Jade War

CHAPTER 41 Green as Fuck

Anden met with Hilo one last time before the Pillar left to return to Janloon. Hilo came to the Hians’ yellow townhouse on a Sixthday morning, arriving alone in a taxi, wearing slacks that were casual enough for travel, dressed up with a fine new tan sport coat he’d bought from one of the expensive shops near the Crestwood Hotel on Bayliss Street. “Uncle and Auntie Hian,” he said when he came in, “I’m glad to have this chance to tell you in person how grateful I am that my cousin’s being well cared for.” He presented Anden’s hosts with a generous monetary gift and a beautiful rolled silkscreen print from a famous Janloon artist. The elderly couple were intimidated to the point of near speechlessness, murmuring their thanks and saluting repeatedly.

Hilo said, “Let’s go out for breakfast, Andy.”

They went to a Stepenish bakery and coffee house in Lochwood. “There was a place like this next to the hotel where I stayed in Lybon when I went to fetch Niko,” Hilo explained. “I like these little pastries they make. Haven’t found them in Janloon, though. Someone should set up a shop.” The waitress came by and Hilo nodded for Anden to pick whatever he wanted and to place their order. “All this is going to pay off, Andy,” Hilo said when the waitress departed. “Your studies, I mean.”

“What do you think will happen now with the Crews?” Anden asked.

“I made an agreement with Kromner. It’s risky because it means putting some of our jade in the hands of criminals. I’m only doing it because I think it’ll work out for us, but you never know. From now on, I need you to keep your eyes and ears open, to tell us what you see going on, even if it doesn’t seem important. Steer clear of any trouble, though. It’s good that you have friends here, but they’re not family or clan, and No Peak can’t keep you safe when you’re so far away.”

The waitress returned with their order. Anden tried one of the pastries. It was sweet and flaky. Hilo took a sip of coffee, made a face, and looked at Anden sternly. “I worry about you being here. Anywhere people hide their jade isn’t a good place. You know the saying, ‘Too dark to see green’?” Anden nodded; the idiom usually referred to locations or situations so evil and desperate that even Green Bones did not feel safe entering. These days, it was also commonly used to describe books or movies with especially grim themes in which there was no morality and the protagonists died in the end—the opposite of the traditional adventure stories with victorious Green Bone heroes. Anden felt a stab of resentment at the irony: Hilo had banished him from the clan in a rage, had refused to speak to him for so long, but now that that had passed, the Pillar was full of brotherly concern.

“You should phone home more often,” Hilo said. “Call collect; don’t worry about the money.”

“Hilo-jen,” Anden said. He wasn’t sure how to broach the topic that was sitting so heavily on his mind and decided he had no choice but to bring it up directly. “I’ve been working hard and my grades are pretty good. I’ll graduate from the IESOL program next summer with an associate’s degree in communications and a language fluency certificate. Shouldn’t we talk about what happens afterward?”

Hilo was silent for a moment. Then he turned to the window next to them and tapped the glass. “You see that building over there?” Across the street, a new condominium complex was under construction. “We own it, through one of the clan’s Lantern Men. And it’s not the only thing we have. There are a lot of changes going on, Andy. Shae is setting up a branch of the Weather Man’s office here in Port Massy. It’ll manage our interests in this country and help Lantern Men who want to expand into the Espenian market. She’s tapped Hami Tumashon to lead it, but they need more people—people who’re familiar with both cultures. Relationships with the local Kekonese-Espenian community will be important to us; that’s one reason I came here, to make some of those connections in person.” Hilo said, “When you’ve gotten your degree, you’ll work in the new office.”

A dull roaring was building in Anden’s head. “When you sent me to study here, you said that I could come home after two years.”

“I said we’d talk about your options. That’s what we’re doing now,” Hilo said.

“We’re not talking about options. You’re telling me what I’m to do, and that’s to stay put.” Anden’s hands clenched under the table, twisting the cloth napkin in his lap. “How long do you expect me to stay here? Another year? Five years? The rest of my life? You want me to be of use to No Peak but stay in exile, so you don’t have to see or speak to me more than once every couple of years?”

Hilo’s eyes flashed with a sudden, dangerous light, and even from across the small table, Anden felt the hot surge of the Pillar’s jade aura. Anden could not help but flinch, but he did not lower his gaze nor apologize for what he’d said. He’d applied himself diligently during his time here, had done everything that his cousins had asked of him. Hilo had embraced him in the airport and called him cousin, had sat him on the Kaul side of the table in the Dauks’ dining room, had made an effort to spend time with him and shown him pictures of his nephews. All of these things had raised Anden’s expectations, made him anticipate the clan’s forgiveness and a place back in Janloon. Now he did not know what to think.

A painfully long, grudging minute passed as the two men glared at each other, flaky pastries forgotten, coffee cooling. To Anden’s surprise, it was Hilo who sighed loudly and broke the silence first. “I should’ve made Shae explain this to you. It was her suggestion, not mine, but she leaves it to me to be the bad guy. Still, I don’t disagree with her. Learning Espenian is only worthwhile if you apply it. You don’t want the last two years to be a waste. What could you do in Janloon that would be as useful to the clan as what you could accomplish here?”

“There must be something,” Anden insisted.

