Книга - The Headmaster’s Wager

The Headmaster’s Wager
Vincent Lam


From internationally acclaimed and bestselling author Vincent Lam comes a superbly crafted, highly suspenseful, and deeply affecting novel set against the turmoil of the Vietnam War.Percival Chen is the headmaster of the most respected English school in Saigon. He is also a bon vivant, a compulsive gambler and an incorrigible womanizer. He is well accustomed to bribing a forever-changing list of government officials in order to maintain the elite status of the Chen Academy. He is fiercely proud of his Chinese heritage, and quick to spot the business opportunities rife in a divided country. He devotedly ignores all news of the fighting that swirls around him, choosing instead to read the faces of his opponents at high-stakes mahjong tables.But when his only son gets in trouble with the Vietnamese authorities, Percival faces the limits of his connections and wealth and is forced to send him away. In the loneliness that follows, Percival finds solace in Jacqueline, a beautiful woman of mixed French and Vietnamese heritage, and Laing Jai, a son born to them on the eve of the Tet offensive. Percival's new-found happiness is precarious, and as the complexities of war encroach further and further into his world, he must confront the tragedy of all he has refused to see.Blessed with intriguingly flawed characters moving through a richly drawn historical and physical landscape, The Headmaster's Wager is a riveting story of love, betrayal and sacrifice.













For William Lin




Contents


Cover (#u563fd600-e5ee-5ca8-a24b-32e5763847ac)

Title Page (#u4e9143fa-0278-53e5-9e84-cd99d905988c)

Dedication (#u11bb0398-04dc-535d-84d1-f5f8b4e2788e)

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Two

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part Three

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Part Four

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Acknowledgements

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher






Rocks stand stock-still, unawed by time and change.

Waters lie rippling, grieved at ebb and flow.

LADY THANH QUAN





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CHAPTER 1 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


1930, Shantou, China

On a winter night shortly after the New Year festivities, Chen Kai sat on the edge of the family kang, the brick bed. He settled the blanket around his son.

“Gwai jai,” he said. Well-behaved boy. “Close your eyes.”

“Sit with me?” said Chen Pie Sou with a yawn. “You promised …”

“I will.” He would stay until the boy slept. A little more delay. Muy Fa had insisted that Chen Kai remain for the New Year celebration, never mind that the coins from their poor autumn’s harvest were almost gone. What few coins there were, after the landlord had taken his portion of the crop. Chen Kai had conceded that it would be bad luck to leave just before the holiday and agreed to stay a little longer. Now, a few feet away in their one-room home, Muy Fa scraped the tough skin of rice from the bottom of the pot for the next day’s porridge. Chen Kai smoothed his son’s hair. “If you are to grow big and strong, you must sleep.” Chen Pie Sou was as tall as his father’s waist. He was as big as any boy of his age, for his parents often accepted the knot of hunger in order to feed him.

“Why …” A hesitation, the choosing of words. “Why must I grow big and strong?” A fear in the tone, of his father’s absence.

“For your ma, and your ba.” Chen Kai tousled his son’s hair. “For China.”

Later that night, Chen Kai was to board a train. In the morning, he would arrive at the coast, locate a particular boat. A village connection, a cheap passage without a berth. Then, a week on the water to reach Cholon. This place in Indochina was just like China, he had heard, except with money to be made, from both the Annamese and their French rulers.

With his thick, tough fingers, Chen Kai fumbled to undo the charm that hung from his neck. He reached around his son’s neck as if to embrace him, carefully knotted the strong braid of pig gut. Chen Pie Sou searched his chest, and his hand recognized the family good luck charm, a small, rough lump of gold.

“Why does it have no design, ba?” said Chen Pie Sou. He was surprised to be given this valuable item. He knew the charm. He also knew the answers to his questions. “Why is it just a lump?”

“Your ancestor found it this way. He left it untouched rather than having it struck or moulded, to remind his descendants that one never knows the form wealth takes, or how luck arrives.”

“How did he find it?” Chen Pie Sou rubbed its blunted angles and soft contours with the tips of his fingers. It was the size of a small lotus seed. He pressed it into the soft place in his own throat. Nearby, his mother, Muy Fa, sighed with impatience. Chen Pie Sou liked to ask certain things, despite knowing the response.

“He pried it from the Gold Mountain in a faraway country. This was the first nugget. Much more was unearthed, in a spot everyone had abandoned. The luck of this wealth brought him home.”

It was cool against Chen Pie Sou’s skin. Now, his right hand gripped his father’s. “Where you are going, are there mountains of gold?”

“That is why I’m going.”

“Ba,” said Chen Pie Sou intently. He pulled at the charm. “Take this with you, so that its luck will keep you safe and bring you home.”

“I don’t need it. I’ve worn it for so long that the luck has worked its way into my skin. Close your eyes.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“But in your dreams, you will come with me. To the Gold Mountain.”

Chen Kai added a heaping shovel of coal to the embers beneath the kang. Muy Fa, who always complained that her husband indulged their son, made a soft noise with her tongue.

“Don’t worry, dear wife. I will find so much money in Indochina that we will pile coal into the kang all night long,” boasted Chen Kai. “And we will throw out the burned rice in the bottom of that pot.”

“You will come back soon?” asked Chen Pie Sou, his eyes closed now.

Chen Kai squeezed his son’s shoulder. “Sometimes, you may think I am far away. Not so. Whenever you sleep, I am with you in your dreams.”

“But when will you return?”

“As soon as I have collected enough gold.”

“How much?”

“Enough … at the first moment I have enough to provide for you, and your mother, I will be on my way home.”

The boy seized his father’s hand in both of his. “Ba, I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“That you won’t come back.”

“Shh … there is nothing to worry about. Your ancestor went to the Gold Mountain, and this lump around your neck proves that he came back. As soon as I have enough to provide for you, I will be back.”

As if startled, the boy opened his eyes wide and struggled with the nugget, anxious to get it off. “Father, take this with you. If you already have this gold, it will not take you as long to collect what you need.”

“Gwai jai,” said Chen Kai, and he calmed the boy’s hands with his own. “I will find so much that such a little bit would not delay me.”

“You will sit with me?”

“Until you are asleep. As I promised.” Chen Kai stroked his son’s head. “Then you will see me in your dreams.”

Chen Pie Sou tried to keep his eyelids from falling shut. They became heavy, and the kang was especially warm that night. When he woke into the cold, bright morning, his breath was like the clouds of a speeding train, wispy white—vanishing. His mother was making the breakfast porridge, her face tear-stained. His father was gone.

The boy yelled, “Ma! It’s my fault!”

She jumped. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” sobbed Chen Pie Sou. “I meant to stay awake. If I had, ba would still be here.”

1966, CHOLON, VIETNAM

It was a new morning towards the end of the dry season, early enough that the fleeting shade still graced the third-floor balcony of the Percival Chen English Academy. Chen Pie Sou, who was known to most as Headmaster Percival Chen, and his son, Dai Jai, sat at the small wicker breakfast table, looking out at La Place de la Libération. The market girls’ bright silk ao dais glistened. First light had begun to sweep across their bundles of cut vegetables for sale, the noodle sellers’ carts, the flame trees that shaded the sidewalks, and the flower sellers’ arrangements of blooms. Percival had just told Dai Jai that he wished to discuss a concerning matter, and now, as the morning drew itself out a little further, was allowing his son some time to anticipate what this might be.

Looking at his son was like examining himself at that age. At sixteen, Dai Jai had a man’s height, and, Percival assumed, certain desires. A boy’s impatience for their satisfaction was to be expected. Like Percival, Dai Jai had probing eyes, and full lips. Percival often thought it might be his lips which gave him such strong appetites, and wondered if it was the same for his son. Between Dai Jai’s eyebrows, and traced from his nose around the corners of his mouth, the beginnings of creases sometimes appeared. These so faint that no one but his father might notice, or recognize as the earliest outline of what would one day become a useful mask. Controlled, these lines would be a mask to show other men, hinting at insight regarding a delicate situation, implying an unspoken decision, or signifying nothing except to leave them guessing. Such creases were long since worn into the fabric of Percival’s face, but on Dai Jai they could still vanish—to show the smooth skin of a boy’s surprise. Now, they were slightly inflected, revealed Dai Jai’s worry over what his father might want to discuss, and concealed nothing from Percival. That was as it should be. Already, Percival regretted that he needed to reprimand his son, but in such a situation, it was the duty of a good father.

Chen Pie Sou addressed his son in their native Teochow dialect, “Son, you must not forget that you are Chinese,” and stared at him.

“Ba?”

He saw Dai Jai’s hands twitch, then settle. “You have been seen with a girl. Here. In my school.”

“There are … many girls here at your school, Father.” Dai Jai’s right hand went to his neck, fiddled with the gold chain, on which hung the family good luck charm.

“Annam nuy jai, hai um hai?” An Annamese girl, isn’t it? It was not entirely the boy’s fault. The local beauties were so easy with their smiles and favours. “At your age, emotions can be reckless.”

The balcony door swung open and Foong Jie, the head servant, appeared with her silver serving tray. She set one bowl of thin rice noodles before Percival. She placed another in front of Dai Jai. Percival nodded at the servant.

Each bowl of noodles was crowned by a rose of raw flesh, the thin petals of beef pink and ruffled. Foong Jie put down dishes of bean sprouts, of mint, purple basil leaves on the stem, hot peppers, and halved limes with which to dress the bowls. She arranged an urn of fragrant broth, chilled glasses, the coffee pot that rattled with ice cubes, and a dish of cut papayas and mangos. Percival did not move to touch the food, and so neither did his son, whose eyes were now cast down. The master looked to Foong Jie, tilted his head towards the door, and she slipped away.

Percival addressed his son in a concerned low voice. “Is this true? That you have become … fond of an Annamese?”

Dai Jai said, “You have always told me to tutor weaker students.” In that, thought Percival, was a hint of evasion, a boy deciding whether to lie.

Percival waved off a fly, poured broth from the urn onto his noodles, added tender basil leaves, bright red peppers, and squeezed a lime into his bowl. With the tips of his chopsticks, he drowned the meat beneath the surface of the steaming liquid, and loosened it with a small motion of his wrist. Already the flesh was cooked, the stain of blood a haze, which vanished into the fragrant broth. Dai Jai prepared his bowl in the same way. He peered deep into the soup and gathered noodles onto his spoon, lifted it to his mouth, swallowed mechanically. On the boy’s face, anguish. So it was a real first love, the boy afraid to lose her. But this could not go on. Less painful to cut it early. Percival told himself to be firm for the boy’s own good.

From the square below came the shouts of a customer’s complaint, and a breakfast porridge seller’s indignant reply. Percival waited for the argument outside to finish, then said, “What subject did Teacher Mak see you tutoring, yesterday after classes?” Mak, Percival’s most trusted employee and closest friend, told him that Dai Jai and a student had been holding hands in an empty classroom. When Percival had asked, Mak had said that she was not Chinese. “Mak indicated that it was not a school subject being taught.” Percival saw perspiration bead on Dai Jai’s temples. The sun was climbing quickly, promising a hot day, but Percival knew that this heat came from within the boy.

The sweat on Dai Jai’s face ran a jagged path down his cheeks. He looked as if he was about to speak, but then he took another mouthful of food, stuffed himself to prevent words.

“Yes, let’s eat,” said Percival. Though in the past few years, Dai Jai had sprung up to slightly surpass his father’s height, he was still gangly, his frame waiting for his body to catch up. Though everyone complimented Dai Jai on his resemblance to his father, Percival recognized in his silence his mother’s stubbornness. The father’s duty was to correct the son, Percival assured himself. When the boy was older, he would see that his father was right.

They ate. Their chopsticks and spoons clicked on the bowls. Each regarded the square as if they had never before seen it, as if just noticing the handsome post office that the French had built, which now was also an army office. Three Buddhist monks with iron begging bowls stood in the shadow of St. Francis Xavier, the Catholic church that was famous for providing sanctuary to Ngo Dinh Diem, the former president of Vietnam, and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, during the 1963 coup. After finishing his noodles, Percival sipped his coffee, and selected a piece of cut papaya using his chopsticks. He aimed for an understanding tone, saying, “Teacher Mak tells me she is very pretty.” He lifted the fruit with great care, for too much pressure with the chopsticks would slice it in half. “But your love is improper.” He should have called it something smaller, rather than love, but the word had already escaped.

Percival slipped the papaya into his mouth and turned his eyes to the monks, waiting for his son’s reply. There was the one-eyed monk who begged at the school almost every day. The kitchen staff knew that he and his brothers were to be fed, even if they had to go out and buy more food. It was the headmaster’s standing order. On those steps, Percival remembered, he had seen the Ngo brothers surrender themselves to the custody of army officers. They had agreed to safe passage, an exile in America. They had set off for Tan Son Nhut Airport within the protection of a green armoured troop carrier. On the way there, the newspapers reported, the soldiers stopped the vehicle at a railroad crossing and shot them both in the head.

“Teacher Mak has nothing better to do than to be your spy?” said Dai Jai, his voice starting bold but tapering off.

“That is a double disrespect—to your teacher and to your father.”

“Forgive me, ba,” said Dai Jai, his eyes down again.

“Also, you know my rule, that school staff must not have affairs with students.” Percival himself kept to the rule despite occasional temptation. As Mak often reminded him, there was no need to give anyone in Saigon even a flimsy pretext to shut them down.

“But I am not—”

“You are the headmaster’s son. And you are Chinese. Don’t you know the shame of my father’s second marriage? Let me tell you of Chen Kai’s humiliation—”

“I know about Ba Hai, and yes, her cruelty. You have told—”

“And I will tell you again, until you learn its lesson!

“Ba Hai was very beautiful. Did that save my father? An Annamese woman will offer you her sweetness, and then turn to sell it to someone else.”

Percival knew the pull that Dai Jai must feel. The girls of this country had a supple, easy sensuality. It would be a different thing, anyways, if Dai Jai had been visiting an Annamese prostitute. Even a lovestruck boy would one day realize that she had other customers. But this was dangerous, an infatuation with a student. A boy could confuse his body’s desires for love. Percival saw that Dai Jai had stopped eating, his spoon clenched in his fist, his anger bundled in his shoulders. “You can’t trust the pleasure of an Annamese.”

“You know that pleasure well,” mumbled Dai Jai. “At least I don’t pay for it.”

Percival slammed his coffee into the table. The glass shattered. Brown liquid sprayed across the white linen tablecloth, the fruit, the porcelain, and his own bare arm. He stood, and turned his back on his son to face the square, as if it would provide a solution to this conflict. Peasants pushed carts with fish and produce to market. Sinewy cyclo men were perched high like three-wheeled grasshoppers, either waiting for fares or pedalling along, their thin shirts transparent with sweat. Coffee trickled down Percival’s arm, over his wrist, and down his fingers, which he pressed flat on the hot marble of the balustrade. When the coffee reached the smooth stone, it dried immediately, a stain already old.

Percival said, “You are my son.” The pads of his fingers stung with the heat of the stone, his mouth with its words. In the sandbagged observation post between the church and post office, the Republic of Vietnam soldiers rolled up their sleeves and opened their shirts. They lit the day’s first cigarettes. “You must show respect.” Percival turned halfway back towards Dai Jai, and squinted against the shard of light that had just sliced across the balcony. Soon, the balcony’s tiles would scorch bare feet.

Percival noticed a black Ford Galaxie pull off Chong Heng Boulevard, from the direction of Saigon. He considered it. Who was visiting so early? And who was being visited? Dark-coloured cars were something the Americans had brought to Vietnam, thinking them inconspicuous. They had not noticed that almost all of the Citroëns and Peugeots that the French had left behind were white. Now, many Saigon officials had dark cars, tokens of American friendship. Dai Jai stood to see what had caught his father’s attention.

“Where are they going, ba?”

“That is no concern of yours.” It was prudent to take note. But he must not let the boy divert the conversation. The Galaxie turned the corner at the post office, floated past the church, and then pulled up at the door of the school. Two slim Vietnamese in shirtsleeves emerged, wearing identical dark sunglasses. Percival felt his own sweat trickle inside his shirt. That was just the heat, for why should he worry? Everyone who needed to be paid was well taken care of. Mak was fastidious about that. Percival watched them check the address on a manila envelope. Then, one man knocked on the door. They looked around. Before he could step back, they looked up, saw Percival, and gestured, blank-faced. The best thing was to wave in a benignly friendly way. This was exactly what Percival did, and then he sat down, gestured to Dai Jai to do the same.

“Who is it, ba?”

“Unexpected visitors.” Had his friend, police chief Mei, once mentioned the CIA’s preference for Galaxies? Perhaps it had been some other car.

“Are you going down, Father?” asked Dai Jai.

“No.” He would wait for Foong Jie to fetch him. He preferred to take his time with such people. “I am drinking my coffee.”

Percival reached towards the tray and saw the broken pieces of glass. Dai Jai hurried to pour coffee into his own glass, and gave it to his father. A few sips later, feet ascended the stairs, louder than Foong Jie’s soft slippers. Why were the men from Saigon coming up to the family quarters? Why hadn’t Foong Jie directed them to wait? When she appeared, she gave the headmaster a look of apology even as she bowed nervously to the two men who followed her onto the balcony. They shielded their eyes despite their sunglasses. The balcony now glowed with full, searing morning light.

The younger one said, “Percival? Percival Chen?”

“Da.” Yes. Dai Jai stood up quickly, but Percival did not. The two men in sunglasses glanced at the single vacant chair, and remained standing. Now that they were here on his balcony, Percival would do what was needed, but he would not stand while they sat.

“This is the Percival Chen English Academy?” said the older man.

“My school.” Percival waved at Dai Jai to sit.

