Tuyet remembered the first time she met Major Yamazaki Takeshi. An inauspicious day at the peak of the hot season of 1942. The late afternoon sun had slipped below the roofline, leaving the street in shadow. All day, the dragon-bone wind howled and showed no sign of abating. Hot and sandy, it was an unpredictable whirling thing that swept through once every few years and never brought anything good. It chafed the skin, infected eyes, and put grit in the teeth. It tore leaves and branches from trees, blew red dust into every nook and crevice.
