The Canal House

by Mark Lee

  The hallway out was littered with paper, torn books, and trash. Bullets had chopped holes in the white plaster; it looked as if a madman had attacked the building with a hatchet. The office phones had been stolen; everything else was torn apart or smashed into pieces. Legs had been ripped away from desks and chairs. File cabinets had been pushed over and set on fire. A framed poster of an Australian flight attendant lay on the floor, defaced with bullet holes.

  We left the building through a smashed-out door and stood beneath the shaded entrance to the terminal. Daniel lit a cigarette and I asked for one. The burning tobacco helped to overpower the smell that clung to our skin and clothing.

  “Who did this?” I asked.

  “The militia or the Indonesian army. Both of them were in charge of the airport.”

  “Everybody’s crazy here.”

  “They weren’t happy when the Timorese people voted for independence. I guess they decided to destroy everything before they left the country.”

  When the UN mission had fled East Timor a few weeks earlier, all the officials had driven to the airport and abandoned their cars in the parking lot. Two weeks later, the vehicles were still there, parked in a haphazard manner. File boxes and half-opened suitcases were dumped on the asphalt as if the drivers had raced to the terminal, then dashed inside to check on a flight.

  Some Indonesian soldiers lounged on the back of a cargo truck and watched while a group of Australian army rangers crowded around a passenger van with an Oxfam emblem. The vanished aid workers had taken their keys back to Darwin and the Australians were trying to hotwire the vehicle. Daniel strolled over to the men and smiled like we were all traveling to the same vacation resort.

  “Can I help you steal this?” he asked.

  A red-haired corporal grinned. “Sure thing, mate. We found the ignition wires, but the steering wheel is still locked up.”

  Daniel borrowed a commando knife, pried off the plastic covering around the steering column, and began splicing wires together. In a few minutes he’d started the engine. The corporal slapped him on the back. “All right, everybody! Get a rat up yah! We’re goin’ to war!”

  Elbowing each other like a rugby team, we squeezed into the van. The corporal drove around the parking lot. “Where’s the bloody map?” he asked. It turned out that someone named Sergeant Malloy had the maps and he was on another plane. Daniel reached into his equipment bag and pulled out a map of Dili photocopied from a tourist guidebook. “Right,” he said. “Turn right.” And we were on our way.

  A quarter mile from the airport, we came to a roundabout with an empty concrete fountain at the center. Five tiered baskets were set inside the fountain and a dozen white angels sat around the rim, all of them kneeling on one knee while they blew trumpets at the sky. Someone had chopped off the angel heads and there were bullet marks on their wings. I grabbed the digital camera and tried to get to my knees, but the bus was crowded with soldiers and a muscular ranger carrying a machine gun was sitting in front of the sliding door.

  “No room, mate. Sorry.”

  “Can we stop?” I asked. “Stop for a second—”

  “Not now!” the corporal shouted. “Gotta keep moving!”

  We continued past the fountain and turned onto the main road. It was dry season on the island. The palm trees were still green, but the surrounding undergrowth was dead and brittle. In the distance, the ocean shimmered with a bright turquoise color. South of the road a brown ridge rose abruptly to mountains covered with brush and trees. The burning smell got stronger as we approached the city. We crossed a concrete bridge that went over an empty river, then reached a side road that led toward the sea.

  “Here?” the corporal asked. “Do I turn here?”

  “Keep going,” Daniel said. “Stay on the main road.”

  The muscular soldier let me drink from his water bottle. “I sure hope those militia bastards shoot at us,” he said.

  “And why is that?”

  “If they shoot at us, then we can shoot ’em back. If they don’t shoot, then it gets into rules.”

  A row of concrete houses had been looted and torched by the anti-independence militias. Some of the buildings were still on fire, the smoke rising from charred roof beams and blackened sheets of roofing. The corporal slowed down and everyone was silent. We passed an abandoned school, the Australian consulate, and a small military airport still held by the Indonesian army. The streets were empty and the arson became more systematic: entire blocks of buildings had been torched, leaving a few concrete pillars and piles of blackened rubble. The few buildings that survived looked temporary and fragile.

  All the East Timorese men and any women young enough to be raped had fled into the hills. Only the old women and a few children remained. They stood in the street or picked through the rubble. When our van rolled down the street, they stared at us as if we were ghosts that would vanish at any moment. A few Indonesian soldiers wearing oversized tan uniforms were searching for something to steal. They glared at the Australians but kept their M16 rifles pointed down.

  “They’re not militia?” asked the muscular soldier.

  “No. They’re regular army. All of them are going home in a couple of days.”

  “Bet we can’t shoot them either. More rules.” The soldier spat out the window.

  We reached the harbor area and Daniel told the corporal to stop the van. The Australians were supposed meet another squad of rangers up at the soccer stadium, but Daniel wanted to stay near the beach.

  “No worries,” the corporal said. “Take care of yourself and don’t get shot. The whole country ain’t worth it.”

