Black Water

by Louise Doughty

  ‘How about we go to the Tirta Empul Temple?’ she said. ‘Been there yet?’

  ‘I’m not a tourist!’ He could not keep the scorn from his response.

  ‘You’re here on holiday, aren’t you? Don’t you want to look at places? Anyway I didn’t mean as a tourist.’

  ‘You’re a practising Hindu?’ Now the scorn was mingled with disbelief.

  ‘No, I just think, well, you put on your sarong and you bathe in the Holy Waters and what you feel is . . .’

  ‘Wet,’ he interjected.

  She bore him with an indulgent sigh. ‘. . . Inspired, really, you feel inspired. You pray for someone each time you get under a spout and after a while you run out of the obvious people to pray for and there are still a lot of spouts left and . . .’ Sensing he was unimpressed, she hesitated. ‘Makes you think, that’s all.’

  Of all the forms of faith that humans indulged in, the one he hated most was this sort of freelance spirituality – a belief that it was okay to pick ’n’ mix your rituals, try a bit of this and a bit of that and feel better about yourself. At least belonging to an established religion required action and sacrifice, visit Mecca once in your life or don’t cut your hair – even Protestant Christians were obliged to go to church at Easter. But this: I’ll do a bit of what the locals do and feel good because I’m getting some of the insight with none of the sacrifice. All he said was, ‘I don’t think it’s for me, thanks all the same.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said lightly. She turned away from the pond with its stone wall and they began to walk further up the path. Another man with a machete came past the other way, carrying a huge sack made of rope net and full of coconuts. There were other exits, Harper thought: he’d seen them on the map at the entrance. If they followed the curve of the path round, they could leave by the other route, head back into town. She had taken his rejection of the temple pretty well. Was it too early to suggest they go to a bar?

  ‘The beach, then,’ she said.

  He was about to object to that one too, then he thought, if they went south, down to Denpasar, maybe he’d be able to find out a bit more about what was going on in Jakarta. Amsterdam wouldn’t like it but then Amsterdam wouldn’t know. ‘There’s an Intercontinental at Jimbaran Bay.’

  Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. ‘Only someone like you could want the Intercontinental. You’ll get your scrambled eggs there. You’ll probably get cornflakes if you want. I know a much better hotel, a bar on the beach, great cocktails, Balinese enough for me and international enough for you. How does that sound?’

  ‘Our relationship in a nutshell,’ he said drily and they both made ironic sounds in mutual acknowledgement that his use of the world ‘relationship’ was a joke.

  They turned back towards the entrance and, as they did, a monkey ran from behind them and with one swift movement, leapt up and clung with its hands and feet to the bottom of a woven shoulder bag worn by a woman in front of them. The woman shrieked and let the bag fall, then ran a few paces before turning and pointing. The monkey upended the bag and another half a dozen monkeys ran forward to inspect its scattered contents. One ripped open a purse, another seized a pair of sunglasses, another snatched up a plastic water bottle and sank its teeth into the bottom while lifting it up to suck from it. Rita gave an amused exhalation and a shake of her head as they passed and Harper noted briefly that even she was entertained rather than alarmed when the monkeys’ victim was someone else.

  Nearby, the baby monkey sat, alone now, looking at them.

  *

  There had nearly been a child. That was the way he thought of it. It. How unconscionable, that small word: it. But what was the alternative? He couldn’t do what Francisca did: Francisca, his wife, the fragile beauty from Friesland – the woman his mother had hated so much it was inevitable he would marry her eventually. She had started choosing names for the baby in the early stages of her pregnancy, convinced it was a boy. She had bought piles of soft cloth diapers and little knitted vests. She had the cot they would bring him home in all ready with a yellow bow tied to the handle. He would watch her sometimes, when she was sitting on the window seat in the sitting room, unaware of his gaze, reclining on a pile of fat firm cushions and staring out at the canal while running her hand over her taut belly, a small smile of knowingness on her face. He thought how perfected she seemed then, in her happiness, in the knowledge that something was coming that she would love beyond all else but for the moment was safe inside her, enclosed in the wet wall of her womb; the repository of all her hopes and dreams; entirely imagined, entirely protected.

