The Headmaster's Wager Page 36

  Percival swirled the ice cubes in his whisky. “Some of the old-time Chinese traders say it doesn’t matter if the North Vietnamese conquer all of Vietnam. It is just a new army, they say.” He looked past Huong to a skinny boy standing in the rain, staring at them from just beyond the edge of the patio. Percival sipped his drink. He said, “They have seen new uniforms many times. We have, too, but they have seen even more. There will always be sang yee, business. So what reason is there to leave?”

  “The North Vietnamese have overrun Hue.”

  “You are confused. President Thieu ordered Hue to be abandoned.”

  “True. Last week’s order was retreat. Then he changed his mind and ordered it to be held at any cost. It fell two days ago. An American helicopter pilot told me that many Southern soldiers had civilian clothes under their uniforms. As soon as they were out of sight of their officers, they became civilians and disappeared. Flying above he saw them doing it.”

  “Are you still hanging out with those white ghosts? Is that one of those CIA pilots? Those guys are paid a lot, and they are reckless gamblers. You are still selling them hashish, I suppose. Nice fellows, that bunch, I win money from them.”

  “Former CIA. They call themselves Air America.”

  “Of course, as they are out of the war.”

  “Anyhow, this pilot warned me to get out. He says the communist troops will be in Da Nang by the end of the week, and the president is keeping a plane for himself on standby, loaded with gold. Thieu will flee to Taiwan and let Vietnam hang.”

  “Sang yee, old friend, there will always be business. Maybe I can open a Chinese school, since the North Vietnamese are so friendly with Mao. We Chinese will always find something to make a nice profit.” Percival took a long swallow of his drink.

  “Those who say that are so old, they don’t care if they are killed,” said Huong. “Besides, you think the Vietnamese communists will love us Chinese in Cholon? Even in China, you and I would be shot as capitalists, old friend. Don’t you remember 1968? The Northerners buried their prisoners alive, didn’t even bother to shoot them first. That is the reason to leave.”

  Having caught Percival’s eye, the boy smiled brightly. He was soaked by the rain without seeming to care. After the fall of Phuoc Long province to the North Vietnamese Army in January, a flood of refugees had arrived to live on the streets of Saigon and Cholon. Across the street, a banner hung from a deserted government office, declaring, “Phuoc Long Will Be Retaken!” though there had been no counter-offensive, and already the Northerners had pushed far deeper into the South. The rain plastered the boy’s shirt over his collar bones and shoulders. His eyes were dark and intense, his two hands outstretched. Percival waved the boy over. He gave him a hundred piastres. The boy bowed deeply, and scurried off.

  “But that was 1968,” said Percival, sipping again.

  “And you think that the communists have grown more kind since then? Five thousand American dollars each gets us to Manila.”

  “What? Ten thousand dollars? We could buy an airplane. And who is this snakehead?”

  “It’s my friend, the Air America pilot. It’s easy—he’ll sign papers that we have been employees of theirs, logistics or administration, something like that, and we fly from Tan Son Nhut in two days. They have started getting their non-essential staff out.”

  “Ah, Huong, you see? Sang yee! Even your CIA pilot sees an opportunity! These Americans have learned how things are done in Vietnam. Saigon is so good at spreading her legs and selling herself that the Northerners will soon be paying up just as the French did, as the Americans did. Even now, as they wait to be conquered, Saigonese are trying to decide whether the best profits are in hoarding food or fuel. Food might spoil, but fuel could explode during the fighting.”

  “I know, I know what people say. Some think Saigon will be left alone by the communists, a gateway to the outside, like Hong Kong and Berlin, but why take the chance? Let’s get out now, you can always come back.”

  Percival took a big slug of whisky. “I say food and fuel. Let’s invest together in both. Let’s fill Chen Hap Sing with sacks of rice and drums of gasoline.”

  Huong leaned forward. “Hou jeung, it is different this time. This is the time to leave. You can afford it. You have lots of money.”

  “But to go where? I have everything I need here.”

  “Everyone knows that in the towns the North Vietnamese have taken, they begin their arrests and executions with those who supported the Americans. People like you. And me.”

