Chapter One - Richard Lewis

Arini replied with a nod, tucking the shirt's sleeve onto the ironing board's arm.
She ironed with quick strokes, the heavy iron clanking.
Tina halted. "Is that a charcoal iron?"
"We have electricity, but my mother insists," Nol said, embarrassed at such
antiquity in his house.
Tina marched over to the porch. "This brings back memories. My grandmother
ironed with a charcoal iron. And you know what, I always thought those clothes had this
special softness you can't get with electric irons."
"In America?" Arini said skeptically.
"They were artists, lived out in the desert. But when I tried to iron with it, I'd get
charcoal streaks all over the clothes. What's your secret?"
"Hardwood charcoal, the same wood they burn for distilling arak."
"Can I try?"
She put Nol's wrinkled green Hansip shirt on the board. "This one is safe to
practice on."
Nol was at first annoyed at this detour, not to mention his uniform being practice,
but then he realized that the old fashioned iron might actually be a selling point—Miss
Tina, you want your clothes ironed with the charcoal press?
"This is your Civil Defense uniform, Pak Ziro?" Tina asked.
"I'm a squadron leader."
"Then I should feel safe renting here. Phew, this iron really is heavy. You must
have muscles in that arm, Arini." She put the iron on its base, relinquishing it to Arini.
"I'll have to come over here whenever you iron and exercise more."
"I'll be happy to let you do it all."
She would? Nol's mother never let anybody do the ironing. Suti had once tried to
take over a year after they were married, using a Sanyo electric iron, which resulted in the
first confrontation between wife and mother-in-law. This was not a typical screeching
shouting affair. Arini retreated without a word, but she would sit silently by, and her
coldness became so steadily oppressive that it weighed on everybody. Suti could be
stubborn too, and for a while she tried to outlast her mother-in-law with increasingly
faked warmth and chirpiness, but finally she gave in and said fine, you iron the clothes.
And now this American woman had in a few minutes charmed Mother, just like
that? Must be that hair.
Nol stretched out his arm to herd Tina along to the villa. "And what is you do, Ibu
Tina?"
"Just Tina. Right now I'm on a research trip, but I teach at a university. Stanford.
The one your son attends."
"Really!" Nol exclaimed in delight. "Do you teach him?"
"What's he studying?"
"Architecture and engineering."
"I'm in a different department."
A flagstone path by the garage led through the private gate and around a hedge to
the front garden.
"My, how lovely," Tina said. "That lawn looks like a putting green."
"It does, doesn't it?"
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