The Headmaster's Wager (32 page)

PERCIVAL LIKED TO BE CLOSE TO
Jacqueline without doing or saying anything. She slept when Laing Jai slept, and woke with the baby's
noises and movements so that they inhabited their own time. Sometimes, when they slept during the day, the room shuttered into a midday dusk, Percival crept into the room and watched them.

Jacqueline seldom went out. When she did, she folded her hair into a conical hat and hid her face deep in the hat's shade. She returned with magazines and newspapers and read them as she wandered the house with Laing Jai. She often wrapped Laing Jai with a length of cloth as a peasant would, so that she could carry the baby on her front or back, leaving her arms free. “Don't worry,” she told Percival when he watched her curiously one morning as she wrapped Laing Jai. “There's no chance I will become a country girl. I am a Saigon flower. This is just a good way to carry a baby.”

“Are you sure? I don't want to lose you to a rice farmer,” he joked.

“I couldn't survive in the countryside, anyhow,” she said. “I can speak like a countrywoman, but if anyone sees my face and hair, they'll think I am a foreigner. Can you give me some money for today's newspapers?”

“Why don't I buy you a record player? Or some novels? There are so many things you could enjoy. It is better to ignore the news. It can be upsetting.”

Jacqueline laughed. “Like you do? I see you reading the papers that I buy, and hear you listening to the radio—both the Voice of America and the late-night Chinese broadcasts. I even heard you listening to the Vietnamese news one day. You don't ignore the news. You just find it convenient to pretend to be oblivious. The question is, what do you do with what you know, when you feign disinterest?”

“The Americans are talking about two hundred thousand more soldiers. They will need more translators than ever.”

“Beyond what the news means for your business, do you have any thoughts?”

“If I did, I would keep them to myself.”

Even weeks after Tet, bitter and bloody fighting continued in some cities farther to the north. Long after the last of the Viet Cong had been killed in Saigon, the communists still controlled Hue. The American and South Vietnamese soldiers gradually took the city back,
fighting block by block. It was reported that much of the beautiful old city, even the royal palace, was destroyed by mortars and grenades.

Percival saw Jacqueline reading a
Paris Match
feature on the battle for Hue. There were colour photos of soldiers exhausted, wounded, of the dead residents of the city, their faces bloated like balloons of meat. Percival lingered. Jacqueline did not acknowledge him as she nursed Laing Jai and read about the mass graves. In her quiet was tension. He said, “It might turn your milk sour to read such terrible things.”

“They had lists, you know? Of those who worked for Americans, or had business with American companies. Their spies had compiled them. You see these bodies? German missionary doctors—but their foreignness was enough to doom them.”

Percival could not help looking at the blond victims, their hair stained with brown blood where they had been shot. He said, “But here in Saigon, everything is back to normal. Schools will open again soon. You should listen to music. It will soothe you.”

“Is this what you call normal? In this country of blood, all you Chinese care about is
sang yee
, making money.” She looked up at Percival. “Have you wondered why those men came down from the roof as I was about to give birth?” Laing Jai lost the nipple and began to fuss. Jacqueline adjusted him and put him to her breast again. “They were looking for you.” Percival said nothing, stood unmoving until she conceded, “I like to read. You can buy me novels as well. And music too, if you wish.”

Later that night, when Jacqueline and the baby slept, Percival looked for the magazine. He took it to the kitchen to dispose of it but could not keep himself from reading it. The more fortunate victims were the foreigners, army officers, and prominent local officials and business people. They were targeted on the night of Tet and shot by North Vietnamese assassination squads. Most of the Vietnamese who died in the drawn-out occupation of Hue—teachers, police, and anyone who spoke a foreign language—were bound by the hands and feet, pushed into pits alive, and buried by the shovels of those who were next to be killed. As the fighting dragged on, the Northern troops needed to conserve bullets. The graves were not deep and were easy
to find, wrote the journalist, as the rotting bodies stank through the shallow mud. Percival read this, opened the coal-box of the kitchen stove, shoved the glossy magazine into it, and watched the pages burst into flames.

