“Yukying,” he hissed, “What the hell?”
She did have some shame and looked down at the floor. “I’m just worried. I want to help.”
“I can see that! You might as well have lit an incendiary! Who taught you to be so unsubtle??”
They stared at each other. A moment later, they collapsed in their own ways, Tinseng throwing his head back, Yukying muffling laughter into her fist.
“But really, jie, what were you thinking?” Tinseng asked as they found a bench to sit on; in the casino there was no lack of alcoves and corners. “Don’t you want to have a nice vacation? You need to forget this.”
She wondered how to articulate what she was thinking—or more importantly, how to make her brother believe her. She would run into far more dangerous situations than this to ensure her brothers’ safety. Flashes of what they’d done to survive getting to Hong Kong weren’t as close to the surface of her thoughts these days, yet they were never too far away. But even before that. When Tinseng had first started living with them, no one had quite known what to do with him. One day he’d tried to climb the rigging of a sailboat on the river, and had frozen halfway up. After half the town had tried to get him down, it’d been Yukying who’d coaxed him to jump into the water, promising he would be okay; she would catch him. He jumped, trusting her. Ever since, a part of her heart had been his.
“No,” she said. “I won’t forget it, Tinseng. Not if it hurts you. I need to stay, so I know you’re okay.”
He stared, then laughed again, rueful and wrung out.
“God.” He shook his head. “You and J—you and Shan Dao can never be on the same side. I would die.” He took a huge, gulping breath. “This is kind of dangerous, jie.”
“Then you shouldn’t be alone. At least tell me what the danger is. Please,” she interrupted before he could start, “please don’t lie.”
Tinseng’s teeth rattled shut. He chewed on his answer.
“There’s trouble,” he finally said. “A little . . . a lot. But I’m taking care of it.”
“I’m sure you are. You’re very responsible. And Grodescu?”
Tinseng fidgeted. “I shouldn’t talk about it here.”
“Would you like to go outside?”
Her insistence made him uncomfortable. It made her uncomfortable, too, like wearing a skin that wasn’t hers. They’d never been so fractious with each other before. They’d laughed earlier at the invocation of her mother, but her presence was between them now, a ghost they’d never been able to put to rest.
He wrinkled his nose, then sighed.
“Okay. Tomorrow morning. Come to our room, but not too early, for my sake. Not Shan Dao’s—he gets up around six.”
“Six isn’t so early,” she admonished out of habit.
“You’re both as bad as each other. Well, if you want company, you should ask him. Anyway, I’m not cracked like you two, so if you insist on bothering us, will you bring me something from the breakfast spread, jiejie? I missed it this morning; what kind of continental breakfast closes at nine?”
His whine, and his arm looped in hers, were his way of asking if they were okay. It settled the fractured pieces of her heart. These well-worn roles were as necessary to her as she knew they were to him.
“Of course,” she said, “Anything for my A-Seng.” And she meant it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Six Days Ago. June 19, 1963. At Sea.
After seeing Yukying dance with Grodescu that night, fear followed Tinseng into his dreams.
He found himself in front of Jinzhao’s parents’ house in Bern. The street was quiet in the way he remembered, its perfectly spaced trees swaying gently, beckoning him inside the neat little brownstone. When Jinzhao had stood across the street after racing from Paris to Bern, he’d sensed something wrong and hurried inside. Was Tinseng to relive that night with its bloody bodies? But no, there were no bright explosions, no muffled gunshots, no screams. Whatever was in store for him, it wasn’t to walk in Jinzhao’s footsteps.
The house stood abandoned and whispered its emptiness to Tinseng. He knew what it wanted him to do. He didn’t want to do it. He made the house wait, walking down the street instead. But in the dream it was midnight, and midnight was patient. It wrapped itself around Tinseng until he was shivering, so cold he began to freeze. If he didn’t get inside he’d stick to the sidewalk, rooted here forever. The dream was forcing his hand.
He didn’t want to go. He had to go.
Across the street, the gate opened.
The moment he crossed the threshold, he heard a loud creak. At the path’s end, the front door waited like an open mouth. He took a deep breath and stepped inside—but nothing happened. Typical, he thought with a roll of his eyes.
His feet remembered the layout from blueprints and moved him from the foyer into the parlor. Inside, he found Lim Chiboon. His torso sat on the couch, his intestines spilling over the side where his legs should have been. A canvas sat on an easel next to him, on which Chiboon painted calmly. When his brush ran dry, he dipped it into his gaping stomach, wetting the bristles with blood. This all seemed normal enough, except:
“What are you doing here?” Tinseng asked. “You’re supposed to be in New York.”
“You couldn’t protect me,” Chiboon said, “so I ended up here.”
“Oh.” Tinseng took a step forward, but Chiboon hissed at him.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s not done yet!” He gestured to his painting. “You can’t see it until it’s done, or you’ll ruin the surprise.”
“Sorry, sorry!” Tinseng backed up, hands raised. “Hey, do you know—”
Something crashed upstairs, just above their heads. A familiar shatter. They looked up, then back down at each other with twin smirks.
“Your mother’s vase?”
“That or the time we let the cat into Auntie Guo’s dining room.”
“Ahh, those were good times,” Tinseng said.
