The Headmaster's Wager (50 page)

They approached the zoo. Percival saw Laing Jai standing alone just outside the gate. Jacqueline was not there. Percival stepped out of the cyclo and was almost struck by a black Lambretta scooter. He crossed the street, ran towards the zoo gate, and lifted Laing Jai up in his arms, hugged him close. The boy was not wearing his imported clothes. Today, instead, he wore very simple blue pants and a blue shirt, which appeared to have been carefully chosen for their plainness.

“You've grown! I'm so happy to see you. Your mother called. At first I thought she was calling from America. I don't understand—what happened? ”

“I was scared you would not come,” Laing Jai said, and he released the tears that he had held inside while waiting. It had been almost two years, and the boy was taller, more solid, and just as beautiful.

“Shh, I'm here.” Percival held the boy for a long time, amazed that he was real. “I thought you had flown away, both of you …”

“Mr. Peters said to stay in the apartment, he would fetch us, but when we didn't see any more helicopters taking off from the embassy, we knew the Americans were gone.
Mama
said that you would be at the zoo today, but I was scared you might not come.”

Percival did not know what to say. “Shall we visit the animals?” He wiped away the boy's tears.

“Yes,
baba
.” Laing Jai gripped Percival's hand tightly.

There was a handwritten sign over the gate.
WELCOME TO THE NORTHERN LIBERATORS! PLEASE VISIT FREE OF CHARGE
. Percival and Laing Jai wandered the grounds slowly, without speaking. The animals went about their business as usual. Turtles splashed in their shaded pool. Elephants blinked and occasionally batted their ears. Percival steered Laing Jai away from the monkeys and big cats. He longed to see Jacqueline. If she was in Saigon, he realized, he would have to tell her the truth about Dai Jai. Would she hate Percival for what had happened?

They sat on a bench to rest under the heavy limbs of a banyan tree. Percival asked Laing Jai, “When did your mother say she would come for you?”

“
Mama
isn't coming.”

“She isn't?”

“She said she has another way to escape, but that I couldn't go with her.
Mama
said I must stay with you from now on.” Laing Jai's eyes began to fill with tears again.

Percival put his arm around Laing Jai. “Didn't Mr. Peters promise to take you both away a long time ago.”

“
Mama
asked him all the time when we would leave for America. She gave him all the gold she had saved, to buy air tickets. He always said it would be soon but he had to stay a little longer for his work. But now he is gone.”

“The American broke his promise.”

“
Mama
cried so hard when the helicopters stopped. I must go with you, she said. She would see me in a better place.
Baba
, does that mean you are taking me to America? Is that where we will meet
mama
again?”

Percival forced himself to breathe. “We must go to the apartment.”

“
Mama
said that I must not go back. She made me promise not to go back there.”

Percival pulled with gentle urgency on Laing Jai's hand. He said, “Yes, she's right. You must wait downstairs, but I forgot something there. I must go and get it.”

When they arrived at the apartment, Percival hugged Laing Jai and told him to wait in the lobby. The boy sat cross-legged in a corner on the cool tile floor. The elevator was not working. Percival laboured up the stairs, his shirt soaked through with sweat. Once upon a time, they had been pleased to find an apartment on the eighth floor, a lucky number. His leg screamed. He stopped at each landing, but then pushed through the pain up the last two flights. Percival went down the hallway and tried the door—it was not locked. He eased it open.

Jacqueline's shoes sat on a woven mat inside the door. Percival called her name. So often he had come here anticipating the pleasure of the woman he loved. But the last time he had found betrayal, humiliation. He pushed open the bedroom door. The bed was empty, and had been made. He peered into the living room. It was tidy, the shutters all closed. He felt that he was intruding upon the careful order of an apartment that was no longer his home. Yet while it was, he had tried so hard to pretend that it was not. He looked into the kitchen, empty.

