The Headmaster's Wager Read online

  Percival climbed up the stairs, aware of Peters behind him. In his intoxicated haze, everything seemed to be of equal yet mild interest—the banquet, the fighting in the square, Mak’s absence, and his pregnant lover. Where should he go? He needed some fresh air, a moment of night’s clarity, he thought. He crept past Dai Jai’s room, where a thin blade of light sliced under the bottom of the door. Jacqueline must be waiting for him.

  He would show Peters up, breathe a little of the fresh evening air, and then go to her. They went up to the third floor and out onto the balcony. At that moment, the square had fallen quiet. Glowing moonlight was caught in a column of grey smoke that exhaled from the post office windows. Within those windows, a soft lick of flame. The silhouetted spire of St. Francis Xavier loomed, surveying the square. Framed by the soft edges of inebriation, the scene seemed almost pretty to Percival. Then there was the solo clatter of an engine. A South Vietnamese Jeep sped into view, the clatter rising as its soldiers fired at the post office from a mounted gun, and the Jeep slid to a halt where it was shielded by the corner of the cafe next to the post office. A soldier climbed out of the Jeep, shouldered a grenade launcher, crept to the corner, peered around with the long tube of his weapon, and set off a thin hissing sound like a string torn in half. Then the grenade reverberated within its target, and the corner of the post office crumbled. The Viet Cong must be in there, thought Percival, if the government soldiers were attacking the building.

  The sudden shock of an explosion, this one very near, so that he felt the impact in his skin and his ears rang with pain. As the smoke cleared, he saw that a hole had been ripped into the street very near Chen Hap Sing. The Viet Cong’s reply had wildly overshot the government soldiers, almost reaching the school. His guests must have felt this. He wondered if they had finished their prawns. He was fortunate to be drunk, he thought, for this gave him a sense of calm.

  A flare shot into the sky and hung there for a moment before falling in a harsh, phosphorescent arc. In the spitting, yellow light Percival saw something he recognized. It was his Peugeot. It rolled through the night into the square, without headlights. As if driven by a ghost. The car slowed at the end of Chong Hang Boulevard, stopped at the far side of the square. The doors opened, and two people got out, crept along near buildings, within moonlight’s shadows. Mak and Han Bai. There was a distant explosion, farther, perhaps on the next block. Percival heard the door swing behind him, someone on the stairs, and then Peters came out on the balcony. Percival hadn’t noticed that he had slipped away for a moment. Peters said, “I put on your radio.” He considered the column of silver smoke, the soldiers huddling for cover, and the burning post office, as if whatever he had just heard on the radio explained the meaning of what was happening before them. Without the girl, he seemed to have returned to his official self, though his words still bled into one another. He said to Percival, “Percy, they’re playing ‘Jingle Bells’ on the radio.”

  “What kind of bells?”

  “It’s a Christmas song. It’s a pre-set code. It means there is a general attack. I have to get back to the embassy.”

  There was an angry crackle. Gunfire spat from the windows of the post office, and the government soldiers replied with the same. From their high vantage on Chen Hap Sing, Percival and Peters could see that a dark figure was creeping over the roof of the cafe, towards where the government soldiers had taken cover. Peters cursed, but it was too far to shout to the government soldiers. On the other side of the square, Mak and Han Bai crouched near a small car, not drawing fire but not out of its reach. Then the dark figure leaned out from the cafe roof, and began to pick off the government soldiers with a single shot each. Two fell in quick succession, and two others jumped out of the Jeep and ran towards the post office. As the men ran up the steps, wildly firing their rifles, one was shot and fell. The last one was struck in the arm and held it as he ran back to the Jeep. His weapon was left behind on the steps. He must have misjudged the direction of the sniper fire, for he took cover on the wrong side of the Jeep, where his enemy on the cafe roof shot him again, and he crumpled inert next to the vehicle.

  A second Jeep sped across the square, firing its mounted gun high until the dark figure fell off the edge of the roof and landed motionless on the ground.

  “What is happening?” Percival said.

  “Bastards. There’s a ceasefire!” said Peters.

  “It has been cancelled, then.”