“We were confused at first—your sign is in Chinese.”

The carved wooden sign above the front door was painted in lucky red, “Chen Hap Sing,” the Chen Trade Company. Chen Kai had made his fortune in the Cholon rice trade and had built this house. He could not have imagined that the high-ceilinged warehouse spaces would one day be well suited for the classrooms of his son’s English school.

“It was my father’s sign. I keep it for luck.”

“Your signature here, Headmaster Chen,” said the younger man from Saigon, offering a receipt for signature and the envelope.

“I will read it later,” said Percival, ignoring the receipt as he took the manila envelope. “Thank you, brothers. I will send it back by courier.” He put it down on the table. They did not budge. “Why should you wait for this? You are important, busy men. Police officers, of course.”

They did not say otherwise. The older man said, “Sign now.” Of course, they were the quiet police. Below the balcony, Percival glimpsed some of the school’s students having their breakfast in the square. Some squatted next to the noodle sellers. Others ate baguette sandwiches as they walked. Percival was relieved to see Teacher Mak coming towards the school. Foong Jie would send Mak up as soon as he arrived.

Percival tore open the envelope, slipped out a document from the Ministry of Education in Saigon, and struggled through the text. He was less fluent in this language than in English, but he could work out the meaning. The special memorandum was addressed to all headmasters, and outlined a new regulation. Vietnamese language instruction must be included in the curriculum of all schools, effective immediately.

“You rich Chinese always have a nice view,” said the older man, looking out over the square. He helped himself to a piece of papaya. Dai Jai offered a napkin, but the officer ignored him and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth.

The younger one thrust the receipt at Percival again. “Sign here. Isn’t that church the one …”

“It is.” Percival peered at the paper and selected an expression of slight confusion, as if he were a little slow. “Thank you, brothers, thank you.” He did not say big brothers, in the manner that one usually spoke to officials and police, or little brothers, as age and position might allow a headmaster. He made a show of re-reading the paper. “But I wonder if there is a mistake in this document coming to me. This is not a school. This is an English academy, and it falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Language Institutes.”

The older one bristled. “There is no mistake. You are on the list.”

“Ah, perhaps the Department of Language Institutes did not review this directive. I would be surprised if Director Phuong has approved this.” Mak must be downstairs by now. Percival could easily delay until he made his way up.

“Director Phuong?” laughed the younger officer.

“My good friend Director Phuong,” smiled Percival. He was Hakka, his name was Fung, though he had come to Vietnam as a child and used the name Phuong. Each New Year, Percival was mindful to provide him with a sufficient gift.

The older one said, “You mean the former director. He recently had an unfortunate accident.”

“He is on sick leave, then? Well, I will take up this matter when he—”

“He will not return.” The older man from Saigon grinned. “Between you and me, some say he gave too many favours to his Chinese friends here in Cholon, but we didn’t come to gossip. We just need your signature.”

Percival stared at the memorandum. He was not reading. Just a little longer, he thought. Now he heard sure steps on the stairs, familiar feet in no hurry. Mak appeared on the balcony, nodded to Percival, who handed the papers to him. Mak glanced at the visitors and began to read the document. The teacher was thin, but compact rather than reedy, a little shorter than Percival. While some small men were twitchy and nervous, Mak moved with the calm of one who had folded all his emotions neatly within himself, his impulses contained and hidden. For years he had worn the same round, wire-rimmed glasses. The metal of the left arm was dull where he now gripped it to adjust the glasses precisely on his nose.

“Brothers,” said Percival, “this is my friend who advises me on all school business.” He continued to face the officers as he said, “Teacher Mak, I suspect this came to me in error, as it applies to schools, but we are a language institute.”

Mak quickly finished reading the papers.

“Headmaster,” said Mak in Vietnamese, “why not let these brothers be on their way?” He looked at Percival. He murmured in Teochow, “Sign. It is the only thing to do.”

Surprised, Percival took the receipt and the pen. Did Mak have nothing else to say? Mak nodded. Percival did as his friend advised, then put the paper on the table and flourished a smug grin at the quiet police, as if he had won. The younger one grabbed the receipt, the older one took a handful of fruit, and they left.

Percival was quiet for a few moments, and then snapped, “Dai Jai, where are your manners?” He tipped his head towards Mak.

“Good morning, honourable Teacher Mak,” Dai Jai said. He did not have his father’s natural way of hiding his displeasure.

Mak nodded in reply.

Dai Jai stood. “Please, teacher, sit.”

Mak took the seat, giving no indication he had noticed Dai Jai’s truculence.

“I had to take Vietnamese citizenship a few years ago, for the sake of my school licence. Now, I am told to teach Vietnamese,” said Percival. “What will these Annamese want next? Will they force me to eat nuoc nam?”

“Hou jeung, things are touchy in Saigon,” said Mak. “There have been more arrests and assassinations than usual. Prime Minister Ky and the American one, Johnson, have announced that they want South Vietnam to be pacified.” He snorted, “They went on a holiday together in Hawaii, like sweethearts, and issued a memo in Honolulu.”

“So everyone is clamping down.”

“On whatever they can find. Showing patriotism, vigour.”

“Hoping to avoid being squeezed themselves.”

“Don’t worry. We will hire a Vietnamese teacher, and satisfy the authorities,” said Mak. “I can teach a few classes.” Though he was of Teochow Chinese descent, Mak was born in central Vietnam and spoke the language fluently. Percival only spoke well enough to direct household servants and restaurant waiters, to dissemble with Saigon officials, and to bed local prostitutes.

“Vietnamese is easy,” said Dai Jai.

“Did anyone ask you?” Percival turned to his son. “You are Chinese, remember? For fifteen hundred years, this was a Chinese province. The Imperial Palace in Hue is a shoddy imitation of the Summer Palace in Beijing. Until the French came, they wrote in Chinese characters.”

“I know, ba, I know.” Dai Jai recited, “Before being conquered by the Han, this was a land of illiterates in mud huts. Without the culture of China, the Vietnamese are nothing but barbarians.”

“That is very old history,” said Mak, glancing around at the other buildings within earshot. “Anyhow, let’s talk about this inside, where it’s cooler.” The sun was already high, and the balcony radiated white heat.

“I will say what I want in my own home. Look, this school is called the Percival Chen English Academy. Students expect to learn English. Why teach Vietnamese here? Why should we Chinese be forced to learn that language?”

From below came the clang of the school bell.

“What are you waiting for?” Percival said. “Don’t you have class? Or are you too busy chasing Annamese skirts?” Dai Jai hurried away, and it was hard for Percival to tell whether the boy’s anger or his relief at being excused caused him to rush down the stairs so quickly.

Mak sighed, “I have to go down to teach.”

“Thank you for telling me about the girl. He must marry a Chinese.”

“I was mostly concerned about the school; your son with a student, the issue of appearances.”

“That too. Get someone else to take your second-period class this morning. We will go to Saigon to address this problem, this new directive.”

“Leave it.”

“No.”

“Why don’t you think about it first, Headmaster?”

“I have decided.” Mak was right, of course. It was easy to hire a Vietnamese teacher—but now Percival felt the imperative of his stubbornness, and the elation of exercising his position.

“I’ll call Mr. Tu. He is discreet. But Chen Pie Sou, remember it is our friends in Saigon who allow us to exist.” Mak used Percival’s Chinese name when he was being most serious.

“And we make it possible for them to drink their cognac, and take foreign holidays. Come on, our gwan hai is worth something, isn’t it?” If the connections were worth their considerable expense, why not use them? Mak shrugged, and slipped out.

Had Percival been too harsh on Dai Jai? Boys had their adventures. But a boy could not understand the heart’s dangers, and Dai Jai was at the age when he might lose himself in love. A good Chinese father must protect his son, spare him the pain of a bad marriage to some Annamese. The same had destroyed Chen Kai, even though she was a second wife. Now, the Vietnamese language threatened to creep into Chen Hap Sing. Looking out over the square, watching the soldiers clean their rifles with slow boredom, he saw it. The events had come together like a pair of omens, this new language directive and Mak’s mention of Dai Jai’s infatuation. Under no circumstance could he allow Vietnamese to be taught in his school. He must be a good example to his son, of being Chinese. Percival went downstairs and found Han Bai, his driver, eating in the kitchen. He told him to buy the usual gifts needed for a visit to Saigon, and to prepare the Peugeot to go to a meeting.




CHAPTER 2 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


AS THE SECOND PERIOD BEGAN, PERCIVAL and Mak climbed into the back of the white sedan and sat on the cool, freshly starched seat covers. Han Bai opened the rolling doors of the front room where the car was kept, eased it out of Chen Hap Sing, and set off for Saigon. By the time they crossed the square, the car was sweltering. When Percival had first come to this place, when it was still called Indochina, he had enjoyed this drive from Cholon to Saigon. It wound over a muddy, red earth path alongside market garden plots of greens and herbs, and sometimes flanked the waters of the Arroyo Chinois. It had reminded Percival of Shantou, except for the colour of the soil. Now, they drove on a busy asphalt road, which each year grew more dense and ugly with cinder-block buildings on weedy dirt lots.

Percival said, “I’ve heard that Mr. Tu wants to send his son to France before he is old enough for the draft. He must need money. I’m sure we can avoid this new regulation.” He fingered the wrapped paper package which Han Bai had put on the back seat.

Mak shrugged. “Even if this is possible, it will be a very expensive red packet. It would be cheaper and simpler to hire a Vietnamese teacher. You won’t have to pay nearly what you pay your English teachers.”

“Let’s see what price he names.” Percival looked out the window as they sped past a lonely patch of aubergines. Since the Americans had come, the main things sprouting on this road were laundries and go-go bars. It was a short drive now, the six kilometres covered in half the time it had once taken.

Mr. Tu’s office was in a back hallway of the Ministry of Education. In black letters on a frosted glass insert, the door was stencilled, SECOND ADJUNCT CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE INSTITUTES.

Percival knocked on the door. “Two humble teachers from Cholon have come to pay their respects,” he said, in a tone that could have been self-mocking.

Mr. Tu answered the door and shook their hands vigorously in the American manner. He made a show of calling Percival “headmaster,” hou jeung, and held the door. Mr. Tu was the type of Saigon bureaucrat who had a very long title for a position whose function could not be discerned from the title alone. He regularly helped people to sort out “paper issues.” He guided his guests to the chairs in front of his desk, and beamed. Yes, Percival concluded, Mr. Tu was clearly in need of funds. Behind him was a framed photo of an official, looking out at Mak and Percival, his mouth set with determination against the glass of the frame.

“Isn’t that the new minister of …?” said Percival, as if he might remember the name. “He is the brother of …”

Mr. Tu laughed, saying, “Hou jeung, I could say it was our new president, and you would believe me.”

“You’re right. But I take an interest when I have an interest.” Percival grinned, and settled into the worn green vinyl upholstery, which had endured in this office through countless changes of the portrait on the wall. Percival told Mr. Tu of the breakfast visit at his school. He said nothing of his personal wish to avoid teaching Vietnamese. Despite being a practical man, Mr. Tu might be patriotic. Instead, in plodding Vietnamese, Percival explained his reluctance to add another teacher to the payroll. “It’s just one salary, but once you employ a man, he must be paid forever. He expects a bonus at Tet, and a gift when he has a child. If his parents become ill, he’ll need money for the hospital. So I wonder … if this new regulation might exempt an English academy, say, with a generously minded headmaster. You know I don’t mind spending a little if it helps me in the long run.”

Mr. Tu cleared his throat. He slowly spread his fingers as if they had been stuck together for a long time. Had there been the twitch of a frown, though quickly erased by the expected smile? He said, “I sympathize. Deeply. Absolutely. It is so unfortunate that an unimportant person like myself can do nothing about this issue.”

Invariably, Mr. Tu’s first response to any request was to profess his simultaneous desire and inability to help. Percival placed the wrapped paper package on Mr. Tu’s desk. He said, “It may be that language institutes such as the Percival Chen English Academy fall outside the parameters of this new regulation. There may have been a simple administrative mistake. If so, I wonder about an administrative solution. After all, I run an English academy. It’s not a regular school.”

Mr. Tu opened the package, and thanked Percival for the carton of Marlboros and the bottle of Hine cognac. “The issue of Vietnamese instruction in the Chinese quarter—in Cholon—is … how can I say … important to some,” he said. “It may be difficult to make exceptions.” This type of response was also typical, in order to justify a price. But Mr. Tu looked genuinely uncomfortable, which was unusual.

“Please understand,” interjected Mak. “The headmaster thinks only of the pressing need to educate English-speakers who will help us help the Americans.”

“Surely, the Ministry of Education would not wish to diminish English instruction time when all of our students already speak Vietnamese,” said Percival. Of course, many of the students at the Percival Chen English Academy were in fact of Chinese descent and spoke only basic Vietnamese, like their headmaster.

“We have the utmost of patriotic motivations,” said Mak. “The American officers whom I know often tell me that they need—”

“No doubt,” said Mr. Tu. “What is your tuition now?”

“I would have to check,” Percival countered, anticipating price negotiations.

Mr. Tu rubbed the amber bottle with his palm, and placed it, along with the cigarettes, in his desk drawer. From his bookshelf, he plucked a bottle of Otard, and poured three glasses. Lifting his glass to his lips, Percival smelled and then tasted a cheap local liquor rather than the promised cognac. Mr. Tu said with a casual shrug, “I will make inquiries. Further conversations might be required, with my chief, and possibly above him.” Mr. Tu looked down. “So you should ask yourself, are such conversations worthwhile? This is not an easy matter.”

“But what would make it easy?” said Percival, undeterred, preparing already to balk at a price and counter with half.

“Hard to say.”

“Roughly.”

“I don’t know the price,” said Mr. Tu.

“Your best guess.” It was better to get a number to start the discussion rather than leave empty-handed.

“Or even if it is possible,” said Mr. Tu, and stood. “I am a humble fonctionnaire. It may be beyond me. As men of learning, you know that some answers are more complex than others.”

“I see,” said Percival. This did not seem like mere negotiation of price.

“That is our new ministerial advisor,” said Mr. Tu, indicating the new photo. “Thuc is below the minister in theory, and above him in reality. He is very patriotic. Prime Minister Ky chose him personally to oversee education.” He tapped the arms of the chair and looked from Percival to Mak.

Mak stood, smiled graciously, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Tu, for your time.” He leaned towards the desk and said, “If there is no solution to be found, there is no need to remember that we asked.”

Mr. Tu nodded. “Don’t worry. It would serve no one.”

Percival stood, and they left, closing the door themselves as they went into the hallway.

As Han Bai drove them back along the road to Cholon, which was now quiet near midday, Percival said to Mak, “You had nothing else to push him with? Some favour he owes us?”

Mak turned to face Percival. “To what end? Mr. Tu spoke clearly—this policy is a patriotic and political issue. You know that some in Saigon dislike the Chinese-run English schools in Cholon.”

“Because our graduates get the American jobs.”

“That ministerial advisor is Colonel Thuc. He was just transferred from the Ministry of Security and Intelligence.”

“I suppose that was why those quiet police were delivering educational directives.”

“It may prove unwise to attract attention over this issue, hou jeung.”

For the rest of the trip home, they sat in thick silence. What else could Percival say, when Mak’s judgment was always sound? He always knew what had become important of late in Saigon.

By the time they returned to Chen Hap Sing, the morning students were gone, and the afternoon students had begun their lessons. Dai Jai had left for his Chinese classes at the Teochow Clan School. Percival went to his ground-floor office, cooler than the family quarters at this time of day. On his chair, Foong Jie had hung a fresh shirt for the afternoon. On the desk, she had put out a lunch of cold rice paper rolls and mango salad. He shut the door, ate, removed his crumpled shirt, tossed it on the seat of the chair, and laid himself down for his siesta on the canvas cot next to his desk.

As Percival’s breathing slowed, the blades of the electric ceiling fan hushed softly through stale air. On each turn, the dry joint of the fan squeaked. The fan had been this way for a long time, and Percival had never attempted to lubricate it, for he liked to be tethered to the afternoon. Only half-submerged beneath midday heat, he was not bothered by dreams. After some time, he heard a thumping. At first, he ignored it and rolled to face the wall. The noise continued, and then a voice called, “Headmaster!” It was Mak.

Percival propped himself up on an elbow, his singlet a second skin of sweat, his eyes suddenly full of the room—the grey metal desk, the black telephone. A gecko at the far upper corner of the room looked straight into Percival’s eyes, limbs flexed.

“Hou jeung!” A fist on the door.

“Come in, Mak.”

Mak entered, shut the door, and stood by the cot for a moment, as if he found himself a little wary of actually speaking.

“Please, friend. What is it?”

“I have heard something worrisome,” Mak said. “Chen Pie Sou, it is something that your son, Dai Jai, has done.”

“Involving the girl?” said Percival, angry already. Had Dai Jai defied him further?

“No.”

Mak explained that at the start of the afternoon class at the Teochow Clan School, when Teacher Lai had announced that she would begin the newly mandated Vietnamese lesson, Dai Jai stood up and declared that as a proud Chinese, he refused to participate. Mak said, “Dai Jai’s classmates joined him in this protest. Each student rose, until the entire class stood together. Then, Dai Jai began to hum ‘On Songhua River,’ and others joined in. Mrs. Lai was frantic, but they wouldn’t stop.”

“How does Dai Jai even know that old tune?”

“Finally, he walked out, and the class followed him.”

“Where is the boy now?” Percival rubbed his eyes.

“I haven’t seen him,” said Mak. Then, speaking deliberately he added, “I got all this from Mr. Tu. In Saigon. He has heard of it already, and wished to warn you. They have eyes in all the schools.”