Percival found Jacqueline in the bath. She wore no makeup. She was most beautiful that way, he thought, with a bare face. Her hair radiated around her, softly drifting. She was dressed in a white
ao dai
, the colour of mourning. Her eyes, peering out from beneath the water, were eternally still. Percival put his hand out, disturbing the water with his fingers, and closed them. He stroked her face. Her skin was the same temperature as the water. Did it contain her last warmth?

Ripples emanated out from Percival's fingers. The cord of the hair dryer snaked from the outlet over the edge of the tub and into the water. The dryer itself had slipped from Jacqueline's hand, submerged. She wore a thin, finely woven gold chain. Resting in the soft indentation of Jacqueline's neck was a rough, unshaped lump of gold. He brought it to the surface, rubbed it, and knew it by touch. Percival's sobs rose as if he were being choked from within, but he wept silently, afraid that a neighbour might hear. He undid the chain and clutched the charm in his hand, sank both of his arms into the water, held her cold form, and hoped for the return of the electricity.

And then he heard a voice, calling, “
Baba!
Are you here?”

It had taken Percival a while to climb the stairs. The boy must have become scared and followed him. Percival yanked his hands from the water as if scalded. He must not abandon the last person he loved. He stood, put the charm in his pocket, walked out of the bathroom, and closed the door quietly behind him. The living room of the apartment glowed with diffuse light from the bright edges of the shutters.

“Wait there. Don't come in.
Baba
is coming.”

“
Baba
, I was afraid to wait alone,” Laing Jai called from the hallway.

Percival ran to the door, folded the boy in his arms, forced himself to bury his own tears. Laing Jai was small but strong, so much like Dai Jai had once been.

“
Mama
forgot to pack you a suitcase. We must bring some of your nice clothes. You wait here, stand near the door and I will pack for you.
Gwai jai
.” A good, obedient boy.

Percival found a valise and filled it with Laing Jai's plainest, sturdiest clothing. He searched for Laing Jai's identification papers, found them in a bureau and put them in his pocket. About to leave, Percival remembered what was going on outside and thought to check the kitchen. He found painfully little food—a half-kilo of rice, a small pickled ham in the silent refrigerator, a little packet of dried pork. He shoved all of it into the valise and hurried to the front door.

At the threshold, Percival stopped and said to the boy, “I have something for you.” He took the gold charm from his pocket and put the chain around his grandson's neck.

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, THE CYCLO
drivers slept in their vehicles at the corners of the broad avenues. Percival offered the single can of fish in his pocket, and the drivers said that this was not enough to take a man, a boy, and a suitcase all the way to Cholon. The other scraps of food did not persuade them. Percival lugged the suitcase in one hand and clutched Laing Jai's hand in the other. They stayed on the shaded sides of the streets and made their way slowly. They had gone down these roads many times with Jacqueline, to restaurants and cafes, around the market roundabout. What if this morning he had told Jacqueline that Dai Jai was dead? Would she be walking with them now?

Laing Jai looked tired but did not complain. He asked about the unfamiliar things he saw, an artillery piece with a red star on the side, the thin soldiers in green uniforms, the hastily painted banners that hung on homes to welcome the victors. He had many questions, but Percival had few answers. A group of soldiers stopped them, and the officer asked to see their identification. He asked who Laing Jai's father was. When Percival said that he was, the officer looked confused, made a sour face, and examined the papers for some time. The officer waved them on and muttered, “American dog.” As they walked past, a soldier sneered at Laing Jai and spat on the ground. Laing Jai shrank closer to Percival.

“Just keep on walking,” said Percival, taking Laing Jai's hand.

Halfway to Cholon, cyclo drivers still refused to take them even this shorter distance. One driver said, “Eh, mister. No one is going to take the little
métis
. Not worth the trouble.” He cocked his head at a nearby patrol.

When they finally saw Chen Hap Sing, it was almost dark. Laing Jai cheered up and asked what dishes the cook was making tonight. Could they have oyster omelettes? “Everyone has gone,” said Percival. “It is just the two of us now.”

