The Tropical Sun - Belief, Love and Hate

by J. S. Philippe

  ~~~~~

  Soon it would be dark, and the moon would not rise for a while. The two men were exhausted by the day’s events. They were back in the valley between the mountains, making steady but slow progress as they carried their packs with the dead weight of rocks inside. Attached to each pack was an enclosed little hammock, holding the mewing, wriggling puppies.

  Bandri had mulled over their encounters in Bitung and by now had tried to reconcile himself with how it was. Ahead of them lay a long hard journey.

  “I really need a break now,” he said finally.

  After detaching the little hammock, with Agung’s help he off-loaded the heavy pack on his back. Likewise, Bandri helped his friend as he shrugged the thick straps off his broad shoulders.

  “We need to get a meal while there’s still light,” said Bandri. “I’ll see if I can shoot something.”

  While Agung prepared a fire, Bandri took his bow and crept into the dense vegetation. Since he was a small boy he had been taught how to do this. With stealth he placed one foot in front of another, choosing with delicate balance exactly how he placed his feet on the crowded forest floor. There was plenty of game in the rainforest, but seeing it and shooting it needed experience. The hunter needed to be part of the forest and to move like the forest. If the branches or leaves moved, he moved as a branch or a leaf, present but invisible, silent. This time he selected a guinea fowl. He primed the bow smoothly and slowly aimed, as part of the forest.

  Looking down the length of the arrow, Bandri remembered the gang and how he felt while aiming at Yasan. This arrow had a lighter arrowhead, and very slightly out of shape, so he made a minor adjustment to his aim to compensate, pulling the string to his lips and letting it touch the tip of his nose. The plump guinea fowl sat oblivious on a branch and he imagined it as Yasan, and released.

  Agung was not surprised when his friend returned in short measure with their main course. There were plenty of fruit and vegetables in this virgin rainforest, although knowledge was needed to know which was edible and which to avoid. Returning to their campsite with the side dishes, Bandri saw that Agung now had the barbeque underway. As the guinea fowl breasts roasted over the hot embers, the two men whiled away the time feeding and handling the puppies.

  “Tongkoko and Klabat,” suggested Bandri. “Or Mel and Suk will find names.”

  Agung’s thoughts were elsewhere.

  “I hope they find Yuli,” he sighed.

  “I hope they find her too,” said Bandri, unable any longer to use the girl’s name. “But we have to look after our own.. It made me understand what Eko was talking about.”

  Neither spoke about the poor woman with the fish.

  “They’re vulnerable at Pantai,” said Bandri. “- with two girls?”

  “I’ve been thinking that all the time.”

  Bandri tried to breathe steadily as he struggled with his conscience - thinking of the safety of the family at Pantai and Agung’s dilemma. What would happen if Agung left Likupang? Whatever he said next could change everyone’s lives.

  “If you want - we could ask the family to join us in Likupang?” he suggested.

  He watched Agung’s face as he contemplated how the world could work differently to the way it already was.

  “Maybe they want to be on their own at Pantai?” said Agung hesitantly. “They’re Java. What do you think they’ll say at home?”

  “We would need to ask them – and everyone at home.”

  Faintly amused, Bandri watched his friend rock uneasily at the thought.

  “What about the pigs in Bahoi?”

  A feeling of great apprehension flooded over Bandri and he wondered whether he should have said what he did.

  After their evening meal they rested until the moon was well-risen.

  Following the valley bottom, they made further slow progress, the great weight of their packs necessitating frequent stops. The dense wall of trees on both sides hid the mountainous milky-white octopi of Klabut and Tongkoko.

  When darkness fell they set up camp again and slept soundly until dawn.

  In the first light Bandri climbed a tall tree. They were directly between the peaks of Tongkoko and Klabat - nearly half-way home.

  “If we make the same pace today we might be close to Pantai when the light goes,” estimated Bandri.

  This had become a feat of endurance as the two friends hauled their loads through the dense rainforest, following the valley floor. Resting at mid-day, they drank, ate and recuperated in the shade. As the light faded in the afternoon, they knew they had broken the back of the journey home. Another evening encampment and then they would push on in the moonlight.

  Bandri was optimistic.

  “The moon is bigger and brighter tonight,” he said. “If we keep following the river it goes in a big loop here. We can cut across through the trees and save us some time?”

  “It would be alright in daylight.”

  “Look how bright the moon is,” said Bandri yearning to get to get back as soon as possible.

  “I don’t know,” said Agung without enthusiasm. “Stay by the river.”

