The Headmaster's Wager (45 page)

Percival went up to Jacqueline's apartment in the clanking elevator. He knocked on the door, his knuckles making a hollow appeal on the wood. There was no answer. Perhaps Jacqueline had gone out for a walk. Laing Jai should be at his school right now, he thought, grateful for the boy's absence. He knocked again and called her name. He fingered the morphine, the syringe and needle in his pocket. Should he go out into the street to look for her? The apartment was quiet, yet she felt close.

Then Percival thought he heard the tone of her voice within, a low word. His imagination? He banged at the door, “Jacqueline!” He thought of her smell, the comfort of her arms. She might just be waking from a siesta. Seconds, a minute, passed. The door did not open. Had his ears tricked him? He was near collapse from this effort, his heart pounding, or was that from his fear of what he must do? The frosted window at the end of the hallway glowed silently.

Perhaps he should go through the market. At this hour, Jacqueline might be buying food for dinner. She would be surprised to see him on his feet. Would she embrace him? He wanted to hold her one last time. What if she had moved away to a cheaper apartment? What then? How would he find her? Perhaps Mrs. Ling would know, he thought, with a sinking stomach.

These thoughts tumbled along as Percival stood exactly where he was. His fingers lay flat on the door. He banged at it again, heard himself breathing. He leaned against the door frame, unable to tell whether seconds or minutes or years had passed. Then he heard feet
on tile. Jacqueline appeared. She wore a silk robe. Without interruption of thought, he kissed her, embraced the solidity of her body, his hands instinctively slipped within the robe, felt her warm hips.

She stepped back, turned her mouth away. “What do you want?” She gathered up her silk robe and wrapped it around herself.

“To make things right.” He shoved his hand in his pocket, clicked the vials of morphine, reminded himself that there was only one solution to this problem.

The apartment looked exactly as it always did, but something was different. Was it the smell? Perhaps it just seemed new to him after weeks in a hospital bed, as the city itself had.

“You can't make things right,” she said. Firmly, Jacqueline eased Percival back towards the door.

“Wait,” he said, stumbling, realizing the frailty of his injured body. “Listen to me. I have thought of a solution.”

“I don't understand.”

“You can have what you have always wanted.” He braced himself against the door frame.

“Please go, don't make it worse.” But she did not move to push him out. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“I have been thinking about this difficult situation.”

“Is that all it is?”

“Dai Jai will be back soon. I want to have my son back. But I love you more than I ever imagined I could.”

“There is no use in saying these things,” she said, eyes wet.

“I have the solution—a way for you to be happy, and for me to have Dai Jai back.”

“You had better go.” Jacqueline glanced back towards the bedroom.

“I will pay anything, any price, to buy you and Laing Jai a way out of Vietnam. I have connections with the Americans, and money. You have friends at the Cercle. Mrs. Ling sells departures. The price does not matter. I will mortgage the school, if needed. We will find a way.”

Now she pulled her robe tighter around herself. She did not come closer. Percival had expected that she would be happy, or at least
grateful. Instead, Jacqueline seemed shocked. Was she thinking about it, he wondered, what was there to think about? It was what she wanted. Slowly, she shook her head. “It's too late. A long time ago, I pleaded with you that we should all leave. You should have done it then.” Her face began to crumple.

Percival reached for her shoulder, but she shook him off. He said, “I will not go, but I will send you. Don't you see? Whatever happens in Vietnam, you will be safely in America. Dai Jai will return here, and I will have my son. He will not hate me for loving you. I'll even send you with money. Take it all, what use is it to me?”

“As if I was never part of either of your lives,” she said.

“It's a solution,” he said weakly. “It's the best I can think of.”

“
Hou jeung
,” she said, “I am paying for my own departure.” She turned and went down the hallway. Percival followed her towards the bedroom. In the doorway, he stopped. Jacqueline stood next to the bed, lost. The sheets were jumbled on the floor. On the near side of the bed sat Peters, fumbling to do up his belt. His feet were bare and his shirt open.

Peters froze. He said quickly, “Percy, there's some misunderstanding here. If I had known you were still—”

“I understand,” said Percival.

