Fishing for Stars

by Bryce Courtenay

  Anna sat cross-legged on the blanket. She reached forward and tore off a chicken leg and helped herself to salad and a cold roast potato left over from last night’s scarcely touched roast, placing the plate in her lap and eating hungrily but still somehow elegantly with her fingers. I poured her a glass of chablis and she placed it beyond the edge of the blanket, digging the base and stem slightly into the dry sand.

  ‘Anna, I’m glad you brought up Budi. There’s something I need to say.’

  ‘Oh dear. About last night – too much champagne, too little discretion.’

  ‘Not at all, I was honoured that you chose to tell me.’

  ‘Nicholas, I’ve always wanted to. I don’t share much with you that’s business, but lately I’ve been conscious that perhaps, as the person I love the most in the world, you really ought to know a little more about what’s going on. I’m not sorry about last night.’

  ‘Anna, please don’t. The problem I have at the moment is that I know rather too much of what’s going on in your life. Perhaps even more than you do. Last night helped clear up several things in my mind and it’s the primary reason we’re here.’

  ‘Oh? What can you possibly mean?’ Anna, holding the chicken leg poised, grinned. ‘I hope you’re not going to try and kidnap me again?’ She’d played it for a laugh but suddenly noticed my expression. ‘What’s wrong, Nicholas?’ she asked, her expression now serious.

  ‘Darling, I think you’re going to be involved in a spot of serious trouble that concerns you and Budi. I’m afraid I have to break our agreement. The information comes from Marg.’

  ‘The Green Bitch? It can’t be good news,’ Anna said, frowning.

  ‘It isn’t. But first you should know where I stand. I’ve made my position clear to you on more than one occasion.’

  Anna said quickly, ‘Nicholas, there’s no way —’

  ‘Please, Anna, just hear me out without interrupting, then you can decide for yourself what to do,’ I pleaded.

  Anna put down her plate and reached for the glass of wine, lifting it to her mouth and taking a small sip. ‘Go ahead, I’m listening.’

  I spent the next twenty minutes outlining the situation to Anna, ending with Marg’s ultimatum and then saying, ‘I realise you’re caught between a rock and a hard place, darling, but if your oil and gas partnership with Budi comes out there’ll be no endgame for you. The media are going to hang you out to dry. But there’s worse.’ I reached into the back of the picnic basket for a plastic bag, broke it open and withdrew a large manila envelope. I handed her the picture of the five beheaded apes. ‘Peter Yeldham is syndicated throughout the world. If this photograph gets out, and Marg says she has more, it’s all over for you, Anna.’

  Anna wiped her hands and took the photograph. Moments later, while her expression didn’t change, her hand started to shake. Then her eyes filled and a single tear escaped and ran down her cheek. I shall never know whether the tears that followed were out of compassion or rage. She handed back the photograph. ‘The bitch! She wouldn’t hesitate, would she!’ she spat.

  ‘No, Marg is a zealot. She doesn’t make threats unless she intends to carry them out. She feels very strongly about the great apes. The oil information, your sharing it with Budi, is also well founded. It very likely comes from Roger Rigby, who was with her in Naval Intelligence during the war and now heads the Defence Signals Directorate in Canberra. It’s kosher all right.’

  Anna sniffed and knuckled away the tears. ‘Where did she get that photograph?’

  ‘Peter Yeldham.’

  ‘Nick, she’s trying to make a fool of me. If the photograph comes from Yeldham, then he obviously possesses the negatives. If we comply with Marg’s wishes and in return she doesn’t tell him about our oil and gas deal then Yeldham still has a good story, though a different one. He simply goes ahead and prints the photographs and I’m well and truly discredited. Not perhaps as badly as I would be over the oil deal, but I’m total mud in the media from then on.’

  ‘Whoa, not so fast, Anna, now listen carefully.’

  ‘I always listen carefully, Nicholas,’ Anna snapped.

  ‘I don’t know whether Marg didn’t see this obvious problem or has a separate agreement with Yeldham . . . or perhaps didn’t think it through.’

