The Silk Merchant’s Daughter

by Dinah Jefferies

  Her father looked distressed but didn’t reply.

  ‘Monsieur Giraud, I demand you let me go.’

  ‘Sadly, I need more information before I can do that.’

  ‘Was this your idea?’

  Giraud glanced away and then back again. ‘It was brought to my attention that you might be in danger. We can’t have a girl from a French family fraternizing with the Viets. Although, of course, you are virtually one of them.’

  ‘Just a minute, Giraud,’ Nicole’s father said.

  ‘You know my views, Édouard. The races shouldn’t mix. They aren’t like us.’

  The scornful twitch of his nostrils as he spoke provoked a storm of dislike inside her.

  Sylvie stepped forward. ‘It was me who called the police and we asked Mark to persuade you to come home. I thought he might succeed where we would fail. We thought you’d be safer here.’

  ‘Who are you to decide what I do?’

  ‘You are clearly involved with an undesirable. I was worried.’

  Nicole snorted, horrified that Mark had colluded in bringing her here to be treated like a common criminal.

  ‘You’ve never had good judgement and you have no sense of propriety. Can’t you understand we did it for your own good? Tell her, Papa.’

  Her father nodded his agreement. ‘It’s true your sister has been worried about you. We both have.’

  ‘You don’t realize how much we care,’ Sylvie added. ‘Please calm down. Everything will be all right.’

  Nicole stared at her defiantly. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

  ‘Enough,’ Giraud said, butting in. ‘In case you want to change your mind, I will give you one last chance to speak.’

  ‘Or?’

  There was a moment’s silence before her father spoke. ‘I’m sorry, chérie, but you have been placed under house arrest.’

  She gasped. ‘How long for?’

  ‘Until further notice.’

  Nicole thought quickly, remembering Trần would be back in a week’s time for her answer. ‘And if I remember anything?’

  ‘Then we shall reconsider.’

  ‘Papa?’

  Her father shrugged in a hopeless kind of way.

  ‘There is one more thing,’ Giraud said. ‘A minor detail. You will be confined to your room.’

  She squared her shoulders and stared at the three of them: her father still looking distressed, Sylvie with a totally blank expression and something like amusement in Giraud’s eyes. Because of them a young man was dead; who knew what else they might be capable of, maybe even Yvette’s death. The thought stopped her cold. But if they imagined they’d be able to keep her locked in, they were very wrong. She longed to tell them what she’d seen Giraud doing at the brothel, but they wouldn’t believe her, and it would only serve to make things worse. Sick to her stomach, she knew his type: Frenchmen who looked down on the Vietnamese but used the women for sex. Before she could say anything more, Giraud flicked his wrist impatiently and continued.

  ‘It pains me to do this but the door will be locked and an officer will be detailed to watch over you. André here will drop by from time to time. You see, you’re so important you have the full attention of the police and the army. You will have no contact with members of the household apart from the cook, who is under strict instructions not to let you out, except to the bathroom.’

  Unable to control the flash of temper, Nicole walked up to Sylvie and slapped her hard across the cheek. She stared with satisfaction as a red mark developed on her sister’s surprised face. It wasn’t going to help her cause, but if they thought she was going to submit meekly …! She faced the door fighting the hurt that was tearing at her self-control, then twisted back to Giraud.

  ‘And in case you’ve forgotten, Monsieur Giraud, even though she may look French, my sister Sylvie is also half Vietnamese,’ she said. Then, keeping her voice as level as she could, she added, ‘Shall we go?’

