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By Root 845 0

her sister. She married Nhu when she was sixteen. She became a Catholic and an activist, she was imprisoned by the Viet Minh, she found out that the only real power for any human being is in a family that will die for its principles. In the confusion of the Japanese withdrawal in ‘45, one of her husband’s brothers was killed by Ho Chi Minh; Ho apologized to Diem and offered him half of his power, but Diem refused. Ho had killed his brother. Even Diem’s country was not so important as that. Diem and Nhu triumphed, they fell—Lê Xuan saw all that happen. She has not lost heart, she knows the family goes on. There are many, many members of that family. She is one of them as she was never one of her own family. It means everything to her. She believes the family will rise again. She knows its strength.”

Christopher watched Kim as he spoke. The Vietnamese had ceased eating; he pushed back his plate and poured more wine. He was speaking in a low, hard voice, his eyes fixed on Molly’s. He seemed to have forgotten Christopher was there, and Christopher was content to let him go on.

“Its strength?” Molly said. “It’s a family in ruins, hated in its own country, despised in the world, with its leaders destroyed by their own soldiers.”

“So it would seem,” Kim said. “It’s good for the Ngos if the world believes that—especially now. That is part of their power, the insults of their enemies.”

“I don’t see any power there—I’m sorry,” Molly said. She was angry.

“Oh, the Ngos have power,” Kim said. “They’re a force of nature. You can’t understand it, Molly, but they’re a great family. They forget nothing, they forgive nothing. Do you understand French? Ils cracheront de leurs tombes.”

Kim’s speech had begun to blur. He shook his head violently, his small face was deeply flushed. Christopher knew the signs; Kim’s capacity for alcohol was small, and he would soon need to go to sleep.

“Your Kennedys are not powerful in themselves,” Kim said. “They live in a powerful country, that’s all. They were working with their hands, unable to read, when the Nguyêns were kings of the land, and the Ngos were already wise men.”

The waiter brought the bill. Kim handed it to Christopher without looking at it. He wiped his face with his napkin, and folded it carefully before putting it down at the table. He patted Molly’s hand and pushed his chair back across the floor; the chair fell with a clatter behind him, but Kim did not look around.

He lifted his camera to his eye. “Smile,” he said. “I want a souvenir of this most wonderful lunch.” He took four photographs, quickly. He nodded, and walked out of the restaurant, carefully avoiding the chairs around the empty tables.

Molly watched him go. She closed her eyes for a moment, then smiled at Christopher.

“That’s a bitter little man,” she said. “What was that bit in French?”

“Il cracheront de leurs tombes,” Christopher translated. “They would spit out of their graves.’”

Finally they went to Siena. Christopher wanted to be in a quiet place. For a week he thought of nothing but Molly. They walked through the old town with its thin campanile and its buildings that were the color of dry earth. The afternoons turned cold and they lay in bed, reading a novel aloud to one another. They drank hot chocolate with sweet Italian brandy in it. They woke each other often in the night. Afterward, Molly pushed her heavy hair away from her face and looked down, smiling, into Christopher’s face. She fed the cats that gathered around her in the cafes. Christopher loved her so intensely that he felt her move in his own body.

It was Molly who liked to sleep with the window open. When the cold wakened Christopher on the last day in Siena, he noticed again that Molly slept with her lips parted, so that she seemed to be smiling over the day she had just lived through. It was only a few seconds after he had covered her and touched her hair that he went to the window, looked out, and realized what it was that Nguyên Kim, who looked like a brown child, had said to him in the restaurant in Rome.

Christopher went downstairs