  “I have to get back to the embassy. Where’s your car?”

  “Over there,” said Percival, and pointed across the square to the parked vehicle. Mak and Han Bai advanced from one bit of cover to another, but then there was a wide open stretch to Chen Hap Sing.

  “They need covering fire,” said Peters. “We have to do something.”

  “This a school, Mr. Peters. Not a firebase.”

  “I need a gun. When I went down to listen to the radio, that policeman refused to come up here to help and wouldn’t give me his gun. He looks more scared than anyone else in the room.”

  “Police Chief Mei? He knows the Viet Cong will shoot him first, on account of his uniform.”

  “He’s wandering around in his underwear, clutching his revolver. They’ve sent two Jeeps? Isn’t there a whole army division nearby?” They watched as Mak and Han Bai abandoned the small protection of a clump of trees to make a dash for Chen Hap Sing, long strides, arms flailing, to cover the ground. The army and the Viet Cong’s bullets erupted at each other. There was a loud explosion. Men within the post office screamed, and still Mak and Han Bai ran. Then another blast, and Peters was already flat on the balcony. He tried to pull Percival’s feet out from under him to topple him down, but Percival grabbed the railing of the balcony like the rail of a listing ship. He had to watch his two friends run, as if to stop watching would be to betray them. They were more than halfway across the square. One of the Jeeps burst into flames, and the surviving South Vietnamese soldiers charged up the steps of the post office with their guns spraying wildly before them. Flashes replied from within. Then, suddenly, it looked as if Han Bai tripped. Get up, get up, keep going, thought Percival. Mak noticed that he was alone and stopped, hurried back, rolled Han Bai over. And then once more Mak was running towards the school.

  Percival rushed down to the door to open it for his friend, thought of Jacqueline as he went past the second floor, but he had to get to the front of the building. A few guests were milling about on the landing, and Percival rushed past, ignored their questions. He struggled with the locks, his hands now clumsy with alcohol and fear. He got it open and pulled Mak in, saying, “What about Han Bai? We must save him.” Percival was halfway out the door but Mak grabbed him, tackled him to the ground. The servants pulled them both in, slammed the door, and bolted it shut.

  “He is not there to save, hou jeung,” said Mak, breathless.

  “He is just outside. I saw where. You are hurt, your hands are wounded. I will run and get him.”

  “This is Han Bai’s blood, hou jeung.”

  Percival stared at Mak’s hands, the dark blood glossy wet. He said, “But how can this be?” He saw his driver’s look of disappointment at being sent out on an errand at the start of a sumptuous meal. Han Bai must have died hungry.

  “It’s my fault,” said Percival, looking at Mak’s stained hands. His own hands were clean, undeservedly. Mak seemed to be paying no attention to him.

  Mak scanned around. “Have you had any visitors? Are there strangers in Chen Hap Sing?”

  “No, only our friends who have come for the Tet banquet,” said Percival.

  The servants dragged mattresses and beds from the bedrooms and propped them against the windows of the school. The guests huddled in the kitchen, which was in the centre of the building. The foreigners lamented their lack of weapons. Peters brought the radio down from the sitting room so everyone could listen for news, but after “Jingle Bells,” the Saigon radio went dead. Nothing came except shortwave from abroad, cursory
mention of some fighting in Vietnam. Percival climbed the stairs to Jacqueline. She squatted in the centre of Dai Jai’s room, panting, elbows on her knees. A few of the house’s female servants had already gone to her. For now, even Foong Jie seemed to have put aside her animosity.

  “Are you crazy,” Percival said to Jacqueline, “to come to Cholon at such a time?”

  She gasped, “I had to come.”

  “You were safer in your apartment than here.”

  “It is time for me to have the baby.” She panted, went to her hands and knees to crawl towards the bed.

  Percival went to her, helped her to her feet and then onto the bed. “It’s a month early.”

  “I think the fighting has shocked the baby—he wants to be born now.”

