Part 2 (1/2)

”Yes, monsieur, two sons and a daughter.”

Joseph glanced hopefully around the room, ”Are they here?”

Tran Van Hieu shook his head. ”They are still too young for such an occasion.” He waved behind him towards one of the French windows that led out to the formal gardens surrounding the palace. ”They asked if they might come to see the a1aiS, but they had of course to remain outside in the gardens with their nurse where they can do no damage.”

Joseph looked out through the windows and saw three small Annamese children dressed in traditional silk tunics like their parents walking on the lawns below the terrace in the company of a plainly garbed Annamese servant.

”Would it be possible for me to meet them, monsieur?” Joseph hesitated, then laughed. ”You see, I'm not allowed to drink any more champagne. My mother made me promise to have only one gla.s.s - and I've had two already.”

The Annamese mandarin looked at Joseph's eager face for a moment, then his eyes lost their watchful look for the first time and he smiled. ”Pourquoi pas?” He turned to his wife, who was smiling too. ”Why not?” he repeated and led the way to the French windows. Outside on the terrace he waved and called to the children, and a moment later they arrived panting and breathless at the top of the broad flight of marble steps.

”This is Joseph Sherman. His father is an important visitor from the United States of America,” Tran Van Hieu told them in French. ”That is an important country far away across the sea.”

Remembering the earlier misunderstanding, Joseph kept his hands pressed to his sides. Smiling broadly he bowed stiffly from the waist and greeted each of the children in turn. ”Je suis enchante de faire votre connaissance.”

”Tam is twelve,” said the Annamese, pointing to the taller boy. ”Kim is eleven, and my daughter, Lana, is just ten years old.”

The girl's serious little face was delicate, rounded, promising that she would soon flower into at least as striking a beauty as her mother; in an attempt to make her smile Joseph winked theatrically at her, but this made her draw closer to her mother and she continued to gaze gravely back at him with the curious, unselfconscious eyes of childhood. Her brothers had intelligent, mischievous faces, and they giggled and jostled one another constantly, refusing to stand still. The younger of the pair, Joseph noticed, held his arms unnaturally high across his tiny chest, and looking closer he saw a little bulge rumpling and moving beneath his silk tunic. ”Are you hiding something interesting under your jacket, Kim?” asked the American, dropping playfully to his knees and pointing to the moving lump.

Both boys immediately burst into peals of embarra.s.sed laughter, and Tam ran shamefaced to his father's side and whispered loudly in his ear in French: ”Kim has brought Lan's gibbon, Papa! I told him he shouldn't, but he wouldn't listen to me.”

The mandarin chided his younger son in rapid Annamese and immediately the giggling stopped. Kim unb.u.t.toned his jacket, and when the head of the frightened baby gibbon appeared, Lan let out a little cry of protest and gathered the tiny animal tenderly into her arms.

”May I stroke him please, Lan?” Joseph spoke softly and leaned towards her. Not fully understanding his intent, she shrank away from him protectively and the animal, sensing her unease, began snickering and struggling in her arms.

Joseph started back immediately, anxious to cause no offense, but the nervous gibbon, taking fright at his sudden movement, tore itself free and bounded from her grasp. The two boys. shrieking excitedly, chased it around the terrace, panicking it further, and to escape them it darted through the open doors into the palais. Tran Van Hieu and his wife stared after it aghast, and the boys, halting on the threshold, stopped shouting and fell silent. Lan's face had turned pale with apprehension and she stood open-mouthed, one tiny hand raised to her check, her face trembling on the brink of tears.

Their anxiety rooted Joseph to the spot for a moment; then, desperate to make amends for his clumsiness, he flung himself through the doorway in pursuit. Inside, the tiny creature skidded to a halt on the marble floor, terrified by the sudden din of the gathering. Joseph lunged toward it, but the sight of him terrorized the gibbon further, and it set off frantically towards the only visible refuge.

