Monkeys in the Dark

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  ‘I’ll get five, then. You and I can eat the others—or you can try to eat one. You know, it’s a sign of going troppo to eat durians.’

  ‘Let’s get going,’ Alex said.

  He sighed. ‘I had foolishly hoped that you would invite me in for a cool drink and then suggest we have lunch together at your place.’

  ‘Of course you’re invited for lunch. I’ve told Itji already. She’s cooking that chicken curry you like. Now, do stop fooling around …’

  The Sunday morning traffic was light. There were few cars or jeeps on the road and the main competitors for road space were bicycles, carts and betjaks. The markets operated as usual on Sunday and the betjaks were laden with market goods: hundred-pound sacks of rice, live goats and tiers of baskets of live chickens. Dogs, pigs and wet fish were the only custom betjak drivers would not accept, though Alex had once seen an eight-foot-long shark, its bloody tail stump dragging on the roadway, strapped to a betjak seat. The huge loads the betjak drivers transported were appalling, but the handcarts were a more appalling sight. They were laden with building lumber and pulled by human draught animals—coolies, without shirts, with ropes strapped round their foreheads. They bent parallel to the melting roadway as they strained against the weight of their burdens.

  Alex was always distressed when she saw the cart-men with their dumb, crushed faces and their magnificently-muscled bodies.

  ‘Why don’t they just beg?’ she said to Sinclaire. ‘They’d live longer and it’s hardly less dignified than being harnessed like an ox.’

  They’ve probably got wives and kids to support. Anyway, men without physical deformities can’t beg.’

  Alex shut her eyes and nodded. She had recalled the soldier whose right arm and left leg had been struck off, and the horror in Maruli’s eyes.

  ‘Have you heard anything yet? About Maruli?‘ she asked.

  They were just approaching the market, a pot-holed street behind the Hotel Indonesia, where the choicest fruit in the city was for sale. The roadway was already encumbered with parked Mercedes; housewives with their servants wandering after them were engaged in vehement bargaining with the fruit vendors. The pavement was covered in piles of produce: red, hairy rambutans, mangoes, purple mangisteen and the durians—round, brownish things the size of soccer balls and covered with inch-long spikes.

  Sinclaire replied with a noise between a hum and a grunt. ‘Now where can I park?’ he said.

  Parking boys ran towards the car, shouting and waving for Sinclaire to follow them. The lucky parking boy he chose he would tip about a cent for guarding the car. Guarding meant that the boy would not himself steal the hub-caps, the windscreen wipers and the wing mirrors from the car, all of which could be removed in six minutes flat, thanks to local expertise. The car’s guard would not, either, allow the other street boys to assault Sinclaire’s car. It was a protection racket which operated throughout the city and which enraged many foreigners, who often refused to pay. In some streets, like Djalan Sabang, such objections were dangerous, for the parking boys there were in their late teens and early twenties and many of them carried knives inside their purple satin shirts. But here they were only children, aged six to fourteen, naked except for their khaki shorts, and full of boisterous high spirits. Between bouts of guarding the cars they chased each other and kicked a football about.

  They rushed at Sinclaire’s Mercedes and grabbed hold of the doorhandles, squashing their faces against the windows. He blew his musical horn and they yelled with laughter. Sinclaire chose an eight-year-old who was smoking a kretek and who said, ‘Thanks, Bob,’ when Sinclaire singled him out. The other children dropped back, then ran off in search of custom elsewhere.

  As Sinclaire turned off the air-conditioning the putrefying odour of the durians reached Alex. She clasped her hand over her mouth and nose.

  ‘Here, have my handkerchief,’ Sinclaire said.

  Other shoppers were also holding handkerchiefs over their noses. She and Anthony were the only foreigners. As they picked their way across the road towards the pyramids of fruit, the pedlars began shouting ‘Ullo, Mister,’ and beckoning to them. The pedlars squatted on the pavement in their sarongs, with heavy iron-bladed parangs resting across their knees. Like market men everywhere, their vocabulary was clichéd with innuendo, and they leered at the housewives and the servant girls, suggesting each durian would bring a baby: durians, like rhinoceros products, were believed to be good for many ills, and an aphrodisiac. Sinclaire began to bargain.

