By Steve Bergsman
"He says he's just back from Paris where he was a student, that he lives in Sa Dec too, on this same river, the big house with the big terraces with the blue-tiled balustrades." — Marguerite Duras
Ph-ung looked about 25 and stood 5 feet tall. In the town of Sa Dec, Vietnam, she boasted a good job, the English-speaking guide at the Huynh Thuy Le Old House, or as she called it "The Lover's House."
When the French writer Marguerite Duras was 15 years old in the 1930s she lived in Sa Dec, where her French mother taught school. For her education she went to Saigon, getting there by ferry down the Mekong River. One day she met a handsome, wealthy Chinese man of 27 years. They had an affair, and 50 years later Duras wrote about it in her novel, "The Lover," which won France's greatest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, and became an international bestseller and eventually a movie.
Duras writes: "The native bus left from the marketplace in Sa Dec. As usual my mother came to see me off ... she always puts me in the care of the Saigon bus drivers, in case there is an accident, or a fire, or a fatal mishap on the ferry."
In real life, Duras had her affair with Huynh Thuy Lee, and it was his home I was visiting, walking behind Ph-ung. The home, built in 1895, had to be rescued from the clutches of the city council and is now the object of desire for the foreign legion of "The Lover" fans.
There is not much left of the home, which was constructed in a melange of ethnic styles — French, Chinese and Vietnamese — as the private home of a wealthy person. The most impressive room is the entry hall with dark, wood walls, all with gold inlay in the Chinese fashion. On the left and right are photos of the principal characters in what became a triangle of amour as Huynh married a Vietnamese woman and had five children, two of whom are still living, one in the United States.
The most distinctive piece of furniture in the house is a low lacquered table, again in the Chinese style, adorned with mother of pearl. The dominant pattern is that of a bat, an icon of good luck in China. Ph-ung prompted me to rub the bat inlay so I could share in some of the luck being dished out.
Ph-ung was a huge fan of the book, becoming rhapsodic when I pulled a paperback copy from my backpack. I decided to tease her and asked, "Where is your lover?" The ingenuous Ph-ung happily launched into a personal tale about the boyfriend who became her husband.
Duras: "You didn't have to attract desire. Either it was in the woman who aroused it or it didn't exist. Either it was there at first glance or else it had never been. It was instant knowledge of sexual relationship or it was nothing. That too I knew before I experienced it."
For rabid Duras aficionados there are other stops to make in the town. The first is the school where her mother taught, which is still active. It's about five minutes away by automobile, which suggests it's an easy walk. Sa Dec is built along the shore of a swampy Mekong tributary, and the humidity along with the heat is hard on visitors, so even short walks end up in puddles of sweat.
Duras tourists also seek the grave and pagoda of her lover, which is also in Sa Dec. However, getting to this site is tricky. My driver found the right street, an extremely narrow lane cutting between small commercial buildings, but could not locate any grave site so he stopped and asked two street vendors, who pointed back beyond us to a section of road we just passed. Unfortunately, the road was so narrow we couldn't turn and we had to travel to the end of the lane for the turnabout. When we returned to the vendors, they motioned us to slow and pointed to a woman sitting on a bicycle. We were instructed to follow her. The driver could barely register speed, but we eventually got there.
The woman fetched a key and unlocked a gate, and there hidden behind a building was the grave. Duras' lover died Oct. 8, 1972.
For $50 a night, it's possible to sleep over at "The Lover's House," but I checked out the bedrooms, and I have to say, it didn't look all that romantic.
WHEN YOU GO
Sa Dec is about a three-hour automobile ride from Ho Chi Minh City. I traveled with a private driver from Buffalo Tours, which I arranged at the concierge desk of my hotel, the Renaissance: www.marriott.com.
Steve Bergsman is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
"The Lover's House" in Sa Dec, Vietnam, was the site of the affair between Huynh Thuy Lee and author Marguerite Dumas. Photo courtesy of Steve Bergsman.
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