Forty-eight hours isn’t a lot of time. And even with a judicious dose of Nozee to postpone sleep, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to track down Annelise. Women are always harder to find than men. My wife always used to say it was because they don’t have the same itching need to break cover and do something heroic. Women can out-wait you, biding their time buried in the writhing shantytown masses for years.

But I knew from my experience in the House of the Enamorates that a woman like Annelise would probably not go unnoticed. If she were anything like the other inhabitants of that strange place, she’d stick out a mile. On the other hand, the picture Sanita had ported over to my palm top was disconcerting.

Annelise Tanasal was – there was no other way to put it – plain. You could see her mixed Dutch-Chinese-Indonesian heritage in the colouring and the shape of her face. Long, very straight dark hair and almond shaped eyes definitely tagged her as part Asian, but her eyes were an uncomfortable olive colour and she had a saddle of freckles over her cheeks and nose that spoiled her complexion. She had a pleasant smile, but her slightly crooked teeth marred it. I gauged her to be close to 40, although her file said younger. Maybe she just had unfortunate genes. It was only a head and shoulders shot, but I guessed her to be a little on the rolly-polly side. With all the predictive software and genetic correction available, I was surprised her parents had left her that way, or that the house of the Enamorates hadn’t paid for some cosmetic readjustment.

After I helped Lim bag up the body, I ran into Sanita at the front door and asked her about it.

“She’s not exactly what I expected,” I said, holding up my palmtop screen.

Sanita raised her eyebrows. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know… If I was going to pony up the kind of money you people charge, I guess I’d expect something a little more…”

“Perfect?” There was a sneer in her words. “Physically attractive?”

“Yeah.”

She exhaled in that way that let me know she thought I was a moron. “That’s not what we sell here, Mr. Martinez. Our clients have all the physical perfection that money can buy at their fingertips. And it doesn’t take a lot of money to get it. They want what’s rare. Enamoratas are rare, physically and emotionally. We strongly discourage them from changing themselves in any way.”

This bitch wasn’t going to give me any help at all. That much was clear. I was already mentally checking off my contacts in the skin business and wondering where the hell to begin my search.

“Well,” I said, staring at the face on the screen, “I wouldn’t fuck her.”

“Mr. Martinez,” Sanita said, with an ice-cold smile, “you’re a man with a very limited imagination.”

I shrugged. She was right enough – I didn’t get any of it. For me, women either got in your face or they didn’t. They were either easy to get along with or they weren’t. They’d either purchased the sort of tits that gave you a hard on or they hadn’t. Ultimately, I figured most men just settled for what was comfortable and worked for them, and that most women did the same. There was no point in pairing up with anyone unless it was financially advantageous to both parties. And truth be told, I hadn’t had much of an urge to spend a lot of time with anyone since my wife died. She’d been smart, sexy and possessed of a wicked sense of irony. In the heady and hectic days when I had worked for BettCorp, I could always rely on her to make good decisions when I was too busy to make them myself. I missed her.

That didn’t mean I’d been celibate. I had my favorite hook-up joints and every so often I’d pop a few stimulants and go down there looking for a little flesh trouble. Of course, you can’t expect the pick of the crop once you’re over 40 and self-employed. I guess I could have made an effort and bought some juvination treatment myself, but I was lazy about it.

Attraction-wise, I’ve always gone for small, willowy and blonde. Luckily it was a popular look, so it was never too hard to find someone who rang my bell. There was a ravenous little Icelandic number who sometimes turned up at the Belleview lounge. Katja was sylph-like and sleek. She had this trick of wrapping her long, almost silver hair around my cock when she stroked me, so her grip would feel slippery and dry at the same time. I’ve always been a sucker for that sort of goodwill gesture.

Then there was Miyomi. She was Jap by birth, but had blonded her genes. I liked the combo of all that flowing golden hair and heavily epicanthic folds on her eyes. She was all about keeping up with the Joneses and had had something done to her cunt that made it feel like it was sucking you off as you fucked her. But she had this irritating squeak when she got close to coming that always made me think I was boning a rubber duck. It was distracting.

Well, you can’t have everything.

After Lim headed off to the airport, I sat a while in my hydrocel with the windows rolled down and let night breeze keep me awake while the Nozees kicked in. I stared at the pic a little longer and then jacked my palmtop into the vehicle screen and did a little digging.

Enamorates services were purchased by private auction, but there were always gossipy society feeds that covered that sort of thing in vague detail. Michael Bettencourt’s transaction had made some waves, but it had been almost a year earlier. He’d purchased her for a year? That was a bit of a surprise and I tried to get my head around what it must have cost to do it. I had assumed that you hired one of these people on a temporary basis. But if he’d been seeing her for a year, I could see how things might have gotten a little complicated.

My muscles began to ping as the sythnenalin hit my bloodstream and my stomach was grumbling. I headed down to Chinatown and found a seat at the 100 Lucky Coins all night noodle and dumpling joint. Lee, the owner, slid a steaming bowl of mee in front of me and looked over my shoulder at the photograph on my palmtop.

“Your sister?”

“Nah.”

“Hmm. Too bad.”

“Enamorata. I’m looking for her.”

“You’ve come up in the world!’

“No. It’s a job. She iced a guy and did a runner.”

Lee shook his head gravely. “Those people are crazy.”

“Where do crazy people go?” I asked, more a joke than a question.

But Lee pondered the question anyway. “Malacca?’

“Why Malacca?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But if I were crazy and needed to hide, I’d go to Malacca. They run that freetrain down there for the tourists. It’s always crowded. Everyone is crazy in Malacca.”

I considered for a moment. I’d been thinking of heading out to the suburban slums and asking a few of the people I knew who dealt with immigrant labour. They processed the Burmese and Nepalese who paid for papers and a better life in KL and Singapore. But Lee was right. I was still thinking of this woman as skin trade and that was the wrong way to see it.

