Daughters of the River Huong

by Uyen Nicole Duong

  Apart from fear, our lives became stagnant, surrounded by inanimate objects. We waited for the monthly cycles of our menses, and news, any kind of news. That was how I acquired the habit of standing by the window, looking out into the night, deeper and deeper until my eyes could perceive the moonlit Perfume River of my past. Since childhood, my eyes had been accustomed to piercing through darkness. For years I had made my way across the river at night that way. In the Violet City, I had to train and retrain my eyes to see through the night in order to regain a sense of control over my fate.

  But then something happened in the process.

  In my effort of regaining the sharpness of my vision, I began to see the Face of Brutality—a pair of beastly eyes with no sockets. Just the bright, red eyes staring at me, willing me to make a mistake so the Face could laugh.

  I survived the difficult birth of my daughters and the disappointment of an abandoned wife, and began to concentrate, instead, on raising my twin girls.

  When the twins were one month old, my husband issued a royal decree giving them their official titles. My older daughter, Cinnamon Fragrance, was ordained Nam Tran Cong Chua (the princess of the South Sea Pearl), and my younger daughter, Ginseng Fragrance, was given the title Nam Binh Cong Chua (the princess for the Peace of the South). I did not like the pompous titles. I called my little girls Cinnamon and Ginseng—symbolic of the jungles of central Vietnam where my ancestors had come from.

  As Son La fed me gossip about the Revolution and the changing of Heaven’s mandates, I began to think more about the State of Annam. In my boudoir, I asked Son La one day:

  “The state affairs, the welfare and independence of Annam—aren’t they the duties of everyone?”

  Son La was preparing an ink plate for his calligraphy. Without looking up, he said, “Yes, my lady. It is the duty of everyone who inhabits this land, Cham and Viet alike.”

  “If that’s the case, that everyone shares in this duty, then what happens to Heaven’s daughters? Why should everything be centered around the king as Heaven’s son, according to Confucius?”

  Son La jumped up, almost dropping his ink plate. His worried eyes still failed to meet mine.

  “Because,” he said, “a daughter gets married, bears the name of her husband, and becomes property of the husband’s family.”

  I became upset, as though months of practiced self-control had amounted to nothing. During those days, I had picked up knitting and embroidery to pass time, and on that particular day, after Son La had forewarned my possible fate, I caught myself repeatedly stabbing my forefinger with the needle. A tiny drip of blood stained the front of my silk gown, yet I was oblivious to the pain.

  “Who said so—Heaven? Dictating that a daughter is the property of her husband?” I asked contemptuously.

  Son La, seeing the drip of blood, was speechless.

  My whole life rushed through my head, and I realized how the Violet City had turned me into a piece of property belonging to my husband inside his Citadel. And I wasn’t even valued property, since even the people of Annam might have viewed their king as simply a puppet. Hence, even the king’s love and the presence of my two daughters had not alleviated my sense of worthlessness. When I was still paddling my boat for a living, life was hard, but I belonged to no one. In so many ways, I was free and secure then.

  “I haven’t heard a word from Heaven. It sounds more like the saying of Confucius, a man,” I added sarcastically.

  I put the basket of yarn aside and began to recite. “The pious woman has as guidance the rule of the Three Obediences, according to which she is to obey three masters of her life: father, husband, and son. Her subjugation is due to her inferior nature: she is weak, ignorant, and prone to mistakes and thus must depend on men’s wisdom to conduct herself. To reflect favorably on the honor of these men, she is most of all expected to uphold the ultimate value of chastity. Chastity in the unmarried girl means virginity. In the married woman, it refers to her unconditional faithfulness to her husband, alive or dead. To play her designated role, she is reminded to cultivate the Four Virtues according to their proper meaning: diligence in housework, attractiveness in person, reticence in speech, and modesty and politeness in behavior.”

  I paused to breathe and continued. “We Cham women do not take on the husband’s name, do we?”

  Son La was still eyeing me with concern. “No,” he said, “Cham societies are matriarchal, my lady. The Cham woman takes control of her household.” He paused and darted his eyes around the four walls of my boudoir. Casting them toward the floor, he covered his mouth with his sleeves and lowered his voice. “You don’t have to stay here,” he murmured. “You can escape. I can make it happen.”

  Neither of us was able to speak. My head began to spin. I had never once considered the option. Son La rushed out of the room, even forgetting to kowtow and bid farewell.

  He had suggested the ultimate taboo.

  That night I couldn’t sleep, thinking of the future of Cinnamon and Ginseng. I thought, too, of the intimacy I shared with the king and the warmth of his flesh. I recalled the special feeling that overwhelmed my heart when I was in his presence. Somehow my heart continued telling me that perhaps the magnet between my husband and me only happened once in a lifetime and that our bond was more than just our physical closeness. It had to be the essence of what love meant, between a man and a woman.

  But how could I know? I had never known any other man. I was doomed to the fate of a pious concubine. I rushed to the half-moon window and stared out at the night. The Face of Brutality was staring back at me.

