Dark Horizons

by Dan Smith

  ‘Them? You don’t want to know them.’

  ‘Why not? They seemed OK. And look: cake.’ There were four squares of yellow sponge. It looked simple, homemade, and when I took a bite, it was soft and delicious. ‘Maybe Richard was a bit scary but Hidayat seems like a nice guy. And this cake is pretty good.’ I gestured at the three pieces remaining in the package, but Domino shook her head.

  ‘Do you reckon he was all right?’ I said. ‘Hidayat, I mean. It looked to me like he was limping.’

  ‘I didn’t notice. And he didn’t scare me.’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Richard. You said he was scary. Not to me.’

  I wasn’t sure anything could scare Domino, but I remembered how she had slipped her hand into her bag. ‘Because of what’s in there?’ I kept my eyes on the lake as I ate. It was beautiful from every angle. On the hill where we’d been this morning it had taken my breath away. Here, up close, the sound of the water lapping at the shore, it was my breath. I could smell the lake, drink its odour right down inside me and feel it touch every part of me. I’d not seen anything like it. The size was almost impossible to comprehend. It stretched for miles.

  I ignored Domino as she reached into her bag and removed something heavy. ‘You mean this?’

  I glanced down, seeing the pistol in her hand. ‘Yeah. That.’

  ‘It was stupid of me to take it, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe you should just throw it in the lake.’

  She shrugged. This wasn’t the carefree girl from last night; this girl was introspective and quiet, like she had been on the hospital steps, and I wasn’t sure which version I preferred. When she was like this, she was vulnerable and it made me feel as if I had something to offer her. When she was like this, she needed me. The other side of her, though, was edgy and sexy. Like that, she was intoxicating and blinded me to her faults. Faults that ran far deeper than I knew.

  I touched a plant at my feet and watched its leaves curl and close to protect itself.

  ‘Kucing tidur,’ said Domino.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Sleeping cat. It’s what they call that plant.’ She kicked off a flip-flop and touched it with her toes. ‘People aren’t always what they seem, Alex.’

  ‘Like Kurt?’

  She ignored me, stretched out her legs and turned the pistol over in her hand.

  ‘They said he’s dangerous, Domino. Who is he?’ I finished the first piece of cake and took another. ‘Sure you don’t want some? It’s very good.’

  ‘He’s not dangerous,’ she said, shaking her head and tightening her fingers around the grip. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Then why did they say it? And who’s this American guy he mentioned?’

  ‘They don’t get on.’ She ran her fingers over the steel, touching the various catches and moving parts. ‘They don’t like the way we live; we don’t like the way they live.’

  ‘Because they’re gay?’

  Domino looked at me as if I were mad. ‘No, because they’re troublemakers. Especially that guy Richard.’ She shifted her eyes back to the pistol, using her thumb to push a catch at the bottom of the handle. The magazine slipped from the grip of the pistol, dropping onto the ground between Domino’s knees.

  ‘Be careful with that,’ I said, narrowing my eyes. ‘I wish you’d just get rid of it.’

  ‘He might come back for it,’ she replied, studying the magazine like a curious child, then sliding it back in.

  ‘You said they’re troublemakers. Why? What kind of trouble do they make?’

  ‘The kind that nearly ruined us.’ She took the magazine out again, slid it back in.

  ‘Ruined you how?’

  ‘So many questions,’ Domino sighed, forgot about the pistol for a moment. ‘Some guy went missing. About a year ago. Last anyone saw of him, he’d been staying with us.’

  ‘Where?’ I watched her as she thought about it, the tiniest movement creasing her brow, transferring along the bridge of her nose where a few freckles nestled, almost invisible. ‘Staying where?’

  ‘You’ll see. Anyway, Richard made sure we got our fair share of hassle, that’s all.’ She rushed the explanation.

  ‘Why would he do that?’ I pressed her.

  ‘Because he’s a wanker. He fell out with Kurt over something else, something to do with money, so he went out of his way to make people think we’d done something.’