  As the night wore on, the women servants gave Jacqueline contradictory advice. One said that she should lie still and drink tepid water in order to slow her labour, for it would be bad luck for the child to be born in the middle of a battle. Jacqueline tried to do this, and the contractions came just as insistently. Another said that the best thing was to walk around and chew ginseng, as this would excite the baby and make it hurry out. She insisted that a prolonged labour and the squeezing of the loins might produce a child with a deformed head and damaged brain. Jacqueline was scared to do this at first, but after having spent hours with no sleep, she felt impatient and began to stamp around vigorously with slices of ginseng in her cheeks. During lulls in the battle, the night was occupied by Jacqueline’s low, guttural cries, which became longer, more frequent. Each time the volleys of gunfire came, Percival imagined the rounds ripping apart Han Bai’s body, and prayed to the ancestors that the bullets would not reach them in Chen Kai’s old room, in Dai Jai’s old room. It must have some luck. Mak sat outside the room cross-legged, even though Percival urged him to get some sleep. He had a small kitchen cleaver in his back pocket, the blade wrapped in newspaper. Percival had seen Mak angry before, but never as tense as he was now.

  Towards morning, when the Saigon radio finally resumed broadcasts, President Thieu gave a public address. He announced that cowardly attacks by the Viet Cong throughout South Vietnam had been put down by the government soldiers. Order had been restored in Saigon-Cholon. At the moment that he said this, there was a burst of gunfire on the street outside Chen Hap Sing.

  Fortunately, the house was full of pomelos, tangerines, sausages and smoked ducks that had been prepared for Tet, so the guests could be fed. Mak insisted that Peters stay, saying that the Viet Cong would likely kill foreigners on the spot if they saw them. The electricity died, and the radio went silent. The servants sang old Chinese songs, and it felt something like a Tet celebration, except for the now sporadic spasms of noise made by weapons outside.

  Percival asked one female servant what would happen if the baby came now, a month early. She said that they should have a white mourning cloth ready to wrap it. After all, if they had made no provision for its possible death, the spirits might be displeased and more likely to take the child’s life. Percival ignored this advice and asked another servant. She felt Jacqueline’s belly and declared that the baby would be especially vigorous, for it was such babies who were born early.

  As daytime heat filled the house, worse with the shutters closed, the contractions set in steadily. Jacqueline’s water broke, and she said that she felt something had moved within her. Percival decided to risk going out on the balcony upstairs to see if it was calm enough for him to take Jacqueline to a hospital for the birth, or to bring someone to help.

  The post office across the square was now ringed by green army vehicles and green-uniformed soldiers, their guns pointed towards the old French brickwork and the gaping hole in the corner. There were shouts back and forth. Percival hoped that the government troops would quickly kill whomever they were after. He kept his eyes away from where he knew Han Bai’s body lay, but saw that the Peugeot was gone. Then, a single shot from somewhere else, a distant scream. The scream continued for a while, begging for mercy. Another shot, silence. No, Percival concluded, they would have to stay here.

  He went down to the second-floor room again. Jacqueline’s contractions seemed to have become almost constant, one leading into the next with only a moment between for her to snatch a breath. Percival held her hand, whispered encouragement. By now, he was sober. Each pain was longer, more intense than the one before it, and when it came she pursed her lips slightly as she pushed and made no sound until the contraction reached its end. Then, she released her cry of relief and small victory.

  Jacqueline panted, “It will be soon.”

  There were footsteps on the floor above, unfamiliar and distant. Percival forgot them as soon as he heard them. Jacqueline closed her eyes during the pains, and when she opened them between her contractions, she stared through to her lover’s centre. Percival held her forearms and through them felt the strength of her woman’s body.

  Then, shouting voices. Why were there men on the top floor of the house? he thought. There should be no one there. Jacqueline took no notice. Voices shouted urgently in Vietnamese. Percival had not fully heard it, but thought there was something about moving aside. Then, a barrage of feet rushed down the stairs.

  He heard Mak. “Big brothers, stop, be calm, there has been a misunderstanding.”

