The Headmaster's Wager (9 page)

In the first years after his father's disappearance, Percival had been tortured by indecision—whether to include his father in his prayers to the ancestors. After all, if he was not dead, it might be disrespectful. Finally, he concluded that it would be worse if Chen Kai was dead and not included in ancestral prayers, for then it would be the ultimate neglect. Gradually, he came to assume that his father must have been killed. Did one pray to dead children, Percival wondered? Quickly, he begged forgiveness of the ancestors' spirits for wondering such a thing, and pleaded with them that the bad luck of thinking it would not make it true.

Two weeks after Dai Jai's disappearance, as Percival sat before a bowl of untouched rice congee one morning, Mak burst onto the balcony. “I have found a contact—someone who knows where Dai Jai is and can bring him out.”

Percival whispered thanks to the ancestral spirits and the golden family charm around Dai Jai's neck. He said to Mak, “What is the price?”

“He won't name it until you meet him.”

“Who is it?”

“It is not one of our usual friends,” said Mak.

“Anyone who can help is my friend.” Percival would not ask more. Some of Mak's contacts preferred to move within shadows rather than Saigon offices. Discretion must be respected, for it was also part of the friendship and trust between the headmaster and the teacher.

“You must go alone,” said Mak. He gave Percival a scrap of paper, written directions.

Percival read it. “He wants to meet at a graveyard?”

“Today. Don't be superstitious. It's just a secluded place.”

“How much money should I bring?”

“He wants to talk first.”

After a few forced mouthfuls, Percival set out in the Peugeot. He drove up to Saigon, past the National Police Headquarters, where Mak had told him Dai Jai was being held. He continued through the city, and then northeast. Since he did not often drive, he concentrated on manipulating the pedals and turning the wheel. At a checkpoint on the city's outskirts, two South Vietnamese soldiers held up their palms, and Percival stopped the car. The leaves shimmered in the heat, and the clatter of cicadas surrounded him. A faded French sign pointed the way to Cap St. Jacques, though the Vietnamese had renamed it Vung Tau a decade ago. Percival always thought of the beach town by its French name. The soldiers began a half-hearted search of the car. Percival waved them over and gave them each a hundred piastres. They smiled, nodded, and he drove away, directing the car through the low hills.

This road to the sea wound its way through the methodically planted avenues of the Michelin rubber plantation, and the trees flashed past in perfectly spaced rhythm. Before the divorce, Percival and Cecilia had often taken Dai Jai this way for holidays at the beach. Today, however, Percival would not go all the way out to the coast. After an hour of driving, he saw the first of the landmarks Mak had described—an old French stone bridge near a road marker which
indicated fifty kilometres to Cap St. Jacques. He fished the paper from his shirt pocket, just to be sure, and watched his odometer. Three kilometres later, he saw the stand of bamboo on a hill, then, at the top of the hill, an abandoned graveyard pavilion barely visible from the road. He turned the car onto the red dirt path that twisted through the bamboo, flanking the graves. The path became too narrow to drive. Percival stopped the car and continued on foot until he found the shack of cinder blocks and galvanized roofing set within the bamboo. As described, it was well back from the road.

There was no knocker or bell. He rapped his knuckles on the low steel door. The only reply was the rasp of cicadas. He tried to shift it. The heat of the corrugated metal stung his palms, and the door rattled but did not move—it was fastened from within. His shouts were answered by the bamboo chattering in the slight breeze. Standing in the sliver of shade provided by the short overhang of the roof, leaned against the prickly hot blocks, Percival scrutinized the scrap of paper. This must be the place. Through the bamboo, he could see the shape of his car parked near the pavilion. It glowed like a smooth, bright stone. Untended graves were being swallowed by the earth and vegetation. Had the nearby village been emptied during the partition? When General Giap's 1954 victory over the French army at Dien Bien Phu had led to the division between north and south, people were swept in both directions, as jarring a rearrangement of the country as the military victory itself. Many had thought their dislocation temporary, that they would be home in a year, once the promised national election took place. Now, thought Percival, enough time had passed that small children who had been relocated might not remember the villages from which they came. Travel between north and south was impossible, now that they were at war. That must be the reason for the overgrown tombs. Why else would the dead have been so neglected? A strange place for a hut, he thought. Bad luck to build anything so close to a graveyard. Somewhere nearby, a stream gurgled, hidden in the bamboo. He heard the clanking of some inner latch undone, a scraping noise behind him, and then the steel door was dragged open. From inside, a voice invited him to enter.

