Lisa was up, of course. Always up before the rest of them. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I was wondering what you’d like for supper?’
‘So early?’
‘I have to get to market. Coffee?’
Nicole took the mug of scalding coffee, wrapping her hands round it for comfort. ‘I might not be here for supper.’
As Lisa opened the back door, the sound of birdsong filled the kitchen. Nicole poked her head out to look. The sun shone and the garden, in all its different shades of green, seemed to be in continuous motion. The leaves rustled in the breeze, the branches creaked as they swayed and the flowers that had survived the rain were bright and cheerful. No one could brood for ever and, bursting with renewed life, the garden gladdened her. Sylvie was with Mark. She just had to put it behind her.
Lisa pulled up a chair, brushing her greying hair from her eyes. ‘I hope you’re going somewhere nice. You look rather pale.’
‘Just a nightmare.’
‘Not the one about drowning in the river?’
‘No.’
Lisa frowned. ‘Darling girl, is something the matter? You haven’t looked yourself lately.’
Nicole shook her head. She couldn’t tell Lisa. It wouldn’t be fair. Anyway, wasn’t it time she left the horror of that night behind? She tried to think of something cheerful instead.
‘Tell you what,’ she said as she sat down, ‘I’d love an apple tart for dessert. Will you save me some if I don’t make supper in time?’
Lisa grinned and reached out a hand. ‘There will be a Nicole-sized piece in the larder. With whipped cream?’
Nicole felt the warmth of Lisa’s hand, and squeezed. ‘Yes please.’
The kitchen went silent.
Nicole sniffed. ‘Isn’t that burnt cheese?’
Lisa jumped up. ‘Oh lordy! The Camembert for breakfast …’
Nicole grinned. The smell always brought back one of Nicole’s favourite things – baking Camembert with Lisa in the kitchen in Huế. ‘You should have told me. I’d have helped you make it.’
‘Burn it more like,’ Lisa said as she flapped about.
Nicole raised her eyebrows. ‘I rather think you’ve managed that on your own.’
When Nicole was little, Lisa would first score the fat round cheese, popping in some tips of rosemary before slipping it into the oven. Then she’d cut up the bread into bite-sized pieces. Nicole would wait patiently, her excitement building, until the point came when she was allowed to strip two woody sprigs of rosemary and thread the pieces of bread on to them. She’d drizzle on olive oil and sprinkle on salt, then Lisa would put them in the oven with the Camembert. They’d eat at the kitchen table with the window open, so they could smell the Perfume River, just the two of them. The taste when you dipped the squares of bread into the oozing Camembert! Divine. Baked Camembert, rosemary and the salty river: her favourite smell still.
She reached out to touch Lisa’s hand again. ‘I love you.’
‘Get off with you, girl.’
Nicole felt weary from constantly fending off the gnats infesting the shop. Despite the large ceiling fan moving the air, it remained humid. On days like this Nicole felt so listless she hardly knew what to do with herself. She burned a stick of incense, wishfully thinking it might freshen the air.
Beyond the shop window a woman trader she knew signalled with a cake in her hands. Nicole couldn’t resist sugar and went out.
As she ate the cake she thought about Trần. She had decided she couldn’t meet him under any circumstances, and yet she couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted to show her. She knew it wasn’t a good idea; she needed to forget, and going with him would only bring it all back. She definitely wouldn’t go. It’d be a big mistake. There. Decision made. So why at closing time was she slipping on a silk jacket and heading out in the opposite direction from home?
He was a little late but when he arrived he held out a hand. ‘I knew you’d come.’
She shook his hand. ‘You knew more than I did.’
He laughed. ‘Must be my charm.’
He seemed in a friendly frame of mind, but she remained watchful as they walked through crowded streets, dodging women packing up their goods in lidded baskets and shaking their heads when traders offered crispy doughnuts and tiny cups of orange tea. She was curious. It was as simple as that. Yet when they reached the alleys where, but for a few shadowy figures, they were alone, her anxiety caught up with her. She hadn’t felt he might be planning to hurt her, but if he had wanted to, they seemed to be heading where darkness would conceal it. She stopped walking.
