The Silk Merchant’s Daughter

by Dinah Jefferies

  ‘Is this your home?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but it used to be my uncle’s.’

  ‘Used to be?’

  Trần frowned. ‘It was his ancestral home. It has been requisitioned by the party. He was a landowner.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means he was given a fair trial.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He owned three fields and was a silk merchant.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Trần nodded.

  ‘So what happened?’

  He shook his head. ‘He was turned out. That man you saw me talking to, he’s my uncle.’

  She couldn’t keep the shock from her voice. ‘The one who helped you receive an education?’

  ‘Change the subject,’ he said and walked up to the door. ‘Come, this is where we’ll stay until we get our orders. I have told them you’re Vietnamese.’

  ‘They don’t know I’m half French?’

  ‘No and let us keep it that way.’

  ‘Where will they send us?’

  ‘We are both to join a travelling troupe of performers. While you are in the show I shall be charged with talking to the villagers.’

  ‘To persuade them to join the resistance?’

  ‘That is right.’

  The next day Nicole watched a stick-thin woman with a split-bamboo trap catching fish and shrimp in a small stream running beside the village. Nicole had barely slept, and the hard wooden bench she’d been given for a bed hadn’t helped.

  ‘What else do they eat?’ she asked Trần.

  ‘Fish, vegetables and rice. That’s it. Boiled, steamed, pounded into cakes. Always rice.’

  The daily life of the women seemed to concentrate on taking care of the children, feeding the animals, trying to catch fish and cooking. It was clear there was a definite hierarchy at play between the sexes; the women also had to fetch and carry water and do all the other domestic chores too.

  ‘Life is not easy,’ Trần said. ‘A drought will destroy the crops, a flood the same. They help each other. We all play our part.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No running hot and cold water here, Nicole.’

  She frowned, feeling a bit insulted. She had not expected there would be. He led her to a hut where she was told to follow the lead of a woman who was chopping mulberry leaves to feed the silkworms. Another woman was removing cocoons and plunging them into boiling hot water.

  As Nicole began work, they looked at her sideways but did not speak. Nicole felt ill at ease and shifted from one foot to the other.

  ‘It’s to kill the larvae, isn’t it?’ she whispered to her companion, hoping to show her knowledge. ‘The water.’

  The woman nodded. ‘If we do not they will turn into moths. And moths would chew through the threads to get out of the cocoon.’

  In another room Nicole spotted two women pulling the thread from the cocoons and spinning it into hanks ready to be woven into cloth. As she chopped the bunch of leaves, she thought back to the evening before. She’d been sitting next to Trần, while trying to keep up with the conversation in the hut. About eight of them had been huddled together, sitting cross-legged on the floor and smoking some foul-scented root. With a convincing accent her Vietnamese was good, but it wasn’t her first language. She had only been half listening while watching the flickering shadows cast by the flames of small wicks soaked in shallow bowls of oil. Trần had prodded her in the ribs.

  ‘Pay attention,’ he’d muttered.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Smile at the leader. Look grateful. We are being put to work in the silk sheds until we get our orders.’

  She had been surprised they weren’t immediately to set off for the north, but Trần said it was a test and she should simply obey and look pleased to do so.

  Now as she chopped the mulberry leaves she lost concentration again and sliced the tip of her finger. Without thinking, she swore in French. The woman looked at her suspiciously and told her to find a rag to wrap round the wound.

  It was only later on in the evening, after a supper of a surprisingly good shrimp soup served with soya bean loaf, that the full weight of what she had done sank in. The group had convened by the time she returned from the raised squatter toilet, the stink of it still clinging to her clothes. Although there was room for everyone it felt damp, crowded and intimidating. What she wouldn’t have done for a café sua, the Vietnamese name she must remember to use for a café au lait. The chilly atmosphere in the room grew colder as the leader began firing questions at Trần, speaking so rapidly she only managed to pick up some of the words. She heard her name mentioned twice, while at the same time the leader glanced her way. Trần, looking mortified, spoke more slowly but stuck up for her, explaining she was indeed half French but that she wholeheartedly believed in the cause.

  Another man spoke up and Nicole cringed at the hatred in his voice. ‘She’s a spy.’

  Everyone apart from Trần and the leader nodded.

  ‘Get rid of her,’ one muttered.

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘We don’t need a métisse here.’

  A man with unusually heavy brows and a narrow sun-darkened face withdrew a knife from a pouch at his waist and wiped it on his trousers. He grinned at Nicole. She shuddered and glanced at Trần, who was now gazing at the floor. The leader ignored the men and, speaking a little less rapidly, addressed Nicole directly.

  ‘You can trust her,’ Trần butted in as he glanced up. ‘I vouch for her.’

  ‘Let her speak. What do you have to say for yourself?’

  As everything Trần had ever said about the resistance ran through her mind, she clutched at the fleeting phrases. ‘I believe in land reform,’ she said. ‘I believe the rich should be made to pay for what they have done. I want to help free the country from slavery. The French have enforced inhuman laws. They have drowned uprisings in rivers of blood. They have robbed us of our raw materials.’

  The leader glanced at Trần. ‘You say she gave you information?’