  One of the military police strolled up to watch, then joined in the bargaining, on Sinclaire’s side. A crowd of shoppers and giggling children gathered. Suddenly Sinclaire turned to Alex. ‘Try it,’ he said. He held out a creamy, pungent segment of the fruit. Onlookers said, ‘She won’t eat it. Albinos won’t eat durian.’ She thought she was going to gag as she put it in her mouth.

  ‘She can’t eat it,’ they said. The flavour and texture were exquisite.

  ‘I can,’ she said in Indonesian. People gasped and looked embarrassed. ‘You understand Indonesian! You speak very good Indonesian,’ they said. It was what they always said; it was all so familiar now. Alex went through the ritual replies to the same questions they always asked. She glanced at Sinclaire. He grinned and handed her another piece of fruit, and then another. The durian-seller had opened two fruits with the point of his parang, noisily proclaiming to everyone the excellence of his durians: the proof was that foreigners were eating them. ‘More, more,’ he shouted up at Alex, pulling the flesh out; veins like earthworms under the skin showed on the backs of his hands.

  Sinclaire turned to give Alex another piece. The creamy flesh was indented with the pedlar’s thumb. She shook her head. Sinclaire tilted his face to the sky and sucked the durian flesh off its seed into his maw. He then slowly licked his fingers.

  ‘He really likes them,’ people said.

  ‘Come on,’ Alex said. ‘I’m sick of being a side-show.’ The heat was exhausting; she felt irritable and dirty from the market dust.

  ‘Done!’ Sinclaire said. He pointed to the fruit he would take and handed the pedlar some notes. The street children immediately began scuffling with each other to pick up a fruit and carry it to the car, for which they would demand a tip. The spectators, including the military policemen, began to move off as the shoal of children went running across the road. At the car they demanded too much for carrying the durians and laughed and shouted at Sinclaire when he refused to meet their price. Their grubby, thieving fingers pinched at Alex’s arms and legs as she climbed into the front seat and slammed the door. They squashed their bright faces against the window, making deformities of their noses and mouths.

  Then, without warning, they jumped off the car, crying ‘Kudal Kuda!’ Other children were running ahead of the yellow Mercedes, up the street. Sinclaire was driving at a crawl.

  ‘Something everyone in Djakarta should see,’ he said.

  Alex squinted against the metallic glare. Above the children in front of them she could just see the head and neck of a little brown horse coming towards them. The animal’s way was blocked by the children who were dancing around him, shouting and clapping and throwing fruit peelings at him. A piece of spiked durian skin hit him under the eye. The horse shied and stopped.

  Sinclaire edged the car closer to the knot of teasing children. Suddenly Alex saw why they were maltreating the beast. He was a monster. Both his back legs had been broken; he was dragging himself forward on his front legs, his hindquarters balancing on his knee joints. Every rib was visible and his hide was covered in weeping sores.

  Alex snatched open the car door. Sinclaire saw what she was going to do and braked, so that she stumbled as she got out. She paid no attention but ran up the street towards the group of children. A child at the front had a bamboo stick which he was poking at the horse’s nose. Alex knocked the others aside and grabbed the boy with the stick. As he swung round she slapped him across the face.

  The children ha
d separated for a moment, from surprise, but they quickly collected their wits. Several grabbed at Alex’s shoulder bag. Others were jumping up behind her back, snatching at the rings in her earlobes. They were squealing with excitement as they grabbed at her clothes. Alex could see nothing but the burning sky and the child’s face burning with fury. He held his cheek where she had slapped him. In the distance there was the horse’s head, blurred. The child’s eyes were narrowed and his mouth set. His nose twitched, then he hoiked and spat at her. The saliva and phlegm landed on her skirt.

  Alex was still shouting at him, in English, when Sinclaire grasped her by the arm. He led her slowly through the children, who fell back as he stared them down. He did not speak at all, even as he handed her back into the car and closed the door. When he got in on the other side she could feel how angry he was. He re-started the car in silence. As they got to the end of the market street he said quietly, ‘You just behaved like a mad woman. A mad white woman, that is.’

