Chapter One - Richard Lewis

a fine 18 th century keris with gem encrusted handle that now resided in John D.
Rockefeller's Asian art collection. The two women wore traditional dress of sarong and
kebaya blouse, their hair gathered in smooth buns, their faces pink with thick cosmetic
blush.
A third woman exited from the front passenger seat, straightening her black skirt
and smoothing her white blouse. Her sensible canvas flats were well-worn, and her calves
were ridged with muscle, suggesting someone who regularly bicycled for her transport.
Her hair was pinned up with a barrette, revealing a slender neck with pale brown hollows.
There was no touch of powder on those high cheeks, and she wore no lipstick, either.
Reed kept tabs on who was who among Bali's elite and powerbrokers, but he had no idea
who this young woman was. He'd never seen her before.
She respectfully followed several steps behind the two older women as they
entered the lobby. The matrons nodded at Reed and Father Louis, but the young woman
gave the men a glance that was as cold as it was brief and strode on, her canvas shoes
silent on the black-and-white checkered tile. She stood quietly in the background the
other Gerwani ladies loudly greeted their chairwoman.
Reed couldn't take his eyes off her. "Do you know who she is?" he asked his
companion.
"She's lovely, isn't she," Father Louis said with guileless pleasure at one of God's
wondrous works. But no, he didn't know who she was.
Wayan Arini, the hotel's assistant manager, stopped by the women's table to make
sure everything was satisfactory and then made her way over to Reed's, her professional
smile acquiring a depth of friendliness. A classic Balinese beauty, Arini was intelligent
and pleasant and happily married. She lived at Batu Gede, where her husband was the
grade school headmaster. She commuted each day to Den Pasar on her Lambretta
scooter. Spare parts were getting impossible to find. Last week Reed had wired a friend
in Djakarta to courier over a gear cable and replaced it for her.
"Good afternoon, Pastor. Good afternoon, Reed. Is everything A-OK?" The slang
tripped naturally off her tongue, although Reed had only taught it to her the other day.
"Sit down, why don't you?" Reed removed his ever present Nikon from the table.
He wasn't a professional photographer, but on the other hand, his photographs of Mount
Agung's eruption had been published in several international magazines.
She glanced at her watch and elegantly folded herself onto the edge of a chair.
There weren't many native English speakers living in Bali, braving its revolutionary
tumult, and she appreciated any opportunity to practice her conversational skills. As for
Reed, he not only enjoyed her company, but she was a mine of information on the
bigwigs staying at the hotel, on the politicians and army brass having meetings in the
conference rooms. She also had other means of ferreting out details—for example, her
husband's aunt Mak Jangkrik, a nickname meaning Grandmother Cricket, wove and sold
the brocade cloth that was presently a-glitter on many of those Gerwani women's
shoulders, including the two senior matrons. Mak was often invited into the homes of the
mighty muck-a-mucks to show her cloths.
Reed leaned close to Arini and asked, "Say, who's that girl with the ladies?"
"Girl? There is not any girl."
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