before but that he preferred not to converse on the journey because his French wasn’t good enough. He made that declaration in perfect French, but I honored his request, saying almost nothing on the trip except to tell him when I needed a rest or glimpsed something I wanted to photograph with the Lumière Elax camera Victor had given me before we left Paris.
In the mud-splattered Hispano-Suiza, we made our way to the port town of Qui Nhon, where I spent a comfortable night in the French-built hotel, a four-story white structure with a veranda on the first floor and a view of the beach that seemed to have been dipped in sunshine. In the morning, Xuan offered to drive me to the famous caves of the Marble Mountains or to the many large pagodas that the French cooed over, but I declined. Instead, we pushed on to the coastal city of Ninh Hoa for an early breakfast before reaching Nha Trang, just a few miles farther south. Not bothering to even glance at the city, I boarded a train nearly identical to the one from Hanoi, made sure I secured a window seat in the first-class car, and lost myself in the scenery of the remaining 250 miles to Saigon. I was scheduled to reach the southern city before nine the next morning, ending a seventy-five-hour journey. Trieu had said another driver would fetch me at the station and chauffeur me to Dau Tieng. At the hotel in Quy Nhon there had been a telephone, and I’d briefly considered calling Victor. But I’d decided the conversation we needed to have should be done in person.
When the train finally screeched to a halt at the Saigon station, everyone in the first-class car pushed their way to the exits as eagerly as if they were arriving in the heart of Manhattan. My body stiff from the journey, I waited for the throng to clear and disembarked last, meeting a porter with my suitcase on the platform. Outside the station, I heard a male voice call my name and spun around to see a young man of European appearance approaching.
“Madame Lesage, what a pleasure to have you with us,” he said enthusiastically, extending his hand. “I’m Jacques Caron, one of the chief overseers at Dau Tieng. Victor asked me to meet your train.”
“Oh, did he?” I managed to reply, taken aback that I was being met by a European and that he’d referred to Victor by his first name. “How kind of him. Are you … I hope this isn’t putting you out in any way.”
“You were expecting a native man to drive you,” he said, grinning. Together we crossed the street, past the row of coolies competing for our fare just like those in Hanoi, shouting for our attention and flashing their nearly toothless grins.
“I suppose I was,” I admitted. “My servant who arranged the journey told me to expect an indigène driver.”
“You were going to have someone local,” he said. “A driver named Nien was due to fetch you, but he was commandeered at the last moment by my wife, and Victor and I didn’t want to leave you with a chauffeur we didn’t know well. A woman in a car alone for hours with a stranger, it didn’t sit well with me, or your husband.”
“How kind of you to think of my safety,” I said, although I didn’t believe for a moment that this brash young man’s actions were propelled by kindness. “But you shouldn’t have come yourself,” I went on. “You could have sent someone else.”
“When I heard it was you arriving, I thought it would be the gentlemanly thing to do, particularly since we hadn’t met yet. You have never graced us with your presence here in Saigon.”
“No, this is my first trip,” I said as Jacques took my suitcase from the porter who had been standing silently next to us. “I don’t think I’ll have time to see much of Saigon on this trip, unfortunately. It’s just a visit to see my husband and the plantations.”
“Of course. Your family’s crown jewels in Indochine. I’m very lucky to work at Dau Tieng. And I know Victor is excited for you to be here, to finally see it all,” he said as he started the car and pulled away from the station.
“Is he?” I asked, trying not to sound surprised.
“Very,” said Jacques, making a right turn away from the station. “It’s almost a four-hour drive to Dau Tieng,