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 his 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