  If Dai Jai did not come, Percival thought, he would not care if he was killed by the invading army. He would not wish for Jacqueline and Laing Jai to die with him, so perhaps it was best that they had long since escaped. Percival reached into his pocket, extracted a medicine bottle and poured some liquid morphine into his whisky. “Just because the Americans use me here, you think they will welcome me in their country? I won’t be useful to them there.”

  Huong said brightly, “Fine. Maybe you don’t think the communists will win. Alright, let me get right to it. You stay here. Lend me the five thousand dollars. It’s nothing for you.”

  “Sure. How much is that in piastres? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “Hou jeung, I need dollars if I am to pay for my departure. Or gold, a hundred taels.”

  “I can lend you piastres. You will have to find the dollars or gold yourself.”

  “Ah, hou jeung.” Huong threw up his hands. “You haven’t put any away in your safe? Don’t you know? In the past few months, gold and dollars have become more rare than a true patriot in Saigon!”

  Percival shrugged. “Deal the cards.”

  Dejected, Huong began to deal, and as he laid out the cards, a little group of refugee boys ran towards the Sun Wah Hotel, their feet patting the wet mud. They each held out two hands, grinning widely. Percival drained his glass and beckoned them all over. The little gang rushed to him, reeking of sweat and garbage. He opened his wallet and took out all his piastres, several thousand, which they seized and grasped at, and then they fluttered away, thanking him and bowing as they ran.

  CHAPTER 26

  IN FRONT OF CHEN HAP SING, the square grew louder and busier. After the fall of Da Nang to the North Vietnamese Army at the end of March, more refugees appeared each day, squatting in the open, lying beneath the orange canopy of the flame trees’ blooms. By mid-April, Cholon’s streets were more crowded than Percival had ever seen them. The square was dotted with shelters hastily built from bamboo and plastic sheet. The soldiers stopped dismantling them, and instead collected bribes to leave them alone. These structures grew like mushrooms from the side of Chen Hap Sing, a few families jammed into the space where the egg-hatchers had lived during the Japanese occupation. Some building owners chased the squatters away, but Percival did not care. Monks circulated amongst the refugees, handing out bananas to children, taking sick people to doctors.

  The casinos had only cheap local rice wine. Quieter than usual, they invented a new bet. A dealer explained it to Percival one night. “We have a new wager—a one-week bet on the takeover of Saigon. It pays out five to one, so a thousand-piastre bet will pay five thousand in a week if there is a communist flag hoisted at the presidential palace.”

  “They will come,” said Percival.

  “Then this is a bet for you,” said the dealer to Percival. “Give me your money! If you think the Northerners will defeat us within the next month, lay a weekly bet and you will at least break even. If they come fast, you will win big.” Percival put ten thousand piastres down, and did the same the following week. He could no longer find morphine on his own, and so he had to sheepishly appeal to Mak, who managed to supply him with the drug.

  From the school to the church, people ate and slept outside, tried to buy what they needed and sell what they could. Young men from the countryside milled about, oblivious to cars honking angrily to get through and porters shouting curses in order to pass. When they saw soldiers, they
vanished, for fear of being pressed into uniform. Families displayed belongings in front of their shelters to sell—an iron pot, an army canteen, a sullen young girl in lipstick. At night, the reverberation of distant explosions from the countryside north of Saigon rolled across the square like gentle thunder promising rain. In the morning, ragged lines of helicopters trundled low over the city, making their way out to the battles. They went out flying slowly, like angry dragonflies, laden with new soldiers for the fight. They came back more quickly, lighter.

  It became very difficult to get from Cholon to Saigon. The road teemed with people the whole way. Most were not going anywhere. What were they waiting for? Percival wondered. The lucky ones had settled under the shade of tall acacias. The less fortunate suffered in the sun. Now, seeing all these people out in the heat, Percival noticed that many trees along boulevards had been cut down. Roadways that had once been shaded had been widened, the asphalt pushed out to the walls of buildings and the tall canopies of leaves banished. It was not recent. The pavement was already cracked and worn, but somehow Percival only noticed it now. On quieter lanes, banyans still stood, and in La Place de la Libération, the flame trees had been left alone.

