The Headmaster's Wager

by Vincent Lam

  As the police swung their batons and fists, more monks got to their feet and calmly waded in to the melee to strengthen the barricade. Percival clutched Jacqueline and Laing Jai to him. A few other hapless zoo visitors, caught like the three of them, stumbled this way and that to avoid the fighting.

  Oily black smoke mingled with the smell of burning flesh. One of the tigers pressed itself against the cage paws out, clawed the air, indignant that it was not receiving its portion. Percival held Laing Jai to him, covered his face, struggled to keep from being knocked over as monks and police fought. The immolated monk’s charred torso fell forward—a burned effigy. Several of the Americans stalked the remains like hyenas, crouching and circling with cameras to snatch images of the burned face, the shining dome of skull hung at a strange angle. In Percival’s mind, the hysterical screams of death continued.

  Someone tugged at Percival’s sleeve. It was the one-eyed monk. In his other hand he had Jacqueline’s wrist. All around them, the police clubbed the Buddhists. Now, both monks and novices struggled with the men in uniform. Sandals were strewn about, and prayer beads scattered, released from their strings. Calmly, quickly, the one-eyed monk began to walk, and Percival followed. He went a little to the right, and then plunged quickly left. He waited for a moment, and then hurried forward, in this way spiriting Percival, Jacqueline, and Laing Jai through the crowd. Somehow, he knew how to get through. The American journalists fumbled frantically to change film, to capture the police beating the monks, kicking them after they were cuffed, lying prostrate. Already, they had lost interest in the immolated remains. With Percival, Jacqueline, and Laing Jai in tow, the one-eyed monk moved through the melee like a spirit. His brothers parted for him, and he skirted past the fights, somehow flowing through. On the other side of it, he let go of their wrists and bowed.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” shouted Jacqueline. Percival pressed Laing Jai close and ran, with Jacqueline alongside. They ran away from the monks and the journalists, the police and the caged animals. They ran past the elephant and the peacocks. Percival kept on going, past the cotton candy vendor, his lungs burning and his chest pounding, towards the exit and through the gates. As they left the zoo, military police cars arrived and uniformed soldiers dashed into the zoo, slammed the gates behind them. Percival linked his arms beneath the weight of the boy while he and Jacqueline ran down the street, kept on going for blocks, although now all around them people walked—calmly enjoying a beautiful afternoon. His legs and knees cried out with pain as Percival ran past the American School, towards their apartment, through the lobby, and into the elevator. His lungs were fires. He set the boy down, felt the elevator lift them up from the ground.

  CHAPTER 21

  PERCIVAL THOUGHT OF A BETTER OUTING than the zoo—a picnic in Vung Tau. He loaded the trunk of the Mercedes with the cooler, towels, beach clothing, and it swallowed more even when he thought it full. Jacqueline was in a fine mood, and wore green-tinted sunglasses with tortoiseshell frames. Percival scooped Laing Jai into the car. They stopped at the market, where Percival went from stall to stall, and found baguettes, Vietnamese smoked ham, foie gras, bottles of beer, custard apples, mangos, chilled Sauternes, and ice. Still, it all disappeared into the trunk.

  As they drove past the National Police Headquarters, Percival whistled a little tune. They continued out of the city. At a junction not far beyond the city, two soldiers in ragged uniforms waved the car down. They wore giant mirrored sunglasses, carried American assault rifles and wore bandoliers of grenades. A glowing French sign pointed the way to Cap St. Jacques. It was neon, lit even in day. Where did the electricity come from? Percival wondered.

  The soldiers thumped on the car and waved. Percival looked at them, but did not understand. The leaves shimmered, and then began to fall. There was something wrong with the forest. The soldiers thumped again. They wanted him to get out. He did. The silence—there were no cicadas. The soldiers seized Percival by the arms, one on each side, and pulled him away from the car. Percival asked, “Brothers, what is wrong with the forest?”

  The soldier on the right barked, “Poison. Kills trees. Easy for us to kill communist scum.”

  “Thank you for protecting us, brothers,” said Percival, and tried to step back towards the car.

