Jade War

CHAPTER 34 The Clan’s Friendship

The two months following the attack on the grudge hall were the worst that Anden had spent in Espenia, even worse than when he’d first arrived and been bereft with homesickness. Cory was gone; he’d called from the train station to say goodbye. He explained that he’d wanted to come over to see Anden in person, but it was too risky; not only were Kromner’s crewboys still about, the police had begun randomly stopping Kekonese residents on the street and searching them for jade. The Dauks were glad their son was getting out of the city.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you told me to stay downstairs,” Anden told Cory morosely over the phone. “I just wanted to help.”

Cory was silent for a few seconds, then he sighed. “You know, I worry about you, islander. For a guy who seems so responsible, you sure do manage to get into trouble.” An announcement came over the speakers at the train station, and Cory said, “I have to go, crumb. I’ll be back for Harvest’Eves break. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, okay?”

After they hung up, Anden was not only despondent at Cory’s departure, but troubled by their conversation. After leaving the grudge hall that night, he and Rohn had walked three blocks away from the scene of destruction before Rohn hailed a taxi and instructed it to take them to the Hians’ house. Mr. and Mrs. Hian were relieved and dismayed when they opened the door. While Anden ran the burn on the back of his hand under cold water at the kitchen sink, Rohn explained what had happened.

“Why did you have to get involved?” Mrs. Hian berated Anden as she rummaged bandages and a tube of antibiotic cream from the drawer. “You’re a visiting student, why didn’t you stay in the basement with the others where it was safe? You should’ve let the Green Bones handle it. If you’d been hurt or killed, what would we tell your family?” She was near tears.

Anden was mute with guilt, but Rohn said, “Don’t be so hard on him; he couldn’t help it. He’s green in the soul, like Dauk-jen said. In fact, he was a great help.” Rohn told them about how Anden had diverted the police for long enough that Rohn could get all the people safely out of the grudge hall. The Hians reluctantly agreed that was indeed a good thing to have done. Rohn drank some hot tea and got up to leave, saying that he had to work the next morning. It was sometimes hard for Anden to remember that Rohn Toro was not actually a clan Fist, that he had to earn money in an ordinary job, running a small moving company with a couple of friends.

As soon as Rohn left, the Hians insisted, “Anden-se, what happened tonight is going to cause big problems. Don’t go anywhere near the grudge hall or the Dauks’ house from now on; just go to school and work and back home again right away. If the police recognize you as the person who misled them, they’ll want to question you.”

Anden did as he was told, but over the next several days, he kept recalling Cory’s look of alarm that night, the way he’d pulled Anden down to the ground away from machine gun fire, and how he’d gotten angry at Rohn and told him not to involve Anden at all: He shouldn’t even be here.

Thus far, Anden had thought of Cory as the leader in their relationship, himself as the follower. Espenia was Cory’s country, this was his city and his neighborhood; he was three years older than Anden; he was more socially gregarious and more sexually confident and experienced. None of this had bothered Anden, had indeed made Cory only more attractive and alluring. But for the first time now, Anden also saw himself as the weaker of the two of them. Mrs. Hian was right; Cory was a Green Bone and Anden was not. When he’d rushed into danger, the Pillar’s son had been forced to protect him. If their relationship lasted, would this always be the case?

Anden was deeply troubled by the idea. He’d been born to a Green Bone family, adopted and raised by Green Bones, and trained at a Green Bone school. All his life he’d been taught to stand up not only for his own honor and reputation, but that of his family and clan, and to defend those who were weaker, those without jade who fell under the clan’s protection. Even as an exile from No Peak, even without jade, he hadn’t yet faced the reality that he was now one of those people who needed defending. Everyone Anden had ever been close to, everyone important in his life, was a Green Bone. He had no template for how to be a member of the Kaul family, indeed, how to be a Kekonese man at all, without jade. He had a sudden vision of Cory one day following in his father’s footsteps and becoming the Pillar of Southtrap, with Anden relegated to being his secret lover, a vulnerable boyfriend who never fit into Espenia on his own terms, and the thought made Anden feel, for the first time in nearly a year, a fresh pang of shame over his situation.

