A Hundred Suns

by Karin Tanabe

  “No,” I replied. “One’s love for their child surely trumps—”

  “You don’t know what it’s like there,” said Anne-Marie. “Even you,” she said, looking at Khoi. “You, who should know better, you haven’t even taken the time to know.”

  “I have changed, Anne-Marie,” said Khoi calmly. “You helped change me. Sinh changed me.”

  “How about we change you for good then? Both of you. This will change you for good,” said Anne-Marie, turning around and reaching into her bag. She grabbed something from inside it angrily, then turned back around and handed Khoi a stack of papers. They were wrinkled, but from the look of the first page, we could tell it was an official government document. I moved and read over Khoi’s shoulder.

  “What is this?” I asked Anne-Marie.

  “A government report I stole from my father’s office. This,” she said, pointing, “all this was produced by the colonial government. One of their twice-yearly investigations of the Michelin plantation, but as you will see on the third page, the plantation managers are told about them in advance. So all this was observed despite the fact that these plantation managers, that all the staff, knew the inspectors were coming.”

  The document was dated less than a year ago, 1928, and was indeed the findings of the general inspector of labor of the two large Michelin plantations in Cochinchina. At the top of the report, I saw the words “Very Confidential.”

  The man in question, a government appointee named Delamarre, had visited the plantations over the course of several days. After a rather soft introduction to his colleagues, Delamarre wrote at length about the scars and signs of abuse he observed on dozens of workers.

  “One of the coolies,” he’d written, “spoke to me on behalf of his comrades and said that, unfortunately, the workers were horribly treated on the plantation. I asked him if he or his comrades were showing signs of blows, but he said that that very morning, the coolies marked by the blows they received were evacuated by car. But the management had forgotten some,” he noted.

  The report went on, with Delamarre writing:

  The coolies are subjected to harsh, frequent beatings, and often put at the bar of justice, which is a wooden plank attached to the ground with narrow holes in it to restrain them, and tight wooden restraints around their necks. I asked where the bar of justice was now and two replied that it was installed in their sleeping compartment.

  I saw in one room a bar of justice pierced with nine holes. I was in the presence of the plantation overseer, who contemplated the room with utter surprise. Then I heard moans coming from the next room. This door being opened, I saw that the second room was also equipped with a bar of justice including nine holes. A man was attached to it. He was lying on his back, with both feet hobbled in the bar, the lower part of his body naked. He was very thin and visibly sick and carried six deep marks from a rattan cane on his back.

  Later I visited the hospital and in one of the rooms I found twenty- nine coolies that had been evacuated the day before my visit. I had them undress and saw that fifteen of them had, on their backs, traces of sharp blows, more or less recent, and of varying numbers and seriousness. A twenty-year-old boy, Tran-van-Chuyen, had on his back eight scars caused by blows from a stick that had deeply cut the flesh. Another one, of the name of Vu-Viet-Thu, aged twenty-one years, had on his back the trace of fifty-six strikes of cadouille, a large wooden stick used for beatings, and had six wounds covered with scabs. He also had two deep wounds on his right cheek.

  Later I was informed by one of the plantation officials that several suicides by hanging had recently taken place at Dau Tieng plantation, an epidemic which he said was surely provoked by a strange superstition among the natives. There were six suicides by hanging in less than a month at that plantation. I had many conversations with the coolies and it seems that these suicides had begun shortly after the arrival of a Monsieur Baudet, who was placed as assistant at the head of a team of three hundred coolies. The coolies told me that this young man was very cruel and had beaten them on the soles of the feet with a rattan, and that he forced the men thus chastised to run in circles in order to restore the circulation of blood so that no mark could subsist. The managers knew of his methods, and the suicides, but had sent him to do the same work at the other Michelin plantation, too.

  Before I departed, I advised the overseers to learn the basics of the native tongue, which would give them the means to be easily obeyed by their men and to better control what is happening around them.

  I looked up at Anne-Marie, speechless.

