Northern Kenya.
At dawn, the sun had just risen, and the African wilderness lay silent. On the vast grasslands stood more than a dozen small stone huts, lonely and isolated amid pastures stretching for hundreds of miles without end. Only these dozen or so households stood out conspicuously.
One of those small stone houses belonged to the Hornfeiss family. Hornfeiss's Southeast Asian wife, Maria, had risen early and begun preparing breakfast for him.
Maria came from the Dutch East Indies colony—Indonesia. The Dutch had sold her to the East African colony at a cheap price; in the Dutch East Indies, people were the one thing never in short supply.
People from backward tropical regions were all much alike. Women were far more hardworking than men, and Maria was one such woman. Since childhood, it had been the mothers in her family who worked to keep everyone fed and clothed.
Naturally, Maria's father had three wives and more than a dozen children. Everyone in the family except him had to work.
As for Maria's father, he had originally possessed a modest family fortune, relying on the foundation left behind by his ancestors. Yet by his generation, he had inherited none of their glorious traditions. Instead, he was skilled at eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling.
Before long, he had squandered the family estate clean away, living entirely off his three wives and a brood of children. Even so, Maria's father refused to mend his ways. Soon, unable to repay his gambling debts, he found creditors blocking his door.
After a round of punches and kicks, Maria's father sold off his three youngest daughters to pay the debt. Maria was one of them.
Maria had been fifteen when her father sold her. She was plain-looking, slightly dark-skinned from years of working the fields