“No one is going in our direction,” Alisa noted as they turned onto a main road. Here, the numbers were almost paralyzing. If the back gave one rough push, the crowd would gridlock. “Won’t we get caught leaving by sea?”
Roma hesitated, seeming to agree. That slight moment of pause had him almost colliding with a worker, though the worker hardly blinked—he merely resumed with his call: “Down with the imperialists! Down with the gangsters!” and continued onward.
“We have to take our chances,” Roma said, his eyes still tracking the worker. When he turned away, he caught Juliette’s gaze, and Juliette tried for a small smile. “There is no alternative.”
“What about the countryside?” Alisa kept asking. Her pace faltered. “It is chaos here!”
They were coming upon the Bund. The usual picturesque buildings rose into view—the Art Deco pillars and tall, glowing domes—but everything looked muted in today’s light. The world was covered in a sheen of gray, a cinema picture that had been filmed with a lens not wiped clean.
“Alisa, darling,” Juliette said, her voice soft. “We’re already under martial law. The Communist leadership is scrambling to run, and the Nationalist leadership is scrambling to eliminate. By the time we skirt into the countryside and reach another treaty port for escape, the Nationalists will have taken over there, too, and we will be stopped. At least here, we can take advantage of the chaos.”
“So where are they?” Alisa asked. As they arrived at the Bund, coming within sight of the Huangpu River’s rocking waves, Alisa looked around, searching beyond the protesters, beyond their shouting and sign-waving. “Where are the Nationalists?”
“Look at where everyone is going,” Juliette said, inclining her head. North. With so much freshly spilled Communist blood on the ground, the Kuomintang were focusing their attention on newly vacated police stations and military headquarters, ensuring they had their people behind the desks. “The Nationalists are off straightening all their bases of power. The workers will go there too—will flock to those bases in hopes of making some difference.”
“Don’t get too relaxed,” Roma added. He turned his sister’s face, nudging her chin until she looked upon a particular tense spot in the crowd. “Though there are no Nationalists, they have placed Scarlets.”
Juliette gave a small intake of breath, mostly lost when a clap of thunder came over the city. She brushed Roma’s elbow, and his hand came to grasp hers. The both of them were soaked to the bone, as was the string around their ring fingers, but Roma held on gently, like they were merely reaching for each other on a morning stroll.
“Come on,” Juliette said. “With all these people, let’s find a good place to wait.”
In Zhabei, the surviving leadership of the General Labor Union were shouting over one another and banging their fists against the tables. People in suits mingled with people in aprons. Celia sat back and looked on, her face utterly impassive. They were occupying a restaurant refashioned into a stronghold, tables and chairs pushed into clusters, with one large cluster in the middle leading the work. She couldn’t comprehend how anybody was being heard over the uproar, but they were—they were communicating and acting as fast as they could.
A petition was being drawn up. Return of seized arms, cessation of the punishment of union workers, protection for the General Labor Union—these were collated into demands and then rolled up, prepared to be brought to the Nationalists’ Second Division headquarters. Even if it killed them, the Communists did not accept defeat.
“Up and at it, girl!” someone bellowed into her ear. They were bounding through the crowd and screaming at others before Celia could even turn and see who it was. The workers pumped their fists into the air and yelled at one another, chants ringing from their mouths before the demonstration through the city could even begin.
“No military government!” they roared, laughing as they tackled one another, bursting onto the streets and into the pouring rain. “No gangster rule!” They joined the crowds already present in west Shanghai, merging into one, unearthly procession larger than life itself.
Hands pushed at Celia to rise, and then she was up, her head still ringing.
“No military government!” the old woman beside Celia yelled.
“No gangster rule!” the child in front of Celia yelled.
Celia stumbled out from the restaurant, onto the pavement, and into the rain. The streets had come alive. This wasn’t the glittering, glimmering old money of Shanghai: bright lights and jazz music shining from the bars. This wasn’t red lanterns and golden lace trim on the dresses of dancers in the burlesque clubs, one swish of fabric that pulled the crowds into exuberance.