The shack was stifling. A thick smell of tamped earth, a distinct odour of urine, and another scent mingled in, which Percival couldn't quite place. Percival thought of the inside of a crypt, and he told himself to force down his rising fear. No lamp or window. A stingy rectangle of light entered from the door. At first, Percival saw nothing else. He advanced into the darkness, stumbled and fell to his hands and knees, a sudden panic, and stood up again. The ground was uneven.

“You are Mak's friend?” said Percival.

“What is friendship, in these difficult times?” said the voice who had called him in. “You are Headmaster Chen, I suppose.” Percival could barely see the man. He was just a shift in the gloom, a voice, now a sing-song lilt that said, “Chen Pie Sou, Percival Chen, Headmaster Chen. These are all you?”

Percival tried to muster cool defiance but the constriction of his voice betrayed him. “Who are you?”

“Don't worry about that. You have enough to worry about, yes?”

“I hope I have found the person who can help.”

“You must think so if you came to meet me. Or, you simply have no alternative.”

As Percival's eyes adjusted, he began to see dark shapes within the shadows—suggesting storage crates, a rough bench, an oil drum, and the dark outline of a man pacing. A stocky frame, a restless way of moving and speaking. He could navigate this shack with ease, Percival realized, for he knew where everything was. Think of the mah-jong table, Percival told himself. When the odds delivered by the tiles weighed heavily against him, he knew to draw his opponent out, gain some feel for the situation, and be attentive for any small advantage. He would hold his words and wait for a clue. He would not be the next to speak. The silence grew, filled the room. He would win. Force the man to give away the next word.

The man stopped and stood directly before Percival. His breath stank of betel, his voice was flat. “I hope you did not come here to play the silence game. I know every game—better than you.”

“My son played a prank. That's all.” Percival couldn't keep his words from tumbling out, from sounding like an apology.

“A political gesture by a dissident.”

“Ridiculous. Arrested for a childish joke.”

“A protest.”

“The boy has no politics.”

“Everyone does. Or perhaps better to say, everyone's actions have political meaning, whether or not they have political intentions.”

“A small misunderstanding.”

“Some acquire their politics by accident,” said the man.

“That's right, it's not his fault.”

“Or for some frivolous reason, perhaps to impress a father.” He let the words settle. Percival realized that the man already had the upper hand—knowledge—while Percival had nothing, no leverage. “In Saigon, it is always politics somehow. But what shall we talk about today—the reasons for your son's arrest, or the prospects for his future? It's amusing, but useless that you try to defend your son's actions to me. It's irrelevant, don't you agree? You are afraid, and not thinking clearly.”

Percival hated having been read, and then the insult of it being displayed. “I will do what is needed to address this problem.” Percival was aware of the man circling him.

“You will.” The man nudged Percival lightly. Just to see what would happen? “I am a simple man,” he said. “Are you?”

“What do you mean?”

He pushed Percival hard, nearly knocked him over, set his heart pounding. “Since I love simplicity, I think the best approach to any particular situation is to know exactly what the issues are. I dislike ambiguity. Do you share my simple view?”

“If that is best,” said Percival, fists clenched.

“It is. Today, the issue is your son.”

“Yes.”

“Who does not wish to learn Vietnamese and has been arrested for his political theatre.”

“But my son was born here. He speaks Vietnamese better than I do,” said Percival. Why was he once again justifying? Because the man in the shadows was in control.

“True. He speaks like a native Vietnamese,” said the man. “Your own use of our language is clumsy. Like a child's.”

“Dai Jai is a child.” Had this man seen Dai Jai? How else could he know the boy spoke well? Was the boy alright? Had he been given enough to eat? Did he still have his lucky amulet? But Percival did not ask. He did not wish to reveal anything more of his desperation.

The man continued. “Since you are not comfortable with the language of my country, we can speak in French, or English, as you prefer, Headmaster. You Chinese look down at us, but we are more flexible people than you.”

