Monkeys in the Dark

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  ‘We will go to a friend’s house,’ Maruli said.

  He had asked Alex to send her car away when they had arrived at the restaurant, and they travelled by betjak to the friend’s house.

  They went past the Hotel Indonesia and down Djalan Thamrin, the street which President Sukarno had said would be the Fifth Avenue of Djakarta. There were one or two tall buildings, government office blocks, but the rest of the space on either side was taken up with wasteland that had been fenced-in to keep out the street dwellers. On one of these fences there was a coloured poster forty yards long, depicting vigorous scenes from Indonesia’s revolutionary history—farmers laying down ploughs to take up arms; laying down arms to take up ploughs; and the President shaking his fist at a cringing imperialist. The poster and the vacant allotments, each one of which the President had earmarked as the site for an embassy, a multi-storey office block or an international hotel, amused the foreign community, as did the National Monument, which stood just to the north of Djalan Thamrin, in the centre of Freedom Square. The National Monument was a torch (of freedom) several hundred feet tall, topped with a golden flame, and its cost had been much criticised. The design of the structure represented, as well as freedom, various mystical Hindu-Buddhist-Islamic symbols of human and divine relationships, some of them sexual. The Americans called the National Monument ‘Sukarno’s Last Erection’.

  As Alex sat pressed against Maruli on the hard, narrow betjak seat she did not notice the funny poster or the vacant allotments: they had suddenly become part of her city. When motorists turned to gape at her and some of them shouted, ‘I love you, dearest sister’ (a compliment learnt from the Indian film that had been showing in Pasar Baru for a month), she did not feel affronted, merely regal. She smiled back graciously. Maruli was observing her.

  It angered him that after all these years, after fighting the Dutch and winning, after the proof they had that white people were not only wilful and savage but also mortal, his countrymen would still treat foreigners as if they were born to rule. He watched curiously as Alex reverted to type: the memsahib. He was not angry with her. Her breath had the sugary smell of lust and now that his eyes were more accustomed to her strangeness he found her beautiful. But more than this, he admired her recklessness, though it was difficult to know how much she understood about him and of what he might be doing. He had told her as much as he could.

  The betjak had turned into a side-street to the west of Freedom Square, just short of an intersection with barbed-wire roadblocks and a police check on identity papers. They were now travelling down a street of small houses, interspersed with a few boarded-up shops. Maruli told the betjak driver to stop outside a narrow frontage with a high brick wall. He pressed a button beside the gate, then spoke into an intercom concealed in a niche.

  ‘Whose house is this?’ Alex asked, alarmed.

  ‘Please enter,’ Maruli replied. The gate swung open. Inside there were some men in uniform, but the garden was too dark for Alex to identify their insignia.

  The narrow frontage had given a false impression of the size of the house, which stretched back for fifty yards, broken, after the second of the reception rooms, by an atrium in which there were bamboo and bougainvillaea and an ornamental fishpond. Alex was used to prosperous Indonesian houses with their vases of plastic flowers set on plastic lace mats, tanks of tropical fish and portraits painted on plates of the husband and wife in their wedding dress. In this house there were Javanese antiques, Ming blue and white ware and a tiger skin thrown over a couch.

  A servant came forward, a toothless old woman with the familiar manners that marked her as part of the household of a feudal aristocrat. She grabbed Maruli by both hands and cackled.

  ‘This is a friend of mine, Mother,’ he said.

  The crone turned to Alex and began a fresh burst of laughter, blurting out words in what Alex guessed was Javanese. At length the fit passed.

  ‘Madame has gone to the Palace,’ she said. ‘Go and sit down.’ She jerked a crinkled thumb towards a sitting room and walked away. After a few minutes she returned with coffee and cakes.

  ‘Whose house is this?’ Alex repeated.

  ‘It is better if you don’t know. Please, don’t look so frightened. Nobody saw us coming in here.’ He added, ‘The guards are loyal.’

  Hours later, thinking over this scene, Alex realised for the first time how close he was to the power struggle and her uneasiness returned.

  They sat over the coffee for what seemed to her like an interminable time. At last Maruli said softly, ‘You are calm. Come.’