  ‘Something like what? Why did he think it had anything to do with you?’

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  ‘So what did happen to him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy who went missing.’

  ‘He didn’t go missing,’ Domino said. ‘He decided to leave, that’s all. Left without telling anyone where he was going. Our life isn’t for everyone, I suppose.’

  ‘What life is that?’

  ‘Like I said, you’ll see.’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’ I looked back out at the water. I couldn’t even guess what I was getting into, but I was prepared to go further because Domino excited me and I wanted to spend more time with her. Besides, I was curious. I wanted to know what was so special up there in the trees and I couldn’t help wondering what sort of a person Kurt was to have made such an impression on people. Perhaps someone like that might be able to inspire something in me. ‘So what kind of hassle did you get?’ I asked.

  ‘The police kind. Questions, intimidation. Wouldn’t happen now, of course, not with …’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, there was even stuff in the papers, and the guy who left, his parents came up to see where their son had been.’

  ‘Pretty bad for them, eh? The parents, I mean.’

  ‘Yeah. Pretty bad.’

  ‘So now you want to shoot him?’ I asked, tilting my head at the weapon in her hand.

  ‘Richard?’ She raised the pistol. ‘For giving us some hassle?’

  ‘Mm-hm.’

  ‘Nah. Of course not.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, at least.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean I have to like him.’

  ‘Why don’t you put that away? You’re not going to get rid of it; you might as well just put it away.’

  Domino slipped the pistol back into her bag.

  ‘And have this,’ I said, taking another piece of Hidayat’s cake and offering the last of it to Domino.

  She looked at it for a moment. ‘You know, I’m glad you came with me,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m not glad about you falling and everything, but I’m glad you’re here. With me.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Maybe you’re the right one.’

  ‘The right one?’ I tested the words. ‘Yeah, maybe I am.’

  She took the cake and we ate in silence, then dusted the crumbs from our fingers.

  ‘Are we going now?’ I asked.

  ‘In a minute.’

  I looked over her head at the line of trees, seeing how they arced upwards, the hill rising sharply. ‘Another steep climb,’ I said.

  Domino smiled and nodded. ‘The last one. You won’t regret it.’

  I started to get up. ‘Come on, then.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’ She took my hand and pulled me down towards her. She put the tip of her finger on my chin, tracing the scar that ran an inch along my jawbone. ‘How d’you get that?’

  ‘I fell over when I was a kid.’

  ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  She brushed her finger along my lower lip. ‘One more time.’

  ‘Hm?’

  She kissed me, her lips sweet from the cake, and then leaned away to look right into my eyes. ‘I want you again.’

  ‘Now?’ I glanced down at my arm, still in the sling.

  ‘It hurt?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Then maybe you need something to take your mind off it.’ She smiled and slipped her dress straps over her shoulders and allowed the material to fall down and expose her breasts. ‘Unless there’s something you�
�d rather do?’

  ‘But … here? And with my arm like this?’

  ‘We’ll manage just fine. Come on, Alex, don’t leave me like this. Don’t embarrass me.’ She took my hand and put it to her chest. ‘I really want you.’

  I looked around, reassuring myself that we were far enough from the village, that we were well hidden by the vegetation growing around this part of the lake. I smiled at Domino, nodded and sat back, bringing her towards me with one hand.

  15

  The final trek wasn’t as bad as I had expected. It was steep in parts, but not as steep as the hillside we’d come down that morning, so it wasn’t too difficult to traverse with one arm in a sling. The ground was more or less clear to begin with, the trees growing a good few feet from each other, mostly pines, forty, fifty metres tall, with deeply fissured red-brown bark. As we pressed further, they grew closer together and the ground cover was thicker. Dark-green shrubs dotted with purple flowers and pink blooms the shape of broken hearts with their life essence leaking away.

