The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 13

Chapter 13A week went by without any word from Signore

Difranco. Then one morning, I received a written note from Linh

Thi. It said that her husband had been delayed at one of his pepper

plantations and that he would be returning in a few more days. She

said she had sent a message to him telling him of my arrival.

I had been in Saigon for almost two weeks,

and I was beginning to feel a bit more comfortable. At least I knew

my way around, and I was doing my best to pick up French and some

of the native Saigonnais language. I found the native language

especially challenging because of the twelve vowels, twenty-seven

consonants, and six different tones one had to master in order to

speak it correctly.

Major Friant and Monsieur De Cotte sometimes

stopped by the hotel, and we took dinner together on a few

occasions. Saigon, I learned, was not lacking for excellent

cuisine. The French saw to that.

It took me a while to get used to the

breezeless air with its oppressive heat and humidity. I envied the

native population because they dressed much more sensibly than

Westerners did with their bulky suits, high collars, and ties.

In an effort to beat the heat, I found an

Indian tailor along Rue Catinat and had several sets of lightweight

white flannel jackets and pants made. He also made me a half dozen

wispy cotton and linen shirts. I couldn’t bring myself to wear one

of the wide-brimmed French pith helmets that most of the French men

wore. I preferred my old slouch hat instead.

I spent a lot of time writing letters. I

wrote several to my mother, to the McNabs, and to Anna Marie. I

also wrote a few to Katharina in the Philippines. I posted them all

at the impressive city post office on Rue Catinat. As with many of

the French colonial buildings in Saigon, the imposing yellow stucco

post office building looked as though it had been picked up and

moved directly from Paris.

One afternoon, as I walked back to my hotel

from the post office, I heard someone calling my name. It was Dr.

Son coming up behind me in a small carriage. He stopped, got out,

and we continued our walk to the hotel.

“I have some news for you,” he said. “ Giang

Văn Ba ’s brother would like to meet you.”

“Do you think he knows where Ba is?”

“Hmmm, I doubt it. The family has rather

rejected Ba because of his, shall we say, political

activities.”

“Then what’s the point?” I asked.

Dr. Son flashed me a disappointed look. “The

Giang family is very prominent in Nam K?. It is always useful to

know such people.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“I suppose so… but I would really like to

find Ba.”

Dr. Son regarded me with what I would call

astonishment. “I must say, Mr. Battles, you are a persistent

fellow. But what you want to do could be extremely dangerous.

Things in Nam K? are often not what they seem to foreigners—”

“I am finding that out,” I interrupted.

There was an ethereal beauty about Nam K? that seemed intent on

seducing you, but at the same time, there was a sinister darkness

about the place that both fascinated and repelled me. Grasping and

comprehending the inscrutabilities of Nam K? was like peeling an

onion one thin layer at a time. It’s was a slow, painstaking

process; and once you finished, the onion was not only gone, but

also you didn’t know much more than when you started.

We walked on in silence for a few minutes,

and then Dr. Son spoke.

“I hope I can confide in you, Mr.

Battles.”

“Confide what?”

“As you may have detected aboard the

Trave, I am not happy about the condition of my country…

about the presence of the French.” With that, he looked furtively

about as though he expected a gendarme to grab him at any

moment.

“I gathered,” I said.

“Are you acquainted with the history of the

French occupation and what they call Indochine Francais?”

I admitted that I had only a cursory

understanding of French Indochina.

“If you don’t mind, let me give you a little

history lesson,” Dr. Son said. “The French have been here since

about 1859, when they conquered Da Nang and Saigon. For the next

several years, they consolidated their territory, and in 1887, the

government in Paris proclaimed the Union Indochinoise.”

That union, Dr. Son explained, was comprised

of three regions: Cochinchina (South) Annam (central), and Tonkin

(North) as well as Cambodia. Laos was added to the union in 1893.

Once the system was fully in place, the emperor of Annam and the

kings of Cambodia and Laos governed in tandem with French

résidents superieurs who were answerable to the French

governor-general in Saigon.

“It is a brutally efficient and inflexible

system that is set up to keep my country under the thumb of the

French,” Dr. Son continued. “The same system exists in the

provinces. There local mandarins wield power at the district and

village level, but they do so under the jurisdiction of provincial

bureaucrats who are under the stringent control of their French

résidents superieurs.”

“It looks like the French have it pretty

well figured out,” I said.

“They do, but I don’t think they counted on

people like Ba and Phan Đình Phùng. The insurgency has given them a

lot of problems. Right now, the French have something like sixteen

thousand troops in French Indochina. It costs them a fortune in

money and manpower to hold on to their colony.”

