Well, what fun this is going to be, Margaret said brightly.
BUILT IN 1962 to celebrate the Asian Games, the Hotel Java sits on the edge of a sweeping roundabout in an area that might be called down town if this city had an uptown. Like so many of the brutalist concrete buildings springing up around Jakarta, the hotels angular lines and slightly industrial appearance were meant to remind the beholder of both Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus aesthetic: international yet functional. The roundabout in front of it is in fact a shallow, perfectly circular pool from which jets of water spurt majestically at a young peasant couple standing on a tall narrow plinth. The hotel and the fountain are just two of the many projects designed to impress visitors to Jakarta with the citys dynamism, and were commissioned by Sukarno himself (the presidents majestic erections, Margaret called them). Not more than two years had passed and already the toilets in the hotel were unpleasant; some of the bulbs in the grand chandelier in the lobby had burned out and hadnt been replaced; the carpets were scarred by cigarette burns and the table linen dyed with old wine stains.
Looks as if the presidents erections are faltering, Margaret said as she looked at the chipped edge of the bar. She had had two martinis already. The first had gone straight to her head and the second had slipped down all too easily. She was trying to make the third one last, but it was difficult; she felt a flush in her cheeks and she wanted to drink quickly. She was already quite light-headed, she knew, but she felt strong again.
Din stood with his elbows on the bar, facing away from the room. He stared at the rows of bottles arranged on the mirrored wall facing him, as if examining every single label. He would take only a Coke, no matter how hard Margaret tried to persuade him otherwise. He wouldnt even drink a Bintang. She was usually sensitive enough not to transgress cultural boundaries but Din was different. Yes, he was Muslim, but he had lived for three years in Europe and was not just another unsophisticated small-town Indonesian. If they both had a drink, she thought, the alcohol might help break down the boundaries that remained between them and they would be friends.
There was music, a band and a pretty Filipina in a tight white dress singing Solamente Una Vez in bright, clear notes, rolling her rs impeccably while shaking a pair of brightly colored maracas to accompany the Cuban drums. The bar was not full but it was already very noisy, the air smoky and filled with mens voices. There were a lot of men here and not many women; not many locals either. The only Indonesians present seemed to be women, and nearly all were prostitutes.
Here you have the Occidents finest at play, Margaret said. See those two guys? Pulitzer winners a few years back. Theyre supposed to be reporting on one of the most urgent political situations in the world and what do they do? Chase after girls they cant get at home. And that idiot over there, yes, that one canoodling with the Batak girl, hes meant to be administering aid for the World Bank, but it doesnt look as if hes capable of administering anything but a strawberry daiquiri.
Do you know everyone here? Din asked.
I recognize a few faces.
A big pink-faced man with sandy hair and freckles came through the doors and headed straight for Margaret. He had a young local girl with him, tall for a Javanese and quite fair. Margaret, how are you? Havent seen you in ages not since last years Fourth of July party at the Lazarskys. Whos the boyfriend?
Hes not my boyfriend, hes my colleague at the university. She was about to introduce Din when she noticed he had slipped away, heading for the bathroom. Hows the girlfriend, Bill?
Fine, he said, putting a fleshy arm across his companions shoulders, just fine. Her names Susanti, but I just call her Sue.
Been together long?
Guess so. Longest since I got here, at any rate. He laughed, patting his pockets in search of his cigarettes.
Wow. Two weeks? Congratulations.
He smiled for a moment then broke into an overhearty laugh. You just kill me. Youre still just so Margaret.
See you around, Bill.
A table and two chairs became free at the back of the room, in a shad owy corner where the lightbulbs had gone out. Margaret went over and sat down, making a cursory attempt to fiddle with the bulbs. She pre ferred everything to be bathed in light, preferably sunlight. It was not that she was afraid of the dark: She just did not like it, for it frustrated her not to be able to make things out clearly. The windows looked out onto narrow streets away from the noise and great rush of traffic of the grand roundabout. There were not so many people here, just a few of the embassy drivers waiting for their bosses to finish dinner. They milled about in small groups, smoking and exchanging gossip. Most of them were smartly dressed in creased trousers and khaki shirts, but there were a number of other locals who were more difficult to place: bodyguards trying to look casual, perhaps, or local journalists bribing the drivers for information. Margaret tried to discern the differences between them. She was good at this, good at spotting what lay behind this Asian mask of inscrutability. She had learned to do this in the jungle, with tribes who wore real masks and whose body language was indecipherable to outsiders, and she applied it with great success everywhere in Indonesia, even in this city of three million people. In America and Europe she had not been quite so successful; her antennae did not pick up the right signals with other Occidentals. She had not really even been able to understand her parents.
So who was your friend earlier? Din said, joining her at the table.
What friend?
That American man.
Bill Schneider, you mean? Hes not a friend. He works at the embassy. Not exactly sure what he does something to do with finance. Well, okay, I think he arranges all the bribes from our wonderful country to your wonderful country to build all your wonderful projects.
Like this hotel?
