Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains

by Yasuko Thanh

  The Vietnamese people as teachers of vice?

  “The worst is yet to come. They go back to France, they take these things home with them. Ah, then. Their vices.”

  “You may consider,” Georges-Minh began, in as calm a voice as possible, “if a Vietnamese ‘boy’ engages in pederasty at an opium den it is merely as a means to pay for his own opium habit. Or perhaps to acquire goods the French have put him in mind to purchase, which he otherwise couldn’t afford.”

  “But the boy has an inherent predilection for it,” Michaut said, “which the opium only manifests, bringing his fantasies to the surface. How else is one to explain its frequency among young people around the markets and opium dens and theatres? Incurable sodomites.” He stopped. “No offence.”

  Georges-Minh’s stomach burned. He should have eaten breakfast.

  “Pederasty is virtually unknown in France. While it’s basically practised in broad daylight in Annam.”

  What about all the libertines? Verlaine? What about de Sade? Georges-Minh said nothing.

  “I’m not trying to condemn the Vietnamese at all. I quite like the Vietnamese. Between you and me it’s the Chinese. They brought the opium to Vietnam in the first place.”

  “What about the paddy fever?”

  “Yes, the paddy fever. Are we still calling it that?” Dr. Michaut walked to the desk, sat down as if something had been resolved. “How many new cases?”

  11

  Georges-Minh stood out in his garden at dusk. The datura seed pods were the size of an egg and covered with spines. He could understand why they were called thornapples. But the scent of the datura blooms was erotic and the blooms themselves lived up to their moniker, trumpet flowers, heady as art, fit for the gods, although the leaves’ fetor almost overpowered the perfume of the petals.

  Careful not to prick his fingers, he collected a few of the blossoms, mainly to brighten the pharmaceutical wing of his villa, because the real poison lay in the seed pods. He settled himself in front of a long table where he had set up his old-fashioned mortar and pestle. There he began to grind. He started off with a small but respectable two grams and began pulverizing. The smell was sweet but earthy.

  The lab was so quiet that the sound of his own footsteps answered the crickets outside, and the collection of test tubes clinking in the wooden rack as he walked from one side of the room to the other could have competed with an orchestra. A pipette, a bottle of methyl alcohol, and he was ready. Clutching it all in his arms like a baby, he returned to the long table and piped a small portion of liquid into the test tubes along with a measure of the seed pulp. His earlier feeling of uncertainty about who he was and what he should do had given way, since his discussion with Michaut, to the small joys of experimentation as the methanol turned yellowish while he shook the mixture. He hadn’t experienced such a thrill since his undergraduate days. Not because, he thought to himself, this could kill a man or this could kill a hundred men. But because the thrill of following up on a hunch and the possibility of discovery was akin to falling in love. Or so he told himself. He labelled the experiments in brown paper on the test tubes.

  12

  Dong notified him of her pregnancy when she was filing her fingernails one night after visiting his house for tea and treatment. She’d been filing her nails into the shape that her mother preferred—ending in a point that could draw blood—and the dust from her nails fell into her lap. She brushed it away with the back of her hand.

  The two of them landed on the thin cotton sheet she had slung over the bed frame. No more simple bed frame in the Chinese style: tomorrow they would buy a mattress.

  Something about the moment’s poignancy gripped him before she had even opened her mouth. He sensed he was observing a mystery at work when she placed her hands on her stomach and sat, an angel mid-song, a mouth ajar in invisible prayer to an invisible God, fingers over her belly, paused mid-file. Then she said it and he felt he was gifted with second sight. “Your baby, Georges-Minh, is growing. Its head and feet. The blood and beating heart of it. Already, even now, I wonder whether it can smile. The tiny hands. The fingers. Which will one day grasp ours.”

  “Are, are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Her voice assumed a teasing tone. “It’s not like I’m trying to trick you into marrying me or something.”

