The Timor Man (6 page)

Albert had not really planned to attend the group rally. Like many of his friends he was just caught up in the excitement of the moment and the opportunity to protest on behalf of his people. He believed that to be his right. His responsibility.

The students, all teenagers experiencing the first euphoria of knowledge without the benefit of an adult life's exposure to disappointment and frustration, had gathered with placards pointedly aimed at the suffocating economic and military stranglehold the Jakarta-based garrison commanders had imposed on this poor province.

Almost without exception the young boys and girls originated from humble and still struggling rural families whose parents, as had theirs before them, suffered the harsh hand-to-mouth existence of the impoverished farmer. They had seen the soldiers enter their homes demanding and taking whatever they wanted. Forced at gunpoint to stand by silent and helpless, they had witnessed the rape of their mothers, sisters and friends. At least one member of virtually every family in his village had suffered the humiliation and terror of being dragged outside their houses in full public view, where they were stripped, taunted and taken behind the trees where they were abused and left to struggle back home, their spirits broken from the torment and physical violation.

They were angry but they were also naive. Had their parents known of their intent to demonstrate they would have forbidden such a rash and provocative act. There were less than two hundred students in the demonstration. The local garrison duty officer dispatched fifty well-trained troops. The results were devastating. When it was all over four dissidents lay dead. At least another twenty were seriously injured. Only a few of the youths escaped beatings and many just disappeared.

Their parents lived in hope that their children had been taken to another province for indoctrination courses but, in their hearts, they knew that it was unlikely that they would ever see them again. And, of course, they had other and younger children to care for, to protect.

Albert had been fortunate to survive the soldiers'first onslaught. He was knocked unconscious during the first few minutes as the soldiers commenced their methodical and brutal attack. When he awoke, he was shackled and in a dark foul smelling cell with two other detainees. It was then he realised that, although he was lucky to be alive, he had been locked up in the
Lubang Maut
, or Death Hole, underneath the detention cells within the garrison walls.

These fearful cells had been built by Dutch plantation owners. Originally intended to break the spirits of peasants who protested the confiscation of their land, now they were used to deal with Timorese freedom fighters — what the Indonesians called political agitators. Now the underground caverns held the children of those who had struggled before them. Now the colonists were Javanese, and they demonstrated their cruelty to excess.

He was beaten repeatedly each morning and, for some perverse reason, always within an hour of being fed the maggot-infested food. He was obliged to urinate and defecate within a one-metre radius of the damp corner to which his right leg was shackled. He was repulsed by the foul smells in the dungeon, suffering nausea and choking convulsions. Soon he sank into despair, punctuated by periods of prayer. Albert had no idea how long he had been detained.

Then one day he was savagely prodded to his feet. A length of rotan was extended towards him at the end of which hung the key for his chains. These he clumsily unshackled, dropping the key into the slime around his feet several times before mastering its use. Even his jailers moved away from their prisoner to avoid the stench. The soldiers forced him to sit in the prison courtyard where he was roughly hosed down to remove the accumulated filth from his incarceration.

He remained silent during this cleansing, his eyes shut tight against the brilliance of the sunlight. He had, Albert later discovered, not been held more than three weeks but he felt as if he had become an old man. Recovery was slow and extremely painful. His spirit was all but broken. His friends had all gone. Only his stepmother cared for him, the others too frightened to admit to his relationship with their family. He spent weeks, sitting quietly alone, living with the fear that the soldiers might return to take him back for further interrogation.

And then, one day, a visitor came. At first he did not know Father Douglas, the blue-eyed priest who had taught him English, but when recognition came, Albert broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. The priest, at his mother's desperate behest, had come to help him escape. Father Douglas had pleaded the young man's case with the local authorities and agreed to arrange to have Albert sent overseas with the Church, should the Commandant arrange his release. Being a man of God did not deter the Father from encouraging the officer to accept a small token of the church's appreciation, without which, Albert's release would have been impossible.

After a tearful good bye to his family, Albert and the priest took the road to the coast and boarded a fishing boat. It was not until they arrived in Darwin five days later that Albert could really believe that he had escaped and that he was to spend the rest of his life in another country.

Albert was permitted a visa for entry into Australia and commenced studies in Melbourne. Within a year he met a young female staff member in the immigration hostel and fell in love. Two years from the anniversary of his release from prison, Albert Seda married. Immigration officials who investigated his case were satisfied that the union was genuine and subsequently permitted him to stay as a migrant. Initially he obtained casual employment at the hostel, acting as an in-house interpreter.

Three years after his brief detention in the Kupang barracks, Albert was earning a substantial salary teaching Indonesian to Australian diplomats prior to their taking up posts in Jakarta. Father Douglas had been careful to communicate Albert's deep-rooted anti-Soekarno feelings to a friend in government. This made Albert's credentials acceptable and the father's friend then arranged for Albert's security clearance to teach. Suddenly, life was extremely pleasant for the good looking young Timorese.

Albert took advantage of all the opportunities available to him. He eagerly commenced evening classes undertaking a rigorous study schedule. He laboured late into the evenings. He worked through the weekends while others relaxed or played. He was highly motivated.

The young Timorese never forgot the cruel beatings. He stayed away from any involvement with political movements which he associated with too many memories of pain and humiliation. Now he had responsibilities. He was married. He now lived far away from the terror of his childhood and had been given a second chance by God. He would work hard!

Albert's wife, Mary, maintained her position at the hostel, working as an administrative assistant. She was so proud of her handsome husband. She knew Albert worked and studied diligently to ensure their future together although she often wished he would take more time for them to be together.

