On the Java Ridge

by Jock Serong

  ‘Wake up, Madar. Someone coming.’

  Her mother clutched at Roya instinctively and struggled to consciousness, reflexively checking her head-covering.

  The lock tumbled and two men entered: Indonesians, but younger and wearing surf shorts and rubber sandals, T-shirts. Peering through various windows over the long hours, Roya had come to realise that much of the world dressed this way.

  Their faces reminded her of her brother Anwar, though they weren’t smiling like he did. Friend or enemy, she and her mother had no control over who came through the door or what they did. Their best hope lay in remaining quiet and small, a way of being that came hard to her. Among her friends she was strong and confident.

  The men gestured. The people in the room rose wearily to their feet and began to shuffle out.

  Outside the streets were quiet, unhurried in the darkness. The smell of baked concrete and dirty water was still there, but the cooking smells of the previous night were gone. A white van waited by the door, unmarked aside from some torn surfing stickers, the windows blacked out. The driver wore sunglasses, the lights of the city swirling over their big lenses. They were hurried into the back of the van, and found it already contained two other women and a boy who looked slightly older than Roya. By the time all of them had climbed in, there were no seats left and she had to curl onto her mother’s lap, squirming to tuck herself beside the dome of her belly.

  The door slid shut with a bang and the van moved off. New smells: the chemical tang of a car deodoriser. One of the men leaned over the front seat and looked over the group. He spoke to Roya’s mother, repeating a single word as his head jerked about with the gear changes and the bumps. She knew the word from her book.

  ‘Documents, Madar. He is saying “documents”.’

  Her mother dug in her bag and produced their two identity cards with the grainy photographs. Taken by the police chief the first time they’d been arrested. They’d had to hand over their taskera to get them, along with cash. She remembered the Taliban fighter behind the desk, his stained teeth and his pale eyes. His pale, pitiless eyes.

  The man in the front looked at her and grinned, comparing the identity card. ‘Roy…ya Say…ghan.’ He paused, thinking. ‘You,’ he pointed. ‘Nine!’ He counted out nine fingers.

  She nodded and formed a tiny smile to be polite. He studied the card again.

  ‘Herat?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘You Hazara?’

  Another nod. He looked at her mother. ‘Shafiqa. Shah-fee-kah. Okay. Madar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where you bobo?’

  She shrugged. She could say Hezbe-wahdat, but he would not understand. She wasn’t sure she did, really: the Wahdat were her father’s friends, but then some of them weren’t. He’d long since left the Wahdat behind: he worked as an interpreter for the aid people. But she knew something profound had shifted the day she mentioned the Wahdat friends to her father and he scolded her with unusual ferocity, jabbing a finger in her face. They were never to be spoken of again, he warned her. So nobody ever did.

  She could say he was taken in the night, along with Anwar. But she didn’t know if she had the English for it and she was unsure whether she could bring herself to explain anyway. Discussing it was painful, and best avoided.

  That unbearably hot summer night: Roya and her brother shifting on their mats, whispering fragments of conversation into the restless dark. The hammering on the door, her father’s sleepy movements then his polite salaam alaikum in the doorway. The sudden urgency of his voice as he tried to reason with the three men there, awake and fierce. Them coming in despite him, bandits in the robes of authority. Picking up objects and weighing them in their big hands, their greed and disdain. A moment later they were officials, too, reading something formal from a piece of paper while her father protested how ridiculous it was.

  Then time bucked like a horse they’d kicked. Angry words, the crash of a rifle butt. Her father dropped near her feet, bright blood from his nose separating like rivers over his cheek. His cheek, how dare they? She knew it to rub her nose over it.

  They cursed and hauled him out like a sack of meat. Her baba and all his love and stories, his jokes and his calm authority.

  They were shouting at her mother, and she was screaming back at them, unafraid. One of them slapped her. Bas, they roared at her. Bas! The screaming didn’t worry the Talibs: none of the neighbours would be coming to their aid. But Anwar, propped on his elbows on the toshak beside her: he needed to move. He needed to go but he was lying there silently, too afraid to do anything. One of them saw him and leapt onto him: she could hear Anwar whimpering as the man tore down the front of his perahan tunban. He examined Anwar’s chest, found the strands of dark hair that had appeared the previous summer. The Talib roared with delight, slapped him hard across the face.