Percival stared at his friend. He had heard and understood Mak immediately, all too well. The delay was in knowing what to say, to do. If Mr. Tu knew, then someone at the Ministry of Education was already writing a report.

“Mak, you know what happens in Saigon these days. Tell me, are they making arrests at night or in the day?” During the Japanese occupation, the Kempeitai preferred to seize people at night and behead them during the day in public view. Before and after the Japanese interlude, the French Sûreté usually made arrests during the early part of the day. The bleeding, bruised person would be left on the street late in the afternoon if a single interrogation was sufficient, so that the officers could make it for cocktails at the Continental patio. If more was required of the prisoner, he or she would disappear for months, years, or would never be seen again. Now, the Viet Cong liked to work at night. They crept into Cholon across the iron bridge from Sum Guy and would kidnap someone for ransom, or lob a grenade into a GI bar before disappearing into shadows. Percival found that he could not think of the habits of the Saigon intelligence.

“They make arrests whenever they feel like it,” said Mak quietly.

“Where is Dai Jai?” said Percival, his voice pitched high. “They can’t have found him so quickly.”

“You don’t think so?” Mak caught himself. “No. Of course not.”

Rays of light pierced the small gaps in the metal shutters. Dots and slashes. Percival struggled to pull on his fresh afternoon shirt, the starch sticking to his skin.

“We will have to hire a Vietnamese teacher immediately,” said Percival.

“Clearly,” said Mak.

Percival was about to go look for Dai Jai himself, but Mak suggested that he stay at the school. If the quiet police visited, the headmaster should be there to deal with it. Percival sent the kitchen boys out to help Mak look for Dai Jai, not telling them why. He stood at the front door, scanning the square for either his son or a dark Ford. He stalked his office, glared at the phone. Finally, late in the afternoon, Percival heard one of the kitchen boys chatting amiably with his son in the street, both of them joking in Vietnamese. Percival heard the metal gate clang, then whistling in the hallway. His relief gave way to anger as he shouted to summon the boy. Dai Jai came to the door. “What is it, ba?”

Percival rose from his chair. “What were you thinking today at the Teochow school?”

“Are people already talking about our protest?” He stood in the doorway, excited, his white school shirt soaked through with sweat.

“Protest. Is that what you call this stupidity?”

“Ba,” he said, his eyes wide. “You said yourself this morning that the Chinese should not be forced to study Vietnamese.”

“Did I raise a fool?”

Dai Jai’s voice fell. “I thought you would be proud.”

“For bringing trouble? I heard of your … theatre from people in Saigon. Do you understand?”

“Good,” he puffed up. “They know that the Chinese will not be pushed around, yes, ba?”

Percival’s mouth felt numb as he said in a softer voice, “Son, if you wish to do something, it is often best to give the appearance that you have done nothing at all.”

The last of Dai Jai’s proud stance withered. “But I did it to please you,” he said.

“I see.” Percival slumped into his chair, the anger flushed out by guilt and fear. His hand went to his temple. “No matter, your father is well connected. I will fix it.”

That night, Percival and Dai Jai ate together as usual in the second-floor sitting room. The cook made a simple dinner of Cantonese fried rice. As they were eating, there was a knock at the front door. From downstairs came the shuffle of Foong Jie’s feet. Percival could hear the nasal tones of Vietnamese words, a man’s voice, but he could not make out what was being said. Downstairs, the metal gates clanged shut. Foong Jie appeared with a manila envelope. She was alone.

Percival exhaled.

She handed Percival the envelope and slipped out. With sweaty, shaking hands, he ripped it open.

“What is it, ba?”

Percival waved the letter at Dai Jai. “A note from your mother,” he said. “She has heard about your … incident. She wants me to meet her tomorrow in Saigon.”

The boy picked up his bowl and resumed eating. After a while, Dai Jai broke the silence with laughter, still holding his bowl, almost choking on his food. He swallowed and wiped tears from his eyes. “You thought—” and he was again seized with uneasy laughter. “Well, it was not the police, just a note from Mother.”

“This is nothing to laugh about!” said Percival. He pushed away his half-eaten dinner. He stood and turned on the radio. After a hiss and pop, the Saigon broadcast of Voice of America was recounting the day’s news, informing listeners that the Americans had bombed oil depots in Hanoi and Haiphong, that the French president, De Gaulle, had announced he would visit Cambodia in September, and that Buddhists in Hue and Da Nang were protesting against Prime Minister Ky’s military government.

Percival’s spirits lifted. Were the monks setting themselves alight once again? He had often remarked that he couldn’t understand these bonzes—they killed themselves to criticize the government, but surely the government must be glad that some of their critics were dead. After news of an immolation, Percival was always relieved to see the one-eyed monk in the square, for he was fond of that one, who seemed to have the intensity that a martyr would require. The suicides by fire attracted a great deal of attention, though, so now Percival listened with hope. Surely, those in Saigon who watched for dissent would take more interest in a new spate of Buddhist trouble than in some trivial incident at a Chinese school in Cholon. Percival turned to Dai Jai. “I will meet with your mother tomorrow. Do you see how serious this is?”

“I’m sorry, Father. I thought it would make you proud.”

What to say, that he might have been, if the incident had remained Cholon gossip rather than Saigon trouble? But even if that had been the case, he would have had to instruct the boy nonetheless, that he must learn to pair his best impulses with canny quiet. Percival said, “I will fix this. Until then, you cannot leave Chen Hap Sing.”

“I need to go out tonight. I need—”

“No!”

“Ba, I have to buy larvae for my fish. They need to eat every day.”

Percival was tempted to ask whether Dai Jai was planning to buy fish food from a pretty Annamese fellow student, but that didn’t seem so important now. “Someone might be outside, waiting to arrest you. I will send one of the servants for your larvae.”

Later that evening, Percival went out on the second-floor balcony where Dai Jai kept his tanks. The boy made no acknowledgement of his father’s appearance, but continued to skim the water clear with a flat net. Yes, for the boy to be so moody about staying in, it must have been a rendezvous with the girl. Ever since he was very small, Dai Jai had nurtured gouramis and goldfish, kissing fish and fighting fish. In recent years Dai Jai had renounced most of his childhood toys and games in favour of soccer with his friends, stolen cigarettes, and a French lingerie catalogue that one of the sweepers had found hidden in his room, and which Percival had directed be placed back exactly where it was found with nothing more to be said about it. The one fascination that persisted from boyhood was the fish.

Percival held out two lotus-leaf cones of live mosquito larvae in water. “For you, Son.” He had gone out himself to buy them, but did not say so. This was the hour that the casinos were becoming busy and filled with people he knew, but Percival had no urge to gamble tonight. He must stay close by, in case something happened.

Dai Jai took the cones with quiet thanks, and gently tore off a corner to let the fluid out. He began to pour the food into each tank. The fish darted amongst the water plants to take their meal. Dai Jai went from one tank to another, feeding the fish until the whole row of tanks was a shimmering display.

“How do you know the song ‘On Songhua River’?” asked Percival. Why would the boy know that old tune of the Chinese resistance against Japan’s occupation? It was not a modern melody.

“You often hum it.”

That was what Percival had thought. “What you did was foolish, but I appreciate the spirit in it.”

Dai Jai put down the net. “Father, you always say that wherever we Chinese go in the world, we must remain Chinese.” The words Percival had spoken many times now rang back in echo. Beneath the sky’s thick gloom, points of light appeared in the square below. The first lamps on the night vendors’ carts were being lit, their flames dancing and spitting briefly until they were trimmed into a steady light. People emerged from their houses, chatted happily and walked with new energy in the cool hour.

“Son, a man can think without acting, or act without being seen. A son should be dutiful. Not reckless.”

“Yes, Father.”

“We are wa kiu.” They were overseas Chinese, those who had wandered far from home. “We are safer when we remain quiet.” The lamps in the square glowed into brightness—one after another. It happened quickly, as if each lamp lit the next. Cholon was most alive, sparkling with energy, in the early evening. Dai Jai’s fish pierced the water’s surface and took the tiny larvae into their mouths, leaving behind rippled circles. “Until I have dealt with the problems you have caused, don’t leave the house anymore. Don’t go to the cinema or the market. Don’t go to the Teochow school. Don’t even attend school here. Be invisible.”

“Yes, Father.”

“If there are visitors from Saigon, hide yourself well, but stay in the house. You are safer here.” The old house had many dark hallways and secret nooks. It was the house that Chen Kai had built. It would be safe.




CHAPTER 3 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


AT THE CERCLE SPORTIF, HAN BAI pulled up in the circular drive fronting the club’s entrance, stopped the car beneath the frangipani, and went around to Percival’s door. The headmaster was not in the habit of waiting for his driver to attend to him, and in most places he would simply open the door himself and step out of the car. However, at the club, Han Bai knew that the headmaster waited for his driver.

Percival ascended the canopied stone steps, nodded to the bows of the doormen, went through the clubhouse, and out to the pavilion that looked over the tennis courts. Since their divorce eight years earlier, this was where he and Cecilia met to talk. The roof of the pavilion was draped with bougainvillea, which reminded Percival of Cecilia’s old family house in Hong Kong.

A waiter pulled out a chair, his jacket already dark in the armpits. At nine in the morning, one game of tennis was under way. The Saigonese and the few French who remained from the old days played before breakfast, but some Americans were foolish enough to play at this hour. Cecilia was on the court in a pleated white skirt, playing one of the surgeons from the U.S. Army Station Hospital in Saigon. She had always cursed the city’s climate, but now did most of her money-changing business with Americans so played tennis when they did. She displayed no feminine restraint as she lunged across the court to return a serve. The surgeon had his eye more on his opponent than the white ball, and Percival could not help feeling the familiar desire.

“For you, Headmaster Chen?” said the waiter.

“Lemonade.”

“Three glasses?”

“Two.”

How typical of Cecilia, to arrange a game of tennis with an attractive foreign man when she had asked Percival to meet her at the club. In reply, he stared in the other direction. There was no way to turn his ears from the players’ breathy grunts, quick steps, and the twang of the ball ringing across the lawn.

Cecilia had played tennis since she was a child in Hong Kong, years before Percival ever saw a racquet. Her name had been Sai Ming until she was registered by the nuns at St. Paul Academy as Cecilia, and thereafter eschewed her Chinese name. When they had been students, he at La Salle Academy, and she at its sister school, St. Paul, she once offered to teach Percival how to play. He was even more clumsy with a racquet than he was on the dance floor. Cecilia had laughed at his ineptness, and Percival declared tennis a game of the white devils.

Percival had come to Hong Kong in the autumn of 1940, just a few months after a fever had ravaged Shantou. During that contagion, Muy Fa became hot, then delirious. Despite the congee that he spooned between his mother’s cracked lips, and Dr. Yee’s cupping, coin-rubbing, and moxibustion, one morning Muy Fa lay cold and still on the kang. The years of his father’s absence had put coins in the family money box, but now the silver seemed cold and dead to Chen Pie Sou. It had paid for a doctor, but not saved his mother. There was no question of a Western-trained doctor or medicines, for the Japanese occupation of Guangdong province was two long years old. Chen Pie Sou sent both a telegram and a formal letter of mourning to his father in Indochina, and paid ten silver pieces for it to go by airplane. An exorbitant sum, but his mother deserved every honour. He was shocked to receive a brief telegram from Chen Kai indicating that business matters and the dangers of the war prevented him from returning to mourn in Shantou, that he would pray for his deceased wife in Cholon, and asking his son to go ahead with the burial rites, though sparing extravagance. Soon after the funeral, a letter from Chen Kai informed his son that he would be sent to Hong Kong for a British education. Chen Pie Sou wrote back dutifully, saying nothing of his anger at his father’s failure to return, nor his disappointment at not being asked to join him. As most of the family’s cash savings was used for the funeral, Chen Kai made arrangements through a Shantou money trader for a sum of Qing silver coins to be provided for his son’s needs in Hong Kong. A forged French laissez-passer was smuggled to him, along with a letter of registration from La Salle Academy. These documents would allow Chen Pie Sou to leave the Japanese-controlled territory and enter Hong Kong for his studies.

Intending to dislike Hong Kong on account of the way he was sent there, Chen Pie Sou soon began to think that it was not so bad. The priests and nuns gave him a new name, Percival. People in the colony lived in an energetic jumble one on top of another, the streets filled with constant shouting and scrambling to buy and sell. The tall apartment buildings, he was told, were a Western invention. Afraid to live in such a towering structure of dubious origins, Percival took a tiny neat room in an old rooming house owned by a Cantonese woman, Mrs. Au. At first, it was frightening for him to be in the streets, to see the ghostly white British masters who rolled past in carriages that sputtered along without horses, or to be confronted at a street corner by the terrifying beard of a Sikh policeman. What weapons might they carry in their gigantic turbans if they wore curved knives on their belts? However, the tumult was soon energizing. From the street vendors, Percival bought dishes that he had never known existed. At La Salle, English came easily to him. Why did some boys complain that it was difficult, when there were only twenty-six letters? Percival was soon tutoring slower classmates and had a few extra coins for the cinema. And the girls! They were a different species than those in Shantou.

By the time Percival became captivated by the perfect arc of Cecilia’s neck, and by the slight pout which rested naturally upon her lips, she was already going out of her way to defy the introductions that her mother, Sai Tai, coordinated. Wealthy Hong Kong society offered its suitors by the handful to the heiress of the colony’s biggest Chinese-owned shipping fleet. One after another, Cecilia declared them unsuitable. One boy had bad skin, another was too pretty. One did not have enough money, and another bragged tiresomely about his family’s wealth. Also, she complained, that last one drove his car too slowly.

Percival heard all this by eavesdropping on Cecilia’s gossip with her girlfriends. He didn’t stand a chance, he concluded, but that didn’t keep his thoughts from being frequently invaded by Cecilia. She was unlike any girl he had ever encountered. She used none of the suppressed giggles or blushing avoidance of other girls her age. Cecilia entered movie theatres alone, people whispered. She was spotted at the betting window of the Happy Valley racetrack. She made wagers on new, unknown horses and won. Some of the less affluent students at St. Paul tut-tutted that Cecilia’s behaviour was disgraceful, and whispered with smug reproach that great wealth did not buy proper behaviour. Boys either found her strangely threatening or desired her with intensity, as Percival did.

Once, when he was trailing her longingly, she turned suddenly and stared straight at him. She fixed his eyes immediately. How could he have known, at that naive age, that these were the eyes of a cat who had found its mouse? He became hot, flushed. She was ivory-skinned perfection, her lips pursed. Then she tilted her nose up slightly and turned slowly away, so that Percival tortured himself for days afterwards, trying to decide whether she had been amused or offended by his interest.

At Christmas, the chaperoned school dance for the girls of St. Paul and the boys of La Salle was held in a respectable banquet hall on Queen’s Road. As the band began to play the easy three-beat rhythm of a waltz under the watchful eyes of the priests and nuns, Percival finally managed to summon the courage to approach Cecilia, resplendent in a peony-patterned gown. He crossed the now vast dance floor and managed to get out the words he had rehearsed. “I am Chen Pie Sou, will you dance with me?”

“Didn’t the priests give you an English name?” she replied. After a moment, she rescued him from his stunned inability to speak. She said, “Percival, isn’t it?” She lifted his chin with a fingertip, the shock of her touch coursing through to his toes. Before he could say anything else, she had his hands and was leading him gaily in the waltz. When the dance was finished, he felt both abandoned and relieved to watch her flit into the distance again. After that, Percival could think only of Cecilia. Her image threatened to crowd out his studies. In front of his desk, he tacked up the letters from his father, formulaic correspondence exhorting him to study. Percival’s dreams of Cecilia fulfilled him during sleep, and shamed him when he woke, his underwear stained.

The remittances from Chen Kai had been enough to make Muy Fa and Chen Pie Sou wealthy in Shantou, but once he went to Hong Kong and became Percival, he heard the snickers of his more cosmopolitan classmates. Percival had two school uniforms, which he washed by hand and hung to dry in the tiny room he had rented. His father had written shortly after his arrival in Hong Kong, warning that he must make the small sum of silver last through the school year. That was a surprise, but Percival had not complained. The suitors whom Cecilia had already rejected were heirs to property, and wore uniforms carefully pressed by their servants, but for some reason Cecilia began to seek out the boy from Shantou. She would sit with him at lunch. When he offered to walk her home, saying he was going in the same direction, though this was an obvious lie, she accepted.

They went to the movies, and held hands. Percival worried that someone might see them, but Cecilia conspicuously rested her head on his shoulder. She took her family’s Austin Seven and taught him to drive on the twisting lanes of Victoria Peak, urging him to go faster despite the absence of guardrails. Sitting high above Hong Kong’s craggy coast, they watched the Peak Tram shunt forever up and down.

Cecilia said one day, “Can you keep a secret?”

“Anything.”

“I will see the world. Soon, I will sail abroad. I will meet famous people in important places.”

Percival dared not betray his ignorance by asking exactly where these places or whom these people were. He said, “Yes, you can go anywhere. Your family’s ships can take you.” One of their coal barges was cutting slowly across the bay beneath their feet.

“You are silly,” she said, but added kindly, “and sweet. My family’s ships only sail the South China Sea. I think I will sail on one of the Messageries Maritimes steamers—those are the most handsome. The suites have silk drapes.”

“Maybe I will—” he stopped to unstick the words from his throat, “go with you.”

Without a word, she took his hands in hers, as one might console a child. From then on, whenever they sat up high on the Peak, Cecilia told Percival of the places she would visit—Westminster Abbey, the Louvre, the Grand Canyon. Her family owned books, she said, with photographic plates of all these wonders. While she talked, with her eyes on the water, Kowloon beyond, she allowed him to touch her. He stroked her palms, kissed the backs of her hands, massaged her fingers. He explored her perfect forearms. Percival heard his own breath, heavy, as she asked him if he knew of this monument or that museum. In a damp sea wind, he brushed the goosebumps that rose on her skin. Cecilia allowed him to be as passionate as he liked, but stopped him at the elbow.

