January 7, 1934
I turned in the Delahaye and looked out the back window at the yellow house as it faded into the distance, its beloved shape receding behind us. It wasn’t Lanh who was taking us to the train station; it was a hired man. Lanh was on vacation. Victor had wanted to do something kind for him, a gesture to show how thankful we were that he had saved me. A trip, I had suggested. A long rail journey so he could see every train station in the country if he wanted to.
Next to me was Lucie, in pants instead of a starched dress. She looked like a different child, as we had cut her long hair to her chin the week after I’d left the hospital. We had all needed a fresh start, but thankfully, she still felt like my Lucie. I put my right hand on hers but gripped the gift that Lanh had given me before he left with my other. He had told me not to open it until we were out of Hanoi, and somehow I’d managed to obey his wishes.
After weeks of chaos, calm was starting to return to our lives.
After a second night in the hospital, the doctor told me that he suspected poisoning. I had been fearful that I would have to lead the horse to water concerning the diagnosis, but the French doctor was thankfully intelligent enough to recognize how my symptoms fit together. When the policeman got involved, I told him that I strongly suspected Marcelle de Fabry was behind my poisoning. She had illegally obtained my medical files from France. She was plotting my return trip before I even arrived in Hanoi. Her cigarettes, I told them. That was how she poisoned me. And through my drinks, too. Through a strong tea. The policeman went to the de Fabry home, where he and another officer found a large amount of ky nham, as they later described it to us, in her dresser and, as I had suspected, rolled into cigarettes. Arnaud was home at the time, an unfortunate turn of events. He said it was all a great misunderstanding, that they used the herb in small quantities themselves as a relaxing agent, and accompanied the police to Khoi’s palatial home, where Marcelle was.
I was later told by Lanh, who obtained the full story from Khoi’s surprisingly bribable servants, that Marcelle flew into a rage, claiming I had tried to murder her and she had never administered poison to me. She repeated exactly what her husband had said. They used the herb for themselves. She was the one who was being targeted, she claimed. She showed the police the marks on her neck. She said it was a miracle she was alive. That if Khoi had not spotted her, she would be dead by my hand.
The police had countered her. They said they had more than enough to arrest her and mentioned the name of my doctor in France whom she had bribed. She didn’t admit anything to them, but the servants told Lanh that her guilt was obvious.
When the police came to the yellow house a day later, they told us that they planned to arrest Madame de Fabry, but Arnaud was attempting to bribe them out of it. He had put up quite a sum of money to keep his wife out of prison, even a courtroom.
“I don’t care how much he’s given you,” Victor had shouted. “She has been steadily poisoning my wife for two months! The fact that she lived is by the grace of God alone and her good American stock. You have to—”
“Force them to leave Indochine for good. Exile or prison. Offer that to Marcelle and see what she decides,” I’d said. I knew that Marcelle would choose a jail cell in Indochine over an apartment in Paris, just so she could be near Khoi, but Arnaud, I was sure, would not allow it.
And he didn’t. He arranged for a position back in France, we were told. The police assured us that they would sail soon and never set foot in Indochine again. And at my behest, they ensured Khoi could not go with her.
“See that they leave very quickly, please,” I’d asked the police officer when Victor left the room. “I can’t stand the idea of having to see her again. And also”—I handed the man a large stack of crisp piastres—“see that she is under your watch between now and the day she boards the boat. I want to make sure she never sees Nguyen Khoi again. I’m sure that even one conversation between them will be to further plot my demise.”
“Of course, Madame Lesage,” he had said, taking the money. “Your leniency with her is to be admired.”
He had no idea that even a few years away from Khoi could smash her heart for good.
I looked down as the car jolted forward, our temporary driver not as experienced as Lanh. A new ring was on my finger. It was a light blue stone, not worth anything. Glass, most likely. Cam had said that it had been sent to me by Lanh’s sister after Lanh told her that I’d been in the hospital. The Michelin money was so often used for good. That’s what Khoi and Marcelle didn’t understand. That girl was receiving a great French education, and her life would be forever changed because of it. I would certainly see personally to that.
Soon, the beautiful yellow house was out of sight. I was sure I would return, as Victor didn’t intend to sell it, so we could use it when we were ready to visit Hanoi, but I was happy to leave for a while. We were all moving to Saigon. Lucie would enter a new school there, one of the only ones in the country that hired native teachers as well as European to teach the French children. Her day would be longer, they told us, but it was for the best. I would be busy opening real schools on the Michelin plantations, for the children, and for the coolies to learn French, a project Victor had promised me I could undertake when we had been in bed one night after I’d left the hospital. Trieu had once told me that less than one-fifth of native boys went to school. And that for girls the numbers were far less. She’d said it during one of her false odes to the French way of life, but I’d remembered the abysmal statistics. On our plantations, every child would attend school, and the laborers would be given time to study, too. Victor would see that they were given more time off to do so, for no one on a Michelin plantation should leave illiterate. Though still deeply committed to maximum efficiency and profit for the plantations, he’d sold the idea to his family by guaranteeing it would improve worker retention rates. I prayed that he would be able to keep his word.
