Troppo (23 page)

‘Actually, I can't wear singlets at the moment.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I had an accident.'

‘An accident? What, on the moto?'

Two little kids wobble past on a bicycle, both balancing on the seat.

‘No, in the surf.' Her flawless hot-pink manicure claws the throttle. ‘I was surfing Larry's Left.'

Matt had mentioned Larry's Left. It's one of the heaviest waves in the area, mostly surfed by bodyboarders looking for
cement-thick pits. A few surfers give it a crack from time to time but the general consensus is that the take-off is not worth the barrel. If the Kiwi surfs that, then she must be good. Like,
really
good.

‘And …?'

She's struggling to find the words.

‘And I scraped my tits off.'

An involuntary hand goes to my chest. ‘You
what
?!'

‘I didn't take off deep enough. If you don't want to get caught up in the lip then you almost have to backdoor it.'

‘Right.'

‘And I fucked it. It's so shallow out there.'

‘Holy shit. So, what happened? Did you get dragged across the reef?'

‘Yep …'

‘And so, did you like, just scrape up your boobs or did your nipples come off?' How did that work? Do nipples even grow back?

‘Nah, just my boobs. They've scabbed up okay. But you know what it's like here, trying to keep stuff from getting infected. It's so hard.' Tears carve up her blush.

Dad used to take to my coral cuts with relish. He scrubbed them out with an old toothbrush, dug around with the tweezers, then sealed them off with Obat Cina.

But
boobs
. Bloody hell. That's a bit different to a few scratches on your feet.

‘When did you do it?'

The Kiwi kills the ignition of her bike.

‘Few days before that barbecue at Dennis'.'

‘I've still got a few antibiotics from Aus if you want them?' ‘I'll be okay. Picked up some over-the-counter stuff.' She grins through tears.

‘You don't think it's a good idea to head home until it heals?'

‘I can't really go home because of a scratch. You know, with the business.'

I find myself wondering what will happen to her. If she'll last here in Batu Batur or if there's something that will eventually break her.

‘So if you're not leaving soon then I guess I'll see you around,' she says, flicking over the ignition. Her bike starts with a roar.

‘Yeah about that … it's not going too good at Shane's. I actually think he's pretty dangerous.'

‘Took you long enough to figure that one out.'

‘The other night, he lobbed a Bintang bottle at one of the guests. And with Matt and Joni putting black magic on him … I don't know him well enough to say if it's working, but anyway. Maybe if I'm still around next week we should catch up for a drink? What are you doing for Christmas? You're obviously not heading home?'

‘I'm having Chrissy here. What day is it again?'

‘Next Saturday.'

‘Yeah cool. I think Dennis and Meri were talking about having something at their place.'

‘I'm actually on my way there now,' I say.

‘Nice. Tell 'em I said hi.' She looks ahead at the road for a moment. Her board is strapped to racks on the side of her bike. She must be angling for a dusk session, hoping for a glass-off. Kind of crazy, with a wound like that. No wonder she's struggling to stave off infection! She doesn't look at me when she says, ‘He's not your boyfriend anymore, is he?'

‘Nah.' How does she know? Maybe she was the one who drove him home from Roger's. Maybe he dropped in to her internet cafe to get in touch with the ex. It doesn't really matter.

‘Are you okay?' she asks, still looking down the road.

‘It could've been worse.'

I could've still been in Perth; could've just got kicked out of his apartment with all my stuff, could've had no other love interest to divert my attention, even if that, too, turned out badly.

‘Cool, take it easy then,' she says.

‘Sure.'

I circle the village twice before remembering which is Dennis and Meri's house. Distances are different on a bike and I'm coming from the opposite direction to town. The door is open and I call out.

‘Sebentar!' comes Meri's reply.

She greets me a moment later, tasting spoon in hand.

‘I'm just cooking something, come in, come in.' I follow her through to the kitchen and she returns to her pot. She's stirring a tofu curry. It's full of dry, floating chillies. On the chopping board next to her pot is a bunch of leaves, some kind of fragrant herb.

