Chapter One - Richard Lewis

already bought the whole crop at a good profit. And to think that when Reed first came to
Bali, organic sea salt was the only salt around, sold by the basketful, cheap as dirt.
"We're having a celebration party next month," Komang said. "You'll come and
dance for us?"
"The bumbling bulé? Sure. But only if you make your spicy turtle lawar."
"You know turtle's illegal," Komang scolded.
"I have connections. I can get you a couple."
"I wouldn't mind," Komang said with a laugh, "but Ruda would be very angry."
After Komang left, Reed sat in the gathering dark for awhile longer and then rose
with a creak of knees. In his airy bedroom, open to a private garden, he turned on the
overhead lights. By the canopy bed stood an antique Ming cabinet. Reed opened the
polished rosewood doors and felt underneath a dresser panel for a latch. Releasing it, he
pulled out a hidden drawer.
Lying on the wood was a back-and-white portrait photograph. A young
Indonesian woman in a white blouse, half-turned to glance over her shoulder at the
camera with a flat, almost hostile, look. The afternoon light caught her high cheeks and
sparked the black irises of her upswept eyes. Her long black hair was coiled up and
pinned with a barrette, a loose few strands loose dipping into the shadowed hollows of
her neck.
Behind her was a village square, and standing upon the weedy grass were rows of
cadres in black trousers and white shirts, blurred together by the camera's short depth of
field, but on the fringing banners, flapping in a stiff breeze, the hammer and sickle were
clear enough.
Soon enough those banners would be torn down and burned. Soon enough those
cadres in their proud ranks would be cowering in fear, waiting for the death squads to
haul them out of their hiding places.
Reed held the photograph with a trembling hand as he studied the woman's face.
He tried to think of the good things, her laughter, her black tresses spilled around her like
a holy aura, her eyes pure as spring water. But on the sway of vodka there crept other
memories, the foul stink of raw human fear, the pall of smoke and stench of burned flesh,
the hacked bodies in the ditches, the grim Black Shirts silently and swiftly marching.
His jaws flexing to hold back a groan, Reed slammed the drawer shut.
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