The Silk Merchant's Daughter (4 page)

The next day, Nicole’s first at the silk shop, Sylvie helped her wrap a black piece of fabric, a
khan dong
, round her long hair, forming a tube. They agreed it was better if Nicole wore Vietnamese clothing when she was there, and so she had on a peacock blue
áo dài
over black silk trousers.

Nicole took a bow, and laughed when she looked at her reflection. She was excited not only to be starting at the shop but also because, at last, she’d be seeing Mark again.

‘Now I don’t look French at all,’ she said and wondered what he’d think when he saw her dressed like this.

‘Only at the shop. You can be French at home if you want, though of course you never will be.’

‘Neither of us will be, Sylvie.’

‘No. You’re right.’

A little later Nicole was sitting by the fountain opposite the Métropole. A typical city morning, the light breeze carried the damp smells of the leafy trees surrounding the lakes. Soon it would heat up and, beneath the harsh sunlight, the streets would be bleached of colour. But she was early so she watched the birds peck at the gravel and the flow of glittering water as it fell.

Although she loved the moving reflections on the green water of Hoàn Kiếm Lake above anywhere else in Hanoi, this spot was her favourite place at the start of the day before the traffic built up. While she waited she thought about her father. You never knew who Papa was dealing with, nor why, but
after his comment about Mark she had felt curious about why the two men were meeting. If Mark was only a silk trader surely it would be Sylvie he’d be dealing with now? Her father had been developing relations with the Americans for some time and she felt certain it had started when he had joined Sylvie in New York for a few weeks. And she knew he had assisted the Americans in their efforts to aid the Vietnamese in their fight against the Japanese because she’d overheard the phone calls when she was a child.

As she was thinking, she caught sight of Mark. He stood with his back to her outside the hotel, hands in his pockets, talking to someone. Arms hanging loosely by her sides, she waited, and her heart leapt when he turned and strode across.

‘I almost didn’t recognize you dressed like that,’ he said.

She grinned, delighted by his obvious pleasure at seeing her. Where she could see the colour of his face and forearms, it was clear his tan was deepening, and when he smiled she saw how white his teeth were, and that his hair, darker at the roots, had been lightened by the sun.

‘Coffee?’ he said.

As they walked, the sun on the pavements shone silver. She listened to the rhythm of his footsteps and kept pace with him, aware of his closeness and the restless energy he seemed to have.

‘I’m taking over our family’s oldest silk shop. It’s my first day there today.’ Suddenly shy, she mumbled, ‘Hope I can actually do it.’

He stopped walking and gave her a broad smile, then held her upper arms for a moment as if to pass his own confidence through to her. ‘You’re the girl who wants to travel the world, right?’

She nodded.

‘You choose your life, Nicole. At least to some extent.’

Something about the persistence of his gaze unsettled her. How could she resist a man with eyes as blue as his and a smile so irresistible that it lit up his whole face? It affected her so much that she could actually feel it physically. She stiffened and wondered what he thought of her dark, shallow-set eyes and lack of height.

He let her go and put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Come on.’

At the cafe, she waited in the queue with him while he ordered. The place looked brighter, more cheerful than usual, though everything seemed beautiful when she was with him. As they went to sit at a window table, she laughed at herself for being fanciful. When she noticed Mark studying her face, she looked away.

‘Tell me to shut up, but I can’t help think there’s something wrong.’

Nicole sighed. ‘I didn’t think it showed.’

‘So?’

She hesitated and gave him a quick glance, but his closeness brought her buried feelings to the surface. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just still smarting over the fact that all I’ve got is the old silk shop whereas Sylvie has been given the entire business.’ She paused and listened to the clink of coffee cups and the conversations happening around her, then glanced out at the street. Even though she liked him, how far could you trust a stranger with your heart?

There was a short silence.

‘So I’m not going to be a buyer after all.’

He smiled. ‘Give it time. Where is this silk shop, anyway?’

