The Headmaster's Wager

by Vincent Lam

  Intending to dislike Hong Kong on account of the way he was sent there, Chen Pie Sou soon began to think that it was not so bad. The priests and nuns gave him a new name, Percival. People in the colony lived in an energetic jumble one on top of another, the streets filled with constant shouting and scrambling to buy and sell. The tall apartment buildings, he was told, were a Western invention. Afraid to live in such a towering structure of dubious origins, Percival took a tiny neat room in an old rooming house owned by a Cantonese woman, Mrs. Au. At first, it was frightening for him to be in the streets, to see the ghostly white British masters who rolled past in carriages that sputtered along without horses, or to be confronted at a street corner by the terrifying beard of a Sikh policeman. What weapons might they carry in their gigantic turbans if they wore curved knives on their belts? However, the tumult was soon energizing. From the street vendors, Percival bought dishes that he had never known existed. At La Salle, English came easily to him. Why did some boys complain that it was difficult, when there were only twenty-six letters? Percival was soon tutoring slower classmates and had a few extra coins for the cinema. And the girls! They were a different species than those in Shantou.

  By the time Percival became captivated by the perfect arc of Cecilia’s neck, and by the slight pout which rested naturally upon her lips, she was already going out of her way to defy the introductions that her mother, Sai Tai, coordinated. Wealthy Hong Kong society offered its suitors by the handful to the heiress of the colony’s biggest Chinese-owned shipping fleet. One after another, Cecilia declared them unsuitable. One boy had bad skin, another was too pretty. One did not have enough money, and another bragged tiresomely about his family’s wealth. Also, she complained, that last one drove his car too slowly.

  Percival heard all this by eavesdropping on Cecilia’s gossip with her girlfriends. He didn’t stand a chance, he concluded, but that didn’t keep his thoughts from being frequently invaded by Cecilia. She was unlike any girl he had ever encountered. She used none of the suppressed giggles or blushing avoidance of other girls her age. Cecilia entered movie theatres alone, people whispered. She was spotted at the betting window of the Happy Valley racetrack. She made wagers on new, unknown horses and won. Some of the less affluent students at St. Paul tut-tutted that Cecilia’s behaviour was disgraceful, and whispered with smug reproach that great wealth did not buy proper behaviour. Boys either found her strangely threatening or desired her with intensity, as Percival did.

  Once, when he was trailing her longingly, she turned suddenly and stared straight at him. She fixed his eyes immediately. How could he have known, at that naive age, that these were the eyes of a cat who had found its mouse? He became hot, flushed. She was ivory-skinned perfection, her lips pursed. Then she tilted her nose up slightly and turned slowly away, so that Percival tortured himself for days afterwards, trying to decide whether she had been amused or offended by his interest.

  At Christmas, the chaperoned school dance for the girls of St. Paul and the boys of La Salle was held in a respectable banquet hall on Queen’s Road. As the band began to play the easy three-beat rhythm of a waltz under the watchful eyes of the priests and nuns, Percival finally managed to summon the courage to approach Cecilia, resplendent in a peony-patterned gown. He crossed the now vast dance floor and managed to get out the words he had rehearsed. “I am Chen Pie Sou, will you dance with me?”

  “Didn’t the priests give you an English name?” she replied. After a moment, she rescued him from his stunned inability to speak. She said, “Percival, isn’t it?” She lifted his chin with a fingertip, the shock of her touch coursing through to his toes. Before he could say anything else, she had his hands and was leading him gaily in the waltz. When the dance was finished, he felt both abandoned and relieved to watch her flit into the distance again. After that, Percival could think only of Cecilia. Her image threatened to crowd out his studies. In front of his desk, he tacked up the letters from his father, formulaic correspondence exhorting him to study. Percival’s dreams of Cecilia fulfilled him during sleep, and shamed him when he woke, his underwear stained.