Intimidated by the increasing gloom, she tried for a breezy tone of voice. ‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind.’
He took hold of her by the elbow. ‘Too late now.’
She heard someone coming down the street behind them and spun round, but it was only an old Vietnamese man scurrying along with an uneven step. The man turned off.
‘Why are there no people here?’
He didn’t reply.
‘I said –’
He interrupted. ‘I heard you.’
She glanced around.
‘Just come with me.’
‘I want to go home.’
‘When the time is right.’
She tried to pull away. ‘I want to go now.’
He stopped walking and looked at her. ‘I shall not hurt you.’
Her neck muscles tensed as it sank home that a man with his political convictions was a dangerous companion for a girl from a French family. Certain sections of the ancient quarter, known to be hotbeds of Vietnamese unrest, concealed many dissenters. Why had she thought she could trust him?
‘I shall not hurt you,’ he said again, and this time something warm in his voice reassured her. ‘Don’t be afraid. You will get home safely. All in good time.’
They passed under the light from an upstairs window and she glanced at him. Her feelings towards him were an odd combination of curiosity and nervousness, but when he gave her a wide smile she saw honesty in his eyes and felt better.
‘You can have confidence in me, Nicole.’
‘What is your full name?’
‘As you know, my family name is Trần. That will suffice for now.’
As they walked on she felt rather thrilled to be out at night in a part of town she didn’t know. She heard voices as they turned into a narrow street where every shop window glowed with red and yellow lanterns. She sniffed. A sickly-sweet smell laced the air.
‘Opium,’ he said.
She frowned.
‘As you see, beneath the social glitter of French Hanoi there is an underbelly.’
‘I had heard.’
‘The French encourage it through a state monopoly of the opium trade.’
They passed a spot where a few Vietnamese men stood outside eyeing up the scantily dressed Vietnamese girls, their bodies draped around French officers in white uniform. Nicole hung back lest one of the French might recognize her, but the group left the pavement and entered the building.
‘Are they going dancing?’
He grimaced. ‘Not exactly.’
‘You’re not taking me dancing, are you?’
‘I don’t dance.’
She looked at his serious face. ‘I can believe that. Don’t you do anything for fun?’
He didn’t say anything, but she registered that he had almost smiled.
The street led to another with even seedier bars, and an increasingly overpowering smell of opium.
‘Come,’ he said as he came to a halt at the entrance of one.
She hesitated as all her father’s horror stories of girls being taken came rushing back. She’d believed it had been an invention, his way of controlling her: now she wasn’t so sure.
They went in and Trần led her down narrow stairs and along a corridor to the back where he pushed open a heavy door. She gasped at the heady smell in the room, which was clouded with blue smoke, silent but for soft music playing in the ba
ckground.
‘It’s a fumerie,’ he said.
At first she could barely see in the dimly lit room, but once her eyes adjusted she noticed little pools of diffused light radiating from oil lamps dotted about. The clientele, mainly Vietnamese, lay on slatted wooden daybeds, covered in matting, with a leather roll under their heads. Their dull and torpid eyes revealed everything. Nicole watched a bare-footed Vietnamese girl sitting in a semi-squat at the side of one of the recumbent figures. The paraphernalia of addiction lay on a low table beside her: long black opium pipes, a bamboo pot and a silver-handled needle. She picked up the needle and twisted it with a spinning movement, working the resin close to the heat of an oil lamp.
Trần nodded at another woman who appeared to be in charge and she pointed at an archway. Aware of her vulnerability, Nicole clutched hold of his arm.
‘Can’t we leave?’
‘This is only part of what I want you to see.’
Nerves on edge, she walked on.