  ‘Separate agreement my arse! She’s been in intelligence and she wouldn’t miss a detail like that! She’d know Yeldham had the negatives.’ Anna emulated Marg’s slightly posh accent, ‘“Oops, so sorry, Nick, Peter Yeldham gave me his word he wouldn’t publish!” Or better still, “Oh, Nick, how careless of me not to think it through.”’ Anna looked directly at me. ‘The Green Bitch will be hugging herself with glee. She’s off the hook and Yeldham publishes anyway! Double whammy!’

  ‘Are you quite through, Anna?’ I demanded. ‘Will you just listen and let me explain? We’ve got one photograph, you can bet it’s the best one, the most incriminating of them all. Marg has the others, or so she says. Okay, we’ve got a week before Peter Yeldham runs his piece. He has to wait until Budi is exposed over Timor, that way he gets maximum mileage worldwide with a follow-up story.

  ‘But that’s not what happens. Tomorrow we contact the features editor of The Australian, Melanie Griffith, and tell her that Marg Hamilton, the Green politician in the Tasmanian state parliament, has sent you this picture and asked you to authenticate the name on the door of the bulldozer in the background.

  ‘Of course, you know nothing about the killing of the apes and you’re horrified! You and your business partner are so mortified that you have decided to cease operations immediately. You’ve decided to keep the jungle environment pristine and to create a national park under the auspices of the World Wildlife Fund as a permanent gift to the people of Indonesia.’ I paused and looked directly at Anna. ‘So far any questions?’

  ‘No, go on.’

  ‘Well, here’s the tricky bit. You have to get Budi to persuade President Suharto to announce that the Indonesian Government is determined to protect its orangutans and declare the new national park a safe habitat for these magnificent great apes. That hunting or killing one will earn the severest penalty possible under Indonesian law. Do you think he can do that?’

  Anna was silent for several moments. ‘No, it won’t work. Budi can’t be, as you suggest, the one who explains it to the president or the council, which is more likely. The Australian Government is bound to have let them know that they’ve both been sprung over the five journalists and that Budi is implicated. If he comes up with the gift to the nation idea they’ll see him as weak. So will Suharto.’ Anna looked directly at me. ‘Weakness isn’t tolerated among the generals. Besides, nobody in Indonesia would give up a concession worth a hundred million American dollars for a bunch of breast-beating apes and the good of the common people. In fact, it would be taken as sign of profound weakness. Remember, Budi is a member of the president’s family through marriage; he must continue to look strong, be strong, resist, and accept the protection of his president, who will cover for him when the story breaks.’

  ‘You mean the president will take the rap? That wouldn’t happen in our society. A Western prime minister would throw him to the wolves.’

  ‘It’s not the Indonesian way. Suharto will brazen it out. He won’t publicly say anything himself. The army will simply deny they were involved, say the radio signals were a set-up by the Fretilin terrorists to implicate and compromise Indonesia. They have sworn witnesses to this effect, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. With the rest, they’ll talk up the communist menace, the atrocities committed by Fretilin, Indonesians persecuted by Timorese, that sort of thing. Then they’ll insist Budi was just doing his duty. Budi will stay out of the whole thing, go on sick leave or resign as a noble gesture. Later, when things calm down, he’ll be appointed to something worthwhile, probably as a judge in the high court.’

  ‘But no such protection will be forthcoming for you, Anna. The Australian media and the wire services are going to have a field da
y with the business partner of the Butcher of Balibo who allows the murder of great apes threatened with extinction and who plunders the environment for profit!’ My beautifully formulated solution had suddenly gone up in flames. ‘So, in fact, Budi dares not give up his timber concession, is that right?’

  ‘Pretty well.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Okay, you’re horrified when you see the photographs and you sell your share to Budi. It’s not great but it’s better than doing nothing.’

  ‘So, the Butcher of Balibo can continue killing the great apes and destroying their natural habitat? That’s really going to make me look good in the eyes of the media,’ Anna snorted.

