Dr Ambara called her Flora, which of course was not her real name, but most of those Javanese who had escaped from Djakarta in 1966 had forgotten their real names and left their old identities behind. Flora wore a bright scarlet sari and a yellow silk head scarf, and her neck was decorated with twenty or thirty necklaces of shells and beads and Balinese silver. She led them into her own parlour at the back of the hotel; there was a low table, cushions were spread over the floor and a portable television constantly played. A red scarf draped over the light bulb gave the room an unhallowed dimness, and when he first entered, Randolph failed to see the two small children sitting in the far corner watching television, and Flora was painting her toenails with long-drawn-out concentration.
‘You took very well,’ Flora told Dr Ambara. ‘How is life in the United States?’
‘Sometimes I miss Djakarta,’ Dr Ambara replied. He knew that he spoke for both of them.
‘Well,’ said Flora, ‘if you have come all this way to see me, I must feed you. Ana, bring the whisky.’
‘I think I’d prefer a beer, if it’s all the same to you,’ put in Randolph.
‘You have Anker Bier?’ asked Dr Ambara.
Flora nodded. Dr Ambara said, ‘Three Anker Biers then.’ He touched Randolph’s arm and explained, ‘Brewed in Djakarta.’
The girl in the teddy screwed the cap back on her nail-polish bottle and clomped through to the kitchen on her heels so she would not smudge her toenail polish. She came back with three bottles of beer and three glasses and uncapped the bottles with disinterested dexterity, as quick as an oyster shucker. She stared at Randolph unblinkingly as she poured out his beer. She was flat-faced, remorselessly pretty, with pearly white teeth and a diamond stud in the left side of her nose. Her nipples peaked up under the satin in tiny cones. She could have been any age from fourteen to twenty-four. She was probably closer to fourteen.
Flora settled herself on a cushion and they sat around her. ‘It is many years now since I have seen this man,’ she said, ‘but he is always welcome here. His family saved my life.’
‘Those were bad times in Indonesia,’ Dr Ambara commented. ‘Over one million people died when Suharto took power. Flora’s poor husband was one of those who died for his political opinions. He was a considerable scholar, especially in Chinese matters.’
A bald man in round glasses and a KLM T-shirt entered apologetically, bent forward and whispered into Flora’s ear. Flora nodded, and nodded again, and then said, lYa, say a bisa tunggu. Tidak mengapa.’
‘One of my guests from Djakarta,’ she explained when he had gone. ‘He has lived with me now for twenty years, ever since I came here. He teaches mathematics at the local school and he asks every month if he could be late with his rent money. Of course I always say yes. To live here without harassment is a debt I owe to the people of my country, not them to me.’
They sat and talked and drank beer for nearly an hour. Then Ana came in with a huge bamboo tray crowded with porcelain bowls of fish soup, adobong sugpo - tiger prawns fried in butter with garlic and black pepper - and beef tapa. There were more chilled bottles of Anker Bier, and pots of jasmine tea.
Randolph had not realized how hungry he was. For the first time since he had heard that Marmie had died, he ate with an unrestrained appetite. Wanda had difficulty with her chopsticks but eventually Ana, smiling, brought her a porcelain spoon.
‘I don’t think I’m ever going to get the hang of those things,’ Wanda complained. ‘It’s like trying to write a letter with your pen between your toes.’
Later Randolph lit his pipe and sat back against the parlour wall as Wanda went upstairs to take a shower and Dr Ambara chatted with Flora. He closed his eyes for a while but he did not sleep. He could hear the television chattering in Filipino, and the stairs creaking as guests climbed up and down, and the distant honking of traffic.
When he opened his eyes, Flora said to him with considerable interest, ‘Ambara has been telling me why you have come here. It is not the usual reason for Americans to visit Indonesia. Usually they come for the beaches, and for the folk art.’
Randolph sat up straight. ‘I suppose it is unusual for an American to believe that the spirits of his loved ones can still be contacted after their death.’
‘Ambara has told you of the dangers?’
