Still, if Tet Sang were an enthusiastic Protectorate official on the hunt for bandits, this was the first place he would look. An ambush by the authorities was the last thing they needed right now, with the goods they were carrying. He was restless all evening, jumping at every hoot of a passing owl.
“You’re like an old woman,” said Fung Cheung, the originating cause of all this anxiety. “Don’t worry so much. That Mr Aw is not stupid; he won’t be making a report. Even if he does, they won’t send out the mata for a brawl in a coffeehouse.”
Fung Cheung must have known he was speaking nonsense. The Protectorate would send out their forces at the merest whiff of bandits, and any trouble at a Tang-run coffeehouse would be presumed to involve bandits. Tet Sang gave him a look but only said:
“I’m not worried. I’m on my guard. That’s different.”
There was always someone on watch at night, but that night it was Ah Hin, who’d had a little too much beer at dinner. It was a wonder his snoring didn’t wake them all up, but it wasn’t that that snapped Tet Sang’s eyes open shortly after midnight.
He was fully awake in a moment. He threw himself on the intruder, rolling them onto their back.
The waitress from Weng Wah Coffeehouse stifled a squeak. Her alarm changed to relief when she saw Tet Sang’s face.
“It’s you, brother!” she said, pleased. “I was wondering which one you were. You all look the same in the dark.”
The others stirred. Ah Hin leapt up, shouting:
“Big Brother! Intruder! Fire! Attack!”
Fung Cheung was on his feet, his knife at the ready. “Ah Sang, you caught him? Who is it?”
Tet Sang sat back on his haunches, letting the waitress go. She dusted herself off fastidiously.
“Nobody,” said Tet Sang. “Just a woman.”
Someone lit a torch and the scene blossomed into clarity—the groggy men rubbing their eyes and reaching for their weapons; the bald woman with her calm, infuriating smile.
“A nun,” the waitress corrected him. “A votary of the Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water.”
This was for the benefit of their audience. Tet Sang already knew it, and from the gleam in the waitress’s eye, she hadn’t forgotten this.
“You’re the girl from the coffeehouse,” said Fung Cheung.
“What’s your name?” said Tet Sang.
The waitress folded her hands. “At my tokong they called me Nirodha.”
Tet Sang raised an eyebrow. “And your actual name?”
The waitress held his eyes for half a second before her gaze faltered. “My birth name was Guet Imm.”
Ah Hin had digested the implications of the waitress being a follower of the Pure Moon.
“That girl is a witch!” he said. “Must be she enchanted me, that’s why I fell asleep!”
Suspicious muttering rose from the group like a bad smell.
“Did you enchant Ah Hin?” said Tet Sang.
Guet Imm looked injured. “No! Brother was already sleeping when I came. He looked tired, so I tried not to wake him up. I was looking for you, brother.”
“What for?”
“You’re the one I know,” explained Guet Imm.
Tet Sang jerked his head towards Fung Cheung. “You know him.”
“Yes, but you’re the one I trust,” said Guet Imm.
“Because of you, I fought that guy!” said Fung Cheung, offended.
“Yeah,” said Guet Imm apologetically. “Sorry, brother. But because of your fight, Mr Aw fired me.”
“He would have fired you anyway. You cannot go around hexing customers and expect to keep your job. It’s bad customer service.”
“He might have changed his mind before you got involved,” argued Guet Imm. “Anyway, this brother was actually helpful.” She gestured at Tet Sang. “He gave me money.”
“He did?” said Fung Cheung. He clapped Tet Sang on the back, delighted. “Ah Sang, you didn’t say! When you’re always scolding me for being too generous! All the more we shouldn’t worry. That coffeehouse earnt a lot of money today. It would be too ungrateful if they put the mata on us after all that.”
“I’m not at the coffeehouse anymore,” said Guet Imm. “I said they let me go.”
“Big Brother,” said Ah Hin urgently, “what about the witch’s jampi?”
But he’d lost his moment. Fung Cheung would have forgiven the nun much worse for such ammunition against Tet Sang as she’d given him.
“Come on, Ah Hin, you don’t need this sister’s jampi to fall asleep on watch,” said Fung Cheung. “You’ve done it so many times, must be you offended some spirit. We better take you to visit a sinseh in the next town, see if he can cure you.”
Amid the ensuing merriment at Ah Hin’s expense, Tet Sang said to the nun, “I gave you the money so you would go away. What happened to it?”
Guet Imm held up a soft black thing like the hide of a small animal. It turned out to be a wig. “I bought this so I’m not so conspicuous. It fell off when you jumped on me.”
She put it on her head. The effect was singularly unconvincing.
“I still have the rest of the money,” she added. “I thought of getting pots and pans, maybe some cooking chopsticks. But I wasn’t sure what you all had already.”
“Huh?” said Tet Sang.
“Oh, I’m joining you all,” said Guet Imm, wide-eyed. “Didn’t I say already?”
“You definitely did not say that!”
Guet Imm looked piteous. “But I don’t have anywhere else to go. Brother”—she meant Fung Cheung—“caused me to lose my job.” Another thought struck her. “And you saved my life! That’s two reasons why you have to look after me now.”
Tet Sang’s brow furrowed. “Wait, how does that even—”
“Don’t worry, brother. I won’t be a burden. I’ll make myself useful. I learnt how to cook at the coffeehouse. And,” the nun added, with rather more confidence, “I’m great at cleaning!”
“We’re roving contractors,” said Tet Sang. “We have nothing to clean.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Guet Imm, looking at Tet Sang’s clothes in an unflattering way. “Contractors, huh? I thought you were bandits. What kind of contract work do you do? Building houses, stuff like that?”
“More ‘stuff like that,’” said Fung Cheung. It was evident the nun amused him.
This was a bad sign. Fung Cheung would do anything for a laugh. Tet Sang glared at him, but before he could say anything, Ah Boon intervened.
“Maybe it’s not such a bad idea, Big Brother,” he said to Fung Cheung. “It gets boring, just us men. A woman in the group could contribute something different. She says she’ll make herself useful. I’m sure she can help us out—do more than cooking and cleaning. You won’t mind being kind to us, right, little sister?”
Ah Boon chucked the nun under her chin. It was like watching an idiot child pull a tiger’s tail. Tet Sang leant back.
But Guet Imm kept her hands in her lap. She looked puzzled, but after a moment, her face cleared.