  Once in her room and hearing the key turn in the lock, her bravado deserted her. How could Mark have done this to her? Trần was right, Mark had manipulated her by making her feel she might not be safe at the shop. He’d forced her hand by using the old attraction between them. Utterly betrayed but trying to hold on, she felt like weeping. Her room was the same as it had always been, except that it felt airless. She thumped her pillow then flung herself face down on the bed, hoping the musky night-time smell might ground her, but the pillow smelt only of lavender. She couldn’t bear them to hear her crying, so forced a handkerchief into her mouth to muffle the sound as the tears fell, but the lack of air was suffocating and her scalp began to prickle. She glanced around at all the familiar things she hadn’t bothered taking to the shop, her glass beads and the clothes Lisa must have folded. Her palms grew sweaty so she rubbed them on her eiderdown. With a flash of hope she thought of the window and tripped over in her rush. Fresh air – if she could open the window.

  She tried the handle. The window was locked.

  She glanced up at the sun. Not so high in the sky now.

  Her heart began to flutter like a tiny bird, first missing a beat, then adding several extra as her fear began to rise. It went on and on, as if her pulse had lost its way back to a regular rhythm. She placed a palm on her chest and ordered it to come back to normal; the fluttering grew worse and made her dizzy. She surveyed her room, looking from one thing to another, searching, hoping for something to anchor her.

  Determined not to cave in, she picked herself up. But the memory came rushing back, clearer than ever before and sucking the air out of everything. Within moments she was eight years old again and drowning. The water wasn’t cold. Warm like a bath, Sylvie said. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. They said she’d imagined it. Sylvie full of smiles. The water is warm. It’s warm, Nicole. Why not jump? Whose idea had it been? Sylvie had told them it was hers. Had Sylvie pushed her in? Let’s swim, she’d said. Let’s jump. In a flash, something had gone wrong. Where was Sylvie? In the boat or in the water too? As she heard her sister’s words Nicole saw herself jump in, saw herself go under, heard the booming sound of the water. The icy cold. The dark.

  Nicole began to shake. She ran to the door and thumped, battering and jolting her body until her fists became bruised and her arms ached.

  ‘Sylvie!’ she shouted while the feeling of dread mounted. ‘Papa!’

  Nobody came.

  ‘You know I can’t stand to be confined. Sylvie!’ She shouted her sister’s name again, then screamed as loud as she could.

  ‘Papa, I’m claustrophobic!’

  Sweat poured from her head, plastering the hair to her neck. She tore off her clothes in an attempt to lessen the feeling of confinement. Her head began to explode as images flooded her mind. The water. The sun shining on the surface. She raised an arm as if to fend them off, and then forced herself to listen. But there was no sound. In fact, the house was strangely silent. All she could hear was the blood thundering in her ears. She tried to tell herself it was all in her mind – just her imagination – but when her throat closed and a horrible sensation of choking stopped her breath, she dropped to her knees. She felt herself slipping under, and with all the air squeezed from her lungs they remained constricted. She was at the bottom of the river again, hearing the river roar, its voice thudding and thumping in time with her heart. She doubled over, touching her forehead to the cool of the floor. And with the cool, a single thought consumed her. Even if her father didn’t realize how deep her terror of confinement was, Sylvie knew.

  Nicole’s hysteria did not subside. Just when she thought she could stand it no longer, Lisa came in and threw a glass of icy water in her face, then held her while she gulped, spluttered and coughed. Finally, paralysed by the shock of it, she calmed.

  ‘Oh my dear, how did it come to this?’ Lisa said as she got up to leave.

  Nicole clutched at her sleeve, comforted by the smell of cigarettes and cooking clinging to her. ‘Please don’t leave me, please.’

&nbs
p; ‘I’ll stay for a few minutes but they’ll be on at me if I stay longer.’

  She held Nicole, rocking her back and forth in the silence.

  ‘What on earth has been going on?’ the cook eventually asked, holding Nicole at arm’s length. ‘What has happened to you?’

  ‘I just don’t know who to believe any more. I thought I trusted Mark but it’s his fault I’m locked up here. He’s not who I once thought he was.’ Nicole shook her head. ‘It hurts, Lisa. It hurts so much.’

  She couldn’t bear to think about what he’d said about not being in a relationship with Sylvie. How could she possibly believe that now?

