The Headmaster's Wager

by Vincent Lam

  Percival remembered the closed classroom doors after school, but he had not wondered about the boy’s girlfriend since Dai Jai had left for China. Percival had almost forgotten that youthful infatuation. Dai Jai’s son? Long ago, while Dai Jai was still recovering, Foong Jie had all but confirmed his trysts with a fellow student. Percival had decided to ignore it, to allow the boy this comfort after his ordeal at the National Police Headquarters. What would Cho know about it?

  Cho raised the exposed end of the hanger and stabbed it through the trousers deep into Percival’s right thigh. “You are sure that you will make no disturbance, attract no attention?” The electricity burned from within, and Percival felt that he was floating above the scene, blubbering, denying that he was an American spy, claiming ignorance, raging and begging for mercy. Percival was leaving himself, heard himself screaming, “Yes! Your secret is safe! I will pay anything, Mr. Cho! I don’t care if my son has a child!”

  Cho yanked the wire out, and said, “Good, because Dai Jai will find his lover and son with you.” Mak looked shocked, caught off balance that Cho had said this.

  Percival heard his own voice, “Jacqueline and Dai Jai …”

  “Now, Headmaster Percival Chen, do you feel something worse than the electricity?” Cho stood holding the wire in his hand. “The truth is more painful, yes? My luck was not so good when we gambled together, but perhaps you were even more unlucky. How much simpler for you if I had won the girl’s introduction.” Cho jabbed again with the hanger, pushed it hard into Percival’s flesh. Between Percival’s legs, now, the soft release of his urine came almost pleasurably. One tension was relieved. He felt his vision fade and heard Cho asking, “Are you sure you still want your son back?”

  “Yes,” said Percival, “yes.”

  HOW MUCH TIME HAD PASSED? IT could have been hours or days. The wire gone, only a puncture oozing blood marked his throbbing leg. He had shit himself. Was he alone? There was one sound only, a dripping. He called out to Mak. No reply. He called again, still nothing but the drip. Water, of course, Cho had once explained it to him.

  Alone, Percival summoned denial. It was a lie. He had seen Dai Jai’s girlfriend himself, if only a glimpse of her slim silhouette through the flame trees before Dai Jai’s arrest. No, it could not have been Jacqueline. This was some strange torture of Cho’s, just like the beating. Perhaps he could think his way above it—it was a revenge because Percival had won that game of mah-jong, taking both the money and Jacqueline. What did Cho want from it? From the beating, he wanted a guarantee of Percival’s innocence and his loyalty. From this hateful claim, he wanted … Percival must try to think of the motive. Then he would not feel it so much. It was difficult to think. Rising out from the dull pain that occupied his whole body, Percival felt the pin prick on his head. Water, yes. The cold water dripped on his head, each drip a sharper jab. Despite the way he met Jacqueline, Percival had always drawn such reassurance from Laing Jai’s resemblance to his eldest son.

  There was a little light from below the door, but was it any different from the glow that had been there before? Had dawn replaced dusk? Or the other way around? More dripping. Percival’s tongue was crusted with dried blood. If only he could quench his thirst, refresh his mouth. It was so close, the water, falling on his head.

  He leaned back and tried to catch a drop. It was too dark to see the bucket. It must be hung high. He craned his neck, and the drips were daggers in his eyes. He strained and arched, but the closest he could get was that the water fell on the bridge of his nose, and from there a small drop followed the curve of his upper lip, trickling to the side, where he caught it with his tongue. He sat forward, the dripping continuing on the one spot. What could Cho wish to extract by telling this lie, he thought defiantly, this ridiculous assertion that Jacqueline had been Dai Jai’s lover? The ice melted drop by drop. He could picture his scalp red, imagined it finally splitting like an overripe fruit.

  A car approached, its engine familiar, then stopped. Car doors squeaked open, then slammed. Footsteps, and the clank of metal as the door of the shack was pushed. Then, silence. The open door was a rectangle of weak light. It could be late evening. But he heard a bird, was it a morning bird? The gas lamp had been snuffed out, so the interior of this place, the centre where he sat, was a black pit.

