I spoke with Tina, my friend's sister, for a little while. She began to fill me in on routine in the palace.
"When will I meet Prince Jefri?" I asked.
"You may never meet him," Tina said.
"Doesn't he come to the party?" I asked.
"Sure. Every night," she smiled, and went off to talk to another girl.
The friends, customarily, would arrive around half an hour before the Prince himself. I was there for around twenty minutes before Prince Jefri made an appearance.
He came down the stairs with his fourth wife, whose name I never quite got. She carried one of his children, and stayed well behind him; he had a whole entourage, including his eldest son, Prince Akmed, and his younger son, Prince Dash. As I write this, it should be known that Prince Jefri now has something like eighteen children. He is still married to three wives, though divorced one, married another, and divorced again.
I thought the Prince and his people would join us directly in the bar and dance area.
I was wrong.
Per custom, the Prince sat on the stairs, and remained fairly still. He never entered the party room. I thought this was very, very bizarre. Prince Jefri was around forty one years old, nice looking, in an Asian-Indian way, with a small goatee. I sought out Tina and asked her why he refused to enter the room.
"Respect to his wife," she said.
We could always tell in succeeding nights when the Prince was arriving; the little maids would dash off to the kitchen and find golden champagne glasses. They always appeared a little nervous when they were about to serve him.
I was fascinated, and tried to get a better look at the Prince. But he was positioned just far enough away from the party room where any expression was fairly inscrutable. I could determine to some degree that he was handsome, not heavy of build, and around forty years old.
The Prince had a fast and hard rule. He would stay only a half hour. Mainly, I suspect, out of respect to his friends. I assumed that because he was married (four times from my understanding) that he had no interest in any of the girls. But I was mistaken in this conclusion, as I'll get to later.
Singing Karaoke was a nightly ritual for the girls. This was the entertainment part of our contract for Prince Jefri's friends. I sang that first night; I guess I must have been fairly entertaining because all of the Prince's friends laughed and applauded. The song I sang was "Material Girl," by Madonna. Later, I would become "famous" for my rendition of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."
I still felt this was a very bizarre atmosphere. Prince Jefri rose to leave after Kayla and I sung Karaoke and Mr. Jan joined him and a few of his friends. It was around two a.m.
The party continued for another hour. We listened to the D.J. perform, and the last half hour was devoted to disco dancing. The girls all danced with one another. The prince's friends were long gone at this point. My last dance was with Sue, the beautiful drug-addict model, whose focus always seemed to shift to my bust-line. I learned later that Sue was a die-hard lesbian, tired of men, but she was not averse to having sex with them now and then if she was drunk enough – or if the price was right. I liked Sue, but she was as tough as nails.
The lights abruptly came on, a sign that the party had ended.
We walked back to our respective houses.
No one approached me, nor any of the girls that night, for sex.
We were not ushered off to a cushioned bedroom, forced to lie naked, awaiting our masters, prepared to "serve" if necessary.
That first night was pretty uneventful.
I was jet lagged, so I fell asleep immediately. But I remember my first dream that night in Brunei.
It was of George, standing opposite Prince Jefri – aka Robin - holding a pitchfork and wearing fangs.
An Ugly American
By way of George...
There's roughly a sixteen hour difference in time between Brunei and Los Angeles. It was 6 a.m. in Los Angeles at about the time Aphrodite landed in Brunei. I was, for reasons already expressed, very restless and couldn't sleep a wink. I had decided earlier the previous day to educate myself somewhat on Brunei. I went out and bought some travel guides on the country, in addition to some reference books on Brunei history and culture.
The Sultanate, I learned, was around 500 years old. And Brunei, by all sources, was supposed to be a tropical paradise. One of the textbooks read thus: Hospitable people, unspoiled jungle, and the curious marriage of oil, Islam, and Western materialism make Brunei one of the more unique destinations in Southeast Asia.
