Remy felt edgy as he recounted the events at the animal sanctuary. The senior officer listened intently, stroking his straggly moustache, then peppered Remy with questions about the guards’ movements, behaviour and communication during the siege. After fifteen minutes of questioning, the senior officer closed his black leather notebook.
‘Thank you, Mister Remy,’ he said. ‘Do you have any questions for us?’ It was a routine query; he seemed entirely disinclined to further discussion.
‘A few, actually,’ Remy replied.
The officer frowned. ‘How many? We have a large number of interviews to do.’
Remy laughed nervously. ‘Three?’
The officer cracked his knuckles with a sharp popping sound. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Okay, er … what happened to the hostages who stayed in the café?’
‘You do not know?’ asked the officer.
Remy shrugged. ‘I haven’t had access to the internet.’
‘The hostages barricaded themselves in the café kitchen,’ the officer said. ‘When the tactical response team moved into the bathroom, they killed one of the terrorists. The other three terrorists retreated to the café.’
So there were six guards in total, Remy thought. Lorenzo had been right about that, too.
‘What happened next is not clear—we are still investigating,’ the officer continued. ‘The terrorists set off another explosion, or set alight the café. We don’t know yet, because the fire damage has destroyed the clues. But all the hostages inside died. There were fifteen we think, but this cannot be confirmed yet because the bodies are badly burned.’
Remy’s mouth went dry. With at least a quarter of the hostages dead, how could it be argued that their escape plan had even worked? What would have happened if all the hostages had stayed in the café and waited for the end of the siege? He and Lorenzo were responsible for more than forty people escaping—but fifteen hostages had died as a result of their actions, too. The man in the Bintang singlet who had objected to their plan—he was not responsible for anyone living or dying. It wasn’t clear to Remy whose action had been right.
‘You have more questions?’ prompted the officer.
‘Were any of the terrorists arrested?’
The officer looked at Remy, stony-faced. ‘They were all killed.’
Remy recalled Lorenzo’s warning about what might happen if the police or army stormed the park. ‘There can be no trial, then,’ he said, thinking now of the victims’ families. How could they piece together exactly what had happened to their loved ones during their last moments, without a proper investigation and trial? Remy lowered his eyes, crushed by guilt.
‘Not unless we find the mastermind on the outside. We think the gunmen were just following orders, playing at terrorism.’
‘Playing?’ Remy was horrified by the use of the word. ‘They knew exactly what they were doing.’
‘Not really,’ said the officer. ‘They used homemade pipe bombs and pressure cookers, only eighty thousand rupiah from Matahari store. Just google the instructions.’
The junior officer sniggered, and Remy couldn’t fathom why.
‘They hid their weapons in cooler boxes, backpacks and unopened umbrellas,’ the senior officer continued. ‘They had knowledge about the sanctuary, so they smuggled it in easily. There is no security post at the park, no checking of bags on entry, no metal detector. There is only one way in and one way out, with a big wall around it, easy to patrol. They held all the hostages in the café like cows in a kandang. The layout of the sanctuary made it easy for them.’ The officer smiled, and it grated on Remy. ‘Except for the window in the bathroom. They didn’t think of that. Or how brave their hostages would be.’
Brave? Remy blinked. He’d been terrified the whole time.
‘They were clever, too, letting some of the hostages go.’ The officer leaned back in his chair. ‘It gave hope to everyone on the outside and made people listen to them.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Remy.
‘They let the staff go just after the bombs went off,’ he explained. ‘It helped draw attention to their cause—Salihin’s release—and then the foreign governments start arguing about what to do. The terrorists got more time and publicity, you know?’ The officer folded his hands. ‘We must do our next interview, Pak Remy. Terima kasih.’
Feeling drained, Remy wandered out into the hospital foyer and stood near the window, thinking. He lost track of time as he stared up at the sky, watching it turn from tropical blue to a hazy blood orange. The media throng remained outside in the waning light. A camera suddenly appeared on the other side of the window and snapped in Remy’s face, the flash blinding him momentarily.