  The rangers turned toward the mountains and the blue van disappeared up the street. Daniel and I walked east past the harbor area. Two inter-island ferryboats were tied to the main wharf and Indonesian soldiers were loading them up with army trucks and all the property from the destroyed houses. I could hear cocks crowing in bamboo cages and singsong pop music from a portable radio. The street in front of us was littered with old mattresses, broken furniture, and the shells of burned automobiles. Pieces of singed paper were everywhere and they drifted across the street like wayward leaves. I took out my digital camera and took a few quick shots, but the smoke and the hazy sky made it seem as if someone had pasted a dirty strip of cellophane on the lens.

  I was sweating from the heat and my mouth was dry. There was no real authority in Dili, no clear lines that divided a safe area from the dangerous zone. Daniel was very alert and he walked slowly. Near the Governor’s Office, he stopped and looked out at the harbor. The UN fleet was anchored about a mile out and the Seria was in the middle of the convoy.

  “You think Julia’s out on deck?” Daniel asked. “Maybe she has some binoculars and she’s watching us right now.”

  “I hope she doesn’t see us. I’m not looking my best today.”

  As I switched to a wide-angle lens, a convoy of six vehicles came toward us. The transport truck leading the group had an Indonesian flag draped over the hood and militiamen with red-and-white headbands were squeezed into the truck cab. One of the men had an M16 rifle, which he pointed out the window. I stood there, expecting him to fire, but the convoy kept moving. The first two trucks were stacked with stolen property: television sets, refrigerators, a large blue couch. They were followed by three Land Rovers with UN insignia and then an open cattle truck crammed with women and children. They were being kidnapped, taken down the road to West Timor, and when they saw us they raised their hands and screamed for help. A young militiaman with a bamboo stick was standing on the back and he began beating the people next to him. The convoy kept moving, but I was able to get one quick photograph. I was still holding my camera, getting ready for another shot, when two more militiamen drove up behind us on motorcycles.

  They were young Timorese men with beards and long hair. One man carried an M16 and the other a shotgun, the weapons dangling from shoulder straps. When they reached Daniel and me, they circled around us w
ith the bikes, revving their engines and screaming in Tetum. The third time around, the man with the shotgun pulled a machete out of his belt. He was trying to cut the strap on my camera bag, but he missed and the tip of the knife scratched across my shoulder blade. I felt a stinging sensation and then they turned back onto the road and raced after the convoy.

  Daniel stepped behind me. “Damn, he cut you. You’re bleeding.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s get out of the sun.”

  We cut across a patch of dead grass to the Governor’s Office. Standing beneath the white colonnade, I removed my shirt and Daniel used it to wipe off the blood.

  “It’s a three-inch cut,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get infected.” He smeared antibiotic ointment on the wound, then applied some gauze and a bandage. I pulled on my spare shirt. “Does it hurt, Nicky?”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “You’re going to get a scar.”

  “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”

  We remained beneath the colonnade and continued walking. Indonesian soldiers were guarding the building and each time we passed an open doorway they came out and pointed their rifles. Daniel offered a cigarette to one of the men and spoke a few phrases in Indonesian. The man nodded and pointed down the waterfront boulevard. “Interfet,” he said. “Turismo.”

  Daniel glanced at his map. “The Turismo Hotel is less than a mile away. Maybe it’s being used by Interfet command.”

  We reached the end of the colonnade and looked across the street. The Indonesian army garrison was on one corner facing an office building with black smoke coming out of its smashed windows. Someone was honking an automobile horn and sound came toward us. We stepped back as a pickup truck carrying militiamen raced down the road. Several of the young men had machetes thrust in their belts and they all carried rifles. I saw a flash of bright red when the truck passed us. A teenage boy was kneeling in the center of the truck, blood streaming down his face. A militiaman wearing mirrored sunglasses gripped the boy’s hair. I started to raise my Nikon, then realized that the militiamen were watching me. I lowered the camera as the truck disappeared into the garrison courtyard.

  We returned to the waterfront boulevard and walked on the beach side, beneath a line of shade trees. The army garrison was directly across the street and a young Indonesian soldier pointed his rifle at us. Two of his friends were laughing and shouting. I didn’t know Indonesian, but I could guess what they were saying: Shoot them. Kill the foreigners. Suddenly, the young soldier pointed the rifle upward and fired an entire clip into the air. I jerked backward and soldiers laughed.

  “Jesus,” I whispered. “That little bastard.”

  “Keep walking, Nicky. Don’t look back.”

  We passed an empty hotel with a smashed television lying in the driveway, then reached a park with the statue of the Virgin Mary on top of marble pedestal. The local bishop’s residence was next to the park. Two of the buildings had been burned down, but a few Timorese remained inside the compound. We hurried past the looted International Red Cross headquarters to the Hotel Turismo. It was a rambling two-story building surrounded by a low fence.

  British soldiers had taken over the hotel early that morning and the Australians had shown up a few hours later. I could sense the tension right away. Daniel and I approached an Australian captain just as he ordered a British lieutenant to move his Land Rover out of the hotel parking lot. “Yes. Sir,” said the lieutenant and there was a space between the two words. It wasn’t much of a delay, more like a slight hesitation, but it was enough to suggest a few hundred years of cultural arrogance. The Aussie captain was so angry that his face was turning red.