  When he saw that expression on his wife’s face, what he felt was fear. Fear gripped his stomach like a fist. The helplessness of babies disturbed and disgusted him, that was why it had taken him until his middle years to consider having one. He told himself he would feel differently when it was his own, but looking at other people’s he just thought, at what point do they become human?

  Then he said to himself, you’re fifty years old. She’s forty and it’s probably her last chance, which is your fault because it took you eight years to agree to marry her. This thing has come to you both at a time in life when, for most people, there are no more surprises. Be grateful. Put the past aside, let go of the convictions you have nursed ever since you came back from Indonesia as a young man, broken. Okay, so you’re not sure about her, not sure at all about the baby – but she seems sure enough for both of you. Maybe her certainty will be enough.

  Francisca went into labour in the middle of the night, eight weeks before her due date. It was a girl. She lived for two days. The doctor explained later: it was an aspiration problem, something to do with the baby swallowing or inhaling something in the amniotic fluid that blocked its – her – airways. It caused the pneumonia that killed her. She lived long enough for them to hold her, name her – Anika, after his mother, Francisca’s suggestion. They had watched her breathe in the tiniest, most shallow of ways, her small chest labouring – but Harper still thought of her as having drowned in the womb. It made more sense, somehow. How could a baby float in fluid for nine months, anyway? When he sat next to the cot in the incubation unit, Francisca clutching his hand and weeping, he remembered his mother’s story of how he had been born during a monsoon in an internment camp in the Dutch East Indies and the rain running down the sides of the hut and the dirt road turning into a brown river and wondered if this story had somehow been there inside him when he thought of his baby daughter as having drowned, as if a story like that could be passed on to his baby, like a genetic disease.

  Francisca had sobbed in his arms at night for weeks afterwards, and said things like, ‘I know you are suffering too but you aren’t able to express it, it’s okay, I understand that.’ He did not tell her that when their tiny baby had died he had thought – in the moments before his own grief and disappointment had taken hold – at least you have been spared life.

  The day started well enough. He had arranged to pick Rita up at two pm and although she had told him to park outside an electrical shop on Monkey Forest Road and wait for her there, he got out of the car and wandered up and down a few paces each way, curious to know which compound was hers. He was standing right outside it when she emerged alongside a young Balinese woman who was holding a pile of textbooks with both arms wrapped beneath.

  ‘You are here,’ she said simply. ‘This is Ni Wayan.’

  He nodded and the young woman nodded back, then she looked at Rita and said, ‘Ibu Rita,’ with a bow and smile, before turning towards town.

  ‘I thought today was a day off,’ he said, as he led Rita to the car. It had pleased him to hear the girl call her ibu with such affectionate emphasis: she was a well-liked teacher, held in affection and regard. He had thought as much.

  ‘Wayan came to me yesterday and asked for an extra lesson. It happens often. That’s why I said after lunch. My days off usually start after lunch.’

  ‘Are you good to all your students?’ He opened the pa
ssenger door for her.

  ‘They are all good to me.’

  As he climbed in his side, she said quietly and seriously, ‘God bless the Balinese.’

  They bumped slowly down Monkey Forest Road and turned right onto the main street. Rita leant forward and opened the car’s glove compartment.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  She pointed at the tape deck between them. He glanced at it and said, ‘I’ll be really surprised if that works.’

  Rita pulled out a handful of tapes, loose with no cases. She lifted a couple in turn then shrieked, ‘Superman Is Dead! Suckerhead? Where did you get this car?’

  Kadek had got the car for him. He had wanted a local vehicle, nothing identifiable as a foreigner’s hire car. ‘What’s Suckerhead?’

