standing together, I heard the water running in the tub. Cam must have been listening and started it straightaway.
When Lucie was immersed in the warm water, her servant cleaning her, I switched to English to keep our conversation private. Intimate.
“We will be meeting your father’s cousin Roland and his family in Vinh, so you will have to be very polite and well behaved. No shouting out in Annamese or talking about opium pipes. Okay?”
Lucie smiled at Cam as she scrubbed her arm with a thick pink bar of soap.
“Lucie, did you hear me?” I asked, trying to fight through the familiar pounding that had begun in my head. Lucie was not the problem in our family. I was, and my body seldom let me forget it.
She looked at me and nodded.
“Best behavior,” I said.
“You’re not allowed to speak English to me when we are on best behavior,” she rightly pointed out.
“I’m well aware,” I said, rubbing my eyes, which were still heavy.
I sat with Lucie as she finished her bath, letting her fill me in on the last four days. Perhaps I had made some wrong decisions in my life, but crashing into Victor’s world was a brilliant one. Without it, I would never have had Lucie. Victor was right. The brave, decisive Jessie who kissed a perfect stranger in the Tuileries gardens needed to be found again.
An hour later, the whole family was dressed, starched, powdered, and settled in the car, Victor and I acting as if it were just another routine family trip.
When we arrived at the station, the stationmaster, a wiry, energetic man, greeted us, along with a porter, who took my bag from me. It was the one with the broken handle, which I’d grabbed in a hurry. I pointed it out quietly, not wanting to give Victor another reason to question my behavior, and Lucie quickly jumped in and explained to the porter in Indochinese that he had to be careful with it.
He nodded politely before the stationmaster barked at him and hurried off with all of our bags.
Once inside, Victor paid off the stationmaster so he would leave us alone; then we headed to the benches in the waiting area farthest from the entrance. The station was jammed with people.
“This is the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” Victor murmured in annoyance. He turned sideways so a group of native men could pass.
Lucie hovered by the benches, not sitting down even as Victor and I did. I realized it was because she didn’t want to wrinkle her dress.
“We have a very long train journey ahead of us,” I reminded her, gesturing to the spot next to me. Lucie nodded and was about to sit when she was suddenly struck by a young boy who had rushed toward us. She tumbled back, her body slamming into the wooden bench. I reached out for her as Victor spun around.
“Careful, boy!” Victor yelled. The youngster was a shoeblack who had been coming after Victor’s expensive brogues. Victor angrily swatted him on the back with his newspaper.
The boy grinned, ignoring Lucie and me, and suggested a shine, holding up his brush and pointing at Victor’s shoes.
“After this!” Victor shouted, gesturing to frightened Lucie and adding a string of the few insults he knew in Annamese. “You’re lucky I don’t have you banned from the station.”
I held Lucie by the shoulders. She was looking down at her dress in horror. On the upper part of her starched white skirt was a black, checkmark-shaped swoop of shoe polish.
“Maman!” she cried, staring at the stain. “He ruined my dress,” she whispered, tears starting to flow.
“No, Lucie, no, don’t cry,” I said, hugging her, making sure to avoid the stain. “I’ll take you to wash it. We can get it out, don’t worry, chérie.” I patted her on the shoulder, but suddenly my nerves flared again in sympathy with hers. I had spent so much of my life comforting crying children, sibling after sibling, but when it was Lucie whose tears dampened my cheek, I usually shared them with her.
“Take her to the washroom,” said Victor, stroking Lucie’s head comfortingly while keeping his eyes on me. “I’ll wait here.” He gestured to the bench closest to the bathroom.
I nodded and pushed Lucie the few steps to the door.
When we were inside, and luckily alone, Lucie pulled her skirt up and looked at the mark, breathing deeply to try to stop her tears.