The Road Back

by Di Morrissey

  The higher we got, the more spectacular the scenery became. Eventually we reached the steep approach to the lake and the car drove along the thickly forested ridge of the ancient volcano until we finally rattled into the courtyard of the Parapat Hotel.

  The hotel was an old Dutch place still showing bits of fading colonial glory. Painted scenes of Lake Toba and murals of stylised wayang kulit puppets adorned the walls. Batik cushions sat on heavy leather lounges and dusty plastic flower arrangements decorated the cavernous lobby. Jimmy checked in for both of us, but I felt embarrassed when I handed over my passport, revealing we were not married.

  We were given a warm, overly sweet juice to drink before being shown to our room. As we stepped outside the reception area I caught my breath. Below us stretched a huge aquamarine lake, surrounded and almost hidden by steep forested hills. The water glittered in the afternoon sun like a polished jewel. I’d never seen anything so beautiful and I was speechless.

  There was a giant brass gong at the top of a flight of stone steps which Jimmy told me was to summon us to meals. The steps led down to the gardens below. As we followed a young boy in his batik sarong and batik peci, I couldn’t help wondering where the other guests were.

  I was excited to find that our room was actually one of the small bungalows scattered around the lake’s edge. They had been built as traditional batak-style houses with twin peaked roofs and rattan shutters. Our bungalow was comprised of one large room containing a bed that faced the window with a magnificent view of the lake and, joy of joys, a western-style bathroom. On a tiny porch, a table and chairs also faced the lake and on the table was a printed menu anchored by a heavy glass ashtray.

  ‘Do you bring food and drinks down here?’ I asked the young man who had brought down our luggage. He nodded and pointed to the menu and asked if we wanted to order krupuk and beer. We did, though Jimmy had his doubts about how cold the beer might be.

  ‘We should celebrate. This place is spectacular,’ I said.

  That evening I put on a batik print dress a tailor in Bogor had made me and we headed up to the top terrace to have a drink and watch the sunset. Apart from us, the hotel still seemed deserted, so Jimmy suggested we take a betjak into Parapat.

  The little town of Parapat was almost as quiet as the hotel. Families seemed to have retreated into their houses, although in the watery glow of a few sagging streetlights we could see several young men loitering about.

  There were few restaurants to choose from, some local stalls and hawkers, a small place called the Satay Shack and a larger place simply called Rumah Makan, the eating house, or restaurant, which we decided looked the best.

  The town was certainly a sleepy place and off the beaten track. I felt I was far away from the rest of the world. As though he had read my thoughts, Jimmy mused, ‘I wonder what this area will be like in, say, twenty years’ time. Will it be packed with tourists, or entirely forgotten?’

  We sat in the small, walled garden of the restaurant, which contained four tables and a splashing fountain, but the flying insects quickly drove us inside under the rattling fans. We ordered frogs’ legs, which had become one of our favourites, and several spicy side dishes, and drank the local beer in preference to the sweet fruit juices that were on offer. The meal was surprisingly tasty, but afterwards, since there seemed to be little to do in Parapat at night, we decided to find a betjak and return to the hotel.

  We sat in the neglected bar of the hotel and Jimmy ordered a gin and tonic while I had the barman make me a lime and soda.

  ‘This is so refreshing. It’s become my favourite,’ I said.

  After we finished our drinks, we prowled through the foyer, past a sitting room designated ‘Ladies Only’, and peered into a shop filled with dusty souvenirs. Hanging on the walls were sepia photographs of the hotel guests taken about forty years before.

  ‘This was a favourite place of the Dutch planters. Doesn’t seem to have changed much!’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Look, President Sukarno was here with his wife Dewi. How exquisite she is!’ I pointed out a photo.

  ‘He likes marrying pretty women; Muslim men are allowed more than one wife.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like that!’

  ‘You wouldn’t get a choice,’ said Jimmy with a smile.

  Taking me behind a pillar, he kissed me, took my hand and we walked quietly down the steps to our bungalow beside the now silver lake, awash in moonlight.

