The Silk Merchant's Daughter (6 page)

A pan was rattling on the stove and, as steam filled the air, Lisa sang at the top of her voice to an old French song on the radio. Nicole gazed at the kitchen window. Several days had passed since their outing on the lake but she hadn’t heard from Mark. The hot, wet season was setting in and it wasn’t so bright outside; the day looked likely to be miserably humid. But a crusty golden loaf lay on the table and the sight of that always made things better. She picked at the skin round the edges of her nails and watched as the cook stopped singing and began to sway while chopping some red peppers. The lovely scent of their freshness filled the room.

‘Are your eyes closed?’ Nicole asked.

‘You think I’d chop with my eyes shut!’

‘Well, there are sometimes strange things floating in the soup.’

Lisa swiped at her with a dishcloth. ‘Impudent child!’

Nicole ducked then went back to picking her skin. ‘What are we having today?’

‘Rabbit. I caught it myself. Anyway, why haven’t you opened the shop yet?’

Nicole shrugged. ‘I’m having the courtyard painted and the kitchen spring-cleaned. The smell is too strong for the customers.’

There was a rap at the back door. When Lisa went over to open it, Nicole caught sight of an urchin, who handed something over. The cook closed the door.

‘It’s for you. Who is sending you little notes, my butterfly?’ Lisa passed her an envelope and sat down to roll a cigarette.

Nicole glanced at her name on the front. Straightaway she got up to leave.

‘Secret assignation, right?’ Lisa said with a laugh.

‘Right!’ Nicole laughed.

When she reached the hall, she tore open the envelope and first of all glanced at the signature on the notepaper. Mark. Relief flooded through her as she read that he wanted to meet at Les Variétés that afternoon at four. It would be worth her while, he said. Her first response was to whoop out loud, after which she flew upstairs, all the time working out what to wear.

By ten to four Nicole was pacing the pavement outside Les Variétés, Hanoi’s oldest theatre and considered rather downmarket. So as not to be late or get wet, she had taken the tram rather than walk, but by the time she arrived the drizzle had died down and patches of blue patterned the sky. The theatre was situated on a crossroads and if she stood outside the imposing front door she could see every direction from which Mark might approach.

She’d never been inside, though Papa had taken her and Sylvie to the French musical appreciation society, the Société Philharmonique. But, much to her father’s disappointment, it was not the kind of music Nicole liked. After that he’d taken her to see a visiting French theatre company perform Molière at the Municipal Theatre, known by the Vietnamese as the Western Theatre. It was a beautiful building with arches and domes, but as it had only served to increase her longing for excitement, the visit had not been repeated. The place she loved best and went to alone was the beautiful Cinéma Palace, with its wonderful arched entrance, on what the Vietnamese
called Trang Tien Road. Her favourite films recently had been
The Red Shoes
and
The Three Musketeers.

What Papa liked was listening to the French military band playing in a square near to the lake. Luckily they weren’t there today, and as she waited for Mark she watched the flower girls from the villages. Daily they brought in flowers loaded up in great panniers either side of skinny little donkeys. You always saw the girls squatting along with the birds at the edge of the road circling the lake. The scent of the flowers was overpowering and as Nicole took a few steps away she collided with a boy on a bicycle loaded with dozens of baskets intended for steaming dumplings. He tried to persuade her to buy, but when she laughed and told him she was French he called her a
métisse
and spat on the ground. She felt upset but was not going to let it spoil her afternoon.

Soon after she heard Mark call her name. She swivelled round. How confident he looked, she thought, with his arms swinging and a spring in his step.

‘On time, I see,’ he said and gave her a wide smile.

‘I was early.’

‘Well, you look lovely.’ He touched her hair, lifting it slightly away from her face. ‘I like your hair loose like this.’

She grinned with pleasure. After several changes she had decided on a red slim-fitting dress, reaching just below the knee, with a flat broad-brimmed straw hat in cream which she now held in her hand. She felt elegant and knew the outfit made her seem older.

