Jade War

CHAPTER 53 Sins and Compromises

Zapunyo’s diabetic condition had after many years finally caught up with him and he was in need of a kidney transplant. The medical care in the Uwiwa Islands being one of the worst in the world, and money not being an issue for the wealthy smuggler, Zapunyo arranged to travel to Espenia in six months’ time and pay a premium to have the surgery performed at a private hospital in Port Massy. This rare instance in which he would be leaving his fortified compound in Tialuhiya was discovered by a well-placed No Peak spy in the Uwiwas and was the opportunity that Hilo and Shae had been searching for since last summer.

Anden went to see Dauk Losunyin to ask for what he wanted. “Dauk-jen,” he said, “this smuggler, Zapunyo, he rarely ever leaves his fortress in the Uwiwa Islands. He has an entire operation employing barukan, rockfish, and cheap labor to scavenge jade from the mines, take it out of Kekon, and ship it to black market buyers in Ygutan and Oortoko, and to dangerous organizations like the Crews.”

Dauk nodded in understanding but said, “Boss Kromner is awaiting trial and may spend decades in prison. The other Bosses are in hiding. Why do I need to think of this Zapunyo?”

“Even if Kromner goes to jail, there’ll be others who take his place. As long as jade remains illegal and coveted, there’ll be criminals in this country and all over the world who’ll try to get their hands on it, and Zapunyo will sell it to them. Maybe the newspapers are right and Kromner’s fall means that the heyday of the Crews in Port Massy is at an end, but maybe not, or perhaps other groups will rise up and pose an even greater threat to us. The solution is to cut off the black market at the source, and that means stopping the smuggling of jade out of Kekon.”

They were sitting together in Dauk’s living room, the Pillar in an armchair, Anden on the sofa across from him. Sana had recently finished up with a client who’d come for a healing session, and now she was walking around behind her husband, their baby granddaughter asleep in her arms.

Dauk looked at Anden with a trace of disappointment. “Anden, you and your family are well known to us by now; why not just say exactly what you want and why?”

Anden dropped his gaze to the cup of tea in his hand, then put it down on the coffee table. He spoke carefully. “The first time I met you, I told you that I was only a student, that despite my upbringing, I couldn’t speak for my cousins in Janloon. Now, I can tell you in all honesty that in coming to you today, I’m speaking on behalf of the No Peak clan.” Anden held Dauk’s gaze this time. “This man, Zapunyo, tried to kill the Pillar and is responsible for the death of the Horn. If my sister-in-law and her children had been in the car at the time, they would be dead as well. He’s an enemy of my family who, because of his distance and resources, has gone unpunished for his actions. While he’s here in Espenia, we have to kill him.”

Dauk blew a long breath from his nose. “You say this man is well guarded, that even the Green Bone warriors in the No Peak clan can’t get to him. So how do you propose to do so?”

“It won’t be easy,” Anden admitted. “My cousins have an idea, a way to get past his barukan guards, but we need your permission and your help, Dauk-jen. We need Rohn Toro.”

Dauk Losun turned to his wife. “Let me speak to our friend alone for a while.”

Anden was surprised; never in all the time he’d known the Dauks had the Pillar asked his wife to leave. Even more surprisingly, Dauk Sana pressed her lips together with a look of understanding. She put the baby in the stroller. “I’ll go for a walk and pick up a few things at the store,” she said. She opened the door and left the house, leaving Anden and her husband alone.

Dauk Losun refilled their teacups. He leaned back in the armchair and said, “Since the first time the Hians brought you to my house, I’ve only come to think more highly of you. I could see right away that you’re the sort of young man who would be respected in the old country, someone who means every word that he says. In truth, I wish my own son were more like you—but he is who he is. I have the greatest respect for you and your family. So when you said you were coming here, I was prepared to give you whatever you asked for, because I value the friendship of the No Peak clan nearly as much as my own jade.” Dauk’s normally open, amiable face turned somber. “However, after having heard what you’re asking for, I can’t agree to help you.