  ‘My dear, you will get through this,’ Lisa said. ‘I promise you will. You know I can’t stay but I’ll keep checking on you. Bang on the door if it gets bad again.’

  Then, after a few minutes more, she left.

  Gradually Nicole fought the symptoms of her phobia. At the first sign of it – usually when she woke up and remembered she couldn’t get out – she told herself nothing terrible would happen. When that didn’t work, she forced herself to ride out the attack, concentrating on her breathing, even when she felt as if she might pass out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Shaky, incomplete breaths but breathing nevertheless. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  As the anxiety started to diminish, her breaths grew longer – if not normal, at least more whole. She walked about the room: clockwise, anti-clockwise, right across the middle and back. She touched all her things as if to re-acquaint herself after a long absence, and then gazed through the window where she could see the world was unchanged. The trees blew in the wind and the garden was still occupied by the ghosts of the dead. In the house below, sounds of life continued, and she missed her little silk shop terribly.

  Even though she sent pleading notes to her father begging for his or Sylvie’s presence, the only person she saw was Lisa who, charged with bathroom duties as well as bringing food, continued to be unhappy seeing her in this state. By the fourth day Nicole was surprised to find she’d learnt how to face the fear a little better, and that had lessened the hold it had on her. She was still reluctant to wash or even dress, but Lisa held her hand and helped her. When she was clean, Lisa plaited her hair. With shaking hands, Nicole passed up the rubber bands to hold the plaits in place. The simple activity didn’t stop the fear from rising but she felt better equipped to handle the early signs: the sweating, the trembling, the feeling of being winded.

  No note came back, nor any word from her father. Faced with his implacable silence, Nicole paced the room. There had to be a way out. There had to be. Trần would be back in three days’ time and she wouldn’t be there to meet him. She owed him her presence at least, but she just wasn’t ready to leave everything behind; despite what they had done to her, she could not go. She hoped Trần hadn’t meant it when he’d said she wouldn’t be safe at the shop. It was the only good thing left. She longed to be there now, soothed by the neat rows of brightly coloured silk and enjoying the smell of silk and camphor. She would convince him she’d never say a word about the tunnels, but if that failed, there was always the export side of the business in Huế. Maybe she could go there.

  With an ache in her bones she couldn’t bear to think that it might have been Mark who had informed Sylvie about Trần’s last visit. And Sylvie had told Giraud. But if Mark had been central to this lock-up, was it really out of concern for her safety or because he was a CIA officer and would do anything to arrest the spread of communism? He’d hinted that he wanted to know details of the Vietminh’s plans, just as Trần had wanted her to find out about French intentions. Unable to clear her head of the mistrust, she hated what was happening. Why couldn’t things go on as they had before? Yet even as she asked herself this question, she knew the answer: the wealth of the French had been made off the backs of the Vietnamese – Trần had taught her that if nothing else. No doubt there were good Frenchmen too, men who didn’t abuse their power, men who believed in their purpose, but she would never forget what her father had done in the cell beneath the hotel.

  One day when Lisa came in she decided to ask her again about what had happened the day she was born. For Nicole, everything seemed to come back to that. And although Lisa had refused to discuss it before, this time the cook sat down on the bed and said she’d tell her the truth.

  ‘Your mother had a difficult labour with Sylvie and an even more difficult one with you. It went on too long, but that was because it was happening too early.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  Lisa closed her eyes. ‘Your mother was meant to have been away for the weekend, but she returned early and saw something she should not have seen.’

  Nicole frowned, not understanding.

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your mother went up to the room she shared with your father and found him in bed,’ Lisa paused, ‘with somebody else.’

  ‘Oh my God. Who? Who was he with?’

  ‘One of the maids.’

  Nicole shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Lisa blinked rapidly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Your father bundled the maid out of the house and, after a while, we heard crying from your mother’s bedroom, and then screams. I told your father the baby was coming, but he wouldn’t believe me and forbade me to go to her. They hadn’t been getting on for some time. She was often ill and he thought her a hypochondriac. He judged her terribly but she was genuinely fragile.’

