they are.” Lanying comes straight to the point as we sit down in the shade of the wide pine in the middle of the courtyard. “Hiding in plain sight, the idiots.” She stretches her long legs and leans back against the papery white bark.
“Sisters, please.” Jomo rushes from the doorway, a tray packed with tea and goodies in her hand. Sensing the serious nature of our conversation, she pinches little sister’s cheeks and squints. “Come on, skinny chicken, let’s get you inside and put some fat on those scrawny bones of yours.” Squealing with delight, the two of them dart to the kitchen.
I push the tray between us and glance at Lanying. Her fingertips sway the dense whorls of verdant foliage above us.
“So, you saw them then?” I say. My eyes dart from the tray to the edge of the yard and back. Tightness pinches my ribs, and a heavy pit nestles itself in my stomach. She found them. My mind lays silent with all thoughts suspended at Lanying’s claim.
“I didn’t.” She sinks her teeth into a dried date and tears its golden-brown skin from its pearly middle. “But my men did.” She smacks the reddish flesh with contentment, flicking the velvety pit between her long fingernails.
I take a steeling breath and raise the teacup to my mouth. “Good.” My lips form a to-quick smile and I try to look at her while avoiding her eyes. I’ve failed.
“They got to you.” She takes another date and rips it to shreds before she pops it in her mouth. “Karma and that Dendup, they told you about me, didn’t they?” Her voice hammers with a stone-cold certainty through the humid afternoon air.
I guzzle down my tea to hasten my response, but she’s already ahead of me.
“Well, it’s all true.” She settles her aloof stare on me. “I sold out my entire family.” Unmoved, she swats a fly from the tray.
My teacup floats somewhere between my mouth and my lap, and all I can do is stare at her. It’s all true.
“But why?” My voice wavers. Do I need to know?
“It was them or me,” she says. She slices another date to the bone with her polished fingernail. “And I made sure it wasn’t me.”
I shiver at the hint of complacency in her voice.
“You know, sister.” Her eyes narrow on me. “Few girls have the luxury of growing up as sheltered as you have.” She squashes the fleshy fruit between her fingers.
“Spending most of his sorry existence in the whorehouses, my father was all too happy to encourage my brother to stick his tiny prick in every hole he could find, including mine from as young as I can remember.” She wrinkles her nose and swats her hand at an imaginary fly.
“And when I was about ripe enough, he sold me off to that filthy old swine to be humiliated in all the worst ways you can imagine.” She glances at me and sighs. “Well, you probably can’t, and that’s a good thing.”
As the immensity of her personal disclosure hits me, my thoughts go into hiding. I feel myself staring at her, but cannot focus.
She takes another sip of tea.
“It took me years to prepare, but I did it.” Her voice has toned down to a low whisper. “I tricked my brother into imprisonment, but the lowlife killed himself, a fate which conveniently destroyed my father.” She sucks in her cheeks.
“And that nasty husband of mine?” She pauses, and a slight smile curls around her lips. “Well, I got his sorry ass sold into slavery—he deserved a fate far worse than death.” She leans back, relaxing in the stunning silence her words have spun between us.
My hands clutch my cup, the earthen rim presses hard onto the flat bone of my chest. I open my mouth, but my words drown in my throat as the hideous hurt of her confession sinks in. I meet her eyes, and the sudden, saddened blue in them smudges between us.
“So, you see, sister,” she says and tilts her head to the side. “I wasn’t joking when I said I’m beyond redemption in this lifetime.” She rests her gaze on the toes of her boots, rocking her heels in the brittle gravel, back and forth, back and forth.
With a shudder, my mind rises, stirred by her last words.
“You might think you’re beyond redemption.” I weigh my words before I let them slip from the back of my tongue. “But you’re not, for it’s not what you’ve done that matters. It’s what you do now.” I put my cup aside and catch her gaze. “You told me you choose to be this way, to take the law into your own hands, remember?”
She presses a date between her tight lips and chews it with a vengeance. “For sure I did,” she says. “There was no way I was going to wait it out for some karmic law to settle the score.” She rolls her eye and spatters the pit before her feet. “I don’t possess the patience of a mule, merely enduring the heavy load and brutal punishments imposed on it.”
She lifts her chin at me and her eyes bear the brightest of peacock blue. “No, mine is the patience of a warrior, who despite the cruelty suffered and wounds sustained never relinquishes the quest for a glorious victory.” She bares her teeth into a hard grin, and I can’t help but shake my head at her tone of hollow pride.
“Lanying, you decide how you want it to be.” I lean in to strengthen my words. “You made your choice before, with reason, and you can make another choice again—just as easily.” I rest my case as a wistful shadow draws around her eyes. She sighs and my heart sinks. I’ve failed—for now.
“I adore your innocence, sister,” she says. “I really do.” She places her hand on mine and interlocks our fingers. “It’s something I never had the pleasure of tasting myself.” Her long nails scrape my fingers as she turns our hands into a fist. “And probably never will, for once our tongue is scorched by the fire of vengeance, it’s scarred and devoid of savoring anything so sweet as innocence ever again.” She tips her head back and closes her eyes. Her fist drops in her lap.
My fingers grip hers tighter as I swallow hard to stomach the bitter reality of samsara. My mind fevers with the thought of my grandmother’s ordeal related to me just this morning, and now my sister’s. My heart shudders. The things some men do.
“But let my past doing not deter you of my help, sister.” Lanying’s fingers slide from mine. “You’ll need it, for that woman, I heard she’s a sly one.” She jumps to her feet. “We’d better get a move on.” Her eyes dart to the gate.
“Now?” I raise myself and smoothen my hair. “Outside?” My voice pitches, and Lanying laughs.
“Well, they will not come to us, sister,” she says. “So yes, outside.” She waves her hand at the entrance. “My men are waiting—one will bring little sister home; one will come with us.” She turns on her heels like she always does, and sniggers. “And you’re more than welcome to take one home afterwards, just for pleasure. I trained them well.”