The Headmaster's Wager (24 page)

“Actually,” said Percival, sitting up straight in his chair, “Jacqueline is more of a personal assistant.” She looked beautiful, uncomfortable with the attention, as he had first seen her at the Sun Wah Hotel.

“Right, sure,” said the American. He sat back and winked at Percival. He patted Mak on the shoulder. “Not to worry, Mr. Mak. Doesn't bother me. Every man of substance seems to have an ‘assistant' in this place.”

As they came to the end of the meal, thunder cracked above them. The afternoon rains descended like water bursting from a dike, and waiters scrambled around with umbrellas. Percival and his party left the drinks where they were and hurried to the clubhouse, soaked through by the time they reached the awning. After wiping the rain from his face, Percival saw Jacqueline fleeing across the lobby of the clubhouse. Peters' eyes followed her.

“She has a number of errands to run for me,” said Percival weakly.

“Then, we are agreed?” said Mak to Peters. “We will move forward.”

“I'm feeling very good about this,” said the American. “I will visit this week.”

“Anytime,” said Percival.

They shook hands with Peters and watched him go. When he had departed, Mak turned to Percival. “Have you gone crazy?”

Percival whispered to Mak, “
Gung hai se yew lai see
.” He must need a red envelope?

“In fact, it might put him off, if you don't manage to do it with your behaviour,” said Mak stiffly in Cantonese.

“I swear, I didn't know she was a student.”

“Isn't that the one rule you keep to? You can screw any girl from here to the demilitarized zone, but not your students! If we get this certification, you can pay the rest of your debt by the end of next semester.”

“Yes, I hope so.”

“Then why did you bring your student, our student, to this meeting?”

Percival stared into the rain. He felt his embarrassment rise.

Mak went on. “If you parade her around and he sees her in the school, he will conclude that we are just like all the other schools where a diploma can be bought, or paid for in bed.”

“Mr. Peters must not see the girl.” Percival nodded.

“Say goodbye to her. You need this certification.”

“Yes, it is very important to the school, yes, for my debt and the progress of the school. You certainly must take a
lai see
, Mak, for all you have done.”

“I don't need a red packet. We need this certification. End it with this girl. Have I ever given you bad advice?”

“No, old friend, you haven't. I'm going to go and find Han Bai. You will need a ride back to Cholon.” He escaped Mak and headed towards the kitchen, where the members' drivers waited. He found the driver and told him to go and take Teacher Mak wherever he wanted. Percival had planned to go out the side door, but Mak had trailed him to the kitchen entrance, so the headmaster was unable to slip his teacher and friend. Han Bai brought the Peugeot around, and the two men each climbed in one side.

THUNDER SWELLED, AND RAIN POUNDED THE
roof of the car. The traffic was slow, and the car stopped often. The wipers flashed back and forth, and still the rain blurred everything so that they saw only coloured shapes through the front window. Mak began to drum two fingers in a staccato, but said nothing.

Already, when they had met as young men, Mak had this way of holding himself in. In 1942, while Percival was struggling to wean Chen Kai off opium, the Japanese declared that all rice could only be bought and sold through Imperial rice procurement agents. They offered Chen Hap Sing such an agency, but Percival refused, apologizing that he must care for his sick father. Ba Hai ranted at his stupidity. The merchants who collaborated soon became rich in both piastres and Japanese yen, and their households were well fed. Despite their new unemployment, all the Chinese workers of Chen Hap Sing and some of the Vietnamese cheered Percival's discreet manoeuvre. Other Vietnamese warehouse men said amongst themselves that the Japanese might not be so bad, if they would one day get rid of the French for good. At least they had yellow skin. They said this in their own language, not realizing that Percival was beginning to understand a little of it.