In truth, I learned Brunei actually has a strange, almost tragic history. When Magellan's ships landed there in 1521, Spanish Conquistadors (the same folks who happily pillaged and murdered the Aztec people in or around the same time) found a rich and powerful Islamic sultanate, which controlled most of Borneo and the trading routes from Indonesia to Manila. Brunei had two rulers then: Sultan Bolkiah and Sultan Hassan, collectively referred to as the Sultanate. They both held sway over empires that rivaled any power in Southeast Asia.
But the following centuries turned a bit sour; Brunei's influence diffused among hereditary chieftains, the Pengirans, and these folks resorted to piracy and sold large tracts of Borneo to foreign nationals. By the early 1800s, Brunei was crippled by corrupt sultans who lived off taxes and slave auctions. It was also plagued by roving bands of pirates who took great delight in murdering and robbing shipping merchants and upriver villages.
Into this nasty situation sailed an English adventurer named James Brooke. Brooke proceeded to beat the living hell out of any pirate that dared sail in Brunei waters, and as a reward for these campaigns, he forced the weakened Sultanate to disgorge vast areas of Borneo for English interests. As a result, the sultanate eventually went bankrupt. It could no longer rely on taxes, piracy and revenue from slave auctions. The good old days of totalitarian terrorism were over. Long live the King of England. By the time the sultanate appealed to Britain for protection in 1888, the once-powerful empire was little more than a maggoty little trading post parked on equatorial swampland.
Political change followed with the discovery of oil in 1929. During the postwar decolonialization period, the British urged Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin to try something wacky: make Brunei a democracy. Although Omar (to his credit) was intrigued with the concept, he declined the idea after a brief experiment with parliamentary elections in 1962. You see, Omar had allowed free and open elections based on a 1959 constitution, but after 54 of 55 seats were won by the opposition Brunei People's Party (reputedly an anti-monarchist and pro-Indonesia coalition) Omar suspended the constitution and refused to seat the winners!
Obviously, Omar didn't take kindly to losing, and be damned to rules of fair play and free election. The resulting civil rebellion was crushed by British Gurkha troops from Singapore who imprisoned or deported about 300 political dissidents. The monarchy was saved. But democracy took a nose-dive, crashed and burned. It's been like that ever since in Brunei.
Old Omar died in 1987, abdicating his throne to his son, the current Sultan, Hassanai Bolkiah. Hassanai (Haji) was a bit of a rebel. He married his second wife, Mariam (a former hostess with Royal Brunei Airlines) and granted her status equal to his first wife, Raja Isteri Saleha (by Muslim law, a man is permitted up to four wives). Haji went through with this marriage while his dad, Omar, was still alive and it pissed the old man off greatly. But there was little Omar could do about it – Haji was the new Sultan, inheriting a kingdom which successfully became independent from British rule in 1984.
I laughed when I found the next titillating fact:
In 1987, it was revealed during the Iran-Contra hearings that Haji had contributed ten million dollars to the Contras. It was later revealed that the money was returned to the sultan after Oliver North mixed up the digits and deposited the funds in the wrong Swiss bank account!
The world is a crazy place. Go figure.
***
I read on, the Ugly American torturing himse
lf with new facts on the country which was about to hold my future wife in its vice-like grip.
To be fair to Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29th ruler of the dynasty, he has proved to be a surprisingly progressive ruler. He was educated at the Sandhurst Royal Military Academy in England, and his exposure to Western politics and cultural mores may have colored his techniques for governing his country. Whatever, he's made some remarkable changes in government, some of which might have Daddy Omar and a string of prior sultans twisting in the Afterlife.
One of the changes was splitting up ministerial positions and forming a cabinet no longer dominated by the Royal Family. As a result, Brunei now more closely resembles a modern parliamentary state, though nowhere near the same as, say, the English parliament; it's still rather unclear how much real power is shared between the Sultan and his cabinet. Blatant criticism still isn't tolerated, and the government is quick to stomp on political parties who oppose the Sultan's absolutism or demand open elections.
