The Shadow Mask

by Lin Oliver

  “Turn around, people,” he said. “I’m not a spectacle for your amusement.”

  Crane took almost five minutes to cross the tiny bridge. I closed my eyes and tried to use some of the visualization skills Mr. Singh had taught me, but all that came to mind was an image of Crane flat on his belly and clutching the bamboo walkway for dear life. When I opened my eyes, I was not far from wrong.

  We continued along a wider walkway, suspended ten feet above the ground, which weaved through a thick canopy of trees until it reached a stairwell leading up to a dark wooden house. It was built on stilts and partially hidden in the trees. The house was spectacular, with a covered front porch that ran all the way up and down the longhouse, at least two hundred feet in length. Along the covered porch, there were dozens and dozens of poles, some supporting wooden figurines, others supporting skulls.

  The front door to the house was open, but I saw no evidence of people. Kavi and Cyril made for the entrance.

  “We just go in?” I asked Dr. Haga.

  “Yes, but bearing gifts. I believe you have the gifts. Give some to the porters.”

  I opened the bag, and it was filled with candy bars and sweets and bags of jerky. I grabbed a few bags of jerky and handed them to the porters. They went in, and we quickly followed.

  Inside, it was immaculate and bright. Dozens of windows let plenty of light in, which shined on the polished wood floors. The longhouse appeared empty. Two rows of beautifully carved support beams stretched down the middle with a long bamboo mat in between them almost resembling a red carpet. The ceilings were also expertly built with hand-painted wood planks. Leafy, colorful contraptions resembling cheerleaders’ pom-poms hung from the ceiling at intervals, and lining the walls was an assortment of wicker baskets, bamboo mats, spears, jugs, and tools I couldn’t place, all neatly arranged on shelves.

  “Are all longhouses this well built, Dr. Haga?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course, Leo.”

  “But, Haga,” Crane whispered, “there’s no one here. I sense a trap. This place is abandoned.”

  “Not entirely, Mr. Rathbone,” he said, and with a sweep of the hand, he gestured far down the longhouse, all the way to the end of the bamboo mat, where there were some splashes of indistinct color. “This way,” he said. “Follow the scouts.”

  We walked down the hallway on the bamboo mat toward the splashes of color, which I soon realized were people. There were about five of them, all sitting on the ground, relaxed and leaning back with their legs outstretched. Many ornate ceramic jars lined the walls. As we drew close, I saw that there were four men and one woman, all of them gathered around one man in a red hat with several giant feathers sticking out of it. He was skinny and nearly naked, his body covered in black ink tattoos. He was smiling at us — they all were, even though on the wall behind them, several skulls were placed atop their precious jars. He wore a necklace made of claws. That was the chief.

  When we were within thirty feet of him, one of his men rose and struck an ancient-looking gong. Its vibrating metallic clang filled the longhouse. The chief raised his hands slightly, smiled, and said several words.

  “This is a traditional greeting across many parts of Borneo,” Dr. Haga said. “His words mean, ‘flow, flow, the current flows.’ It is polite to reply by saying, ‘Harus,’ three times.”

  We all replied with our Haruses, except for Crane. Our response pleased the chief, and he smiled warmly at me, almost as if he recognized me. He seemed friendly, not at all like the fierce warrior and headhunter.

  Kavi approached the chief with a bag of jerky and, eating a piece on the way, presented it to the chief. He dipped his nose in, took a whiff, and then passed the pouch off to his entourage, each of them sniffing, taking a bite, and smiling. When the pouch got to the old woman, whose earlobes stretched to her shoulders and supported several heavy wooden earrings, she dumped the jerky into a wicker basket and examined the plastic bag, holding it up to the light and puzzling over it.

  The chief smiled at us and then held up a palm-leaf platter. At once, several women materialized and placed other palm-leaf platters on the floor in front of us, motioning us to sit down. One carried a baby in a colorfully beaded sling on her back, a fat, happy baby who smiled at everyone. My platter was filled with rice and steaming chunks of brown meat. Before the chief motioned for us to eat, I grinned and rubbed my belly. The chief slapped his leg and laughed, then said a few words, pointing to himself.

