by Tash Aw
“Where did you get those? I thought you’d quit.”
Mick smiled as he sucked on the just-lit Marlboro, his lips contorting into a funny shape. “I’ve started again.”
It was a good idea, Bill agreed—at least for now. He would arrange a visa for Adam; they could go to Singapore, wait for a while to see if there was any definitive news of Karl, before moving on. Or perhaps it would be better just to go to the States. Bill would fix everything; he could at least do that for them. But they had to act now, quickly. There was no time to lose.
Sitting calmly in the Buick, Margaret looked at Adam. He held his canvas bag in his lap, cradling it with both arms the way a heavily pregnant woman might hold her belly. He said, “I didn’t have time to say good-bye to Z. I waited for ages, but she didn’t come back.”
“You liked her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
There were not many cars on the road this evening but every so often they would see convoys of army trucks carrying troops or armored vehicles posted outside buildings. Evening brought with it a sense of anxiety. Margaret did not think that she had ever associated darkness with fear; no, that was wrong: She had done so when she was a child.
“I’m sorry I was negative about her,” said Margaret. “It’s just that my judgment has been so shaken by everything that happened with Din. I couldn’t trust anyone with you.”
He nodded.
“Because Din was not a bad person,” she continued. “I shared an office with him, for god’s sake, I couldn’t have been that wrong about him. Very, very misguided, perhaps, but not fundamentally evil. But from the moment he involved you in whatever he was up to, well, that’s when I stopped having any sympathy for him.”
“I think we should wait awhile,” Adam said. “Just a while. You never know what might happen. Z might be able to find my father. We just need to get in touch with her. I still have this feeling he’s not far away. I know there’s still hope.”
Margaret looked at Adam’s face, so much older now than it had been a few days ago, but still that of a boy. It was this ridiculous thing called hope that kept it that way, she thought, but she could see it changing, the hope ebbing slowly away. Soon he would be a man, and quickly, inexorably, old. It was what happened when hope slipped out of your clutches. In certain isolated near–Stone Age tribes in Irian, Margaret had seen how the aging process was far less defined. People did not blossom in adolescence then fade painfully into old age; they were born elderly, mature beyond their years—child-adults—but then they seemed to remain this way, their faces permanently etched with the quizzical smile of an infant even as their hair became flecked with gray. It was because they were not programmed to hope, to look forward to some magical potential, and so did not degenerate as the boundaries of their lives shrank with age.
“We can’t stay any longer,” Margaret said. “We haven’t got much time. We need to get out while the embassy can still help us. God knows how much longer the U.S. is going to maintain diplomatic relations with Indonesia. We aren’t the most popular people here at the moment.”
Adam looked out the window. The early evening air was still warm and unsoothing. “When I was small I used to dream about going abroad. I used to read stories about children living in Europe and imagine what it would be like to live among them. My father used to say, Son, you have no idea, it’s better here. I always thought it could not be better here. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t know what it’s like in Europe or America, or even Malaysia, but I don’t want to go. I’ve heard your explanations and I agree with you, but I still don’t want to leave. There’s no logic, I know. I’m stupid. I guess my father was right—you can’t control the future. You just have to take what comes.”
Margaret could find no argument to counter this. There was no reason for her to take him away from Indonesia, yet she had no choice. The campus was dark and silent, except for the rhythmic banging of a tin door at the far end of the badminton courts. In the distance, at that undefined place where the range of solid university buildings gave way to the flimsy shacks of the semi-slums, they could see a few kerosene lamps, their lonely dim lights revealing a few figures moving in the shadows. There was a Western song playing: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” Margaret thought, though she could not be sure. Thin clouds of insects had gathered above the drains, anticipating the showers that would become more frequent from now on; but Margaret would not be in this city for the coming rainy season, she thought, nor, perhaps, for any other.
They went up the flight of stairs to her office. The barricade of piled-up desks had been removed, leaving nothing but splinters and iron bars on the floor. The door to Margaret’s office was ajar, and when Margaret tried to switch on the light she found that there was no electricity. In the last remnants of the evening light she could discern the clear, pale space where Din’s desk had stood on the far side of the room. The piles of paper on her desk had been shifted around, and several sheets had fallen to the floor, where some of her books and files lay scattered haphazardly. The only thing missing seemed to be the blue and white jar that had held her pens and pencils. She went around the desk and sat in the chair, reaching down for the lowest drawer. Even in the dark, she had no trouble finding the crevice that sheltered the key; she unlocked the bottom drawer, her fingers feeling the ample mound of paper that was her thesis. She wondered why she had kept it for so long; at this point, it seemed a ridiculous object, a dead thing, a hindrance. She pushed it aside and felt around for her passport. On the way here, she had, just briefly, wondered what she would do if the passport was missing. She had given it so little thought, been so casual in her treatment of it, but now she’d found herself praying that it would be there; thank god, it was.
