Jasmine reached for the old lady’s hand, her eyes full of tears. ‘I cared for Bintang very much. He was my friend.’ Her voice broke.
The old woman put her arms around Jasmine and held her as she cried. ‘Bintang talk always of you. He say you like Siti. Clever and beautiful. He like you very much.’
Three days later, Jasmine was in her studio painting. Since the shocking events of the weekend, she had flung herself into her work, finding consolation and peace in the silence of the little wooden studio. The act of painting helped her lose herself: the almost meditative process of creating the work, of moving her eyes between the object or scene and her translation of it onto the canvas. Locked in concentration, there was no room left for morbid thoughts to enter her head as they did wheneve