The governor had moved his guests back from the illuminated pedestal to show the line and glazing of the Ming vase to its best advantage, and because he had turned his head in their direction to explain a point, he didn't see the gibbon streak across the marble floor on all fours. His eye fell on it for the first time as it sprang onto the marble plinth and clutched at the neck of the vase to steady itself. The governor's white-gloved hand Froze in mid- flourish and for a second he stared horror-struck at the chattering animal. Then he started towards the plinth with a cry of alarm, and the gibbon, sensing a threat, leaped two feet into the air and disappeared inside the vase. The darkness of the interior only increased the animal's terror, and immediately it began to struggle frantically to free itself. The vase rocked back and forth on its base for an instant, then toppled towards the floor. Realizing he was too far away to save his prized possession, the governor could only stand and watch it fall, speechless with anger.

Several nearby Frenchmen started belatedly to the rescue, but the guilty knowledge of his responsibility for the impending disaster had lent Joseph's legs extra speed. He sprinted desperately towards the plinth and, as the vase fell, launched himself towards it in a lunging dive. His shoulder hit the floor with a thud that knocked the wind out of him hut he managed to get one hand under the vase at full stretch and slithered across the marble floor juggling the smooth-glazed porcelain above his head. He almost lost it as he came to rest, but at the last moment he twisted onto his back and with both hands pressed his prize thankfully against his frilled inside s.h.i.+rt front.

In the hushed silence that followed he scrambled to his feet, his face and neck flus.h.i.+ng scarlet. Reaching inside, he hauled the monkey out by the scurf of its neck and replaced the vase carefully on its pedestal. Then without a backward glance he fled towards the French windows, clutching the offending animal under his arm.

The moment Joseph stepped out onto the terrace the worried faces of Tran Van I-lieu and his wife relaxed with relief. Their two small sons stood apart with their nurse, already contrite and tearful, but Lan clapped her hands delightedly and ran towards Joseph. The American boy apologized haltingly in French as he knelt to return the s.h.i.+vering pet to her, but once the animal was safely in her arms again she turned and fled shyly back to her father's side without speaking.

When the governor's uniformed aide appeared silently in the doorway behind Joseph, he took in the scene at a glance and his face darkened with reproof. ”The governor is ready to take dinner with his invited guests, Monsieur Joseph,” he said, pointedly ignoring the Annamese.

Joseph smiled and apologized once more and watched as Tran Van Hieu shepherded his family off the terrace. At the foot of the steps Lan stopped for a moment to turn and stare back at Joseph. She was still whispering to the gibbon to soothe it, but her innocent face was puzzled, as though she could not quite grasp everything that had happened. Joseph smiled hesitantly and waved, but this embarra.s.sed the little Annamese girl and she turned and ran as fast as she could to catch up with her parents.

6.

The main living room of the Imperial Delegate's official residence on a tree-shaded street north of the Saigon Cathedral betrayed little evidence of the great wealth ama.s.sed by the Tran family through three generations of collaboration with the French. Spa.r.s.ely furnished in keeping with the austere, scholarly traditions of the Annamese mandarinate, it was dominated by the family's ancestral altar, which consisted of three tables of different heights lacquered in red and gold. Beyond the windows, tropical trees and shrubs that bore guava, pawpaw, mangosteen and pomegranate sprouted in profusion from the moist earth of a walled garden, arid heaped bowls of fruits picked from their branches were cl.u.s.tered on the altar, along with tiny dishes of spiced meats, fish, lotus seeds, vegetables and porcelain beakers of tea and rice alcohol. A gilt-framed portrait of a venerable-looking mandarin attired in court robes occupied the place of honor on the highest level of the altar, and as the light began to fade, the wizened Annamese to whom Senator Sherman had spoken an hour earlier entered the room and bowed solemnly before it.

He was dressed in a wide-sleeved ceremonial gown of dark silk and a soft hat embroidered with colored threads partly hid his face from Lan and her brothers as they followed him through the doorway, walking barefoot between their father and mother. A stream of other relatives followed, and from the shadows they watched the old man touch each of the tall red candles surrounding the portrait with a lighted taper; when four tiny buds of flames bloomed above the altar he sank to his knees and pressed his palms together.

”In lighting these candles,” he murmured in a reverent voice, ”we extend an invitation to the spirit of my greatly esteemed father to come among us and bless us.” For a moment he remained motionless, his eyes closed, then he lifted his joined hands in front of him in a graceful arc and bent to press his forehead against the floor in silent prayer.

