by Karin Tanabe
“The wood those pipes are made of is very ornate,” I said to Red as he inhaled and closed his eyes.
“It’s not wood, it’s bamboo,” he said, exhaling and rearranging the pillows the better to sink between them. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Yes, surprisingly so,” I replied, marveling at the way his face and body already seemed more relaxed.
Within a few minutes, everyone was smoking except for me and, I noticed, Khoi. He had left the room after seeing that his guests were attended to. A piano melody was playing softly on a phonograph, and the conversation had died away. Red motioned one of the girls over and whispered something to her, his hand on the small of her back, rubbing her dress in a gentle circle.
When the girl asked me if I would like a pipe of my own, I shook my head and pressed against the wall, feeling light-headed and a little nauseated.
“I think I’ll go back up to the sundeck,” I said to Marcelle, not wanting to see her or Red like this. Marcelle nodded but didn’t reply, her eyes half closed, her head back against a mound of bright cushions.
When I reached the deck, Khoi was sitting alone with a cocktail.
“Don’t you smoke?” I asked after he’d pointed to the chair next to him.
“Rarely,” he said, handing me a glass of champagne that he’d poured himself, waving off the boy. “It bores me a bit. Perhaps because I grew up around it. I do indulge occasionally, but less and less often as I get older. It just doesn’t have the same exotic appeal for me that it does for foreigners. Colonials behaving badly and all that. Of course, the French also love that it’s a very profitable commodity for them. The colony would have taken far longer to become profitable if they hadn’t levied the opium tax, and managed to put the substance in so many people’s hands. It’s sticky, in more ways than one. But you’re smart not to smoke it. You’re too charming to let your mind be dulled.”
I liked Khoi. Besides his mesmerizing looks, he had a self-assurance that the rich French lacked. All the fuss, he seemed to shrug, was a little tedious, even though he was the one providing it.
“May I offer you something other than champagne?” he asked, looking at my full glass. “I’m sorry, I just assumed.”
“What are you having?” I asked.
“Lemonade,” he said, holding up the tall glass with a grin. “I loved it as a child, and I’m afraid I never grew out of it. I had a French cook—isn’t that funny, a French cook for an Annamite boy?—who made the most delicious kind, with lavender in it. I have no idea where he found the lavender. This one lacks the herb, but it’s still quite good. Please, try it.”
“This might actually be better than the Veuve Clicquot,” I said after he handed me his glass and I took a sip.
“Here, you can have both,” he said, gesturing for another glass.
“So, I hear you own a Delahaye,” Khoi resumed, watching me drink. “It’s a beautiful car.”
“Do you know the company?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any other Delahayes in Indochine.
“I do. My father is quite an enthusiast himself. He owns three.”
“Three!” I exclaimed.
“He tends to do things in excess. At least when it comes to cars.”
“This boat isn’t excessive, though,” I said, looking around us. “It’s perfect.”
“Thank you. I chose the boat.”
He looked at me, with a glance that seemed to flicker between admiring and appraising.
“Please don’t think me rude, but your French is so perfect. Did you live in France?” I asked him after he’d finished sizing me up. “I wish my accent was as Parisian-sounding as yours.”
“I quite like the way you speak,” he replied, pouring himself a glass of water from a carafe. “And I think I had a leg up on you. I’ve been speaking French all my life. I also went to school in Paris from the ages of sixteen to twenty-four.”
“Did you! Without your family?”
He nodded. “It’s a normal custom here for well-to-do boys. My parents visited, once, maybe twice, to make sure I wasn’t having too much fun, but they were mostly very busy here running our silk company.”
“That’s a terribly long time. Didn’t you miss it here?” When I left my family, it was without a return date, something that gave me both the happiness I was desperate for and lingering guilt I’d never quite shaken.
“Yes and no. I knew I would return,” he said. “And I liked my freedom in Paris.”
“Funny. That’s what all the French say about here.”
“Well, there’s something about being dépaysé, isn’t there? Maybe you care less when you’re out of your native habitat. You know your imprint won’t last forever.”