As a young man of half-decent though backwater origins, Percival was occasionally invited to the same banquets as Cecilia, mostly to occupy an odd single seat at one of the banquet tables. Cecilia never bothered about where she was supposed to be seated, and seemed to enjoy making a minor fuss disrupting the arrangements and sitting next to Percival instead. As pleased as he was by Cecilia’s attention, Percival could always feel the wave of Sai Tai’s anger pulsing at him from across the room. Cecilia’s satisfaction was just as palpable. It was disrespectful to snub an elder, but Percival’s wish to please Cecilia was stronger than his desire to uphold decorum, and besides, Percival told himself, it was Cecilia who was angering her mother. While the quiet of their time alone was what he longed for, Cecilia seemed to relish being in public, flaunting her unsuitable paramour, so much so that it seemed to Percival that she almost forgot him in her efforts to display him. She never introduced Percival to her mother.

In the autumn of 1941, a schoolmate of Percival’s asked him if the rumours were true. Cecilia, the friend said excitedly, had revealed in strictest confidence to a number of friends that she might marry the poor country boy Percival. It was the talk of the school. She and Percival had never discussed marriage. Percival assumed an offended air and told his chum that no gentleman would answer such an indiscreet question. He did not mention the rumour of their impending marriage to Cecilia. He was both afraid to open himself to her mockery, and worried that trying to clarify this rumour might cause its tantalizing possibility to vanish.

AS HE SIPPED HIS LEMONADE, PERCIVAL watched now as Cecilia served the ball to the American surgeon. A flick of her wrist, and the ball spun. Sure enough, her gangly opponent was caught off guard on the bounce. She called out, “Fifteen … love,” to the American, but as she turned she shot her triumphant glance at Percival. Of course, he realized with annoyance at himself, as usual he’d been unable to resist looking at her.

The Japanese invaded Hong Kong in December 1941, and by overrunning it in eighteen days demonstrated that it was not the impregnable fortress that the British had promised. Some La Salle students volunteered as orderlies at St. Stephen’s Hospital, and only one returned. He told Percival that the Japanese had shot the doctors, tortured the patients, violated the nurses, and burned the hospital down. The school Christmas dance was cancelled, and the British surrendered on Christmas Day. Though some of Percival’s friends asked him to join them when they stole into the hills to fight with the Gangjiu resistance, Percival stayed in his room, grateful that his landlady had such heavy furniture with which to barricade the door. All the tenants were hungry and sleepless, for around the clock the shots of executions punctuated the wailing of the girls and women being raped.

When the noise of violence had exhausted itself after a few days, Percival ventured out to try to find some food. White, yellow, and brown soldiers of the British Army swung from the lampposts, their bodies already swollen, discoloured. Those who still lived were being marched away barefoot by the Japanese, many of whom now wore good English boots. For the first time ever, Percival knocked on the door of Sai Tai’s grand garden house on Des Voeux Road. He didn’t know what he would say, but he wanted to see Cecilia, to know that she was safe. In reply to his knock, there was only terrible silence. Finally, a neighbour appeared, implored him to stop banging lest it attract the attention of the Japanese, and informed him that Madame Sai and her daughter had gone. They had abandoned their house for a rented apartment on the sixth floor of a plain building. Sai Tai, the neighbour said, hoped that after climbing so many stairs, a Japanese soldier would not have the energy to violate her daughter. The neighbour did not know the address of the apartment where they had fled.

La Salle and St. Paul were both commandeered by the Japanese, so there were no more classes to attend. The Kempeitai, military police, arrested and punished suspected members of the Gangjiu with great efficiency, the flash of a sword by the side of the street. Bystanders were commanded to watch. The head was speared on a fencepost, if convenient. Hunger, both of people and beasts, made the days long. One day, as he searched for a shop that had food to sell, Percival saw a pack of dogs ripping with mad pleasure a hunk of meat, perhaps a piece of dead horse or donkey? Normally, he would not think of eating such meat. Now, he wondered how he could distract the dogs or scare them off long enough to grab it. Then he saw the man’s body several feet away, clothes ripped open, the stump of neck. The head was nowhere in sight, other dogs must have carried it off already. Sai Tai’s handsome garden house was soon taken over by General Takashi, so it was best that it was empty when he came to seize it.

Percival was lucky that he still had a few of the silver coins his father had provided, and with these he barely managed to feed himself. In late spring, as deaths from starvation became common, the Japanese declared that those with foreign papers could apply for exit permits. Percival had the French laissez-passer he’d used to enter Hong Kong. He learned that the freighter Asama Maru would sail for Saigon in two weeks, and some said that things were better in Indochina. Percival used the last of the Qing coins to pay the bribe for an exit permit, and to purchase a ticket on the boat. All he had left was the family charm, the reassuring lump around his neck, which he was careful to keep out of sight lest he be killed for it by a Kempeitai. Down by the docks, Percival recognized a number of Cecilia’s family’s ships, which had been seized by the Imperial Navy. They were being repainted in military grey and branded with the Rising Sun insignia. Percival had not seen Cecilia since the invasion. He thought about her often, but Sai Tai was keeping her well hidden.

A week before Percival’s ship was due to sail, a woman in peasant dress approached Percival on the street. Sai Tai had sent her maid to summon him. The next day Percival found the apartment building, climbed the stairs, and at the precise time he had been commanded to appear knocked on a green wooden door. The door swung open. Percival was startled to see Cecilia’s mother rather than her servant standing before him. She wore a formal silk robe that was incongruous with the modest apartment.

“You are …?” she asked, as if she did not know. As if she had not summoned him. The matriarch fixed him with her narrow eyes, dared him to speak. He was frozen, as terrified as if she were a Japanese officer.

“Is something wrong with your legs?” she said. “Come in. Close the door.”

Percival did as instructed.

Sai Tai glided across the room, her feet hidden by generous silk folds. She came to a rosewood chair, its wood so dark that the chair emerged from shadow only when she lowered herself regally into its arms. Percival followed meekly, unsure how close to approach, erring on the side of being a little far away.

“Are you a mute?” she said. “Introduce yourself.”

“I am called Chen Pie Sou,” said Percival, guessing that she cared more about his Chinese name. “It is a great honour to meet you, madam.” He stepped forward and bowed his head.

“I wish I could say the same.” She sat intensely straight, as if sitting in such company required immense effort. “Understand that I wanted my daughter to marry someone suitable to her family’s stature.”

“Naturally, madam.”

“My maid tells me your family is in the rice trade.”

“Yes, madam.”

“However, I have never done business with them. They must not be very important.” As she leaned forward, her jade bracelets clicked against the arms of the chair.

“I’m sure you are correct, madam,” said Percival.

“But people always need rice. At least you are not completely worthless.”

“We have a house in Indochina, which my father built. It is—”

“Your family has a house?” she barked. “You think this is worth mentioning? Then you are very nearly worthless.”

“Yes, madam.” Percival went down on one knee, his heart pounding, and imagined his head being lopped off.

“Get up!” He reminded himself that it was Japanese soldiers who decapitated their prisoners. Wealthy old women with jade-heavy arms were not known to do this. “Is my daughter running around with a totally spineless wretch?” Percival scrambled to his feet. “You are not bad-looking,” she said.

“Thank you, madam.”

“Good-looking men are indiscreet. They cannot be trusted.”

“Yes, madam.”

“So you agree. You are not trustworthy?”

“Not at all. I mean, no. I don’t agree. No, no, in fact, I am not very good-looking. That’s what I mean.”

Sai Tai sat back a little. “At least you make an effort to show some respect. Unlike my daughter. I am told that you have a French laissez-passer and an exit permit from Hong Kong. I’ve heard you have a cabin on the Asama Maru, and will soon be leaving for your home in Indochina?”

“Yes, madam.” He could barely utter these words, never mind being able to clarify matters. It made no difference, he thought, that he had never been to Indochina. His papers said that he was a resident of that country.

“I am told that the French and the Japanese have some kind of deal, that it dampens the bestial behaviour of the Japanese in Indochina. They say this year’s rice crop was good in Annam, and no one goes hungry, despite the Japanese occupation. Is this true?”

“I have heard the same,” he said.

“Your household must have stores of rice?” Only then, he noticed that her cheeks were less haughty than he had seen them before, perhaps a little hollow? Did even Sai Tai, he wondered, feel the hunger of the occupation? “You have the means to care for my daughter?”

Years before, along with peppercorns, cinnamon, nutmeg, and brandy, Chen Kai had brought with him on a visit to Shantou a photo of the house he had built in Cholon. It was six storefronts wide, and three floors high. Within, Chen Kai explained, were high-ceilinged warehouse rooms for fresh paddy and threshed rice. There was no building so spacious and grand in Shantou, he declared. Chen Pie Sou had resented his father’s taking of a second wife. Muy Fa had stared at the photo of Ba Hai in front of the house, and criticized the building’s extravagant size, saying nothing of her husband’s Annamese wife. Ba Hai was a small-boned, dark-skinned foreigner wearing Chinese clothes in the photo. As a boy, Chen Pie Sou swallowed his question; why, if his father had found enough gold to build a house like that and take a second wife, had he not returned to Shantou? But now, confronted by Sai Tai’s questions, Percival was glad to think that even Cecilia would admit that his family house was a decent size. “Yes,” he said, with a small burst of confidence. “My family has ample means to care for your daughter. Our house is large. Our warehouses are full of rice.” This last must be true, he reasoned, as his father was a rice trader.

“Then take my daughter with you to Indochina. Better that she escape with you, though almost worthless, than stay here and be devoured by Japanese dogs. Remember, I am choosing you as an option preferable to dogs. Come tomorrow at the same time for your wedding.” She waved him off, not moving from her carved chair.

Trembling, he backed away in stumbling bows, and fled down the stairs. That was how the couple became engaged. Cecilia’s mother did not offer her daughter’s hand. She commanded Percival to take it. As he left the apartment, Percival rejoiced at his good fortune—that the very rubble and stink that he was picking his way through had led to his engagement with the girl he longed for. The next day, they were married in the sixth-floor apartment by one of the La Salle priests who had somehow survived the Japanese invasion. Cecilia wore the cheongsam in which Sai Tai had once been married, and glared at her mother through the whole ceremony.

A few days later, standing on the deck of the Asama Maru in formal dress, the newlywed couple waved goodbye to Sai Tai, who sat in a canopied rickshaw on the dock. As Hong Kong retreated across the choppy water, Cecilia said, “I dreamt of Paris, or London, but I have married a country bumpkin who is dragging me into the Indochina mud.”

“But you spread the rumour that we wished to marry—”

“Were you stupid enough to believe that I would actually want to marry you?” She whirled away from him. “I fooled with you precisely because it was inconceivable that I could ever marry so beneath me. I did it to keep my mother’s suitors away. If it wasn’t for the war, she would have agreed by now to send me to England or America—in order to get me away from you!” She stalked towards the companionway, and shouted across the deck, “Now see what I’m stuck with!” She disappeared below. Percival looked around, saw the other passengers turn away.

As they reached open water, Percival clenched the rail at the edge of the deck, fighting down a sick feeling. The shallow-bottomed freighter began to roll. Had Sai Tai plotted a double victory, calling Cecilia’s bluff and forcing the marriage to show her control of her daughter as well as send her to safety? He stood, unbalanced by the sea, as flecks of black soot drifted from the smoky stack and ruined his one decent white suit.

When Percival made his way unsteadily down below deck, lurching against the growing motion of the boat, he did not know what he would say or do. He appeared in the doorway of their cabin. He spoke from instinct. “Cecilia, we’re married now.”

“Look at your suit. What a mess.”

“Isn’t there something special between us? What about when we were up at the Peak, holding hands and talking.”

“A worthless muddy peasant covered in soot.”

He closed the door, walked up to her, took her shoulders, and pressed his mouth to hers. In the Western films they had seen together, this was what the man did when the woman was upset, and then the beautiful starlet would melt into the man’s embrace. He wasn’t sure what to do with his lips or tongue, but he tried to scoop her towards him with his arms. Cecilia bit his lip, hard. When he pulled back she laughed, “You coward, can’t even stand up to your wife?” He touched his lip, tasted the salt, looked at his red fingertips. She said, “Is that what you call a kiss? It’s like kissing a block of wood.” Percival rushed upon Cecilia, they fell to the floor of the cabin with a lurch of the boat, and Percival forced his hands up her blouse. She struck him with her fists, landed punches on his sides. His lip bled freely, he kissed her through her angry insults, smeared her face red with his blood. Until his jacket was off, trousers, and then her blouse, and now they both struggled from their clothing until they began to move together rather than apart.

Afterwards, he rolled on his back, his sex a wet snail curled up on itself, sated and guilty. What should he say? He felt like crying, but a man must never cry. Had he hurt her? But a husband did not apologize to his wife. The ocean slapped the boat over and over. After a long time listening to the water meeting the hull, he said with regret, “Now that it’s done, it’s not what I thought.”

She turned on her side. Naked, she was more perfectly beautiful and terrifying than he had ever imagined—ivory skin and smooth curves. She said, “It’s not for thinking, then. And you’re not done.” She put her hand between his legs.

The second time, Cecilia straddled his hips and reached down to put him inside her, began to move. Once she was satisfied she draped herself over him like a sleepy cat. Percival was grateful for this quiet space which did not require words. Could this peace contain them, however they had arrived here? Tears welled, streamed down his face. He said, “I may not be what you wanted, but I love you.” The words were exposed, vulnerable on his lips.

Cecilia had an expression he had never seen before. For a moment she was unsure. Then, her face solidified. He couldn’t tell if she had taken a decision or simply defaulted to something in the face of confusion. “Well,” she said, “it seems even a peasant is good for the animal things,” and climbed off him, began to dress. A steaming, humiliated anger clouded Percival’s image of Cecilia. His wife stared at him, defiant, as if demanding that he strike the first blow if he wished to break her shell. He stood, put on his clothes, and went out into the salt spray of the evening.

Cecilia stayed in the cabin for most of the journey to Saigon. Percival spent the time pacing the deck. On occasion, Cecilia would appear there and summon him by saying, “There’s something I need from you.” Or she might say, “You’re still here? I thought you had fallen overboard.” He would take her wrist and pull her down to their cabin, the other passengers whispering after them.

Sometimes, he would go below deck telling himself that if only he persisted with tenderness, the peace that came after sex might last. On other occasions, at a snickering glance from a fellow passenger, he’d decide in frustration that he had marital privileges to exercise and storm downstairs. Sometimes, Cecilia led as she had on the dance floor, told him to move his hand or his tongue in a particular way, to go faster or slower. Other times, she alternated between beating him and caressing him. Whether she initiated it or he did, whether he went hoping for peace or to assert himself, their sex often opened a door to a truce, which Cecilia then closed with a torrent of insults.

As the tugboat pulled the Asama Maru up the dull brown thread of the Saigon River, Percival and Cecilia stood on the deck of the freighter, watching the dense tropical foliage drift past, listening to the strange, raucous welcome of the jungle birds. He had been twelve years old when he had last seen his father, on Chen Kai’s visit to Shantou five years earlier. Now, he was married, and would meet his father again as a man. On that trip in 1937, Chen Kai had promised Muy Fa that the next time he returned to China it would be to stay. He had almost enough gold, he told her. Chen Kai did not say whether he would bring Ba Hai to China, and his son silently hoped that the Annamese woman would stay in the Gold Mountain country. Then, just months after Chen Kai had returned to Indochina, the Japanese had occupied Guangdong province. By 1939, they were in Indochina as well. The birds screeched around them, and Percival realized with surprise that there was no mountain here, golden or otherwise. Small local fishing boats with bright-painted eyes on their prows returned his suspicious gaze.

A bored moustached Frenchman glanced at their permits and Percival’s forged laissez-passer, and waved them down the gangplank. Saigon was an awkward jumble of European facades sprawled across a mud flat. Before they were off the gangplank a cyclo driver seized their luggage. He saw that Percival and Cecilia were Chinese and offered to take them to Cholon. Bumping along in the cyclo, which swerved erratically to avoid expansive mud puddles, they left Saigon on the road to Cholon.

Cecilia said, “A wretched hole.”

Percival replied, “There are fewer Japanese here.” Whether it was the collaboration of the French administration, or had something to do with the oppressive heat, the Japanese soldiers they saw seemed slower moving, more calm, than the ravenous troops in Hong Kong.

Upon arrival, despite having seen photos, Percival was surprised at the size of Chen Kai’s house looming over him. Was this it? The red-painted sign announced, “Chen Hap Sing,” the Chen Trade Company. Surely his father must have collected enough gold to return to China if he had built a house like this? Percival knocked on the door and told the servant who he was. The servant vanished inside. Shortly after, it was Ba Hai who appeared in the doorway. In person, she looked even smaller. After Percival introduced himself and Cecilia, Ba Hai stared at them through a long silence in which it was impossible to say whether she was more shocked or angry at their arrival.

She said to Percival, “You must call me ma and treat me with the same respect as you would your mother.” Ba Hai spoke the Teochow dialect, but in a way he had never heard, with the accent of her native Annamese tongue. She turned to Cecilia. “You may be young and beautiful, but if you forget that I am the first woman of this house, I will scratch out those pretty eyes of yours.” With that, she told a houseboy to take Percival to see his father, turned, and disappeared.