‘I think he has made them pretty clear.’
Flora raised one finger to indicate that he should take serious note of what she was saying. ‘You are not dealing with ghosts, my dear sir, or with mischievous demons. I hope Ambara has told you that. You are trespassing into the territory of the Goddess Rangda herself, the great terrible one, and into the country of the leyaks.’
Randolph said, ‘Do you know anyone who has actually been into a death trance?’
‘Fatmawati, the wife of Soekarno, she attempted it once. I do not know if she was successful. But it has always been against the law in Indonesia. They say it is prohibited because it would encourage foreign tourists to abuse the sacred ceremonies of the Trisakti, but the real truth is that they are afraid of the leyaks.’
‘In what way? Surely the leyaks can harm you only if you put yourself into a trance.’
Flora shook her head and her shell beads clattered. ‘This is not true. Did not Ambara tell you that the gateway to the region of Yama is two-way, both entrance and exit, and that there is always a risk that when you leave the world of the dead and return from your trance, you will be followed by leyaks, who can use your gateway to gain admission to the real world. That is why the government prohibits the death trance. It is not the life of the adept that concerns them. If an adept is foolish enough to take the chance of being devoured by the Goddess Rangda, that is his own concern. But the authorities are terrified that leyaks might escape into the community, for every time that has happened, there has been a wholesale slaughter of innocent people.
The leyaks are quite merciless. They think of nothing but serving their goddess and of finding rest for their own tormented spirits.’
Randolph said, ‘I have the distinct feeling that you are trying to discourage me from carrying this through.’
‘It is not for me to encourage you or to discourage you. It is not my place. Ambara’s father saved my life and permitted me to survive. If Ambara believes that it is right for you to enter the world of Yama in search of your family, I cannot argue with him. I have a debt. But let me tell you this. I lost my husband and he was dearly beloved.
There are two thousand thousand things I wanted to say to him and that had to remain unsaid after he was dead. But I would not attempt to enter into the death trance to say those things. It is against the teachings of the Trisakti. It is blasphemy.
And - apart from that - it is far too dangerous.’
Dr Ambara smiled, trying to be lighthearted. ‘Flora was always the pessimist. Yes, Flora?’
But Randolph regarded her seriously and at length; he could tell by her expression that she was sincere. Her dark eyes glittered in the subdued scarlet light from the scarf-covered bulb and she exuded a perfume of musk and jasmine and civet oil.
Tell me,’ Randolph said. ‘If a living person were to go into a death trance and if he were to be caught by the leyaks, what would happen?’
‘No question, my dear sir. No question at all. He would be ripped to pieces in the way that a fox is ripped to pieces by hounds. Do you hunt in Tennessee? Is that a place where people hunt?’
‘Yes, they do,’ Randolph said a little impatiently. ‘But what happens to their souls once the leyaks have them? Do their souls still go to heaven?’
Flora shook her head. ‘A person who is killed by leyaks becomes a leyak himself and is forever doomed to roam the world beyond the veil, seeking spirits for the Goddess Rangda.’
‘What about spirits that are dead already? Say, the spirits of my family? What would happen to them if the leyaks caught them?’
They would cease to be, my dear sir. They would experience nothingness for time etern
al. How can I put it? They would be like people in a coma. But this would be a coma from which they could never awaken.’
‘So they would never be reincarnated?’
‘Indeed,’ Flora nodded. ‘It is the life essence of reincarnation upon which Rangda feeds. Without that life essence, the spirit is powerless. It remains in a grey dream, a dream without pictures, a dream without feelings, for ever and ever. To be reborn into a happier life than ever before … that is the reward every spirit seeks. But for those whom Rangda has devoured, there is no reward. Only oblivion.’
Wanda had come down from her room and was standing in the doorway wearing a silk Filipino bathrobe, her wet hair wound in a towel. She had been listening to Flora with close attention and when Flora finished speaking, she asked quietly, ‘Is it really so dangerous to go into one of these death trances?’
