The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

by Zen Cho

  Tet Sang had barely noticed the bullet at the time. He’d felt the red heat scoring his side, but it had seemed distant, unimportant, given everything else going on.

  It had started to hurt worse while they were getting out of Sungai Tombak, but it was still ignorable. His layers of robes meant that the stain wasn’t obvious even as it spread.

  It had been the march into the forest that had been the worst trial. He’d managed to change his clothes and dress the wound before they set off into the jungle, but rest had been out of the question. As Tet Sang had stumbled through the undergrowth, dizzy and sick, the journey had taken on a nightmare quality.

  Guet Imm’s fists were clenched. So much for peace and quiet.

  “You didn’t say anything!” she said accusingly.

  “It’s just a graze,” said Tet Sang.

  Without quite knowing how it happened, he found himself sitting down. Guet Imm got his makeshift bandage off, her deft hands light against his skin. Her forehead smoothed out as she inspected the wound, but she still looked annoyed.

  “No wonder you looked so bad,” she murmured. “I thought you were angry.”

  “I washed the wound,” said Tet Sang. “There’s nothing more to do.”

  He might as well have stayed silent for all the notice Guet Imm took of him.

  “I can make herbal soup for you. It’ll help the healing,” she said. “I’ll call Ah Boon to dress the wound. He has some medicine.”

  She got up, but Tet Sang grabbed her. “No!”

  Guet Imm paused, looking down at him. Her face was in shadow, so he couldn’t see her expression. She said, with uncharacteristic hesitancy, “You don’t want him to know?”

  “Fuss, fuss, fuss,” said Tet Sang irritably. “Ah Lau is like an old woman about this kind of thing. He’ll act like I’m halfway dead. What’s the point of making a big hoo-ha? It’s stopped bleeding already.”

  It was only when Guet Imm did not answer that he realised she had not been talking about the injury.

  She dropped into a squat, looking into his eyes as though she could see through to the back of his head.

  Panic bubbled inside him. She knew. Perhaps she’d known all along. He’d taken pains to hide it, but he should’ve tried harder. And if she hadn’t already known, she would’ve realised when he talked about Permatang Timbul. Idiot that he was …

  “Brother,” said Guet Imm. “Does everyone know you’re a woman?”

  Tet Sang blinked.

  “Ah Lau, yes,” he said. “The rest, maybe. We haven’t talked about it. Why?”

  “I didn’t realise at first,” said Guet Imm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask also.” Hope flickered to life within Tet Sang. If this was all it was…! He said cautiously, “What made you realise?”

  “When you knew about kacip fatimah, I should have wondered,” said Guet Imm. “But it was when you tied my sarong. You really knew how to do it. The ikat didn’t budge. If I did it myself, I would have lost the sarong by the time we were on the main street.”

  She rose.

  “If you don’t want Ah Boon to see it,” she said, “let me put the dressing, then.”

  Tet Sang reached out to detain her. “There’s no need…”

  But Guet Imm had already left.

  * * *

  Tet Sang got his peace and quiet after all. Guet Imm came back with supplies and set to work without saying anything, cleaning and re-dressing the wound in blessed silence.

  Her work was certainly neater than Tet Sang’s had been. It was a task well within his abilities, but he hadn’t been at his best when he’d first bandaged himself up, and it had had to be done quickly.

  He started to relax despite himself. There was something soothing in Guet Imm’s closeness. She smelt right. He tried not to think about what that meant.

  At least the injury was distracting her. She hadn’t asked about Permatang Timbul again. Maybe she wouldn’t ask. He’d rather be interrogated about what lay beneath his robes.

  Tet Sang had never discussed the matter with Fung Cheung in so many words, not even to ask him to refrain from telling the others. After all, it was Fung Cheung’s group. It was for him to decide what the men should know.

  But there had never been any sign that Fung Cheung had told. As for Tet Sang, it came naturally to say nothing about himself, to remain slightly apart from the rest of the group. It was less that he minded the brothers knowing what he was than that he feared what that might lead to—other questions, about who he was. Those he had no wish to answer.