As he held out a hand, she felt the thrill of being with him again.

‘Shall we?’

Once inside the theatre it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did she gazed at an old-fashioned music hall complete with red velvet seats and oil
lamps fixed to the walls, though on closer inspection she saw they had been converted to electricity. The smell of greasepaint, sweat and stale perfume filled her with a thrilling new sensation.

She felt her blood pumping faster as they walked down the central aisle, where a man sitting in the front row twisted round and called out to them.

‘Hurry along now. Have you brought your sheet music?’

The sound of hammering came from the wings, and as the cleaners swept and polished it was noisy in the large auditorium too. Nicole hesitated. ‘Are you talking to me?’

‘No, the curate’s prostitute! Of course I’m talking to you. I hope your voice is better than your brain appears to be.’

Mark had been watching her with amusement and now he stepped in. ‘Jerry, this is Nicole. The girl I told you about. I’m afraid I got her here on false pretences, but she tells me she can sing. Is she too late to audition?’

‘Audition!’ she gasped, staring at him in disbelief.

‘A friend of yours is always welcome, Mark. Come along, dear, tell me what songs you know.’

‘Go on,’ Mark said, keeping his bright blue eyes on her. ‘The worst that can happen is you’ll freeze.’

‘Or die!’ she said and pulled her hand away. What if she made a mess of it? What if she had to face their embarrassed laughter?

‘Nicole, this is your chance,’ he whispered. ‘You have to take it. The theatre company are encouraging popular musical theatre back into Hanoi.’

As the sounds of the world ebbed and flowed, her palms began sweating. Wondering how she’d ever sing, she steadied her nerve, handed Mark her hat and climbed up the three steps to the stage. From the moment she began singing ‘I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time’ unaccompanied, the background
noise of the theatre and the din of the distant city faded. Inside the theatre, the bright lights, the rows of seats and the people working blended into one. As her voice soared she felt as light as air; no longer the overlooked younger sister, it was as if she’d discovered another aspect of herself. She felt buoyed up, high on her own ability, and never in her life had she felt more at home. When she finished, the feeling welled up inside her with such force it nearly spilled over in tears.

Jerry began to clap, Mark joined in and also the carpenters who had been tapping away in the wings. Nicole took a bow.

‘No need for that just yet,’ Jerry said, but his jaw twitched with amusement.

‘So does she get a part?’ Mark asked.

‘I’m sure I can find her something.’

Mark handed Jerry a note. ‘Nicole’s phone number,’ he said.

Then he came up to the stage and, with light glinting in his eyes, he held out his arms. Full of gratitude, she jumped right into them and he swung her round. As he put her down his hands remained on her back for longer than was necessary. She leant in towards him slightly and felt the warmth as his hands slid up a little way. He let go and took a step back, but something had passed between them; she felt it was a moment from which there would be no turning back. He hadn’t kissed her yet, not properly, but she felt sure it wouldn’t be long.

‘Thank you. Thank you so much,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Now look, I’m going to be away for a few weeks, but if you don’t hear from Jerry in a day or two, come back and remind him.’

She nodded and smiled, not wanting her disappointment to show. Now she would have to live without him, even though it wasn’t for long.

‘So all you’ve got to do is figure out how to tell your father.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I shan’t tell him.’

A week later, and with the night of the summer ball at the Métropole Hotel coming up in July, Nicole slipped into Sylvie’s room to see if she could find something to give her a clue about her sister’s dress. She looked in the large oak wardrobe where Sylvie hung her dresses and blouses in colour-coded order. As she ran her fingertips over the pretty greys and champagne-coloured silks she acknowledged that Sylvie had been telling the truth: the dress wasn’t there. Sylvie’s clothes were stylish and elegant, however, and while she had the chance, Nicole tried on a couple of her sister’s embroidered blouses. She moved this way and that in front of the mirror, but she was far more petite than Sylvie and they swamped her. She peeled them off, took a peek in Sylvie’s underwear drawer and found her journal. She leafed through it and a photograph of a dress fell out. This was it. Not the usual classic design her sister favoured – the dress was adorned and a little extreme – but Sylvie was always ahead of the pack when it came to fashion; Nicole decided to make a few alterations to her own outfit.

