The Map of Lost Memories (13 page)

Only one passenger on the steamer showed any courtesy to Simone. Eduard Boisselier was the man Anne had guessed would be watching them. Approaching their table during lunch the second day out, he bowed with the courtliness of an earlier era before addressing Simone. “Bonjour, madame. Pardon this interruption, but I would like to introduce myself.” He went on to praise an editorial that Simone had written in the
Shanghai Chronicle
about the frailties of the Comintern. “You have some clever ideas about new directions for the party,” he said. “And quite unusual, considering what the paper usually publishes.” He then asked if he might have the honor of strolling around the deck with her that afternoon.

In spite of knowing that he might be some kind of informant, Irene liked the way this elderly Frenchman flattered Simone. He made her laugh, and as the days dragged on, he gave her something to think about other than Roger. Simone had been born in Cambodia and Monsieur Boisselier in Senegal, but Irene overheard them comparing stories about France, conversing in the homesick patois common to those who lived in the colonies. Still, they had to be careful; Simone could become too friendly with him and, without meaning to, give something away about their plans or Roger’s death. One morning before breakfast, Irene pulled her aside. “You should know, Anne thinks he’s been sent to watch us,” she warned.

Curtly, Simone replied, “Me. He’s been sent to watch
me
. Did you think I wasn’t aware of it?”

Simone’s hostility was not unexpected. After their conversation that first morning on the steamer, a new tension had grown between the two women as they grappled with the fact that they valued the temple over a man’s life. This would take some getting used to, this unrepentant truth—the
kind of truth one should not admit even to one’s self, let alone share with another.

So while Simone and Monsieur Boisselier walked round the deck, Irene waited for the images of Roger’s death to fade, in the same way the bungalow had receded in the rearview mirror as they drove away from the body stiffening in the grass. She could feel the possibility of going stir-crazy, stuck with her anxious thoughts as she waited out the days on the snail-paced steamer, and she sought the peace she’d felt while sailing with her father, doing her best to give her attention over to the sea. To the horizon, stable between water and sky. To the appliqué of whitecaps pleating the surface, luring the mind toward the calm depths below.

Then, gradually, as the mornings passed into afternoons, punctuated by the steady perambulation of Simone and Monsieur Boisselier, a routine that could have become plodding steadily took on significance. Each orbit made by Simone and her escort, although no different from the one that had preceded it, marked the voyage, taking Irene farther, and then farther still, from the vise grip of what had happened in Shanghai.

On the morning that the steamer was berthed in Hong Kong, Irene woke within the tide of a dream—of discovering a temple’s fallen pillar in the scrub of a forest floor. As she sat up in bed, the feel of rough stone lingered on her fingers, and she thought about how, in a matter of hours, they would leave this harbor, and when they did, they would be closer to Saigon than to Shanghai. Saigon, the capital of Indochina and the gateway to Phnom Penh. This fact buoyed her, and perhaps it had infected Simone too. She was in good spirits as they sat down to breakfast, talking about looking up her old family servant Touit when they arrived in Cambodia. Touit, who had been as much of a mother to her as the woman she called
“ma chère maman”
had been.

It was the first time Irene had heard Simone speak of Cambodia in such a lighthearted way. As she pushed her crepe around her plate, she told Irene how Touit would chase her through the darkening ruins of the Bayon temple in order to give her a bath. “I hated coming in from playing out there. I remember one night, hiding behind the Terrace of the Elephants,
listening to old Touit puffing over the stones shouting my name. I thought it was funny, but when she found me she told my mother, who gave her permission to punish me in any way she chose. She forbade me to go to the temples for a month.”

Irene twined her fingers around her coffee cup, listening to Simone as she had once listened to her mother or Mr. Simms tell her the myths of the ancient Khmer. To her, the story of a servant named Touit chasing a little French girl around the ruins was equally magical. They were interrupted by a steward making his rounds, handing out newspapers just brought aboard. Irene had no interest in weeks-old news from home, but Simone picked through
The New York Times
, the London
Times
, and
Le Figaro
, claimed a copy of the
North-China Daily News
, and continued talking. “She didn’t even allow me out for the lunar new year celebrations. I cried for so long I made myself ill.”