  We were going to have a hard time getting across our ideas, as Kavi understood only a little of their language, and Dr. Haga had to translate for him. So anytime we tried to talk, there was a long pause while the double translation was going on. While I was waiting, I played peek-a-boo with the baby, hiding my hands behind my face, then taking them down and making a funny face. The baby seemed to think I was a riot, and every time he laughed, his mother smiled at me.

  “The chief of Byong Ku, Laki Jau, meaning Grandfather Jau, welcomes you to his house,” Dr. Haga said after the first of these long waits.

  I smiled and said, “Thank you,” and the chief didn’t need that translated. Crane was putting me front and center in this contact. He had positioned himself behind me and off to the side, and only reluctantly even sat down. The chief spoke again.

  “Laki Jau is happy to have foreign friends in his house,” Dr. Haga interpreted haltingly. “No one comes to visit them. Outsiders fear them, and they are lonely. The chief is happy the boy has come back and fulfilled his promise.”

  “Does he mean me, Dr. Haga?” I asked.

  “He must, Leo.”

  The chief and I exchanged a smile, and he put his hands to his chest, laughing. I did the same, and then he did it again. He was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t getting it. He said something to one of his men, who got up and brought him one of the ceramic jars. It was very similar to the broken ones Hollis and I had seen in the cave. The chief reached in and pulled out a photograph and had his man bring it to me.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a Polaroid picture, yellow and faded, but you could clearly see two men staring at the camera and smiling. One was the chief, Laki Jau. And the other was my father!

  It was something I had seen my dad do the few times I was able to travel with him. He would take a Polaroid camera and snap some pictures of the people he visited, especially the children. They’d gather around him, laughing and pointing as the picture developed in front of their eyes, marveling at the magic box he had brought with him. And he always left the pictures behind as a souvenir of his visit.

  Tears burned at the corners of my eyes as I held that picture and studied it — not sad tears but glad ones — just seeing my dad so happy doing the work that he loved. He looked much younger then, and I saw my face in his. When I looked up, Laki Jau was watching me carefully. Again, he put his hands on his chest and laughed, and I knew that he had recognized me as my father’s son. My dad must have sat on this very same spot and had the same halting but friendly conversation with the chief.

  “I am Leo,” I said, patting my chest. “The son of Kirk.”

  I pointed to the baby and the mother. The chief seemed to understand and pointed quizzically at Crane.

  “Tamon Dong,” I said, remembering the name meant something like stepfather. “Stepuncle.” I didn’t expect him to understand my words, but he nodded as if he did.

  “This is all very touching,” Crane said, moving from the back row to face the chief. “But enough of the pleasantries. Let’s get down to business.”

  At the sound of his voice, the baby started to cry. Quickly, the mother covered his eyes, put her arms around him, and left the room. Crane didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. He grabbed the backpack from the floor and unzipped it.

  “We are happy to visit your village,” he said, his words being transformed twice before they would reach the chief’s mind. “We have traveled from far away, and as a token of my friendship, I have brought precious
goods from my village, as gifts to honor you, Chief Laki Jau.”

  He riffled through the bag and pulled out at least fifty candy bars. “Delicious sweets,” he said, and mimed eating them, rubbing his belly. “Mmm,” he said, laying them before the chief. “We have brought cooking utensils and drinking vessels,” he said, taking out pots and thermoses, miming how to use each. “We have brought instruments for clothes making,” he said, taking out twenty sewing kits, then threading one of the needles and making a few fake stitches in his khaki.

  Three of the men gasped and clapped their hands.

  “I bring magic boxes, which hold the spark of life,” Crane said, pulling out five metal lighters and snapping one to make a flame. This was met with gasps not only from the men in front us, but also behind. I looked back and saw many shadowy heads and eyes staring through the windows — adults, grandparents, even a few kids. “And I bring the warrior’s steel,” he said, and pulled out eight machetes. He unsheathed one to gasps, held his spare sun hat in his hands, and sliced it clean in two. “I also bring a magic eye,” he said, pulling out a telescope and holding it to his eye. He handed it to the man to the right of the chief, who examined it for a moment, put it up to his eye, and dropped it with a shriek. Then he smashed it against the ground.

