Daughters of the River Huong

by Uyen Nicole Duong

  Grandma Que’s hair was always rolled into a bun in the back of her neck, held in place with an ivory comb connected to a black silk net. She took the comb off, and her long hair fell to her side, almost touching her knees. When she moved, the stream of hair shook behind her like a holy animal. She wrapped the stream of hair around her palm, rolled it up, and held it back in place with the comb.

  I knew her well enough to recognize this manipulation of her hair as a sign of her suppressed anger. When she was mad, she would let her hair down and then roll it up again, tighter than before, as though she was determined to hold her emotions in place.

  “Vous êtes le petit-fils de Monsieur Sylvain Foucault?” Grandma Que asked.

  “Oui, madame, le plus jeune,” André replied and finally sprang to his feet, sending dolls cascading from him. To Grandma Que he bowed, nodding, confirming that he was the youngest grandson of one Monsieur Sylvain Foucault.

  Who was Monsieur Sylvain Foucault? I kept asking after that day. It was a long, long time, years later, before my mother took me seriously and explained the web between André’s family and mine.

  André was the youngest grandson of a French colonist, Sylvain Foucault, formerly French résident supérieur of Annam, the top French administrator to watch over the Annamese Imperial Court seated in Hue. Monsieur Foucault disliked a young Vietnamese king, His Royal Highness Thuan Thanh, and arranged for the king’s exile to the Island of Reunion in Africa.

  The unfortunate king of Annam, I was told, was my maternal great-grandfather. One of his royal concubines was that paddle girl whose singing voice echoed over the Perfume River and whose spirit allegedly had become the nightingale that helped my voice soar to the sky when I tried to reach the high notes. When the king was exiled, one of his daughters, a baby girl named after the fragrance of cinnamon in central Vietnam, was barely five years old. The baby girl grew up and grew old, had a daughter named Dew who loved to plant flowers and a granddaughter named Simone who loved to sing, and they all lived happily in a villa in Nam Giao.

  I knew who the king’s daughter was. The villagers of Quynh Anh who came to our house to offer gifts on New Year’s Day knew her as “Princess Cinnamon.” I knew her as Grandma Que, the old woman who raised me, and whose sad eyes looked pensively into the dying sun when the day ended.

  She was the woman who told me all those Hue anecdotes that became my soul.

  I grew up learning about André in bits and pieces by listening to adults at lunches, tea parties, and dinners. André and his good looks were the favorite topic of discussion for my mother’s friends, the women of Lycée Dong Khanh who congregated in Grandma Que’s living room. I remembered the details about André’s life even if I didn’t fully understand them then.

  An international lawyer who arranged the adoption of Vietnamese orphans and represented the European shipping industry, those days in Hue, André taught part-time at Hue University and spent his leisure time researching the ancient capital. He had sought out my father’s help at the university. My sixth birthday was the occasion for my father to introduce him to the family. Born and raised in wealth, André had left Paris and the Foucault clan and moved to New York City with his American mother when she decided to divorce his French father. When America began to send troops to Vietnam, André had just graduated from Columbia Law School, and had taken a job with a shipping company controlled by his estranged French father for an opportunity to go to Vietnam.

  André was in Hue to understand his paternal family’s ties to Indochina, and to make peace with us. To demonstrate his goodwill, he had presented Grandma Que with the Vietnamese antiques acquired by the Foucault family. Grandma Que received those treasures nonchalantly, for she had long made up her mind to dislike anyone whose last name was Foucault.

  After my birthday was over, when all my friends had gone home, I fell asleep on the straw mat until a cold breeze awoke me. I opened my eyes and found my father and André talking.

  “You will find your Indochina,” I heard my father say to him over his teacup.

  “Where is Indochina?” I asked André, in my sleepy voice.

  I felt a strong, warm arm drawing me in, and smelled the familiar scent of candies, soap, and lemon. “Here,” André said. “Indochina is here.” I looked up and found his brown eyes looking down at my face. “I have found my Indochina.”

  I, on the other hand, knew I had found my playmate.

