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.”
“What happened to the other votaries? The ones who weren’t there.”
Tet Sang shrugged. “The smart ones disappeared. The ones who went to the Protectorate when they came back and found the tokong destroyed got resettled. One or two got executed for conspiring with bandits.”
Guet Imm did not ask if they had been guilty. She must have known that that was of no importance.
“The bandits thought we were conspiring with the mata at my tokong,” she said. “They thought we were spying on them and reporting back to the Protectorate. That’s why they came after us—at least, I think so,” she added. “There was nobody left to ask when I came out. They stopped bringing me food; that’s how I realised something had happened. But it took me a while to notice. By the time I came out to check, more than a week had passed.”
“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