The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [525]
‘It is most important that your animals should remain calm … A box of five-grain potassium bromide tablets from any chemist … one tablet for a cat or small dog, such as a Pekinese, two for a terrier, three for a spaniel …’
Stranded in an alien culture, surrounded by British dog-lovers, Dupigny suffered an acute pang of nostalgia for the pre-war days in Hanoi, or better still, Saigon … How pleasant to be sitting now as the light was beginning to fade on the terrasse of the Hotel Continental, drinking beer and watching the evening crowds swirling round the corner of the Rue Catinat towards the Boulevard Bonnard, the women so graceful in their slit tunics and flowing black silk trousers! Or to wander through the great flower market set up in the Boulevard Charner on the eve of Tet. Later, having eaten at one of the excellent restaurants in the city he might move on to take coffee at the Café Parisien in the Rue de l’Avalanche or, even better, at the Café du Théâtre from where he could look out across the square and listen to the night breeze in the tamarinds.
‘Gas masks are not suitable for animals …’ (Was this a joke? No, the Major was serious. He looked discomfited by the chuckles of his audience) … ‘but instead you can put them in a box with a hole covered in wire netting and a blanket soaked in a solution of bicarbonate of soda, four pounds to the gallon of water, or permanganate of potash …’ The spotted dog at the Major’s feet stirred and looked up enquiringly for it had heard the Major’s talk many times before and had come to recognize the moment when its services would be required.
Ah, Dupigny’s nostalgia became deliciously acute as he remembered Saigon mornings, walking in a vast airy room, treading the waxed tiles of the Continental’s long corridors which had a special, indefinable smell of France about them, on the way to a quiet inner courtyard to a breakfast of coffee and croissants and small, succulent strawberries from Dalat, sitting there in the open air surrounded by flowering shrubs. Later in the morning, perhaps in the company of Turner-Smith, a friend from the British Consulate and a pederast of refinement, he would make his way up the Rue Catinat past the looming red-brick Basilica de Notre-Dame. At the corner of the Rue Chasseloup-Laubat he and Turner-Smith would part company, the latter to take up his station outside the boys’ Collège, while he himself would find a vantage point near the gates of the girls’ school, the Lycée Marie-Curie: he had done this so often while on leave from Hanoi that the sly little creatures had come to recognize him and had even (one of them had confessed in a gale of childish laughter) given him a nickname … Monsieur Marie-Curie!
Yes, at any moment now it would be noon and the gates would open to release a flood of beautiful young girls, their bodies so lithe and graceful in their school uniforms, their skins so smooth, their black eyes sparkling with mischief. Why, he mused, his nostalgia bordering on ecstasy, if homosexuality was le vice anglais the Frenchman’s great temptation was le ballet rose! Of all the pleasures which he missed here in dull British Singapore he missed none so much as the ballets roses which an indulgent madame of Saigon would organize for his distraction from the cares of office. The British, hélas, would never understand. How, for instance, could he begin to explain such a joy to the Major?
The Major was concluding his address with the advice that his audience should get their animals used to seeing them in their gas-masks. ‘The point is,’ he explained, fumbling with his own gas-mask case, ‘that your dog may get frightened when he sees you wearing one and your voice, which means so much to him, will