  *

  As the sunrise gently melted through the shutters in golden lines which spread across the sheets and the whitewashed walls, we lay enfolded together until Jimmy jumped up and flung open the shutters and from our bed we watched the lake awaken. Eventually, hunger pangs drove us from the bed and we ordered breakfast. We sat outside and waited for an age for it to be delivered.

  ‘Susan, I’m sorry. This place doesn’t seem to be very efficient. Do you want me to chase it up?’ said Jimmy, agitated.

  I wasn’t concerned. ‘No, it’s all right. I’d never get tired of this view. It’s such a mysterious lake. Could your friend take us out on the water?’ I asked.

  ‘We can ask. Suhaimi’s bringing around a motor scooter for us to use. If you’re brave enough, we can zip around and do some sightseeing.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘We could have a swim in the lake if you like, but the water can be chilly. Refreshing, though. There’re lots of places Suhaimi knows, old stone tombs and burial sites that are hundreds of years old, and there’re a couple of local artists who are good and some women weave cloth particular to this area that you might like to see.’

  ‘I could buy something if it’s not too expensive. I haven’t got much money after paying that airfare, not that I’m complaining. I would not have missed this for anything. I’ll ask Suhaimi to bargain for me.’ I sighed as I gazed again at the beautiful view. ‘I like the idea of a painting of the lake. I could roll it up and pack it. This is such a different place; I feel as though time has stopped.’

  ‘Well, it is special. There was a super volcanic eruption seventy something thousand years ago which left a crater a hundred miles long. Lake Toba is the remains of that crater. Look, I’m getting crabby without coffee. Maybe I should bang the gong outside our door and see what happens,’ said Jimmy.

  But before he could do that, we saw two boys approaching with large trays and they proceeded carefully to set out our breakfast at a leisurely pace until Jimmy, frustrated and coffee-less, snapped at them in Bahasa and said we’d manage it ourselves.

  I had to laugh at the meal. The hotel had attempted an English breakfast. The eggs were stone cold, as was the toast, and Jimmy wondered if they’d cooked it the night before. But the coffee was in a thermos jug and still hot. So we ate the cold toast and eggs and decided to have a slap-up Indonesian lunch later on.

  While Jimmy finished his coffee and sat with a cigarette, I headed to the bathroom. It was basically a large cement box with a shower head and a gap of eight inches or so under the roof so the steam could get out. The water was barely warm, but it was refreshing. I had my eyes closed as I was washing my hair, when I suddenly felt something touching the back of my head. I immediately thought it was a large frog or, worse still, a snake, and spun around. I shook my head, trying to get rid of whatever it was. In a swift movement a sinewy arm pulled away from my head and I saw a face staring at me through the gap under the roof. I screamed and the man dropped from sight before Jimmy got to the bathroom.

  ‘What is it? Are you okay?’

  I started to sob and shake, and pointing towards the roof I managed to say, ‘A man, there was a man looking at me. He tried to grab me, he touched my hair . . .’

  Before I had even finished telling Jimmy what had happened, he was already out the door, although by the time he was around the back of the bungalow all he could see was a figure disappearing through the gardens. One of t
he staff, who had heard Jimmy’s shouts, took up the chase.

  I was trembling as I dressed. The invasion of privacy, of my personal space, the feeling of being threatened, had rocked me profoundly. Jimmy held me and calmed me. He poured me another cup of coffee and sat quietly, trying to let the peaceful surroundings act as balm to my shaken spirit.

  A man from reception appeared at our bungalow and had a conversation with Jimmy in a lowered voice.

  After he left, Jimmy said, ‘The hotel manager wants to see us. I think he wants to give us an apology.’

  ‘You go. I don’t want to be reminded of what happened. I’d rather just forget it,’ I said.

  ‘No. That’s not the Indonesian way, you know that. Honour must be addressed and faces saved. Besides, news of this episode might be bad for business. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll handle things. You won’t have to say a word.’

