The Headmaster's Wager (16 page)

Percival said, “You must be excited, about your trip to China.” He said it as if it were a trip to Dalat, the resort town, or a holiday in Paris.

Dai Jai hesitated before saying, “I didn't think it was possible. Not with the politics here, or even the situation in China.”

Was the boy's expression one of alarm? “Don't be scared. You won't be caught. Did you think I was going to let you enlist in the South Vietnamese Army? Everything is arranged for you to return home.”

Dai Jai stopped skimming the surface of the water. “How can I return somewhere that I've never been? I don't want to go.”

“You are Chinese,” said Percival with finality. Dai Jai stared deep into the fish tanks without a word. It seemed he was expecting Percival to say something else. Perhaps the boy did not understand the situation, the dangers of the South Vietnamese Army for a Chinese. Or was this Cecilia's fault? Finally, Percival said, “Has your mother given you the idea of America? Even with many so-called American friends, she cannot arrange it. Impossible, now that you've been drafted. Your name comes up on lists. Or does she talk to you now of France? What good have the French ever been to us Chinese, or any white people? You would be miserable in a land of the
gwei lo
.” How could the boy even contemplate living amongst the white ghosts?

Dai Jai looked straight at his father. “It's not that I want to go to America or France. I just don't want to leave.” Dai Jai nudged a fish with the net, gently. It skittered around gracefully in the tank. Percival saw how fearful Dai Jai was of saying this, and this tempered his response.

He had come up to the balcony expecting Dai Jai to be excited, perhaps thrilled. Or at least appreciative. He said quietly, “I wish I could go to China myself, but I must stay here, pay the debts, and save the house that your grandfather built. When he left Shantou, Chen Kai only intended to make his fortune and return. He got stuck here—he stayed longer than he intended, and built Chen Hap Sing. But in the end, after finding the Gold Mountain, the only thing your grandfather wanted was to return to his home village. He regretted not going back sooner. Now, you have that chance. Maybe I'll join you, even. Maybe after I've paid the debts and saved up some money.”

“How much?”

“Once I have enough,” said Percival reassuringly. “You can't imagine how happy your grandfather would be, to know that you are returning to China.”

“But you never heard from him again. Obviously, he must have been—”

“Shh!!! My father picked a terrible time to make the journey. That was because he waited too long. He travelled towards danger, but you are travelling away from it. The ancestors' ghosts will be happy for your return.”

“I heard on the radio that the People's Committees have banned the Parade of Deities celebration. They say people must stop worshipping the ancestors, because in the new China—”

“You are very lucky that Mak has been able to arrange for you to study in Shanghai. This is not easy. I am still struggling with my gold debt, but I will send you with ten taels to pay your expenses.”

Percival could see that Dai Jai remained doubtful. He struggled for something to say and could only come up with platitudes that suited any Teochow primary school lesson. He used them regardless. “Don't you know the greatness of the Chinese civilization? We
conquered Annam two hundred years before Christ was born. We invented paper money and gunpowder.”

“And now the Americans are the masters of both of those things, and this place.”

Percival did not know what to say. He was terrified to think of his son in a South Vietnamese uniform. “The greatest minds of all civilization—Emperor Wong, Confucius, the Cheng brothers—all derived their wisdom from their mother China. You will thrive in Shanghai. You will get a better education than you could ever hope for here in this muddy backwater.” Percival searched Dai Jai, who still seemed unconvinced. He added desperately, “The girls there are prettier than any here, and far more elegant.”

“I'm supposed to report to the army in a few days. Maybe I will get a post in Saigon. Even if not, I can try to get home for the festivals.”

“I don't want you fighting amongst Vietnamese. Chinese soldiers don't last long in their army. Look, they fight a war against their own people. For what reason? I can't tell you why. No one can. How stupid.”

“Are we Chinese better? What about Mao and Chiang Kai-shek—”

“Believe me, if they can kill their own brothers, they aren't bothered by shooting us Chinese, even if you wear the same uniform.”

“I know what people say … but what if I just report for training and speak only Vietnamese? I will never speak Chinese, and that way I will blend in.”

