The Silk Merchant’s Daughter

by Dinah Jefferies

  ‘I am your friend, Nicole.’

  ‘The best friend I’ve ever had.’ Nicole knew she’d probably never see O-Lan again and wanted to say more, but the look in O-Lan’s eyes said it all.

  She nodded. ‘You too.’

  ‘As soon as it gets dark Mark will come, and you must go. Make sure it is well before midnight.’

  Nicole nodded. ‘I can’t believe this is the end.’

  ‘Think of it as a start, as well as an end. I hope you find your sister quickly. Kiss the baby from me.’

  Nicole closed her eyes. The tears backed up, stinging her lids, until she forced herself to open her eyes and brush the dampness away. She gave O-Lan one last hug, and after they had stepped back from one another she watched as her friend walked to the door leading to the alley. Just before the door, O-Lan turned and signalled goodbye. Nicole felt a wave of sadness but raised a hand, then with shaking fingers opened the courtyard door to her shop and slipped in.

  Inside the shop the thugs had thrown her precious bales of silk to the floor. She picked her way across in the dark and began putting some of them back on the shelves, but then resigned herself to letting them be. There was little point. She stood and gazed around her, hardly able to believe all her hard work and love had come to this. The fever had faded but her legs still felt weak, so she went upstairs to lie on the bed to wait for Mark. It was damp and cold up there but she closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the night: the hoot of an owl, the flurry of wings, a child crying in its sleep. This would be the last time she’d ever be in her silk shop.

  41

  In the half-light of the shop the first sight of Mark flattened her. With feline caution he had padded up the stairs, but she had not been sleeping and, with eyes wide open, was keeping watch. Her skin prickled with the agony of anticipation and, when she got to her feet, she felt so light she feared she’d float off before he even reached her. She saw his tall shape at the top of the stairs, he held out his arms and she ran to him. He scooped her up and stroked her back; comforted by the warmth of his body at last so close to hers, she sobbed silently into his chest. Everything she’d been through since she had last seen him, every doubt, every hope and every fear, threatened to pour from her.

  When it had finally passed, he held her away from him. ‘So? Like that then!’

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘It’s over now, Nicole. I’m sorry it took me so long.’

  He explained that when he’d returned from Russia he’d expected her to already be in France. He had called Lisa who’d told him that she’d received a letter from Nicole but that was all. So he’d gone to the Duval villa where, finding the garden door locked, he’d climbed over the wall.

  ‘The back door to the conservatory was wide open, so I went in and saw everything in chaos. I knew you were untidy,’ he said, ‘but this was something else.’

  She laughed. ‘I left rather quickly.’

  His face grew serious. ‘I was terrified I’d lost you. But something told me to look for you here.’

  ‘But your job?’ she said. ‘How is this possible?’

  ‘I’ve made arrangements.’

  She wanted to know what had happened in Russia, but when she began to speak, he held up a hand to silence her. ‘Let’s not pick it over now. Let’s gear ourselves up for the bike ride of our lives. Agreed? All that matters now is that we slip away without Trần knowing, and we get on that road.’

  She nodded.

  He studied her face. ‘You are feeling well enough for this?’

  ‘Of course. It was only a fever. I would have had to go on my own tonight anyway.’

  ‘You look pale.’

  ‘You can’t see me properly in this light. I’ll be fine.’

  He pulled something out of his pocket. ‘Here, eat this,’ he said as he handed her a squashed cheese roll from out of a paper bag.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘When did you last eat?’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘I thought not. Now eat. You’ll need your strength. Have you got something warm to wrap round you?’

  She laughed. ‘I have a shop full of somethings. Or at least the somethings that haven’t been sold or stolen.’

  They lay on the bed for a delicious few minutes, his fingers tangling in her hair as he stroked it. She breathed in the salty, citrusy smell of him and thought of her daughter. The fragility of their present happiness was clear, but she tried not to focus on the danger ahead. The minutes spooled out as he held her so close that she could feel his longing was as strong as her own.

  He had brought a rucksack with him and she added a change of her own clothes to his things before leaving the shop by the outside staircase to the courtyard and then out via the alley. She glanced up, glad to see the sky had clouded over. When she reached for his hand she felt his energy flood through her.

