19   Interlude – At The Beginning

 

​

        

                    1  Partners

                  2  Journey

                  3  Nga

                  4  The Ogress' Reply

                  5  Memories

                          i

                          ii

                          iii 

​

 

 

1

​

 

Martin said, it’d be interesting, and not just the art works, yes you will be amused.

 

Martin was sincere and a little anxious as always, simply because he’s a nice chap who liked to ensure his mate’s evening not too boring. He was younger than I, a banking executive for twenty years, a facilitator with good reputation. He brought funds from one side, the source end, to the other side, the capitalist end, where fund managers stirred, baked, steamed, added herbs and sauce, a little red wine perhaps, simmered to the right level of taste, and served. When things economic were hard those meals often got burnt, tasteless, the calories much reduced in quantity than what added in the first place. When things were easy the meals were reasonably nutritious but frequently bland. So Martin was always on the lookout for chef’s creations that tasted sharp and, heavens willing, rich in protein whatever the economic flavour of the day – but the chefs of these exciting meals were always hard to find. And he, Martin, was a genuinely decent man, hard-working, serious, straight as an arrow. A permanent bear notwithstanding, the cause for him not being already head of the division, only the deputy.

 

What’s so amusing, I said, interesting arty-farty stuffs I can understand, but …

 

Ah, Long, first of all, the paintings spanned more than forty years of works, never exhibited in public, well-known painter as she was, and second …

Forty years?

Ja, and they all were peak at the different periods. Apparent she and her partner held back the best for their own enjoyment, sold only the somewhat lesser, lovely works as they all are. I saw the collection quickly the other day with the curator, first time for anyone outside their circle, and we were quite taken. They could have been a lot wealthier had they sold some of those, but they didn’t.

 

His bank had a big and expensive collection, hence the employment of a curator.

 

Well that’s interesting.

She died, so after a few years her partner decided to donate them to the city’s kunsthaus. I’ve been their banker, so she gives us a chance to have a private viewing before the gallery acquires them and starts the proper exhibition next month.

Generous …

Yes, the partner still holds back about a dozen, crème de la crème, but the rest, fifty or so given away in one go. Now that she has recovered from her partner’s death.

 

Two women?

Yes, the artist died three years ago.

How?

Euthanasia. Apparently she could no longer bear letting her partner see her dementia worsen day by day.

I see … traumatic for both.

Yes, imagine that. They were at home until her death.

Her partner took good care of her?

Very much so, very much so. They were besotted to each other. But the painter didn’t want her partner to sacrifice further. So one rare day when she, the painter, was lucid enough to force the issue with her partner and the doctor, she made the decision. She signed her affidavit forthwith, witnessed by the lawyer even if all involved much protested it. But it’s her wish, and they finally respected it.

No question of an Agatha Christie setting …

Ah no, the two of them were partners in life and at work. Practically their whole lives.

And the partner?

A writer-poet, retired now, but she had written much about the paintings – origin, perspectives, process, form and colour interpretation. Quite entertaining.

I see, an endearing story.

 

Martin laughed, said, I hope there’s no touch of the cynic there. Well, what do you think if I tell you that she, the writer, was originally a Northern Vietnamese? That she came to France in 1955 with her partner and moved to Switzerland the next year.

Ah, that’s certainly very very amusing.

 

Thus Martin gave me the book, said, this was her last publication, I only had a quick read, it’s quite good, the paintings and the articles.

 

 

​

 

The gathering consisted of sixty seventy people. Bankers, fund managers, clients, some art types. Half with partners. Well dressed, quiet, familiar with the art. The paintings were arresting, well appreciated. Futurism to begin with but much more individualistic, less reliant on typical geometric forms. Quite a few stand out in my eyes. The artist seemed to enjoy putting a pair of people in her work. A man and a woman, two women, a man pointing a rifle to another, a woman leaning over a man lying on the ground, orchids on a dwelling ledge, magnolia in winter, construction sites in city after war, chap smoking and writing in café …. Some settings were dreamy, some confronting. There were always shades of blue and orange – somehow that made the works carry hope rather than despondence despite the harsh undertone in many. More interesting were ones with lines and forms showing two women in love, nudes entwined in bed, surreal but with clear erotic touches, in café, walking in different streetscapes. Images of war ravages in desert.

 

Original and powerful. There was always a thought, no, more like a strong opinion, underneath the forms and the shades of colours. What’s also interesting was that on the side of each work there were two or three frames of text – a mix of essays and poetry, signed Nguyen Thi Nga. Usually the curator of a gallery would write a page of blurbs, boring stuffs that point out style and noted interests in a work. Formulaic writing. The curator used (tried to, generally) a typical mix bag of words you would find in an art history class, totally void of emotion and, frankly, void of genuine feeling or even knowledge. Not so here. I couldn’t read German or French that well, but the translated English version from the book was quite good, obviously the original was special in many ways.

 

I quite liked the works, done with skills and care. More than that, with passion and somehow a degree of detached control, a relaxed control. She liked her colours, mixed the opaque with the standouts with flourish as a master would.

 

Private viewing - none was for sale, as Martin said.