  After my sixth birthday, André came to our house every Sunday to learn Vietnamese from my father. My father, who taught French literature, became André’s good friend. After their lesson, they would move to my mother’s garden. André, my sister Mi Chau, and I all played pony rides. I, of course, always got most of the rides, and André always made me laugh. When the pony game came to a close, my pony would get up from the ground, brush the grass from his clothes, and join my father at tea. The conversation was often dominated by my father’s long-winded speech, full of words I could not understand.

  “La France et L’Indochine. The love and hate between the cruel, arrogant, exploitive colonial master and his beautiful, complex, intelligent, and resentful slave,” my father said with passion. I listened, fascinated, grappling with my father’s strings of adjectives.

  “And America. All those shiny GE refrigerators, Coca Cola tin cans, Salem cigarettes, nicely stocked supermarkets with wrapped fruits and vegetables, long, big cars manufactured in Detroit, and New York skyscrapers—all of those nice things topped with the catchy phrase ‘Democracy-for-the-Third-World,’ a notion existing only in the naiveté of a well-intentioned nouveau riche.”

  “What is a supermarket?” I asked my mother.

  “A market that is super,” she answered. “Food is frozen to last for months.” My mother gave her simplistic explanation, ignoring the fact that I was pouting.

  As my father continued to preach, André’s face would change expression, taking on an air of seriousness that set him apart from me, into a different world much above my head. It was then I realized he was no longer my pony or playmate, but rather my father’s counterpart. The two men drank lotus tea and talked for hours while my mother attended to her beds of flowers, and I was forgotten.

  I found excuses to hang around, listening to the conversations, quite often in a combination of French, Vietnamese, and English. I guessed at the meaning, not understanding all, yet completely mesmerized by adults’ use of words and the sounds of three very different languages. I often jumped onto André’s lap and put my little hand underneath his shirt, feeling his chest and stomach muscles and the fuzzy hair on his warm skin. Quite often he caught my hand, either tapped on it or raised it to his mouth, turning it over to kiss my palm. I would laugh. At times I would pull his shirt out of his slacks and attempt to crawl under his shirt, scratching his belly, pulling his buttons apart, rubbing my cheek against his chest. He would pick me up, place me on the table, tickle me, and kiss my stomach, his shirt flying open. My mother would shout across the yard that I needed to be spanked and that André was indulging me too much. All this time, my father was too absorbed in his talk to notice my childish prank.

  I never had enough of André. He supplied all of the horseplay that my father, a skinny, bespectacled professor and a stern, aloof Asian daddy, never provided.

  All was well and good until André announced to my family that he would soon return to France to get married.

  6. DOMINIQUE CLEMENCEAU

  Grandma Que once told me that to marry meant to live with someone, to love and cook for that person. I assumed André would be returning to France to live with and cook for his someone.

  André’s someone turned out to be a blonde, lying on the beach, wearing a two-piece bathing suit and dark sunglasses. Like the women in Paris Match.

  It was an afternoon high-tea party, and several friends of my parents had come over to visit. André was showing them her picture, and I took a peep. The picture was in color, very rare in Vietnam those days. André said her name was
Dominique Clemenceau. I memorized her name and studied her picture, the way she lay on her side, with one leg bent. I also noticed her red lips.

  “C’est une jeune fille que tu vas épouser,” I said. “Je suis une jeune fille, aussi.” André was marrying a girl, like me, except for the golden hair, the legs, and the lips. And she had to be much bigger.

  Nobody heard me. The adults were talking and laughing. André was describing something called “la lune de miel.” The honeymoon. He kept talking about the vacation at La Côte d’Azur.

  I pulled his sleeve. “Qu’est ce que c’est que la lune de miel?” What is a honeymoon? Nobody paid attention.

  “Je voudrais aller à la Côte d’Azur avec toi,” I said with a pout. I wanted to go to La Côte d’Azur with André.

  Again, nobody paid attention. The focus was on the woman in the bathing suit.

