by John Greet
Putu had her back to me as she ladled water through her hair. Quietly I slipped out of the room and into the night. I found my motorbike and pushed it down the track before I jumped the kick start.
16
Moths and insects swirled around the oil lamps that lit Omar’s café. Janna sat at her table, the orangutans on either side of her watching as she peeled a mango. I didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to trigger any memories.
Omar leaned over and said, ‘She told me what happened the other night. Close call, man. You okay?’
‘Yeah, just a couple of scratches.’ I told Omar about the voice that had come to me as I’d run: Apes can’t swim. He laughed, and Janna looked our way. I noticed that she recognised me.
‘They’re gay,’ said Omar under his breath.
‘Who are?’
‘Her orangutans, they’re homosexual.’ He poured two shots of arrack, knocked one back then pushed the other towards me and continued, ‘We Indonesians believe that orangutans are ancient humans, and many thousands of years ago they took to the forests to avoid being captured as slaves. ‘Orang’ means people and ‘utan’ is the forest. We call them the forest people. The males are often homosexual, one of those weird nature things. Like these guys here …’ Omar indicated with his head towards Janna’s animals. ‘All I can say is that at least Janna’s safe. You get what I mean?’ He took a full bottle from the shelf and went to her table.
When he returned he said, ‘She wants to speak to you.’
As she’d left her apes unchained, I approached Janna while keeping my eyes on the animals.
‘They won’t hurt you. They know you now. Can you walk with us?’ Her shades hid her eyes. She wore seashells woven into her braids and a pair of white fingerless gloves. Her words smelled of arrack. When we reached the beach, the apes pulled at their chains, and Janna ordered them to heel.
‘Have you told them?’ she asked tensely.
‘Told whom?’
‘The police, about my boys chasing you …’
I was puzzled. Why would I go to the police? ‘No,’ I said.
‘Have you told anyone?’
‘No.’
‘I’m asking you not to tell anyone. They can take my boys away just like that,’ Janna snapped her fingers.
‘I don’t intend to tell anyone. You know, for me, it’s … Well, it’s a little embarrassing.’
She smiled, and I saw her perfect teeth. She looked out to sea. Fishing boats’ lights shone on the horizon; the tide was out and the water unusually flat. I asked her where she was from, and it was sometime before she answered.
‘My name is Janna Petro Karackavich. I am from what used to be called Yugoslavia. My family are all dead now, and my country is gone. I have one brother somewhere … Don’t know where.’ She waved her hand towards the sea, as if her brother might be out there in the darkness. A few minutes passed. We walked at the water’s edge, the apes trotting beside us. She began hesitantly, speaking in disjointed words, then as she gathered her thoughts, her words flowed, bubbling forth like water from a hidden spring. I didn’t interrupt or ask questions.
Janna’s father had been the minister of finance under the Milosevic regime. He had amassed a huge private fortune. With the regime about to fall under the United Nations’ attack, the family fled to Switzerland, where her father had transferred his fortune. They took up residence in Vevey on the shores of Lake Geneva. Janna was too young to remember the move. She grew up in a lakeside mansion, lived a privileged childhood, and money was never a consideration to her. However, she was extremely lonely. Her only friends were the gardener and housemaid. Apart from her father’s employees, she had little contact with the outside world. As she came of age, she attended private schools but remained an outsider. Students whispered behind her back that she was Karackavich’s daughter. Yugoslavia had fallen, and members of the former regime were wanted as war criminals. Janna’s father had immunity in Switzerland but was unable to reconcile himself to a life in exile and drank himself to death. Her mother developed alcohol-related dementia and took her own life in a private hospital.
Janna had continued to live in the lakeside mansion with her brother, who drank heavily and was also dabbling in drugs. When a young Indonesian refugee she met in a café in Vevey showed an interest in her, the first man to do so, she fell in love with him.
His name was Tan, and he came from Aceh Province in Northern Sumatra. He was a fiery revolutionary who’d dedicated his life to achieving independence for the province.
