The Silk Merchant's Daughter (21 page)

She waited until long after the soldier had gone then, forcing herself not to buckle, she dragged the woman’s body into a hut and covered her with whatever sacking she could find. Afterwards she scavenged the abandoned vegetables plots, scratching with her fingernails for any remaining root vegetables in the red earth. At the back of one hut she found a large pot full of rainwater. She drank and ate, looking out at the dusky blue horizon, then rested for an hour.

Gradually, over the coming days and weeks, she identified with the wildness of the landscape, and felt herself growing braver. No longer frightened at being alone, she discovered that, of course, nature was incredibly powerful, but she too was strong, in a way she’d never understood before.
Sometimes she stopped to marvel at the carpets of purple flowers stretching in every direction. Once, when the mists came and thunderclouds exploded, she sheltered under bushes and, sitting with her knees drawn up, attempted to sleep. But even there, hidden away and enveloped by a rain-lashed wall of blue-green jungle, she couldn’t block out the sound of thunder. She was desperately hungry and there could be no respite.

One morning, perched at the top of a jagged limestone cliff, she watched a drift of enormous dragonflies. Except for that one storm, the weather had been relatively dry, but it meant that the midday glare was intolerable and the light too sharp. She closed her eyes for a second or two and dreamt of toast and eggs. With the taste on her lips, she opened her eyes again and, shading them with her hands, looked down over the valley. A troop of Vietminh soldiers was creeping past. She would have been right in their line of sight, but crouched down behind the bushes from where she watched, they couldn’t see her. The soldiers wore helmets wrapped in black net, laced with palm leaf; circles of wire on their backs swathed in foliage completed the camouflage. They exactly matched the green of the surrounding vegetation. Nicole felt sorry for any French planes circling above, with no way to spot these columns of men.

She kept very still until the Vietminh had passed then felt dizzy with relief.

When hills rose to the right of marshy land stretching as far as the eye could see, she wasn’t sure what to do. Should she attempt to wade through or take the long way round? She had to keep going, and eventually decided to risk the stepping stones through the marsh. A little further on she watched the Vietminh blow deep holes in the roads and dykes, so when the French finally caught up they’d have to spend all their time
and energy repairing the damage before they could move their heavy vehicles forward.

Soon after that, she witnessed a Vietnamese mortar attack on an unsuspecting French garrison and she felt utterly divided. Her life as a Vietminh supporter had come to an abrupt end, and she couldn’t allow them to find her. But neither did she believe in French rule either. Within an hour the devastation was total and she had no choice but to watch from afar as the French survivors shuffled past with raised hands, guarded by a double column of Vietminh. One thing was certain: her father had underestimated their strength. Everywhere she had been people were turning against the French in their thousands, and she was aware that from the moment the Vietminh had reclassified themselves as communists, their support was growing all the faster.

Intellectuals like Trần had joined the cause early on but now she’d seen peasants acting as a support network, ferrying the injured to makeshift hospitals and trekking across stark mountain terrain to deliver food and weapons. Many had died for their country and Nicole knew many more would do so. She truly recognized now that it was
their
country. Neither side was free from blame when it came to clandestine operations, but she had a better understanding of why it had to be that way.

She had no plan for what she would do when she reached home, and no idea if her family would even accept her. Going back was a huge risk. She’d be branded a traitor to the French – which of course she was – but it was a risk she had to take. There was nowhere else to go. The police knew she’d escaped house arrest and would have long suspected she had joined the enemy. She prayed they wouldn’t imprison her, and hoped that her father might persuade Giraud to deport her to France. She thought of going to Huế but it was much too far on foot.

To take her mind off the fear, Nicole thought about her life in Huế. She’d learnt to do that. When you have to keep going, no matter what, you don’t dwell on what frightens you, even if it shadows you. To prevent it crushing your spirit, you have to think of something else. Something good.

For as long as she could remember, while they’d been living in Huế, they’d spent summers in the hilltops of Dalat, with cool breezes blowing in the trees and bright hydrangeas everywhere. The house they used to rent was in a dusty, tree-lined boulevard and belonged to the owner of the area’s largest rubber plantation. The whole place was overgrown with camellia, hydrangea, chrysanthemum and roses of all colours. While their father went hunting – deer, wild boar, black bear, panthers, tigers and even elephants – she and Sylvie lived in a blissful outdoor world, with days so long she’d thought they would go on for ever.

She closed her eyes and in a flash was back there on the day Lisa had taken them to a waterfall where they gazed at gentle cascades of white water. It wasn’t noisy as the falls didn’t drop vertically but took a slow diagonal path, the water flowing along several rivulets.