 

There were champagne and quality hors-oeuvres – you would expect that from his bank. The tofu one was unusual, didn’t taste too bad even in Zurich. After the viewing I happened to be in a mix group of attendees. No talk on the market of course, and none on the weather either even though it’s a fine spring. It seemed everyone liked the paintings, and was of the same opinion as mine: regrettably not able to buy just one.

 

Then at the front of the room Martin cleared his throat. Next to him was a slim, tallish Asian woman. A Viet. He smiled, and had attention from everyone. As I said, he was well-liked. He spoke softly for some five minutes in Swiss German, then in English,

 

My friends, it’s very fortunate and a great privilege for us at Alfred Lion to present to you tonight the rare works of the famous Madame Nicole Michelin and the rare presence of her partner, the well-known Swiss writer Nguyen Thi Nga (he said it “Nha” rather than Nga, but I forgave him). As you know Madame Nguyen had been incredibly generous in donating to the Stadt Kunsthaus almost all of the remaining works of Madame Michelin that were never exhibited prior. But before the Kunsthaus for tonight only all of the donated works are here for your viewing pleasure. We are so grateful to Madame Nguyen for that exceptionally kind gesture, and here she is …

 

She shook hand with Martin, smiled at him and then at all of us. She held her hands together, a posture more from natural ease than humility, but that too. She was in her early eighties from the short bio in the book, but her voice firm and clear. The eyes were the most captivating, bright, black. Her hair had only streaks of gray. No cosmetics at all. Her dress was deep velvet, strong but understated touches of the floral – long sleeves, high neck, flowing down to her knees, a simple but elegant cut, exquisite. But not quite as much as she.

 

Her gentle speech was short, in German, and I could only gather it roughly. Quick thanks to the bank to be of help to her partner and her, great thanks to her partner’s devoted fans, a pleasure to see the works that will be well taken care of by the state gallery for the public’s enjoyment. Then she quickly spoke about her partner Nicole. Her voice dropped a notch but still clear. She said she missed her, and that her Nicole from the other side of life would be more than pleased to see the work now available for all. Her Nicole who was always generous but in the later stage in life had withdrawn herself to within just the two of them. Her Nicole who was and still is from the other side a greater part of her life.

 

The audience were very quiet. No one even had a sip from the glass in hand.

 

She continued, that’s all she would take up everyone’s time. She wished us well, and would be with us for any comment on the paintings.

 

Then she mixed with the crowd when Martin introduced her to group by group. At times she walked with a few guests to the paintings, pointing with slender hand at a feature or two. 

​

​

​

​

2

 

 

(1955)

​

 

Ma chère Nicole,

 

Finally you’re exhausted, exhausted from taking care of me through the airports - French paperwork at customs and all. Finally  you’re asleep, curved your legs together, sideway, one arm against the seat, one arm on the pillow. The hand from that arm was holding mine only a few moments ago. I now need my hand, I’m sorry, and its fellow hand, to write this note, using the tiny light from above shining on my lap. I’m using the plane’s stationery, the pen, the paper. All unbelievably novel to me. I marvel at them. I marvel at myself, because of you, sitting in the quiet of night (well, of course it’s not quiet, the strangely soothing engine noise all around); it’s certainly quiet outside, a deep quiet black – an outside space that I’ve never been so close to, never realised such an outside existed before we left Ha Noi the day before. The black space, deeper than the shade of my irises, the irises that you pronounced, was it only a week ago, as having a colour darker than coal (and yes, you also said, deeper than anything you could imagine, the blacker the shade the stronger passion you have for them).

 

We have been with each other three weeks, and the memories have riotously built up. Who will drown first in it in the years to come, you or I? How could we, one day, part from each other without first smothered ourselves in memories, yesterdays, yesteryears, a week ago, a minute ago?

 

The first time (the last time!) I wrote to you, I signed as a comrade. Formal, as befit my duties, and because I inherently disliked a madame stranger from a rich and historically truculent land the other side of the world, a madame painter who was likely wealthy (to me, at any rate), far removed from my circumstances despite what she wrote in those letters, those thoughtful, learned, considerate, dozen of letters that were never meant to fall in my hand (I reread them over and over during time spared from the intervening four years’ fighting! So really, how could I have disliked you?). But I believe my first correspondence was matter of fact rather than hard-spirited – I simply wanted to get rid of the burden that had been with me since the euphoric (for the Viets, that is) days of North-East’s Cao Bang. I had told myself, simply write a letter, get a confirm, send the parcel, then wipe my hand at the hard memory that involved my dead husband, your dead fiancé. Or so I thought … But I should have known better, should have subconsciously realised that, when that lovely painter had written those lines to her legionnaire from gray, not gay, Paris, that painter would not simply fade away, the matter would not simply have ended matter-of-factly. She would want to know, and I would have to recite the past …

 

Even your reply telegram was a surprise. There was no abrupt no curt cryptic two-three worded sentences. There was a full Chère Madame Nguyen Thi Nga at the beginning. There was a full Kindest regards, Nicole at the end. You must have contributed to your post people’s wages quite well. Because you wanted to be civil to this fighter that Jerome somehow entangled with. And in all frankness, chère Nicole, retrospective knowledge notwithstanding, how could I, as I said, have wiped my mind away from you, a you who had written those lines to her fiancé that I was privy upon. The novel thoughts, the contrasting words and images but somehow at peace with each other. I, who thought of herself as enlightened, open-minded, had really not comprehended the full meaning of those concepts until I met you. My world was one that an ancient Chinese philosopher referred to as chaos before things took shape. Your world, your mind, is one that chaos has become, in its perfect form. As is your physical being.