In accordance with their father’s will, lawyers sold the house in Vevey and gave both siblings a sizeable amount of cash and a large monthly pension for the duration of their lives.
Janna then moved to Aceh with Tan, and he persuaded her to donate a large sum to the Aceh Liberation Front, a rebel group that operated out of the Sumatran jungles. The couple got married and lived on Janna’s pension in a rented compound in the capital. Janna was close to the women in Tan’s family. She had friends and for the first time in her life felt content. One day, she saw two baby orangutans in a pet market and bought them on a whim.
One night a truck pulled up outside their compound. There was a hammering on the door, and Janna and Tan’s mother rushed to open it. On the ground before them lay Tan’s bullet-ridden body. A note, written in blood, was pinned to his chest with a knife: it said Pengkhianat. Janna knew what it meant: ‘Traitor’. The women saw the tail lights of a government military vehicle driving away. Tan’s family didn’t attend his funeral for fear of repercussions from the government. They told Janna she had to leave Aceh. As she couldn’t travel by air with her orangutans, she took a bus to Medan, and then a boat to Surabaya. From there she travelled the short distance to Bali, where she has lived ever since.
The light on the coconut tree came into view. The apes strained at their chains. Janna said goodnight and quickened her pace. From the beach, I watched her for a while, then walked back to Omar’s.
That night as I lay awake, Janna’s story came to me again, like images from an old film clip. I felt pleased that she had opened up to me. We had made a connection, and I didn’t want to lose the momentum. I decided to go and see her again.
* * *
Satchimoto’s tour group had left the Sandika, and Wayan was attending to a few guests in the coffee shop. From the bar I took a bottle of arrack and slipped it into my shirt front. I also took the Land Rover rather than the motorbike. I was going to meet Janna, and if there were any loose apes around, I wanted to be prepared. But before I could pull out of the carpark, I was called to the phone.
It was Grace. I was relieved at the sound of her voice. ‘Dad, how long is this going to go on? Can you please come home?’
‘Grace, listen to me. I’ve been worrying myself sick about you having anything to do with Tula. I’ve been having nightmares about it. Please tell me what’s going on.’ Grace didn’t answer. ‘Talk, girl! Tell me!’
‘I made a mistake. I should never have gone to see him.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Stop yelling, please …’ I forced myself to calm down. She began hesitantly, ‘Well, I went to the Kingsnakes’ headquarters, you know, that place in Grey Lynn, and asked the hoody at the door if I could see Tula. He laughed and told me to go away. So, later that night, Steven and I went to that club he owns up on K. Road. We hung around in there for a while, and I slipped a note to the barman and asked him to give it to Tula. I wrote, “Salvador Milano’s granddaughter would like to speak to you.” And, like, an hour later, one of those guys that trashed your apartment came up to us. He pushed Steven away and said that only I could go in. Steven wasn’t cool with this, but I told him I’d be okay and to wait for me. Tula was sitting at a desk, writing in a book, and he didn’t look up. Both of those guys who were at your apartment were sitting there too.’ Grace’s voice was now weak and troubled, ‘Dad … I can’t tell you what happened … It’s too embarrassing.’
I was so wo
und up that I wanted to holler into the phone but the sound of her sniffling stopped me. ‘All I wanted to do was tell him that you … that there’s no money coming and that he should leave us alone, and I think I blurted that out. Then …’
‘You didn’t … You know?’ I heard myself saying, horrified.
‘Didn’t what?’ she asked.
‘You didn’t go to work for him, did you?’
‘How could you say that! Do you really think … Dad, it’s just wrong that you think that,’ her voice rose in indignation.
‘Grace, don’t take that tone with me. Just tell me what happened. What did you do?’
She steadied her voice and continued, ‘I suddenly felt this hand grab me from behind, pinning my arms to my back, and then there was an arm around my neck, and another clamped over my mouth. It was all happening so quickly. A guy came over and lifted up my dress, and took off my bra and panties. I tried to fight but they had me good.’