  ‘All set?’ he whispered.

  They crept over to O-Lan’s, where they found the shed door unlocked. In fact, O-Lan had cleverly broken the lock to make it look like theft. Nicole prayed her friend would be safe and that Trần wouldn’t take his anger out on her.

  Mark hugged her one more time, then spoke in a low voice. ‘Ready?’

  This was it. Every part of her was bursting with the desire to see Celeste. The love was absolute. Full of hope, she gave him a squeeze. ‘She looks like you, Mark. You should see the sparkle in her blue eyes when something makes her chuckle.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see her.’

  They walked the bike through the empty streets surrounding the shop and it looked as if it would be easier than they expected. But, about half a kilometre further on, a voice rang out somewhere behind them.

  ‘Halt!’

  They couldn’t see where the voice was coming from, but it sounded like a French patrol.

  ‘Take the bike and the rucksack. Get down that alley fast,’ Mark whispered and pointed in front of them. ‘Stay there. I’ll distract them. I’m hoping they only heard us, and didn’t see us.’

  Once Nicole had rolled the bike into the alley, she watched Mark go off in the opposite direction, whistling nonchalantly and walking with an ambling gait as if he was drunk.

  After he turned the corner, she was unable to see him or the officer, and could only hear what they were saying.

  ‘Officer.’ It was Mark’s voice. ‘S’nice evenin’.’

  ‘There is a curfew. You need to come with one of my men.’

  ‘Just on m’way home.’

  ‘What are you doing this side of the city? I heard you with somebody else. Who was that?’

  ‘I –’ He paused.

  The muscles in her neck and shoulders tensed. She waited for a moment but, worried Mark had run out of ideas, could stand it no longer. Leaving the motorbike, she undid the top buttons of her dress, ruffled her hair and left her wrap behind. Stepping out of the alley, she ran over to where the officer was confronting Mark. She giggled repeatedly and spoke in rapid French.

  ‘Officer, I am so sorry. We both had too much to drink and, oh dear, but I was feeling sick and my boyfriend –’ she draped an arm round Mark – ‘he thought I needed some fresh air. He’s American and leaving Vietnam. I wanted to be with him before he goes. We thought it would be quiet here, near to the lake, where we could be alone. You know what I mean. We weren’t causing any trouble. Just lost track of time. On our way back home now.’

  The man put up a hand to stop her and looked at them dubiously. He yawned and pointed at the route they should take. ‘Very well. But don’t you realize it’s dangerous? Now out of my sight, the pair of you. The French quarter is that direction. Get back home and keep out of trouble. Hell is about to let loose in Hanoi.’

  Nicole struggled to control the feeling of relief as she and Mark walked away, arms wrapped round each other. The trouble was they were now heading in the opposite direction to where Nicole had left the motorbike. ‘What if they find the bike?’ she whispered.
<
br />   ‘You left it out of sight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll skirt back. The patrols are moving around the city. With any luck they’ll not see it.’

  For fifteen tense minutes they waited before creeping back, holding to the shadows and concealing themselves wherever they could.

  It still took too long and Nicole’s nerves were stretched to breaking as fear surged through her. At every sound they froze. This section of the city wasn’t quiet even in the dead of night, and at one point Nicole imagined others crawling around the streets, all desperate to engineer an escape. Eventually they reached the right alley.

  ‘It’s down there,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t see.’

  ‘Behind that shop.’ While Mark went down to look, she leant into the shadow of the shop door, feverish with anxiety that the bike might not be there. When he appeared a moment or two later wheeling it beside him, she felt suddenly weightless. They’d got away with it.

  ‘We can’t start it up here, Mark,’ she whispered. ‘The patrol will still hear.’

  ‘We’ll push it a little further, but we can’t take the risk of leaving it too long. There are other patrols. Here’s your wrap. Can you take the rucksack too?’

  She nodded and slipped her arms through the straps. A few minutes later, outside a Vietnamese temple shrouded in darkness, he turned to her. ‘Okay?’