Repulsed, he turned away and walked towards the stairwell. He glanced at his watch: Pak Tony had arranged for the Fearless group to meet in Henry’s room in roughly two hours, but Remy had other plans. He groped in his pocket for the letter he’d written in the foyer while waiting for the police interview, scrawled on the back of a vomit bag he’d begged from a passing nurse. He checked, too, for the torn-off piece of paper confirming his flight number.
On the second floor, he asked at the nursing station for Henry’s room number, then walked to Ward 2A and knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ called a female voice, in English.
Remy pushed the door open. There were a dozen patients in the room, most with family members clustered around them. Males and females lay adjacent to each other, reflecting the desperate shortage of hospital beds. The level of noise in the room seemed higher than a hospital would ordinarily allow. Two of the beds were empty, although with rumpled sheets suggestive of recent occupancy, while the bed nearest the window was curtained. In the bed closest to the door lay a young Anglo-Saxon woman, her face bruised and swollen. Remy wondered how she’d sustained such injuries in the siege—a blow to the face, perhaps.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Is there a man named Henry in this ward?’
‘He’s over there,’ she replied in an Australian accent, motioning to the bed shrouded by a curtain.
‘Thank you.’ He approached it. ‘Henry?’
The curtain parted, and an angular face with earnest grey eyes peered out. ‘Hello. I’m Jim.’
‘I’m Remy. Henry’s friend from Fearless.’
‘Oh, right! Come in.’ He pulled back the curtain.
‘When did you get here?’ asked Remy, stepping through.
‘Just this morning, actually. He woke up not long afterwards.’ Remy nodded, staring at the figure in the bed. Henry lay motionless, his head swathed in bandages. Without his glasses, his face looked vulnerable and rather child-like.
Remy’s eyes welled up as Henry smiled at him. It felt as if he was being reunited with a very old friend.
‘Henry!’ Remy hugged him carefully. ‘Thank God you survived!’
‘Only just,’ Henry replied, smiling. ‘I did a job on myself.’
Henry’s speech was a little slower than usual, Remy noticed. ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’
‘The light hurts my eyes.’ Henry lifted a finger in the direction of the curtain. ‘The drape helps. I’ve got an almighty headache, too. From the surgery or the fall, I’m not sure which.’
‘From both, I’d say,’ said Jim. ‘Lucky he didn’t smash his brains out, the idiot.’
‘Jim’s my best friend,’ said Henry. ‘Can you tell? I love you too, mate.’
‘You were very lucky.’ Remy shook his head in wonder. ‘I heard you rescued Pak Tony, too. You were incredibly brave.’
‘The British media’s got wind of it through the embassy,’ said Jim, puffing up with pride. ‘He’s quite the celebrity.’ Henry looked deeply embarrassed.
‘You’ll probably need a holiday when all of this is over,’ said Remy, gently. ‘Once you’re back in London, make sure you come and visit me in Paris. You too, Jim. I don’t know what interesting birds we have in France, but I have enough room for you both in my apartmen
t.’
‘Oh, Paris has beautiful woodpeckers and thrushes,’ enthused Jim. ‘And I’ve always wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower.’
‘You’re welcome anytime,’ said Remy, smiling. ‘But for now, I’ve come to say goodbye.’
‘You’re not leaving, are you?’ Henry looked confused. ‘I thought everyone was meeting up here tonight.’
Remy felt himself redden. ‘Yes, but … I’m flying out just before midnight. I’m not ready to talk with the group about what happened. Not yet. I just really want to get home and see my family.’
Jim made a sympathetic sound. ‘That’s understandable. You’ve lived through a terrorist attack. I’d want to go home, too.’
Remy reached into his pocket and removed the note. ‘I have a favour to ask,’ he said to Henry. ‘Could you give this to Janelle for me?’
Henry eyed the vomit bag without moving his head. ‘No points for presentation. Is everything alright?’
Remy folded the note. ‘I’ve failed too many people.’
‘Wait a minute,’ objected Henry. ‘You’re busy telling me how great I am, when I only helped Pak Tony. Jim told me how you and Lorenzo rescued almost everyone inside the animal sanctuary. That’s not failure. That’s a bloody triumph of courage and human spirit.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Jim.