Jacqueline slumped on the bed. “Mr. Peters is going to take us away.” Then she added, “We have fallen deeply in love.” She looked at Percival. “I will be Mrs. Peters. We will raise Laing Jai as our own son in America.”

Percival closed his eyes. A storm of words battered him nonetheless. Peters was struggling with an apology, saying that Jacqueline had told him that it was over between herself and the headmaster. The scent of sex on the air made Percival feel as if he was being suffocated, his chest squeezed. Peters stammered about not wanting to jeopardize the State Department's relationship with the Percival Chen English Academy. Had Percival been unwell? he asked. Why the bandages? Not to worry, he added, Mak was handling employment referrals. Percival opened his eyes, half-expecting that Peters might have vanished. He was there, still talking. Percival went around to the side of the bed where Jacqueline was huddled. He knelt before her. He
said, “I love you.” She continued to cry. “Dearly, truly.” He went on, “And perhaps this does not matter. Maybe this has all been nothing more than a strange dream …”

Peters was gathering his things. Jacqueline's eyes met Percival's for an instant, and then she reached across the bed for Peters. She took the American's hand. “Stay, my love. The headmaster is just leaving.”

Percival turned to go, stopped, said into Peters' ear, “Do you know that I won her in a game of mah-jong?”

“This is an unfortunate moment.” Peters pulled Jacqueline closer.

“I won her like a pile of money.”

“Now, Percy, I think you're upset with me, so—”

“No! I'm angry with myself. I thought it was a lucky night. I somehow forgot that she is a whore.”

Percival walked out of the bedroom, down the hallway to the door, forced himself not to look back at the apartment where he had been most happy, and continued out. His leg ached. His hands shook, and his belly cramped. How long had it been since his last morphine? If he felt bad now, he told himself, it was for lack of a drug, not a woman. He pressed the elevator button. He heard the rumbling of the gears and fumbled in his pocket for a vial. The details of the bedroom floated before him: the dark hair on Peters' bare chest, the spoiled bed. Percival managed to break open the vial, a little of the precious liquid spilled. Still he saw the spent condom on the floor near the undergarments, the gleaming black dress shoes and patterned men's socks. The elevator door opened. Percival half-fell into it and sat on the floor, slumped against the wall. He pressed the button for the lobby. As it descended, he barely managed to get the trembling needle into the vial. He drew up the drug with the syringe, his whole body shaking like a plucked wire. He closed his eyes, but he still saw Jacqueline on the bed. Saw Peters pulling her to him. In the gesture he could see that their bodies were still awkward with one another. That would change. Summoning his strength, Percival plunged the needle into his vein and pushed the dose into himself.

He ordered himself not to think of Jacqueline anymore. He would not think of Laing Jai, either. Dai Jai would be back soon. The past
few years, his mistake of loving a
métisse
, the illusion of a family, must all be discarded. The elevator opened and he stumbled out into the lobby. He would need to find more morphine. Many gambling dens sold heroin, morphine capsules, and other diversions. That world was a faithful friend to anyone who could pay and it had been waiting patiently for him. Percival walked into the brightly steaming day, hailed a cyclo, and told the driver to take him to Le Grand Monde.

1975,
CHOLON, VIETNAM

On the eve of Tet, Percival shook a handful of morphine capsules out of the pill bottle in his desk drawer. He broke one with his teeth and let the bitter powder spill over his tongue, felt the warm relaxation begin to dissolve into him. He washed one down whole with water so that the drug's caress would filter more slowly into his body. The rest he slipped into his shirt pocket for later. From the school safe, he removed a thick bundle of piastres. Enrolments were down somewhat, but there was still money in the safe and morphine in the desk. Percival called the driver, a dour Northerner, Trinh, whom Mak had insisted be hired, to take him to Le Grand Monde. He would welcome the New Year there, inviting both good luck and pleasure. He would drown out the old year with the noise of celebration.

