Chapter One - Richard Lewis

"No problem. Whoever's behind this coup, the army's gonna come down on 'em
like a ton of bricks, with bayonets attached."
Reed's next stop was the Gerwani office at Batu Gede. A cool sea-breeze had
picked up, whisking the palm leaves and breaking the heat. Mothers had already picked
up their children from the day-care. Endang and Sri were home from school, and Sri
tugged Reed into the family living room. She wanted to learn a English song. Reed taught
her Old MacDonald. Sri picked in on the first round, shouting ee-eye-ee-eye-oh and
breaking into giggles. Twelve-year-old Endang was above such childishness.
Parwati returned from an errand and scolded Endang for not getting their guest a
drink. If she knew about the events in Djakarta she didn't seem perturbed by them. She
served Reed coconut milk, served with pieces of sweet soft meat. Reed asked her where
Naniek would have gone. She replied that most likely she would have shown up first at
the Gerwani headquarters in Djakarta and perhaps stayed the night at their dorm. No, she
didn't know what Naniek's new assignment was or where it would take her.
"My daughters miss her," Parwati said.
So do I, Reed thought. And he was worried as hell, too.
Reed searched for Dharma and found him at the cockfights at the death temple. A
hundred men gathered around the makeshift pit under the banyan, the bedlam of betting
giving way to silence as the roosters exploded into furious rage.
Reed hadn't eaten all day, and ordered rice-cake and spicy peanut sauce from a
vendor, who dished out the meal on a banana leaf. Reed squatted and ate with his fingers.
Another fight, another round of betting, but this time a rooster took flight from the pit,
and the men wheeled away from the deadly razor attached to its spurs.
The fights finished before sunset, and Reed walked back with Dharma, who
carried his winning rooster in a basket and also two dead cocks that his champion had
defeated. "PKI chickens," he boasted. "Their owners were Communists."
Yes, Dharma said, he had heard the news, but he wasn't going to attach much
significance to anything just yet. Djakarta was a different world, and events there often
had no effect on Bali.
He hoisted the dead chickens. "Today we spilled chicken blood. But perhaps one
day soon we'll offer the gods a better sacrifice. Human blood. Communist blood."
Reed spent most of the next day in the Den Pasar phone office again, trying to get
through to Harry Chen. Finally, in mid-afternoon, the call went through. Harry said he
hadn't been able to track down Bambang.
"The Indonesians in Singapore are all running around like chickens with their
heads cut off," he said. "And some of them might loose their heads for real."
When Reed got home to his bungalow, Mak Jangkrik was waiting for him, sitting
on the steps of his verandah, with a basket of sonkget cloths As soon as he saw her, his
hopes soared. "You have a message from Naniek?"
"Haven't heard from her since she left," Mak said.
He invited her up to the verandah and wearily slumped on the couch, nodding
vaguely as Mak showed her songket cloth and chatted. Reed really wasn't in the mood
for a sales pitch, but it cost nothing to be polite.
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