Simone laughed at this memory and reached for her tea. It was then that Irene noticed the European woman at the table next to them, young but grown exponentially fat, no doubt from giving birth to the five children seated around her. She was holding her own copy of the
North-China Daily
and staring at Simone. Irene read the headline,
COMMUNIST LEADER MURDERED!
, and felt the scandal careening through the breakfast tables as faces turned toward them. Simone’s downcast eyes were studying the headline on the paper beside her plate. Her face turned white as plaster. It was as if Roger’s death had not been real until it was put into words and known by others. Simone grabbed her shawl from the back of her chair, and as she rushed away, newspaper crushed in her hand, the fat woman mumbled, “It’s about time.”

Irene stood. Everyone in the room was watching. She glared down at the woman. “Disgusting Alsatian brood cow,” she snapped. She hurried after Simone, but Simone was faster and had locked herself in her cabin before Irene could reach her.

The optimistic spell cast by Irene’s dream had been broken by the announcement of Roger’s death. After pounding futilely on Simone’s door, she took a copy of the
North-China Daily
to the salon and, under the
watchful eye of more than one passenger, read a mélange of journalistic fact, opinion, and creative speculation. Roger Merlin’s body had been found by a peasant in the countryside. He’d been stabbed in the neck, but before this happened, his arm and leg had been broken, the result of torture reminiscent of battering techniques used during the Opium Wars. There was a brief paragraph about his wife who was away.
Away
. That was all. This was not noted as unusual, and there was nothing accusatory in the mention of Simone, although the journalist described her as a victim who was “one of the situation’s greatest benefactors.”

Irene learned that three minor Municipal Government employees had been taken in for questioning, and that riots were seeping into the international districts. Envisioning the turmoil, she glanced up to see a table of mustachioed colonials watching her, and she was unnerved. All that was happening in Shanghai, every truth and lie being told in this newspaper, everything these old men across the room thought they knew but didn’t, she and Simone had set it in motion.

The monsoon season was under way, and as the day progressed, a storm enveloped the
Lumière
. Chandeliers swung from side to side like the passengers staggering beneath them. The sea buckled and swayed, and although the worst was over by suppertime, few people came out of their cabins for dinner. The immense dining hall felt like an abandoned stage set. Only three passengers ventured to the captain’s table in the first-class section. The White Russian orchestra was given the night off because the trombonist and drummer were seasick, and the vacuum created by the absence of music gave the wooden-floored room a forlorn echo. This, combined with the lack of people, made Monsieur Boisselier all the more unavoidable when he raised his hand toward Irene standing alone in the entryway.

He rose as she approached, and when he held out a chair for her, she saw the grooves where the tines of his comb had been dragged through his thin hair, yellow-gray from a lifetime of pomades. His face was blotched with age spots, and his nose was jagged amid his otherwise refined features. He smelled overwhelmingly of camphor, perhaps used for
the arthritis that visibly affected his joints, and Irene was glad when he went back to his side of his table. “How is she?” he asked.

This was the first time Irene had spoken to him alone. “Distraught, as you can imagine. She should have been told before the newspapers were delivered. It was terrible for her to be caught so unaware.”

“I must admit, Roger Merlin was a man I considered indestructible.”

Irene abhorred secrecy when she was the one being kept in the dark, and she could see no harm in letting Monsieur Boisselier know that she was aware of his purpose. “Does this change things?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Does this change what they think she might do?”

He looked bewildered, as if he were trying and failing to recall a conversation he and Irene might have had at an earlier time. “They?”

“The Communists, the Municipal Government, whoever it is that sent you to watch her.”

“Interesting,” Monsieur Boisselier murmured. He nodded to his half-eaten scallops of veal, languishing in a sauce of vermouth and cream. “Are you hungry? Shall I call the waiter?”

“No, thank you. Not yet.” Determined to guide the old man to the answers she wanted, Irene asked, “Am I right? Are you a private detective?”

