by Lin Oliver
Klevko got out of the van and waddled over to us, dabbing his pouring sweat with an equally sweaty handkerchief.
“There is problem, boss. Dr. Haga does not like your new terms. He says, ‘No, we do it for the money you promised us.’ I say, ‘No, you do it for the money we pay you.’ But he refuses.”
Crane smiled ear to ear.
“It will be my pleasure to take care of this, Klevko. Boys, take these rupiahs and buy yourselves a souvenir. This might get ugly.” He handed us a wad of brightly colored money. “Dr. Haga!” he boomed, strutting up to the van where the frustrated-looking man was just climbing out. “We had a deal, Dr. Haga!”
“Yes, we had a deal, Mr. Rathbone,” he yelled back. “And you broke the deal.”
“I am merely modifying the deal. Come now, this is how business is done, Dr. Haga….”
“Let’s go check out the port,” I whispered to Hollis. “Maybe Crane will get Dr. Haga to throw in a yacht for a day.”
“Wait for me,” Dmitri said, jogging after us. He was unshakeable.
We walked along the rows of stalls and small shops lining the port, refusing offers of meat on a stick, bundles of live snakes, or key chains and trinkets made from mountain rocks. The air was humid and close, with steam rising all around us, partially obscuring the turquoise and brightly colored old buildings in the distance. Hollis stopped at one of the stalls selling what looked like shrunken heads on leather cords.
“Leo,” he said, an uneasy quiver in his voice. “Those couldn’t be real, could they? I mean, I saw on TV that some tribes in Borneo are headhunters.”
“Hollis, you can’t get all spooked at everything you see,” I explained to him. “We’re going to see a lot of stuff, and you have to let it run off you.”
“But we’re talking a real human head here, Leo. Without a skull. That’s major.”
I could see the fear growing in his eyes.
“Dmitri, I’m horribly thirsty,” I said. “Would you please go buy me a bottle of water?”
Dmitri didn’t like the request one bit, but now that I was the favored nephew, he understood he didn’t have the right to say no to me. When he trotted off to find water, I turned to the man in the stall.
“Can I see that for a minute?” I asked him, pointing to a particularly gross little head.
“This real,” he said. “Very scary.”
He reached up with a hook and took down one of the shrunken heads. I held it in my hands, closed my eyes and concentrated. At first nothing happened, but then I focused on the fear I’d seen in Hollis’s eyes, and I felt so angry at this merchant for trying to scare my little brother that gradually the sounds faded away, and the marketplace, which was once so alive with random life, suddenly looked like a giant nightmarish machine, with everyone on a track. I heard the sounds of conveyer belts and assembly lines and people muttering to one another in Mandarin, or some sort of Chinese dialect. In the background, I heard a bell ring and the dull drone of drills and a mass of feet shuffling in a large space.
“Leo?” I heard Hollis saying, a note of panic in his voice as he snatched the shrunken head out of my hands. Instantly, I was back to myself, fully present in the marketplace.
“No worries, bro,” I said to him. “That thing is a fake, made in China.”
“You sure?” Hollis asked.
“Heard it being made in the factory with my very own ears.” Then I turned to the merchant.
“And what’s the big idea?” I said. “You’re selling fake garbage.”
“No fake!” he said, grabbing the head from Hollis and putting it back, then he threw up his hands and let loose a stream of angry incomprehensible words, shooing us away. “You go, you go.”
“Wow,” Hollis said. “You really can do this sound thing. Your face looked weird, too.”
“It’s not pretty, but it works,” I said, giving him a playful punch in the arm. “Hey, check it out,” I said, pointing to a stall selling weird instruments, just as Dmitri returned with our waters.
“Cool. I want to check it out,” Hollis said.
“We can all go see the instruments together,” Dmitri told him, flexing his little man muscles.
“You two go,” I snapped at Dmitri, just to show him he couldn’t push me around. “I’ve had enough of your evil eye, man.”
I gave Hollis a wad of rupiahs and watched them hurry off down a row of stalls. Exhausted and in a daze, I looked around the port trying to take it all in, and spotted Mr. Singh up the street. Tall and slim, he was standing with his arms crossed and wore a serious look on his face. I got the feeling Mr. Singh didn’t do a lot of laughing. He was watching a transparent white screen, which was filled with shadows of dancing figures flickering from the light of a candle behind the screen.