“I still would try to act as though it might,” I said, thinking how much I needed this experiment in Indochine to be successful.
“Then you are in the minority,” he said. He stood and leaned against the boat’s wooden railing, drink in hand, and didn’t flinch when a spray of water caught his face, dampening the starched collar of his shirt but seeming to miss his jacket, which he hadn’t changed.
“I would like to meet your husband,” he said suddenly. “For business reasons, and to welcome him to this part of the world. Might you arrange it for me?”
“Of course,” I said. Victor would happily meet a man as rich as Khoi. And he would be dreadfully jealous when he heard about the three Delahayes.
Looking out to sea, Khoi pointing out the more famous formations as the sinking sun hit the water, its glow spreading along the horizon like gold ink.
“I should go check on Marcelle,” he said after a minute.
I nodded. “I like Marcelle very much.”
“So do I,” he said. “Women here, the Annamites, they aren’t as free-spirited as Marcelle. As independent. She really lives by her own rules.”
“She certainly does,” I said. “But I think you’ll find that many women are quite free-spirited; it’s just that our societies—here or there,” I said, pointing west, “don’t want us to be.”
“Maybe,” he said politely, “but still, she’s different. There’s just something about her.”
“Yes, there is,” I said, and meant it.
When Khoi was gone, I watched the sun’s rays of gold fade, the last gasp of light green yielding to darkness. Then, I made my way downstairs to join the others. I walked slowly, listening for voices, but heard only a slight murmur that might have been Marcelle.
When I reached the sitting room, I peered through the open door into the shadows, wanting to see if people were still smoking before I decided to enter or not.
I could see Marcelle and Khoi lying together, her head on his chest. He was tapping his fingers rhythmically to the piano music and playing with her hair. Next to them, but paying them no attention, were the journalist and Madame Claire Angevine. They were lying together. I looked for the journalist’s indigène companion, but she was asleep, or nearly asleep, on a long, silk-covered mattress in the corner. The journalist’s right hand was inside Claire’s dress, which was unbuttoned low enough to show her slip. I watched as his hand moved slowly, fondling her breasts, his fingers lingering. Without thinking, I held my breath nervously. I looked for Claire’s husband in the corner where he had been lounging when I left, but he was no longer there. Instead, he was in an armchair just across from his wife and the journalist, his eyes open, watching them. In the corner he had vacated, one of the Annamite attendants now sat, her legs folded under her, holding a pipe and other paraphernalia, looking at a spot on the wall as if her eyes didn’t even register the scene in front of her.
I watched as the journalist’s hand switched to Claire’s other breast, this time moving in slow, hungry circles, and I leaned back against the wall. My head struck the plaster with an unexpected crack, a noise no one would have heard in any other setting but that reverberated here in this quiet room. I quickly stood upright, my heart pounding.
There was a rustle. Afraid to see who was stirri
ng, I waited a few seconds, then turned and stole back upstairs to the deck. I sank into a chair facing the water and sat there, breathing quickly. What was this world I had walked into? A moment later, I heard someone approaching. Red. He was alone and ambling slowly my way. When he reached me, he put his hand on my shoulder and leaned heavily on it.
“Lie with me up here, pretty American girl. I can’t sit up. Or is it that I don’t want to sit up? Either way, I’d like to lie down, with you.”
“You can’t sit up, but you’re standing?” I asked, feeling suddenly more drunk just by looking at him, as if his intoxication were rubbing off on me.
“Am I standing?” he said, grinning. “I suppose I am. There, let’s relax over there,” he added, pointing across the deck at six lounge chairs neatly arranged with small metal tables between them.
When we were positioned, he reached for my hand and said, “Did we spook you in there, American girl?”
“No,” I lied. “I’ve just never done anything like opium. Any drugs. I don’t know that I should start.”
“That’s not what I was referring to,” he said, still holding my hand.
I didn’t answer, casting my eyes to the deck floor and slowly pulling my hand away.