  ‘Didn’t he love my mother?’

  ‘He adored her at the beginning, but then I think the consequences of a mixed marriage hit home. Well, he kept repeating that she was just trying to seek attention, yet again. And then it all went quiet and, as the baby wasn’t due, I thought maybe he was right.’

  ‘But it wasn’t?’

  ‘In the end it seemed unnaturally quiet. I disobeyed him and when I went to see for myself …’ She paused and stared at Nicole. ‘Are you sure you want to hear?’

  Nicole nodded.

  ‘Chérie, there was blood everywhere. I called the doctor, and I delivered the baby – you, of course. But it was too late for your mother. She had lost too much blood. The doctor arrived and hurried into the room with your father, but by then she was already dead.’

  Nicole felt a huge lump form in her throat.

  ‘He was utterly destroyed by guilt.’

  Nicole screwed up her eyes and balled a fist into her other palm. ‘So he should have been.’

  ‘It changed him. It changed all of us.’

  There was a pause but Nicole needed to hear more. ‘What did the doctor say? Could he have saved her if he’d been called at the start?’

  ‘Maybe. He said he’d have taken her straight to hospital, but couldn’t guarantee she’d have survived.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, was it?’

  ‘Not at all. You were an innocent baby. If anyone was to blame …’

  ‘It was my father.’

  Nicole felt a great whooshing sound in her ears as if she was drowning all over again. If only she had known this before.

  ‘I tried to encourage him to hold you, but he wouldn’t even look at you. You were so tiny I feared for your life too. But I think you reminded him of his own guilt too much.’

  Nicole couldn’t think clearly.

  ‘The house was in complete confusion. Your father vanished for days on end, sometimes taking Sylvie with him. Someone had to see that life went on, so I kept you down in the kitchen with me until you were a few months older. I had a sweetheart myself, but he wouldn’t wait.’

  ‘You must have resented me.’

  Lisa looked at her. ‘You, my love, never. You were so sweet. So funny. I thought of you as mine.’

  Nicole blinked away tears. ‘But the maid must have known my mother was pregnant.’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry fo
r. But Sylvie has always believed our mother died because of me. She has never let me forget it.’

  ‘Sylvie saw how your father behaved towards you. He wouldn’t touch you, and even as you grew older he showed little interest.’

  ‘That’s what I always felt.’

  ‘Obviously he eventually had to acknowledge you, but the harm had been done. Sylvie was convinced your mother’s death was your fault and that your father hated you for it. She simply copied him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘It wasn’t my place.’

  Nicole’s head was spinning and she felt such a burst of rage she thumped her fist against the wall.

  ‘I feel sorry for Sylvie,’ Lisa added. ‘She was only very young when she lost her mother. It hit her hard and affected her whole life.’

  That prompted a further outburst from Nicole. ‘Sorry for her! You know, even as a child she made me feel unwanted.’

  ‘I do know.’

  ‘She was always the queen bee. She’d invite me to join her and her friends on an outing and at the last minute, when I was ready and feeling excited, she’d say she had changed her mind. I always felt excluded.’

  ‘Why did you never try to tell your father?’

  Nicole shook her head. ‘What would have been the point? He would never have taken my side. Never have even believed me.’

  ‘Well, it’s really your father you should be angry with, isn’t it?’ Lisa put a hand on her arm. ‘Let me ask you one thing. Would you rather be you or Sylvie?’

  Nicole stared at the cook. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever stopped to think? Don’t you realize what a deeply troubled woman she is?’

  But Nicole would not be pacified. ‘I don’t care. I only know how unhappy she made me.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder how you’d both have turned out if your mother had lived.’

  Nicole had loved her sister, but now she made up her mind: behind Sylvie’s angelic looks lay nothing she could ever want to see again. Sick of bearing the blame for her mother’s death, and sick of feeling ashamed of being who she was, the pain she’d tried to repress all her life felt as if it might overwhelm her.