The Headmaster's Wager Read online

  “But what would make it easy?” said Percival, undeterred, preparing already to balk at a price and counter with half.

  “Hard to say.”

  “Roughly.”

  “I don’t know the price,” said Mr. Tu.

  “Your best guess.” It was better to get a number to start the discussion rather than leave empty-handed.

  “Or even if it is possible,” said Mr. Tu, and stood. “I am a humble fonctionnaire. It may be beyond me. As men of learning, you know that some answers are more complex than others.”

  “I see,” said Percival. This did not seem like mere negotiation of price.

  “That is our new ministerial advisor,” said Mr. Tu, indicating the new photo. “Thuc is below the minister in theory, and above him in reality. He is very patriotic. Prime Minister Ky chose him personally to oversee education.” He tapped the arms of the chair and looked from Percival to Mak.

  Mak stood, smiled graciously, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Tu, for your time.” He leaned towards the desk and said, “If there is no solution to be found, there is no need to remember that we asked.”

  Mr. Tu nodded. “Don’t worry. It would serve no one.”

  Percival stood, and they left, closing the door themselves as they went into the hallway.

  As Han Bai drove them back along the road to Cholon, which was now quiet near midday, Percival said to Mak, “You had nothing else to push him with? Some favour he owes us?”

  Mak turned to face Percival. “To what end? Mr. Tu spoke clearly—this policy is a patriotic and political issue. You know that some in Saigon dislike the Chinese-run English schools in Cholon.”

  “Because our graduates get the American jobs.”

  “That ministerial advisor is Colonel Thuc. He was just transferred from the Ministry of Security and Intelligence.”

  “I suppose that was why those quiet police were delivering educational directives.”

  “It may prove unwise to attract attention over this issue, hou jeung.”

  For the rest of the trip home, they sat in thick silence. What else could Percival say, when Mak’s judgment was always sound? He always knew what had become important of late in Saigon.

  By the time they returned to Chen Hap Sing, the morning students were gone, and the afternoon students had begun their lessons. Dai Jai had left for his Chinese classes at the Teochow Clan School. Percival went to his ground-floor office, cooler than the family quarters at this time of day. On his chair, Foong Jie had hung a fresh shirt for the afternoon. On the desk, she had put out a lunch of cold rice paper rolls and mango salad. He shut the door, ate, removed his crumpled shirt, tossed it on the seat of the chair, and laid himself down for his siesta on the canvas cot next to his desk.

  As Percival’s breathing slowed, the blades of the electric ceiling fan hushed softly through stale air. On each turn, the dry joint of the fan squeaked. The fan had been this way for a long time, and Percival had never attempted to lubricate it, for he liked to be tethered to the afternoon. Only half-submerged beneath midday heat, he was not bothered by dreams. After some time, he heard a thumping. At first, he ignored it and rolled to face the wall. The noise continued, and then a voice called, “Headmaster!” It was Mak.

  Percival propped himself up on an elbow, his singlet a second skin of sweat, his eyes suddenly full of the room—the grey metal desk, the black telephone. A gecko at the far upper corner of the room looked straight into Percival’s eyes, limbs flexed.

  “Hou jeung!” A fist on the door.

  “Come in, Mak.”

  Mak entered, shut the door, and stood by the cot for a moment, as if he found himself a little wary of actually speaking.

  “Please, friend. What is it?”

  “I have heard something worrisome,” Mak said. “Chen Pie Sou, it is something that your son, Dai Jai, has done.”

  “Involving the girl?” said Percival, angry already. Had Dai Jai defied him further?

  “No.”

  Mak explained that at the start of the afternoon class at the Teochow Clan School, when Teacher Lai had announced that she would begin the newly mandated Vietnamese lesson, Dai Jai stood up and declared that as a proud Chinese, he refused to participate. Mak said, “Dai Jai’s classmates joined him in this protest. Each student rose, until the entire class stood together. Then, Dai Jai began to hum ‘On Songhua River,’ and others joined in. Mrs. Lai was frantic, but they wouldn’t stop.”

  “How does Dai Jai even know that old tune?”

  “Finally, he walked out, and the class followed him.”

  “Where is the boy now?” Percival rubbed his eyes.

