Saigon (16 page)

“Ask her in which pagoda tonight’s cell meeting of the Quoc Dan Dang is being held,” said the Frenchman, turning towards the door. “I’ll wait outside.” 

The métis nodded and repeated the question in Annamese, holding the “hell box” close in front of the girl’s face so that she could see its plunger clearly. “I will tell you the answer within three minutes,” he said quietly and pushed the little plunger sharply downward. 

As the Frenchman banged the heavy steel door gratefully behind him, he heard the girl’s first high-pitched shriek of agony. He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers and stood staring hard at the whitewashed wall on the opposite side of the passage as the screams increased in intensity. It was almost exactly three minutes before the screaming stopped and the métis stepped smirking into the corridor to give him the information he had promised. 

At normal times the narrow cobbled lanes of Hanoi’s native quarter were jammed until late into the night with a noisy throng of people, produce carts, rickshaws, and occasional honking motor cars; even elephants bearing swaying loads of timber still sometimes plodded slowly through the confusion. But by eight o’clock on the eve of Tet, at the moment when Jacques Devraux was receiving his torturer’s report in the Süreté cellars, the ancient streets stood silent and deserted; Only the iron-wheeled rickshaw bearing Dao Van Lat to the secret cell meeting in a little pagoda behind the Street of Coffins broke the stillness as it clattered noisily across the cobbles. 

Lat had known that most of Hanoi’s ninety thousand citizens would by then be clustering around their ancestral altars to celebrate with traditional reverence the advent of the Year of the Horse. He had considered traveling more stealthily through the empty lanes in one of the new wire-wheeled rickshaws with pneumatic tires, favored by the French, but having decided that Süreté agents would least expect a revolutionary to ride openly through the city by rickshaw, he had followed this tactic boldly to its conclusion and chosen the noisiest vehicle he could find. 

The blue-and-white nameplates on the alleyways through which he rumbled still reflected the trades and crafts that had been carried on in the old quarter for hundreds of years. The Rue de Ia Soie — Silk Street — and the Rue des Médicaments — The Street of Herbs — linked and intertwined with the streets of Rice, Iron, Veils, Lacquer and many others named after the sources of their inhabitants’ livelihood. In the Street of Coffins where gilded and lacquered caskets built for rich Chinese corpses were piled high in the workshop windows, Lat paid off his coolie and melted quickly into the shadows. He stood motionless in the doorway of a coffin- maker’s for several minutes peering along the street in both directions, watching for signs of pursuit; when he was satisfied he hadn’t been followed he slipped into a narrow, flagged passageway that led to the pillared entrance of a tiny Buddhist pagoda. 

As he approached, a shadowy figure emerged suddenly from behind one of the pillars. “Lat, is that you?” whispered an anxious female voice. 

The Annamese girl was wearing a dark coat of filmy black tulle over her paler tunic and trousers to help her blend into the shadows but there was enough natural light from the sky for him to recognize Lien and see the warmth of her welcoming smile. 

“Yes, it is me,” he whispered. “Didn’t you hear me coming in my deafening rickshaw?” Leaning closer he pressed his cheek gently against hers and for a brief instant they allowed their breaths to mingle in the traditional kiss of their race; then they moved apart and entered the pagoda separately. 

In the first hall where flickering candlelight illuminated the gaudy statues of Quan Thanh, the God of War, and Diem Vuong, the Lord of Hell, a doorkeeper waited to scrutinize them. While they were identifying themselves three other figures crept stealthily into the pagoda behind them, and Lat and Lien exchanged whispered greetings with Ngo Van Loc and his sons, Dong and Hoc. Like all the other members of the cell, the three Annamese who had escaped from the Vi An rubber plantation four months earlier were known to other members only by their secret code names. Ngo Van Loc was Son Thuy, or “Waters of the Mountain,” his son Doug was Lam Giang, “Blue River,” while the younger boy was Manh Tung, “The Persuader,” Lat himself had been dubbed Giao Nhan — “The Educator of Men” — and Lien was Trinh Chinh — “Warrior Maiden.” 

