Chapter One - Richard Lewis
Chapter One - Richard Lewis Chapter One - Richard Lewis
More skulls. Iyallah. The operator was pretty sure what this was. Old history, come to light. History never taught in the school books, but known nonetheless by whispers in quiet corners. Nobody dared speak louder or more openly, not when Soeharto could be listening. He could be listening yet from his hospital bed. There was a Javanese saying: Carry your kings high and bury them deep. As for the king's victims, the operator reflected, they should be strung up even higher for all to see or buried too deep to find. These bones hadn't been deep enough. The supervisor stomped over. Before he could start yelling, the operator nodded at the skull. "I think you have a problem," he said. 4
Chapter 2 The previous evening, Madé Ziro, known to all as Nol, sat down in his parlor to watch the news with his wife and his mother. Suti sold T-shirts and knickknacks at her shop on beach arcade, and this morning Nol had borrowed fifty million from the bank to renew the shop's lease and promptly lost every single rupiah at the cockfights. He hadn't told his wife and wasn't going to tell her and so pretended nothing was wrong as he turned on the TV, prepared to fake a serene interest in the country's troubles while frantically wondering how to wiggle out of his own. A reporter prattled breathlessly that former President Soeharto had been rushed to the Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta. For years Soeharto's lawyers had claimed he was too ill to leave his house on Cendana Street to attend trial for corruption and human rights abuses, and now he truly was sick. The television switched to shots of the Cendana Family and close associates hurrying through the hospital doors. "All that money he stole can't help him now," Suti said. She was repairing one of the reed coasters she sold in the shop, peering over the rims of her reading glasses at the TV. Nol's mother, Wayan Arini, perched on the edge of a chair, her white hair coiffed, her slender back erect, her elegant hands folded in her lap. The evening's news had drawn her like a judge to her court, and she watched the reporter with a stern gaze, ready to catch him out on a lie. Suti relaxed in sarong and blouse, but Nol's fastidious mother had put on a freshly ironed dress to sit in his parlor as if she were a guest. As a panel of analysts discussed the state of Soeharto's kidneys, Nol slumped lower. Why oh why had his friend Sudana called him about the cockfights just as Nol was leaving the bank? Why oh why had the cockfights been at the Renon cockpit pavilion, right there on the way home? Why oh why, after Nol vowed to drive past the arena, had there appeared a single parking space on the side of the road? Why oh why had he stopped? He vowed he'd only gamble a million. But the entire fifty million vanished like a magic trick, leaving Nol holding an empty leather satchel. Angry and disgusted, Nol threw it out the window as he drove off. But it was a perfectly good satchel, and he sped around the one-way block to retrieve it. It was already gone. Some lousy thief had taken it. The reporter popped back into view, a weedy young man who must have been in short pants when Soeharto abruptly resigned during the 1998 riots. The question now, the reporter said, is whether the president would be leaving the hospital alive. 5
- Page 1 and 2: NOTE: A version of this novel is av
- Page 3: Chapter One The backhoe operator di
- 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
- Page 53 and 54: "Some American woman came by earlie
More skulls.<br />
Iyallah. The operator was pretty sure what this was. Old history, come to light.<br />
History never taught in the school books, but known nonetheless by whispers in quiet<br />
corners. Nobody dared speak louder or more openly, not when Soeharto could be<br />
listening. He could be listening yet from his hospital bed.<br />
There was a Javanese saying: Carry your kings high and bury them deep. As for<br />
the king's victims, the operator reflected, they should be strung up even higher for all to<br />
see or buried too deep to find.<br />
These bones hadn't been deep enough.<br />
The supervisor stomped over. Before he could start yelling, the operator nodded at<br />
the skull.<br />
"I think you have a problem," he said.<br />
4
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