It didn’t help his mood that he’d lost the parts of his routine that he’d come to enjoy the most. Relayball was put on hiatus for two weeks following the incident, and afterward, he couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to attend knowing that Cory wasn’t there. The grudge hall was indefinitely shut down; Anden snuck by the building once during the day and saw police tape crisscrossing the broken front entrance.

The Port Massy police questioned the residents of Southtrap but learned very little. No one claimed to have been there at the time that the shooting happened. No one said anything about why the community center had been targeted. That same night elsewhere in Southtrap, Kekonese businesses had been vandalized and walls were spray-painted with slurs, but no one pointed out the obvious to the police: that the crimes were racially motivated, that Kromner’s crewboys were targeting the Kekonese for their gambling operations and jade.

Anden heard rumors from Derek and Tami and a few others he managed to run into occasionally on his way to and from school and work. Dauk had sent Rohn Toro with a few of his men to retaliate against Kromner’s Crew. Two bookmaking operations were attacked and robbed, and two crewboys suspected of being among the drive-by shooters were found dead with broken necks. In response, the attacks on Kekonese businesses and civilians increased: The barbershop that Mr. Hian had been going to for eight years was set ablaze; an elderly Green Bone was ambushed and beaten outside of his home and his few pieces of jade stolen; a local shopkeeper falsely suspected of being a Green Bone was attacked at a bus stop. No arrests were made.

The Hians’ eldest son, a perpetually harried but well-meaning man in his early forties whom Anden had met over several polite but shallow interactions in the past, came over to the house to try to convince his parents to move out of the neighborhood and into the suburbs. Anden sat upstairs in his bedroom trying not to eavesdrop, but there was no avoiding it.

“Southtrap’s turning into an ethnic ghetto,” their son argued. “Wouldn’t you rather live somewhere with more space and less crime?” But the Hians insisted that they did not want to move. They liked the location, they had friends here; where else could they walk to a Kekonese grocery store? Maybe, Mrs. Hian complained, if their sons were considerate enough to give them grandchildren while they were still alive, they would have a reason to move; otherwise, what was the point?

Dauk Losun called and asked if he and his wife might pay the Hians a visit one afternoon. He explained that they would like to invite the Hians to their home, but the police knew that Sana was connected to the grudge hall and suspected the couple was not telling the whole truth about the shooting and arson, so they were paying extra close attention to their part of the neighborhood. The Dauks did not want to put Mr. and Mrs. Hian to any trouble, however, so they would bring something to eat. And could Anden please be there as well?

The Hians nervously agreed, although Mrs. Hian cooked a large amount of food anyway, so when the Dauks arrived with white plastic bags filled with half a dozen takeout dishes, there was far too much to eat. Extra chairs were brought into the Hians’ kitchen. Anden saluted the Dauks respectfully, but he was on edge. Why had the Pillar asked to see him? Did it have something to do with Cory? Did he know about them? Would he place the blame on Anden and forbid them from seeing each other?

“How is Coru?” Mrs. Hian asked the Dauks. “Has he settled into AC now? Have his law school classes at Watersguard started yet?”

“They started this week,” Dauk Sana said, passing out paper plates and plastic cutlery. “He sounds happy there, but that’s Coru—always free spirited. He hasn’t had to work hard yet, so we’ll see. I’m just glad he’s safely away and busy.”

Anden had forgotten that law school had already begun. Cory hadn’t phoned him from Watersguard, not yet. He was probably busy. Moving in, student orientation, new classes… Still. A curl of hurt turned the food in Anden’s mouth tasteless.

As they ate, Dauk Losun asked, “How are you all doing? Has there been any trouble lately?” He listened, nodding sympathetically, as Mrs. Hian talked about how the neighborhood wasn’t safe anymore and how their son wanted them to move away. Mr. Hian said, “Kromner’s thugs are hurting innocent people and businesses, and the police do nothing.”

Dauk Sana said, “It’s because they’re paid by the Crews to look the other way. We have some of the police in our pocket, it’s true, but they have more. At the end of the day, Kromner and his men are Espenians, and we are foreigners, so the police take their side. And so do people in general, because they’re told by the news that Kekon is harming the war effort in Oortoko by hoarding all of the world’s jade, even though that’s not true. Sometimes they even confuse us for Shotarians.”

