indoors. It was loud and chaotic, and there was not a face like mine to be seen.
I tried to drink my second whiskey slowly but drained it in a matter of minutes and received a third from the man without even asking.
Feeling slightly numb, I was finally able to sip instead of gulp, mindlessly spinning my emerald ring on my finger. It was something I often did to soothe myself.
There was no trace of the scent of hoa sua flowers here, no one in formal clothes, and only a few cars tried to inch through. Instead there were barefoot children running around, women in conical straw hats or with rags on their heads pouring out buckets of brown water, men with greasy gray hair hurrying here and there with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths, and a few establishments, like Café Mat Troi, that catered to them. I thought about how strange it was that this world apart existed just a twenty-minute drive from my new home. It was also odd that the policeman wanted to meet Victor in such a neighborhood, but perhaps he was patrolling it. What did I know of life here yet?
“Are you lost?” I heard a voice say to me in perfect French. I looked up to find a Caucasian man in a three-piece cotton suit staring at me with interest. I had not expected anyone to speak to me except the man I was meeting, and my pulse quickened at the sight of him. “It’s five blocks that way,” he said, pointing. I looked in the direction he was gesturing, where the street seemed to grow even narrower and more packed with willowy Indochinese bodies.
“What is?” I asked.
“Luong-Vuong,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Pour le chandoo.” He looked at the nearly empty glass on my table and repeated the word “chandoo.”
“I’m not looking for Luong-Vuong,” I replied. I tried to sound as if I knew what he was referring to, even though I hadn’t the faintest idea. “I’m just enjoying a drink.”
He shrugged. “You don’t have to keep it a secret here, my dear. These people don’t care.” He waved at the Annamites around us, none of whom were looking at us, and then quickly left, hopping in a rickshaw just a few steps away.
“C’est quoi Luong-Vuong?” I asked my waitress, who I hoped spoke enough French to understand me.
“Une fumerie d’opium,” she replied, barely looking at me. “Chandoo c’est l’opium. Et Luong-Vuong est une fumerie très connue.”
She ran her hand over my table with a rag and then took a few piastres off the table next to me, which was leaning askew, one of its legs broken. Luong-Vuong was an opium den. That man thought I was going to smoke opium, chandoo, at 10:57 in the morning. I wondered what exactly about my appearance gave him that grim impression.
“It’s why a French will walk down this street,” the waitress added, as if sensing my confusion. “Not why you here?”
“Me?” I said, looking up at her. Why was I on this street? Because I was helping Victor. Because I had made a life for myself supporting my husband. Because my old life was something I could never return to. And perhaps most importantly, because I spent countless hours thinking of my childhood self and how I didn’t want to disappoint her. But perhaps opium was an easier explanation.
I looked down at my watch, wondering if it was eleven yet, when I heard a car engine roaring. It grew louder, and I turned to see a large black Citroën making its way down the street, forcing people to press against the buildings so it could get by. It slowed just one door past the café, in front of a run-down row house with light blue walls and faded, peeling shutters. It jolted to a halt, and the back door, the one closest to the café, was flung open. A French policeman in a black uniform with bright gold buttons and a wide belt emerged and banged on the roof of the car.
I stood up quickly and smiled at him, giving a friendly wave, as he wasn’t expecting a woman. The front doors of the Citroën opened, and two more officers, one French, one native, climbed out. The Annamite policeman walked around to open the other back door before soundlessly dragging a man out of it. Wearing only a black stretch of cloth tied around his lower half, the man wasn’t putting up a fight. He wasn’t moving