by Karin Tanabe
I sat up quickly and felt so light-headed that I had to lie down again. “I will not see her, Victor,” I said.
“Look at you!” Victor said. “You’re sick. You’re very sick. I wanted to rush you to the hospital when we left the party, but I knew that might send you over the edge.”
“No hospitals,” I said, feeling my hands trembling. I balled them into fists to make it stop. “Never again.”
When we had arrived in Hanoi, the French authorities had given us a list of French schools, French government offices, French hospitals. The first three on the list of hospitals were the Clinique Saint-Paul for pregnant women, the Hospice de Thai-Ha-Ap for incurables, and the asylum for the insane in Voi. The last was conveniently located just forty miles outside Hanoi, the pamphlet touted.
Victor walked over to the bed and reached for my hand, but I pushed him off. “I will crawl out of this room on my hands and knees if I don’t have the energy to stand, but I will not see your doctor.”
“Don’t be like this, Jessie, please. See this woman. You need help. Let her help you in the comfort of your own home instead of in—”
“Instead of where? An asylum?” I shouted, a wave of anxiety crashing over me. I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes again.
“Instead of in her clinic,” Victor replied quietly. He rang the bell for Trieu, who came quickly to the door.
“Yes, Monsieur Lesage?” she said as she pushed it open.
“Please bring the doctor up now, Trieu,” Victor said with authority.
“I will jump off the balcony, Victor!” I shouted. I sprang out of bed, although barely able to stay upright, and made for the door that led outside. I flung it open harder than I thought I could, and it hit the wall, one of the panes of glass shattering as it crashed into the plaster. “Do not bring that woman in here,” I said slowly, ignoring the shards on the floor.
Victor caught me as I tried to step outside and wrestled me back into the room and onto the bed, elbowing me in the stomach, forcing me to lie down. I sucked in my breath sharply from the pain.
“Jessie.” His voice was unyielding. “You have to get well. Please. I can’t have you like this! I can’t. I need you well again.”
I looked up and saw the doctor, a white woman, standing in the door frame with Trieu. She had seen everything.
“You must not be feeling well,” she said in French, coming into the room as Victor stepped away from me. She was perhaps in her fifties and wearing a simple blue cotton shirt and gray trousers. She was the kind of woman one would call handsome. Authoritative. She also looked like the kind of woman who would regard me as a fascinating specimen to test her pet theories on. Victor stood back to make room for her.
I watched her warily. She smiled at me as if she hadn’t witnessed an unseemly scene between husband and wife. She plopped her black medical bag on the bed and opened it.
“I want to do a full physical check, but first, Madame Lesage, let me administer something to make you a bit drowsy. I think, more than anything, you need a good night’s sleep.”
She pulled out a small brown bottle shaped like a beaker, with a cork stopper and a brown-and-gold label. I recognized it at once. Somnifen. I sat up and knocked the bottle out of her hand with all the force I could still muster. It fell to the floor with a loud clink but did not break.
“Absolutely not,” I barked, my eyes fixed on hers, my heart racing furiously. “I’ve had that before. I’ll never take it again. You need to leave.”
“Jessie!” Victor exclaimed, rushing back to the bed. “She is not going to leave.” His shirt was stained with sweat under the arms and at the collar. My heartbeat slowed as I looked at him. My husband who had left France because I’d wanted to, who had been faithful to me throughout our marriage. What had I done to him? But what had he done to me? He’d made me see those men, in various states of death. He’d made me complicit in the decisions he made on the plantation by inviting me into his work, but only partially. He’d said I had enormous influence over him, but he hadn’t let me influence how he treated the insurgents he’d dug up. Michelin decisions were family decisions, he always said. His uncle knew about everything that happened on the plantation. But that moment had very much been his decision. He could have given those men jail sentences instead of death sentences. He hadn’t.
This was not how it was supposed to be, I thought, tears streaming down my face. The colony was to be a fresh start, not a place to fall apart. I looked up at Victor, his sad, broken expression.
And yet—Victor would always win. He was rich and he was a man. In every instance, I was the one who depended on him, not the opposite. That was just the way it was in the world of women. Especially for poor women. Especially for mothers.
“Fine,” I whispered to the doctor. “You can examine me. But don’t bring that anywhere near me,” I finished up, eyeing the bottle on the floor, thinking of all the barbiturates the Swiss had pushed in me. This woman surely wanted me in a corpse-like state, too.
Victor managed a half smile. “I’ll be downstairs,” he whispered and closed the door behind him.
The doctor took out a watch and checked my blood pressure with her contraption, staring at the second hand as she did. It was a cheap-looking watch that I wouldn’t have trusted to time a pie in the oven with. Then she put a stethoscope around her neck and started listening to my heart.
“Your husband says you don’t remember very much from the party last night,” she said calmly. “And that the things that you do remember perhaps occurred slightly differently than the way you think they did.”
“I don’t remember much,” I replied, shuddering at the stethoscope’s cold, metallic touch. “But what I remember happened exactly as I think it did.”
She went on to check my reflexes, looked into my ears and nose, then forced me to track a small light around the room with my eyes. She asked me if I could see certain things. The dresser. The lamp. The picture of Lucie that I loved so much. Then she asked me if I could see anything that perhaps wasn’t real.