Lisa pointed down at one of the natural platforms. ‘Shall we sit there? They’re smooth enough.’

After they climbed down they made themselves comfortable, and Lisa unpacked the picnic. They took off their shoes and dangled their feet in the water.

‘Come on, Lisa,’ Sylvie said. ‘It’s not too cold.’

‘This is the most peaceful of the waterfalls,’ Lisa said.

She was right. The peace was infectious. Nothing went wrong that day. Nicole, feeling the sun on her skin and breathing in sparkling air, had fallen in love with the spot and Sylvie seemed happy too.

‘Why is it called Tiger Waterfall?’ Nicole asked.

‘It’s named after a cave they believe was once a tiger den.’

When she spotted a large monkey with a golden face and fluffy white beard staring at her, she sat still, feeling amazed.

‘It’s a red-shanked langur,’ Sylvie whispered. ‘Look at its bright red stockings.’

Nicole saw at once. The reddish-maroon fur ran from its knees to its ankles. As quickly as it had appeared, the monkey vanished.

But one summer, their last at Dalat, war had come and the Japanese arrived. Those days had not gone on for ever after all. They’d left for Huế the moment the war had broken out and when it ended Sylvie had been sent to America, because their father had wanted her to make contact with Americans sympathetic to the French cause. She’d stayed with a cousin of their father’s in New York, while Nicole had remained in Huế. Nicole recalled a sense of emptiness without her sister, and a horrible feeling nothing was going to turn out well. A bit like now, she thought. You could never imagine how the world you knew and loved could be so suddenly and so unexpectedly broken.

At the end of one day as the sun dropped in the sky, and still using her compass, she reached the Red River, close to a French defence tower. It looked as if it had been erected to guard an area of land the French were in the process of clearing. She took in the piles of wild bamboo and the heaps of rubble, then crept back to where she’d spotted a stream. She splashed her face and, where there was enough cover, quickly changed into the French dress she’d been given. She brushed herself down and straightened her back. Then, though every muscle was aching and her feet were in agony, she walked into the outpost. There she told the guard she had been captured by the Vietminh and held in a re-education camp, but had
escaped. He looked doubtful at first, but when she told him stories of her life in Hanoi, and how it had been at the camp too, she managed to convince him. The state of her legs and feet helped. She had been hoping for food, but all he offered was a cup of water, which she gulped down, and a filthy black Gauloise Troupe cigarette, which she refused.

The next morning she was piled on to a truck with French soldiers heading for Hanoi. Most were kind, though some looked at her warily, but their mood was low as they talked about the advance in the communist penetration. They spoke of villages abandoned by people who knew an attack on nearby French camps was imminent. They talked about their own control of the air while, increasingly, the Viets, masters of camouflage, were controlling the land.

As Nicole dozed on the journey their voices faded in and out, but she was jolted awake when the truck came to a shuddering halt at some kind of depot in the French quarter. As she climbed out she saw a line of officials and a group of people being shepherded into a queue. In the confusion of their arrival, she slipped behind a stationary van and swiftly crossed the road. With a quick backwards glance, she disappeared down a side street adjoining a familiar avenue, not far from her home. She could not go straight back to the house, as first she needed to retrieve the keys hidden at the shop. And dressed as she was, she could only enter the Vietnamese quarter under cover of darkness. So again she concealed herself in the same clearing beneath the trees where she had once lain hidden with Trần. She longed to be clean and pictured the aquamarine bathroom she had shared with Sylvie, imagining filling the bath with warm scented water and letting it wash away the last few months. Layer by layer, each awful thing would be gone.

Being back there made her think. She had abandoned her
family; had pushed them to the back of her mind for more than six months. She couldn’t help feeling deeply ashamed and it made her want to weep for what had been lost. She thought of her mother, and what her father had done. People made mistakes. It was still wrong, but considering everything she had seen since leaving home, what her father had done seemed less shocking than before. She thought of Sylvie too and a fist closed round her heart. Despite learning that under the right set of circumstances anyone could inflict terrible suffering on another, she found she could not forgive her sister for helping Giraud to place her under house arrest.

With no boots, socks or a coat, the damp Hanoi air seeped through her thin cotton dress and yet, exhausted by a journey that had taken almost a month, she fell into a dreamless sleep for a couple of hours. Hearing gunfire, she woke suddenly. Surely the war hadn’t reached Hanoi already? Silence followed. She listened carefully. Wondering. Frightened.

