by Zen Cho
“Why is everybody so surprised by that?” said Guet Imm, displeased.
Tet Sang was reflecting on Guet Imm’s mix of naiveté and cunning, the earthy but unswerving piety, and above all, the impression she gave of finding the society of others a delightful innovation. “Actually, it explains a lot.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The rich tin families here have a good relationship with the Protector,” said Tet Sang. “So, they don’t get bothered. People can still go on with their lives, not like some towns. You’ll see when we get to the centre. You could get a job as a washerwoman or a healer.”
“See, you don’t want me around!” said Guet Imm. “Why not?”
“Why would I want you? Everybody else can carry and fight,” said Tet Sang. “What do you contribute?”
“I’m charming, I’m helpful and I give your rough bandit lifestyle the much-needed touch of a woman.”
Tet Sang snorted. “That’s exactly what you’re not giving. How many meals have you made for us? I mean,” he said, as Guet Imm opened her mouth, “meals we can eat. Food we have to throw away doesn’t count.”
Guet Imm frowned. “Nobody likes a pedant, brother.”
Her eyes flicked towards the pack on Tet Sang’s back, containing the goods he was to deliver. She seemed to derive inspiration from it.
“It’s because I’m a nun, isn’t it?” she said. “You’re scared my stomach is too delicate for your work. You don’t have to worry. I understand what I signed up for.”
Tet Sang shook his head. “You have an overblown idea of what we do.”
Guet Imm looked unconvinced. “So, you’re saying those”—she pointed at his pack—“are completely legal goods? Not even a little bit contraband?”
“What do you want with a group like us, anyway?” said Tet Sang, ignoring this. “There’s a war on. Decent lady like you, you should be working in a shop or a house somewhere, with rice on the table and a bed to sleep in at night. Not on the road with some gangsters who’ve run out of options.”
It was the first thing he’d said that had a real impact. Guet Imm’s head whipped around, her mouth falling open. He’d begun to hope he’d got through to her when she said, “There’s a war on?”
Tet Sang stared back, equally nonplussed. “You didn’t know?”
“Of course not,” sputtered Guet Imm. It was the most flustered he’d ever seen her. “Does everybody know? All the brothers?”
“Of course everybody knows, how do you not notice there’s a war—” Tet Sang cut himself off. “Wait. How long were you in seclusion?”
“I went in when I was fifteen,” said Guet Imm. “Roughly ten years ago.”
“You came out when?”
The light went out of the nun’s face. She said, “They burnt the tokong in the second month.”
It was the fifth month now, so three months had passed. Tet Sang did an internal calculation. The Reformist cause for which the bandits fought had begun to flower in the Tang motherland long before it travelled south to the peninsula. Reformism had become established among the Tang peoples in the Southern Seas only a decade or so ago. Local Reformists hadn’t been considered bandits until after the Yamatese invasion that had put the Protector to flight. For a time, the Protectorate had even supported the Reformists’ resistance against the Yamatese occupation, supplying the Reformists with weapons and military training.
It was only when the Protector retook the peninsula upon the withdrawal of the Yamatese army that the decisive breach had occurred. No longer in need of the Reformists to fight Yamato’s soldiers, the Protectorate had outlawed the movement and begun its purges—jailing Reformist leaders and resettling populations under suspicion of sympathizing with Reformism.
Entire Tang villages were herded onto swampy, infertile land and subjected to armed surveillance, curfews, mass deportations. As for the monastic orders, they had always been centres for Tang education and community. The fact that the orders were prohibited by the rules of their religion from adopting any political affiliation made no difference to the Protector. He was not interested in what the votaries believed but in what they did, and it could not be denied that the orders fed, healed and sheltered Reformists, as they were called upon to do for any ragged outcast who came to them. This was enough for the Protectorate: the Tang orders were being systematically burnt out of their tokong.
For all its efforts, the Protectorate had not yet succeeded in eliminating Reformism. The Reformists—bandits now—had gone into the jungle, where they were harder to purge, though the Protectorate was doing its best.