Because she had spent much of that day watching her mother supervise preparations for the traditional Gio ceremony observed by the family on each anniversary of her great-grandfather's death, Lan knew the altar held all the favorite foods and beverages that the high-ranking courtier had enjoyed during his lifetime. The little girl had been allowed to help with the setting out of the banquet, and noticing suddenly that there were six dishes of each delicacy and six pairs of chopsticks, she had asked her mother why this was so.

”We provide extra food and drink so that your great- grandfather can bring the spirits of other famous patriots and scholars to join our celebration,” her mother had explained in a whisper, and Lan, remembering this, found herself peering apprehensively at the spare chopsticks to see if any of them showed signs of moving. She and her brothers had always found the idea of ancestral spirits appearing during the Gio ceremony an awesome prospect, but her sense of unease had been greatly heightened on this occasion by the fear of unknown punishments that seemed certain to follow the incident involving her baby gibbon at the governor's palace.

Already their father had given an indication of his deep displeasure by ordering all three of them to remain in the room throughout the ceremony. It would last, they knew, about half an hour - until the single joss stick planted in a bowl of white rice on the altar burned down to the level of the cereal. Normally after offering their silent prayers all three children were dismissed to play in the garden and were not recalled until the offeratory food was removed from the altar at the end of the ceremony and eaten along with other dishes at a festive family supper. In addition their father had told them that he wanted to speak to them in his study afterwards, and although he had given no indication what chastis.e.m.e.nt he planned, they knew from the severity of his expression that he was angrier than they had ever seen him before. Their mother had warned them to beg for forgiveness when their turn came to pray to their great- grandfather's spirit before the altar, and it seemed certain to Lan's ten-year-old mind that if she and her brothers had angered their father so deeply they must also have offended the spirits of their ill.u.s.trious ancestors too.

Beside her Kim was struggling to hide his feelings, but Lan could tell from the paleness of his face that he was apprehensive and on edge. In Annamese families of their rank supervision of the home and the children was left largely to the mother; like most Annamese fathers, however, Tran Van Hieu kept a st.u.r.dy bamboo cane locked in a lacquered cabinet in his study to reinforce where necessary the Confucian notion of filial piety. He had never used the cane before, only the threat of it, but all three children were well aware that Kim's flagrant disobedience earlier that evening had caused him acute public embarra.s.sment, On Lan's other side Tam shot an accusing look at Kim from time to time as if to make unmistakably clear to his father that he had done everything possible to dissuade Kim from his folly. Lan, for her part, hoped fervently that her innocence would be self- evident, and as she watched her prostrate grandfather's lips moving soundlessly she began to phrase in her own mind the plea for leniency she intended to submit to the ancestral spirit.

Three times in all her grandfather prostrated himself on the altar mat, then he rose slowly and stepped aside to make way for his son. In his turn, Tran Van Hieu knelt to perform the same silent acts of obeisance as the older man, but after prostrating himself for the third time, he remained on his knees and to his children's surprise began to pray aloud.

”Above all, help us never to forget the teachings of the great sage. Confucius, which remind us of our daily obligations towards our parents, our ancestors, our emperor and all those set in authority over us,” he said, speaking in a firm voice that carried clearly to his children's ears. ”Help us, too, to live in closer harmony with the great forces of nature and the world of spirits so that you and all our ancestors may continue to dwell restfully and happily in our midst. If we fail in these duties we know that we risk forfeiting the protection of your spirit and all the spirits of our nation's past heroes Kim bit his lip and stared at the floor as his father rose to look meaningfully in their direction; Tam and Lan' also s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably under his gaze, which remained on them unwaveringly throughout their mother's act of devotion. When she had finished, he motioned Tam forward first because he was the oldest, and the twelve-year-old boy rushed eagerly across the room to fling himself down on the altar mat.

”Great-grandfather, you must know already that I did all I could to sop Kim taking the gibbon,” he said, whispering aloud in the hope that his fervent words might be audible to his father and grandfather standing a few feet away. ”I always obey my father without question as I did today, and all I ask is that you help me to continue to do that.” He pressed his forehead fiercely to the floor and hurried obediently back to his place, taking care not to look at Kim.

