Chapter One - Richard Lewis

denounced the cruel and sadistic murders. An anchor also reported on General Nasution's
young daughter, shot and badly wounded during his botched abduction. As shocking as
the murders were, it was this shooting of the innocent girl that deeply stirred the
emotions.
"Kill the bastards who did it," a man in the lobby said, and there was a loud
murmur of agreement.
The next day's edition of the nationalist newspaper announced a national day of
mourning and decried the wanton viciousness of the Gerwani witches who had tortured
and mutilated the generals. The power station ran its generators so that TVRI could
broadcast live the slain generals' funeral, a somber procession of flag-draped caskets
carried on soldiers' shoulders, followed by the grieving families. At the cemetery, the
whole of parliament and the national leaders were gathered. But not Sukarno, Reed
noticed. In his place he had sent his stand-in, his loyal foreign secretary Subandrio, a
spare man with thick rimmed glasses. Naniek's godfather. Did he know where she was?
The capital's entire diplomatic corps were also assembled, but not the Communist
Chinese. A most curious absence. The Russians looked smug—the Indonesia Communist
Party had trotted after Peking, not Moscow, and hadn't that been a big mistake! And there
were the Americans, hardly less smug but more careful not to show it, the Ambassador
sweltering in the heat, and Auntie in her more sensible dress, fanning herself with a
delicate sandalwood fan Balinese dancers used.
A street boy slipped into the lobby and pressed a note into Reed's palm.
Unsigned, but Reed recognized Mother Agnes's convent hand. Somebody will meet you
three o'clock Stuidhuis museum.
Formerly a Dutch colonial administration building, the history museum was in
walking distance, but only mad dogs and CIA spies walked in this heat. Gray clouds
massed on the horizon, presaging the arrival of the wet season. Camera bag slung over
his shoulder, Reed hired another betjak, which melded with a flow of bicycles, the city
sputtering to life again. Twice Reed told the driver to turn down this lane, to cut back on
that street, and he noticed with each change a young man on a bicycle with new tires
sticking close. But then the guy peeled away around a corner.
The museum was in dire need of a good whitewash. Only a few people wandered
the musty halls, looking at the displays of ancient earthenware and stone artifacts, stuck
in cabinets with dirty glass.
A middle-aged woman with the light skin of a Dutch-Indonesian stepped out of an
alcove and murmured to him, "The prison."
Reed ambled after the woman, following her down a flight of stairs to the
underground jail, stone cells with iron bars that the Dutch had used. Here they were
alone. The woman nodded at one cell. "According to my family legend, one of the Dutch
jailors was my great-grandfather, and one of his prisoners was also my great-grandfather.
Have you been in jail?"
"In college. For a night. We lost a hockey game and took it out on a bar."
"I've spent my time in jail. A year and a half. In Sumatra. I earned my
revolutionary credentials." She turned to him. "Agnes says you are looking for
somebody."
"Naniek Rahayu Sastrohartono. Yuyun. She's a member of Gerwani. I think she
was at Halim, at the Lubang Buaya training camp."
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