Another taboo subject, of course, was the personal wealth of the Sultan. According to Forbes and the Guinness Book of World Records, he was, in 1996, the richest man on Earth at roughly $35 billion.
He lived in the largest palace on Earth: 1,788 rooms, located on the Limbang River. It also served as residence to his extended family of 30 people, including his two wives, six daughters, three sons, three brothers, numerous cousins - princes and princesses all – and their families.
And what of the girls who are invited there for . . . what?
Where did they fit in? Really?
I stopped reading. And took a breath.
***
So much for past history. Today, Brunei is a country half the size of New Mexico at roughly 2,226 square miles; if there were ever a war between Brunei and New Mexico, based on sheer population and other resources, New Mexico would defeat it in half the time it took the British Navy to subjugate the Falklands back in 1983.
Its official name is Brunei Darussalam, located in Southeast Asia, on the northern coast of Borneo. It borders the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, which actually surrounds and bisects it. The population is around 350,000 and the principal religions of the people living there are Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and Christianity. Adult literacy is roughly 80 percent and the average man or woman can expect to live around 71 years of age – about the life expectancy of those of us who live in the United States.
Since achieving independence from the United Kingdom in 1984, Brunei has nominally been a constitutional monarchy. However, where most monarchies with constitutions usually describe a government in which the king or queen acts as a head of state and politics is conducted by elected officials, Brunei's constitution guarantees that all power, political or otherwise, remains in the stranglehold of the sultan and his family. Nothing personal it would seem against the democratic way – just a neat way of ensuring that nobody messes with the Sultan, period, end of story. So don't go thinking Brunei is like Great Britain or Japan; its government is closer to those of traditional Islamic sultanates like Qatar or Bahrain.
Basically, the Sultan has made a tacit deal with his people: Bruenians get stability, security and prosperity from their government. In exchange, they give up any claim to democratic politics and guaranteed human rights. The Bruneians seem to dig the bargain – they've shown little interest in changing the terms of it.
Arguably, human rights in Brunei have been under some questionable scrutiny for some time; but I have been unable to isolate one example of an egregious violation of such rights in recent history. Brunei, by all appearances, seems to be a country ill-disposed toward violence in any form and fashion...
Because democracy, like some kind of delicious venereal disease, is oftentimes catching, any nation that wishes to avoid democratizing by necessity must quarantine itself to some degree or another. That's exactly what Brunei has done. According to one of my sources, the effects of this self-imposed isolation are pretty apparent to any visitor to Brunei. The national airport is brand spanking new, huge and beautifully equipped, but it handles far fewer flights than it is capable of. Because Brunei is a huge exporter of petroleum and natural gas, it is, of course, a big business country. Thus, business visitors are welcome.
Tourists, on the other hand, are not. And unless you're a leggy blonde with perfect Playmate of the Year dimensions in Brunei on special invite by the Sultanate, as a tourist, you're not going to find many touristy conveniences. Kind of a subtle hint to tourists in general that they had better find a friendlier country to bird watch or vacation in. An eerie example of this weird xenophobia can be seen within the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan. It's a modern city, hardly a third world backwater one horse village – yet hardly any roads join the new city from the outside world; Brunei is surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, yet nary a main highway can be found linking the main capital to the outside world and as for overland public transportation between Brunei and Sarawak in general . . . forget it. Such transportation is non-existent.
In short, Brunei values its privacy. It's a precarious privacy, especially given the Sultanate's personal international activities. These activities include, among other things, purchases of luxury hotels in the United States, as well as other properties throughout the world and, oh, yes – the enlistment of hot women from abroad. On occasion, this activity in particular, can attract considerable and unwelcome publicity.
