Chapter One - Richard Lewis

The clarity of those eyes...then Mak blinked and her gaze dulled and her face
slackened. "I must finish watering my yard," she said.
In the three-room grade school, by his desk in the second row, young Nol stood
ramrod straight with his chest puffed out as he and his classmates chanted the Five
Principles of the Pancasila of the Republic of Indonesia. One and only one God! A just
and civilized humanity! The unity of Indonesia! Democracy by deliberation and
consensus! Social justice for all!
From the classroom wall there smiled upon them the paternal visage of President
Soeharto, the Guardian of the Pancasila, the Father of National Development, the patron
of the Golkar ruling party, the courageous general who had saved the country from the
wicked communists and was now leading it with vision and wisdom.
There also hung on the wall the portrait of the vice-president. What that man did,
Nol wasn't sure.
As Nol bellowed the principles, patriotic pride suffused his heart. He was a true
son of Indonesia. When Uncle Dharma went campaigning for the Father of Development,
Nol was there beside him, waving a big yellow Golkar flag. In this era, all things were
possible. This is what Uncle Dharma repeatedly emphasized to Nol: All Things Are
Possible. Oh, the glories of unlimited opportunity!
Patriotic and optimistic: that was why, in the spirit of all possible things, Nol had
in his school bag a bamboo tube containing an ordinary rice field cricket for the afternoon
fights under the acacia tree. The cricket was small and didn't have the looks of a
champion, but Nol had the spirit of optimism.
"Very good, class," the new teacher said. She had shiny black hair stiff as a
helmet. "You know, my father was an army officer loyal to General Soeharto. He helped
pull the murdered generals out of the Crocodile Well."
A murmur of awe rose from the children. Every year, on Pancasila Day, the
students watched a movie of those terrible and stirring events, when the Communists had
kidnapped loyal army generals and taken them to the Halim Air Force Base. There the
Gerwani communist women did unspeakable things to them and then callously dumped
their mutilated bodies down a well. Revulsion had swept through country, and people's
eyes were finally opened to the true nature of the wicked Communists. This was the event
upon which a revolution turned and the country was saved.
"I became a teacher to help this country develop its young citizens," the teacher
said. "To guide you children to the truth of the Pancasila."
From the front row, Raka said, "Nol's father was a Communist."
"Now, Raka, we don't say things like that. That is not polite."
"But he was."
Nol stepped forward with clenched fists. "He was not."
With stern command, the teacher at once ordered the class out to the yard for
clean-up. Nol swept the grass with the others. Raka sidled close to him and said in
singsong voice, "Your father was a Communist, your father was a Communist."
"Ignore him," Sudana whispered to Nol.
Nol did, even when Raka began accidentally-on-purpose flicking dirt at him with
his whisk broom. Gong appeared by toilets holding Nol's school bag. "Look what I
found," he said to Raka, pulling out the bamboo cage containing the cricket.
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