Through the branches of the tamarind trees, the light played dappled games with the surface of the pool at the Cercle Sportif. Children paddled in the shallow end, supervised by nervous nannies who were hardly old enough to bear children themselves and certainly could not swim. The French denizens of Saigon reclined in their ornate wrought iron chairs, sighed in satiation and considered a nap in the glowering heat of the day.

Heraud and Bec sat opposite each other, absently probing the spaces between their teeth with toothpicks.

“I noticed you had a cosy little chat with that idiot priest this morning after mass,” said Bec.

Heraud snapped the toothpick in half and tossed it in the ashtray. “Father Jean-Pierre? Oh, he’s alright.”

“He’s a sanctimonious prick.”

“True. But have you ever met a priest who wasn’t?”

Bec considered the question. “I have, but not here. The Outre-Mer seems to attract the most pernicious of them. So… what did you talk about?”

“The Souchet bitch.”

Bec pursed his lips. His friend’s hatred of la Belle Madame had grown so rabid in the last month that, if pressed, Bec would have guessed he had the hots for her. “Oh, really? What did our good Father have to say?”

“Nothing. Apparently, not only is she an opium addict and a communist, but she’s also an atheist.”

Bec stifled a laugh. “Aren’t atheists and communists somewhat synonymous?”

Heraud clicked his tongue in dismissal. “She’s a disgrace to this community! She gives the French here a bad name. She’s a terrible example to the Viets.”

“Oh, really? How so, my friend?” He was a bore when he got like this, Bec thought. He would never say it, however. Michel Heraud was not a man possessed of a sense of humour about himself.

Bending forward and stabbing his finger on the marble-topped table, Heraud hissed: “We have a solemn obligation to help these people aspire to real civilization! But that woman…that despicable woman indulges in their lowest habits!”

“Despicable!” repeated Bec, erupting into open laughter. “After all, she should be using them for whores like you and I do!”

Heraud stiffened and glared at his luncheon companion. “Shut up you fat bastard. That’s entirely different. We’re men. And the natives…well, it’s not like they actually possess any morals anyway.”

Realizing that he’d offended his friend, Bec did his best to wipe the smile of his face. “Of course, dear Michel. It is as you say. Just as you say. She’s despicable.”

“Yes! She is!”

“How many hectares does she have?”

“20,000 at Thu Duc alone.”

“Despicable,” Bec repeated. “And she smokes opium?”

“Smoke it? My dear Bec, she’s a complete addict. Everyone knows!”

“Father Jean-Pierre told you this?”

The plump man shifted in his seat. “No. I heard that from another source.”

“But you told the priest…”

For a fleeting moment, Heraud appeared hesitant. Then he straightened his back and adopted a self-righteous smugness. “Of course I did. It was my duty to do it. We can’t have totally unsupervised French women behaving in that manner! It has to be stopped.”

Bec narrowed his eyes, considering his friend. Of course, Heraud had been out here too long. He was not entirely sane, but who was after a few years in a place like this? Nonetheless, when Michel Heraud set his mind to something, he generally got what he wanted and that, in Bec’s estimation, was the important thing. The land that Claire Souchet was sitting on was deep red earth – the very best for growing rubber. If they could effect her removal and divide the land up amongst themselves, Bec was more than willing to let Heraud find a way to do it.

The only thing that gave him pause for concern was Heraud’s maniacal fixation on the woman’s morals. There was very little the priest could do if Claire Souchet was an opium fiend. And it wasn’t as if the police could do much about it either – she was hardly the only French citizen in Saigon with that particular weakness. The current public outcry regarding the dangers of its consumption was something of a joke: the colonial government itself was commissioning and supervising both the cultivation of poppies and the refining of their essence, right down the street from where they were sitting, for considerable profit.

“Don’t let your dick get in the way, Heraud,” said Bec, with unaccustomed severity.

The man sitting opposite slowly turned an alarming shade of purple. “What the fuck do you mean?”

Bec sighed and lit a Gauloises. “You know what I mean, mon ami. Keep your cock out of this adventure. I don’t give a shit one way or another about Mme Souchet. I just want her land.”

“Fuck you.” spat Heraud. “I wouldn’t poke that diseased cunt for all the tea in China.”

“Or all the rubber in Saigon?” Bec smirked, and called a waiter over. “Would you like tea, or shall we have something stronger?”

I should tell you that I resisted, shouldn’t I? That when Etienne pushed me to the foot of the bed and pressed my body into the mattress with his own, I struggled or fought or at least protested? I wish I could say I did, but I won’t allow myself that dishonesty.

The caress on my cheek had been tender, the kiss had been passionate, but what followed was, somehow, a battle of sorts.

The shear weight of his body on mine made me writhe and arch upwards to confirm that delicious feeling of entrapment. I could not help myself. My fingers entangled in his hair, I pulled him down, kissing him as if I were underwater and would suffocate without his mouth on mine.

But Etienne met my passion with something that grew increasingly stranger: for every rock of my hips, for every devouring kiss, was echoed with a rising savagery, until his hand was at the hem of my wrinkled, slept-in dress. Instead of moving off me to raise it, or allowing me to remove it myself, he wrenched at it with such force that, finally, the seam ripped, stuttering as the stitching came away. Above me, Etienne exhaled a satisfied groan when my bare skin touched his. He grasped my thigh with bruising purpose and pulled it up.

I would have happily removed my clothes, eagerly spread my legs… but I sensed that was not what he wanted. My acquiescence only seemed to make him angry.

He pulled away from my kiss and stared at me, searching for something – I didn’t know what – in my face, while below, his hand wormed between us to search for underclothes that were not there.

“You have no shame,” he growled as he probed my wetness with his fingers.