To Lan's astonishment her father signaled for her to approach the altar next; as she was the youngest she had expected to go last, hut her father was clearly singling Kim out for special treatment by allowing her to precede him. Her bare feet made no sound on the polished wood floor as she approached the altar with her head bowed devoutly over her clasped hands. ”Please, Great-grandfather, don't let my father be angry with me for what Kim did,” she prayed silently, closing her eyes as tightly as she could in an effort to add force to her thoughts. ”I only ever wish to please him and I'm very sorry my pet gibbon was taken to the palace. But because I am a girl I can't stop my brothers from doing wrong, so please help Kim to behave better so that there is no more trouble.” She remained bent towards the portrait of the dead mandarin for several seconds to show the spirits how deeply repentant she was, and when she rose to return to her place she kept her head bowed so that her dark hair fell across her face and hid the tears of remorse in her eyes.

When his father motioned him forward, Kim approached the altar more slowly, his lips pursed in a determined line. For a long time he remained bent over his hands without uttering any form of prayer. Then a moment before rising to rejoin his brother and sister, he clenched his teeth together hard. ”If my father decides to beat me for what I did,” he whispered fiercely to himself, ”please help me to endure the pain and not to cry. That is all I ask.”

From the back of the room where they were made to stand apart from the family for the rest of the ceremony, the three children were able to hear only s.n.a.t.c.hes of their grandfather's words as he conducted a long discourse praising the virtues of his dead parent. When at last the joss stick on the altar burned down, their mother ushered them to their father's study and arranged them in a line before his writing-table on which the bamboo cane had already been laid out.

”You all know how disrespectful your behaviour was this evening,” Tran Van Hieu said severely when he had seated himself, ”both to the French governor and to your parents. And though I am well aware that you, Kim, are the main cause of the trouble I have no alternative but to punish all three of you.”

Tam's face fell and Lan felt tears start to her eyes again, but Kim received the news without showing any visible sign of emotion. ”Tam, because your responsibility for what happened is not so great as Kim's, you and your sister will kneel in the corner of this room for one hour with your faces to the wall. If you remain perfectly still and keep your backs straight, you won't be punished further. Use the time to reflect on your disgraceful behaviour -. and resolve never to disobey me again.”

As the elder boy and Lan turned away in relief, the mandarin let his hand fall on the bamboo cane; he rolled it between his fingers for a moment before glancing up at his younger son again. ”Your punishment, Kim, will depend on the quality of your answers,” he said, speaking in a quiet voice. ”And I want you first tell me why you took the gibbon to the palace when you knew it was wrong.”

For a long time the boy maintained a defiant silence and didn't look at his father.

”If you don't tell me, I will beat you without mercy,” said the mandarin at last and rose from his chair with the cane in his hand. Still the boy didn't speak, but when his father advanced around the table and stood over him, he looked up into his face.

'I did it because some of the older boys at school dared me! They said I was too frightened of our long-nosed French masters to do such a thing. I wanted to show them I wasn't afraid!”

Tran Van Hieu's eyes glittered and the muscles of his jaw tightened. ”Why should you need to show you are not afraid? You know very well you should accord the French governor and his officials the same respect you show to me and your grandfather. They are the ruling authority. Our position and our wealth depend on their goodwill.”

”Some of the older boys at school say we are nothing more than dancing puppets of the French!” The boy blurted his words in a rush, his pale face Rus.h.i.+ng suddenly. ”They say we've sold our souls to France in return for rice fields over which the crane might fly all morning without encountering barriers. They call us 'licensed pirates' behind our backs!”

In the tense silence that followed, Tam and Lan, who had their faces to the wall, heard their father draw a long shuddering breath; then the first crack of the bamboo cane rang through the quiet room like a pistol shot. As the sound was repeated again and again the tears that had been br.i.m.m.i.n.g in Lan's eyes spurted down her cheeks, and beside her Tam listened rigid with horror, waiting for the sound of his brother's wailing to begin.

But although the cane continued to rise and fall with a terrible regularity, and they continued to hear the awful blows landing, no sound came from their brother. Once Tam darted a terrified glance over his shoulder and saw Kim sprawled across the writing-table; white faced and trembling from head to toe, he had his eyes closed and his fists were clenched tight as he summoned up every last ounce of courage in his eleven-year-old body to endure his father's beating without weeping or crying out.