‘In the ancient quarter. I’ve decided to make the best of it. I look Vietnamese enough. I love silk. The smell of it. The feel of it. I’m good with silk.’ She smiled. ‘Or rather, silk is good with me.’

‘Have you any special plans for the shop?’

She laughed. ‘First, I’m going to stock up with disinfectant and a mop. The place looks as if it needs a good clean. After that I’d like to make it so enticing that customers can’t resist coming in and buying.’

Mark touched her hand. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to do?’

She smiled. ‘Well, I loved singing and acting at school.’

‘I meant with me. How about swimming? Or a trip out on the lake?’

She twisted her face. ‘I’m not so good with boats.’

‘I’ll row. All you need do is lean back and look beautiful.’

She laughed. ‘A tall order.’

‘You have no idea, do you?’

‘Of what?’

He leant across and touched her cheek. ‘You are so beautiful and you just don’t know it.’

It was enough to make the heat crawl up her neck and she lowered her eyes in confusion. Was he laughing at her? She hated the thought that she might be nothing more than a diversion to him. A toy. Someone to joke around with but not to take seriously.

The rain looked as if it was on its way back, though sunlight still filtered through the trees in patches; one of those strange days when the darkness and the sunlight fought each other.

‘Do you believe I can make a go of the shop? I’ve done some stupid things. Embarrassed my father. He thinks I can’t be trusted. Sylvie has never set fire to a marquee, nor taken off on a bus to Saigon without telling anyone. And I was always in detention at school for talking too much and spilling ink.’

‘We all do stupid things when we’re young.’

‘That makes you sound ancient. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-two.’

There was a crash of thunder and she looked up.

‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘It will all work out. Just prove to your father that you can make the shop a success.’

He smoked a Chesterfield and they talked for a little longer. Too soon he scraped back his chair.

She was anxious for it not to be over so she blurted out, ‘What are you doing with Papa? It must be something that isn’t silk. Are you working for the French?’

His look did not change, but the split-second pause before he answered bothered her.

‘Why say that?’

‘Because Sylvie’s in charge now, so it should be her you’re working with, not Father.’

‘I shall be, with your father’s help. Though none of us want to see the spread of communism across South East Asia, do we?’ He reached out a hand to her but she pulled back a little. She felt the intensity of his look was capable of making her so self-conscious that even the sound of her own voice might become strange to her.

‘So I’ll pick you up tomorrow at six and we’ll watch the sun going down over the lake. It’ll be fine.’

She wanted to question him further, but he stood up and, with long strides, left the cafe. She bounded after him, only to find that he had paused outside. When she bumped straight into him he gave her the lightest of kisses on the lips, sending a thrill through her entire body. She pushed back the hair from her face and, still spinning from the sensation, wanted more; he must have known it, but he drew back as if thinking better of it.

By the time Nicole had finished her shopping, the air was laced with the smell of drains, although it wasn’t too unpleasant as the aroma of freshly baked pastries was stronger. This place was like that. Good and bad mixed up together. Luckily the
clouds had passed over and children were running about doing chores for their mothers or playing in the gutters, though goodness knows what they might pick up from the slimy brown water or the clouds of mosquitoes thickening the air.

Nicole stood at the entrance to the shop with the key in her hand. Next to her a crippled man held out a carton of fried greens and ginger-marinated bean curd from where he sat on the pavement. She turned to give him some coins and exchange a few words.

She heard a radio playing Vietnamese music and glanced at the upstairs window of the narrow silk shop opposite. Not as colourful and smaller than theirs, it stocked lengths of inferior fabric for curtains. As the widow of the man who had previously managed the Duval silk shop scowled down at her from behind a partially closed curtain, Nicole caught sight of her teeth. The woman still had hers enamelled in black; obviously a member of the old school who believed white teeth were only suitable for the fangs of dogs. When Nicole lifted her hand in greeting, the curtain whipped across and the woman disappeared.