Mary's father, an Irish immigrant who worked occasionally between dole cheques, despised his dark son-in-law. Like the majority of blue-collar workers in the postwar years, Patrick O'Malley, with a dozen or so beers under his belt, would make the most of any opportunity to parade his prejudices, to sneer at anyone who was not white, Anglo-Saxon and Catholic.

Xenophobia was rife in Australia. Australians feared that waves of yellow-skinned narrow-eyed races would descend upon their Lucky Country and take it all away. The immigration authorities even prevented Asian applicants from gaining entry by introducing a system of discriminatory procedures which presented them with the most appalling obstacles.

Paddy, even when reasonably sober, could not differentiate between the various ethnic groups originating from Asia. Like many other Aussies, he believed that if you looked Asian, you were either a ‘bloody Jap' or a ‘bloody Chink'. He neither knew nor cared that such derogatory outbursts branded Australians as insecure white racists.

“Bloody yellow Chinese bastards!” Paddy would yell down the saloon bar at this favourite local on Friday nights. ”Come down here and seduce our lovely ladies they do, and before you know it the whole bloody country will be overrun by the bastards!”

During the small wedding breakfast organised at the hostel, Paddy, a reluctant guest of honour, drank himself into his usual ugly, inebriated state. Hopelessly confused and adrift from reality, O'Malley, enraged at Albert's impudence in kissing Mary, ordered his new son-in-law outside for a thrashing. Mrs O'Malley, ashamed and embarrassed, attempted to save the party. As she dragged her husband home, he continued yelling and screaming drunken abuse, threatening to feed Albert's testicles to the local shearer's dogs.

Yet Mary loved her father Paddy. She could not understand why he could not appreciate her handsome husband who would one day produce Paddy's first grandchild. Mary's eyes glazed over as she slipped away into one of her frequent daydreams, imagining herself pregnant, and then holding her own baby, nestled calmly between her breasts. Had she realised her father's revulsion at the mere idea of his daughter bearing a half-Asian child, of sullying his family's pure Irish lineage, then Mary might have been a little more circumspect during her father's birthday dinner.

Paddy had invited the local drinking team to help celebrate his fiftieth birthday. If the truth be known, Paddy invited his mates simply because it was traditional for guests to bring more alcohol than they could reasonably expect to consume. O'Malley estimated that the surplus would stock his larder for at least two weeks. The lads were more than aware of Paddy's sensitivities; however they could not resist the temptation nor the opportunity to stir the little Irishman along, to see his nostrils flare with rage.

“Well then, Paddy,” Pete Davies commenced, winking in the direction of his drinking associates, “when will we hear the patter of little feet around here?”

“When hell freezes over!” Paddy responded, eyes narrowing a little as the blood pressure rose and his muscles tightened. He did not appreciate this type of talk. Having his daughter married to the Timorese was bad enough; having her procreate with the man would be socially unforgivable!

Mary, unfortunately for all present, happened to overhear the rejoinder and slipped up behind her father, placing her arms around most of his enlarged stomach. “Looks like next year will be a very cold year then dad.” Mary insinuated, not realising that she had struck her father straight through the heart in front of all of his drinking mates.

“ I will make you a grandfather, yet,” Albert added.

There was a hush. The men knew Paddy only too well. He was going to blow, and they did not wish to be on the receiving end of his temper, drunk or sober. His face turned scarlet as his chronically abused heart forced itself into overdrive in line with the adrenalin surge.

O'Malley bellowed with rage. Just once. Then he collapsed. Guests and family alike stood rooted as Paddy's body fell limp to the floor. It was all over in just a few seconds. He had roared once, then died. The ambulance arrived within the half hour and Albert, sensing the mood, left his wife alone with her grief and her emotional family friends.

 

Mary and Albert never did begin the family she had hoped for. The guilt of her father's death ruined all chance of Mary and Albert having a normal happy married life. After the funeral the Seda household became quiet. Albert continued his studies, deliberately staying up late to permit Mary the opportunity to go to sleep before he retired.

He was extremely self conscious. He imagined that friends and acquaintances would whisper behind his back regarding his father-in- law's untimely heart attack, saying he was responsible.

As months wore on his self confidence returned, and he learned to tolerate the bigoted Australian middle-class attitudes.

He concentrated his energies on his new teaching position. The challenge of preparing the young trainees from the government departments was rewarding and, generally speaking, Albert found the quality of these potential diplomats and consular employees surprisingly high.

He was one of a number of teaching staff selected to train the students in the formal use of the Indonesian language,
Bahasa Indonesia
. He rarely experienced animosity from the students as they identified a genuine willingness on his part to assist. It was this sincerity that enabled him to establish close bonds with them. Albert had found his niche. He was content although his co-workers often remained aloof. He had conditioned himself to ignore the social difficulties which existed between the staff members. Some academics publicly supported full racial integration while secretly concealing their distaste for mixed marriages. Amongst their number there were fathers who cringed at the very thought of their daughters marrying someone like Mary's “Alburp”, as Seda was so unkindly referred to when out of earshot.

His recently acquired nick-name stuck when an instructor from the French department grossly embellished an incident which occurred during a formal dinner for the newly appointed finance director. Unaccustomed to the paté, Seda had burped during a lull between speeches and, visibly embarrassed, had then broken wind causing those sitting nearest to pale considerably. Mary had attempted to make light of the matter, but Albert's silence subsequent to the incident indicated all too clearly how deeply sensitive he was to the caustic comments and the general attitude of his fellow teachers. Over a period of time his embarrassment turned to disappointment and, eventually, indifference.