“It’s one thing to wear jade for one’s own protection and to defend one’s friends and neighbors. That is what Green Bones have always done; no law made by man can change that. We hold fast to our traditions, which others don’t understand, and we’re not harming anyone in doing so. And it’s also true that sometimes we must punish people who hurt our community and criminals who are a threat to us. We only want what everyone in this country wants: to have a good life and a better future for our children.” Dauk paused and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “This Zapunyo is a stranger to me. He may be a bad man, but he’s done nothing to harm our community directly. We may feel the ripples of the struggle over jade smuggled from Kekon to the Uwiwa Islands, but it’s an ocean away. It’s not our struggle. You’re asking me to murder a man I don’t know here on Espenian soil, to expose my family and my good friend Rohn Toro to unnecessary danger and punishment under Espenian law.”

Anden was not surprised by Dauk’s response and had warned his cousins that might be the case. He said, “Everything will be planned and arranged by No Peak under assumed names. I will be the contact person, and nothing will be traceable to you. My Pillar gives his guarantee of that. The only thing we require is Rohn Toro. Afterward, the clan can get Rohn out of the country—he can hide in Kekon, or anywhere he likes—a paid vacation, until it’s safe to return.”

“Did you come to Espenia to escape being a Green Bone? Listen to yourself, Anden. You sound like a Fist.” The older man smiled but shook his head. “I’m sorry. In this, I can’t help you.” When Anden sat silent and disappointed, Dauk said, “If this is so important to you, then perhaps you have to be the one to carry it out. Of course, I know you were trained to wear jade.”

Anden’s jaw tightened. “You’ve never asked me about this before, Dauk-jen, but I’m sure you know: I was sent here to Espenia because I refused to be a Green Bone. It’s been years since I’ve worn jade. I don’t know whether I’d be able to control it, or what it would do to me. That makes me too unpredictable to be useful in this situation. Even if that weren’t the case, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t put on jade again. That’s the one thing I can’t compromise.”

Dauk was silent for longer than Anden expected. He seemed to be debating with himself. At last he said, “I understand, and I appreciate you being frank about your past. So let me do the same. It’s time we talked about the one thing I can’t compromise.”

When I arrived in Port Massy with my mother and sisters, I was fourteen years old. One of my sisters, the youngest, died of pneumonia only two years later. My older sister, she ran away with a man that my mother didn’t approve of, and we stopped hearing from her. So after that, it was only my mother and me. We lived in an apartment over a public laundry house. What I remember most about that place was the smell of the soap that everyone used back then—Purely’s Rock Soap—and the damp. The windows were always steamed up and the paint on the walls was bubbled and peeling. In winter, you could feel the damp even more, it was terrible.

Almost all of us who lived in the neighborhood had fled the old country because our homes had been destroyed or our relatives imprisoned or executed by the Shotarians. Our parents had been proud Green Bones or Lantern Men in the One Mountain Society, but in Espenia, we had no status. We were refugees with nothing. Everyone looked down on us, even the Tuni immigrants who lived on the other side of Beecher Street thought we were lower than them. But we were proud of who we were and where we had come from, and we kept to the old ways.

When I was in my twenties, I worked as a deliveryman for an appliance store owner named Ito, who I think used to be a good man but had suffered too much and gone a little crazy. Ito was a Green Bone whose family, like many others, had brought their jade with them to Espenia but did not dare to wear it openly on the street. We were outnumbered by foreigners of all sorts and we saw theft everywhere around us. Children stole from shop carts, hoodlums stole from homes and businesses, the Crews stole from everybody. All with little consequence. We had come to a land of thieves. So anyone who had jade did well to keep it hidden. Although I was born and trained in a Green Bone family, my father and my uncles had been taken by the Shotarians and their jade taken with them. So my family was poor even by the standards of our neighborhood.

Like I said, Ito was a good man but had gone a little crazy. One day he got into an argument with a Shotarian customer. As a child in Kekon, Ito had watched his own sister raped by Shotarian soldiers and his older brother beaten until he could no longer walk or talk, so Ito hated Shotarians even more than the rest of us did, almost with a kind of madness. That evening, offensive words were exchanged, and then things got out of hand and the Shotarian man ended up dead on the floor of Ito’s shop. I was the only one who saw it happen. Ito turned to me with a wild look, and in that instant, I saw that he was thinking that I was the only witness and he would have to kill me too, to make sure no one found out what he’d done. Quickly, I reassured Ito that it had not been his fault, that it had been an accident brought about by the other man’s provocation. Thinking to save my own life, I offered to help Ito get rid of the body.

