“How did you know it was the bandits who did it?” said Tet Sang.
Guet Imm’s expression did not change. “Some of their bodies were still there. My sisters fought back also.”
There was a brief silence.
“But why the bandits did it, that’s what I think only,” said Guet Imm. “People in town didn’t want to talk about what happened. Maybe they didn’t know. So, I’m still not sure.”
“I told you,” said Tet Sang. “A silent war.”
He sat down next to Guet Imm.
“It’s dangerous for people to talk,” he said. “They’re caught between the Protectorate and the bandits. Don’t blame them.”
“I don’t.”
Tet Sang glanced at the nun. Sombre, Guet Imm looked unlike herself. “Or yourself.”
“I don’t,” said Guet Imm. Her eyes were as dark and clear as a pool of water at night. “I don’t blame myself, or the people who did it, or the deity. That’s the difference between you and me.”
Tet Sang didn’t answer.
He expected Guet Imm to indulge in evangelism now that she’d extracted the sorry truth of his past. He would rather she rubbed salt into his wound, but he said nothing to forestall her; it was what she had been taught. He braced himself for platitudes, quotes from the scriptures, exhortations to return to the start of the road.
Instead, she said, “Where do you think the money went?”
Tet Sang blinked. “What money?”
“The money you were going to use to buy the rice, from the last job,” said Guet Imm. “And the deposit Yeoh Thean Tee paid for the tokong treasures.”
“Oh,” said Tet Sang, nonplussed. “Some of it would have gone on the rice. Ah Lau doesn’t like to owe people money.” For all his faults, Fung Cheung was scrupulous in his dealings with tradespeople—the ordinary men and women living on a knife’s edge in this time of war. “The rest he probably gambled away.”
“I thought you said he didn’t like to owe people money.”
Tet Sang shrugged. “Depends on the people.”
Guet Imm was gazing straight ahead, her face grave. It was hard to tell what she was thinking.
“The Yeoh family,” she said, after a pause. “They’re good people, followers of the deity?”
“The Yeohs are running dogs,” said Tet Sang.
At Guet Imm’s startled look, he said, “You cannot stay rich in times like these without eating sin. If you don’t dare to do wrong, then you will suffer. There were one thousand guests at Yeoh Thean Tee’s son’s wedding. They had suckling pig and a separate tent just for halal food. You tell me, are they suffering?”
“That’s how you think of them,” said Guet Imm. “And you were willing to sell your tokong’s treasures to these people?”
Tet Sang wanted to tell her that goods were not people; that everything precious in the tokong was lost beyond recovery the day the mata murdered its inhabitants. He had borne away empty things—things that had no meaning, now that those who had once polished and prayed over them were gone.
It would only have been the truth. Yet he found himself speaking another truth, emerging from a part of himself he had thought long dead and buried.
“Yeoh Thean Tee is a survivor,” said Tet Sang. “After the war, whoever wins, the family will still be rich. Whether they stay here, or they run somewhere else, the Yeohs will be okay.”
“They were the safest custodians you could think of,” said Guet Imm.
Tet Sang looked away from the radiance of her face. “We were lucky they were willing to buy. Most peoplewon’t want things taken from a tokong where the Abbot was murdered. Scared of bad luck. That’s why the price was so low.”
“You shouldn’t let superstition devalue what you’re offering, brother,” said Guet Imm. She assumed a business-like air. “You must tell Mr Yeoh the price is eight hundred cash for each sarira, and that’s only because you’re giving him face in this time of war. I guess you’ll have to deduct the eight hundred cash deposit he already paid,” she added. “But no more than that. We cannot take responsibility for the other eight hundred, since we never received it. Mr Yeoh will pay when we explain the value of what he’s getting. The objects will help protect his family. The deity’s grace is in them.”
“What are you talking about?” said Tet Sang.
