32
The next morning, the nenek is sitting out the front looking very prim and demure in a headscarf. I can’t help myself. ‘Hey Nenek,’ I call out in Indonesian. ‘How come you’re wearing a headscarf this morning?’ The nenek’s three teeth glisten in a grin. ‘Dingin!’ she shouts back. It’s cold!
We’re running late for the bus. Cahyati’s mum showered us with treats for the road and then invented a number of reasons to delay our departure: could Cahyati help her little sister get dressed? Could I pull up a couple of buckets of water from the well so Ibu could do the laundry? Could Cahyati duck over to one of the neighbour’s houses to humbug some eggs?
At last we’re off. We climb over tree roots and step around hair-heavy ropes of vine. Every now and then we catch the curl of a monkey’s tail, the swift snap of a bat’s wings. After a while the vegetation opens up. We didn’t come this way the other day.
I turn to Cahyati but before I can ask anything she grips my hand and whispers, ‘It’s a shortcut.’
We’re standing in front of a clearing. It isn’t unusual in any physical way, just an oblong of dark earth the size of a small soccer field. But there’s something eerie about it. The trees around the edge, rather than reaching toward the light as they should, seem to lean back against each other, to huddle away from the space.
I’ve heard about places like this. Places that get under your skin. Old places.
It comes down fast. I feel physically sick. The sick of unborn babies, prawns turned toxic, underwater hold-downs.
‘Lewat sini?’ I ask nervously.
‘Iya, this way. Ready?’
She wrenches my hand and we take off at a sprint. I run as if all the stalkers in Batu Batur are after me. I run with a feeling in my gut like a fishing knife is curving in and out. I run faster than I ever have at basketball, or athletics, or when I used to sprint to the surf in the morning before school.
It’s wrong. The place is wrong. And with every footstep I know we shouldn’t be here.
We get to the other side but Cahyati doesn’t slow, keeps running, until finally we see the road.
And then Cahyati is bailing me up, saying low and urgent, ‘Don’t tell my mum, don’t tell Ibu Ayu, don’t tell anyone we went that way, okay?’
Moments later, the bus swings into view, seedy Indonesian dangdut pumping from its speakers.
33
Dusk falls wet along the guesthouse paths, along the pitching roofs. Matt’s waiting on the balcony of my bungalow, his head back, his eyes closed.
‘Hey Matt, what’s goin’ on?’
His head jolts forward.
He looks like he hasn’t slept. He obviously hasn’t been surfing. There’s no shadow of zinc across the bridge of his nose, no scrawls of wind or salt or sun.
‘Are you okay?’
‘You got beer?’
‘I’m all out. Do you want me to go down and check with Ibu Ayu?’
‘Nah. How about gin?’
There’s a drizzle left in my water bottle. ‘Not enough for a shot.’
‘Alright.’ He slaps the tops of his legs. ‘Put that inside and let’s go. You keen for a feed? There’s a warung in town where we can have a drink and get a decent nasi campur.’
‘A drink? Like, a real drink?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay, let’s do it.’ As I slip past him, I wonder if he’ll own it, what happened the other night. He surprises me. Catches my fingers and kisses them. Gracious. Succinct. I chuck my stuff inside, allow myself a secret smile and turn the key.
34
The warung is tucked away from the main street and lit with one of those harsh, off-white electric lights that exposes every blemish. The place is packed with blokes tucking in to nasi campur with their fingers and sipping from plastic cups.
‘Arak,’ Matt says as we nudge our way to a spare table in the corner.
Some of the men stop eating and stare at us, others greet us with slurry ‘Hello Misters!’ and a few seem to know Matt, because they wink and leer as we squeeze into our seats.
‘Arak, did you say? Rice wine? In the cups?’
Matt nods.
‘How do they get away with it?’
‘It’s run by an Indo-Chinese family. They’ve been here generations. I asked Pak Wu about it and he says he pays a monthly bribe to the police so they’ll turn a blind eye. Here he is.’
Pak Wu comes out of the kitchen with an enamel jug and a sneering razor of a mouth. He reminds me of the cook in a Somerset Maugham short story. The cook lifts his eyebrows and the jug.