 

Do you, Nicole, do you know that I am looking admiringly at your well-covered body? You, who said you were coarse compared to me, made a grievous artistic error. Looking at you I find it hard to contain my emotion, sexual emotion too, why deny? I trace my eyes over your legs under the airplane blanket, your legs that are long, shapely, smoother than the noblest of silk, your legs that I inhaled with my face from the calves to the back of knees, the thighs (and you interrupted me, how mean of you, insisting to do the same to me, and more, and more and more, and more, and we went on and on the second time we soaked in each other’s body, the night before the morning flight to Sai Gon – we almost perversely hoped the morning would never come so we could stay lost in each other’s body …). Twice we’re in each other’s arms and twice I almost died, twice I almost died repeatedly, repeatedly. I could not believe one can turn into such a state. That night you had laughed and said, that’s what we call la petite mort Nga darling, and I (that is, you), too almost died at least as many times as you, I (you again) almost died looking at you at the first breakfast. I was embarrassed, I hid my face in the pillow, and you kissed my neck at the back, you fine hair tickled me, your breath hot, your lips soft and moist on my skin, your hand tracing my shoulder blade down to the small of back, down further, and I was sure I was going to die again …

 

But chère Nicole, I have to move on from your legs because I cannot see them properly. At this moment I see your face only half in shadow, that peaceful perfect face, more than beautiful, because you are perfection. The face of one who understands the losses of war and is prepared to move on with life, prepared to throw away a thousand ugly straps of prejudices, of the tired concepts of culture, homeland …

​

You said, what is culture but habits down the ages, treasured by one group but frequently hated by others, what is homeland but related human habitats forced upon rivers, mountains, trees - homesteads and borders: those human artifacts the other name of which is acquisition often by the foulest means. What is tradition, the nasty term that abusive humanity masquerades under?

 

But what about memories, ma chère. Don’t memories rise above those basic habits? I know your reply: do memories ever consist only of unpolluted strains of thoughts? The memories of victories, of triumphs? Memories of gains, of winning? Of achievements? Of conquests? To one side, treasured memories. To another, oceans of humiliations, defeats. So what about memories, you would challenge, breathing hot fragrant breaths on my mouth (and yes, darling Nicole, you would proceed without waiting for my answer to bite my lips, to suck my tongue until I am smothered)?

 

That is hard ma chère, because to live that philosophy one must always be an ascetic. One must deny existence, because existence almost always has two sides. My existence is now with yours, that means I deny others to be with you (I know, you would add to that immediately, twinkles in your eyes, you would say, your existence with me (that is, you) means other Viets won’t be with you. And I would say, but they won’t regardless. And here you would twinkle again. Ever since we had the farewell cafe with my friends Trong and Lieu and Ca you have always the smile when I refer to a Viet friend. You even asked me afterwards (was it three days ago?): why are both Trong and Lieu still in love with me after all these years. I protested: whatever they each feel to me, I was never in love with them. And you came very close to me, your face almost touching mine in the hotel foyer, whispered: I never said you were! What was unsaid by you, is, of course, that I, Nga, was, is, in love with you, Nicole, and not with others. I shook inside with affection for you (and thought, too, what about you ma chère, how much those numerous messieurs and madames in Paris and Geneva would give to be in my place?). But perhaps it’s true, what pleasant memories pleasant existence between us may not be so for others, based on your hard rationale. I’m not being vain by the way, I simply flow on with your logic, for now.

 

But I know you are right. It’s all about perspective, any time you pick up a brush, any time I pick up a pen, it’s all about perspective. We have to make do within ourselves, to do no harm, to be positive. As you are. As I am trying to be.

​

Your humble lover,

Nga

​

​

​

 

 

3

 

​

I was at the other end of the room, so it took half an hour for her and Martin to get to my little group. Martin introduced all round, in English. A woman asked, have you been travelling recently (no doubt Sars was well in her mind), and Nga said, no, we’d never been much of a traveler in later years, and these days I walk only from inside the house to the garden. Everyone smiled. A chap, the woman’s husband or partner, asked, how did Madame Michelin get materials for her work.

 

We travelled, she said, a bit in the early years when we became together, but Nicole always painted from memory, not immediately from what she saw, and she tried to convey the concept to the viewer.

How? (Another woman, a banker.)

Well, she used colours to show there had been a passage of time between seeing and painting, different shades of the same colour of streetscape and people, sometimes she distorted the images for the purpose.

I see, yes, I saw a fair bit of that, very well executed, but why she needed to do that?

Ah, she would say that it was her style, but I would say, on her behalf, that her interpretation of life was meant to change through time; that it was important to her.

