Why didn’t Tak-Tam come? As the night wore on, she began to resign herself to the likely fact of his death. She thought about that day on the boat four years ago, and the conversation about her favourite village dog. She thought about the simple pleasure of making that pot of salted fish and rice on the deck, the one they’d never gotten to eat because their cooking had been disrupted by a careening British launch boat. She thought about Tak-Tam’s awkward marriage proposal the day after Tak-Wing and Emily’s cricket club wedding and how rageful and mean she’d been. She still couldn’t believe he’d still wanted to go through with it. She thought about the red dress she’d worn here in Chek Keng on the day of the double wedding, and the innocent, happy face Tak-Tam had put on, she knew, to mask other, more complicated feelings. He must have had misgivings about her, given how she’d treated him. Though he’d never said so.

Why didn’t he come? And image of him lying dead in their ancient village home, torched by the Japanese soldiers, caused tears to come. They dripped onto the baby’s quiet, round head. Macy Koon-Ying looked up at her, gurgled, then returned to suckling. Her last conversation with Tak-Tam had been about getting more firewood and whether to partake of a stash of looted furniture that Cousin Ka-Wan said came from a rich house on Argyle Street in Kowloon. The whole Sai Kung Peninsula was awash in looted goods, and it was hard to say no to them without seeming like you thought yourself better than the people who had taken them, who had risked getting shot by the Kempeitai or the lingering remnants of the Hong Kong police or rival Triads. Tak-Tam, ever principled, had said they shouldn’t. Ting-Yan said they should—she was pragmatic like her mother who had lived the ups and downs of these hills all her life. They had bickered about it, and in the end Tak-Tam had given in, and they had taken the furniture, some clothes, and a large box of canned bully beef. She felt bad about it now. He had probably been right. For the sake of a few earthly goods, there was likely an unfathomable spiritual payment the family would have to make now. The Christian God wouldn’t like what they’d done any more than Tin Hau would.