This was the boy who had protested the new Vietnamese language regulation, and suffered so much for it? Now, he declared so casually that he would never speak his own language? Percival was frustrated, about to yell at him, but found the words stuck in his chest. Perhaps the beatings his son received had affected his views, had made him decide it was wrong to declare himself Chinese. All the more reason to send him to China. Percival found his voice cracking. “You want to crawl in the jungle and wait for a bullet in your back? In China, you can study. Here, you are forbidden to register even in your own father's school. Mak has found a way for you to leave, and you must use it!”

Dai Jai caressed the side of a tank, which attracted the angel fish to come and kiss the glass. “I am at home here.”

“For what reason?” asked Percival. He seized the skimmer from his son's hand and waved it. “Is it for your girl? There are girls in China. You will find them anywhere.”

“You should know,” said Dai Jai.

Percival raised the skimmer, as if to hit Dai Jai with it, and saw the boy recoil. He threw the skimmer across the balcony, heard it skitter on the marble.

“I will go as you wish, Father,” Dai Jai said, his words quivering.

“
Gwai jai
,” said Percival. Obedient boy. He said softly, “This whole episode will turn out to be a blessing in disguise, for spurring us to send you to China. You will visit my mother's shrine, and in Shantou you can enjoy Zhong Shan Park, the most beautiful park in the world.” Percival walked across the balcony, retrieved the skimmer, handed it to his son apologetically. Dai Jai resumed tending his tanks with shaking hands. Percival fled. He felt relief, a lifting of a weight. One day, soon, in fact, the boy would thank him for forcing this. What else should a father do? He found Foong Jie downstairs, gave her the ten taels of gold that he had bought for Dai Jai, and instructed her to sew it into Dai Jai's most sturdy trousers and show him where it was hidden.

Two days later, five days short of Dai Jai's date to report for basic training, Cecilia came early in the morning to say goodbye to their son. It was still dark. Dai Jai clutched a bundle of his favourite foods, which Foong Jie had prepared for him. Cecilia held him in her arms for a long time in the front hallway. The smuggler arrived with their props, two large boxes of cheap Sanyo radios. Percival had intended a bright send-off, to be as cheery and celebratory as possible. He had chosen a verse of classical Tang poetry. He would wait for Cecilia to finish her embrace. Then, Dai Jai squirmed out of his mother's arms, his own face wet, suddenly in a hurry to leave. He went out the door, and everyone followed him. An overnight rain had left the square freshly rinsed, cool. Once they were out of the house, Percival called for Dai Jai to wait a moment, found that his poetic quote had been erased from his mind, and fumbled awkwardly in the dark to embrace his son, throwing his arms around the boy's shoulders. Mak
stood a little way off in the dark. He had come to make sure everything went smoothly, and was acting as lookout, scanning the square.

Percival had a wild thought. What if he told the smuggler to go away, that he was not needed? But if Dai Jai were to stay, he did not have time to buy a safe post now. Another idea flashed before him—he could go with Dai Jai and leave the school and house in Mak's care, but no, there were the pyramids of debt. To leave Chen Hap Sing would almost certainly be to lose it. No, this was correct, the best possible action. These speculations vanished as quickly as they had arrived. He must let Dai Jai go. The boy would be safest with other Chinese. He loosened his hold, held Dai Jai's shoulders in his hands.

“Why are you sad?” asked Dai Jai. “Are you disappointed in me, Father? For what I did, and all the trouble?”

Percival said, choking on his own tears, “No. Don't say that—you are our only son. It hurts me to send you away, but I think it's best.”

“I know, that's why I'm going.”

“Because it's the best thing. Yes.”

Dai Jai said quietly, “I'm going because you think it's best.”

Against the first glow of an ashen sky, the limbs of the flame trees seemed oppressive, and dark. The smuggler murmured that they must not miss the bus. Dai Jai nodded and hoisted his box of radios.