Why Nga (this was from Martin)?

Because she believed the sense of history, of events, influenced one’s thinking through the years, and her work reflected those changes – the German occupation, the reconstruction, the Vietnam war, Algerian war, Vietnam war again, the 1968 youth movement, the freedom in the West in the sixties and seventies, the political repentance and chaos resulting from that, the reaction from the Thatchers and the Reagans in later years.

That was among the last topic of hers I believe (the chap).

Right, I think the richness of the ealier topics exhausted her a little, so to speak, and she found the capitalist world after the eighties rather boring after the fall of the Berlin Wall which itself was a wonderful occurrence, there’s a work on that event too.

Quite strong-willed, just the selection of topics let alone the works (from me)

Ah yes, she was an activist through work.

 

Her eyes sparkled, dreamily sparkled.

And so was your writing, I said, and I hope the English translation does some justice to the original

She smiled at me, said, an old habit of mine too perhaps, opinionated through words.

Did you enjoy commenting on Nicole’s works as much as your other writings (the second woman said, taking care to weigh her words)

 

Very much so, and it’s not so much commenting as rather a spontaneous expression of my thoughts and feelings throughout her process.

You’re always together? (the chap, a little tactless but easily forgiven seeing that the two women were some kind of celebrities in the country, quiet as they had been,)

Ah yes, even when she visited her parents all those years ago we almost always went together

 

Thus the chat went on, lively but respectful. People started leaving, said goodbye, said look forward to seeing her and the works. The couple said they had to get back to the children, sorry. The woman banker smiled sweetly, shook hand with Nga and said, may I, before giving her a peck on the cheek. Nga smiled, said dank.

 

Martin asked, it’s still early, would you two like a drink before I drive you home (that was to her). She said, sure, but I only have a cup of tea, where? How about the Widder Bar nearby. Ah, she said, I’ve heard about it but never been there.

 

A few steps down, but not quite basement. Well-known in this town since the big renovation of the hotel since less than ten years ago, no wonder she hadn’t been here. Intimate, but larger than its fierce rival the Rive-Gauche bar. We sat at the low table next to the bar. Martin and I had beer, she had the simple chamomile. The tea bag was nice, large, cotton, the pot ceramic.

 

I said, I once went to a place where they have chamomile in proper dry flower petals dropped into the pot with a tiny spoon, not by the bag.

 

A nice restaurant, yes? (Martin).

Yes, with a large magnolia in bloom outside, like now in Zurich. Drinking the tea, I wondered if dry magnolia could do the job too.

 

We laughed. Then Martin asked her, are you still writing?

Actually no, somehow I am more muddled these days, old age and all perhaps. I have more pleasure sorting old things at home, my own curator … (to me) and what do you do at home once this month’s jet-setting is over?

 

Ah (suddenly I was a little embarrassed), I’m only doing a quick trip visiting old mates like Martin and some in other places … I’m taking things easier now.

And at home, she insisted with a twinkle in the eyes.

Amuse my wife mostly, and the children, but I have old things too to sort out, I neglected them a fair bit the last many years …

​

What old things, Martin asked, a little puzzled, as if she and I somehow spoke in codes.

Ah sorry Martin, I meant old letters.

How many of them?

Well, quite a few folders, a box or two actually.

I see, he was quite surprised, asked Nga, you have plenty too?

Guilty, I have boxes, going back fifty years.

Hundreds of letters?

At least, maybe a thousand, some quite long (this from her), possessions belonging to both of us you see.

Incredible, you two (he meant Nga and me) belonged to an older age, and (to me) what you meant by sorting them out, I thought you’re too busy these days thinking about easy Al and his Fed?

Well … as I said I neglected them a little, but I did have them in order of time and origin, grouped them in manilla folders, but that’s not good enough.

Not good enough?

Well, I should preserve them better, I should use clear plastic sleeves and place them in proper folders, some dehumidifiers added to the boxes, and so on, may be write some notes on them.

Really incredible, you do the same too Nga?

Well, I suppose I’m more elaborate. I had them preserved, page by page, thus a letter can have many plastic sleeves. I need to read both sides you see. I insert photos and images of painting whenever relevant. I do have nice folders and bookcases for them. Now I’m rereading them and write a note here and there, as Long said for his own, notes for myself.

 

So those neat rows of black leather folders in the glass bookcases in your house are full of old letters?

Yes Martin (she smiles brightly), but the most special ones are in a wooden box, and I change them from time to time.

What kind of box?

Well you would like it say red cedar, or walnut, a queen years ago from my old country might have even wanted it made from sandalwood, but that’s impossible for me.

Nicely carved and lacquered?

Yes, but I prefer it on the outside only, inside I like it raw, well chiseled but raw, so I can smell the wood.

And you put letters in it?

Yes, but you first put in a sheet of very thin top-grade pelure, then a letter, then pelure again, and so on, and when you finish you would have a stopper, the same raw timber the size of a thick sheet of paper, to place on top, then close the box with the lid, A4-sized (she put a hand on the table, near her cup, eyes looked at Martin but seemingly were far away).

And where are your notes for those letters?

