Chapter One - Richard Lewis

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AUTHOR'S NOTE Apart from certain and self-evident historical people, the characters in this novel are fictional, as is the Balinese village of Batu Gede. Regarding the events of 1965, I have scrupulously kept to the well-known historical facts (analyzed by scholars into wildly different interpretations of the whys and wherefores), weaving my own story around them, except for a few minor instances where I have invoked the writer's privilege of creative license. 2
<strong>Chapter</strong> <strong>One</strong> The backhoe operator didn't notice when the bucket ripped through the first of the skeletons. With the villa construction behind schedule, he'd climbed into the cab shortly after dawn to start excavating the seaside pool. The sun rose plump as a tangerine, orange light spreading across the ruffled waters of the Bali Straits and into the calm lagoon. Upon the beach, a Balinese woman led four pale tourists in meditation. The operator was a Javanese Muslim, and there was no God but Allah, but he respectfully waited for them to finish. He smoked a clove cigarette, yawning plumes, tired after spending half the night in a whorehouse, where his favorite girl was more interested in the radio bulletin about former President Soeharto being rushed to the hospital than she was in her client. "I don't care what people say, he was a good President," she said. "He did a lot for my village. Habibie took over and the first thing he did was give away East Timor." "I'm not here to talk politics," the operator complained. She shucked off her dress. "Never let a rocket scientist be president, that's what I say." The operator startled as the supervisor rapped on the side of the cab and gestured for him to start digging. He fired up the engine, which belched smoke that drifted through the few palms the landscaper had left standing in the last of Batu Gede's beachfront coconut groves. Some lucky villager had struck it rich. What had been arid land good only for a coconut plantation was now some of the island's most expensive real estate. The bucket scooped through a bed of loose sand and bit into hard volcanic loam. Several scoops later, a pale round object tumbled loose from the dark loam and lodged against the bucket's teeth. The back of his neck prickling, the operator shifted the bucket close to the cab window. A hollow-eyed skull grinned at him. "Iyallah," he breathed. He rested the bucket on the ground and jumped out of the cab. Gingerly picking up the skull, heavy with clogged dirt, he noticed on its rear a depressed fracture the size of his thumb, as if from a heavy blow. In the mound piled to the side, what the operator had first taken to be broken driftwood and decayed roots were yellowed bones. Using a bamboo stake, he dug away soil from what appeared to be a clam shell but was another skull, with a similar fracture. At the bottom of the pit were more bones. 3
Page 1: NOTE: A version of this novel is av
Page 5 and 6: Chapter 2 The previous evening, Mad
Page 7 and 8: The abrupt change of topic made Nol
Page 9 and 10: An assistant professor at Stanford,
Page 11 and 12: A good host, Reed saw his guest to
Page 13 and 14: Chapter 4 The VW Safari's headlight
Page 15 and 16: Chapter 5 Fifty million nightmares
Page 17 and 18: "The personnel manager said she'd l
Page 19 and 20: "I'll be at the market," she said.
Page 21 and 22: By a renovated rice granary that wa
Page 23 and 24: absentminded. In high school, Catra
Page 25 and 26: captain, having taken away her husb
Page 27 and 28: Nol. Nol didn't understand why. One
Page 29 and 30: Nol tried to grab it, but Gong toss
Page 31 and 32: 1965 The Den Pasar ice factory that
Page 33 and 34: Was she teasing? Reed couldn't tell
Page 35 and 36: formal sitting parlor visible throu
Page 37 and 38: "Nothing would give me greater plea
Page 39 and 40: Hotel. The officers liked to flirt
Page 41 and 42: "You know," Sudana said, "I have a
Page 43 and 44: "What was found is in safe keeping
Page 45 and 46: have the bitter past full of injust
Page 47 and 48: "Your mother's never gotten over it
Page 49 and 50: Chapter 9 In the hallway of Tina's
Page 51 and 52: Chapter 10 An elderly Dutch couple
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"Some American woman came by earlie
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Nol knew next to nothing about song
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"Your uncle put together the deal o
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Chapter 11 Nol and Sudana took turn
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"He was a surfer punk harassing Mis
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Arini replied with a nod, tucking t
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Chapter 12 After early morning flag
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The blond girl shrieked and ducked
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one." "And you want to be an actor?
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On the way back, she asked Nol if h
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LBJ's State Department had been so
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Arini hung up the ironed dress and
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The next morning, Nol walked to the
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He told the receptionist, and then
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"This way," Reed said, and they mad
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Bali from a professor there and I s
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damp, and she was brushing it with
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Nol crunched the mint. "Wayan, do y
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Nol didn't like the sounds of this
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"Hush, you silly boy. Don't mention
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Nol braked a sudden stop. "Give tha
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The Zoo child didn't wilt. An unhap
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"It is only my wife," Gusti said. "
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At the Gerwani house, the late afte
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The railroads were heavily PKI. "Wh
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uilding's lobby, two men intercepte
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Reed leaned back against the cushio
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"Yes," she said. "I am." She studie
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Arini murmured, "Lieutenant Colonel
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"At the Batu Gede rally I asked peo
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egrets to the family that an emerge
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Chapter 21 An hour after sunrise, T
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Down the beach, Mantera buried his
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"It was a day of low clouds and wes
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Taking a deep breath, he said to Ti
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treacherous Communists, the Army qu
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Chapter 22 Nol's cell phone blasted
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He hurried out to the lane and was
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Chapter 23 Tina rushed along a wide
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Chapter 24 On the night of the full
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fingernails into this crack, then t
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strolling through Merdeka square wi
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"You won't be able to protect her f
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Chapter 25 It was now five minutes
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"What happened here in 1965, Mother
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Chapter 26 1965 A heavy rain fell f
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This time Wendell was less guarded,
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"The secret to selling to tourists,
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"My ancestors came from China, but
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dozen kue lapis. I told her take th
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"I understand," Reed said cheerfull
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denounced the cruel and sadistic mu
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157
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edroom. When I entered the room, it
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"I'm not having my ceremony if he c
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"We're not going to drop this," she
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"You speak Bahasa," he said. It was
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"It is common for Westerners to ana
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addition to her other duties this L
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The editorial thundered that the my
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warung, packaged in banana-leaf. Re
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Chapter 31 In the hospital garden,
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and decided to send her into exile.
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This was the first she knew of the
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Chapter 32 1965 Rusty, revealing re
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the merchant refused. "No, no, no.
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"Have her here at seven tomorrow mo
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"No!" Reed shouted, resuming his sp
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Chapter 33 "They found their Luhde
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"He would blame Mantera, wouldn't h
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Then he heard his brother Dharma, b
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Chapter 34 Nol stood with Dharma at
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He went on, delivering a litany of
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Chapter 35 The front runners of the
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In the back of a shed, a tin pot st
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"What do you know about it?" Tina s
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"There were rattlesnakes around whe
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Chapter 36 Nol trotted up the grana
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The bloody trauma
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Chapter One - Richard Lewis

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