  Thoughts rushed through my head. I loved Grandma Que and wanted to cook for her. And I lived with her. So naturally I would want to marry Grandma Que, except that somehow I understood intuitively one could not marry one’s own grandmother the way my mother was married to my father. Further, Grandma Que said she was already married, to my grandfather who wore a green turban and sat in the picture on the family altar, and she would not marry another person.

  I would not mind living with André. And I would be willing to cook for him, so long as I stood on a chair to reach the stove. And I loved André as much as I loved Grandma Que. So, perhaps I should marry André.

  “I want to marry you, André,” I said, about to break out in tears.

  Still, nobody paid any attention. I ran into my mother’s bedroom and sat alone. I wished either André or Grandma Que would come and comfort me. No one did. I thought of the woman in the picture. André would be living with her in France and would not be returning to Vietnam to play pony rides. He must love her and want to cook for her. If he married her, could I still marry him?

  I went to my mother’s vanity table and looked at myself. I could look like the French woman. I took off my shirt and my skirt and wore only my dotted panties. I took my mother’s red lipstick and applied it on myself. I found her Jackie Kennedy sunglasses and wore them. They kept falling over the bridge of my tiny nose, but I pressed them all the way in and managed.

  Something was missing. I went to my mother’s armoire and found a brassiere. The thing was far too big, so I had to hold it on. Something was still missing. The golden hair. So I looked for my mother’s gold scarf and tied it around my head. I also stood on her escapin high heels. I was complete. I checked myself in the mirror again and I was pleased. I could definitely go to La Côte d’Azur with André like this.

  And then I came back to the living room. I stood in the middle of the room, on my mother’s heels, holding the loose brassiere around my chest with one hand, and the golden scarf around my head with the other hand. The grown-ups were still looking at the pictures.

  “I want to marry André,” I said timidly. Still nobody noticed me.

  “André, I want to marry you!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  The room fell silent. I never forgot my mother’s face, her dropped jaw, the O shape of her mouth, and her wide eyes. “Oh, good Lord!” she yelled, jumping out toward me, while they started roaring: all of my parents’ friends. André was also laughing at my efforts to please him.

  Like the rest of Southeast Asia, Hue had its monsoon rain season. It was a rainy night when my father took André to the airport. I stayed in my room and cried. André had left for Paris to marry Dominique. André said he would return, soon, to his lawyering job and teaching position in Hue, as well as the mission he had undertaken for the children of Vietnam. With Dominique, of course, he told my parents.

  My mother did not believe him. “Vietnam is just a fad for him,” she said. “He is young, and he’ll stay on in Paris with his wife.”

  The following days and months were gloomy as the rainy season continued. My father purchased a piano for Mi Chau and me, and I no longer had to go to the practice room at the Jeanne d’Arc Institute for practice.

  Instead of pony rides with André, my Sunday afternoons were now reserved for piano practice. “Au Clair de la Lune” and “Carnaval de Venise,” oversimplified versions of Schumann’s “Mélodie” and Chopin’s “Berceuse.” I was learning so fast that Sœur Josephine stated I should audition for the national conservatory soon.

  The days went by and I kept on working at the keyboard. Every Sunday afternoon I sat by my piano, near the window, looking out at the garden. My boy doll, which looked like André, sat on top of the piano, together with my sheet music. No more pony rides, but I kept hoping.

  The rainy season had ended and the calendar year was almost over. Christmas was about to arrive, and I was chosen to play a shepherd in That Winter Night, a Christmas musical composed and produced by Sœur Josephine. The Catholic nun tested the range of my voice and decided she would write a short aria for the shepherd. So I sang her music, four lines to be exact: an uplifting C Major score, with lofty words celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

  That was the first time I sang on stage. Sœur Josephine told my parents I should definitely be enrolled in the national conservatory.

  The week before Christmas, my parents threw a party for their friends. Grandma Que made her specialty dish: shrimp balls on a kumquat tree. She created little mandarin oranges out of shrimp paste, wrapped them in clear cellophane, and attached them to branches of a real kumquat tree. The guests picked the oranges from the tree and ate them, surprised to find out the oranges were made out of fresh-ground shrimp. It was a royal dish.

