when Paul came since he was only expecting me. We could not do anything that would make him change his mind, to refuse to join me.
“Who is that?” Paul said, suddenly alert, as he watched Khoi walk over to us.
“That is Nguyen Khoi,” I said.
“Sinh’s family?” Paul asked.
“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “His brother.”
When Khoi was next to us, Paul put out his hand in greeting, but Khoi just bowed his head and sat down. It was the first time I had ever seen Khoi let emotion reign over politesse.
“You’ll talk, I’ll listen,” said Khoi. “And then if I think you merit it, I’ll talk, and you’ll listen, so you can get to know the man you killed.”
“Yes … if that’s what—”
“I need to know, in every detail, what happened on the last day of Sinh’s life,” Khoi said. “Perhaps that will help to stop the bleeding of our hearts.”
“Or perhaps it will make it worse,” I added. But to my surprise, I realized this was what I wanted, too. I needed to know as much as Khoi did.
“This may not make any sense, or any difference,” Paul said after we were all quiet for a moment, “but I have thought of your brother Sinh every day since he died. Since I killed him. If there was one thing that I could change in my life, it would be that day. It would be that decision to pull the trigger.”
Khoi looked my way and locked eyes with me for a moment, a small acknowledgment between us, that this man, as Khoi had guessed, was merely the executioner, not the one who decided the death sentence. That had been the Michelins.
“But why, then? Why would you do such a thing? Did he attack someone like we were told? It’s just not possible,” I said. “The investigation indicated that he had, that you shot him because of his aggression, but Sinh, he did not have aggression in him.”
Paul nodded his head, but I couldn’t tell if he was doing it out of respect or agreement. “After Monsieur Sinh was arrested,” Paul said, moving his hands nervously on the table, “which happened as soon as he came off the boat, after his trunks and suitcases were inspected, he was detained in a holding cell alone for several hours, with me watching guard. Nothing went wrong then. He was very quiet. He sat on the ground, he tried to sleep. He was tired, frustrated perhaps, but not angry. But when he was released—and I only know this because I escorted him from the holding cell to an office—he was informed by my superior that the French government had banned him from ever returning to France because he was now accused of spreading communist thought. And, they noted, his French ‘friend’ was never allowed to come to the colony. That friend was a woman, I imagined.”
“Banned from ever seeing each other,” I said quietly. “We were told that, too.”
“It is not uncommon for political prisoners to be banned from returning to France,” said Paul. “I saw it happen many times, for less than what your brother had done.”
“But no one really cared about his political leanings,” Khoi said quietly. “Not enough to grant that fate. What they cared about was that the man in question, Cao Sinh, was sleeping with a daughter of the Michelin family. Un homme Asiatique, a rich French girl, and a family reputation coupled with extreme racism—those were his crimes.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Paul, his jaw tightening. “I didn’t know that she was part of the Michelin family. The girl they banned from Indochine.”
“And now you do,” I said angrily. “Did you think it was just a lovely twist of fate that you were given this comfortable post by the Michelins? What they’re doing is rewarding you for killing someone.”
“I did think it was fate, yes,” said Paul. “But I see that I was wrong.”
“Where else did you go wrong?” asked Khoi, his voice rising. “Where else did you slip? Was killing Sinh an order or an accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident,” said Paul. “It was an order. But it was the wrong order. My superior, a man named Desroches, he was the one who told Cao Sinh that he could never go back to France. And that the girl could never come to the colony. After he spat those words, your brother lunged at him. He did, I suppose, attack him. But he was unarmed. And he was a smaller