  She nodded, they shared a brief kiss, and then Mark sat astride the bike. She climbed up behind him, wrapping her arms round his middle and leaning in.

  ‘Hold tight,’ he said.

  As he revved, the bike sprang into life and they headed for the road to Haiphong. Until they reached it, Nicole would be nervous. Instead, she tried to think of her life in Hanoi: of her family and of Lisa, of her shop and her friend O-Lan. Even with the dust stinging her eyes she kept them open, wanting one last look at the city as they sped by.

  Once they arrived at the open road, Mark gave a great shout. Like a warrior going into battle, she thought, and laughed at herself for being fanciful. With her cheek nuzzled against his jacket she breathed wool smelling vaguely of dust and grease. She twisted back to look as the city receded. Overjoyed that they were going to follow Sylvie, together, she also wanted to say goodbye.

  ‘Adieu, Hanoi,’ Nicole whispered, ‘adieu.’ Her words scattered in the wind as she gazed into the empty road ahead.

  The bumping speed of the ride and the throbbing of the engine meant they arrived at Haiphong exhilarated, but extremely tired. There had been no road mines, no stopping at outposts, nothing more than the usual potholes. It had been as easy as they could have hoped, but as dawn gradually revealed what lay ahead of them, it began to rain, and Nicole felt anxious again.

  A sea of makeshift tents stretched as far as the eye could see. Mark told her the US Naval Task Force had been mobilized to assist the evacuation of thousands of refugees.

  ‘Refugees,’ she said. ‘Is that what I am now? A refugee?’

  ‘I guess so. It’s called “Operation Passage to Freedom”. The demand is so high the French asked Washington for help, so the US Department of Defence brought in the navy.’

  ‘How will we ever find which ship she’s sailing on in this?’

  ‘We need to find one of the American naval officers in charge.’

  They plunged into the great tide of grey and spiritless refugees. All morning they asked everyone they met if they had seen a woman answering Sylvie’s description, but grew more and more disappointed at the lack of information. People without tents were huddling together against the rain and if anybody had seen Sylvie it was clear they had too much to worry about to remember or care.

  But in the afternoon Nicole spotted a woman a few metres ahead of where they had stopped to rest, a woman with Sylvie’s build, and carrying a baby.

  ‘Celeste,’ she cried out, ‘at last.’

  She felt a huge burst of relief and, blood pumping through her body, she shouted her sister’s name. The woman did not turn round and when Nicole reached her she saw it wasn’t Sylvie at all, but a much older woman. She burst into tears, the pain of it eating away at her hope.

  ‘We’ll never find them,’ she said as Mark held her.

  ‘Don’t give up. We’ll keep searching. Someone will know something. We have to keep looking.’

  ‘And if we don’t find them? They’ve probably already sailed.’

  ‘We’ll head for France anyway.’

  She nodded. Throughout the tented city, the smell of sickness and damp permeated the air. She tried to remain positive but her courage was fading. Disconsolate-looking people dragged their feet as they wandered up and down the muddy aisles between the tents, and whenever a ship’s horn blew, there were angry shouts and yells. The sound of crying children tore her apart. She could picture the shoving and pushing in the rush to get on the ships and, terrified that Celeste might have been hurt in the scrum, she clung on to Mark; they couldn’t risk separation or the crowds would swallow them instantly.

  It took a while, but they eventually found an officer.

  ‘This is just the beginning,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky to be here early.’

  ‘This is early?’

  ‘The ships sail to Saigon. We are currently evacuating civilians, but soon it will be all the soldiers and members of the French army from North Vietnam.’

  She turned to Mark. ‘Sylvie said they were taking out officials and army only.’

  Mark gave a sigh of frustration.

  ‘Either way,’ the man continued, ‘we don’t have enough ships.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen to all these people?’

  ‘We’ll get them moving in time. Those who survive the camp that is. Our US boys are renovating cargo vessels and tank carriers. Doing repairs en route from bases in the Philippines.’

  ‘How long does it take to get to Saigon?’

  ‘Almost three days.’

  ‘What about ships sailing for France?’ Mark asked.

