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 and simple.
“Whatever you think is best,” I replied, feeling that it was right to let her take the lead. Victor hadn’t mentioned the slightest detail about our plans for the evening, but after our journey, I was hoping they involved a hot bath, a few stories with Lucie, and twelve hours’ sleep.
“This is best for your thin yellow hair, Madame Lesage,” Trieu said pleasantly. “It will make it look like there is more of it.”
“Oh,” I said, trying not to take offense. “I’m sure you know better than I do about these things.”
“No, Madame Lesage,” she said, positioning the wand in her hand. “But about the Officers’ Club etiquette, perhaps I do. I worked for the last mistress of the house before you. Madame van Dampierre. She also went to the Officers’ Club on her first night.”
“How long did the van Dampierres live here?” I asked, trying not to move my head. Trieu tilted my chin up, and I fixed my gaze above. In the living room there was an intricate pattern in the coffered ceiling, but in the master bedroom the ceiling was smooth, high, and painted a fresh white, adding to its airiness.
“Four years,” Trieu replied.
“I hope we will be here as long.” I paused and looked at my reflection in the mirror, thinking about how many times Louise van Dampierre had done the same thing. “Were they happy here?” I asked.
“They were very happy for a time,” she said thoughtfully. “And four years is not a short time in the colony. Many French women don’t last more than a year or so in Indochine. Some, much less. They say it’s too hot in summertime. They miss their food. They miss the European way of life. They want their children to grow up like they did. So they return.”
“I’m not French,” I said, pointing out what was obvious to the French but might not be to Trieu. “So I think I’ll quite like it here. Food, heat, and all.”
“Yes, Madame Lesage. I hope you do,” she said, gently lifting another strand of my hair.
Lesage. I liked the way she said it, so differently than the Parisians, who paused between the E and the S. Trieu strung the syllables together like Christmas lights.
I leaned back, quickly growing more comfortable in her presence as she spiraled my hair with the wand.
Before this year, I hadn’t thought much about our name. Not since my wedding day in 1925, when my last name was changed from Holland to Lesage. But on the boat ride over, Victor brought it up several times.
“Our last name is Lesage,” he’d said, “but in Hanoi everyone needs to know that my mother is a Michelin. That she is a close, though much younger cousin to my uncles Édouard and André, may he rest in peace. She isn’t Agathe Lesage. She is Agathe Michelin Lesage. Please remember to say her name that way.”
He had reminded me of this detail in Paris while we were packing our trunks, again on our journey over, when a sleeping Lucie was curled at my feet like a cat, and yet again when we saw the white shores of Siam, the sand as fine as sugar. I thought he had done enough reminding, but he had whispered, “Remember, Michelin,” when we were about to meet our household staff.
“They’ll respect us more if they hear the Michelin name,” he’d said as our new driver, Lanh, made his way through the narrow streets, our car gliding through patches of shadow and sunshine.
I was still shaken from the boat journey and too taken with the new world around me to care what my name was or wasn’t. But as we pulled up to the handsome house with its center turret, and I saw the row of young Annamite servants waiting outside, their faces beaming, I’d put my hand on Victor’s leg and said, “I think they’ll respect us most if we are nice and pay them well.”