  Then a bright light shone in Percival’s face, searing. Cho wielded it, a flashlight? He examined the top of Percival’s head. “You must be anxious to end this. Confess your mission!” Cho’s breath smelled of sour alcohol, and his words were slurred. “Mak is such a good friend. To me, and also to you. We went for some noodles and rice beer, and I had a girl. He didn’t feel like one, but he treated me. Have you remembered yet who sent you? Which American are you working for? ”

  “None. My father came to find the Gold Mountain,” he heard himself mumbling. It was hard to form words with his swollen lips. Another person entered the shack, it must be Mak. Where were the ancestors’ spirits now?

  “You have such a sentimental friend. If it were up to me, you would have been killed at Tet in 1968. Mak prevented that.” Cho lurched a little to one side, then turned back and struck the top of Percival’s head with the flashlight. “Your head is ripe. Sometimes I help to peel the fruit. Look up. Sit up.” He gestured like an orchestral conductor. Percival struggled to keep his head up. “If you had been shot in 1968, Mak would have become headmaster of your school and we would not be enjoying this time together. Granted, you have been a perfect stooge. The Americans who employ your students have no idea that Mak even exists. You are the person who sends translators and typists. But I am worried about Mak’s sentimentalism.” He struck Percival once more, whistled, and shone the light in his eyes. “What a mess you are.” He paced unsteadily in front of Percival. “What a night that was, you winning your son’s lover from me in a game of chance. I didn’t know who she was either, when I placed my bets. A lovely slut, I thought. A lucky night for you. So it seemed. What shall we do now?” Cho inspected Percival’s head. “This is becoming tiresome.”

  “Please, save Dai Jai,” Percival managed to say, “Mr. Cho.”

  “That, again. You’ve had a pleasant time in this country, haven’t you? With your big house, your money, your sweet girl, and your sons, or one son and a grandson, I should say.” Cho continued, “There is a saying, that the métisse belongs to the last man she slept with. Have you heard that saying? Tell your son that one.” Percival lunged in his chair, almost fell over.

  “Comrade Cho, I know Headmaster Chen better than he knows himself,” Mak hurried to say. He crouched down next to his friend. “I assure you, he will not betray us to the Americans. When Dai Jai returns, nothing will happen with Jacqueline to jeopardize the school. Everything will be handled discreetly, yes, hou jeung?”

  Cho addressed Mak in a low tone, slowly, as if with pity. “Why do you still call him hou jeung?”

  “Excuse me, sir, out of habit.” said Mak. His voice was hoarse as he crouched by Percival. “Swear that you will betray nothing to the Americans, that you won’t make any scene whatever happens with Jacqueline when Dai Jai returns, that you will keep your American friendships as always, that you will preserve the school exactly as it is. That’s all you need to do, hou je … Chen Pie Sou.” Mak spoke as if it were true, about Jacqueline and Dai Jai. Why would he do that?

  Cho pulled Mak up. “I have come to a decision about the prisoner,” he said.

  “Thank you, General Cho,” said Mak.

  Cho went to the table. He turned back to them with something in his hand. He held it out to Mak. “Do your duty, Comrade Mak.”

  “What?”

  “Your duty.”

  “But sir, I thought you said that—”

  “As I said, I have come to a decision.” Cho thrust the gun at Mak.

  Percival saw Mak’s pleading mouth, his desperation, but could not hear the words. Instead he heard a sound, he had once heard it in a different place. Mak was shouting, distressed. Perc
ival had never seen Mak so upset, and yet a hushing grew to drown out the room. The sea? He would die here, in the Gold Mountain country. Would the same end find Jacqueline and the boy, when the communists took Vietnam? They would do so, he was now convinced. Were they all like Cho? Mak tried to turn away, but Cho seized him and spun him around by the shoulder, pressed the gun into his hand, took the safety off for him.

  Mak would tell Jacqueline his fate, and take care of her. His old friend would honour this wish, and maybe she could still somehow find a departure, an escape. Mak’s right arm hung limp with the weight of the pistol. He continued to talk. “But I have been faithful to the revolution. Since you’ve known me.” Arm trembling, saying to Cho, “You see big brother, Comrade Cho, General Cho … I am also loyal to my friend …” and shaking his head.