  Alex made no reply. She could see the horrible bloody-bones staggering down a side street, towards a pile of refuse. The children were dancing around it again. At length she said, ‘I am going to get that horse to a vet if I have to carry it myself. Whoever owned it ought to be …’

  Sinclaire snorted. ‘The prevention of cruelty to animals is not even a concept here. Haven’t you noticed how they treat dogs?’ He began to grin. ‘You know, or perhaps you don’t, that most Indonesians are frightened of horses? It’s natural for them to tease one that can’t retaliate.’

  ‘The way they also tease political opponents?’ she said.

  Sinclaire was smiling. ‘If you like.’

  They returned home in silence. When Sinclaire stopped the car in the driveway Alex felt too weak to get out, although the smell of the durians in the back seat had become overpoweringly repulsive. Outside the sky had turned the colour of a bruise.

  ‘You need a brandy,’ Sinclaire said.

  The rattan blinds were up, but in the sitting room it was dark and still, so dark that Itji had turned on a table lamp. Sinclaire handed Alex a cognac. Her misery increased because her hands shook as she took it, and he had seen them shaking and was smiling at her. At length she felt her voice was steady enough to speak.

  ‘I may be mad, Anthony. But I hope I’m not brutalised by this place, the way you seem to be. Two years ago you’d have done something yourself for that poor, wretched creature. It’s a disgrace, and you’re a disgrace …’

  He looked at her coolly. ‘Local rules, sweetheart. I live by local rules. You, however, are trying to stand in no-man’s-land. You’ve rejected the foreign community and now you’re rejecting the Indonesians.’

  ‘They’re both vile.’

  ‘These are vile times.’ He brushed her cheek with his fingers. ‘You’d be better off back in the clan. You mightn’t like it, but you understand it. And it understands you.’ He stretched and stood up. ‘I won’t stay to lunch.’

  Alex had noticed he had brought a large manila envelope in with him and had put it on a side table. Now he picked it up and handed it to her.

  ‘Something for you to read,’ he said.

  He strolled towards the front door. The purple sky had dropped and was resting on the roofs. The air was very hot and perfectly still. Sinclaire cocked his head at the sky.

  ‘See you around,’ he said. ‘After the wet season begins.’

  He entered the Mercedes and reversed quickly out of the drive. The first raindrops were already sizzling on the windscreen before he reached the gate. Alex stood in the doorway watching the wet monsoon: grey sheets of water streamed down, deafening her. The rain was so wild that the drops leapt up from the concrete paths, two or three feet. In minutes the gutters were bubbling with water and above the roar of the storm she could hear people laughing. Itji and Aminah had rushed outside with buckets and basins; they were singing out to each other, like birds in a flock, while their sarongs slapped and dripped around their ankles.

  Alex poured herself another cognac before she sat down to read the procès verbal. It read:

  Deposition of Captain Suripto, KOPKAMTIB, 17 August 1966

  On the night of 16 August at 23.45 hours I went with four other officers to a house in Slipi. We surrounded the house. In the bedroom I found the suspect, Hutabarat, sleeping with a woman who identified herself as his wife. I arrested the suspect, informing him that he was accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government. The suspect was placed in close custody at Salemba prison at 1.15 hours on 17 August.

  Interrogating officers Captain Suripto, Major Budiardjo, KOPKAMTIB, 20 August

  HUTABARAT: I established a cultural centre in March with money I received from a man called S. I did not ask where the money came from. I assumed it was from Party funds, or directly from supporters. The purpose of the cultural centre was to cover our activities in training guerilla fighters and in propagating the psychological warfare necessary before we launched our counter-attack against the imperialist-capitalist lackey forces of the New Order. I personally wrote most of this material. I and several of the students printed it. I also trained the boys in guerilla strategy and tactics, drawing on my own experiences from 1945–9 and on recently-published Chinese material. Once every few days I made liaison with S, who is, I believe, an Army officer.

  BUDIARDJO: What rank?

  HUTABARAT: I don’t know.

  BUDIARDJO: Did S know your name?

  HUTABARAT: He never used my name.

  BUDIARDJO: What did he call you?

