Shanghai Nights

“So it was that, over time and without my realising it, the setting of my childhood adventures gradually became a moral landscape, and that is how it has always remained in my mind.”

So says 14-year-old Daniel, hero of Juan Marsé’s novel Shanghai Nights (translated by Nick Caistor), towards the end of the book. But, from what I’ve read about the author, it could well have been Marsé’s own confession.

Shanghai Nights is a story about a 14-year-old boy’s childhood in 1950s rundown Barcelona. The boy, Daniel, who has lost his father to the Civil War and now lives with his mother, is entrusted by an eccentric old sea captain called Captain Blay with drawing pictures of an ailing (from tuberculosis) but attractive 15-year-old girl, Susana.

In between school and taking up a job as a jeweller’s apprentice, Daniel spends half his time with Susana, staying just out of reach so as not to catch an infection while drawing her picture, and the other half with Captain Blay, collecting signatures for a petition to stop a gas leak and to close down a factory spewing polluting smoke which may have caused Susana’s illness.

Like Daniel, Susana also lives with her mother, Senora Anita, having lost her father, Kim, mysteriously, as he seems to have disappeared during the Civil War. Sitting by her bedside, as Daniel attempts to draw a fitting picture of the ailing Susana against the backdrop of a factory chimney billowing hazardous smoke, the two teenagers become attracted to each other.

In this scene enters Forcat, a mysterious friend of Susana’s father Kim, bringing news of Kim from Shanghai. Over weeks and months, as a lodger at Senora Anita’s place, Forcat narrates tales of Kim’s daring adventures of escape to Shanghai in pursuit of a Nazi war criminal who had once tortured one of Kim’s friends during WW2, and of Kim’s self-assured dealings with the Shanghai underworld.

Juan Marsé paints a vivid contrast between the rundown world of post-War Barcelona and the colourful gangster world of Shanghai. In each setting, he manages to adorn the storyline with strange but strangely-appealing characters who keep us hooked onto every page of the novel. Yet, Marsé falters towards the end, bringing the story to a quick and a confusing finish. Thereby, destroying the fantasy he had created so well.

I didn’t quite understand the need for this hurry to end the novel, but I must admit that, until that time, Marsé had me mesmerised with his tale. Even now, I wonder about the element of fantasy we all add to our tales of our childhood when we remember them or narrate them to others. And, that is probably the point Juan Marsé wants to make in Shanghai Nights.