‘What's that, Bu?'

‘Kemangi. Try some.' She passes me a leaf.

Some of the herbs and vegetables here can be evilly bitter, like whatever was cooking in the dukun's shack, but this tastes like basil with a twist of lemon.

‘That's amazing. I've never seen this at any of the warungs around here.'

‘Yes, not so much of it here. It's Dennis' favourite. He tried it for the first time when we were in West Java and then brought some seeds back. We have a little patch –' she points through the window.

‘Cool. Where is Dennis? I wanted to have a chat to him.'

‘He should be on his way home from work now. He won't be long.'

‘Is it okay if I wait around?'

‘Of course! There're some books and magazines in the lounge room. Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea, coffee, water?'

Dennis has a fabulous collection of books in Indonesian and English. And poetry; there is a whole shelf dedicated to Australian poetry. I domino, one by one, volumes by John Tranter, Alan Wearne, Dorothy Porter, Rebecca Edwards, Bruce Beaver, Dorothy Hewett, Merlinda Bobis, Gig Ryan, John Forbes. What a goldmine! A battered cover open on the chair catches my eye:
Poetry Australia, 1975
. I turn the fan on high and start to flip the pages. Ibu moves around the kitchen and chooks cluck and kick in the yard. After a few minutes I find a poem that rivets me, makes me oblivious to everything else, takes me to Papua New Guinea with a missionary in 1891:

… And always outside his mosquito net

A thousand small shrill voices sing and drone.

Those circling deaths with wings soft as starlight …

… And one day a soft breeze will fan his neck,

And gently settle there and itch and kill …

My scalp prickles, as if doused in cold water. Why can't they just let the malaria get him? What could possibly be worse?

‘Hi Penny, I see you've found Mr Lehmann.'

I jerk my head around.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. You haven't been here long?'

I pull myself together. ‘No, no, I … wow.' I stand and shake his hand.

Dennis is dressed in long pants and a sensational batik shirt. When I ask where he got it he tells me he personally selected the material in Yogyakarta then took it to one of the city's best tailors. Impressive as his outfit is, he looks like he's stinking hot.

‘I've been in the classroom all morning overseeing some construction. I'll just have a rinse then join you.'

‘No worries.'

I go back to the poem. The poet's grandfather, a missionary, is dying. He built his church in a ‘country brooding like a dark green brain', and now boards a ship home to Sydney. Coming through the Heads, ‘Wind and white sails, sunlight and the salt sting.' When he arrives home his children don't recognise him. ‘Strangeness hangs around him like a wind.'

I take a breath and gently close the book. But it lingers.

‘That's much better.' Dennis has changed into a sarong and a singlet. Meri is behind him carrying a tray with two glasses of iced tea.

‘I wish I'd noticed these earlier. I would've come over and asked to borrow some.'

It's as if Dennis is following my train of thought. ‘So do you like working for Shane?'

‘Well …' I leave it there.

‘That bad?'

‘It's pretty bad.'

‘I'm glad you dropped by. I was planning on coming to see you myself this afternoon.'

Behind us the fan blade slows, stops. The electricity has dropped out.

Dennis continues, ‘You see, there's a few things you've gotta understand about what it's like to live in a community like this. Firstly, no-one respects the police. So often when there's
something to be resolved, the community take it into their own hands. And it can be brutal. Years ago, when Meri and I first moved here, we had some money and jewellery stolen from our house. We talked about it with our neighbours and found out they were being robbed as well. This went on for a few months until at last someone caught the thief. He was a young man from Padang who'd been living here for six months.'

Dennis' hands, folded in his lap, are like sea-creatures that have been left out on the sand. Dried up and peppered with sunspots. He's looking at the floor.

‘I was on my way to work one morning when I noticed a group of men at the edge of the rice paddy. I slowed. There was someone on the ground. A young man with his feet and hands trussed up like a pig's. He had no shirt on and all over his chest –' Dennis slashes his singlet with a finger. ‘They'd cut him up with their machetes. And they were dragging him away from the road and into the rice field.'