  As with all important things in his life he consulted Khieu. Khieu answered in riddles as he sometimes did. Understanding the oracle wasn’t always easy. If Khieu told Georges-Minh he’d dreamed about the wind, he might be pointing out discord, not beauty; if he told Georges-Minh he saw him covered in sand, his meaning might be he had plenty of time, like an hourglass, not that he was dirty. When Khieu got sick, his eyes grew shiny. “If you’ve lost your luck, it can become free floating.”

  “I get what you’re saying,” Georges-Minh said. “You think I’m not ready to have a son.”

  “Or it can enter another person.” Khieu didn’t often understand why everyone made their lives so complicated. Stigma banished the truth. Kept it from living free, out in the open. The truth was that there was nothing from which to run. Not even Dong. Georges-Minh didn’t have to torture himself. The colonial power wanted sex to be associated with depravity and disease, but Khieu believed that if one truly wanted to broaden the expanse of human liberation, one needed fewer boxes to slot one’s living into. Pleasure wasn’t meant to be analyzed and pigeonholed. In the real world, birds didn’t live in holes but spent most of their time flying around in the open sky.

  “I get it but don’t worry. Dong is honest.”

  “This can happen with bad luck, too, do you understand? One person gets sick, while the other gets well.”

  For weeks he’d been paying Sing Sing however many tien he asked for.

  “That pretty thing, bringing you sweet biscuits on your break.” Sing Sing examined his filthy fingernails in the restaurant where they’d been meeting for sodas. “Imagine. Cheating on her—and with a man, no less!”

  It was just something that happened. In the same way as he had once petted a dog, or stroked a cat. Or like visiting a swimming pool. Just because he swam didn’t mean he was a swimmer.

  On Sing Sing’s last visit Georges-Minh had apprehensively taken a large and heavy crate of contraband goods into his possession.

  “No more,” he’d told Sing Sing, the crate clanging, and he strained to lift it, hiding it along with the medical supplies. Sing Sing, whose infected forearm was getting worse, sweated constantly. Today his wrist was swollen to twice the size.

  Georges-Minh tried to put out of his mind how long he’d be tasked with keeping the crate. Whatever was happening between him and Sing Sing put at jeopardy all he and Khieu had worked for, no matter what paternalistic feeling he was developing for the boy.

  “You should let me look at that arm.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re high.”

  “I can handle it. You can’t control the world. Control yourself. I look after myself. Like you should. Partnerships are stupid anyway. Everyone always lets you down. Why would you do that to yourself? Lean and lean. Do that and you’ll fall. It’s why I keep having those bad dreams. Got to figure out a way to stop the cops from finding me. But the dream loops around. Why on earth would anyone expect him to help? He’s only saving his own neck. Something good might happen. But it won’t—”

  “Sing Sing, stop it.”

  “—his own neck from the chopping block. That’s how it goes. Everyone looking out for themselves. No one’s ever caught me. When I fall, I mean. So I learned. You know?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just don’t fall. Goddammit. Don’t stop now. Get up. Getting up makes you strong. You’ve always pulled yourself up.” His head was in his hands now. “Don’t stop now, don’t stop. Don’t be the person who waits to get caught. It’s a trap, stop waiting.”

  “What’s a trap?” Had he had a fight with a friend? A lover? At his age
?

  “No one will ever catch me.”

  A pimp. Of course. It all made sense now. These boys were just as vulnerable as the girls. “Who’s trying to hurt you, Sing Sing? Do you have a pimp I should know about?” Prey to the scourges of the French. The diseased infrastructure. Their foreign presence had created it.

  He could not let everything he and Khieu were fighting for go down the drain.

  “I don’t give a shit ’cause no one’s ever given a shit for me.”

  He touched the boy’s hair.

  “We’re alone in this world.” Sing Sing looked up through his tears. “You know that, don’t you?”

  13

  At the next meeting, Georges-Minh confessed to the group with no official name that a boy was blackmailing him. This group that, had it not been for Khieu, may have drifted apart long ago. They were like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, with Khieu holding them together at the centre.