‘Definitely,’ Matt says, ‘and two nasi campur.’
The cook places the jug on the table next to us and waddles back to the kitchen.
‘So you weren’t round last night?’ Matt catches my hand and plays his thumb against my thumb.
‘Nah.’
‘Where were ya? I thought you must have pissed off. That’s what Ibu Ayu said.’
What a schemer!
‘So how’d ya know I’d be back tonight?’
‘Well, Ibu didn’t exactly look her honest self.’
‘Ha.’
‘So where were ya?’ It comes across hot with query and ownership.
I look carefully at his face. What do I really know about him? Not much. I like his smell. And the way he fucks, creative and savage and intense. He’s a pilot, though he doesn’t quite fit the ironed-at-the-edges look you’d expect. And he too has a connection, an affinity to this place, that runs much deeper than your average surf tourist. I know that I want to know more.
‘So?’ he prompts again.
‘I went to Cahyati’s place up in the mountains.’
‘Oh yeah. Beautiful country up there.’
‘It sure was, but there was this …’
‘There was what?’
I’m not sure whether to tell him about our mad dash across the clearing. Maybe he’s too rational, not intuitive enough to understand. Then I remember what he said about a flight path to Nias being cancelled because the Javanese he was working with were worried about black magic. There had been no disbelief in his tone.
So I tell him about crossing the clearing, ask if he knows the place, if he’s ever been to a place like this.
‘I don’t know the spot you’re talking about. But the local people probably believe there are spirits there. It could be sacred, it could be an old grave site. I think there are some places where the earth holds a memory, and the energy there can be really dark or really strong. Like, have you ever been to the Tuol Sleng Museum in Cambo?’
I shake my head.
‘I knew nothing about the prison when I visited. It was a clear day. Hot, no clouds. As soon as I stepped inside I got head-totoe goosebumps. I had about half an hour in there, wandering along the corridors, and then I started to feel really nauseous. I thought I was going to throw up. So I ran outside and the feeling disappeared.’
Matt takes a sip of arak and continues. ‘I gave myself five minutes, and then went back in. The nausea hit me again. I felt like I was seconds away from throwing up. So I rushed back out. And it went away. It was the strangest thing, the energy was so crook. My brain could rationalise it but my spirit … There’s heaps of places like this. Hampi, in India, is really creepy. Port Arthur, in Tassy – now that place is fucked.’
The cook interrupts with bowls of water. Matt dips in his right hand, says, ‘When I was a kid growing up in Vanuatu, there was this cave about ten kilometres out of the village. No-one ever went near it. They said a woman-spirit lived in the cave and that if she saw you, and looked in your eyes, you’d go mad. I went out there a couple of times with some of my friends on our pushies. You could ride about halfway before the track through the jungle became too bad. The first time we went, two of us got flat tyres. The second time we went, I came down with typhoid a day later. The third time, just as we neared the cave, one of my mates slipped and broke his leg. It was an absolute mission getting him back to the village.’
The cook slides plates of nasi campur in front of us. It looks good. Oily purple cubes of eggplant, red chilli sambal, water spinach, tempe and a few chunks of earthy rendang border a perfect tower of rice. But it takes me a moment to regain my appetite.
‘You didn’t go back a fourth time?’
‘No way.’
‘So what do you reckon about this clearing near Cahyati’s?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. I tell you who might know though: Franz. He’s got some interesting perspectives on the way the local crew here mix up their traditional beliefs and Islam. We’ll probably catch him tonight.’
I rinse my hand in the plastic bowl then gather a ball of rice and sambal between my fingers. ‘What’s happening tonight?’
‘Dennis and Meri are having a barbecue. Told ’em we’d swing past after dinner for a drink.’
The barbecue the Kiwi had been on about. Something about Matt filling everyone in on ‘where we’re at with Shane’. I pick at my campur. Those stories give me a sense that there’s a depth to him, a perceptiveness. But I also can’t help feeling there’s something else, something secretive and not quite truthful – what does that mean: ‘where we’re at with Shane’?
