I smiled at the smooth, oval face of the girl who was employed as my personal servant. She was thin as paper and startlingly beautiful, her body managing to curve in the places that mattered, despite her slight size. When we were introduced in front of the house just that morning, I assumed she spoke almost no French. I had assumed wrong.
In the six hours that Victor, Lucie, and I had been in Hanoi, I’d already realized that I had incorrectly assumed many things about the country and its people. Or perhaps they were just described to me incorrectly by Victor’s friends in Paris.
“At this time of year, they start to bloom everywhere,” Trieu continued. “Even if there are no trees near, the smell is so strong throughout the city that it’s as if they are growing in your own garden. Do you like it?”
She moved to the window, the skirt of her white ao ngu than, which was cut straight but slit high on either side, floating up behind her, a striking contrast to the black pants she wore underneath. She leaned forward and pushed the glass pane wide open. The wind responded by blowing in, and she breathed in slowly, moving her hands like a circulating fan to waft the smell closer to her face.
“I like it very much,” I said, still surprised by her outgoing demeanor and perfect French.
“I will cut some and place them on your dressing table this afternoon. There are two trees that should be flowering in the far end of the garden,” she said as she walked back to the bed. “They might not be fully open yet, but they can bloom here in your room.” She unlatched the last of my trunks and continued folding my clothes, spraying them with floral perfume and placing them in the room’s deep closet.
Victor had said that Annamite women were docile. Meek, he’d said. Do not expect the servants to speak more than a few courteous phrases to you, he’d advised. Just thank them and say no more. Do not wish them to become your friends or confidantes. They are employees; you are the employer. Their behavior will reflect that arrangement. But since we had arrived at our house in Hanoi that morning and Victor had left me alone with my servant, Trieu had not ceased talking, seemingly delighted to walk me through all three stories of the beautiful house. She had even chased Lucie down a hallway with Lucie’s own servant, Cam, while the late-afternoon sunlight danced across the floor with them, following their laughter like tagalong children.
“When do the flowers die?” I asked Trieu as she motioned for me to sit in the intricately carved ebony chair at my dressing table.
“In December. By your new year they’ll be gone. By our new year in February, Tet Nguyen Da, you won’t even be able to remember the smell,” she said. “They are not a cold-weather flower, so you must enjoy them now. Tomorrow, if you have a moment, walk around Ho Hoan Kiem, the lake,” she said, gesturing to the dark blue water just three hundred yards from our house. “They are the prettiest when they lean toward the water, and something about the wet breeze awakens them earlier there than in the rest of the city. Close to Kiem, they should be nearing full bloom already.”
She took a silver hairbrush off the table and started to brush my straight blond hair, placing a hand on the top of my head to keep it still.
I turned back to look at her, but she kept her eyes steady on the mirror. “Oh, no, thank you, but that’s not necessary,” I protested. We had servants in Paris, but physically they always kept their distance. They never touched me unless I asked them to, never locked eyes with me, let their gaze linger, or raised their voices. I could already tell that it was different in Indochine.
“It is necessary,” she said, her voice still light and friendly. “You will dine at the Officers’ Club, I am sure of it. The French always do on their first night. You will have to wear your hair like this,” she said, holding up a strand and folding it in waves. “I will use the tool.”
She went to the bathroom and brought back the iron rod that I had never learned to handle well, preferring to wear my shoulder-length hair straight