  But they grabbed him again. One held him, and the other selected a grenade. The soldier pulled the pin and let it fall. His mouth smiled blankly beneath silver-sheathed eyes. The soldier tossed the grenade casually like a crumpled newspaper into the driver’s window of the Mercedes. Percival saw Jacqueline’s face, surprised, taking a moment to decipher this black object. The vehicle ignited, an angry fireball. He tried to get to the car, Laing Jai was screaming but it was too late. He heard a voice yelling. His limbs were paralyzed, and the screams were his own.

  JACQUELINE CROUCHED BY THE BED, AT his side. Sounds from the street—the syncopated horns of Vespas and Hondas, the shouting hawkers—penetrated his dreams. It was a new, fresh day, cool with the respite of early morning.

  “Where is Laing Jai?”

  “He is asleep. Were you having a nightmare?” She stroked Percival’s forehead.

  From beneath the balcony came a soft rustle of leaves. He lied, “I don’t know. It’s vanished.”

  “You have a visitor.”

  “So early? Say that I’m not feeling well.”

  “It is Cecilia,” said Jacqueline.

  “Why is she here?”

  “I was wondering that, myself.”

  Percival put on his slippers and pulled a robe around himself. He went out into the living room, where Cecilia perched on the very edge of the sofa. He sat down opposite her in a chair and braced himself for an attack. Instead, she looked up and gazed at her former husband. This quiet was so rare and precious from her, frightening to him. The edges of her makeup were smeared by tears. Somewhere deep and hidden, though still reachable, Percival knew the feeling of being a boy from Shantou in Hong Kong, loving someone whom he could not understand, in a world that confused him. Did he understand more now? About Cecilia, women, or anything else? He should, and yet he wasn’t sure. In an argument, he knew the twitches of Cecilia’s eyes, the tensions in the corners of her mouth, well enough to anticipate what type of barb would be thrown. But he did not know what made her so openly sorrowful today.

  She said, “I have a letter from him. From our son.”

  Jacqueline was in the doorway of the kitchen. Percival glanced up at her, and she slipped through the bead curtain, out of sight. He asked Cecilia, “Can’t this wait? We can have tea this afternoon. At our usual place.”

  Cecilia leaned forward. She spoke softly. “No. We must speak in private.” She placed her slim leather bag on her lap and from it withdrew a long envelope of rough paper. It was addressed in Dai Jai’s handwriting. “It is a real letter from our son.”

  The image of Dai Jai on the morning of his departure, on the cusp of manhood, appeared before Percival. As much as he tried, he had never been able to imagine Dai Jai growing older. He knew that his son was now twenty-two years old, but could not summon an image to accompany the passage of years. Percival looked at the envelope. It was a piece of coarse brown wrapping paper that had been folded and glued at the edges. “It’s not stamped,” he said.

  “A Chinese-American brought it for me. He happened to meet Dai Jai in China.”

  “An American spy? ”

  “He did it as a favour to Dai Jai. He pitied him.”

  From the corner of his eye, Percival saw Jacqueline’s shadow across the kitchen doorway. She was out of sight, but as near as she could be, listening. His fingers fumbled with the letter. His eyes were clumsy as they rushed over the words. They killed many of the professors, and then some students with foreign ties. This farm is a political re-education camp, a prison. It was as if suddenly Percival could hear his older son speaking what was written. Thanks to our family’s land, I am in the hated class of landowners. I tell them that you gave it to the people, but
it doesn’t matter.

  Percival pressed his eyes shut with the palms of his hands, which burned like coals on his eyelids. I sleep with the chickens, and sometimes I steal an egg and suck it raw. Because of father’s school, I’m a spy. They beat me and accuse me of being a CIA agent. I am always hungry. It was worse than Percival had feared. He opened his eyes and then rested on the last phrase of the letter: Please Mother, I must escape. Find a way, I beg you, or I will die here. Your obedient son, Dai Jai. He stared at the letter, its rough hurried characters.

  “Why did he send this to you instead of me?” said Percival. Did the boy not believe that his father would help him? thought Percival with a horrible pain.

  “You can ask him yourself, if you ever have a chance,” whispered Cecilia. “I am leaving Saigon. I am going back to Hong Kong, where there are more snakeheads with contacts in China.”

