by Dan Smith
‘I did,’ I told her. ‘But I stopped.’ I didn’t tell her it was lung cancer that killed my mother. Drained her life like an insect sucking away her blood.
‘You should try one.’ She put the cigarette between her full lips and lit it with a plastic lighter. She took a drag and then lifted it to my mouth. ‘Try it,’ she said. ‘You can’t come to Indonesia and not try one of these.’
I hesitated, then allowed her to put her cigarette in my mouth. The way she held it, right down in the nook between her middle finger and her ring finger, her palm was across one of my cheeks, her fingers stretched across the other. In that intimate pose I dragged on it, swallowing the smoke down into my lungs and tasting the sweetness of it.
I blew it out and nodded. ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty much as disgusting as I thought it would be.’ I grimaced and shook my head, but I’d enjoyed the sensation of the smoke in my body again. Most of all, though, I’d enjoyed her touch, having her cigarette in my mouth.
‘You see that?’ she said, pointing towards the hospital. The policemen had moved away from their car and were walking among the stalls, looking around them as if searching for something. I had forgotten about them, been too busy talking, feeling the arousal of being close to Domino.
‘They’re looking for us,’ I said.
‘You might be right.’
‘Shit. Maybe I should—’
‘Too late for that.’ She stood up and offered me her hand. ‘Come on.’ She pulled me to my feet. ‘Let’s go.’
6
We climbed into the back of the first taxi we came to. A yellow Toyota. I’d thought that, like the bus, it would have tassels and hangings dripping from the ceiling and around the windows, but it looked much like any taxi at home. Mock-leather seats that had seen a few backsides, floor mats that needed changing, and everything squeaked.
The driver turned down the music and asked where we wanted to go. Domino told him and he thought about it before nodding. They spoke for a moment longer, seemed to be haggling over a price, then he flicked his music back up and pulled away from the side of the road without much more than a quick glance in his mirror.
Domino looked out of the back window, putting her hand on me as she twisted for a better view.
‘You think they saw us?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You can relax now, Alex. It’s all behind you.’ She smiled at me. ‘Or maybe it’s all in front of you.’
Once we were away from the hospital we headed out of the nameless town, the taxi braking and accelerating, dodging the traffic until we left the lights behind us and moved into the real darkness. I could see the shadowy shapes of trees and buildings out there, but not much else. We were on a narrow road, only the occasional glare of oncoming lights, and there was a sensation of climbing. The air coming in through the open window was cooler and I felt my ears pop.
‘How long?’ I said to Domino. We’d been travelling at least twenty minutes.
‘Not long. We’re not going straight to Toba, though. Gonna make a quick stop-off.’
I strained to see her eyes, but one side of her face was in shadow, while the other was cast with a yellow glow from passing headlights. I could tell that she was smiling, but I couldn’t read her expression too well. ‘What kind of stop-off ?’
‘I’m taking you for a surprise. See something of the local culture.’
‘Something like what?’ Now that we were calm, enclosed in the taxi, I felt the first stirrings of doubt since we’d run from the hospital. Unease dribbled into me, a loose sensation that tingled around my stomach. I didn’t know Domino. I’d followed her on a whim, run from the police. I had no real reason to trust her.
‘Don’t worry.’ She reached across and put her hand on mine, as if she had heard my thoughts and seen my need for reassurance. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re going to like it.’ She leaned over and kissed my cheek, taking me by surprise again, making me pull back to look at her, get her in focus. She smiled at me, her eyes holding mine, then she kissed me again, this time on my lips, before breaking away, saying, ‘We’ll be there soon. A few more minutes,’ and almost the second she stopped talking, the taxi slowed and the driver leaned closer to the windscreen as if searching for something.
He spoke aloud, his voice disturbing whatever it was that had passed between Domino and me, then she looked away and replied, nodding her head.
Taxi-man slowed even further and pulled off the road, turning onto a dirt track that led through trees rising tall on either side of us, killing the sky. The Toyota was squeaking even more now, away from the relative smooth of the broken tarmac. The road here was not covered, just a cleared track, loose and potholed.
‘Where the hell are we going?’ I asked, feeling the nervousness folding its arms around me again.
Domino squeezed my hand. ‘This is going to be fun. You want to experience the place, don’t you?’
‘Sure.’ But I didn’t want to disappear without trace.
‘Well then … sit back and enjoy the ride.’
I wasn’t sure if I was seeing the real Domino now or if she was showing off to me, demonstrating that she knew the place, that she could show me things I wouldn’t otherwise see. Either way, I strained my eyes at the window, hoping to see some memorable landmarks, just in case I had to return this way on foot. Alone. But we were on the track for no more than a few minutes before we finally saw lights coming at us through the trees.
‘Here we are,’ Domino whispered. She sounded excited.
I couldn’t see much, it was too dark, but I could see that there were large buildings in a clearing, around which the trees had been thinned. Just a smattering of dark shapes among the pines, slivers of lamplight. No discernible roads or paths other than the one we’d arrived on.
The taxi stopped and the driver turned round and spoke to Domino. She shook her head, put her hand on the back of the seat, talking in Indonesian. The driver cut her off, raising his voice, then they were talking over each other, both voices at the same time, growing louder until Domino raised her hands and leaned back beside me.
