I do have doubts whether we can work together. Your behaviour in the past leads to grave concerns about your state of mind. However, families must show solidarity in the face of adversity. If you are willing to allow my greater knowledge of the field to direct policy, then perhaps we can consider this further.

Your brother,

Mr Wang Ju-mei

Happy Province Sales Conqueror, Yeshibozkent Home Guardian

Mae was furious. 'My behaviour! My state of mind! What about his, suing his own sister! Trying to take away all that she has done!'

Siao sipped his tea. 'Shall we look at what he really said? First, he has grave doubts about the two of you working together. Is that not something you can agree with?'

Mae puffed out air. 'Poh, yes, that at least.'

'So. Shall we regard that as a simple statement of fact?'

Mae shrugged her shoulders. 'He sued me, I did not sue him.'

'He hasn't sued you. He has stated his intention to. In fact, he gave you fair warning. Isn't that so? Mae? It is so.'

'You are a man and you are on his side.'

'You are perfectly right to call him jealous and scheming. Let's just look at what he says in the letter. Now, he then mentions your behaviour and your state of mind. Have you not chased a man with cleavers? Did you not have a careless affair with the neighbour? Did you not threaten to kill Ju-mei?'

Mae did not like this. She wanted to fight, but there was nothing to fight.

Siao whispered, 'He is frightened of you, Mae. He is terrified of you. You are his big, brave older sister, and he knows you take on the New York Times and that you chased big strong Mr Haseem out of your house, and he is scared!'

There was something in what Siao was saying that made Mae laugh.

'I'm frightened of you, Mae! The whole village is terrified of you! So, okay, Madam Owl, who is violent and aggressive, hates him. People know when you hate them, Mae. They also know when you love them.'

Mae was still smiling.

'So he is saying he will talk to his company, he is saying families must stick together. Mae! You've won! So now you must act like you have won.'

Mae started to puff out.

Siao said, 'You must go and visit your family. And make amends.'

Mae was left to wait alone in the icy diwan.

Her family burned tiny amounts of coal. Two grey chunks of it smouldered on the brazier. Mae sat on the cushions and tried to warm her feet and still her butterfly hands, her butterfly stomach. Mae, Mae, why are you so scared?

She heard them whispering outside the room. Why were they so scared? Why was the whole family Wang frightened of itself?

It's like this for Ju-mei, she thought. He shows up in people's houses, they don't want to be discourteous, so they show him in into the diwan and have a quiet fight hissing behind curtains, trying to make each other be polite to him. He sits alone and pretends not to hear.

But the least you can do is let people wait in warmth. If coal is such a luxury, then burn shitcakes. Except that the family Wang can't be seen to burn shit, only peasants burn shit.

We used to wrap birthday presents in the red paper napkins that came with the tea at the teahouse. We would wrap up something precious like an orange. And we would carefully pick off the tape so we could use the napkins again. Every little present came wrapped in the same red napkins.

Poor Mama. All we ever had to eat was soup, one bowl of soup a day. And I remember one day we had to eat grass stew, just to fill our bellies. The next day, Mama went to every house in the village and begged. Someone gave her hen's-feet. Someone gave her an onion. And she made us soup, out of almost nothing. And then one of us little monkeys spilled kerosene from the lamp into it. And she fell on the floor weeping. She did not even punish us. She just lay there crying.

Mae looked at the photographs on the walls. There they were, all children lined up in white shirts, white dresses in the Golden Age, as Mama called the time when Papa was alive. Even then, she would have beaten those clothes white on the rocks under the bridge.

There was Papa with a photographic face like burnished bronze in a city suit, with a moustache and a pipe. Mae remembered the day it was taken. They had all ridden down from Kurulmushkoy in a cart, and he had sat up straight and proud in his best clothes. He was the local candidate for the Party of National Unity, and that was why his picture was to be taken. That was why he was killed.

It was okay for Missy and me, we were girls, we could go on being girls. It was Ju-mei who had no one to show him how to be. And that's why Papa's picture now hangs in the middle of the wall.

Mae remembered: Ju-mei didn't talk for six months after Papa was killed. He just sat in silence, looking at his little scuffed shoes.

Mae remembered. It was Ju-mei who had found him dying in the diwan. We had to keep using the cushions, with Papa's blood on them.

Suddenly the diwan curtains snapped back as if Ju-mei wanted to tear them down. His chin was thrust up, he was in full city regalia, and he had on his glasses.

Suddenly she remembered her father's dead face and the answer came.

He is frightened of the past. He is doing everything he can to escape it. And the more he fights, the more he's trapped in it. And so am I.

Something in Mae seemed to snap and unwind. She uncoiled and relaxed.

Poor Ju-mei, you can never give up fighting, not even for a moment.

Mae stood up and gave her brother a respectful bow. Even she was amazed. She did not feel a tremor of resentment.

'Brother,' she murmured.

'Sister,' he growled curtly, and jerked his head up and down. It was more like he was hitting her with his head than bowing in respect.

He didn't know what to say. They both stood staring for a moment.

'May I sit down?' Mae asked.

'I am amazed that you have to ask,' he growled back. He thought she was trying to show him up for bad manners. Which meant, of course, that he knew he had been bad-mannered at leaving her alone for so long.

Mae sat down and looked at the walls and thought the Karz equivalent of, To hell with it. She gave up trying to do anything at all.

'Your photographs reminded me strongly of the old days, when we lived here with our auntie.'

'Tuh! I am too busy to think about the past.'

'Me too, mostly. But you know, it was not all bad. It is good to remember how dedicated Mama was to keeping us clean and fed. How we all worked.'

'It is pleasant to hear you acknowledge Mama for something.'

Mae couldn't be bothered with fighting. 'She will always be Mama. It was very difficult for her; she relied on Papa for everything. In those days, it was possible to believe that if you were a woman you would never have to grow up. You could just go on doing what you were told. And suddenly… poof… no one there to tell you.'

'She has never recovered from Father's death.'

'None of us has. We are so far gone we would not know what recovery looks like. Who we might have been if Papa had lived is so far away we cannot even imagine it. Only, I think we keep thinking we will one day grow up to be that family.'

Ju-mei suddenly stood up. 'What do you want?' he asked roughly. Mae couldn't figure out if he was angry or threatened or impatient or bored or sad.

She might as well answer his question for real. She sat and thought for a moment and the answer came as a surprise. 'A little peace and quiet,' she said.

' Tuh, there is little chance of that for anyone else when you are around.'

And there probably was some truth in that. 'Maybe that's why I need some myself.'

Ju-mei stood up straighter. 'We are here to talk about a proposition.'