by Karin Tanabe
“Nothing about actually helping the men themselves then,” said Khoi.
“No,” I replied, looking again at the photo on the wall. “Does that surprise you?”
“Nothing about that family surprises me anymore, except how a lovely creature like Anne-Marie came from it.”
“I miss her,” I said, wishing I could do more than just look at her picture. “Victor is who we assumed he would be. Our plan to sink his family’s company, and with it his career, is still the right one. I still see him as the man who mailed Sinh’s death warrant, but we can’t only focus on him. He and his wife are very much a pair.”
“You’re quite sure?” said Khoi. I thought of Jessie waving to the policeman right before Dinh’s body had been left like a sack of garbage in front of his house. That genuine smile. The way her eyes shone with excitement.
“I’m sure,” I replied.
Khoi stood up, pulled on a pair of linen trousers that were hanging over a chair, and fell back on the bed, flicking the ash from his cigarette in the small porcelain dish on his side table. The hand-painted spool of silk thread now forever tied us back to our days in Paris.
“I need to go into the city today,” he said, speaking at a normal volume again.
“Whatever for? I just got here.”
“Business,” he said. “If I don’t want you to be in head-to-toe French silk, then I need to focus as much as I can on Lua Nguyen Thanh, too.”
For the past twenty years, the French government had been trying to break into the local silk industry, setting up a trade group and medium-sized factories in Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh. Their efforts had gone nowhere at first, but since the 1920s, when a French silk company founded in Lyon began investing heavily in the colony, the government had been trying with more gusto to expand its mulberry plantings so it had something to send to the factories. They had even opened a new factory in Phnom Penh, in the far-flung western territories of Indochine, in Cambodia, no longer satisfied with their investments in the north.
“Would you like to stay in the house or come in, too?”
“I’ll go back,” I replied.
“Come, let’s find the rest of my clothes,” he said, jumping up and grabbing me by the hand. We tumbled in our respective states of undress into his closet, and I ran my hands against his suits, all arranged by color, the whites shading into black.
Khoi no longer tried to be the shabby Right Bank intellectual. He now dressed like the man his parents had raised him to be.
I don’t know what I imagined he would become when we were finally in Indochine together. I knew he was not going to be waving a French flag, nor could I see him following Sinh and raising a red one. But now that Khoi had been home for three years, his intentions had crystallized: to work for both his family and his countrymen, refusing to give up the first for the second.
“Are you meeting your father?” I asked, moving over to where Khoi’s silk shirts and jackets hung in his closet, many Nguyen green.
“I am. It’s our weekly conversation where I try to pull him in my direction and he attempts to hold me back. But he’s coming around to investing more money in outside industries.”
“Good, considering that the French are grabbing at silk.”
“It’s not just because of silk, though. It’s not just for us. We must prosper so that we can lead the country out of this darkness. If the communists seize power, how will Indochine survive in a global economy? We will have our independence, but we can’t eat it, can we. I want to make sure our country doesn’t sink when our current captains are forced out,” he said, his voice seeming to bounce off the closet walls.
I knew that Khoi could distinguish between French colonialists and me, but my heart seized at the thought of being evicted with the rest of them. I watched as he turned to the mirror, picked up a comb, and ran it through his thick hair. “Except for me,” I said as breezily as I could. “You can convince the government to make an exception for me. And Arnaud, I suppose.”
“I promise,” Khoi said, smiling. “Even Arnaud. Though he will most likely try to murder me at a chamber meeting before we get to that point.”
“He will not. He’s too lazy.”
“Fine, he will hire someone to kill me, then. But before I convince a new governor to pass the de Fabry law, we need to focus on how to make Indochine an economic power, how to export our products successfully, the very ones the French are robbing us of right now.”
“Like Nguyen silk. Paint the world green,” I said, running my fingers over his jackets.
“Silk, but not just,” he said, watching me. “Resources, but not just. We need to be ready to lead both economically and politically. Right now what do we have? Annamite puppets.”
“Not you,” I said. Khoi was in the chamber of representation of the people of Tonkin and part of the chamber of commerce which Arnaud led.
“Please,” he scoffed as I took one of his blazers from the hanger and put it around my shoulders. “You know as well as I do that the chamber of representation is toothless. We meet once a year and the French don’t even bother consulting us then. It’s an embarrassment. If Sinh hadn’t turned me into an anti-colonial, being a part of that group would have done the trick. And the chamber of commerce only half listens to me, and only because of certain connections,” he said, an amused smile on his face. He slipped the green jacket off my shoulders and put it on his.
“But you’re still part of both chambers.”
“Of course,” he said, looking for shoes that matched. “One, because that way I can remind Arnaud that I am younger and far more virile than him,” he said, grinning. “And two, because when the country is finally ours again, I will already be in a position to help push it the right way. Right now we are forbidden from having political parties. Anyone who tries to organize is followed by the secret police. We can’t even whisper the word independence, or organize without landing in prison.”
“I know all this,” I said, pointing to a pair of brown shoes. Khoi nodded and reached for them.
“Well, my father certainly needs to be reminded. He needs to see that we need more than silk.”