  Rita was still looking through the cassettes. ‘Local death metal. Big underground scene here. Even Balinese youth need to rebel sometimes. They rioted in Jakarta when Metallica came, you know.’

  It occurred to him to mention the riots in Jakarta that had recently led to the downfall of the Sustainer of the Universe, which he thought a somewhat more significant event, but it would be hard to discuss the political situation in the capital without it becoming clear that his knowledge of it was a little more detailed than your average economist; although she would know if some of the Chinese families fleeing the capital had come here, she would know what the talk was amongst her students – she could be a useful source of information. Stop it, he said to himself then.

  Once in Sanur, they went straight to the hotel and parked in the car park at the entrance to the gardens and walked down a pretty lane to reception and Rita laughed at his irritation that there was no valet parking. He resisted her attempts to show him round the grounds; they headed straight to the beachside bar.

  Two perfect seats were waiting for them, low and comfy, facing the sea, with a small table between. As they settled into them, Rita leaned forward for the cocktail menu, making a small noise of satisfaction. It was a cloudy day. Down by the water, a row of red, blue and yellow jukung boats were ranged in a row, painted in bright colours, with outrigger legs, raised and bent like spiders, for decorative purposes only, he presumed: the fishing and the coral harvesting on this stretch of beach must have ended many years ago. On a neighbouring terrace, a group of small boys were having their dance practice, the warrior dance – whatever it’s called, nothing to do with battle, these days, he thought.

  Rita lifted a hand. ‘Across the bay, there, you know that’s where they built the Bali Beach Hotel in the sixties, first of many, Western triumph or monstrosity depending on your point of view.’

  I know, he thought, I watched it being built.

  A waiter had materialised at his shoulder and Rita sat upright in her seat, holding the cocktail menu sideways so that he could see.

  ‘Choose for us,’ he said. Before she even spoke, he knew she would order something that included fruit.

  After taking their order up to the bar, the waiter returned with some tiny glass bowls containing toasted biscuits. Rita picked up a bowl and tipped some into her hand. ‘Want some?’

  He shook his head, staring out at the beach where, between them and the fake fishing boats, three young women in bikinis were lying very close together on a large grass mat, like sausages in a pan. Wandering past them was a young white couple in patterned baggy trousers, the man bearded and tall, the woman skinny and short; hand-woven bags slung over their shoulders, bracelets on their wrists. They would not be sunning themselves all day long, nor would they buy cigarettes or alcohol in Duty Free on the way home. They would go home with luggage full of sarongs and woodcarvings. They would learn please and thank you in Indonesian and use them on every possible occasion, whether it was appropriate or not. They would tip as generously as their backpacking budget allowed and they would always, always, behave respectfully in temples.

  But when they got home, the young couple would do exactly what the three young women would do. They would buy houses, cook food, drive cars. The fuel for those cars would come from somewhere and it would come via the pipes built by the sort of company that employed companies like his in order to ensure the safety of their investments and their staff.

  He remembered first arriving on the island, November ’65. It had been a relief to get off Java, the Jakarta job done. At Tuban airport, as it was called back then, he had handed over an extortionate bribe to a man in a suit and sunglasses in order to evade a queue that had built up in front of a group of soldiers whose purpose in questioning passengers disembarking from the domestic flight was unclear.

  The operative doing his handover was waiting for him outside the low building, his car parked at an angle halfway up the kerb. He shook Harper’s hand, said, ‘Welcome to Bali. Call me Abang. You got through quickly.’

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ said Harper, pushing his glasses back up his sweating nose.

  The area around the airport was surrounded by construction in the shimmering heat. No amount of political chaos ever stopped the building works. The new regime would be hoping for international flights as soon as possible, once it had defeated the Red Menace – and he had no doubt it would all flow, flow on the shiny new planes landing on the shiny new runways. First came the massacres, then the arms and the money and the economic advisers, then the runways – then, the tourists.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Abang said. ‘A good start. They should make it some kind of test.’ He meant the Institute.

