1. (19-20) Hajimete no Dayto (First Date Out)

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19: A Date at the Rossia

Of all foreigners in Mukden, the Russians interest Kimi most. Being North Islander, she was raised on tales of Rooski tsurui (Russian trickery) but the only Russian she saw was a fat old lady who came to her village selling Russian black bread. When the Kwantung Army took control in Manchuria it organized the Russians for military and political training. The school children marched under 3 flags – Rising Sun, Czarist and Manchukuo.  The young men trained in uniforms; and ex-Czarist officers held figurehead leadership positions. If one does not contribute monthly money or fails to attend military drill, he risks revocation of identity papers which means deportation to the USSR and death. In this way, the Army controls the half million Russians in Manchukuo.

  A Russian émigré, Ivan Vronsky runs a popular nightclub in Mukden – the Rossia. Not long after arriving, Kimi hears about him. “Vronsky, spy!” “Vronsky, double agent!” “Rossia, source of sex slaves!”

  Whatever the truth, a night at Rossia is a moneyed man’s Mukden must. Its guests include top Army officers. So Kimi is not unhappy when Miss Kang includes her on double date with two newsmen just in from Tokyo.

   Kimi has already earned enough to buy bare-shoulder gown with sequined bodice and its décolletage shows the men her enticing cleavage. Over it she wears a blue velvet knee-length coat with belt. Getting a look at her before the date, Miss Kang whistles and says: “You must be out for blood tonight, dearie. May I be your business manager and schedule high-price rapes?”

  Kimi smiles.

  Thirty minutes later in rear seat of limo she is busy fending off her escort as his hands swarm all over her while Miss Kang is allowing her guy to find what he seeks.

  After short bumpy ride, the mashing is ended by arrival before a brilliantly neon-lit façade with miniature Russian turret. A doorman in red uniform opens black leather-padded double-doors for entry into the club. Above the entrance Rossia flashes in white light.

  Going in, Kimi sees a large vestibule with metal red walls and thick green carpet. At center is mother-of-pearl tiled pond with fat orange & black carp swimming lazily and at its bottom dozens of silver coins. At far end, leading to tables and dance floor, she notes a small Chinese redwood bridge, its sides lined with miniature stone pagodas and hung with lanterns and chirping canaries in golden cages.

   Now, a tall, older man in elegant black tuxedo suit approaches them, arms extended. “Welcome to Rossia!  You chaps honor me by coming. I hope you mention in your dispatches what good times you had at my poor joint. A little publicity in Tokyo newspapers don’t hurt, eh?”

   He turns to Kang and kisses the back of her right hand. “Miss Kang, as always the perfect business woman! When you leave the Army, permit me to finance your club in Seoul.” Acknowledging Kimi with turn of head, “And who is this charming chickadee?”

  As she is introduced, Kimi feels her right hand grasped, elevated and touched by the man’s lips. Her heartbeat skips and she smiles.

  He leads them into a room crowded with guests and seats them at a table near the bandstand where an Afro-American trio is playing a jazzy East of the Sun and West of the Moon as couples dance.

  “I take the liberty to order your dinner. Please relax and enjoy.”

  It is Ivan Vronsky himself! He had originally owned a café in Moscow but went east before the Russian Revolution. Followed a time in Tokyo during which he had a daughter by a Japanese woman. Then he was in America during the 1920s, running a Hollywood nightclub. When trouble with the mob started, Vronsky with daughter came to Manchuria, where he lives in an elegant dacha in the countryside and runs the Rossia in Mukden.

Drinks are brought. The escorts get sarsaparilla soda that will be charged as whiskies. The men requested Russian martinis made with two jiggers vodka, dry vermouth white wine, and a lemon twist. After the drinking, a food course begins with cups of thick red borscht. The piece de resistance is roast lamb on flaming skewers. Dessert is halvah cut into bite-size cubes; then the waiter brings a silver samovar that produces amber lemon tea they drink in cups bearing the emblem of the Imperial Russian House. So good, thinks Kimi, trying to keep her eating ladylike.

20: Olga

The room darkens and quietens into black silence. Spotlight shows a slim young woman, balalaika in hand, perched on a high stool with left leg crossed over naked knee.

  “Vronsky’s daughter, Olga,” Miss Kang whispers in Kimi’s ear.

   Olga’s Cossack shirt is red sheer silk with a gold zipper extending diagonally down from left shoulder and a suggestion of small shapely breasts. The lower shirt is tucked under the waist of military black breeches. Seemingly oblivious of her audience she sits leaning slightly forward tuning the balalaika. Satisfied, she looks up and smiles.

  Olga’s Russian blood tells in her dark, exotic eyes which single Kimi out briefly as they sweep the audience. Her features are a study in symmetry: jet black hair forms an inverted triangle frame for an eerily pale white face, the triangle base above is a perfectly horizontal Cleopatra bang and the sides are right & left locks of hair that verge together and meet in a V at bottom of neck front. The exotic eyes flank a small Japanese nose above heart-shape painted red lips.

  She sings Falling in Love Again in English, and Under China Skies in Japanese. The latter is a sentimental ballad of a Japanese farm boy guarding a far-away outpost and wondering whether he will ever see furusato (my old village) again. It is a song to bring tears to the eyes of hardened Kwantung Army men – and it does. The audience is gushing; then someone shouts “Sing Katyusha!” and Olga goes into her rendition of the popular Japanese song inspired by a Japanese 1920's movie about the Tolstoy heroine. Its lyric is heavily spiced with the evocative “Ka-tyoo-sha," which Olga delivers for all its emotional force and the audience echoes.

  Her encore is an American favorite As Time Goes By, popularized in Japan by Rudy Vallee’s 1931 recording.
(Ed: To hear Rudy Vallee sing it now click  the below YouTube)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yTzjc056qM‎
 

  When the lights come on again, the high stool is empty and the Trio is back in place tuning for its next set.

                To read next click 1.21 The Upstairs Short Time