The Lost Forest

by John Francis Kinsella

  Chapter 45

  PIERRE FINDS A FRIEND

  Xinxin lived for kicks. She kept company with a strange mixture of high livers in Jakarta, for whom only the present mattered. On occasions, she was know to frequent certain less savoury personalities in the political world and did not disdain the company of known members of the local Chinese underworld.

  Pierre had discovered her in a not very recommendable night club, the Hotman, an unlikely name but that was what it was called. At the Hotman there could be found rig jockeys from the oil platforms in the Java Sea, diplomatic staff from certain embassies including a well know Commercial Counsellor who would prefer not to be named.

  He vaguely remembered being seated at the bar, where he must have been the most sober of the crowd that evening. The taxi driver had deposited outside of the club and quickly disappeared before Pierre could change his mind. As he did not want to linger on the kerb side with the tension that reigned in the city he made his way into the noisy, smoke filled club finding an empty seat at the bar. He ordered a beer from one of the girls who lent over towards him giving him a dazzling smile and a full view of her plunging neckline. As he looked around he felt distinctly out of place as the music throbbed and the strobe lights flashed. He looked more than a little lost, it was not altogether surprising for an anthropologist in his early fifties, and still sober, but it was probably why Xinxin had singled him out.

  A Chinese from Singapore, she had unusually striking good looks. Her family was said to be big in tropical timber and furniture manufacturing. Xinxin preferred the freedom of a more exotic life in Jakarta, rejecting the intolerant prudish environment of her family in Singapore, getting her kicks from coke and men who shared her tastes for adventure on the seedier side of life amongst the irreverent crowd that flowed in and out of Jakarta.

  Later that evening Pierre, through a beery haze, imagined that she resembled one of those Chinese Communist posters showing a heroine of the Red Army, strong, proud, defiant with her long black hair in the wind, though there was little that could be described as revolutionary at the Hotman at two in the morning.

  Pierre should have been in bed long ago, but he was drawn like a moth to the flame. Xinxin was not tall, which suited Pierre who was fairly short, he found her attractive in way he could not describe and as for Xinxin, she was by her very nature was attracted to unattainable kind of man.

  Inevitably, for her she returned to his hotel suite, and on the contrary for Pierre it was an event just as extraordinary as his finding a hominid fossil. They sat on his bed smoking and drinking as they talked into the night, she told him that she knew Aris, which he did not find altogether surprising. What was more interesting for Pierre was that she talked of the first secretary at the embassy, whom she said she knew well, and was clearly not exaggerating.

  Pierre was not sure that he was in his best form that night, considering the amount of alcohol he had consumed, but Xinxin was determined to show him what she could do, show him what attracted powerful men in high places to her. It was a gasping experience, especially for Pierre, who had thought until that moment that he was past that kind of thing.

  The next evening, she called and asked him to take her to dinner, a Mexican restaurant, conveniently not far from the hotel, the only Mexican restaurant in Jakarta. Though Tequila was exotic and not to the taste of majority of its Indonesian patrons, they liked the tortillas and red peppers.

  The moment the couple entered the restaurant, Pierre realised that he was with her; it was very definitely not the other way around. She wore a canary yellow Japanese designer dress, bought in Singapore, with pastel green shoes and a matching handbag. The shoes were high and she looked stunning, the waiters greeted her as did some of the restaurants clients; she waved towards a couple of girl friends seated at a corner table. Pierre felt uncomfortable as he made an effort to appear as nonchalant as possible; he was not used to the role of playboy.

  ‘Tell me about your work Pierre,’ she said stroking his cheek with a long crimson fingernail as the waiter placed their drinks on the table.

  Pierre was surprised; he had gotten used to hearing that question, but from a girl like Xinxin.

  ‘What can I tell you Xinxin?’ he said.

  ‘You told me you were working in Pontianak.’

  ‘Did I!’ he said uncomfortably, glancing around at the nearby tables. ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I have some friends there. There’s an American. Maybe you know him.”

  Pierre shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘He’s called Garry Lawford.’

  The name meant nothing to Pierre.

  After dinner Xinxin insisted in going to dance at the Cockpit, a discotheque on Jalan Thamrin, they returned to his room at about one where Pierre was treating to another of her experiences.

  Xinxin then disappeared for a few days saying that she business to attend to. Pierre hung around the hotel, it was too dangerous in the streets patrolled by the military or to go attempt trying to reach the airport, Aris had advised him to be patient and enjoy the comfort of the hotel. Then late on the Friday afternoon Xinxin called Pierre. She said she would meet him in his room.

  ‘Hi! How are you Pierre?’

  ‘Very well, you’re looking good,’ he said complementing her outfit as the waft of her perfume excited him. She dressed a little flashy; she liked to attract attention, catching men’s eyes.

  He offered her a drink and she helped herself to a Seven-up sitting down on the couch, her skirt riding up to show her thighs.

  ‘So what’s new!’ he said trying to concentrate on her reply.

  ‘I met General Hartarto,’ Xinxin replied with a nonchalant look.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘He’s head of the army in Pontianak,’ she looked into her glass.

  ‘Is he?’ said Pierre feeling a surge of annoyance.

  ‘He told me what you’re doing there,’ she said slyly.

  ‘Oh, and what am I doing there?’

  ‘Looking for gold,’ she said sipping the Seven-up.

  Pierre doubled over laughing.

  ‘He was pulling your leg. What else did he say?’

  She stood up and walked over to him and slipped her hand over his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Nothing.’