‘Thank you.’ Remy looked at the floor. ‘But you’re forgetting the fifteen who died. I didn’t help them. And now I’ve alienated the woman I love.’
‘Janelle?’
Remy nodded.
‘Oh, shite.’ Henry’s face was consoling. ‘At least you’re in touch with your feelings, mate. Pak Tony would be proud. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ Henry lifted his hand and took the note. ‘I’ll give this to Janelle. You two deserve a happy ending.’
‘It’s too late for that.’ Remy glanced at his watch. ‘Pak Ketut is coming to pick me up in ten minutes.’
‘Come here and give me a hug, then,’ said Henry. ‘But you’ll have to do all the work, because I can’t move.’ They laughed, then embraced.
At length, Remy straightened up from the bed and shook Jim’s hand. ‘The world needs Henry, so make sure he gets better quickly.’
‘I will,’ said Jim. ‘Then we’ll come and stay with you in Paris and you’ll regret you ever asked us.’
Remy smiled and waved to Henry a final time before turning to leave. He closed the curtain behind him and made his way across the room.
Glancing at the young woman in the bed near the door, he suddenly felt sorry for her. ‘You’re a siege survivor, too?’
‘No.’ Her lips hardly moved. ‘Facelift.’
Remy stood for a moment, bewildered. A facelift, when the whole world was falling apart? Then, remembering Janelle’s passion talk, he blurted, ‘You don’t need plastic surgery to be beautiful.’
‘Fuck off,’ the woman said. ‘It’s none of your business.’
Feeling as if he’d been punched, Remy hurried out of the room. It was another failure among a litany of his making. He fled down the fire stairs, two at a time. Nothing had changed; everything was the same as before. Even after the horror of a terrorist attack, the world kept spinning; the petty demands of seven billion lives belied a more complicated global picture. And his own life was part of that arbitrary, nonsensical chaos. After all, wasn’t he running away from Bali because a woman he’d only known for a week hadn’t told him she loved him back? If that wasn’t ridiculous, he didn’t know what was.
He burst out into the car park below, almost colliding with Pak Ketut who stood near the stairwell door. The minibus idled nearby, in a patient pick-up zone. The Balinese man steadied him, laying a hand on his arm. For a second, he looked into Remy’s face.
‘I’ll take you to the airport now,’ said Pak Ketut, motioning towards the vehicle. ‘You need to go home.’
Cara and Annie watched the retreating forms of Henry and Jim disappear behind the frosted glass marked Keberangkatan—Departures. Remy had left first, without even saying goodbye, on the same day the siege ended. A few days after him, Janelle had gone too, back to Australia to see her sick niece. This final departure now signalled the end of the group’s time at Puri Damai. Pak Tony had been generous in allowing them to stay on at the resort with family members who’d flown in after the siege. But with only Bali-based participants remaining on the island, it was time to return to their ordinary lives.
Cara felt bereft watching the two men leave. The act of standing in an airport departure lounge stirred spectres of other, sadder goodbyes. The vivid memory of her husband, Richard, standing forlorn on a Sydney footpath some four years earlier, watching her taxi leave for the international airport. Saying goodbye to her frail parents, and being unable to tell them when she would return. More recently, her heartbreaking parting from Tito, who’d flown back to Jakarta accompanied by an uncle.
Cara gratefully accepted another tissue from Annie and blew her nose. Tito’s uncle, Om Jono, had only come forward to claim his nephew after Tito’s photo was televised. To Cara’s dismay, he seemed far more interested in the wad of cash that Cara gave to him to buy essential items for Tito than in his vulnerable nephew. But there was nothing she could do: he was Tito’s next of kin, Australia had no adoption arrangements with Indonesia, and Om Jono insisted that Tito would be well cared for alongside his own six children.
Six children? Cara could barely contain her alarm. She’d exchanged contact details with Om Jono, assured him she would visit Jakarta soon, and offered to support Tito’s education. ‘Untuk selamanya,’ she’d said. Forever. The man’s continuous polite nodding had done nothing to alleviate her concern.