‘Grace!’ I shouted. My little girl …
‘I was stark naked, just my dress around my neck. I couldn’t move,’ she mumbled. ‘It was so humiliating. I wanted to scream but I had to be calm. Tula looked at me … He wasn’t looking at me, but just checking out my body, kind of looking up and down. Then he shook his head and said, “Nah, too skinny”, and went back to his books. The big guy let go of me, and I fell to the floor. They didn’t move as I put on my clothes again. I wanted to cry but I was too scared. I ran out of the room. They were all laughing. Big ugly laughs, still ringing in my head. Steven and I rushed out of the club, and when we got to a dairy shop doorway, I broke down,’ Grace’s words trailed off.
I was filled with an anger so fierce that my skin felt like it were on fire. My hatred for Tula threatened to consume me. I saw myself holding a gun to his … No, ramming it down his throat.
‘Dad, are you there?’ Grace’s voice brought me back.
‘You were lucky that you got out of there. It could have turned bad, really bad. Why didn’t you listen to me? Did you not hear me?’ I said, forcing myself to sound calm.
‘Sorry,’ came her voice between sobs.
‘I’m going to sort this out. But in the meantime, I want you to promise me that you will not go anywhere near Tula. Stay away from him! Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
* * *
I walked straight to the brothers’ room and rapped on their door.
‘I want to borrow some money,’ I blurted as I walked into the room. I was burning with rage. ‘A lot of money, twenty thousand dollars.’ Geno’s face showed no emotion as he poured me a shot of arrack. My hand shook as I took the glass. Paolo gave me sympathetic looks from across the room.
‘Hey, Adam, what happen? You okay?’
‘Can you do it?’ I stammered, ignoring Paolo’s question.
‘We can talk about it, man,’ said Geno. ‘Twenty grand’s a lot of moolah. What you need that much for?’ Between shots of arrack, I told the brothers what had happened to my daughter in New Zealand.
‘So, you think twenty grand going to fix things?’
‘It’s enough to buy me some time, until I can sort something out.’
‘If we lend you this money, how you gonna pay us back?’
It was a question that I didn’t have an answer to. The brothers knew I was broke. Geno paced the room. Paolo stood against the wall with a nail file, absently trimming his nails. A breeze rustled at the curtains.
As I calmed down, I realised the futility of my situation. I was about to leave when Geno spoke. ‘Look, let me talk this through with Paolo and … You need this money now, eh?’ I nodded. ‘Okay, I come see you soon. We talk, eh?’
Back at the coffee shop, I took a slab of meat from the kitchen and fed the leopard cat. My rage had turned to numbness. As I focused on the animal’s markings, my dream came back, the one where the cat had lunged at Grace. Mosquitoes bit my legs, and I watched them suck my blood. Soon Geno found me, and we were walking out onto the beach together.
‘We gonna do it, man. We gonna give you the twenty big ones, man, though you sure as shit can’t pay us back now. But we might need something from you one day … We will ask you to do something for us.’
We stopped on the beach. Geno looked at me, his green eyes holding mine in an intent gaze. The wind was blowing sand against our legs.
‘That’s a bit vague. What is it you think you might want me to do?’
‘How the hell do I know, man? Let’s just say, me and Paolo, we investing in you.’
‘I …’
‘Hey, you want this money or not? No more questions. This a one-time offer.’
‘I’ll take it.’ The words fell out of my mouth.
‘Of course, man, of course.’ Geno reached into the pocket of his board shorts and, like a magician, produced two neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills. ‘Twenty thousand, man. Now go pay that motherfucker gangster of yours.’
17
In the morning, I drove over to Janna’s. Her compound was silent. I heard something suddenly crashing through the bushes and waited in the Land Rover while a pig grunted past. I’d parked against the wall; sharp pieces of glass were embedded along the top of it. This was often done in Bali as protection against burglars. I touched the bottle of arrack tucked in my shirt front, got out and knocked. I put my ear to the wooden door and could hear the scuffling and grunting on the other side. I knocked louder. I heard footsteps and sounds of the door being unlocked. Janna was not wearing her shades, and her dull eyes squinted in the light. She looked sick as she tried to figure out who I was. Then her face sharpened and her mouth fell open. ‘What do you want?’