We continued walking in silence for a few

minutes longer. Then Dr. Son said, “I have respect for men like Ba,

and I even endorse them, but sadly, I also know what they are doing

is, in the end, hopeless. France is a great world power, and my

country is poor and inhabited by simple people who are mostly

uneducated.”

“Men have often engaged in hopeless causes

because they believed strongly in them,” I said. “I am thinking

about the men who broke with England to create the United States.

Most people thought that was a hopeless cause also.”

Dr. Son smiled. “I won’t argue with you on

that point. I just want you to know my position before we meet with

Ba’s family. They hold a much different view than I do.”

Dr. Son and I met Ba’s brother at the Giang

family business the next day. His given name was Huynh, which Dr.

Son told me meant “older brother.”

Huynh greeted us in his large office. He was

a short, thickset man in his late fifties with a broad, meaty face

and dark narrow eyes.

He spoke French and English, both with a

low, modulated tone. It was evident, however, that his French was

much better than his English.

“Se il Vous plaît, Messieurs,” he said,

pointing to an oriental straight-backed wooden divan strewn with

red, yellow, and green pillows.

There was no handshaking. Dr. Son had

informed me that that Western custom was still observed only

intermittently in Nam K?. So we all bowed politely and took our

seats.

“Thank you for seeing us,” I began.

Huynh nodded and looked at me expectantly. I

then proceeded to explain how I came to know his brother Ba and how

I was eager to find him now that I was in Saigon.

“Has Dr. Son… expliqué… uh… explained… about

my frère… uh… brother?”

“He has… and that is even more reason for me

to find him… Perhaps I can talk him into giving up his

crusade.”

Huynh looked at Dr. Son blankly. Dr. Son

repeated what I had said in the local language. The two conversed

for a few minutes, and then Dr. Son looked at me.

“Mr. Huynh appreciates your concern for his

brother but says Ba made his choice. As such, the Giang family has

in effect renounced him. The only remaining link to the family will

be to bury him when the French kill him.”

I looked at Huynh. This man was a cold

fish, I recall thinking.

Huynh added something else, which Dr. Son

quickly translated.

“Mr. Huynh thanks you for looking out for

his brother in the United States. He says that because you did, the

family was able to enjoy at least three more years with him before

he ran off to join the anti-French rebel forces.”

Then the audience was over. I was no closer

to finding out where Ba was than when I arrived. Nevertheless, I

left Huynh’s office more determined than ever to find Ba, though I

didn’t have the slightest idea how to go about it. I was in a

country where I didn’t know the history, the language, the culture,

or the geography.

Dr. Son seemed to sense both my frustration

and determination as we left Huynh’s office.

“Let me do some investigating with some

people I know,” he said. “Maybe there is a way to contact your

friend, but it will take some time.”

“I have all the time in the world. If you

can find a thread, then I will follow it wherever it leads.”

Three days later, I had just returned to the

hotel and was studying the daily luncheon menu when I heard a

familiar voice behind me. I turned to look and saw a man who looked

to be in his late fifties walking toward me. He had a full head of

luxuriant silver hair and the bronzed, weathered face of a Kansas

wheat farmer. When he saw me, his mouth broke into a broad smile

revealing perfect white teeth.

“William Fitzroy Raglan Battles,” he half

roared as he reached my table. I stood up, and when I did, he

grabbed me and hugged me. “My god, I never would have recognized

you if Monsieur Grosstephan had not pointed you out. Look at you…

all filled out, fully grown, and with a bushy soup strainer under

your nose.”

“It’s great to see you again,” I said after

Difranco released me from his grasp. “You haven’t changed a

bit.”

Difranco laughed at that remark. “You

Kansans can really heave the connerie.” Then looking at me, he

added in a whisper, “That’s French for bullshit.”

I laughed. “It’s one of our most highly

praised qualities.”

We spent the next half hour or so talking

and drinking French beer. I brought him up to date on my life and

adventures, including the tragedy of Mallie’s death.

“I was so sorry to hear that… I did receive

your letter… Monsieur Grosstephan brought it to me.”

“The hotel was the last address I had for

you.”

Difranco nodded. He then brought me up to

date on his life, including his disastrous foray into coffee

production, his switch to black pepper cultivation, and his

marriage to Linh Thi.

“She is the best thing that has ever

happened to me,” he said. “I know there is a big difference in our

ages, but here in this part of the world, those things just don’t

seem to matter like they do in Europe or America.”

