Chapter One - Richard Lewis

Outside the gate, a car honked. Nol gulped his coffee and rushed out, jumping
onto the back of the Civil Defense pickup. Men in green uniforms lined the two benches
placed back to back. Nol squeezed in between his cousin Timon and his friend Sudana.
As the pickup bounced down the lane, he brooded on his money troubles.
Uncle Dharma sat up front in the cab, tufts of white hair banded about his bald
scalp. Most men Dharma's age took it easy, lolling at the coffee shops or piddling around
with hobbies, but Dharma was a community stalwart and leader of the local Civil
Defense. He'd worked hard as sharecropping farmer when he was a young man. By the
time Nol entered grade school, Dharma was no longer farming but was brokering
harvests from around the island. When Nol graduated from high school, his uncle was
brokering the fields themselves to big money from Jakarta and abroad, but first fortune
had come from developing the Batu Gede mangrove swamps into warehouses and
factories.
Dharma had money coming out of his thick, hairy ears. But Nol wasn't about to
ask him for help. His uncle didn't approve of gambling.
Yet Dharma wasn't without his own vices. He had an eye for pretty women and
kept several mistresses in various luxury houses. Such a man was theoretically open to
blackmail, but Nol resolutely refused to think of such a thing. His uncle had been like a
father to him, and was still the head of the family. Not only that, but you didn't mess
around with Dharma. He had a temper and strong opinions. One of his favorite peeves
was the laziness of his fellow Balinese. "We've been spoiled by tourism," he'd say. "Who
wants to work the fields anymore? All that hard work, planting and plowing and getting
dark from the sun. Heaven forbid one of our young men should work in the fields when
he's dreaming of an office and a secretary. So who comes in to take over working the
fields? The Javanese. And we complain that they're overrunning our island."
The pickup turned into the 24-hour Pertamina fuel station. An old woman stalked
along the pavement, muttering to herself. Men Djawa was neatly dressed as always in
sarong and kebaya blouse, her pink sandals garish under the yellow street lights. The
arthritis that twisted her fingers also hobbled her knees, putting a wobble into her stride.
She sold delicious homemade cakes in the morning market, but during her bad days
wandered the village, looking for her two young daughters who'd gone missing during
her twenty years in a political detention camp in Java.
She veered into the gas station after the pickup.
"Oh-oh, here she comes," Sudana announced.
She glared at the men in the back. "Where are my daughters?"
"Probably old hags at Dolly," one muttered, referring to the notorious red light
district in Surabaya. The quick grins of the other men quickly withered under Nol's glare.
Men Djawa thrust her face against the closed passenger window. "Where are my
darling girls?" she yelled at Dharma. She pounded her hands on the glass, her arthritic
fingers crooked like claws.
Nol jumped off the pickup and put his arm around the bent woman. "We're
looking for them, Grandmother. Don't worry. We'll find them and bring them back to
you."
This wasn't the first time he'd calmed her down. He had a soft spot for her and the
traditional cakes she made.
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