by Karin Tanabe
I had never had time in my life for spontaneous assignations. Every time I’d gotten into bed with a man—there were four of them, including Victor—it was because I hoped he could help me in ways that had nothing to do with sex. What I had needed was a husband with means. Enough means so I would never have to worry about money again, something I had spent every day of my life thinking about, to some degree. I had fallen easily into Victor’s bed, but because I could not yet break my agreement with the school that employed me in New York, the only source of income I had, I had just a month left in Paris, which translated into six days to get pregnant, if the medical books I’d consulted back in New York were correct.
When I was in bed with Victor for the first time, just three days after we met, I made a show of using the diaphragm kit I’d obtained from a female doctor in Manhattan who was sympathetic to poor, unmarried women. Then I inserted it sideways. It wasn’t going to block even the laziest sperm. It took sleeping with Victor constantly—and eating almost a full jar of honey, a secret fertility source, I had read—but it worked. By the following month, one of the steamiest Augusts Parisians could remember, I was pregnant.
Victor was less than thrilled at first. He felt tricked, deceived. Which, of course, he had been. But he was also in love with me. He stayed mad for a week, and then he’d come up to my little apartment, the first time he’d ever visited, his head practically touching the top of the door frame as he came in, and had kneeled in front of me and put his head on my stomach.
“You should probably change your clothes,” he’d said after I’d stopped crying. “The dress you’re wearing is a bit too informal to get married in.”
In the years since we’d married, my dependence on Victor had turned to love. Real love. And I knew he felt the same. His affection for me wasn’t just passing lust or something born out of obligation. Ours was a union that felt unbreakable, even if it had been built from a few half-truths.
Since we’d been married, no other man had rattled me. Until now.
I nodded at the hotel manager on my way out and, with my stomach painfully full, made it back to the house at four o’clock, too late to see Lucie bounding up the stairs after Lanh fetched her.
I went to my bedroom to change out of my street-stained clothes before retiring to the terrace in a pair of loose silk trousers. There, I used the bell that always sat on the iron table and rang for Trieu. She appeared a few minutes later with a chilled bottle of white wine. As she poured, I asked her to bring Lucie to me.
I heard my daughter’s feet on the tiles before I saw her and turned just in time to watch her leap through the glass doors from the bedroom. She smiled when she saw me and threw her arms around my neck. Her hair was loose, and she had changed from her school uniform into an airy white dress that made her look like an ethereal sprite who had flown in to keep me company.
“Would you like to hear my latest phrase in Annamese, maman? I’m getting very good,” she said, nuzzling on top of me as I reclined in Victor’s favorite chair. He was on the train up from Saigon, due to return in a few hours, after two weeks away. Sitting in his chair gave me comfort while he was gone, and sitting there with Lucie even more. I tilted my head back as Lucie caressed my temples.
“Of course I would,” I said, breathing in the scent of her hair. By evening, all the perfumed soaps and powders applied by the servants had worn off and Lucie smelled like a child again.
“Người làm bánh đau nặng. Ông bị ung thư họng vì hút thuốc phiện nhiều quá,” she said with a voice full of emotion, shaking her head as she finished the phrase.
“That sounds very authentic,” I said, laughing. I appreciated the distraction, the humor that Lucie always brought to me.
“Thank you, maman,” she said, putting her finger right on the tip of my nose. “Diep has been helping me with the different sounds. I mean tones. That’s what they’re called. And that sentence is something they’ve been saying a lot in the kitchen.”
“Have they?” I said, picturing Diep. She had not said one word to me about the money for the girl, and neither had Lanh, but I had noticed that our food had gotten noticeably tastier since that day. “What does it mean, that funny phrase?” I asked, grabbing her finger and pretending to bite it.
“It means ‘The baker is very ill,’” she said, sitting up. “‘He has throat cancer from smoking too much opium.’”
“Lucie!” I exclaimed. “What on earth!”
“But it’s true, maman,” she said, throwing herself back down on my body. “The baker is very ill. He does have throat cancer from smok—”
“Yes, yes, chérie. I understand,” I said, covering her mouth with my hand as she tried to look at me. “But opium isn’t a good topic of conversation for a little girl.”
“Okay,” she replied, disappointed. “Though it is quite a profitable commodity for the colony.” She wiggled so she was lying sideways on me, her legs folded awkwardly so that she just fit against my torso.
“Who have you been conversing with?” I asked her, too amused to chastise her again.
“Everyone I meet!” she said, laughing. “There are so many people to meet here.”
After delighting me with other phrases in Annamese that she’d picked up from the staff, Lucie kissed me good-bye, off to the kitchen for more language lessons with the cook. I kissed her head again, barely grazing it as she was in such a hurry to get to her private world.
Alone, I took a large swallow of wine. It was already too warm, losing its fight with the latitude of Indochine. I held the glass between my palms and looked out at the world below me, happy to experience Hanoi from my perch. After a month of living in the capital, I was starting to memorize its movements like a bird of prey.