  All the Western expatriates in Hue were invited to the party. My parents wanted me to play my piano for their guests. Wearing a red velvet dress, I played the simplified version of Schumann’s “Romance” perfectly. My mother’s almond eyes lit up with joy and pride. The guests shouted out, “Bis, bis,” the French word for an encore. I stood on the piano bench, beamed, and curtsied as my mother had trained me to do.

  From my piano bench, I saw André walking in, beautiful as always, with a woman. I instantly recognized her. She was statuesque, almost as tall as André, and much more imposing than in her picture. Her golden hair was tied up in a ponytail, with a multicolored scarf. She wore a bias-cut, flowery Western dress and red lipstick. Her eyes were pale blue. She did not smile.

  I stared at the beautiful couple. My broad grin faded. André approached and picked me up, kissing me.

  “Très bien!” he said, referring to my “Romance” performance. The adults were embracing, shaking hands. French and English were spoken. I remained in André’s arms, yet feeling lost and neglected.

  “Un gros baiser pour Tata Dominique, Simone,” my mother said. She wanted me to give a big welcome kiss for Aunt Dominique.

  I reluctantly went from André’s arms to the blonde woman’s arms. She smelled nice, too, like fresh flowers and cosmetic powder, but still she did not smile. “Elle est si drôle,” she said, looking at my face curiously.

  Drôle? I wasn’t pleased. Comic? Quaint? Funny? Like a comedienne? No, I was supposed to be beautiful. Not “drôle.”

  “Elle est magnifique,” André said defensively. To him, I was magnificent.

  “Vous êtes…comme Sylvie Vartan,” I said to her, carefully using the formal form of address. To me, she was like the blonde French pop singer, Sylvie Vartan, whose record was played in my house, and whose picture I had seen in Aunt Y-Van’s Paris Match. I could not think of anybody else who was blond.

  Auntie Dominique started to smirk. The smirk that finally came was so light it hardly brightened her face. “Comment? Elle s’appelle Simone?” She turned to André with a question in her glassy blue eyes, her thin, shapely brows coming together, forming lines between them.

  “It’s just a cute French name, for school,” my mother said, defensively. “Her real name is Mi Uyen. Her sister does not have a French name, because she’s not in school yet.”

  My m
other pointed to my sister Mi Chau, who was always dirty from eating too much food too hastily. Mi Chau was standing in the corner, behind the lamp, eating a cream puff—her favorite, choux à la crème.

  “Ah oui,” Dominique said coldly. Mi Chau had finished her cream puff and was ready to kiss Aunt Dominique, but Dominique turned away.

  “Il fait très chaud, ici!” Dominique complained about the heat.

  “Très chaud, mais pas trop cher!” My mother tried to make a joke, a pun on words, reversing “très chaud” into “trop cher.” It might be too hot here, but not too expensive! Dominique did not respond. I ran from Dominique to my mother.

  “Show Tata Dominique your drawings and poems,” my mother said. She wanted Dominique to see proof of my talents.

  I stayed where I was, with my face buried in my mother’s lap. I did not want to show Tata Dominique anything. This blonde woman in a flowery dress did not like us. I could tell. I longed to be with André, but Dominique was sitting with him all the time, her hand resting on his.

  I listened in as all the guests talked. André had been back in Hue for months and had been traveling with his new bride through central Vietnam. The highlands: spectacular green hills, valleys, and waterfalls. The famous Pass of Cloud, Le Col des Nuages, connecting Hue to DaNang, the military base of the Americans, where the famous American entertainer, Bob Hope, would be doing a Christmas show for soldiers. The white beaches of Cam Ranh and Dai Lanh, where American troops disembarked from their fleet.

  Anger filled my heart; I fought back tears. André had been back for months and he had not stopped by for our Sunday afternoon pony rides. He had not missed me. He spent all his time with her. He left me waiting.

  I ran to Grandma Que. Back to where I belonged.