  Percival thought of Jacqueline with Laing Jai. As a newborn Laing Jai had looked so much like Dai Jai. Percival invited the noise to drown this thought, instead picturing only mother with child. Cho slapped Mak, yelled at him, screamed that his only loyalty was to the cause. Mak walked over to Percival with stiff legs. He stood close by, close enough to embrace. He raised his arm unsteadily. The sound was the ocean at Vung Tau, the waves on the beach, a welcome. Percival could smell the oiled weapon, the gunpowder. Things needed to be carefully tended to, otherwise everything rusted, disintegrated, in this country of decay.

  “Since this is my fate, I’m glad it’s your hand,” said Percival.

  The gun’s muzzle pressed cold on his temple, he could feel Mak shaking through it. “Hou jeung, I’m sorry.” And now the sharp, definite, and solid thing came.

  A strike of metal on metal.

  It was as if he could see his blood flowing down from his shattered head into the earth, mingling with the human waste that already soaked that place, with the stench. It was as if he could watch the skull fragments blown apart, fallen like cracked seashells. As if he could look into his own eyes, their last flicker. But he was able to think, to fear it.

  There had been only the hard metal hammer falling in the gun’s empty chamber.

  Cho seized the chair and knocked it to the ground. Percival thudded on his side and felt his raw scalp split open, the blood flowing from his head. It was like Cho had once described, a relief.

  Mak fell to the ground next to Percival and struggled to lift up his chair, to raise him back into a sitting position. Mak sobbed, thanked Cho for sparing Percival, begging forgiveness from the headmaster. In the dark, Cho laughed as if he had played a small practical joke. He held the flashlight in one hand and extended the other. “Here, Mak, give me my gun back. I had to be sure.” He turned to Percival. “We will bring Dai Jai back—that is my favour to Mak. Everything will continue as before—that is the price of your life, all of your lives. We will send our eyes and ears to Saigon as long as the foreign scum is here. If a word is betrayed, if you attract any kind of attention, Laing Jai first, Dai Jai, and then Jacqueline. In a room like this one, you will watch them die, slowly, painfully, before you join them.”

  Cho came close, and Percival could smell the rotten teeth in his mouth beneath the sour stench of beer. “Comrade Mak will take you back to Saigon. If anyone asks about your injuries, you will say that you were kidnapped by some Chinese gangsters for ransom. Your American friends won’t care about a kidnapping amongst Chinese.” As he stood up, he said, “Remember, I am letting him live in order that everything remains the same! Do you both understand? One wrong step, you Chinese dog, and I know Mak will do as required. As for you, Mak, I’m glad you pulled the trigger, otherwise I would have had to bury you both.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mak.

  “I’m going my own way,” said Cho. He left the hut, and then after a moment his footsteps faded away.

  “Let’s get back to Saigon,” said Mak. “It’s almost night.”

  Insects rushed in through the open door, buzzed and attacked them. Mak struggled in the dark to untie Percival. He ran his hands all over his friend’s arms and legs, grasped for the knots, the ends of rope, and pulled them loose. He struggled with the cords and yanked them in frustration. Cho had taken the flashlight.

  Percival felt the ropes on his legs loosen, and he moved his feet as if trying them for the first time. Then the arms, and soon he was free. Percival felt Mak lift him and take his hand. Mak stood, and Percival was a limp sack against his friend. Together, they staggered forward, towards the faint outline of a doorway. Outside, the bamboo stalks rubbed each other in whispers. The moon cast a pale glow, the narrow footpath disappeared in shadows. Mak tripped and stumbled with Percival towards the sound of flowing water. He lowered him into a stream, and bathed him.

  “Is it true, about Jacqueline?”

  “Yes, hou jeung.”

  “All these years, you knew?” said Percival, his own words shattering the quiet.

  “I’m sorry, hou jeung, I tried to send her away. I didn’t know about it until I saw you with her at the club. By then, you were already in love. I tried to stop you. You would not be discouraged, so it seemed kindest to hide the truth about Dai Jai. And then the baby … I thought if I could get her further away, back to Saigon, you would lose interest. You usually do. You didn’t. I saw how much you loved her, and finally I just let you go on, for while she was in Saigon it didn’t seem like anything about it could threaten the school. At least you were taking care of your grandson.”