  She was anything but. “At L’Humanité, we have received anonymous letters from men who were coolies and spoke enough French to write in the language,” Anne-Marie explained. “They wrote of this treatment. And worse. Things that I’m sure the leadership succeeded in hiding from this work inspector. Women raped in the fields, even at the hospital. Pregnant women being beaten until they miscarried, rice rations infested with vermin, and pay that isn’t enough to feed a dog. But I always wondered a little, of course. Were these reports escalated at all by the editors at L’Humanité? I just didn’t want to believe it was as bad as they said, since in the end, I am related to these Michelins. But when all this comes from a government inspector who is investigating a plantation that has already hidden the men in the worst condition because they were warned in advance, then how can you deny the truth.”

  She pushed the papers back in her bag.

  “Do you think there will be one of these official documents about Sinh’s death, Khoi?” she said angrily. “Or will he just be another nameless dead man. On the plantations, these men don’t even have names. They just wear numbers etched into a plank of wood around their necks. Don’t you think that’s what Sinh is to the French government?” she said. “Do you really think that the bullet lodged in his heart was an accident and that the policeman in question is consumed by guilt? Or do you think that’s an utter farce made up either by the police in charge or by Sinh’s own father so that he can sleep at night?”

  “Of course, it’s a farce,” said Khoi finally. “Of course.”

  I looked over at Khoi, whose voice seemed changed. And who, I would realize as the years went on, was forever changed by that day.

  “Khoi,” said Anne-Marie, in a calmer voice, “you must go to Indochine and figure out what happened to Sinh. You are finished with your studies in two months. I know you thought of continuing them, but now you can’t. Please do not. You must go home. I won’t be able to survive if I don’t know what happened to him, what really happened to him.” She turned her face and looked at me desperately. “Arnaud is in Burma. You could join him there and then move on to Indochine. You could go, too. You have to help me,” she whispered.

  It could have been Khoi, I thought as I looked at her beautiful face, tight with grief. If the world were tilted just the slightest bit differently, it could have been him instead of Sinh who was dead.

  “I will go. We will go,” I said, looking at Khoi.

  “Until I have enough money to leave, I have no choice but to stay here in Paris under the watchful eye of my parents. But I’ll have enough money soon. I’ll see to that. And I will never set foot in their house again. As for the rest of them,” she said, looking at the crumpled inspector’s report in her bag, “these Michelins counting their money in Paris and Clermont-Ferrand while their workers hang themselves. This so-called family of mine. Please burn everything they have to the ground.”

  At the end of 1929, with his degree completed, Khoi sailed home. One year later, I followed him with Arnaud. By then Arnaud knew about Khoi, and I knew that he’d had a string of affairs with local women in Burma. He even admitted to impregnating a particularly young one and having to pay her family off. We both accepted these not-so-hidden activities as part of our lives. He wasn’t loyal, Arnaud, and of course neither was I, but he was smart and fair. And even knowing that he would lose me completely to Khoi when we went, he still brought me to Indochine
.

  In February of 1931, Khoi and I finally found a policeman who had been working in the station at Haiphong the night Sinh died. For a fee, he gave us the dossier of the man who he was sure had shot Sinh. This man, Paul Adrien, was no longer living in Indochine. He had sailed back to France the year before. Anne-Marie, it seemed, would have to be the one to find him.

  But she was proving very good at finding things. When the private secretary of André Michelin was no longer employed, as her boss had died in April of ’31, Anne-Marie located and befriended her, with the help of some sizeable bribes. This led her to discover a letter that a senior official in the Sûreté générale indochinoise, the secret police, had sent to André Michelin, in response to one of his telegrams.

  “The boy in question will be banned from ever setting foot in France again. Your niece will be banned from ever coming to the colony. All parties will be the better for it. And from now on,” the letter read, “as you requested, we will be in touch with your assistant, Victor Lesage.”