 

Well I used to write them on separate pages but now I will rewrite them on the pelures.

Incredible … incredible … your letters, mostly from whom, if I may ask, forgive my nosiness.

Not at all Martin, not at all, they’re mostly from Nicole and from myself, almost all to each other, yes, we missed each other often, and couldn’t wait to tell the other so with the pen.

 

What a wonderful secret, I knew you two wrote to each other, but didn’t realise it’s so prolific, so passionate may I say, something for me to learn every day; I just didn’t realise one could be so much in love.

 

It’s like people writing diaries, with us we wrote to one another.

 

She changed the subject, asked about Martin’s family, when his new child came into being. It’s his turn to get to be a tweeny bit embarrassed (he married not so long ago) but very proud and happy, his wife in the industry also. She said it’s nice to see him start a family, being in his forties, just.

 

Then we stood up, exchanged pleasantry for parting at the end of a busy but very enjoyable evening, she said to me, come to my place for lunch if you can, before flying back home.

 

Both Martin and I were stunned. Martin, because he knew how private a person she was. Me, because I didn’t expect that at all, just met her tonight.

 

Wonderful, I would love to, it’s just that I’ll leave the day after tomorrow.

 

Then come tomorrow.

 

Of course, if no bother to you at all, vielen dank.

 

She took out a card from her handbag, wrote the address at the back, gave it to me. She shook my hand, hers slender, firm and dry, smiled, and we three walked up the stairs, out the door. Martin shook hand with me, smiled too, said this is a first, and he and Nga walked back to his building for the car and for her lift home, and I walked a few minutes toward the small bridge, crossing it for my hotel, and I hummed an old song.

​

​

 

 

4

 

​

(1955)

​

 

So, dearest Nga darling, you really want to know who I am?

 

You asked me that last night, remember? So this is the confession: I am an ogress, a mean and very hungry ogress, my diet consists solely of one substance, and that substance is you. I eat you up anytime, whatever your protest whatever your state of being. Eat you up, dearest darling, simply eat you up.

 

Any time we walk with each other on the streets, I wonder if strangers fathom the terrifying secret between us, between the two nice and not bad-looking (well, can’t deny that!) dames modernes, if they realise I can’t wait to get home and eat you up. I might appear pleasant, saying bon jour bon soir here and there to all and sundry, you may look cool and elegant and smiling (good to see you smile darling, Paris notwithstanding), but your fate is set at the end of each day, my meal would be ready, and you cannot run away, I won’t let you escape. Where are my long claws now, ah, they’re not protruding on the fingers just yet, but tonight they will be there for me to grab you, to bring your face closer to mine. Your fate is set as I said, set set set.

 

I eat you up and all to my heart’s content, then I’ll paint the scene tomorrow on canvas. In it I would undeniably be truculent, whereas you undeniably tasty. What else can I put in? Nothing but the truth, just the truth. A viewer may resort to her own description – she would say: hmm, this is outrageous eroticism.  Well, let me ask you – never mind anyone else, can I simply put the truth on canvas, what is the problem with truth anyway, what would be wrong at all? What would be wrong, just as I asked when I wanted to wait for you in front of your work building a lifetime ago in Hanoi; that, after the love-at-first-sight breakfast two days prior, the austere first dinner the next night. What would be wrong, at all!

 

And true, I wouldn’t care about any viewer, any acquaintance, any learned institution, any long-standing social ethics. I care only about you, my delicious meal, my truth, a truth of which I will paint.

 

Now, what colours shall I use? Orange for our bodies: the ogress and the delectable meal? Yes. Blue of the hair, as if we’re from another planet? Yes. Pink-red for the two sets of lips, for the buds on the two sets of breasts? Naturellement.

​

Any other colour? Cream for the bed spread, floral green for the quilt? Yes yes yes.

 

Oh I forgot. Black, for your irises (and boring grey for mine). Violet, for my love for you. Violet too, for your love for this ogress.

 

I love you, what else can I say?

 

I love you when you say you love Lu Hsun, he of the cruel biting words yet in the same breath of the finest of heart, of his contempt for both the poor and the rich, the passé and the modern, the East and the West, the misery of China and the gun-powder success of Europe and Japan. He hated them all, but still he cared for the hopelessness of his people and the cleverness of those from the other shores. I love you when you insist that I then have to tell you, in my turn, about Camus and his realism, how a Frenchie scribe from a defeated land may compare to an older colleague from a far-off but equally defeated land. Well, darling, perhaps Camus is not quite as interesting as Lu Hsun was, accomplished writers and thinkers both. And perhaps it was lucky for the latter’s peace of mind that he died before Stalin’s bloodbath in Europe fully unfolded (along with the Nazi’s later on, one must say) to eyes outside Soviet lands, but can one predict what an ism would turn into in the fullness of time?

 

I love you, too, when you say you love your own Nguyen Tuan, he of the longing for a nasty but beautiful past. He of the exquisite pen who treasures it all, yet prepared to destroy in order to build anew – a new life, sadly my darling, a new life that, in this painter’s humble opinion, won’t come to him and his nation, your nation, because the contradiction in his Party (your Party!) had already been set in stone. Where there is no liberty there cannot be a fresh new life.