  “When will you be back? ”

  “I won’t be. I have a one-way ticket for this afternoon.” She stood, picked up her briefcase, and said, “My family may have lost its ships, but I still have friends in Hong Kong who can help. I’ve made my money off this war. I want to leave with it while I can, and maybe some of it can help to free our son.”

  “How are you able to leave, just like that?”

  “I bought a Taiwanese passport almost a year ago. Some people make plans in advance, hou jeung.”

  Cecilia walked out of the room, leaving the letter with Percival.

  After the front door clicked shut, Jacqueline emerged from the kitchen and sat next to Percival. He was fixated, rereading the letter in a cold sweat. “What is it?” Jacqueline asked, and looked over Percival’s shoulder.

  “It’s a private matter,” said Percival, and hastily, ashamed, he folded the envelope. “I have to go to Cholon.” He stood to get dressed.

  “You complain about Mr. Peters’ wandering eyes, but Cecilia shows up here, and you won’t even tell me what it is about?” Jacqueline turned on the radio. It was in the middle of a news report. The main story was that a string of immolations in cities across Vietnam had been started with the burning of a monk at the Saigon zoo. The Buddhists called for an immediate ceasefire and full American withdrawal. Jacqueline quickly turned it off and watched him go.

  Over the years, the once-quiet road between Saigon and Cholon had become crowded with shops and apartments, laundries and bars. It was now a busy route, and today the traffic was snarled. Percival honked the horn to get cyclos to move over, swerved past belching three-wheeled taxis, and narrowly missed a Jeep as he pressed the car through the congested lanes.

  He was angry at himself for swallowing his own deception. In the end, Cecilia had been right. But what else could they have done when Dai Jai was drafted by the South Vietnamese? How could Percival have known what would develop in China? It seemed it had become a different world since Percival was a boy. When he was still small, those who came back from the Gold Mountain lands with wealth were respected. Gold bought land, and a family that owned land stood above others. Had all this truly been reversed? Percival asked Chen Kai’s ghost how he could have allowed Dai Jai to return to such danger. For his part, Percival insisted to himself, he had only done what he thought was best. “No father,” he told himself, “would have acted differently.” He said it aloud, repeated it with conviction as he drove furiously, recklessly towards Cholon.

  Mak was in the school office, grading papers.

  “Headmaster Chen,” said Mak. “I didn’t expect to see you today.” He pushed his reading glasses to his forehead. “It’s such a beautiful day. I thought you would be enjoying yourself in Saigon.”

  Percival took the letter from his pocket and held it up. He waved it like a flag and then thrust it at Mak. “This was delivered to Cecilia. This is a true letter.”

  Mak read the letter through slowly. He rubbed his temple.

  “We must save him,” said Percival. “Cecilia is going to Hong Kong, to find a snakehead. Do you know anyone there to send her to? If it costs more money than she has, I will sell everything. I will do anything.”

  “Not everything is money,” said Mak. “To bring someone from China to Hong Kong is extremely difficult. But to bring someone out from the political camps …”

  “If not in Hong Kong, there must be someone in Saigon who can bring Dai Jai back to Vietnam.”

  “Someone in Saigon?” said Mak. “Who in Saigon could possibly do that?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  Mak looked frustrated at the request. He read the letter through again. “I’m sorry. Forgive me, hou jeung, but Dai Jai … is in China.” He folded the letter carefully, and offered it back to Percival. “Perhaps it will work out for him eventually at this … farm. Sometimes, a thing which seems hard ends up containing good.”

  “What are you talking about?” shouted Percival, snatching the letter. He would not be spoken to as if he were one of Mak’s slow students. “His only true letter in years is smuggled out by an American spy! He must steal to eat. I am a wealthy man, and my son suffers like an animal. He will die if he stays there.”

  Mak sighed, looked at Percival. “Of course, any father would be upset to receive a letter like this.” His tone was cool, perhaps even distant.

  Percival found himself begging, “Forgive my outburst. You must help. They have decided that he is a spy because of the English school.”

  “Percival, Dai Jai was in trouble here in Vietnam. He was in danger, so we sent him to your mother country. Our mother country. That was your strongest wish. It was very difficult for me to arrange. I don’t know what else you expect me to do.”

