Chapter One - Richard Lewis

"The personnel manager said she'd let me know next month," Nol said. "I'm not
hopeful. They hire a whole bunch of part-time guards so they don't have to have as many
full time guards who get full benefits."
In fact, thinking about it, Nol became offended. Who wanted to work for such a
cheap company? Why should he constantly risk his life for such ungrateful management?
After Suti puttered off on her scooter, Nol wandered across the courtyard to the
kitchen hut. Suti was a good cook, but the kitchen was still Mother's domain. She'd
already left for the central Denpasar market to buy fresh food for the day, but she'd lit the
hearth fire. The rice pot steamed with newly cooked rice, and the kettle hissed over the
glowing coals. Nol made a glass of coffee sweetened with condensed milk, and squatted
on the steps of the hut to slurp it, pinching the glass around the rim.
On the other side of the garage wall, the rental's thatched roof rose in silhouette
against the dawn sky. Thatch had once been the cheapest of roofing material, used by
farmers, but now it was the most expensive, because all the Westerners wanted the native
look. The rental's plunge pool, another tourist must, allowed Nol to advertise the place as
a villa. The villa also had a view of the rice fields, another important selling point, which
Nol had learned from his Uncle Dharma, who was a master at what Westerners liked. Nol
wasn't quite sure he understood what a "view" was, because if you were able to look out
at rice fields then those working in the rice fields were able to look back at you. But
apparently that didn't bother Westerners, who were willing to pay more to be looked at.
Originally, Nol had wanted to build an empty shell for the swallows that swooped
around the rice fields. Such birds needed nesting places. He told Suti, do you know how
much a kilogram of birds' nest sells for? To which she replied, do you know how much
they stink and how much it costs to get all the permits?
About the same time, on the other side of the rice fields, a man had built a
swallow house and in a year had earned over a hundred million. Of course, he'd also been
arrested for violating zoning laws, paying two hundred million in bribes to avoid jail, and
the swallow house had been demolished, oh unlucky man, but still, that had proven the
soundness of Nol's idea.
A young Australian couple had leased the villa. They had tolerated the first rice
field cobra they found in the kitchen, but they'd left when they found the second in the
baby's bedroom. Nol had refused to return their money, and the couple must have spread
rumors about snake infestation, because the place had been empty since. True, the
Frenchman had looked but he'd frowned at the water in the pool and said no on the spot.
Out of the dark shuffled Nol's great-aunt, a gaunt and withered crone. The tattered
scarf slung over Mak's neck didn't cover her shriveled breasts, dangling like empty
pockets. Gray hair wisped about her head. She lived in the banana grove out back, in a
shack of woven bamboo walls. Nol scooted over on the steps so she could wobble into
the kitchen, where she would take some of the cooked rice for morning offerings. In her
youth Mak had been a fierce revolutionary, a member of the peasants front in their
struggle against the colonial Dutch authorities. After Independence, she wove songket
cloth, selling the glittering brocades all over the island, riding packed buses and horse
carts. She haunted the few hotels and was allowed into the residences of the rich and the
powerful. Her weaving had been famous and sought after. When Nol was younger she'd
still been sharp as a cockfight blade. But now she was lost in her own world, which each
day was getting closer to the unseen realm of the gods.
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