The Headmaster's Wager

by Vincent Lam

  Percival counted out eighty thousand piastres’ worth of chips into a little stack. Tonight, he would win back some of the ransom, keep Chen Hap Sing, and he would also take the girl. Early in the evening, he might have toyed with the idea of losing Chen Hap Sing and being free of it, yet it was only a mental trick to allow himself to gamble. He would never want to lose his father’s house, his house. Now that he knew his opponent, he was even more determined to win. The girl smiled almost imperceptibly at Percival and rested her eyes on the chips beneath his hand. Had the smile really been intended for him alone to see? He tidied the stack of tokens as if undecided, but before he could slide it forward, Cho threw out more bills, some landing at Mrs. Ling’s feet.

  “There, fifty more. Enough for a whole street of whores. I hope she is worth it.”

  Mrs. Ling kicked off a ten-thousand-piastre note that had landed on her toes and inspected her fingernails, then looked to Percival. The room became alive with speculation. Once started, it somehow became permissible, and the men eyed the girl’s hair, her breasts, her legs, and whispered their appraisals. She blushed. Mrs. Ling glowed. Percival placed his eighty thousand back with the rest of his stacks of chips. Mrs. Ling was discomfited by this. The headmaster was usually predictable in his desires. “Let’s play one more game, Mrs. Ling,” said Percival. “The girl will be your bet. Mr. Cho? Does that suit you?”

  “I would rather pay for what I want than be tricked out of it,” said Cho.

  “Tricks, Mr. Cho? Isn’t this a mah-jong table?” said Percival, as he began to wash the tiles. “The only tricks are those of luck. Two hundred per player, then?”

  “If you want to play, let’s play.” Cho looked up from under his eyeshade.

  The spectators whispered, laid side bets on the game. Cho’s eyes bulged angrily at Percival. He took back the money that he had tossed at Mrs. Ling’s hands and ignored the ten thousand that was on the floor. Mei pushed himself back from the table, apologized sheepishly, mumbled about a policeman’s salary. The room was alert again.

  Percival said, “Alright, Mrs. Ling’s bet will be the girl, and each of us will bet two hundred thousand piastres.”

  The four walls were built and broken, the pieces divided into the players’ hands. Because Mei had bowed out, they dealt a fourth hand which sat unplayed, face down. Percival took a tile from the wall—it was four circles, a piece that he needed. A good draw to start. He reminded himself to betray no excitement.

  On his second turn, Cho hesitated, coughed a little, and sipped his cognac. He cocked his left wrist back, settled the piece he had drawn in his hand and cleared his throat. Then Percival said, “If you are happy to wager two hundred on this girl, let’s just make it four hundred each.”

  “Now you want me to decide if that is a bluff.”

  “You think that naming your problem will draw out an answer?”

  Cho glared, furious at Percival, said nothing.

  “As long as you don’t mind such a big bet on a Chinese game,” said Percival. “I know you don’t like us Chinese, so if you want to fold for half the bet, if you don’t want to play this last round of a Chinese game, I’ll understand that it’s not because you’re afraid of losing. Your fingernail confuses me though, it’s such a typical Chinese affectation—old-fashioned though.”

  If he lost the half million now, Percival would not be able to make his payment and would also have a new debt. Cho tapped his fingers, scanned the backs of the ivories. Chen Hap Sing would be gone, thought Percival, and it surprised him that there was still a tantalizing, terrifying freedom in that idea. He rubbed his chest where the letter was folded. The ancestors’ spirits would decide.

  “Spare me your tricks. Four hundred each,” said Cho.

  “I won’t give another half of a girl,” said Mrs. Ling. There was laughter from the circle of spectators. “But if I win this, I will still have her, and it will be the best introduction I never made.”

  The play went around. Percival drew a piece that was not what he needed, and was obliged to discard. The same once more. Even the spectators were tense, silent.

  One by one, each of the players put down a triplet. Luck answered, and Percival was soon just one piece short. Several pieces came through Percival’s fingers which might have helped him if he tried to build his hand a different way, but he decided to hold out for what he needed—the five circles. Cho tapped furiously at the table with his long, sculpted fingernail, drawing and discarding one tile after another with his other hand. Percival touched the next tile in line to be drawn, felt the blood surge in his ears, and slid the tile towards him.