The houseboy led Percival up the stairs to the building’s family quarters. The servant opened a door, and Percival peered into the high-ceilinged room. It was well proportioned, the windows tall but shuttered against the daylight. There was a smoky, sweet-scented gloom. Percival recognized the source of the smoke. Some of the old men in his Hong Kong rooming house had been devotees. Why was the houseboy showing him this room? Where was Chen Kai? Then Percival saw that against the far wall, slumped on an ornate bed, was a skeletal figure who wore only a cloth around his middle and whose ribs heaved mightily as he sucked on a pipe of opium.




CHAPTER 4 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


THE SOUNDS OF TENNIS HAD STOPPED. Percival looked up from his lemonade to see Cecilia at his table, her opponent’s hairy arm around her waist.

“The Viet Cong are keeping your knives bloody, Doctor?” Percival could not recall the surgeon’s name. If he had remembered, he would have pretended not to.

“Nah. Disposable scalpels. Always clean—at the start of the case, anyhow. Pleiku is hot this week. Choppers bring them every morning. Kids, right? Fresh off the plane, all blown to bits, calling for momma.”

“Then you fix them?” said Percival.

“Humpty dumpty,” the doctor snorted. “The Cong bury these little jumpers. Charge pops up so high and blows the kid’s balls off. Cuts off his legs, too. See, I figure they intended it to rip out a soldier’s chest, but the yellow soldier is so much shorter, they calibrated it wrong.” He laughed and looked to Cecilia, who smiled obligingly. How did she put up with the smell of white men’s sweat, Percival wondered. It stank like river oxen.

Cecilia noticed the two glasses. She caught the eye of the waiter, gestured to bring another.

“Don’t worry about me, honey. You’ve got a business deal to discuss, right? I’ve got to go.” He bent for a peck on the cheek from Cecilia, but she found his lips with hers, made a show of the kiss. Percival drank his lemonade.

“Wow,” the surgeon winked at Percival, “a country worth fighting for.”

“Bye, love,” she called sweetly as he left. Cecilia sat and drank a whole glass of lemonade. Her chest still heaved from the effort of the game.

“A new business partner?” Percival asked in Cantonese. “Or a friend?”

“Everything is business,” she said.

“It’s like that with you, isn’t it?”

She leaned forward. “Dai Jai must leave Vietnam immediately. The mood in Saigon is sour. I heard of one officer in the Rangers who turned in his brother to the quiet police.”

“A suspected communist?”

“Supposedly. Or a family feud. But there’s no time to waste, Dai Jai is in danger.”

“How did you hear of his problem so quickly?”

“His problem? Your problem. I’m sure this is your fault, always blabbering on about China. For all the times you talked about returning there, if only once you had actually gone!”

“I tell Dai Jai to marry Chinese, but I should remember to advise him that his wife must also be Chinese inside, unlike his mother.”

She laughed. “Is that supposed to be some kind of insult? Pathetic.”

“It is from his mother,” said Percival evenly, “that Dai Jai learned to speak before thinking.”

“His mother thinks about surviving and advancing in this world. As for defying some trivial new rule from Saigon, from whom else but you could Dai Jai get such a nonsensical idea?” She signalled for another lemonade. “Anyhow, when you already teach Chinese students English, why should you oppose teaching them Vietnamese?”

“It’s different. English is profitable,” said Percival. “We may not have to teach Vietnamese anyway. As you know better than anyone, the right contacts can change any Saigon policy. Mak is making inquiries.”

“Mak, always Mak. It’s good Mak has replaced your brain, as your own was always so lacking.” She switched to English. “Listen to me. I don’t give a shit about your school. Think about your son.” Then back to Cantonese. “We must send Dai Jai to Europe or America, before he is taken from us. I will arrange it.” She drained her glass. Percival watched the beautiful line of her throat undulating as she swallowed. He had loved kissing her there.

“Did you rehearse that vulgar English expression just for me? You would send him to a place full of foreigners?” he said.

“You would say he is a foreigner here.”

“Of course he is. But why should he leave, when I am well connected in Vietnam? I’ll protect him. Anyhow, if he goes anywhere, it should be to China.”

Cecilia laughed. “You are so predictable, both in what you say and what you fail to do. If you really wanted to go home to China, you would have gone by now.”

“I stayed for you.”

In 1945, after the Japanese surrender, people were moving in every direction. Cecilia had challenged Percival to do what he said he wanted, to return to China. She would not go. He was still in love with her then, hopeful that things would work out between them. He stayed. When he was eager to return in 1949, to cheer Mao’s unification of the country, Cecilia became pregnant with Dai Jai and there was no question of travel. They had waited a long time for a child, had thought themselves barren. Then came the school, and with it the money and its enjoyable uses. By the time of their divorce in 1958, Percival, like many other Cholon businessmen, was regularly sending money home to help the Great Leap Forward but knew that to enjoy his own profits he must remain outside of China. Already, by then, it was important to keep such remittances secret, for China had made its full transition from being an ally in the defeat of Japan and fascism, to being a communist threat to America and the free world.

“Bullshit,” she replied. “Tell you what—you keep the Saigon dogs from getting near our son. I will speak to my friends about sending him abroad. These days, there are ways to send people to America—for studies, for technical exchanges.”

“I will make this little issue vanish. My contacts can easily do it.”

“Don’t be so sure. Besides, you mean Mak’s contacts, your money.”

Percival swirled the ice in his glass, rattled the hard, cold cubes.

“Good day, hou jeung.” She called him headmaster the same way she had once called him a country bumpkin, and walked away swinging her racquet.

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, HAN BAI DROVE Percival into La Place de la Libération. From across the square, Percival saw a dark Galaxie parked in front of Chen Hap Sing. Two men leaned against the hood.

“Han Bai,” said Percival, “go the back way.” The driver swung the car around, like a great white whale in a sea of cyclo wheels, feet, and vendors’ pushcarts. They turned off from the square and went around through the narrow lanes under the tamarind trees and the long, flapping flags of laundry to reach Chen Hap Sing. Percival told Han Bai to stay in the car in case they needed to slip away with Dai Jai in the trunk.

Percival crept in the kitchen entrance, surprised the cook and the cook’s boy, who had begun to prepare dinner. He asked where Dai Jai was, and they shrugged. How could he have been so stupid to stay in Saigon all day without having someone watch Dai Jai? He had forbidden his son to leave the house, but he should have asked Foong Jie to keep an eye on the boy. The headmaster passed through the central hallway, and from the classrooms he could hear the voices of teachers and students. He went up the stairs to Dai Jai’s second-floor bedroom, calling out to him. But the boy was not in his room. He peeked down through the slanted shutters to confirm his fears. It was the same two men who had visited Chen Hap Sing the previous morning. They leaned back against the hood looking bored, large sunglasses perched on small flat noses. Was his son in another room? Perhaps Dai Jai had noticed the car and hidden himself? Percival crept from room to room through the family quarters, aching for Dai Jai, checking behind furniture, whispering his name. He said a hurried prayer at the ancestral altar. At each window, he peeked out. They were still there. The dark car must have been parked there for some time, as several vendors had settled comfortably into their trade around it.

Finally, Percival went up to his own third-floor bedroom and looked out into the street again. He tried to convince himself that there were any number of reasons, having nothing to do with his son, why these men might have returned to Cholon. Besides, if they had come to make an arrest, why did they sit outside? Unless, he thought with a chill, they had already checked for Dai Jai, knew he was not in the building, and were waiting for him to return.

This was all Cecilia’s fault. Had she not made him both angry and lustful, Percival would not have called Mrs. Ling from the lobby phone at the Cercle Sportif. Had he not called, he would not have discovered that, yes, Mrs. Ling did know a lovely girl, a dark Malay beauty newly arrived from Singapore, who was free that afternoon and could use a few extra piastres. Without this temptation, Percival would have returned directly to Cholon instead of going to one of Mrs. Ling’s discreet apartments. Were it not for Cecilia, he would have been home earlier, perhaps would have seen the dark car pull up, and could have made sure Dai Jai escaped or was safely hidden away. If he had been here, thought Percival, Dai Jai would not have dared disobey his father’s strict orders not to leave the house.

The older man stood up from the black car and had a long stretch. He paced. The younger man lit a cigarette for each of them. They were willing to wait. Below him, on the ground floor, Percival heard the school bell ring. There was the commotion of the students beginning to leave. Ah, thought Percival with relief, the quiet police were waiting for school to let out to make their arrest. It could be any one of his students they were after. Even if they wanted Dai Jai, he would not be coming out with the bell. Perhaps they would grow impatient and leave. The older one yawned. Percival gripped the window ledge, peered out from his shutters, willing them to go.

As the first students appeared below him, Percival surveyed the square. At some distance, a boy and a girl walked towards Chen Hap Sing. He glimpsed them through a row of flame trees, which were in full, extravagant bloom. Through their branches, he couldn’t be sure. He stared. Did his eyes trick him? The boy’s gait was Dai Jai’s. Were the men from Saigon looking in that direction? Perhaps they were drawn to the slim silhouette of the girl.

Percival ran out of his room, down the stairs two at a time. He pushed his way through the jostling, high-spirited students, shoved himself towards the door. Perhaps the quiet police would not recognize Dai Jai, and his son would slip back into Chen Hap Sing unnoticed. When the students saw it was Headmaster Chen, they hurried aside. Down the hall, now almost at the front door. He would distract the two men from Saigon. He did not know how. On their previous visit, they had not wanted money. He must somehow get their attention, perhaps anger them, even if that meant getting himself arrested. He hoped he was mistaken, and it was not Dai Jai whom he had seen from his window.

Percival burst out the front door. It was his son, standing alone. The girl had fled. Dai Jai was within shouting distance, but what should he call out? The men from Saigon were no longer by the car. Percival panted, out of breath. Students streamed around him, out into their afternoon, their freedom. Dai Jai stared at the quiet police, frozen in place, as they walked briskly towards him. The boy held a lotus-leaf cone suspended by a string. He had gone out to buy food for his fish, and to see his girlfriend. The men cut a direct line through the chaotic foot traffic. Percival’s instinct was to yell at his son to run, but no words came. Dai Jai did not run. He was probably correct not to, Percival realized. Now that they had spotted him, it would not help.

Percival fought for calm, for confidence, which was always the best place to start, but he had difficulty finding it. He waited by the Galaxie, chest pounding, as the two men returned to the car with Dai Jai. Each of them gripped one arm. Percival struggled to summon an air of authority as he said in Vietnamese, “What’s the problem? I’m Headmaster Percival Chen. This is my student.”

“Don’t worry, ba,” said Dai Jai in Teochow, shaking his arms as if it would cause the men to release him.

“Speak so we can understand you,” said the older one, using his free hand to slap Dai Jai in the back of the head.

Percival found words in Vietnamese. “Brothers, you must be so tired. It is late in the day. Thank you for bringing him back. He should have been in class.” He put a firm hand on Dai Jai’s shoulder, relieved to touch him. “Dai Jai, go inside.” The younger man from Saigon wrenched Dai Jai away towards the car. As if it were a daily occurrence for students to be arrested in front of the school, Percival said, “Big brothers, thank you for returning him. I will take charge of this disobedient student.”

The younger man said to his colleague, “This headmaster thinks we are truant officers.”

The older one said, “Or he is playing dumb.”

Dai Jai said in Vietnamese, “Let go of me.”

The younger one twisted Dai Jai’s arm behind him. The older one slapped Dai Jai hard in the face. “Stupid Chinese,” he said. He waved Percival off with a backhanded gesture.

“Big brothers, there has been some mistake, a misunderstanding,” said Percival, all assurance gone from his voice. “Perhaps some additional … paperwork will help. I might have some red packets inside, also green paper. Let’s go into the school, big brothers.” The lotus-leaf cone dangled from Dai Jai’s fingers. Percival looked around, as if assistance might be nearby. The vendors watched with some curiosity. There was the one-eyed monk, begging for alms.

“Just like a Chinese. You think that money buys everything. I don’t think so.” The older man from Saigon retrieved a single-page document from a manila envelope. He squinted. It was not clear whether he was reading or if this was simply a gesture. “These arrest papers are from the Political Security Section. That section has no interest in your green paper.”

Percival saw the gold chain peeking out from under Dai Jai’s shirt, thought of the charm hidden within. He hoped it would not be snatched from the boy’s neck by these men, prayed to the ancestors’ spirits that their powers and those of the family charm would keep his son safe. He had clasped it around Dai Jai when he was a small boy, the night before he was to attend the Teochow Clan School for the first time. He had sat on the edge of Dai Jai’s bed and told him the same stories that Chen Kai had once offered, of the distant ancestor bringing the charm from abroad, of its protective power. Now he trusted, he had to trust, that the charm could somehow keep the wearer safe even if arrested by the quiet police. But he must not succumb so easily—perhaps there was still something to say. Percival tried to muster some bravado. “Ah, the political section. The new advisor to the education minister is busy, yes? I know Colonel Thuc well. An old friend, a childhood friend.” His voice trailed off. Percival thought of the photo in Mr. Tu’s office, of a man he had never met. In any case, Mak would know how to get to him.

“Unlikely. He is from Quang Ngai.”

“Long live Prime Minister Ky, who will vanquish the communist terrorists,” offered Percival desperately. “Listen, big brothers, I know all about yesterday’s unfortunate incident at the Teochow School. Is that the problem?”

“So you know all about it,” said the older one.

“Yes.”

“You know more than we do?” said the younger one. “Is that what you’re saying, hou jeung?”

Suddenly, Dai Jai burst out in Cantonese, “I’m sorry for causing trouble.” His voice was high, his eyes wet. “I was only trying to show you my patriotism.”

These words burned. Percival did not meet Dai Jai’s eyes or give any sign he had heard him. His smile was frozen, insistent. “Mr. Tu is my good friend at the Ministry of Education. I will call him. Leave the boy here. Tomorrow Mr. Tu can answer any question that you might have. We’ll all sit down and talk about it then.”

The younger one said, “This matter doesn’t concern education or Mr. Tu, Headmaster. Besides, school is over for the day. If you were simply this boy’s teacher, why would you tell him to go inside? You are his father. You think we don’t remember that the two of you were having breakfast yesterday on your balcony? Don’t play us for stupid.”

“Never, big brothers.” Percival felt a painful strain in his face. “Please leave him with me. I will bring him myself to Saigon tomorrow. We will all sit sensibly and work out an arrangement. Tonight, think about what you would like. You know a father will do anything for his son.”

“Ah,” said the older one. “You could both be in Cambodia by tomorrow. A day changes so much, doesn’t it? This arrest warrant states that Dai Jai is a dissident, and if your son is a dissident, you are right to be concerned.” He brandished the paper under Percival’s nose.

“A stupid gesture,” said Percival, “an immature demonstration.”

“Indeed.”

Mrs. Ling’s Malay girl had a spicy fragrance that Percival had lingered to enjoy a second time. The first time he had been too quick, only satisfying his body, not his agitation. She had climaxed, then dozed a little before the second slow, carnal pleasure in which they had both cried out. What if he had come home after the first time, slipped out while she napped, leaving some money on the bed? He might have got home in time.

On the street in front of Chen Hap Sing, Percival’s agony was being monitored by the curious eyes of the shoe-shiner, the woman with the basket of bananas, and the two haircutters who squatted nearby. He wanted to yell at them to go away. A steady stream of the unconcerned—servants pulling on the hands of young children collected from school, the darting flashes of Vespa riders, a cyclo man with a passenger—continued to flow past. The one-eyed monk stood at a little distance, observing placidly. He might be praying, Percival hoped.

“Let’s go,” the older officer said. He tossed the lotus leaf to the ground. The younger man shoved Dai Jai into the car and closed the door. Once inside the vehicle, he looked wildly about and pressed his hands against the glass. “Baba, help!” Baba, the word a small boy used. Dai Jai grappled with the door handle, but the door was locked.

“Please!” yelled Percival. “Don’t take him!” He lunged for the door, but was casually knocked down by the older man and tumbled into the mud of the spilled larvae. The two men got in the car. The engine coughed to life, and the taillights glowed like hot coals. Percival picked himself up from the ground and saw his son’s panicked eyes behind the glass as the boy began to cry. Percival ran alongside the car, pleading. The Ford’s big engine revved and the car pulled away, scattering vendors and snack-sellers, who fluttered to each side like birds. Percival trailed after the car, shouting, until it disappeared out of sight.

Percival went in the house, closed the door and stared at it. It took a while for him to gather himself, to put one thought in front of another. It was almost dark by the time Percival telephoned Cecilia and told her what had happened. Did she know anyone in the Political Security Section? When he asked, she became uncharacteristically quiet. Then she cursed, and asked why had he not been able to do the most simple thing—to hide Dai Jai. She yelled at him through sobs. He lied about how it had happened. He said that the police had insisted on searching Chen Hap Sing, as if he had been standing guard there all day since their morning meeting, rather than bedding a prostitute for most of the afternoon.

“What should we do?” Percival said.

“We must both put our connections to work,” she said. “There may not be much time.” He wished he could contradict her, disagree, which was the norm between them, but he had the same fear.

After speaking with Cecilia, Percival found himself wandering outside. Walking past the spot where Dai Jai had been arrested, he saw his son’s face dissolving into tears in the back of the car, thought of the lump of gold tied as always around his neck. Yes, that was something. Percival walked briskly past, into the welcoming darkness. Instead of going to gamble or to find a woman, he went out to buy a new lotus-leaf cone of mosquito larvae to feed his son’s fish.




CHAPTER 5 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


FROM BEFORE SCHOOL STARTED UNTIL AFTER the last students were gone, Percival sat in his office with the door shut and lights off, sweltering by the telephone. Each time it rang, he seized the phone with fear and hope. But it was never Dai Jai. Nor was it the morgue.