As I approached, I heard a man behind it speaking, and I knew he was telling a story by the way his voice would rise or fall, or inject terror or sympathy into the moving shadow puppets. I got up next to Mr. Singh.
“It is a Wayang Kulit,” he said. “A living play. A tourist attraction, for certain, as the Wayang Kulit is native to Bali and Java, but very entertaining.”
“Do you know the story?” I asked as a bevy of little shadow characters burst onto the screen with a flurry of cymbals.
“Very well,” he said, still with his arms folded. “This is a scene from the Hindu epic, the Ramayana.”
“But aren’t we in Borneo?”
“Indeed. Borneo is home to Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and a host of other religions.”
“What are all the little guys doing?”
“Those are magical monkeys. The hero of the epic is Rama, who is the earthly form of Vishnu, the supreme god. Evil demons have absconded with Rama’s beloved, Sita. These monkeys who live in the forest have offered Rama their help to rescue his princess. But Rama is hesitant to follow his dharma.”
“Dharma?”
“A complicated concept, young Leo, which requires many days of subtle conversation to understand.”
“You know a lot about Indian history, right, Mr. Singh?” He didn’t answer, but I continued anyway. “Is it true that Indian history goes back seventy thousand years?”
“Vedic tradition says that the Ramayana epic was composed almost a million years ago.”
“A million years? Can that be true?”
“It is a matter of interpretation,” Mr. Singh said, not offering the interpretation.
“What about reincarnation?” I asked, trying a different track. “About how you’re born into a new body after you die. Do you believe in that?”
“Again, it is a matter of interpretation. These are difficult concepts, Leo, and require extensive conversation. A busy port is no place for these meditations.”
“What about on the river?” I asked. “We’ll have lots of time. Can we talk then?”
“There will not be enough time.”
“But we could be on the river for weeks,” I said. “How much time do you need?”
“Many lifetimes,” Mr. Singh said, and raised his eyebrows. Then he put his finger to his mouth and returned his gaze to the shadow play.
“Leo? Leo?” I heard a female voice call my name from far away, but I thought I was just tired, so I ignored it. “Leo? Is that you?” Then someone tapped my shoulder. “Leo, it is you!”
I turned and nearly jumped back. I shook my head but Diana Reed really was standing right next to me. She seemed perfectly at home in the port of Tanjung Selor, wearing sandals and shorts, a colorful shirt, her dog-tooth necklace, and light green flowers the color of her eyes pinned in her hair. I was shocked to see her, but happy, too. She gave me a big hug as if we were long-lost friends.
“Diana?” I sputtered. “W-what are you doing here?” I turned to introduce her to Mr. Singh, but he had disappeared.
“I’m supposed to be here, Leo! The question is what are you doing here?”
I looked across the port and saw Crane and Dr. Haga, still arguing nose to nose. “I’m,
uh, just here with my family. Your mom knows about it, I think. Hey,” I said, taking the huge wad of rupiahs out of my pocket, “I’ve got plenty of rupiahs. Do you want to buy a souvenir?”
“Oh, that’s sweet, Leo. But I’ve already bought most of this junk at one time or another. Are you in the city for long? I’m not, but then maybe I might be stuck here for a while. I could show you around. We’re supposed to go upriver today, but I’d rather hang out in the city for a little while. There’s not much to do in the jungle.”
“We’re supposed to leave today and take a boat up the Kayan. Where’s your mom?”
“She’s just over at the port trying to find a boat. Some rich American jerk booked up ten longboats all for himself.”
“That stinks,” I said. “But, listen, are you guys going up the Kayan River, too?”
“Yeah. Almost all the way until it forks into the Bahau.”
“Let’s find your mom,” I said. “We’re going the same way. That’s my stepuncle over there,” I said, and pointed to Crane, who, it appeared, was nearing a deal with Dr. Haga. “He’s the rich American jerk. But I’ll get him to take you guys, too. There should be plenty of room.”
“Really? You could do that?”
“It’s no problem,” I said. “Come with me.”
