“Are you still bumming meals?” Christopher asked, when Kim came on the noisy line.
They arranged to meet at Fouquet’s. Christopher filled the gas tank and spent three hours circling the block until he found a parking place on the Champs-Elysées in front of the cafe.
Kim drank two large bourbons at Fouquet’s and two more at La Coupole after they had driven through Montmartre and doubled back across the Seine bridges. Kim did not know the city, and the long ride with many detours down side streets did not surprise him. When they reached the restaurant, they were alone; as they pulled away from Fouquet’s, Christopher had seen, in the rear-view mirror, the two men who were following Kim. One hurried around the corner to get a taxi while the other watched Christopher’s rented Peugeot vanishing into a school of others just like it toward the place de la Concorde.
Kim ordered oysters. For an Asian, he was an adventurous eater, but he looked uncomfortable when he saw before him the thick green meat of a dozen Spéciales in their gnarled shells. He squeezed lemon over the oysters, and putting one into his mouth, opened his eyes wide and chewed. “They have no taste,” he said, and sprinkled pepper over the ones remaining.
“Kim,” Christopher said, “Let me see if I have this straight. The part of the Vietnamese family called the toe consists of all persons, male or female, who claim a common ancestry back five generations into the past, and forward three generations into the future. Is that right?”
Kim, still chewing, frowned. “Say it in French,” he said. Christopher translated.
“Yes,” Kim said, “That’s it. Then there are the chi and the phai-different parts of the system.”
“The chi is the important unit, is it? Those are people related in direct line of descent from eldest son to eldest son.”
“People who belong to a chi think so. How do you know this stuff?”
“I’m not sure I do, that’s why I’m checking. What’s a phai?”
“There can be lots of phai in a family. That’s people who are descended from younger sons.”
“Can you belong to a chi on one side and a phai on the other?”
“Sure, everyone does. I’m a chi on the Nguyen side and a phai on the Ngo side.”
“What about, say, Diem and Nhu-where did they fit in?”
“They were both younger sons,” Nguyen said. “The eldest son was Khoi-the one I told you was killed in ‘45 by Ho’s people.”
“Do these categories mean anything in the modern world?”
“You bet your ass they do,” Kim said. “What counts is where you rank in the family. If the Nguyen kings had held on for another four hundred years, I’d be a prince of the blood royal. Nobody forgets that.”
“Where do you rank in the Ngo family?”
“Way down-lower than Diem and Nhu did, even.”
“They couldn’t have ranked so low.”
“Well, no, they didn’t. They were listened to, and they contributed a lot to the family wealth in one way or another. But as far as the Truong toe was concerned, they were just a couple of kids who spoke French.”
“The Truong toe?” Christopher said. “Who’s that?”
“The head of the family. He’s the oldest man of the main line of eldest sons. I guess maybe he was their great-uncle.”
“What’s his name?”
Kim chewed another oyster and gave Christopher a bright drunken look, filled with wariness. “Ngo,” he said.
“Ngo what?”
“That’s for me to Ngo and you to find out,” Kim said, and coughed violently on the oyster that laughter had driven into his nose.
When he recovered, he wiped tears from his eyes and asked, “What do you want to know all this stuff for, anyway?”
“After we had lunch in Rome, I thought I might go back out to Saigon and do a piece on the Ngo family. You made them sound interesting.”
“Well, they’re not. They mostly sit around in dark little houses, eating smelly stuff and talking about the past.”
“I find it hard to believe that this guy-the Truong toe?- could run the lives of men like Diem and Nhu,” Christopher said.
“In politics, no. In the family, yes. He’s the one closest to everyone’s ancestors-very important stuff with us.”
“He’s in touch with everybody in the family?”
“Sure-that’s all he has to do in life. Whenever there’s a problem in the family, he settles it. Consults the ancestors, you know, and comes up with the answer. His house is the headquarters of the toe.”
“What if you’re a militant Catholic, like Diem or Nhu-do you still worry about ancestor worship?”
Kim held a glass of wine to his lips with his right hand. With his left he made a gesture, palm upward, then downward, and lifted his eyebrows. He swallowed his wine and said, “It isn’t a question of ancestor worship versus Jesus Christ Our Lord. I tried to tell you in Rome how strong the family is with us. You’ve got to picture a group of people to whom all the dead ones, going back forever, and all the living ones, including the ones who are going to be born from now to forever, are all with you, all the time. That’s the Vietnamese family.”
“I’d like to write something about this.”
“Would you? You’d better do it on some other family. The Ngos are just a little anti-American right now.”
“It would be a good chance for them to make a point or two,” Christopher said. “I’ve got twenty million readers.”
“Your readers wouldn’t know a Truong toe from a third baseman, even after you told them. Paul, you’re shitting me. I think you’ve got something up your sleeve. You think about that while I get rid of some of this wine.”
Christopher watched Kim’s progress through the loud restaurant. Sybille Webster, sitting at a table against the wall, put a finger along her nose and winked at him. Tom Webster watched the Vietnamese go into the toilet, then walked over to Christopher’s table with his napkin clutched in his hand.
“Hi,” he said. “How’s every little thing?”
“Okay, Tom.”
“A college friend of yours passed through a couple of days ago. He left a message for you.”
“Did he, now? What was it?”
“It’s a bit complicated. Why don’t you come over for a drink when you ditch the little fellow?”
“All right. It may be late.”
Webster nodded and went back to his table. When Kim returned, he changed to red wine.
“Have you been to Beirut yet?” Christopher asked.
“No,” Kim replied, “I’ve decided to live oy my wits for a while. I keep busy selling interviews with Madame Nhu. You’re still not interested?”
“Not really, Kim. I know what she’s going to say-and it’s not publishable.”
“You want to do a story about the Ngo family without talking to her? No way you could do it-you’re too white, with all that blond hair and your big feet in wing tips. They wouldn’t say a word to you.”
Christopher shrugged. “I thought you might help out.”
“I don’t work there anymore.”
“But you work, Kim. I’m not thinking of your doing anything for free.”
Kim put down his wineglass and drew a short finger delicately around its rim. Christopher was.reminded of the bald banker in Geneva, counting money. “Well,” Kim said, “anything for the homeland. What seems reasonable to you?”
“A fair exchange. You give me ten good names-the Truong toe and whoever else you think might talk to me. I’d go to two hundred a name.”
Kim shook his head. “You’d have to use my name to get in the door,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to do that.”
“Then give me some other name-there must be someone I can pretend to know. By the time they check, I’ll be out of the country.”