Le Colonial

by Kien Nguyen

  He walked into the ray of mist. The washed gravel crunched under his feet.

  Xuan’s face lit up when she saw him. The mournful sound of her singing stopped.

  “Ông Tây,” she called out.

  They had known each other for almost three years, but she still addressed him with the name the Annamite children used for a foreign man, meaning “Mr. French.” Somehow, though, her intonation made it clear that the title no longer bore its original message of respect. Unlike other Annamites, she never made him feel like a foreigner.

  “I was afraid you couldn’t come,” she said. “Look at how many fish I caught. Help me carry them home.”

  She glided the basket in his direction. Fish flopped inside the wicker container. It took all his strength to avoid staring at her. Beneath the tattered hems of his breeches, he was conscious of his bare feet, which seemed grossly enormous beside hers. To hide his awkwardness, he leaned over the basket and dipped his fingers inside, touching the fish. They felt slippery and cool.

  “The song you sang,” he said. “Was it a poem by Scholar Khiêm?”

  Xuan lifted both her hands to wring the excess water out of her hair.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Was that what Cha CA taught you?”

  First Father. Henri recalled the classroom where he had sat among the princes, a rare privilege granted him because of his status as a novice. The bishop’s lessons were about the histories of Europe and Annam, their poets, writers, and scientists.

  “You were snooping,” he teased her. “You probably were hiding outside the window, taking everything in.”

  “I was not.” Her eyes narrowed. “Let’s get the fish back to the kitchen so I can make the prince’s dinner.”

  When Henri bent to lift the container, he felt a slight tug at the loose waistband of his trousers. Something cold, wet, large, and slimy slithered inside, squirming frantically. He let out a yelp, jumping up and down and shaking his clothes. It seemed like a long time before a small carp slipped down his pant leg.

  Xuan covered her mouth and laughed. She peered over her fingers, and his expression made her laugh even harder. His panic resolved quickly into embarrassment and then a desire for revenge. Picking up the fish, he jumped over the basket and chased her around the lagoon.

  “Stop! Stop!” She ran, trying to keep out of his reach.

  He reduced his speed, but stamped his feet to magnify his effort. She ran from the forest toward the citadel with exultant cries.

  Henri waved the fish like a sword. “You have done a foolish thing, Xuan. First I’ll catch you, and then I’ll punish you.”

  “No, no, I am sorry, Ông Tây,” she shouted back, giggling.

  A few feet ahead, he could see the rainbow-hued arch of a bamboo bridge that connected the forest to the southwestern part of the citadel. They dashed across its brightly painted floorboards, and she made a sharp turn to the right. A fence of bamboo and bougainvillea vines blocked the path. From beyond the greenery rumbled the voice of the bishop. “The concept of the steam engine—do you understand it now?”

  At first Henri wondered if he was supposed to answer the question. Then he realized they had come too close to the edge of Prince Ánh’s quarters, which were off limits to all but a few.

  “Well, Your Highness?” the bishop prodded.

  “I don’t understand. Tell me again.” It was Prince Ánh.

  Henri saw Xuan approach the fence. He was astonished to see her do something so daring. He could hear the murmurs of the prince’s wives. It had been nearly three years since he and Xuan had seen the royals in Quinion City, when they had escaped together from the Tonquinese army. Time had changed the rules. Now, besides the mandarins, only eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting were allowed to see them in their private quarters.

  Whenever you believe you must act on your impulse, for heaven’s sake remind yourself twice that you are a man of the cloth. Henri heard the reprimanding voice of the bishop in his head. He caught Xuan’s wrist and pulled her back.

  “Don’t,” he warned her.

  She slid into the shadow of the fence.

  He looked about uncomfortably. His habitual aversion to the bishop made him want to flee, but the thought of sharing a dangerous moment with Xuan was too exciting to pass up. Besides, he wondered what de Béhaine meant by a steam engine. The anticipated answer lay ten feet away. It is just a lecture, his mind said, even though his instinct insisted otherwise.