In labor practice, the Nguyens were already closer to a communist model than the punishing ways of the French. Khoi’s family knew the importance of keeping workers for the long term. Theirs was an industry where constant retraining of artisans and laborers was a financial burden. It was in their interest to build loyalty. The French, by contrast, and the Michelins especially, seemed convinced that profits came from spending very little. And the least always went to the workers.
“So, books?” I asked. “Is that next?” Last year Khoi had thrown a thick tome into his swimming pool while rather intoxicated to test the quality of the paper. Since then, he had invested a considerable sum into publishing. Linguistic nationalism was part of economic freedom, he said. Using the Quoc Ngu script. The money in publishing was going to increase tenfold in the coming years, he was sure of it, so why not become an investor, a backer of words, of ideas.
“Yes, books. Paper. But also mining. We’re already invested in Nouvelle-Calédonie, and now the rumor is that they’ve struck gold in Laos. We need to be part of that, too.”
“Gold? Really?” I said, laughing. “Is that what Sinh would want? Mining for gold? Is that going to further the global communist call?”
“It’s not like I personally want to fill my pockets with gold, Marcelle,” he said, taking a step away from me. “It’s for my family in the short term, and my country in the long. I can’t think about the global communist cause right now. I know that’s what Anne-Marie wants. What I imagine you want. The whole world turning together.”
“Of course. Any true communist desires that.”
“Well, I think we both know I’m not a true communist. I’m a true anti-colonial,” he said, calming down. “And right now, supporting the global cause does not support me or Indochine. I need to think about how we will feed ourselves after independence. I n
eed to think about how I can help. I need to think bigger. For my family, and then for my people.”
“Sounds like something Jessie Lesage would say as she extols the benefits of capitalism,” I said, trying to keep the petulance out of my voice. Khoi and I were partners in all the ways that mattered, but his goals were, first and foremost, to protect family and country.
“Ah, the mystery of Jessie Lesage. I think that even before I meet Victor, I need to meet his wife. If you believe she’s complicit, perhaps she is. Can you arrange it?” he asked.
“Of course.” I paused for a moment and looked out the window at the shining water in the swimming pool below us. “Your boat. That’s where we should take her,” I said, smiling at the thought. “She’ll be quite thrown off guard if you can invite the right characters.”
“I’ll do my part,” said Khoi. “But you should invite Red.”
I kissed him and smiled. “I will definitely invite Red. I hope she hasn’t met him yet. This town is about as large as a butter dish.”
“Take a chance,” said Khoi, grinning. “Red is always a chance worth taking.”
ELEVEN
Jessie
September 21, 1933
“This was left for you by the de Fabrys’ driver.” Trieu placed a thick blue card on a silver tray on the end table in the sitting room.
I opened it and read the short missive.
Thank you for your note. Of course, I would like to see you again. Did you know that they serve breakfast at the Officers’ Club? It’s the best time to be there. It opens around seven. Come tomorrow. Bring your appetite, and your bathing costume.
Marcelle
I was there at 7:01. When I got out of the car and stepped onto the empty veranda, the grass still wet, a haunting mist rising just above it, I sensed at once that Marcelle was right. This was the best time at the Officers’ Club. Suddenly it had gone from private club to a home. And this time I seemed to fit right in. I had had Trieu make me look clean, rich, and confident, all the things that pushed the lingering image of my mother far from my mind.
“Madame Lesage,” said Teo when he caught me halfway up the stairs. “Madame de Fabry is having breakfast by the swimming pool. You will join her, yes?”
“Oh,” I said, realizing I had yet to set eyes on the club’s pool. “Yes, of course.”
Teo led me back down the stairs, through an airy sitting room with high-backed rattan chairs, all empty. As we walked along a stone-tiled path, a boy in a white jacket handed me a glass of ice water with a sprig of rosemary in it.
“It is two hundred yards west,” said Teo as we made our way along the even stones. “Will you be able to make it? Driving is a possibility as well.”
“Of course, Teo,” I said, laughing. “Where I’m from, we do a lot of walking.” I had a sudden memory of hiking up into the rolling mountains with my brothers and sisters when I was younger, wishing we could keep walking away from our town forever.
When we reached the swimming pool, tiled a bright turquoise with a star pattern at the bottom, there was no one in it and only one person lounging beside it. Marcelle. A bright red bathing costume hugged her tall, slender body, and a large straw hat shielded her face. She was the image of easy youth, tucked fetchingly under a blue-and-white-striped parasol topped by a small white flag flicking in the breeze. She looked nothing like a woman who would have ferreted out my darkest secret and baited me with it. I relaxed slightly at the sight and walked over to greet her.
“I’m nearly speechless,” I said, kissing her cheeks. “This is heavenly.”
“Isn’t it, though?” she said, lifting the brim of her hat to see me better. “Most of the wives spend their mornings sleeping off the wine from the night before. I don’t know why they even open the club at this hour. I suppose for the men who stay overnight, the ones with and without clothes,” she said, grinning. “But I doubt any of them emerge from their private wing before ten o’clock.”
