“What about here?” There was a chest of drawers beside the bed. We went through the drawers one by one. In the first, a clean but worn singlet, and a spare collar. In the second, two well-thumbed bibles printed on cheap paper, one in English and one in Latin. In the bottom drawer, shell dressings, Dettol, some cotton wool. A small first-aid kit that didn’t look at all promising. I opened it anyway. Inside, a roll of gauze, some tape, a few morphine syrettes, and a small jar of potassium permanganate salts. Praise Mary, or whoever watches over this little chapel! It would be even better if the padre had a stomach pump kit like the one in the day clinic at St Paul’s. I rifled around in his drawers without luck.

“Will this help?” Ting-Yan came in with a broken chalice—the cup sliced neatly from the base to form a funnel. In the other hand, she had a slender piece of garden hose. “There was a pump, before the war. There used to be lots of anti-opium pill smokers in this village. We used to have to do this sometimes.”

“Where did you find those?”

She pointed toward a basin that held kitchen implements.

I washed the broken chalice and the hose as well as I could with boiled water, and fashioned them into a makeshift pump.

I dissolved the salts in the priest’s cruet.

Somehow, I got the hose into the baby’s throat. He screamed bloody murder as I attempt to insert the device, but once it was in, he was so alarmed, he was silent. I held his nose. I poured the potassium permanganate solution into his poor little stomach. He sputtered and choked. I pumped his stomach with my hand. The solution came back up out of him, bright pink.

I did the same to Emily. She coughed. Vomited it out. I did it again.

Her face grew very red.

Then very blue.

“Violet,” she coughed. An almost human skin tone returned.

“Emily. Praise God.”

Again, she was sick on the floor. I poured more into her. She puked it up. She was pale, but beginning to look like herself.

“Tak-Wing was here,” she said. She reached for Raymond, who continued to wail. Emily began to wail too. “He tried—he tried—he …” She sobbed. There was a lot of snot, and choking.

Courchene came and put his arm around her. As Emily held and comforted Raymond, Courchene held and comforted Emily.

CHAPTER 51Typhoon ShelterTHE FINAL SECRET

June 30, 1997

Ophelia and Great-Aunt Violet are the last people in the restaurant, except for a young couple in the far corner. The girl is shouting and the boy is crying. The crab-pink lights flicker furiously, as though picking up on their volatile emotions.

The grumpy server approaches the table. “It’s nearly midnight,” she says. “I have to close soon. You want some sweet soup before you go?”