Vincent Lam - The Headmaster’s Wager

“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.

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.