‘He wants too much. Not what I agreed back there.’ She sighed. ‘Taxi drivers. They’ll always try to con you. You speak the language, you stand a better chance with them. You know the place, you stand an even better chance, but they still try to con you. They think because you’re white, you got money. Like it’s their duty to charge you more.’
I hesitated, then stretched my leg and dug a hand into my pocket. I didn’t see I had much choice other than to pay. I pulled out a handful of notes and offered them to Domino but she pushed my hand down against the seat.
‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘Only one way to deal with this. We’re going to have some fun.’
‘What?’
‘You never did anything you shouldn’t have?’
‘Like steal clothes, you mean? Run away from the police?’
‘Yeah, like that. Or maybe something like this.’ She opened the taxi door and began to climb out. ‘Run,’ she said.
It took me a moment to shake off the feeling of déjà vu and register what she was doing. I looked from her, running away, to the taxi driver, sitting in his seat, head turned, mouth open. His reaction was similar to mine. Like me, he couldn’t believe what was going on, so we stared at each other for a fraction of a second, then he was moving, reaching for the handle.
I took my chance, doing the same, throwing open the door hard enough for it to bounce back on its hinge. I pushed it again as it hit my outstretched hands, caught my foot as I stepped out, tumbled onto the ground, picked myself up and ran round the car, hoping to see where Domino had disappeared into the trees.
As I rounded the car, though, the driver caught hold of my shirt, grabbing and pulling me closer to him. I tugged back, pushing him away, knocking him against his car, and I wheeled my arms to stop myself from falling and collapsing at his feet.
Regaining my poise, I broke into a sprint, following Domino into the
trees.
In the relative safety of the darkness, I stopped and crouched low, looking back at the driver, who was now standing beside his car, peering into the shadow, deciding what to do.
I kept low, tucked in at the base of a tree a few metres inside the main line of foliage, and continued to watch him as he paced back and forth. He waited for what seemed like a long time before he slapped a hand against his thigh and shouted something at the trees. Then he climbed back into his taxi and turned over the engine, throwing one last look from his window before driving away.
I stayed where I was, listening to the sound of my own heart thumping in my throat, the blood pumping through me, echoing in my ears.
It was cooler here than it had been near the hospital. The air was fresh, almost sweet with the taste of the pines around me. This was not the dense jungle, or the regimented rows of rubber trees I’d passed on my bus trip from Medan, damp in the sticky heat. These trees were more thinly spaced, their smell more familiar to me. There were smaller plants, too, tufts of growth that sprouted in patches around my feet. The ground beneath me was carpeted with pine needles and I reached down to touch them, pick them up, rub them between my fingertips and lift them to my nose.
‘Alex,’ Domino’s voice came at me out of the darkness. I looked around, but saw nothing of her. No shape, no shadow, just the slats of lamplight from the buildings among the trees, the slivers from the moon playing in the undergrowth.
‘Alex! Where are you?’
‘Here,’ I called back. ‘I’m here.’
I waited for Domino to find the sound of my voice, follow it to where I was, and within a moment or two, I heard soft footfalls behind me. I turned to see her silhouette coming between the trees. She called my name again and I replied the same way, leading her to me.
When she reached me, she held out a hand to touch me, to know where I was, then she sat down, breathing hard.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ I asked. ‘You have a habit of running away from people?’
‘He tried to rip us off,’ she said.
‘I can’t believe you did that. You have no idea what’s out here, what we were running into. You had no idea what he might do, either. He might’ve come after us.’ I wasn’t sure if I was angry with her for making me steal clothes, run from the police, from taxi fares or for not warning me. I wasn’t sure if I was angry with her at all. It had been fun. The rush, the excitement, it all made me feel alive. And sitting here, in the night, under the pines, with the cool breeze playing through the treetops above me, everything felt good. Better than I’d felt in a long time.
‘He wasn’t coming after us,’ she said. ‘And I know where we are. There’s nothing out here but trees.’ She paused. ‘Unless you run about three hundred metres that way.’ She took my hand and pointed it behind us, away to the left.
‘Why? What’s there?’ I asked.
‘A kind of cliff,’ she said.
‘A kind of cliff ?’ I imagined myself running too far, disappearing into the abyss. ‘What kind of cliff ?’
‘You’ll see,’ she said. ‘It’s what we’re here for.’
I took a deep breath, opened my mouth to speak, but felt Domino come closer to me, her face in front of mine, almost shining in the light cast from the moon.
‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘It’s a surprise.’ And she touched her mouth to mine. Soft and wet. Taking my lower lip between hers, the tip of her tongue pushing into my mouth, drawing back before I could respond. ‘Something we have to do first,’ she said.
‘Like what?’ I said, feeling teased. She was building me up, dropping me down. ‘I’m supposed to be in hospital, remember. This might all be too much for me.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll survive.’
I moved my face towards hers but she put her fingertips on my mouth, saying, ‘Uh-uh. Not now. We don’t want this to be too much for you.’ She was both exciting and infuriating. Being with her brought something to life inside me.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘So what is it we have to do?’