  Gasoline was more expensive than liquor, and harder to get. One afternoon, after hours of searching in the market, Trinh reported that he had found only enough fuel to fill the car half-way. Percival told him to lock the Mercedes safely within Chen Hap Sing and leave it there. That night, it occurred to him that he could go to Le Grand Monde by cyclo, but why should he? He anticipated no pleasure in gambling. In fact, he had lost it long ago, had been going just because there was nothing else for him to do. In the past few weeks, the casino girls paid more attention to white men, desperately hoping to screw their way out of Vietnam. Their first question to any gwei lo was, “You want nice wife make you so happy?” Huong had disappeared at the beginning of April—he must have found the money for his American snakehead, thought Percival, or perhaps had paid in pot.

  Mak managed to obtain narcotics for Percival, but this gave only soothing dullness. Drifting from pill to pill was to live underwater, a false life beneath the surface of the real one, intruded upon by distant words and coloured shadows. Day became night, and day again, as the flowers of April bloomed with an exuberance that made them unreal to Percival, and the occasional noise of heavy artillery kept time, beating gradually closer.

  Sometimes Mak disappeared for days. At other times, Chen Hap Sing was a gathering place. Men knocked on the door of the school at night, rapping with distinct patterns, codes, before being admitted. Percival heard them talking downstairs, tense discussions, urgent planning. Some had northern accents, some southern, some sounded like they were Cambodian, others Chinese. They spoke seriously and excitedly—a mixture of languages, most often Vietnamese. Percival did not know when Mak had moved into the school. Vaguely, he remembered Mak saying that he had suspended classes, paid the teachers bonuses, and helped the foreign teachers get good prices on airfares home. One day, the house staff all fled except Trinh, who was now always at Mak’s side. Mak explained that the staff did not want to be associated with the Percival Chen English Academy, a notorious haven of American-lovers. The staff ransacked the pantry before leaving. Foong Jie wordlessly showed Percival where she had hidden a crate of tinned fish and a twenty-kilo bag of rice as an emergency supply of food. He tried to get her to take it for herself, but she patted her bundle, indicating she had already taken what she needed. She accepted the thick sheaf of piastres that Percival offered her, bowed, and left by the kitchen door.

  One morning, about a week before the end of April, Percival woke and discovered that his flask of liquid morphine was empty. He rifled his desk drawer, but there were no more pills. Mak was normally so good at keeping him supplied. Percival went down, found the school empty. He climbed the stairs to the balcony, thinking that he might see Mak coming across the square. It was impossible to spot individual faces. People milled about and argued, scolded children, squinted up into the sky, agitated each other. There was the sharp crack of an explosion. Children in the square began to cry. Percival heard the door behind him and turned.

  Mak was there with a tray of food. “You must be hungry.”

  “These are our liberators?” Percival asked Mak.

  “Yes, we are almost free.” Mak set down a round bamboo container, food from a vendor. He sat a teapot in the middle of the table, put out two small cups, and then poured cold tea. He placed a familiar pill on the table. Percival ached to consume the drug immediately, but he did not want to display his eagerness. He pressed his palms on the balcony railing to quell them. Below, saffron-robed monks chanted monotonously into their megaphones. They called in Vietnamese for all to submit peacefully to the liberators, but no police or soldiers clubbed or arrested them. The army observation posts seemed to be abandoned.

  “I see priests circulating in the crowd as well.”

  Mak uncovered the bamboo container and arranged the dishes and chopsticks for both of them. “The Catholics are urging people to confess their sins—before it is too late. They suffer from colonialist religious delusions, the flawed lessons of the French Jesuits—but they have the right spirit. A little re-education and some of the priests will serve the revolution. Soon, everyone will confess their sins, against the people, not the white man’s god.”

  A breakfast of cold bun noodles sat on the table—a Vietnamese breakfast. The noodles were as white and light as clouds, crowned with crushed peanuts and a few chopped green onions, carefully arranged. There was no roast meat or fish. Percival thought of the morning meals he had once enjoyed with Dai Jai. Mak stood by the side of the table, awkwardly still now that he had arranged Percival’s food, long enough that Percival could no longer pretend he thought Mak was about to leave. There were two chairs—at some point Mak had put the second one out once more. Finally, Percival said, “Teacher Mak, please sit.”

