Bleeding in Black and White

by Colin Cotterill

  39.

  There had been loose tongues at the Residence dinner table. Mme Dupré was sulking again at the shortage of men. “There don’t even seem to be any soldiers in the town these days.”

  M. Dupré had looked up forlornly from his soup. He’d become attuned now to his wife’s interest in other men, and, although he had no evidence, he had more than a sneaking suspicion that her desires had gone beyond her imagination. His jealousy was all consuming. Recently, she’d been talking about attending the English Bible classes at the home of the new missionaries. He was certain the arrival of this Bible thumping John Wayne had prompted an awakening of her single soul. Now she was missing soldiers.

  “The rains have come early,” he said sulkily. “The men’s leave has been brought forward so they can go home and relax with their wives and children away from the rigors of war.”

  “Well, have they all gone?”

  “No.”

  “How many?”

  Dupré wondered how many she thought she might need but resisted saying so. He’d looked over at Tran who sat blandly in one corner of the room. He’d been drafted in at meal times to solve problems with the serving Montagnard. He sat as still and expressionless as the table candelabra.

  “A large number,” Dupré confessed.

  “God. Our throats will be slashed by the Reds as we sleep.” She held her throat. “How could you let them all go?”

  “Relax, dearest. They haven’t all gone. The garrison’s to the north and south are still partially manned.”

  “And to the east? Isn’t there a track through the mountains that passes Lac Lake and the emperor’s lodge? What’s to stop them coming that way?”

  “It isn’t in their nature. Too many mountains. The Vietnamese have a real fear of the highlands. They believe the water is tainted and the spirits are evil there.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Monique, my little flower, allow me to educate you as to the intricacies of war in the tropics. Basically, the rainy season is a hiatus in Indochinese conflicts. The armies rest, re-arm, keep dry, return to their villages and make babies to fight in the next war. Nobody attacks anyone in the monsoons. Even the skeleton guard at Pleiku and Dak Song will be untroubled at least until August. Believe me, if there were a need to safeguard the Lac pass, General LePenn would have reinforced it before he left.”

  “Hell! Even the General’s gone? Who’s running the show now then?”

  “I imagine Captain Faboir.”

  “God help me. My life’s in the hands of a mere captain.”

  “Trust me. We’re as safe as the French Empire.” He looked at her eating like some farm animal; uncultured, uncivilized, and with the sudden return of her “monthly condition”, once again untouchable.

  40.

  Bodge and Petit lay in parallel cots at the clinique. Dr. Moncur had decided they’d benefit from a strong sedative each to counteract the trauma. Bodge had certainly been shocked and repulsed, but he wouldn’t have considered himself traumatized. He’d been in control enough to notice several details the police missed.

  He thought back to his arrival in the master bedroom. In the dim glow of lamplight, the scene had almost turned itself to gray without his help. Stephanie’s hand had greeted its guests from the center of the rug with its fingers beckoning. With its nerves and veins and arteries still attached, but its arm missing, it looked like an electrical attachment that had been ripped from an appliance. The rest of the room resembled the floor of an abattoir. Her parts were scattered. Her sensible nightdress in shreds. Bet’s body lay at the end of the bed still in one piece but with its neck torn open and clotted with blood.

  At first, Bodge assumed they’d been hacked to death with a sword or an axe, but then he’d heard the gurgle from the bathroom. He walked, stunned, through the carnage to see what was there. The tiger had still been alive then; huge, a beautiful animal. It filled the tiled floor space like a marvelous fur quilt and looked up at Bodge with sad, almost pleading eyes. From its neck protruded the end of a long silver corkscrew. The trail of its blood ran from the wound and down its white bib.

  Bodge had been able to see the events quite clearly, as if he’d been there in the room when they happened. The tiger had arrived as if from nowhere and pounced. It locked its fangs around Stephanie’s neck. With the only weapon she had at hand, she’d buried the bedside corkscrew into its throat. Enraged, the enormous animal had shaken her like a dog with a rag. It had broken her in its fearful jaws, and, once certain its prey was dead, had begun its feast. Bet had come to help the woman who had shown her kindness and been dispatched for her trouble.

  Slowly, the tiger’s own life’s blood was oozing from it until, dazed, disoriented, it staggered into the bathroom and collapsed. Bodge had knelt beside the beast and stroked its head without fear of its power. It had only seconds to live and he realized there was no blame. The animal had hunted successfully but was felled in battle by a worthy adversary. It deserved its proud death.

  There had been chaos then. Police came and military. Montagnard guards were placed all round the house to keep back sightseers. Bodge, remembering his role, had adopted the same vacuous trance as Petit beside him there on the downstairs couch. Police sympathized and squeezed his shoulder and whispered together and nodded in his direction. No, Bodge wasn’t traumatized, but he was distraught for his lover and a girl who had already known so much sadness in her life. And he felt sorrow for himself. The curse was continuing. There could be no connection between this death and those in the US. He was the only common thread that strung the victims together. He killed people. He infected them with his black luck. And the thought that ran through his mind there in his tainted house was whether he dared befriend anyone else: whether he was condemned to maintaining a distance from people for fear of loving them and, accordingly, of killing them.