 

I love you most, when, torturing yourself in thoughts, sadly shaking your head at my suggestion for becoming detached, carefree; when, in the midst of all that, all these turbulent streams of the mind, you dreamily close eyes when I come close to your face in order to bite your lips, then open eyes wide to wrestle me down on the bed, imprisoning me with your slender arms, with your glorious body.

 

I love you even more, vain and brass that I am, when, after our lengthy tussle ends (however long it still ends each night darling, peacefully exhausted as we are, no wonder I have to again plan to eat you up when the sun comes), you declare that your ogress Nicole is indeed both elegant and voluptuous, a tricky combination, that. But I am still an ogress, not a divine being that you are!

 

And Nga darling, don’t think, please don’t think, that I am more open-minded, more of a liberal mind than you. That is not true at all. I had it easy during the war (the one against the Nazi that was), and had it quite easy when my people were robbing, courtesy of American money and American weapons, from the Viets after all those years. Jérome’s death was a blow to me, undeniably (yet in the convoluted scheme of the universe, had it not been for that, I wouldn’t be here with you! Did Jérome ever think that’s how it would turn out?), but how am I compared to you, you who are still enlightened after all that had happened. You are always, from the first, more than a match for me.

 

You are the one I will go to when I have doubts on life. But you know what, darling, I’ve had no doubt at all since the day after my plane touched down Hanoi in March. My philosophy now is supremely bland in its rationale, or shall I say, supremely celestial and humanly satisfying …

 

It is this: I am a mean ogress, and the moment I put this pen down, I’m going to eat you up. And when you receive this in the post, don’t burn it off. Show it to me, I’ll say merci bien ma chère and proceed quickly to eat you up again.

​

Dearest Yours,

 

Ogresse Nicole​

​

​

 

 

5

 

 

  i

 

 

Is there really such a thing as involuntary memory?

I think memory is a deliberate act, we pull it out from our mind, simmer it when happy, dissect it when distressed.

Almost like your work in the financial markets and news and events?

Yes.

Proust made things up then.

I believe he did, and it's literary history.

 

She smiled, said, spoken like a seasoned critic. And I must have reddened on the face. Suddenly I shed more than thirty years, becoming mid-teens. And she somehow became only thirties something, a teacher-poet but more than that. Much more than that.

 

We sat in her garden, it’s warmer now, had conversed for more than an hour. I came when near noon, the March sun was still weak – the weather a chancy thing in this land. She told me she knew the forecast for today, so let’s risk sitting in the garden. We each had a large coat on, open at the neck. Under the coat she wore velvet green, warm-looking and sparkled in its deep shade. Her neck was slender, an expanse of lovely bare paleness, almost without wrinkles considering her age …

 

But before this I had admired the rosa-multiflora before knocking on her door. The trellis above my head stretched from the small wrought-iron gate, with its timber mail box, all the way to the front door, dark green again. The tiny roses were white and pink, many still in buds.

 

Somehow, well aware that I was nearly fifty, in front of the door of a woman more than a quarter-century older, somehow my heart skipped a beat. I ignored the bell and tapped gently on the timber.

 

A few seconds, and I saw her smile. We shook hands. She asked, first up, how are you.

 

In the small foyer there was two portraits in gouache, each a square of half-a-metre sides. Then two larger photos, and finally one with both subjects in it. Nga, Nicole, Nga, Nicole, Nicole and Nga. In their thirties.

 

She touched the non-reflective glass of the first, said, these were done just after we met, by a friend of hers in Paris.

 

She was striking in the picture frames, velvet black hair, shinning eyes carrying a touch of sadness, a perfect oval Oriental face, the finest of face, a little gaunt with ivory neck.

 

Her partner was beautiful, alluring, elegantly seductive. Tussled hair, and a half-smile somehow both cheerful and challenging. Teasing eyes.

 

In the joint half-length portrait they didn’t look at each other but Nga’s hand touched Nicole elbow which leaned slightly on the other’s breast. They were in love, mind and body.

 

These are wonderful portraits, I said, you’re both so lovely. She laughed, well, we were presentable enough, young enough, and these have been with us for almost fifty years.

​

Then the spectacular walls in the lounge and the dining room, the kitchen. Madame Nicole’s greatest works. I was stunned for a moment, then remembered Alice Munro’s Hateship in English original and the Montrachet. I said I was sorry, handed them to her. She smiled, said dank, told me to me to take my time viewing the paintings, she would bring the glasses, plates, wines and food to the terrace. I said I liked to help, but she said no, take your time, it’s only a few small items, lunch for two, take your time with the paintings, best you view them yourself.

​

And I quickly understood. All of the works were exquisite, but many incredibly erotic. The colours were bold, the passion burning and over-powering, and the subjects, two women, sparkled in a thousand ways, whether fully dressed, half-dressed or naked, whether lying and reclining, or one on a sofa and one kneeling in front, whether kissing or touching, or tasting each other’s body. Even in those when they sat in a café, on a terrace, looking at each other, one could see their love smoulder in the air between, in the space surrounding, in the setting.

