“Don’t worry. I didn’t talk to anybody but the servants,” said Guet Imm. “It was a good thing I went back; they gave me the vegetables for our dinner. Otherwise, we would have had to eat white rice. And they told me Grandmother and Mrs Yeoh were at home, along with all the daughters-in-law and nieces and whatnot—all the women.”
“So what?”
“Well, at first I thought Grandmother was promising,” said Guet Imm. “Even Yeoh Thean Tee must listen to hismother. But apparently, her father was a foreigner and she prays at the Protectorate’s churches. I was very disappointed, but then the maids told me something interesting. Remember I told you about Yeoh Gaik Tin?”
Tet Sang didn’t, but nevertheless the name sounded familiar. He searched his memory. “You mean Yeoh Thean Tee’s daughter? The acolyte?”
“We called her Sister Anitya,” said Guet Imm.
“She was atyour tokong?” said Tet Sang. “You didn’t tell me that!”
“I did,” insisted Guet Imm. “I told you, Yeoh Thean Tee paid for our turtle pond.”
This, Tet Sang did recollect. “You didn’t say it was because his daughter was a novice at your tokong.”
“Why else would Yeoh Thean Tee buy us a turtle pond?” said Guet Imm.
This was unanswerable, and Tet Sang was not interested in answering it anyway. A horrible thought had struck him. “You said there was nobody left alive from your tokong.” If their hopes of payment depended on a nun of the very Order that had been involved in the death of Yeoh Thean Tee’s daughter, they were finished.
“Oh, nobody who was still there,” said Guet Imm. “But you know rich people, brother; they stay for a short time only. Sister Anitya left the Order when I was in seclusion, long before the bandits came. She’s married now. She could help us.”
It seemed highly unlikely to Tet Sang that a man like Yeoh Thean Tee would pay any regard to the opinions of a daughter, and he said so.
“There’s no way she’ll have authority to forgive the debt,” he said. “If we try to negotiate with her, Yeoh Thean Tee will simply send his men after us to take back whatever she gives us. Then not only will we be in debt to him, we’ll be the people who tried to con his daughter.”
“You don’t know Sister Anitya,” said Guet Imm. “I did. She could make the deal for us.”
“So, you want to ask her,” said Tet Sang. When Guet Imm nodded, he said, with a vision of how Fung Cheung would look when he was recommended another fruitless quest, “And where does she live?”
“Kempas,” said Guet Imm triumphantly. “The husband left his family to join hers. See?”
It wasn’t unheard of for the son of a lower-status family to be absorbed into his wife’s household and lineage instead of the other way around. But… “Didn’t Yeoh Gaik Tin marry a rich man?”
“Chuah Siaw Loon. He’s a timber tycoon,” said Guet Imm. “It wasn’t a matter of money or name. It’s Sister Anitya’s character. If she wants to make the deal, it will happen. I just need to talk to her. If she’s anything like she was at the tokong, she will help.”
Tet Sang opened his mouth to protest, though he could feel his scepticism crumbling in the face of her certainty.Guet Imm was nothing like the Abbot at Permatang Timbul in almost every respect, but she shared with the Abbot the rare quality of a faith so potent that it gave off its own heat and light, dazzling onlookers. It was impossible not to trust that things would be as she said.
“This war has changed us all, sister,” he said, but it was the final gambit of one who knew himself defeated.
“The deity led us here,” said Guet Imm. “She won’t fail us. Let me try.”
They spoke to Fung Cheung, but Tet Sang thought it neither necessary nor advisable to inform the rest of the group about Guet Imm’s intention to attempt to parley with Yeoh Thean Tee’s daughter. Yet somehow, the news spread anyway.
The next morning, Ah Boon said to him, “The plan, with the Yeoh daughter… is it a good idea, Second Brother?”
There was no point asking how Ah Boon had heard of the plan. For all their differences, the brothers were united in their hatred of informers.
“You don’t like it?” said Tet Sang.
“Sister Guet Imm has good intentions,” said Ah Boon. “But why would Yeoh Thean Tee listen to his daughter, even if she asks him to forgive our debt? Anyway, most likely this daughter will simply call the mata on us. Then how?”
All of these points and more had occurred to Tet Sang. He’d expected Fung Cheung to rehearse the same arguments when Guet Imm presented the proposal to him the night before. Instead, Fung Cheung had said, “Why not? No doubt you will make an offering to your goddess before you go to see this woman, sister.”
“The deity will look after us,” said Guet Imm.
Fung Cheung nodded.
Tet Sang said dubiously, “You think it’s a good plan?”