THE REPAIRS ON CHEN HAP SING
were ongoing, but the classrooms were useable, when, three weeks after Tet, the re-opening of schools was announced by the Ministry of Education. On the first day of classes, Percival stood at the door of the school to welcome the students. As they arrived, a dark Ford Galaxie stopped in front of Chen Hap Sing. The shirt-sleeved man in plain clothes, neatly pressed, waded through the students and stopped at the doorway of the school office. The officer held up a licence plate, which was blackened with soot, barely readable. “I want to speak to whomever this belongs.” These men from Saigon all had a similar bearing and reminded Percival of one another, even when he had never seen a particular officer before.

Percival read the licence plate. “It is mine,” he said, his mouth dry. There was no point saying otherwise. The quiet police had traced the plate to him. “Thank you. My car disappeared on the night of Tet—I thought it was gone for good.” Percival had assumed the car was stolen. What did it mean, that this man from Saigon would bring him the plate? “Please, let me give you a gift for finding my car. I'm most appreciative.”

“Don't bother,” said the officer, “your car is in worse shape than the plate. It is not worth a red packet. I am from Saigon. I have questions. I am with the police.”

“Is that right?” said Percival, though this was obvious. “How kind, you have come all the way from Saigon to speak to me.” He thought of Jacqueline, wished he had given her some instructions, some
emergency funds, in case of his arrest. He had been too engrossed in their new child to think of it.

“Where can we talk, Chinaman?” asked the officer.

“Won't you come in for tea?” He hoped this was the normal kind of police visit, that which had a cash price. Percival showed him into the school office. Percival used the delay to calm himself. He poured tea from a flask.

“What do you know about this?” said the officer. He tossed the licence plate with a clank onto the desk, and delicately lifted his tea cup between thumb and forefinger.

Percival glanced at the burned plate, thought of Han Bai. “My car was stolen that night, my driver killed. Are you hungry? My cook can prepare a snack.”

“I'm not hungry. You were not killed. Why not?”

“No one knows their appointed hour. I was here. They stole the car from across the square.”

“Who is ‘they'?”

“Thieves. Isn't it thieves who steal cars?”

“Sure. A good car, a chaotic moment. Or it could have been the people who attacked that night.”

“You think the thieves were communists? Did I hear on the radio that Viet Cong were responsible for the attacks?” He should be careful, Percival reminded himself, not to feign ignorance to a degree that was unbelievable.

“And you had no idea that ‘they' were going to use your car to attack an army post across the bridge?”

“Is that where it went?”

“You're claiming that you didn't know.”

“How could I know? ”

“It was your car.”

“How should I know what happened after my car disappeared? My driver was killed.”

“Unless you left it for the communists. Why did you leave it outside?”

“I couldn't very well have gone out to retrieve it that night, not in the middle of the battle.”

“Then we do not need to suspect you?”

“Why should I be under suspicion?”

The officer sipped his tea. He put down the cup, and rapped the licence plate with his knuckles “People whose cars were used by the Viet Cong are being questioned. Meanwhile, I am always suspicious of people who answer my questions with further questions.”

“I'm sorry. I just have more questions than answers.” Percival hated the sound of his own voice right now—did it actually sound different when he was scared, or was it just that he heard it differently?

“Like insects, those Viet Cong cockroaches infiltrated all of the Southern cities in the weeks before Tet—invisible within the walls until they came scurrying out. It looks like many of their weapons were smuggled slowly into the cities, bit by bit, in carts of vegetables, in the trunks of private cars, some of which were later used in attacks. They rented rooms, met in secret, and moved around the city to plan their assault. We ask ourselves, why would they have had access to particular persons' houses, phones, and vehicles? Some people helped them, sheltered them, gave them piastres and fed them. We must find those people. Everyone knows that the best way to wipe out insects is to get rid of their food.”