  “What are you doing? Take it! You must take it now that your hand is on it! You cannot draw another,” barked Cho.

  “You think I can see through it with my fingers?” said Percival. He pressed the piece into the table face down, as if trying to divine its identity, pushed it around in a lazy circle. “You think you can tell me what to do?”

  Cho whispered, “I have already, haven’t I?”

  Percival took the piece, made it his. He tilted it up to see. The five circles. “Ah!” he cried, a half-scream, for now it was unnecessary to conceal his greed and the pleasure of this revenge. He showed his hand, but did not hurry to take his money. The room applauded, calling out that the headmaster was teaching, suggesting lewdly that he had more lessons to give.

  Mrs. Ling stood, directed the girl delicately by the elbow, and guided her hand to Percival. “This is Jacqueline.” It was only once there had been a flurry of excited congratulations, once Cho had cursed, thrown his chair down, and stalked away, once a new cognac bottle was opened and poured, and once the envious, aroused men in the room had finished crowding around Percival, that Percival looked up at Jacqueline’s face and allowed himself to see that she, too, was pleased with the evening’s outcome.

  CHAPTER 10

  PERCIVAL TOOK JACQUELINE’S HAND AND LED her out of Room 28, along the hallway, down the stairs. The lobby bustled with hotel boys busily serving the guests bowls of congee and putting out salted eggs, pickled radishes, and dried dace for breakfast. They had already heard about the game and called out to Headmaster Percival Chen, bowing, thanking him for the thousand-piastre notes that he distributed like leaflets as he went. The bundle of money was heavy inside his jacket, the girl on his arm delicate.

  Outside, sun baked night-time mud into the hard earth of day. Jacqueline stood next to Percival. Had he once dreamt of her? Now that it was just the two of them, hesitation mingled with his desire. He could tell her to go home, say that he was tired. What a strange thought, to doubt his pleasure. After a night without sleep, his instincts bled together just as night bled into morning. He touched the letter in his pocket, which now made him sad. He scolded away his melancholy. It was simple. He had won her, an uncommon beauty, along with a large sum of money. Nothing could be better.

  The white Peugeot’s nose appeared down the street, edged its way forward from an alley, nudging through the morning crowds. Percival gestured and Han Bai saw them. Other girls whom Mrs. Ling had introduced to Percival appeared more attractive half-masked by darkness, their faults glaring in sober daylight. Jacqueline was the opposite. In the morning light, she was too beautiful for the makeup and borrowed dress she was wearing, the shoulders of which were a little narrow, the waist a bit high. A man should follow his desires, Percival reminded himself. It was unhealthy not to, especially in this climate.

  In Vietnamese Percival said, “Do you want to come with me?”

  “Isn’t that the idea?” she replied in English.

  The car pulled up. Han Bai came around and opened the door for his boss and the girl. Percival helped her in, for there was nothing else to do, despite his knot of uncertainty and self-consciousness. Fatigue, nothing more.

  “Do you want the windows down?” asked Percival.

  “No,” she said. “I like being on the inside. Looking out, like this.”

  Han Bai eased the car forward, crept
slowly through the growing bustle of people.

  “Are you tired? Do you need to rest?” Percival asked. Before she answered his first question, he nervously asked her another. “Where do you live?”

  “It’s better that we go to your place.”

  “Of course. Jacqueline … you have another name?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “What I mean is, I would like to know about you.”

  “Why?” She met his eyes briefly, then released him.

  “Forgive me,” he said, his words trailing off, drowned out by his beating heart. Had he somehow offended her? “It’s not necessary.”

  Jacqueline took his hand, her fingers light but sure. Was this her first time, as Mrs. Ling had implied? Did she clasp her hand to his in determination to go through with it? They reached the quiet leafy stretch of Chong Heng Boulevard. Percival sat forward a little, began to turn towards her, felt he should speak but had nothing to say. Instead, he looked at Jacqueline’s arm, extended over the glaring white territory of the starched cotton seat cover. She caressed his wrist, then his fingers, and rubbed them one by one.