  Trần nodded.

  A tense silence spread across the room as the leader leant back and returned his gaze to Nicole. Sweating profusely and feeling the patches spreading beneath her arms, she hardly knew where to look. Even though she had just been to the toilet she desperately needed to go again. One or two of the men muttered, but the leader held up a hand for silence. He rolled a cigarette very slowly, flattening out a paper, shredding the tobacco, then laying it in a neat line on the paper, the frown lines on his forehead deepening. Nicole wanted to shout at him to hurry, but the moments kept dragging. At last he slipped it between his lips, but still did not light it.

  ‘So what was it?’ he said, tilting his head and speaking out of the side of his mouth.

  Suddenly feeling cold, her mind refused to work. What was what? What did he mean?

  He slammed the table with the palms of his hands. ‘This information. What was it?’

  It was on her lips but, close to tears, she faltered. She steadied herself and the words came out rapidly. ‘The French are sending fifty thousand troops north, including American planes.’

  He nodded. ‘You are a singer?’

  She continued to make a huge effort to control herself. He must not know how scared she was. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know Vietnamese songs?’

  ‘My mother was Vietnamese.’

  With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Nicole felt certain she was about to come unstuck. All eyes were on the leader as he bowed his head.

  ‘If you want to stay, you will sing for us. Stand up.’

  She got to her feet, her mind a complete blank. This felt like a terrible mistake. She risked a glance in Trần’s direction but his face was passive and he avoided her eyes. She tensed. What would she do if she couldn’t think of the right song? A tune came back to her, a line from her show, and then another, but the rest of the words were missing. From there she frantically ran through more songs in her he
ad. Would she be judged on her choice of song as well? Or would it be the quality of her singing? Certainly they would expect her to come up with something typically Vietnamese, something they would all be likely to know, but her mind kept giving her French songs. Why couldn’t she recall the songs she’d learnt with O-Lan?

  She felt as if her throat would implode, but at last a tune sprang into her mind; a lullaby about an autumn wind and the coming of the winter, one of the songs she’d sung with O-Lan recently, so most of the words came back. Ignoring the feeling of dread that threatened to consume her, she began. And, as the haunting rhythm of the song filled the room, she closed her eyes and pictured herself at home in the garden with leaves floating on the breeze. She managed to convey the peace and melancholy of autumn and, when she opened her eyes, she saw all the men were listening. When she had finished nobody spoke.

  After a moment, the leader nodded. ‘She stays. Is everyone agreed?’

  They all agreed, with the exception of the man with the knife, who looked disappointed and left the room muttering.

  The leader finally lit his cigarette, slowly blowing the smoke out as he turned to her. ‘You are not lying about the troops. We have heard this too. But you will be watched. Put one foot wrong …’

  He got up and walked away, but turned back at the door. As he did so he smiled, then went out, leaving a trail of smoke behind. It had not been a warm smile.

  The following day, while they waited to hear when they’d be leaving, Nicole and Trần sat in the privacy of the walled courtyard behind the house. She watched a chameleon race up the wall and, feeling a little out of place, she reached for his hand. He refused to take it.

  ‘We cannot be seen to be close. We are comrades now.’

  She blinked in confusion. ‘What about affection or friendship?’

  ‘Cannot come into it.’

  Nicole picked up a pebble and threw it at a tree. She had not expected to experience such tedium or for Trần to be so cold.

  ‘Once we have won the war,’ he said, ‘things will change. I will have status within the party and will be free to marry.’

  ‘Strange idea of a proposal.’

  He grinned. ‘Not romantic enough for you?’

  She shrugged. She liked him but marriage had not been on her mind, and certainly not to him. The thought of Mark’s photo in her purse popped into her head.

  ‘Now remember, show an attitude of humility. Be vigilant. Respect age, knowledge and social rank. Remember too, with strangers, it’s best to always say ong or “grandfather”.’

  ‘I know what it means,’ she said, irritated by the patronizing way he’d spoken.

  She glanced at the orchids growing on the trunk of the nearby tree and listened to the birds. It would be all right. Everything would be all right. It had to be. She didn’t tell him she was beginning to feel homesick.

  ‘When you meet anyone, bow slightly and smile. If they ask how you are, say “Tôi khὀe. Cám ơn. Còn bạn.” And nothing more. Whatever you do, keep a civil tongue. Nobody will reveal their true feelings so you must not either.’

  ‘And as a woman I must be modest.’ He didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm in her voice.

  ‘Exactly.’

  A jasmine hedge ran all along one side of the courtyard and the sweet scent made her sneeze. She leant against him, the morning sun sparkled between the gaps in the clouds and she felt a little better. Dozing in the warmth, it seemed her best option was to surrender to whatever lay ahead.

  ‘What about the man with the knife?’ she asked.

  ‘Duong? Don’t worry about him.’

  Her mood lightened further when one of the village women brought out a pot of rice and a fresh green papaya salad with pickled vegetables.

  ‘It’s a good sign. If they’re feeding us now it means we’ll be leaving soon,’ he said. ‘We may not eat again for several days.’

  ‘Will the journey be hard?’

  ‘It will. You’ll get used to doing without luxury.’