  And, of course, he observed. He observed the officers coming and going in their wet boots, making trails that hadn’t been there. He observed two small slivers of flesh, one very close to Bet’s room beside the kitchen. He observed the large gouge that had been taken out of the wooden porch. He observed the sleek gray trunk of the Yao tree whose leaves fanned at Stephanie’s window. Before Dr. Moncur drove the two stunned witnesses to the clinique, Captain Henry had made a summation of events for their benefit. Bodge knew it was incorrect.

  “I’m so sorry, Monsieur,” he said. “But it is one of the reasons we try to insist that foreign nationals hire guards at all times. The tigers are drawn to the towns when hunger sets in. Your house was an easy target. But, if it makes you feel any better, I believe your wife wouldn’t have felt a thing. It was swift.”

  Bodge had smiled politely. He imagined Stephanie’s horror with the tiger’s teeth clamped on her neck. She would instinctively have sensed the finality, even as she stabbed it pathetically with the last of her strength. He looked up at the policeman.

  “How did it get in?” he asked.

  “How? Probably through the door and up the stairs.”

  It was as if the “how” didn’t matter to him. It was as if a five hundred pound tiger could walk through a garden of mud and climb a flight of stairs without leaving a trail. It had been there and had killed the missionary’s wife — that was all there was to be said. Perhaps that was why Captain Henry had been banished to this remote outpost of the colony to do his policing.

  41.

  Bodge left the clinique in the morning. He was in danger of drowning in the syrupy wishes of goodwill. People he’d never seen before began to fulfill their neighborly obligations beginning at six thirty. It was as sincere as you’d expect from foreigners who were perhaps truly shocked by the tragedy, but who knew neither the American victim nor her husband. “How must he feel?” “They’d been together for so many years.” “I’ve heard they were inseparable.” So, the wives came, and representatives of various offices, to offer their condolences and take a look at the survivor. There was only one visit
or he hoped to see but she too had vanished from his life without word. Bodge had to get away.

  Still drowsy from the drugs, he dragged his feet through the puddles, along the main street of the town in the direction of his house. He pretended not to hear the cyclos and the kids selling hand-rolled cigarettes. He went through the market and took time to browse; the cured pig snouts, the ducks’ heads in batter, the rancid butter and pastries with their extra crust of flies. None of this affected him because he’d just seen a lover torn to shreds. The Vietnamese shopkeepers ignored him, as always, but he could tell they knew who he was and what had transpired the previous night. News was like a monsoon wind in Ban Methuot. It blew through the town so suddenly you couldn’t turn your face from it.

  At his house, he unlocked the front door and walked inside. The place was spotless. It reminded him of Lou’s apartment in New York after its secret invasion. There were fresh orchids in jars he didn’t remember, and the air was pungent with the scents from small baskets of potpourri placed here and there around the room. He imagined the Ban Methuot wives club with their handkerchiefs wrapped round their faces, dusting and primping and looking through drawers, pretending to be erasing unhappy memories from the house. He knew their effort was as much to make themselves feel better as him. He wanted each and every one of them thrown in irons. He collected the baskets and threw them into the trash can. He knew upstairs would have been scrubbed and carbolic’ed. There was probably a generously donated rug and a new mattress untainted by the congealed blood of a massacred woman.

  A note on the entrance table was from Mme. Dupré, the wife of the Administrator. It said how sorry she was and informed him there were spare rooms at the Residence if he couldn’t bear to stay in this house with all its memories. Bodge wanted space and time to himself. He had a lot of thinking to do. If, by some warp of time, he were to find himself back at his desk, he vowed he’d never complain again about having nothing to tax his mind. His life was so turned around he didn’t know which way was forward. He didn’t really believe he’d done anything to warrant all this upheaval. He’d certainly made no mistakes as far as he could…He put his hand to his cheek and felt the wetness. The tears had begun to flow without wishing to trouble him, but once discovered there was no ignoring them. He stood in the center of the room and sobbed until his throat hurt. He put his hand across his eyes and bawled until they were dry.

  What he did next might have counted as his first mistake. In fact it was the worst thing he could have done. The bottle of Jim Beam he’d been given by Madame Vin was sitting on the drinks cabinet. Without thinking, he poured a large shot into a tumbler. He didn’t bother to open a soda. He threw back the drink, poured a second and walked upstairs. Thus began his slide.

  It started, like all defeats, with a period of over-confidence. To unjumble all the memories, he had to go back to the beginning. In the movies they always said, “I know I’ve missed something. I know the answer’s right here in front of me.” But this was no movie and if there were something obvious he would have found it by now.

  There had been no convoys for a week so his chances of getting away were remote. Still if the rain held off for a few days, he might catch a ride with someone coming through town. As he thought, he paced the landing. The upstairs doors were shut. He didn’t bother to look in the master bedroom because he knew what to expect. He could already smell the bleach from the bathroom. He opened the bureau and found a pad of lined paper and a pen. These he took to the soft leather chair. On his pad he wrote four questions;

  Was L homosexual?????