  The remittances from Chen Kai had been enough to make Muy Fa and Chen Pie Sou wealthy in Shantou, but once he went to Hong Kong and became Percival, he heard the snickers of his more cosmopolitan classmates. Percival had two school uniforms, which he washed by hand and hung to dry in the tiny room he had rented. His father had written shortly after his arrival in Hong Kong, warning that he must make the small sum of silver last through the school year. That was a surprise, but Percival had not complained. The suitors whom Cecilia had already rejected were heirs to property, and wore uniforms carefully pressed by their servants, but for some reason Cecilia began to seek out the boy from Shantou. She would sit with him at lunch. When he offered to walk her home, saying he was going in the same direction, though this was an obvious lie, she accepted.

  They went to the movies, and held hands. Percival worried that someone might see them, but Cecilia conspicuously rested her head on his shoulder. She took her family’s Austin Seven and taught him to drive on the twisting lanes of Victoria Peak, urging him to go faster despite the absence of guardrails. Sitting high above Hong Kong’s craggy coast, they watched the Peak Tram shunt forever up and down.

  Cecilia said one day, “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Anything.”

  “I will see the world. Soon, I will sail abroad. I will meet famous people in important places.”

  Percival dared not betray his ignorance by asking exactly where these places or whom these people were. He said, “Yes, you can go anywhere. Your family’s ships can take you.” One of their coal barges was cutting slowly across the bay beneath their feet.

  “You are silly,” she said, but added kindly, “and sweet. My family’s ships only sail the South China Sea. I think I will sail on one of the Messageries Maritimes steamers—those are the most handsome. The suites have silk drapes.”

  “Maybe I will—” he stopped to unstick the words from his throat, “go with you.”

  Without a word, she took his hands in hers, as one might console a child. From then on, whenever they sat up high on the Peak, Cecilia told Percival of the places she would visit—Westminster Abbey, the Louvre, the Grand Canyon. Her family owned books, she said, with photographic plates of all these wonders. While she talked, with her eyes on the water, Kowloon beyond, she allowed him to touch her. He stroked her palms, kissed the backs of her hands, massaged her fingers. He explored her perfect forearms. Percival heard his own breath, heavy, as she asked him if he knew of this monument or that museum. In a damp sea wind, he brushed the goosebumps that rose on her skin. Cecilia allowed him to be as passionate as he liked, but stopped him at the elbow.

  As a young man of half-decent though backwater origins, Percival was occasionally invited to the same banquets as Cecilia, mostly to occupy an odd single seat at one of the banquet tables. Cecilia never bothered about where she was supposed to be seated, and seemed to enjoy making a minor fuss disrupting the arrangements and sitting next to Percival instead. As pleased as he was by Cecilia’s attention, Percival could always feel the wave of Sai Tai’s anger pulsing at him from across the room. Cecilia’s satisfaction was just as palpable. It was disrespectful to snub an elder, but Percival’s wish to please Cecilia was stronger than his desire to uphold decorum, and besides, Percival told himself, it was Cecilia who was angering her mother. While the quiet of their time alone was what he longed for, Cecilia seemed to relish being in public, flaunting her unsuitable paramour, so much so that it seemed to Percival that she almost forgot him in her efforts to display him. She never introduced Percival to her mother.

  In the autumn of 1941, a schoolmate of Percival’s asked him if the rumours were true. Cecilia, the friend said excitedly, had revealed in strictest confidence to a number of friends that she might marry the poor country boy Percival. It was the talk of the school. She and Percival had never discussed marriage. Percival assumed an offended a
ir and told his chum that no gentleman would answer such an indiscreet question. He did not mention the rumour of their impending marriage to Cecilia. He was both afraid to open himself to her mockery, and worried that trying to clarify this rumour might cause its tantalizing possibility to vanish.

  AS HE SIPPED HIS LEMONADE, PERCIVAL watched now as Cecilia served the ball to the American surgeon. A flick of her wrist, and the ball spun. Sure enough, her gangly opponent was caught off guard on the bounce. She called out, “Fifteen … love,” to the American, but as she turned she shot her triumphant glance at Percival. Of course, he realized with annoyance at himself, as usual he’d been unable to resist looking at her.