It wasn’t a question. I did indeed have shame, but the hunger was stronger. Instead, I shuddered and pushed my hips against him. I could feel his cock, hard against my bare thigh. I wanted it inside me, as deep as it would go. All I could think about was being filled. Nothing else in the world mattered.

I would not get what I wanted without payment. His free hand closed around my covered breast. The squeeze was gentle at first, but quickly became a brutal grasp. Even through the silk of my dress, I felt his fingernails dig into the skin.

Only then, only when I whined in pain and tried to squirm away, did he enter me. And then it was with a single savage thrust. So hard that it took my breath away. For a moment, feeling my bruised interior walls spasm at the shock, I could not make a sound. He lay still, hilted, shaking.

“Why?” I gasped.

He looked down at me and said nothing. Quite gently, he laid his palm on the side of my face, turned my head away from him, and began to fuck me.

Somewhere inside, I screamed as the shame flared up and burned, but the ever-present devil didn’t care that Etienne did not want to look at me. It only cared for the delicious carnality, the exquisite sensation of being penetrated, of feeling Etienne’s pubic bone grind against the tender knot of nerves above where he impaled me, breaking me open with each successive thrust.

Too quickly I felt his body start to shake. I growled in frustration at hearing his breath choke off, at feeling the heat of his seed flooding my cunt.

“No…not yet…” I knew from sex with Robert, the only man I had ever been with before, that once a man had his pleasure, it was over.

But Etienne did not withdraw. For a few moments, he lay on top of me, panting. Then he slid a hand beneath my hips and, pressing his mouth to my ear, said: “Come on, sweet Elise. Move for me. You know how.”

I rolled my hips and felt him move inside me. Slowly, sinuously, as rigid as he was before, his warm seed spilling out of me as we stirred. The hand beneath me coaxed my hips to rock in just the right way. And all at once I was panting and arching, clawing at his naked back with my hands. Every nerve in my body rang like crystal on the verge of shattering. I thrust myself upon him with reckless, shameless greed, pleasure saturated every cell, until I came. Jagged sobs ripped from my chest until the spasms passed, and became gratified whimpers.

Only when he pressed his lips to the crook of my neck and sigh, did I remember his words. I covered my face with my hand and cried.

An unfamiliar sound dragged me from my oblivion. Like the bark of a dog or a piece of wood being split. When it came again, I knew that it was a cry, louder and longer than before. My head was a sluggish river of thoughts as I slid off the bed, snatched my dressing gown and pulled it around me. The floor was wet against my bare feet. The rain had stopped but it had blown through my open window and there were puddles here and there. I unlocked my door and stepped out into the dark corridor.

Again, there was a choked, gasping sound. I stumbled down the hall, using the wall as a guide to get to the door of the guest room.

“Etienne?” I called, and knocked.

The answer came as a moan of pain. I pushed open the door and entered to find him curled on his side, under the netting, shaking and whimpering in the flickering light of his lamp.

“Dear God, what is wrong?”

“Jesus. My legs! The pain is…” He gasped and I could see he was trying to straighten one of his legs with his hands.

I pushed the netting aside and climbed onto the bed. “Cramps? Is it cramps?”

“Yes! Awful!”

I pushed him onto his back and, using the weight of my own body, pushed his right leg out of its seized position. He shrieked through his clamped jaw as I did it.

“It’s the quinine,” I said, trying to soothe him while I fought to get his other leg straightened and braced to its companion. “You’ve been taking too much. I know it hurts like hell, but it will pass.”

Etienne panted desperately through the pain. I heard his teeth grind against each other with such force I feared he’d break a few teeth.

“You need to breathe more deeply,” I said, moving over his legs and using the weight of my hips to lock his knees.

It was only then I realized he was completely naked, that my hands were braced against his bare thighs – the muscles seized and jerked beneath his skin. He was beautiful in the lamplight. Strong and lean and well muscled. His cock, perhaps his only relaxed appendage, lay dormant against the cook of his hip, nestled in a dark thicket of curls. His stomach and chest gleamed with the sweat of his pain. I could see the angry pink line of a recent scar that snaked around from his left side, just below his ribs, almost to his navel. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and the skin of his forearms was also bathed in perspiration.

“You have to sit up, Etienne, or the cramps won’t subside. You have to try and stretch the muscles as far as they’ll go. Then they’ll relax.”

“Sit up?” he gasped through a locked jaw.

“Yes. Come on, I’ll help pull you. Give me your hands.”

I shifted again and reached out my hands to his, clasping them and pulling with all my might. The sound that tore from his throat as I tugged was horrible to hear.

“There, there… you’re up.” I gripped the backs of his upper arms and pulled a little more. “Like that. Just like that.”

We sat in that strange position for what seemed like an eternity, and then I heard him exhale a long, low breath.

“Better?” I released his arms and sat back.

“Yes.” He closed his eyes and braced himself in his sitting position, the palms of his hands flattened against the mattress. “Thank you,” he added in a whisper. Then, suddenly conscious of his exposure, he reached for the twisted, damp top sheet and dragged it across his hips. “God, I can’t…I can’t apologize enough.”

I looked way, toward the window, to give him his privacy. There was, as yet, no taint of dawn in the sky, but the moon had come out and had traced the wet world in silver. “Please don’t. It’s entirely unnecessary. These things happen here. We all give up a little of our dignity.”

“But still…”

I looked back into his handsome face and smiled. “Now, listen. You need to get up and stretch your legs by walking. And the cramps are likely to come back until the excess of quinine is flushed from your body. So I have some tincture of opium and you should take a few drops in some water before you go back to sleep.

Etienne stiffened and, for an instant, I thought the cramps had come back. “Morphine?”

“Yes, morphine.”

“I can’t take it.” The words came out with such severity it surprised me.

“Can’t?”