  I collapsed onto the muffling silk of the bed and wept. I could not give up waiting for him. I could not leave as long as I clung to the scintilla of hope that he would return to my boudoir. The longing for him that had been suppressed burned inside me again. I tossed and turned, and the deepest part of me longed for the warmth of his body—his alone, and no one else’s. It must have been love that made a woman willingly monogamous.

  In terror, I realized I had been imprisoned, not by the teaching of Confucius and his virtues, nor by the courtyards of the Citadel, but by my own heart.

  12. THE EXODUS

  That Face of Brutality took more vivid form when Son La passed along more details about the deteriorating relationship between my husband and Monsieur Foucault. According to Son La, the rumors were so widespread they had reached the countryside, circulated among the hamlets near the port of Thuan An, and traveled up and down the coast, north to Tonkin and south to Cochinchina.

  The latest rumors related to my husband’s all-female military troupe. The beautiful women he brought to the Violet City were ordered to practice combat skills, ride horses, and use weapons. These women, including his old and new lovers, dressers, and chambermaids, wore royal guard uniforms. His all-female troop grew to consist of some three hundred young women, consuming a sizable part of the court’s budget. The rumors also portrayed him as a psychotic and sadistic king who abused the throne: he allegedly whipped or cut of the breasts of those women who refused to obey orders.

  If there were such a female troupe, he had kept it away from his ordained royal concubines.

  Gossip about the insane, uncontrolled king crossed the land, igniting the anti-French fume among subversive resistance movements and setting the stage for more and more piecemeal guerrilla uprisings. The royal concubines of the Violet City waited and waited for another night with His Royal Highness, who isolated himself all the more from his consorts.

  I waited like the rest of his concubines, until one day when Son La rushed in, kowtowed, and whispered into my ears the most shocking news.

  Foucault had received a telegraph, the official words of the minister of colonies, Monsieur Bernard Bronti. Due to overspending and budget mismanagement, neglect of the affairs of the State, and deteriorating mental health, the king of Annam, His Royal Highness Thuan Thanh, had been requested by the protectorate government to abdicate. His temporary new home would be C
ap St. Jacques, a resort beach in Cochinchina, until final arrangements could be made for him to settle permanently on the island of Reunion, Africa—another French colony.

  I was luckier than most royal concubines. The tragedy that befell my husband became my tragedy, but it also occasioned our last night together.

  The abdicated king did return to my boudoir, for the last union, before the final change of guards. Almost ten years had passed since we first met on the river Huong, and I was about to turn twenty-five.

  As the head eunuch announced His Royal Highness’s arrival, I sadly realized that too much pain and waiting had killed off the palpitation of young love and infatuation in my heart. Once more, I calmly received him, with the same muscular tone of my belly, arms, and legs. I was the same robust paddle girl, and these past idle years had not substantially changed my physique.

  Emotionally, however, I felt that I had aged a hundred years.

  Son La had told me my husband would be taking two of his concubines with him. They were both in their teens. I was over twenty and, hence, was not chosen for the exodus to the island of Reunion. He did not want me to be his consort for the forthcoming life in exile and old age.

  In the early morning, he left me in bed and went to my half-moon window. There he stood, for hours. Looking at his elegant back from the bed, I wondered if he, too, saw the beastly eyes of the Face of Brutality.

  As the sun appeared and the first morning rays hit the courtyard, he began reciting a poem. I knew it wasn’t dedicated to me; he was simply reading to himself. He must have viewed me as an uneducated woman, as in our time together, never once did he try to discuss anything literary, artistic, or political.

  Son La’s and Mai’s teaching had paid off. I understood what the poem was about. As he spoke, I memorized every word:

  Literary men, military men, all lining up before my velvet cloak

  A lonely king, I bear my cross

  Three times a royal toast, like the people’s blood

  My sorrow, my tears, or Heaven’s flood?

  I had not sung since my entrance to the palace. The loss of the Perfume River and the rhythm of my paddles had robbed me of my melodies. All of a sudden, inspired by his words, I felt the urge to sing my husband’s poem in the wailing melodies of my Cham heritage. So I did just that. I sang. I repeated every word he had spoken in the stream of melodies dormant in my veins. Each word became some fifty notes of music, vibrating across the land to the depths of my Perfume River.

  When I stopped, I found him staring at me in the same way he had focused upon my belly and waist the night we met on the Perfume River. But his gaze was devoid of lust. Instead, his eyes signaled some sort of emotional longing and appreciation. He no longer looked like a lion. He had the countenance of an exhausted prisoner folding up at the hour of persecution.

  “I’ve always known you were special,” he said.

  For me, that was enough for a farewell moment. I was his Mystique Concubine. In the thin space between us, I felt two souls reach out for each other because they were the same. We looked at each other, a polygamous husband and a monogamous wife, for a long time.

  Then he asked to see the twins.

  He watched the identical girls for a while and attempted to embrace them, but they resisted, rubbing their eyes with their lotus-root fingers before settling down to sit on both sides of him, pulling on his robe. He stroked their hair, and they warmed up to him, little by little. Ginseng eventually climbed up and sat in his lap, while Cinnamon unsuccessfully competed for the same space. Cinnamon rushed over to me, her big, dark eyes looking back at him with curiosity. He signaled to her, and she carefully approached him, finally placing her face in his lap.