She heard someone behind her and spun round but it was only a trader selling grilled spring rolls. The smell of charcoal from his stove hung in the air. As she glanced across she noticed a young man staring at her. He had the typically wide face of the Vietnamese, thick eyebrows and dark shallow-set eyes. She nodded at him and slid the key into the lock, but before she could go inside the man had come across.

‘You running it now?’ he said, showing the gap between his front teeth.

‘I am.’

He had spiky black hair, was barefoot and wore dark
áo bà ba
, the typical rural working-men’s pyjamas.

‘You look better like that,’ he said, and touched her sleeve.

She sniffed and glanced down at her clothes. ‘Have you been watching me?’

He inclined his head and began rolling a cigarette. ‘Maybe.’

As she turned away she sensed he had moved off too. There had been a hint of arrogance about him and it crossed her mind he might be the ‘protection’ Sylvie had said she would organize. She looked over her shoulder to see him melt into the medley of street hawkers selling sticky rice puddings from their baskets.

Once inside, Nicole explored the poky downstairs rooms of the shop, noting the stained wooden beams, the ancient carvings and the dark tiled floors; most rooms, divided only by decorative wooden trellises, provided no privacy at all. She had not broached the subject yet, but her idea was actually to live here as well as manage the shop. It would be a startling departure and she was anxious about it, but it would give her the independence she craved. A place she could be herself without Sylvie breathing down her neck or her father telling her what to do and how to think.

Upstairs it smelt musty, but she was relieved when close scrutiny revealed that the silk stored there in zinc-lined wooden chests was safe. The trunks had been locked and only she had the keys.

Nicole opened the drawers of an old chest. The last people had left their rubbish behind so she bundled it all into a sack. In the bottom drawer she spotted an old purse covered in dust. She was about to throw that into the sack too but shook it first. Dust flew everywhere, and she began to cough, but another look revealed the purse was made of hand-embroidered silk. A Vietnamese antique, faded and a little threadbare, but still beautifully decorated with a mythical creature. She ran her fingertips over it, knowing she held the past in her hands. She turned the purse over and, as she did, she could almost
hear the voice of its original owner. As she held it against her heart, she felt part of something special; the history of silk and the history of the Vietnamese people was her history too, and it had been woven into this little purse.

With a French father, a French cook and a sister who, although mixed-race, looked French, Nicole knew the Vietnamese side of her life had rarely been given any space. Her mother’s parents had disowned her when she’d married a Frenchman, and Nicole had not only never met them but had absolutely no idea where they lived. The French had been dominant for so long in Vietnam that Nicole had always assumed she’d let the family down by looking the way she did. She was the only one who spoke the language perfectly and often wished she had her Vietnamese mother to talk to. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, if it hadn’t been for Nicole’s looks, they’d have thought the Duval family was wholly French.

She cleaned out the top drawer, wrapped the purse in an off-cut from a bale of silk and carefully replaced it.

After a couple of hours of sweeping, swallowing dust and mopping, Nicole brushed herself down. She had eliminated the smell of cats but not a putrid smell rather like rotten vegetation. Next time she’d bring a bunch of s
hi
leaves to deodorize the place. She was hot and sticky but it had been worth the effort. As she’d walked from room to room upstairs she’d uncovered some dark wood furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and also a velvet chaise longue.

In a cool dark room at the back overlooking the courtyard, she found an altar of incense and rotten green mangoes. She cleaned it up and opened the window, leaving it ajar for air to circulate, then stood still for a moment. Though Nicole was not sure she believed in God, she could feel the peace from what must have been decades of usage.

The afternoon was closing in. Once the heat built up you longed to feel the cooler evening hours were on their way. She had been thinking of a bubble bath to dissolve the smell of cats when she was startled by a rooster crowing. Her head shot up and she spotted the young man she’d seen before, now staring at her through the window. He loosened the scarf at his neck and she noticed the tip of what looked like a purple birthmark.

She went outside to confront him. ‘Why are you here?’

‘That creeper at the back could be useful. Better to keep things out of sight.’ He tapped his nose.

‘I have no idea what you’re on about.’