The Corsican

by William Heffernan

  “I am Ba Hai, the official greeter,” she explained.

  Peter introduced himself and bowed. The bow was lower than necessary, and Ba Hai raised one hand to her mouth, in the accepted manner for a Vietnamese woman about to laugh.

  “Choc vay, Anh Hai,” she said, using the term “Brother Two,” to honor him. “We were told of your coming.”

  Peter bowed again, properly this time. “You honor me with your kindness, Ba Hai,” he said.

  Ba Hai extended one hand toward the stone staircase to their left. “You would like interview now?” she asked.

  “Toi kheong biet,” Peter said—I don’t understand.

  “This a club,” she explained, seeming to prefer English. “You first have interview for membership.”

  Peter nodded to the elderly woman, who immediately started for the stairs. Watching her, he marveled at the youthfulness of her movements. Certainly she was well past seventy, but, as with many oriental women, her true age was impossible to ascertain. Yet she moved with the ease and grace of someone far younger.

  He was led to a large, sparsely furnished office. There, seated behind a delicately carved teak desk, a small, silken-haired woman in her mid-twenties stared at him with jade-green eyes. Peter was instantly in awe of her beauty, her finely chiseled features and round, full lips.

  Slowly she stood, revealing the added beauty of her scarlet ao dai, and smiled at him. It was a wry, knowing smile, but not unfriendly.

  “Welcome,” she said, bowing to Peter.

  Peter repeated the introduction he had given Ba Hai downstairs.

  The woman gestured for him to be seated, then returned to her own chair behind the desk. Behind her, an unusual long, low Japanese ceramic vase, filled with water, held another collection of water hyacinths, the blue blossoms seeming to add a subtle contrast to her scarlet ao dai. It made Peter wonder if it was planned to do so.

  “You have come to this beautiful country at a very dangerous time,” she said. “I hope your visit here is both safe and interesting.” She paused to smile. “My name is Molly Bloom, and our club here is available to that end if it pleases you, and if you agree to certain minor rules of membership.”

  She watched him closely, then laughed softly. “I take it Colonel Wallace did not tell you my name earlier. Like most members, he too enjoys the reaction people have when they first hear it.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude,” Peter said. “I just anticipated a Korean name.”

  “Most people do. The Vietnamese who work for me here call me Luc-binh. You may also if it makes you more comfortable.”

  “That’s even more intriguing,” Peter said. “Do they name you after the water hyacinth because of your obvious affection for it, or because you rival it in your beauty?”

  “You speak Vietnamese, I see. That’s very unusual and pleasing.” She ignored his compliment, not out of annoyance, but almost as if it was expected, and therefore of no importance. She traced the line of her jaw with the index finger of her right hand, almost as if drawing attention to her fine bone structure, then allowed the finger to remain under her chin for what seemed a long time, but was only a matter of seconds. Her striking green eyes never left Peter. It was as if she was memorizing his face. “Tell me about yourself, captain,” she said after a long pause.

  “Peter, please.” He smiled at her. He had met few people in his life who he felt were a match for his own sense of cool detachment. This woman obviously was. He liked the idea. There was something challenging about her.

  She nodded at his request that she use his first name, almost as though that too was to be expected. “Please call me Molly, or Luc-binh, whichever you prefer.”

  “Which do you prefer?”

  “Molly. Luc-binh is beautiful, but too ostentatious. The people who work here intend it as an expression of respect, so I allow it. Now, please, Peter. Tell about yourself.”

  Peter’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, then he smiled at the woman. “Nothing much to tell,” he said. “Just another American far away from home.”

  Molly smiled. “Obviously, if Colonel Wallace sent you here, you too must work for SEACON.”

  He smiled at the woman. “Perhaps we’re just friends.” There was no harshness in his voice, but his eyes had grown hard.

  “Ah, you think it presumptuous of me to ask,” Molly said. “But you see, I make it my business to always know enough, Peter. But it’s not very difficult. The military men who come here enjoy gossiping about each other.” She paused, took a cigarette from a jade cigarette case on her desk, fitted it into a four-inch ivory holder, then allowed Peter to light it.