After I’d refilled my glass twice, the scene below started to blur pleasantly, and I relaxed, willing my mind to stay right where I was, in my home, on my husband’s chair, with my daughter downstairs.
I closed my eyes, letting sleep creep over me, until I felt the warmth of someone nearby. As I stirred, I felt a blanket being draped over me and Victor’s comforting touch. I slowly opened my eyes to see him standing above me, still in his light gray traveling suit with a faint pinstripe, his wide silk tie slightly loosened. His black hair was deeply parted to the left and oiled down, as usual.
“Look at you here with the city at your feet,” he said, leaning down to kiss me. “Like the queen of Hanoi.”
“How was it?” I asked, turning my head up to kiss him back.
“Extraordinary. The plantations are just incredible. The breadth of them, it’s like they creep all the way to Saigon,” said Victor, his eyes animated. He motioned for me to move over and joined me on the chaise, which was wide enough for two. “I’d seen pictures over the years as the land has been cleared and planted, and I heard much about it from Uncle André, but nothing prepared me for the vastness of it. The modernity. And the sheer number of people working the land. There are five thousand coolies at Dau Tieng alone. Four thousand more at Phu Rieng. The amount of rubber trees still being planted is astounding. It feels as if the forests come down in a day, replaced with fields of saplings.”
“And you lived among all those men these past few days?” I asked, still having a hard time picturing Victor breaking bread with thousands of natives.
“Of course not. I stayed in my own very civilized bungalow. It was built for me when we sent word that I was coming. It’s rather handsome. Made of brick. Not too many insects. There are these horrible ants the size of a franc down there, but they’ve been directed to stay out of my house and they seem to take orders well.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, smiling.
“The two overseers, Theurière and Soumagnac, they’re not the most personable men in the world, but since the strife last year, they really have done much to modernize the plantations. Especially with the hospitals. The health care is world-class. And I was told the food is much improved as well. There are canteens servi
ng meals of rice, meat, fish, and a brown sauce they all go wild for called nuoc mam. There are also doctors and nurses who live at the site, working in the large infirmary, stores where the coolies shop, separate little villages for them to sleep in—it’s very well laid out. And we’ve improved the housing, too, there are now thatch-covered mud houses with gardens. And we were able to build them for a third of the price than other plantations spent, since we had the coolies build them themselves. It’s quite rewarding, I imagine. To be able to build your own house. Really, it’s all quite impressive. There have clearly been great strides made by the overseers.”
“I’m happy to hear it. Very happy,” I said, thinking again about the horrible document I’d read on the boat. Victor had had no control over that era, I reminded myself. Now he did.
“But there was one very unsettling thing that happened. It’s why I’ve had to stay away as long as I have.”
“Which was?” I said, my nerves instinctively jumping.
“Something shocking, actually,” he said, reaching for the glass of wine that had just been brought to him by Trieu. “I suppose it shouldn’t have been shocking, considering all the papers have reported about the spread of communism on our plantations, and others, but still.”
“What was it?” I asked, my concern mounting. “You have to be very careful, Victor.”
“First, I need to thank you because if you had not forced us all to hire that tutor and learn as much Annamese as we could in six months, I would not have realized what I did.”
“Which was?” I didn’t know how much of his talking in circles I could take.
“The makings of another communist uprising. I’m sure that’s what it was.”
“No,” I said incredulously. “Like 1930?” The strike had been five days long and thousands of coolies had shown up with a list of demands on the manager’s lawn. There were so many that Soumagnac and all the managers had fled the plantation and the government had to intervene with military force. To the joy of the coolies, some of their demands had been met. But not all. Michelin was not about to reward such behavior.
“Most likely worse. A few days ago, I found out that one of the mixed-race overseers at Phu Rieng, who had been considered very loyal since he’d just renewed his three-year contract, has been helping the coolies under his direction hold communist party meetings, and encouraging them to recruit more into their ranks. And on top of that, one of the coolies told me that he’s being paid to do so.”
“By whom?” I asked, shocked.
“I don’t know. He was able to escape. A grave oversight on our part.”
“What will you do now?” I asked, inching closer to Victor instinctively.
“I’ve notified the police, but I don’t think they’ll try too hard to find him. They’re busy with bigger fish in that domain. I’m just happy to be rid of him, though exercising some punishment would have been helpful for prevention. These men, they really learn by example. I need to show them that I am lenient, but not weak when it comes to those who would instigate uprisings.”
“Of course,” I said, thinking about what Victor had said on the boat.
“I’ve left it all in the hands of the overseers now, and I think they’re capable of keeping the peace. I hope so, anyway. Despite that mishap, it was a fascinating trip.”
“Then you’re glad we came. To the colony.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling at me. “I’m glad you convinced me. And I do see now that it could change the trajectory of my career forever.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I said, my heart fluttering. Victor thought I’d pushed him toward Indochine because I saw great career opportunity for him. And I did see it. But I’d also had a very private reason to leave Paris.
After six years of giving me sanctuary, my memories had finally followed me there, and they had taken up house.
