by Zen Cho
"These busybody men, one day they will make it so it's impossible to tell between the truly dead and the never alive. The girl is forever asking questions. When the servants dress her, it's talk, talk, talk. When we asked her where she'd got all her questions from, she said, 'I was made to be capable of learning. A perfect wife must know her husband.' Now isn't that clever, when she had no mother to teach her?"
"Very clever," murmured Siew Tsin. The last time she'd had this feeling was when she was still alive and her mother and father talked about her cousin Ming Yen, who was brilliant at school, played the guzheng, spoke in a soft voice, took small mouthfuls when she ate, and never answered back to her parents.
When on a dull afternoon Siew Tsin wandered into the music room and found Yonghua sitting at the piano, this seemed like an unpleasant joke played by the gods. Of course Yonghua played the piano. Probably she played it wonderfully.
Siew Tsin backed out of the room, but Yonghua turned and saw her.
"Ah! Second sister," said Yonghua. She stood up. "I am sorry. I have intruded. I should have asked you before touching the piano."
"No, no," said Siew Tsin. Was it embarrassment that made Yonghua bow her head? Did she have feelings, or just reactions? The wild terracotta warriors seemed to be animated only by their own lust and rage, seemed to pillage on their own account. But Junsheng said they were driven by pure instinct—that once the enforced bonds of duty and fealty had fallen away, only the dregs of their creators' desires were left to drive the machines, unrestrained by human reason.
"It belongs to Junsheng," said Siew Tsin. "I have no authority over the thing at all."
"But you are the only one who plays it, aren't you?" said Yonghua. "The paper women told me so. That makes you the natural master of the instrument."
"Please do not let me interrupt you," Siew Tsin was mumbling as Yonghua spoke, still hoping to escape.
But Yonghua said, "I do not play. I was looking at it out of curiosity. I had never seen such a thing before."
She paused. "Will you play it for me? I would like to hear how it sounds."
"Oh," said Siew Tsin. Worse and worse! "I'm not sure that I would give you the right impression. I only had a few lessons when I was a child. I am very inexpert."
"As someone who was alive, you will have a better understanding of such matters than me," said Yonghua. "I do not know anything about music or art. Please teach me."
Her directness disarmed Siew Tsin. She sat down and played the only piece she could manage with any respectability—a minuet by Bach. Yonghua watched her all the while, her head bent, her forehead creased, as if she was focusing all her powers on swallowing up the sound.
"That was not very good," said Siew Tsin when she was done. An idea came to her. "Junsheng has a gramophone in his study. I'll play you some recordings of decent pianists. That'll give you a better idea of music."
"Thank you, sister," said Yonghua. There was a glow in her eyes; they were not so strange now Siew Tsin was used to them.
Siew Tsin could not remember the last time she had pleased anyone so much. She found she liked it.
When the housekeeper told them Ling'en had come, Siew Tsin felt an unexpected impulse to hide Yonghua. It was one thing for Ling'en to make unpleasant insinuations about Siew Tsin. Yonghua, blank and innocent as a piece of paper, deserved better. She had no sins to work off, that she should be tormented by restless spirits.
But Siew Tsin could hardly squirrel Yonghua away under the sofa and pretend she was not there. She closed their book and told the housekeeper to bring Ling'en in.
Ling'en gave the room her usual quick once-over when she entered, as if she were casing out the exits. Then she cast Siew Tsin and Yonghua one of her veiled looks, which were like being stabbed by a knife emerging from mist.
"What a charming picture," she said. "The sister-wives studying together. It must delight Junsheng's heart that you get along so well. What have you been reading?"
Yonghua did not look afraid. Siew Tsin was coming to realise that she was not only better at being a wife than Siew Tsin, but better at being a person.
"Second sister is teaching me the poetry of her country," she said.
It was a peculiarity of Yonghua's that she looked people straight in the eye. She did not mean it as impoliteness. It was one of the subtle things that marked her out as inhuman.