  ‘Well,’ Harper said, ‘there’s a lot more people trying to get out than in.’ He had passed through a huge crowd of families on their way to Departures.

  They got into the car. He didn’t know much about Abang at that point but later found out he was an Indo like him, mixed-race, an older man who had picked the right side in the war and, unlike Harper and his mother, hadn’t had to flee back to Holland in ’46 – useful to the Institute in the same way he was, for being a bit brown. He was based in Sumatra but had been touring the Eastern Islands to do an advance report while Harper had been doing Jakarta. Although they had never met before, Harper felt an instant affection for him, reciprocated by the invitation to call him Abang: big brother.

  Abang nodded at Harper’s observation as they joined the queue of cars trying to get in or out or go round and round the airport – in the crowd of vehicles, it was hard to tell. The smell of aeroplane fuel mingled with exhaust and cigarette smoke. Everyone had their windows rolled down, their arms hanging out – occasionally, a driver would shout or gesture in a desultory fashion. It was a slow kind of chaos.

  As they sat looking straight ahead, Abang said, ‘It’s going to be just as bad here, you know, it’s on its way. Funny how people know and don’t know.’ He nudged the car forward a couple of feet. ‘You want to go and rest a bit? Do the briefing after?’

  ‘No, let’s get on with it.’

  ‘Okay, good, let’s go and do it with a beer.’

  They drove straight to Sanur. Abang wanted Harper to see the Bali Beach Hotel, under construction for two years now. They had a beer together in a bar opposite the site while he explained how the building of the hotel had caused trouble locally ever since it started. Suteja had given the best contracts to his friends in the PKI, which had led to a lot of resentment. Control of the tourist industry was going to be as hotly contested as control of the rice harvest. ‘The PKI have got it all wrong. They are putting all their effort into land reform for the peasants but the peasants aren’t even grateful and the foreign dollars aren’t going to come for rice, they’re going to come for sand.’ Abang indicated the beach in front of them with an open, palm-upwards gesture.

  Harper thought of the charred corpse he had seen hanging from a tree by the side of the road at a crossroads just before Jakarta airport. The sign around the neck read: Gerwani. ‘You really think anyone is going to want to come here, after what’s going on here hits the news in Europe and America?’

  Abang had given a humourless yelp. ‘Hits
the news? In any case, you’ll find blood sinks into sand really fast.’ He lifted a copy of Suara Indonesia from his bag, folded to the editorial. He tossed it onto the table between them and jabbed a finger.

  Harper looked at the paper and Abang translated the headline of the editorial out loud. ‘Now It Is Clear Who Is Friend and Who Is Foe.’

  He looked at Abang and raised his eyebrows. ‘How long do you think we have?’

  ‘You mean in general, or here?’

  ‘Here.’

  Abang wobbled his head from side to side, a small balancing movement. ‘Two weeks, three at most, maybe less, maybe a lot less.’

  ‘Really?’ Harper had been assuming he had a little more time. What was the point of him coming over from Java to do reports if it was almost underway?

  ‘Rumour has it the Brawijaya Units are due next month.’

  ‘Who’s in command?’ Harper asked.

  ‘Sarwo Edhie.’

  Harper was silent for a moment.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought too,’ Abang said. He lifted his beer bottle to his lips. Harper did the same. He felt something, then, some thrill of fear – had it been a premonition of what was to come? Or was it simply that the adrenaline of witnessing what had happened in Java had drained, just a little, with his arrival on the island, and he was now feeling a shiver of weakness at the thought of the danger that would soon be evident here? He had better get his adrenaline levels back up pretty soon, particularly if Abang moved on and he was the only one reporting back. If they closed the airport it would mean a boat to another island, dangerous enough in itself, or more likely lying low in the hills until things blew over.

  ‘Have they started collecting names?’