In a cold voice, Hilo said, “Tell me you’ll put on jade, and I’ll book an airplane ticket for you to fly home tomorrow.”

Anden swallowed but did not say anything. He should’ve known it was still about this.

Hilo closed his eyes briefly and rubbed a hand across his forehead. In that instant, he looked far older than he had been just a few years ago, when he’d been the powerful young Horn of No Peak and it seemed that nothing could dent his cheerful ego. When he looked up again, he said, in a voice that no longer held any anger, “You think I’m being stubborn, that I’m punishing you for longer than necessary, still trying to force you to be a Green Bone.” When Anden still didn’t answer, Hilo nodded a little glumly, and said, “I can see why you’d think that, but it’s not true, Andy, at least not anymore.

“Janloon’s a Green Bone city. Sure, most of the people who live there don’t wear jade, but it’s still a Green Bone city, and you’re not most people. There’s no way to change things that happened in the past. If you go back to Janloon now, you’ll only ever be the least of the Kauls, the one who was ruined by jade and can’t wear it anymore. You’ll be treated the way a recovered alcoholic or a released convict is treated—with pity. Is that what you want? If you intend to be something other than that, you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. So you might as well do that here, where no one is judging you.”

“Are you concerned about me, or just the family’s reputation?”

“My wife’s a stone-eye,” Hilo said, “from a family that had a shit reputation before I made Kehn and Tar my closest Fists. You think that’s what matters to me?” He sounded angry again. “You’re fucking twenty-one years old, Andy, too young to be a case of ruined prospects in a green-as-fuck city like Janloon.” The waitress came by and Hilo smiled at her and paid for their breakfasts. He turned back to Anden and said, “You’ve already settled in here, learned the language, started to make a life for yourself. What about Dauk Coru? Don’t you want to stay with him?”

Anden felt his face reddening; he couldn’t look his cousin in the eye. He almost blurted, “We’re just friends,” but managed to catch himself. The Pillar would see right away that it was a lie, and then Anden would only feel worse. Hilo didn’t believe in queerness being bad luck or a punishment of the gods—the same way he didn’t judge the Maiks for their family history or Wen for being a stone-eye. But Anden had never spoken to his cousin about romantic things—indeed, he’d never spoken to anyone—and his first instinct was to deny. He did want to stay with Cory; he wanted to see him far more often than he did now. And despite himself, he’d begun to like Port Massy, to see its muddled nature and strange customs as unique and vibrant in their own way. But he also wanted to go home, to hear his native language spoken on the streets, to be surrounded by the sights and smells of Janloon that he’d grown up with but always taken for granted. The conflict felt irreconcilable.

Anden forced himself to look up. “Cory knows I only planned to study here for two years. And he’s going to be in law school for a while. We haven’t talked about the future.” Hilo was looking at him steadily and he felt supremely uncomfortable, but he kept talking, deciding he didn’t care anymore. “I don’t know if he’d want to live in Janloon, but if we were really serious, maybe he’d consider it. He’s Kekonese after all.”

Hilo shrugged. “In a way, I suppose.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Andy, your face might blend in here, but you’re more Kekonese than Dauk’s son will ever be. He wears jade, but you can tell that he’s never had to kill for it, or fear being killed for it. He couldn’t make it as a Green Bone in Janloon, you know that. You’re greener in here”—Hilo tapped his chest—“and here”—he tapped the side of his head—“which is why the clan needs you—why I need you—to be No Peak’s man in Espenia for now.” There was authority but also a plain and unreserved honesty in the Pillar’s words. When Kaul Hilo gave a difficult order, he did so in a way that showed he understood it was difficult; it was why his men would do anything he asked of them. Anden could not think of anything else to say.

They left the coffee shop and Hilo hailed a taxi to take him back to the Crestwood Hotel where he would meet up with Maik Tar and gather his bags before leaving for the airport. Anden didn’t know how to say goodbye; he didn’t even know when he would see Hilo again. He wasn’t sure whether to embrace his cousin, or salute him, or turn and walk away without looking at him. As the taxi pulled up to the curb in front of them, Anden murmured, “Have a safe trip, Hilo-jen. Say hello to everyone back home for me.”

Hilo placed a hand on the back of Anden’s neck and drew him close for a moment. “Take care of yourself, cousin,” he said. Then he was getting in the taxi and closing the door, and the cab was driving away, lost in Port Massy traffic.

Anden stood on the street corner for a long minute, then he went back into the coffee shop where he found a pay phone just inside the door. He picked up the slightly sticky receiver and dropped a coin into the slot. After three rings, Cory’s sleepy voice said, “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Anden said. “Are you doing anything today?”

“No. Just packing.” Cory was returning to AC tomorrow morning. Something in Anden’s voice must’ve sounded strange, because Cory said, “What’s going on, crumb?”

Anden rested his forehead against the top of the metal phone casing. “I’m at a coffee shop in Lochwood, on the corner of Thurlow and Fifty-Seventh Street. If you’re not busy right now… do you think you could come pick me up?”

“Um, sure, okay. Just let me get dressed.” A rustle of movement. “You want to do something?”

Anden said, fiercely, “I want to fuck.”

A moment of silence passed. Cory said, “I’ll come get you.”