Chapter One - Richard Lewis

This was the first she knew of the letter, and her blood ran cold. What had her
foolish stupid husband done?
The army interrogators aren't going to overlook this, Mantera said. They will
interrogate Catra and find out who Luhde Srikandi is. You and Catra must leave the
country now, while there is still time. Go to China.
Arini thought of Parwati, and of Desak the salt-farmer's wife, and the other
Gerwani women. I am not going to run away like a coward, she said.
Twice more Mantera came to the granary to try to convince her. She refused. She
did what she could to save the Batu Gede Gerwani women. They were suspicious of her,
so she finally revealed to Parwati that she was a member of a secret PKI cell. Parwati had
a sister in Singaradja, a well-connected nationalist. When it seemed certain that the
killings would soon start in Bali, Arini bullied Parwati and her daughters into leaving
Batu Gede. She took them to Singaradja in the hotel car. The sister hid her and the girls in
the house. Parwati had with her a family heirloom, a ruby ring, and some gold.
Later, when Arini heard that Parwati had been arrested, she went back to
Singaradja to check on the daughters. The sister was wearing the ruby ring. She'd made it
bigger to fit her finger. Arini knew in an instant what had happened. Parwati's own sister
had turned her in to the military. The sister became angry when Arini asked her what had
happened.
How dare Parwati come to me and expect me to care of them, she ranted. The day
after Parwati was arrested, she said, she sent the two girls back to Batu Gede and to their
father.
But their father wasn't in Batu Gede. He was a railroad worker in Java, a PKI
unionist who vanished into the blackness. Arini went back to Batu Gede to look for the
girls, but she didn't find them. She never knew what happened to them. Much later, when
Parwati returned to Batu Gede as Men Djawa, she thought Arini had betrayed her, and
betrayed the Batu Gede Gerwani, in order to save herself.
Morning light curled into the café. From beyond the wall came the bleat of traffic.
In telling her story, Arini had shown no emotion. She had strength of character all right,
but had that strength stunted her emotions for pain and grief? Had she stifled them,
simply in order to survive, get through the years?
From behind a ridge of memory, Tina was suddenly ambushed by an image of
Nancy, climbing out of their bedroom window at night, to sneak after her old sister, who
was herself sneaking off to meet a boyfriend…
Tina thrust that image away and said with more harshness than she meant, "If you
were Luhde Srikandi, then who was the woman who was beheaded?"
"There is an English game," Arini said. "Eenie meenie minie mo. Who will be the
one to die? The military was looking for Luhde Srikandi. So Mantera and Dharma and
my own husband Catra decided to find her first."
Mantera summoned Dharma and Catra to the palace for an urgent conference.
Dharma replied that it would be best to meet at night on the empty grounds of the pura
dalem. A misshapen moon rose, but monsoon clouds shrouded the sky, throwing
darkness on the land. Dharma brought an storm lantern, the wick trimmed low. Any one
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