Opium (10 page)

A few hours before, he had looked as hollow as a shadow, but already the shout at the devil set of the shoulders had returned.

A white jacketed waiter brought the Pernods. Baptiste tipped him outrageously. Why not? Noelle thought. It's not his money. It's my father's.

“What are you going to do, Baptiste?'

“I am going to make this day last forever.”

“But it will. Tomorrow is tomorrow.”

“Then I want tomorrow to be like today. I want to spend the rest of my life making love to you.” He grinned again and ran the tip of a finger lightly along her bare shoulder. Suddenly there was gooseflesh all along her arms.

“I'm serious, Baptiste. I don't have much money left. We can't stay here forever. I have to know what you want to do.”

“You want to know what In want? I want my own airline again.”

“Airline? One Cessna and a bag of spanners?'

“It was a beginning. I was doing all right until your father ruined everything for me.”

“You want to spend the rest of your life chasing clouds?'

Baptiste downed his Pernod, closed his eyes in bliss. “So what are you suggesting?'

“I don't know, but we can't run away forever.” The moon rose over the tamarinds, floating against wisps of white cloud. “My father needs a man like you, Baptiste, he just doesn't know it yet.”

“Your father put me in hell.”

'“But if we run away, he'll find us.”

“I don't want to talk about this no more. Tonight we celebrate. Tonight there is just me and you. Tomorrow I will fight the world.”

“All right. But tomorrow we have to decide. All right?'

He shrugged and grinned. “Okay.”

***

It was a dimly lit room, no more than three paces wide and five paces deep. There was just one window, with a shabby curtain drawn across, the only light the eerie glow of the opium lamps.

The air was pungent.

There was a row of bunks, like a school dormitory. Two middle-aged Chinese were squatting on one of the wooden platforms doing business, sipping tea, their pipes laid to one side. On another, a gaunt Chinese, bare to the waist, lay with his head on a wooden head-rest, his sunken eyes glazed with the effects of the drug. A naked Chinese girl lay beside him, her arms around him. He ignored her, held his opium pipe over the flame of a spirit lamp. As the opium cooked, he inhaled the sweet smoke.

It had been Baptiste's idea to come here. Noelle had never been in an opium den, and she was curious. “You have to try it, even if it's only once in your life,” he told her. Opium helps you stand at the gates of heaven and peer through.”

Opium! After all she had done since she come to Saigon, defying her father, trading her body, giving herself to Baptiste‚ opium was the last shackle to be thrown aside. She was spinning off the edge of the world now.

The two Chinese businessmen had returned to their pipes, their business done; the old sailor had dropped his pipe and was lost to his dreams. The Chinese girl was going through the pockets of his trousers for money.

There was silence except for the gurgling of the pipes.

She examined the one they had given her. It The pipe was a bamboo rod, just over a foot long, with a bowl set a few inches from the end. The bowl was round like a ball, with a small hole in the top. The Chinese proprietor prepared it for her. He brought over a packet containing the treacle-like opium, scraped off a small portion and put it over the end of a needle, then held the needle over the flame of a spirit lamp. Once the pellet was bubbling on the end of the needle he rolled it into the aperture of the pipe bowl.

She lay down beside Baptiste on a raised wooden platform.

“Suck it deep into your lungs,” he whispered. “Hold your breath as long as you can.” The first time she tried, she almost choked. Baptiste grinned. “Perhaps don't breathe in quite so hard until you are used to it.”

Noelle tried again. The black bead of opium bubbled gently. The blue-grey smoke drifted towards the ceiling.

***

Noelle did not remember how they got back to the hotel. After a half dozen puffs of the pipe, the pellet was gone. She remembered she had been disappointed; it had had no effect on her at all. So she had three or four pipes, was aware of nothing more dramatic than a growing sense of calm, a warm glow that sloughed away her terrors. The whole world became a wonderful place and her worries evaporated.

She had wished her father had been there; she could have told him how much she loved him. She knew now that everything was going to be all right. She even felt a growing affection for the two Chinese businessmen in their undershirts. They were her friends and companions on a wonderful night time journey.

When they got back to the hotel she let Baptiste undress her. When he lay on top of her his skin felt like damp velvet. Every sensation was exaggerated, every little pleasure almost unbearable. They were spinning through space, a vortex of light and exquisite sensation, swollen blue veins pounding like drumbeats, sweat smooth as warm oil, nipples engorged, hair-triggers to a vortex of light and colour, the small hairs on her arms sparked like static, skin tender as a bruise.

Chapter 15

W
HEN Noelle woke her head felt wonderfully light. The sounds that filtered through the shuttered windows - the cries of the hawkers, the clamour of bicycle bells, the thump of electrical generators - were of crystal clarity. Baptiste was still asleep. She kissed his shoulder and slid naked out of the bed.

The room was airless and hot. She went to the washroom and poured the cold water over her head with the long-handled dipper. She felt a stickiness between her legs and the memories of the previous night that rushed over her were poignant with sweetness and guilt.

After she had bathed she brushed out her wet hair and dressed in a thin blue gingham frock and went downstairs to fetch their breakfast, chicken
congee
from the toothless old hawker outside, or perhaps some fresh fruit, melon and papaya and some sweet, plump banana ...