  “I haven’t seen him,” said Mak. Then, speaking deliberately he added, “I got all this from Mr. Tu. In Saigon. He has heard of it already, and wished to warn you. They have eyes in all the schools.”

  Percival stared at his friend. He had heard and understood Mak immediately, all too well. The delay was in knowing what to say, to do. If Mr. Tu knew, then someone at the Ministry of Education was already writing a report.

  “Mak, you know what happens in Saigon these days. Tell me, are they making arrests at night or in the day?” During the Japanese occupation, the Kempeitai preferred to seize people at night and behead them during the day in public view. Before and after the Japanese interlude, the French Sûreté usually made arrests during the early part of the day. The bleeding, bruised person would be left on the street late in the afternoon if a single interrogation was sufficient, so that the officers could make it for cocktails at the Continental patio. If more was required of the prisoner, he or she would disappear for months, years, or would never be seen again. Now, the Viet Cong liked to work at night. They crept into Cholon across the iron bridge from Sum Guy and would kidnap someone for ransom, or lob a grenade into a GI bar before disappearing into shadows. Percival found that he could not think of the habits of the Saigon intelligence.

  “They make arrests whenever they feel like it,” said Mak quietly.

  “Where is Dai Jai?” said Percival, his voice pitched high. “They can’t have found him so quickly.”

  “You don’t think so?” Mak caught himself. “No. Of course not.”

  Rays of light pierced the small gaps in the metal shutters. Dots and slashes. Percival struggled to pull on his fresh afternoon shirt, the starch sticking to his skin.

  “We will have to hire a Vietnamese teacher immediately,” said Percival.

  “Clearly,” said Mak.

  Percival was about to go look for Dai Jai himself, but Mak suggested that he stay at the school. If the quiet police visited, the headmaster should be there to deal with it. Percival sent the kitchen boys out to help Mak look for Dai Jai, not telling them why. He stood at the front door, scanning the square for either his son or a dark Ford. He stalked his office, glared at the phone. Finally, late in the afternoon, Percival heard one of the kitchen boys chatting amiably with his son in the street, both of them joking in Vietnamese. Percival heard the metal gate clang, then whistling in the hallway. His relief gave way to anger as he shouted to summon the boy. Dai Jai came to the door. “What is it, ba?”

  Percival rose from his chair. “What were you thinking today at the Teochow school?”

  “Are people already talking about our protest?” He stood in the doorway, excited, his white school shirt soaked through with sweat.

  “Protest. Is that what you call this stupidity?”

  “Ba,” he said, his eyes wide. “You said yourself this morning that the Chinese should not be forced to study Vietnamese.”

  “Did I raise a fool?”

  Dai Jai’s voice fell. “I thought you would be proud.”

  “For bringing trouble? I heard of your … theatre from people in Saigon. Do you understand?”

  “Good,” he puffed up. “They know that the Chinese will not be pushed around, yes, ba?”

  Percival’s mouth felt numb as he said in a softer voice, “Son, if you wish to do something, it is often best to give
the appearance that you have done nothing at all.”

  The last of Dai Jai’s proud stance withered. “But I did it to please you,” he said.

  “I see.” Percival slumped into his chair, the anger flushed out by guilt and fear. His hand went to his temple. “No matter, your father is well connected. I will fix it.”

  That night, Percival and Dai Jai ate together as usual in the second-floor sitting room. The cook made a simple dinner of Cantonese fried rice. As they were eating, there was a knock at the front door. From downstairs came the shuffle of Foong Jie’s feet. Percival could hear the nasal tones of Vietnamese words, a man’s voice, but he could not make out what was being said. Downstairs, the metal gates clanged shut. Foong Jie appeared with a manila envelope. She was alone.

  Percival exhaled.

  She handed Percival the envelope and slipped out. With sweaty, shaking hands, he ripped it open.

  “What is it, ba?”

  Percival waved the letter at Dai Jai. “A note from your mother,” he said. “She has heard about your … incident. She wants me to meet her tomorrow in Saigon.”

  The boy picked up his bowl and resumed eating. After a while, Dai Jai broke the silence with laughter, still holding his bowl, almost choking on his food. He swallowed and wiped tears from his eyes. “You thought—” and he was again seized with uneasy laughter. “Well, it was not the police, just a note from Mother.”

