Bleeding in Black and White

by Colin Cotterill

  “There is, so I believe,” Petit offered, “a gentleman working at Madam Vin’s who is of the belief he’s actually a woman. He’s afflicted with feminine mannerisms and dresses exactly as the women there.”

  “And does he pass as a woman?”

  “He’s probably the most beautiful person there. Most of the fights that occur at the house result from unsuspecting male suitors reaching the winning tape only to discover…”

  “And have you reached that particular tape, M. Petit?” Stephanie asked.

  “Madam Rogers, what type do you take me for?”

  “An adventurous student of life: a man who revels in new experiences.”

  “I assure you, my dear lady, I am totally masculine.”

  “So you only sample the women there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Caught. Hoist by his own petard. The regional inspector of schools had just confessed to whoring to a Baptist wife in the House of the Pearly Gates. He was plainly devastated. “I mean…”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, don’t worry, M. Petit. We’re all grown ups here.”

  “But you’re—”

  “We’re of the modern breed of evangelists who don’t crucify a man for being weak. But you will have to suffer a penance for your sin.”

  “I…? In what way?”

  “Once we finish our desserts, you will take my husband to the House of the Eight-and-a-half Women.”

  “What?” Bodge arched his eyebrows at the same time.

  “And you will introduce him to Madame Vin and the eight girls and the one gentleman who would that he were.”

  “But you are…he is…”

  “M. Petit. Pray tell me, would a mechanic expect to repair an engine without lifting the hood to look inside?”

  “No, but…”

  “Then, how can a missionary expect to mend broken souls without tinkering around the depths of the low lives of society?”

  Petit looked astounded. “And Mr. Rogers. You would agree to go into such a place?”

  Bodge looked almost angelic. “Mrs. Rogers has always been my spiritual leader. She has often guideth’d me directly into the still waters. But she’s invariably right. If she wants me to go to a whore house, to a whore house I shall go.”

  “Then, in that case, I shall visit your lavatory and prepare to do my missionary duty.” Petit stood, bowed like a knight entrusted with a holy grail quest and walked off to the bathroom.

  Bodge swung back on his chair and laughed. “Are you trying to get me laid?”

  “Don’t be vulgar. Of course not. Some of the best secrets are overheard in brothels. We adopt one or two of the girls into our holy family and we’ll learn more about the war and the French administration in a few months than we could from two years of dinner parties at Le Residence. You don’t really believe the military guys don’t make dates outside bordello hours, do you now?”

  “Your engine’s always running, isn’t it.” His admiration for her grew stronger every day. She was constantly considering what was best for the mission, whereas Bodge hadn’t even begun to. “You’re certainly the real thing, Mrs. Rogers.”

  “I know.”

  Petit returned with his shirt newly tucked and his hair wetly slicked. Bodge rose to join him on their crusade.

  “And I don’t want you back before eleven,” Stephanie said. She came round the table and gave Bodge a peck on the cheek.

  “No, dear.” Bodge smiled again and followed Petit out of the door.

  37.

  From Reverend Cornfelt’s observatory the pink house seemed very close. But in fact they had to circumnavigate the prison to get there as there was no access from this side. The gardens and fields were already flooded. The rain had settled into a semi-permanent drizzle that was pleasantly refreshing after one of Stephanie’s home-cooked meals. Her first action in her new role had been to fire the guards, the gardener, and the fussy Vietnamese chef. Bodge and Petit walked in silence around the high whitewashed wall and were briefly challenged by the Montagnard guard in front of the gate.

  They continued through a maze of small unlit huts that Petit negotiated quite expertly. The hovels were still decorated with bleached offerings and washed out pictures left over from the Tet Festival. There were small altars to household spirits here and there, even in front of the Catholic dwellings. Poor Vietnamese liked to cover all the bases.

  The outside of the brothel had no moonlight to reflect its pinkness so it sat black against a black sky. Its leggy masthead was invisible, but the red curtains seemed to flicker as if a dangerous fire was raging out of control inside. To Bodge’s surprise, a gramophone recording of Robert Johnson’s music wafted out from the strip curtain that dangled in the doorway. As they neared it, he found that the music carried scents of incense and opium smoke and sweet perfume. It was an erotic cocktail that he found unnerving.