  NINE

  Jessie

  September 18, 1933

  “Where shall I deliver this note?” asked Lanh politely as he took the small white envelope, my initials engraved on the back.

  “To the home of the president of the chamber of commerce, Arnaud de Fabry. It’s for his wife, Marcelle. Do you know the address? I’m afraid I haven’t had time to find out.”

  “I know it,” said Lanh with a smile. “I will take it there now.”

  I looked at the envelope, white against his white gloves, a perfect image of the way two women began a friendship. But that was not the purpose of the letter. “Thank you. Please, if you can, make sure that it is delivered to Madame de Fabry herself, not to a servant.”

  “Of course,” said Lanh, turning toward the front door. “Even if she isn’t in, I will wait until she is.”

  I had hoped to meet Marcelle at the club, which I had visited every day since she’d called on me, but she was never there, morning or night. Victor had left on his long journey down to the plantations, and I had no one to confer with. See her as soon as possible, Victor had said. Do anything you can. He wanted to help, but he no longer had time. In the south, there was even more for him to worry about. He was finally going to see the plantations, to meet the two men running them and the thousands more working them. I had to deal with the question of Marcelle de Fabry alone.

  This was not how I had dreamt about my time in Indochine beginning. It was supposed to be a safe world. A reprieve from Paris. Instead, everything that had gone wrong in Paris seemed like it had followed me across the ocean. Switzerland had finally started to feel far in the past, but here it was again. The memories had stowed away on the ship, refusing to be forgotten.

  I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that my face had lost its color. I pulled my hair away from my face. It looked suddenly longer and unstyled. Stringy. I inspected myself from another angle, but I still looked lost and dead behind the eyes. I looked like my mother. If there was anyone on earth whom I could not resemble, it was my mother. And if there was anything I liked to think about less than Switzerland, it was her. Both of my parents.

  I ran out of the room and let my shoes clack down the stairs the way Lucie did. It was not ladylike, but there was something rather satisfying about the sound. I was in Indochine, and even if my time here had not started off well, I could change things quickly. I had certainly proven to be the master of my own destiny over the years. I had put myself through school, then found a way to New York, to Paris, into the arms of the right kind of man, and now to the colony. I could start anew yet again. But first I needed Trieu to transform me into a woman who looked nothing like my mother.

  I called for her when I was downstairs, but she did not come running as she usually did. I rang the silver bell that had been placed in the living room, but still no one came. I wandered into the kitchen, opened the door with more force than I meant to, and Diep, our cook, jumped from surprise. Standing next to her was a young girl whom I’d never seen before. Trieu was not with them.

  “Diep,” I said, surprised to see a stranger in the house. “What is this? Who is this girl? I was ringing the bell,” I said, feeling as surprised as Diep looked.

  “I’m very sorry, Madame Lesage,” she said as the girl moved behind her. Diep squawked at her in Annamese, and the girl stepped back to her side. “This girl, she is Lanh’s younger sister.”

  “And where is Trieu?” I asked. “I need her to help me…” My voice trailed off as I looked at the girl. I needed Trieu to help me with more than just my appearance. I needed her calming presence to set me right for the day, her knowledge of how French women could thrive in the colony to rub off on me. Instead, I felt shaken by the sight of the girl. Her body, her posture, the tired shine to her eyes—she looked nothing like me, but she reminded me painfully of myself when I was her age.

  “Lanh’s sister,” I repeated, taking my eyes off the girl. “Does she come here often?”

  “No!” Diep exclaimed. “Never. But she had nowhere to go today, as her older sister moved south to Saigon on Saturday. Lanh is finding a place for her, but she is too young to stay at home by herself today. She won’t be here more than a few hours. Just as long as Lanh is working.”

  I looked at her again, huddled behind Diep, her simple cotton dress neat but pulling at the hems, at least two sizes too small.

  “He should have informed me,” I replied, irritated that I was out of my depth even among the servants. “I’m to know everything that goes on in this house. Especially when Victor is not here. I’m new here, I know, but it is still my home.”