“I won’t. I won’t take it.” He shook his head. “In the hospital, during the war, they gave me too much, and for too long. ”

“Ah, yes. I understand.” A sense of self-disgust crept up my back. How well I understood and what a hypocrite I was. “Well, in that case, perhaps a lot of brandy and some aspirin tablets?”

He nodded and smiled. For a moment, our eyes met and his smile was eclipsed by something I could not identify. He reached up and touched my cheek. The sensation paralyzed me.

“You look so much like Elise.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“It is hard not to… It’s like she isn’t gone.”

Tears welled up, blurring my vision and I shook my head. “She is. I’m not her.”

The fingers traced the curve of my cheek, then they were gone. “I know.”

Slowly, carefully, I eased my weight off Etienne’s legs and helped him swing his feet over the edge and onto the floor.

“Can you stand, do you think?”

“Of course I can stand,” he said, almost laughing, wrapping the sheet more securely around his waist.

But as he lowered his weight onto his legs, it was clear he was still in pain. Pulling one of his arms around my shoulder, I helped him take a few shuffling steps and, little by little, the pain eased and we made our way around the room a few times.

“If you can manage on your own, I’ll fetch you some brandy and aspirin.”

“Yes, yes. It’s much better, actually.”

And indeed he was standing and walking very well, but as I tried to extricate myself from his embrace, his arm tightened. Instead of letting me go, he pulled me against his body, wrapping his free arm around my waist.

That was the moment – in life there are few crystal clear moments like that – when you know that there was a before and there will be an after that can never been the same.

I did not struggle to get away. I did not turn my head when he lowered his lips and pressed them against mine. When he pushed his tongue between my lips, I parted them without hesitancy, and matched the passion of his kiss with my own.

We played a few hands of gin rummy on the terrace. At eight the wind foretelling an evening thunderstorm came up and, although it was cooler, the gusts threatened to blow the playing cards off the table.

I suggested that perhaps Etienne was tired after all his traveling and the heat, but the brandy had made him voluble. In truth, my desire for the opium pipe nagged at the edges of my resistance. Despite the drop in temperature and the breeze that whispered through the screened windows of the living room, sweat beaded my forehead. We sat opposite each other and I nursed my brandy, trying to hide the tremors in my hands.

“I noticed a photographic album on the desk in Robert’s study.”

“Yes! Would you like to see it?” I stood up on uncertain legs and went into the study to fetch it. “He bought one of those Brownie cameras the last time he was in France and became quite an avid amateur photographer. There’s a place down on Catinat Street that developed his film.”

Returning with the large black book, I handed it to Etienne. He had officer’s hands – white against the black fabric of the cover. As his fingers curled inward to open the book, a wave of dizziness took me but, as I went to sit back down, his hand caught my wrist. The gesture was so casual – so intimate and unconscious – it shocked me.

“Sit by me while I look at them. The pictures have no captions. You can explain what I’m looking at.”

My throat was dry, as if I had suddenly been entombed in salt or ice and I’d been drained of all moisture. I settled on the sofa at a little distance. He had forgotten he still held my wrist, his mind so taken up by the small, hazy images. It wasn’t until he had to turn the page that he released it.

“What is this?” he asked, pointing to a picture.

I peered at it. “Oh, that’s the funeral procession of a famous Chinese merchant. It was taken in Cholon – the Chinese market town very close to Saigon.”

“And this? How extraordinary! Look at the masks they’re wearing!”

I inhaled, then blinked to focus. “Yes… they are actors in a traditional opera. They travel around from place to place in caravans. A bit like gypsies in Europe.”

Etienne turned one of the broad cardboard pages. The wafted scent of hair oil mixed with a hint of sweat and caught in my lungs. He stared at the photographs, suddenly quiet. I glanced down and realized why.

It was a collection of images of the Moi tribe, which had territory just north of Bien Hoa. Many of the photographs were of women with bare breasts.

“The Moi,” I said, my voice hitching in the dryness of my throat. “They… well, they are natives and have different customs to the people in the towns. It’s a very complex society, very layered. A bit like ours in a way, but…different…”

“What are they doing…it looks like…”

“They’re dancing. They have ritual dances and drink a very strong wine made from rice. The cook will get you some, if you’d like…”

I could not finish. The need – the awful screaming need – flared up like a gasoline fed fire. I wanted him. God, but I wanted him: to press myself against him, to taste his skin, to graze my teeth against the side of his face, to feel his hands on me, to be devoured by him. And the despicable voice in my head – its whisper grew in volume. ‘He wants what you want. He’s a man: a man has needs, appetites, desires. He’s lonely. He misses his wife. You can pretend to be her; you can be his lost Elise. It’s what he wants…‘

The room swam around me as I stood up. The blood fed all the worst parts of me instead of those I needed. I clutched the arm of the sofa and waited for the dizziness to pass.

“What is the matter? Are you ill?”

“No, no. Just… ” I straightened up and attempted to laugh, but what emerged sounded tinny, unnatural. “Just tired I think. You will forgive me if I say goodnight and go to bed, won’t you?”

“Of course I will. Do you need me to call someone?”

He had stood and slipped a hand beneath my arm to steady me. I must have gone very pale indeed, because he wore an expression of deep concern.

But – Christ – his touch burned. The closeness of him.

I inched away, freeing myself from his solicitous contact. “Not at all,” I replied through clenched teeth. Trying, with every shred of reserve I had, to act like a rational human being. “I’ll…I’ll say good night then, Etienne.”

He step forward to kiss me on the cheek, the way any relative would, but I turned and pushed past him, feeling into the hallway and down the corridor to my room. Reaching it, I shut the door, locked it behind me, and crawled on my hands and knees to where my purse lay at the bottom of the bed. Mai had already laid out a tray with my pipe.

* * *

The thick, bitter vapours pulsed and writhed like a trapped, living thing in the depth of my lungs until I exhaled in a long, low sigh. Almost at once my body relaxed, melting into the soft feather mattress. I could not even find the will to undress, but lay there with my head propped up on a Chinese pillow, and kicked my shoes off. They thudded distantly, on someone else’s floor, in someone else’s house, in a world far away.