‘Ibu Ayu said you had a bit of a scare,’ Matt says.
‘A scare?’
Of course. I haven’t seen him since he stayed over. And the next morning there was that bloke in the shower. So I tell him what happened and for about half a second he looks horrified and then he starts to laugh. He laughs and laughs and says, ‘Penny, I can’t say that I blame him!’
Maybe, if it were six months down the track, if I had ten grand saved up, a toffee-coloured tan, a ticket onward, I’d be laughing with him. But just now, in this warung where the air is thick and bright as white fungus, and where a bunch of blokes are leering and guzzling arak and beer, I can’t join him.
‘Sorry, Pen,’ he says. ‘This used to happen to my missus all the time. She was pretty, like you, but taller, and dark. Won Kimberley Girl when she was nineteen. She was a major princess, a major headcase. But I guess it’s different for you.’
‘Oh?’
He takes my hand. I don’t return his squeeze.
‘You’re a lot more independent. You’re a lot more reserved. I get the impression that you’re alright, you know, that you can look after yourself.’
I don’t answer.
The Chinese cook comes up to our table and refills our cups. I recoil slightly from his bitter garlicky breath, pull my hand from Matt’s.
‘WC di mana, Pak?’ Where’s the loo?
He ignores me, tells Matt.
As I stand, Matt reaches out, plants a kiss like a sticker on my wrist. Frustrating, how sometimes men can’t admit when they’ve hurt you. But promising, how he talked about his missus in the past tense.
I push out through the plastic flaps at the back of the warung into a filthy oil-coloured room. The toilet is through another door to the left. I gag in horror. I’ve been in a lot of scary toilets (the ones on ferries are usually revolting) but this is by far the worst. It’s a typical Indo squat toilet, with a saucepan-like bucket to wash your bum and a bak mandi. The toilet is unflushed: diarrhoea has made a yellow lake-line around the bowl, but worse than this is that the toilet also doubles as a kitchen. Forks and spoons half-float in wet piles, a teetering stack of bowls lean against a wall and a few grubby plates float in the bak mandi itself.
I nearly turn around and walk out, but I’m busting.
In the fifty-five seconds it takes me to wee and get back, Matt’s been shanghaied into a game of chess. Tables have been rearranged, chairs pulled close. The men are putting bets on who they think will win. Matt looks up and sees me at the edge of the crowd – he gestures for me to push through to the seat saved next to him. When I sit he draws his thumbnail along my thigh. A subtle, but firm sign of ownership. For the next three quarters of an hour it’s as if I’m invisible.
‘What about Dennis’? Won’t we be late?’ I ask between moves.
‘Probably.’ Matt kisses my neck and goes back to the game.
35
When we finally get to Dennis’, the courtyard is full of motorbikes. Behind us, along the street, gaunt, cunning dogs wet their teeth in each other’s throats. At the door, Matt lets go of my hand.
‘Oh finally, Matthew!’ The Kiwi stands up and greets him with a kiss on the cheek. She greets me next with an insincere embrace, still talking over her shoulder to Matt. When she steps back she looks different to the day before. Tiny denim shorts have been replaced with sailor-loose, beige pants. She’s changed up a boob-exposing singlet with a baggy t-shirt. She still looks fantastic.
I step forward and introduce myself to a Chinese woman, who I learn is the cook’s wife, to an old Pommy bloke with a white moustache, and to Rick, a young developer from WA. Rick’s handsome, solid, he got rich quick in the mines in the Pilbara and is now building a string of luxury villas between Batu Batur and Shane’s. Franz and his wife Adalie acknowledge me; Dennis grins and Meri waves from the kitchen.
After the initial introductions we hear the latest.
‘Go on, Rick, you better tell them,’ says the Kiwi, flicking her hair.
He tells us that when he checked the worksite that morning, his staff were dragging on kreteks and blinking lazily at piles of rubble where, yesterday, three almost-completed villas had stood.
‘No-one bothered to call the boss, did they? No-one bothered to call me!’
‘What happened to your security guard?’ Matt asks.