  Guet Imm was being more respectful than the men would probably have been, but then, people like Tet Sang were not unheard-of in the monastic orders. Attitudes varied, but the Pure Moon was a fairly relaxed deity in this regard. Though it was controversial in certain tokong to say so, she had historically been worshipped in male incarnations; even now, there were countries where the deity was chiefly known as a male god. As the Pure Moon, she only accepted women as her votaries, but her doctrine allowed her followers to decide for themselves whether they were women enough to count.

  Tet Sang had known of members of her Order who had been dedicated to the Pure Moon at a young age but then decided they could not endure to be called sister. They had departed to join male orders or start other lives. Conversely, he had no doubt that some of the Pure Moon’s nuns had lived as men before they joined her Order. Once they entered the deity’s light, no one was particularly interested in what they had been before.

  “We should have taken you on as a healer,” said Tet Sang, by way of saying thank you. “You’re better at this than cooking.”

  The ends of Guet Imm’s mouth turned up, but it wasn’t much like a smile. “Better not to hurt Ah Boon’s feelings. He’s good at what he does. It’s just cows are not that similar to humans.”

  She was evidently preoccupied, however. In a moment, it came out.

  “I wondered about Brother Lau,” she said. “Sometimes, the way he looks at you…”

  Tet Sang waited, but no follow-up came. “How does he look at me?”

  “Like he’s in love with you,” said Guet Imm.

  Tet Sang gaped.

  Guet Imm’s ears were pink. He hadn’t known she was capable of blushing.

  “You’re not interested?” she said, with a feeble pretence of nonchalance. “He’s very good-looking.”

  Tet Sang snorted, reassured. “His one virtue.”

  So, that was what this was about. Their nun had conceived a passion for Fung Cheung. It was a bad lookout for her, but she was not the first woman it had happened to and she would not be the last.

  “You know Ah Lau likes men,” he said, not unkindly. “He won’t say no to a woman, but he is not serious about them.”

  Guet Imm couldn’t seem to decide whether she wanted to look at Tet Sang or not. She kept glancing at him, but whenever their eyes met, her gaze skittered away.

  “He’s serious about you,” she said. “Everyone pretends Brother Lau is the boss, but you’re the one he listens to.”

  “You’re seeing things that are not there, sister,” said Tet Sang, amused.

  Guet Imm raised an eyebrow. “I’m a nun. Seeing things that aren’t there is my speciality. You’re telling me he’s never asked?”

  To his annoyance, Tet Sang felt warmth rise in his face. “When Ah Lau is bored, a piece of wood also he’ll ask. It doesn’t mean anything. Why do you care?”

  If he’d been hoping to discomfit her, he was disappointed. Guet Imm tossed her head.

  “I’m surprised, that’s all,” she said. “Not many people—man or woman—would say no to Brother Lau.”

  “Unlike many people,” said Tet Sang, “I know Ah Lau.”

  Guet Imm still wasn’t convinced.

  “But what if it did mean something, when he asked?” she persisted. “What if I’m right?”

  Tet Sang had told Guet Imm the truth—he’d never been interested in Fung Cheung in that way. Eve
n if his inclinations had lain in that direction, his intimate familiarity with Fung Cheung’s personality would have put him off. But if Guet Imm liked Fung Cheung, perhaps it would make her feel better to believe she was not alone.

  “What’s the point of talking about ‘what if’?” he said, in a tone to make it clear he’d said all he would on the topic.

  Guet Imm could take that for confirmation of his interest in Fung Cheung if she liked. She would not be the first to suspect Tet Sang of harbouring feelings for Fung Cheung going beyond pure brotherhood.

  Guet Imm finished her work, letting Tet Sang’s underrobe fall over the new dressing. “It should be changed every few hours. Call me and I’ll do for you.”

  She paused, slanting a tentative look at him.

  “So, you are a woman?” she said. “The scriptures say there are souls who lose their way after they die. They go into the wrong body by accident when they are reborn. There was a nun at my tokong like that. She was a son to her parents before she decided to follow the deity.”