I felt the bruised skin of my waist glow like the numerals of a wristwatch in the dark. A circular marking of how the stars revolved around my sides. A distant rumble of thunder echoed in the timbers of the house and the rain began to soak the tiles above my head. Faintly, I remembered that the windows had been left open and the rain would come in. In my room, the breeze filtered through the screen, billowing the mosquito netting like clouds of smoke in the weak, bronze light of the oil lamp at my bedside.

I dozed, I dreamed. Of the rubber trees shaking in the storm, of their rich wet leaves sticking and slapping against one another. Of the earth drinking in the sky’s rich warm wine and taking it down into its endlessly deep belly, where the loam was dark and sweet with death.

Dominique Grimaldi was propped up against his own bar when Heraud walked in. Of course, no one ever called him Dominique, or even Monsieur Grimaldi; the Corsican owner of the La Perle Noire was generally referred to as The Pirate. Not because he had spent any significant amount of time at sea, but because he kept two versions of his menu behind the counter and would raise or lower his prices depending on the customer.

Tonight he was apparently watching two sailors play backgammon further down the long bar of his establishment. At least that is what it looked like. But Heraud suspected it far more likely he was eyeing up the nearest young mariner’s ass. Personally, Heraud had nothing against fucking ass – he just preferred it attached to a woman.

“Good evening, Heraud,” said Grimaldi.

Heraud leaned a meaty buttock on a nearby stool. “How’s it going?”

The owner shrugged dramatically. ‘It goes. What are you drinking?”

The dusty bottles nestled on shelves across the back of the bar, hid a huge crack in the mirror. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not really here for a drink.”

“Come on,” huffed the Pirate. “Have a cognac before you go upstairs. It’s rude, you know. All my best customers have at least one drink first.”

“Your cognac costs more than the fuck, you thief.”

Grimaldi sighed as if he were a dark, hairy accordion collapsing its bellows. “Go on, mon brave. Have a drink with me. I’m lonely tonight. Anyway,” he said, turning in his stool to survey the empty barroom, “all the girls are busy.”

“Jesus Christ. Why don’t you get more of them?” Heraud lifted the rest of his bulk onto the stool, motioned to the flyblown woman behind the bar and ordered a Jaquet.

“Hey! If you’re not picky, take yourself down to Cholon and you can pick up something with leprosy for half the price.”

Heraud didn’t sip the Cognac. It was far too rough for that. He knocked it back in a single swallow and wheezed at the fumes that rose back up his gullet. He tapped his glass for another.

“So… what’s the news?” asked Grimaldi.

“Nothing. Same as always.”

For a while the two men sat in silence. The sailors’ game of backgammon had become contentious and the two were muttering threats at each other over the board.

“Hey, do you know that woman Souchet?”

Grimaldi lit a cigarette and squinted through the sulfurous smoke of the dying match. “Souchet? Robert? Didn’t he kick the bucket a while back? Pity. He was a decent man. Very nice to the girls, he was. Tipped too much, but still.”

“No, you idiot. His wife.”

The Corsican kinked his neck in a gesture of ambivalence. “I don’t meet the wives, Heraud. Just the husbands.”

“What do you know about her? Come on, this town is the size of a rattrap and you know everyone.”

“Who says?” replied the owner. There was a tinge of combativeness in his voice.

Heraud watched three men descend the back stairs and occupy a table near the door of the bar. He glanced at his watch and then dug into his pocket, pulling out a tightly rolled coil of Piastres. Licking his thumb, he pulled five of them off the roll. They snapped crispy as they came free and he slapped them down onto the bar in front of the Corsican. “What do you know about her?”

“Well, well. It must be a matter of importance.” Grimaldi flattened his palm over the bills and pulled them closer, pinning them to the polished wood with his empty brandy glass. “Why don’t you go upstairs and ask for Lien. She gives good head and,” the owner sneered, “her younger sister is Madame Souchet’s housemaid.”

* * *

The girl croaked and gagged as Heraud forced his cockhead into the back of her throat. Tears ran down her cheeks and her lip was split and bleeding slightly from the slap he’d given her earlier.

“The Pirate told me you could suck,” panted Heraud. “But I see, like everything else including his prices, he exaggerates. You don’t suck, you fucking whore, you’re just a headful of rotten teeth.”

If the girl said anything, it wasn’t intelligible. She had resigned herself to having her head tugged on and off the man’s cock by the hair and was simply praying that he’d come soon.

He did, with a shudder and a grunt, and proceeded to shove Lien’s head away like a toy that no longer worked, spattering her face and chest with cum. “Finally,” he muttered. “Jesus Christ. That was beyond mediocre.”

Ignoring him, Lien reached under the rickety bed, pulled out a chamber pot and sullenly spat his ejaculate into it.

Before she could even look up, the back of his hand had connected with her cheek. It snapped her head back, compromising her balance, and sent her sprawling sideways onto the floor.

“Fuck! You yellow bitches are such pigs. You have no manners at all,” he growled. He stuffed his cock back into his trousers and buttoned up his fly.

Lien didn’t cry. She inched away from Heraud and brought her hands up to her face, protecting herself from another blow.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Heraud took a fistful of her hair and dragged her to her feet by it, then pushed her onto the bed. “Look at me. Look at me and listen carefully.”

The girl began to whimper, which added to his impatience. He raised his hand to hit her again and she cringed.

“You want another?”

“No, monsieur,” whispered Lien.

“Then stop blubbering and look at me.”

With a face burdened by both fear and loathing, Lien turned her face towards Heraud. She didn’t look at him straight on, but rather with a wary, sideways glance.

“Your sister works for Madam Souchet, doesn’t she?”