"Poetry?" said Ling'en. She laughed. "Did they write poems where you came from, Siew Tsin? I knew our cousins in the southern seas were enterprising, but I had no idea they were artistic. I didn't know you had such an interest in language."
Siew Tsin felt her cheeks warm. It was one of the things that Ling'en liked to torment her about, her odd accent and the occasional awkwardnesses that arose in her Mandarin, when she used phrases they had used in Malaya but nowhere else, or when she translated directly from Malay or English or another dialect.
"I believe there were Chinese poets in Malaya," she said. "But I was teaching Yonghua Malay pantun. She had not heard of the form before, and asked if I would show her examples."
"Yonghua speaks Malay, does she?" said Ling'en.
"I'm a fast learner," said Yonghua.
"Of course," said Ling'en. "That is how they would have made you."
Siew Tsin stiffened. In all their days of reading and playing music, she and Yonghua had not touched upon the subject of her provenance. It had seemed to Siew Tsin that it would be indelicate to mention it.
"Junsheng would not have married you, after all," said Ling'en, "if you were not the best technology could offer."
"I am that," Yonghua agreed, "of a certainty."
Siew Tsin could not stop herself from shrinking as Ling'en came over to them, but Yonghua next to her did not so much as twitch.
Ling'en reached out and took Yonghua's chin between slender, sharp-tipped fingers. Yonghua's skin would be cool, Siew Tsin knew, and Ling'en would feel along the line of her jaw, under her finger pads, a steady pulse, its beat as regular as clockwork.
"What is he playing at?" whispered Ling'en. But though she spoke about Junsheng, she was looking into Yonghua's eyes. Siew Tsin did not know what she saw there.
"Getting to know your new little sister?" said Junsheng's voice at the door. "How nice to have a visit from you, Ling'en. The whole family under one roof, for once."
"In your dotage you are becoming like a woman who cannot open her mouth without reproaching her grandchildren for neglect," said Ling'en.
She dropped her hand. Yonghua's ink-pool eyes were still fixed on her, wide and dazzled.
"Hell is not the most interesting place I have lived either," Ling'en continued. "And old age in death is less rewarding than old age in life. But surely it is going a little far to start trading in blasphemy."
"What could she mean?" said Junsheng. He was smiling with his mouth but not his eyes.
"The thing's an abomination," said Ling'en.
"You are becoming pious in your old age."
"You know I am not generally concerned about appeasing the gods," said Ling'en. "But I'm not in the habit, either, of putting them out. It is none of my business. It simply seems odd that you have spent all these years exhorting me to return for my own safety, only to start playing with fire yourself."
Junsheng shrugged.
"There's always someone who will overthink these things," he said. "I am an old man, and I've worked hard for my pleasures. Don't I deserve some fun at my age?"
"How stupid you must think me," she said. "You used to pay me more respect, Junsheng. This isn't about lust—not for sex, anyway. But far be it for me to meddle in affairs not my own."
"Are you leaving already?" said Junsheng.
"I only came to satisfy my curiosity," said Ling'en.
She glanced at Yonghua.
"It's good you're a quick learner," she said to her. "Make use of your time. You don't have much left."
Yonghua took Siew Tsin's hand and squeezed it. Her fingers were cold.
; The press of those fingers gave Siew Tsin a sudden access of courage.
"I will see elder sister out," she said. What was the worst Ling'en had ever done to her, after all? Given her unfriendly looks and implied she was a whore. Well, Siew Tsin was essentially a whore, and looks wouldn't have been able to kill her even if she was still alive.
At the door she said, "What did you mean? About Yonghua not having much time left?"
Ling'en looked surprised. She might have had much the same expression if her pet dog had raised its head and started reciting Tang poetry. For a moment Siew Tsin thought she would not answer, but then she said:
"It's not just Yonghua. You are all at risk. Junsheng is really a fool. He has preserved himself for so long, and now he is throwing it all away for a gamble."
"I don't understand," said Siew Tsin.
"Ask Junsheng," said Ling'en.