  “Can’t please everyone,” Crane said, and shrugged.

  The pile of goods in front of the chief was heaping. The chief made a signal to one of his men in waiting, and he trotted away, quickly returning with two other men, both of their arms filled with tribal goodies. They placed them on the floor in front of Crane. They’d brought wicker baskets, bags of dried rice, spears, and hand axes, pumpkin storage jugs, wooden carving knives, fishing buckets, necklaces of beads, bamboo mats, earrings, wooden figurines, and an assortment of old artifacts, everything glowing and covered with a thick patina from years of use. One of the men even placed a hat similar to the chief’s on my head.

  Crane examined the pile deliberately, picking up certain things and showing modest approval.

  “Yes, yes. Tell the chief these are all fine examples, and I am grateful for them. But I am a man of discerning taste.”

  “I cannot possibly translate ‘discerning,’” Dr. Haga said.

  “Do your best. Tell him I am looking for one specimen in particular, for which I will trade them many more magical secrets.”

  “Crane, I must protest,” Dr. Haga said. “That is a completely unethical —”

  “Quiet, Haga, now translate. In particular, I am looking for an object much like this one,” Crane said. Then he reached into the backpack and pulled out half of the conjoined-twin mask that he had carefully wrapped in banana leaves.

  The chief smiled and laughed.

  “He recognizes it?” Crane asked Dr. Haga.

  “He does.”

  The chief then spoke with animation, making happy and vibrant gestures.

  “The chief would like to see the mask, Mr. Rathbone. May he?”

  “Only for a minute,” Crane said, handing the mask to Dr. Haga, but holding on to it for too long.

  Dr. Haga gave the mask to the chief, who turned it around in his hands and smiled, then handed it to one of his men who took off with it and disappeared into the longhouse.

  “What the devil just happened?” Crane exclaimed. “Haga, tell him to give it back.”

  An animated exchange followed between the chief and Dr. Haga, after which he turned to Crane and said, “The chief thanks you for returning the mask, and he has something for you.” The chief’s right-hand man returned with a square black object. “The chief says when this object is returned to the boy, the circle is complete.”

  The chief looked at me and held out his hand, offering me the object. I stepped toward him and took it. On contact, I immediately heard my dad’s voice in my mind, speaking in halting sentences, just like Dr. Haga.

  “In return … for the mask …” I heard him say, “I give you this object … that will let you hear your music. I will hold on to your mask and guard it, and let it serve as a symbol of our friendship. And let our trade serve as a promise … that one day … I will return and feast with you in your home.”

  It was the clearest sound-bending experience I’d had in a long time. My dad’s voice was unmistakable, each word crisp and clean. I snapped back and in my hand I saw a mini-cassette recorder, one of those old tape recorders they used to make in the ’90s. I always loved those things. I even bought one once from Stinky Steve. The cassettes they used were so little!

  I looked at the cassette recorder and understood why the chief thought I had returned to fulfill a promise. My dad and the chief made a trade, with the promise that one day my dad would return to claim his mini-tape recorder and return their mask.

  The chief was talking again, looking specifically at me.

  “The chief says,” Dr. Haga was saying, “that your father claimed this object had amazing properties. But they did not understand its use, so they sealed it within a sacred jar to await his return.”

  “No, no, no!” Crane snapped. “This is all wrong. Just tell him I want my mask back. He can have the worthless tape recorder. That’s the deal. I want my mask back or else.”

  “Or else what?” Dr. Haga asked.

  “Tell him that I possess strong magic powers, and I will be quite angry if my mask is not returned.”