It was a horrible thing that we did. We cut that Shotarian’s body into pieces and we paddled a rowboat up the Camres, sinking them into different sections of the river, weighed down with cement. I had nightmares about it for many years. Sometimes I still do.

Even after I’d helped Ito with this grisly task, I feared for my life. What had happened unhinged the man even more. Whenever he looked at me, I knew he was trying to Perceive my sense of guilt and wondering if I would talk. He was still thinking about killing me. Looking back, I think the stress had gotten to him and he was beginning to suffer from the early stages of the Itches. In Kekon, someone in the clan might’ve noticed; a caring friend or relative might’ve made him seek medical help, but he was alone in Port Massy and I was the only one who knew.

The police came poking around, asking questions about the Shotarian man’s disappearance. Of course, no one told them anything because the police are not trustworthy and half of them take money from the Crews, but rumors began spreading within the neighborhood that Ito had something to do with it. Ito became convinced that I had started those rumors, but now he hesitated to kill me and confirm the existing suspicions about his guilt. People grew worried. A Green Bone who loses control and goes mad is a danger to everyone, especially in Espenia, where people do not understand jade and where it would only bring more negative attention from outsiders.

There was another Green Bone in the neighborhood, a young man named Rohn Toro, who was known for being a good fighter that even the Crews respected and would hire for some of their jobs. Rohn had gotten into trouble with the law before, so the police suspected he was responsible for the murder of the Shotarian man. They came to arrest him, but Rohn fled and went into hiding. For weeks, he remained in a basement and didn’t emerge. Rohn and I were acquainted and lived in the same building, so I brought him food while he kept out of sight.

People began to grumble about Ito. They could forgive him for killing a Shotarian man and covering up the deed, but it was wrong for him to remain silent and let another Green Bone be accused and likely executed in his place. Ito, though, thought only of his own skin. He had a weak character and would never have lasted as a Green Bone in Kekon. Ito found out where Rohn was concealed and was about to go to the police with the information. Once Rohn was arrested and punished in his place, Ito figured he would be in the clear. All that would be left to do was to get rid of me as well.

When I realized what Ito was planning, I went to Rohn Toro and we decided to act. Together, we ambushed Ito on his way to the police station. There were two of us, and Rohn was younger and stronger in jade ability than Ito. We killed Ito and took his jade.

I had no special skills or standing in the community, except that even then, I was known as someone who was honest, and I was good at listening and speaking reasonably and convincing people to my way of thinking. With Ito dead, I went around to all the neighbors and told them what had to be done to prevent any further trouble. When the police came around searching for Rohn, over a dozen people came forward to say that Ito had been the murderer and had fled the city. Sure enough, the police found the Shotarian man’s wallet and traces of his clothes and blood in Ito’s shop—that was how stupid the man was—but they never found the man himself. The important thing was that they didn’t come after Rohn or anyone else.

The true murderer was punished, the neighborhood was spared further police scrutiny, and a Green Bone who could not be trusted was removed from being a danger to us all. The community saw this as my doing, and they began coming to me to deal with other problems, some small and some big, and over time they began to call me the Pillar. But in my heart, I knew that even though the outcome was all for the best, the gods knew what I had done.

I’d been Ito’s accomplice in covering up the murder of an innocent man. Even if he was a Shotarian, he didn’t deserve to die and he didn’t deserve to have his body desecrated. His family had no remains to bury and he would’ve gone to the afterlife in pieces. And even though Ito was surely planning to kill me, he was a man who was in pain who had shown me kindness and given me my first job and livelihood to support my mother and my young wife. I murdered him in cold blood and disposed of his body as well. The gods knew. I think they understood why I did it, and so they weren’t too harsh. So I’ve been fortunate in my life in most ways. Except one.

Sana and I could not have children for many years. When finally we succeeded, we had only daughters. We went to the temple to beg the gods for the favor of a son who would carry the family’s jade, but it was only after ten years of trying that we finally had Coru. He’s a good son, but he is frivolous. I did my best to raise him as a true Green Bone, but he has a childish heart. He wants only to get along with everyone and play around. He’s my only son, the one who will carry the family’s jade when Sana and I are gone. I love him, but he is also my punishment, for the sins I committed as a young man.