 

Passion in the extreme, alive on canvas, stronger than in a thousand greatest poems, a thousand passages in revered novels. Never mind Gertrude Stein’s verses, the allusion of Georgia O’Keefe’s lines, the fables of the Sapphists, the coolness of Virginia Woolf's prose. These paintings were real, living, burning as I said, even as one saw them many years later, decades later, today.

 

I felt warm in the soul, found it hard to move from the images. A thousand adjectives came to mind. Those I had mentioned, but the more direct ones too: sexy, urgent, red-hot. I was a little turned on. I thought of their lives together, the one that had past and the one presently between the here and the other side.

 

​

​

 

  ii

 

 

I turned, and saw her stand by the door. The sun shined on her hair. She said, I see that you were a little affected by her power, time to sit down, come, you can see them again afterwards.

 

She beckoned, said let’s chance the weather, and I followed her into a private terrace surrounded by plants and flowers. The sun transformed into a thousand little circles of bright white on the ground, the two small iron arm-chairs with cushions, the table, reflected on the wine bottle and the glasses. We sat down.

 

She looked at me, a little amused, said, you like them.

 

I replied, very much so, they are more exquisite than the best of Klimt, the best of Modigliani.

 

She would be delighted to hear that, but competition wasn’t in her mind when creating them, during and after.

She painted those solely for you and her, always?

Yes. She put all heart and mind, all senses of body, into them. I was shocked myself seeing them when they were completed, pleasantly shocked - those were truly her, who she was.

 

We were silent, both looked at the wine bottle. She poured me a glass, for herself only a quarter. There were olives, blue-vein, Swiss gruyere, biscuit crackers. A floral ceramic plate in the table centre, covered by a low glass bowl – baby tomatoes, slender asparagus, celeries … The Alice Munro on the side, still in wrap.

 

We sipped a little Montrachet, then she asked, what do you miss most, the landscape or the people?

 

I knew exactly what she meant, and answered truthfully, the people when I feel happy, the landscape when I’m down.

 

You miss those only occasionally these days?

Yes, the last twenty-five years, more so prior.

What kind of landscapes?

The street lanes in summer when I was ten doing an errand. The empty gravel schoolyard on a Sunday afternoon …

And?

​

The rice field after harvest near a village I visited, ten again … the sale book stalls in the big city just before leaving …

Leaving for Sydney …

Yes.

Martin told me.

 

May I ask the same of you?

For the last fifty years?

Yes.

I missed the café noir shared with my long gone husband. The classes of small children and adults in Cao Bang when we were at war.

There you were the teacher?

Yes, with a friend, a comrade.

….

The simple roneo printing press, smudging hands and face …

…

There were mountain orchids in Cao Bang. There were poplars in Ha Noi, years before.

…

My parents, my sisters … we sat on the cool smooth cement floor on summer nights.

…

My unease before I met Nicole the first time at breakfast, and nervousness after the first moment, for different reasons.

It’s hard to cope with so much memory, Madame Nga, growing as time goes by.

As you yourself know well, yes, a burden, and it’s simply Nga.

Thank you … Nga.

How was the scene in the South with words – further from the fighting?

 

I looked carefully at her. There was no one ever asking me a thing like that, saying things exactly like that, “the scene in the South with words”. It brought back those dozen enlightened years of boyhood and early youthhood reading books in a place now so far away. I had become fifteen again in this garden, starting to fall for this teacher-poet who might have been in her twenties, thirties, forties, the concept of age scarcely relevant in this ambience of spotted lights of spring, of gentle fragrance from lilacs and magnolias and tiny roses, of “the scene in the South with words”, of thoughts and perception spanning years and decades, East and West.

 

There are quite a few names that spring to my mind, one or two standing out prominently.

Quite distinct from the North’s foundation twenty thirty years earlier?

​

Yes.

Convince me with an example or two.

There was this poet nearly fifty years ago who remembered sitting in a park one day with his object of desire, in a Sai Gon post-1954.

…

Who was wearing an ao dai made from old memory of the silk from Ha Dong 

…

And the long long autumn manifested from her short hair, chasing itself, surrounding …

Autumn manifested from her short hair, chasing itself … provocative imagination, Long, beautiful words and thoughts.

I believe so, those were the poet’s words, the first time I read it, and every year later recalling from my mind.

How do you see her from your mind?

Short hair, but most of all the lovers’ autumn that was caressing her slender neck, pale, exposed.

 

This time it was she who looked carefully at me, with a smile, a lovely smile, forgiving, encouraging, not forced or censorious. I held her eyes for a few seconds then looked away, looked down in fact, picking up my glass.

 

Anyone who wrote like Vu Trong Phung, or like the early revolutionaire from China, Lu Hsun?

Many tried, most not quite reached the same standard and scope. But one named Hoang Hai Thuy wasn’t so bad in the same mould, though not as creative

And anyone with a first book like Vang Bong Mot Thoi?

I have to say, none, but a Vu Bang tried with his reminiscence of Ha Noi of the twenties and thirties.

A past of slavery, longed for or not.

Yes.