When he was satisfied with their identities the doorkeeper beckoned them to follow and led them past the closed gates of the innermost shrine, where gilded images of the Amitabha and Maitreya Buddhas gazed down impassively on the festive mounds of fruit and flowers heaped on the altars around their feet. He motioned them towards a little room at the back of the pagoda normally used by the bonzes for informal meetings, and there they found a dozen other Annamese already huddled around a table. The darkness was relieved by only a single candle set in a wall niche, and individual faces were barely distinguishable in the gloom. 

The cell leader at the head of the table was a bespectacled Tongkingese teacher in his early thirties. Known to the cell members as Thanh Giang —-“Limpid Stream” —he still had the round cheeks and tilted nose of a boy. When the five newcomers had taken their places he nodded impatiently towards the last unfilled chair that waited for the girl who at that moment lay sobbing with pain in the Süreté jail. “Can anybody explain the absence of Minh Quon?” he asked quietly. 

When nobody replied, he glanced uneasily at his wristwatch. “We can’t wait any longer. We may all be in danger now. Listen carefully to what I have to tell you.” He paused dramatically. “The moment, we’ve all been working for during the past two years has finally come, comrades. Our party leadership has decided we must strike at the French now — without further delay!” 

The conspirators around the table, leaned forward excitedly in their chairs, and one or two of them gasped in surprise. Behind his spectacles the eyes of the man they knew only as Limpid Stream suddenly gleamed more brightly. 

“Two years of patient propaganda work among our brothers serving in the French military garrisons have prepared the way! All over the delta of the Red River they are ready now to rise up and turn their guns on their French officers. But they need us, comrades, to lead them in revolt. Each cell of our party has been assigned to a different garrison for leadership duties. If we all act bravely, we shall soon be marching together in triumph into Hanoi and Haiphong!” He paused and glanced down at a little sheaf of papers on the table before him. “Our cell has been assigned to lead the mutiny at Yen Bay sixty miles from Hanoi on the Red River. It is the headquarters of the Second Battalion of the Fourth Regiment of the Tirailleurs Tonkinois. We must raise a force of sixty partisans. Weapons have already been made and hidden close to the fort. I have visited the garrison myself and laid concrete plans. There are four companies of our brothers — a thousand men, all of them sympathetic to our cause!” He turned a page and held it towards the light. “There are only eight commissioned officers under Chef de Battaillon Le Tacon. Captains Jourdan and Leonnard, Lieutenants Caspian and Devraux command the companies He raised his eyes again and gazed fiercely round the table. “Four days from now, comrades, all the Frenchmen and the noncommissioned officers too shall taste the steel of those sabers we have smelted in our secret furnaces.” 

As the list of French names was read out, Ngo Van Loc had stiffened in his chair. Now he felt his elder son, Dong, pluck at his sleeve and he leaned forward urgently to interrupt the cell leader. “Comrade, what is the full name and age of Lieutenant Devraux, please.” 

Limpid Stream glanced down irritably at his notes again. “Lieutenant Paul Devraux is aged twenty-three — a graduate of St. Cyr military academy; Yen Bay is his first post.” He looked keenly at Loc for a moment. “Why do you ask? Is he known to you?” 

Loc shook his head hastily. “Excuse me. I misheard. But I want to make it clear, comrade, that I and my two Sons wish to be included in the first assault party.” 

“Good, good! Thank you, Son Thuy,“ replied the cell leader briskly, looking quickly round the table. ‘I hope everybody will be as eager as you to volunteer for their tasks.” 

“I think anyone who risks his life in this rash venture will be a fool,” said Dao Van Lat in a gentle voice. “You are wrong. The rime is not ripe for an uprising. The people are not yet prepared.” 

The naked hostility of Lat’s words produced a stunned silence in the pagoda and the cell leader glared at him suddenly white-faced with anger. “I have done the propaganda work at Yen Bay myself. Many other garrisons are ready to rise too. The party leadership has proof.” 

“The French have proof too, haven’t they — of our intentions! It’s no secret any longer that hidden stores f our arms have been found and confiscated. The French are on their guard now.” 

Furious at the sustained challenge to his authority, Limpid Stream banged his fist violently on the table. “Yes, all right, some of our hidden arms have been discovered! But that only makes the need for action more urgent. If we don’t strike now, more weapons will be lost, more of our comrades will be arrested. If we delay, our people will lose the desire to rise against France!” 