  ‘You won’t leave me?’

  ‘Of course not. Come on, let’s get it over with, then we can meet Suhaimi and go touring and maybe do some shopping.’

  To our surprise, when we reached the hotel lobby we were greeted not only by the manager, a plump man who looked more nervous than apologetic, but by a number of the staff, who clustered around, staring at us and making me feel even more uncomfortable. However, instead of apologising, the manager took us to his car and got in beside the driver, while we were ushered into the back seat.

  ‘Where are we going? What is all this about?’ I asked Jimmy.

  ‘He says we’re going to the local police station. Maybe they want a description or something.’

  ‘Oh, no. This is awful. I couldn’t give a definite description, it all happened so quickly!’

  My legs were shaking when we arrived at the police station, a grim-looking cement building. The manager, Jimmy and I were then shown into the office of the Chief of Police.

  He was a middle-aged man who greeted us warmly. Indeed, he looked extremely happy to see us, which surprised me. He rubbed his hands and addressed Jimmy, referring to me as his wife, and announced that they had found the culprit. Suddenly, a side door opened and a policeman entered, dragging with him a frightened young man who had his hands tied behind his back.

  ‘Here is the man,’ said the police chief, and whipped out his hand to force the fellow to look up so I could see his face. I didn’t know if I was supposed to identify him, but to be truthful I couldn’t be sure if it was the peeping tom. Then, to my horror, the police chief picked up a nightstick from his desk and began to hit the young man about the head and shoulders and shout curses at him.

  Jimmy made a move to protest as I screamed, ‘Stop it! Please, stop beating him!’

  The young man was now bleeding profusely from what I guessed was a broken nose. Then he groaned and sagged to his knees. Angrily, Jimmy turned to the hotel manager and asked if the boy was an employee at the hotel.

  The manager shrugged and shook his head. ‘I do not know every person who works at my hotel.’

  ‘I’m not sure this is the man. Please, stop it!’ I pleaded.

  Jimmy put his arm around me and I pushed my face into his shoulder and began to cry.

  ‘Please, stop this immediately. Take the boy away,’ protested Jimmy.

  I heard a few more whacks and groans and then the sound of the boy being dragged away. I looked up and saw the Chief of Police shaking the hand of the hotel manager before extending it to us.

  ‘Are you satisfied that your intruder has been punished?’ he asked.

  But Jimmy simply turned to the hotel manager and asked him to bring his car around, before firmly ushering me out of the horrible little office and away from the brutal police chief.

  My mind swirled. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. ‘I don’t want to go back to the hotel yet,’ I said trembling as we stepped outside. ‘Let’s just walk around somewhere.’

  Jimmy told the hotel manager that we would find our own way back to the hotel and the two of us linked arms and walked around the little town until we found a stall selling kopi susu, the strong local coffee sweetened with condensed milk. We sipped the coffee and Jimmy lit a cigarette. He didn’t smoke much but I could tell he needed one now.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit shaky still. The police chief upset me just as much as the peeping tom. And I’m not sure that was the right fellow, I had such a fleeting look.’

  ‘I don’t think they care all that much if he was. This was a face-saving exercise, so anyone vaguely matching your description served their purpose. It made it look as though the authorities were taking action.’

  ‘It was the brutality that got to me. Scary.’

  ‘Yes, Indonesian justice is very arbitrary.’

  ‘It’s all so horrible,’ I said with a shudder.

  Jimmy nodded. ‘Let’s not talk about it. It’s too upsetting. Hey, look who’s here . . .’ Jimmy jumped up and raced down the street to where Suhaimi had stopped on his scooter.

  We told Suhaimi what had happened and he didn’t seem at all surprised by the quick response of the police. As far as he was concerned, I had made a complaint and it had been dealt with swiftly. As if to assure me that it really was over, he then put me on the back of his scooter and ferried me down a street to a small art shop before heading back to fetch Jimmy.