  Mak said softly, “Thank you, comrade. You may wish to take up the habit of calling me comrade.” They both took their chairs and, once they sat, looked instinctively past one another, into the distance.

  Over Mak’s shoulder, from the direction of Tan Son Nhut, an airliner rose. A silver ship like this one had long since carried Jacqueline and Laing Jai to their new lives, thought Percival with some relief. The only thought he had of the future was Dai Jai. Percival tried to pick up the noodles with his chopsticks, but his shaking hand dropped them. He could not wait any longer. He took the pill, washed it down with cold tea, and already felt a little better. A moment later, with the morphine settling him, he realized how hungry he was.

  “When will they be here?” asked Percival, swallowing a gulp of noodles.

  “It will be a few days, at the most a week. We must be ready for the people’s victory. You must be ready.” Mak clicked his chopsticks together. “It is time to be free of your addiction, hou jeung.”

  Percival poked at his noodles. “You mean, my medicine.”

  “Opium was an instrument of colonial domination,” Mak said.

  “Your domination, you mean? You have been bringing me the pills to keep me quiet, so I don’t reveal your spies.”

  “I have been trying to help you. I know you’ve had many reasons for pain … but now, I have very good news for you. I want you to enjoy the new society when it arrives, so this is the last time I’m bringing you morphine.”

  Percival drained his tea. “Why should I care about the new society?”

  “Although for a period of time I kept certain things from you, I always thought of your well-being. When Saigon is liberated, you will have been on the side of the victors, a revolutionary hero. I may be one step ahead of you, old friend, but I will not leave you behind.”

  The noodles were half gone already—Percival felt embarrassed for eating so quickly. He said, “You are so far ahead of me, that I can barely recognize you. Did I ever know you, really?”

  “The facts have been adjusted,” said Mak. “You ha
ve been part of my work from the start, a loyal agent of the Viet Cong intelligence network, and will be well placed in the new society.”

  “I want to see my son. That’s all I care about.”

  Mak lifted a clump of noodles and ate them with slow pleasure, as if they were a fine dish he, himself had prepared. He swallowed. “Dai Jai is near. That’s my good news. He is very close to Saigon.” He leaned forward and said, “We are near enough to liberation that I can tell you. Wait a little longer. Dai Jai will soon arrive.”

  “He will be here soon?” It had been so long since he had felt hope that Percival experienced it like a new emotion. “He is near? But why wait? Where is he?” Percival wanted to embrace Mak, to tell him that he forgave everything if Dai Jai was home. He put down his chopsticks and stood. “If he is near Saigon, let’s go get him. I’ve kept gasoline in the car for this situation! Call Trinh to get the car.”

  “No, be quiet,” said Mak, glancing around at the balconies within earshot, “not so loud. He will arrive at the right time, in a victor’s uniform. Don’t you understand?”

  “I don’t understand a thing anymore,” said Percival, looking down into the square. A frail boy of six or seven years lay motionless in the sun, a mother trying to rouse him.

  “All these months, with the North Vietnamese Army advancing south, you have not suspected my plan?” A distant explosion, then a child began to cry. “Your longing for Dai Jai will be satisfied with victory and peace.”

  Percival’s dejection was as complete as the brief flash of hope had been. He gestured out at the crowd of refugees with his chopsticks. “Do you think they expect peace? Is that why they have come?” Another round landed a little nearer, like footsteps approaching. The noise of the crowd grew.

  “The shells are on the city’s outskirts. Parts of the Southern Army are foolishly stubborn. These peasants don’t know what is happening. They have fled here in panic. If they understood, they would be happy for their liberation,” said Mak. Both men ate, silently, until this last comment had drifted into the breeze. Mak leaned forward and said, “Headmaster, I put Dai Jai in a North Vietnamese uniform to cleanse his background, as I have yours. He and his comrades are becoming the heroes of Vietnam, as we speak.”