Flora looked up. ‘If I could persuade anybody not to attempt it, my dear lady, I would.
But Ida Bagus Ambara and Mr Clare have journeyed many miles to fulfil their quest.
Both of them knew the dangers before they set out. Who am I to try to convince them otherwise?’
‘Randolph,’ Wanda said, ‘I didn’t realize.’
Randolph felt almost embarrassed. ‘I should have told you. But I’m prepared to take the risk.’
Wanda was nonplussed. ‘You’re prepared to take the risk? For what? Just to see your family again? You can never bring them back to life. Can’t you let them alone? I mean, what good is it going to do even if you do see them?’
‘I don’t know,’ Randolph slowly said, ‘but I have to try.’
‘Suppose you get killed? Then what?’ Wanda demanded.
Randolph lowered his head. Wanda could scarcely hear him over the chattering of the television. ‘I should have died along with Marmie. I should have been there. I won’t be taking any risks that Marmie didn’t take. And if they kill me … well, perhaps that’s all I deserve.’
Randolph looked up then, challenging Wanda to argue with him. He had not meant to sound morbid or self-indulgent. But the fact remained that he had taken care of Marmie for nearly twenty years, and he had taken care of his children from the moment of their conception, and he still felt responsible for all of them. If their spirits were alive, if their spirits were reachable, he was certainly not yet prepared to consign them to tearful memory and home movies. If he had seen them struggling in a stormy sea, beyond saving, he still would have leaped off the cliffs to try to rescue them, or else to die with them if nothing else. His love for Marmie and the children had been as intense as that, as intense as life itself.
As far as Randolph was concerned, it was worth risking everything simply to tell Marmie that he loved her and always would and to wish her happiness in whatever new existences might lie ahead of her.
Wanda came over and sat down beside him. ‘These demons … what are they, leyaks? Supposing these leyaks escape?’
Flora shook a Marlboro out of a nearly empty pack and said offhandedly, ‘Supposing an airliner falls on this house? Supposing a plague sweeps through Manila and kills us all in our sleep? Supposing the world comes to an end tomorrow?’
She lit her cigarette and looked at Wanda slitty-eyed through the curling smoke.
Wanda said, ‘Airliners and plagues, they’re accidents. But going into a death trance, that isn’t an accident. That’s something you do on purpose.’
‘Well, my dear lady,’ said Flora, ‘I am afraid that shows how little you understand it.
For all that I disapprove of it, I can recognize that it is an irresistible need. Death overtakes the ones we love all too quickly. Have you ever been bereaved? If you have, you will know what I mean. To speak to the loved ones we have lost, if only for a minute! The dreadful attraction of it!’
Wanda unwound the towel from her head and raked her straggly wet hair with her fingers. ‘I understand how dangerous it is. You said yourself that it is dangerous.’
‘Of course. But crossing the street is just as dangerous. And what do we achieve by crossing the street?’
‘We get to the other side,’ Wanda countered.
‘Well, you are right,’ conceded Flora and beckoned to Ana to bring more beer.
Their conversation for the rest of the evening was scrappy and disjointed. Everybody was aware that Wanda and Randolph were going to have a serious argument, and everybody made sure that they spoke about anything but death trances and leyaks and visiting the recently deceased. They talked about politics, investments and the cost of living in Manila. They talked about the latest movies and Filipino food. Flora gave Randolph her recipe forsinigang na sugpo, prawns in vegetable soup.
But Wanda remained angry and restive and Randolph was acutely aware of her mood. She had imagined when Randolph had invited her to join him that they would be going on nothing more than a slightly spiritualistic vacation, doing a little sightseeing and a little swimming, indulging in a great deal of thinking and forgetting, spending an hour or two with Oriental mystics, then going back to Memphis and back to work, refreshed and restored. There had been no suggestion that what Randolph intended to do was dangerous, or that he might be meddling with evil and carnivorous spirits. It sounded like nonsense. In fact, it sounded totally ridiculous. But all the same, if even half of it were true …
She thought of some of the horror movies she had seen, and for a split second her mind was tangled with images of throats torn out, effaces stretching into werewolf masks, of heads exploding and all the other special effects of horror-film technology.
