Opium (17 page)

“You mean Francisci?'

“You see? My description was adequate.”

“I know what you're going to ask me, Rocco, and the answer is still the same. I can't stop him using our airfields.”

Bonaventure discarded his air of bonhomie. “I have done everything you ask me. I use my contacts in Saigon and Bangkok to give you reports on the politic there. What else do you want from me?'

“And we appreciate everything you've done, Rocco. You know that. And I don't have to tell you, because I'm sure you realise, that the help you give us is in both our interests. But Francisci's been helping us too. I repeat, I can't stop him using those air strips. Our government built them, sure, but they now belong to the government of Laos. If you got a beef, maybe you better take it up with Rattakone.”

“How much?' Bonaventure said.

Gates shook his head and finished his drink. “I'd like to help you, Rocco, but I can't. Look, all my government cares about is keeping the reds out of this place. To do that we need the
Meo
. We've got to get their opium out, and we've got to get guns in. We don't want any part of a vendetta. I'd be happy to take your money, but it's not our call. You go and see the General.”

Baptiste knew Gates was right. All airports in Laos were classified as military terminals and permission to take off and land required a written order from the Royal Laotian Army. Opium runs were considered
requisition militaires
- military charters - and had to be approved by Laotian High Command.

“Rattakone already has our money,” Bonaventure said.

“I'm sure he'll take a little more. But my guess is if you start a bidding war for exclusive rights, like the arrangement you've got on the other side of the border, it's going to start eating right into your profits.” Gates stood up. “Thanks for the drink, Rocco.”

He left.

Bonaventure turned back to Baptiste. His face was dark. “Never trust anyone who can't be bought,” he hissed under his breath.

“Perhaps we should talk to Rattakone,” Baptiste said.

“Gates is right. It won't do us any good. Rattakone will just bleed both of us dry and we still won't get what we want.”

Baptiste drained his glass. “I'd better be going home.”

Bonaventure stood up, put an arm on his son-in-law's shoulder and escorted him outside. Two taxi girls stood in the shadows, smoking cigarettes. They whistled and cat-called, but Baptiste ignored them.

“How are things at home?'

“Fine.”

“You don't seem sure.”

“I told you, everything's fine.”

“She is a headstrong girl. But she is also my daughter. Take care of her.”

The rain was driving down in grey sheets. Baptiste ran through ankle deep water to his car and jumped in. The canvas hood was leaking and there was a pool of water in the driver's seat. Damn this country. The inside of the car smelled of mould. Everything rotted here, everything.

He drove slowly through the rain, and when he was out of sight of Amicu's he doubled back and headed for the Green Latrine. He needed his ego and his body massaged for a little while by expert hands. Flying in the monsoon season made him tense. It was all very well for Noelle to complain, but she didn't understand that it was different for him. To a man, sex was like food and water, and it was hard to raise much appetite when she was the size of a house. Their life would probably return to normal when the baby was born.

But he would have to be careful. He could not afford to lose Noelle. There was an empire resting on it.

Chapter 30

T
HE rain had stopped, but the night swelled with the boom and tonk of frogs, and the mosquitoes whined on the other side of the netting. Noelle felt too heavy to sleep. The child was awake too, and the stirring of life inside her surprised her and made her gasp.

She heard him enter. The door closed gently, but she could smell him in the room, a cocktail of whisky and tobacco and sex. She could make out his silhouette in the moonlight. He fell against a rattan chair and slumped into it.

He undressed quickly and clumsily and got into bed.

“You smell of another woman,” she said.

“I did not mean to wake you.” His voice was hoarse from the cigarettes and the drink.

“How dare you get into my bed when you've just climbed off some taxi girl.”

“I just went to Amicu's to see Rocco. I swear it.”

Noelle rolled onto her side. The effort made her wince. She put her feet in the small of his back and pushed. Baptiste‚ caught by surprise, fell out onto the teak floorboards.

“Sleep in the other room,
cochon
!'

“Don't ever do that again,” he growled.

She kicked out once more with her heel, it connected with satisfying force against something soft. Baptiste moaned with pain. Encouraged, Noelle got out of the bed, and kicked him again.

“Noelle!' He caught her leg and she fell heavily to the floor. She screamed.

“My God! I'm sorry! The baby! Are you all right?' he said.

“Get out!'

“Did I hurt you?'

She felt his hand on her shoulder and she lashed out with her fist, hit something hard, his shoulder or his collarbone perhaps. It hurt her hand. “Get out!'

“I still love you, Noelle,” he said. When she did not answer he got up and padded out of the room. The door closed gently behind him.

Noelle lay naked on the bare boards and listened to the rain. She heard her own breath sawing in her chest. I wish you were dead, she thought. I wish you had died that day over Phong Savan and then at least I would still have the bittersweet memory of you. Surely grief is better than betrayal.

The child kicked again, mimicking her own fury. She put a hand on her stomach and whispered to still him, as if he could hear her, as if he could understand. And then the rage seeped away, and she felt tired, too tired to rise from the floor. The rain began again. She listened to it drip from the eaves, and wept.

***

“I tried to warn you about him,” Bonaventure said.

Noelle angrily brushed at her eyes. “You were right. That is little consolation to me now. What am I going to do?'

Bonaventure shrugged his shoulders. “What do you want to do?'