“How would I know if the things I see are real or not?” I snapped. “How do I know if you’re even real?”
“I suppose you don’t,” she said, again in her overly calm voice.
I hated her voice. And I hated her. She was the last person I would tell about the strange scenes that had been rattling through my mind like a filmstrip since the previous evening. How I’d dreamt that my mother’s stringy, oily hair, long and gray and tangled, was wrapping around my feet, between my toes, while I slept. No. This doctor would advise Victor to commit me for life if she knew.
“I just don’t feel well,” I said. “But I don’t feel insane, if that’s what you’re dancing around.”
“Your husband mentioned that you have a history of psychiatric hospitalization,” she said, putting her instruments away and sitting on the edge of the bed. Her dark blond hair, I saw now, was pinned back with the metal pins favored by the Annamites. How long had she been in the country, I wondered, that she was using such cheap clips?
“What?” I asked, slowly registering what she’d just said.
“Your husband said you’ve had memory problems before, but also a history of psychotic episodes.”
“I don’t have a history of psychotic episodes,” I retorted, my pulse taking off again.
“Your husband sees it differently. He said that you had trouble after your daughter was born. That you spent some time at the Prangins Clinic in Switzerland. That you lunged at a doctor there and had no recollection of doing so. And that the doctor ended up with two broken fingers and nearly went blind. He’s worried that the way you lunged at the native woman at the party was similar to the way you attacked the doctor. Of course, Victor wasn’t with you in Switzerland, but—”
“‘Nearly went blind’?” I said, laughing. “That’s quite the exaggeration.” I spoke through clenched teeth, willing myself not to attack her similarly. “And that was many years ago.”
“You’ve had no instances where you forgot things, or imagined things, since then? No hallucinations?” she asked.
I thought of my lips against Red’s. How I could taste his saliva, feel his barely-there stubble against my face. I thought of the poster of the house of the hundred suns that the ticket agents claimed was never there. I shook my head stubbornly. “Nothing since Switzerland.”
“I see,” she said, reaching into her bag for a paper and pen. She paused for a moment, then looked at me again.
“You’re still relatively new to the colony. Has the transition been difficult?” she asked brightly, feigned sympathy dripping from her voice.
“No,” I said, staring at her. “I enjoy it here.”
“Do you enjoy it a bit too much?” she asked, flipping the pages of her blank book. “How much have you been drinking?”
“No more than usual,” I lied.
“Any drug use?” she asked.
“I suppose I’ve tried opium,” I said, thinking of the first soothing lungful of smoke I’d inhaled on Khoi’s beautiful boat.
“Did it have any adverse effects?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, staring down at my ringless right hand.
She looked at me levelly. “Very well. Look, Madame Lesage, as I said earlier, I think what you need more than anything is a good night’s sleep.” She stood up, excused herself, and came back a few minutes later with Victor. Her blue eyes were again appraising, clinical. I wanted her gone immediately.
“I’ve advised your husband to let you sleep for as long as possible. To rest. Then we’ve decided that he’ll take you away for a little trip with your daughter. A family vacation. He said that his cousin Roland and his family are planning to be at the beach in a week’s time. That sounds like a perfect solution. It will get you out of the city, which really can be quite chaotic, and also have you around family. We both think that’s the best short-term option.”
I turned my head and looked over at the French doors. The shattered glass had been cleaned up. A servant must have done it while the doctor was tending to me. I hadn’t even noticed.
“Fine,” I said to Victor, turning my back to him. “We’ll all go away.”
THIRTY
Jessie
November 20, 1933
“Let’s just act normally, please,” Victor said from where he’d been watching me wake up. The morning light felt blinding, though I could see that the bedroom curtains were half drawn. I’d managed to sleep past sunrise. “For Lucie’s sake,” he added as I squinted against the glare and turned away from the window. I blinked a few times and peered down at the clock. It was 7:23. We were due to leave for the station, to board the ten o’clock train to Vinh, in less than two hours. I wasn’t clearheaded, I could already tell that, and my nerves had been set on edge by Victor’s insistent expectations and the looming reunion with his family, but I knew he was right. I did want to act as normally as I could for Lucie’s sake. I hadn’t seen her in four days, since the evening of Khoi’s party, as Victor had told her I was very ill with the flu, was contagious and couldn’t be disturbed, even for a quick hug. But I was sure she had heard me, not just when that doctor had tried to drug me into a stupor but also, according to Victor, shouting out in my sleep. As large as our house was, it seemed designed to bounce voices, especially high-pitched, terrified ones, off its thick walls.
I missed Lucie sorely, and I was afraid that if I acted anything but the ideal mother around her, Victor would panic. And in that frame of mind, he could do the unthinkable. He could keep me from her, and maybe for a very long time.
“Of course,” I said, smiling at him, the corners of my mouth already belying my feigned confidence. He stood from the chair where he’d been sitting and came to the bed, lying down next to me. I leaned over and put my head on his bare chest, resting my weight on him, hoping that my touch might reassure him. Surprisingly, he put his arms around me, hugging me tightly.