If Guet Imm had been in seclusion for a decade, shut off from news of the world, it perhaps explained why she had not known all this. Still …
“Didn’t you find it weird when your tokong was burnt down?” said Tet Sang. “That’s not the kind of thing that happens in a country at peace.”
“It’s not like I saw who did it,” said Guet Imm, with uncharacteristic shrewishness. “There was nobody left to explain after I got out of my cell. Of course I knew there were problems. But even when I went to town and got a job, nobody talked about a war.”
“Nobody talks about it. It’s not that kind of war.”
“What kind of war is it, then?” said Guet Imm. She looked like she wanted to hit Tet Sang. “A secret war? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Yes,” said Tet Sang. “Open death, open atrocity, open persecution. But a silent war. It’s safer to be silent in these times.”
Guet Imm bit her lip. For a while, neither spoke.
“How long has the country been at war?” she said finally.
“You mean this current war, or including the one before it also?”
“I don’t know!” said Guet Imm. “I had no idea. I had no idea.”
Tet Sang saw with an unpleasant shock that her eyes were full of tears. He raised his hand to pat her on the shoulder but thought better of it.
“The world changed while you were praying, sister,” he said after a pause. It was the closest he could get to saying he was sorry.
* * *
Tet Sang was to meet his contact in the back room of a tailor’s shop. He’d supposed the choice of location was because it was a front for illegal activities, but the real reason became clear when they approached the row of shophouses. The tailor occupied the lot at the very end, next to the river. Outside the entrance, trailing its branches in the water, was a willow tree.
“Religious people,” muttered Tet Sang under his breath. It did not matter so long as the buyer paid up. But the sight of the tree had given him a nasty jolt.
Of course he was with the only member of the group who would recognise the symbol, even if she didn’t know what it signified on this particular occasion.
Guet Imm said instantly, with delight, “The emblem of the deity!” The Pure Moon was often depicted holding a willow branch, as a ward against evil. “Is that the shop we’re going to, brother? That’s a very good omen!”
“Why don’t you go and find your herbalist?” said Tet Sang. It had been a couple of years since he had last been to Sungai Tombak, but it was a place to which change came slowly. “There should be one two streets over, if you turn left down there.” He pointed.
Guet Imm looked hurt.
“I thought I was coming with you,” she protested. “I could help with negotiations.”
This might have worked on Ah Hin. Tet Sang was unmoved.
“I’m going straight back to camp when I’m finished,” he said. “You want your rags, you better go get them now.”
Guet Imm gave a dramatic sigh, but Tet Sang raised an eyebrow, waiting. After a moment, she spread her hands, smiling ruefully. “You can’t blame me for trying, brother!”
“Watch the hem of your own sarong,” Tet Sang told her, but he was perturbed to realise that he didn’t in fact blame her. He found himself wanting to answer with a smile of his own.
The word jampi flitted through hi
s mind—but that was the sort of witchcraft people who didn’t know anything about the Order of the Pure Moon thought her followers indulged in. Tet Sang knew better.
He stood watching Guet Imm till she had turned off the road and was lost to sight. Only once he was certain she was not coming back did he go into the tailor’s shop. He was dissatisfied with himself, full of a vague unease.
Signs and portents; a sense of the world of seen things as shifting sands concealing a hidden core of marvels and terrors … he’d thought he’d left all of that behind long ago. But some forms of folly, like love and religion, were like lalang. Once established, they were almost impossible to eradicate.
The contact waiting in the dim back room of the tailor’s shop brought Tet Sang down to earth. A bespectacled man with slick hair and the alert lidless eyes of a gecko, he seemed cleanly and decent, like a clerk. At the same time, there was something off-putting about him—one would not be surprised to hear that he embezzled funds or slapped his mother-in-law.
Tet Sang disliked him on sight, but there was something reassuring about him. Here was a person who belonged to Tet Sang’s life as it was now.
“Mr Ng?” said Tet Sang. “I’m Lau’s agent.”