  What happened to Casual Carpets and PJ?????

  Who attempted to kill me with the car bomb and WHY??

  Why was I hustled out of the office (and the country)????

  Then, as an afterthought, he added a fifth,

  Can tigers climb trees?????

  He looked up for the reservoir of answers to impossible questions and found himself gazing out of the large window. The leg atop Madame Vin’s stood out against a cloud the shade of a heavy bruise. The first drop of the latest round of rains splattered onto the glass pane. It was the prelude to an onslaught — large globs that seemed to have a score to settle with the window. Monsoon rain had attitude. It thudded onto the roof and against the walls, and day and dusk suddenly changed places.

  And, behind him, the bedroom door handle turned slowly and the door opened.

  42.

  Saigon

  “It’s raining, or haven’t you noticed?” The emperor stood in his tennis whites and a blazer, frustrated again by a sudden downpour.

  Hong sewed in her favorite chair and didn’t look up. She was angry that he’d forced her to return unexpectedly to the capital and was not expecting to return with her next week. Everything depended upon her being in Ban Methuot. “But you’re going.”

  “I know I’m going. But there’s good reason for me to be going. There’s good hunting to be had in the rains. The animals are confused. It’s why I had the new hunting trail graveled — enough of it anyway — so I could hunt in the rains.”

  “I want to be with you,” she pouted but still didn’t look up.

  He was afraid she was about to cry. He threw his racquet onto the sofa and walked across to her. She rarely expressed a desire for him, but when she did he found her irresistible. He knelt in front of her.

  “And I want you with me. I’m just afraid you’ll be bored at the lodge. Think of all those long days without me there.”

  “I’ll have Lan.”

  The Emperor closed his eyes in disgust. “Do you really have to keep her around? Look what she’s become.”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “She’ll lead you into bad ways.”

  Hong laughed. “My Emperor, it’s the other way round. She didn’t smoke or drink before I taught her how.”

  “But you had the character and strength of will to pull yourself out. She’s a country girl.”

  “I hope you have nothing against country girls, sir. For, I trust you remember — I’m one too.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her lips gently. She allowed it even though there was a servant standing in the doorway. “You are many things, some of which I haven’t yet worked out, but you are certainly a lady.”

  “So I may come?”

  He laughed “Yes, yes, I suppose so. And bring your addict with you.”

  “I should like to transfer money to the Administrator’s office in Ban Methuot.”

  “What on earth do you need money for in the jungle?”

  “I should like to commission an extension for the lodge.”

  “In the wet season?”

  “If you can hunt, I’m sure they can build. The tradesmen will be grateful for the work.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “It’s a surprise, in honor of your next birthday and the thirtieth anniversary of your coronation.”

  He looked into her devious eyes. He hadn’t learned to read them but he was sure he saw excitement about this project. She was softening to him gradually. One day he might even hope she could love him. How could he do or say anything to endanger that possibility? And what was money to him? If it made her happy she could have it all.

  “Talk with the head of the treasury.”

  She put her arms around his neck and smiled. “And they say you’re a tyrant.”

  “Who? Who says that?”

  “All the girls who’ve been beneath your sheets.”

  “Ah, then it might just be true.”

  43.

  Monique Dupré stood in the doorway of the master bedroom rubbing sleep from her eyes like a small child or, more accurately, a stage actress pretending to be eleven. When he heard the creak of the door, Bodge had looked back over his shoulder. His shocked eyes were met with the sight of the Administrator’s wife in her frilly pink underwear coming out of the bedroom; the bedroom of his very recently departed wife. She looked surprised but by no means startled to see Bod
ge sitting there in the armchair. She made only a cursory attempt to cover her brassiere with her forearm.

  “M. Roger,” she said. “You’re here.” Because of who she was and who he was supposed to be, even though she was an enjoyable sight, Bodge averted his eyes. “I was certain you’d be at the clinique all day. I’m sorry, I…”

  “Mme. Dupré,” Bodge said, staring at his knees. “Wouldn’t it perhaps be more appropriate if you got dressed before we continued this conversation?”

  “What? Oh, yes. Of course.” But she didn’t hurry back into the room. “We were cleaning your house early this morning, I’m sure you noticed. It appears I was overcome with fatigue. I do apologize for surprising you like this.”

  Once she was certain Bodge wouldn’t be looking at her again, she went into the room and shouted from there. “It was very rude of me to use your bed. I’m sure I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t want to crinkle my robe so I hung it in your wardrobe. I noticed…”

  She walked back into the landing area, still buttoning her bodice, only to find that Bodge had gone. She walked down the staircase and discovered him standing in the center of the living room. “There you are. I was saying I noticed the wardrobe only contains your wife’s clothes. I thought that was a little odd.”

  “I dress in the guest room. My clothes are there. My wife likes…liked to have her own wardrobe.”