Rick scowls. ‘What d’you reckon, mate? He disappeared, of course. Hasn’t been seen since last night –’
‘Tell them, Rick, tell them what they did,’ urges Marika.
‘Get this,’ he addresses Matt, ‘looks like they used a truck.’
‘A truck?’ Matt drawls.
‘Yeah, that’s what I said. They certainly didn’t use a fucken becak. They backed into three of the villas, just rammed them until –’
‘Unbelievable,’ Matt interrupts.
Rick’s lip lifts in a snarl.
‘I’m so sorry to hear that, mate,’ Matt adds, flawlessly sincere.
With effort, Rick reassembles his mouth. Some women might find that mouth sensuous.
‘So,’ Matt continues, ‘broken windows one week, then crew bulldozing businesses the next. What are you guys thinking? Are you packing it in or gunna stick it out?’
Pearly coils of citronella unspin and circle our ankles.
‘Well, we’re going back to Europe,’ says Franz. ‘In thirty-five years of living in Indonesia, all through Indonesia, we have never felt so …’ he hesitates, reaches for the right word, settles with, ‘uncomfortable. We will go back to Europe. And then maybe some day we try Flores.’
His grey-haired wife puts a hand on his knee.
The couple have an obvious passion for the culture, for the country. Their home is testament to that, as, no doubt, is Franz’s anthropological work. Do they feel betrayed by the people, by this place? And if such a grounded and empathetic couple could be targeted, then what might be in store for someone like Shane?
Dennis’ wife says softly, ‘Maybe it’s time for some dessert, ya?’
Murmurs of agreement.
‘And the rest of you?’
‘Well I’m gunna see these villas go up,’ Rick says. ‘Should be able to get back what I’ve lost on insurance. Whatever’s going on now will settle down. In ten years they’ll be worth shitloads. Got plans to run exclusive surf tours to outer reefs even Matt doesn’t know about.’
Matt ignores him.
I half-listen to the answers of the rest of the group, half-listen to Meri in the kitchen. There’s the banging of spoons and cupboards, the suck of the fridge sealing shut. What does she think about all this – about Dennis’ guests and their ‘us and them’ mentality, criticisms of the people, her people? By the time she brings out bowls of sticky rice drizzled with condensed milk, everyone else has said th
ey’re staying put.
‘Next, then,’ says Matt. ‘If we’re staying, we’ve gotta deal with Shane.’
‘Dealing with Shane won’t solve anything,’ says Dennis quietly.
I like Dennis. He has the slow calm of a man with the tropics in his blood.
‘The Indonesians are not always that welcoming to outsiders, full stop. Only a few years ago, Indo-Chinese were being raped, persecuted, burned alive. Now, in this instance, just getting rid of one man –’
‘Yeah, but,’ Rick interrupts bullishly. ‘The difference is, we’re spending money. The Indos are getting our money. Even Shane is doing his bit to boost the economy. The Chinese hoarded it and kept it to themselves. We hand out. Just look at Bali, mate.’
Dennis pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and continues patiently. ‘You may be right that money from tourism will solve it, down the track. But at the moment, we simply don’t have the luxury of time to wait for the locals to appreciate these flow-on effects. From what I gather, from what Meri has heard in the community, it was a couple of radical young men who threw the rocks at Franz and Adalie’s – and I use the word “radical” carefully. But they are known to be affiliated with a militant Islamist group with wider reach. Now whether that’s Darul Islam or Jemaah Islamiyah or someone else, we don’t know. But, Meri’s suggestion,’ – Meri steps from the kitchen and rests her weight against the doorframe, tea towel in hand – ‘is that it would be best to approach Abd al Hakim directly and give a sizeable donation to the mosque. He is in more of a position to control and influence young men like this, because he has the ear of the whole community, can mobilise the community against them. At the moment, he has no motivation to do this. But for the right price …’
Rick says under his breath, ‘That towel-headed bastard won’t get a cent from me.’
There’s the trace of a smile on the cook’s wife’s lips.
Rick says louder, with muscle, ‘So who was it then that bulldozed my villas? Are you saying it was these radical cunts?’
‘I’m saying we negotiate with Hakim so that we all stay safe.’
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