  “This is nothing to laugh about!” said Percival. He pushed away his half-eaten dinner. He stood and turned on the radio. After a hiss and pop, the Saigon broadcast of Voice of America was recounting the day’s news, informing listeners that the Americans had bombed oil depots in Hanoi and Haiphong, that the French president, De Gaulle, had announced he would visit Cambodia in September, and that Buddhists in Hue and Da Nang were protesting against Prime Minister Ky’s military government.

  Percival’s spirits lifted. Were the monks setting themselves alight once again? He had often remarked that he couldn’t understand these bonzes—they killed themselves to criticize the government, but surely the government must be glad that some of their critics were dead. After news of an immolation, Percival was always relieved to see the one-eyed monk in the square, for he was fond of that one, who seemed to have the intensity that a martyr would require. The suicides by fire attracted a great deal of attention, though, so now Percival listened with hope. Surely, those in Saigon who watched for dissent would take more interest in a new spate of Buddhist trouble than in some trivial incident at a Chinese school in Cholon. Percival turned to Dai Jai. “I will meet with your mother tomorrow. Do you see how serious this is?”

  “I’m sorry, Father. I thought it would make you proud.”

  What to say, that he might have been, if the incident had remained Cholon gossip rather than Saigon trouble? But even if that had been the case, he would have had to instruct the boy nonetheless, that he must learn to pair his best impulses with canny quiet. Percival said, “I will fix this. Until then, you cannot leave Chen Hap Sing.”

  “I need to go out tonight. I need—”

  “No!”

  “Ba, I have to buy larvae for my fish. They need to eat every day.”

  Percival was tempted to ask whether Dai Jai was planning to buy fish food from a pretty Annamese fellow student, but that didn’t seem so important now. “Someone might be outside, waiting to arrest you. I will send one of the servants for your larvae.”

  Later that evening, Percival went out on the second-floor balcony where Dai Jai kept his tanks. The boy made no acknowledgement of his father’s appearance, but continued to skim the water clear with a flat net. Yes, for the boy to be so moody about staying in, it must have been a rendezvous with the girl. Ever since he was very small, Dai Jai had nurtured gouramis and goldfish, kissing fish and fighting fish. In recent years Dai Jai had renounced most of his childhood toys and games in favour of soccer with his friends, stolen cigarettes, and a French lingerie catalogue that one of the sweepers had found hidden in his room, and which Percival had directed be placed back exactly where it was found with nothing more to be said about it. The one fascination that persisted from boyhood was the fish.

  Percival held out two lotus-leaf cones of live mosquito larvae in water. “For you, Son.” He had gone out himself to buy them, but did not say so. This was the hour that the casinos were becoming busy and filled with people he knew, but Percival had no urge to gamble tonight. He must stay close by, in case something happened.

  Dai Jai took the cones with quiet thanks, and gently tore off a corner to let the fluid out. He began to pour the food into each tank. The fish darted amongst the water plants to take their meal. Dai Jai went from one tank to another, feeding the fish until the whole row of tanks was a shimmering display.

  “How do you know the song ‘On Songhua River’?” asked Percival. Why would the boy know that old tune of the Chinese resistance against Japan’s occupation? It was not a modern melody.

  “You often hum it.”

  That was what Percival had thought. “What you did was foolish, but I appreciate the spirit in it.”

  Dai Jai put down the net. “Father, you always say that wherever we Chinese go in the world, we must remain Chinese.” The words Percival had spoken many times now rang back in echo. Beneath the sky’s thick gloom, points of light appeared in the square below. The first lamps on the night vendors’ carts were being lit, their flames dancing and spitting briefly until they were trimmed into a steady light. People emerged from their houses, chatted happily and walked with new energy in the cool hour.

  “Son, a man can think without acting, or act without being seen. A son should be dutiful. Not reckless.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “We are wa kiu.” They were overseas Chinese, those who had wandered far from home. “We are safer when we remain quiet.” The lamps in the square glowed into brightness—one after another. It happened quickly, as if each lamp lit the next. Cholon was most alive, sparkling with energy, in the early evening. Dai Jai’s fish pierced the water’s surface and took the tiny larvae into their mouths, leaving behind rippled circles. “Until I have dealt with the problems you have caused, don’t leave the house anymore. Don’t go to the cinema or the market. Don’t go to the Teochow school. Don’t even attend school here. Be invisible.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “If there are visitors from Saigon, hide yourself well, but stay in the house. You are safer here.” The old house had many dark hallways and secret nooks. It was the house that Chen Kai had built. It would be safe.

