by Tod A
We watched as a huge hardwood toppled over in the distance. It took a few seconds before the sound hit us—a wave of white noise that washed over us like a great sigh. Cooney had been right: progress or no, this was rape. I could only hope I wasn’t an accessory to the crime.
There was a rush of falling water as the village came into view—perhaps a hundred wood buildings clustered around a cataract. The old man tied off and busied himself with the cargo. This was it: Dimana, the end of the line.
Raj and I roamed through the village until we located Wulan’s family guest house—a clutch of thatch-roofed bungalows set in a lush garden on the riverbank.
We found Wulan’s sister, Muna, tending bar. Wulan wasn’t expected back until the ceremony—still a few days away. Muna showed us our rooms—spartan, but clean, with views over the river and the plains beyond. It seemed like a good place to do some serious not-drinking.
I looked at Raj.
He nodded.
“Perfect.”
Raj wanted to sniff around and get the lay of the village. I collapsed into a wicker chair on the verandah to watch the sun perform its disappearing act. Mulling over what Raj had said, I studied the ink-stained sky as if its Rorschach clouds might offer up some meaning.
My previous attempts to go on the wagon had all been dismal failures. I usually survived the first few days, until some stressful event sent me scuttling for the bottle like a hermit crab for its shell. AA people always talked about ‘hitting bottom’. I realized I’d been living there for years.
Ditching booze didn’t give you the feeling of accomplishment you got from acquiring something—like learning to speak Italian, or play the ukulele—it left you with a sense of loss. I had been averaging ten whopping bottles of beer a night—the equivalent of a quart of rum. Going cold turkey made me feel like I’d swallowed a black hole.
Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything to believe in. Beer had always lent me the courage to bare my soul. Without it, I was an extra in my own life story, an amateur with stage fright. Every ounce of bravado evaporated, and every mirror reflected a man I didn’t like. I longed for beer’s cool caress. I missed the sweet taste of oblivion.
I shadowed Raj over the next few days, grabbing some scenic shots of the village and its residents while he scurried about conducting interviews. He met with the village priest, banana growers and cocoanut farmers, shopkeepers and bartenders, loggers and their bosses—anyone with an opinion. Only Kepala, the village headman, proved difficult to pin down.
Everyone Raj spoke to seemed in favor of the plantation coming to the district. KDV had already provided a new schoolhouse and a health clinic as part of the scheme. They promised to build a road all the way from the coast, connecting Dimana to Port Mino. Most villagers saw only good things ahead: more jobs, a boost to the local economy, maybe even government electricity and sewers someday.
While Raj maintained journalistic impartiality, to me it all sounded a bit too good to be true. For one thing, Kepala and his sons owned most of the village, so I had a pretty good idea who would profit most from the tsunami of cash that was pouring in. For another, we’d visited the school and the clinic, both of which turned out to be empty prefab trailers. And then there were the loggers themselves, an odious bunch. If I hadn’t had to photograph them I would have shunned them like lepers. When they weren’t hacking down trees they were drinking up their wages, harassing the local girls, and yowling along with the karaoke machine.
My insomnia didn’t contribute to a positive outlook. Nights were long, and the little sleep I got was filled with troubled dreams. The mosquitos were relentless. I tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. I tried to write, but could never get rolling. Without beer to lube the gears, my words had no soul, no rhythm. I felt like a factory drone, stacking empty lines into hollow paragraphs, piling gray blocks onto a page. I had to fill the void with something.
At first sign of light, I’d abandon hope of slumber to wander the river bank, my brain as blurry as the morning mist. At sunset I’d do it all again, trying to run myself ragged enough to pass out.
Once, I headed blindly off the path and, for a few hours, became lost in the jungle. But as night fell, the glow of lights and karaoke blare told me where the village was.
I felt I was simply marking time—time that could have been much more enjoyably spent with a cold beer in my hand.
The dog was still scratching at the door.
One morning I was awakened by the stutter of rotor blades overhead.
“Mark, come get some snaps!”
I stumbled onto the verandah to see a helicopter setting down beyond the tree line. I grabbed the Nikon and intercepted the visiting party as they ambled through the village, looking puffed-up in their button-down shirts. It was a mixed group—Madunese, Indonesians, and Chinese. And there in their midst was Fitch.
I was framing a shot when Raj put his hand over my lens and pulled me aside.
“Sorry, Mark. False alarm. They said no pictures.”
“Why not? Who are these clowns? Looks like some of the guys from the TV Bar the other night.”
“Site visit. KGV, local politicos. The big one is Kepala, the headman. The others are from a Chinese-Indonesian mining consortium.”
“What are miners doing here?”
“No idea. All very hush-hush.”
I caught Fitch’s eye, but he pretended he hadn’t seen me. Soon Kepala had ushered the group away.
That afternoon I was hunched over the same paragraph I’d been wrestling with all day when I heard the cargo boat arriving at the base of the falls. I raised my head to find Wulan drifting up through the garden like a cool spring breeze.
“Mr Mark, welcome to my village! How do you feel?” she asked. “Still no beer?”