Later, on her way back from the tailor, she noticed a flutter of leaflets blowing about in the wind. They’d been slipped under the doors of most of the shops. Written by hand with crude pen drawings and all in Vietnamese, she could read enough to see this was propaganda on the part of the Vietminh. They showed smiling peasants carrying arms and food to the battlegrounds, and also carrying the injured on their backs and on makeshift stretchers. She pocketed one with the intention of giving it to her father later.

The old quarter was built in the shape of a triangle and she usually walked home by one familiar route, but now she
needed to go back a different way. The dying sun caught the tiled rooftops and they glowed bright orange; it was beautiful in the streets. Ahead of her the street-stall lamps were burning, tarpaulins slung over supporting poles in case it rained, and the evening braziers were lit. Nicole paused for a moment, and succumbed to the tempting aroma of fried chicken. The trader, in his loose shirt and baggy trousers, handed her two pieces wrapped in a leaf-lined bowl. Straight from the wok, it was coated in spice and utterly delicious.

After she’d finished, she wiped the grease from her chin and walked on, swinging her arms in anticipation of trying on her dress, soon to be modelled on Sylvie’s.

Embellished with silk roses attached at the hem and neckline, Sylvie’s dress was of pearl-grey chiffon over satin. The photograph had also shown a rose-patterned drape. In an attempt to emulate her sister, the tailor was going to add a swathe of flowering chiffon attached to the shoulder seam over a similar long dress with a plunging neckline in a lime green satin. He would also sew roses along the hem. The dress would cling in all the right places, and she had hopes of impressing Mark.

She was feeling cheerful as she walked down the less familiar street until she spotted something that stopped her in her tracks. It wasn’t the woman’s black face or the way she was dressed, even if her dress, pulled tight over rounded, well-formed buttocks and slit up the side, was a little too provocative even for Nicole’s tastes. It was the person walking beside the woman, with an arm round her waist. As Nicole stared in horror, her father bent over to kiss the woman’s semi-bared breast. Then he pulled the woman close to him and kissed her full on the lips. Nicole gasped and turned away. Horrible, horrible sight. She marched off, heels clicking. Of course her father must have been with other women since their mother died, but a woman who looked like a prostitute?

Nicole and O-Lan stood admiring the newly restocked shelves and, as the sun painted the floor with bands of light, O-Lan offered to make a silky egg coffee, a condensed milk coffee with an egg in it. Though egg coffee sounded awful, it was probably the most delicious thing Nicole had ever tasted. Thick and creamy with no eggy taste at all, the coffee was like caramel cream with added caffeine, and it was something Nicole was becoming addicted to.

As she waited for the coffee she thought about her father. A battle north of Hanoi had resulted in many French injuries. Her father had been called away to visit the site and, although the image of him kissing that woman kept coming back to her, she hadn’t actually seen him since she’d witnessed that. At least with the painting now completed, the shop was open and she could concentrate on her customers instead of worrying about what he was doing.

O-Lan was in the little kitchen at the back of the shop brewing the coffee, and as Nicole slipped through the dark rooms to the brighter sunshine of the courtyard, the aroma of sweet hot milk drifted out.

A few minutes later O-Lan came out carrying two mugs.

‘Here we are.’

Nicole passed the paper bag of tiny cakes she’d bought from Yvette’s father, Yves, and O-Lan picked out two.

They sat on the low wall around the well in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth. A trace of mint laced the air and a dusty yellow haze hung over the surrounding rooftops. The
start of the day, when many of the inhabitants of the ancient quarter were still lost in their dreams, was special.

As they sat, O-Lan began to sing a haunting Vietnamese song, unlike anything Nicole had heard before. O-Lan had a most unusual singing voice and Nicole was impressed.

