by Yasuko Thanh
He banged his head on his knees to stop the reeling. Where was his whisky? He found the bottle, took a swig, then another. Before he knew it, he’d finished it all.
He’d do some opium. Once the edge was gone, he told himself, he’d be able to see things more clearly. He smeared a piece off from the larger chunk and ate it. More than usual, but Christ, his lab had been broken into and his wife had just given birth. He’d murdered two men. Dong didn’t want her own child. Who was tracking amounts at a time like this? The opium rushed over the ocean of whisky. Ah, he breathed. Now he could focus on the task at hand.
He went into the bedroom where she lay. His wife had stopped crying and dozed. He put a pillow against the baby so he wouldn’t roll off the bed. With his back against the pillow, the baby closed his eyes. So pale, so fragile, so thin. Within a few seconds he was snoring. Georges-Minh staggered to the window where beyond a single pane of glass crickets continued to chirp the way they did on any other night, and beyond the porch swing rocked by the breeze the river ran, and squash vines crept greenly and the foot-long fruit hung down like bells and swayed in the breeze under the trellis.
Yet everything had changed.
31
When Birago came to the next morning he smelled blood. He reached for the sunglasses atop his head but there weren’t any. Then he remembered where he was and his gut clenched and the events of the previous evening came flooding back. He tried to roll over and felt a knife stab of pain. Slowly he managed to get himself onto his hands and knees and from there he pushed himself to sitting. Colonel Janvier was where Dr. Nguyen had left him. Bastard.
Birago tried to stand and his legs wobbled but finally held him. He checked the colonel’s pulse. Not only was he dead but his arms had jelled in place and blood had pooled to the front of his nose, making his normally imposing features appear comical.
He slid the note from under Colonel Janvier’s stiffened arm and read it. Not the colonel’s handwriting but the doctor’s. Birago lay his head down on Colonel Janvier’s desk and considered his situation.
Things didn’t look good. No one at the barracks liked him. Now his superior was dead and the doctor was trying to make it look like a murder-suicide. He was smart enough to see how this was all going to play out. The Navy would try to quiet the circumstances of Lieutenant Colonel Janvier’s death. For the garrison, the murder would confirm that a gay affair had taken place. He would simply have to defend himself so loudly against these accusations that people in Thailand would hear his protests.
Then it dawned on him. Maybe this was how he could get his promotion. The thing to do was simply go to the doctor, extract a confession, and bring him to justice. When he uncovered the reason behind this murder plot and revealed the connections the doctor had to revolutionary types who were planning other operations against the French regime, oh yes, then the garrison would respect Birago. Respect him enough to want his cologne at their meetings. Birago would show them. He’d show them all he was no zouzou, tikatika man. He was a see-what-he-wants-and-takes-it man, a no-holds-barred man. A fuck-with-me-and-I-kill-you man. That’s what kind of man he was. Promotion today, high life tomorrow.
He was shocked when he returned to the barracks to discover that two hundred men had been poisoned the night before. Eighty of them remained tucked in between hospital bedsheets, their faces nearly as white as the material that surrounded them. But as he rubbed his own stomach, which was feeling better but had not returned to normal, it didn’t take him long to come up with a theory. And he was careful to explain to the captain who’d taken him into his office for questioning.
“The poisoning of the lieutenant colonel and the poisoning of the soldiers must be related somehow.” He told the captain he’d seen the doctor sneaking off before he passed out. That the note was an obvious forgery.
The captain scratched his chin. “You don’t believe he killed himself, then.”
“No sir.”
“Maybe it’s a set-up—you and the doctor.”
“Why would I want to kill the colonel? He was good to me.”
“Maybe you were jealous of him, of his wife,” the captain said. “His affection for his daughters. That you couldn’t have him all to yourself.”
Birago allowed his body a single reaction of disgust: a loud exhalation.
“I asked you a question,” the captain said, leaning over him. “Why were you jealous of his wife? Perhaps you wanted the man as your lover?”
“Why would I be? They don’t even live in this country. Besides, I want to find his killer.”