“I don’t know what happened at the Nguyen home,” he said quietly. “I know what I saw, and you seem to know what you saw, but I want to forget all that. Because what I really know, what I’m sure of, is that I need you back, Jessie.” His voice sounded suddenly tired. “I need you to return to me. The brave Jessie. The one who sailed to France by herself and drank at Maxim’s and kissed a stranger in the Tuileries when she was only twenty-three years old. The one who committed her life to my career and our family and convinced me that it was my time to try to lead the family business abroad. You’ve been the driving force behind me as much as I have been behind you. What will happen to us if that disappears?”
I had always thought that Victor would be fine if I vanished. That because the world was so bent in his favor, he’d bounce right back up like a rubber ball and the memory of me would eventually fade. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he did need me as much as I needed him, albeit in a different way. Because he loved me. Because I, a girl whose parents considered her a scrap of a person, a girl who was destined for a small, difficult life, had managed to change myself, and fate had agreed that I deserved something good. That I was loveable after all.
“That girl hasn’t gone anywhere,” I said, trying to sound like the person Victor remembered, the determined young American who’d shifted the universe on her own to make our meeting happen. I had thought that Lucie being taken away from me was the worst fate I could imagine, but losing Victor’s love was just as terrifying a prospect. I had already had my family break apart once; I could never let it happen again. “She’s still here,” I declared. I placed my thumb on my ring finger, feeling the absence of my emerald ring. The little bag filled with its shards was now in the drawer of my nightstand. Parts of me were missing, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t piece myself back together again, almost as good as new. I could still live my life, even if my mind went its own way sometimes, at odds with the rest of the world. I could survive.
“Don’t drink anymore,” said Victor, letting me go. “And if you’re taking other things, other intoxicants, don’t take them. Please.”
Other intoxicants. I thought of the way the smoke from the burning, sticky opium had felt in my lungs when I’d needed it the most, on my way home from Dau Tieng, distraught and unable to calm myself on my own. I looked into Victor’s startling blue eyes, which glinted with the confidence built by generations of wealth and privilege. I wondered what it would be like to live the way Victor did. To have a good heart, a great heart, but one that only beat for certain people. Maybe my mind was somehow out of kilter, as he and doctors in two countries had claimed, but suddenly, that didn’t bother me so much. I had lost a part of my soul at Dau Tieng that day, but I knew a wisp of it was still there. I hoped that one day Victor would realize that he’d lost a part of his soul to those men, too. Even if he’d been too proud to notice.
“It’s nearly seven-thirty. We should be off soon,” he said as he stood up. He straightened his pajama pants and looked at me, more seriously. “Don’t make any apologies to the servants. They don’t expect them, anyway. Just act as if nothing unusual has happened, and they will do the same. We’ll all act the same. We will have our eggs and tea, dress, go to the station, and proceed as if the world has righted itself on its axis.” He touched my head. “Even if it hasn’t, exactly.”
“Of course, Victor,” I said, pushing back the covers and standing as well. “I think that’s best.”
He nodded and watched me as I put on a dressing gown and made for the door, eager to fetch Lucie.
“I’m feeling much better,” I said brightly. “Really. I feel like my old self again.” I walked out of the room and up the stairs, letting my put-on smile fade.
I was halfway up the stairs when Trieu stopped me.
“Madame,” she said loudly. I turned to see her standing in the hallway, looking as polished as always. “Shall we dress you before you see Lucie?”
I stopped and was about to shake my head no, but then I realized that Lucie might be more
convinced of my recovery if I looked the part. With my hair a mess, and in a wrinkled dressing gown, I was hardly the picture of well-being.
“That’s a good idea,” I said, turning around. “I need to look quite elegant, as we are meeting Victor’s cousin, but also be fit for travel. We leave for Vinh shortly.”
Trieu nodded understandingly and escorted me to my dressing room.
When I was presentable, Trieu placed my lucky red hat on my head, the only sign that she knew I needed the world to be on my side today. I thanked her, happy to have an ally, and hurried upstairs to Lucie’s room. I couldn’t wait to see her.
“Mama!” she exclaimed as soon as I burst through the door. I was too excited to open it quietly, feeling Lucie’s absence like a hole in my heart. She was still in bed, flipping through a large picture book. When I approached her, I saw that it was written in Annamese. One of the servants must have bought it for her.
“I haven’t heard you call me Mama in a long time,” I said, sitting down and embracing her, careful not to crush her. “You sound like a little American. My little American.”
I could tell I was holding her for too long, but I didn’t want to let go. I waited until she wriggled out of my arms to sit back next to her.
“Are you not sick anymore?” she asked me quietly, looking down at her bedspread.
“I’m not sick anymore,” I replied, with a big smile. I inched closer to her and leaned softly against her.
“Oh, good,” she said, turning and hugging me back. “You’ve been sick so much, I worried you might not like Indochine. Maybe it makes you sad. Or allergic. Because you were less sick when we were at home.”
“It doesn’t make me allergic,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I promise. And today we are going on a trip. All of us. Did Papa tell you? We’re all taking a train together. Finally.”
Lucie nodded excitedly. “Finally!” she echoed.