  “Of course, Madame Lesage,” Diep said. “That was very unwise of Lanh not to tell you.” From the way she said it, it was obvious she’d known he hadn’t told me—had perhaps even advised him not to.

  “How old are you?” I asked the girl, taking a step toward her.

  “J’ai neuf ans,” she replied in unaccented French. I nodded and looked at Diep.

  I thought of myself at nine. I had been home without parents daily at that age and had babies to take care of, too. It seemed very overprotective of Lanh to feel his sister couldn’t do the same, but it also felt nice to know that there were people who were protective of children. Especially poor children. “I think it’s best if you escort her home and spend the rest of the day with her,” I said. “You can have the day off.”

  “Yes, Madame Lesage, I’m very sorry,” Diep said, bowing her head.

  As Diep led her toward the side door, the servants’ door that opened into the small yard, I looked at the girl with her dark hair, her thin form. There was something about the way her knees went in, almost hitting each other as she walked, that made me feel like I was looking at my sisters. Those thin legs. Too thin. Coupled with a timidity, a feeling that you just knew the world wanted you to disappear. Poor people, especially girls, really were the same no matter where they lived.

  “Wait, Diep,” I called out. “Doesn’t she attend school?” I asked. “Shouldn’t she be there now? Lucie is at school.”

  “She had a place at a school for natives. For girls,” said Diep, as Lanh’s sister leaned against the door looking at the floor. I wasn’t sure exactly how old Lanh was, but he looked to be nearly my age. I wondered if they had the same mother, even with a twenty-year age gap. The girl had the same wide-set eyes as her brother, the same elegant line to her nose, so perhaps they did. “But now she needs a boarding school, since her sister can no longer care for her and Lanh is of course busy here,” Diep continued. “And very thankful to be,” she added, daring a smile.

  “Where did you attend school, Diep?” I asked. “Did you go to a school in Hanoi?”

  “No, I’m from the countryside,” she said, glancing at the girl behind her. “My cousin went to school for one year, in Hanoi, but it wasn’t a very nice place. It was actually quite awful.”

  “Are there nice places in this city?” I asked, gesturing for the girl t
o come back into the center of the room, away from the door. “What’s the nicest native school where this child could board and allow Lanh to keep working here?”

  “Dong Khanh is the best school,” Diep said immediately. “The girls in the royal family go there.”

  “That seems a bit out of reach,” I said, thinking of the simple schoolhouse where I had been educated as a child. “Her brother is a chauffeur, her parents are—”

  “Dead,” the little girl said in Annamese. “Chet ca hai.”

  “I see,” I said, pausing. I should have guessed as much if her sister was taking care of her.

  “I’d like some water,” I said to Diep as I thought about what to do. “I imagine she would, too.” The girl nodded, and I instructed her to sit on a simple wooden chair, one of six around the table where the servants ate together. “And perhaps something to eat.”

  I gulped down the cool water, watching the girl eat a plate of vegetables and cold fish that Diep had served her.

  She barked at the girl, who sat up straighter, placing her napkin in her lap and her hands on the table, then accompanied me out of the kitchen.

  We went to the living room, where I sat on a large couch next to the telephone. She watched me as I sat back and placed my forearm on the armrest.

  “Call the school, please,” I said, lifting a finger and pointing to the phone. Diep was a short woman and quite stocky, an unsurprising trait for a cook, but she had a pleasing face, which was right now pinched into a look of determination.

  “Which school?” she asked.

  “Dong Khanh. The one you spoke about. Call that one.”

  Diep walked over and picked up the phone without hesitation. She spoke to the operator in French, one of the dames téléphonistes whose pleasant voices were always there to connect you. When she was on the line with the school a few moments later, she introduced herself in French and then switched to Annamese. At a pause in the conversation, I leaned over and said, “Just tell them that her studies will be financed by her brother’s employer, the Michelin family. Say the money is coming from Victor Michelin Lesage. Be sure to say ‘Michelin.’”