  The area inside the doorway was lit with beeswax lamps wrapped in red silk. The town apparently had inspectors for everything except fire risk. There wasn’t a receptionist. A first time visitor would have to try one of the three doors like an Alice arriving in Wonderland. But Petit knew his way around. The left-hand doors opened into a dark cavern of a room laid out with floor-level cots. Time had slowed in there. Even the smoke rising from the pipes seemed suspended as if in a photograph.

  Out of nowhere a small Vietnamese man in black satin pajamas appeared beside them.

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” he whispered. Even his words seemed to stop on the air in front of his mouth. “This way please.”

  “Thank you,” Petit said. “I’m just introducing a new friend to your establishment.”

  The Vietnamese was obviously overwhelmed by such polite French so he said again, “Welcome, gentlemen. This way please.”

  “We’ll be back,” said Petit, and led Bodge back out through the doors. “I realize a man such as yourself wouldn’t be interested in artificial stimulation. Just thought I should give you the full tour.” He opened the center doors onto a corridor of rooms that appeared to Bodge to be a prison block for very small offenders. “These, I believe, are short-time rooms to which a man can bring the girls for…well, I’m sure you understand.”

  “I can imagine,” Bodge smiled. Being a missionary was going to be quite an enlightening experience.

  “You’re sure you want to meet the staff?” Petit asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then, follow me.” Petit opened the final set of doors to reveal a huge lounge decorated like a somewhat tacky Chinese palace. The girls were dressed in ao dai but without the silk trousers. Their shoes were exact copies of the one that kicked heavenward from the roof, and their hair-dos sprouted magnificent blooms. Two hostesses were occupied with guests on the well-stuffed sofas, but the others appeared to be free and desperate. Spotting the two brave punters who’d ventured out in the rain, they stampeded toward the doors.

  “Jackie, Jackie, Jackie,” they twittered around Petit.

  “They appear to know you,” Bodge laughed.

  “I…I’ve brought guests here before. These girls have incredible memories for names.”

  They were soon overwhelmed by a pungently sweet-smelling posy of heads. Bodge felt a hand reach for his crotch and immediately begin to undo the fly buttons there. His arms were held fast and he couldn’t step away without crushing another flower. Petit saw what was happening and was enraged.

  “No. No,” he shouted. “Don’t. Don’t touch him. He is the new reverend. He is a man of God. He hasn’t come for that. Unhand him.”

  The blossom in front of Bodge did unhand him, but not before discovering that the new reverend was well loved by his Lord and already semi-happy to be there. It was news that found its way around the garden in a rapid Vietnamese whisper. Bodge caught the drift of it but Petit had no idea. The reverend wasn’t sure how to react. Perhaps he could argue that modern evangelism allowed its disciples to become aroused in the presence of half-naked whores.

 
; “Hello, Big Reverend,” said a demure young flower, her fingers locked in a Chinese salutation. A second girl branded a deliberately deep sign of the cross into her left breast with a finger — twice.

  “We’ve come to see Madame Vin,” said Petit, slapping hands away from his crotch.

  “She’s in the usual place,” said one girl who was hanging unshakably from his arm. Bodge, still silent and aroused, followed his guide to the rear of the room. Madame Vin sat in a small cubby which reminded Bodge of the one in front of Bouncers in New York. She had a window that overlooked the service area and a slot for payment. She had her head down and was counting money when Petit rapped on the glass.

  “Ahh,” she shouted and erupted into an unnaturally large smile. The makeup cracked at the corners of her mouth. This was apparently her first smile of the evening. “Ma Cherie, M. Petit.” She came out of her aquarium and hugged the Frenchman. “My girls were speaking of you just yesterday. They were saying how…”

  “Actually,” Petit interrupted, “I’m here to introduce you to the new Evangelical Missionary, Reverend Rogers.”