Cecilia wanted to go to Dai Jai's room. They stared at his empty bed, his desk. They went out onto the balcony. The fish tanks had been scrubbed spotless and shone like gems beneath the pre-dawn sky. When the light appeared, they looked out into the square below. Percival was fearful and hopeful—if something went wrong perhaps he would see the smuggler returning with his son. Perhaps they would miss the bus. Perhaps the bus would have a mechanical problem. But the square began to fill with vendors and cyclo men, without any trace of Dai Jai.

Percival said to Cecilia, “Do you remember, when we arrived in Cholon, this was the first room in the house that we saw.”

“How could I forget? If the
Asama Maru
had been returning to Hong Kong, I would have gone back to the wharf.”

The bedroom that was emptied by Dai Jai's absence was the same room that had once been Chen Kai's. It had the best view of the square. It received the most breeze, through the two French doors that opened onto the balcony. Through it, air moved through the whole family quarters.

The first time Percival set foot in this room, the doors and shutters were closed tight against the light. They had just met Ba Hai, and she had shooed them up the stairs. They had fled Hong Kong's starving unfortunates, those who had been reduced to begging for rice on the street. Indochina was to be their refuge, a place of lush paddies and full bellies, but when Percival's eyes adjusted to the dark room and the opium smoke, he was shocked by a figure who was as thin and fragile as the carved lattice headboard on the mahogany bed where he lay. Skin draped loosely from the contours of cheekbones. Veins undulated over the back of a hand. There was no movement except for breathing, and with that effort the clutched opium pipe moved slightly. After a long pause, Percival said, “It's me. I have come, Father.”

Chen Kai moved lightly, like a feather. “Who is it?” he said.

“It is Chen Pie Sou, your son.”

“No, my son is in Shantou.”

“I have come from Hong Kong with my new bride.” Percival tried to pull Cecilia towards the bed. She should kowtow to her new father-in-law. She pulled her hand away and stood near the door.

Chen Kai snored, wheezed, then roused and with a great effort, succeeded in putting the pipe to his lips. “You are a ghost. Tricking me! No, my son wrote. He would not come. He is in Shantou, angry with me. He stayed with his mother's grave, a dutiful son.” He sucked on the pipe, realized that the drug no longer burned within, and let it clatter to the floor. He turned slowly, his eyes closed, his words slurred. “As soon as I am better, I must return to Shantou.”

A cough at the door—it was Ba Hai. She said with syrupy sweetness, “When he learned of his first wife's death, he could not sleep, and so we tried this medicine. Now, the opium pipe is the only thing that gives him comfort.”

“He looks worse than dead,” said Percival. “Why does he say I am in Shantou? I never wrote any such letters.”

“Look at him, he has lost his mind.”

Percival stood in the centre of the room. Cecilia lingered near the door. The room was very warm, an old heat stale with layers of opium smoke and darkness. He looked to Ba Hai. “Did you forge those letters to me, as if you were my father? Did you send me to Hong Kong and tell my father I had stayed in Shantou?”

“Don't you come here, Chinese boy, and think that this is your house,” spat Ba Hai. She turned and left.

“He will have no more opium!” Percival shouted after her. He went to the shutters and threw them open. Light flooded the room and Chen Kai recoiled, shielded his eyes, begging that the shutters be closed. Percival jerked the doors open so that the noises and smells of the square invaded. He snatched the wood pipe from the floor and flung it out the window.

Now, the same room was full of Dai Jai's things, the good clothes which he could not take with him to China, the carefully squared piles of Marvel comics and kung fu novels, books which were painful for him to abandon. Percival looked out on the square and imagined where the opium pipe might have landed. He said to Cecilia, “Dai Jai is going home. Just as his grandfather Chen Kai once wanted.”

She said dully, “This is the only home he ever knew. All he knows about China are the stories you've told him. You are right about the
gwei lo
. I can't believe how useless my American friends have been. They're happy to change money, but when I really needed their help …”

“Why can't you believe it?”

She did not answer.

After Cecilia left, Percival tightly shut the windows and doors of Dai Jai's room and told Foong Jie not to open them. From then on, the family quarters of Chen Hap Sing were close and stifling. Those first nights, Percival would pause at Dai Jai's quiet door, and then slip past, outside into the cool damp darkness.