  ‘Bleeding hearts,’ Domino said as she brushed past one of the plants, trailing her fingertips along a row of flowers that hung from an arching stem. ‘That’s what they call these.’ Some were intact, a trail of pink falling like a single drop of blood, while others had split open from the bottom, white tips protruding like tears.

  ‘I’ve seen them before.’

  ‘But did you know there’s a little heart inside each one?’ She plucked a flower and tore away its outer layers, holding out her hand with the tiny heart in her palm. ‘For you,’ she said with a laugh.

  I took it and she turned, pressing on to where other plants joined the cacophony, these ones more leafy, not as tall, bringing the canopy lower, blotting out the sky in some places. To begin with, Domino appeared to be walking among the trees at random, but as we moved on, I realised she was looking for signs, following a route she’d taken before.

  The sound of our footsteps crunching over the dry, fallen pine needles and twigs. The swish of our clothes brushing through the undergrowth. Birdsong and the constant chatter of insects.

  ‘You know where we’re going?’ My voice was small, an insignificant disturbance.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  ‘How?’ I couldn’t see any path – nothing worn on the forest floor, no obvious breaks in the undergrowth.

  ‘The trees are marked. You have to know where to look.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘You’re not ready.’

  ‘Not ready?’

  ‘You haven’t even seen where we’re going yet. How d’you know you’d want to come back?’

  ‘I was thinking more about how I might leave.’

  Domino stopped and turned to me. ‘Maybe you won’t want to. Come on.’ She turned and continued walking again, moving among the trees, looking up from time to time, checking for signs that only she could read.

  Within half an hour or so of trekking, we came upon a series of more obvious paths, narrow worn areas snaking through the thickest undergrowth, but the one we followed wasn’t long. It writhed through the vegetation for no more than fifty metres, penetrating the wall of trees ahead of us, breaking out into a clearing, which burst upon me without warning. One moment we were among the trees, blinded by the explosion of green, broken only by the purple and blue petals of the melastoma and the bright pink bleeding hearts of the spectabilis, then I was in a large clearing, Domino stepping to one side, watching for my reaction.

  Totally encapsulated within the trees, the clearing would be almost invisible from anywhere but the sky, and yet it was hard to believe it could be here, as large as it was. Seeing it brought home to me how big the lake really was, and how much of its surrounding area must be uninhabited.

  There were two traditional Batak houses here, side by side and in remarkable condition. Their great saddle roofs were not corrugated like many of the houses I had seen; these were thatched in the old way, with sugar-palm fibre. Nor was their paint so faded. The furthest looked as if it were being renovated, but the colours etched into the dark wood of the nearest to me were vivid, and the many carvings around its sides had been highlighted with green and red and white. Even the massive wooden singa masks that hung over the fronts of the houses were intact, the paint bright, the markings clear. It was amazing that they were in such good condition, not plundered for sale to tourists as trinkets to take home to distant lands.

  In front of the houses, in the centre of the clearing, there was a circle of flat-topped stones, big enough to sit on and set around a circular stone table no bigger in diameter than a cart wheel. At the far end, there was a rice granary – a smaller version of the traditional house, built on a stilted frame, with the same shaped roof, intricately decorated but open at all sides. Beside it, there was evidence of another path, another way into the clearing, or perhaps a way out, leading in what I thought was the direction of the lake.

  The clearing was not empty. In fact it was alive with movement and it struck me that I hadn’t heard any sounds when I was inside the forest. The wall of trees and thick vegetation encircling the community not only made it difficult to see, but also blocked the sounds that came from it. Anybody exploring the forest could easily miss it if they walked just a few metres to either side.

  On the edge of the clearing furthest from where we were standing, close to the granary, there was a lean-to made from wood and roofed with palm fronds. Beneath it, three people were standing at a table, preparing food. There was a fire to one side, set in a pit lined with stones. It was a rudimentary kitchen from what I could tell, but the people were busying themselves without complaint.

  Near to them, sitting at a wooden table, another group was playing mahjong. On the table there was a large brass waterpipe, the players intermittently taking hits, the sound of music drifting over from a portable CD player.