  She looked over Petit’s shoulder and gave her second smile to Bodge. It was more delightful in the subdued lighting of the lounge. She glided over to him in her elaborate silks like a small upholstered battleship. She took his large damp hand between her small dry ones.

  “M. Roger. I am so pleased to meet you. I am delighted you have honored us with your presence. You do speak French I hope?”

  “Yes, I do,” Bodge affirmed. “I’m pleased to meet the owner of such a colorful establishment.”

  “Ahh,” she screamed. “But you speak it so beautifully, too.”

  “As do you.”

  “Ahh, you flatterer.” She giggled like a young girl. Madame Vin had all the modest charms of a professional man-pleaser. “You know, I’ve always been of the belief that our two faiths should become more intimate.”

  “And, may I learn what your faith is, Madame Vin?”

  “You certainly may, but I feel you probably know already. Ours are the two oldest doctrines, M. Roger: the worship of God and the worship of the body.”

  “There are those who would claim the two are incompatible.”

  “Are you not married, M. Roger?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And do you not love her?”

  “Passionately.”

  “And how do you show your love to her?”

  “I read her poetry.”

  “Now, don’t be coy, M. Roger. You know what I’m talking about. The worship of her vagina. Do you not worship your wife’s vagina?”

  “I probably wouldn’t say ‘worship’.”

  “Whenever you visit that temple between her legs, you are making an offering to God.” The girls put their hands over their mouths and chuckled.

  “I doubt Mrs. Rogers would see it that way,” Bodge smiled.

  “Really? But does she not shout, ‘Oh God, Oh God’ whenever you make your offerings?”

  The girls now screamed with laughter and Petit hid a smile behind his palm. Bodge had no choice but to join in the mirth. “Madame Vin, allow me to buy you a drink so we can discuss this merger in more detail.”

  “Goodness, a man of God in the house of the devil drinking fire water from hell…”

  “…With the daughters of Ho Chi Minh,” came a mellow voice from one of the seats. The girls laughed again. A tall, incredibly beautiful woman there smiled but didn’t divert her gaze from the elderly sales representative at her side. This, Bodge suspected, was the final half. He gazed down on the incredible sight of this elegant halfway creature before turning back to the hostess.

  “The modern church believes you have to step into the ring with the devil before you can knock him out.”

  “You can step into my ring,” said one of the girls.

  “You see?” said Madame Vin. “You see these sinners? What can we do to bring them back to the path of righteousness?”

  “I could probably find them a job in a post office,” Bodge said. “A bank?”

  “Oh, I’ve tried, M. Roger. But these girls have heads like broccoli, they only know three numbers. Isn’t that right, Truc?”

  Truc was probably the prettiest of the real women. “Yes, Madam. Hand job 15 piastres, sucking, 50 piastres, fucking, 100 piastres.” The girls all applauded her recitation.

  “You see, Reverend? What good would these numbers do her in a bank?”

  “I’m sure it would lead to an increase in deposits.”

  At last, Madam Vin laughed. Cracks appeared all over. “Touché, and what a fitting adversary for my clever tongue. Come sit, Man of God, and tell me your life history. Feel free to wine and dine as many of my girls as you wish and I shall give you a first night discount. Maybe I’ll even let you throw dice for the bill.” She escorted Bodge and Petit to an empty copse of armchairs. “Truc, take off that funeral music and put on something with fire. Let’s invite the devil for this bout.”

  During the few seconds of silence while Truc found some hotter music and placed the record on the gramophone, a long, agonized woman’s scream sliced through the damp night and down the spines of the girls in the bordello. Madame Vin knew that neither of the men had noticed it because they were men, and only women were attuned to violence against their own.

  38.

  Bodge’s John Bull watch warned him that morning had arrived. Petit had long since returned from one of the tiny rooms where he’d helped Truc with her French. Bodge had thrown the dice for the bill (already he’d been submerged in vice and booze so gambling seemed like a modest sin to add to the list) and lost. As a result, the bill was doubled. Madame Vin reminded him what an insignificant fraction of his allowance it was, considering the number of potential converts he’d managed to get drunk. Everyone there had a much more positive view of the church as a result. Bodge was certain that most of Ban Methuot knew how obscene his mission budget was.