Brunei, at least on the surface, is a country of contradictions. Its great wealth suggests that it might play a more active role in regional and international affairs; instead, it seems generally content to support the consensus larger nations it does business with, including the United States. Brunei has good relationships with Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, but these relations are personal rather than national. In the world beyond Southeast Asia, Brunei, as a deeply committed Islamic state, has also maintained excellent relations throughout the Islamic world, including the conservative Islamic monarchies of the Middle East.
Personally, I feel the following is a real kicker: for while it likes to support Arab League positions on anything from Israel in the United States, to the methodology of killing chickens, Brunei is at the same time opposed to radical Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism and Arab socialism. Such opposition is often through quiet financial diplomacy. However opposition is expressed, it's clear that the Sultan is not crazy about violence. He steps in where he can, using the greatest weapon at his disposal: cold hard cash.
Brunei's unspoken policy of isolationism is clearly evident in its determination to maintain an independent defense force. While small, Brunei's armed forces are well equipped with modern naval patrol vessels, helicopters and jet aircraft – all, by the way, armed to the teeth with state of the art missiles and other weaponry.
Touching again on the subject of the Sultan's wealth. Well, when you're one of the largest oil and gas exporters in the world, you're bound to be making a little coin at the end of the day. Oil and gas today account for 60 percent of Brunei's economic activity and 95 percent of its exports. According to one of my sources, in 1988 (nearly 25 years ago) it was reported that Brunei produced 150,000 barrels of oil per day. The natural gas production in that same year was equally staggering at 867 million cubic feet ... per day. Translated in exportable income (mind you, still over a decade ago), that comes out to be about $1.999 billion dollars a year. Other exports like machinery and transport amounted to a paltry $27.64 million dollars.
No figure is available as to how much was spent on gorgeous young women being flown in on an annual basis for parties, kicks and giggles and good clean wholesome American fun. One tabloid, I believe gave an estimate of $120 million a year.
Still, the Sultan is in no danger of losing his vast fortune. He is, technically, the richest human being in the world, at $35 billion dollars. When one thinks of Brunei, one thinks of immeasurable wealth – a land filled with as much treasure as mystery.
At this time, I want to take a step b
ack.
Perhaps I've run the risk of making the Sultan sound like some dark, mysterious fellow who does nothing more than wallow in a sea of cash, and party with the Miss Universes of the world. One young woman who visited Brunei told the tabloids "The Sultan was just a dirty old man."
Yet one of my sources told of a lovely story of generosity by the Sultan... not quite what one would expect of a dirty old man...
I'll call her Mrs. Balik. She was an ordinary housewife in Seria, Brunei, a city near the oilfields on the coast northwest of the capital. Her husband, like many men in Brunei, worked for Brunei Shell and he had a good job as a welder on the oil rigs. The job was fairly lucrative, though Mrs. Balik and her husband were, at least by Brunei standards, not wealthy by any means. In any case, Mr. Balik was away on the oil rigs – sometimes he had to be gone for days or weeks at a time. Mrs. Balik's father got very ill recently with kidney failure and damn near died; since her husband was off at work, she had to deal with the medical emergency. When it was clear that the medication her father was taking was not cutting it, a Brunei Shell medical evacuation chopper flew him to a hospital in Bandar Seri Beawan for an operation.
Apparently, the Sultan himself had heard of the case. Mrs. Balik's father had the operation, survived and is alive and well. None of the expenses for medical treatment and transportation cost the Balik's a single red cent. All expenses had been taken care of. No questions were asked.
I've been told that Mrs. Balik had read about something called "women's liberation," but she thinks it's a bunch of puppy squat. Such women, she says, must make very bad wives. She was also not crazy about hearing the rumors about how the Sultan loved to gamble in casinos when he visited Europe or how he, or one of his close family members, Prince Jefri, liked to chase – or import – gorgeous women for nefarious recreational purposes. Mrs. Balik's husband treated her well, bought lots of gifts for her, including jewelry; her life was secure, comfortable and predictable. Her country had been good to her – and the Sultan had been good to her family.
The Last Harem Page 7