Red moved his head upright, reaching for my hand again, and gestured to one of the boys in the shadows. This time, I didn’t pull it away. “Talk to me,” he said. “It almost feels like our own private boat here.”
“Shouldn’t we join the others?” I said, looking at our intertwined fingers.
“Eventually. But first we should drink these,” he said as the boy returned with two Pegu Club cocktails.
“That adult orange juice of yours,” I said, taking one with my free hand. “It follows you just about everywhere, doesn’t it?”
“More loyal than a dog, this alcohol.” He handed me a glass, and we clinked. “Or a wife.” He smiled languidly and said, “Here’s to my favorite American.” He leaned in close to me and I didn’t pull back.
“You think without an audience you’d enjoy it more?” he said.
“Enjoy…?” I asked.
“Smoking,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Why do you enjoy it so much?” I deflected.
“This is Indochine. Opium is part of the country’s soul. If you never look at it with smoke in your eyes, you’ll never see all of its layers.”
“Did you steal that line, too?” I asked.
“No, that one is authentic,” he said, laughing. He finished his drink in two gulps and stood up, dropping my hand. “Come on. Something tells me that Victor Lesage’s wife needs to live a little. With a face like yours, you were not meant to lurk in the shadows while the rest of us enjoy ourselves.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To get smoke in your eyes, and your lungs,” he said.
We walked down the steps, Red having to hold on to the railing and the wall for support, and turned toward the cabins. I knew immediately that we were heading to his, but I didn’t stop walking.
When we were just past my cabin, a boy came to see if we needed anything and Red told him to bring him a pipe. “To my cabin,” he said, gesturing.
I held my breath and followed him into the room. It was a bit smaller than mine. I lingered in the door frame, wondering if I should sprint the other way. But I was too curious. I remembered the calm that overtook Red as soon as he’d inhaled. As scared as I was, that calm was too appealing. I had to try it.
I stepped inside, and we got comfortable, he on the bed, I not daring. A young man set the pipe up for us and handed it first to Red.
“Ladies first, I insist.” He gestured to the man.
“Very well,” I said, taking the heavy pipe in my hand and gripping it tightly.
“Jessie,” said Red, laughing. “Just relax. Try not to look as if you have a broomstick down your shirt.” He pressed down on my shoulders, the way Marcelle had when we’d first met.
“Will it make me feel—”
“It will make you feel nothing,” he cut me off. “That’s the beauty of it. Sometimes we just need to feel nothing. Especially Americans. You’re a very high-strung people.”
“But you must feel something,” I said, flipping quickly from curious to terrified. “Feeling nothing sounds like death.”
“You feel relaxed. As if you don’t have a care in the world. You might just feel as if you’re dreaming. You might even fall asleep. It will do you a world of good.”
I breathed in some of the smoke, exhaled, happy to see that I was still upright, then inhaled again, three more times, each intake of breath longer and deeper. I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes, breathing much more slowly than usual.
“How do you feel?” he asked as I opened my eyes again.
“I feel … at ease,” I said, surprised that I had been affected so quickly. “As you said, I feel relaxed. Perhaps too relaxed. I can barely move my lips to form sentences.”
There is a moment before you kiss a man where your life seems to stand still. Your brain slows, then your heartbeat, which slows your pulse and relaxes your muscles. It’s a rare, physical quietude. I knew Red was leaning in to kiss me just then. I saw his face inch closer and closer to mine, but I felt unable to stop him. I couldn’t move. I ran my hand over my face. I hardly registered my own touch. My entire body felt soft, as if my muscles had snapped, and though I wanted to stop him, I also didn’t want to ruin the feeling that had washed over me. The feeling of being free from my own body.
I closed my eyes and didn’t push him off.
“I can’t not kiss you,” he said, leaning closer. “It’s as simple as that. I can’t not.”
He leaned in and kissed me, somehow finding the strength to pull me into him.
“How is your marriage?” he murmured when we had pulled apart, our faces still close, almost touching.