Probably. Although I think this hotel might have been funded with Japanese baksheesh not that it makes any difference. Bill and his lot certainly have their fingers in the pie now. I tell you, that man is everywhere.
They watched him drinking a tall glass of beer with a group of friends. He stubbed out his cigarette with clumsy little jabs and punched people on the shoulder to emphasize his jokes. He laughed a lot, always loudly. From across the room they could only catch snip pets of what he was saying. last year the Yankees got unlucky, this year theyre gonna step up. Im tellin ya, you cant lose with a name like Yogi Berra.
He can at least speak Indonesian, Margaret said, and Russian too, which is a big help in this town.
Din nodded. His girlfriend is very pretty.
Hes got bags of that je ne sais quoi that girls find so irresistible: U.S. dollars. Do you want another Coke?
Din shook his head. Thank you, but I have to go. Its a long way home for me.
I think Ill head home too. Im sorry the evening was a bit dull.
They walked through the grand lobby where smart-looking men in bush jackets and expensive women in shimmering dresses turned to look at them. They stood at the entrance for a moment or two, unsure of how to bid each other good-bye. A kiss? Out of the question. A hug? Still too intimate. Handshake? Too formal.
See you tomorrow, I guess, Margaret said, holding up her hand in a stilted wave.
Yes, he said, and a smile flashed across his face, not the infuriating unreadable one, but something thinner and tired. He looked curiously frail as he walked briskly down the curving driveway, past the long row of shiny black limousines, before disappearing into the stream of traffic. The lights in this part of the city made the sky look pale and hazy, even at night.
Margaret, someone called out. It was Bill Schneider again. He did not have his girl with him this time. I saw you leave and I thought, She cant be leaving us so quickly!
Well, I am leaving, Bill.
Wait. When he smiled he showed off the top row of his perfect teeth. You remember what we talked about last time we met
Margaret looked him in the eye then looked away. Yes.
And ?
And what?
Well, he paused. We need to know what you think.
She did not answer. A steady stream of limousines drew up before them; the revving of the engines and the exhaust fumes made her feel sick, and the whistling of the doormen rang sharply in her ears and made her incipient headache grow worse. She wanted to go home.
He stood watching her, not saying anything. Margaret felt he was prepared to stay there all night, waiting for her to answer, but in the end he said, Im sorry. This is not a good place to speak. You sure you wont come back inside for one more beer? No, youre tired, of course. Look, come by and see me in my office. Soon. He handed her a folded-up newspaper. She saw the same smiling badminton player she had noticed earlier in the day, one half of his face disappearing into a crease. Bill leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. Come soon, Margaret.
Taxi, madam? asked the doorman.
No thanks, Ill walk for a while. She went down to the road and stood watching the swirling traffic before her, assailed by the pleading cries of the child beggars and the shrill calls of the boys and girls lined up on the other side of the road. It hurt Margaret to look at them, so she turned away, trying to pretend that the noise was something mechanical and inhuman. The city had never seemed so enormous, so overwhelming, so chaotic, and its enormous overwhelming chaos was growing worse every day. Not wishing to walk any longer, she hailed a taxi that stank of clove smoke. She unfolded the newspaper and looked at the front page. Bills handwriting a surprisingly elegant cursive read: Page 5: PS Great to see you again. B
She flicked through the pages. More protests in Europe against the imprisonment of Mandela. Sukarno condemns Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Abebe Bikila promises gold for Africa. Brezhnev to provide more aid for Indonesia. Drug use in Malaysia reaching epidemic proportions; Britain offers no help. Communists arrested in outlying islands. It all looked familiar to her surely she had read it all this morning?
She looked again at page 5. Below the article on Communist arrests was a small picture. In the dim light at the back of the taxi it was difficult to make out the already blurred photograph of twenty or so men in a police cell. But there was one face, paler than the others: a European.
4
In 1841 the Nan Sing, a Chinese vessel sailing under the Dutch flag, set sail from Canton bound for Batavia laden with a cargo of porcelain, silk, and tea. Caught in unseasonably bad weather just south of Cape Varella, it began to move southeastward, drifting for many days until, lured by powerful currents, it crashed on the notorious reefs off the rocky shores of Nusa Perdo. Exercising his ancient right of looting shipwrecks, the sultan immediately ordered his fleet of little boats to recover the precious flotsam from the wreck of the Nan Sing. Enraged by this transgression, the Dutch authorities in Batavia demanded the return of the cargo and ordered the sultan to submit to Dutch rule. When this was predictably refused, several skirmishes took place, escalating into a standoff that lasted two days. There followed a further fifty years of shipwrecks, looting, and halfhearted attempts by the Dutch army to bring the island under its control. No great energy was expended in the subjugation of Perdo because the island had neither spices nor sandalwood. Covered in scrubby bushes and dominated by a dead volcano, this unobtrusive island virtually disappeared in the constellation of more attractive islands around it, until, late in the century, the discovery of kayu putih trees and rumors of rich gold deposits brought the white man back to these shores, and this time they did not leave. The sultan died by his own hand and the island came under Dutch rule.