So she’d stood in the domestic departure lounge, talking and singing to Tito, until his flight’s final boarding call. Then she’d kissed his forehead and hugged him one more time. ‘Jangan lupakan Cara, sayang,’ she’d whispered. Don’t forget me, darling. Om Jono had been surprised by this display of affection. Even more so when he went to lead Tito away and the boy had cried out for Cara, his face crumpling. She’d waved and smiled and blown him kisses until he’d vanished down the aerobridge, then she’d put her head in her hands and wept.
Now Annie gave her a hug. ‘Are you alright?’
Cara nodded sadly, and they began to make their way back to the car park.
‘Only two Fearless crew left.’ Cara tried to sound upbeat.
‘So, where to now, your place or mine?’ Annie smiled. ‘Oh, that’s right, I don’t have a place.’
‘You’re not thinking about going back to BAF, are you?’ asked Cara.
‘Lord, no. It was good of Pak Tony to let us stay at Puri Damai as long as he has. Especially with family bunking in and everything. Seeing Natalie was a huge boost for me.’ She sighed. ‘I miss her already.’
Annie’s daughter had flown into Bali within days of the siege. Cara, by contrast, had received no visitors. Her father was too frail to leave Australia, her mother had explained, and Richard had been attending an accountancy conference in Europe. When he’d finally learned of Cara’s involvement in the siege, he’d telephoned her immediately. The concern in his voice was palpable, but he hadn’t offered to visit. Both of these interactions had left Cara feeling desolate, and more than a little homesick.
‘Would you like to stay at my place tonight?’ she asked Annie. ‘There’s a sofa bed in my lounge room.’ She wasn’t craving solitude anymore, she noticed.
Annie gave her a squeeze. ‘No, thanks. I think we’ll just overnight it somewhere in Ubud, before we start our trip.’
‘We?’ Cara cocked her head. ‘Are you and Pak Ketut … ?’
‘Going on holiday?’ Annie smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s great!’ said Cara. She briefly wondered if there was anything more between the pair, but resolved not to pry. ‘When do you leave?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Annie. ‘As Pak Tony says, there’s no time like the present.’
‘And that’s why they call it a gift!’ Cara
chimed in, and they both laughed. As they continued to walk, Cara said softly, ‘But he’s right, of course. The siege at the sanctuary showed me that.’ ‘I know,’ agreed Annie. ‘When you’ve lived through something like that, you can’t waste another moment, right?’
Reaching the car park, Annie hailed Pak Ketut, who sat crouched against a wall with her dog, Untung. The driver leaped to his feet and opened the hire car door for the women. ‘Where to now?’ he asked, then added, ‘Mau ke mana?’
‘Ketut’s teaching me Indonesian,’ explained Annie, smiling at the driver.
‘Good for you,’ said Cara. ‘It’s a useful language to know.’
‘Indeed! You saved us all in that bird park with your fluency.’
Cara shrugged.
‘Don’t dismiss it,’ scolded Annie. ‘The media say you were just as important in saving lives as Lorenzo and Remy. By talking to the guards in Indonesian, you made them trust you. The escape couldn’t have happened without you.’
‘We all played a role, Annie. You found the window and told me about it. It was teamwork.’ Cara looked away, embarrassed. ‘Could you possibly take me to Penestanan now, Pak Ketut ?’ The driver nodded, obliging as ever.
They listened to the radio as they drove. Two weeks on, the media hoopla surrounding the siege continued. After listening to ten minutes of analysis and speculation, Pak Ketut switched it off. ‘There is not much music anymore.’ He sighed. ‘Too much talking now. It does not help the dead.’
Annie pointed out the window. ‘What on earth is that?’
Suspended from the eaves of a hall set back from the road was a papier-mâché giant. The creature was evidently female, with pendulous breasts, a pregnant belly and a hairy maw below. But it was its eyes—the vacant stare of death—that were most unnerving.
‘That is ogoh-ogoh,’ explained Pak Ketut, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Soon it is Nyepi, the saka New Year. We put our sins into the ogoh-ogoh and then they are burned away, so we are purified in time for the new year.’
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