It took a few days for Mak to arrange a lunch with Cholon District Police Chief Mei, who was usually eager for a good meal and a red packet but for some reason was now slow to make himself available. On the day of their meeting, Percival and Mak joined the chief in a private room within a quiet restaurant that specialized in Northern Chinese dumplings, Mei’s favourite. Percival ordered dumplings filled with beef and young garlic, chicken and bird’s nest, scallops and prawns. Mak and the chief made awkward small talk about the new Spanish racehorses at the track—no good in this climate; about mah-jong—a friend had lost a villa in Dalat in a big game; and about where to get the best black market exchange rates for the U.S. dollar. Percival bad-mouthed Cecilia’s rates, but otherwise said little, restrained himself. All he wanted to talk about was whether Mei could help. Mak had advised Percival to keep quiet and let him do the talking. They drank beer, dipped dumplings in vinegar, and Mak laughed heartily at Mei’s jokes.

When they loosened their belts and put down their chopsticks, the serving plates were still half full. Mei pushed himself back from the table, belched, and said, “It has been good to see you.” He glanced at his watch. “So late already.”

Percival started to rise, irate that Mei was going to play it this way, as if he did not know the purpose of this lunch. Mak shot Percival a glance, and he sat down, fuming. Mak asked if Mei could spare a further moment and calmly, slowly explained what had happened to Dai Jai. He explained it exactly as if Mei did not know, as if it were not a subject of heated gossip in Cholon.

Mei shook his head. “You have a serious problem.”

“Hmm …” Mak said. “If we can at least find out if he is safe, where he is …”

“There are two main possibilities,” Mei said. “There is Paulo Condor, an island prison on the southern coast where the French used to send the Vietnamese who displeased them.” He spoke the same way that Mak had, as if what he was explaining was not known to everyone at the table, as if he were talking to some American newly arrived in Vietnam. Mei smirked. “Now, it has both Vietnamese jailers and prisoners. There is also the National Police Headquarters, which is well known because—”

“Yes, I am familiar with its reputation,” interrupted Percival, not wishing to hear whatever euphemisms Mei might use for that house of cruelties.

“Of course.”

Percival knew there was a third possible fate that his son might have already met, but pushed that fear back.

Mak said, “Brother Mei, what can be done?”

“You should have come to me earlier.” Mei shook his head, looked at Percival, and then turned his eyes back to the table. “It would have been easier to prevent his arrest. Now, to free him?”

“Big brother,” said Mak, undeterred, “can’t your fellow policemen in Saigon help? You are a district chief. They will do you a favour.” It was not necessary to say that Percival would, in turn, owe Chief Mei any favour he thought to ask.

“They let us Chinese police control Cholon as long as we don’t cross them … on sensitive matters.”

“And this is sensitive?” Percival asked.

Mei shrugged. “What do you think?”

“But you will try,” said Percival, sliding forward a plump red envelope. He had to pay, even for this useless encounter. He could not afford to dismiss the possibility of Mei’s help.

Mei slipped the envelope into the ammunition pouch on his belt. It contained no bullets, but was full of cash. “Of course, friend. I will see what I can do.”

Each morning, Percival pressed Mak on the situation and the progress of his inquiries. A week after the lunch with Chief Mei, Mak informed Percival that the usual Saigon channels were exhausted. He would have to begin making other contacts. It would require nighttime queries. Could he take the car? Percival gave Mak both the car and driver, and often Mak took it in the evening, brought it back spattered with mud in the morning. Percival did not ask where Mak was going to look for help, because it didn’t matter.

Cecilia probed her American business connections, but they were of no use. They could get dollars, francs, and change piastres for U.S. Army scrip. But this was Saigon politics, they said, meaning either that it was too deep for them to see what was happening, or they did not wish to look there.

Chen Hap Sing was bearable during the day, when school was in session and the old rice storerooms were full of students and teachers, bustling with English dictation and reading exercises. The nights were more difficult. Percival wandered the familiar high-ceilinged halls and fastidiously tended the ancestral altar. He found himself pacing the rooms and talking, not to himself, but saying to his father, “If you are here, lurking in this house that you built, rescue your grandson. Keep him safe.”

Dai Jai’s fish tanks became dirty. Percival didn’t have the patience to clean them, but continued to feed the fish. Dai Jai would be happy to see them still alive when he returned. Unable to sleep, Percival ventured out to Le Paradis, sometimes Le Grand Monde, anywhere noisy and filled with light. He played small sums to pass the time. He did not bring any girls home, had no taste for it. Several times, he chanced upon Chief Mei, and let him win a sum of money. Each time, Mei took the money, looked into his drink, and told Percival that he had learned nothing about Dai Jai, as embarrassed as Percival was angry.

Twice daily, Percival burned joss sticks and prayed to all the departed spirits of the Chen family, asking them to please keep Dai Jai safe, and to return him home. On the new moon day, then on the full moon, Percival arranged a roast duck, oranges, and kowtowed before the altar of the ancestors with these offerings. Percival implored them to save his son. In the midst of this, he caught himself cursing his father for leaving Shantou and drawing them to the land of the Annamese, but he hurried to push this thought beneath the surface and replace it with prayers to the spirit of Chen Kai. Somehow, as much as he tried to make the feeling go away, being faced with the loss of his son made him angry at his father. Why had Chen Kai left their home in China and led them to this country? Wasn’t it better to be poor farmers there than rich foreigners here? Then, in 1944, Chen Kai had suddenly insisted upon travelling overland to China while there was still heavy fighting between the Chinese and the Japanese in northern Indochina. Percival never heard from him again. Couldn’t he have waited for the war to end, after being away from home for so many years? Why had he insisted, at the most dangerous possible moment in that war, that he needed to return to Shantou?

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.

“I take your point …” said Percival, feeling a wave of nausea.

The man gave no indication of hearing him. He said, “As this goes on, the skin on the head becomes red. With each slow, patient drop, the prisoner—the boy—cries out, as his scalp becomes a deeper colour, eventually purple. This continues for hours. As the ice melts and the droplets fall more quickly, the screaming becomes ever more hysterical. He tries to move his head, but the water still falls on him somewhere—forehead, eyes. He cannot keep his head away from the water, so he gives in—sitting in the drip. Now he is broken. He will remember whatever he is supposed to. No one even needs to touch him.”

“Enough. You have explained this. I see your—”

“This is a new Vietnam. We strive for modern efficiency. The interrogator can leave to do something else and return hours later.” Percival tried to interrupt, but the man shushed him and continued, energized by his own words. “Finally, with one important drop, the boy’s head tears open like paper. The skin splits wide open, and blood flows down the scalp. For a little while, this gash actually seems to relieve some of the pain, and sometimes sleep comes. But not for long, and soon it is worse as the water falls on the open wound, runs down the face, and mingles with blood and tears.”

Percival fought down the sick in his stomach. He wished it would stop, but the man continued, his words beating down like drops of water. His English was good, somewhat formal, accented by French. His phrasing, Percival realized, betrayed an education. An elite one. He was more than the rough thug Percival would have expected in this place. He spoke in a slow, pedantic manner, like a teacher who admires his subject, saying, “Water shapes the earth. No one can resist it. This is the difficulty you are facing. The facts may be simple—that your boy is in a room with a chair and a bucket—but there is such ambiguity in these facts. I am here to clarify.” The refinement of his language gave softly spoken words even more venom.

The man picked up a policeman’s baton from somewhere in the gloom and swung it as he talked, as if in warning. Percival closed his eyes, tried to slow his racing heart, saying, “Where did you study, if I might ask?”

“You may not!” A loud bang shocked Percival’s eyes open. “This is not your school! I ask the questions.” And then another bang, as the man struck an oil drum with the baton. “Consider oil drums such as these—a boy can be put in a drum filled with water, and the drum beaten with wooden clubs. Amazingly, all the force and pain are transmitted without leaving any marks on the skin. The shock reaches the internal organs, like beating a person from within.” Percival felt his hearing close in. His vision hazed with white fear and anger as the man detailed the use of the bench—the way in which the prisoner was tied, face up, nose plugged, a rag stuffed into his mouth while water was poured onto the rag. It combined the sensation of choking and drowning, the man explained. Percival’s impulse was to seize him, to close his hands around his neck, to squeeze the hate through his fingers. But then how would that help Dai Jai? The baton swung, a whistle as it sliced the air. This man was his only contact. Now a soft voice, “You are angry with me. I understand.”

Percival asked, “What is the point of this?” He hated his own voice, its impotence.

“I am explaining your boy’s situation to you. Isn’t that what you wished to talk about?” The baton swung, a bang; swung, another, laughter reverberated with the howling drums. Now Percival recognized the other smell in the room, the faint but definite scent of stale human shit.

“What is your price?”

“Ah, yes. Let us turn to concrete issues.” He slapped the baton lightly against his own palm.

This was a transaction, Percival told himself. He must think of it in terms of money. The idea put ground beneath his feet. The point of this theatre was the price. Already, he felt a bit more calm. He would give whatever was asked—two thousand, five thousand dollars.

“A thousand.”

“One thousand dollars.” Percival almost laughed, but did not. His father was right. The Chinese were smarter business people than the Annamese. “Done. A thousand dollars. Can I give it to you in piastres? At a good rate, of course.”

“A thousand taels of gold.”

“A thousand …”

“Taels.”

Percival finally lost his restraint. “What is my son’s condition? Has he been beaten? This … all of this … is simply a threat, yes? Once I pay, I will have my son? I will bring it to you in American dollars, I can get it faster, that would be—” The sum was staggering, about fifty thousand American dollars.

“You will bring me gold.”

“But that amount—”

The man sighed as if he were a rich jeweller with a stone so rare and beautiful that there was no need to discuss its provenance or price. “Is there a problem?”

“Of course not. Yes, a thousand taels.” There was no point in negotiating. He had already been deprived of anything with which to bargain. “Yes, I will pay.”

“Then get out of here.” With that, the man retreated into a corner of the hut. He was not that far away, but he was invisible. Percival hurried towards the open door, stumbled out of the hut and squinted into the light. He thrashed his way through the bamboo, swatted aside insects and vegetation that grasped at him. From the direction of the sea came a surprising cool gust. He opened the door of the Peugeot, sat down in its furnace heat, and placed the key in the ignition.

Safely in his car, Percival felt a surge of defiance. The man’s display was theatre, sheer dramatics. Dai Jai was fine. That thug had taken Percival for a fool, easy prey. Why would anyone harm the boy if he wished to obtain a ransom? Perhaps he should go back to bargain, to show he was not a sucker. The sum was more than twice the value of Chen Hap Sing. The shack was a short walk away, he could go back. Surely he could get the man down to seven hundred and fifty, or to fix a price in dollars. It would be easier to obtain the dollars. He should go back. The wind rustled the bamboo leaves. Percival did not get out of the car. Instead, he started the engine, put the Peugeot in gear, and allowed it to go forward. He told himself that Dai Jai was safe, that it was all about the price, nothing more.




CHAPTER 6 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


PERCIVAL GUIDED THE CAR OUT THROUGH the bamboo, past the graveyard, his fingers seized on the wheel. He turned onto the road, a rope of ochre dirt that wound through the forest. As if driving itself now, the car gathered speed, followed the path. Percival saw before him a line of dry blood, the skin of a shaved head split open, water falling drip by drip. He rolled the window down, greedy for fresh air.

He forced himself to focus on the trees, a comforting green curtain of leaves. As the car crested a hill, he caught sight of a dark shadow above in the canopy. The Peugeot glided past an old French army watchtower high on stilts. When they had driven to Cap St. Jacques for family holidays, Dai Jai had often asked to stop so he could climb one for the view. One of his school friends bragged of having done so and had dared Dai Jai to do the same. Percival had always refused to stop, telling Dai Jai that there wasn’t enough time. He did not tell his son that it was often to the watchtowers that villagers had been taken for night-time abuses by the black-skinned soldiers whom the French marooned in these remote places. Screams travelled farther from a height. It would be bad luck to visit such a place. Following the withdrawal of the French army from Vietnam, the stations soon became obsolete. As the next war found its rhythm, the Americans fought differently, jumping from place to place like grasshoppers in their helicopters. Percival noticed his hands aching, willed them to loosen.

Around a bend, the road folded down once more out of wild jungle, into the marching rubber trees. In the very early years of the school, before the departure of the French, when Percival was scrabbling for a few students and a little money, they drove along this road in an old Deux Chevaux. The low hills had strained that car, so Percival drove with one eye on its temperature gauge. They stayed in a single-room beach cottage so small that, when lowered, the mosquito net covered not just the bed but the entire floor. In the evenings, once Dai Jai was asleep, Percival and Cecilia sat on the verandah, listened to the surf, allowed themselves to gradually disappear into dusk. They drank rice beer and, using a charcoal brazier, cooked skewers of fresh squid and prawns that Percival bought from the fishermen’s baskets for a nighttime snack.

Cecilia’s family fortune was gone soon after the war. Much of it had been sunk with the Imperial Japanese Fleet, the remainder lost in risky ventures that Sai Tai had pursued to regain the family’s position. The news had come that Sai Tai was reduced to living in the servants’ quarters of her house on Des Voeux Road and renting out the house itself. Percival was secretly glad. This turn of events had dampened Cecilia’s criticism of his own modest business advancements following the war.

Enjoying the simple pleasures of these beach holidays, having capitulated to exhaustion, they were better to each other. It was a relief, as if the patient noise of the water substituted for the racket of their usual fighting in Cholon. Even after they had divorced, Percival remained glad to have memories of Cap St. Jacques, though on the few occasions he had mentioned it, Cecilia pretended she had no recollection of the good times.

When crew-cut Americans in civilian clothes became more common in Saigon, the Percival Chen English Academy began to make decent profits. Once U.S. Army uniforms became a common sight, the school was soon making more money than Percival and Cecilia had ever imagined it could. They took a membership at the Cercle Sportif, an extravagance Cecilia had long coveted, now a minor expense. Percival bought a new Peugeot 403. The gears were changed by means of pushing square white buttons on the dash. Sometimes, when he reached to change the radio station, Percival would instead shift gears, causing the car to struggle and stall. Dai Jai thought this was very funny. But even with money, Percival and Cecilia fought just as much, perhaps more. Cecilia wished to holiday in Europe, and Percival had no interest. She would go alone, she said, and he told her not to bother coming back. When she discovered that he had sent thousands of piastres through the Teochow Clan to support China’s Great Leap Forward, she dismissed him as a fool. She had headaches at night, and Percival discovered the charms of Mrs. Ling’s introductions.

For their holidays, they began to rent a seaside villa from a Frenchman. The house’s cook prepared at least five courses every night. He could cook French, Vietnamese, and a little Chinese, in keeping with the languages he spoke. His specialty was sea emperor’s soup—a hot-and-sour broth heavy with pineapple, taro stems, prawns, and scallops. Dai Jai asked about this soup for weeks before going to Cap St. Jacques, and Percival would assure his son that the cook would make it. The villa was big enough that Cecilia and Percival could avoid one another, and they found it increasingly easy to do so.

Dai Jai was happiest during those beach holidays, for it was the only time he was able to attract his father’s attention. In town, Percival was always preoccupied with the school, mah-jong games, money-circle dinners, and lovers. Each morning at Cap St. Jacques, Dai Jai was anxious to rush to the beach, and each morning Percival checked that his son’s charm was securely fastened. Once, he said to his wife, “It will keep him safe.”

“He is a boy. He will lose the lump of gold. Then, because you are so superstitious, you will mistake it for a terrible sign rather than simply a waste of money.”

Through a gap in the trees, Percival saw a flash of sun, blue water in the distance, then took a breath of salt air. Percival realized he was driving towards the sea rather than towards the shanties that fringed Saigon. Not thinking, he had taken this direction. The car had brought him almost to the ocean. Percival eased on the brakes, let the car coast down a gentle slope and looked for an open spot to turn around. Then on a flat section, he took his foot off the brake pedal and put it back on the gas. It must be good luck to revisit these memories, for why else would the water be coming into view? Why else would his hands and his car have taken him here?

He tried not to think of Dai Jai, with the height of a man but the fragility of a boy, in an interrogation room furnished with a bucket, chairs, a bench, and an oil drum. Push it away. To dwell upon danger might itself bring bad luck. He made a quick entreaty to the ancestral spirits, forced himself to stare at the road. Beneath the wheels, the ground became a softer mix of earth and sand blown up from the sea. Through the open side window his eyes traced the line of searing white beach. With Cap St. Jacques just around the corner, he stopped short, parked beneath a tall palm. The fishermen’s boats were pulled up after their early morning work, long since dry. Percival removed his shoes and got out of the car, walked a few steps and worked his feet into the warm sand. The palm fronds whispered reassurance.

Hadn’t they come to this stretch of beach during the holiday before the divorce? He tried to pick out the spot where he had once feared the worst, unsure now of the precise location. He never brought up that day with Dai Jai for to do so would be bad luck, but he thought of it sometimes at the ancestral altar, when he thanked the ancestors and offered roasted meat and oranges.

One afternoon during what was to be their last family trip in 1958, the beach was empty at siesta time, but Dai Jai did not wish to return to the villa. He wanted to swim. Over the course of summers at Cap St. Jacques, Dai Jai had learned how to swim from the local boys, and he spent every possible moment in the water. Cecilia was stretched out on a lounge chair beneath an umbrella, complaining of the heat. There were no beach boys to run and bring cold drinks, and the air burned the inside of Percival’s nostrils. He, too, wanted to escape the sun and lie beneath a fan, but since Cecilia wished to return to the villa, he declared that the boy should swim. Dai Jai bragged to his father that he could swim out to the open ocean, to where the waves no longer broke. He ran in and plunged headlong into the surf. Dai Jai darted beneath the waves as they crested. Cecilia asked Percival to call their son back, but Percival retreated beneath an umbrella and said nothing, pleased that Dai Jai had taken his father’s permission as enough.