Lien sucked on her bleeding lip and nodded.

“And what does she do there?”

“I…I don’t really know.”

Heraud, who still had a grip on a generous hank of the girl’s long black mane, gave it a sharp tug. “She’s a housemaid, you lying little cunt.”

“Yes, monsieur. Yes. She’s the housemaid.”

It was by this method Heraud discovered that, if his own countrymen and women enjoyed indulging in a little gossip, the Saigonese fairly reveled in it. By the end of his visit, there was very little Heraud did not know about the plantation, the house and the private life of Claire Souchet, including the fact that her brother-in-law had just arrived from France.

Perhaps with the right incentive, mused Heraud, pushing the whore face first over the side of the bed and unbuttoning his trousers again, Madame Souchet might be persuaded to go back to France with her relative.

The day had cooled a little, but it was still very hot, and I knew that, for those recently arrived from cooler climes, this made eating difficult. The cook had prepared us a very simple dinner. Iced tomato and cucumber salad, and then chicken with mushrooms and rice, cooked in a clay pot – one of M. Chin, the cook’s, specialties. A Chinese dish that seems to suit the French palate well.

We ate out on the upper verandah to catch as much evening breeze as possible, and I encouraged Etienne to remove his jacket when he remarked that there was very little breeze to be had.

For my part, it was perhaps the first time in many months that I actually tasted my food. For a long time I had simply eaten to live, paying little attention to how the dishes tasted. Perhaps because I was concerned for him, I noted that everything was very well seasoned but that the casserole was a little too heavily salted. Nevertheless, the salt would do Etienne no harm in this heat.

We ate without speaking, but occasionally I glanced up from my plate to see Etienne looking at me in a curious manner. Each time, when our eyes met, he quickly looked away. Finally, as Lan cleared the main course, I felt compelled to speak.

“Are you well, Etienne?”

“Certainly.” His reply was abrupt.

“Are you certain? It seems as if there is something on your mind.” It was then he met my eyes and forced a polite smile. “If you are uncomfortable or unwell, you must… you must say so.”

“I’m perfectly well!” The words shot out harsh and clipped.

I nodded and we sat in stony silence as Lan brought us green tea and lime sorbet. I smiled in appreciation of the effort the staff had made for Etienne’s arrival.

“Lan, please tell Ong Chin that the food was very good, and we thank him for the sorbet. I know he takes a lot of trouble to make it.”

Lan pursed her lips and giggled. “It’s not Chin who turns the handle on the glace machine, Madame. It’s me! That machine is an instrument of torture.”

I smiled. “Well, thank you then, Lan. But…have you tried the sorbet? It’s very delicious. You and Mai must taste some.”

A rough shudder shook Lan’s reedy body and an expression of something close to fear came over her face. “Oh, no, Madame. It is dangerous to eat cold things. They make you sick.”

It was then I noticed Etienne’s look of puzzlement. “It’s folk wisdom here. Cold food or drink is frowned upon in Chinese medicine. They believe it interferes with the flow of energy in the body.”

Once Lan had retreated, silence again descended on the table. Only the sounds of the crickets and bats accompanied the rest of our meal, punctuated from time to time by the tinkle of spoons against the glass cups.

“I apologize…for my earlier…” Etienne did not finish.

“Please don’t. It is entirely understandable. You’re tired and unused to the heat.”

“Well… yes. That is true. But also…” a shadow crossed his handsome face, then he shook his head as if to clear the thoughts from it. “I have the most maddening ringing in my ears.”

“It’s the quinine. How much have you been taking?”

“500 milligrams, once a day.”

I dropped my spoon in surprise. “But that is far too much! That is the dose for treatment of malaria, not for its prevention!”

“That’s what the army doctor in Marseille prescribed before I embarked.”

Good lord, I thought. Almost a century in possession of their colonies and Mother France still didn’t have the slightest idea what they were about when it came to actually surviving them. “300 milligrams is more than enough. And if you take care to cover up at night, you can do without it in the dry season. The house is sprayed often and the nets on the beds are soaked in citronella. The rainy season is a different matter. We must be more careful then. How long…” There seemed no way to phrase the question politely. But Etienne understood.

“There’s no need to be delicate about it. We never discussed it in our letters. I have a position at an engineering firm waiting for me upon my return in June. I must be back in Nimes by then.”

I nodded, attempting to hide the swell of desperation I felt within. It was only the beginning of April. How was I going to hide the despicable creature I had become for two whole months?

“Would you…will you take a glass of brandy or Poire?” I asked, attempting to cover a momentary rise of panic. “Then, perhaps, we could play a game of cards, if you wanted.”

It was almost five in the afternoon when we reached the house. My chief foreman, Le Hoang Nam, was waiting to deliver his report of the day’s operations. He narrowed his eyes as Etienne stepped down from the car. I knew what he was thinking and what he feared: that in the year since Robert’s death, he had gained responsibility and respect, and he didn’t want to lose it to some French stranger. Equally, I did not want to undermine his confidence. For in the past year he had become my right hand man on the plantation. A lanky young Franco-Anamese with oriental eyes but the aquiline nose of a Frenchman, he was scrupulously honest and unfailingly fair to the workers. He was, in fact, a good part of the reason Estelle had prospered since Robert’s death.

Once I’d shown Etienne into the house and to his rooms, Nam stood in the hallway and went over the details of the day’s tapping and the volume of latex processed by the driers. There had been an accident with one of the mangles that pressed the rubber into cakes, and one of the pressers had lost two fingers. Luckily the infirmary had been open and the man’s injury had been promptly seen to.

“Will he lose his hand?” I asked.

“No. I don’t think so. But he won’t be able to work for a while,” said Nam.

“Will you pay his wife a visit and make sure she understands that we will find him a job doing something else? I don’t want them to worry at a time like this.”

“It was his own fault. He was careless.”

