If only Sweetie could speak, she would defend herself vigorously: yes, it’s true that I toppled the porcelain doll. But how Yin Yin longed for her plunge. Sweetie saw everything, from the sweet little girl’s eyes to her heart-shaped lips. Yin Yin was so lonely there, reduced to a flawless display, a source of pride. She didn’t want to be a showpiece; she liked darkness and wanted to sleep with the devil. She wanted to kill herself.

And above all, she despised having her feet bound.

Apple and Knife

‘Do you want some, Eva?’

For ten long seconds, she dangled the apple in front of me.

For ten long seconds, I gazed at her, the past roiling in my thoughts, the present refusing to vanish.

‘Why that look on your face?’ She giggled. ‘I’m not going to poison you.’

I’d joined the design company a couple of months before, and my colleague had invited me over for a meal. Our chat about office politics had led to fond expressions of mutual support. When you grow up surrounded by vicious women, sisterhood becomes important.

But perhaps I was expecting something else.

The plump apple glistened, mouth-watering. Then she asked me if she looked like a witch. I observed her slender, damp fingers. No wrinkles; no blue, bulging veins.

‘I’ll cut it for you,’ she said.

She made the decision herself. She had no way of knowing that I couldn’t look at an apple without thinking of Cousin Juli. Her ripe apples. Her glinting knife.

—

Cousin Juli was an attractive woman. She often wore a silk headscarf that would slip down her sleek hair. My mother said she dyed it ever since grey streaks had begun to appear in its natural muted reddishness. Yet there was no denying that she was beautiful. Her round face was lit by a childlike glow. She applied pink lipstick to her pouty lips as delicately as she applied a matching blush. Her small eyes had full lashes, dark with mascara. She could have passed for a university student.