The cabbie pulled to the curb a half block away from the lights of the Night Market, before a set of yellow metal barricades in front of a checkpoint. Camouflaged police and black-clad SWAT officers checked Uyghur pedestrians’ identity cards. A speaker blared a recording of a woman’s voice in Uyghur. Clark leaned across the seat to grab his bag.
“What is she saying?” Clark asked as he handed over a stack of bills.
“‘Report terrorism or separatism immediately. Speaking to others on the Internet about separatism is forbidden… Speaking on the Internet about terrorism is forbidden…’” The old cabbie gave Clark a mischievous wink as he took the money. “‘And no beards…’”
Clark shouldered his bag and approached the nearest policeman, pointing at the lights of the street market ahead and pantomiming eating. Unwilling to bother with a tourist who probably didn’t speak Mandarin, the officer waved him through before turning his attention to the line of docile Uyghur men and women behind the yellow barriers. A group of Han Chinese tourists in fashionable coats and faux-fur mittens and hats were waved through with no more than a cursory we’re-on-the-same-team nod from the officers at the checkpoint.
Clark bought a hot samsa at the first stand he came to. The Central Asian meat pie was similar to an Argentine empanada, this one plucked straight out of the tandoori-style oven. Filled with chopped carrot, garlic, onion, and fatty pieces of lamb, it warmed him as he made his way through the market, working east, where he hoped to avoid most of the cameras long enough to check out the house where Hala Tohti was supposed to be staying with her aunt.
A slender man with thick, pink lips like a carp shouldered his way past, cursing at Clark in Mandarin as he went by. He was going in the same direction, obviously in a big hurry to get somewhere.
Hala lay under a quilt in front of the oil stove, fully clothed, chewing on the sodden collar of her shirt. She covered her ears with both hands, trying to block out the noises coming from her aunt’s room. Soon it was quiet, but she did not move until the fat baboon Suo yelled for her to get him some tea.
Ren flung open the door before she’d made it to the kitchen. Cold air swirled in around him, and Hala imagined he was a devil, come to curse their house. Then Suo came out with nothing but his sagging undershorts and she did not have to imagine devils any longer.
Zulfira followed him out of the bedroom. Her hair mussed, she clutched the throat of her simple cotton robe with one hand. The other hand she kept in her pocket.
Zulfira stopped cold when Ren shut the door behind him.
“We agreed,” she said. “Hala is not to be touched.”
“We did agree,” Suo said, fat chin to soap-white chest. “That is the truth. But it is also true that I made an agreement with my assistant — and that agreement was made before yours.”
Hala glanced at the door, but Ren grabbed her by the arm.
Zulfira set her jaw. “No…” she whispered. “You… cannot do this…”
Fat Suo breathed deeply, as if taking in her smell, and gave her a smug smile. “I have decided that I am hungry after all.”
Zulfira’s voice rose in pitch and timbre. “This is
Suo struck her hard across the face with the back of his hand. “My dear, you will allow—”
Her hand came out of her pocket with an ornate Uyghur blade that Hala recognized as one of her uncle’s. Zulfira struck like a scorpion, hitting hard and fast, pounding over and over at the spot where Suo’s neck attached to his shoulder. The knife was more decorative than practical, with an eagle pommel and rosewood grips inlaid with jade and mother-of-pearl — but Zulfira’s husband believed that all knives, even those meant for decoration, should be kept sharp enough to shave the hairs on one’s arm. The blade was no longer than five inches, but the wicked upturned point did an incredible amount of damage as Zulfira drove it home again and again. A great arc of blood spouted across the room at the first blow, deflecting off her hand and spattering her face and chest each time she struck.
Suo slapped a hand to his neck, eyes wide, collapsing to his knees. Blood poured between fat fingers and ran down his arm in a red curtain to the floor. He opened his mouth to speak, but managed no more than a horrible croak.
Ren relaxed his grip in shock, allowing Hala to pull away and run to her aunt. She floundered midway, slipping and almost falling in the growing pool of blood. Suo’s hand that had been holding his neck fell to his side, noodlelike. His eyes fluttered and he pitched forward, smashing his face against the linoleum floor with a horrific thud.
