Jade War

CHAPTER 11 Port Massy

The week after his adoptive grandfather’s funeral, Anden boarded an eleven-and-a-half-hour flight out of Janloon International Airport. He felt as if he were entering the cell that housed prisoners on the night before execution. Only, instead of a shoebox-sized shrine and a penitent to guide meditation prayers that might ease his conscience in preparation for the afterlife, there were stacks of tattered gossip and lifestyle magazines and stewardesses moving through the circulating haze of cigarette smoke to offer blankets and hot tea.

Anden took a sleeping pill and knocked himself out for most of the trip. When he awoke, the plane was coming in for a landing, and groggily, he opened the window shade to get a first glimpse of the foreign city he’d been exiled to. Like a vast, spiky beast asleep under a blanket, the metropolis of Port Massy lay sprawled beneath a thick layer of fog, tinted orange by the late-afternoon sun. Steel and concrete skyscrapers jutted up in dense clumps on the tidal banks where the great Camres River emptied into Whitting Bay and met the North Amaric Ocean. Anden searched for landmarks he’d seen in photographs and on television: the Iron Eye Bridge, the Mast Building, the Port Guardian statues. Even up until now, he had not really believed that he was leaving Kekon, but at last it seemed real, and when the landing wheels of the airplane bumped against the tarmac, his heart answered with a thud of awe and fear.

In the baggage claim area, he picked up his suitcase and stood nervously scanning the crowd until he saw an elderly Kekonese couple holding a sign with his name written on it. He approached them and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Hian?” They looked at him in surprise, as if he was not who they had been expecting. The man had gentle eyes and a short, wiry gray beard that was darker than his hair; the woman had a wide, rosy face with surprisingly few wrinkles for her age.

Anden set his bag on the ground and said, “I’m Emery Anden. Thank you for opening your home to me. May the gods shine favor on you for your kindness.” He touched his clasped hands to his forehead and tilted into a respectful salute.

If the couple had been initially confused by Anden’s appearance, they were put at ease by his fluent Kekonese and respectful manners. “Ah, it’s no trouble for us; we like to host students,” said Mr. Hian, smiling now and touching his forehead in greeting. His wife did the same, and asked, “How was your flight? It’s very long, isn’t it? We’ve only been back to Kekon twice since we moved here; that flight, it’s too long! My old body can’t take it anymore.” Her husband tried to take Anden’s suitcase, which Anden quickly insisted on relieving him of, and the couple led the way out of the airport to the short-term parking lot.

Mr. Hian drove, with Mrs. Hian in the front passenger seat. It was the smallest, oldest car that Anden had ever been in, with brown fabric upholstery, a faux wood dash, and windows that only rolled down halfway. Anden sat in the back, staring out at the passing streets and buildings. The air was humid, but nothing like Janloon’s fragrant sweat; the dampness here felt cool and ashy. Steam rose from grates in the sidewalks as people hurried past storefronts with mannequins displaying bright, tinselly clothes. Buskers drummed, largely ignored, on upturned metal pails outside a train station. Double-decker buses spewed black exhaust. The largest city in Espenia seemed a sunless and unfriendly place, a picture of frenetic activity against a sepia canvas of brick and concrete. And everywhere he looked, he saw Espenians.

“So, do you have family in Espenia?” Mr. Hian asked casually.

“No,” replied Anden, and because he recognized the seemingly mild question for what it really was—an inquiry into his ancestry—he said, “My father was Espenian, but I was born in Kekon. This is my first time here.” It felt strange to even speak of his father, some foreign serviceman he’d never known and had no desire to. Even more strange to think he was in the man’s homeland.

