Chapter One - Richard Lewis

"He'll never die," Arini said evenly. "He's too afraid, all those sins of his."
Having pronounced her judgment, she rose and glided out the door, heading
across the courtyard to her own house in the compound.
Nol and Suti exchanged a glance. On December 9, 1965, more than two months
after a failed Communist coup, Red Beret commandos loyal to then Major General
Soeharto had hauled Nol's father out the gates for questioning. Madé Catra was a grade
school teacher and scholar. Before he had a chance to clear his name, he was executed,
leaving behind his four-year-old daughter and his pregnant wife.
It was something Arini never talked about.
Nol's teenaged daughter Dian burst through the door, a sarong wrapped around
her, damp hair caught up in a towel. She reached for the remote, but Nol held it away
from her. "You have exams. No TV."
"But my favorite show is on! Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire. And it's not TV
anyways."
"Oh, really? What do you call that thing right there if it's not a TV?"
"It's a reality show. It's real people, not actors, so it's not really TV TV—"
"Go. Study. Now."
Dian flounced out with a scowl. Her bedroom, decorated with posters of Jakarta
boy bands, was the closest in a row of three rooms that shared a long porch. Nol kept a
constant and stern eye on her guests. Her older brother Putu had the far room, which Nol
kept locked, as his son was finishing up his first year at university in America. Not just
any school, but Stanford University, one of the world's best, to which Putu had won a full
scholarship.
"You've been grumpy all day," Suti said, her attention returned to the coaster.
Grumpy? Well, yes, and he had fifty million reasons why.
"Well?" Suti prodded.
"That Frenchman who looked at the rental last week? He took a place in Canggu.
Why do all the white people want to live in Canggu? The traffic's horrible, the beaches
are dirty, the rivers polluted."
"It might help if the pool was clean."
Nol kept silent. All during the villa's construction, they'd argued about the pool.
Suti had a knack for selling T-shirts and souvenirs to tourists, but she had little
understanding of Westerners' love for bodies of artificially blue water. And keeping water
blue was much more difficult than she realized.
He flicked through the channels, settling for a moment on Who Wants to Marry a
Millionaire, some handsome but penniless Balinese surfer living in an Ubud estate the
producers rented, pretending to be loaded with money for a bunch of pretty Jakarta girls
who were dumb enough to believe this was all for real. He jabbed the off button. "Kids
these days. They think it's so easy."
Suti dropped the mended coaster into a plastic bag. "Did you get to the bank
today?"
He scratched his armpit. "I forgot the bank book and they wouldn't let me take out
the money. I'm me, I said, you know I'm me, but no, I'm not me without my bank book.
I'll go tomorrow."
Suti brushed trimmings off her lap. "You had coffee with Anak Agung Mantera
this afternoon."
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