  ‘No more basket for you, little dog!’

  And so he was marched out, a muzzle pointed into his ribs. Roya’s mother wailed at the closed door and it was over. A burst of violence in the fractured light from the windows and their family had been halved.

  The man in the front seat turned back to face the windscreen. He rummaged on the seat beside him and shoved a cassette into the stereo. Pakistani pop music. Roya thought the man had probably chosen it to put them at ease. She wondered if they would get their identity cards back. The night went past outside: an occasional motorcycle, a dog, a yellow streetlight.

  Then the van was moving out through scatters of older housing. People moving about on their motorcycles, on foot under the bright moon. Roya had a sense, stronger than the day before, of how foreign they were. Or no…the people in this van—Roya, her mother and the rest of them—they were the foreigners. Hazaras might be different among Afghans, but all of them were different here.

  They stopped among containers and nets and crates on a wide concrete apron. Last stop! Last stop! the man in the front was saying. She’d dozed a little and couldn’t tell how long they’d been driving. The man reached in among the bumping hips and lifted her down, then took her mother’s hand as she stepped out. He crouched to bring his eyes level with Roya’s and smiled.

  ‘Be good for you madar.’ His gappy teeth shone under his dark hair. Then he was in the van and gone and Roya realised there were crowds of people hidden by the darkness: women with their children, old people; but mostly men. Men laughing and placing their hands on one another; men standing forlorn and broken by themselves; men in secretive huddles.

  She could pick the Afghans by their clothes and beards; sometimes the drift of a word or two in Dari. She could pick the Hazaras from the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, of course; and, she found, the Pakistanis from the Iraqis. She knew that other people had fled from Herat: from the bombed and charred countryside around it. She hadn’t known that people in other countries were doing likewise, even drifting in the same direction.

  A smell closed in around her, unlike anything she had ever smelled before. Both dirty and clean; something like a food smell but also like the desert sand. She concentrated. The smell was the sea.

  And now she made out the ripple and gleam of the water in the middle distance. It shone where the lights caught it, as it would at home. A puddle under a streetlight or a washing dish in a gloomy courtyard, reflecting the stars. The map in her mind told her they would be companions from now on.

  Afghans were good at waiting, Roya’s father sometimes said. They could queue for a ride on a truck, for a loaf of bread, for some sort of official questioning. They could outlast the sky’s pale stare for a few drops of rain. They’d waited out the Soviets, he’d said, then the mujahideen, then the Talibs and the Americans. Afghans were a patient people, he told her, and they would wait out the Talibs again. But it was the Talibs who lost their patience with him.

  There were police standing around in their grand uniforms, Roya saw. Casually, not because anyone was in trouble, and they were smiling and shaking hands with other men. The police
in Herat wore robes, and they certainly didn’t smile. These police had gold stars and badges and all sorts of decorations on their tight shirts. They looked like American police. Cowboy, she mouthed silently. Sheriff.

  She watched them smoking, turning their backs discreetly to shuffle wads of money. One of the men was older than the others, dressed like a businessman. He laughed like he’d heard a rude joke. Something sparkled among his teeth. He clapped his hands sharply now and everyone turned to face him. He barked some orders and the crowd began to drift towards the edge where the concrete ended abruptly over the water.

  A crush developed near the edge. Roya and Shafiqa found themselves in the centre of it, careless elbows knocking sharply into Roya’s head. Her mother kept her close, arms linked protectively against the shouting and pushing. This only irritated Roya; it should be her protecting her mother, not the other way around. A boy fell and someone stepped on him so that he squealed in pain before his father hauled him up again.

  She’d seen pictures of boats in books, but this—it was so tall! The bow, a dirty timber wall sweeping upwards in a great curve from her right to her left. The cabins were stacked on top of each other like cigar boxes, and atop the front deck a small red and white flag hung motionless in the lazy night air. The Indonesian flag, Roya knew: her English book had a page devoted to the flags of the world—Union Jack, Hammer and Sickle, Maltese Cross—and the one that filled her with such mixed feelings: the mosque, the golden leaves and sacred words. Afghanistan.