  Henri placed his arm protectively over Xuan’s shoulders and peeked through the leaves. She withdrew from his touch. The scene on the other side opened before them, stirring with activity. On a stone veranda that ran the length of the palace, the bishop and his student stood regarding a strange apparatus—a glass cylinder connected to a boiler, which was placed above a kiln. Inside the cylinder, a sliding brass valve was attached to one end of a seesaw-type armature. A carriage harnessed to two horses was fastened at its other end.

  Henri could see the sun’s reflection on the glass—it was too bright to stare at for long. Fifty paces away, the queen of Cochin China, who had been present at the execution site at Hue Citadel, lounged on a settee under a gold-fringed parasol, while her lady-in-waiting waved a fan of peacock feathers. Her companions, the three wives of Prince Ánh, sat at a nearby table, surrounded by a cluster of female servants. They were no longer the same terrified refugees Henri remembered. Something the queen said unleashed a burst of embarrassed laughter from the women. Xuan, like Henri, was too far away to hear the comment. Still, the girl giggled along with them.

  With a swift glance at her, he drew a finger to his lips.

  “Look at the strands of pearls on their necks,” Xuan whispered. “They were gifts from the prince of Siam. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

  One of the princesses got up and went over to her husband and the bishop. A tuft of her hair, glistening with coconut oil, hung at the end of her headdress. With each step she took, her hair bounced like a rooster’s tail. Her body had not yet lost the shapelessness of childhood—she was barely fourteen—but her midsection already swelled with pregnancy. Henri surmised that she was Lady Jade Bình, the infamous third daughter of the Tonquinese king. For months, the news of Ánh’s expected first child had been the topic of gossip all over the citadel.

  Prince Ánh smiled at the princess. He reached for her belly and held it in both hands. “What are you all laughing about?” he asked. “Do you find me a poor student?”

  Even though he was cheerful, his questions startled his mistresses. The oldest one, twenty years old, holding an embroidery of peonies on a silk cloth, looked up with concern. Her younger companion, his third wife, displayed a grin full of dyed-black teeth.

  Princess Jade Bình nodded at the queen. “We would never laugh at Your Highness. Her Majesty told a funny tale about a Chinese man’s experiment with fireworks.”

  The bishop, who had been waiting to regain the prince’s attention, seemed to find the topic of fireworks interesting. He turned his stare from the sky to the princess.

  “What tale, madam?” he asked.

  “A tale of transportation.”

  “Oh, what do you mean?” He looked at her.

  “There was a rich mandarin from China named Van Tu, who dreamed of flying,” she said, watching the queen’s face for approval. “With the help of his many servants, he assembled a chair under a large kite. Fastened to the back of the chair were fifty firecrackers -”

  “Rockets,” the queen corrected, sipping her cup of tea.

  Lady Jade Bình swayed toward the bishop and repeated, “Rockets. On the day of the experiment, Van Tu sat in his chair and gave the command to his fifty servants. At the precise moment, they all ignited the rockets with their torches.”

  The women, including the ladies-in-waiting, giggled with anticipation.

  “Madam, please,” said the bishop, “continue with your story.”

  “The flames created a thunderous roar and a billow of thick s
moke. When the air cleared, Van Tu and his chair had vanished. All that was left on the ground were his skullcap and a bent finial. He was never heard from again. Most villagers believed that the force from the rockets was so strong it flew him to a mystical land. Except —” The princess embraced her stomach to restrain her laughter.

  De Béhaine took a breath, swallowing his impatience. “Except for what?”

  “Except that the queen thinks he blew himself to pieces with the fireworks, along with his wicker chair and the kite.”

  Forgetting herself, Xuan joined the ladies’ chorus of laughter. Henri sealed her mouth, but it was too late.

  The bishop turned in their direction and shouted, “Who’s there? Where are the guards?”

  Henri saw him peer through the gaps in the bamboo and into his eyes. He jumped back in fright.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” cried Xuan.

