We’re off to Pigalle,” he said, straight-faced.
“Khoi. You can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious,” he said, grinning and pulling his hat on, too. “Well, not Pigalle exactly, but to the Eighteenth. We have a party to attend.”
“At this hour?” I asked as we walked outside, the Seine at our feet and the ornate cedar spire of Sainte-Chapelle shooting toward the sky behind us. Khoi hailed an old black taxi, and we jumped inside. “Who has a party that starts at four thirty in the morning?”
“Who said the party began at four thirty?” he countered, giving the driver the address. “It started yesterday evening. But you and I were … a bit busy,” he said, running his hand between my legs. “So I thought we’d sleep a little and catch the tail end. Or probably the middle. These parties sometimes go on for a week and only fizzle out because someone has to go to the hospital.”
“Whose party is it?” I asked as the taxi slowed down as we turned onto the rue Frochot. “Bacchus’s?”
“That’s not a terrible comparison, actually. But no. It’s Cao Van Sinh’s party. He is my brother here, as close as my real brothers. You can call him Sinh. Or brother Sinh. He’s Annamite as well, though I suppose you guessed that,” he said, grinning. “Our names haven’t really caught on en métropole.”
“No? Well, I plan on naming my firstborn Khoi.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said, taking my hand. “As for Sinh, I didn’t know him before I came to France. We met two years ago, when he moved here for university. His family is very well-off, but he managed to stay at home for his early schooling. Boys like him who live near Quoc Hoc in Hue—that’s in the protectorate of Annam, where the emperor lives—get to do that. It’s a very elite school. But he came here for university, his parents insisted. Sadly, he’s not studying economics with me. He’s learning law. Or how to break laws, if we’re being quite honest.”
“He sounds charming,” I said, trying to picture Hue on the map of Indochine that Khoi had drawn for me during an early encounter. “Why have you kept him hidden away?”
“It’s you I’ve been keeping hidden. The last thing I need is for Sinh to fall in love with you. And how could he not?” he said, squeezing my hand. “But I ran into him yesterday and he told me that he was mad for a French girl named Anne-Marie de la Chaume. A fellow student and a bit of a rabble-rouser, from how he described her. He asked me to stop over tonight to help convince her to fall in love with him.”
“Maybe you should have drunk less last night, then,” I said as we exited the taxi.
“No, I’m fine. And he will be, too. You’ll see. It’s actually very hard not to fall in love with Sinh. But please don’t. My heart couldn’t take it.”
“You do know I’m due to marry next year,” I said, instantly regretting having brought it up.
“I know,” said Khoi. “But you don’t love Arnaud. And I won’t love my wife either. This,” he said, touching my heart, “will always exist for us.”
Hand in hand, we walked inside the building and took the little elevator to the top floor. We could hear the noise from the party growing louder as we climbed higher.
“Don’t the neighbors complain about the noise?” I asked, the music playing from the phonograph perfectly audible before we even knocked on the door.
“The neighbors? I’m sure they’re all here, and intoxicated,” he said, not bothering to knock.
I hesitated to walk inside the large apartment, something I had done very few times in my life. But I had never seen a party quite like the one that was suddenly playing out in front of me.
“Where is Sinh?” I asked after a moment. Khoi pointed to the couch.
I looked and saw a slim Annamite man folded around the body of a girl, in passionate embrace.
“Anne-Marie?” I asked, smiling.
“Who knows!” said Khoi, laughing. “But let’s find out.”
A Frenchman in a smart suit was standing next to me. It took me a moment to realize that the pants were three inches too high on his ankles, and there was a small monkey, wearing a purple sweater and matching knit hat, perched on his shoulder. I inched away, moved through the group of bodies, trying to attach myself to Khoi. When we reached Sinh, Khoi slapped him on the back with