Siew Tsin caught her arm before she could leave.
"He won't tell me!" she cried. "Junsheng doesn't tell me anything. Nobody tells me anything! They think I'm ignorant. It's true. I don't know anything. But Yonghua can learn anything. Two weeks ago she had never seen a piano. Now she can play everything I can, all the sheet music we own, every piece she's heard on the gramophone. In a few days she will speak Malay as well as I do. What is going to happen to her?"
If the dog had stood up on its hind legs, danced a ballet, and then proposed marriage to Ling'en, Ling'en might have looked much as she did now. But it was an improvement on her looking as if Siew Tsin was something disgusting that had gotten stuck to her shoe.
"Please tell me," said Siew Tsin. "If it's trouble, maybe there is something I could do to help."
A smile tugged up the corner of Ling'en's mouth.
"Who knew there was a mind in that pretty little head?" she said. She shrugged. "There is nothing you can do."
She would leave without saying anything. Siew Tsin could not bear it. "Please—"
"But you might as well know," said Ling'en. A smile of pure pleasure spread across her face. "It will annoy Junsheng so much. I am going to find a sedan chair to take me home. Walk with me to the main street. I'll tell you."
Yonghua was sitting alone in the room where Siew Tsin had left her. She looked up when Siew Tsin came in.
"Junsheng's gone to his study," Yonghua said. "He seemed—"
She hesitated. Yonghua was exquisitely correct on the subject of their husband, as in everything else. But it was not clear what she thought of him.
"He did not seem happy," she said.
"He and Ling'en can only fight when they are together," said Siew Tsin. "Sometimes they do it through other people."
Yonghua put her head on one side like a bird. "You do not seem happy."
"Do you know why you were made?" said Siew Tsin abruptly.
Yonghua did not seem to think this a strange question.
"I was made to profit my makers," she said.
This was true, of course.
"Do you know why Junsheng married you?" said Siew Tsin.
Yonghua cast down her eyes with the modesty befitting a young girl.
"I believe it is thought prestigious to own me," she said. "I am very expensive."
"Worth more than your weight in gold," said Siew Tsin. Ling'en had said that.
Yonghua smiled. "Precisely."
Ling'en seemed to have decided that Siew Tsin's years of torpor came from an intelligent wish to stay out of trouble, rather than intense shyness. She had said:
"If you have as much sense as you seem to have, you would take care to avoid that machine. If you pretend ignorance, you might have a chance. But better than that, save up, or steal if you have to, and get away from that house. Let Junsheng go to—ah—paradise on his own. There's no reason why you should be dragged into trouble with him."
"Is that why you left?" said Siew Tsin.
Ling'en was so narrow-faced, high-cheekboned, and sharp-chinned that everything she did had edges. Her smile cut like a knife.
"I left because I knew we would be the end of each other if I stayed," she said. "We were always too busy trying to save the other from becoming what we did not like. This way perhaps I'll avoid Junsheng's brand of salvation."
"Yonghua, you are in danger," Siew Tsin wanted to say now, but the door swung open and Junsheng appeared, restored to good humour.
"My precious, why are you sitting here in the dark? I am sorry I was cross. That useless old woman! She has found religion and it is softening her mind. But forgive me. Come upstairs and entertain your old husband. My useless descendants have exerted themselves for once—we have a new wireless. You can show me how to operate it."
Yonghua rose, murmuring disclaimers. Siew Tsin stayed where she was, just outside the circle of light cast by the lamp.
The light shining in through the windows turned the room a lurid red, smeared with shadows. Outside there was a dim cavern roof for a sky; black volcanic floor for earth; demons and spirits for neighbours. Despite their horse heads and bull faces, the demons of the tenth court were mundane creatures, pot-bellied and often flushed with liquor, courteous enough to the wife of a rich man. But the red light that filled hell made everyone look terrifying—human, demon, or otherwise.
It was not a world Siew Tsin would have chosen to live in. But she did not want to be reborn, either, anymore than Junsheng did, anymore than all the other spirits showering gold and favours on hell officials so that they could stay where they were. Rebirth entailed a true death, the severing of one's memory and the loss of one's self.
