by Tash Aw
“Hey, lady, hey,” the becak drivers called. “Hey, pretty lady. Oy!” A group of three or four of them followed her in their shaded rickshaws, shouting incessantly. Suddenly their cries were all she could hear. The sound of the cars and the buses and scooters faded into a vague, distant roar, like the sound of the sea as you approach the coast but cannot yet see the water. She had to get away from these men, she thought, and crossed the road, wading calmly into the traffic, picking her way westward to the barren expanse of Merdeka Square. She headed toward the construction site of the soon-to-be National Monument. The gigantic column was pushing slowly into the sky, its thick base shrouded in scaffolding. Monstrous pieces of machinery lay scattered around it, silent and unused like ruins of a lost civilization. The earth in the square was bare and easily turned to mud by the heavy rains of the monsoon, but now, after a few months without rain, it was crumbling to dust, and she kicked up little red clouds as she walked briskly along in the heavy heat. It felt like a desert here, Margaret thought, uninhabitable by man.
She continued briskly, feeling the heat on her head. Stupid to come out without a hat, but she was not a delicate white flower that wilted under the sun. She marched on through this deserted island in the middle of the swirling city, trying to ignore her headache. A mangy dog trotted alongside her for a few moments and then sloped off to find shelter. In the distance, in the meager shade of a spindly acacia, she noticed two boys, shirtless, their backs propped up against the tree trunk. She was not in the mood for a hassle, but a quick glance confirmed that there was nowhere to go: All around her there was just a great emptiness with no pathways to divert her trajectory, no cover, no excuse to change direction. Besides, she thought, if she changed tack now they would spot her and know that she was avoiding them, and then they would come after her. She knew this for certain; she had lived here so long and knew these people so well that she could predict what would happen. The best thing to do was to carry on as if they were not there. They might be too lazy or tired to harass her. They were just kids: What could they do? In any case she must show that she was not afraid.
“Hey, cutey,” they shouted as she went past. She noticed at once that they did not call her Auntie or Mother or any other respectful term by which she was often addressed by young men. She should have been flattered but wasn’t; she carried on briskly. Instantly, they were at her side, flanking her as she lengthened her stride. Their frames were slight, even fragile at first glance, yet Margaret saw that they had the expressions and wiry musculature of older boys. Quickly she determined their age: fourteen or fifteen, old enough to be dangerous.
“Hey—Dutch? British? American? Give us money, U.S. dollars.” They spoke with the rough accents of the Bimanese or Sasaks; these boys were from the outer islands, not Jakarta.
She continued looking straight ahead. “I don’t have any money with me. If I did I would give you some, but I don’t. Now go away, leave me alone.”
Thrown by her fluency in Indonesian, they were quiet for a moment. “One dollar,” one of them said, holding up his index finger. “Just one dollar.”
“No.”
“Okay, rupiah. You have rupiah.”
“I told you, I have no money.” They were still a long way from the edge of the square, a long way from the sea of traffic in the distance.
The first boy stepped in front of her and stopped dead. “You’re lying.”
He stood very close to her, looking straight into her face. He had a scar running across his forehead, a purple white streak against the almost iridescent bronze of his skin. The pungent odor of his sweat filled Margaret’s nostrils and she could almost feel the sticky heat from his body. She looked him straight in the eye and was glad for the extra protection of her sunglasses. “I am telling you to leave me alone.”
His face broke into an ugly sneer, his lips parting to reveal surprisingly strong white teeth. “Why?”
“Because I say so.”
“So what? Give me rupiah.”
“No.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw another three or four youths jogging toward them, street kids, just like these two, shirtless and barefoot. She moved to one side and resumed walking, faster now: She had to get to the edge of the square.