Dauk stood up from his chair. “I will do what you ask. I will put Rohn Toro at your disposal to help No Peak to kill this man, this smuggler Zapunyo. And for that, I ask you to give up my son. I’ve been indulgent of him, but he needs to stop fooling around with men and take his responsibilities seriously. He’s the only Green Bone out of all four of my children, as undeserving and ignorant as he might be of what it truly means to wear jade and how important it is to our family’s identity. He’s not green enough for the old country, but that doesn’t matter; he can still have a good Espenian life, a career that puts that expensive law degree to use, children someday, if the gods are kind to us. He’s not for you. You are sure to return to Janloon eventually, but his place is here.”

Anden struggled at first to find a response. “That’s Cory’s decision,” he said.

“I’m not talking to him now. I’m talking to you. It’s as much your choice as it is his. You come here asking me to commit a crime to help your family, so it’s only right that I ask you for something in return. Give up my son, and I will bend my principles, to help you and your family in this thing that you want. That’s the only way I’m willing to cross this line for you.”

Anden looked at Dauk, a man he’d dismissed when he first met him but had grown to respect, a leader of his community and a shrewd man, truly a Pillar in his own way and own right, a person that Anden now felt deeply indebted to. In that moment, Anden hated him.

He stood up. “You called me a man who means every word he says. I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret, which is why I’m not saying anything to you right now, Dauk-jen.”

Dauk stood up and walked Anden to the door. “You’re wise for your age, my friend.”

It was late the following evening by the time Anden mustered up the courage to call Cory at the house that he shared with three other law students. To his surprise, it answered on the first ring and an excited female voice said, “What is it now? Just come over already!”

Anden, startled, asked to talk to Cory, and the woman said, “Oh, Seer’s balls, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. Just a minute.” She left the phone off the hook, yelling distantly, “Cory! It’s for you!” Anden waited. He could hear a great deal of background chatter and then a huge cheer as if a crowd was watching a sports event on television. At last, Cory’s voice came on the line. “Hey, islander!” he exclaimed. “How’s everything back in P-Mass?”

Anden had a hard time speaking. “I miss you,” he said.

“I miss you too. Midterms start next week, but I’ll try to come back for a visit the weekend after that. You’re still free to gang about, right?”

“That’s why I’m calling,” Anden said. “I’m going to be busy for a while.”

“At work?”

“Sort of,” Anden said. “Family things.”

“You mean clan things.” Cory paused to say something in Espenian to someone else in the house before coming back on the line. “All right, well, you can spare at least one evening, right?”

Anden’s palms were sweating. He had no idea how to do this. He forced the words out. “I don’t think we can get together this time, Cory. You’re busy with school and I’m going to be busy too. I think… maybe it would be best if we didn’t see each other for a while.”

There was a long, uncomprehending pause on the other end, and then a sound like Cory picking up the phone and walking—the background noise from the distant sports game grew fainter. “What’s this about, crumb?” Cory demanded in a whisper. “Are you… breaking up with me?” Anden couldn’t answer; his throat felt entirely closed up.

Cory breathed loudly into the phone. Then he said, “My da put you up to this, didn’t he? I know he did. And you gave in. What did he say to you, huh? Did he offer you money?”

“Nothing like that,” Anden muttered.

Cory said, “You know what? Fuck you. You dumb island fuck.” He hung up.

Anden placed the receiver back in the cradle and sat down on the floor, staring at the phone for several minutes. Then he grabbed his jacket and burst out of his apartment, out of the building onto the slushy gray streets of Port Massy. He walked for two hours, aimlessly, and at one point, he realized he was crying. Not loudly, not hard, but his vision was blurry and his cheeks were wet. When he finally arrived back at his apartment, it was past midnight. His shoes were soaked and his feet cold. He ran hot water in the bath to warm them, then put on fresh socks.

Back home, it would be midday, the springtime sun high over the city harbor, people in the streets wishing each other Happy New Year and standing on ladders to take red lights and streamers down from their eaves. Anden picked up his phone and dialed the operator to place a collect call to Janloon, so he could tell his cousins that Dauk Losunyin would help them to kill Zapunyo.