  He felt her pulling at his shirt. Together they ran back across the arched bridge into the thicket. The women’s screams tore through the palace’s solitude. But to his relief, no guards pursued them.

  They returned to the stream where they had left the basket of carp. As she walked alongside him, Xuan crossed her arms over her breasts in an effort to conceal herself. Her thin shoulders drew in as if she were cold, and she didn’t look up from the trail.

  To avoid the Rainbow Bridge, they took a path that wound in and out of the forest—a much longer route back to the citadel. Inside the basket strapped to Henri’s back, the fish barely moved. Xuan walked behind him, heavy-footed. She had rolled her thick hair into a knot and put on an extra blouse, which she buttoned all the way to the top. A terrible silence separated them.

  Henri turned and waited for her. She walked to the other side of the road. A strand of hair was caught between her lips, and she chewed on it.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, scratching his head.

  She lifted her eyes no farther than his knees. “No.”

  He had to strain to hear her.

  They continued to march under the sun. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wipe perspiration off her forehead, using a sleeve.

  “Don’t get upset because of what just happened,” he said. “Thank God that we didn’t get caught.”

  “I am not upset,” she said. “I am ashamed of my behavior. It isn’t ladylike, this curiosity of mine. I just wanted to see their pearl necklaces.”

  Henri licked his lips and began to sing, swaying his hips to mimic the mincing steps of a soprano. His voice, out of tune, at first was too soft to hear, but then it rose offensively.

  It is not that I cower away from the prince’s slimy touch;

  But in a day, I was torn between obsession and delusion.

  The song, whose lyrics he had deliberately distorted, brought back the laughter that he longed to hear. She poked him playfully.

  “Stop! You are destroying my ears.”

  He continued to sing off-pitch and to make up words as they walked. His antics kept her in giggles for the rest of the trip.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Pierre tugged on the rope that connected the apparatus to the horse carriage, checking its tautness. He was fuming with frustration. It was already past noon. Still, he was unable to demonstrate the principle of the Newcomen steam engine to his student.

  Prince Ánh always insisted on having an audience of all of his wives, who never went anywhere without an entourage of servants, ladies-in-waiting, and eunuchs. Their chatter disrupted the prince’s concentration. Instead of listening, Ánh constantly looked over his shoulder, eager to display his affection to each of the princesses and take part in their silly gossip. This morning, Queen ThJy, the first wife of King Due Tong, had decided to attend Pierre’s classroom, having heard that he was planning to perform an act of magic. Her presence was a source of stress for him. The sound of her laugh, forceful and condescending, grated on his nerves.

  He worried about offending her. Even though he had lived among the Annamite royals for many years and had acquired an important position in their court, sometimes the cultural differences still created danger for him. The language continued to challenge him. Each word was a monosyllable with a number of meanings that depended on the six different tones given them as they were enunciated. One wrong inflection and not only would he be misunderstood, but the effect his words had on his audience’s mood could also be altered.

  At court, he often witnessed the queen’s outburst at the slightest misusage or colloquialism. The royals’ nature, unlike the peasants’, was complicated, and the dialect of court was even more intricate than everyday usage. Once, at a celebration of the New Year, an opera singer and the chorus sang an aria about a thief named Due. Upon hearing the refrain, the queen commanded her guards to seize the entire theatrical troupe and flog them on-site, each with thirty blows of the cane. Blasphemy was their crime. The queen expected them to avoid any reference to King Due Tong’s name in association with a villain. Since that incident, Pierre was extra careful when speaking at a formal affair.

  More than anything, he wanted to impart his knowledge to Ánh, for he knew it would help the prince become a great leader in the future. Pierre had planned a curriculum, pages long in his mind, of science, mathematics, geography, politics, and war, but time was of the essence.

