Chapter 15: Her Turn to Be Held

The kitchen door opened on the sergeant's broad back and his bandaged arm.

Nobody at the table moved.

The sock of coins was under the rice pot, and the kitchen paper was under Auntie Hu's apron.

Qiao stood at the stove with her head down and a ladle in her hand.

The sergeant looked at six regulars with full bowls and a cook in flour to her elbows.

"A family supper," he said.

"Every night," said Auntie Hu. "You've never come back here to see it."

"I've come to tell the landlady something, and I'd as soon say it where there are witnesses."

He took his cap off, which Jinyu had never seen him do.

"Banker Pei has a paper from the magistrate for Friday. A locksmith, a mason and eight men. They lift the floors."

"Why tell me?"

"Because your tea is good," he said. "And because I am paid by the day, not by the thief."

He put his cap back on and went out through the hall.

The door shut, and the silence at the table finally broke.

Jinyu looked at Qiao.

"Friday," Qiao said, in a very small voice.

"We have the book in the flour and four days."

"Jinyu."

"Later," Jinyu said. "Eat."

Later came at midnight, in the room at the top of the stair.

The lamp was low.

The regulars had gone out the lane door one by one, each with a name folded into a hat.

Qiao sat on the edge of the bed with her glasses in her hand and did not speak.

She had not spoken since the dishes.

Jinyu knelt on the quilt behind her and put both arms round her waist.

"Tell me," she said.

"They took my debts."

Qiao's voice was very thin.

"Six people."

"Out of their own pockets."

"I have been walking alone with this for six months."

"Now I must learn to let them carry it."

"I don't know what to do with my hands."

Jinyu drew her back against her chest.

"Everyone I have paid looks at me as though I were a god."

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