“I am an educator. I have nothing to do with the food business,” said Percival. “Officer, I have had enough bad luck. My car was stolen. By Viet Cong, from what you say. My driver was killed. I was fond of him. I will do anything to improve my luck. Perhaps a small donation to help you in your work?”

The officer said, “You must tell me everything you know.”

“The car disappeared, that's all I know.” That was the trick of innocence, Percival reminded himself to repeat a simple thing. Further explanations suggested guilt.

The officer's face was flat. “Did you know that your name was on a list?”

“A list?”

“Yes, an assassination list. It was in the pocket of one of the Viet Cong who was shot just outside of your school.” Percival thought of the men who had burst into the room where Jacqueline was giving birth.
Percival had told himself it was just bad luck, that the assassination team had stumbled into Chen Hap Sing. They had seemed defeated, exhausted. Was that why they were so willing to kill, because they knew that their own end would surely come soon? “The communists were on their way to kill you. That is the reason I have not arrested you for providing your car to the enemy … yet.” The officer laughed.

“I had a narrow escape, then. One can be so fortunate without realizing.”

“Yes, quite,” the officer said. “Tell me about your friend. Do you trust your teacher Mr. Mak? How long have you known him?”

“I have known him since … well, since this school was started.”

“That's when you met him, when you hired him as a teacher?”

“Yes.” He would not talk about the Japanese, decided Percival, or the Viet Minh. Even if half of the South Vietnamese generals had once been Viet Minh, the same was true of the Northern generals in Hanoi. That affiliation could still get someone arrested, or make a bribe more costly. This officer was sniffing around like a dog. Better not to give him something of Mak's to chew on. Percival must return loyalty with the same.

“Would he become headmaster if you were killed?”

“He would be well suited.”

“Did he have access to your car?”

“No. Only my driver and myself had keys.” Percival thought of Mak and Han Bai dashing across the square towards safety, of Han Bai cut down, and pushed aside the painful memory. The bullets could just as easily have killed Mak, who did have a key to the car, of course.

“How do you think the Viet Cong took the car, then?”

Sweat trickled down the back of Percival's neck. “My driver must have panicked and left the key in the car.”

“What kind of friends does Mak have? Does he visit any friends outside of the city, in the delta?”

Mak often went alone in the car to visit his own friends, his business acquaintances, people whom Percival knew nothing about. Sometimes the car came back red with mud. Percival had seen Mak wash it carefully in the alley before giving it back. “He goes to Saigon from time
to time, always strictly on school business. If he ever went in the car, my driver took him. I'm not even sure Mak can drive,” Percival said.

“Someone who knows you put you on that assassination list.”

Perhaps this officer, like many in the army and the quiet police, needed to deliver some arrests, some villains. Or perhaps this situation simply created an opportunity for profit. It was hard to tell which this man was after. Percival said, “I don't see why that would be necessary. Do you know what kind of school this is?”

“It is a language institute.”

“An English academy. We train people to work for the Americans. Naturally, my name was on a Viet Cong assassination list. Anyone in Cholon making such a list would include the headmaster of the Percival Chen English Academy, even if they hadn't met me.”

The officer's expression softened as he considered this. “And your teachers, do you have enemies amongst them?”

“They are too busy making money to be unhappy. When the fighting began, we were having a banquet. To celebrate Tet and our profits.” Percival watched the officer carefully, trying to see if this interested him.

“Let me put it to you plainly. You, your school, are under suspicion. Don't think your son is forgotten either, though you've hidden him. In the papers that were found with the assassins, we saw that your roof was a rendezvous point.”

“Really? I suppose my roof has an excellent view of the square.” Percival told himself to be confident, to play it like a bad poker hand, with complete assurance.

“My superiors are convinced there must be an infiltrator in your house. A Viet Cong. I'm not saying I necessarily agree, but you know how it is, bosses don't like to be wrong. Mine has sent me to look for someone, and he will feel better if I bring him something. He will feel clever and satisfied.”