  There was a young woman sweeping leaves from the ground, brushing them back into the undergrowth, a man standing on a ladder, touching up the paint on the side of one of the houses. Two people coming through the path at the right-hand side of the clearing, a young man and a woman, probably similar in age to me, their hair wet. The man glanced up as he stepped into the clearing, looking over at us and stopping dead in his tracks. The girl beside him continued walking, not realising that her partner was no longer beside her. Then the man spoke. Or rather he shouted. ‘Domino!’ And everybody else in the clearing looked up. At first their faces turned to him in unison, but as soon as they saw where he was looking, the way he raised his arm and pointed, they followed the line of his finger until all eyes were on us.

  ‘Domino,’ he said again, and he came towards us, his pace quickening, throwing his arms around Domino when he reached her, squeezing her hard like she was going to pop. He held her for at least a minute before stepping back and holding her at arm’s length, looking her up and down, his face beaming. His hair, braided into cornrows, was still wet, water glistening on the black skin of his naked torso.

  ‘Shit, we missed you, girl.’ He spoke with an American accent. ‘Thought you were never coming back.’ He gave her another lingering look before turning to me. ‘And who have you brought?’

  Domino smiled. ‘I brought Alex. Alex, meet Michael. Michael, Alex.’

  Remembering Hidayat’s warning, I held my hand out to the American, ready to shake, but Michael opened his arms as if to ask what I was doing. He grinned and threw his arms around me, ignoring the sling, and squeezed me just as hard as he had squeezed Domino. He smelled of clear water and fresh air.

  ‘Welcome to the family,’ he said.

  16

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked, thinking I had slipped into another world, hidden here among the trees. I wondered if I had stepped through a looking-glass and found myself in a gentle hippy paradise, or stumbled upon a Manson-like cult that was awaiting its next recruit. There in the clearing, looking around at the people watching me, I had no inkling of what
richness I could draw from my time here, and what wickedness would take place in it.

  ‘This is home,’ said Domino.

  She took me round the clearing, telling me the name of each person, but I couldn’t remember them all. My short time in this country was a blur of movement in my mind, from the confusion of the bus terminal to the nightmare of the crash and the unreality of the hospital, but there was something calming about this place. I didn’t know what it was, nor did I know the people who lived here, but they spoke my language and they greeted me with conviction. Seeing their relaxed faces and their smiling eyes, and with Domino by my side, I nodded and shook hands and greeted each person, but every face washed over me, most names forgotten as soon as I turned away to hear the next.

  Michael, the one who had hugged me, was now hanging by my side like he was my new best friend. He was probably older than me by a couple of years, but not much more. The woman he’d been with seemed younger, though; her face had that look as if she hadn’t quite decided who she was going to be. She introduced herself as Helena, her English clear but her accent obvious. Scandinavian. Maybe Swedish, although she didn’t have the platinum blonde I associated with the Swedes. Her hair was dark brown.

  Helena didn’t throw her arms around me like Michael had done; she offered me a hand, which I took, and a smile, which I returned.

  After Helena, I met Matt, with his short, blond dreadlocks, his skinny frame and his surfer-dude drawl. He looked like he spent most of his time stoned and there was a relaxed, loose quality to the way he carried himself. As if he were made out of something softer than the rest of us. Putty instead of muscle and bone. I met his best friend, Jason, whose cheeks were pitted with old acne scars and whose chin sported a few days’ growth of dark beard. His hair was long and lank, and he had the same relaxed intonation as his friend Matt. I met Freia, who was tall and masculine; Alban, who was stocky and clean-shaven with a head of blond spiky hair; Morgan, who had too many facial piercings to count; I met Kate, Evie, Sandy, Chris, Eco, Apsara, and I tried to remember all their names and faces. I shook hands with each of them, working my way round the clearing, meeting everyone who came from the trees, or stepped down from the longhouses, emerging to see what the disturbance was.