Mr. and Mrs. Hian lived in a part of the city called Southtrap on the lower side of the Camres. It was a working-class, largely immigrant neighborhood with multistory brick apartment buildings packed close together in a manner that reminded Anden of the Paw-Paw or Forge districts in Janloon. His host family lived in one of the better homes: a yellow, two-story row house facing onto a busy two-lane street. Anden carried his suitcase into the house and up the narrow staircase to the guest bedroom, which overlooked an alley in the back. It was about the size of his dormitory room at the Academy, much smaller than the bedroom he’d become accustomed to in the Kaul family’s beach house in Marenia. It was homey, though; the bedspread was thick and soft, and a watercolor print of a misty mountain hung on the wall above the headboard. A vase on the dresser held three sprigs of blue fabric flowers.

Mrs. Hian made a proper Kekonese dinner of blackened chicken in milk, sautéed greens, and noodles with garlic sauce. Anden was immensely grateful for the familiar food and had no trouble eating several servings to show his appreciation. “Eat as much as you can,” Mrs. Hian encouraged him. “Espenian food is not very good. I always tell my son to come home for dinner more often, but he’s so busy and the traffic is too difficult. That’s why he’s losing weight.” The Hians had two sons. The eldest, which Mrs. Hian was referring to, lived in the north part of the city but worked in sales for a medical equipment company and traveled a great deal. He was the one who’d brought his parents over to Espenia a decade ago. Their younger son was studying to earn his doctorate in history at Watersguard University in Adamont Capita. “A useless degree,” Mr. Hian sighed. “But children do what they want.”

After dinner, Mrs. Hian cleared the plates and Anden brought out the gifts Shae had instructed him to give: a bottle of expensive hoji, an envelope of cash in Espenian thalirs, and a green ceramic teapot, wrapped with newspaper to keep it safe during the journey. The hoji and money were mere tokens; Anden was sure that the couple would be paid on a monthly basis for housing him. The teapot was more meaningful. Mr. Hian lifted the lid. The circular insignia of the No Peak clan was stamped on the inside. A gift of something green, marked with the symbol of the clan, connoted the friendship of Green Bones and conferred status on the recipient. Presented to a person outside the clan, it meant a favor had been done and would at some point be returned.

The couple thanked Anden warmly and put the teapot on a shelf in the kitchen next to photographs of their sons. Mr. Hian offered Anden a glass of the fine hoji and they enjoyed it together at the dining table. “Are people in Kekon worried about the war?” he asked.

Anden was initially confused. For a moment he thought his host was referring to the clan war between the Mountain and No Peak. “You mean the conflict in Shotar,” he said, once he realized otherwise. “I think so. I haven’t been keeping up with the news very well, though.” He didn’t explain that he’d spent the past year keeping his disgraced head down in a sleepy coastal village.

“The Oortokon War is being talked about a lot here,” said Mr. Hian. The eastern province of Shotar known as Oortoko (Ortykvo in Ygut) sat along the border of Ygutan and had long been a disputed area populated by many ethnic Ygutanians. Three months ago, an insurrectionist militia proclaimed the area independent of Shotar. The Shotarian government rejected the unilateral declaration and sent troops to the region to suppress the rebellion, only to find themselves facing a well-equipped fighting force not-so-covertly trained and backed by the Ygutanians. The Shotarians appealed to Espenia for help.

“If Espenian troops are sent to fight the rebels in Shotar, it may turn into a war against Ygutan.” Mr. Hian shook his head with concern. “My nephew tells me that Kekon will also be affected because the Espenians will use it as a base, and they will demand jade for their soldiers.”

“I’m sure he’s right,” said Anden. “The people working in the Weather Man’s office would know what’s going on.” Mr. Hian’s nephew was a senior Luckbringer in the clan’s Ship Street office tower; he’d been an Academy classmate of Kaul Lan and Woon Papidonwa and had vouched to Shae that his uncle would take care of Anden while he was in Espenia.

“What about you, Anden?” asked Mrs. Hian curiously. “Are you of rank in the clan?” She did not say “a member of the clan” or “part of the clan.” The majority of people in Janloon could claim to be affiliated with one of the Green Bone clans, but being “of rank” was different—it referred to a position of status and usually meant someone who wore jade.