  The Japanese invaded Hong Kong in December 1941, and by overrunning it in eighteen days demonstrated that it was not the impregnable fortress that the British had promised. Some La Salle students volunteered as orderlies at St. Stephen’s Hospital, and only one returned. He told Percival that the Japanese had shot the doctors, tortured the patients, violated the nurses, and burned the hospital down. The school Christmas dance was cancelled, and the British surrendered on Christmas Day. Though some of Percival’s friends asked him to join them when they stole into the hills to fight with the Gangjiu resistance, Percival stayed in his room, grateful that his landlady had such heavy furniture with which to barricade the door. All the tenants were hungry and sleepless, for around the clock the shots of executions punctuated the wailing of the girls and women being raped.

  When the noise of violence had exhausted itself after a few days, Percival ventured out to try to find some food. White, yellow, and brown soldiers of the British Army swung from the lampposts, their bodies already swollen, discoloured. Those who still lived were being marched away barefoot by the Japanese, many of whom now wore good English boots. For the first time ever, Percival knocked on the door of Sai Tai’s grand garden house on Des Voeux Road. He didn’t know what he would say, but he wanted to see Cecilia, to know that she was safe. In reply to his knock, there was only terrible silence. Finally, a neighbour appeared, implored him to stop banging lest it attract the attention of the Japanese, and informed him that Madame Sai and her daughter had gone. They had abandoned their house for a rented apartment on the sixth floor of a plain building. Sai Tai, the neighbour said, hoped that after climbing so many stairs, a Japanese soldier would not have the energy to violate her daughter. The neighbour did not know the address of the apartment where they had fled.

  La Salle and St. Paul were both commandeered by the Japanese, so there were no more classes to attend. The Kempeitai, military police, arrested and punished suspected members of the Gangjiu with great efficiency, the flash of a sword by the side of the street. Bystanders were commanded to watch. The head was speared on a fencepost, if convenient. Hunger, both of people and beasts, made the days long. One day, as he searched for a shop that had food to sell, Percival saw a pack of dogs ripping with mad pleasure a hunk of meat, perhaps a piece of dead horse or donkey? Normally, he would not think of eating such meat. Now, he wondered how he could distract the dogs or scare them off long enough to grab it. Then he saw the man’s body several feet away, clothes ripped open, the stump of neck. The head was nowhere in sight, other dogs must have carried it off already. Sai Tai’s handsome garden house was soon taken over by General Takashi, so it was best that it was empty when he came to seize it.

  Percival was lucky that he still had a few of the silver coins his father had provided, and with these he barely managed to feed himself. In late spring, as deaths from starvation became common, the Japanese declared that those with foreign papers could apply for exit permits. Percival had the French laissez-passer he’d used to enter Hong Kong. He learned that the freighter Asama Maru would sail for Saigon in two weeks, and some said that things were better in Indochina. Percival used the last of the Qing coins to pay the bribe for an exit permit, and to purchase a ticket on the boat. All he had left was the family charm, the reassuring lump around his neck, which he was careful to keep out of sight lest he be killed for it by a Kempeitai. Down by the docks, Percival recognized a number of Cecilia’s family’s ships, which had been seized by the Imperial Navy. They were being repainted in military grey and branded with the Rising Sun insignia. Percival had not seen Cecilia since the invasion. He thought about her often, but Sai Tai was keeping her well hidden.

  A week before Percival’s ship was due to sail, a woman in peasant dress approached Percival on the street. Sai Tai had sent her maid to summon him. The next day Percival found the apartment building, climbed the stairs, and at the precise time he had been commanded to appear knocked on a green wooden door. The door swung open. Percival was startled to see Cecilia’s mother rather than her servant standing before him. She wore a formal silk robe that was incongruous with the modest apartment.

  “You are …?” she asked, as if she did not know. As if she had not summoned him. The matriarch fixed him with her narrow eyes, dared him to speak. He was frozen, as terrified as if she were a Japanese officer.