  He’d only drunk modestly, and goodheartedly refused all the advances from the girls. As only one person there came anywhere close to his type, and she was a man, the temptations hadn’t been hard to resist. Yet, somewhere, lurking behind his common sense like a city mugger in a dark alleyway, was a desire to self-destruct. Stephanie was a woman with stronger instincts for survival than anyone he knew. So Bodge was sure she understood he had the potential to foul up their mission. He wondered why she’d thrown him into the fire and brimstone at Madame Vin’s. Perhaps she was tired. Perhaps she wanted to go home to a quiet retirement on a beach somewhere.

  “The French refuse to drink this. They say it’s real whisky diluted in horse piss,” Madame Vin said as she handed him his change and a complimentary bottle of malt whisky.

  “For me? Thank you.”

  “I would like to meet your wife, Robert.”

  “I’m sure she’d like to meet you too.”

  “She must be a very remarkable woman.”

  “That she is.”

  “And I know she loves you very much.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because she trusts you alone in a room full of sexual goddesses such as myself.”

  “Obviously she didn’t realize just how alluring you were.”

  At the double door she kissed Bodge on both cheeks. In the revealing light of the red reception area her makeup looked like the surface of some ancient planet. The trails of time beneath its crust told of its eons of history. But her eyes, trapped in their craters of mascara still glistened with the passion of a young temptress who had broken many hearts.

  “Make sure my best customer gets home safely, please.”

  Petit was hung around Bodge’s arm like a raincoat. “Isn’t true,” the Frenchman slurred. “Only I show visit people come.” His English had fallen into a butter churn.

  “Come, M. Petit,” Bodge said. “The air will do us both good.”

  The girls waved goodbye while Bodge carried Petit into the slow drizzle of the early morning. Bodge w
asn’t about to lug him all the way across town. The pickled Frenchman would be the first overnight guest at the Pearly Gates.

  His sense of direction was usually good, but the maze of shanties had Bodge turned this way and that until he somehow found himself arriving at his house from the rear. They pushed through the gap in the privet hedge and were suddenly at the edge of a large rectangular pond that had once been a vegetable allotment. The rear of the house stood before them with just the flicker of a downstairs lamp beckoning them forward. Yet, neither man moved. There was something foreboding about the silence that neither man could explain in words. Something was wrong. On the back porch, they removed their soaked shoes and opened the unlocked French doors. In the doorway Bodge found himself wiping his bare feet on the mat so as not to slip on the tiles. Petit followed suit. But the mat was already damp. They walked into the house and were confronted by the bitter smell of uncooked meat. It was eerily quiet. Bodge’s first reaction was to head upstairs to see if Stephanie was okay, but they did a quick sweep of downstairs before climbing the stairs. Still they hadn’t spoken. Bodge was tense, but he took the lamp from the living room table and led the way. On the top landing he stopped and held up his hand for Petit to stop also. Together they held their breaths to listen. There was the slow tapping of water drops onto the outside sills, and the loud ticking of the clocks. The teak steps behind them were uncreaking their knots, and that was all.

  Bodge ignored the closed guestroom door and headed directly for the master bedroom where he hoped in his heart to find Stephanie sleeping soundly. Although she was normally in the habit of sleeping with the door and windows open, that door was shut also. He decided that bursting in to find her asleep and having to answer for himself was better than knocking and giving an intruder time to get out through the window. He counted down from three on his fingers and crashed through the unlocked door. Petit followed close behind.

  Two more steps and they would have tripped over it, or worse, kicked it across the room. Bodge fell to his knees and dropped the lamp at his side. For Petit, after a night of excesses, such a discovery was too much. He turned behind the door and emptied his stomach. That stench quickly mixed with others: with blood, with flesh, and with the remnants of indescribable violence. It was a scene that would doubtless return to haunt both men far into old age.