We ordered lunch and spent another hour or

so reminiscing about our time in Kansas, Colorado, and Arizona.

“How is your mother?” Difranco inquired.

“She was very well when I left her a few

months ago in Denver… though she was not very happy with me. In

fact, she was angry enough to eat the devil with his horns on.”

Difranco laughed at that. “Now that’s what I

have missed… that Kansas sand cutter jargon.”

After lunch, Difranco insisted that I check

out of the hotel and stay with him and Linh Thi. I demurred,

insisting that I didn’t want to intrude, but Difranco would have

none of it. So I settled with Monsieur Grosstephan, who offered to

have my bags packed and sent to Difranco’s house.

For the next several days, Signore Difranco

and I fleshed out the details of our lives during the thirteen

years that had passed since we said good-bye in Tucson. Linh Thi

exhibited a lot of patience because these were conversations in

which she could not actually participate. She was happiest when the

three of us took day trips to places of interest in and around

Saigon.

It was during a weeklong trip to a house

Difranco built in an area he called the Central Highlands that I

brought up Ba. I explained his background, how I came to know him,

and his situation since returning to Cochinchina. I also confided

that I was hoping to find him. Both Difranco and Linh Thi looked

puzzled and then shocked at that revelation.

“If he is with Phan Đình Phùng in Quảng Bình

province, you will never be able to find him,” Difranco said. “And

if you did, I don’t think you would live to tell the tale. These

are very dangerous people who do not distinguish between an

American and a Frenchman. To them, you are a kẻ xâm lược —an

invader.”

Linh Thi saw my disappointment at his news.

“There is really no easy way to get to that area unless it is with

the French military, and they will not allow that.”

After we returned to Saigon and for the next

several weeks, we occasionally talked about Ba and what he was

fighting for. I could see Difranco was not eager to dwell on the

subject. After all, he was one of those whom Phan Đình Phùng and Ba

were trying to expel. I decided not to bring it up again.

Soon, Ba and his struggle began to evaporate

from my mind. I saw Dr. Son every few weeks, and he would report

that he had no success in finding Ba. Weeks turned into months, and

I took several trips with Difranco to his black pepper plantations

located in Tay Ninh, Binh Long, and Bình Dương provinces.

The roads to the pepper plantations were an

adventure in themselves. After a heavy rain, they were little more

than quagmires; and during the hot season, they could smother you

with oppressive red dust. The plantations were often in the lush

green hills that rose from the plains.

After several trips, I learned more about

black pepper than I ever thought possible. It was one of those

items about which I never thought much. Pepper was always there on

the table, like salt. However, I soon learned that its history and

cultivation was far more fascinating than I could have imagined.

Difranco called it the king of spices. For more than four thousand

years, it was so valuable it was even used as currency in some

parts of India and Southeast Asia, where it originated.

Signore Difranco’s pepper plantations were a

remarkable sight. Acres and acres of ten-foot high woody vines

supported by trellises and planted in long narrow rows like the

corn in Northeastern Kansas that I grew up with.

One day, we walked through several rows of

the plants. As we did, Difranco showed me that each plant had

several stems, and a single stem bore twenty to thirty of what he

called spikes of the berries. The spikes were between three and

seven inches long and filled with light-yellow berries.

“These plants will be ready for the harvest

in about two weeks or so,” he said.

On one occasion, we were at a plantation for

the harvest of the black pepper crop. I was told it was time to

pick when one or two of the hard unripe berries at the base of the

spikes began to turn a dark orange-yellow color but before they

were fully mature.

Difranco explained that harvesting typically

occurred between January and May, which is the dry season in

Cochinchina.

“It requires rather delicate timing,” he

said. “If the berries are allowed to ripen completely, they will

lose their piquancy and bite and will ultimately fall off the spike

and be lost.”

I watched as several hundred plantation

workers, many of them women wearing yellow conical straw hats and

lightweight clothing, swarmed through the plants with ladders and

pruning hooks to collect the spikes. It was hard work—especially

with a blistering tropical sun radiating down on them. Once

collected, the workers spread the spikes out to dry in the hot sun.

When dry, the wrinkled sphere-shaped peppercorns were stripped off

the spikes.

“This is when the black pepper has its most

excellent and strongest flavor,” Difranco explained, picking up a

handful of dried berries. “If you pick them later when they are

riper, you will get the less potent white pepper, which is produced

by removing the outer skin and sun drying the berries.”

“I am not sure I could tell the difference

between black and white pepper,” I said.

