without showing any visible sign of emotion. “Tam, because your responsibility for what happened is not so great as Kim’s, you and your sister will kneel in the corner of this room for one hour with your faces to the wall. If you remain perfectly still and keep your backs straight, you won’t be punished further. Use the time to reflect on your disgraceful behaviour —. and resolve never to disobey me again.”
As the elder boy and Lan turned away in relief, the mandarin let his hand fall on the bamboo cane; he rolled it between his fingers for a moment before glancing up at his younger son again. “Your punishment, Kim, will depend on the quality of your answers,” he said, speaking in a quiet voice. “And I want you first tell me why you took the gibbon to the palace when you knew it was wrong.”
For a long time the boy maintained a defiant silence and didn’t look at his father.
“If you don’t tell me, I will beat you without mercy,” said the mandarin at last and rose from his chair with the cane in his hand. Still the boy didn’t speak, but when his father advanced around the table and stood over him, he looked up into his face.
‘I did it because some of the older boys at school dared me! They said I was too frightened of our long-nosed French masters to do such a thing. I wanted to show them I wasn’t afraid!”
Tran Van Hieu’s eyes glittered and the muscles of his jaw tightened. “Why should you need to show you are not afraid? You know very well you should accord the French governor and his officials the same respect you show to me and your grandfather. They are the ruling authority. Our position and our wealth depend on their goodwill.”
“Some of the older boys at school say we are nothing more than dancing puppets of the French!” The boy blurted his words in a rush, his pale face Rushing suddenly. “They say we’ve sold our souls to France in return for rice fields over which the crane might fly all morning without encountering barriers. They call us ‘licensed pirates’ behind our backs!”
In the tense silence that followed, Tam and Lan, who had their faces to the wall, heard their father draw a long shuddering breath; then the first crack of the bamboo cane rang through the quiet room like a pistol shot. As the sound was repeated again and again the tears that had been brimming in Lan’s eyes spurted down her cheeks, and beside her Tam listened rigid with horror, waiting for the sound of his brother’s wailing to begin.
But although the cane continued to rise and fall with a terrible regularity, and they continued to hear the awful blows landing, no sound came from their brother. Once Tam darted a terrified glance over his shoulder and saw Kim sprawled across the writing-table; white faced and trembling from head to toe, he had his eyes closed and his fists were clenched tight as he summoned up every last ounce of courage in his eleven-year-old body to endure his father’s beating without weeping or crying out.
7
In the bright, clear sunlight of the morning that followed the governor’s reception, the three-mile highway linking Saigon with Cholon was aswarm with almost every form of land transport that had ever served mankind. Drawn by light-stepping ponies, lowing bullocks, sweating, yellow-skinned men or smoking petrol and steam engines, unending processions of carriages, carts, rickshaws, trams, trains, cars, and motor buses were plying urgently back and forth across the drab plain of treeless rice fields, hurrying to complete their business before the heat of noon drove their passengers to seek shelter and shade.
Perched on the tailboard of a tiny wooden malabar pulled by two short-legged Cambodian ponies, Senator Nathaniel Sherman was puffing reflectively on a Havana cigar as he surveyed the early morning scene. “It’s worth remembering, Chuck, that without the white man’s know-how this road would be nothing more than a dusty cart track
As the elder boy and Lan turned away in relief, the mandarin let his hand fall on the bamboo cane; he rolled it between his fingers for a moment before glancing up at his younger son again. “Your punishment, Kim, will depend on the quality of your answers,” he said, speaking in a quiet voice. “And I want you first tell me why you took the gibbon to the palace when you knew it was wrong.”
For a long time the boy maintained a defiant silence and didn’t look at his father.
“If you don’t tell me, I will beat you without mercy,” said the mandarin at last and rose from his chair with the cane in his hand. Still the boy didn’t speak, but when his father advanced around the table and stood over him, he looked up into his face.
‘I did it because some of the older boys at school dared me! They said I was too frightened of our long-nosed French masters to do such a thing. I wanted to show them I wasn’t afraid!”
Tran Van Hieu’s eyes glittered and the muscles of his jaw tightened. “Why should you need to show you are not afraid? You know very well you should accord the French governor and his officials the same respect you show to me and your grandfather. They are the ruling authority. Our position and our wealth depend on their goodwill.”
“Some of the older boys at school say we are nothing more than dancing puppets of the French!” The boy blurted his words in a rush, his pale face Rushing suddenly. “They say we’ve sold our souls to France in return for rice fields over which the crane might fly all morning without encountering barriers. They call us ‘licensed pirates’ behind our backs!”
In the tense silence that followed, Tam and Lan, who had their faces to the wall, heard their father draw a long shuddering breath; then the first crack of the bamboo cane rang through the quiet room like a pistol shot. As the sound was repeated again and again the tears that had been brimming in Lan’s eyes spurted down her cheeks, and beside her Tam listened rigid with horror, waiting for the sound of his brother’s wailing to begin.
But although the cane continued to rise and fall with a terrible regularity, and they continued to hear the awful blows landing, no sound came from their brother. Once Tam darted a terrified glance over his shoulder and saw Kim sprawled across the writing-table; white faced and trembling from head to toe, he had his eyes closed and his fists were clenched tight as he summoned up every last ounce of courage in his eleven-year-old body to endure his father’s beating without weeping or crying out.
7
In the bright, clear sunlight of the morning that followed the governor’s reception, the three-mile highway linking Saigon with Cholon was aswarm with almost every form of land transport that had ever served mankind. Drawn by light-stepping ponies, lowing bullocks, sweating, yellow-skinned men or smoking petrol and steam engines, unending processions of carriages, carts, rickshaws, trams, trains, cars, and motor buses were plying urgently back and forth across the drab plain of treeless rice fields, hurrying to complete their business before the heat of noon drove their passengers to seek shelter and shade.
Perched on the tailboard of a tiny wooden malabar pulled by two short-legged Cambodian ponies, Senator Nathaniel Sherman was puffing reflectively on a Havana cigar as he surveyed the early morning scene. “It’s worth remembering, Chuck, that without the white man’s know-how this road would be nothing more than a dusty cart track
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