‘Someone we have to see,’ she said, standing and making her way through the trees.
7
I stayed where I was, watching Domino’s silhouette moving away from me, stepping among the pine needles before she stopped and turned in my direction. ‘Well, then?’ she asked. ‘You coming?’
I sighed and shook my head. It was hard to believe that just a couple of days earlier I had been in England, everything grey, rainy and cold.
I followed Domino onto the path where the taxi had dropped us and we walked together, towards the buildings I’d seen when we arrived.
Here, where the trees were thinner, the moon was able to cut through the canopy enough to give me an idea of what the place looked like. There was a collection of no more than five houses. Three of them side by side, two further away, behind the others, a small area of open ground between them. There was a cleared space in front of the main buildings, which looked as if it might be used as a communal area, perhaps a place for children to play.
The buildings were traditional Batak houses made from wood with high roofs, saddle-backed, pointed at each end and bowed in the middle, reminiscent of the horns of a water buffalo. Two of them were thatched with palm fibre, but the others were roofed with rusted corrugated iron, bent and hammered into shape, the moon catching and shining on the few patches that hadn’t been aged by the rain. The houses were not so much on stilts as they were on a kind of rough wooden frame, with fixed ladders leading up to the front entrance to each building. One or two of them had large stones laid out in a square, pressed into the dirt around the base of the ladder as a rudimentary front-door step. At the far end of the row I could make out a washing line, dark shapes hanging limp, swaying in the weak breeze. And here, close to where we were standing, there were a few open tins, like large paint cans, pulled together into a kind of mosaic, their contents catching the moonlight, glittering like jewels. There were other signs of life here, too. A motorcycle outside one of the houses, leaning against the building’s wooden frame, a pair of bicycles, a solitary chicken scratching the ground at the edge of the clearing. And as we approached, I could hear the strum of a guitar, a man’s voice singing.
I looked around, moving my head in the direction of the music, trying to ignore the whisper of the breeze against my ear, taking in as much as I could. Everything so different from what I knew. A small gathering of unusual houses in the middle of the forest. A new song. A place without roads. Narrow paths leading in and out of the trees.
There were lights on in only two of the houses, the glow peeping not from windows but from cracks in the walls, flickering as if they were lit with lamps.
‘What is this place?’
‘Kampong,’ she said. ‘Village.’
‘How d’you know about it?’
‘It’s not some mysterious secret,’ she said. ‘It’s just a kampong. A place where people live.’
‘Like this?’
‘Why not?’
‘I just … I dunno.’ A touch of embarrassment crept around the edges of my mood. With it being so isolated, it seemed that the people here were hiding from what lay beyond the trees.
‘Mostly they’re workers,’ she told me. ‘They tap the trees.’
‘Tap them?’
‘That smell,’ she said. ‘They cut the trees and collect the resin. They make turpentine out of it. That’s what these cans are for. They’re full of resin.’
I looked down at the cans as we passed them, taking in the smell. It was good, sweet, not at all like the pungent and oily liquid I was familiar with at home.
‘The people here, they’re pretty poor,’ she said. ‘Always happy to get some extra cash.’
We stopped outside the first of the five houses, this one sporting the more traditional thatched roof, and I looked up to see the large, swollen-eyed singa that adorned it like the figurehead of an ancient ship. An angular, mask-like carving, at least four feet high, par
t animal and part human. A painted devil staring down at us.
‘You should wait here,’ Domino said, stepping within the stone square planted around the base of the ladder. ‘I won’t be long.’
Apprehensive, but feeling that Domino was familiar with where we were, I took a step back and watched her climb the short ladder. At the top, she rapped her knuckles on the rudimentary wooden door. Immediately the music stopped and the singing was replaced by the sound of silence. I heard nothing but the wind in the treetops and the beating of my own heart. Then voices; the language fast and garbled to my untrained ears.
When the door opened, a weak glow leaked out, folding itself around the edges, oozing over Domino’s feet, sliding its fingers through her hair. A face followed it, dark and undefined in this light. A boy, his voice low as he spoke to Domino, hesitating only when he caught sight of me. He stared, his eyes just dark holes, his body language a mixture of mistrust and bravado. I glanced up at the carving above his head.
Domino spoke to him again, her voice louder, making him turn to look at her, consider her, while repeatedly looking back at me. Eventually he nodded, leaned back into the house to say something, then waved Domino down the steps. She backed down the ladder, her dress tightening around her, smoothing her silhouette, and the boy followed, pulling his sarong up to his thighs, closing the door behind him.
Domino stepped onto the ground, waiting for the boy, and when he reached the bottom, he headed round the house, beckoning us to follow. Domino nodded at me and we took the path in single file, skirting the building as the music resumed inside.
We headed across to the two houses that stood alone behind the others and, as we drew near, the boy turned and said something to Domino. But I could see now that he was not a boy. His height had fooled me. He was a man, maybe in his thirties, it was hard to tell.
Domino responded to him and then spoke to me. ‘We’re going inside,’ she said. ‘Both of us.’
‘You sure this is safe?’
‘I’m sure. You ready?’