from rising up. After what happened in December, that is imperative. I don’t know what you read from this,” he said, patting the folder, “but you should already know that.”
“I did know that,” I said. “But it’s helpful to be reminded,” I added honestly.
He nodded. “You’re always a wonderful vehicle for change, Jessie, and you have helped me realize that I’ve been complacent in my career. Relying on my bloodline to keep me afloat but not taking it as far as I can. If I succeed in those two tasks, I think we can have a very nice life.”
“I will do anything in my power to help you,” I said earnestly. Victor’s success mattered even more to me than it did to him.
“Good.” He turned for the door. “But please don’t read my papers,” he said without looking back at me.
After that day, I’d felt Victor watching me. When we were alone together, his eyes gave off electricity. I’d felt it when we first met. He would track me, not out of suspicion but out of lust. Now he tracked me out of something else. It felt like suspicion at first, but I realized that it was just contemplation. He was wondering at times who this wife of his was.
When we’d reached Indochine, excitement had replaced the discomfort of that day. But as I looked at the papers again now, my eyes sought the same word on the same water-stained paper. “Primitive.” I flipped the page, not liking the way that word turned my stomach. I was now reading a 1927 report of the Michelin plantations, done by an inspector named Delamarre on behalf of the colonial government. At the top was written “Extremely Confidential.”
I loosened my grip, afraid to wrinkle the pages, and started to read, but nearly dropped everything when I heard a sound at the door.
“Jessie.”
Victor’s voice broke me out of my state. Every fiber in my being stood on end as if I’d just been thrown into a frozen lake.
I looked up at him. He didn’t look angry, just surprised.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice still calm.
He looked at the exact sheet of paper I was holding.
“I thought you were traveling to the plantations today,” I said helplessly.
“Yes. I am,” he said, watching my nervous movements. “But I’m taking the evening train. I received a phone call this morning and was advised to stay in Hanoi through the afternoon as there’s an important meeting that I should attend. Informal but important. The government man I met with this morning suggested it.”
He watched as I struggled with the clip, trying to make the papers look like I had when I found them. I bent the top page accidentally, smoothed it, and started the process over again.
“Let me,” said Victor, reaching out for the papers. He took them gently out of my grasp, placed them in the first drawer, closed it, and locked it with the little silver key. This time, he put the key in his pocket.
I turned away from him and began to walk back into the bedroom, but he caught me by the shoulder.
“Jessie. This is a complicated business. You know that. But I’m here now. I’m going to try to make our plantations both lucrative and peaceful. That’s what I said on the boat, remember?”
“Of course,” I said, relaxing under his touch.
“The men my family has put at the helm, as plantation directors, Theurière at Dau Tieng and Soumagnac at Phu Rieng, they’re an engineer and a military man respectively. I’ve never met them, but my guess is that while they are certainly intelligent, they might lack compassion and economic know-how, the kind that I gained from working with André all these years. All this,” he said, pointing to the stack of papers, “is just an attempt to educate myself about what I’m walking into. Our company isn’t perfect, but we are trying. And succeeding. We’re still turning a profit, more than any other plantation in Indochine. So I don’t want to change that. I want to improve upon it. And avoid a repeat of 1927, when the French overseer was murdered by the coolies, and 1930, and last year.”
I felt very silly. We had spoken at length about the three coolies who had been shot at the end of last year, the very unfortunate result of 1,200 coolies stomping in anger past a guard on the edge of Dau Tieng plantation. Michelin had reduced their rice allocation by a hundred grams