They were on the veranda of Bonaventure's villa. Mist wreathed the swooping roofs of the surrounding temples. In the distance pirogues slid along the coffee brown river like water beetles. In the garden the flamboyant seeds exploded with cracks like gunfire.

Tao Koo brought them a pot of hot tea and poured a little in two handle less porcelain cups.

“I love him, papa.”

“If you cannot change him - and you won't - and you still love him, then you will have to put up with him. After all,
mon petit chou
, what did you expect?'

He's right, she thought. What did I expect? I was dazzled by the illusion of this utterly romantic man. Did I really think that after he married me he would become a different creature, stop chasing women, stop drinking? Yes, I did. Which only proves what a fool I am.

“I have his child in my belly, papa. I could not leave him even if I wanted to.”

“And you don't want to, so why talk about it?' Bonaventure leaned towards her, and the granite of his face softened. “Look, little princess,” he said, using his childhood name for her, “I will talk to him for you. But what can you do? A snake sheds his skin, but he remains a serpent. Even if he tried to change, I don't think he could.”

“I have been so stupid,” Noelle murmured, sipping some of the hot, green tea.

“How is the baby?' Bonaventure said, over the strained silence that followed.

“I feel like a sweating lump of dough. I cannot sleep at night, my clothes are always soaked, and I cannot get out of a chair without the entire house staff there to push and pull.”

“It will be over soon.”

“And then, what? Somehow I cannot see my Baptiste as a dedicated father.”

“Well, for myself, I was never the best either.”

Her eyes appeared luminous in the green-grey light. “You never behaved this way.”

“There was a war. It was more difficult then.”

“There is war here. It never stops Baptiste.”

Bonaventure sighed and passed a hand over his eyes. “Oh,
ma petite
, what can I say to you? '

“I had better go home. I need to rest. I am always tired these days.”

“Of course. I'll have Tao Koo drive you home.”

He helped her out of the chair. For a moment he was close and she kissed him softly on the cheek. “I should have listened to you.”

“Why? You never did before.”

She gave him a rueful smile and left.

***

After she had gone, Bonaventure lit a cigarette.
Ma petite Noelle!
Too late, you realise your papa is wiser than you thought he was. Crocé is a fool. A man should keep his house in order. If he wants to sleep with his taxi girls, he should at least learn to be discreet.

He loved his daughter and he did not want to see her hurt. A man was just a man, but he would not have his daughter humiliated this way. He would talk to Crocé, resolve this somehow. He himself had had mistresses, of course, while Noelle's mother was alive, but he had never flaunted them in her face this way.

Still, although Crocé was less than an ideal son-in-law, he had proved a very able lieutenant, and an exceptional pilot. Not only could he fly but in the last few months he had shown that he could negotiate with the Chinese traders as well as the
Meo
tribesmen, and even knew how to charm the Americans.

He didn't want to spoil things now. Air Laos was making hundreds of flights a month, dropping supplies to troops in the mountains, ferrying Lao and American officials between Vientiane and Luang Prabang and, of course, trading in opium. He had a supply line to Rivelini in Bangkok and to Saigon through Colonel Ky. He could never get enough to satisfy demand.

Noelle and his new grandchild would inherit a fortune, and they would need a strong man to caretake that inheritance after he was gone.

But Crocé's fondness for women and drink was a fatal weakness. Besides, to be accepted into the
milieu
a man required a certain toughness of character.
Un vrai monsieur
needed on occasion to do things that ordinary men shrank from, and he wondered if Baptiste had the stomach for it.

They would soon find out.

Chapter 31

N
OELLE was resting in her bedroom, the blinds drawn, when she heard the sound of an aircraft passing very low overhead. It banked and came around again, so low she thought it was going to land on the roof. She dragged herself out of bed and went out onto the balcony.

The servants were in the garden staring up at the sky. Noelle squinted against the glare, and looked in the direction they were pointing. As it banked over the Mekong, she saw the yellow and black tiger decal on the tailplane. It was a twin-engined Beechcraft, one of her father's fleet. A banner streamed behind it, and in large red letters were the words:

“Noelle, je t'aime. Pardonnez moi.”

Noelle, I love you. Forgive me.

She put her knuckles to her mouth, angry and embarrassed. Typical. One lunatic gesture and he thinks everything is going to be all right.

The Beechcraft started to climb, silhouetted against the mountains and the lead-grey cumulus banking in the sky. The engines whined in protest as Baptiste brought the nose up. What's he doing? Noelle thought. If he's not careful he's going to stall.

A casual flip of the wings and the Beechcraft began to dive towards the ground. Her knuckles went white on the balcony rail. Bastard, you're showing off.

Baptiste cut the power to the engines. Bring up the nose, she found herself praying. For the love of the Virgin, bring up the nose!

The Beechcraft dropped, the white banner streaming behind. He's not going to do it, she thought. He's left it too late.

Please, Baptiste. Don't do this.

The nose started to come up.

Too late.

His plane dropped out of sight below the coconut palms beyond Sri Chiangmai, on the other side of the river. She waited for the explosion, the black mushroom cloud that would confirm what she already knew. She felt a keening sense of loss she had not expected. I really do still love him, she thought, bastard that he is.

The Beechcraft appeared again, its silver belly flashing in the sun. The pitch of the engines had increased to a frantic mosquito whine, as Baptiste took her into a barrel roll. As he recovered from the manoeuvre he roared towards the villa, passing so low overhead that Noelle involuntarily ducked her head.