She didn’t wait for an answer. She cupped her hand over her mouth, whirled around and ran back into the house. I heard a door slam. Then came the agonising sound of retching. The apes sat together on the compound floor, their eyes fixed on me. I pulled out the arrack. One beast slid towards me and, as if it couldn’t believe its luck, reached out a hairy paw and tentatively took the bottle from my hand.
Ape droppings, some fresh, some dry, covered the courtyard. I walked as if through a minefield, towards the door. I reached the veranda. It was a typical Dutch–Indonesian house, stucco walls with slatted windows. I opened the door. The front room was a hellhole: it was filled with uneaten, decaying fruit; broken furniture; overflowing ashtrays; mouldy piles of white clothes. I followed the sound of vomiting and came to the kitchen, where piles of empty arrack bottles covered every surface, strewn on tables, benches and the floor, clear bottles, all the same brand. I pushed them aside and found the bathroom.
Janna was slumped against the wall, semi-comatose, too far gone to recognise me. Her face and eyes were puffed and swollen, her hair hanging wet and limp. In one hand she held a bottle of arrack.
She didn’t resist as I removed it from her. She didn’t move as I picked her up in my arms. Her head rested on my shoulder, her breath faint. She was losing consciousness. At the front door the apes, snarling and hissing, rushed to me. I held out the half-filled bottle I’d taken from Janna. One grabbed it, did an about-turn and sped away, and the other ape chased after it. I moved quickly. Janna was light as a child. I placed her on the front seat, and she lay curled up, head buried, legs tucked in. I locked the Land Rover’s doors. I’d latched the compound on my way out.
Where to now? Janna was desperately ill. I’d dealt with some very drunk restaurant customers in my time, but this was different. She was sick. The slightly bluish tinge to her face reminded me of dead Mikey’s.
* * *
Anak’s wife helped me with Janna as we carried her across the compound. We lay her on the dais. Anak was silent, his arms folded, his eyes on Janna. Dewi cleaned Janna with a bowl of water then wrapped her in fresh sarongs. Janna’s eyes were still closed and she lay curled on one side, facing Anak. He put his hand on her forehead and held it there for some time. I was expecting him to say something to the effect of ‘She is possessed by a demon’. Instead he said, ‘Al
cohol poisoning. You caught her just in time … I suspect that left alone she might have died.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Nothing. As long as she doesn’t drink more alcohol, it will wear off. Leave her with Dewi. I’ll call you when she comes to.’
As I drove back, I thought of the apes. I picked up a selection of fruit and a bottle of arrack from a roadside stall and returned to Janna’s compound. I put my ear to the door; there was no sound. I opened it slightly, just enough to see inside. Both apes were collapsed, lying spread-eagled in the shade of the veranda. Too much arrack, more than their daily dose, I suspected. I slid the fruit and the bottle through the door and latched it.
Back at the Sandika, I paced the sea wall. The night was hot, with no wind. There was a smattering of late night customers finishing up in the coffee shop. The pungent and pleasant smell of frangipani hung in the air. Crickets chirped at a high pitch. A stray dog followed me as I walked. Its sad eyes looked up at me until I bent down and patted it. I could hear laughter coming from the coffee shop, followed by the ring of Wayan’s cash register. I pushed aside my worries about Janna and thought of Grace. I could think of her with relief now that a payment had been made to Tula. Earlier that day, Wayan had given me a message from my daughter. It was one word: ‘Done.’ Hopefully, Elisabeth wouldn’t be getting any more threats from Tula.
* * *
The fishing tours continued to be a success. The Japanese fishermen returned with large catches. Paolo was in Brazil, and Geno had just returned from Japan. Paolo often came back from Brazil with gorgeous girls: front-page calendar girls who rarely spoke English, and spent their short stay in Bali sunbathing poolside. Satchimoto travelled back and forth to Tokyo, but the tours continued in his absence.