Under cover of twilight, Nicole summoned the courage to retrieve the key from the shop and, despite feeling conspicuous, managed to slip back to the house by sticking to the shadows. She passed the lake, leaving the glittering water behind her. After a last glance back, she twisted the key in the lock and stepped over the threshold, crying with relief at being in the safety of her old home. The hall was in darkness, and she tripped on something discarded on the floor. She listened to the tick of the hall clock, then felt around for the light switch. It clicked but no light came on. She leant against the door and, after waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, groped her way to the sitting room by the faint moonlight shining down from the cupola. The light switch there didn’t work either, so she tiptoed to the kitchen. It seemed as if her family must have left quickly. Alert to danger, she felt a rush of heat. What if they hadn’t been able to leave? What if the Vietminh had taken possession? She struggled not to allow her imagination to spin out of control, but in her absence anything could have happened to her father, Sylvie and Lisa.

The house smelt damp and felt cold, as if uninhabited for weeks, or possibly months, and that shocked her. She listened to the creaks and groans of the place and pictured Papa snoring and Sylvie lying perfectly, beautifully asleep. The images faded. It might be the enemy who lay asleep upstairs, even as she shivered down below. But no, if anyone was living here, the house would not be so icy.

In the darkness she fumbled her way around the kitchen to
the dresser, feeling for the top drawer on the left, where Lisa had been in the habit of accumulating an assortment of bits that might come in handy: candles for power cuts, matches for oil lamps, a nail file, a pair of extra-sharp scissors, postage stamps, envelopes. She pulled the drawer open and fished for candles and matches, eventually locating them. The first matches were damp. It took six or seven attempts before she finally succeeded in striking one, then watched as the darkness bunched back against the light.

In the flickering glow she glanced around at the shadowy ceiling and dark corners. She pulled open a shutter and stepped back in alarm. The window had been completely boarded up. She went back to the drawer to find and light more candles, then dripped wax into the coffee cups abandoned on the table. She rammed the candles in, using one to find her way to the pantry to search for food. The sound of scratching mice meant there’d be nothing fresh to eat, but Lisa kept a store of pickled vegetables and jams, plus a few tins of beans. At the thought of the cook, Nicole could hardly keep standing for fear of what might have happened to her old ally.

She yelped as hot wax dripped on to her hand, so covered her hand with her sleeve as she searched for an empty wine bottle. Once found, and the candle successfully jammed into the bottle, she twisted the lid from a glass storage jar and devoured the pickled courgette, vinegar dripping down her chin to her chest. The cold tap in the sink was still in working order, so she filled a mug and drank the rusty-coloured water. She would have liked a baguette with butter and jam but, of course, there was none, and she couldn’t make coffee on a cold range.

Her feet were raw and hurting badly, so she pulled Lisa’s old blanket from the chair by the window and, wrapping it round her, picked her way towards the back stairs, wanting to head up to the sitting room.

At the sound of footsteps in the hall above, the muscles in her neck and shoulders went rigid. Thoughts raced through her mind – memories, fragments, words – as she pulled the blanket round her and tried to concentrate on keeping silent. As the footsteps halted, her heart was clamouring so much she felt as if it might burst from her chest. She listened as the door at the top of the stairs opened. Was it Giraud now coming down the stairs? The dark corners of her mind caved in on her as she prepared herself to meet her old adversary.

The hall clock chimed. Then silence.

The silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway. Lit from behind by the moonlight, his face remained in darkness. He took a step towards her.

The armour, built during her escape from the north, fell away, and with fear ringing in her ears, she waited.

The man did not move again. Silence for a moment, then the sound of a car’s tyres outside. Nothing more.

At the precise moment her candle revealed the glint of a gun in his hand, she spoke. ‘Who are you?’

He cleared his throat. Such an ordinary sound, but all the more terrifying because of that. Surely she hadn’t come this far for it to end now?

‘Nicole, is that you?’ he said.

‘Mark?’

As he came forward she dropped the bottle. She heard it smash on the floor, her legs gave way, and a moment later she was barely aware of being carried upstairs to her father’s old bedroom.

As the hours passed, Mark took care of her, bathing her feet and legs and treating her cuts with disinfectant. He was infinitely gentle, albeit a little distant, bringing food and water and changing her sweat-drenched sheets. He brought her a commode and even took care of that. As she drifted, she was
too tired and too ill to feel embarrassed. She lay in a bed that smelt of lavender, with him sitting in a chair beside her. When she was able to sit up and ask what had happened, he said he didn’t know. He’d had to go to America and when he’d come back, the day before she herself had arrived, the house had been empty. He explained that before he left he’d heard she had run away with a Vietnamese man. Sylvie had told him.

‘That was exactly what I worried might happen,’ he said.