Embracing the quiet, Marcelle and I swam lazy laps, pausing at the end of the pool, our arms up against the sides for support, to rest and talk. After thirty minutes in the water, we were speaking more than moving, as new friends tend to do, and my mind, which had been flustered and in a state of paranoia this morning, relaxed more. Marcelle was just an outgoing person, I told myself, the type who shared too much and asked too many questions. I had panicked too quickly. Besides, I had been extremely rattled by what I had witnessed that morning. I had been in a state, and that was why I had jumped to conclusions about Marcelle.
She spoke of being a newlywed alone in Paris, just as I had been. Lacking in community, and in female friends especially. She had lived with her in-laws at first on the rue du Beaujolais behind the Palais Royal, but she had felt stifled there.
“My mother-in-law prefers to frown,” she said, plunging her head underwater, despite not having a bathing cap on.
“She can’t be worse than Victor’s mother.”
“Of course she is,” she said, slicking back her wet hair. “Victor’s mother is a Michelin. All of Victor’s money is hers, yes?”
“Most of it,” I said, which was true. “She is related to the very rich aunt, on their mother’s side, who gave a large sum and helped Michelin reestablish themselves in 1889 when the brothers took over the company and renamed it. So Victor is a bit of a distant cousin, but he’s the right cousin.”
There was money on the Lesage side, too, but Victor’s father had kept the bulk of it with him when he’d left the family a decade before.
“Then she is better, Victor’s mother, even if she is worse,” said Marcelle. She moved her hat brim higher as the only cloud in the sky passed over us. “Did the family mind that you worked before you were married? That was such a point of contention between Arnaud, his family, and me. They thought being a fashion model, even one for the best designers, designers they wore themselves, was on par with being a prostitute. Une pute.”
I looked at her animated face as she attempted to walk alluringly in the pool, both of us laughing as she tried to sway her hips.
“In all the years we’ve been married, Agathe never brought up that I was a teacher,” I said, thinking back. “It was unsaid, but quite obvious, that she liked me to pretend that I was rather unformed before encountering Victor. That I was just floating around waiting for a husband. She did tell me I was never allowed to work as a married woman. She said that even before Lucie was born. But I don’t think a woman like her could understand that aspect of a woman like me. Or you. I really did enjoy my job. I liked being around young people, and I loved giving another language, another culture, to children. I had French growing up through my mother, but I was so starved for everything else when I was young. I was given the language, but no view of the world that went with it. We never traveled north to Quebec. We certainly never went overseas. So I spoke a language that only got me from one end of my house to the other. And that was about thirty feet.” I didn’t usually admit the circumstances of my childhood so readily to people, especially well-to-do women, but there was something about Marcelle that indicated that she hadn’t grown up wealthy, either. She seemed far too carefree.
“But then New York,” she said, stretching out her arms as she spoke.
“Well, first the local teachers’ college. That’s what really helped me escape my small, rural world. But yes, then New York.”
“Then Paris, and now you’re here. Starving no longer,” she said gaily. “If awful Caroline had known all this about you on your first night, she wouldn’t have wondered why Victor picked you over all those dim-witted socialites back home that were surely buzzing around him like gnats.”
“Sometimes I still wonder,” I said, smiling.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, her wet hair stuck together in thick strands. “Brains are more effective than beauty. Only the world tries to make women forget it. They don’t want us to be too smart,” she concluded. “They’re scared that if they encourage it, we’ll end up mo
re intelligent than the men. With the big secret being,” she said at a whisper, “that we already are.”
Victor had picked me, she’d said. And it was true; he had.
Ours was a believable enough scenario, I always thought. I was pretty enough. Clever enough. And of course, I was also starving enough. That was the part Marcelle couldn’t see.
Victor had told the story about how we met at Maxim’s by chance, just before Bastille Day, countless times. But it wasn’t true. There was nothing chanced about it.
It was true that I had never set foot inside Maxim’s until the night we met. But I had been outside the establishment many times. On most days of the latter half of June, I stood across the street, waiting to see if Victor Lesage was going to enter. About twice a week, he did.
I wasn’t picky about who would help me complete the one very important detail of the plan I’d created when I was still at the teachers’ college. I was convinced that becoming a French teacher was my ticket out of Virginia. Then in New York, I decided that since I was having no luck meeting rich enough men in Manhattan, where the men seemed to be able to size up your pedigree in a single glance, I should move my sights to France, where there was a history of American women reinventing themselves. I set my sights on Paris.
I could have saved up more money before I sailed, but marrying well had become imperative. Life at home in Virginia had become unbearable for my siblings. I had to get them out, and in a matter of months.
When I arrived in Paris, I started reading the society pages voraciously. Anyone with a title was excluded from the list of potential husbands that I’d started on the back of a sturdy bag from a boulangerie in the Thirteenth. They would be too snobbish. I was looking for someone who would indulge himself in the form of a pretty American who came from humble beginnings but had learned how to hide it. And I needed someone who wanted to tumble into bed with me immediately, because I knew that the only way a woman like me was going to marry the type of man I wanted was to become pregnant with his child. And even that was no guarantee. But I was my mother’s daughter, and she’d birthed eight children.