Perhaps Mr. Hian’s nephew had told them that Anden was a graduate of Kaul Dushuron Academy. They must be confused by the fact that they had not seen any green on him. Anden hesitated; he didn’t want to lower his hosts’ regard for him, but he didn’t want to be dishonest either. “I was, but my cousin is the Pillar and he decided I should come to Espenia to study.” For an instant, he pretended to himself that he was referring to Lan instead of Hilo, and suffered a pulse of self-pity and grief; he would not be in this situation at all if Lan were still alive.

The Hians nodded, no doubt sensing there was more to Anden’s story, but refraining from inquiring further. “You’re lucky to have a family that’s so powerful and able to sponsor your education, even if it means sending you to the other side of the world,” said Mr. Hian. “You must be very tired, though. We should all go to sleep.”

“Mr. Hian,” Anden began, but the man raised a hand to interrupt him.

“Your cousin put you in our care,” said the old man. “While you’re here in Espenia, think of us as your family. Ask anything of us that you would ask your own kin.”

Anden nodded. “Uncle, do you like living in Espenia?”

Mr. Hian scratched his beard and looked thoughtful. “Well enough,” he replied. “Of course, it’s not Kekon. The food, the language, the Espenians and their ways will always be a little strange to us. But there are good things about it as well. And most importantly, it’s where our sons are. Your home is always where your family is.” His wife nodded in agreement.

Anden’s long, drug-induced nap on the airplane flight made it so that he couldn’t fall asleep when he went to bed. The dorm at the Academy, the Kaul residence in Janloon, and his room in the Marenia beach house had all been quiet spaces separated from the bustle of the city. Now he could hear people and cars and sirens and other urban noise all night, right outside his window. Anden lay awake for several hours, feeling utterly miserable.

Shae had enrolled him in the Immersive Espenian for Speakers of Other Languages (IESOL) program at Port Massy College. The spring term began the following week. Mr. Hian showed Anden where to take the bus and rode with him the first day. Anden knew a total of about thirty words in Espenian, mostly from pop culture; there’d been a class at the Academy, but he’d only taken one semester before dropping it in favor of a supplemental Deflection elective. At the time, he couldn’t see how speaking Espenian would be of any use to him. Proficiency in the jade disciplines was far more important if he was to become a Fist of No Peak.

There were fifty students in the program, hailing from all over the world. There were four Tuni and two Shotarians in the class, but Anden was the only Kekonese. The teacher was a bearish woman with hair the color of wheat. When Anden answered her question about where he was from, she initially thought he said, “Callon,” a city in Stepenland. The students were seated together at round tables and encouraged to get to know each other. Anden decided that he would be polite, but he was not here to make friends—which was just as well since during the lunch break, social groupings quickly formed based on ethnic background. Anden might’ve tried to join in at the table of Tuni youths, but he did not, as he was instinctively distrustful of them; the Kekonese view themselves as superior to neighboring races.

In Anden’s mind, there were two ways to deal with his situation: give in to despair and sleepwalk through the year, or grit his teeth and prove that he could conquer this punishment. Despite the fact that he was clearly starting out as one of the least proficient students, he was determined to work harder than all the others. Book studying had never been a strength of his and so he was not surprised that reading and writing Espenian proved to be a constant struggle, but he soon discovered that he was much better at picking up on spoken language. Whenever he could, he sat in the campus food court, on public benches, or at bus stops, and eavesdropped on nearby conversations, sometimes echoing the words in his head, forming them silently in his mouth. He clung to the idea that the sooner he graduated, the sooner he would go home.

Over the following months, when he was not in class or studying, he tried to make himself useful to his hosts. His time spent working at the furniture store in Marenia had made him handy with tools and chores; he fixed a sagging door, caulked drafty windows, and turned some discarded boards into a shoe rack. He accompanied the Hians on errands and carried things.