  Bandri scratched out a little map in the mud at the side of the river.

  “There’s the river,” he said, drawing a U shape. “We could cut across the top.”

  “Alright - but we need our leg covers on.”

  Leaving the river they stepped into the trees, and found themselves in a flat, poorly lit wood, where the trees were uniformly upright. The views of the mountains on either side were blocked out by the vegetation and neither could they see the position of the moon.

  “If we go straight across we will meet the river,” said Bandri, sounding confident. This should be easy, he thought.

  The two beat and hacked their way in the chosen direction, skirting around trees and the thick shrubs interspersed between them.

  Time passed. The wooded area carried on and on.

  “We’ve been here before!” declared Agung.

  “Tuhan - Kami telah pergi pusingan dalam bulatan!” - “God - We’ve gone round in a circle!” cursed Bandri in confession.

  The maze of trees confused them. The poor light made every direction the same. There was no wind, no noise of a river, nothing to guide them. Bandri in particular was frustrated by the lost time, blaming himself for persuading his friend to go along with his ideas.

  “We have to get our bearings – I need to climb up a tree.”

  All the trees seemed similar - upright with no branches near to the ground. Bandri chose a tree. Putting down the backpack and equipment, he started to climb but hesitated.

  “I’ll have to take these off,” he said, removing the leg covers and kasuts.

  Agung watched uneasily.

  Hugging the smooth trunk, Bandri shinnied up until he could reach some handholds, and then clambered further up. Agung looked up, watching as the moving outline went higher and higher, getting smaller and smaller.

  High up in the tree, Bandri had been able to see out through the thinner branches at the top of the canopy. The ghostly-pale moonlight lit up the valley, highlighting the mountainous octopus of the volcano across the other side, with its hilly tentacles winding down towards bottom where the river wound its way through the forest.

  “I can see where we went wrong – the river is just over there!”

  Agung watched the outline get bigger as it descended. Bandri let himself slip back down the smooth lower trunk.

  “Put your covers on,” Agung said firmly and held out the leg covers and kasuts.

  In his haste Bandri stepped, with his bare feet, back onto the forest floor ground which was strewn with leaf-litter and fallen branches. He picked up a branch to wedge it against the trunk to indicate the direction, and only then did he accept the gift of the kasuts and bent over to tie them on.

  He felt a sharp scratch on his left ankle.

  Turning, he saw a dark green snake, a green pit viper – dark green and twisting in the dim
light, holding onto his ankle - then releasing itself to slither back into the leaf litter. For a moment he said nothing, trying to understand what had happened. A sallow feeling of shame hit him first. Why hadn’t he listened? It was his fault!

  “I’ve been bitten – I’m sorry,” he confessed.

  As he stood on his right leg they looked for the bite, but it was difficult to see in the darkness. Agung bent right over and saw tiny spots of blood - immediately putting his mouth over the skin and sucking hard, spitting it out, and sucking again, spitting, sucking, spitting.. and then looked up.

  “How do you feel?”

  Bandri looked down at the concerned face of his closest friend. Agung was saying “Maybe it didn’t leave any poison,” but now there was pain - a numbing pain and a tormented sinking feeling.

  “It did – it’s hurting now.”

  As he said this he could feel a taste like lemon grass in his mouth, and his lips tingled. He felt afraid for what was going to happen next, yet he knew that he must try to recover - for Agung, for Ayu, for the others! He needed to know how. Sweaty, confused, unsure, all he could feel now was anger with himself, anger at his failure to think, failure to listen, failure to look after Ayu.

  “Ayu love,” he slurred, stumbling as he started to walk, home to Ayu, that’s where he should be, although now he knew not where to go. His chest felt heavy. Fighting for breath, he stopped walking and bent over, then he felt Agung grab hold of him, and then other things happened.

  The tentacle of a giant white octopus wrapped around him, squeezing his chest as he struggled for air. Bandri saw Ayu out of reach, held by another waving, coiling tentacle. Mel, Suk and his mother were being swept up too by the tentacles of the monstrous octopus. The octopus dragged him into pounding surf where stormy winds blew. He desperately wanted to see Ayu but he couldn’t see her now, but the octopus was still there pulling him down. In the distance he could hear Agung telling him to hold on. He wanted to shout out but his tongue stuck in his mouth. He mouthed his curses - but no sound came, only the sound of Agung’s voice close by his ear. In febrile convulsions he tried to kick free yet the octopus held on to him, trying to drown him in the cold waters. Fighting the pressure on his chest he clawed for the surface, gasping for air, then sank again towards the bottom of the ocean and death.