“If what you call ‘our people’ rise up flow, they will surely die,” insisted Lat quietly. “The Quoc Dan Dang membership is still only a few hundred people.” 

“It is better to die like brave men than live as you would wish us to — like cowards.” The cell leader’s voice rose to a shout. “If we fail we shall at least leave behind an example of sacrifice and struggle for others to follow.” 

“A wiser leader might decide it is better to wait — to live to fight another day. To bring destruction on ourselves before we are fully prepared achieves nothing. The Communists of Nguyen the Patriot have refused to join with us for that reason — because they can see the time for a national revolution is not ripe.” 

“Nguyen the Patriot is so patriotic that he hasn’t set foot in his own country for twenty years.” Limpid Stream spat his words out contemptuously. “He is a tool of the Bolsheviks in Moscow. He is frightened to come home. He is not fit to call himself a Vietnamese patriot. We want no agreement with his supporters.” 

Lat held the gaze of Limpid Stream steadily. “At least he knows something that you and higher leaders of the Quoc Dan Dang refuse to acknowledge — that numbers make strength. I am determined to arouse the whole of our people. If we can do that we are millions against a few thousand French. And then we must be victorious!” He paused and leaned back in his seat, his face pale but composed. “I refuse to join your uprising, Thanh Giang. That is all I have to say.” 

Limpid Stream saw Lien squeeze Lat’s arm as he finished speaking. Lat acknowledged her show of affection with an easy smile and the anger of the cell leader, who was not attractive to women, was sharpened to a new pitch by his unconscious envy. “The Quoc Dan Dang has no use,” he said in an icy voice, “for those who seek only personal glory and strike vain poses. Those who wish above all else to be seen in a false heroic light by pampered bourgeois ‘concubines’ posing as ‘Warrior Maidens’ should exercise their empty powers of rhetoric elsewhere. Especially those who lack the courage to face pain or death for their country!” 

Lat’s fists clenched suddenly on the table-top in front of him and his voice shook with the passion of his words. “I love my country, comrade, more than life itself. Soon you will see 

The sound of frantic footsteps approaching at a run through the darkness of the pagoda halted Lat in midsentence, and several of the conspirators, gathered around the table, rose anxiously to their feet. A white-faced boy who had been posted as lookout at the entrance to the flagged passageway emerged into the light, gasping for breath and pointing behind him. “Two Süreté cars have entered the street! They are heading this way!” 

The cell leader rose without a word and ushered the group silently towards a side door. Each of the conspirators had his appointed escape route through the maze of alleyways, leading to a prearranged cellar or storeroom. Within one minute of the warning being given the pagoda was empty and there was no moving figure on the streets within half a mile of the meeting place. 

When Jacques Devraux and two dozen armed Annamese Süreté gendarmes into the candlelit pagoda, he found it deserted. Several chairs had been knocked over by the departing conspirators in their haste, and a cigarette still burned in one of the ashtrays on the table. Devraux stood in the incense-scented darkness for several seconds, cursing beneath his breath; then he strode angrily back to the car that had been parked to no avail a hundred yards away in the shadows of the Street of Coffins. 

The moment they reached his room, Dao Van Eat locked the door behind them. Both he and Lien were breathless after their flight from the pagoda, and when they had recovered he took her quietly in his arms. Beneath the silken tunic he could feel the tantalizing softness of her small breasts against his chest, and a little groan of desire welled up in his throat. Standing motionless, neither sought to cover the lips of the other; instead they inhaled the delicate scents of each other’s skin as their warm breath flowed back and forth in gentle rhythms between their two bodies. 

When at last they drew apart Lien smiled up into his face, an expression of undisguised love lighting her eyes. “You spoke very movingly tonight,” she whispered. “I’m proud to be the one closest to a man who’s sure to become a great and famous patriot.” 

He gazed back at her unsmiling for a moment then dropped his eyes. “I intend to make this a very special night, Lien — for us and for our country. I’m very glad that you could be with me for Tet.” 

Alarmed by his grave expression she wrinkled her smooth forehead suddenly in a worried frown. “What do you mean, Lat?” 