There were bodies around her, but she kept striving for the road, for the noise of the traffic. Someone reached out and touched her, a hot clammy hand on her bare forearm. Don’t run, she told herself, don’t run. There was a tug at her shirt, then a pinch on the side of her stomach. She broke into a run, kicking up a cloud of dust. The low roar of the traffic grew louder and she heard someone shout out behind her, a single sharp adolescent’s cry, but she did not turn back until she had reached the side of the great wide road with the comforting cacophony before her. She was breathing hard: She could not remember the last time she had had to run. She hurried across the road, enjoying the angry beeping of the scooters, and when she reached the other side she looked across at the square. Suddenly it seemed far away and unthreatening, shrouded in a veil of dust.
She blinked. The sun had begun to fall from its midday peak, the light becoming silvery and blurred through the thick haze of exhaust fumes and dust. The shapes of the boys in the distance shimmered in the heat, floating, it seemed, on a watery surface. “Margaret Bates,” she said aloud, wanting to hear her voice: It sounded hoarse and slightly shaky. “Pull yourself together. Right now.” It was nothing serious, she told herself. You let your guard down for a second and when you do that in a city like Jakarta you’ll get into scrapes, Margaret Bates, you know that full well. It’s no big deal.
They were just boys, just boys.
She continued walking for a few hundred yards until she reached an unkempt lawn that lay like a haphazardly placed rug in front of a large, handsome villa. The white paint of the house had faded to a dirty gray; the columns that divided its facade into neat squares were carved with graffiti, and swiftlets nested in the eaves. Shaded by rain trees, the building felt ancient and damp, and the cool darkness of its deep verandas instantly made Margaret feel better.
“Good afternoon,” the woman at the reception desk said to her, standing up quickly as if she recognized Margaret, as if she had been expecting her.
“I was wondering if I could look through the old issues of whatever newspapers you have—not that old, in fact, quite recent.”
“Of course,” the woman said. She wore a neat beige knee-length skirt and a white blouse. Pinned on her shirt was a plastic brooch of a bumblebee with a smiley face, and in her perfectly straight hair there was a headband of the same yellow as the bumblebee’s cheerful cheeks. “This way, please.”
Margaret followed her into a large somber room that smelled of camphor and damp wood. No one else was in the reading room, and most of the bookshelves were empty, or else stacked with nondescript cardboard boxes. There were no windows on the ground floor; above them was a narrow gallery decorated with cheap modern oil paintings of cockfights and buffaloes and paddy fields. The arched windows of the gallery were dirty and stained and panels of glass were missing here and there.
“It is all ready for you, over there,” the woman said, pointing at a recess at the far end of the room.
“But I need something quite specific,” Margaret said.
The woman smiled a broad toothy smile that looked unnervingly like the bumblebee’s. “You will find it all there.”
The alcove was in fact larger than she had thought, and dominated by a table on top of which various newspapers had been arranged in neat piles: the Harian Rakyat, Indonesia Raya, Sinar Harapan. It looked as if they had been specially laid out in the hope that she would come along and consult them. She settled down to a pile of Harian Rakyat from the midfifties. Ten years did not seem like such a long time and yet the font and indeed the writing style seemed archaic to her, so innocent and free. The pages were brittle and yellowed and foxed by the humidity, and the few pictures that appeared in them were as blurred as Impressionist pai
ntings. She squinted in the dim light: Maybe she needed glasses. Every time she came upon an article on the repatriation of Dutch citizens she paused, searching for names or faces. She had no idea which names or faces she was looking for, but she knew that sooner or later she would come across something that would help her.
“Here you are, madam.” Margaret looked up and saw the bumblebee smiling at her. The woman put a glass of almost fluorescent iced syrup on the table next to Margaret and went away again. Margaret hesitated, but she was suddenly very thirsty. She sipped it cautiously at first, and, finding it not as sweet as it looked, finished it in a few gulps. She let a piece of ice slip into her mouth and sucked on it as she continued looking through the newspapers, her tongue feeling pleasantly numb. She worked her way briskly through each pile, pausing occasionally.