  They were together, father and daughters.

  He turned to me: “I’ll go, but you must stay with Annam. It is your land.”

  I nodded. He kissed the forehead of the girls.

  “You will tell them of the Perfume River.”

  I nodded.

  “You will teach them to sing my poem.”

  I nodded.

  And then he left.

  I found on the pillow something he had left for me. It was a jade phoenix, intricately carved and imprinted against a plaque of gold, bearing the dragon and royal seal of the Nguyen Dynasty. The phoenix was a symbol reserved only for a Nguyen Dynasty queen, seen in public only at two occasions: at her coronation and upon her death.

  He must have taken it away from his prematurely old and silent queen mother Tu Minh, and passed it on to me, his Mystique Concubine. My tears fell onto the cool stone.

  I lifted my tunic, wiped the tears from the radiant jade, and clutched the phoenix to my bare belly, feeling the cold texture of gem against the sensitive skin. I knew something was taking form inside my womb after our last night together. This time I knew with certainty it would be a boy.

  I even knew what to name my son: Que Lam, meaning the Forest of Cinnamon.

  13. THE ENCOUNTER

  Things seemed hatefully normal the following week among the inhabitants of the Violet City, although the directions of Sylvain Foucault were hardly normal. According to Son La, my husband had left for Cap St. Jacques, Cochinchina, but his entourage from the Violet City, including the two chosen concubines, had not departed. Foucault had ordered that they be held up inside the Violet City until further instructions, leaving the entire royal court bewildered and wondering. An ambiance of tension filled the Violet City, but nobody reacted outwardly or made any inquiries. No one dared to gossip. The cabinet, as well as all female inhabitants of the Violet City, were holding their breath, waiting for Foucault’s further instructions or telegraphs from his government in France. No one knew for sure what would come next, or what would happen to the concubines and children of King Thuan Thanh.

  I waited, as usual, with the rest of the concubines.

  It was a bright morning and I was watching Cinnamon and Ginseng play in the common courtyard of the West Palace when I heard ruffling fabric and jingling bells. The head eunuch and his entourage were rushing through, asking all of us to clear the way. Mai helped me pick up the twins and retreat.

  I stopped a eunuch and asked him what the fuss was about.

  “The résident supérieur is coming, my lady.”

  “What?” I could not believe the words. “The Frenchman is coming here?”

  “There will be sessions for many of us to be photographed by a Westerner. The résident supérieur has so requested.”

  “Sessions?”

  “Yes, my lady. Meaning posing and staging. We dare not be disrespectful, but please clear the way. It is an emergency request.”

  The eunuch turned and walked away, his mind obviously focused on carrying out the Frenchman’s order. The eunuchs began to stage the courtyard like an opera stage. I went back to my boudoir and pondered. The taking of photographs! I had never seen such a thing. But I had heard of the postcard incident and how it had angered my husband. I called for Son La and Mai, and they arrived together a while later, a look of concern shadowing both faces.

  “The Foucault Enterprise has organized tourist attractions for European subjects to come and visit Annam, my lady,” Son La said. “The project has been going on for a while. They’ve been taking photographs of the lotus ponds, the dragon gate, the Thai Hoa cabinet meeting hall, the throne, the grand altars honoring the Nguyen Founding Lords, everything. Now they are moving inside the West Palace.”

  “It is highly inappropriate, my lady,” Mai added, her eyes reddening. “It is good that His Royal Highness is gone. Otherwise, the humiliation! For almost two hundred years, no outsider has been able to have an audience with the royal concubines of Hue, my lady.” Mai wiped her eyes with her sleeves.

  I had been told the rules since my first day of residence in the Violet City. The West Palace was off-limits to men, except Court personnel—the eunuchs—and the king of Annam.

  “Today, a number of royal concubines have been asked to pose for the phot
ographers,” Mai said. “Not even with the courtesy of a warning, my lady.”

  I thought of the Confucian rules of the Three Obediences—absolute submission to father, husband, and son. Under the French protectorate authority, it appeared to me that my husband’s concubines had to obey an additional boss, that French résident supérieur, Monsieur Foucault. I sighed and told Son La and Mai I did not wish to see what was going on in the common courtyard.

  “Close all curtains and shut the entrance,” I instructed.

  Much to my dismay both stood still with their head bowed.

  “What are you waiting for?!”

  Mai finally spoke. “I think the head eunuch will be coming here soon to speak to you,”

  “About what?”

  Mai burst into tears. When Son La began to speak, his voice was weak and remote.

  “The résident supérieur has asked to see you. I heard it is something about a special postcard.”

  The head eunuch arrived shortly thereafter. The stooped old man did most of the talking. I sat at my tea table while he stayed closer to the entrance, his eyes fixed to the floor but for his occasional glances up to the rosewood footstool—a barricade that adjoined the entrance connecting my boudoir to the courtyard.