Just like Nguyen Tuan’s past, one of defeat and cruelty, of ignorance and prejudices, no matter how evocative, no matter how beautiful in parts.

Yes.

Long ago, when I couldn’t find peace in my sleep, struggled with the thought that I both hated and loved Vang Bong Mot Thoi …

…

Nicole somehow felt my anguish, my poor darling Nicole, woke up and comforted me. She was more than the old country, much more than the old country …

… I understand perfectly your feelings.

 

So no one wrote like my old comrade Nguyen Tuan?

 

Not quite the same style.

Woman writers?

Nha Ca wrote lovely reminiscences of Hue, of the 1968 when war came in earnest cruelty; Tuy Hong's realism excelled ...

Any one truly substantial in a different way, a new standard?

There was Vo Phien.

A Southerner?

Yes.

How did he write?

He split a hair into four, perhaps not unlike Proust as you know who split hair even into eight, page after page.

Tiresome in part, Proust, but once one gets used to it, his is quite entertaining, perceptive.

I believe Vo Phien split hair as skillful as anyone, without being self-conscious.

And who did those hairs belong to?

To those of the lower socio-economic side, yet who would mentally struggle with matters of life in a way as complex as bourgeoisies, if you like, more so. You would enjoy him, he with an even higher sustained energy than Vu Trong Phung and Lu Hsun, with critical yet sympathetic eyes, pages after pages of clear bright proses, unlike Proust, and with a similarly captivating structure … 

 

I stopped, I was rather lengthy.

 

A wonderful writer, she replied, I will seek his books from the US.

His novel Mot Minh is quite something.

A saga?

No, a monologue but doesn’t read like one, three hundred pages.

You treasure it?

More than any other. I bought it long ago, the only edition in Viet Nam, but later on my sisters had to let cadres from the North confiscate it, burn it.

A real shame. Those were my young overzealous later-life comrades, in name, burning books. She shook her head, ruefully.

Yes.

 

Through all this, her voice was clear yet deep with age. Her teeth even, white. And her neck luminous … It’s a cliche, but I was falling in love, a love that has nothingness as its definition, its nourishment – that unfathomable substance, stretching from here to eternity.

​

She sipped a tiny amount of wine, held the glass on her lips for a while, then put it down. A quarter-drop lingered. Looked at me, caught me looking at it.

 

I must have reddened again, so she looked away, smiled, moved and pick a slim plate, put a few crackers on, a small amount of cheese, and handed it to me.

 

Thank you Nga.

Tell me …

​

​​

​

 

 

  iii

​

 

Tell me …

Yes Madame Nga

Is there a place that is a second homeland?

 

With that, we turned slowly to the garden. My eyes were on a magnolia a few metres away, the purple blooms abundant on the bare branches. These queens of flowers last only a week – a week each year. There were still young buds, so that would add on another week, two more at best. Then nothing until next March. A long time between the showing of soft naked porcelain by the glorious queens. A long time. But at least they returned. Not so my homeland. Our homeland.

 

May I ask you first, can anything replace first love?

​

… I really wouldn’t know. Mine was and is Nicole, wherever she now is. First love is from both mind and body and would be difficult to replace. But is the love for one’s homeland sexual in part?

​

It is strong, full of complexes, full of pulls and pushes, full of excuses and justifications, full of emotions, full of longing passions certainly. I can only equate it to a thing that is at least part sexual, because I’m a basic person.

​

Basic indeed, her eyes twinkled with gentle mocking, continued, but many of your notions relate more to the mind than the body. Except the longing perhaps.

Yes.

 

 

… Do you think of homeland this way because you read books since young, in our homeland.

Yes, and clearly you too, more than anyone.

That’s true. Words altered our mind, each of us, since long ago. Our love for a thing like homeland changed shape as a result ...

 

It became abstract and more basic at the same time, I said, following on, an urgent love that, if removed, would create pain; as such it resembled a sexual thing, in my view.

​

That may well be so, let us assume, but once the object of love, of desire, was lost, are there never socio-economic issues afterwards that may introduce a new love in later life?

 

…

 

Those mutated complications aside, in my case I had only one love, a boundless love that moved me away from my homeland, and that love still burns in me. So, will there be a second homeland?

 

She said that with a half-smile, not a challenge or sign of impatience. I have never met a woman, a person, who was so calm and matter-of-fact when discussing matters anywhere as complex as this cruel issue. Her emotion, real yet abstract, was there, but her expression was the same as when she asked how I was three hours ago. It’s not a question of keeping things under control. It’s not the fact that she had had an accomplished life, a learned young girl in Ha Noi, a ranking fighter at war after family tragedies, a liberal who was steadfast in a love that challenged tiresome conventions, and a noted poet. It’s not any or even all of that. It’s that she was simply herself, and I knew that ever since I first met her yesterday. I knew even if I had never met such a person – I simply knew.

 

I blinked my eyes, not wanting to get carried away with thoughts. And replied,

 

No Nga, there would never be a second homeland.

The same with you?

Yes.

Will each of us ever rediscover the original version?

Not on my part Nga.

And?

May I say, not on your part either.

…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long Vo-Phuoc  -  2022

​