The heat caused time to stretch, and Cecilia closed her eyes. Percival half-watched Dai Jai for a while, expecting that he would soon turn back towards shore. The boy paused, waved, and continued to go out. Big for his eight years of age, he was becoming a good swimmer. After some time, Percival remarked, “He is swimming very fast, isn’t he?”

Cecilia sat up and stared. They could see only Dai Jai’s back bobbing up occasionally. Then Cecilia stood, shouted at their son, but already he was too far to hear. Between the peaks of the waves he disappeared. His arms were little punctuation marks in the ocean.

As they watched, Dai Jai shrank into the ocean. “He is being swept out!” she said. Although Percival’s reflex was to disagree, it was true. The boy was going out faster than he could possibly be swimming. A large wave broke over him and he vanished in a long expanse of water. Cecilia yelled, “Go out after him!”

Percival stood, and then stopped, frozen. “I can’t swim.” Neither of them could.

“You are his father. Go!”

There was no doubt. The boy was being swallowed by the ocean. Percival ran out into the water, and was surprised at the force that tugged and buffeted him. He waded ahead. “Son! Come back, you’re being pulled out!” His voice was lost in the crashing surf. Percival swung his hands high above him like flags, struggled forward into water that surged up to his neck. “Turn around! Swim back!” He threw the words uselessly into the ocean. Soon he was unable to see more than a few feet around him. A wave smashed over his head. Salty brine filled his mouth, stung his eyes. Percival looked into the moving walls of water, trying to see through them where Dai Jai had gone. He was caught by another wave, a larger one, that pushed him off his feet. He lost all direction as the wave roiled over him and carried him towards shore. He staggered up onto shore, coughing, his throat prickling with salt. Again, he ran into the surf, called, waved, but was unable to see the boy. Behind him, Cecilia yelled, “Go get your son, you useless man!”

Vietnamese children learned to swim as soon as they learned to walk, in the creeks, lagoons, and in the sea, but Percival had grown up in Shantou. During all these trips to Cap St. Jacques, he had never been into water deeper than his knees. He liked the look and smell of the ocean, but had never been interested in swimming. Now he flailed desperately into the water again, could not see Dai Jai. A crest lifted him up, his feet off the sand. He made the wild motions with his arms and legs that seemed to be what swimmers did, and felt his head submerged once more, a fist of water rammed down his throat. A swell gathered him, tumbled him over in white and blue, until he felt his knees scrape on the sand near the shore. On his hands and knees, sputtering, Percival vomited sea water.

Cecilia did not look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. “There he is! Look!”

Percival staggered a little way up the beach, searched in the direction of her pointed finger. At first, he saw only breaking waves and the line of the horizon.

“Where?”

Then he saw the black dot of his son’s head appear. He was treading water. He had been pulled beyond where the waves were breaking, far enough that if they had not seen him swim out, they would never have known he was there. The boy began to swim towards them. He must have just realized how far he had been taken by the sea.

“He’s fine, he’s coming back,” said Percival, his spirits surging like the water. They stood motionless in the sun. Percival stared at the horizon as the salt water dried to a fine itchy powder on his skin. Dai Jai swam towards the shore, but though his arms churned desperately in a small commotion, the boy continued to grow smaller.

Cecilia said, “He’s being dragged farther out. The water is taking him away.”

“He has his good luck charm,” said Percival, a near whisper.

Cecilia stared at her husband, her fury beyond words.

Then Dai Jai vanished for a long few seconds. He appeared again, struggling now to stay afloat it seemed, his movements tired. Percival wished he had told the boy not to swim, that he had agreed with his wife that it was time for a siesta. He said, “I’ll get a boat!” and clambered up the sandy incline. He looked up and down the deserted beach. It was midday, and the boats had already been pulled up high. He tried to shift one, but it was too heavy for him to budge. He cursed his soft city muscles. The sand shimmered, indifferent. Percival ran from boat to boat, hoped to find a fisherman taking a siesta. Finally, he found a man mending nets in the shade of a palm.

Percival’s Vietnamese was worse when he was under pressure, and now he mingled vanishing words with panicked gestures. After he had managed to make himself understood, the fisherman looked at the horizon, squinted at the waves, “Swimming? Now, with the undertow? No one swims at this hour.” He shook his head. “You Chinese city people.” He rose slowly and chucked the nets into his boat.

The small outboard soon buzzed them out to where the water was quiet but heaved with deep, forceful swells. The fisherman cut the engine, and they sat on the wet thwart, bobbed up and down, peering into the shifting strokes of light on water. There was only the empty slap on the hull, and the boat itself creaking mournfully.

“He was out here,” said Percival. “I saw him here last.”

“The current is strong,” said the fisherman uncomfortably. “Sometimes it sweeps north. He could have been taken up that way.” He pulled the starter cord, and the engine coughed to life. They headed north until they came to a long, rocky arm that extended from the land into the ocean. The fisherman said he dared not go close. Percival watched the waves smash against the rocks and did not ask whether swimmers were sometimes pulled into them. They turned south and searched back and forth several times. After an eternity, the fisherman said that they must turn back. He was almost out of fuel. They returned, and pulled the boat up the beach. Silently, Percival pleaded with the ancestors’ spirits. Surely they did not want Dai Jai to die in this foreign land.

The fisherman looked away. He commented upon the price of petrol. Dazed, Percival gave him a hundred-piastre note, far too much, and regretted doing so once he saw that the money seemed to make the fisherman so happy. The smile gave Percival a pain in his chest. The man ambled up the beach with his jerry can.

Cecilia ran up, touched Percival’s arm. “Where is he? Where is our son?”

“I don’t know,” said Percival, close to tears. He imagined his son limp and motionless, drifting beneath the surface of the sea, eyes fixed open. “He disappeared in the water, but don’t worry,” said Percival, forcing out the words, as if by saying them it would make the image of Dai Jai’s drowned body vanish. “He will be fine. The ancestral spirits will save him.”

“Why didn’t you find him?” Tears welled up in her eyes.

“They will protect him. And the sea goddess …”

Cecilia struck Percival with both fists, and then buried her face in them. She wept until the fisherman came back and began to fill the fuel tank. She turned to the fisherman. “Take me out into the water.” The fisherman hesitated. She pleaded, “I will pay you a thousand piastres.” He hurried to launch the craft.

Percival helped push the boat out. Cecilia was already inside, urging both him and the fisherman, weeping at the same time. Percival was about to jump in, but the fisherman told him that the small boat could not carry more than three people. Percival was about to say, “But we are three,” when the fisherman cut him off. “We must leave a space for the boy.”

Yes, of course. The third space. The fisherman still had hope, and for this Percival forgave him his happiness at the money. Percival trudged back to the water’s edge and sat in the sand. His wet clothes clung heavily to his limbs. His mouth was dry, his lips swollen with the salt and sun. Now Percival felt the blood pulsing in his temples, and prayed to Chen Kai and all their relatives’ ghosts to save Dai Jai. He opened his eyes, and the sight of thin brown legs filled him with joy.

“You want ice-cream-Coke-Heineken-young-girl? What you like? Suck-fuck-very-tight, I get for you quick-quick?” the beach boy asked in English.

He swore at the boy, who gave a single-finger salute and ambled away. From a distance, muffled by water, he could hear Cecilia’s plaintive calls for Dai Jai from the small boat.

At the opposite end of the beach from the jagged rocks, there was the tiny outline of a figure. A boy. Was the figure familiar, the profile like his own son? Probably another beach runt, hawking drinks and his sister. At first, Percival wanted to stand, to run down the beach. His legs wouldn’t move, did not want to carry him to disappointment. He was drawn by hope and paralyzed by fear. Percival closed his eyes and appealed to the ancestors’ spirits not to play any more tricks. If they returned his son to him, Percival promised, he would redouble his efforts to honour the ancestors. He would offer whole roast ducks. He would burn real American dollars at their altar. He would return to China. He would bring Dai Jai with him. A promise, a bargain. He opened his eyes and got to his feet.

Did the figure wave? It shimmered in and out of the heat from the sand. After some long minutes, he thought he could just make out the face of his son, but how could he be sure of any features at this distance? Then a flash. A brilliant golden reflection winked from the boy’s neck. The figure grew close, and larger, waved with both hands, and ran. Dai Jai embraced his father, arms around his waist, then tears came to Percival’s eyes. He held his son to him, clasped the birdlike frame of his shoulders and arms. He could not remember ever having been so happy and grateful.

“Ba, why are you crying?” said the boy.

Percival calmed his heaving shoulders. He said, “I thought you were …” and then stopped himself. “I thought you were swimming very well,” he said instead. He still had his arms around the boy, did not want to let go, worried that Dai Jai might prove himself a ghost if he did. But when he summoned the courage to loosen his grip, Dai Jai was still there. Percival said in a near whisper, “Dai Jai, how did you come back?”

The boy spoke matter-of-factly, as if he were talking about someone else. “I swam too far and got pulled out.”

“Did you …” he wanted to ask if the boy had perceived the spirit of Chen Kai, if he had felt his grandfather’s hand pull him to shore. Had the boy known the danger he had been in? Percival couldn’t tell, but if Dai Jai had not realized it, why should he frighten the boy now? “You must be tired. Did you learn your lesson?” Percival drew back a little, his hands on the boy’s shoulders. He was not yet ready to let go of him.

“The ocean was so strong. Even when I struggled against it, the land got farther and farther away, and I was tired, scared too. Finally I realized that the best thing was to rest. I lay on my back and stared at the sky. I’m good at floating on my back. I decided to rest and figure out what to do. After a long time, the waves began to break over me once again. The tide had turned. It began to push me back to shore, and I swam with it, until I was swept up on that beach over there—beyond the rocks.”

“We must return to China, we should go back home,” said Percival. “If we had been in China …”

Dai Jai screwed up his forehead, “You always say that.”

Percival could see that Dai Jai didn’t understand him. Suddenly, he ached to be in his childhood home, to hear people speaking the Teochow dialect on the street, to lie on the old kang. He was being shown the dangers of being a wa kiu. He should take the boy home.

“Where is Mother?”

“She has gone to look for you, in a boat.”

Soon, the fisherman landed the small craft. Percival let go of Dai Jai. Cecilia jumped out and ran to embrace her son.

With Cecilia standing there, Percival felt he should be stern with Dai Jai. He said, “Did you thank the ancestors?” Cecilia looked at her husband as if he was speaking a foreign language. He turned to Cecilia, on the verge of shouting without knowing why. “Did he? I want to know—is he grateful to his ancestors for saving him?” Dai Jai looked from his mother to his father and back again.

“Let’s go to the villa.” Cecilia turned away from her husband, her arm around their son. “The cook will make you anything you like.” For the rest of the holiday, she said nothing else about the incident, and Percival began to feel that Cecilia’s silence spoke more clearly than any criticism of him. After they returned to Cholon, she would often announce that she was going to Saigon for the day, and say nothing of what she had done when she returned. Percival pretended not to notice or care, and he often called Mrs. Ling. He thought on occasion of China, but the strong impulse to return there faded in the face of Cholon’s distractions. The school was busier than ever, and money came easily. He had a run of good luck at the mah-jong tables. It had been only in the dizzying emotional height of the moment, he told himself, that he had promised the ancestors he would return. It was not practical. He offered two ducks, and burned fifty dollars. That should be enough. Several months later, when a raft of new legislation in South Vietnam included legalized divorce, Cecilia enjoyed a frontpage photo of her own smiling, immaculately made-up face in the Far East Daily, a Chinese-language daily newspaper. The accompanying article explained that she was the first woman in Cholon to divorce her husband.




CHAPTER 7 (#u87f8b66d-f83e-5ed2-ae43-7721f87c789d)


PERCIVAL DROVE UP THE COASTAL HILLS away from the beach. He took a different road than the one he had arrived on, avoiding the graveyard. Daylight failed, and he pressed on into darkness. When he reached the rubber plantations, which were known for night-time kidnappings, he cut his lights and drove as quickly as he dared by moonlight. Entering the city, he was stopped at a checkpoint and paid the soldier to ignore his curfew violation. He went straight to Cecilia’s villa and pounded on the door until a light appeared. A few seconds later Cecilia’s voice asked who it was.

“Your first lover,” he said. The door cracked open.

A bit of leg, her hand up against the door frame. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. Cecilia rubbed her eyes. She lowered her arm and uncocked the pistol that she usually kept in her purse. She stood blocking the doorway and pulled her silk kimono around herself. She had been ready to seduce or to threaten, but Percival required neither.

He said, “Let’s go inside?” Now that he was here, he realized that he had not made his usual careful plan of what to say to Cecilia. He was just here, a blank impulse.

She did not move. “You must have news of Dai Jai,” she said. “That had better be why you’re here.”

“You’re not alone?” Percival peered into the darkness behind her. He longed for her now, not for sex, but for them to deal with this situation together.

“Is that any of your business? Is there something about our son?”

“He is being ransomed.”

“Then he is safe?” She breathed relief.

“They want a thousand taels of gold. How much do you have?”

“But how is he? Has he been hurt?”

In the hallway there was a movement, an American voice. “You’re up. Everything alright, honey?” She waved the man back to bed.

“Yes, he’s fine, I’m sure of it,” said Percival, lying. “Is that your surgeon friend back there?”

“Who are the kidnappers?”

“I met one. He didn’t give a name.”

“You expected him to? But you must have got some idea of who he was, some impression? Did he give you a letter from Dai Jai, a picture, some kind of proof that he is unharmed?”

“He did most of the talking. I met the man outside Saigon. I couldn’t change the price.”

“I don’t care about the cost. I care about our son. Where did you meet this mysterious man?”

“Near the rubber plantations.”

“Is he Viet Cong? The Americans are afraid of fighting there—they say that area is a rat’s nest of tunnels.”

“No. A simple gangster. Just a profiteer. He can get Dai Jai out, and we have to pay.” Was he Viet Cong? Percival didn’t care, but he felt embarrassed that he had not fished for more clues, for some idea of who the man was, and where there might be hazards. “Dai Jai is safe. They just want the money,” he said.

“Then we will find it,” she said. “Meet me tomorrow evening at the Cercle.”

The next morning, having hardly slept, Percival pounced on Mak as soon as he arrived at the door of the school. “Who is that contact of yours?”

“Was there a problem?” Mak said, clearing his throat. He took off his glasses, which were clean, and wiped the lenses carefully with his handkerchief. “He can rescue your son.” He lifted the glasses by the metal arms, held them to the sun outside the doorway, and examined them minutely.

“He was a little blunt.” Was it worth pressing? Mak always came through, and in this instance was doing Percival a large favour. He had his ways, and his contacts. It had taken him a while to get to this man, so whatever Mak knew of him he must be obliged to keep to himself. The most valuable friend was a discreet one. Percival said, “As long as he can do it. He wants a thousand taels of gold. I must find reliable dealers, not the kind who dilute the metal or shave the edges of the bars. They must deliver quickly!”

Mak put on his glasses. “I will make inquiries. We’ll get this done.”

That afternoon, Mak brought a Cantonese gold dealer to the school office, for whom Percival emptied the school safe of all its American dollars. Percival counted the seventy-five paper-wrapped tael leaves jealously, put them in a slim valise, and sealed them in the school safe. The safe held about seven hundred and fifty thousand piastres as well, perhaps another hundred taels’ worth, but the gold dealers did not accept piastres. They would have to be changed to dollars first.

That evening, Percival and Cecilia met at the Cercle and agreed that Percival would scour Cholon while Cecilia raised money and bought gold in Saigon. Then, when she heard that Percival had paid fifty-two dollars per tael, she complained that his obvious panic had allowed him to be gouged. “Why did you let yourself be cheated? I can get an even fifty. If you buy too much like that, it will force up the market price.”

“You said you didn’t care about price.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to get rates that some dumb GI would get. Just bring me your dollars or piastres or whatever, and I’ll make them into gold.”

“No, that’s alright, I’ll handle it myself.” Percival had brought the piastres with him to have Cecilia change them into dollars. Mak had promised to bring another gold dealer in the morning who wanted those dollars. Percival had also hoped it would be a reason to go to her house, in order for her to get dollars from the safe. They could speak quietly, though he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. “I have to go now.” He stood, not mentioning the money that Han Bai was guarding in the car.

He had a better use for the money, anyhow. He told Han Bai to take him to Le Grand Monde. When he arrived at the raucous, incandescent casino, Percival ignored the croupier’s call and the girls who sidled up to him. He accepted a highball glass of whisky from a hostess but only took a small sip. He found a seat at a quiet mah-jong table where he recognized the players and knew that a big-money game must be under way. He took fifty thousand on the first game. Luck would be with him. One good night and he could get enough for all the gold that was required.

THE NEXT MORNING, PERCIVAL LAY IN bed holding his pounding head. A banging on the door.

“Chen Pie Sou!”

“What?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. Where are the dollars? The gold dealer is here.”

“Send him away, Mak. Apologize. We’ll call him.” Percival rolled out of bed and vomited into the porcelain basin on the nightstand. After he had gone bust last night, there was nothing to do but drink. Now his stomach was empty, his mouth sour, and he drank a little water from the pitcher on his desk. He said, “I don’t have any dollars. I’ll come down in a bit.” The floorboards creaked as Mak went slowly away.

Mak did not express anger at Percival. Even if he had, it could not have made Percival sink any lower into his deep pit of self-loathing. In the school office, Mak said quietly, “Hou jeung, you must not play mah-jong anymore. Not until we have dealt with this problem. We must conserve money.” Not lose it. He did not say that, a good friend always. “Alright, I will arrange a money-circle dinner. You still have enough to pay for a small banquet, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” He would have to run a tab at the restaurant.