“Oh, you can. White pepper has a milder

flavor, but it retains some of the pungency of black pepper,” he

went on. “But if you harvest the berries early, pickle them in salt

or vinegar, and then dry them at high temperatures or in a vacuum,

they will become green pepper. Green pepper is highly aromatic with

an herbal flavor but much less pungent. And when the same kind of

processing is applied to fully ripe berries, you get red

peppercorns.”

I shook my head. “It’s more than I can take

in. I had no idea of the intricacies of something as ordinary as

black pepper.”

“Ordinary, but very profitable. Black pepper

is the most widely used spice in the world.”

I reminded Signore Difranco of the fortune

he made buying and selling gold mines in Colorado.

“Yes, and that bit of success provided the

capital for my venture into growing this black gold,” he said.

“Thank God I had enough left over after my disastrous venture into

coffee cultivation.”

One day, after I had been living with the

Difranco’s for almost six months, I received a letter from

Katharina. She and Manfred were coming to Saigon. Manfred told me

in Manila that he had set up a small office in Saigon a few years

before, and he wanted to expand his company’s presence in

Cochinchina. They would be arriving in about three weeks, and

Manfred asked that I arrange two rooms for them at the

Continental.

I had mixed emotions about Katharina’s

visit. I looked forward to seeing her again, but at the same time,

I wasn’t sure what my feelings were for her. That night, in

Manfred’s garden, she had awoken feelings I had not experienced in

a long time. At the same time, I felt uneasy when I was with her.

There was something about her, something that kept me on edge. As

my cousin, Charlie Higgins used to say, “She was as hard to pin

down as smoke in a bottle.”

One evening, while having dinner with Linh

Thi and Difranco, I brought up my extraordinary relationship with

Katharina and the unexpected adventures we shared on our way from

San Francisco to the Philippines.

“She sounds like a fascinating woman,”

Difranco said. “Certainly not a boring one.”

“There is nothing boring about Katharina…

She is one of a kind, as you will see.”

Katharina and Manfred arrived as promised

one evening about three weeks later and checked into the

Continental Hotel. The next day, I met them in the hotel lobby.

When Katharina saw me, she walked quickly toward me and put her

arms around me.

“William,” she said. “William… it is

splendid to see you again.” She pressed herself against me and then

gave me a slight peck on the check. Then she pulled back from me,

and with her hands on my arms, she examined me up and down.

“You look… well, I would say you look

extraordinarily fit, suntanned, and quite healthy… Have you been

riding the range?”

That was Katharina. I chuckled at her

evaluation of me. Then I offered one of her. She was dressed

immaculately as usual. She wore a lightweight cerulean walking

skirt, a white cotton blouse, and a wide-brimmed white tweed sun

hat. She had apparently adapted to the tropical climate of

Southeast Asia quite nicely.

“And you look—how shall I say?—as though you

just stepped from the pages of an haute couture magazine.”

“Is that all?” she asked, feigning a thin

pout.

“And stunningly beautiful,” I added.

“That is more like it,” she said. Then she

looked at Manfred, who had just joined us. “See, Manfred, William

did not turn into a boorish lout after all, even though he is

living on the very edge of civilization.”

“It appears not,” Manfred said. “How are

you, William? I must say you look quite hale and hearty.”

We chatted a bit more, and then we walked to

the Cafe De La Musique for lunch. We sat at one of the sidewalk

tables. Katharina was impressed.

“I can see why they call Saigon the Paris of

the East… sidewalk cafes are everywhere.”

“Well, at least in this part of the city,” I

said. “You are in the heart of the French quarter where French is

the lingua franca. There are parts of the city where that is not

the case. And once out of Saigon, you are in a much different

world, one as far removed from Paris as Timbuktu.”

Katharina nodded. “You seem to have

acclimated quite well to colonial life.”

“Not really… Foreigners can live quite

comfortably here… especially the French, but life is not nearly as

pleasant for the native population. I am having trouble adjusting

to that fact.”

Katharina looked at Manfred. “Well, it looks

like William is a concurring adversary to the scourge of

colonialism.”

I told Katharina and Manfred about Ba, how I

met him, his apparent struggle against French colonial rule in Nam

K?, and my failure to find him. They were sympathetic, but like

Linh Thi and Difranco, they were not enthusiastic about me trying

to find him.

“My advice,” Manfred said. “Let this man

find you… He knows how to travel in this country, how to avoid

detection by the French, and if he wants to see you, he will do

so.”

It seemed like sage counsel, but it didn’t

ameliorate my disappointment.

Then, later that evening during dinner, the

conversation turned to something that took me by complete

surprise.