It didn’t take long to find Dr. Reed. She had spotted Crane as well and was waiting for him to finish up his deal with Dr. Haga.
“Now that wasn’t so difficult was it, Dr. Haga?” Crane said as we approached. “A little unpleasant, but the hard part is over. Yes?”
“Yes, Mr. Rathbone. I see it your way now,” Dr. Haga said, wiping his brow.
Crane smiled with power. Dr. Haga reached out to shake Crane’s hand, but the gesture was ignored. Crane was busy looking around, his eyes drawn to Dr. Reed, who was waiting to talk with him nearby. They made eye contact, and at once, both Dr. Reed and Crane spotted me and Diana.
“Leo!” Dr. Reed cried.
“And this must be your lovely daughter, Diana,” Crane said. “Charmed, my dear.”
“Yes, she is lovely, isn’t she?” Dr. Reed said, and smoothed Diana’s hair with her hands.
“Mom! You’re so annoying!”
Dr. Reed smiled at Diana. “No matter what culture I study, teenage girls always find their mothers annoying.”
“That’s because they are!” Diane said.
Then both she and her mom laughed, and I felt my throat tighten a little watching the obvious love they had for each other. Dr. Reed turned to Crane.
“So you’ve come after all, Crane? Tell me, have you found any promising leads for that twin mask?”
“Alas, I have not, but I thought an exploratory mission might yield some seeds for further missions. This is primarily a pleasure cruise for us,” he lied, “and I thought it might be a good opportunity for my nephews to see how real archeology is done.”
“Uncle Crane,” I said, “Diana was telling me she and her mom can’t find a boat to take them upriver. I told Diana we could take them. Since it’s just a pleasure cruise, the more the merrier, right?”
Crane laughed dryly.
“No, we wouldn’t want to impose,” Dr. Reed said, but I gave her a look that said, “Let me handle this.”
“I agree,” Crane said. “We’ve got little room to spare as it is, Leo, and I doubt we are heading in the same direction.”
“But we’re both heading to the fork in the Kayan,” I protested. “We’ll just drop them off. Besides, if Dr. Reed and Diana come, they can tell me all about the countryside. It’d be great for my education.”
Crane cracked his knuckles and ground his teeth. “Well, if Dr. Reed agrees …” he managed to choke out.
“Say yes, Mom,” Diana said. “I hardly ever get a chance to show anyone where we live most of the time.”
“Splendid,” Dr. Reed agreed, and laughed in her opera voice. “Let me inform our porter to bring our bags here. I’ll just be a moment,” she said, and ran off down a row of stalls.
“Splendid, indeed,” Crane said, giving me his most unpleasant look. “Quite a large company, Leo. And where are Dmitri and Hollis?”
“There they are!” I said, noticing them running up to us, both of their arms filled with instruments.
“Check it out, Leo!” Hollis cried. “I got everything they had. I got a sape, a rain-forest guitar. And two different nose flutes.” He put one in his nose and made a shrill squeaking sound.
“Cool!” Diana said, and then she noticed Dmitri hovering in back of Hollis. “Oh, hi, Dmitri,” she mumbled, turning a shade of green. He looked at her and flexed his muscles. I don’t know who told him that was an appealing thing to do, but whoever it was couldn’t have been more wrong.
“And look at this Kwai horn.” Hollis was rattling on. “It’s over four feet long. Show them the drums, Dmitri. I got a gedang and these bronze klon gongs. And the guy called this a frog drum, even if it’s just a gong. Here, Leo, I got it for you. Give it a smash!”
He gave me a mallet, and I smashed the life out of it. Everyone in the marketplace stopped for a moment and stared at the kid with the gong. “The frog is back!” I screamed.
“I’ll go round up Mr. Singh while you young people make a horrible racket,” Crane said. “As soon as Dr. Reed returns, we set off. Now where is Klevko?”
Hollis handed Diana one of the drums while he strummed the rain-forest guitar and I let loose on the frog gong. For a minute, I felt free and happy, like I was exactly where I was meant to be, playing in a trio on the banks of the Kayan River.
But of course, that feeling was not to last.
