“But I was so careful!” she said. “I walked so far every day to find somewhere to wash the rags, so people wouldn’t notice. I thought you all would mind!” She spoke with disgust at the wasted effort. “If I knew you didn’t care, I wouldn’t have tried to hide it. I only did it because I thought you all would be sensitive.”
“Maybe the others would be sensitive. But they haven’t realised,” said Tet Sang. “You were careful.” And the men were not observant when it came to these matters. Tet Sang knew from experience that they would miss far more obvious symptoms than Guet Imm had displayed. Either she was one of those happy persons whose periods gave them little trouble, or her stoicism over her blistered feet extended to cramps and cold sweats. She had shown no sign of enduring agonies.
Guet Imm eyed him suspiciously. “How did you know?”
“Herbs,” said Tet Sang. “What else would you pick kacip fatimah for?” A new thought struck him. The cut of the votarial robes was very forgiving … “Unless you’re pregnant?”
“No!” said Guet Imm, insulted. “Do I look like a vow-breaker to you, brother?”
“It’s hard to follow the gods’ rules in these times,” said Tet Sang. “Not everybody can manage perfect virtue.”
His tone was mild, but he intended it as a reprimand and Guet Imm took his meaning. She went quiet, but she kept glancing at Tet Sang, until against his better judgment he said:
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” said Guet Imm. Then: “You’re more perceptive than you look, brother.”
Tet Sang grunted. But as he had known would happen, Guet Imm took his question as an open invitation to talk about her feelings.
“All this time, I thought you hated me,” she said.
Tet Sang felt there had been quite enough conversation already. But under the nun’s expectant gaze, the words unspooled from him, almost without his volition. “I don’t give money to people I hate.”
“But you don’t want me around.”
“Sungai Tombak is a nice town,” said Tet Sang. “Have you been here before?”
Guet Imm looked askance at this diversion, but she shook her head. “I haven’t travelled much. My family gave me to the tokong when I was a baby, and after I entered seclusion, of course there was no chance.”
“Seclusion?” Tet Sang had been avoiding eye contact, but he forgot himself and stared. “You were an anchorite?”
“Why is everybody so surprised by that?” said Guet Imm, displeased.
Tet Sang was reflecting on Guet Imm’s mix of naiveté and cunning, the earthy but unswerving piety, and above all, the impression she gave of finding the society of others a delightful innovation. “Actually, it explains a lot.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The rich tin families here have a good relationship with the Protector,” said Tet Sang. “So, they don’t get bothered. People can still go on with their lives, not like some towns. You’ll see when we get to the centre. You could get a job as a washerwoman or a healer.”
“See, you don’t want me around!” said Guet Imm. “Why not?”
“Why would I want you? Everybody else can carry and fight,” said Tet Sang. “What do you contribute?”
“I’m charming, I’m helpful and I give your rough bandit lifestyle the much-needed touch of a woman.”
Tet Sang snorted. “That’s exactly what you’re not giving. How many meals have you made for us? I mean,” he said, as Guet Imm opened her mouth, “meals we can eat. Food we have to throw away doesn’t count.”
Guet Imm frowned. “Nobody likes a pedant, brother.”
Her eyes flicked towards the pack on Tet Sang’s back, containing the goods he was to deliver. She seemed to derive inspiration from it.
“It’s because I’m a nun, isn’t it?” she said. “You’re scared my stomach is too delicate for your work. You don’t have to worry. I understand what I signed up for.”
Tet Sang shook his head. “You have an overblown idea of what we do.”
Guet Imm looked unconvinced. “So, you’re saying those”—she pointed at his pack—“are completely legal goods? Not even a little bit contraband?”
“What do you want with a group like us, anyway?” said Tet Sang, ignoring this. “There’s a war on. Decent lady like you, you should be working in a shop or a house somewhere, with rice on the table and a bed to sleep in at night. Not on the road with some gangsters who’ve run out of options.”
It was the first thing he’d said that had a real impact. Guet Imm’s head whipped around, her mouth falling open. He’d begun to hope he’d got through to her when she said, “There’s a war on?”
Tet Sang stared back, equally nonplussed. “You didn’t know?”
“Of course not,” sputtered Guet Imm. It was the most flustered he’d ever seen her. “Does everybody know? All the brothers?”
“Of course everybody knows, how do you not notice there’s a war—” Tet Sang cut himself off. “Wait. How long were you in seclusion?”
“I went in when I was fifteen,” said Guet Imm. “Roughly ten years ago.”
“You came out when?”
The light went out of the nun’s face. She said, “They burnt the tokong in the second month.”
It was the fifth month now, so three months had passed. Tet Sang did an internal calculation. The Reformist cause for which the bandits fought had begun to flower in the Tang motherland long before it travelled south to the peninsula. Reformism had become established among the Tang peoples in the Southern Seas only a decade or so ago. Local Reformists hadn’t been considered bandits until after the Yamatese invasion that had put the Protector to flight. For a time, the Protectorate had even supported the Reformists’ resistance against the Yamatese occupation, supplying the Reformists with weapons and military training.
It was only when the Protector retook the peninsula upon the withdrawal of the Yamatese army that the decisive breach had occurred. No longer in need of the Reformists to fight Yamato’s soldiers, the Protectorate had outlawed the movement and begun its purges—jailing Reformist leaders and resettling populations under suspicion of sympathizing with Reformism.
Entire Tang villages were herded onto swampy, infertile land and subjected to armed surveillance, curfews, mass deportations. As for the monastic orders, they had always been centres for Tang education and community. The fact that the orders were prohibited by the rules of their religion from adopting any political affiliation made no difference to the Protector. He was not interested in what the votaries believed but in what they did, and it could not be denied that the orders fed, healed and sheltered Reformists, as they were called upon to do for any ragged outcast who came to them. This was enough for the Protectorate: the Tang orders were being systematically burnt out of their tokong.
For all its efforts, the Protectorate had not yet succeeded in eliminating Reformism. The Reformists—bandits now—had gone into the jungle, where they were harder to purge, though the Protectorate was doing its best.