Beyond the archway, a wide corridor stretched ahead, carpeted in ruby red, with large cubicles lining either side, heavy brocade curtains separating each one, and stinking of synthetic perfume, a smell that seemed to have impregnated the walls. Nicole held her nose and glanced around. One of the curtains was only half closed and she averted her eyes, not wanting to see what might be inside. The place was dark, not merely from a lack of abundant lighting; she could feel the dread and darkness in her bones.
‘Please,’ she whispered as she drew back. ‘No more.’
‘Don’t chicken out now.’
She shook her head.
‘It won’t take long.’
They moved on to where the smell altered. Now it was alcohol. She took another step forward and glanced into a cubicle where the curtain remained wide open. A man and a woman appeared to be sleeping on a velvet-covered couch, with a large grey cat sitting on a shelf above them. Was this all? … But there were other sounds from the cubicles further along and she knew it was not. She glanced at one, stepped forward, opened up a gap in the curtain and, feeling her flesh crawl, swiftly withdrew.
They continued to pass along the corridor and then she followed him up a narrow staircase and into a small room. He closed the door quietly and smiled. Only a low tasselled lamp lit the room and there was a cloying smell of incense and oil.
With a finger to his lips he signalled she should come over to where a velvet curtain hung right across the wall. From beyond the curtain she heard laughter and the voices of men speaking in French. Trần signalled again. The floor creaked as she walked across. She froze, paralysed with fear, then when nothing happened, drew a little closer.
‘Some like to watch,’ he whispered, and pointed to a chink in the curtain.
Nicole looked through the small gap at a large room furnished in dark wood, where a naked young Vietnamese girl lay on a bed covered in silk. Nicole gazed at the girl’s deadpan face and wanted to shout at her to run, though truly she knew the girl would have nowhere to go. Three officers seemed to be taking it in turns with another girl while passing round a bottle of brandy. One of the men slapped the girl’s behind and, as he bent her over, she was forced to take another man’s privates in her mouth. Nicole stifled her disgust, but accidentally pulled the curtain open a touch. She shuddered when the man looked up. She couldn’t be certain if he’d seen her because, with closed eyes, his face spasmed and his thick-lipped mouth fell open: the key person who should have been policing the city – Daniel Giraud’s father.
She turned away, sickened.
‘Seen enough?’ Trần whispered, reaching out to her.
She closed her eyes for a moment and lifted a hand to wave him away. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
He led her back along the corridor, through the opium-infused room and out on to the street again where she gasped for air.
‘This is just one of many brothels. There are thousands of people engaged in prostitution. The least salubrious are in Meteorological Street.’
She turned in shock. Worse than this? How could anything be worse? The day had started so well; she had decided to leave the past behind, and for the first time in ages she’d felt hopeful again. Now her nerves were frayed, and she felt angry at the shameful duplicity of the French and their exploitation of the girls.
‘There are hundreds of gambling dens too.’ He helped her straighten up. ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded and concentrated on calming herself down. When she could speak again she said, ‘The gambling seems less awful.’
‘Except the Vietnamese are great gamblers. From wretched debt there are many suicides. This is what we wish to change.’
‘I thought you just wanted to get the French out.’
‘That’s only the start. We need to re-educate the Vietnamese people too.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Come, let’s get away from here.’
As they walked, the smell of opium still seemed to cling to her clothes and she felt dirtier than she’d ever been. ‘Why did you show me this?’
‘To help you understand we are not bad people, but working for the common good.’
‘But against the French.’
‘How can it be any other way? We want to raise our people up, not keep them squashed by poverty. We want to give them hope for the future. We want to control what is ours. Do you not see?’
Chastened by the experience, she nodded.
As they left the streets behind Nicole thought of the river in Huế. She used to see the boats and watch the poor cooking rice in clay pots as they paddled along. Had they been happy with their simple lives? What if the reality was different? What if all along they had been struggling and miserable?
‘You need me to get your thoughts in order,’ Trần said with eagerness. ‘Like I said, the French encourage the use of opium but only so long as it is government opium.’
