sorry. I understand your hatred for that overseer. For the whole Michelin family. If I were—”
“For Michelin! How self-centered can you possibly be?” she said, stepping closer to me. “Actually, don’t bother with an answer. I’ve seen it for myself.”
It was awful to think about having been watched with such judgment all these months. It was almost as nauseating as the rest of her actions. Suddenly, the beautiful yellow house that I so adored felt like it was a glass house, completely transparent.
“That man, that company, killed my brother,” she spat out. “But my world has been much bigger than that for years. I don’t just hide inside like you and think about myself all day. I think about my people, my country. Because this is my country. Not yours.”
“Trieu, I’m not even—”
“Yes, I know. You’re not even French. You can be whatever it is that you are, but I am Annamite. I am Northern. And I am going to help lead this country when we finally rid it of the foreign pest. Rid it of you.”
“You and the communist party.”
“Yes,” she said with pride. “It is a place for women. And I suppose the party really has your family to thank for my loyalty. You all brutally killed my brother and I learned to control my anger through political agitation.”
“And aren’t you lucky to have Marcelle’s money to pay your dues,” I countered, leaning back on the wall.
“I am lucky,” she said quietly. “And as she is far more generous than your husband, I’m doing much more than paying my dues. You believed my life was a simple one. I was just a peasant sweeping your floors and powdering your nose. But I am so much more. Our cells are multiplying, and some of that is thanks to me. Your simple servant girl.”
I looked at her beautiful face, and suddenly felt a strange pang that I would never see it again.
“Trieu. Is that your real name?” I asked.
“No,” she said, glaring at me.
“What is it, then?”
“It’s Hoa,” she said proudly. “Like the flower.”
I nodded, closing the door quietly behind me.
THIRTY-FOUR
Jessie
November 20, 1933
I looked up at Khoi’s dazzling white house and blinked. It was truly a storybook place, especially in the late-afternoon light. Lanh had driven off, as I’d asked him to. When I felt brave enough, I started to knock on the front door. Loudly.
No one came, but Trieu had said she was sure Marcelle was there. She had to be watching me.
I went around the side of the house, remembering the large doors in the back.
I stopped when I saw the chair where I’d been sitting with the indigène woman the night of Khoi’s party. The blood on her arms, her bare skin, it had all seemed so real to me. But it wasn’t.
The back doors weren’t open, but they were made of glass. I would be impossible to ignore.
Suddenly, I thought about how many opportunities there had been to poison me. Trieu, of course, had access to me every day, and I’d grown very fond of the morning tea she served me, but there was also Marcelle. I thought of the cigarettes she had handed me when we’d been together, the opium we’d smoked prepared by Khoi’s servants. Trieu certainly had not acted alone.
I heard a sound that broke my reverie. Marcelle was at the glass doors, looking out at me. She slowly opened them and stepped out but didn’t approach me. I ran to her before she could go back inside.
“I’m sorry to come here,” I said, panting, my eyes moving rapidly back and forth. “I’m just so sick. I’m … I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Come,” she said, gesturing to the pool, which was still uncovered despite the recent cooler temperatures. “Lie back here,” she said, sitting down on one of the chaise longues. “You’ll feel better.”
I shook my head, kicked off my shoes, and sat by the pool, putting my bare feet in the water.
She looked at me oddly, then sat next to me, keeping her body away from the edge. She leaned back on her arms and watched me. I wish I knew the last things she’d said to me as a friend. But I never would. After today, I would never see her again.
“I was out of town, and I, I’m not sure why but I started to feel so ill. I didn’t know where to go.” I threw myself to the ground and swatted at the sky.