  A bedroom had been prepared for them: the airconditioning was on and a silver water jug and glasses had been placed on the side-table. The yellow satin bedspread had been removed and a corner of the sheets turned back. Maruli released Alex’s hand and began unbuttoning his shirt. She felt shy and turned her back to remove her clothes. When she looked round he was naked. His skin looked black in the soft light of the room; his cock was erect in his hand. ‘Be calm, be still,’ he said. ‘To do it slowly is more delicious.’

  L’Hotel des Indes had been one of Asia’s most gracious hotels, but since the revolution it had changed its name and fallen on hard times. It was now called The Ambassador and was no longer elegant, but it was still civilised in a shabby way. Anthony Sinclaire had urged his father to form a company with a local business partner to buy the aging pub, but the old man had been unmoved by letters describing the charm of its beer garden planted with giant frangipani trees, and the marble-floored banquet room which nobody swept any more. Sinclaire had stopped going there. He now went to the Hotel Indonesia.

  ‘HI’, pronounced ‘Ha Ee’, was the largest and most modern building in the city and it dominated social life as it dominated the skyline. On the night of the coup Madame Dewi, the President’s Japanese wife, had, all unawares, spent the evening dancing in the nightclub on its fourteenth floor. Visiting kings and presidents had occupied its suites; ambassadors, other diplomats, Japanese businessmen and foreign journalists were usually booked into the sixth floor, which, so the rumour went, had all of its rooms bugged. From there patrons could look down on the Welcome Monument, which rose from a lily pond in the centre of the street outside Ha Ee. Street urchins fished in the pond under the noses of the neatly-dressed concrete couple who topped the Welcome Monument plinth. The female of the pair was clasping a bunch of cement gladioli; the male was waving. The statue was a gift from the people of the USSR, but since the events of nine months earlier, the couple had not been waving in welcome to any visiting Soviet VIPS.

  On the ground floor of the hotel, opposite the Welcome Monument, was the doorway to the Ramayana Bar.

  Dusk was gathering quickly as Sinclaire waited for Usman on the terrace outside the Bar, but he could still read the anti-Sukarnoist student slogans painted on fences, on kerbstones, on every available surface. They said ‘Ban Marxism’ and ‘Economic Problems Must be Solved Immediately’. One particularly vivid message incorporated a picture of a dog with spectacles and read ‘The Dog of Peking’. The cartoon was of Sukarno’s Foreign Minister, now under ‘protective custody’. It was he who had had the sixth floor rooms of the hotel bugged, people said. Sinclaire looked at his watch: Usman was late, which was a bad start for clandestine work.

  He began to smile as he watched the traffic rounding the lily pond at the base of the Welcome Monument. A team of Zebu cattle had joined the ancient cars, jeeps and bicycles. Its driver, a peasant in black clothes, strolled along behind his meandering herd, singing to the beasts, while the motorcars stalled and the drivers blared their horns at him. ‘If they ever invade us, we’ll have to call out the Country Women’s Association to make their lunch,’ Sinclaire was fond of assuring Australian politicians.

  He had two arguments ready to help him seduce Usman. First, he would tell him that, by becoming an agent for the West and, through Sinclaire, informing the Western powers about the strength of the Sukarnoist underground movement, Usman woul
d be able to influence these powers to moderate their support for the New Order. Thus, the Sukamoists would be helped. The other argument was 10,000 rupiah placed inside the Newsweek magazine Sinclaire was carrying. Usman’s parents were dead and he was short of cash, even for the small accounts he had to pay as a student at the Pusat Kesenian. Sinclaire looked at his watch again, then sauntered into the Ramayana Bar.

  It was a place of perpetual midnight. Around its walls were a few spots of electricity—lights above glass cases of the Ramayana shadow puppets that gave the bar its name. For Sinclaire, the puppets represented the difference between truth and dreams, between reality and ideology, between events and local newspaper reporting of them. The puppets were hideous, awkward things, garishly painted, but as shadows on a screen they could leap and fly and their colours were soft and diffuse. Sinclaire wanted Djakarta renamed ‘Shadow City’.