It was November 1932, and Lucie and I were walking home from a visit with her cousins. She was busy running her hand along an iron railing near the Grand Palais, soiling her white cashmere gloves.
“Lucie, please don’t touch anything,” I had hissed at her, tired and frustrated from a conversation I’d had with Victor that morning. His position in the company, now that André was gone, was starting to feel shaky. The younger generation was taking over in Clermont-Ferrand, and Victor was not close to them. I was thinking about how to improve our circumstances when I heard someone say my name.
The voice came from behind us, and it was certainly not French. I heard my name again and froze, grabbing Lucie’s hand instinctively, nearly pulling her to the ground. The woman who had spoken had an unmistakably Southern accent. My accent.
I turned around slowly and came face-to-face with my past.
“Jessie Holland?” the woman said, looking at me incredulously. “Am I dreaming, or is that really you?”
It was I who wanted to be dreaming. But she was there, no dream, looking as if she was ready to embrace me—Dorothy Davis, one of my schoolmates in Blacksburg. She looked nothing like the girl I had known, always in a dirty dress, shoes a size too small. She had always had a pretty face, though, and I saw that it was even prettier now, especially when set off by an expensive-looking wool hat and broadcloth coat with fox trim. She was with another woman, who was equally well turned out.
“I heard a rumor in Blacksburg that you lived in Paris now, but I never took it to be true,” she said, still looking at me in shock. “But it is. It really is. You’re right here.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, trying not to look as stunned as she did. “This is my daughter, Lucie,” I added before sending Lucie off to play with the railing again. She could have licked it for all I cared at that point. I just wanted her away from the woman and the conversation I was sure we would have. I knew it would be impossible for Dorothy not to mention it. Not to mention them.
“What a beautiful child,” she said, looking at Lucie playing. “She looks like one of you. The Hollands. Especially the eyes.”
“Maybe a bit,” I said. “But she really resembles her father.”
“Does she? Who is her father?” she asked, trying her best to make it sound innocent.
“A Frenchman. Parisian,” I said, smiling tightly.
I could tell she wanted me to elaborate on the man who had plucked me from my hell in Virginia, but I did not go on. Because really, I had plucked myself from all that. We spoke about Paris a few moments, and when her friend walked off to admire the Grand Palais, Dorothy of course brought up our shared hometown.
“After I finished school, I moved to Richmond,” she said. “It felt so cosmopolitan to me, if you can believe it.”
“I can,” I said, smiling, moving a step back to indicate that I was ready to close the conversation, but Dorothy went on. “I first married a veterinarian who had studied at the Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg. He did very well for himself, thankfully.”
“How nice for you,” I said, taking another step back, but she matched me, like we were fencing.
“It was a fine marriage,” she said, warming to her topic, “but, well, it wasn’t a coup de foudre, as the French say. And I’d always dreamt of bigger things than being a veterinarian’s wife. But I got very lucky. Girls like us really do deserve luck sometimes, don’t we?”
“What was this stroke of luck?” I asked, cursing myself for my curiosity.
“When I turned twenty-three, my husband flat out died!” she exclaimed. “He fell off a horse and God just sucked the breath and heartbeat right out of him. Can you believe it? God must be a woman,” she said, looking up at the sky as if she might be struck by lightning there and then for saying such a thing.
“Oh, how dreadful, I’m terribly sorry,” I said, feeling like that was probably a better fate for the veterinarian than to be married to Dorothy for the rest of his life.
“Don’t be. After that I took a page out of your book and left the state entirely. Though I went to California. Los Angeles. I met a wonderful man in t
he picture industry, Nick Lesser.”
She paused as if the name should mean something to me. It did not.
“Anyway,” she said, gesturing dramatically with her slender, gloved hands. “Nick had a few smashing successes in America, which put him in high demand all over the globe, including here. So now he’s in Paris helping the French make pictures, too. He wasn’t going to leave California, his career was going so well, but with the money the French offered him, and with the economy so dismally bad and so many people barely able to afford a ticket to the pictures at home, how could he turn it down? They assured him that the economy in France was better off than in America, and they were certainly correct. Just look at that bridge,” she said, pointing to the Pont Alexandre III. “At home, people would be chiseling that gold right off.”
“I don’t think it’s real gold. I think it’s just gold paint—”
“All that is to say,” she said, interrupting me with a giddy smile on her face, “that I live here now. In Paris!”
My heart stopped.
“You live in Paris?” I said, nearly choking on the words. “How surprising,” I said, trying to find oxygen again.
“Surprising for both of us, I’ll say. Do you ever go back to Virginia?” she asked with feigned sweetness.
“No,” I replied bluntly. I gestured to Lucie to come back to me so that we could run off together, but she wasn’t looking in my direction.
“I’ve returned once since we moved to Paris last year,” Dorothy said. “My parents are still in Blacksburg.” She’d looked at me differently then. Making sure our eyes didn’t just meet but locked.
“How nice for you,” I said, inching a bit closer to the bridge where Lucie was.
“I saw your mother while I was there,” she said, her voice growing louder.
I didn’t respond. I hadn’t seen my mother in over ten years.