  “To bring him out, anywhere, Hong Kong, Cambodia, here, isn’t there a way? You have connections.”

  Percival sat very still. He gripped the letter. He was suddenly aware of his hands, of their uselessness.

  “But it is not so simple, friend. I wish it were.” Mak spoke in halting words, as if leaving out half of them. “This is a strange time. That is the only truth.”

  “For my sake, can’t you find the right contacts to bring him back? For the sake of your brother, please.” Why was he pleading with Mak, his employee?

  Mak’s expression changed. He seemed exhausted, and now he chose his words deliberately. “Headmaster, I don’t know if Dai Jai can be brought back. If it can be done, it will be very expensive. Are you prepared to pay?”

  “Any price. Then it can be done?”

  “Really?” He studied Percival’s face. “Are you sure? I’m not even sure it can be done. Any price at all?”

  “All that I am worth and more.”

  “It could cost that much.” Mak put his elbows on the table, lowered his head and pressed the tips of his fingers to his temples. “I’ll see what can be done.” He closed his eyes, as if it would be easier not to see. “Go back to Saigon and wait. Whatever you do, make no inquiries. What about Cecilia?”

  “She has left for Hong Kong. For good.”

  “Fine. I don’t think she’ll meet anyone in Hong Kong who can help, but it would cause trouble if she fussed about this here. Tell her nothing. No one can hear even a whisper of this. I must speak to some friends of mine.”

  LATE THAT NIGHT IN SAIGON, PERCIVAL woke from his shallow sleep fully open-eyed and alert, although there was no bombardment, no sirens. An absence of noise had roused him. There was emptiness to his side, a glow of light from the kitchen. He walked slowly, silently, across the floor. He looked into the kitchen through the screen of beads, where Jacqueline was curled up in a chair beneath the pendant lamp’s illuminated patch of light, reading the letter.

  Percival’s jacket was crumpled in a pile on the table. As she came to the end of the first page, she began to weep. He crept away carefully, grateful that she knew, and also that they did not need to speak about this thing, this shame of his. He went back to bed without being seen, waited for her to return. He heard the click of the lamp, the creak of the front closet, then felt her body, familiar yet secr
et, slip back into bed.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE PARIS PEACE ACCORD in January of 1973, just before Tet, dampened that year’s holiday in Cholon. People were happy for peace, but also worried. If the Americans did not bring dollars, what would happen to their businesses? How would people pay their children’s tuition abroad? If all the soldiers left, what would become of their drivers, translators, and prostitutes, who all earned good income in dollars?

  In March, Percival, Jacqueline, and Laing Jai watched a parade of departing American troops as it made its way past the front gates of the Cercle Sportif. Their uniforms were clean, and their posture ramrod straight. They carried, along with regimental flags, a few neatly stencilled signs reading, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU. Laing Jai was excited by the line of Jeeps and soldiers, and shouted along with the dutifully cheering Saigonese school children who lined the streets.

  Several times each week, Percival asked Mak about Dai Jai. Each time, Mak told him that it was not simple. He was making inquiries. Jacqueline had not raised the idea of leaving for America again. Percival was glad she had read the letter from Dai Jai. He could not have spoken about it, but it comforted him that she knew. In her silence on the matter of America, he saw she understood his predicament. Percival did not conceal his frequent phone calls to Mak. Jacqueline knew that her lover must stay in Saigon until his son was safely returned.

  In the end, there was no need for anyone in Cholon to be concerned about the Paris Peace Accord damaging business. The fighting barely paused. The black market price on the American dollar rose by fifty percent while the official rate remained unchanged, creating profitable business opportunities. Cholon was a little quieter at night, but the bars stayed open. American units were sent into battle through most of August, until news came that they would actually stop shooting. Even after the last chartered flights departed from Tan Son Nhut with their Marine units, the streets and markets bustled and did not lack sweaty, sunburned foreigners. The Poles, Hungarians, and Canadians arrived to observe the peace, and all needed translators. The Indonesians and Filipinos did not hire as many employees, but they were paid the same per diems in American dollars. The Canadians soon left, quibbling that there was no peace to observe as North and South Vietnamese units continued to ambush one another. The Percival Chen English Academy remained fully enrolled, though there was no longer a waiting list.