“Still no beer” I said. “No beer, no fun.”
She laughed. “Already you look better. Soon you will feel better.”
“I hope so. It’s hard to think about much else. What’s in the basket?”
“Special food from Joro,” she said. “Mayat cuisine.”
“Really?”
“French baguette!” she said, pulling it from the basket. “Also Dutch peanut butter! Only for my good New York friend, Mr Mark!”
“Wow,” I said. “Luxury.”
“We can make an American-style picnic. I will show you the best view from Dimana, give you a major distraction. So you are not worrying about beer.”
“I could use a major distraction.”
“But before, Wulan must change clothing for the ceremony tonight.”
“That’s tonight?”
I had to stifle a laugh when I saw Wulan astride her enormous dirt-bike. But as soon as she kick-started the engine all doubts dissipated. I climbed on behind her and we were off, up the rocky track with the evening breeze in our hair, villagers smiling and waving as we passed.
There was no shortage of obstacles in the road: donkey carts with baskets of fish, kids herding cows, sunbathing dogs, bare-breasted women toting bananas, black pigs bursting from the cocoanut groves.
Life seemed simple in Dimana. The people looked healthy, their animals well-fed. Homes were basic but tidy, with bird cages and potted plants hanging from the eaves.
Wulan handled the dirtbike like a pro. I clutched the food basket with one hand and the saddle with the other. Her hair smelled of coconut oil. Splashes of sunlight illuminated beads of perspiration on her skin. As we approached a steepening of the track, she reached back and grabbed my arm, pulling it around her waist.
“So you won’t fall.”
The dirt road wound up and around the hill. We passed stepped terraces of fruit trees. Where the grade became too steep for cultivation the orchards were replaced by jungle. Scattered outcrops of basalt poked through the dense foliage.
Finally we emerged from the tres
s onto a rocky pastureland dotted with sleek brown cattle. Wulan cut the engine under the village cell phone tower. Behind us, in the distance, rose the volcano, draped in cloud. I joined her on a flat rock.
“Look!” she said, pointing north toward the horizon.
The Mahabang unspooled like a red ribbon into the jungle. Past Port Mino, the open ocean stretched off to infinity, the sea dissolving into hazy sky. To the east lay Longa, and beyond it, Java. Dark clouds loomed over the water in the west.
“This is just … wonderful. Thank you.”
“Welcome to Dimana,” she said, smiling warmly. “Here—have!” she said, offering me bread and peanut butter from the basket.
“Mmm,” I said, tucking in. “That, as we say in my country, is the shit.”
It was comforting to taste something familiar, something from childhood.
“Not shit!” she protested.
“No, no! Not bad shit, Wulan. Good shit!”
“Good shit?” she said, lowering her eyebrows. “You are too much joshing me all the time, Mr Mark.”
She pulled out a lump of fish and rice, wrapped in a bamboo leaf, and began eating it with her fingers.
“Seriously, thank you, Wulan. Thank you for the peanut butter.”
Imported food wasn’t cheap here. The jar had probably cost her a full day’s pay.
“I am happy you enjoy it.” She smiled. “You are most welcome in my village, Mr Mark.”
We sat in silence for a while, enjoying the simple meal, watching the clouds well up over the sea like steam from a caldera.
“So tell me about this ceremony tonight.”
“Ceremony is to honor raising a new spirit house for village headman.”
“Spirit house?”
“Spirit house is a small temple for the ghosts of the ancestors to live. We honor the ancestors, drink rice wine. There is music and dancing.”
“Sounds like quite the bash,” I said. “Maybe you and I could dance tonight.”
“Oh, no, Mr Mark!” she laughed. “Not you.”
“I’m that hideous?”
“Hideous? No, you are handsome man, Mr Mark. But only women are dancing.”
“Oh, like a lesbian thing.”
“No, not lesbian!” She punched my arm. “Women are dancing, men are watching.”
“Ah, more of a go-go bar.”
“No!” She hit me again, harder.
“Ow. So, why only women?”
“This is the ceremony. I don’t know why. Women are dancing who are ready to be married.”
“I see,” I said. “So, will you be dancing tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean you are ready to marry?”
She glanced at me and quickly looked away.
“If I am in love with a man, and he is in love with me also, maybe then I can be ready,” she said. “So many songs about love. But what is it? I still am not sure.”
“Me neither. Not anymore.”
We sat watching the clouds crawl toward us, casting shadows over the water, as boys began driving the cows homeward down the hill.
“Muda, was almost married to a mayat,” she said, after a while. “Sid, from Sheffield, UK.”
“Almost?”
“Sid said he loves her very much, forever. He will take care of her, always,” Wulan laughed, bitterly.
“So what happened to Sid from Sheffield?”
“He gave her a son,” she said. “Then he went home to UK. He said he only needs to get a divorce from his wife, then he will come back and they can be marry. He wrote letters for many months, sent her money. But he does not come back. Now, no more letters.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Me too.”
A gust of frigid air raised the hairs on her arms.
“Monsoon will come soon,” Wulan said, hugging herself.