“We should be paying you to stay with us,” Mrs. Hian exclaimed. “We’ve had students room with us before, but most of them want to explore, to go out and enjoy themselves in the city. You work too hard.”

Their neighborhood, Anden discovered, was like a quilt—there were several distinct cultural enclaves side by side within it. Many families of Kekonese descent lived in the dozen square blocks around the Hians’ row house, but Anden could cross a road and find himself in an area that was entirely Tuni, where the residents shouted out to their children in that guttural language, and the eye-watering smoke of clay-pot cooking rose from portable hearths on every front stoop. The rest of the broader Southtrap district, which extended west to Lochwood and east to Quince, was lower- and working-class Espenian.

One afternoon, Anden missed his bus, and as it was a warm spring day by Port Massy standards, he decided to walk back to the Hians’ home. It took him nearly two hours, but he was proud to be making his way alone in this foreign city and gaining a better understanding of its layout. Along the way, he grew thirsty and stopped into a convenience store on the corner to buy a soda and bag of nuts. He counted out the copper Espenian coins on the countertop. The shop owner, a large man with a mustache, said something cheerful that Anden took to be a pleasantry. As he was still not confident in anything that came out of his mouth, Anden merely nodded and smiled. This was a recurring problem—on first appearance, he could pass for Espenian, and it was invariably awkward and embarrassing when strangers tried to speak to him.

As he made his way toward the exit of the store, two men came in. They didn’t stop to browse for merchandise, but went straight up to the counter and began speaking to the owner in an initially cordial tone that quickly turned rough and threatening. Anden paused at the threshold and turned back in time to see the shopkeeper open the register and nervously count out a stack of cash, which he handed to one of the intruders. His eyes darted briefly toward Anden, as if hoping for a stranger’s assistance. Anden stood indecisive, one hand on the door. These were not his people; he did not know what was going on and did not want to get into a bad situation.

The amount of money surrendered was apparently insufficient because more sharp words were delivered. One man grabbed the two nearest store fixtures and pulled them forward, spilling candy bars and sunglasses across the floor. The store owner let out an angry shout of protest. The second man seized him by the hair and banged the owner’s forehead into the top of the cash register with a painful-sounding clang, then shoved him violently backward. The shopkeeper crashed out of sight. His two assailants left; Anden backed out of the way as they pushed past him. One of them paused long enough to snarl directly in Anden’s face, “What’re you looking at?”—it was the first time Anden so clearly understood something said in Espenian—but the other man hurried them both out the door, which jangled shut behind them.

Anden’s pulse was galloping. He felt as if he should’ve done something, but he wasn’t sure what. He knew instinctively that it would’ve been a bad idea to get in the way of the two men, but he didn’t know what a person was supposed to do here in Espenia when he witnessed trouble. In Janloon, he would’ve run out and reported the incident to a Finger in the clan, or a Fist if he could find one.

The shopkeeper groaned and began pulling himself to his feet behind the counter. He did not seem badly hurt, and Anden, with a distinct sense of shame but a desire not to have to interact with the unfortunate man further, pushed through the exit and escaped down the street.

Mr. and Mrs. Hian were distressed by how late he was and berated him for not phoning them to be picked up. They became more upset when he explained how he’d walked home and what had happened along the way. “Those men are in the Crews. They work for Boss Kromner,” Mrs. Hian exclaimed. “Don’t go there from now on!”

Anden wasn’t bothered by the idea of certain parts of the city being off limits; in fact, it was oddly reassuring to realize that there were clans and territories in Port Massy, just as there were in Janloon. With that in mind, he suspected that the shopkeeper had been a Lantern Man of sorts, and the two men had been sent to collect on delinquent tribute payments. He was glad he had not foolishly interfered in an unknown clan’s business, but he was troubled by the situation because it struck him as remarkably coarse. In Kekon, it was rare for Green Bones to treat even the most troublesome Lantern Man so badly. The clans were enmeshed in every aspect of society; failing to pay reasonable tribute meant losing the clan’s patronage, which would make life difficult in a myriad of ways. An unreliable Lantern Man might find it hard to open a bank account, buy a house, or put his children in school. There was no need to threaten or injure him.