The contact gave him a disapproving once-over, not bothering to return Tet Sang’s bow. “You have the objects?”
Tet Sang inclined his head. “You have the money?”
Ng’s frown deepened. “I must examine the items first. Make sure they are authentic. Nowadays, there are a lot of fakes on the market, con men trying to pass off all kinds of rubbish.”
“Not Lau Fung Cheung,” said Tet Sang. He didn’t so much as raise his voice, but Ng shut up. “Of course you will get to examine the goods before paying,” he continued. “But I want to see the money first. You haven’t shown any proof of who you’re acting for.”
Ng flushed, but he glanced back at the shop, where the tailor and his sons were at work. Mr Tan and his sons were each six feet tall and half again as wide, and their custom came entirely from the town’s rich families, who were connected with the Tang wealthy all over the peninsula—a golden network, exerting significant influence even in these troubled times.
The thought of the tailor’s dependency on his boss no doubt comforted Ng. He reached into his robes, producing a handful of cash.
“The rest is in a chest in front there,” he said, jerking his head at the shop. “Mr Tan is looking after it for me.”
“The balance, as agreed?” said Tet Sang. They had already been paid half the purchase price as a deposit.
“You can count the money when I’ve examined the goods,” said Ng.
Tet Sang nodded. He put his pack on the table between them and lifted out the goods one by one. They were wrapped in cloth, so he did not need to touch them directly. But though it was through him that Fung Cheung had got the goods, Tet Sang had had nothing more to do with them since, except to carry the pack. He was not prepared for the faint scent of incense that rose from the bundles.
It was like being punched in the gut. He froze, bent over and gasping. While he breathed through the shock, Ng reached out, a covetous light in his eye.
Ng pulled back the cloth on a bundle, revealing a gold chalice carved in the form of a lotus. It was exquisite—the product of years of painstaking work by craftswomen of the highest order—but the real treasure was tucked in the heart of the lotus, cradled by its petals.
“Ah!” breathed Ng. Recollecting himself, he assumed an unimpressed air. “You have proof that’s real gold?”
Tet Sang gave him an incredulous look. Before he could answer, a screech like the battle cry of a cat made them jump. A grey-robed wind swept through the room, seizing the chalice.
“Oi!” shouted Ng.
Guet Imm ignored him. She was staring at Tet Sang, her eyes like holes burnt in parchment.
“What are you doing?” she said. “This is a sacred relic of the deity!”
“Who the fuck are you?” said Ng. He turned to Tet Sang. “Who the fuck is this? Do you know her?”
Tet Sang should have known this would happen. He thought of the willow tree at the shop entrance.
But he couldn’t blame the deity. The decision to let Guet Imm come along had been all his own.
“She’s a nun, obviously,” he said. “I told you the goods were authentic.”
“How dare you try to sell the deity’s sarira?” said Guet Imm to Tet Sang. Ng might have been invisible for all the attention she paid him. “It’s beyond value! Where did you even get it?”
“Where do you usually get relics?” said Tet Sang.
“What do you think you’re doing?” said Ng sharply.
Guet Imm was scrabbling through the bundles, tearing off the cloth. An embarrassment of riches spilt out onto the table—jade prayer beads, engraved gold plate, a prayer wheel studded with jewels, an exquisite porcelain statue of the Pure Moon. The nun made a huffy yowl of outrage at each treasure that emerged.
“You looted a tokong,” she snarled at Tet Sang. “You—you blasphemer! The deity should strike you down!”
“Take your hands off those things,” said Ng. “They belong to my boss!”
He strode over to the table, snatching up the prayer beads, but he couldn’t manage to get anything else. Guet Imm was busy rewrapping the statue in cloth but somehow managed to keep it and the other artefacts out of Ng’s reach without any apparent effort. Turning red, Ng raised his hand.
Guet Imm was being annoying, and the word blasphemer had stung Tet Sang out of all proportion to its proper force. But if there was going to be a fight, he would prefer that she was not involved. He caught Ng’s hand before the man could do anything foolish with it.