Mrs. Hian cried, “What can be done, Dauk-jens, if the law won’t allow people to wear jade to protect the community, but the police can’t be trusted? It is so unjust.”

Dauk Losun’s expression was grim. “I’m afraid this question has been keeping me awake at night for months.”

“It’s true,” his wife said. “He has to take anxiety pills.”

Anden listened to all this with a growing sense of anger and disgust. In Janloon, the combatants in a clan war would not attack blameless civilians, not even if they were Abukei or foreigners. If either side started doing that, what was to stop a society from losing all sense of aisho and descending into savagery? And the police! They had taken tribute from the grudge hall—Anden had seen it with his own eyes—yet they did not protect it. Dauk Losun had likened the local law enforcement to another clan, but they were not a clan at all, simply another predator, like the Crews. Meanwhile, it was the Kekonese who were persecuted and treated like criminals simply for wearing jade to defend themselves and manage their own affairs.

Dauk Losun’s heavy frame seemed to sag into the kitchen chair. In a resigned voice, he said, “I’ve been in this country for forty-five years. In truth, I’m almost Espenian. Maybe that’s why I prefer to solve problems quietly, with money and influence. But all these years, I also knew we could back up our words with force if needed, because we were the only ones with jade, and the only ones who could use it.

“But times have changed for the worse. With jade now illegal, the Crews no longer see the need to respect us. They know we can’t retaliate against them without making ourselves vulnerable to prosecution. The experienced Green Bones from the old country, the ones to really fear, like Rohn Toro—they are few and aging, and the younger ones who were born here are not as well trained or serious. Look at my own son for example, as much as I love him. Or someone like Shun Todo, who has talent in the jade disciplines but is too Espenian—he wants to leave home and join the military.” Dauk shook his head. “I’m worried there’s no longer any way for us to stand up to tyrants like Blaise Kromner. Rohn is the greenest man in this city, but he’s only one man. And I lie awake at night afraid they’ll get to him; sooner or later, they’ll kill my good friend. It seems we have no choice but to agree to whatever terms the Bosses lay on us: paying their protection rackets, shutting down our grudge hall, letting their drug dealers and pimps into our neighborhood.”

No one was eating anymore. Mrs. Hian covered her mouth in distress and her husband put a comforting hand on her back. Anden had been picking heartlessly at his meal, but now he noticed that the Dauks were both looking at him. Slowly, Anden met the Pillar’s eyes. Dauk Losun continued speaking to the Hians, but his gaze remained on Anden. “I’ve thought long and hard about the terrible situation we’re in, and now I have to ask something of our young friend, Anden. And because you’re his host family, I must ask it of you as well.”

Dauk Losun said to Anden, “You’re from the old country, and your family rules one of the most famous and powerful Green Bone clans in Kekon. I still have friends on the island and rumors reach even across the Amaric Ocean, so I’ve known for a long time that you’re more than you say you are. You and your cousins went to war against a stronger enemy that might’ve destroyed your clan, but you prevailed.”

When Anden had first met Dauk Losun, he’d thought him too homey and unimpressive a man to be called Pillar. Now Dauk’s wrinkled eyes were steely and unwavering. Anden understood what was being asked of him; he recalled that he’d anticipated this since that first time he’d dined at the man’s table and accepted his help.

Dauk said, “The Kaul family has far greater resources than we do. Jade, money, people, even influence over governments. Perhaps they have no reason to care about what happens here in Espenia, but if there’s a chance they would offer their friendship in some way, it might help us now, when we have nothing else to rely on.”

Quietly, Anden said, “Dauk-jen, if I had sway over my cousins in the No Peak clan, I wouldn’t be in Espenia.”

Dauk Sana held up a finger and made a skeptical noise in her throat. “I’ve seen and heard enough about you to believe that your cousins, if they have any sense or cunning at all, wouldn’t throw you away. How can you be sure they didn’t send you to Espenia for other reasons? They’re your family, after all.”

Mrs. Hian stood up from the table and took the green ceramic teapot from the kitchen shelf, the one that Anden had brought with him and given to his host family on behalf of the clan on the first day he’d arrived in Espenia—a token of the clan’s friendship, the promise of a favor to be returned. She placed it in front of Anden, and said, “For the sake of the Kekonese community, Anden-se. If you have any affection for us, as we have for you, we beg you to please try.”