Courchene wished he’d gone to Europe to fight fascist white men instead of fascist Asians. At least then the enemy would look like the enemy. Though there were people in his family who looked white but were not the enemy, people whom he loved. But still, he would have preferred it. He had enlisted early and begun to train as a code talker. If he’d completed training, he’d have been out on the Western Front, defeating the Germans by speaking Cree. Suddenly the language they’d been beaten and punished for speaking was working to help the Allies. He wondered sometimes what the heck was the point of committing to anything if the world and its rules could flip like a pancake at the merest hint of self-interest for those in power. He didn’t blame anyone who got confused, like that Japanese Canadian guy working as a guard for the Japanese army at Sham Shui Po, whom his fellow Grenadiers had told him about when he went to drop off medicine.

Anyway, he hadn’t completed because the commanding officer had wanted to pair him with his greatest enemy in this world, Thomas McMahon, who had married Estelle LaVallee, Courchene’s childhood sweetheart from before he was sent away to Beauval. He still loved Estelle desperately. So he had quit, and fallen into a depression, and begun to get into fights. He’d enlisted with the Winnipeg Grenadiers a year later to save himself from himself, in the hopes that loyalty to a cause would help him forget all the things he wanted to forget. But now Emily reminded him of Estelle. Still, if he could protect Emily, that was something pure and clean that made sense and didn’t have to be complicated.

CHAPTER 36THE NEWS ABOUT TAK-TAM

September 8, 1942

“Hello, Big Brother,” said Lee. “How are things? Have you eaten yet?”

“Not yet,” said Cheung. “I was going to warm up some baked spaghetti, whatever’s left that those murderers did not eat last night.” They spoke the old Hakka dialect, so it was easier to be frank. “You want some?”

“Sure,” said Lee. “If you’ll take these.” Grinning, he placed a can of bully beef, a small jug of cooking oil, and a basket holding six eggs on the counter. “Share these with your family, not those marauders.”

“Where on earth did you get these things?”

Lee just smiled.

Cheung poured Lee a cup of tea to drink while he fried leftovers on the portable kerosene burner. “I guess I’m lucky to have all these things—leftovers, a stove, hot tea. And a friend who knows how to find things.”

“Have you been to Tai Hang lately to check on Yim-Fong?” Lee asked. “How is she doing?”