“And I was a perfect tool for you,” Aimée said. “Everything you told me was a lie. You made everything up.”
“Not everything,” Bao said, her voice wistful. “My brother is in prison and my country is in chains.”
“So you betray your country by helping China to win the oil rights? How can that help Vietnam or liberate your brother? You set me up, and Thadée, too,” Aimée said.
“It should have worked,” Bao said. “You would have brought me the jade. Simple!”
“Simple, except that Thadée owed Blondel,” Aimée said. “And Regnier, in Olf’s pay, knew that. He paid Blondel’s henchmen to do his dirty work. But Albert got in the way.”
“Albert wasn’t that big a fool,” Gassot said, his voice shaking. “I don’t believe it.”
“Albert worked in the tire factory—the de Lussigny’s factory— next door to the gallery for years. He knew all about the lost treasure. When old de Lussigny died, Thadée found the jade. Albert suspected that Thadée had taken it.”
Gassot hung his head. “It was my old comrades. They’d concocted a plan to use Thadée.”
“Linh, or should I say Bao, you promised Thadée money. Money he needed for the gallery and to pay old drug debts.
“And you played on Thadée’s sympathy,” she continued. “You told me yourself he had a good heart—you promised the jade would help the Cao Dai. It’s the ancient disks the Chinese government wants.”
Bao raised an eyebrow. “You lied to me,” Bao said. “Madame Nguyen used the surly one with the withered arm—”
“Wait, do you mean the temple cleaner?”
“Don’t play dumb.” Bao’s eyes flashed. “He took the jade from the doctor’s office where you hid it. You planned it that way. You know where the jade’s hidden now. So you will lead me to it.”
It made sense. Quoc, the mahjong-playing temple cleaner had followed her after Thadée’s murder, and stolen the jade.
Did Bao truly believe she was in league with Quoc, and knew where he’d hidden the jade?
“Tran, what’s the matter?” Gassot asked.
“Now it’s my turn to use you, the way you used us,” Tran said.
“But Tran, it wasn’t like that—”
“It’s not enough you French colonized us, salted the fields, raped our women, firestormed my village . . . but to take our beliefs—”
A door slammed. Small footsteps crossed the tiles. Aimée saw Pleyet’s shoulders tense and his hand bunch in his pocket.
“Maman? Maman’s here!” Michel ran in and dropped his bookbag. “She called us. Where is she?”
Everyone froze.
Madame Nguyen stood behind him, staring. Aimée followed her gaze.
“Michel, come here,” Madame Nguyen said.
But Aimée had knelt down by the old chest filled with toys and lifted out the Legos. She had to get Michel engaged.
“Michel, can you finish this?” she asked, keeping her voice steady with effort. “Looks like you were building a truck.”
Michel grinned. “Fire engine, silly.”
“Show me, we’d all like to see.”
Bao moved nearer. Something glinted. Was that a knife blade under her silk scarf? She shot Pleyet a look.
Michel pulled out the red, blue, white, and yellow pieces. One by one. Aimée sensed weight shifting on the wooden floor behind her as Bao moved closer.
“Michel, let me help you get the big green one down there.”
Madame Nguyen said something in Chinese. Aimée reached down, lifted a silk scarf, and something that it had hidden under the layer of toys.
She lifted out the green jade monkey.
“This belongs to my people,” Madame Nguyen said. And screamed, as Tran grabbed Michel and held a knife to his throat.
“Maman, where’s maman!” Michel’s eyes were wide with fright.
Aimée’s heart dropped. She heard scuffling, saw Nadège’s purple black hair, outlined against the doorframe.
“Let go of my son!”
And then Tran’s eyes bulged; a red cord was pulled tight around his neck, cutting into his skin. Nadège was strangling him from behind with the silk cord from her jade pendant. Aimée lunged, pushing Michel aside.
Pleyet sprang, but Tran turned, and plunged his knife into Pleyet’s side. Aimée got to her knees and knocked Bao off balance, pinned her on the floor, and twisted the woman’s silk scarf around her flailing hands.
“In here,” Nadège shouted. Aimée saw blue uniforms, raised billy clubs.
By the time Aimée got to her feet, the flics were cuffing ran. All eyes were on Gassot, who’d leaned down to staunch Pleyet’s bloody wound. Aimée stood in front of the toy chest, blocking it from view, as she scooped the figures into her bag.
“Maman’s here,” Nadège said, folding Michel in her arms.
“You saved me, maman!” Michel said.
“Mon coeur, you saved me,” Nadège breathed, shaking.
“No hiêú. Young people. No tradition,” Madame Nguyen observed.
But Aimée disagreed, looking at the three generations. The old grandmother had held them together and imbued them with tradition. At least, she’d done her best.
Now Aimée would finish the job.
Monday
THE WAN NOVEMBER SUN slanted through the skylight onto the Cao Dai temple floor tiles. The all-seeing eye seemed to follow Aimée. Miles Davis curled beside her feet.
“These were in your care once, I believe,” she said, handing the bag to the priest Tet. “What you do with them is your decision.”
He nodded, his eyes grave. “Our government has changed, despite what you’ve heard. After your message, I spoke with the Director of the National Museum in Hanoi. They will display the jade with the dragon disk, recovered last year in Seoul. Our people, and visitors, will appreciate the jade. It will all be back where it belongs.”
One by one, he set each jade piece crowned by a disc on a side altar. “They don’t belong to China, nor to anyone else. They are our patrimony.”
The jade figures glowed. They took her breath away.
“The zodiac figures symbolize the animal hidden in one’s heart,” the priest said. “They help one to know oneself and to divine the path.”
Aimée knew that she could find her path only by putting one foot in front of the other.
“Very auspicious,” the priest said, grinning at Miles Davis. “Your dog.”
Miles Davis wagged his tail.
The gong sounded. “Please,” he said, indicating a meditation mat. “Join us.”
She sat, folding her legs. Sometime later Aimée opened her eyes and grew aware of the wind rustling over the soot-stained chimney flues on the roof, students putting their mats away, and René.
“Did you experience Mindfulness?” René asked.
She grinned. “Something close. A small shining moment.”
IN THE temple foyer, Aimée found her coat.
“Olf and the Chinese will be upset,” she said. “But right now, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“A subtle way of putting it,” René grinned.
She stared for the last time at the jade. The figures, bathed in the afternoon’s last light, emitted a sea-foam green glow. And she drew inner strength knowing they’d return to their rightful place.
Her stitches hardly ached today as she slipped her arm into the sleeve of her coat.
“No one suspected how ancient the disks were,” Aimée said, “except Dinard and Bao who knew their value, financially and historically.”
“And Bao?” René asked.