  All the members, save Bao, sat cross-legged, on the bed as usual. Chang fiddled with the buttons of his expensive suit. Phuc tried out the new strings he’d bought for his pipa. Bao, whose lion-hearted aspects came out when he’d been drinking, paced the floor.

  “It’s not about the money,” Georges-Minh said sheepishly, trying to defend himself against Bao’s boorish defence. He had no need of it. Felt embarrassed. “It’s more of a principle thing.”

  Phuc and Chang looked at each other. Looked down.

  As Bao paced, bicycle-chain belt rattling, he waved his glass, pointed it at Georges-Minh. “Don’t let some little shit get away with that.”

  Chang focused on the floor, scratched his head. He was seething at Bao’s emboldened-by-drink plea. Wine in, words out. The fool.

  “I don’t care what he’s got on you. That’s just wrong.” Bao’s emphatic pointing caused him to spill his drink, splashes ending up as far away as Georges-Minh’s dresser. “Who is the little shit?”

  Georges-Minh felt all this shouting was drawing terrible attention to the group. The French-style villa was distanced from the neighbouring houses by a property considered expansive, even for Thao Dien, and guarded by the noise of the river out back. But as the men got drunker, their voices got louder, and soon even the river wouldn’t hide their anger. Not to mention the lack of focus when they should be concentrating on the poker game.

  “Shouldn’t we act when one of our group is targeted?” Bao’s oily hair thrashed about.

  “Don’t worry yourself about it,” Georges-Minh said quietly.

  “I’m not going to let this kid screw with Georges.”

  “Please, sit down.”

  “To what end did you tell us, then?”

  Chang said, “We should show him we won’t take this.”

  Everyone looked in Chang’s direction. Mouths dropped.

  “Chang?” said Georges.

  “We take care of our own.” Chang reached over and squeezed Georges-Minh’s hand. Chang thought it was a terrible idea. Do something to the boy? And make themselves vulnerable to police? If it wasn’t for Georges-Minh, he probably wouldn’t even be part of this stupid group, but he was Georges-Minh’s knight, not Bao.

  Instead of telling Bao to sit the hell down and stop spilling his wine, Khieu put his hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk about the kid later.” Georges-Minh felt a sinking feeling at Khieu’s lack of concern. Bao’s drunken defence had overwhelmed him. He hadn’t meant for his business to overtake the discussion. Or had he?

  Wasn’t that part of his dysfunction? Never knowing what ranked where in importance? Especially in matters of the heart?

  “Meeting! Everyone!” Phuc clapped his hands together. “Let’s stop acting like children.”

  Georges-Minh paid his order no mind, used to his litany of complaints. Phuc compared everything to something else. Whatever existed before him by its nature could never be as good as whatever existed out of sight. He constantly waxed poetic about the north. The better light of Thanh Hoa, the more gifted sensibilities of the people, the finer-tuned ears of the audiences, even the larger restaurant portions.

  “How much have you given him so far?” Bao wanted to know.

  Phuc cleared his throat and muttered at the same time. “Selling ass to feed mouth.”

  “What did you say?” Georges-Minh asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “I want to know what you said.”

  Khieu said, “He’s only suggesting you might be surprised at—”

  “Maybe she’ll be more understanding than you think.”

  What had Phuc and Khieu not told him?

  “Can we please focus on the meeting now?” Phuc asked.

  “We should kill him,” Bao said.

  Chang burst out laughing. “What’s this criminal ‘we’? You suddenly a gangster?”

  “Try me,” Bao said.

  Khieu said, “To what end did you tell us?”

  Phuc, scratching his belly, let out a burp.

  “What do you know that I don’t?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about Dong’s reaction,” Phuc said.

  “Tell him,” said Khieu.

  “Fine. I saw her,” Phuc said. “She was working down at the harbour. There. Now you know.”

  “Working. As in …?”

  “Yes.”

  Georges-Minh stared. “No, I don’t believe you. You’ve mixed her up with someone else.”

  Phuc shrugged. “Believe what you like.”