  And then her face lit up and she clapped her hands. ‘Got it!’ She started talking rapid-fire, ticking off decisions on her fingers. ‘Okay, I buy Budi’s share of the concession, I don’t have to find the money, it’s only a paper transaction anyway. We then backdate the sale two years – that’s easy enough to arrange in Indonesia. So now the concession has been in my possession two years, long before anyone knew, least of all myself, that the atrocities were ordered by Major General Budi Til.

  ‘I then receive the photograph from Marg Hamilton. I’m horrified and want to do something meaningful apart from having the killers of the apes arrested. I’m an Australian citizen with several businesses in Indonesia and so I decide to offer my timber concession as a gift of gratitude to the nation as permanent habitat for the apes and all the other jungle creatures.

  ‘That is, if my dear friend the president’s wife, Siti Hartinah Suharto, after whom the national park will be named, will get him to agree to protect the orangutan. The habitat is a gift from Australia to Indonesia. The permanent protection of the orangutan is a gift to the world from the wife of the Indonesian president. It’s the story of two powerful women and a generous and wise man, all of whom care tremendously for the environment and for the continuing existence of the great apes. A gesture of friendship, hands held across the sea.’

  Anna caught her breath. ‘Budi is now completely out of the picture and there is no link to the oil or the Balibo Five.’ She leaned back, grinning. ‘That’s the story The Australian newspaper gets and later Melanie Griffith will be invited to meet Madame Suharto at the ceremony to hand over the national park to the nation.’ Anna looked pleased with herself. ‘Finally, Peter Yeldham has his pictures, but no story to tell.’

  ‘Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Will Mrs Suharto do it?’

  ‘Of course, she’s a good friend. She’ll love the idea, so will he. Siti Suharto National Park has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’ Anna said, smiling.

  ‘What about the rake-off, the ten per cent the Suharto family is owed from the concession? That’s around ten million American, isn’t it? I can let you have two million of it if you’re in trouble. You don’t have to pay it back.’

  ‘Thank you, Nicholas, that’s lovely of you.’ Anna smiled benignly. ‘Damn good thing Kevin looks after the money. You’re as bad as Joe with his scholarships. You’re never going to be a really top businessman, Nicholas. But I can find the money. Besides, it depends very much on how the president feels. If he really likes the goodwill gesture between his wife and myself and between our two countries, as I’m pretty sure he will, the debt could easily be cancelled. I know he’s fond of me and he can be very generous.’

  ‘What about Budi? Will he go along with all this?’ I was trying hard not to show my revulsion for Anna’s business partner, who in any language could only be seen as a mass murderer. He’d come a long way in the wrong direction since, as an eager teenage freedom fighter, I’d shown him how to set up an effective ambush. Which was somewhat ironic, since he’d just been very effectively ambushed by my own people.

  Anna, as if reading my thoughts, now said, ‘Nicholas, I know it’s hard for you to understand, but Budi is an honourable man. He owes everything he’s gained in life to me and he’s also been a critical part of my life. He, Kleine Kiki, Mother Ratih and her brother Til, both now dead, are my real family. Without Budi and his mother and his Uncle Til, whom the Japanese beheaded to intimidate me, I simply wouldn’t be here.’ Anna shrugged. ‘I know you think he’s turned out to be a monster. But like most of the generals, they’re only where they are because they committed themselves to Suharto when he deposed Sukarno and decided to destroy the communists among his own people. They’ve all got blood on their hands. God knows how many of their own people they’ve killed – certainly half a million, some estimates put it at a million, some even more. There are no innocent generals or people who are in senior positions in government. They’re all equally guilty.

  ‘Budi may be everything you think he is, but I trust him with my life and he trusts me. Our relationship goes back almost as far as we do, you and I. He was a bright thirteen-year-old peasant boy who took me home to his mum when I was sixteen. They all risked their lives to protect me. Til lost his life doing so. These are bonds that can’t ever be broken.’