At high noon, we set off on the Kayan River, traveling in ten longboats. Including our twelve porters, there were more than twenty people in our expedition. We were split up into groups of two, with each boat being driven by one of the porters from Tajung Selor. Crane and Mr. Singh led the expedition in the front boat, Diana and Dr. Reed were next, Hollis and I followed them. Klevko and Dmitri brought up the rear. The remaining longboats were jammed with Crane’s luggage, our gear, food, and supplies. Mostly Crane’s luggage.
Before we left, Crane complained bitterly about having to leave three of his suitcases behind to make room for Dr. Reed and Diana. Since landing that morning, he had already changed outfits twice, finally settling on head-to-toe safari gear complete with a khaki tie. Klevko stuck with his black elastic skintight T-shirt, and Dmitri favored a tank top, making it a point to parade around Diana lifting up his arms so she could admire his twelve armpit hairs.
The driver of our boat was Tamon Dong, which Dr. Reed told us meant something like “stepfather.” He drove the boat like a maniac in the fast currents, steering within inches of sandbars and jutting rocks. Hollis and I were both nervous at first, but we could tell he knew the river well. Since I sat up front, it was my job to raise my hand whenever I saw snags or obstructions, which could capsize the boat. I took my job very seriously. Hollis sat in the back near Tamon Dong and the deafening motor.
After only half an hour on the river, we left behind the modern houses and roads and rice fields lining the banks and entered a primitive, wild landscape. Thick jungle surrounded us on every side, with the green trees and vines rising into the haze and steam. As we plowed deeper and deeper into the jungle, Hollis took out his gedang hand drum and started to play, supplying a rhythmic sound track to our journey up the river.
“So where is this big deal mask supposed to be?” he asked during one of his less ferocious drumming patterns.
“Byong Ku.”
“Thanks. Pardon my ignorance, bro, but what is a Byong Ku?”
“It’s a village that’s supposed to be about twenty miles beyond where the Kayan River forks into the Bahau.”
“Oh good, that clears everything up.”
“It’s hard to say exactly, Hollis, because Crane told me he can’t find Byong Ku on any maps.”
“Really?”
The drumming stopped completely, and I heard the fe
ar in his voice, so I changed the subject. “So, your drumming is sounding good.”
“Yeah,” he said, picking it back up. “It is. Now I just have to work on the nose flute. By the time we reach that Bahau fork, I want to be able to play both at the same time.”
“Hey, I’d pay to see that.”
He didn’t answer. It was so hot and muggy on the river that it was difficult to breathe. And besides, the kid talks with his drums.
We didn’t stop to eat because Crane wanted to get as far upriver as possible the first day. Tamon Dong gave us a snack of sticky rice wrapped in green palm leaves and a banana, which we ate in the boat. The plan was to forge quickly ahead to the fork, which was about an eighty-mile journey as the crow flies — but almost twice that long because of all the twists and turns. Then we’d drop off Diana and Dr. Reed and continue along, and try to sniff out the exact location of Byong Ku. From my dad’s travel journal, I knew that he had visited a village called Polon Man the day before arriving in Byong Ku and another one called Tryong Loa the day after he left. Both of those villages were on the map, and there was about thirty miles of river between them. That meant that Byong Ku must be hidden somewhere between the two villages. Of course, I never told Crane about my dad’s travel journal — I just told him I remembered Dad telling me Byong Ku was between those two villages. He bought it without hesitation.
As darkness fell, we pulled to the bank to set up camp. In the twilight, thousands of frogs were croaking. It was an amazing noise, almost like a thousand different people all making their phoniest zombie groans at the same time. Hollis and I were exhausted from all that sun and the jet lag, so while the porters were setting up our deluxe tents, all we could do was lean against the boat and listen to the hypnotic frogs.
Several of the porters walked downriver to a nearby village to acquire a pig for our dinner. Dr. Reed and Diana left with them. Apparently, they knew several people in the village and were going to stay with them in their longhouse. The rest of us ate our dinner of fresh pork and sticky rice around the fire, getting eaten alive by insects, while Dr. Haga rambled on about all the flora and fauna in the rain forest, even taking out a little field notebook now and then and holding it up triumphantly to drive home a point. But with the shrieking night insects, and Dr. Reed far away, Crane shut him up relatively quickly.