  As King Due Tong assumed authority over Saygun Citadel from its previous ruler, who was one of his kinsmen, the royals settled into their usual life of comfort. But it was a time of uncertainty and waiting. Around the citadel, and in the rest of the communities in the South Kingdom, the attack of the Tonquinese and the royal family’s defeat had affected all lives, great and small. The threat of the three mountain brothers hovered over every household, and the mention of their names ignited dread among the citizens. The rebels, growing stronger with each day, could attack Saygun at any moment. Due Tong’s forces had been decimated at Hue and now consisted primarily of a handful of high-ranking officers. Pierre knew they were no match for the enemy, even when combined with troops already stationed in Saygun.

  A eunuch, who had been using the front panel of his tunic to fan the kiln all morning, jumped back with a cry of excitement. The fire was at last ablaze. At the same instant, there was a stir from within the bamboo bushes a few steps away, but Pierre’s attention was diverted by a shriek of laughter from the women. He inhaled deeply and gazed at the vast motionless sky above. Prince Ánh stole another glance at his wives and grinned sheepishly. Pierre, racked by frustration, reminded himself of his purpose for being there. With the fire at its peak, he was eager to woo his audience with magic.

  Much to his dismay, one of the wives, Princess Jade Bình, drew nearer. Fully seven months’ pregnant, she carried her stomach in one arm and supported her back with the other. Pierre rolled his eyes. His major failure was his inability to prevent His Highness from committing one of the gravest of all sins—polygamy. But he had to keep his objection private. His opposition to this practice had been one of the factors that had led to his expulsion from Cochin China on his previous expedition.

  The princess stood next to her husband, studying the device. Inside the boiler, steam began to rise, pushing the piston upward. The armature went up, and on the opposite end, it descended. The rope attached to the horses went slack. It needed an adjustment to make it taut again.

  He heard the prince questioning his wives. “What are you all laughing about? Do you find me a poor student?”

  “We would never laugh at Your Highness,” said Lady Jade Bình. “Her Majesty told a funny tale about a Chinese man’s experiment with fireworks.”

  With reluctance, Pierre shifted his attention to the pregnant girl. His curiosity was aroused by the word fireworks. Could he in some way use their gossip as a lesson on the principles of gunpowder?

  “What tale, madam?” he asked her.

  “A tale of transportation.” Her happy little laugh told him that she welcomed his intrusion.

  “Oh, what do you mean?”

&nb
sp; She repeated the queen’s story to him. The others hung on each word. From the clearing beyond the bamboo and bougainvillea vines came the rustling sound again. While he listened to the princess, he supplied the rest of the remarkable story from his own speculation. Her annoying giggle kept interrupting the tale. He thought of the Chinese who had attempted to fly. The man’s courage and aspiration,to him, were an example of the kind of human ingenuity that had formed the basis for modern science. But the laughter from the royal listeners revealed their indifference to the scientist’s unfortunate end.

  From behind the fence, the squirming noise returned, unmistakably accompanied by whispers and a soft laugh. Someone was watching them. He made a swift turn toward the bushes and caught a sliver of an eye among the green leaves. He made his voice sound stern.

  “Who’s there? Where are the guards?”

  The shrubbery shook, and the women screamed with fright. His Highness raised his hand to summon the guards, who streamed from within the palace, confused and excited. Some clustered around the queen, who clutched her chest with breathless alarm. Pierre strode toward the fence. What he saw ignited in him an ashen, simmering rage.

  Running across the meadow toward the Rainbow Bridge and holding each other’s hands were his problematic pupil and the prince’s servant girl. She seemed half naked, and he was barefoot. What sins might they have committed beyond spying? Pierre looked at the prince and signaled with his hand. “Stop the guards!”

  “What?”

  “Your Highness, stop the guards!” he said. “I saw a pair of harmless children. They have already run away. I think they’ve been frightened enough.”

  The prince shrugged. The women’s cries ceased, and the sunshine forced them to retreat under their parasols. One of the horses shook its head and whinnied. He soothed the animal with a pat on its snout and readjusted the rope. The steam within the boiler was still rising, but the piston had reached its pinnacle. It was time for the magic to begin.