‘What is that?’ she asked when the girl had finished.

‘Vietnamese folk music. There are many kinds. Do you like it?’

‘It’s different from French singing. Could you teach me?’

‘Of course.’

‘If you have time, shall we have a go now? I don’t have to open up yet.’

They went to the room above the shop where they stood as far from the open window as they could. It took a while for Nicole to get the hang of the sharp brittle sounds, and she was worried people might laugh. But, without her knowing, some of the locals had gathered outside to lean against the wall and listen. She only realized they were there when, at the end of the session, a round of applause reached them from the street.

The next day Jerry phoned her at the shop to say she had been given a part in his show at Les Variétés. At first a feeling of euphoria washed through her, but then she realized she would have to tell her father and Sylvie about her role in the show. She’d never be able to get to rehearsals without them noticing her absence. She glanced up at clouds of whipped cream melting into patches of blue, though in the near distance a heavier sky indicated rain. With her eye on some delicious-looking caramelized corn on the other side of the street, she closed the shop early and went to see if O-Lan might join her. Across the street the man who roasted corn attempted to light a cigarette with his hands cupping the flame. The wind gusted and he tried again. A bent old woman passed by, her papery skin
deeply wrinkled. She smiled at the man and Nicole saw only gums; no teeth at all. A group of young girls came out of a shop, clutching their sides and giggling, each one tiny and exquisite – impossible to imagine the old lady might have once looked like them.

Nicole found no sign of O-Lan at the till inside her shop, so passed through a pair of carved wooden swing doors and walked into the next room, calling her name. A table, standing in the middle, was decorated with a single lotus blossom arranged in a tiny vase. Stone ornaments and earthenware sat on the side tables and a huge brass four-bladed fan, fixed to the ceiling, slowly spun round. The sheer silk drapes at the windows gently stirred the air.

Hearing an unusual sound, Nicole walked outside to the courtyard, where swathes of orange flowering creeper hung over O-Lan’s house, the timbered cladding lost beneath it. The moment she stepped out to touch it, rain began to fall. Fast. She glanced at the dark clouds blocking out the sun and took a step back, then stopped to gaze at the solid sheet of water splashing from the overhanging eaves.

Above the rain she heard another sound, like a cat mewing, but she felt certain this was human. In a side room at the back, attached to a kitchen, she discovered O-Lan’s mother, Kim-Ly; a tiny Vietnamese woman wearing traditional
áo dài
and with her hair scraped back in a bun. The woman, slumped in a chair and ghostly white, looked as if she’d passed on. Nicole felt for a pulse, then let go of the woman’s papery-veined hand: still alive, thank goodness, but with a weak, fluttering pulse. But what to do? She knew Kim-Ly had problems with sugar in her blood. Too much was not good, but too little meant she could fall unconscious. She tried to wake the woman but with no success, so went into the kitchen where she found a jar of honey on the counter beside a small bronze Buddha. She
hadn’t thought of O-Lan being a Buddhist, but of course she was, like many Vietnamese. You only had to look at the temples everywhere.

Nicole had watched O-Lan trying to spoon something sweet into her mother before and so began trying to slip the honey in, little by little. At first nothing happened, and it dribbled down her chin, but then Kim-Ly swallowed, and after a few more swallows she gradually came back to consciousness.

‘O-Lan?’ she said.

‘O-Lan is coming. I need to keep you moving. Lean on me.’

Nicole managed to get her out of the chair, but the woman stumbled and cried out for her daughter. Unsure if it was right to help her walk, or if the woman should be lying on the bed, Nicole tried walking her first, but ended up half carrying her through to a chaise longue in the room behind the shop. By now some of the colour had returned to her cheeks and Nicole felt it might be safe to let her rest. While she waited for O-Lan, Nicole chattered on – an attempt to keep Kim-Ly awake – then gave her some more honey. But how much was enough? She had no idea.

