did recognize that she was doing to her children what she had always despised and railed against. She convinced herself that it was all for the best; the two little boys would hardly miss her for three months; and then, she would return and give them the childhood they deserved. Maybe by then, the spark that had ignited her passion to marry Boris would return; and normal family life would be her lot. She also felt a measure of guilt because she knew that there was something wrong with involvement in the drug business, even if it was true that the users did so of their own volition; and she and Hou were simply supplying what they wanted and were more than willing to pay for.

Both Alexandra and Boris knew deep down that they were entering a new and more dangerous world, where they were going to beard the lion in his lair—the pirates, the East India thugs, the Bay of Bengal smugglers, and the fury of China seas storms. They were not going to be able tell the other members of the Jardine-Matheson, Tarasova, and Yusupov consortium what they were up to. None of them would approve; so, Alexandra and Boris were on their own.

Preparations were done in parallel for the voyages since the needs were very much the same. They first had to build one and refurbish another combat ready guard ship, heavily armed, and manned by a well-trained and well-provisioned crew of fighters. There were two such ships already in service, and the plan was to have a very large commercial vessel and two guardian ships to travel with them as they sailed to their disparate destinations. The exact details of each other’s cargoes were allowed to remain vague to avoid contention between them.