The Headmaster’s Wager
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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
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.