Chapter One - Richard Lewis

He told the receptionist, and then a series of nurses, and finally a young Chinese
doctor with lively eyebrows, that he was Men Djawa's relative.
"I didn't know she had any," the doctor said.
"Not a blood relative," Nol said. "I'm a civil defense volunteer from Batu Gede
and I more or less adopted her and kept an eye on her."
The doctor thought for a moment and then asked him to sign a visitor's ledger
before summoning an attendant. The attendant escorted him down a hallway to the new
wing, where he unlocked a door. Beyond was a plain room with a bed and built-in closet.
Men Djawa sat on a chair in an enclosed porch overlooking the garden. In her clinic robe,
she looked even more shrunken. Her gray hair was washed and combed straight back in a
manner that suggested she was bathed by others. Her unblinking gaze focused on empty
air.
"Don't know what you're going to get out of her," the attendant said. "She's dosed
to the max."
"Hello, old mother," Nol said, squatting beside her.
She rotated her head to look at him with dull eyes. "Did you find my children?"
The words floated out of her.
"Are you getting enough to eat? Are they taking good care of you?"
"They should come and visit me. Why don't they come and visit their mother?
What kind of children leave their mother alone like this?"
"Old mother, do you remember the bones on the beach? The ones that were dug
up?"
Men Djawa frowned at Nol's nose.
"Who were they?" Nol persisted. "Who were the buried ones?"
Her gaze struggled with some remembrance, trying to lift it up through the drugs
and assemble it in her fractured mind. "I know you. You're the one who is nothing."
"Madé Ziro. Nol. You know me, you know my mother, Wayan Arini."
"Your mother. Why should she have her children when I don't have mine?" Men
Djawa's lips worked furiously, her cheeks sucking in and own. Without warning, she spat
in Nol's face. "Where are my children?" she shrieked. "Why does she have hers?"
Shocked, Nol was wiping the spit from his face and didn't see her hand coming at
him, but the attendant caught it in his fist and gently pushed her arm down.
"You better leave," he said to Nol.
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