mattress, she will be bouncing with other men the instant your back is turned. You will be a dolt in the city. You will lose tools, you will not get work. And you will come back here, and be surprised when your friend Mr Haseem does not give you back your house. And your father and your brother Siao – what of them, Joe? They now have the indignity of living with your first wife's brother, Mr Wang Ju-mei. Oh, Joe, what will you tell the spirits of your fathers? You sold their land? For how much, Joe? Would your good friend Mr Haseem, knowing you were desperate to be away, be so generous as to give you half of what it is worth? Oh, Joe, you will go to live near your beloved and clever son Lung. You should love and honour him, for the son is far wiser than the father. But you do not understand him. Your son is Army Officer. Your son is Balshang Fox, who has married the Western world. He does not want a dolt of a country father embarrassing him, staying all weekend long when he has to be entertaining the Colonel and his lady wife. Oh, Joe. You will return lost and befuddled with no money, no woman, no son, and wondering, wondering where it all went. Now I know what a man's chin feels like. It gets shaved clean, everything scraped away, with everything needing to grow back. What else, I wonder, can happen in this year of shaving away? To speak of business: Eye of the Beholder is getting fewer visitors. We have no new orders for the collars, which is great relief and worry at the same time. What can I do to speak to my friends in the world?
____________________
e-mail from: Mr Ken Kuei
13 December
Hello.
I am very proud, for I have sent you a message like this. You see, I am learning. I have taken your words to heart, and so I learn on Sunni's machine. I have had to learn without you.
I am good at learning. And good at waiting. Your friend, Mr Ken Kuei
____________________
e-mail from: Miss Soo Ling
13 December
Mae,
I hear that many houses here are imitating your success, selling collars, etc. In
any case, all fashions come and go. Have you been thinking what you will do next? There is a Western phrase used by all: Live the change. It means, 'Get in first and get out first.'
____________________
e-mail/videomail: no sender
They have found the Eloi site. They will raid. Get your business off Kwan's machine now. Move it onto Mr Haseem's if you can – now, tonight – but move it in any case.
CHAPTER 16
Who would send her such a message?
Mae's mind raced as her slippered feet slid in the dark on Kwan's polished wooden floors. Mr Oz? Hikmet Tunch?
She went into Kwan's bedroom and smelled the savour of husband and wife and sleep.
'Kwan,' she whispered. 'Kwan, wake up.'
There was a groan.
'Kwan, please, this is urgent, it must be done. Please wake up.'
The movement, the sound, ceased and a calm, alert voice said: 'What is it, Mae?'
'I just got an audio file. Came on looking like a packet from America, only it was just a scramble of, you know, symbols. Then it started to wake up as words. It said it was a self-decoding cipher. So whoever sent it would have to know the watermark on your hard disk.'
'What did it say?'
'That they know about the Eloi home, that they will raid. It said, 'Get your business off Kwan's machine.' '
'Can I see the message?'
'No, it burned itself up.'
There was quiet. Outside, a nightjar was singing.
Mr Wing spoke next: 'If they know about the minority site, there is not much point removing it now,' he said, with the same cool voice he used when repairing plumbing. 'What does it say, Kwan?'
'It tells what is being done to my people,' said Kwan.
Wing breathed heavily, once, in and out. 'You are a woman. Perhaps they will treat you gently. Pretend you are foolish and emotional. Mae, whoever your friend is, they are clever, and you must upload all your data to Sunni's machine, and wipe it from ours.'
'Do you know how to do that?'
'Not if you don't.'
The TV was now kept in the diwan. Already secretive, they did not turn on the lights, but huddled in quilted coats around the screen.
Mae tried to copy her business onto Sunni's machine. She kept repeating different, likely instructions. Finally she found one that worked.
The TV said,
Mae told it, 'Volume down! Can you make it look as if the files have always been on her machine?'
The TV made noises like mice were at work inside it. Then it murmured, 7
Mr Wing told Mae, 'Do that. You can say you had it on two machines in case one of them went down.'
'Okay, go ahead,' said Mae. The machine made nibbling noises as if mice were at work. Mae turned to Kwan. 'After this, we wipe the Eloi site.'
'The site stays up,' said Kwan.
Mae protested. 'Kwan! The site will be wiped anyway. But perhaps if it's not here when they arrive, we can have some story ready!'
Kwan's face shone as white and cold as the moon. 'It is too late, Mae. I have e-mail from professors about the site; I have answered them. If the government are reading my e-mail, they will have all that, too. They have me, Mae.'
The two women stared at each other in silence. Blows are like this, thought Mae. At first you are dazed and do not feel the pain. Mae found she was listening for the stealthy rumble of an army truck.
The TV murmured low:
'Mae,' said Mr Wing, 'let's at least save your business. We'd better go and ask Sunni for permission now.'
'Right, okay, I do that. But both of you go, get away!'
'Where to, Mae?' demanded Kwan. 'You think we should hide?'
'We'll take care of ourselves, but first we will go with you,' said Mr Wing. 'Mr Haseem may not talk to you.'
They threw stones against Mr Haseem's shutters to wake him. He threw the window open and they heard the click of a safety catch. Mr Haseem had a gun.
Mr Haseem rumbled, 'Get away from my house, Mae. I bough: your husband's place fairly.'
'Of course you did,' Wing intervened. 'This is trouble with the government. Let us in, Faysal.'
They were allowed only as far as the kitchen. Sunni automatically bowed to Kwan, sleepily mistaking this for a social call.