  By the time the two of them joined me, I had found a wonderful oil painting of Lake Toba in the moonlight. Suhaimi and Jimmy laughingly bargained with the owner and for a reasonable price the painting was taken from its frame and rolled up for me. We spent the rest of that day on Suhaimi’s motor scooter, enjoying the lake and boating on its crystal water.

  In spite of the incident with the intruder, the trip was a wonderful interlude. When I got back and went out with the boys and Norma, I tried to explain how magical Lake Toba was, but they were far more intrigued by the story of the peeping tom. Norma was horrified and declared she was going to be much more careful about personal privacy from then on.

  A couple of days later, I quietly admitted to David that the episode had removed some of the scales from my eyes.

  ‘I’ve lost some of my innocence about Indonesia. While people are warm and friendly to us, I guess we’ve been somewhat cosseted. Now I feel that I have to look over my shoulder and that I can’t trust some people, and I hate that feeling.’

  David nodded understandingly. ‘I think you are just being realistic. This isn’t our country, so of course things are different, and if the incident at Lake Toba has made you more cautious then that’s a good thing.’

  ‘The expectations people have in Indonesia are quite different from those at home, and I suppose I have been a bit naïve to expect them to be the same. I’ll just have to be a bit more careful, won’t I?’

  ‘That’s the right attitude, and I’m sure nothing so unpleasant will happen to you again,’ said David. He was kind and he made me feel better.

  Jimmy was back in Jakarta and we were busy in Bogor. I had shown Norma my Lake Toba painting and she thought it looked too beautiful to be a real place.

  ‘You know, I haven’t bought any souvenirs since I’ve been here. I think it would be nice to go home with something to remember this place by, although, in all honesty, we are hardly likely to forget it. Next time you go to the big markets I might tag along, if you don’t mind,’ she said.

  So the following week, Norma, Mark and I headed to the popular evening pasar. In those markets you could buy just about anything you could think of, from food and household goods to live animals, clothes, jewellery, gold and local artefacts. Mark headed in one direction and Norma and I went to the fabric section to look at the batiks. It was rather overwhelming to see so many varieties of beautiful batik all in one place. The predominant colours there were brown and indigo, and they had been made in the traditional way with the designs either hand-drawn with wax pens or appli
ed with delicate copper stamps which were dipped in wax and imprinted on the fabric before the whole cloth was dyed.

  Norma picked through the lengths of material on display, as well as the neatly folded sarongs. ‘I think I prefer these older fabrics which have faded. The colours are muted and the fabric softer,’ said Norma. ‘Did you know that different parts of the country favour different patterns and they all have interesting meanings? The designs might tell a story or indicate royal rank so that only certain people can wear them.’

  I looked at her in astonishment. Norma had previously shown little interest in Indonesian culture.

  ‘You could write books about batik, you know,’ she said. Then she gave a little laugh. ‘I’ve been talking to Evan. He knows a lot about it,’ she added.

  Norma picked up a rusty-looking copper stamp that had been used to make batik designs. ‘Look, it’s in the shape of a stylised lotus. See, the thin copper outline is a bit broken in places so they don’t use it any more. And it’s old. I think this would be worth buying. It would make an unusual gift.’

  ‘What a great idea. There’s another one over there. Let’s get them.’

  Pleased with our purchases, we headed down an aisle towards the Chinese gold shops, which were just little stalls consisting of a small display case with drawers beneath. We spotted Mark, as he was so tall, and we were just about to catch up when we were distracted by some laughter and loud voices. Then we saw several young men, as well as a large older man, all wearing colourful shirts, pushing their way through the narrow aisles of the marketplace. They shoved past people who didn’t quickly leap out of their way. They stopped in front of a gold stall. The owner, a Chinese man in a singlet and sarong, clearly knew who they were. Ignoring their bluster and performance, which was evidently for the benefit of the crowd, he reached into his money drawer and pulled out an envelope which he pushed across the counter. The older man grabbed the envelope and shook it in the shopkeeper’s face.