  Not without a pang, Nicole thought back over the journey her family had made from Huế to Hanoi. That had been a turning point too, just like this. It had seemed like a tough journey at the time, but compared with what might lie ahead, she now knew it had been nothing at all.

  3

  * * *

  MISTS AND CLOUDS

  November 1952 to September 1953

  25

  Northern Vietnam

  The journey north during early November was not as arduous as Nicole had expected; rather, she enjoyed the sense of freedom, and loved the evenings when the countryside, softened by the gold of the setting sun, cast a spell that made anything seem possible. These were the months when it was good to walk. They walked at night when they could, ducking bats flying haphazardly between low trees. When they glimpsed a black bear in the blue light of the moon, Nicole froze. Trần’s wide-eyed look warned her not to move. The bear passed by. When they tried to sleep during the day, it was snub-nosed monkeys who woke them, pulling their hair and sniffing their bags in the hope of finding food.

  It might only be an interlude before the hard work began but, determined to make the most of it, she was content to sleep rough, thrilled by the wilderness, and took each day as it came. There were moments when they drew too close to French troops and the sharp feeling of danger coursed through her blood, but being out in the open with the wind, the rain and the birds for company created a kind of exhilaration that fizzed and bubbled inside her. She felt as if she was starting to discover something new about herself, and she was relieved that Trần wasn’t expecting to have sex again.

  The early days with the theatre troupe passed quickly. She felt strange at first, but followed Trần’s instructions and managed not to give herself away. She had learnt to watch for signs, little facial giveaways and the like, and was good at spotting what people were thinking. She hoped none of them could see into her mind. Hospitable and ready to share, they tried to engage her, but she kept to herself, sang her songs well and made sure she never uttered a word of French. She made one particular girlfriend, a musician called Phuong, and they’d usually smoke together at the end of a show before striking the stage and moving on.

  The show was a form of Chèo, previously a satire showing vignettes of everyday life and performed by peasants in a village square; a simple drama with songs that suited Nicole, who found all her work with O-Lan was paying off brilliantly. Traditionally the action had shown people dealing with ethical quandaries and religious issues, but now the narratives were more frequently modern Vietminh versions, riddled with the theme of self-sacrifice. Intended to reinforce the spirits of the rural supporters and persuade drifters to join the resistance, the stories showed men and women heroically defending their country against the French.

  The songs were performed accompanied by traditional instruments: zithers, lutes, fiddles and bamboo xylophones. And the drums beat to the eight-rhythm structure of the military.

  At first Nicole felt roused by the music and content with her new world. And so the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months and, as time went on, she was surprised to realize that she’d been in the show for almost six months. One afternoon after a long trek through marshy land, she was sitting on a log in a quiet spot in the shade, thinking. Lately the paltry food supplies and dire personal arrangements had become worse than before. Now they were having to sleep in draughty barns and rat-infested hovels, her thoughts more often turned to the little luxuries of the past. An empty stomach didn’t help. Perpetually hungry, she also felt hot and sticky and, as she scratched the multiple bites on her legs, the memory of their French villa became more appealing. She tried to remember the details of each room but the images were hazy. She racked her brain trying to recall, but only her old bedroom, the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen came into focus.

  She would have liked nothing better than a bath in the little bathroom she had shared with Sylvie. She smiled at the memory and even misse
d her sister as she thought of the way one section of the bathroom had been tidy, and the other littered with her pins, clips and pots of face cream with the lids left unscrewed. She pictured the large art-deco mirror covering one wall – the way it steamed up when you had a bath – and how, if you looked out of the window, you gazed down on tropical fronds. It seemed so long ago; how innocent she had been.

  Now, lonelier than ever before, she questioned herself. Had it been a mistake to come north with Trần? Had she been wrong about Mark? Maybe he really had been looking out for her when he encouraged her to go home. She had acted on impulse, but perhaps if she’d demanded the truth about the house arrest and the shooting, things might have been different. She checked to make sure nobody was watching, then ran her fingertips over the photo of Mark before stuffing it back inside her purse. She looked at it every day, and always smiled at the memory of him falling into the lake. But she had grown up in a family who did not tell each other the truth, and so, instead of standing her ground, she had run away. O-Lan had been right about that.

  Though Trần had insisted he would be working in league with the troupe, in fact he went away for weeks on end. When he did turn up, he paid her less attention than before, and the warmth in his eyes was gone. It upset her more than she cared to acknowledge; not because she wanted him, but because it left her feeling even more adrift. She knew certain members of the troupe were messengers for the Vietminh – she couldn’t be sure which ones – but in every village they passed through, they spied out who was on the side of the nationalists, and who was not. Harsh reprisals were becoming increasingly frequent.

  The troupe performed in masks or painted their faces in red and white, which meant there was little chance of any French recognizing her. By day she wore traditional Vietnamese dress, which also acted as a disguise, and while of course she worried about being found by French army officers, at times she wished she could be, if only to be able to speak French again. But it was also true that in the months she’d been with the troupe she’d seen things she wished she had not: things that had shattered any remaining belief that Indochina should still be French. And the longer she spent with the troupe, the more Vietnamese she felt.