  Khieu, who’d been reading detective stories of late, said, “I insist on finding out the truth of this matter for you.” His tone asserted he already knew and had known for a while, for that matter since the day Georges-Minh had gone to his place and they’d talked of clocks and sand and luck. “What does it matter what someone does for a living? What’s all the fuss? I’ll get you proof, if you promise we can get back to the meeting.”

  “So this is why you told me I shouldn’t be a father,” Georges-Minh said.

  “A father?” Phuc said.

  “Congratulations,” Bao said. “I’ll supply the flowers for the shower!”

  Chang’s face stove in. Georges-Minh had gotten that whore pregnant? Who knew if the kid was even his? Could this day get any worse?

  Georges-Minh’s eyes flickered to the floor.

  “Always know who the hell you’re dealing with, that’s what I say.” Bao took a sip of wine, shook his head. “I tolerate many things, but lies, hypocrisy. Bah. Not among them.”

  “I am sure.” Georges-Minh said. “I am sure who I’m dealing with.”

  “I’m sure who you’re dealing with, but you’re not,” Bao said, “I can tell.”

  “Then I think I’ll just ask her.”

  “Ri-ight, and she’ll just tell you,” Khieu said. “Just like you’d tell her if she asked you, So how many male lovers have you had, Georges-Minh? How many female ones, for that matter?”

  “Anyway, why’d she be working on a flower boat if her dad’s a judge?”

  Phuc laughed. “A judge?”

  “Come again?” Khieu joined in the laughter.

  “Yes, a judge. The Ho family? Her father used to be a farmer, then passed the triennial exams. She told me so.”

  “My family knows all the judges,” Chang said, shaking his head, “all the magistrates, everyone who passed the triennial exams. Khieu’s right. Listen to him for once.” He never thought he’d find himself agreeing with Khieu.

  Georges-Minh went down to the harbour that same night and spent two hours wandering and asking after her. He didn’t know if he was angry with or grateful to his friends. After all, their concern came from a place of caring and love. Still—how could they be so mistaken? How could those he trusted be such fools?

  After scouring the harbour, satisfied his friends had been wrong when he found no one, no girls, no foot washers, no oil-lamp tenders who knew a Ho Dong, he went back home and told Khieu, who’d been waiting for him. Sitting on Georges-Minh’s bed, Khieu checked his pulse, hand up to his neck, notin
g the beats silently, as if, to counter the bad news, he needed to calm himself with the predictability of his body’s rhythms. It was vital for him to find patterns where none existed.

  “I’ll find her if she’s out there, my friend,” Khieu said. “And bring home the proof. I care what happens to you.”

  Chang went to the temple to contemplate whether he was causing harm by continuing to love Georges-Minh now that he and Dong were together. Chang lit incense and inhaled its scent. He’d loved Georges-Minh first.

  He prayed Buddha would grant Georges-Minh the courage to confess to Dong what he and Georges-Minh had once shared. He prayed for Georges-Minh to fall out of love with her. He prayed for Georges-Minh to love him back.

  He thought about their evenings at the clinic, and how even then it hadn’t sufficed for him to be just Georges-Minh’s after-work delight. Why had Georges-Minh abandoned him?

  Most of all he prayed Dong would lose the baby. A child would only add unnecessary complications when they got divorced, which of course they would.

  Chang doubted a child is what she’d wanted when she met Georges-Minh. He could go and tell Dong himself. He could prevent so much future suffering here and now.

  14

  Khieu found Dong, who went by the name of Ly, in a flower boat and returned to tell Georges-Minh so. Returned with the boat’s name and added which nights she worked so Georges-Minh could go and see for himself.

  “You’re talking crazy,” Georges-Minh said, refilling his own wine glass, but when he found her, having gone down to the harbour to see for himself, he had to admit she resembled one of the poseable ivory puppets from the night market, as erotic as any prostitute, a stranger to him. The lamp lit a floor strewn with flowers. She sat behind a mosquito net and because she hadn’t seen his face said, “Half a piastre,” before she’d turned around.