‘What? That I’d run away with another man?’

He didn’t meet her eyes. ‘This isn’t a joke, Nicole. God knows what you thought you were doing or what you got yourself into while you were with him. He’s a terrorist.’

‘Does anyone know you’re here?’ she asked, ignoring his comment because the same could be applied to Mark. Nobody knew what he’d been doing and she was well aware of the ongoing atrocities on both sides.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve been using the back door via the garden. I’ve kept everything as it was. All the windows are boarded on the outside and I don’t open the shutters or curtains.’

‘How did you get into the house?’

‘Sylvie had given me a key.’

‘Nobody else has a key?’

‘Not that I know.’

She gulped back a sob. ‘What has happened to my family?’

‘I’m trying to find out. It may be that Sylvie and your father simply packed up and left.’

She stared up at his bright blue eyes, hoping he wasn’t concealing anything. ‘I wish I could know for sure. I let my father down. I wanted to get back at them.’

He sighed. ‘It’s been hard for everyone. Nobody knows what’s right any more.’

She nodded and the silence that followed seemed to spill over, making further talk redundant.

‘I’d like to have a bath,’ she eventually said and, feeling utterly soiled, examined her broken nails and dirt-ingrained hands. ‘I must smell terrible.’

He smiled. ‘Pretty ripe, but there’s no fuel for the boiler so no hot water.’

‘Oh. I had hoped.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Deeply touched by his kindness, it brought tears to her eyes.

While he was gone she drifted again, but plagued by dreadful dreams, she was shaking by the time he returned. He dropped the box he’d been carrying, came over and took her in his arms, then stroked her back while she cried.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked when she stopped crying. ‘I mean, back in Hanoi?’

‘I still have a job to do.’

A long pause followed during which he stared at the floor. When he looked up again she saw his face had changed and he was smiling.

‘I have something for you.’

‘In the box?’

‘Yes. A portable gas cylinder and burner. It won’t make the water piping hot, but at least it will take the chill off. I’ll get it ready.’

She caught hold of his arm. ‘You were never going to propose to Sylvie, were you?’

‘No,’ he said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I told you before. Sylvie and I were not together.’

‘She asked me to cut eight metres of cream silk. She never really explained what it was for but I always thought she intended it for her wedding dress.’

During the following week, Mark only left the house at night, leaving her alone in a strange candlelit world. She didn’t ask
where he went, knowing he probably wouldn’t be at liberty to say. By day he kept her company, reading to her and ensuring she was comfortable.

One morning she woke to find him sitting beside her bed with a tray balanced on his knee.

She blinked herself awake. ‘Oh my lord! Coffee?’

He nodded. ‘I used the last of the gas. And there’s fresh baguette with butter and jam.’

‘How did you know I’ve been dreaming of it?’

‘Talking in your sleep.’

‘Do you watch me sleep?’

He looked embarrassed. ‘No, but I do come in sometimes to make sure you’re still breathing.’

‘Just like a baby.’

He laughed but she’d seen his eyes darken. ‘We must do nothing to arouse Giraud’s suspicion. You do understand, don’t you? He will consider you a danger to the French.’

‘I’m not a terrorist.’

‘You never knew their plans?’

‘I was just a singer.’

‘I can’t tell you how much I hope that’s true.’

He had been watching her sleep. The thought of it comforted her and she wished she could see the sun’s winter rays fall on his face. In the gloom of the house he looked pale. She reached out and turned his face towards her.

‘You have stubble,’ she said.

He covered her hand with his own. ‘So, coffee?’

She noticed two mugs and two plates. ‘Are you having breakfast with me?’

He nodded.

‘Well, get under the eiderdown.’ She patted the space beside her. ‘The house is freezing.’

He removed his shoes and did as she asked.

They ate in companionable silence. Nicole, having regained her appetite, ate ravenously, dripping butter and jam on to the sheet.

‘What a mess you are,’ he said and, one hand resting on her thigh, wiped her mouth with a tea towel. He was so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheeks, but then he withdrew.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘A bit of shut-eye for me now and then I’ll be off again.’

She stared into her empty coffee cup, the sudden loneliness biting painfully. ‘Do you think you might help me back to my old room? I’m longing for some natural light. The windows aren’t boarded up on that floor.’

‘I’ll need to find some sheets. The beds up there have been stripped.’

‘I’ll feel better surrounded by my old things.’

Once the bed had been made up, he helped her up the stairs. At the sight of her room bathed in flawless light and looking so lovely, she couldn’t control her tears.

‘Don’t you like it? I tidied up a bit.’

She shook her head, unable to communicate the flood of mixed feelings.

