Chapter One - Richard Lewis

ut who had difficulty understanding the basic concept that businesses had to make
money before bills could be paid.
With a last steep tilt, the road curved onto the crater's rim.
There was a sudden rustle and gasp as Putu's girlfriend snapped upright. "Oh my
god!"
Nol instinctively braked in alarm. "What?"
"The view!"
The view? There below was the crater and the lake and small active cone with
steam vents, and the patchwork of gray lava flows and the green fields, and the blue
water of the lake, everything looking as it should. But then again, foreigners were always
making a fuss of what they could see from high places, as if in past lives they were all
birds.
"It is gorgeous, isn't it?" Tina said. "And the air is so fresh."
The only vehicle in the temple parking lot was a mini-bus with the flowery logo
of a travel company, a business that Mantera owned. Snack stalls lined one side of the lot.
Gong sat in the middle of a bench that bowed under his weight, slurping a bowl of sugary
shaved ice. He nodded his triple chin at Nol, his gaze lingering with curiosity on Putu and
the blond girl in her Balinese dress.
"I know that big man," Nol's mother said under her breath. "Wasn't he the school
bully?"
How would she know? Nol had fought his battles without her taking much notice
of them.
Nol ushered everyone through the Temple of the Crater Lake's towering main
gate and through courtyards to the proper shrine for the blessing and the beseeching the
holy water. There praying before a congregants' shrine was Anak Agung Mantera with
his three sons, their wives and children.
What were they doing here?
The zoo girl stepped to the side with a digital camera to photograph the praying
family. Nol's growl grew louder. Even though he was annoyed to see Mantera, this was
not a tourist moment. Putu whispered to her. She blushed furiously and immediately put
the camera away.
Mantera's family finished their prayers. Raka helped his father to his feet, but the
old man brushed his son away and used instead his black cane to steady himself. He
strolled over and greeted Arini, saying his family was here to ask for holy water for their
tooth filing ceremony.
"So are we," Arini said. She took Putu's arm. "You remember my grandson?"
Mantera extended a hand. "Welcome home."
"Thank you, sir," Putu said politely.
Suti jabbed Nol with her elbow. He followed her quick dart of eyes, which
signaled out Wulandri brooding like a pent-up volcano behind her grandfather. The
princess was ignoring Putu with such haughty fervor that she might as well have been
sneering openly at him. She whisked her sandalwood fan about her face as if to ward off
Putu's smell. Over the fan's edge she flashed him a look full of lava and heated steam and
electric lightning, and then her gaze flickered to Putu's blond girlfriend in her borrowed
Balinese temple dress. Wulandri's eyes narrowed into a sharp blast of scalding, poisonous
gas.
94