“Please wait and see. I would rather not talk of it now.” He turned from her and moved to the big teak mandarin’s bed that had been his father’s. He had already covered the porcelain pillow and the wooden planks with a silken quilt and cushions. “Will you bring my father’s pipe for me to smoke while you make tea for us?” he asked softly, settling himself on the bed and smiling warmly at her again. 

Reassured by his smile she nodded, and he watched her as she went to the corner of the room and knelt beside an old lacquered traveling trunk. The movements of her body were deft and graceful, and his eyes brightened with desire as she bent over the chest searching tiny compartments and trays which had once contained Chinese pen and inks, visiting cards, betel leaves, lime, areca nut all the small necessities of an itinerant mandarin’s daily life. When she returned to him she was carrying a water pipe made of jade and bamboo. She pinched a strand or two of tobacco into its bowl and knelt at the bedside to ignite the tobacco for him with a match. The pipe bubbled quietly, and he sighed and closed his eyes as he inhaled the fragrant smoke. Lien remained kneeling, smiling fondly at him as he drifted into a reverie, then she rose quietly and placed two small carved tables at the bedside for the teacups before tiptoeing from the room. 

When she emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later with two steaming cups of scented tea, she found him sitting cross- legged on the bed, wearing only his white silk trousers. Seating herself beside him, she averted her eyes from his bare chest with an exaggerated show of modesty and smiled into her teacup. “Are you so impatient tonight, Lat, to begin?” 

He covered her hand gently with his own but didn’t reply. When she looked at him again she found he was gazing around the room at the other ornaments and furnishings inherited from his father: 

lacquered boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl, delicate porcelains, scroll paintings of Buddha strolling in the mountains, riding buffalo, meditating by a stream. 

“Lat,” she said quietly, moving closer to him, “your mood tonight is so strange. What are you thinking?” 

“I was thinking we must never give up our vital essence, the essence of our race and nation,” he said vehemently. “We must learn from the West, yes, to defeat the French! But we must always remain true to ourselves, remain true Vietnamese. Otherwise all our sacrifices will be in vain.” 

She shrank from him under the unexpected intensity of his words, and seeing this he put down his empty teacup and seized her by the shoulders. “Lien, I want you never to forget what I will tell you now!” He spoke more fiercely than before and pulled her face close to his own. “My love for you is greater than for any living thing. Do you understand?” 

A new look of alarm entered her eyes. “Of course I understand, Lat. Why should I forget that you love me?” 

He looked away from her. “Because there are things a man must do for his country He paused and his voice broke a little. “. 

that a woman may not always understand.” 

She stared at him in bewilderment, and when he turned and saw her expression, he let his hands fall from her shoulders and stood up. “But this is no time to dwell on such thoughts, my beautiful Lien. Forgive me! It is the eve of Tet, the feast of a new dawn, the time for renewal and fresh hope.” He gazed desperately around the room, searching for something to lighten their mood, and his eye fell on one of the red streamers bearing a poem in Chinese pictograms. “Do you like the words I have chosen from Ly Thanh Tong?” He turned to her eagerly and took her hand in his once more. “Shall we recite them together?” 

Although deeply perplexed by his rapidly changing moods, she flashed him a little smile of relief and nodded. 

“I open the shutters looking out onto the yard,” he began and paused, waiting for her to continue. 

“And find Spring has come back 

“Pairs of white butterflies 

“Beating their wings 

“Dance upon the enchanted flowers!” 

He smiled into her eyes and moved closer to her on the bed. 

“You are my ‘enchanted flower,’” he said softly, nestling his face against her cheek until their breaths mingled again. “You are my enchanted Lotus.” He brushed his fingers lightly against the points of her silk-clad breasts and bent to kiss the soft curve of, her neck. “The petals that adorn my enchanted lotus are so delicate that I hardly dare .touch them,” he whispered softly in her ear. “But tonight I want to undress you with my own hands.” 

Her cheeks burned with a sudden firer and she nodded shyly without looking at him. Reaching behind her, she removed the combs which held her hair in an elaborate waved chignon, and when the glossy black tresses cascaded over her shoulders, he unfastened the buttons of her tunic and slipped the filmy material from her shoulders. But his own hands began to tremble as he unbuttoned her satin trousers, and he was unable to free the sleeves of her second tunic from the tight-fitting bracelets at her wrists. In his anxiety he tore the silk and with a little cry of regret he stood up. 