  As he pushed open the bar door a gust of icy smoke-laden air-conditioning billowed out, bearing a babble of anecdotes and the tinkling of a piano. In a far corner a voice from south of the Mason-Dixon line was shouting ‘We autta nuke ’em. Blow the whole goddam place sky-high!’ Invisible hands waved small red table lamps to summon the barmen.

  Sinclaire waited until his eyes had become more accustomed to the dark: he had spotted Usman already but he wanted to check out the other drinkers before approaching him. There was nobody of consequence: a few oil men, singing along with the piano, two of the hotel’s poules de luxe (the management officially forbade male guests to have Indonesian women in the rooms with them—a hangover from Sukarno’s anti-Westernism), a couple of Moroccans, some glum-looking Yugoslavs, and part of the foreign press corps. Usman, seated alone and without a drink, still wearing his plastic motorscooter jacket, was grinning nervously.

  ‘I got here early,’ he explained when Sinclaire sat down. ‘I was frightened there would be roadblocks, so I left as soon as my duties at the Pusat were over.’ His eyes, which were long and heavy-lidded, were darting glances around the room. ‘I am sorry, Mr Anthony. I know that to be early is as bad as being late.’

  ‘Let me get you a drink. Coke? Here’s something to look at.’ Sinclaire left the magazine on the table and went to the bar. The cash was inside the front cover.

  When he returned to the table he began immediately to talk about the Sukarnoist underground. His argument was well rehearsed but even so he could feel apprehensiveness mounting in him. The boy was a little fool, and confused: one could not be sure how he would react to being pressed to become a traitor. He was keeping one hand thrust well into his plastic jacket, Sinclaire noticed, and wondered if what he was holding were a gun, or a knife. Or if it were the money. I’m gibbering, Sinclaire thought. Slow down. He sipped at his drink.

  ‘Which puppet is that?’ he asked Usman suddenly, and, as the boy looked round, Sinclaire flicked open the cover of the Newsweek.

  *

  Thornton Ashby was pleased he had decided to stay on at Meredith’s party. When Alex had left he had gravitated to Sutrisno and had persuaded him to a tête-á-tête in the garden. Thornton talked about the joys of sailing. As he listened, Sutrisno watched with one eye the UPI man, down from Vietnam, trying to molest first Naida, then Eileen and then, having had no success, returning to Naida.

  ‘I try to introduce Eileen to young men, but she is proud. Typical Chinese. She says she is waiting for Mr Right,’ Sutrisno remarked to Thornton, and added, ‘Does Alexandra have a patjar? A boyfriend?’ It was the second time Sutrisno had brought up Alex’s name.

  Thornton pursed his small lips. ‘No. Can’t think why not, of course.’

  Sutrisno nodded and Thornton steered the conversation back to yachts.

  Ever since the Canadian head of mission had bought a lumbering old ketch, two months earlier, his great friend the Australian Ambassador had been burning to own a boat, preferably a better, faster boat. The Ambassador was a man of many diplomatic virtues—notably a sphinx-like calm with which he disguised the intense boredom aroused by his job. He had dreamed of being a champion sportsman, but he had been too clever and too dutiful to his parents’ ambitions. They had made him study hard and then, when he was bemedalled by the university, had made him apply for External Affairs. ‘You’ll get your knighthood, Robert. You’ll be Sir Robert, you know,’ his mother had chirruped on every one of her extended visits to him abroad. She had pursued him from Moscow to Rio and across the heart of Africa.

  Resentment had made him mean. The consular staff had dubbed him ‘Bubbly Bob’, after his memorandum that they were to accept no more than one glass of champagne when attending official functions at the Residence, and that the glass was to be held up empty, if necessary, for the loyal toast.

  On Sunday mornings he played tennis with Anthony Sinclaire because, Thornton believed, Sinclaire had given him his own very expensive second tennis racquet. When bitten with the sailing bug—which the Ambassador had managed to convey to his staff by a misty look in his eye when words like ‘sea’, ‘island’ or ‘yacht’ were mentioned—the Australian consul had been permitted to offer, on his behalf, three thousand dollars for a Swedish-built Dragon. The Ambassador was willing, it was believed, to pay four, but the owner had insisted on five. The owner was a friend of Sutrisno’s. Sutrisno told Thornton now: ‘Of course he will sell for three—if I ask him.’ Soon afterwards Thornton made an excuse and hurried away to find Julie.