REPATRIATION CONTINUES
JAKARTA, 6 December 1950—The repatriation of Dutch families from Indonesia is continuing in earnest. Numbers of Dutch nationals leaving Indonesia are estimated to be on the increase. Today a special KLM flight left from Halim Perdana Kusumah airport filled with the latest families departing for the Netherlands. Most of them are happy to be leaving Indonesia, just as we are that they are leaving. Photo: Mother and child wait to board plane. Isn’t that a cute Teddy Bear! Don’t cry, Teddy Bear!
REVOLT IN AMBON
AMBON, 16 January 1951—Following the disbanding of the colonial army in July last year, a small number of former soldiers have refused to join the new armed forces of Indonesia. It is estimated that no more than 40 of these traitors have turned down the chance to participate in President Sukarno’s building of the great Republic of Indonesia and arrangements have been made to ship them away to the Netherlands. “I have to leave my family behind and I will be very lonely in the Netherlands, but I have no future in Indonesia,” says one of these traitors whom we will only call Tomy. To Tomy and his friends we say, Good Riddance!
DEATH IN THE PLANTATIONS
Special Report by Affandi Suprianto
NUSA PERDO, 2 December 1953—In this little-known corner of Indonesia a war is being fought to rid the country of the last vestiges of Dutch colonialism. On a 200-hectare Kayuputih plantation … a battle that symbolizes the hardship of ordinary Indonesians … neoslavery and oppression … Following the death of his daughter Santi, aged 4, plantation worker Adrus Utina … concession-owner Joos van Eerde … funeral costs … pleas unanswered … misunderstanding … subsequent dismissal … fellow workers protested … all rewarded with dismissal … burning of warehouses … accidental shooting … ultimatum … following morning the van Eerde family fled the com pound … plantation under the control of the workers’ cooperative … revolution beginning even in outlying islands …
MY WONDERFUL LIFE:
Renowned Artist Jos Smit Talks About Heartache and Happiness
BALI, 19 January 1957—He has had successful exhibitions in Sumatra and his beloved Bandung, and his reputation is now sky-high. Collectors of his work are said to include the president himself, but acclaimed artist Jos Smit’s career would never have begun if he had not come to Indonesia. Now settled in Bali, he is convinced that he has found his spiritual home. “I suppose for me it is what Tahiti was to Gauguin—beautiful colors and light, not like the gray gray gray of Holland… . Tradition of painting … many famous Westerners, Spies and Bonnet, whom everyone knows but other minor figures like Karl de Willigen too.” As for his nationality, he is utterly sure that he made the right choice, even though he sometimes feels sad for the loss of friends. “I took an Indonesian passport as soon as I could, in 1950. All other Dutch Indonesians should have done the same but they didn’t have the courage. I had no hesitation. For nearly ten years I have only spoken Bahasa Indonesia. I can’t even speak Dutch anymore! The only regret I have is that sometimes I speak to people and I can see in their eyes that they think I’m Dutch, not Indonesian.” When asked about other former Dutch contacts who might still be in Indonesia, such as de Willigen, he says, “I have had no contact with them for years. They are probably all back in Holland, or else dead.”
UNITED STATES PEACE PROGRAMME—
Aid Package for Indonesian Army
JAKARTA, 6 September 1958—Photo: President Sukarno attends reception at U.S. Embassy in Jakarta (L–R, the president, Ambassador Howard P. Jones, General Nasution).
Margaret examined the hazy image. In the background there hovered a number of people, including the unmistakable figure of Bill Schneider, his already thinning hair neatly combed, eyes alert, watching every detail. He looked exactly the same as he did today; clearly life in the tropics suited him.
She rubbed her eyes. It was getting late, the room darkening quickly in the blue twilight. She rearranged the newspapers haphazardly and went to find the librarian. The reception desk was empty, cleared completely of papers and books. “Hello,” Margaret called, but no one answered. The swiftlets that nested in the eaves of the roof were coming alive in the gathering dusk, fluttering from their nests in search of insects. Margaret left the building and began the long walk home. Her head no longer hurt and she felt ready to face the city.