It took a while for them to find their way back to the car. Stripped of all light and movement, the campus buildings did not seem to be where they usually were. The embassy driver was standing by the Buick; they could see the pinprick glow of his cigarette. He had left the engine running, and when he saw them approaching he got into the car and put his hands on the steering wheel. “I got a call on the radio. Mr. Schneider says don’t come to the embassy. I am to take you to this address.” He passed them a piece of paper as the car reversed sharply before taking off again. Margaret could not make out the handwriting. “Mr. Schneider says come quick, no time to lose.”
· 32 ·
Once, when Adam was still very young, he’d gone for a walk on his own, along the rocky shoreline near the house. He must have been playing truant, for it was in the middle of the day, the sun slicing through the scant canopy of the scrubby seaside forest. And it had to have been a good few years after he’d arrived at Karl’s house, for he’d walked without hesitation or fear, scrambling over the patches of slippery rock that had become familiar to him. He recalls this now, his ease with his surroundings, his feeling of intimacy with the trees and the water and the sand. He had walked for some distance when he saw Karl about twenty yards from the shoreline, sitting on a fallen tree trunk, half-hidden by the shade of some shrubs. He was bent over slightly, concentrating on a book, or a sheet of paper, looking up occasionally to squint at the sea.
Adam slowed down immediately, trying to tread as lightly as possible, but the crunch of dead leaves and coarse sand underfoot seemed to reverberate every time he put a foot down. He considered turning back and running away—the risk of being discovered was too great. But there was something in Karl’s actions, the intensity with which he looked at those papers, that made Adam curious. He skirted around in a wide arc, moving farther inland so that Karl would not see him, but the noise he made as he pushed his way slowly through the undergrowth was considerable: Karl must have heard. And yet Karl did not once look inland, in the direction of the rustling foliage, focusing instead on the sheet of paper in his lap. From a slightly elevated position, Adam saw that Karl was drawing, his hand moving fluently across the page, sometimes in long smooth strokes, other times in tiny precise flicks. He had
never seen Karl do this before and was amazed at the delicacy of his father’s hands, which he had only ever seen wielding a machete or an ax or a broom. He could not, from where he was hiding, make out the shapes in the drawing, so he began to inch closer, until he was certain that Karl would turn around and confront him. He had thrown all caution to the wind: He just wanted to know what Karl was drawing. At last he could see, over Karl’s shoulder, a low ridge of penciled hills, a house perched precariously on a slope. He came closer still. There was one person in the drawing, a young person, though Adam could not quite make out if it was a boy or a girl. Its features were exaggerated but clearly Western. It was a girl, Adam decided.
“Who’s that, Pak?” Adam said. It no longer mattered to him that he would be found out.
When Karl turned it was clear that he’d had no idea of Adam’s presence. He frowned and blushed and smiled, all at once. “I thought you were at school,” he said. There was a look on his face that Adam recognized because it was something he was all too familiar with: shame.
“Who’s that?” Adam said, pointing at the sheet of paper.
Karl looked at the drawing for a few moments and then he laughed loudly, folding it in half with one neat movement. “Oh, that’s nothing, I was just, um, bored … playing around. Look—see what your father can do with this simple sheet of paper!” And with a few deft folds he turned the drawing into a paper boat. “Come on!” he said, and ran down to the beach. He waded into the shallows, his thin trousers getting wet up to the knee. He set the boat gently on the calm afternoon waves. The little vessel rocked back and forth for a few seconds before being overcome by the swell.
As he walked home with Karl, Adam did not think about the drawing, or about Karl’s embarrassment at having been discovered. He was merely thankful to have avoided a reprimanding for having skipped school. But now he recalls experiencing a quite distinct feeling, something more powerful than relief: that of being forgiven.
He does not know why he felt like this, because he had, in retrospect, committed no great crime. He only knows that life with Karl amounted to one long act of forgiveness. It was as if he was being excused for all the nameless things he had done wrong, all the things he could not remember.
As the Buick swept through the neighborhood, past the high walls that surrounded the mansions, Adam began to recognize the style of the buildings: Western, massive, a touch bizarre. A motorbike lying by the side of the road, its wheels twisted and crushed. He had seen this place before and he knew they were going to Zubaidah’s house.
They drove through ornate wrought-iron gates painted with touches of gold paint; they drew up alongside a sports car that Adam did not recognize. The house seemed even bigger than he remembered. The front doors were made of heavy, dark timber, their veneer reflecting the light cast by the car’s headlights.
“Margaret, thank god you made it,” Bill said, running to meet her. He reached out to her and held her elbow as if to reassure himself that she was really there. “There was a demonstration outside the embassy that’s carried on into the night. Those guys were lighting fires—it was getting very tense out there, so I thought you should come here. It isn’t safe around the embassy. The paperwork’s done. You can be in Singapore by lunchtime tomorrow.”
