Chapter One - Richard Lewis

the revolution acts now! Not next year!" He swung his swagger stick to emphasize the
point, and the guests laughed.
Bung Karno inspected the painting with a connoisseur's eye, but whether of the
art or the naked nymphs, Reed couldn't tell. With a flick of walking stick, Bung Karno
directed an aide to bear the painting away. With a nod of his head, the great man both
thanked and dismissed Reed.
As Reed left under the escort of two palace guards, he again tried to catch
Naniek's eye, but she had her gaze fixed on the Foreign Minister, listening to something
he was saying.
Reed returned to his jeep and drove down to the Tampaksiring Cottages, sick to
his stomach. Would Naniek be sharing the President's bed tonight? He paced the scraggly
garden, staring up at the palace high on the ridge above. The place was blazingly lit. The
hours passed. He cursed and kicked stones.
But wait—there, two women in the high shadows, descending the concrete steps
leading through the ravine to the temple. Reed jumped over a flower bed and then a low
fence to the temple's outer courtyard. A half-moon was caught on the higher branches of
a banyan tree, shedding a pale, fractured light.
The woman paused on the lower landing. Reed's lungs seized up as he recognized
Naniek.
She saw him too, and smiled, a smile that tipped the moon and spilled its light
into his heart.
The other woman hobbled behind her, complaining in Balinese. "So many steps!
My poor legs!"
It was Mak Jangkrik, chaperoning the visit. She sat down on the edge of a temple
pavilion and rubbed her feet.
Reed held out his hand to Naniek. She lightly squeezed his fingers. They strolled
to another pavilion on the courtyard, close enough for Mak to keep her eyes on them, far
enough away to talk in private. Sitting by his side, Naniek took off her heels and sighed
in relief. "That feels better. They were hurting me."
"I was about to kill myself," Reed said. "I'll go head to head against any man over
you, but not the damn President! What…does he…do you go back to him?"
Naniek laughed and lightly slapped his forearm. "I was with Minister Subandrio.
He's a family friend. I've known him since I was a baby. In English you say he's my
godfather."
In the rush of relief, Reed thought, this would be a nice little nugget to mine for
Auntie. In the next instant, he felt ashamed and scolded himself.
"Tell me about yourself," he said. "Anything."
She idly swung her legs, the nails of her bare feet glowing like tiny fallen moons.
Her father was an aristocratic Javanese from Djogdjakarta who now lived in Surabaya
and was in the marine shipping trade. Her mother was Balinese who'd migrated to Java as
a girl.
"My full name," she said, "is Naniek Rahayu Sastrohartono."
"Yuyun," Reed said. He wasn't thinking. "Your nickname. How'd you get that?"
Her swinging legs came to a dead halt. "How do you know that?"
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