  She was seated with some other wives under the jackfruit tree, brushing mosquitoes off her ankles. Thornton flicked his eyebrows upwards and Julie rose and followed him. They went to a dark part of the garden, where there were no coconut flare lamps.

  ‘Darling, we’re in,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get that boat for the Boss, and that will be the end of Sinclaire’s regime. I’m going to invite Trisno to come with us to the Nirwana Room to celebrate. We might ask Alex, too.’

  Julie was still blushing with pleasure when she returned to the group of women to make her farewells. She had not grasped the details of Thornton’s plan—only that he was going to take her out to the most expensive place in town.

  ‘I thought,’ Thornton said, returning to Sutrisno, ‘that we’d just drop past Alex’s house. She’d love to come to the Nirwana Room.’ Julie, clinging to his arm now, gave a giggle of assent.

  But Sutrisno looked irritated. ‘When I talk business, I like to talk business,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow and we will discuss the yacht?’

  Thornton shot Julie a warning look: the nightclub was off. She ignored him and plucked at Sutrisno’s coat sleeve. ‘Oh, Trisno, if you don’t come, we won’t be going,’ she said. Sutrisno saw she was on the verge of tears. He found her thin, pale face horrible: on the bridge of her nose there were small brown marks, for which he did not know the English words, but which in Indonesian were called ‘fly spots’. He laughed.

  ‘Of course, Julie, if you ask me I must come.’

  Thornton was glaring at his wife. He looked at his watch. ‘Darling, what time is Amanda’s next feed?’

  ‘About now,’ she said.

  ‘Well, really, it would be more sensible … I mean, you know what a good cow you are—if you go out now you might leak!’

  Julie bent her head and stared down at the bodice of her pale blue dress. ‘I suppose so,’ she murmured.

  Sutrisno’s expression had become wooden once more. He knew men who beat their wives, but this was extraordinary. He had never heard of a man who would humiliate his wife in public; if a wife lost face, a husband lost face. He noticed, for the first time, that Julie’s clothes looked cheap, as if she had made them herself, like a village woman.

  ‘I think, Julie, your husband has realised that if we go dancing I am going to dance with you all the time, and he will get jealous,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we make a big party in a few weeks’ time? If there are lots of people Thornton won’t notice you and me.’

  Julie blinked and started to smile.

  ‘Perhaps, Trisno, I’ll
just drop the poppet home, then you and I could talk boats tonight?’ Thornton said. As he escorted Julie to the car he whispered, ‘Good girl. I thought for a moment you were going to fluff it.’

  Sutrisno insisted that Julie should ride home in his air-conditioned Mercedes, while he and Thornton travelled by the embassy Holden.

  From the street outside a ghostly glow could be seen coming from Sutrisno’s house. It radiated from a fishtank let into the whole length of one wall of the house. The green neon light in the tank had only just been turned on by the servants and most of the fish were still asleep. Sutrisno tapped the glass, saying ‘Wake up, wake up, stupids,’ before ushering Thornton into his sitting room.

  Stuffed animals, including a young tiger, were posed around the room, but the focus of the décor was a well-stocked bar made of gilt and black bamboo. On the wall behind it hung a portrait in oils of a young woman exposing her breasts.

  ‘Bachelor’s pad,’ Sutrisno said. ‘Here’s where I exercise.’ He led Thornton into the next room. It was set up as a gymnasium with a bicycle and a rowing machine, dumb-bells and monkey bars. Calendars of naked girls lined the walls. ‘General Sugeng exercises with me here,’ Sutrisno said. ‘He likes to keep fit.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘You know, he is fucking six ladies at the moment? Fantastic. I tell him, “You don’t need exercise, General. You need a rest”.’ Sutrisno led Thornton back to the bar and started to mix drinks. Thornton began fingering a carving of a man inside a wooden barrel with ‘Lift Me Up’ printed on the barrel. ‘Don’t touch that—it’s for the ladies,’ Sutrisno said, but he was too late. An outsized erect penis sprang out from beneath the barrel. Thornton gave a gasp of laughter.

  Sutrisno was observing him with his small, clever eyes, nodding slowly.