  Guet Imm would accept whatever answer Tet Sang gave her. Yet he hesitated. He put on his outer robes without speaking and went to the edge of the shelter, looking out at the forest.

  He hadn’t thought too hard about the new identity he had assumed—a long time before now, it felt. Putting on men’s clothes, a man’s name, had been a practical choice amid the chaos of the war. It wasn’t like there had been anything left of what had gone before. There had been no one to consult, to challenge, to remember the person Tet Sang had been before the breach.

  He’d never had to consider the questions that came to him now. The words were strange on his tongue as he spoke.

  “What does it mean to be a woman or a man?” he said. “I live the life of a man, but my heart hasn’t changed from when I was a woman. This”—he gestured at himself—“is the body of a woman. But it carries the sins of a man.”

  “Women can be sinful too, you know,” said Guet Imm.

  Tet Sang smiled without amusement. “Oh, yes? What do you know of sin, sister?”

  “It’s true, what do I know?” said Guet Imm sadly. “I never had a chance to find out. I went into seclusion too young. I was not clever like you, brother. It never occurred to me to look beyond the Order.”

  It was like Tet Sang had been walking on a sunlit path until Guet Imm said these last words and plunged him into shadow. Chilled, he said, “What do you mean?”

  Guet Imm was sitting on the ground, legs crossed. It was a position Tet Sang knew in his very bones. One could hold it through hours of meditation.

  “You always questioned the Order, I think,” she said. “Even before you left your tokong.”

  Tet Sang froze.

  “You were a follower of the Pure Moon, weren’t you?” said Guet Imm. “There were only twenty-one votaries at Permatang Timbul. That, a layperson might know. But the others…”

  There hadn’t just been nuns at the tokong of the Pure Moon at Permatang Timbul. They had had their full complement of cooks and cleaners and labourers, who looked after the votaries; orphans and the indigent and the elderly, whom the votaries looked after in their turn.

  “You would only know how many died if you were there,” said Guet Imm.

  There was a roaring in Tet Sang’s ears. Stupid, stupid to lower his guard. What had he thought? That she’d simply forget what he’d let slip?

  “You didn’t have to be a nun to hear about the purges,” he said through the roaring. “The Protectorate razed the tokong to the ground. The news was all over town.”

  Guet Imm blinked. “The mata did it? It was bandits who came to my tokong.”

  “There are enemies on both sides of the war,” said Tet Sang. Then he realised the implications of what she’d said. “Wait. If the bandits destroyed your tokong, why did you join us? You thought we were bandits.”

  “I lost my job and you came to me, all in one day,” said Guet Imm. “Obviously, the deity sent you to me. One way or another, I had to follow you.

  “At first, I thought she wanted me to take revenge,” she added. “I bought a knife with the money you gave me, so I could do it while you were sleeping. I could have used poison—that would have been cleaner—but I wasn’t sure I could find the right herbs in time.”

  “You came so you could kill us?” said Tet Sang. “After I gave you money?”

  Guet Imm flapped a dismissive hand. “What is money?”

  “Spoken like an anchorite,” said Tet Sang. “Of course money has no meaning, when you’ve been living off people’s donations all your life!”

  “I don’t know why you’re so angry,” said Guet Imm pettishly. “It’s not like I was going to do it without a sign from the deity. In the end, I realised that was not her intention.”

  “What was her intention?”

  Guet Imm did not answer this directly.

  “I only became certain of who you were when you tied my sarong,” she said.

  Tet Sang frowned. “A nun wouldn’t know how to tie a sarong. Look at you.”

  “No,” said Guet Imm agreeably. “You must have learnt before you entered the Order. But when you did it, I saw your pendant.”

  Tet Sang’s hand went to his chest, touching the small lump under his robes—the jade pendant he wore next to his skin, carved in the shape of the Pure Moon making the gesture of teaching. Anyone could wear a Pure Moon pendant, and often did, the deity being especially popular among the poor, the sick and women, but the pendants sold to laypeople invariably displayed her in the posture signifying compassion. It was her votaries who wore the image of the Pure Moon in the act of transmitting her wisdom.