“We’ve all been careless at some time or other. We’ve just been luckier.”

Nam nodded and, with a glance towards the sleeping quarters and an overdramatic whisper, asked: “He is going to be your new husband?”

I laughed. “No.” I explained quietly that Etienne was my late sister’s husband, visiting from France.

“What’s wrong with him, then? Only a dishonourable man would refuse to marry his dead wife’s sister.”

“That’s not a French custom, Nam. It’s a Vietnamese one.”

“Well, it should be. It’s sensible,” he muttered.

“Would you prefer him as your boss?” I teased.

Nam grimaced. “No. You’re a good boss, Madame.”

I rolled my eyes. “Have you brought me…”

“Oh, yes.” Nam dug into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a package neatly wrapped in red oiled paper. He handed it over, but reluctance showed on his face. “Don’t smoke too much, Madame. You don’t want to get lost in the clouds like my grandfather. Not yet.”

Smiling, I stuffed the opium into my purse and closed it. “Thank you, Nam. Go home, now. It’s getting late.”

He was about to leave before I remembered. “Nam, when you bring me my horse in the morning, will you bring another – the gelding – for Monsieur Etienne? Perhaps we can take him on a tour around Estelle.”

Nam nodded and left, passing Etienne in the hallway, as he walked out of the house into the darkening evening light.

Etienne had washed and changed into a lighter suit. From the creases in it, I suspected it might have been the first time he’d worn it. But the light colour suited his dark skin well, and his wet hair glinted in the twilight as we walked into the living room. The servants were lighting the lamps and pulling the screens across the open windows.

“Have you got everything you need? Enough water, enough room for your things?”

“Yes. It’s a lovely house. Beautiful, actually.”

“Thank you. Would you like a drink? We have ice. We could have gin and tonic with ice.”

Etienne looked puzzled. “Well, I read I wasn’t supposed to drink the ice here.”

I laughed and clapped my hands. “This ice is clean, and we only get it once a week. It’s delivered on a Monday and only lasts three days, so you should enjoy it while we have it. By Friday you’ll be craving it.”

Suddenly he understood and looked around. “No electricity.”

“Not yet,” I said, fixing the drinks and depositing a scoopful of the precious chipped ice from the little insulated pail that Lan, the maid, had brought.

“We got a telegraph machine in…” I thought for a moment, handing him his drink and sitting down on the sofa opposite. “…the spring of 1918. Yes. More than a year ago now. It will be a while before we get electricity, I fear.”

Etienne sipped his drink and smiled. “It reminds me of the army. We’ve gotten so spoiled since the armistice.” Then the smile died on his face. He gave his head a strange tip, and took another gulp of his drink as if he were washing down memories.

It was a curious gesture, but one I knew well. There was nothing to say, so I stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to have a wash and get changed before dinner. You can have a look in Robert’s library, if you like. There are lots of books and periodicals, although they are a little out of date.” I gestured over to the louvered doors across the hallway. And if you need anything, call for Lan. Her French is very good; what she doesn’t understand, she guesses at and is usually right. Please make yourself comfortable.”

“I will, thank you,” he said quietly.

* * *

I hurried down the darkened hallway, tearing at the buttons on my blouse even before I reached my bedroom. I tugged it off, calling for Mai, the housemaid, to draw me a bath and help me with my clothes. The gin had gone to my head, having eaten no lunch. The corset felt like a living thing, a boa constrictor tightening its coils, squeezing the life out of me. After stepping out of my skirt, I seized the iron bedstead and struggled for breath until Mai tugged and loosened the laces just enough for me to get the eyelets unhooked.

There were deep, angry red welts where the steel boning had dug into my sides, and a line of small dark bruises from where I’d doubled over to vomit. Slipping into the tepid tub, I sighed into the burn that accompanied the release of my compressed flesh. The water felt delicious. I lay back, closed my eyes and breathed deep, filling my lungs with the sweet cool scent of the lavender salts. And for one beautiful, perfect moment, I felt utterly at peace. Utterly free. Utterly relieved.

But as always, it only lasted a moment. I looked down at my bruised body submerged beneath the water and almost immediately, the whispering desire was back, gnawing at my brain, stiffening my nipples, bringing my flesh up in goose bumps despite the heat. And with it came lurid images of Etienne, my dead sister’s husband, performing unspeakable acts upon me.

How could my mind be so despicable? How could I imagine such dreadful things? The wave of self-disgust that engulfed me didn’t quell the hunger. It only made it baser and worse. I thought about the new cake of opium in my purse. But I couldn’t smoke now. He’d know, he’d know there was something wrong with me. Smoking made me drowsy and incoherent. I wouldn’t be able to eat. And yet I could not let him see me this way either. I was sure the terrible hunger would show on my face, in the way I moved.

Resigned, I sank further into the tub, spread my legs and brought my knees up. Letting the images swallow me, I coaxed and stroked myself through the golden glow of my internal obscenities until, trembling and clenching my teeth to keep from crying out, I thrust my fingers deep into the hot, grasping core of me. I held them there and felt my muscles suck at my fingers until the violent spasms of my release had passed.

The road was dry and we made good time.

“Your sister told me that you and Robert had a house in Saigon proper. And yet you don’t live there?” asked Etienne. We were waiting for the ferry to take the car across the Dong Ngai river.

The long drive would have been a good opportunity to tell him all about my life in Cochin China, to explain what a wonderful thing Robert had built here, what a clever man he’d been. In only eight years the plantation at Long Thanh had become one of the richest latex producers in the area. We had built a school and a church and even a pagoda for the workers. We had a clinic with a doctor who came in from Saigon twice a week, and a brand new set of living quarters for the tappers and the driers. And yes, we’d built a grand house in Saigon on the Rue Richaud. But I couldn’t speak. I didn’t dare. Such a war raged inside of me: a great battle between attraction and repulsion. It fed back on itself, like a centipede eating its own tail.