  “I wondered about her mother’s death in Thanh Ha, if somehow you were mixed up in that.”

  “I don’t know a thing about that. I just wanted to help you, friend.”

  “And now?” asked Percival.

  “When this issue of Dai Jai came up, I had to tell General Cho everything. I had to. We needed to think of risks, of all the dangers that might upset our school. Its work is so precious for us. But we had agreed not to tell you tonight; I told him we could use it as one final point of …”

  “Leverage. You wanted to keep it as leverage over me, if you needed it.”

  “And I also thought that before Dai Jai got home, maybe I could help you send Jacqueline and Laing Jai away to America. I thought I could save you the pain of that truth, I thought I could work it all out for you … but you see, General Cho likes to inflict pain. I should have known he would tell you.”

  The water was mercifully cool, and Mak’s hands scooped it over Percival.

  “Will Cho bring Dai Jai?”

  “I think so. Yes. Yes, he will.”

  “Thank you, old friend.”

  Mak took off his own shirt, ripped it into strips, and washed the strips in the stream. He bound Percival’s head, and then the wounds on his arms. The insects swarmed furiously. Mak struggled and half-dragged Percival along the footpath to the car, and then helped him in. Each step was pain, every part of his body scratched, or cut, or bruised. Mak eased Percival into the passenger seat and closed the door. He went around to the driver’s side. Percival sat in the car, dripping, and stared ahead.

  “I understand something now,” said Percival. “It is something important.”

  “What is that, hou jeung?”

  A breeze caressed the leaves. There was that sound again, was it waves? Did they carry all this distance from Cap St. Jacques? Perhaps they did in certain winds. This must have been the sound he had heard, the sound of the sea. The bamboo clacked. Percival said, “That you knew about the gun … that the gun Mr. Cho gave you was not loaded.”

  Mak’s hands were on the wheel. He stared straight ahead. The car was a dark refuge. “Yes. Of course, you are right. Thank you, hou jeung, for observing that. I knew.” Mak put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car came to life, and they drove away.

  CHAPTER 23

  THEY DROVE INTO SAIGON IN A roundabout way. Mak deftly guided the car through districts that were unfamiliar to Percival, sometimes doubling back, threading through narrow alleys, pausing for a moment before turning down a boulevard or through a quiet market lane.

  “You are trying
to avoid checkpoints?”

  “Your condition would provoke questions,” said Mak, checking the rearview mirror.

  Percival said, “If you are trying to be invisible, why don’t you turn out the headlights?”

  “That would make us stand out.”

  “Of course. You hide in plain sight.” The car hit a bump, and Percival groaned.

  “You understand.”

  “More and more. What should I say if we do come to a checkpoint?”

  “Don’t say anything. I will explain that I am with the quiet police and that I have been questioning you. It will be a hassle, but I have friends who will back that up.”

  “Of course, you play both sides.”

  “Yes.” Mak’s eyes were on the checkpoint up ahead. “It may not seem honourable, but it is a necessity in my case.” Mak maintained a steady speed, neither slowing nor accelerating as they passed a darkened Jeep parked at the checkpoint. As they went by, they saw that the soldiers inside were asleep. Mak breathed a sigh of relief. “It is still best to be unnoticed, not to have questions to answer.”

  “I don’t even know what to ask you anymore. You have a whole other existence.”

  Mak said nothing. As they came towards the centre of Saigon, Percival caught sight of some American soldiers outside a bar and instinctively shrank into his seat. Mak seemed to take no notice. Closer up, Percival saw it was just a cluster of bar girls and soldiers, teasing, grabbing, a night-time courtship of price and desire. As the car went past, Percival saw that the soldiers were not Americans. Of course not, they were peacekeepers, Hungarians? They had the same big frames as GIs, and spent dollars in the same loud way. They were almost at Jacqueline’s apartment. Percival realized that he wished to be home with Jacqueline, in spite of the truth about her and Dai Jai. As Mak drove past the apartment, Percival felt panicked and said, “Where are we going, Mak?”

  “To the hospital.”