Lights strung over the door of the casino greeted him, winked blue, red, and white. In the old days, they had all been white. As he entered, he was swallowed by laughter and shouting, by the promises of women's flashing thighs, by the soft glow of amber-filled glasses, and the chatter of the gambling tables. Percival entered a game of
pie gou
, threw a wad of money into it, won a fast round. It was good luck, an early win. A girl in a yellow dress kissed him on the cheek and fed him an oily morsel of duck from a platter. She whispered in his ear, something explicit in French that Percival half-understood. Her legs were like Jacqueline's, an elegant length. Had he already taken
her to bed? He couldn't remember. Weeks and months folded in on themselves behind him. There was only the present. He leaned to kiss her, closed his eyes, a flickering tongue. The taste of duck clung to his mouth. He bit her lip gently, then harder. She slapped him lightly, flitted away. Now he lost a sum of money at
pie gou
—he wasn't sure how much, more than he had won. He drifted to the roulette table, where he ate roast pork with one hand and placed his bets with the other. The dealer offered him a highball glass full of cognac. He settled in, drank to his wins and washed down his losses.

As Percival played, a
métisse
girl in a tight blue dress smiled at him and laughed from across the room. He had a weakness for blue. Then he saw Huong making his way over through a clutch of gamblers. Since he had cast off Jacqueline, his old gambling friendships had been renewed, at least with those who were still in Vietnam, and who were still alive. Huong, who had become bald and heavy over the years, had been forced out of the Italian shirt business by cheap Indian tailors. He managed to scrape by selling Thai marijuana and hashish, mostly to the white ghosts. His gambling luck had not improved. Huong's outstretched arms welcomed Percival. “The headmaster is here! I hope you've brought your luck for me.
Hou jeung
, old friend, what will you have? A Martell and Perrier? Champagne? I'm so glad to see you. Listen, I've had a run of losses tonight.” He clapped Percival on the shoulder. Percival reached into his pocket out of habit, not looking, handed over a fistful of bills. “Just thirty? Give me fifty thousand, as a loan, just for an hour. I'll pay it back.” Percival reached into his pocket for more. Then Huong was gone, already shouting out a bet on the game of thirty-six animals.

In profile, the girl in blue reminded him of Jacqueline. He beckoned her with a slight motion of his little finger. The dress was tight, and as she walked towards him he stared openly at the swaying of her lower ribs, the points of her nipples moving with her exaggerated steps. She came close and smiled. Straight on, close up, the resemblance to Jacqueline evaporated. He took a big swallow of cognac. Percival offered her his glass, and she drank from it. He asked her to stand to his side, kissed her cheek, and told her to sing an old Chinese song.

She asked, “You like me?”

“Why shouldn't I?”

Waiters circulated with platters of food and crates of Champagne for Tet. Percival emptied his cognac and took a bottle of Champagne. Corks began to pop, a chorus following the explosions outside, and the Year of the Rabbit had arrived. So much noise that he only saw her mouth forming words, did not hear a single one, didn't care. A conspiratorial wink, and he said, “You are pretty, and I'm sure even nicer from behind.” He could not tell if she had heard.

He thought she said, “What song should I sing?” though she might have said, “How long is your thing?” A lewd stare.

“Sing ‘The Maiden at Sea,' ” he replied.

Her laugh was lusty, nothing like Jacqueline's. “I don't know any Chinese songs,
hou jeung
. I know Bee Gees, and Elvis.” She swayed her hips back and forth, as if to demonstrate the music she knew.

The stereo blared the first song of the New Year, and the girl began to mouth the words. Some American rock song—it made his ears hurt. She twisted her hips, and Percival pulled her by the hand, installed himself at a mah-jong table and sat her sideways on his lap. His fellow gamblers cheered his arrival. Percival poured a round of Champagne, drained a glass himself, caught a waiter by the elbow and ordered shark's fin soup to be brought for the table on his tab. The players washed the tiles and began to build the walls. Making reckless, uncalculated bets, Percival soon won a big pot. Everyone shouted over the rock music as the play continued. He won another pot, and the girl leaned in to kiss his lips. He pushed her away, a reflex, but then put his arm around her and pulled her mouth to his. He lost a sum and felt lighter. She rubbed her ass on his groin, slipped her tongue into his ear, which, when she took her tongue out and blew into it, felt cold and ticklish. Percival laughed out loud, felt the tightness in his centre. Jacqueline would never have done such a vulgar thing. The girl's hand on his back was grasping, eager. She whispered that she liked him.