  Just as Jacqueline gasped, the voices argued with Mak on the landing outside the room. They spoke rapidly in Vietnamese, something was said about a list, about orders. Mak said that there had been a mistake. The strange voices insisted that they had orders. Mak spoke kindly, evenly, telling them that there had been an error. The hou jeung was a good man, he was about to become a father, said Mak, soothing. Then Jacqueline reached the end of a contraction and screamed. One of the Vietnamese voices shouted angrily that the oppressors were torturing a Vietnamese sister.

  “No, no,” said Mak, “she is about to have a baby.”

  Four men in city clothes burst through the door with the weapons of war. They clutched rifles, and bandoliers of ammunition and grenades were draped over their dirty shirts and poorly fitting slacks. They looked exhausted, ragged. When the men saw Jacqueline, they stumbled over their embarrassment and apologized in Vietnamese, averted their eyes. Mak appealed to them, soothing words as if he were addressing a wild animal. His back was turned to Percival, who could see that one of his hands clutched the handle of the cleaver, still pocketed. One of the intruders asked angrily if Percival was the headmaster, levelling his gun, but before Percival could decide upon his answer, another ordered him out. Then, they were gone. Their footsteps thumped away as they ran down to the ground floor and towards the door.

  “It’s now! It’s now!” said Jacqueline, and a contraction seized her entirely. The swelling between her legs, the purplish top of the head, grew and pushed forward until an entire baby’s face emerged like an impossible growth from Jacqueline’s own body. She gasped quickly for breath and again began to push. Her face was livid with the effort, and her hands were clamps around Percival’s. Slowly a shoulder appeared, with agonizing effort it grew. Then, with a final push, everything seemed to come. In a great hurry the arms and then the body slid out. Now, Foong Jie pulled out the legs, and then lifted him up. It was a boy, his hair matted in bloody fluid, his skin wrinkled, his eyes wide open in amazement and protest. Jacqueline, her whole body quivering, took the boy from the woman with a sudden, possessive grasp and brought him to her, the umbilical cord still snaking down into her. Percival kissed Jacqueline, ecstatic with love for her and their child.

  As the boy suckled at Jacqueline’s breast, they heard four single shots nearby, outside the school. Mak went white. He went to investigate. He was gone a few minutes, and when he came back he said, “They were Viet Cong—an assassination team. They are no more.”

  “Why are you sad, then?”

  Mak looked up as if startled. “They were men, too.”

  “Thank you, friend. You saved me.”

  “Your son saved you,” said Mak
. “What a waste, this war. Four more dead young men. And Han Bai, too.”

  Percival said nothing about the banquet having been in Mak’s honour. He felt embarrassed now for having wanted to make a gaudy show of their friendship, ashamed of himself at Han Bai’s death. He held his new son, clung to him, for it was a fragile blessing to be whole. Later that day, the government soldiers secured the post office and the remaining guests were able to leave in relative safety. The Rolex was gone—some guest had pocketed it. Before she left, Cecilia cast her eyes over Percival’s new child and surprised him by sniffing, “It does look like yours.”

  CHAPTER 17

  PERCIVAL HEARD A NOISE FROM DAI Jai’s room. He rose from his bed and crept down the stairs, through the hallway, which stretched into the darkness of an empty night. The bedroom doors were all closed. Strange, as lately he had ordered the doors to be left open at night, to allow air to circulate through the house. Again, he heard the noise, movement within Dai Jai’s room. He remembered, Jacqueline was there. She must be awake with the baby. But why had she closed the doors? He called out to her. No reply. He crept forward, chest pounding—he did not know why he was so scared, could only hear the creaking of the floors surrounding him. He called out her name, “Jacqueline?”

  He flung the door open in case an intruder crouched behind it. The door swung freely, and Percival saw Jacqueline and the baby asleep in the bed. Before he had time to feel relief, he saw the dark figure which stood, its back to him, staring at the sleeping pair. Percival knew that this intruder had come for both mother and child, and he yelled, told the man to step back from the bed, but even as he did so, he couldn’t hear his own voice. Percival ran towards the spectre, but could not get any closer, the floors creaking louder, enveloping him. The figure did not move, did not seem to hear him. He ran and ran without advancing, as if in a web. The bed remained at the same distance no matter what he did. His screams were trapped, silent.