Without a business to run, Percival often sat on the balcony when Chen Kai napped, observing the square in front of Chen Hap Sing. The Japanese had made it into a stable, paddock, and camp for the
cavalry, with the post office as their Cholon headquarters. The doors of St. Francis Xavier were barred, and the priests had been arrested on unspecified charges. The flame trees were carefully pruned by some of the Japanese soldiers who took an interest in such things, so that in their season of blooms in 1943, they were more spectacular than usual. The square was otherwise listless. A few vendors with shoddy goods dickered with customers who were slow to part with money. The hot portion of the day lasted forever. One such afternoon, Percival looked out the window and caught a glimpse of a neighbour on the balcony of the next building, who seemed to be watching the Japanese soldiers and their horses very intently. It was a young man, roughly Percival's age. He was writing notes on a piece of paper.

Percival went out to his balcony.
“Wai
,” he offered in friendly greeting. “I am Chen Pie Sou. What are you doing out at this time of day?”

The stranger palmed the stub of pencil and the paper and looked around. “My name is Mak.”

“You like the horses?” asked Percival.

“They are handsome.”

“Are you an artist? You are drawing them? ”

“I am from out of town,” said Mak, as if a different question had been asked. “What do you do?”

“Our family was in the rice business,” said Percival. “Now, I sit here.”

“Oh, then I've heard of you. You rejected an offer to become a procurement agent,” said Mak, relaxing visibly. He explained that he was renting a room in the house next door, with a group of Chinese who had fled to Cholon from the countryside. “We Chinese must stick together, right?”

“How could I collaborate with these devils?” Percival gestured out at the square. “Did you know that in Nanjing, two Japanese officers had a competition. It was like a sports event, to see who could be the first to behead a hundred Chinese prisoners.”

“You must have a shortwave, if you know that,” said Mak warily.

“Yes.”

“Well, don't ever admit to it.” Mak looked from side to side and lowered his voice. “I'm glad to be amongst patriots, friend, but in
these times it may be worth keeping your opinions quiet. If I am asked, of course, I haven't heard your thoughts on the Japanese.” Later that afternoon, Percival hid the radio in a giant wedding cabinet—his new acquaintance had a point.

After that first encounter, Percival saw Mak from time to time, and they chatted from one balcony to another. They were both Teochow, though Mak was born in Indochina and spoke Annamese as well as he spoke Teochow, Cantonese, and French. He sidestepped the usual polite questions about his family and education. Between Chen Hap Sing and the building where Mak rented a room, there was a Cantonese refugee family living in a shack in the alleyway. The couple had two daughters—girls with deep, beautiful eyes. The alley did not lead anywhere, a natural advantage for the family, since it could use the walls of the three adjacent buildings. They had added a supporting frame of bamboo, a thatched roof of straw in the village style, and a stack of wooden crates for the front wall. This gave them a home that was better than those of most other refugees, and more comfortable than the Japanese soldiers' tents in the square. The family started an egg hatchery in the crates in front of the shack. All day, the mother and daughters checked the wooden boxes and turned the eggs over in their straw beds. The father fetched eggs and delivered chicks in pole baskets throughout Cholon.

From the balcony, Percival sometimes saw the Imperial Army cook from the cavalry mess come to the family's door to demand eggs. The mother explained that the eggs did not belong to her but had been entrusted to her for hatching, but the cook was not deterred. Some of the Imperial officers had a taste for the delicacy of a boiled egg with the chick inside. At night, drunken soldiers lewdly taunted the woman and her daughters. This was the disadvantage of the otherwise cosy shelter. After a while, Percival saw that the family had been hired, or likely compelled, by the Japanese to feed their horses and sweep up the dung, so all day they would be turning eggs, minding horses, fetching eggs, and delivering chicks.

Once, just as Percival came out onto the balcony and greeted his neighbour, Percival saw Mak stuffing a notebook into his pocket. Was
he taking notes on the soldiers' activities? If the notebook were a personal diary, there would be no reason to hide it. It was better not to ask.