At the bank of the river, with a cool breeze coming off the water, I felt calmer and more able to push the torment aside.

“We do. A big house. But I don’t go there anymore. Not since Robert died.”

Etienne looked at me with a tender, solicitous expression. “Because it reminds you of him?”

“Perhaps,” I said, lying. “But the business needs constant supervision. You can’t just leave things and expect them to run smoothly on their own. Life here is just like nature. If you look away for even just one moment… the vines grow up and strangle everything.”

How could I begin to explain that I wasn’t that woman anymore? The one in the evening gown. The one sipping Kir Royale on the terrace at the race track. The one who sat, smile fixed into place, while the wives of the colons lounged in the shade at the Cercle Sportif gossiping about lazy servants and how cosmetics ruined in the heat.

And how could I tell him the truth? That I didn’t miss Robert. I wasn’t sane enough to miss him. I didn’t cry for him anymore. What I missed was clarity of mind. What I missed was the ability to sit for five minutes quietly without being assaulted by the visions and the voices and the fever. What I missed was falling asleep without the opium to help me do it.

“It sounds like a hard life for a woman, Claire. Isolated. Lonely…” he trailed off.

There wasn’t the slightest possibility of being able to tell this man the truth. Instead I shrugged and laughed it off. “I’m too busy to be lonely, ma frere.”

Once we’d crossed the river, I asked Quan to put the roof of the car down. The air would be cooler on the road to Long Thanh and the afternoon had become overcast.

Here there were no more rice paddies. Flanking both sides of the road, were the endless ordered forests of rubber trees.

“How long until we reach the plantation?” Etienne called above the whistling wind and the roar of the engine.

“We’re in it.”

He turned around in the seat and looked at the long, straight road that led back to Bien Hoa. “All of it?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, all of it.”

“All this is Robert’s land?” There was incredulity in his voice.

“It was. Now it’s mine. This is Estella.”

Heraud poured a trickle of water into his third glass of Pernod, took a sip and smirked. “I’ve heard she fucks her houseboy.”

For a moment none of the three other men around the table on the terrace of the Hotel Continental said a word. At a nearby table, someone dropped cutlery onto their plate.

Berquet, an older, dapper man who refused to remove his white linen jacket, even in the oppressive mid-day heat, leaned into the table. “Have a little respect, Heraud. The woman has just lost her husband.”

“She didn’t just lose him. He’s been dead a year.” Heraud sneered and sat back, making the wicker chair creak. “She doesn’t come to the Syndicate meetings. In fact, no one has seen her in at least a month. Bec went to pay her a visit last week. Took him three bloody hours to get there and… well,” he shook his head in disdain. “You tell him!”

Bec raised his eyebrows in mock amusement and lit a cigarette. The portly little man smoothed his moustache down. “But you’re doing such a good job, my dear Heraud.”

“Don’t be an ass, Bec. Tell them. Tell them!” demanded Heraud.

“What’s there to tell? Nothing. She wouldn’t see me. She sent a servant out to say she was ill and could not see anyone.”

“Well, perhaps she was unwell,” said Berquet.

The broad shouldered, dark skinned Mathieu, who had been silent all the way through lunch, finally spoke: “She won’t see any of you and she won’t come to the monthly meetings, because she knows very well what all of you want. You want her to sell up and go back to France so you can divide the spoils amongst yourselves.”

For a few moments, quiet descended again over the table. Only the murmurs of other diners and the languid flapping of the striped awning above their heads could be heard.

“Well…she should sell up and go home,” said Heraud finally. “Rubber is no business for women. What on earth does she think she’s doing?”

“She’s doing very well, actually,” replied Mathieu. “In the last three months, her plantation out by Thu Duc out produced all of ours put together. So…whatever it is she’s doing, it’s working.”

Bec snorted and stubbed out his Gauloise with a distinct savagery. “She hasn’t had her rubber tappers down with disease like the rest of us. It’s just luck. Pure luck. Heraud is right, she should sell up and go home.”

“Her tappers aren’t dropping like flies because she spent a fortune on new quarters for them,” muttered old Berquet. “A foolish extravagance. And I’ve heard they don’t like it at all. They’re a superstitious lot, you know, the tappers.”

Bec shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I lost two of my best foremen to her last month. They like it plenty. But… if she wants to play the sister of mercy, why doesn’t she join the nuns at Saint Paul de Chartres? I could make twice as much as she is making on that plantation. She’s ruining it.”

“And she’s fucking her houseboy!” snorted Heraud.

The legs of his chair scraped loudly against the tiles as Mathieu stood up, pushing back his chair. He straightened his pale jacket and perched a straw panama hat on his dark, sleek head. “Good afternoon, gentleman. I’m afraid I can’t sit around all day defaming Claire Souchet’s character. I have work to do.”

The remaining men watched their fellow member of the Syndicat des Planteurs de Caoutchouc walk out onto the pavement and get into his car, parked in the shade of the grand theatre.

“Fucking nigger,” muttered Heraud. He lifted his hand and beckoned a waiter over. “I’ll have another Pernod. What about the rest of you?”

The men gave their orders and settled back in their seats.

“I don’t know what the world is coming to,” sighed Bec. “Women and niggers running the rubber trade. You’re the president of the association. You need to do something about it,” he said, glaring at Berquet.

The old man dabbed at his beard with his napkin. “I really can’t see what can be done about it. There is nothing in the charter that states a man of mixed race or a woman can’t farm a plantation or hold membership in the syndicate. Mathieu was decorated in the war, you know. He was with the North African Brigade in Cameroun. As to the Souchet woman…” Berquet shrugged his bony shoulders. “Perhaps after a while she’ll see that the life out here is not for her.”

Heraud took another sip of the cloudy liquid in his glass and shuddered. “We need to make her see.”