‘Well, into bed with you. I’ve put a candle beside the bed for when it gets dark. But make sure you keep the curtains and blackout blinds closed so the light can’t be seen.’

‘Might someone notice if my curtains are open by day but closed at night?’

‘I think the pipal tree will pretty much block the view. Don’t open any window overlooking the street at the front.’

‘Will you be back?’

‘Not for a bit.’

She reached for his hand. ‘Please don’t go.’

‘Nicole, believe me, I don’t want to leave, but I have no
choice. I’ll bring you some food to last and, as long as you’re okay to reach the bathroom unaided, you’ll manage. But please take into account how ill you’ve been. Rest is what you need, so stay up here and keep quiet. We want the place to seem abandoned. Like I said, it’s okay to open the window a little but only when it’s dark.’

After he had gone she lay back on the bed and thought of how she had never told anyone what she’d seen on the night of the ball; not Sylvie, not Trần, not Mark. It weighed heavily on her mind while he wasn’t there. She knew the near starvation of her journey south and the months of hardship with the theatre troupe had weakened her, but unable to lie still for long, she walked up and down on the landing to regain some strength in her legs, then carefully wandered around the house. In the gloom she explored the rooms and, thinking of her family, ran her palms over their few remaining belongings, as if she might conjure their presence through contact with the things they had loved: Sylvie’s beautiful screens, her father’s oak desk, Lisa’s old chair. She was surprised the furniture hadn’t been packed up and shipped back to France, but perhaps Sylvie was intending to come back after all. So many memories haunted the rooms. Would she ever see any of them again? She went into the little aquamarine bathroom she had often dreamt about while she’d been away and opened Sylvie’s cabinet. One jar of face cream and a bottle of perfume inside. No pills. She picked the glass bottle up, sniffed it, and felt so lonely that tears began to form.

Back in her room, she knelt beside her old bookcase and ran her fingers over the spines of all her favourite books. She pulled one out and sniffed, did the same with three more, and finally fished out her all-time favourite childhood book:
Little Women
. It reminded her of their old life in Huế, where she’d first read it, and all the memories attached to their old home came racing
back. She flicked the pages and was surprised to see an envelope fall out. Had she left an unfinished letter in there? But no, this one was sealed. She slid a finger under the flap and tore open the envelope, then unfolded a single sheet of paper.

Chérie,

I don’t know where you have been or whether you will ever read this, though I know you are the only one who’ll ever be likely to look in that particular book. So if you are reading this now, it means you are alive and have come home. See, I do notice what you do. I always have. More than you know.

We waited for you as long as we felt able, but times have changed in Hanoi and eventually we could wait no longer. Papa made sure he had fulfilled his obligations to the government, but it’s hard to know who to trust and he made the difficult decision to leave without telling many.

I have accompanied Papa to Paris to help settle him in. He hasn’t been at all well since he had his stroke. (Perhaps you don’t even know about that?) We managed to sell Maison Duval on Paul Bert, though only for a fraction of its true worth. Still, it was enough to purchase a small apartment in the Marais area of Paris, Rue des Archives. Papa still has some stocks and shares so he will be fine, if not wealthy. I know it is not the most salubrious of districts, but Papa needs the money to live.

After you left he was distraught and blamed himself. He spent three months sending out people to try and find you. I don’t say this to worry you, but he was so frightened by what you might have done, he decided the only thing to do was to leave before things got worse. Had we left it longer, and with his poor health, it might have become impossible to go. We left in quite a hurry. Giraud was sniffing around on a daily basis and I no longer trusted him. However, I don’t believe the scaremongering about the war either, and I shall return either to wind up our affairs and pack up the rest of our belongings or to continue running what we have left.

Papa wrote to you when we arrived in Paris. Did you receive that letter? In the meantime, if you ever do read this, look after the silk shop in the ancient quarter if you can. A local girl has been
running it while you’ve been away. Your old neighbour, O-Lan. I’m not sure where her sympathies lie, but there was nobody else to do it. I don’t think she’d cheat us. Her own shop was flooded and her goods have all been destroyed. You can keep her on or dismiss her as you wish. It may be a few months before I get back.

By the way, Lisa has gone to live with her sister, Alice Brochard, in the Languedoc.

Now I want you to do me a favour. The decision to go was made as soon as we’d sold our store and, though I wanted to explain, I didn’t see Mark before I left. He had gone to America but promised he’d return to Hanoi as soon as he could. If you see him please would you tell him that I will be coming back.

Thank you, chérie. I hope you are safe. You may not believe it but I do worry about you.

Your sister, Sylvie