The Headmaster's Wager (20 page)

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 along 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.

“Why are you here?” he said.

“A strange question.”

“Will you come back?”

“If you like.”

He said with sadness, “What else would you say, I suppose?”

“As if you wished for any other answer.” She squeezed his hand and pulled him back from the window. “You think too much. You should feel more.” She guided him towards the bed.

“But you are too precious for this. You must have a reason.”

She let the sheet fall around her feet. This time, neither hesitated.

When he woke from a subterranean sleep, almost evening now, thick wet air hung over Cholon's mud. He lay still for a long time, hoping that she was there, scared by his need for her. He heard nothing. This time, she was gone.

Percival stood and dressed. He should visit the Teochow Clan Association while the treasurer was there. He counted out his entire debt to them and put the remaining cash in the school safe. He found the letter from Dai Jai. He took it out, examined it closely, slowly read over Dai Jai's descriptions of Shanghai. There was a good description of trees, “the pruned branches like knuckles on a worker's hand …” He observed some grammatical mistakes that he would correct in his next letter to Dai Jai, but the boy's written Chinese would improve now that he was in his motherland. Percival put the letter safely in his desk drawer. He recognized the urge to test his good luck again. No, it was important to respect gifts that arrived with such impeccable
timing. He would pay off the Teochow Clan Association rather than gamble his winnings. He imagined the treasurer's surprise and consternation. Even though he had insisted that Percival must make an instalment today, he would be annoyed to now receive the full sum.

Percival tallied the debts that remained. They were spread between creditors, he reasoned, as he went out into the square, therefore less dangerous. He was on solid enough ground that he could hire teachers for the new classes now. He waved for a cyclo. He would not summon Han Bai, for he would be resting, having sat outside the Sun Wah Hotel all of last night. In the distance, he heard mortars. He got into the cyclo, and told the man to take him to the Teochow temple.

He tried to think of what recent news corresponded with the shelling. He could not bring it to mind. A few helicopters passed in fast single file, the start of a night of fighting. He attempted to calculate the interest he was saving through this payment.

It was no use.

As much as Percival tried to fill his mind with other things, he could not stop thinking about her.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, PERCIVAL WENT TO
his own room rather than taking his siesta in the office. It couldn't hurt to be upstairs, though his wish to see Jacqueline was unlikely to be fulfilled. She had probably moved on to another assignation. He hoped she would come back, but it would be easier if she didn't, safer. This was a vulnerability he had not known since Cecilia, being scared of his own desire. Now, within the shuttered room, unable to sleep, did he hear someone in the hallway? A servant, no doubt. Even as he looked anxiously to the door, Percival scolded himself for hoping. The morning students were departing noisily downstairs. He saw the door peek open and a hand on its edge, the chestnut hair, her face in profile like a thief or a lover. Something he had not expected—Jacqueline looked as nervous as he felt. Of course, she had waited for the students to be let out. In the commotion, she entered the school and slipped up the stairs.

If Dai Jai were still here, he might have made an effort to impress upon the boy, by way of example, that this was a matter of pleasure rather than love, that a man should make these distinctions. He might have arranged regular trysts with Jacqueline in a nearby hotel. As it was, he told Foong Jie that, from now on, there would be a change in routine. The afternoon meal should be left in his private quarters on the third floor rather than in the headmaster's office. He explained that he needed time alone to reflect upon school business. Foong Jie nodded. Each day, she left a meal for two.

For weeks, Percival feigned surprise at her arrival. Afterwards, as she washed herself from the clay jars, he put money under her clothing. The true surprise, of which he said nothing, was the deepening of his pleasure, beyond simply that of a beautiful girl's favours. Each time she crept through the door, he felt happy that she and no one else was with him. With most of Mrs. Ling's introductions, the enjoyment was contained within the few hours removed from the rest of his life. To be satisfied by a woman and to forget her by paying was complete. He might see her again or not—he did not think about her. With Jacqueline, he thought about her constantly when she was not there, and this longing was merely suspended by her arrival. He still paid, of course, for why else should she come back? The money offered him some assurance that he understood what this was about. She was not Chinese. Whatever he felt for her did not change that.