That day she sat in darkness for a long time, and only stirred when a paper maid called her to dinner.
Yonghua heard the attackers before Junsheng or Siew Tsin knew anything of it. They had been reading, Junsheng playing idly with Yonghua's hair, Siew Tsin pretending not to be bothered.
Junsheng seemed to have realised that it pleased Yonghua when he included Siew Tsin. When he called Yonghua to him now he usually asked his second wife to come along, and they spent the evenings together, talking, reading and listening to Cantonese opera on the gramophone. He also seemed to enjoy the pretence of being a family.
Siew Tsin and Yonghua rarely spoke to each other on these occasions. Yonghua because she was the perfect wife and all her attention was on Junsheng. Siew Tsin because nobody could know of their friendship. Nobody could know how much Siew Tsin liked Yonghua.
This was their unspoken understanding. It was a shock when Yonghua breached it. She shook off Junsheng's hand, sat up and said directly to Siew Tsin:
"You must leave now. They're coming."
Siew Tsin stared.
"What?" said Junsheng.
But Yonghua was already on her feet. She put her shoulder against an armoire and pushed it in front of the door while Siew Tsin and Junsheng goggled.
"That will slow them down," she said.
She turned to Siew Tsin, picked her up by the waist, and—moving so quickly Siew Tsin barely had the chance to gasp—threw her out of the open window. Siew Tsin splashed into the ornamental koi pond just as the terracotta soldiers kicked the door in.
"Run!" called Yonghua. She slammed the window shut.
There were three attackers, Siew Tsin learned later. It was easy enough to find a terracotta warrior willing to be a mercenary—it was one of the few jobs they deigned to do, preferring most of the time to obtain their gold by force—but they didn't take orders at a low price. They were expensive.
It was a rare assignation that could task the abilities of even a lone warrior. Terracotta warriors were made for fighting. They were inhumanly strong, nearly indestructible, and subject to none of the restraints that governed the behaviour of humans or hell officials. They were built to protect the dead. Nothing frightened them.
Three terracotta warriors to murder or collect one rich man was overkill. But of course their employers had known about Yonghua. They had taken her into consideration.
Unfortunately for them, they had miscalculated.
A red clay face loomed out of the window. Siew Tsin almost screamed, but choked it down. She balled her hand in a fist, raised it—and realised that a large crack ran along the terracotta warrior's forehead. She pushed at the head and the body slumped sideways, lifeless.
Inside the room Junsheng was lying on the floor, his eyes closed. He must have been hit on the head—or thought it wise feign unconsciousness. And Yonghua—
Yonghua was a blaze of colour, a many-layered swirl of fabric, her preternatural silence a heart of stillness in a fluid world of movement. She slammed the heel of her palm into a warrior's jaw, grabbed his arm and threw him. He crashed into the wall with the sound of a vase smashing to pieces.
Yonghua turned around, blocked the descending arm of the other remaining warrior, drew a hair stick from her head and drove its sharp point into his neck.
The warrior staggered back, groaning. It was a strange noise, like the grinding of rocks. Even stranger were the words that could be distinguished amidst the groans.
"Sister," the warrior said. "Sister, have mercy—"
Yonghua put her fist through his chest.
When she dusted off her hands, Siew Tsin saw that her knuckles were bleeding. She clambered through the window, stepping daintily to avoid the shards of terracotta warrior scattered around the room.
"You're hurt," she said.
Yonghua barely glanced at her bleeding hands.
"It's just liquid," she said. "See to Junsheng. Is he hurt?"
But he was stirring. He opened his eyes and gave Yonghua a pallid, pathetic look. She knelt by him, slipping an arm around his neck.
"You are not well," she said.
"I am an old man," he said.
Only 54 when you died, thought Siew Tsin, and you could pass for 40.
"In my youth I could have fought off these bandits. But I cannot take shocks like these anymore."