She does take his money. In a shocking, devastating scene, the family forces the girl to let the Chinaman pay for her younger brother’s gambling debts. The elder brother, with a casual, chilling violence, reminds her of her place: she is the family’s bargaining chip, their whore. The girl silently endures, her eyes hollow.

He takes her to a dark, shuttered apartment on a dingy street in Cholon. It is his secret place, paid for with his family’s money, a sanctuary of shadows and silence. The only light filters through wooden slats, striping the floor and the enormous, low bed. The air is heavy with dust, incense, and the distant murmur of the street.

On a rickety ferry chugging across that river, a young French girl stands alone. She is fifteen—though she looks older, or perhaps younger, in her frayed cotton dress and a pair of worn, gold-sequined high heels that are too grown-up for her. Her name is never spoken in the film. She is simply the girl . She wears a man’s fedora, a soft, pinkish-beige, pulled down over her eyes. It is a defiant act, a costume of poverty trying to pass as bohemian chic. She is returning by bus from her boarding school in the countryside to her family’s decaying villa in Saigon.

There is no romance, not at first. There is a trembling, fumbling urgency. He undresses her, his movements hesitant, almost reverent. She is still, passive, as if watching a scene from far away. He is shocked by her youth, by the fragility of her body. Their first coupling is awkward, almost brutal in its nervousness—a collision of loneliness rather than passion. He cries out, then lies still. She asks, "Do you do this often?" He says, "I don't know any other women."

In the room, she becomes an explorer. She teaches him about pleasure without love. He teaches her about a world of sensation she never knew existed—the taste of his skin, the sound of his breath, the weight of a man’s body. But always, there is an unspoken tension. He knows she will leave. She knows he can never keep her.

Thus begins a secret, obsessive routine. Every afternoon, the black limousine waits outside the school gates. The girl gets in, and they drive to the shuttered room. They do not talk about their lives. They barely talk at all. In the dim, hot silence, he bathes her. He pours water over her thin shoulders, washes her hair. He dresses her, and undresses her. He touches her as if she is a precious, terrifying object.