“Forgive my clumsiness, Lien! The fingers of a gentle girl are required, not my ungainly fists. Please help me.” 

She rose from the bed and quietly removed the rest of her clothes. When she stood naked before him, he took off his own remaining garments and sank to his knees before her. Slipping his arms around her waist, he pressed his face against her trembling loins, but a moment Later, to her dismay, he began to weep. 

“What is it, Lat?” Her voice was suddenly frightened. “What’s wrong?” 

He lifted his tearstained face to look up at her. “I love you too much.” 

She smoothed the dark hair of his head with both hands and pressed his face against the swell of her belly in an effort to stem his bewildering tears. “But you can’t love me too much!, How can you love me too much?” 

“I must love you enough tonight to last a lifetime!” 

“Lat, I don’t understand you.” 

Still on his knees he caressed her with shaking hands. “Your skin, Lien, is more beautiful than the velvet petals of the hibiscus rose. Your lovely body is smoother than polished jade.” Letting out a little cry, he picked her up and carried her to the bed. With great tenderness he kissed her breasts, her thighs, her arms, her feet, all the time murmuring words of love and passion in an unceasing flow. Then he flung himself down beside her. “Do everything to me, Lien!” he whispered in her ear. “Do everything. Now!” 

He shut his eyes and arched his back from the teak bed as she played her breath on him, tantalizing his senses the length of his body. He felt her mouth close gently on him, felt her hands and fingers quiver lovingly against his skin and suddenly the realization that he was experiencing such pleasures for the last time produced an exquisite tremor of anticipation in his limbs. Opening his eyes he put his arms around her shoulders and drew her gently towards him. For a long moment he gazed fiercely into her dark eyes, then stretched himself beside her, moving very slowly, and they sighed in unison as their bodies joined. 

Their lovemaking was subdued at first, mounting only slowly towards abandonment and Lat’s sense of exhilaration expanded moment by moment. No pangs of remorse intruded until their passion entered its final throes and then the agony and the joy for a few fleeting seconds fused and flowed together, becoming indistinguishable in his mind. 

When Lien at last opened her eyes again she saw only the flames of the candles flickering on his ancestral altar. Then slowly the rest of the room began to reform and refocus itself in her vision. It was in the moment that she realized she had been left alone that she heard the long-drawn cry from the adjoining room. She remembered then her earlier terror and rose shakily from the bed. In the kitchen she found Lat crouched beneath the open drawer. 1-le was still clutching the knife in his right hand, and its blade was crimson; his courage had not failed him. 

A speechless hysteria seized her and she watched petrified as Lat rocked once, then toppled onto his side in the spreading pool of his own blood. Then the door burst open and two of his close friends dashed white-faced into the room. One carried a medical satchel and he dropped to his knees and pressed a prepared dressing against the terrible self-inflicted wound between Lat’s thighs. 

The second man caught her by the arm and began talking urgently to h:r, repeating the same words over and over again. But because of her hysteria she registered nothing of what he was saying at first. Through the open door she heard the first volleys of firecrackers exploding to welcome the Year of the Horse and only gradually did the meaning of the man’s words penetrate her brain. 

Lat asked me to tell you ... he has done this for Viet Nam.. for the new Viet Nam!. . He has sworn to dedicate his life utterly to freeing our country from the French. . . . He feared his physical and emotional desires impeded him — he has sacrificed them for our cause! The bloodless lips formed the same shapes over and over again in the ashen face, repeating what was obviously a prearranged explanation for the horrifying deed. “. . . He had to forswear forever the company of all women. . . . He hasn’t done this because he didn’t love you. . . . He did it because he loved you too well 

When the hysteria finally broke, Lien began sobbing uncontrollably. Because she was still without clothes she was able to free herself easily from the man’s grasp. Whirling around she stood staring disbelievingly at the naked body of Lat still prostrate on the floor. Then the room tilted suddenly beneath her feet and the next instant she collapsed unconscious in the pool of blood beside him.