the government? Sinh could have been walking down the street and Paul Adrien could have put a bullet in his head for no reason, and even if he were found guilty, his punishment would never match his crime.” He put his head back, letting it almost bob, and closed his eyes. “European men are not punished here. Only Annamites are. In that same year, when the workers killed the European overseer of Phu Rieng, Monteil, the workers who orchestrated it were sentenced to death, two other men received life sentences, and dozens more were beaten within an inch of their lives to give up the names of other comrades. And that’s just what the newspapers you and I read in Paris were able to dig out. Off the plantations, after the Yen Bai mutiny when nationalists and soldiers revolted against the French, thirty-nine men were given death sentences. Trust me, no native man has ever been offered a five-piastre slap on the wrist for murder. Instead, we are guillotined.”
“But we have to try something, Khoi,” I said, unable to hide my frustration, my disappointment.
“What we have been trying,” said Khoi as he paced the length of his living room, “is to help the men on these plantations live slightly better lives. We are carrying on Sinh’s legacy without harming anyone except for Michelin. They harmed Sinh, we harm them by slowly taking their business in Indochine out of their hands. We ruin Victor’s career and we send him and his helpful little wife back to France, disgraced.”
“They don’t seem anxious to sail,” I said. “I think she had far too much fun on your boat.”
“I thought she looked rather green and discouraged when she disembarked.”
“We’ll see,” I said grumpily. “I think you need to remember that that family killed Sinh, Khoi. At the very least, they put him in a position to be killed. Victor included.”
“I know, Marcelle. I know,” said Khoi, collapsing next to me. “But we can’t kill this man, too.”
I didn’t know that I could not kill Paul Adrien. Sitting there with him at the Sun Café in Haiphong, I’d believed that I could. I felt very capable of such a thing.
“I think,” said Khoi slowly, “that what I want more than anything is to speak to him. I think I was so desperate to find him because I want to look at him. I want to talk to him. I want to see how he reacts when I mention Cao Sinh. I need to know if he delighted in shooting him or if he was just paid to do it.”
“How do you know he would even speak to you? Maybe you’re just another useless mite to him. Maybe the name Cao Sinh won’t even mean anything to him,” I countered.
“Maybe. But maybe not.”
I thought of the man I’d drunk a whiskey with. I had no idea what he was and was not capable of. Men at rest were very different from men in the throes of chaos.
“You’ve never voiced this to me before—why?” I asked Khoi, reaching for a glass bottle of water that was nearby and drinking half of it down.
“Because I knew you wouldn’t agree, Marcelle,” said Khoi, exhaling loudly. He stood and moved away from me. “But I’ve realized that Sinh, being the consummate diplomat, the very good man that he was, with not one revengeful bone in his body, this is what he would want from me. He would want me to ask questions. He would want me to ask why.”
“I don’t agree. I think he would want us to try something official. Through the right channels,” I said again, crossing my arms and lying on the couch the way Anne-Marie used to.
“Marcelle, think for a minute,” Khoi said, watching me. “You know as well as I do that the French will do nothing. Especially not without Sinh’s family involved. ‘Who is he to you,’ that’s what they’ll say. He wasn’t even your lover. He was a friend. Your native acquaintance, they’ll think.”
“If Sinh’s father would lead the charge…” I said, my words fading.
“But he won’t, for the umpteenth time, Marcelle!” Khoi shouted. “It is frustrating, but he just won’t do anything to jeopardize his position. He is more French, more assimilated, than many French-born. He is far worse than I ever was.”
“You were never, despite what Anne-Marie and Sinh used to say to you, assimilated.”
“Yes, I was! I still am. Don’t you see it?” He trained his eyes on me. “Even