  After exhaling the smoke she looked at him with a touch of sternness. “The rules here, Peter, are few and simple. We allow no abusiveness to any guests or employees, and we expect people to act in a civilized manner. The club has its own restaurant, bar, baths, steam room and billiard room. In addition, there are rooms where one can simply read or be alone. There is also the Room of a Thousand Mirrors, where very beautiful and knowledgeable women can attend to more carnal pleasures. This is not a bordello, however, and guests are not permitted to treat it as one. It is also not a bar where loud, abusive evenings can be spent. There are many of those in Saigon, if one has need.” She paused again, then smiled. “I don’t mean to mislead you. This is by no means a convent. I simply prefer to run it as a place where gentlemen can come, relax, and be entertained if they wish.”

  “Have you been forced to …” Peter hesitated, searching for the right word. “To cancel the membership of many?”

  “No, not at all. Most have found it so pleasurable here, they avoid that possibility.” She drew on her cigarette again, then exhaled the smoke in a long, sensuous stream. “I don’t believe you will cause us difficulty, Peter. Now, do you have any questions I may answer?”

  “Just one, Molly. I dislike being predictable. But is there really a Room of a Thousand Mirrors?”

  “That’s not at all predictable. Those who come here have usually heard of it.”

  She reached for the ornate French telephone on her desk and spoke softly in Korean, a language Peter did not understand.

  “I’m told the room is not in use now, so if you like, I’ll show it to you.” She stood and smiled at him. “It’s only a tour, however,” she said. “The Room of a Thousand Mirrors is where our more carnal pleasures are enjoyed, and it is well known that I do not work there.”

  They walked down a long hallway that overlooked the entrance courtyard below. The lone wall along the hall held what Peter recognized as excellent copies of French impressionist paintings, intermingled with occasional tables holding fine Japanese ceramics of the Momoyama period.

  Walking beside her now, Peter realized Molly was taller than he had first thought—at least five-five, unusually tall for an oriental woman. It was the delicateness of her bone structure that made her appear smaller. Yet her figure, beneath the smooth sheath of her ao dai, held both a sense of the delicate and the full. The woman seemed to be composed of one imposing contradiction about another.

  “Your art collection, the paintings and the Japanese ceramics—were they part of the house when you purchased it?”

  “The paintings were,” she said. “But they’re only well-executed copies. Some of the ceramics were here, and some were my own. Most of them are the work of Korean masters, however, not Japanese. But technically all Japanese ceramics should be considered Korean, at least in origin.”

  “You’re speaking of the ceramic war,” Peter said.

  Molly stopped and stared up at him. “You’re aware of the war lords who sent armies to Korea to kidnap artisans?”

  “The Japenese tea ceremony developed out of that, if I’m not mistaken,” Peter said.

  “You’re an interesting man, Peter. One of the few American men I’ve met who doesn’t pride himself on being a barbarian.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about us. And you speak the language so well. It makes me cu
rious, to the point of being rude enough to ask.”

  Molly smiled. “Rudeness with diplomacy. Very interesting, Peter. Not quite subtle, but interesting. But to answer your indirect question, as they say in the old war movies, I was educated in your country.”

  “On the West Coast?” Peter asked.

  Molly repressed a smile. “Actually, it was Vassar,” she said, turned and continued down the hall. Peter thought he had noted a flicker of pleasure in her eyes, but couldn’t be certain.

  “The room, I think, will interest you,” Molly said, as they stopped before a set of double doors of carved teak. “It was here, almost exactly as you will see it, when I bought the house several years ago.”

  She opened both doors and allowed them to swing apart, then led Peter inside. They stood in a medium-sized sitting room, decorated sparsely with French Provincial furnishings. All about them, the walls, the ceiling, the room’s center, were mirrors set at varying angles, and with each step, each movement, the mirrors seemed to offer a glimpse of another portion of some unseen room—a part of a Vietnamese sleeping mat, the leg of a chair or table. He moved slightly again and parts of other invisible rooms came into view, each fragmented, each appearing and disappearing with the slightest movement.

  Peter turned to her, his eyes questioning.