  While Dr. Haga did his best to translate for the fuming Crane and the oblivious chief, the row house was becoming louder. Many of the tribal people had gathered outside, and the chief’s men were picking up the machetes and examining them in the light. Suddenly, the old woman with the long earlobes shrieked bloody murder, terrible fear in her eyes. She jumped to her feet and came rushing for me, grasping my wrist hard. She pulled one of the men’s machetes near, gazed at it, gazed at me, then back to the machete, shaking her head and speaking a mile a minute at me.

  “What’s she saying?” I croaked.

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Haga said, asking Kavi to tell her to slow down. Kavi listened to her and translated as best he could while Dr. Haga nodded.

  “Kavi says she is the dayak of the tribe, the medicine woman and soul catcher. She says she saw your shade in the metal. She says … you are missing your soul, it is adrift in the … netherworld…. I am unsure of the translation. She insists on performing a ‘soul-catching’ ritual, as soon as possible, to restore your soul to your body.”

  “What?” I gasped as she let go of my wrist and ran off to get her soul-catching instruments.

  Could that have been the old woman from my father’s tape? The one who tended to the dying man? As amazing as that might have been, I didn’t want to wait around to find out. I wanted to keep my soul just where it was. All the villagers stared at me blankly as if they didn’t seem to recognize me anymore.

  “No, no, no,” Crane cried. “Tell them it is just a reflection. There will be no soul-catching rituals. Repeat to the chief that I demand my mask back immediately. Or else.”

  But the chief had risen to his feet and was looking out the window. All the villagers outside were stirring and whispering. One of them put his hands to his mouth and made a piercing whistle that sounded like a siren. The chief gave a signal and all his men rose to their feet, grabbed their long axes and spears from the wall, and ran out of the house, whooping and making what sounded like war cries. Two of the men stayed behind, pointing their weapons at us.

  “What’s going on?” I shouted at Dr. Haga.

  “Where is my mask?” Crane shouted in an even louder voice.

  “They believe the village is under attack,” Dr. Haga said. “There are invaders approaching.”

  “No! Stop! It’s all a misunderstanding,” I yelled, but no one understood me.

  I hoped it was a simple mix-up. I hoped that the invaders they saw were just Klevko and Dmitri, wandering in over the bridge. But most of all, I hoped with every breath I had, every cell and molecule in my body, that Hollis hadn’t left the clearing with Mr. Singh.r />
  We were held for what felt like hours at ax-point, our guards never taking their eyes off us. Crane tried to protest, but shut up quickly when one of the men waved his new machete in his face. From outside, we heard people approaching, men whooping and laughing. They were the sounds of a successful battle, I thought morosely. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse outside, to see if Hollis was there, but one of my guards stepped in front of me to obscure my view. But then I heard children’s voices in the mix, laughing and shouting joyously. And in the background was a booming operatic laugh I thought I’d never hear again.

  “No!” Crane growled, and ground his teeth. “No.”

  Our captors lowered their weapons. Dr. Reed strode into the longhouse. She was jubilant, surrounded by almost all sixty villagers. I almost dropped to the ground when I saw who was with her.

  “Hollis!” I shrieked, and sprinted for him, making it across the longhouse in half a second. I gave him a huge bear hug, crushing his arms against his chest. “You’re alive, chief!”

  “Of course I am,” he shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Then I saw Diana following after Dr. Reed, surrounded by all the young girls in the village, who were fawning over her hair and her earrings and her green eyes, which didn’t even glance at me.

  “You were supposed to have gone in another direction, Margaret,” Crane seethed. “What are you doing here? Dr. Haga, Margaret’s porters will receive absolutely no pay, got it? Your men have disobeyed my orders for the last time.”

  The man who was guarding Crane waved his machete again, but Dr. Reed smiled warmly at him and indicated that there was no need.

  “A little birdie told me that you were heading to an uncharted village,” Dr. Reed said to Crane. “And I see from this horrific pile of gifts that you are completely out of your depth. In one move, Crane, you have irrevocably altered this village’s natural development.”

  “What happened, Hollis?” I whispered to him as Dr. Reed made for the pile of bribes.