There was a bumper rice crop that year, which the Japanese soldiers put in guarded warehouses and shipped down the Saigon River to their armies throughout Asia. Soon, there was widespread hunger in Cholon and Saigon. Even some French looked thin. No one dared complain, though it made people bitter to see the Imperial Army horses so well fed while people starved. If they were lucky, people ate thin millet gruel. Children picked through the Imperial Army's refuse heap. Cecilia lamented having married Percival to escape to a place of rich rice fields, only to be starved there by the Japanese just as they had been in Hong Kong. Ba Hai traded silk clothing, good furniture, and antique scrolls in return for expensive canned foods which only she and the foreman ate. Percival organized the household workers to smuggle tiny quantities of illicitly bought paddy into the smallest, most hidden threshing room at Chen Hap Sing, just enough for the household and a little bit with which to barter.

One day, the egg-hatchery woman from the alleyway came to see Percival. She asked if he could spare some rice husks. Since Percival knew that she worked for the Japanese, he was suspicious. “We don't have any rice husks,” he said. “Why would we? We have not been threshing rice for a long time.”

“Don't worry, Chen Sang,” she said, addressing him respectfully as Mr. Chen even though she was several years his senior, “I will not betray you. I just smell sometimes that your cook burns rice husks. I don't know where you get them. If you ever have extra, I can use them in the beds where I hatch my eggs.”

Percival told her to come back after dark. It was the least he could do, to give a few rice husks to a neighbour. Percival could even spare a little rice, but he was afraid to give that to her right away. If she were spying for the Japanese, the rice would be clear evidence that he had been threshing paddy in Chen Hap Sing. The husks could be explained, that they were scavenged as fuel.

Perhaps one night he could secretly leave a few kilos of rice for her hungry family. That would be safer. First, however, he had to be sure
that nothing bad came of giving her the husks. There was no such thing as being too cautious when the Imperial Japanese Army was camped just outside the door. He told the cook to give the bags of husks to the neighbour when she asked—but only at night, and only after checking to make sure there were no Kempeitai around. The woman began to come regularly for husks, and somehow, over several weeks, her daughters' faces brightened. Colour returned to their cheeks, and they no longer had the anxious look of constant hunger. So, Percival did not take the risk of giving them rice. Somehow, they were being fed.

Some months later, on a dry, bright day, a stone-faced Kempeitai knocked on the door of Chen Hap Sing. Percival was terrified that their tiny amount of black market trade had been discovered. Was it better to deny the truth or offer a bribe? People were executed for doing either.

But this was not the reason that the Kempeitai had come. He ordered everyone in the house to attend a public trial, even Chen Kai. Percival and Cecilia walked slowly, blending in with the servants. There was no question of refusing. Percival was shocked to see that the family from the alley were on the top steps of the post office, the parents and their two daughters kneeling before an Imperial Army officer.

The square was full of people forced to attend this gathering. The crowd was hushed, and the only sound was that of the charges being read. They were interpreted by the army translator, an educated Vietnamese who had taught classical Chinese and Japanese literature in Saigon before the occupation. Percival was terrified that he might hear rice husks mentioned. Was the family accused of black marketeering? He thought of taking Cecilia's hand and trying to slip away, but the Kempeitai policed the crowd carefully.

A Japanese colonel who had recently arrived to take charge of the stables was conducting the trial. He shouted in Japanese, and the translator shouted in Cantonese, seemingly trying to match the vigour of the colonel. “This man and his wife were found feeding horses rice husks, having stolen the rice that was meant for the animals. Two horses have recently died from stomach ailments. These people are
on trial both for theft of rice and the murder of two Imperial Japanese Army horses.” The colonel shouted at them, “They weren't just any horses. Those were my personal horses, from Spain! Do you know the value of the horses that died?”

“Whatever it is, sir,” said the father, “we will repay it. We will work day and night and starve ourselves to repay it.” What would the panicked father say, Percival wondered, if asked where the husks had come from?

Percival looked around. There were soldiers in every direction. Cecilia shook with fear. The colonel shouted at the poor refugees, “Did you steal my horses' rice to sell on the black market?”

“No,” the husband protested. “We only took a little for our daughters.”

The colonel was pleased with his trick. He shouted, “Then you admit to having stolen the rice! ”

The mother began to sob. She prostrated herself on the steps of the post office and crawled to the colonel's feet. “Have mercy, I only wanted to feed my hungry children.”