Percival said in Vietnamese, “Children get silly ideas. How can I remedy the situation?” He wondered what the price would be—a thousand American dollars, or two thousand perhaps. He would bargain. Even a thousand would be a fortune for a rough man like this, he thought. Perhaps he could be persuaded to accept piastres.

“Boys get their ideas from their parents,” said the man in Vietnamese.

“I am a simple teacher.”

“Don't embarrass us both. You say that Dai Jai's demonstration of loyalty to China was a youthful indiscretion. Next, you will tell me that he plans to join the South Vietnamese Army, unlike so many Chinese boys whose fathers send them to Australia or Canada before they can be drafted. Go on, spin some fanciful story, but before you do, should I tell you something about my practical nature?”

“Please.”

“I'm not concerned with your politics.”

“Fine.”

“Yes. It is.”

On the road outside, Percival heard a truck gear down as it prepared to climb the small hill towards the graveyard. It was the sound of grinding, mechanical determination.

“Ambiguity is worthless,” the man continued. “For instance, Mak must have told you that Dai Jai is at the National Police Headquarters? Yes. But what does this mean, exactly? Is he being held in the section for criminals, or the section for suspected communists—the political section? Do you know?”

“No.”

“It doesn't seem like he committed a simple crime.” The man's pacing stopped. “The political section would seem to be the right place.”

“Have you seen him there?”

He began to walk again. “I see many people.”

Percival's restraint crumbled. He had to know what was happening to Dai Jai. “I would be most grateful if you would tell me.”

“At least you possess some polite phrases. Let us say, for the sake of discussion, that he is being held in Room 47A. There are many political prisoners there. The room is no bigger than this one but contains over a hundred men, all waiting for questioning. Your son would be one of the younger prisoners, which does not mean he would be shown any special kindness. He would be taken for his sessions in one of the east interrogation rooms. What are those like? Small, with two chairs, a little bench, a table, and a bucket. Sometimes there is other equipment, as needed.”

Percival heard a machine's high-pitched cry—the truck, cresting the hill, then its gears screeching down past the graveyard.

“Two chairs would seem normal, yes, so that the official and the prisoner can sit while chatting? The bench, you might think, is for the prisoner to rest. Perhaps to take a little break from the discussion in order to reflect upon issues at hand? A bucket, you assume, provides a cooling drink? These rooms are hot.”

As the man spoke, Percival noticed, as if they had materialized from the darkness of the shack, the outlines of two chairs, a bench, and a bucket on its side in the corner. Nearby sat an old table.

In the manner of an administrator, as if boring himself by explaining the need to fill out a form in triplicate, the man continued. “Did you know that sometimes a person being questioned must be bound to a chair?” He kicked one of the chairs, which skittered away. “The National Police Headquarters is busy. There is a schedule to be followed. If the prisoner has a tendency to fall asleep, which can happen after many hours of focused discussion—attempts at retrieving memories of crimes—it may be necessary to keep him sitting up and alert.” The man continued in English. “You'll recall I mentioned ambiguity?
It is so difficult to avoid, for not all things are what they seem. Take this bucket, for instance. Obviously it is a bucket, but what is its real purpose?” He rapped the metal pail and handed it to Percival. “Feel the bottom. Run your finger over it.” Percival did so. “Ah, you found the little hole?”

“Yes.” A tiny gap in the metal.

“It is not an ideal bucket for holding water,” he said, now in English. “It has a hole. But if one wishes to keep someone who is bound in a chair awake, one cannot be forever prodding him and shouting. This tires the interrogator, who is a busy man and has other prisoners to attend to. Hence, this bucket can be filled with ice and suspended from above.” The man pointed to the ceiling. Percival saw nothing, but imagined the type of hook from which an electric fan or light was often suspended. “As the ice melts, cold water drips onto the head of the man or woman, though we will say boy, if you like, in the chair. You would think it is merely a chair, and only a bucket. Not so. The cold dripping of the water becomes a dagger thrust into the skull, though more rhythmic and merciless. It seems like nothing, but a boy with this water dripping onto his head soon vibrates with pain. His entire body quivers like the strings of a violin. Or the strings of an
erhu
, as you are Chinese.” He must have switched to English to be sure that Percival understood.