‘That can’t be true!’
‘I’m afraid it is. The French seized control of cultivation, manufacture and the trade itself. Now it is being smuggled across from China too, and they don’t appreciate losing out to a bunch of black-marketeers.’
‘Was that why your brother was killed?’
He shrugged.
Nicole hurried back to the comforts of home, thinking about what she’d seen. Had Trần sensed the discontent in her and decided she might be ripe for conversion? Perhaps he’d spotted that her relationship with her family had come loose. Well, he was wrong. Despite her Vietnamese looks, her mother was dead and her father had always maintained the illusion of a predominantly French family. The Vietnamese blood in her family had been buried for too long.
14
The heavy rains and high winds were increasingly dreary and Nicole couldn’t wait for September and October when Hanoi’s dry season would return with its clear, cool days. That was Nicole’s favourite time of year and, at the beginning of September, the show would finally open. Now, during a break in rehearsals, she sat down in her dressing room to try to deal with the uproar going on in her mind. She ached for those girls but felt angry with herself for having gone with Trần; no matter how much she wished, she could not see a way to make things better.
She came to the conclusion that Trần’s brother must have been shot because of smuggling opium. It didn’t make the shooting right, but at least it was a reason. If opium was government controlled, he shouldn’t have broken the law, though she couldn’t rid herself of the thought that any opium trade was wrong. Legal or illegal.
She decided to put it to the back of her mind. She couldn’t let herself be overwhelmed and wouldn’t let him persuade her again. What use would it be if he opened her eyes still further? She’d wandered too far away already.
A knock at the changing-room door startled her and she heard Jerry call her name. She hadn’t been singing well so came out of the changing room expecting a dressing-down.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
‘A bit tired. Sorry I’m not up to scratch today.’
She stared at him blankly.
‘So?’ he said. ‘Do you think you can do it?’
She felt a wild surge of excitement as she realized he was asking her to take on the main role.
‘Can you learn the songs quickly enough?’
She felt herself blush with pleasure. ‘I know them.’
‘It’s settled then.’
She grinned. ‘When do I start?’
‘Right now. We’ll carry on with Act Two.’
She hesitated. ‘What about a script?’
He raised his brows. ‘I thought you knew the songs?’
‘For the lines and cues.’
‘Very well, but you’ll need to be word perfect quickly.’
Nicole nodded and made her way to the stage.
The musical was French, written by a French-Vietnamese, and was about a Frenchman who falls in love with a Vietnamese girl. Though Nicole’s father had married a Vietnamese woman, such intermarriage had become far less common than it had once been, and so the musical had never been performed. Jerry had thought it worth reviving.
Nicole thought about Mark and wished she could tell him her news. He knew nothing of the difficult times she and Sylvie had shared: the tensions, the arguments, the rivalry. Nor could he know that he’d become a trophy that Sylvie had somehow won. As for the murder, she was beginning to believe his innocence. Her anxiety had faded and seeing things more clearly had meant she could sleep again. Mark had not been complicit; he had only been there as a witness – an unwilling witness. That was all. As for Sylvie? Her sister had already taken up far too much space in her mind.
She was walking past the Hollywood dance hall one beautiful Sunday afternoon when the music coming from inside forced her to stop and listen. In an attempt to get on with her life she had taken to walking on Sundays when it wasn’t raining, sometimes meeting friends, sometimes on her own. Today she walked alone, with her back straight and her shoulders stiff with tension. She glanced at the enormous glass doors, thrown open for air – inside it was blue with smoke – and watched the people going in and out. She was wearing her favourite black dress, cotton, with a full skirt and rounded neck, and would have liked to have gone in to lose herself in the fug. She had even considered the new gamine haircut, now coming into fashion, anything to make her feel like a different person, but she couldn’t make the leap. Instead she’d coiled her thick dark hair at the back of her neck.
The Silk Merchant’s Daughter Page 10