“Maybe you want to flee before I press charges, is that it? Are you going to run before I file charges against you?” The captain waited, his cigar smoke screening his taut and shiny face.
“Are you filing charges?”
“No, I don’t think so.” In an instant his voice changed. “Shame for fighting with the nationalists! Shame for causing the death of a colonel, a husband, a man with two children. Shame for poisoning all the soldiers.”
32
Georges-Minh packed while Dong slept. He found a bag of salt fish in the pantry, a small axe, a half-carton of matches. The opium calmed him as he gathered emergency candles, kerosene, herbs and roots in glass jars from the wooden shelves. The opium helped him divine each object’s true worth, focused his remaining fear. All this took place in silence. The rhythm of rooting and rummaging, finding a knife, wrapping the blade in kitchen cloth, then tying it round with twine.
Georges-Minh ran across the driveway to his office to fetch a textbook that might be needed and worth its weight. On second thought he probably didn’t need the book. Yet he clutched it as he walked back to the house. He might never return to his home office again. He paused between the house and his office, looking at the book. His hands, in this light, looked covered in blood. What had he done. The garrison cooks had been arrested. So far, no one knew he was involved. But his anonymity wouldn’t last: they’d soon make the connections they needed and his medical career would be over. He didn’t need the book. So why was he loitering halfway between the house and his office with it? He had no plan. No plan of action at all. Maybe he could ask Dong what to do. He hadn’t a clue what to pack and a wife who as yet had no idea he was a murderer and a baby whose life he’d put in jeopardy. And he would ask her for advice? The moon glowed and swelled and ballooned and popped. Stars rained everywhere. He raised his arms over his head and hurried for the house as fast as he could with the book in his hand. No, how could he get her involved. He must leave. She’d had nothing to do with his craziness.
He glanced at his wife’s sleeping figure and then scanned the bedroom for more things to take. He was stalling, he knew. A professional photograph of his mother and father-in-law on the dresser to the right of the Giotto painting and one of his own parents in front of the justice of the peace in Saigon. Also on the dresser, her jade earrings, his cufflinks, side by side. Stockings on top of hair pomade. Echoes of laughter in the high-ceilinged rooms. Sighs. Laps. Lips. Stories. Eyes, dry and wet. Their spirit buoyant on the possibilities of years to come. Calling the images back, over and over. Every which way. He looked at his pocket watch.
Dong woke up. She saw the suitcase. “What are you doing?”
He explained.
She began to throw things at him. Things for him to put in his suitcase. Socks, a sheet, shirts. “It was Khieu, wasn’t it?” A towel, a mosquito net. “You’ve gone ahead and done it. He told you to do it. The thing with the blood and Mysterious Perfume of the Yellow Mountains! Vietnam! Vietnam! On the walls.”
He placed the items in his suitcase. Only its swelling slowed his progress.
“It was Khieu, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t have done it except for him.”
“That’s not even our name,” he mumbled. “Perfume of the Yellow Mountains.”
As he packed, Dong held her hand over her eyes and did not look at him.
“Think of the baby,” she said.
He contin
ued to pack, said nothing.
“Don’t go,” Dong said, now passing him things from the drawer—a belt, suspenders, sock garters. “Couldn’t you just wait a little while?”
He placed those items next to the others.
“Stop. I’ll turn you in.”
“Dong. Now is not the time.”
“You are not leaving me!”
“Not now. This isn’t a game.”
“Or what? You’ll poison me?”
The dawn’s rays tumbling through the window made the teak floor blaze. Dong struggled up from bed. He may as well have been looking at flashes of the sun made by a signal mirror. Georges-Minh shrank inside.
“You can’t make me stay,” she said. There was hurt in her voice—a shaking within her, a fire at the core that would soon erupt—he sensed it. “This isn’t the Stone Ages, I can go wherever I want. Fine for Khieu to set you up to this, who has abandoned his family. Did you ever think of us?”
“I made up my own mind.”
“You can’t. You’re incapable.”
He felt as though she’d slapped him.