  The boat was a thing of wonder: its dark bulk, its subtle movement against the wharf, bumping lightly on the slimy tyres that were slung as fenders. She could feel its enormous weight suspended by the water, an immensely powerful animal testing its leash. Greeny-blue paint, flaking now; dark spills of rust weeping under the metal fittings. A little tired; but perhaps this was the way of all boats. It had been important to people, she thought, but was forgotten now. Forgotten people on a forgotten boat.

  Shafiqa gripped her hand tightly as they approached the edge. One of the men had moved closer, pushing people onto the gangway plank. Roya placed her feet carefully on each of the small steps that had been nailed across for traction, the heads of the nails pressing through the thin soles of her sandals. Cigarette smoke made clouds overhead; voices hurried them.

  Her mother guided her to a space behind the high sides of the boat. Roya sat cross-legged on the deck, feeling the alien swaying for the first time: they were no longer of the land, but now of the sea. A man came past, handing out bright orange jackets with reflectors on them, clips and buckles. Roya sniffed the clumsy object, as she often did with things that aroused her curiosity: plastics and mould, and old diesel like the generator at the library.

  She checked her treasures, the things from which she would never be parted: her father’s ring, heavy and scrolled, tumbling like a snail in the pocket her mother had sewn into her dress; and her English book—a worn copy of the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, between the pages of which she kept the photograph she loved.

  Her mother. The ring. The book and the photograph. Between them she strung the globes of her hope.

  She checked over her mother once more and received a smile in return. Satisfied, she curled up and turned her face back to the orange jacket. A single word had been written across it in heavy black capitals. She rolled the new word around in her mouth several times:

  TAKALAR.

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON

  Indian Ocean, south of Lombok

  The sun splayed through the rum bottle, casting a bar of golden light on Isi’s feet. The stern deck had a tendency to draw in diesel fumes when they were under way, but tonight there was a faint breeze to carry the exhaust away from them, and the only smell in the air was the releasing warmth from the timbers.

  They were heading east, away from the sunset. The guests had crowded up onto the deck above the stern and were cutting limes for their duty-free spirits, talking over each other as they sluiced through the iceboxes for beer. Hands on the stereo, hands gripping the overhead metal frame of the sun canopy, hands in motion telling stories.

  They were hyperactive; first-nighters always were. Clean and pale and brand new, but experience told her they weren’t a tight group. Some groups were bound by lifelong friendships. Some, like the company-sponsored team trips, had a kind of corporate familiarity about them. But this lot were ones and twos, loose acquaintances: a polite distance in their words and movements around each other.

  She leaned against the bulkhead, looking back at the spreading wake. She was the smallest person here, thanks to what her father called the paesano gene: her skin dark by birth and by constant exposure to the tropical sun. Her feet were splayed flat and even darker than her legs, with white margins between her toes. Joel had laughed when he first saw them. Island feet, he’d said.

  Isi waited until the group had settled, drinks in hand. Sanusi had the helm, and would sit there watchfully until she took over at midnight.

  ‘Hi everyone,’ she began. ‘I’m Isi Natoli—I think I’ve met you all now. Joel wishes he could be here but as you’ve heard he’s busy sweating out a dose of malaria. So seeing as I’m Joel’s partner in the business and in, um, life…You’ve got me.’ She flashed a modest smile.

  ‘So, introductory stuff. We’re steaming east from Benoa Harbour and we’ve got a fair voyage ahead, so get yourselves comfortable.’ A wave at the colourful bottles; a couple of the guests waved their drinks back.

  ‘Okay. Welcome aboard the legendary Java Ridge. As you might know, she was built for us by the Bugis people up in Sulawesi, who are boat-builders and sailors from way, way back. They got as far south as the Australian coast on trading runs. The Bugis were also fearsome pirates who liked slashing up the Dutch in the old spice-trading days, which is thought to be where the idea of the Bogeyman came from… Bugis Man, Bogeyman, yeah?’ No response. ‘Anyway, we had her built along traditional lines, so the idea was from the outside she’d look exactly like a traditional fishing vessel, but on the inside—luxury!’