Anden thought about this as he tucked into Mrs. Hian’s gingery fish soup. “Why doesn’t the store owner go to this Kromner and ask for some lenience?” he asked. He was certain that a not-insignificant percentage of his cousin Shae’s job as Weather Man was negotiating accommodations with Lantern Men, albeit at a higher level than that of corner store owners.

Mr. Hian chuckled, then turned serious once he realized that Anden was not joking. He stood up and rummaged in the cardboard box on the floor that held an accumulating stack of discarded newspapers, until he pulled out an edition of the Port Massy Post from a week ago and flipped through it to the page he was looking for. Mr. Hian put down the paper and pointed to a black-and-white photograph of a heavyset Espenian man in a dark suit and tie, getting out of a black ZT Toro with a woman in a long white fur coat. Anden was still not good at reading Espenian; the headline had something to do with police corruption.

Mr. Hian said, “This Blaise Kromner—he’s a bad man. A criminal. He’s known to sell drugs and to deal in women. His people do all the work so he is never caught, but he has a nice car, nice clothes, and is always going to parties and being photographed. Do you think he cares about the store owner, or even knows who he is?” Mr. Hian folded the newspaper up and put it back in the bin. “Anden-se, the Crews aren’t like clans. All they care about is money. They never give, they only take. That store owner pays and pays, but gets nothing.”

Anden received another shocking cultural education two weeks later, this time much closer to home. He was returning to the house in the evening, carrying a bag of groceries he’d gotten for the Hians, when he heard shouting from one of the open windows across the street.

This was not uncommon; there was a Kekonese couple living there that fought like animals all the time, sometimes screaming at each other late into the night. The man’s voice could be heard clearly. “I ought to kill you, you fucking cunt!” There was a crash, more shouting from both parties, then abruptly, the woman burst from the front door in her nightclothes and ran, it seemed to Anden, straight into traffic.

Anden envisioned her being smashed like a loose goat on the freeway and flying off the hood of an oncoming car. A bicycle swerved out of the way and the young man riding it leapt off with a startled curse. Anden dropped his bag of groceries and started forward even though he knew in that instant that there was no way for him to do anything in time.

The young man who’d been riding the bicycle lunged and grabbed the distraught woman. In a burst of Strength and Lightness, he dragged her back to the sidewalk. Cars shot past a hand’s breadth away, honking loudly. The woman’s astounded husband—shirtless, drunk, and enraged—ran up yelling unintelligibly. He staggered as the bicyclist turned and threw a Deflection that hit him at the knees. As he stumbled forward again, another Deflection caught him in the midriff and he sat down hard, as if he’d been clotheslined at the waist.

The wife ran sobbing into a neighbor’s house down the street, not even bothering to thank her defender. After a minute, the husband got to his feet and retreated back to the house, muttering curses but keeping his murderous glare averted.

Anden found his voice. “You’re a Green Bone,” he shouted in Kekonese.

The young man across the street looked over, pushing the disheveled hair off his forehead as if to see Anden better. He laughed, showing a broad flash of white teeth. “And you’re a fool islander,” he shouted back. He dusted off his pants and gathered his bicycle.

Anden stared, his mouth open in astonishment. He couldn’t see any jade worn on the man’s body, but it must be there. The Green Bone swung his leg over his scuffed bicycle and glanced back at Anden, still standing on the sidewalk, groceries spilled behind him.

“You didn’t think there was anywhere else in the world where people have jade?” The man waved mockingly and pedaled off, calves bunching, ropey shoulders leaning over the handlebars. Anden stared after him until he was out of sight.

Possibly, he thought, not everything in Espenia was strange and unbearable.