Each day, Mak had new contacts. He helped Percival find money circles and loan sharks to lend him piastres and dollars, and other people to sell him gold. Percival conducted the deals hastily, agreed to six percent monthly interest, fifty-three dollars per tael. He met with Chinese and Vietnamese businessmen and mafia, with French jewellers who spoke Vietnamese, and with Sikh gold merchants who spoke Cantonese. Percival preferred to do business with Chinese, but now the only colour he saw was gold. At Chen Hap Sing, he slept only in fragments. He dreamt of Dai Jai and woke just as his son’s head split open, screaming out of his nightmare, again and again.

Cecilia had her gold jewellery melted into bars, the gems pried out and traded for more gold. Her American business contacts were more helpful in finding gold than they had been in finding Dai Jai, and she was able to squeeze better deals from her transactions than Percival. They met every couple of days at the Cercle to make an anxious tally. In ten days, they had over five hundred taels between them. Cecilia complained that a thousand taels was enough to buy herself a better ex-husband, and cursed him for the boy’s arrest. “People are starting to whisper about how much gold is at Chen Hap Sing,” she said. Under the table, she slipped Percival a snub-nosed, double-barrelled, two-shot Remington pistol. It had the weight of a palm-sized stone, and it fit in his pocket. “You see? Now you are in the money business like me,” she said. “It’s only good up close. You have one shot to scare someone. If you need the second one, aim for the belly. That way you’ll hit something.”

From then on, Percival took the hoard of metal out of the safe at night and slept with it under his mattress. This required two trips up the stairs, lugging one valise each time. He kept the pistol under his pillow. Two weeks after the meeting in the hut, the night before an ancestor worship day, Percival dreamt of his father. It was an old dream from his childhood, one of flying. They soared high over a cold, jagged peak. It was the Gold Mountain for which Chen Kai had abandoned his home, a mass of sharp glittering angles and dagger crags of lustrous wealth. Percival congratulated his father on his success, but bragged that he himself would become yet more wealthy. Even as Chen Kai nodded with approval, saying that a son must surpass the father, Percival began to fall from the sky. His power of flight was gone. He hurtled towards the ground, calling out in terror to his father, but falling alone to be impaled by gold shards. Gasping, Percival woke already clutching the pistol, jumped out of bed and pulled out one valise. He fumbled open the clasps, caressed the gold. He turned on the light beside his bed and counted it, his fingers dropping the pieces. Then the other case. All there. He put it under the mattress and lay on his back. He stared at the fine teak beams in the ceiling, in the house that Chen Kai had used his fortune to build.

In 1933, on his first visit back to China after three years away, Chen Kai brought enough silver coins with him to buy two li of stream-fed rice paddy. He rented it out so that Muy Fa would have an income even without his remittances. He hosted a dinner for the village and roasted two fat pigs and three geese to celebrate becoming a landlord. He poured liquor freely for the village men, and gave everyone red-dyed eggs as if he were celebrating a birth.

During that visit, Chen Kai lavished his son with Annamese treats and hard English candies. They went for walks in Zhong Shan Park, where they watched the fat goldfish in ponds and snacked on candied peanuts. Chen Kai gave Chen Pie Sou painted French lead soldiers and took him to play with them on their newly bought land. They played “Manchuria,” making the red-and-blue figurines the Chinese and using lumps of mud for the Imperial Japanese Army. Chen Pie Sou liked to be General Ma Zhanshan, and he always defeated the Japanese at the 1931 battle at Nenjiang Bridge, stomping gleefully on the lumps of mud. They played this so often that Chen Pie Sou came to believe this was what had actually happened. At night, Chen Kai made a point of filling the kang with heaps of coal, making it so hot that it was difficult for Chen Pie Sou to sleep.

Chen Kai doted upon his son during the day, but was distracted in the evenings. Every night he greeted visitors as if he were holding court—men who sought advice about travelling to the Gold Mountain, men who hoped to borrow money, and men who wished to taste French brandy. His success abroad had transformed Chen Kai from pauper to landlord, a celebrity in his own village. Chen Pie Sou longed for his father to sit at his side while he fell asleep. He lay on the kang each night listening to the words of his father and the other men become slurred with drink, excited with ever wilder and grander stories of sublime foreign pleasures, and fortunes of property and gold. Chen Pie Sou toyed with the lump at his neck. How could such a small, rough piece of metal be so valuable?

Before departing, Chen Kai paid his son’s school fees for the next year. He had noticed that his son liked eggs, and promised to leave enough money that the boy could eat an egg every day.

“Must you leave again, Father?” Chen Pie Sou asked.

“I must go back to earn money. For your eggs.”

“But I don’t need so many eggs. And you have bought two li already. We are wealthy landlords now.”

“You think so because you’ve never seen wealth, real wealth.” He tousled Chen Pie Sou’s hair. “Son, amongst the Annamese it is so easy to make money. We Chinese are smarter than they are and can get rich from them. It would be foolish for me to stay in Shantou.”

“But when you have enough, you will come back.”

“Yes, yes, I will, but … I don’t have enough just yet.”

“How much is enough?”

In his father, Chen Pie Sou now sensed a hunger for something that he could not understand. Perhaps his father could not express it. When he had first left Shantou in 1930, Chen Kai had been desperate to find a way to feed his family. He had been agitated by a need that Chen Pie Sou knew in the gnawing feeling in his belly each morning, in the careful rice portions and small pieces of bony meat that they sometimes ate. Now there was enough money to eat eggs every day, but his father wanted something more. Chen Kai had an empty space that needed to be filled, but Chen Pie Sou could not understand what must be obtained to satisfy that void and bring his father home.

“I’ll know when I have it. Then I will return to China for good.”

Now, staring at the ceiling beams of Chen Hap Sing, Percival remembered Dai Jai as a small boy. Percival had often sat at his son’s side at bedtime. Even after Dai Jai no longer needed someone to be at his bedside, Percival would sometimes sit listening for Dai Jai’s breathing to slow. After the breaths became deep and measured, the boy’s limbs would shift. Arms and legs relaxed into sleep, the alertness of day drained out of them. On some nights, particularly if he and Cecilia were not talking, Percival would then go out to fill his eyes with light, his hands with money, his lap with a girl. He consumed all of these voraciously, because they promised to fill a void. But then after these fleeting ecstasies, he emerged more empty.

It occurred to him that he could get out of bed, go find a game and a girl. This thought came like a sign on a road, to a place that he had no wish to visit just now. All of those distractions which had been so enticing in their moment felt like nothing, not even their promise of satisfaction could be summoned. If only he could sit at Dai Jai’s bedside, watching him fall asleep.

PERCIVAL OBTAINED ADVANCES ON TUITION FOR the next semester. He went to money-lending circles, took as many shares as he could, and then used this cash to buy gold. His monthly repayments would be huge, but he would worry about that later. The Peugeot went to a garage as guarantee on a loan. Percival visited the Teochow Clan Association treasurer and was able to borrow two hundred and fifty taels, though only by signing a promissory note on Chen Hap Sing. This was a worry, for the head of the association had always admired the old trade house. Even with Percival and Cecilia’s combined efforts, it was not easy to find so much gold on short notice. His nightmares—of Dai Jai’s splitting skull, or of falling towards the Gold Mountain—woke him nightly in a panic. Daytime was the painful daze of sleep deprivation, as he desperately traded everything, anything, for more gold.

Three weeks after the meeting in the shack, and over a month following the arrest, Percival obtained the last few taels one evening by pawning his Tissot wristwatch. He called Mak. He had accumulated five hundred and ninety taels. He phoned Cecilia, who he knew had raised four hundred and ten, and went to her house. She had her portion wrapped in two cloth bundles. She handed them to Percival. “I’m counting on you to get our son back.”

“I’ve sent word to Mak, to arrange a meeting.”

Cecilia embraced Percival, but when he put his arms around her, she pushed him away, tears in her eyes. “Go.”

The next morning, Percival ate his breakfast on the balcony. Below, on the pink stone steps of St. Francis Xavier, the Catholic priests and Buddhist monks chatted amiably. Percival wondered if he should donate to the church. He had already given especially generous alms to the local temple and lit one of the gigantic incense coils in prayer for Dai Jai. Percival had never been interested in the white man’s faith, but perhaps he should give the church something, just in case it might help. He ate without tasting. Foong Jie was putting a sliced boiled egg in his noodles every morning. She must have noticed how little he was eating. He picked at the egg. He stared at Dai Jai’s vacant chair. Foong Jie had tried to put it away when Dai Jai was arrested, but Percival stopped her from tempting such bad luck. Each morning, he willed himself to sit across from the empty chair. Mak arrived early, well before the start of classes. The fortune in gold sat on the table, two briefcases, two cloth bundles. Percival did not dare let them out of his sight. Mak glanced at the hoard, sat down, and said, “The meeting is today. In the same place.”

“In the countryside? How will I get there?”

“I’ve borrowed a car for you—Chief Mei’s. It has a police plate, so they won’t search it at checkpoints. Safer for the ransom. I told Mei it was the least he could do for you.”

“You think of everything, friend.”

“Get that gold off your hands,” said Mak. “All of Cholon knows what you have here.”

Percival pulled the small pistol out of his pocket and checked the two rounds.

Mak said, “Hou jeung, leave it with me.”

“I have to be sure to get Dai Jai.”

“You will. That won’t help you.” When Percival did not reply, Mak said, “Just do as he says. He could easily turn the gun on you, old friend. Have you ever shot one?”

“No,” said Percival, searching Mak’s face. He wanted to ask, Who is he? Why do you trust him?

Mak realized the question in Percival’s eyes. He said, “A friend of a friend.”

Percival opened one of the cases. He looked at the gold, the smaller leaves tied together in ten-tael bundles, the bars glistening and cold, a fortune in metal, about seven and a half million piastres’ worth, most of it borrowed. He was trusting Mak with this, and more importantly with Dai Jai’s return. “You are sure that he will give me Dai Jai?”

“Have I ever led you wrong?”

Percival closed the case, clasped it shut. To pay for its contents, he would have to return more than he had borrowed. That was the nature of debt. These were sums that his own father could only have dreamed about when he left China. It did not matter, as long as Dai Jai was safe.

“Mak, will you take a few thousand piastres to the church for me? I’ll pay you back.”

“But you’re not religious. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe at the meeting.”

“It’s not my safety I’m thinking about.” He handed his friend the gun.

After breakfast, with the gold in the spare tire well of Mei’s Citroën DS with police plates, Percival set off and drove northeast out of the city. He nodded to the soldiers, only slowing at the checkpoints, which is what a district police chief would have done. They saluted. When he arrived at the bamboo grove, he turned from the main road, drove past the graveyard, walked through the bamboo to the concrete shack, and found that the door was already open.

He called out, “Dai Jai?”

A voice, not his son’s. “Come into the centre of the room.” It was the same man as before.

He went in. He hesitated, his eyes slow to adapt to the dark.

“Please walk forward, Headmaster Chen. Where is the gold?”

“Where is my son?”

“This is not your school. I ask. You answer. The gold?”

“In the car.”

“The keys.”

“I want to see my son.”

“Do you suppose, Chinaman, that you are in a position to make demands? Walk forward three paces,” said the man.

His orders had military precision, thought Percival. He still could not make out a face. It figured that the ransomer was a soldier, for how else could he get to Dai Jai? All of the South Vietnamese Army could be bought, thought Percival scornfully, gratefully. Percival walked into the middle of the room, his feet nervous on the uneven ground. Emerging from darkness, the bench, the oil drums, the stocky figure. Where was his son? There was only one silhouette.

“Put down the car keys.”

“I want my son first.” Percival heard his voice rise.

Quick footsteps, and then from behind an arm curled like a snake around his neck. Cold metal pressed into Percival’s ear, a metallic click. The arm tightened, choked.

“Let’s not complicate this,” said the man, squeezing. “Where in the car is the gold?”

“Under the spare tire.” Lightheaded, almost fainting, Percival felt the keys snatched from his hand.

“You Chinese always find money. Just like rats find garbage. Sit down on the ground.”

He half-fell down. “Where is Dai Jai?”

“Put your hands on your head.” The man backed away from him towards the door.

“I have brought you the gold.” Percival could not keep himself from pleading. “Where is my son?”

“Go home.” He stood at the door, blotting out the light. “My advice is that the best thing for you is to go home.”

There was a clang of metal. The door slammed shut, and then darkness. Percival was alone. He heard the man doing something to the door, and then a rustle in the grass going away from the shack. He rushed to the door. He pushed on it, but it did not open. It was blocked from the outside. Booby trapped? He pounded it with his fists. But even if it was wired with a grenade, why should he care, if he did not recover Dai Jai? Percival took a few steps back and ran into the door with all his weight. It shifted a little. He felt a cold sweat, furious with himself. He had been cheated of a fortune and did not have his son.

He cursed in the Teochow dialect, then in Cantonese. He struck the corrugated metal with his shoulder, and heard a slight crack, felt a little give. From farther back, he ran at the door again. There was the sound of wood splintering, and the door opened enough to allow a crack of light. He backed away, ran at it once more and struck it with his other shoulder. Again and again, each time rewarded by the sound of wood splitting, until something snapped and the door sighed open. It had been blocked from the outside by a rod of green bamboo hung on hooks.

Through the leaves of the grove, the Citroën shone white hot. He stumbled towards it, batting away the heavy growth. The trunk was open, the spare on the ground. Only now, his limbs ached with the effort of his escape. Percival felt empty. His hands bled. Then, as he saw the car better through the shafts of bamboo, he noticed that the passenger-side rear door was ajar. He heard a plaintive sound, a muffled voice, and ran towards the car, ignoring the sharp leaves which drew quick lines of blood on his forearms. He shouted, “I’m coming!” Dai Jai was on the floor, blindfolded and bound. “You are here!” Percival rushed to pull his son up and helped him sit on the back seat. Dai Jai was dirty, and he stank. Percival fumbled to pull off the blindfold. Dai Jai’s right eye was swollen shut, a shining dark egg of bruised eyelid. His head was shaved, but not split open. He wore the same school clothes in which he had been arrested, now stained with blood and torn into rags. There were bruises on his arms and body, some older and some fresh. As he had years ago on the beach, Percival embraced his son with relief and happiness at having him back. He seized him in his arms, pressed his face to the boy’s stubbled scalp. The hard lump of gold was at his neck. Percival whispered his thanks to the ancestors’ spirits, to Chen Kai’s ghost.

“I’m so happy, son. I thought you were …” He must not say it. He thanked the ancestors’ spirits again, for he had feared that he would next see his son in their world. The strength of his fear now transformed itself into joy. “I didn’t know when I would see you again. You are safe now, I will keep you safe.”

“Oh, no,” said Dai Jai. “They arrested you, too, ba?”

“No, I have ransomed you.”

“I don’t understand.” Dai Jai looked around wildly.

“I’ve bought your freedom.”

“Then I am not going to be shot? Where are we?”

Percival clawed at the cords on Dai Jai’s hands. They were loosely tied, easy to unwind, not meant to hold him for long. “We are near the rubber plantations, outside of Bien Hoa.”

“Where is the guard?”

“We are alone. We are halfway to Cap St. Jacques,” said Percival, smiling through his own wet eyes. He said hopefully, “Should we go there? Should we go and have your favourite, sea emperor’s soup?”

Dai Jai stared at his father with his left eye as if he were a stranger. Then he began to shake. “They said they would kill me today. They took me from the cell, yelling, hitting, and said it was my turn to die.” Dai Jai cried, tears flowing freely from his left eye and welling out from between the swollen lids of his right.

Percival embraced the boy again, held his shoulders. “It was just to scare the other prisoners.” If only they were with their own people, in China, none of this would have happened. Here in Vietnam, they were vulnerable, made to suffer and then to pay for relief from it. “It was an act for the other prisoners. To make it look like you were being killed, not freed. You are safe. Your father is here. I paid a huge ransom.” He would have paid any sum.

Dai Jai looked around, crazed. “We are in a graveyard, Father. We are two ghosts in our graveyard. They said I would die today.”

“No, don’t say that, it’s bad luck,” he whispered, shushing the boy as if someone might hear. For an instant, his own joy swung back to terror. Then he calmed himself and said to the boy, “I think you are hungry, yes, so hungry that you can’t think clearly. No one is dead. There are no ghosts here. You will feel better after eating and resting. It will be as if you were never arrested.” If only they could go back, to a favourite soup, a villa near the sea.

After a moment, Dai Jai said, “Yes, of course, Father. Eating and resting. You’re right.” He nodded mechanically, obediently.

Percival helped his son lie down in the back of the car, settling him in a way that was least painful for his wounds. He began the drive back to Saigon. Soon, Dai Jai fell asleep. Percival saw the wisdom of this car. The soldiers saluted him at checkpoints, and he drove through. Even if he had been stopped, they wouldn’t think twice about a beaten prisoner in the back of a police chief’s car. He would bring a doctor and make sure that Dai Jai received the very best care. He would have Foong Jie pamper the boy and nurse him around the clock. Once Dai Jai regained his strength, and once his scars faded, Percival assured himself, it would be as if none of this had ever happened.




CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_20e43099-81eb-54f4-9465-aaf964b7f02d)


THE NEXT MORNING, PERCIVAL SENT Foong Jie to fetch Dr. Hua, the most expensive doctor in Cholon. He arrived in a short-sleeved shirt of fine white cotton, open at the neck, pressed white trousers, and excellent sturdy brown shoes in the fashion of an old French plantation manager. He carried his heavy leather bag and stopped short in the doorway when he saw Dai Jai’s condition.





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