“You’re being a little premature, Mr Ng,” said Tet Sang. “You never paid yet also.”
Ng glared at him, pop-eyed. “You—! Do you want this eight hundred cash or not?”
“You’re selling these things for eight hundred cash?” said Guet Imm, raising her head. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Listen to the nun!” said Ng. “My boss is no fool. If I tell him you’re trying to cheat him, you can forget about the money. You want this deal, you better watch yourself.”
“The statue alone is worth more than that,” said Guet Imm, ignoring him. “With everything else, you should be asking for five taels of silver minimum.
“Not including the relic,” she added. “You shouldn’t even be thinking of selling the relic. Do you want to be cursed by the deity?”
Ng’s face darkened. He said to Tet Sang, “If you don’t get rid of this girl, I will.”
Tet Sang raised his hands. “Let’s not be hasty, Mr Ng—”
“Oh, yes,” said Guet Imm, giving Ng a scalding look of contempt. “If you’re going to outrage the relics of the deity’s own precious body, why not her followers as well? You know, it’s a misconception that you can only go to hell once.”
“Shut up!” said Tet Sang. “You are not helping!”
At this juncture, one of the tailor’s large sons burst in, wild-eyed.
“Mr Ng, the mata are outside,” he said. “You better go, sir!”
Ng’s head swivelled towards Tet Sang and Guet Imm. If looks could kill, they would have been descending rapidly through the ten hells at that very moment.
“You,” Ng sputtered. “You set us up!”
Tet Sang was baffled. “You think we’re friends of the mata?”
“My boss will hear of this,” said Ng. “You can rest assured I’ll tell him you’re not real bandits!”
“We never said we were bandits,” said Tet Sang, exasperated. “Who ever heard of bandits having valuables to sell? They live in the jungle!”
“Sir!” said the tailor’s son urgently. He pushed open what turned out to be a grille door, which had previously been obscured by rolls of cloth.
Ng cast a last glower at Tet Sang before vanishing out of the door.
“Come back!” shouted Guet Imm. She turned to Tet Sa
ng, her face alight with indignation. “He took the prayer beads!”
“Never mind,” said Tet Sang. “Let’s get out of here.”
But they’d left it too late, and all the yelling hadn’t helped. They heard the tramp of heavy feet. The tailor’s son had just enough time to wrench the back door shut and put himself in front of it before the mata came in.
There were three of them, much smaller than the tailor and his sons, but they carried guns. Two were Malayu, like most of the mata; the third was Damilan. The tailor’s wife, Madam Ooi, accompanied them.
“You said this was a storeroom,” said one of the mata to her in the common tongue—evidently the chief. The other two mata hung back behind him.
“It’s a storeroom what,” said Madam Ooi belligerently. “See all that batik!” She gestured at the rolls of cloth on the floor.
The mata was looking at the table, with the tokong goods spread out in all their glory. “I didn’t know tailors stored such things.”
He put out his rifle, nudging the statue. It rolled over, the Pure Moon’s face serene despite the indignity of her position.
Guet Imm made an aborted movement, but Tet Sang grabbed her arm, pulling her back. The mata raised his head, looking directly at Tet Sang.
“And here is the bandit Lau Fung Cheung,” said the mata. He clicked his tongue. “Can you tell me why you have a wanted criminal in your storeroom, madam?”
“Must be he broke in,” said Madam Ooi, with admirable composure. “Aiyah, so many times I told my husband to fix the back-door lock, but he never listened! Boy, this stranger didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Her son clearly hadn’t inherited Madam Ooi’s wits. He looked confused. “What?”
“How do you know Lau Fung Cheung?” said the mata to the tailor’s wife.
It was natural that he should have mistaken Tet Sang for Fung Cheung, given that the pictures on the Protectorate’s wanted poster had been no sort of likeness. Still, it was a little surprising—Lau Fung Cheung had a reputation for beauty. Perhaps Tet Sang should feel flattered.