  “The deity must have been getting impatient,” Guet Imm was saying. “It was very slow of me! I should have realised earlier you used to be a sister.”

  “You’re talking nonsense,” said Tet Sang. “Do I look like a religious?” He’d let his hair grow out; his face was brown and leathery from the sun. Certainly, no one looking at him would suspect him of ever having had a shaven head or worn grey votarial robes. The pendant he could have stolen, after all.

  “No,” said Guet Imm. “You look like a disreputable bandit who should cut his hair. But it’s not your looks. You’re moonlight on the water, brother. I should have known what you were from the start.”

  Tet Sang had meant to keep denying it, but the compliment took him off guard. There was no higher praise a devotee of the Pure Moon could give than to say of a person that they reflected the light of the deity. The last time he had received the commendation, it had been from the Abbot at Permatang Timbul.

  The memory was sudden and extraordinarily vivid—the Abbot’s elusive smile; her watery eyes, magnified by spectacles; Tet Sang’s surprise and pleasure. The particular smell of the tokong rose in his nostrils, made up of the mingled scents of sandalwood smoke, burnt paper, food cooking in the kitchens and green growing things. For they had had gardens, grown their own vegetables and fruit. Everyone had worked in them, votaries and laypeople alike …

  It was like being stabbed. Tet Sang barely noticed the sting of Guet Imm’s follow-up: “At least, I thought you were good,” she was saying. “At that time, I didn’t know you were selling off the deity’s relics to the highest bidder.”

  “You want to know what happened at Permatang Timbul, why the mata came after us?” said Tet Sang abruptly. “I’ll tell you. They found out the Abbot was helping bandits. She would have done the same for the mata if they came to her sick and hungry,” he added. “But that didn’t matter. And that wasn’t all. The Protectorate suspected the bandits were using the tokong as a meeting place. They thought there was some kind of conspiracy afoot.”

  “Was there?” said Guet Imm.

  Tet Sang shrugged. The insinuation against the Abbot could not offend. He was already full up on anger, with no space left for more. “Who knows? The bandits had their own agenda. But the Abbot wouldn’t have colluded. She was very orthodox. She didn’t believe in getting involve
d in politics.”

  Despite his fury, Guet Imm’s stillness was calming. There were no pointless exclamations of surprise or sympathy to fend off.

  “Your Abbot was one of the thirty-nine?” she said.

  “There was no warning,” said Tet Sang. “The mata came in the afternoon, when everyone was praying. The Abbot was resting; she was almost ninety. They ransacked the Abbot’s office and took her out into the courtyard. Not that they meant to kill her. They wanted to interrogate her, but”—a smile twisted his lips—“she fought. One of the young fellows panicked and shot her.

  “It was not the worst tragedy that day,” he added. This was what he had told himself time and again, reminding himself to be measured in his grief. “She had a long life already. Most of the people who died were younger, not votaries. They were the people who helped in the kitchens, the gardens, the poor people the tokong took in.… Half the religious were away, visiting another tokong.”

  “Including you?”

  Tet Sang shook his head. “I was there when it happened.”

  He’d gone to the Abbot when the mata left her for dead, but she hadn’t actually died in his arms. She had made him promise he would look after the tokong’s treasures, so he had had to leave her.

  He had wondered, later, if it had been the survival of the treasures that had really concerned her. She had always been a thoroughly human Abbot, more concerned with souls than things. If not for the promise he’d made her, he would not have hidden in the narrow space behind the main altar. He would not have stayed put, cramped and sweating, as the sounds of the slaughter came to him. When finally the screams had stopped and he’d smelt smoke, heard the roar of the fires the mata had set, he might have decided to allow the flames to consume him, as they would consume the only home he had known.

  Instead, he had thought of the treasures and run.

  “I don’t think the mata intended to destroy the tokong,” said Tet Sang. “That was in the early days, before the Protectorate really started targeting the orders. But the raid went wrong. The mata had to cover up their uselessness. Later, they put out some story about finding bandits hiding in the tokong, said there was a big fight and the bandits set fire to the place so they could get away. The Protectorate posted notices in town, warning people. They said, That’s what happens when you help bandits.”