  HUTABARAT: ‘Brother’, of course.

  BUDIARDJO: You are not answering the question. How did he refer to you?

  HUTABARAT: As T.

  BUDIARDJO: Did you meet face-to-face?

  HUTABARAT: No. When we talked he always faced the wall. I have never seen his face.

  BUDIARDJO: What was his accent?

  HUTABARAT: Javanese.

  BUDIARDJO: Your accent is not Batak. You have a Dutch accent.

  HUTABARAT: I was educated by the priests.

  SURIPTO: By the communists.

  BUDIARDJO: Please continue.

  HUTABARAT: I personally did not think that a counter-attack could succeed. I had been observing our President closely, and getting reports from his associates during May and June, and I had come to believe that he would either forbid a counter-attack or that, if he allowed it, his heart would not be in the cause. People had reported that he was under very great stress, that he wept frequently, and had on several occasions collapsed. Our plans were being hindered by the fact that since March his speeches have been censored and he has not been permitted to travel to the regions. Personally, I doubted that popular support for our President could be as great as S claimed, particularly in view of the propaganda campaign of the New Order, and their tools, the students and other groups, self-styled intellectuals. I felt this must have caused an attrition of the people’s respect for our President. I therefore had made contingency plans of my own, as I felt that the longer we waited to attack, the greater the likelihood that we would be smashed. I felt it important that we Sukarnoists continue to survive for another day. In July I met a foreign woman whom I made my mistress. She has plenty of money. I planned to ask her to buy me a passport and exit visa, and, if possible, passports for some of my best boys. I planned to go to Europe.

  SURIPTO: To do what?

  HUTABARAT: To cultivate the movement in Holland. I would have made Holland my base.

  BUDIARDJO: Which embassy is this woman from?

  HUTABARAT: American.

  BUDIARDJO: Did you suggest this plan to her? Did she agree?

  HUTABARAT: Yes.

  BUDIARDJO: That is unusual for an American woman, is it not?

  HUTABARAT: She is a naïve girl. She has a great deal of money which she has never had to work for. And she is romantic.

  BUDIARDJO: I see. Please continue. Did you indicate your doubts about success to S?

  Alex laid the document aside. She could
no longer read the words, which had turned as grey and blurred as the world outside. He had gone from her bed, back to his wife’s. The homing instinct. And he had not even planned that she should accompany him to Paris. Or Holland. Or wherever. It had been lies and more lies. At least he had had the decency to conceal her identity. But perhaps, at some future interrogation, he would just change his story and tell them the truth—her name, her address, everything. He had even misrepresented, from egotism, the way it had started: ‘Whom I made my mistress. It was I who made him my lover. It was I who laid awake at nights, concentrating on him, willing him to me. I was the one who stretched out my hand to touch his lips.

  She ached all over. Her insides ached, her eyes ached, her head ached, her ears were thudding with the sound of her blood and the rain.

  ‘Lunch is ready, Non,’ Itji said.

  ‘Later. Later,’ Alex replied and wandered into the bedroom. She lay on the bed and sobbed and slowly drifted into sleep.

  When she awoke, at about three o’clock, she felt changed and unreal, as if she were coming out of an anaesthetic.

  Outside the bedroom everything seemed different and strange: the temperature was at least ten degrees lower than it had been in the morning and the house was redolent with the smell of drenched earth and leaves. The roof gutters were still dripping although the air was hushed, ready for the next storm. Alex remembered that people said the rain came twice a day, like clockwork. Once she had been curious about things like that—climatic phenomena, the absurdities and marvels of the place had fascinated her. Now she knew that, in gathering such information, she had wasted her time: none of it was of interest any longer.

  She wandered on to the front terrace. In the street betjak drivers were washing their machines in the puddles and children from other houses were playing with the water, floating leaf-boats in the potholes. They were middle-class children, quiet and well-dressed.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Alex,’ they called to her.

  She sat on the terrace, watching them.

  Itji found her sitting there at sunset. Beside her were a dish of cakes which the woman from next door must have sent over as a present. She often sent over little gifts to Alex. ‘Have these,’ Alex said to Itji, jerking her thumb against the edge of the dish.