He presses his glasses up the bridge of his nose. And finally looks at me.

‘Well, nothing went missing after that. But I didn't stop, Penny. I knew it was wrong, and I didn't stop to help the man.'

I take a sip of my tea, crunch pearls of ice.

‘It's the only time I saw something like that with my own eyes. Meri tells me it's not uncommon. Usually, if someone acts out against the community, they get taken fishing.'

‘Uh-huh.' I can see where he's going with this. The other night, before Rick had cut him off, he told a story in a similar way. Connecting events, connecting similarities, trying to show us that there's always cause and effect and that it's always bigger than one person, one incident, especially here.

‘So, are you saying the blokes have something like this in store for Shane?'

‘No. I think they have something much, much worse in store for Shane. If what Meri heard at the markets this morning is anything to go by, then I must warn you, urgently, to leave. Leave Shane's as soon as you can. There's a bus out of here tomorrow morning at five. Get on that bus. Because you've been working there, you've been affiliated with him. They won't spare you.'

My throat narrows, my toes start to dance.

‘Who are they? Who's planning something against him? Is it the “radicals”?' I invert my fingers around the word, conscious of Dennis' reluctance to brand, to tag, to play into the spin.

‘I can't say for sure, but I think the discontent is bigger than a few hardline Islamists. I think the whole community wants Shane gone.'

‘Right.'

The fan stutters alive again. We look at each other.

‘But –' I'm about to sound mercenary, ‘Shane owes me some money. Not a lot of money, just a bit. Should I ask for it tonight? Or do you think he'll get suspicious? Think I might be planning to bail?'

‘What exactly did he promise you?'

I explain the deal, tell him about the bonus.

He's too polite to laugh. Instead, he says, ‘Did you ever hear anything about that girl who was working for him? She was also promised a bonus – I think she was with him for a year or more. He refused to pay her. Probably had no intention of paying her to begin with. You never signed any contract?'

I shake my head.

‘It wouldn't matter anyway,' Dennis says, ‘he could have easily typed something up on a Word document. Well, as it turned out, Yuliana was a spirited young lady. And she had every intention of taking what Shane owed her. So she did. And then she left – she was from Bandar Lampung originally. Shane's careful never to
employ locals. That orang lain thing. If he'd been employing people from Batu Batur he would've been kicked out years ago.'

‘And Yuliana?' I ask, afraid to hear.

‘Shane really had it in for Yuliana. He followed her. Found her. Then cut off her fingers for stealing. So what are you waiting for?' he says. ‘Fuck the money, girl. Get back there and pack your bags.'

There's a police truck in the car park. While I'm tempted to come back in an hour or so when the police will surely be gone, I'm more tempted by the prospect of packing. Dennis has made the danger, the urgency, seem real and immediate. If Dennis reckons it's time to go – patient, calm, IT-nerd Dennis – then it's time to go.

The police are on the dining deck with Shane, and I try to sneak past, courting the shadows along the far wall. Shane spots me.

‘Penny!'

There's a reptilian stillness about the police and a ticking, twitching, percussive paranoia about Shane.

‘They say they came through the week.'

‘They did. You were in Medan.'

‘Well why the fuck didn't you say something?'

‘I expected they'd come back. They come every month, don't they?'

‘What did you give 'em?'

‘Bottle of whisky. And glasses of whisky while they were here.'

‘Alright.' He looks at me evenly. His look says, Penny, it's us and them.

‘Now listen to me, bencong.' Shane steps up close to the police officer.

The officer is not sitting down tonight.

‘I'm not happy with the pressure you put on my staff while
I was away. I'm sure we've spoken about this before. You want your money? Well, it's all yours.'

Shane reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slab of rupiah fastened with an elastic band. He slides off the elastic band and starts to flip the notes from the wad onto the wooden deck. He's flipping two thousands, five thousands, ten thousands, twenty thousands, green notes, purple notes, rust-coloured notes, Monopoly-coloured notes; but worse, he's disrespecting the higher denominations, he's flipping fifty thousands, one hundred thousands: nothing to us, everything to them.