  A little cheer went up. Raised Bintangs again.

  ‘So this type of vessel is called a phinisi, and they go back, as I say, about five hundred years. All timber, very long, stretched bow… the whole boat’s made without computers, without even power tools. It’s a piece of living history.’ And they’d managed to duck a welter of engineering regs by building it up north. Joel and his instinct for the path of least resistance.

  ‘Okay, so we’re travelling east towards Sumba, then Rote and Timor, generally in the direction of PNG, if you know your geography. Now there’s plenty of people who’ve surfed Rote, and there’s plenty who’ve surfed Sumba—that’s where Occy’s Left is, if you’ve ever seen Green Iguana…’ Appreciative hoots and chuckles. They always loved it when Joel dropped the Green Iguana reference. ‘But we’re not taking you there.’ Mock booing. ‘We’re going somewhere a little bit wilder and you’ll be able to tell anyone you’ve surfed a place they haven’t. It’s an island called Raijua, between Sumba and Rote, and believe me, there’s something there for everyone.’

  She knew how the chorus would go and it went exactly that way. Yew! Sick! Yeaah! Sometimes, but not very often, the sameness of this culture wearied her.

  ‘It’s about four hundred nautical miles out of Bali, so it’s going to take us forty hours or more, depending on conditions.’ They groaned collectively, as anticipated. ‘Now there’s a few rules to observe while we’re motoring across. Have a few beers by all means, but be conscious that you’re on a fast-moving boat on the open sea. Be careful around the ladders and if you take a piss over the side’—she felt their eyes on her when she said piss. A tiny encroachment—‘be very careful to hang on. Remember, one hand for you, one for the boat. If we don’t know you’ve gone over we might never find you out there. Okay, what else? Beers in the iceboxes—we’ll keep topping them up as fast as you can drink them, but please write down what you take on the clipboard. You’re going to eat really
well, but if you want to troll a lure and catch us a fish, the boys’ll love you for it.’

  She nodded towards the two Indonesians lounging behind her against the cabin wall. Grins and finger-waves. Sanusi had politely turned up for the briefing, leaving the Java Ridge on autopilot. Isi’s confidence rested heavily on Radja and Sanusi. They knew the cycles of a surf trip: the build-up of first-night anticipation, the routines of the days to come, periodic elation and the gradual onset of exhaustion and injuries. Their mood, as steady as the diesels below, would never waver.

  ‘They’re Batak people, from northern Sumatra—a long way from home just like you guys, so be nice to them. Radja will be looking after the Zodiac—it’s on the crane up the back there. When he’s taking you out to the lineup, please don’t jump out until he gives you the nod. You can wave to him from the water and he’ll bring you sunscreen or wax or whatever. Beer, if you can signal that.’ More cheers. ‘So Radja’s your chef, and he’s a good guy to know. He’ll even whip you up something in the middle of the night if you’re on a session.’

  ‘Bagus,’ offered Radja with an easy smile.

  ‘Sanusi there is our engineer. He can operate anything on this entire vessel and he can fix your boards better than they do back home. Don’t, whatever you do, mix these two up and ask Sanusi to cook you something. He’s fucking terrible.’ Again the minor ripples through the group, a smirk here and there. The spiel played differently for her than it did for Joel.

  ‘There’s snorkelling stuff, so go for a swim if you’re bored with barrels. These reefs are live coral, so they’re worth a look. Stand-up paddleboard…’ It was hung neatly under the awning where they were gathered. She knocked on its deck. ‘Help yourself to that. It’s airconditioned down below, and if you notice the aircon’s on during the day, please close the hatch behind you. There’s gases and other flammables on board, so—have we got any smokers?’ The heavy, red-haired one who’d introduced himself as Fraggle raised his hand and realised he was the only one. He’d turned up with Pelican cases, said he was a photographer. He also looked the most easygoing of them.