13 January
It seems I underestimated the power of a damn good insult. She must have broken down and shown him the message because he is on the phone, screaming with rage.
Where are you, Vic? I want to strike you now!
Why don’t you come over and try to touch me? I’ll have the street security carry you off like an ant!
Alright, Vic, if you come to my area ever again my brothers will beat you!
I’m trying to think of the worst thing I can say to a Muslim.
You pig-faced dog! Are you crazy? Why would I come and walk around in your shitty street!?
We do bit more screaming at each other until one of us hangs up.
He’ll be all worked up into kicking a wall, I think with satisfaction. I hope he breaks his damn foot!
16 January
The last two days before leaving have been maddeningly slow. I had things to tie up, so I took a few trips to various places in the suburb I was living in. I was happy to walk, rather than negotiate with any person in broken Indonesian or English. A young man followed me on a motorbike and gestured to me to get on. I shook my head and said ‘no’ but he followed me to the bank anyway. When I came back out of the building he was still waiting there.
No I said. No thank you. In English and Bahasa.
But he followed me back to my house at a couple of lengths behind, looking hopeful and speeding up every time I looked around. He was there again twenty minutes later when I emerged to go to the restaurant. This time I said ‘no’ and looked him right in the eye and held my hand straight out like a stop sign. He scratched his head and then drove up closer and after a moment’s consideration beeped his horn in my face. The short high screech pierced straight through my eardrums and mentally I curled up into a ball and clenched my fists. The street turned quiet and I looked at him for a second before erupting into white rage.
You motherfucking … Get out of my … you goddanmed … get the … I’m gonna … You wouldn’t …
I couldn’t stop. He scooted across the street in dismay to his friends who were doubled up laughing and screeching like parrots. I walked on to the restaurant and returned home glaring all the way and holding onto my plastic bag of soup.
At four o’clock this morning, on the way to the airport, I sent a text message to Fajar and he actually called back.
Come and say good bye, I asked him. But he refused.
Just forget about me, his voice was hoarse. I am a bad man, Vic. Just forget about me.
When I got on the plane, I thought about what the beautiful Hollywood movie star that I am not might do at this point in time. She would take her seat and gaze tearfully out the window, only to see her crazed lover, wearing a crushed suit and with tousled hair and a five o’clock shadow, sprinting along the runway, trying to stop the plane from taking off. Or she might fasten her seatbelt with a depressing, final click and then a deep, familiar voice would interrupt her reverie with:
Excuse me. Is this seat taken?
Instead, nothing happened. A rush of loneliness came slicing at me as I watched people packing their bags and boxes away and strapping in. I tried not to correct the airline steward’s English in my head as we started moving slowly and then faster and faster, and finally the ground dropped away. We rose like a glorious phoenix out of the brown stink, leaving all those little people on the ground to their battle against the twin brother jinn of corruption and poverty. For a moment I could almost see them reclining in the clouds, clad in rose-pink pantaloons with silver daggers at their belts, calling to each other in big, deep voices that rolled like thunder across the sky.
Footnotes
Chapter 2
1 balap = illegal street racing
2 biji = balls/testicles, slang
3 telinga = ears
Chapter 3
1 Proverb. Loosely, ‘throwing a stone but hiding the hand’ – passing the blame onto someone or something else
2 warung = stall
3 kretek = clove cigarettes
Chapter 4
1 bule = white foreigner, slang
2 sayang = darling
Chapter 5
1 Ibu = mother
Chapter 6
1 perek = slut
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Alison Georgeson, for her expertise and encouragement and numerous late-night readings in the early days of this novella; and editor Rachel Faulkner for discovering Ramadan Sky and providing such professional guidance and support and for being a delightful person to work with. Thanks to JD Revene, Leelah Saatchi, Andrew Stevens, and the many others at authonomy who supported this work in its early days. To Cathy Renkin for always being there and Vimala Colless for holding out a candle in the dark these last months, and, of course, my sister, Helen Ryan, to whom this work is dedicated.
About Authonomy
Authonomy is an online community of authors, readers and publishers, conceived and developed by editors at HarperCollins. It was launched to provide unpublished authors with a platform to showcase the work. Authonomy is also dedicated to seeking out and publishing the very best new writing talent. To find other exciting new books or to join our brilliant community, visit www.authonomy.com.
Copyright
authonomy
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First published in Great Britain by The Friday Project in 2013
Copyright © Nichola Hunter 2013
Nichola Hunter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © September 2013 ISBN: 9780007540778
Version 2013-09-07
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