In the kitchen, Percival figured out how to light the burner, measured out a small amount of rice, and put it on the stove. When it was done, he put two salted fish on top. He watched the boy eat. He put Laing Jai to bed in his own room on the third floor, then lugged in another mattress and put it against the wall for himself. He went out to the balcony. Last night, the sky had been full of violence, now it was quiet. It was the same city as the day before, but washed new. He thought of Jacqueline's voice on the telephone. Percival went back into his room, sat watching the sleeping boy breathe. His duty, and guilt, stood like a wire fence around his sorrow, hemmed it in.

The next morning, the army trucks' loudspeakers blared,
“People of unified Vietnam, welcome the liberating soldiers with warmth and obedience. Illegal migrants from the countryside must return to their homes. People of unified Vietnam, welcome the liberating soldiers with warmth and obedience …
” Each day, the same messages were broadcast. The ham and dried pork were soon gone. Soldiers went from house to house, searching and questioning. Percival went through the school's books and hid a collection of them along with Dai Jai's kung fu novels and Marvel comic books, under a loose floorboard in the family quarters. He hid the remaining cans of fish there, as well.

A week after liberation, Percival heard banging on the doors of Chen Hap Sing. It was a group of soldiers. The officer in charge had no rifle or sidearm. He was armed with a notebook. He introduced himself to Percival as the new local
can bo
, the North Vietnamese political cadre, and offered no name. He asked Percival where he would like to conduct the registration interview.

“What am I registering for?” said Percival.

“For the right to exist,” said the
can bo
, and waved his soldiers into the school.

Percival led the way to the school office. The
can bo
sat down at Percival's desk, and Percival took the other chair. He heard the soldiers help themselves to the house, wandering through the halls, laughing and talking. The
can bo
lit a cigarette, did not offer one, put his notebook on the desk, opened it to a blank page of thin blue lines, and shot three questions at Percival—name, birthdate, occupation. He wrote the answers down in a small, neat script.

“So you are a teacher, eh? How did you get this house? Why is it so large?”

Percival said, “The house was my father's. It became my school.”

“Ah, then you were a business-owner.”

“The headmaster of the school.”

“Now it belongs to the people. It is Revolutionary School Number Thirty-Seven.” He flicked his cigarette ash on the floor. “You must have a lot of money. Did you steal it?” The
can bo
smiled.

“My father built this house.”

“Then he was wealthy.”

“He built everything with his work. He started with nothing …” Percival felt an impulse to say that Chen Kai had left China poor, with nothing but his desire to search for the Gold Mountain, that somewhere along the way he had lost his true home while finding great wealth. He stopped himself, and said, “He was a poor farmer by birth.”

“Who became rich by exploiting his brothers!” the
can bo
said triumphantly. “A capitalist! Your background is problematic …” He looked down and wrote in his notebook. “We will use the building for the good of the people.” The
can bo
stood and examined the finely worked window frame. “Were you a collaborator with imperialists? A war profiteer? Beware—already, your neighbours have told me a great deal.” He tapped the notebook with the pen. He motioned to the school's safe. “Open it.” Percival spun the dials and opened the door. The
can bo
grinned, eyes wide at the stacks of money. He pulled them out, bundle after bundle, set aside the worthless piastres. Finally, he snapped, “Where are the dollars? The gold?”

“I have been a loyal Vietnamese, a servant of the revolution!” Percival's voice rose, and he hoped it sounded patriotic rather than fearful. “I have no interest in dollars or gold.”

The
can bo
paused, surprised at this claim. He continued, “You Chinese! You are capitalist enemies of the working people who sucked the blood of this war.”

Percival thought to point out that China itself had been communist for decades now, a circumstance Percival had once mistakenly chosen to ignore. Something in the way the
can bo
spat the word
Chinese
stopped him. Instead, he said, “Comrade, I am a servant of Vietnam.”

“You may have been a servant of the
old
Vietnam. It is my job to make you a servant of the
new
Vietnam. I am told by your neighbours that there was an English school here, and that you charged a great deal of tuition.” The
can bo
sat at the desk, swept the piastres to the floor.