When I’d shared my idea with Lanh, he’d suggested that education was not just needed for the natives. That if the Europeans on the plantation were to learn Annamese, that perhaps the historically tense relationship between workers and managers might change. He suggested that it would be a good way to build loyalty to the company and to show Michelin’s investment in the colony. Victor, after looking at the relatively low financial cost of it all, had agreed.
“Lucky for Victor to have a clever wife,” he’d whispered in my ear, recalling our first night in Indochine, and Marcelle’s declaration.
I let his praise ring out in my mind, but I couldn’t let it sit without finally telling him the truth.
When it was just the two of us alone, and I was at last feeling stronger in body and mind, I told him about Eleanor. I explained the way she’d died, those few seconds where I had chosen to act with myself in mind instead of her. It had led to crushing guilt that I knew would never leave me. Victor wrapped his arms around me as I cried. Then, at last, I told him about my parents. They were not dead. My father was in prison, and while my mother was free, she had lost her sanity long ago. I told him about my brother Peter, about how much of my allowance was sent off to him and my other siblings every month. I admitted that it was my intense fear of his finding me out, my fear of my daughter then being taken away from me, of a repeat of Switzerland, that had caused me to keep lying. And I told him about Dorothy—it was not because I was a clever wife that we had come to Indochine. It was because my growing pile of lies had finally caught up with me. They were the noose around my neck.
I expected anger and a feeling of betrayal, but Victor was steady and calm. He finally spoke at length about his own father. About his mental demise and how he’d let his fear of his father’s state guide too many of his decisions. We realized, together, that we did not have to shoulder our burdens alone.
But there was still the burden of what I’d seen. Of what Victor had orchestrated. The ten names on the list. The dead communists.
“They were inciting rebellion,” Victor said wearily, without conviction. “It was the right thing to do. It was the police that suggested it.”
“But they died, Victor,” I said. “They were someone’s children, too.”
“They were no longer children,” he shot back.
“There must be another way,” I’d pressed.
“Yes, there is,” he’d said confidently. “We will weed out those men before they ever get that far with such plans. They’ll go to prison, and not ones of our making,” he’d assured me. “We can’t just let them roam free—our success has to come first. For Michelin, and the colony,” he’d added.
Maybe someone like Marcelle wouldn’t have been able to stomach such a bargain, where self-interest was clearly still king, but I could.
My family came first. Always. Even if I had to make difficult decisions for the right outcome.
“Did you see this?” Victor said to me as our car rumbled over the bridge out of Hanoi. I looked at the newspaper in his hand.
“Khoi is to be married. It was even in the French paper. A girl from an indigo-producing family. They own many plantations. See, there are natives who own plantations, too. We don’t have a monopoly on everything,” Victor said.
I raised my eyebrows and took the paper from him. There was no picture of her, but I didn’t have to see her to know she was not as beautiful as Marcelle. And that Khoi would never love her. I also knew that this marriage would be as much of a sham as Marcelle and Arnaud’s, and that one day, despite my best efforts, Khoi would find a way back to her. They were impossible to tear apart.
I looked over the bridge at the water below. Marcelle was looking at water, too. And in a few days, her view would be of the Seine. She had said many times how at home she was in Indochine. But it was my turn. It was my time to make it home.
I finished reading the article.
The Nguyen family had started to expand their silk empire, the writer detailed. They were building a large factory in the north thanks to their recent acquisition of the Compagnie Générale des Soies in Lyon, a company that was previously seen as a rival. It had had large textile holdings in Nam Dinh, and had the potential to compete with native companies, with Nguyen silk, if the colonial government backed it. Instead, the Compagnie Générale des Soies had just sold its holdings to the Nguyens.
Hanoi was a very small town. Marcelle and Trieu I had managed to exile, but Khoi remained on top. The Nguyens could have their silk, but the natives could never have our rubber.
That train ride with my family was much more enjoyable than any moment I’d spent traveling alone. And when we reached the hotel in Tourane, Victor suggested that I sleep in the same bed as Lucie. She cuddled next to me, falling asleep under my armpit with the light next to us still on. It was the first night since we’d arrived that we hadn’t needed a fan, so I just listened to her breathe, reaching down and touching her perfect face. Lucie Eleanor Michelin Lesage.
I kissed Lucie again, then rose out of bed and found Lanh’s gift, which Lucie had placed on my suitcase, a new one with an intact handle.
I undid the ribbon that was tied around the gift and smiled as I realized it was one of Lucie’s white hair ribbons. It was silk, likely Nguyen silk. I laid it flat on the suitcase and unwrapped the box. Inside was a large, thick sheet of paper that was rolled up tight. I slowly unfurled it, my smile growing as I did. It was the train timetable from the Hanoi rail station.
I looked at the first line. The train to Haiphong left Hanoi twice a day, once at nine a.m., then again at six p.m. I ran my fingers gently over the schedule from left to right, then up and down. At the very top of it, Lucie had drawn a large, yellow sun.