In the high ceilinged interview room the furniture was a mix of Louis Philippe and splay-leg 1950s Formica. Faded posters of young Vietnamese soldiers waving forward their advancing columns covered the walls; posters of a revolutionary struggle long ago won and lost, the corners curling down where the blue tack had hardened and lost adhesion. Sitting alone in the room, watching the slant of sun through the unwashed windows, unable to hear the slightest movement beyond the double door, Max waited half an hour for the first clerk to return with further questions and a second half hour for him to come back again.
But he didn’t come back. Instead the door opened and Max was confronted by a girl, simply dressed in a black skirt, black pumps and a sleeveless white blouse. He stood up. He registered olive green eyes and hair that was dark chestnut and slightly waved. An Amerasian girl. It seemed to him that she could not fail to see the effect she had on him but she moved unselfconsciously behind the desk in the centre of the room and invited him to sit down.
She began speaking in fluent English, the accent American, the usage at times just slightly unpractised. ‘Mr Benning,’ she said, her eyes on the file she had laid open in front of her, ‘I understand you are anxious for information about a Madame Bernadette Hyn who once resided at the Hotel Kandler here in Paris.’
‘I gave the clerk all the details,’ Max said. ‘My father was found dead in Bernadette Hyn’s studio apartment in early 1975.’
‘May I ask why you are seeking this information all these years later, Mr Benning?’
‘Until twelve years ago I believed my father had died in a car crash just after I was born. My mother chose that as a suitable version of events for a growing boy.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, carefully. ‘I was asking from a personal interest. It was not an official question.’
He realised that, behind her spectacular green eyes, she was deeply troubled. ‘My name is Nan Luc Hyn,’ the Vietnamese girl said suddenly. ‘The Bernadette Hyn you are enquiring about is almost certainly my grandmother.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Max said.
She put her head down and read rapidly through the notes, turning the pages quickly. He waited until she looked up. The features were put together with that unique felicity that a Vietnamese mother and an American father sometimes brought about.
‘I don’t think I’m going to be any help to you,’ she said. ‘My grandmother, Bernadette Hyn, was an official of what was known as North Vietnam. She was working for one of our senior representatives in Paris, Vo Tran Quatch. In my notes it is written that the accusation of murder was an American attempt to discredit the work of Franco-Vietnamese friendship which Monsieur Quatch was engaged in.’
‘Sounds as if the CIA have a lot to answer for.’ She looked down at her notes, momentarily confused. ‘OK.’ Max sat forward. ‘You mean somebody picked a passing German tourist off the street, murdered him and dropped the body in your grandmother’s apartment?’
‘According to my notes.’
‘That’s all you have to say?’ Something in her expression cancelled out the inadequacy of her words. Something that appealed to him to understand she had no alternative. He stood up. ‘Will you have lunch with me?’
‘That would be impossible,’ she said, flushing.
‘Why impossible?’
‘I seldom leave the compound.’
‘You must sometimes. How about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow I have some errands to do at lunchtime. I’m sorry, Mr Benning.’
Max got to his feet. ‘Your grandmother, is she still alive?’
‘Of course.’
‘In Saigon?’
‘In Ho Chi Minh City, yes.’
‘Did she never tell you about the day the Americans planted the body of a German tourist on her living-room carpet?’
Nan Luc looked at him evenly. ‘There are many things she has not told me, Mr Benning. My grandmother has lived a very full life.’
‘I bet,’ he said. At the door he paused. ‘If I were to just catch you between errands, say at twelve-thirty in the Brasserie one block down, would you have time to talk a bit more about this very strange story?’
‘Official business is always discussed here at the embassy, Mr Benning.’ She stepped forward and opened the door for him.
‘Then we’ll just talk about how much we both like Paris.’ Her eyes opened wide, incredibly green, set in a flawless blue-white. He thought of the brightness of emeralds. ‘Try to make it happen,’ he said quietly.
‘Please, Mr Benning…’ she whispered.
‘Will you try?’
He could see her teeter on the edge of a momentous decision. ‘Don’t wait past one o’clock,’ she said through the crack in the closing door.
She knew it was an utterly reckless thing to do. She had delivered a file of documents to the Elysee palace and had spent some of the few francs she possessed on a taxi back to Rue Boileau, gaining nearly half an hour on the Metro ride. With a little leeway claimed for waiting time at the Elysee she calculated that she had the best part of an hour. An hour to meet an American.
She had no real doubt about what would happen if she were found out. Free time did not exist for the junior members of the embassy. It was not so much forbidden as unthought of. And to spend an hour as she planned, an hour carved out of her official duties… her heart raced at the thought of what she was doing. Even more at the thought of why she was doing it. It was the first time in her life that she had had lunch with a man alone. It would be almost the first time in her life that she had done anything that was not part of an organised event, approved or endorsed by the state she lived in or the politics she was expected to live by.
She left the taxi in the shadows of a narrow road no more than a few yards from the Brasserie. She could see it up ahead in the sunlight. She could turn now and walk away. Or she could continue the few yards along the ruelle, step out into the sunlight and enter the Brasserie. Where the American waited.
‘No wonder you can’t take your eyes off her, cherie. She’s adorable,’ the French woman said to her husband. Max, at the next table, glanced up to see Nan Luc hesitating at the door of the Brasserie.
As she walked in he got quickly to his feet and touched her hand in greeting. She gave him a quick smile, then her eyes flicked rapidly round the room, before coming to rest on the large, lettered window that gave on to the sidewalk.
‘There’s a garden out back with one or two tables,’ Max said. ‘Would that be better?’ She nodded quickly and he led her through the bar.
In the garden, around the white painted walls, four or five tables were arranged, each set with cutlery and glasses on a pink paper cloth. When the waiter had taken their order they were alone in the paved, glassed-in garden room.
‘Are you different because you have an American father?’ he said.
She smiled. ‘That’s why I look different.’
‘It’s more than looks,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe there’s another girl at the embassy who would have dared come here today.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Monsieur Benning,’ she said.
He thought of how the embassy might react if they discovered she was having lunch alone with a Westerner and felt a twinge of guilt at the risk she was taking. ‘I don’t have to say I’m glad you came,’ he said.
‘I can’t stay long.’
‘I know that. I guess you don’t get a lot of time to see Paris?’ She was silent. ‘Dumb question,’ he said. ‘I’ll try again. Tell me about back home. Were you born in Saigon?’