  The man frowned. ‘That’s more difficult. The rumour is the French air force will be running a mass emigration and their navy will be assisting. Only as far as Saigon, I believe, though there may be liners sailing for France from Saigon. There could be one or two sailing direct from here, but I have no concrete information.’ He gestured at the chaos around them. ‘You’d need to ask the French authorities.’

  Nicole looked at Mark. ‘Do you think she might have gone south to Saigon on a US ship and not straight to France? She might even still be there.’

  ‘She might,’ Mark said, and turned back to speak to the officer again. ‘Are there lists?’

  ‘We’ve tried. Basically people are registered and we pile them in wherever we can. Many don’t have identification. As I said, we’ll soon be evacuating troops as well as citizens. If the woman you want is on a French ship, we wouldn’t have a record of her.’

  ‘She had a baby with her. The baby may have been ill.’

  ‘There are a lot of sick babies.’

  ‘Please?’ Nicole begged.

  ‘Look around you. Before long tens of thousands will be waiting and it will swell to hundreds of thousands. The diarrhoea has been through the camp like wildfire. But there’s a Catholic hospital and crematorium. If she’s French, why not ask there?’

  A crematorium. The words rang in her head.

  He gave them directions and, as they ploughed their way through the filth of the muddy walkways, the smell of human sewage grew strong. Nicole, gripped by fear, could not speak. Celeste had been ill. What if she had died in this terrible place?

  Mark sensed her despair and reached for her hand. ‘Stay strong,’ he kept saying. ‘Stay strong. Keep believing.’

  When they reached the hospital they could see it consisted of long rows of tents strung together with rope and lit by a series of oil lamps. A man in a grey coat was busy snuffing them out and the smell of burning oil drifted over.

  Mark went across and explained the situation. T
he man scratched his head. ‘Everyone is fighting for limited shelter, food and medicine, let alone places on the ships. I’ve only just arrived, but one of the nurses might know.’

  He waved a tall woman across.

  ‘You are French?’ she said as she came over and held out her hand to Mark.

  Nicole stepped forward. ‘I am French. I have a French passport.’

  ‘But you look …’

  ‘My mother was Vietnamese.’ She held out her hand with her passport in it. ‘Nicole Duval. I am looking for my sister, Sylvie Duval. She –’

  ‘She came on ahead,’ Mark interrupted. ‘She had a baby with her.’

  ‘Celeste. She wasn’t well.’

  The nurse frowned. ‘I don’t recall the names. With insufficient sanitation and water, there are constant outbreaks of disease. I’ve seen too many babies.’

  She turned to go but Nicole put out a hand to stop her.

  ‘Please. She has red hair. The baby. Reddish hair.’

  The nurse shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Nicole stared at the ground, feeling as if it was about to swallow her.

  ‘Hold on,’ the woman said.

  Nicole glanced up and felt a flicker of hope when she saw the woman was frowning.

  ‘And blue eyes?’ she said. ‘Yes, I remember. So unusual.’

  ‘Is she alive? The baby?’ Nicole whispered.

  ‘Very much so, although it was touch and go. Her mother wanted to get her on to a ship that morning, but I told her without medical treatment the child would die. She was dehydrated so we kept her on a drip here.’

  ‘Sylvie Duval was not her –’

  Mark touched her arm and interrupted again. ‘Do you know if they managed to get on a ship?’

  ‘There is a French ship sailing for Saigon today. It’s only recently docked. I believe she was hoping to get on that.’ She patted Nicole’s hand. ‘If you hurry you should catch up with your sister.’

  ‘How do we get tickets?’

  ‘You don’t, you go with your French passport. As long as there are spaces, you’ll be able to embark.’

  By the time they found the French liner, Nicole felt so winded she could barely walk; the fever had drained her more than she’d realized. As she glanced around she saw the people at the dock now stood a dozen deep and the queues were still swelling with new arrivals. Frightened they might become separated, she gripped Mark’s arm as they approached a tent set up at the dockside to register evacuees. She showed her passport and was told to hurry as the ship would soon be sailing. But an argument developed as the French officer told Mark he was required to board an American ship. Nicole’s heart plummeted as Mark waved her away.