  She said, “These are lucky, yes?”

  Jacqueline laced her fingers into the spaces between his. As they drove alongside the canal that ran into the heart of Cholon, Percival took shelter in silence. He wished to touch her face, to kiss her, but worried that to move might disrupt her hand, which rested in his. He found himself scared to do anything, a strange feeling. The water in the canal shimmered bright with clean morning light.

  Once they reached Chen Hap Sing, Han Bai did not need to be told to drive around the back, where Percival could use the rear entrance to slip into the house with the girl. From there, he could steal upstairs without crossing through the school, like a thief in his own home. The students gossiped anyway, but the headmaster should not be brazen. The effort at discretion was important. The kitchen servants did not give any sign that they noticed as Percival led Jacqueline through the back of the house.

  In the quiet of Percival’s room, Jacqueline stood beneath the spinning fan. The fan traced its quiet circles of breeze. Her shoulders rose slightly as she inhaled. She closed her eyes and exhaled. That was her only invitation. They kissed, the intimate shock of tongues.

  She stiffened a little where she stood. Her closed eyes made him bold, and he reached around, inched the zipper down the back of her dress, pressed his lips on her neck, then collarbone. Percival’s hands shook as he ventured within the fabric. The muscles of her back tensed to his touch, her body warm, a film of sweat. He peeled the blue dress off her shoulders and down around her waist, slid one hand up to her shoulder. He could smell her hair, also the stronger scent beneath her arms. He kissed the hollow in her neck, then filled it with his tongue, traced down, licking the salt from her skin.

  Percival circled around. Her eyes remained closed. Did she know that he wanted to look without being observed? Had she known this before he did? Was it her seriousness that both frightened him and drew him in? He stood before her, cupped her breasts, gliding lightly on their underside, stumbled on the nipples. As she breathed in, she tilted her head up, a little. He ran his hands down, over the curve of her hips, pushed the blue garment to the floor. He moved forward, so that he felt her breath on his lips. He held his own, wanting to be aware of hers only.

  She opened her eyes, kissed him, pressed into him and folded her arms around his waist. Offering and possessing at once. His sex already anxious against hers. The inundation of skin, of wetness, a familiarity, of having found what he did not know he was looking for. Years ago, he might have thought he was falling in love. He hadn’t slept, that was it. She undid the buttons of his shirt, down from neck to navel, breathing hard.

  He said, “But you seem like a well-raised girl.”

  She fumbled with the clasp of his belt. “You talk like an old man. Or a shy virgin boy—and you are neither.”

  She knelt before him, took him with her lips. He shivered with her tongue’s stroke, pleasure seeping out from his centre.

  He took her face in his hands, brushed her cheeks, and held the back of her head softly, the fragrant brown hair in his fingers. She had light freckles on pale cheeks, and strewn over her white shoulders. Exotic marks. He had never been with a woman who had freckles. Were Jacqueline’s Western-shaped lips different from an Asian woman’s? Of course she was attracted to him, he thought, for a boy her own age would have already finished, unable to slow himself or give pleasure in return—age brought many benefits. He should have said more to Dai Jai on the subject of women, and lovemaking. He had only told him that he must marry a Chinese girl. The boy would learn the rest with time.

  Percival felt the flickering of Jacqueline’s tongue and the deep warmth in the back of her mouth. Her strangeness excited him. He should have told Dai Jai that he must not mistake the kind of woman suited to be a lover with the kind meant to be a wife. For a less experienced man, it could be easy to become confused. She came up a little, circled her tongue on the sensitive place on the underside, nearly pushed him beyond, but he wanted to save himself. He pulled her up gently, gasping, “You’ve done this before.”

  “What did you expect?” she asked, a worried look, her lips wet.

  “Please lie down,” he said. She did so, her thighs crossed like long, beautiful white scissors.

  “Will you be sorry?”

  “You ask this now.”

