Saigon Read Online Free PDF

and the tree-lined streets that had been scorched and deserted on their arrival were coming rapidly to life. Saigon’s main boulevard, the Rue Catinat, linked the docks and the cathedral, symbols of the twin goals of commerce and religion which had led France to colonize the land, and in its fashionable sidewalk cafés they saw deferential Annamese waiters in black turbans and linen gowns darting among the marble-topped tables, serving aperitifs to languid groups of their European colonizers. Beneath the tamarind trees white-suited Frenchmen and their women strolled with an indolent confidence through the native throng — goateed mandarins in Chinese long gowns, younger Annamese wearing round caps and black knee- length silk jackets and occasional groups of shabby peasants arrayed in dark calico, cartwheel-sized straw hats and wooden sandals. Bright red betel juice, the brothers noticed, stained the lips of all the Annamese, low- and high-born alike. 
    But evidence of the betel habit was no longer the most striking sight for the two Americans. Among the slow-moving crowds slender, graceful Annamese girls wearing traditional silken ao dai caught their eye again and again. The pastel-colored costumes were at once demure and provocative; fitted tight from throat to hip, they clung to every line of the delicate, high-breasted figures, heightening the allure of slender shoulders, tiny waists and the swell of young flanks; below the waist, however, the gossamer- light, side-split skirts and billowing trousers of white silk shrouded legs and thighs in secrecy, and to Chuck and Joseph the exotic girls of Saigon seemed not to walk but to float gently beneath the tamarinds on the evening breeze. 
    Chuck peered intently at each girl they passed, but without exception they avoided his gaze. “The local flappers appear most agreeable, if unduly maidenly, don’t you think, Joey?” he called, grinning wolfishly across at his brother from his moving rickshaw. 
    “Indeed they do, Charles!”Joseph laughed and smacked his lips loudly, feeling very grown up. He had felt sure when he left his hotel room that every eye in Saigon would be on him that evening because he was wearing a white tuxedo for the very first time in his young life. The Continental Palace orchestra had been playing the new popular melody “Tea for Two” as he came out onto the terrace, and he had been faintly surprised in the event that nobody had turned to stare at him. He had noticed the eyes of one or two French matrons stray wistfully to the tall, spectacularly handsome figure of his brother, and as the rickshaws bowled on side by side he darted a glance at him and decided it must be his new blond mustache that set him apart. Enviously he raised his fingers to his own top lip but could still detect only the finest thistledown there. 
    “You look just great in that new white tux, Joey,” called Chuck suddenly, as though reading his mind. The rickshaws moved together and he leaned across and punched his brother affectionately on the biceps. “I’m sure you’re going to be the belle of the Saigon ball tonight.” 
    Joseph leaned outwards and aimed a violent retaliatory blow 4t his brother’s midriff, but at that moment both rickshaws swerved apart and skidded to a halt. Joseph looked ahead and saw that their side of the boulevard was blocked by two carts with big, iron- rimmed wheels. One had overturned and they stared in amazement as a swarthy-featured European lashed out with a thick bamboo cane at what they first thought was a small animal collapsed between the shafts. When they looked closer they saw that he was whipping, not a fallen beast, but a spindly-legged Annamese; both carts, they could see, contained refuse and had shafts front and back that terminated in cangue, big wooden halters that were locked around the necks of four sweating Annamese. These human beasts of burden also wore heavy leg-irons chained to thick steel bands clamped around their