She walked through the narrow alleys of Glodok, the air filled with the aroma of incense and cooking and blocked drains: a powerful, even heady combination. Never go there at night, foreigners cautioned, but Margaret always found it pleasant, especially in the evenings. The ceaseless sounds of human industry—the clatter of pans and dishes, the dull thud of sacks unloading from lorries, the indistinct clinking of hardware—comforted her, for in the half darkness it was easy to imagine that here, in this warren of streets, the city had not changed in two hundred years. Trapped in the maze of dead ends and unnamed streets, she could not see tower blocks or concrete monuments or glass statues; and under the cover of night the decay of the buildings around her became less noticeable, making the city seem gentler, more human.
Farther north the old square was quiet and empty now, the colonnades of the great buildings filled with a deep gloom. The soldiers she had seen earlier were gone, replaced by people trying to find a place to sleep. Suddenly she was eager to get home and glad she was not far. She longed for a cold shower, a modern American one with powerful jets of water that would strip the dust and grime from her hair and face and make her skin tingle when she stepped into it, but instead she knew that she would have to stand under the dribble of her makeshift shower that consisted of a hose and a watering can. The water would be tepid, heated in its thin pipe by the sun, but still, it would be good enough. And then she would have a whiskey, a strong one, and then she would fall asleep and forget about today, about everything.
She hurried along the final stretch until she reached the low wooden gate in front of her house. She could hear the distant ringing of her telephone as she fumbled in the dark for her keys, running across the yard. It was not until she was almost at the front door that she realized there was someone there, a body slumped on the steps. It was a boy, a teenager, crouched over in an almost fetal position. Margaret got closer and saw that he was asleep. Disturbed by the insistent ring of the telephone, he began to stir. He shifted uncomfortably; across his white T-shirt the word BERKELEY was emblazoned in large letters. Though closed, his eyelids trembled lightly, rapidly, as if troubled by dreams.
· 6 ·
One day, not long after he turned thirteen, Adam ran away from home. He woke up that morning and decided he would look for his mother.
For some weeks before this he had been feeling strange, not at all himself. He would be agitated by the smallest thing: the mewing of the fat white cat outside his window, or the squeaking of his bed frame every time he turned over on the too-thin mattress, or his closet door that never closed properly—things he would not normally have noticed. He was irritated by Karl too—by his uneven club-footed gait, by the pinky whiteness of his skin, which seemed obtrusive against the dull green landscape, and, above all, by the way Karl sometimes mumbled to himself: indistinct words in an indistinct lan
guage under his breath without even realizing he was doing it. “Was I talking to myself again?” Karl would say, clearing his throat and attempting to laugh whenever he noticed Adam glaring at him. “Just a silly poem I remember from a long time ago.” But it did not matter what he said, for Adam would try to ignore him, but as soon as the dreadful half whisper started, Adam felt a curious sensation in his head, a pinprick that welled up quickly into a hot, almost burning feeling that filled his skull, pressing especially insistently behind his eye sockets. He would no longer be able to read or concentrate on what he was doing and would be so overcome by this pressure in his head that he would have to retreat to his bedroom. There, on his bed with his pillow over his face, he would still hear Karl’s voice.
As if guilty by association, Karl’s music soon began to annoy Adam too. It made no difference what it was: The moment Karl moved toward the record player, Adam’s back would stiffen. Violins that had previously thrilled him now sounded harsh and screeching; operatic voices, amusing before, were suddenly ridiculous. Adam took to leaving the house altogether. Heading for the sea, he would clamber over the rocks and make his way as far up the shoreline as possible until even the faintest strains of Karl’s dying heroines were drowned out by the hush of the waves. One or two outrigger canoes would be floating on the steel blue sea, their sails trembling gently in the breeze; small nets would be flung from the boats, the fishermen hauling in meager catches of mackerel and skipjack and anchovies. Adam would sit watching until his head felt clear and calm once more, the anger draining from his body.