  “It’s a labyrinth of mirrors,” she explained. “There are ten rooms within this larger room, and the mirrors are arranged so one sees a small portion of each with the slightest movement. Yet there is privacy of the whole. One might see the leg or arm of what one thinks to be someone else, only to find it is one’s own reflected back a thousand times. Or you could be standing a few feet away from someone else and never truly know. When all the rooms are occupied, there is total privacy and, at the same time, the eroticism of the secret voyeur. I am told it is most sensual.”

  “But how do you find your way through to reach the rooms?” Peter asked.

  “It can be done if one knows how,” Molly said. “But it is not allowed. There is an entrance chamber, like the one we’re standing in, for each of the rooms. Guests are not permitted to wander through the labyrinth. There are also screens that can be lowered electrically from the ceiling, for those who feel inhibited.”

  “The room was designed for this purpose, then.”

  “Not at all. It was owned by a strange French gentleman, of a somewhat questionable background. No one seems to know why he built it. But it intrigued me, and I modified it for my own purposes.”

  “It is intriguing. For any purpose,” Peter said, looking about the room again.

  “You must try it sometime,” Molly said.

  He turned back to her. The small smile of something known but unspoken was back on his lips. “Perhaps I shall, one day,” he said.

  “Good,” Molly said. “We have many interesting women, who would be pleased to entertain someone young and handsome.”

  Peter smiled openly at the rebuff, which he had expected. “I have …” He paused. “I have a busy schedule the next few days. But when I return I’d like very much to invite you to have dinner with me.”

  Molly led him into the hall and closed the double doors. “I seldom dine out,” she said. “But I’d be pleased to have you join me here.” She looked up at him, her green eyes cool, holding the same knowing expression his smile had offered earlier. “You’ll find Viet Nam interesting, Peter. But be careful. It can be a dangerous place.”

  She started down the hall, her voice businesslike again. “You’ll find the bar is the second door to the right, off the courtyard. The restaurant is just beyond. If you’re interested in membership, you may give Ba Hai the annual fee of five hundred dollars on your next visit. It, of course, may be paid in military payment certificates, piasters, or gold.”

  “I don’t believe I’m allowed to deal in gold,” Peter said. The smile that spoke of some secret was back.

  “You’ll find here in Saigon that people deal in many things that are not allowed, Peter. Here, in this house, we find it inappropriate to question anyone else’s morality.”

  She returned to her office, and watched Peter descend the stairs before closing the door. She hesitated a moment, running her index finger along the line of her cheek. There was a faint smile on her lips. Slowly, she walked to her desk, seated herself in the carved teak desk chair, then reached beneath the desk’s center drawer and pressed a concealed button.

  A side door to the office opened almost immediately, and a short, stocky man dressed in a black silk suit entered. He had a square head, accented by a military crew cut and a flat, expressionless face.

  Molly took a strand of her straight, silky black hair and toyed with it. Her face also was expressionless now, almost hard. There was a sense of command in her eyes when she looked up at the man.

  “Po, the gentleman who just left, Captain Bently. I want you to find out everything you can about him. And I want him watched. But do it very quietly.”

  The stocky man’s eyes narrowed into slits, and he gave one curt nod of his head. He turned, almost as though pivoted by an unseen rod set in the floor, then left as he had entered.

  Molly leaned back in the chair, still toying with the strand of shiny black hair. The smile slowly returned to her lips.

  Chapter 20

  Peter was still amused by Molly’s parting words as he bounced uncomfortably in the jeep as it raced toward Bien Hoa Airbase, northeast of Saigon. Insulting Vassar woman, running an exotic bordello in Saigon. It was a bit more than he had been prepared to deal with. He smiled to himself. You just found a woman you don’t know how to deal with, he told himself. At least not initially. He glanced across the jeep. The driver Wallace had assigned him, an aging, fat sergeant named Walsh, sat behind the wheel, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting the road and surrounding forest. War American-style, he told himself. Naiveté with a touch of Hollywood. The ultimate in conflicts.

