‘Oh plenty,’ Max heard Nan Luc say.
‘Music, clubs?’
‘Political discussions,’ Nan said with mock seriousness, ‘diamat lectures.’
‘What do you do in the evening?’ the journalist pressed.
‘I get ready for the next day, monsieur.’ She turned away. As she walked past Max a faint wry smile, aimed only at him, touched her lips. He followed her out into the place.
Dusk was falling and the old French lamps threw a thin yellow light through the palm trees on to the flooded square. He felt as if they were walking round the edges of a Chinese lake, the fountain in the middle rising from the water, the peeling neglect of all the surrounding buildings hidden by the darkness.
‘Do you live here, in Cahn Roc?’ Max asked her.
‘I live down by the port. I have a room in the old harbourmaster’s tower.’
‘Sounds very picturesque.’
She put her face to one side and smiled. ‘It will be a long time before Vietnam can afford to indulge the picturesque.’
‘The war was over fifteen years ago,’ he said. ‘That’s a long time.’
She stopped, her head down, looking into the reflections in the still water. What she said so echoed his father’s letter that he turned his head in surprise. ‘It will take more than this century,’ she said, ‘to bring peace to the people of Vietnam.’ He knew that by peace she didn’t just mean the absence of war.
They continued on slowly round the place. They were opposite the Grand Hotel now, looking back on the lighted windows and the figures of the journalists moving behind them.
‘Is it true that New York is a dirty city? That garbage blows through the streets?’ she asked.
‘It’s a year or two since I was there but I don’t think things have changed too much.’
‘And the roads are pitted and pot-holed like the roads of Saigon?’
‘Some of them.’
‘And black Americans are discriminated against?’
‘There’s discrimination, sure.’
‘There’s discrimination here too,’ she said. ‘Against people of Chinese descent. Against anyone with European or American blood.’
‘How old were you when the Americans left?’
‘I was six years old.’
‘You remember nothing at all of the American past?’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps I have memories, I don’t know. Children fabricate the past to suit themselves.’
Max had a strong sense of trespassing into another human being’s dream. They walked on in silence until he nodded to the road running down to the harbour, the Rue du Port. ‘Are you going home now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me walk you back.’ They began to walk down the steep, cobbled road towards the port.
‘I hope you will be satisfied by the trial,’ she said. ‘Van Khoa has put a lot into preparing it.’
‘Does it matter if I’m satisfied?’
‘To me it does.’
She almost slipped on the glistening cobbles and he put out a hand to catch her arm, holding her a moment longer than was necessary.
They walked on, the red moon tingeing the sea the deep dark colour of blood. ‘I mean that I hope you’ll be satisfied that justice will be done to your father’s memory.’
‘Like I told you. I don’t have any memory of my father,’ he said. ‘Of course I want to see justice done. But in court. Not in Van Khoa’s office a week before the trial. You understand that.’ She nodded, her eyes on the reflections on the cobblestones. In front of them there were a few lights and the movement of small boats across the harbour. She was frowning in an effort to understand. Her face turned towards the lune rousse. ‘What could be more important than justice done to your father’s memory?’ she said. She had slowed to a stop.
Equally baffled he stood opposite her on the edge of the quayside. He could see the harbourmaster’s tower rising from the end of the jetty. ‘I told you. I’ve no memory of my father. I never knew him.’
‘But what difference does that make? You can honour him as your father, surely. You will not be able to imitate his acts. But you can still honour him.’
‘The West is different,’ Max said. ‘More prosaic. We want to know what the acts of the father were before we honour them.’
‘Perhaps I understand you,’ she said. ‘But for us justice is necessary because it brings revenge. And revenge is necessary because it brings peace.’ She pointed up to the tower. ‘Thank you for walking me home.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You’ll be in court?’
‘Of course.’ She turned and walked along the jetty, swaying as if she were walking in a light wind. When she reached the tower she turned and saw he was still there. Then she opened the door and disappeared inside.
He stood for a moment until the gleam of a lamp appeared in one of the windows high in the tower. He wasn’t unaware of the poetry, of the fabled princess in the Gothic tower. But he had never imagined he would have to come halfway round the world to find her.
Chapter Twelve
Mary Page Butler watched the hot summer road slipping away under the tyres of Cy’s Mercedes. He had not spoken since he picked her up at Page Corner. Despite her own efforts she had received little more than a few grunts in response.
‘Sunny’s visiting with the Kellermans this weekend, isn’t she?’ Mary said.
He nodded absently and Mary retreated into her own thoughts as Cy drove, far too fast, towards the club.
She had been confident he would be pleased she called. Of course she knew Sunny was away. Obviously, at least to her, she was making some movement towards him. She was saying: Well, maybe I did shut the door the night of the Fund luncheon but it’s not locked and barred. She frowned angrily at her own coy imagery. She was a middle-aged woman, she could face facts. What she was telling Cy by this morning’s phone call was that she wanted him to take up where he had left off. Slowly. Not at a speed she couldn’t handle. A mild flirtation. Nothing more.
But he wasn’t interested. He had grunted agreement to picking her up for the meeting at the club but there had been not the slightest indication that he saw it as anything but a chore. A chore imposed upon him by his sister-in-law.
Anger rose in her. ‘You’re driving too fast, Cy,’ she said as they swerved past a small pick-up truck and swept along the grass verge on the wrong side.
‘You want to get to this meeting?’
She decided to forgo the obvious rejoinder. What was wrong with him? Was he angry about the night outside his office? He hadn’t seemed angry before. Or was he feeling that she was blowing hot and cold, a sort of tease. Of course she knew what sort of tease she was talking about but she kept the word out of her head. In any case the idea of a middle-aged woman being that sort of tease was faintly ridiculous.
She decided to ask him. ‘All right, Cy,’ she said, lighting a cigarette, ‘what is it?’
‘What’s what?’
‘What have I done to offend you?’
‘Nothing, as far as I know.’
‘Then why the grim looks, the driving on the wrong side of the road…? Was it because I sent Fin off to play polo this weekend?’ It was so long before he answered that she thought he had relapsed into another prolonged silence. ‘Fin’s away playing polo?’ he said finally.
‘I already told you.’
‘Light me a cigarette, will you, Mary?’ he said in his friendliest tone so far.
She lit him a cigarette and handed it to him. As he inhaled she felt the car slow. This was better. ‘So what are you angry about, Cy?’
‘Not angry.’
‘What then?’