She was overtired. The night was desperately hot. She felt as if she were dreaming that she was here, as if she would turn over in her own bed and open her eyes and find herself back in her apartment in Memphis, with the sun shining through the window and that serene Japanese geisha looking down at her from the wall, safe among her own plants and her own books and her own security.
Randolph touched her shoulder and said, ‘You’re tired. Why don’t you get some sleep?’
Wanda said, ‘You and I have a bone to pick.’
‘I’m sure we do. I understand that now. But let’s pick it in the morning.’
Wanda nodded. She stood up and said good night to Flora and Dr Ambara. Flora, smoking, smiled at her and said, ‘Selamat malam.r
Randolph said to Dr Ambara, Til be down in a moment.’
He followed Wanda up the narrow staircase to the second-floor landing. There were bamboo blinds over the windows and painted wicker horses hanging from the ceiling.
Wanda’s room was the first on the right, one of the rooms Flora reserved for special visitors. Upstairs there was a warren of rooms in which her old friends from Djakarta made their nests, accompanied by their photographs and religious effigies and incense burners. Behind each door there was a decorated screen that had to take the place of the aling aling, the wall Indonesian villagers build in front of their houses to prevent demons from entering at night. It is well known among Indonesians that demons have difficulty turning corners in the dark.
Randolph watched solicitously as Wanda sat down on the side of the bed.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want you to feel that you have to stay. You can fly home if you want to.’
‘If anybody ought to be flying home, it’s you,’ she retorted.
Randolph said nothing but closed his eyes briefly to indicate that he had heard her and that he understood what she was trying to tell him.
‘You don’t know what’s going to happen if you go into one of those death trances,’
Wanda went on. ‘I mean, I don’t really believe in leykas. Is that what they’re called?’
‘Leyaks,’ Randolph corrected her. ‘And I don’t really believe in them either.’
‘But what if they are true? You seem to be sure that you’re going to see Marmie and the children. You think that’s true. Why shouldn’t the leyaks be true?’
Randolph puffed out his cheeks tiredly. ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. T
his whole expedition is probably ridiculous. But it has to be done. Unless I attempt it, I can’t go on. At least I can’t go on living in the way I have been until now. That may sound crazy.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Wanda said. ‘But you mustn’t let your grief for Marmie dominate everything you do.’
Randolph said, ‘I have to go back downstairs. You know, courtesy and all that. Why don’t you get some sleep? You don’t have to get up early tomorrow. The plane doesn’t leave until two.’
Wanda reached out a hand and Randolph took it and put his other hand on top of it.
‘I do care about you,’ Wanda told him. ‘I wouldn’t have come along if I didn’t.’
‘I know,’ Randolph said. ‘And I care for you too.’
He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. She stayed where she was and said nothing as he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Downstairs, Dr Ambara and Flora were talking about the old days in Djakarta. When Randolph came back, however, they nodded their greeting and Flora clapped.
“This Wanda is a very pretty girl,’ Flora said in appreciation.
‘I’m afraid she’s nothing more than my assistant,’ Randolph told her.
‘Is that an obstacle?’ asked Flora, suddenly cackling with laughter.
Dr Ambara raised a cautioning hand. ‘Mr Clare was unlucky enough to bury his wife and family only yesterday, Flora.’
Flora stared at Randolph and then suddenly reached over to the small white Chinese vase beside the television and drew out a peach-coloured orchid that she offered Randolph with an expression of almost agonized sympathy. ‘You must think the worst of me for speaking as I did. I had no idea that it had happened so recently. You must be very shocked, and I apologize.’
Randolph took the flower and held it up to admire its delicacy. ‘You mustn’t feel bad,’
he replied. And when Flora looked at him questioningly, he said, ‘I don’t. I’m trying to look forward to the time when I can see them again.’
Death Trance Page 21