  Percival took in the translucency of her skin, lines of blue within the curve of her breasts, nipples hard in his mouth. His lips followed his hands down her flank to her thighs. He nudged open her soft white thighs and tasted her centre. Tongue, then his whole mouth, until she began to arch her back. He slid his body against hers. Both slippery with sweat, then his mouth to hers so that they shared each other’s fluids, and he entered her. Her sharp inhalation. A moment of stillness. Then, slowly, slowly at first. Percival moved until he became captive, nearing the point where he might not be able to avert the end. He stopped, perched upon this precipice. Only their breathing. Then, languidly, as long as was possible. Gradually faster, until he gave in, abandoned himself to it, spilled over the edge of himself, knew that she had also done so. Although a man could be selfish in seduction, he must be considerate in pleasure.

  A CAR HORN BLARED. PERCIVAL WOKE, sweating into the heat, kept his eyes closed until the horn relented. In the street, curses and shouts, an argument about the price of a chicken. A car door slammed, a Vespa buzzed past. The bright light of early afternoon had invaded. From below he heard his students going out into the street. It was the hour of the midday meal. Hawkers yelled out their dishes, morning already forgotten, from somewhere below came the scent of prawns and green onions in the same pan, the stinking sweet odour of durian. Percival looked around the room. The girl was gone, of course. He got up, found shorts and a singlet, stood surveying the emptiness. Felt an ache for her, a sadness at her absence. He did not usually feel that for Mrs. Ling’s girls. But there was something he had forgotten. Something that had been so important last night, though now it lingered just out of his memory’s reach.

  The money, of course, the money. It was not on his desk. She was gone, and therefore the money must be gone as well. His keys were on the side table, but not the money. He could not remember what he had done with the envelope when he came home. The girl must have paid attention, though. Cursing himself, Percival lifted his mattress, nothing. She could be anywhere by now. That money was Chen Hap Sing. He flung his clothes off the chair—only an empty chair. She had not told him where she was from, had eluded his question when he asked. Had she already planned to rob him?

  Perhaps Mrs. Ling could locate her, but maybe not. Percival opened the shutters to see if he might catch her walking across the square, a small chance. In the thick grey of the clouds, a storm approached. The street was still dry, but the sky flickered with lightning. Distant rumbles of thunder mixed with those of artillery, both from the southwest. The market girls rushed al
ong with their carts. He scanned the room. His jacket lay in a heap by the door. He seized it, and in the pocket was the thick envelope of bills. He felt guilty now. How could he think that she had robbed him? He had not paid her, he realized. Was she so new to this business that she neglected to be paid? He went slowly to the window again, wanted to ask her to return, to come back often, to ask any price. A plaintive prayer bell rang. A cool gust came through the window in advance of the rain, swaying the smaller branches of the flame trees. It blew the girls’ ao dais around their waists and ankles. The cars and motorcycles honked more impatiently in a sudden rush to reach their destination. The one-eyed monk looked to the sky, a prayer bell in hand. Percival did not see Jacqueline.

  There was a splash of water. From the bathroom, the sounds of washing, water scooped from the blue clay jars, then after a moment trickling down the drain. He saw her clothing, neatly folded on a side table. He folded ten thousand piastres into the dress, a normal rate. He thought about it, and added another ten. He wanted to leave more but was scared to show how much he wished to please her, how badly he wanted her to come back. The soft padding of feet, the creaking of the bathroom door, and Jacqueline returned to the room. She had a sheet pulled around her. She closed the door and stood in front of it. He looked at her, and then again out the window. The wind caused the row of trees along the sidewalk to shiver, their leaves flailing. It did not occur to him to speak. It somehow felt normal to see her there.

  Jacqueline said, “What are you doing?”

  “I am waiting for the rain.”

  “Can I wait with you?”

  “Please. It will be here soon. Can you smell it?”

  Jacqueline walked to the window and stood so that they touched.

  There was the rising scent of wilted jasmine flowers and burned rice in the bottom of pots. A flashbulb of lightning burst close by, and thunder chased it. Rain surged through tree leaves, reddened the roof tiles like fresh blood. Water rippled over the curved clay, spilled to the terrace below, flooded the gutters and coursed along the street of men and women huddled in thin plastic ponchos. It fell from the top of the window and splashed on the sill, sprinkling Percival and Jacqueline.