When he was finished packing, Georges-Minh buckled the suitcase closed and tested the weight of it. Less said the better. Not to mention her despair. The turmoil he’d put her through couldn’t be denied. In what way would their emotions guide their debate about what to do in the days that followed?
“If you leave, you’ll never know.”
“What?”
“Anything.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Anything might happen to us. Whatever at all. And you’ll never know. Maybe I’ll leave the baby in the market, for all you care.”
If he left her here she’d let the baby starve.
He’d be responsible for yet more deaths.
He deliberated.
“Fine, pack some things.” God, he hoped it was him and not the opium and whisky talking.
33
The sun had yet to set below the fence when two soldiers bound Birago’s hands with twine. The captain stood with a cigar in his mouth and a corporal stood next to the captain doing nothing in particular.
“What’s going on?” Birago said. “I don’t understand. I’ve told you everything I know.” He let his feet go limp so the soldiers dragging him to the yard would be forced to pull his weight. “Why are you doing this to me? I’m a good soldier. You can’t do this to me.” When he lost hope that the execution might be a joke orchestrated by his peers to scare him, he kicked, he bit, he spat, he screamed in Senegalese. A line of five soldiers raised their rifles at his head. “I’ll do whatever you want, sign anything, go anywhere. Untie me. Come on—”
His head slumped forward when the shot rang out and he fell.
34
The rumour was true. The two Catholic cooks had called for a priest from their jail cells. They confessed names, places, dates. Unburdened their consciences of everything. Thus cleared their heads before they were lopped off.
Khieu hopped onto Georges-Minh’s kitchen counter. “Congratulations! Two months early, isn’t he?” Khieu, the fool, had been drinking all night. Now he’d shown up on Georges-Minh’s doorstep, minutes before he was to leave. “You are the new father, right?”
“Those cooks signed our death warrants, thanks to you,” Georges-Minh said. Khieu had gathered everyone, Chang, Phuc, all except for Bao. Georges-Minh eyed his suitcase.
“Relax. Cigars all round. Come on, boys. Let’s jubilate a little.”
“You broke into my lab,” Georges-Minh said.
“How serious is our situation, Georges-Minh?” asked Phuc. “Should we all flee? Two cooks have been guillotined. Maybe three. Chang, you said a seaman’s been shot.”
“My point exactly.” Khieu cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “I thought about it all the way over. Two cooks have already been arrested, as well as a seaman. I’d say the case has been closed.” He lit a cigarette and crossed his legs, blowing out the smoke. “Besides, aren’t we here to congratulate Georges-Minh on his sudden fatherhood? Welcome the new baby to the world?”
“From what I’ve heard,” said Chang, “the shooting of the seaman wasn’t only to do with the poisoning. My contacts say he had enemies. The poisoning might just have been an excuse to get even. So saith my grapevine,” he said, licking his thick lips.
“See my point?” Khieu said. “So long as they don’t pin it on me, I’m good. They’ll find a scapegoat. Let it not be me.” He crossed himself.
“You think the military is going to drop a case like this so easily?” Georges-Minh said. It wasn’t like Khieu to act this way. “What about once it hits the papers? You’re all a bunch of fools.”
“No, you’re a fool. And the military think we’re a bunch of fools. That’s our golden ticket.” Khieu’s eyes became lucid. “They think we’re incapable, a pack of drunks who couldn’t organize a successful revolt if we tried. They have no respect for us. No faith in our intelligence to stage anything. That’s our saving grace. Don’t you understand? That’s our cover.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Wine in, words out,” Phuc said, reciting an old proverb.
Georges-Minh looked around the room. “Where’s Bao? Why isn’t he here?”
“I am drunk. Drunk with power. Drunk with grief. What’s your point?”
Georges-Minh shook his head. There’d be no talking to Khieu in this state. “I’m going. If you guys hadn’t shown up we’d be gone already. Bao’s got the right idea. For all we know they’re already on our trail.”
“They don’t know anything.” Khieu flicked his cigarette, the ash barely missing Georges-Minh.
“Wait,” Chang said. “I’m going with you.”
“Listen,” Khieu said. “I want to have a drink with you and say, ‘Dad, way to go.’ ” He tried to grab Georges-Minh’s shirttail.
