Дональд Джеймс - The House of Eros

The roots of memory stirred in Nan Luc. She had remembered her mother as different. More filmically beautiful perhaps. But the stirring of the roots of memory brought with it a breathtaking sense of love for the woman represented by this stark black and white picture.

‘And my aunt, Louise, what happened to her?’ she asked after a moment.

‘One of the lucky ones. Her bel ami was a US military policeman. I heard stories that he got her through the gates of the embassy by marrying her an hour before his helicopter took off. May they live in peace and harmony.’

‘May they live in peace and harmony,’ Nan Luc repeated.

‘So,’ her grandmother said rising. ‘That is your once distinguished family history. The last years have not been uplifting. We can talk of honour no longer.’

‘I have more questions to ask,’ Nan Luc said tenaciously.

‘Yes,’ the other woman said coolly.

‘My father, the American. Is there nothing you can tell me about him?’

‘I see,’ Bernadette said. ‘You may be hard-headed and practical, but you still nurse the dream of going to America.’

‘I am content here. But I need to know who my father is. His name. Where he lives. A photograph of him. Every Vietnamese child has that right.’

‘You would leave for America tomorrow if you could,’ Bernadette said. ‘And so would I. But not as one of these wretched boat people. When I go to the West it will be in suitable style. By airplane to Paris.’

Nan Luc found herself overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness, of isolation, as she looked at the cool, over-made-up woman before her. She had lived as an orphan, her life organised in a cold efficient way, without love. More even than the half memories of her mother, dreams of her father seemed to offer that love, the warmth of a parent, a guide.

‘I want to understand him,’ Nan insisted. ‘I want to understand what happened between him and my mother.’

‘Dreams,’ Bernadette said harshly.

‘But at the end, when the Americans left, did he want to take my mother with him?’

‘It wasn’t possible. She was already dead.’

‘And me?’

‘I forbid you to ask me more questions,’ the older woman hissed. ‘Your father is none of your business. You are a member of the Hyn family. That is enough.’

Nan Luc took a deep breath. ‘I want to know his name. My name. I believe you know it.’

‘Ah,’ her grandmother held up her hand, the red-tipped fingernails caught in a shaft of afternoon sunlight, ‘they told me this about you in the orphanage. No more, d’you hear?’

‘You refuse to tell me.’

‘It is unimportant,’ her grandmother flared.

‘Not to me.’

Bernadette stood up. ‘In the orphanage,’ she said after a few moments, ‘you had a reputation for having a will of your own. The world we live in is not an orphanage. Do you understand that, Nan Luc?’

‘I understand the words,’ Nan Luc said carefully, ‘but not the meaning.’

‘You have not wondered why I asked you here today?’

‘Of course.’

‘You have not asked why.’

‘I was sure you would tell me if you required some service of me.’

‘Not a service, ma’moiselle.’

‘What then?’

Bernadette smoothed her cheek with the tips of her fingers and walked across the room to stand in front of a mirror. ‘I am,’ she said, looking at Nan Luc’s face reflected in the glass, ‘no longer a young woman.’ She turned, baring her teeth in a smile. ‘Of course I’m not an old woman either. I was hardly more than a child when your mother was born. She in turn was no more than nineteen, twenty…’ She walked, almost skipped, in front of Nan Luc. ‘I still, fortunately, have the body of a young woman…’ Nan Luc shifted in her seat as her grandmother stopped on the far side of the room.

‘I live a life of great comfort, Nan Luc.’

‘I can see.’ Nan Luc gestured round the room.

‘This life is entirely due to the good will of Monsieur Quatch.’

‘Monsieur is an important man,’ Nan Luc said.

‘And important men,’ Bernadette said smiling, ‘require their needs to be serviced .’ A silence fell on the room. ‘I’ve known for a long time it cannot last for ever,’ Bernadette said. ‘To be the mistress of such a man is a great honour, Nan Luc.’ Nan Luc’s eyes opened wide. ‘I do not intend to be discarded, you understand,’ Bernadette said fiercely. ‘For that reason I am resolved to choose my own successor. Someone of course who will make sure I am maintained as I should be maintained. Monsieur Quatch has always spoken favourably of such a progression.’

The idea struck Nan Luc like a thunderbolt. ‘No,’ she said, sitting upright. ‘I will not do it.’

‘I can teach you what pleases him. Already he has reason to favour you. Many, many years ago he remarked how pretty a child you were.’

Nan got quickly to her feet. ‘I will not do it. He’s old, ugly. I need to love a man.’

‘You young fool,’ Bernadette hissed at her. ‘This is the greatest opportunity you will ever get. Look in a mirror. You’re beautiful, yes. But you are a hybrid . The War of Indepedence wasn’t fought for you, for hybrids!’

Nan moved towards the door. ‘I would like to go.’

‘Nan Luc!’ Bernadette’s voice was like a whip. ‘You’re still a virgin, I suppose.’ Nan Luc blushed. ‘Virginity is like excess weight,’ Bernadette said. ‘It does not become a woman. Listen, girl, what you’ve got men are fool enough to want. They’ll pay clothes and comfort and food and drink for it. Unless you still believe, against the mountains of evidence, that a woman can make her own way in a Communist society, you’ll learn to use your one asset.’

Nan Luc looked at her in shock.

‘You’re fortunate that your grandmother is still a relatively young woman,’ Bernadette said harshly. She walked across the room. ‘I will dream up an assignment for you,’ she said, suddenly smiling. ‘Fool about a little. Experiment. Learn what pleases men. In a year or two you will think differently.’ She cupped her hands under her small breasts and threw back her shoulders. ‘Meanwhile I still have a little time yet,’ she said, swaying to her own reflection in the mirror.

A few minutes later Nan Luc walked through the heat and dust and jangling bicycle bells of the Avenue Giap with her head slowly spinning. A thought or image would enter her mind only to remain incomplete, undwelt upon before being jostled out by another. First the toad-like Quatch. She was already indebted to him for releasing her from back-breaking labour for the next two years. Was it dangerous to accept? Was this what the bright new world would be for her, sexual bargaining and discrimination by race? She shivered as she thought of the man’s small red mouth and strange thyroid eyes.

Reaching the corner of the Avenue Giap she flung off the images of Quatch and the slimy hypocrisy of her grandmother. Other thoughts jostled for attention as she pushed her way through the crowded streets. Most of all thoughts of her father. An American whose name, she was convinced, was known to Bernadette. But for some reason a name not to be discussed even now. All these years since her birth, more than fifteen years since the Americans had carried their flag from Vietnam.

Why?

Halfway round the world a taxi drew up before a small Paris hotel on the lie St Louis. It was a little after dawn and the young American who stepped into the first rays of morning sunlight blinked and rubbed at his unshaven cheek as he paid off the driver.

‘It’s going to be a good day,’ the driver said, nodding towards the pale sky.