  “Is something wrong with your legs?” she said. “Come in. Close the door.”

  Percival did as instructed.

  Sai Tai glided across the room, her feet hidden by generous silk folds. She came to a rosewood chair, its wood so dark that the chair emerged from shadow only when she lowered herself regally into its arms. Percival followed meekly, unsure how close to approach, erring on the side of being a little far away.

  “Are you a mute?” she said. “Introduce yourself.”

  “I am called Chen Pie Sou,” said Percival, guessing that she cared more about his Chinese name. “It is a great honour to meet you, madam.” He stepped forward and bowed his head.

  “I wish I could say the same.” She sat intensely straight, as if sitting in such company required immense effort. “Understand that I wanted my daughter to marry someone suitable to her family’s stature.”

  “Naturally, madam.”

  “My maid tells me your family is in the rice trade.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “However, I have never done business with them. They must not be very important.” As she leaned forward, her jade bracelets clicked against the arms of the chair.

  “I’m sure you are correct, madam,” said Percival.

  “But people always need rice. At least you are not completely worthless.”

  “We have a house in Indochina, which my father built. It is—”

  “Your family has a house?” she barked. “You think this is worth mentioning? Then you are very nearly worthless.”

  “Yes, madam.” Percival went down on one knee, his heart pounding, and imagined his head being lopped off.

  “Get up!” He reminded himself that it was Japanese soldiers who decapitated their prisoners. Wealthy old women with jade-heavy arms were not known to do this. “Is my daughter running around with a totally spineless wretch?” Percival scrambled to his feet. “You are not bad looking,” she said.

  “Thank you, madam.”

  “Good-looking men are indiscreet. They cannot be trusted.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “So you agree. You are not trustworthy?”

  “Not at all. I mean, no. I don’t agree. No, no, in fact, I am not very good-looking. That’s what I mean.”

  Sai Tai sat back a little. “At least you make an effort to show some respect. Unlike my daughter. I am told that you have a French laissez-passer and an exit permit from Hong Kong. I’ve heard you have a cabin on the Asama Maru, and will soon be leaving for your home in Indochina?”

  “Yes, madam.” He could barely utter these words, never mind being able to clarify matters. It made no difference, he thought, that he had never been to Indochina. His papers said that he was a resident of that country.

  “I am told that the French and the Japanese have some kind of deal, that it dampens the bestial behaviour of the Japanese in Indochina. They say this year’s rice crop was good in Annam, and no one goes hungry, despite the Japanese occupation.
Is this true?”

  “I have heard the same,” he said.

  “Your household must have stores of rice?” Only then, he noticed that her cheeks were less haughty than he had seen them before, perhaps a little hollow? Did even Sai Tai, he wondered, feel the hunger of the occupation? “You have the means to care for my daughter?”

  Years before, along with peppercorns, cinnamon, nutmeg, and brandy, Chen Kai had brought with him on a visit to Shantou a photo of the house he had built in Cholon. It was six storefronts wide, and three floors high. Within, Chen Kai explained, were high-ceilinged warehouse rooms for fresh paddy and threshed rice. There was no building so spacious and grand in Shantou, he declared. Chen Pie Sou had resented his father’s taking of a second wife. Muy Fa had stared at the photo of Ba Hai in front of the house, and criticized the building’s extravagant size, saying nothing of her husband’s Annamese wife. Ba Hai was a small-boned, dark-skinned foreigner wearing Chinese clothes in the photo. As a boy, Chen Pie Sou swallowed his question; why, if his father had found enough gold to build a house like that and take a second wife, had he not returned to Shantou? But now, confronted by Sai Tai’s questions, Percival was glad to think that even Cecilia would admit that his family house was a decent size. “Yes,” he said, with a small burst of confidence. “My family has ample means to care for your daughter. Our house is large. Our warehouses are full of rice.” This last must be true, he reasoned, as his father was a rice trader.