Kim-Ly seemed tired and much more frail than usual and after about half an hour she fell asleep. Nicole had to choose whether it was best to fetch the herbalist in the next street or whether she should call the Duval family doctor. There was no phone at O-Lan’s, so either way she’d have to leave. Mobilized by anxiety, she got up and walked over to the door to see if O-Lan was anywhere near.

Between the shops and the peeling, painted gates of the temples, men wearing conical bamboo hats stood in knots eating boiled peanuts, out of the rain, but the women remained selling tea and cabbage-noodle soup from the pavement stalls. She spotted O-Lan a little way down the street, sheltering
from the rain in a doorway. She was talking with the young Vietnamese man. Trần – wasn’t that his name?

When he saw her he touched O-Lan on the arm, then pointed to Nicole, who was now signalling frantically. They both ran over, dodging the traders and the downpour, then came into the shop, Nicole explaining what had happened and what she’d done.

O-Lan ran through to her mother and felt her pulse and her forehead. ‘She’s all right.’

Nicole felt enormously relieved. ‘Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure what to do next.’

‘I cannot thank you enough.’

‘Should she see a doctor?’

‘I will take her to the hospital tomorrow. She needs rest now.’

Nicole was puzzled when the young man pulled up a chair and began stroking the woman’s hair.

‘Trần is my cousin,’ O-Lan explained.

‘Well, I’m glad your mother is better. Let me know if I can help.’

‘Stay to eat. I’ll show you upstairs.’

Nicole smiled. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude,’ she said, but she knew it was an honour to be invited into the innermost centre of a Vietnamese home.

While Trần stayed with Kim-Ly, O-Lan led Nicole upstairs and showed her the family’s ancestral altar, then took her through several interconnecting rooms divided by carved fretwork screens. They stood at the top of the outside staircase, similar to her own. Now the rain had subsided, a million floral scents filled the air. Nicole breathed deeply, wanting to preserve the magic of the moment.

‘I hope you like
bánh xèo
,’ O-Lan said.

‘I’ve never even heard of it.’

‘It is a kind of crispy pancake. We serve it with
rau sống
.’

‘And that is?’

‘It includes banana flower and guava leaves.’

‘Sounds delicious.’

Nicole decided she would hand her father the leaflet she’d found and tell him about the show when she got home that evening. But when he still hadn’t arrived back, a part of her felt relieved. How could she behave normally after seeing him with that woman? Even looking him in the face felt like too much. When Lisa went outside to relax with a glass of wine and a cigarette, Nicole joined her in the garden.

‘I ate
bánh xèo
today,’ she said.

‘Really?’

Nicole nodded.

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Yes.’

Lisa grimaced. ‘I can’t stomach Vietnamese food.’

In the garden, wild flowers dotted the edges of the lawn and flying creatures clustered round sweet-scented bushes. The trees waved their branches and the yellow sun on the leaves shone gold, throwing the depths into deeper shadow.

‘Isn’t it lovely out here? Do you remember, Lisa, how I was always falling off the swing hanging from the pipal tree in Huế?’

Lisa smiled and her eyes lit up as she watched a dark-winged bird take flight and then land on one of the top branches of the pipal tree.

‘And the time I tore my party dress?’ Nicole added.

‘Yes, and when we had to get the doctor after you broke your ankle.’

‘You sat up all night with me.’

Lisa sighed. ‘Such a tomboy. You were always grazing or bruising yourself.’

‘Lisa, what if the Vietminh were to win and we had to leave?’

‘Don’t you listen to your father? The Vietminh can never win against the French army.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ She paused as a feeling of loss seemed to come out of nowhere. ‘I know so little of my mother.’

‘You should ask your father about her. She was a good woman and I loved her.’

‘He won’t talk about her.’

‘You’re like her, you know.’

Nicole smiled. ‘Am I really?’

‘In so many ways. She was full of life, just like you. Sylvie’s not like her at all.’

‘The Vietnamese say that if you don’t know who your ancestors are, you’re little better than a thief.’

Lisa laughed. ‘What ridiculous ideas they have.’