  ‘Christ, it’s a fucked-up world!’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘It’s the only one I understand,’ Anna said phlegmatically, tossing the remaining wine in her glass into the sand. She stood, looking beautiful in her familiar blue T-shirt and white shorts, but despite her gear her demeanour was suddenly all business. ‘We’d better get going, Nicholas, I have to catch the plane to Perth tonight and then on to Jakarta. You’ll have to call the Australian and set up the interview with Melanie Griffith in three days’ time. Will you call the Green Bitch and tell her I’ll let you know next Monday what I’ve decided to do? If she asks how I reacted, tell her I was furious but say nothing more. I’ll take the Australian interview on Thursday. That means the story can break over the weekend. See if bitch-face in Tasmania can stall Peter Yeldham and get a little more time, even one more day; I’d be most grateful. No, I wouldn’t, I hate the slut!’

  Quite how Anna managed to get the fundamentals in place in less than a week I’ll never know. The final details would take months but by the time she did the interview with The Australian newspaper she was, on paper anyway, squeaky clean, and she’d obtained the president’s wife’s delighted cooperation. While the legislation dramatically increasing the penalties for killing or injuring orangutans would take some time, she had Suharto’s agreement in principle and his permission to make the announcement. The matter of the ten million American dollars hadn’t yet been raised.

  The exposure of Major General Budi Til as the Butcher of Balibo and the Australian Government’s cover-up happened the day after our visit to Coffee Scald and occupied the headlines all week, with Gough Whitlam and other government leaders denying any prior knowledge from intelligence sources of events as they unfolded in East Timor, a statement I’ve always found very difficult to believe. The Indonesian way was to stonewall; ours was to run for cover.

  By the weekend Melanie Griffith’s well-crafted piece came out about the love and care of two strong women for the environment and the world we live in, an example of how, while men are duplicitous, greedy, dishonest, suspicious of each other and quarrelsome, women, regardless of creed or colour, can get together to heal and to nurture. It was the first piece of good news about the two errant countries all week, made all the more poignant by the horrendous picture of the two beheaded mothers with their dead children and the old grandpa orangutan. Later that year, Melanie Griffith would win a Walkley Award for newspaper feature writing. Anna had gone from sinner to saint and Marg was furious, even though she had achieved her purpose and won a momentous victory for the Greens movement, she could speak of it to nobody nor receive the credit for taking such an important step to save a member of the great ape family from extinction. That accolade would forever belong to Anna.

  I foolishly congratulated Anna when next she was at Beautiful Bay. ‘A veritable masterstroke, darling! A public relations coup! Brilliant!’ I said, raising my champagne glass.

  Anna paused, looking down into her own glass. ‘Yes, isn’t it ama
zing how much publicity you can buy these days for fifty million dollars.’

  I felt like a real idiot, because it hadn’t been my money. I’d carelessly forgotten that this was the amount she stood to make as her share of the timber concession. ‘Christ, I’m sorry, sweetheart, that was pretty gauche.’

  Anna smiled. ‘That’s okay, Nicholas, money is everything, but even so, it may surprise you that it’s nice to be liked and openly admired. I’ve received several hundred letters from women congratulating me, young women in particular, who say things like “Way to go!”’ Anna grinned. ‘One said, “Beauty, brains and money! My idol!”’

  ‘Hmm,’ I ventured, not offering an opinion.

  ‘Nicholas, I know what you’re thinking, but at least it shows an attitude that has been missing in women for too long. This generation thinks they can compete in a male world – surely that’s a good sign?’

  ‘Well, I suppose . . . yes, maybe. It’d be nice if she’d added integrity to beauty, brains and money.’

  ‘Integrity!’ Anna cried, plainly incredulous. ‘Nicholas, it’s the very first word dropped from out of the boardroom window onto the street twenty storeys below!’

  ‘Yeah, pity.’

  ‘Get real, darling, it’s all about money. Everything is!’ I guess Anna hadn’t changed.

  ‘Perhaps so,’ I said pompously. ‘Money isn’t a lot of help if you don’t have your health, though.’ It was a pretty puerile response, one of those silly platitudes nobody should be caught dead saying. I expected Anna to dismiss it with a flick of the wrist and the silent sneer it deserved, but she seemed to be examining the bubbles rising in her glass very closely. She turned slowly and looked directly at me, then speaking quietly, said, ‘Nicholas, funny you should say that. I have breast cancer.’