The street was a jangle of noise, the sing-song shouts of the
chiu-chao
jarring with the bleat of a horn as an olive drab ARVN truck tried to barge its way past a snarl of
siclos
. A barber was at work in the centre of the boulevard. The broken mirror he had nailed to the trunk of a plane tree caught the morning sun and hurt her eyes. An old Tonkinese in a mollusc hat pushed past her, two baskets of ducklings slung on a pole over her shoulder.

Noelle did not see the black Mercedes parked at the kerb a few yards away. Suddenly two Europeans in dark suits were beside her, their hands gripping her elbows so tight she cried out in pain. They propelled her towards the limousine and bundled her inside.

Rocco Bonaventure was reading a French language edition of
L”Indochine
. He looked up and smiled, as he did very morning at breakfast time. “Good morning, Noelle. I have been looking everywhere for you.”

***

The thin door crashed open, snapping on its hinges. One of the men grabbed Baptiste and threw him naked onto the floor. Baptiste woke from his drugged sleep to see a huge Corsican standing over him. His shoes were expensive black leather. One of them swung into his stomach.

He doubled over, gasping for breath. The other man grabbed a handful of his hair, lifted his head from the floor, and smashed his fist into his face.

After that, he remembered little about the beating. One of the men pinned Baptiste's arms behind his back and braced himself against the wall. The other one took his time, picking the targets for his blows with elaborate care. Baptiste could not remember if he had cried out during the process. He hoped not, but he could not be sure.

It seemed to go on forever, but he supposed it must only have been a minute or two or he would have been dead. Finally they let him drop to the floor.

***

He did not know how long he was unconscious. Perhaps seconds, perhaps hours. He came to in a pool of dark blood.

He dragged himself to his knees and retched painfully. He looked around. The door was still yawning open on its broken hinge. No one had even bothered to come and see if he was still alive.

He crawled to the washroom, and examined his reflection in the broken mirror. No one that he recognised; eyes almost closed, nose a pulpy mess. No gaps in his mouth, although several of his teeth were loose.

He forced himself to urinate. No blood, thank God.

He splashed water onto his face. His ribs made it an agony to breathe. He slid down the wall to the floor, brought his knees up to his chest to try and ease the pain.

Everything hurt. He was going to be sick again.

He had not expected Bonaventure to find them so quickly. But if that prick thought that one beating ended it, he had misjudged his man very badly.

Chapter 16

Vientiane

T
HE loudspeakers were grinding out music for the
boun
, the religious festival that every
wat
held at least once a year. The
wats
were not just temples, they were also schools and community and cultural centres, and the festivals, which ran day and night, were a means of raising funds. There were so many temples in Vientiane that it seemed to Noelle there was a
boun
in progress every day during the dry season. If you lived next door to one it was impossible to sleep for the crashing of cymbals and the wailing of flutes.

She moved among the crowds, edgy, alert. It was her
boyesse
who had brought her the message; a man had approached her in the market, she said, and asked her to give Noelle a note. She had read it quickly, before burning it over a candle. It had said, simply:
Wat Si Saket . 18.00.

She did not know Baptiste's handwriting but she guessed it must be him.

Her father would not suspect. He would not imagine he had the balls to come back here, to Vientiane.

Groups of villagers danced to the clamour of flutes and drums and cymbals, carrying the decorated money trees they had brought from their villages as offering. They clapped and sang while the
bonzes
- the monks - watched, chattering and laughing like women at a water hole.

The Laos were in their festival clothes, men in white jackets and
sampots
- baggy knee-length trousers of iridescent silk; the women in traditional
sins
, with wide bands of intricately woven silver and gold trim around the hems.

She anxiously searched the crowds for him. Where was he?

He appeared suddenly at her side, moving from the shadows to take her arm. “This way,” he whispered.

He pulled her into the cloister. Thousands of stone Buddhas in filled the niches and shelves along the walls, offerings of bright yellow and crimson paper flowers garlanded at their feet.

“Baptiste,” she said.

His face was a mess. One eye was swollen shut, his lip was cracked, still weeping watery blood. She threw her arms around him and he gasped. “I'm sorry. My ribs are a little sore.” He gave her a crooked grin.

Noelle could not find the words. Her father had done this.

“I'm all right,” he said.

She was too shocked to speak. She touched the bruises gently with her fingertips.

“It looks worse than it is,” he said.

She held him for a long time. “What are we going to do?' she whispered.

“Come away with me.”

“He'll find us. No matter where we go.”

“I only came here for you! He'll kill me if he finds me in Vientiane! What do you want me to do?'

She shrugged, helplessly.

“Just go then!' he said.

Noelle hesitated. But what other choice was there if she was not to lose him?

“There is one way,” she said.

He fumbled in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, and lit up one-handed, still clutching at his ribs with his other hand. He drew in the smoke but said nothing.

“My father still has six hundred kilos of opium stored in the Snow Leopard Inn in Phong Savan. But because of Kong Le he can't get it. The Pathet Lao and Kong Le's paratroopers have encircled the town. One of papa's pilots was killed this afternoon. Now the other two are refusing to go back.”

“Have Kong Le's paratroopers taken the airfield?'