moment held office), the Diplomatic Corps (who would send a few second secretaries with their wives or girls) and the French Commander-in-Chief, who would detail a two-star general from an office job to represent him.
Along the route to Tanyin flowed a fast stream of staff and C. D. cars, and on the more exposed sections of the road Foreign Legionaries threw out cover across the rice-fields. It was always a day of some anxiety for the French High Command and perhaps of a certain hope for the Caodaists for what could more painlessly emphasise their own loyalty than to have a few important guests shot out-side their territory?
Every kilometre a small mud watch-tower stood up above the flat fields like an exclamation-mark, and every ten kilometres there, was a larger fort manned by a platoon of Legionaries, Moroccans or Senegalese Like the traffic into New York the cars kept one pace-and as with the traffic into New York you had a sense of controlled impatience, watching the next car ahead and in the mirror the car behind. Everybody wanted to reach Tanyin, see the show and get back as quickly as possible: curfew was at seven.
One passed out of the French-controlled rice fields into the rice fields of the Hoa-Haos and thence into the rice fields of the Caodaists, who were usually at war with the Hoa-Haos: only the flags changed on the watch-towers. Small naked boys sat on the buffaloes which waded genital-deep among the irrigated fields; where the gold harvest was ready the peasants in their hats like limpets winnowed the rice against little curved shelters of plaited bamboo. The cars drove rapidly by, belonging to another world.
Now the churches of the Caodaists would catch the attention of strangers in every village; pale blue and pink plasterwork and a big eye of God over the door. Flags increased: troops of peasants made their way along the road: we were approaching the Holy See. In the distance the sacred mountain stood like a green bowler hat above Tanyin-that was where General The held out, the dissident Chief of Staff who had recently declared his intention of Fighting both the French and the Vietminh. The Caodaists made no attempt to capture him, although he had kidnapped a cardinal, but it was rumoured that he had done it with the Pope’s connivance.
It always seemed hotter in Tanyin than anywhere else in the Southern Delta; perhaps it was the absence of water, perhaps it was the sense of interminable ceremonies which made one sweat vicariously, sweat for the troops standing to attention through the long speeches in a language they didn’t understand, sweat for the Pope in his heavy chinoiserie robes. Only the female cardinals in their white silk trousers chatting to the priests in sun-helmets gave an impression of coolness under the glare: you couldn’t believe
it would ever be seven o’clock and cocktail-time on the roof of the Majestic, with a wind from Saigon river.
After the parade I interviewed the Pope’s deputy. I didn’t expect to get anything out of him and I was right: it was a convention on both sides. I asked him about General The. “A rash man,” he said and dismissed the subject. He began his set speech, forgetting that I had heard it two years before: it reminded me of my own gramophone records for newcomers: Caodaism was a religious synthesis. . . the best of all religions . . . missionaries had been despatched to Los Angeles ... the secrets of the Great Pyramid. He wore a long white soutane and he chain-smoked. There was something cunning and corrupt about him: the word love’ occurred often. I was certain he knew that all of us were there to laugh at his movement; our air of respect was as corrupt as his phoney hierarchy, but we were less cunning. Our hypocrisy gained us nothing-not even a reliable ally, while theirs had procured arms, supplies, even cash down.
“Thank you, your Eminence.” I got up to go. He came with me to the door, scattering cigarette-ash. “God’s blessing on
Along the route to Tanyin flowed a fast stream of staff and C. D. cars, and on the more exposed sections of the road Foreign Legionaries threw out cover across the rice-fields. It was always a day of some anxiety for the French High Command and perhaps of a certain hope for the Caodaists for what could more painlessly emphasise their own loyalty than to have a few important guests shot out-side their territory?
Every kilometre a small mud watch-tower stood up above the flat fields like an exclamation-mark, and every ten kilometres there, was a larger fort manned by a platoon of Legionaries, Moroccans or Senegalese Like the traffic into New York the cars kept one pace-and as with the traffic into New York you had a sense of controlled impatience, watching the next car ahead and in the mirror the car behind. Everybody wanted to reach Tanyin, see the show and get back as quickly as possible: curfew was at seven.
One passed out of the French-controlled rice fields into the rice fields of the Hoa-Haos and thence into the rice fields of the Caodaists, who were usually at war with the Hoa-Haos: only the flags changed on the watch-towers. Small naked boys sat on the buffaloes which waded genital-deep among the irrigated fields; where the gold harvest was ready the peasants in their hats like limpets winnowed the rice against little curved shelters of plaited bamboo. The cars drove rapidly by, belonging to another world.
Now the churches of the Caodaists would catch the attention of strangers in every village; pale blue and pink plasterwork and a big eye of God over the door. Flags increased: troops of peasants made their way along the road: we were approaching the Holy See. In the distance the sacred mountain stood like a green bowler hat above Tanyin-that was where General The held out, the dissident Chief of Staff who had recently declared his intention of Fighting both the French and the Vietminh. The Caodaists made no attempt to capture him, although he had kidnapped a cardinal, but it was rumoured that he had done it with the Pope’s connivance.
It always seemed hotter in Tanyin than anywhere else in the Southern Delta; perhaps it was the absence of water, perhaps it was the sense of interminable ceremonies which made one sweat vicariously, sweat for the troops standing to attention through the long speeches in a language they didn’t understand, sweat for the Pope in his heavy chinoiserie robes. Only the female cardinals in their white silk trousers chatting to the priests in sun-helmets gave an impression of coolness under the glare: you couldn’t believe
it would ever be seven o’clock and cocktail-time on the roof of the Majestic, with a wind from Saigon river.
After the parade I interviewed the Pope’s deputy. I didn’t expect to get anything out of him and I was right: it was a convention on both sides. I asked him about General The. “A rash man,” he said and dismissed the subject. He began his set speech, forgetting that I had heard it two years before: it reminded me of my own gramophone records for newcomers: Caodaism was a religious synthesis. . . the best of all religions . . . missionaries had been despatched to Los Angeles ... the secrets of the Great Pyramid. He wore a long white soutane and he chain-smoked. There was something cunning and corrupt about him: the word love’ occurred often. I was certain he knew that all of us were there to laugh at his movement; our air of respect was as corrupt as his phoney hierarchy, but we were less cunning. Our hypocrisy gained us nothing-not even a reliable ally, while theirs had procured arms, supplies, even cash down.
“Thank you, your Eminence.” I got up to go. He came with me to the door, scattering cigarette-ash. “God’s blessing on
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