“You think?”
She leaned toward me. “Yes, so close!” she said. “Can you not feel?”
Could I feel? It was a good question.
I could feel the warmth radiating from her body.
I could feel the gentle caress of her hair.
I could feel that if I kissed her right then, that she would not have pulled away.
But a kiss—even a simple embrace—these were things that led toward a precipice.
I hesitated. And as I hesitated, the moment passed.
I had fucked it up, like always.
Angry at myself, I stood up. Suddenly I could see the plantation zone—a red gash across the mountainside that had lain hidden from our view.
Could I feel?
At the moment, far too much.
But most of the time, nothing at all.
{ 10 }
Spirit House
The wind picked UP, strewing whitecaps across the wrinkled sea as the fishing boats turned for home. The sky deepened from saffron to orange—a monk’s robe spattered with dark paint.
“We must go,” Wulan said. “It is very time for the ceremony.”
We hit the jungle just as the sun was disappearing behind the creeping wall of black. Beneath the forest canopy the dusk fell fast and deep. Families in formal dress crowded the verges as we sped through the cooling air. I spotted Raj further down the dirt track, his white suit glowing like a moth in the dusk.
“Hey, stop a second, Wulan.”
She pulled up next to Raj.
“Heading to the ceremony?” I asked him.
“I am invited.” He looked less than enthusiastic.
“What’s the matter?”
A cloud of insects swirled in a manic halo around the headlight.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “I should warn you, Mark, there is likely be inordinate consumption of alcohol.”
“So I hear.”
Wulan drove us through the banana groves, as Raj followed on foot. The throb of music grew stronger as we approached the lights of Kepala’s compound.
Inside the courtyard a large crowd ringed the perimeter. We quickly did the rounds, Wulan introducing us as ‘Mr Mark from America and Mr Raj from India.’ I met her aged mother, smiled and nodded through the endless introductions, meanwhile checking out the scene.
Women wore traditional costumes, men sported the latest knock-off fashions. A group of musicians sat on the ground in a corner, striking drums and gongs. Wulan found us a place to sit on a veranda.
A small boy approached, hefting a jug of cloudy liquid and a stack of plastic cups. Raj shook his head. The boy filled Wulan’s cup and turned to me. I raised my hand to signal no. Wulan said something to the boy, who bowed and went away.
“You tell him I was on the wagon?”
“I tell him you are Muslim.”
“Good one.”
The music slowed and came to a stop. Women were gathering in the center of the courtyard, chatting nervously and adjusting their outfits.
“I must prepare. I see you later,” Wulan said, rushing off to join them.
We watched villagers light sticks of incense and place them in urns by the spirit house.
“So, I’ll be returning to Joro tomorrow to file my Dimana piece,” Raj said.
“Then you’d better take these.” I handed him the rolls of film I’d shot.
“You won’t be joining?”
“I think I’ll stick around for a few more days. I like this place.”
I dug in my bag and pulled out my manuscript. “Here. Something to read on the boat.”
“Is this what I think it is?”
“It ain’t much yet.”
“I greatly look forward to it. I promise an honest and frank appraisal.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“I won’t be able to return it for a few days. I
’ll proceed to Singy as soon as I file the article.”
“No worries. I’m sick of looking at the damned thing. What’s happening in Singapore?”
“New developments in the stolen icons story. My source tells me the police have intercepted a shipment bound for Europe.”
“The plot thickens.” I wasn’t really listening. Wulan had reappeared wearing a form-fitting traditional costume that revealed her midriff.
“Hey, there’s Kepala,” Raj said. He nodded toward the headman who sat among the visiting foreigners like a great greasy Buddha.
Our host beamed back at us, spreading his palms in a magnanimous gesture. An underling passed him a microphone. Kepala said a few words of welcome to the crowd, without bothering to get up.
The musicians began a slow, lurching rhythm that sounded like scattered drops of rain falling into metal bowls.
“He finally allowed me an interview today.”
“And?”
“A most impenetrable man,” he said. “The wiry fellow next to him is with Indro, the big hardwood distributor.”
“Indro?” The name struck me. “That’s who Frank buys from.”
“So, Cooney was right, after all?”
“Suddenly, I feel like a whore.”
Serpentine flutes rose above the mounting groove. The women, Wulan among them, formed staggered lines facing the band. They held up cups of rice wine, eyes shut tight, faces lifted skyward. Drums joined the gongs, and the women swayed in time, arms angled loosely outward. Thunder growled in the distance. Slowly, meaningfully, Wulan’s mother passed her a long ceremonial dagger.
“Your girl is quite a beauty.”
“She’s not my girl.” I wanted to change the subject. “What’s with the dagger?”
“It’s called a kris. It summons the spirit of Malang, the demon queen of the mountain.”
The music picked up speed and momentum, like rocks bounding down a mountainside. The dancers swayed, gyrating their torsos, working themselves into a trance. The audience, too, fell under the rhythm’s spell. All males were motionless, apart from a quick cigarette drag or a slug of wine. Every eye was upon the girl with the kris.