  Peter stared at the passing vegetation, all of it so familiar, yet not familiar at all. Like the woman, Molly Bloom. A mixture of the American and the oriental. Someone who knew more than she should, and yet made no attempt to hide it. Perhaps that was why he had found her so difficult to deal with. He shook the thoughts from his mind and settled back for what he felt would be a long trip, longer than the sixty-kilometer jaunt to Bien Hoa.

  The jeep arced its way around a sharp curve and suddenly came upon a row of shacks, the exteriors of which seemed to be constructed solely of flattened beer cans.

  “Interesting architecture, eh, captain?” the sergeant said. “Just some ol’ bam-de-bam stands, selling 33 beer and food that tastes even worse than that horse piss.”

  Peter glanced at his Rolex. It was only 0830 and the stands were already open for business. Several had GIs sitting at overturned wooden cable spools that were set out as tables, like ramshackle outdoor cafes. A half mile later they passed another tin shack, this one with two young women and a young boy seated outside on folding chairs.

  “Car wash,” the sergeant said. He turned to Peter with a leering grin. “Actually a whorehouse, Viet Nam style. See, prostitution’s illegal here. So you pay the boy to wash your car, or truck, or tank, and then his sister, being a polite young lady, offers you tea. Well, bein’ a poor country girl, she just gets seduced a lot by us bad-assed soldier types. That way, the only thing that’s been paid for is gettin’ a vehicle washed. I’ll tell you one thing, though. They got them car washes on every damned highway in this country. An’ this here army’s got the cleanest goddam vehicles that anybody ever saw.”

  “Also the highest rate of clap,” Peter added, bored with the banality of the man.

  “Can’t expect everything to be clean, sir,” the sergeant said.

  Peter stared off into the forest. A row of thirty-foot rose-apple trees slid past, the bright-crimson pear-shaped fruit adding a splash of color to the surrounding hues of green. The natives called the fruit bo-dao, and he remembered eating it as a child, the crisp, juicy, sweet taste, with a
slight hint of rose flavor.

  Farther along the road they passed a stand of breadfruit trees, the branches tipped with huge spiraled clusters of ribbonlike leaves. Dua lop, he recalled, was the Vietnamese name. Then came nipa palms—dua nuoc—a form of vegetation, he knew, that usually grew wild in brackish water, or at the mouths of rivers. Odd to see it here, inland, although it was often planted out of its element. But here, he thought, along a highway threatened by guerrillas, it didn’t make sense. The reclining trunk and large feathery leaves rising fifteen to thirty feet would provide too much cover. He shook his head. The man returning home after so long a time, tainted by military training, he thought. He wondered if he would ever again look at things without thinking of ways they could be used to kill.

  The sergeant was concentrating on the road, whistling softly through his teeth. Peter leaned toward him.

  “Walsh. If prostitution’s illegal here, how does the Room of a Thousand Mirrors operate in such an elaborate manner?” he asked.

  “Right clientele,” Walsh said. “But even there, members don’t pay the ladies, or so I’m told. It’s a club with a membership fee. Members pay for drinks, dinner. And it’s limited to officers, Americans, allies and high-ranking RVN. An’ nobody wants to bother them.” Walsh gave him a knowing look. “The white mice—that’s the local police—they satisfy the law by locking up the occasional streetwalker or bar girl. But they don’t even do that too much. Not since Diem got knocked off.”

  When the jungle finally gave way to the gouged-out section of earth that was Bien Hoa, the jeep veered to the right and headed toward the small interrogation center five miles to the east. As they moved away from Bien Hoa, the mixture of tile-roofed houses and military tents seemed to evaporate into the bush, the drab olive green, the white walls and red roofs changing into the dark chocolate color of rice paddies with the bright green of the rice pushing through. Not far from each chain of paddies, mud huts seemed to grow out of the earth like mushrooms, and near each there were water buffalo tended by farmers, who stared skyward at the sound of planes landing and taking off from Bien Hoa airfield. Along the dikes that rimmed the paddies, small boys tended ducks with long cane poles, each stopping to wave the poles as a plane roared past. They reminded Peter of a boy he had seen in Saigon, walking along the street, a large dragonfly flying above him, tethered to a string tied to his wrist. When he tired of the game, Peter knew, the boy would eat the insect as a snack.