  CHAPTER 3

  AT THE CERCLE SPORTIF, HAN BAI pulled up in the circular drive fronting the club’s entrance, stopped the car beneath the frangipani, and went around to Percival’s door. The headmaster was not in the habit of waiting for his driver to attend to him, and in most places he would simply open the door himself and step out of the car. However, at the club, Han Bai knew that the headmaster waited for his driver.

  Percival ascended the canopied stone steps, nodded to the bows of the doormen, went through the clubhouse, and out to the pavilion that looked over the tennis courts. Since their divorce eight years earlier, this was where he and Cecilia met to talk. The roof of the pavilion was draped with bougainvillea, which reminded Percival of Cecilia’s old family house in Hong Kong.

  A waiter pulled out a chair, his jacket already dark in the armpits. At nine in the morning, one game of tennis was under way. The Saigonese and the few French who remained from the old days played before breakfast, but some Americans were foolish enough to play at this hour. Cecilia was on the court in a pleated white skirt, playing one of the surgeons from the U.S. Army Station Hospital in Saigon. She had always cursed the city’s climate, but now did most of her money-changing business with Americans so played tennis when they did. She displayed no feminine restraint as she lunged across the court to return a serve. The surgeon had his eye more on his opponent than the white ball, and Percival could not help feeling the famil
iar desire.

  “For you, Headmaster Chen?” said the waiter.

  “Lemonade.”

  “Three glasses?”

  “Two.”

  How typical of Cecilia, to arrange a game of tennis with an attractive foreign man when she had asked Percival to meet her at the club. In reply, he stared in the other direction. There was no way to turn his ears from the players’ breathy grunts, quick steps, and the twang of the ball ringing across the lawn.

  Cecilia had played tennis since she was a child in Hong Kong, years before Percival ever saw a racquet. Her name had been Sai Ming until she was registered by the nuns at St. Paul Academy as Cecilia, and thereafter eschewed her Chinese name. When they had been students, he at La Salle Academy, and she at its sister school, St. Paul, she once offered to teach Percival how to play. He was even more clumsy with a racquet than he was on the dance floor. Cecilia had laughed at his ineptness, and Percival declared tennis a game of the white devils.

  Percival had come to Hong Kong in the autumn of 1940, just a few months after a fever had ravaged Shantou. During that contagion, Muy Fa became hot, then delirious. Despite the congee that he spooned between his mother’s cracked lips, and Dr. Yee’s cupping, coin-rubbing, and moxibustion, one morning Muy Fa lay cold and still on the kang. The years of his father’s absence had put coins in the family money box, but now the silver seemed cold and dead to Chen Pie Sou. It had paid for a doctor, but not saved his mother. There was no question of a Western-trained doctor or medicines, for the Japanese occupation of Guangdong province was two long years old. Chen Pie Sou sent both a telegram and a formal letter of mourning to his father in Indochina, and paid ten silver pieces for it to go by airplane. An exorbitant sum, but his mother deserved every honour. He was shocked to receive a brief telegram from Chen Kai indicating that business matters and the dangers of the war prevented him from returning to mourn in Shantou, that he would pray for his deceased wife in Cholon, and asking his son to go ahead with the burial rites, though sparing extravagance. Soon after the funeral, a letter from Chen Kai informed his son that he would be sent to Hong Kong for a British education. Chen Pie Sou wrote back dutifully, saying nothing of his anger at his father’s failure to return, nor his disappointment at not being asked to join him. As most of the family’s cash savings was used for the funeral, Chen Kai made arrangements through a Shantou money trader for a sum of Qing silver coins to be provided for his son’s needs in Hong Kong. A forged French laissez-passer was smuggled to him, along with a letter of registration from La Salle Academy. These documents would allow Chen Pie Sou to leave the Japanese-controlled territory and enter Hong Kong for his studies.