  “Who’s in charge?” Daniel asked. “We’re looking for Interfet command.”

  “We’re in charge,” the captain said, then he glared at us as if we were going to challenge his statement. “General Bates is upstairs, but he probably won’t talk to you.”

  We entered a large courtyard filled with tropical plants. You could see that it had once been an outdoor restaurant, but now the tables were stacked to one side and a soldier was digging a latrine pit. We climbed the stairs to the surrounding balcony and met Major Anthony Holden, an older Australian army officer with thinning blond hair. He was soft-spoken and comfortably bland, the kind of officer that had spent his career holding the door for generals and carrying their papers around.

  “General Bates is quite busy,” he told Daniel. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

  A door opened at the end of the balcony. “I hope that makes things clear,” said a booming voice, then General Martin Bates, the commander of the UN forces, walked out with three Australian journalists. Bates was a handsome man with spiky gray hair and blue eyes. He shook hands with the Australians but frowned when he saw us. “I just gave an interview to three of our journos and here comes some more. Can’t do this all day, Tony. Got a job to do.”

  Daniel raised his right hand. “Just four questions, General. Four questions in one minute. You can time me.”

  Bates considered this idea, then turned to Major Holden. “Go ahead, Tony. Check your watch.”

  We followed the general back into a long room with a bed, a desk, and several folding chairs. There was no electric power and the only light came through the Venetian blinds. A map of Dili and another map of East Timor were taped to the wall, both decorated with pushpins. The Interfet force was here, the Indonesian troops were over there, and the militia was someplace else. I had encountered several pushpin maps over the years. Military commanders loved them, but they had little connection with reality.

  General Bates stopped at his desk and glanced at his watch. “What’s your name?”

  “Daniel McFarland.”

  “Who you working for?”

  “Newsweek.”

  The general smiled as if he’d tricked us. “You’ve already wasted ten seconds.”

  I raised the digital camera and examined Bates through the view-finder. He had a big head in proportion to his body. Big heads always photographed well. It made Bates look forceful.

  “How’s the deployment going?” Daniel asked.

  “Very well. The Indonesians have been most cooperative.”

  “How long will it take to secure Dili?”

  “We need three weeks to deploy our troops fully, then we’ll extend control to the rest of the country. I’m not going to put my men at risk.”

  “What about the Timorese being killed by the militia?”

  “That’s most unfortunate.”

  “But what are you going to do about it?”

  “Our soldiers will secure key positions, then we’ll begin to disarm everyone.”

  “What happens to the Timorese who are being kidnapped and taken across the border?”

  General Bates looked annoyed. “I’ve answered your four questions. That’s all.”

  Major Holden escorted us back out onto the balcony and we went back downstairs. “Is it really going to take three weeks to take over Dili?” I asked. “It should only take a few days.”

  “This is a UN deployment. He’s not going to take any risks.” Daniel glanced up and down the courtyard. “I’m going to go talk to the Brits, off the record. It’s easier if you’re not taking their pictures.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll wait for you outside.”

  Back in the hotel driveway, I saw a squad of Asian soldiers wearing dark green berets and camouflage uniforms. It took me a few seconds to realize that they were Gurkhas from the hill tribes of Nepal. The Gurkhas were small, stocky men with smooth skin; they’d fought for England in special regiments since the nineteenth century. Along with the usual army gear, they carried black-handled kukri knives. I tried to think of an easy way to describe them, but the only word I could come up with was clean. It wasn’t the way the word was used back in the States where clean meant spray the toilet and kill all the germs. The Gurkhas seemed calm and disciplined, unencumbered with any goals a
side from being good at their job.

  I switched lenses on my Nikon and a British officer in a Gurkha uniform approached me. He was a big man with the friendly but firm manner of a successful pub manager.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’m Nicky Bettencourt. I work for Newsweek and the Daily Telegraph.”

  “Well, I thought it was something like that, but you don’t need to photograph my men. We’re not doing anything important right now.”

  I lowered my camera and said the first thing that came into my mind. “Why are your men carrying SA80 assault rifles? I heard that they jammed up during combat.”

  The captain relaxed and stepped closer. He seemed pleased that I knew about the problem. “I’ve talked to everyone about those bloody things, but I can’t get replacements. It’s all politics, of course. The Ministry of Defense won’t admit it made a mistake.”

  The captain’s name was Terry Jenkins. He had served with the First Gurkha Regiment in Hong Kong until it was transferred back to England. Now he was stationed in Brunei.

  “We’re there to defend the sultan and his oil wells, but that doesn’t bother me. Everyone’s got to have their petrol. Makes the world go round.” Captain Jenkins watched the Australians set up a roadblock in the middle of the street. “There’s oil and natural gas in the Timor Sea. Maybe that’s why we’re really here.”

  “The Indonesians are stealing everything and the militia are out of control. Someone has to come in and establish the peace.”

  Jenkins plucked off a red blossom from a bougainvillea bush and twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. “That’s what my men could do. But the Australians are in charge and they want us on guard duty. It’s like using a lorry to carry a six-pack of beer. Waste of good machinery, wouldn’t you say?”