“It’s wonderful,” I whispered, the words sounding strange, as if my voice wasn’t my own.
He smiled, fatigue in his eyes, and kissed me again, harder this time. “I don’t believe you,” he replied.
* * *
I woke up the next morning bathed in dried sweat and guilt. The sweat was Red’s; the guilt was mine. I turned to look at the chair in his room, and at the other side of his bed. Red wasn’t there. I moved a few inches onto the drier part of the sheets, my stomach lurching as I moved. I put my hand on it and lay back, my head painfully heavy, my brain cloudy. I felt as if I’d drunk all the champagne in the world. I closed my eyes but heard a knock that I couldn’t get up to answer. The door creaked open, and I rolled over slightly to see who it was.
“Good morning,” he said, striding in, an annoyingly casual movement, and gestured to the view out the window. “Fantastic, isn’t it? Burma was scenic, but it didn’t have anything like this.”
“It is,” I said. My stomach groaned again, and I pulled the covers over it to muffle the sound. I looked up at him. It had to be said. “Red, last night. It was a terrible decision on my part. Victor isn’t perfect, but he’s still my husband, and he’s a good man. The best man I know, really. He doesn’t deserve to have a wife who—”
“What do you know of your plantations?” Red asked, interrupting me.
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. “I know quite a lot about the Michelin plantations.”
“Do you?” said Red. He took an orange out of a bowl of fruit that was on the table near the window. He held it to his nose, the tip of it almost on the peel. “Like your watch,” he said and pointed to my wrist. “It’s a very nice watch.”
“It was a gift,” I murmured, flipping the face back around.
“Dau Tieng and Phu Rieng,” he repeated. “Have you been there yet? Have you seen the plantations? Been on the ground? Seen the men who work there? Or the women? Eighteen percent of your coolies are women. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I said, though I hadn’t.
“I thought so,” he said. “It was in the newspaper
a few weeks back. Still, I think you should visit in person. Smart woman like yourself. You’ve been here how long, a month or two?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s a world apart down there,” he said, the tenor of his voice dropping. “That’s what everyone says. Aren’t you curious?”
“Not especially.”
“Well, you should be. Maybe then you wouldn’t feel so guilty about a small kiss.”
“A small kiss?” I said, feeling sicker just hearing the word. “It didn’t feel small. It felt like a big, Pegu-soaked kiss.”
Red grinned, leaning back against the wall, watching me.
“I enjoyed it very much,” he said as I forced myself to stand up and totter to the open window to get some air. “And you did, too. At least as much as you let yourself.”
I put my hand on the screen a moment, blocking out the world in front of me. Indochine’s restless dragon. I looked at my watch again, then at my hand. My body froze. I looked at it again, ran my left hand over my right, but it wasn’t there. My emerald ring was gone.
“My ring,” I said dully, in shock.
“This one?” Red asked as I turned around. He pointed at the nightstand. There was a small, folded handkerchief on it that I hadn’t seen when I woke up. I rushed over. Inside it was my ring, the large emerald smashed to pieces.
TWENTY
Jessie
October 25, 1933
“Trieu?” I called out. I’d rung for her a few minutes before, but she hadn’t appeared yet. I squinted at the clock on my nightstand, its face barely visible in the shadowy bedroom. It was five minutes to six in the morning. I’d slept with the windows open and could see that outside the sky was still blue-black. It was late October, and somehow the early hour seemed darker than it had just the day before, when I’d also been awake before dawn. It was as if the earth had turned a bit too quickly away from the sun. Under the covers, I gripped the small silk bag containing my broken ring. When we were in the room together, I had knocked my hand on the wall and it had shattered, Red had said, surprised I didn’t remember. I had been too shocked to cry when I found it, but now, holding its poor remnants, I wanted to scream. How could I have smoked that poison and let myself go? How could I have broken my ring? I knew that emeralds were far more prone to breaking than diamonds, one of the reasons I’d been more careful with it than I had my wedding ring. But how could I have shattered it? I had been so foolish.