“Quit pulling at me,” Georges-Minh said.
“Okay, fine. Have it your way.” Khieu waved his hands around. “You’re not in the mood, I can see that. They think we’re idiots, so do you. Don’t worry about it.”
“Let go.” Georges-Minh’s opium high had worn off and had left him with a pounding headache.
“Leave him alone,” Chang said to Khieu.
“Sit down, have a drink. You’re running from nothing.”
“Don’t be so naive,” Georges-Minh said. Khieu was scared. That’s why he was drunk. Why he himself had gotten high. “Do what you want, but I’m leaving.”
“How long?” Phuc said, visibly shaken. “Do you think we have, I mean? Before they start the hunt?”
“Did you at least go by Bao’s place on your way?” Georges-Minh asked.
“Of course. Empty,” Khieu said.
“I’ve been meaning to take a vacation anyway,” Phuc said, lighting a cigarette off the end of his last one.
“Him and his wife left town is what I heard,” Khieu said. “Saw her at the train station.”
“I’m leaving now,” Georges-Minh said.
35
The morning of his execution, Bao remembered his dream. His own name in red ink on yellow paper written upon the Ledger of Heaven. Le Bao Victor. Age 28. And after his name, three words: A good death.
If he’d gone into politics rather than cultivate a thousand red petals of peach blossoms, followed in his father’s footsteps, he wouldn’t be here. In the jail on De la Grandière. If only he’d listened to Mimi, he would never have met the cook who opened the door, took the package he’d delivered on Phuc’s behalf. He’d be in Mimi’s arms. He’d been so bullheaded. He punched the wall, balming his regret in pain.
The cook had recognized him. “Children’s Moon Festival. Mr. Le. Victor!” He clapped his hands. “The chrysanthemums. The scent clung to the bedding even after they died. And what a memorable yellow they were!”
Bao passed him the brown paper packet, explaining it was from Khieu.
“Please. Take a drink.” The man called into the house. “Tran. Some rice wine. Look. It’s Mr. Le
. From the flower shop.”
“I’ll find some bean cakes to fry up,” the wife said.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Bao, embarrassed by the fuss, for now a skinny boy was pushing a choice of chairs around a rickety table. Guilt forced him to join them for one glass before finally removing himself and heading home, never thinking the package contained not li xi but datura, and that within hours the police would come to his door, that he would crack under torture and name his friends.
They would cart the guillotine into the square where a crowd would be waiting. His wife.
Mimi had wanted children, but none would mourn Bao’s death. Tie a red thread at the family altar. Pay astrologers to conspire for a date or geomancers to select a location for his funeral. Who would light incense? Inform his ancestors he’d passed on?
Maybe Mimi wouldn’t even come to his execution. And who could blame her if she didn’t? He knew she’d visited a pyromancer at a rocky point in their marriage to ask if she’d chosen the right man, if she should stay or go. The pyromancer carved questions into a turtle’s shell. Heated the cracks and deciphered the answer from the way they split.
“If you knew you were going to die tomorrow,” the pyromancer questioned, “what would you do? Power is acting from a place of knowledge.” This was her riddle to take home, understanding that the right man was someone she’d want by her side even then.
At his grandfather’s funeral, a procession of a hundred porters had been led by two elephants and mourners in blue. A mandarin in a silk robe had swatted little barefoot boys away from the coffin. Such a soul would be led to the River of Forgetting, where his spirit would mount the Dragon’s back and, bathed by those perfumed waters, be washed of his sins.
He walked up the three wooden steps to the guillotine platform, hands bound behind his back. The men at his side steadied him, held him when he stumbled. He turned to look for Mimi. Saw a bloody wicker basket. All he could think of was how he had wasted his hours at Georges-Minh’s while Mimi cooked and cleaned at home. He drank and played cards while she worked. He plotted with those misfits, and he could have taken his place next to the junior cabinet minister of Annam, his father. Because of latent adolescent anger, he was dead: all children rebelled, but they didn’t all ruin lives, try to overthrow the government.