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pieces for each girl. Another year when we were all starving, he sold another two as mui sai to passing rich families and got a few kati of rice for each. They did not want to go and screamed and clung to me, for I was the eldest. The brothel womanslapped their faces and Mother told them if they wanted to eat and to stay alive, they must go. After that, each new baby that was a girl Mother drowned in the river as it took its first breaths. Where my sisters are now, whether they are dead or alive, I will never know. I still hear their cries in my dreams.’
    Mei Lan’s heart gave a lurch. Ah Siew had never spoken like this before. That girls could be sold for a kati of rice or three pieces of silver turned her blood to ice. Mei Lan stared at Ah Siew, imagining the tunnel in her mind leading back to a past of dark images. She wanted to ask what a brothel was but thought the sisters might not approve; it must be a place even worse than the Death House or they would not look so aggrieved. Second Grandmother owned three mui sai that Grandfather had bought for her on a visit to China. Had he paid for each girl in silver or rice, just as Ah Siew’s sisters were bought as slaves?
    â€˜Why didn’t any of you get married?’ Mei Lan asked. The sisters looked at her in surprise and then began to laugh. They laughed until the tears ran down their faces. Mei Lan scowled and bit her lip, it was all she could do not to cry. Finally the sisters wiped their eyes.
    â€˜I’m too ugly to find a husband. Even brothel keepers took one look at me and turned away.’ Ah Siew pointed to her face, pitted like old bark. A flange of crooked teeth protruded and her eyes, almost lost beneath the fold of her lids, were slightly at odds with each other. Only the humour in Ah Siew’s broad face saved it from complete disaster.
    â€˜The truth is, Little Goose, we did not want to accept the Second Obeying. That’s why we all took the vows of Sor Hei before the Goddess Kwan Yin,’ Ah Siew said and the sisters nodded in agreement.
    â€˜The First Obeying is to a father, the Second Obeying to a husband and the Third Obeying is to a son after the death of a husband.’ Ah Tim leaned forward to explain.
    â€˜I was afraid of childbirth, I’d seen what my mother went through,’ Yong Gui announced.
    â€˜Who wants to be a servant to parents-in-law and brothers-in-law?’ Ah Thye said.
    â€˜My sister was carried to her husband’s village in a red sedan chair. Her bridegroom was away at the time working in a tin mine at Ipoh, so a cockerel took his place at the marriage ceremony, as was thecustom in our parts if the husband was absent. Her husband died in the mine before he could even see her. After that my sister always said she was married to a cockerel. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.’ Yong Gui shook her head.
    â€˜A missionary sent me to the nui yan uk , the Girls’ Home. I learned how to cook and sew there. The other girls told me I could work in Nanyang, all those places beyond China, and be independent,’ Ah Tim said and the sisters nodded agreement again.
    Eventually, Ah Siew looked at the pocket watch she kept in a pouch about her waist, and saw it was time to go. The sisters accompanied them down the dark stairs of the fong and into the busy road where a rickshaw was summoned to take them back to Lim Villa. Mei Lan waved until the sisters vanished from sight, filled with a sense of loss. However dark and smelly the fong had been, the sisters’ warmth had dispelled dreariness, and their talk was a revelation.
    â€˜How did you become “sisters”?’ Mei Lan asked, wanting to prolong the Sago Lane interlude.
    â€˜We were all determined to leave the village and earn our own money. We had arranged for a sisterhood ceremony at the local temple,’ Ah Siew explained as the rickshaw rattled along.
    â€˜We had to promise before Kwan Yin, the