The villagers leave. Too slowly for Jun-Jun, but they leave. She regards her shit-covered husband-to-be. He’s not whimpering anymore. Instead he’s holding in his sobs with heaving, trembling effort.

“All right, all right,” she soothes, ladling more water over his head, his shoulders, his legs. “Tell me, was it a nice dragonfly?”

He takes a few shuddering breaths before he’s able to nod.

“Pink,” he says, biting his lip. “It was pink.”

ENGLAND, 1983

Occasionally Karen’s mother will speak. While weeding the flowerbed or hanging out the laundry, she will quietly, casually throw out instructions—how Karen is holding herself wrong, how she needs to bend her knees a little here to stop from hurting herself. She tells her to breathe from the abdomen, not the upper chest; to be mindful of posture and correct alignment, how this will affect the direction of her chi. She’ll briefly demonstrate a stance and say something like, “Strength is rooted in balance,” then turn her back and retreat again into silent, domestic activity.

At first, Karen finds all of this an annoyance and ignores it. Eventually she tries one or two of her mother’s suggestions, but only half-heartedly, expecting additional rejoinders. When the reproaches still do not come, she becomes curious. She starts to listen, trying to copy and string together the stances she’s been shown, though it’s hard to know whether she’s doing anything correctly since her mother never comments on her progress; the most she’ll do is repeat her instructions. Karen understands this as a sign of criticism, or then again perhaps a form of affirmation.

Gradually, she comes to see her mother differently. The familiar, comforting close-ups—fragments of a cheek, or a waist to wrap her arms around, or an arm to lean against—recede. What emerges in their place is a not entirely clear figure posing in a series of still lifes: a small, soft woman cutting vegetables or cooking dinner or washing up, hands hidden in dishes and soapy water. While Karen practices, her mother continues to give sparse, occasional instruction, but she’s no longer alert to her mother’s voice. She’s paying attention instead to the evasiveness that meets her questions: How do you know all this? There’s not so much to know. Did you have a sifu? A tribe? Nothing like that. Did you hurt anyone? Silly girl. I used my hands to farm, to cut hair.

The small, soft woman in the garden, by the stove, at the sink. Karen dares not call her a liar.

HONG KONG, 1941

Japanese planes tear through the sky. Villagers flee to the nearest shelters. Roofs shatter, windows explode. Fire, smoke, ravaged fields. Most are killed instantly. Eventually, the shelling stops. Survivors are rounded up and tortured, executed, raped. In minutes an entire village disappears. Almost.

ENGLAND, 1983