He laughed. “I like Americans. Very direct. May I ask why this would matter to you?”

Dismissing his amusement, Irene said, “I’m worried.”

“Why?” he asked, as he poured her a glass of Bordeaux from the carafe beside his plate.

“My life’s work.” Taking a sip, she primed herself to practice the made-up tale she had been rehearsing since the start of her trip. “Khmer trade routes. I’m close to piecing together the major passage between Angkor Wat and Peking. I can’t do it without Simone. Without her father’s research.”

“Well, you needn’t worry about me any longer. My job is done.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My employer has been murdered.”

“Roger?”

“Now I have caught
you
off guard.”

Irene could hear the dominance in his tone. She felt her self-possession slipping, and she tightened her hold on her glass, as if this could provide ballast. “How could he know we’d be on this ship? He was …”

“Dead?”

“The newspaper said he’d been dead a week by the time he was found.”

“Direct, but so very innocent. You bought a ticket in her name the day after you arrived in Shanghai. Anyone could have told him. The entire city was on his payroll.”

“Including you.”

He took a swallow of wine. “I never should have agreed to half in advance and half once the job was done. I’m too old for this kind of work. But I needed that money. I have almost paid off a cottage in Dakar, right on the Atlantic. I had hoped to retire,” he said, wearily.

It alarmed Irene that when she and Simone went to Roger’s bungalow in the Chinese countryside, he had already known she’d bought passage on the
Lumière
. Had he told this old man about the temple? If so, Monsieur Boisselier could pass the information along to someone new for the final payment he needed. “What if I finish your contract?” Irene asked.

“How?”

“I will give you what you’re owed if you tell me why Roger wanted Simone watched.”

He shook his head at her presumption. “You don’t know what I’m owed.”

Irene’s satchels were lined with cash that Mr. Simms had given her. How dare this man not take her seriously? “It doesn’t matter. I can pay it.”

Monsieur Boisselier examined Irene. With deliberation, he said, “I can assure you of one thing. He told me nothing about Khmer trade routes.”

Irene took a sip of her wine, and then another, fighting her instinct to push him, sensing that one wrong word would shut him down.

He reached into his breast pocket for a gold case. Opening it, he offered
Irene a cigarette, but she shook her head, intent on waiting him out. He set the case beside his plate, and his eyes never once left her face. Finally, he said, “He believed she was going to betray him.”

“There’s another man?”

“He did not mention a name, if that’s what you’re asking. Only once did he give a clue. He said, ‘I always knew she would betray me for her first love.’ ”

When Irene left the dining room, she took with her new concerns: Monsieur Boisselier’s possible knowledge of the temple, and now that Roger’s death had been discovered, worry about what officials might ask of Simone once they reached Saigon. Even if they did not suspect her, their investigation would cause a delay.

Irene decided that she would not tell Simone about her conversation with Monsieur Boisselier. They had not talked at all about what needed to be accomplished once they reached Saigon or what lay ahead of them in the jungle, and she needed Simone’s attention to focus on that. She would pay Monsieur Boisselier, buying his silence with the house in Dakar and then some, and when they reached Saigon, she would track down Marc Rafferty, who had said he was going there to visit his aunt on his way to Amsterdam. If he was as good at gathering information as he claimed, then he was the only one Irene knew who could help her find out what threat Monsieur Boisselier posed and if anyone else was watching Simone.

As Irene entered the corridor leading to her cabin, she saw Simone sitting on the floor outside her door. The wintry margins of the storm had pushed their way inside, and Simone wore denim trousers and a thick cable-knit sweater. The sweater’s large, loose neckline revealed a frayed camisole and her winged collarbones. Its belled sleeves hung down below her fingertips. Despite the days spent strolling in brisk sea air, she did not look healthy. Unlike Irene, whose dark blond hair was streaked with light and skin was tanned, Simone had not benefited from the sun.

“I wondered if I would see you again today.” Irene held out her hand
to help Simone up. “I went to your cabin to check on you earlier. You didn’t answer.”