“This is Zubaidah’s place, isn’t it?”
“Her father’s, yes. How’s the boy doing?”
“Okay, I think.”
“We got him, Margaret,” Bill said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. “We got him.”
Margaret felt a sudden tensing in her chest, a rush of blood to her temples.
“Well, actually, the girl found him,” said Bill, carrying Adam’s bag into the house. “Come on, we need to hurry.”
Adam ran up the steps ahead of Margaret and Bill. He rushed into the hallway and paused briefly at the foot of the great, sweeping staircase. Z emerged from her bedroom; she was wearing pajamas and her hair was down. She looked more childlike than Adam remembered. He started toward her but she was pointing at a spot behind him. He stopped and turned around. At the threshold of a door off the hallway, Karl was standing looking up at Adam. He held on to both sides of the door frame, supporting himself as he tried to smile. He coughed—a heavy, dry spasm.
Margaret said, “Good god.”
“Bapak,” Adam cried. But his voice seemed to choke even as he called out to Karl and he could say no more. He ran down the stairs and eased Karl’s arm over his shoulder so that he could support him. He helped him back into the room and laid him down on the sofa. He had never realized how small and light his father was; perhaps they were both small and light in this enormous house in this enormous city. Adam covered Karl with a blanket that Z had given him.
“Margaret,” Bill whispered, “I know he’s ill and weak, but if you want to get out of this place I’d advise you do it now. I’ve got papers for him too. All of you.”
“Out of the question, Bill. Look at him.”
They made Karl drink as much water as he could. Margaret boiled some rice porridge and made sure he ate two bowls of it. She remembered how, when she was a child in Bali—just before she had met Karl—she had fallen ill with malaria and her mother had fed her rice porridge. It was something all Asians ate when they were ill, her mother had said; the body can’t deal with anything more when it is in distress. Margaret did not know why she remembered exactly how her mother had done this, and why she now had no hesitation in preparing this food for Karl. It was as though she had been doing it her whole life.
Adam stayed with Karl, holding his hand until he drifted off to sleep. Margaret and Bill left the room and Adam could hear them arguing outside. They were trying to keep their voices down, and although Adam could not quite hear what they were saying, he understood the gist of their conversation. It did not matter to him now whether he left this country or not. All that mattered was that he was not separated from his father.
“Quite against my principles,” explained Z later, “I went to see my dad. Adam told me about the search for his foster father and it’s no secret that my dad has—oh, I hate saying this word—connections. I don’t even like thinking about it; it makes me ashamed. But I had no choice. It’s the only way to get things done quickly. In this country you could say it’s the only way to get things done.”
“Yes,” said Bill, “I know about your father. He’s very friendly with the president.”
“I don’t know how far their friendship extends, but they help each other out in one way or another—mostly financially. They were schoolmates in Surabaya, you see. So he put in a call to the president—a personal instruction from the president carries much weight, as you can imagine. They found Mr. de Willigen at once. It seems he was to have been repatriated—mistakenly, they claim—but then he fell ill and had to be moved from one hospital to another. Police bureaucracy isn’t very efficient.”
“It was a very brave and generous thing for you to do,” said Margaret, “and I hope your father didn’t mind too much.”
Z shrugged. “He didn’t seem too concerned. He was quite preoccupied with something else—a painting, I think, something the president has asked him to finance. My dad was being quite grumpy about it, says he’s been paying for too many of the president’s personal luxuries recently. I think the president is getting more and more extravagant. Apparently this painting is huge and has lions and tigers in it, and Dad can’t really afford it, but what can he do? He still needs the president to help him with his business—or whatever they do together. I never ask too many questions; I don’t want to know about all that sordid business.”
Margaret smiled. “I bet it’s some painting,” she said. “Thank you nonetheless. I know it must have been difficult for you.”
Z paused awhile, gazing absently at the ceiling. She smiled weakly. “It’s funny. I always swore I would never ask for his help, that I would be independent and do whatever I pleased. But now that I’ve done it, well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It feels quite, I
don’t know, normal. I guess I’ll just have to live with it.”
“Terrible, isn’t it, how that happens.” Margaret laughed. “The way things suddenly become acceptable.”
Z nibbled at her fingernails, frowning. “Problem is, it feels more than acceptable, it feels almost nice.” She looked at Adam and put her free hand out to him. He clasped it with both hands but did not say anything.
· 33 ·
Where are you going, Johan?” Adam called out. “Wait for me.”
Johan was some ways ahead and Adam struggled to keep up, for Johan was stronger and taller than he was. They were a long way from the orphanage now, in the low, rocky hills that lay between the orphanage and the sea, sheltered by trees that would never grow very tall because of the brine and the poor, sandy soil. In the dark Adam could not see Johan’s face clearly, not even when he finally caught up with him.
“Go back, Adam, you shouldn’t have followed me.”