Blood Is a Stranger (10 page)

‘We have little time,' he whispered, ‘but I wanted you to see something else.' He pointed to the centre of the field. Rhonda lifted the binoculars again.

‘The figure in the Mao tunic,' Perdonny said.

Rhonda zeroed in on him. He was rocking forward on his toes as a military instructor spoke animatedly to him. He grinned to reveal a set of protruding and crooked teeth. The man appeared to be in his mid-fifties. He had black hair brushed back and cut short around the ears,
emphasising the saucer-shape of his face, and a flat nose.

‘Who is . . .?' Rhonda began, but was pushed flat by Perdonny. He put a hand over her mouth. She twisted her head enough to see shadows stalking only twenty metres away and very close to the Mercedes, which was hidden behind bushes. Perdonny eased his hand away. Rhonda felt her heart pound. The guards aimed rifles at the shadows as they came closer. Her eyes widened as Perdonny lifted his Magnum with both hands to eye level. Two shadows multiplied into four, then eight. Rhonda felt they were done for as the shadows took human form.

The soldiers were part of an advance party for the convoy. They made their way to within ten metres. Rhonda was too frightened to take a breath. Her eyes bulged as Perdonny moved the gun in a slow arc trained on one of the soldiers. Two of them stopped. One spoke and another stifled a high-pitched laugh. Rhonda felt dizzy. She wanted to be ill. Then gradually the soldiers moved on.

After five minutes, Perdonny signalled his guards to retreat into the jungle until the convoy had passed. In half an hour they were driving back down the track to Unjung Pandang. The road seemed bumpier on the return ride, and Rhonda fought off nausea.

‘You were very brave,' Perdonny said. ‘We're safe now.'

‘For a moment I thought it was time for a technicolour yawn.'

Perdonny looked blank. Rhonda went white and managed a wan smile as she wound down a window. Moments later she vomited.

Burra's eyes stayed on his son's face as several male relatives formed a human plateau by crouching on hands and knees. The men danced and chanted in a circle around a nightfire as the boy of fifteen was laid across the backs of his relatives. An uncle stepped from the shadows and
knelt beside the boy. He slid his hand under the boy's penis. An Aboriginal surgeon marched forward and took his place next to the uncle. He inspected the penis, which he had circumcised two weeks earlier. Satisfied that the scar tissue had healed sufficiently, he examined four stone knives, which he rested on the boy's stomach. His choice was vital. One slip and the boy could bleed to death. If this happened, Burra would have the right to kill the surgeon.

Burra was more concerned with his son's reaction. He was not to show fear in this last act in his transition to manhood. A flinch or even a whimper and he would be speared to death.

The surgeon bent forward in flickering fire light. The boy braced himself as the knife was placed near the tip of the penis. When their eyes met, the surgeon made two swift movements as the knife was inserted and then run to the scrotum. Burra winced. He had not taken his eyes off his son's face. The boy's tight-set jaw jutted hard, but there was not a movement or sound from him.

He was led to the fire where he sat, trancelike, blood streaming down his thighs. The dancing Aborigines quickened their step, and the chant became louder. Even if he bled to death now, he would have achieved manhood. If he lived, nothing would frighten him again. Yet in the next few hours he still had to face the first test of his newly acquired maturity — a long solo trek to his Arnhem Land home.

Burra broke away from the dancing to meet Cardinal who had been driven deep into the bush east of Darwin to witness the ritual, at Burra's invitation.

‘What did you think?'

‘I thought such things had been banned,' Cardinal replied.

‘I've restored this kind of ceremony for the sake of the tribe. It's one of perhaps a hundred rituals I have re-introduced into our culture, so our traditions don't die.'

‘Let's hope your son doesn't,' Cardinal snapped.

‘He'll make it,' Burra said, glancing at his son. ‘I take it you think it is primitive?'

Cardinal didn't reply.

‘The cut was perfect.'

‘What about infection?'

Burra shook his head. ‘If it's meant to be, he'll die!'

Cardinal could not hide his disgust but did not wish to argue with the man Rhonda had said was his most important contact in the north.

‘You had better leave,' Burra said. He turned to the driver. Topfist. See Mr Cardinal back to his hotel.'

Cardinal went to shake hands with Burra, but he walked away.

The hooded guards stood motionless in the tropical downpour. Behind them, the flat, elongated roof of the Bandung nuclear reactor could just be seen through the rain's grey mist. They were positioned at twenty-five metre intervals around the electronically protected perimeter wall.

The two-hour drenching had flooded Bandung's boulevards and canals and seemed to have washed away the musty, spicey smells. In their place was a sickly sweetness, like freshly cut sugar-cane. The palms along the street were alive with small red and green galahs. In the grass along the front of the reactor, innumerable grey frogs were leaping in puddles.

Rhonda scribbled notes in the taxi as it cruised past the reactor's main entrance, which was blocked by a tank.

The driver became agitated. ‘No, please! No please!' he implored. He was mindful of the armalite rifles slung over the guards' shoulders.

‘Is it always like this?' Rhonda asked.

‘No. For a week maybe,' the driver replied with a nervous glance at her notepad.

Bandung, which was two hundred and fifty kilometres south-east of Jakarta, was the most likely stationing for Van der Holland. The country had six reactors, and this was the best equipped, according to Perdonny. Just as importantly, her mother, Tien, a successful businesswoman, lived in the mountains outside the city. Rhonda had flown there on the pretext of interviewing her about her increasing exports of aluminium to Australia.

The torrent lifted and disappeared like a stage curtain, leaving a clear orange sky against which the mountains looked detached and black. The taxi wound its way higher, and Rhonda could see the pure white columns of steam rising from the crater of Mount Gulunggang. Its slopes were studded with bristles of burnt tree-trunks and layered with mud fanning out like grey cake icing.

Rhonda took some photos. This pleased the driver who appeared to be in awe of the mountain.

The road got narrower as they gained altitude, and the driver, one of Perdonny's men, knew the dirt track turn-off to the Van der Holland home. It was covered by a green archway of trees that allowed a splintered filter of sunlight after the sudden rains.

They arrived at ornate gates to a house set spectacularly in the side of a mountain. A huge cavity had been blasted so that about a third of the three-level home fitted in snugly; the rest protruded. It was supported by one vertical concrete pylon and another that wedged horizontally into the mountain face. Rhonda got out and strode to an intercom and announced herself. She waited near the gate and soon saw a guard walking along a drive with a submachine gun in front of him. Rhonda could see other guards on a lawn behind him and advancing towards the high, spiked fence. Their weapons made her nervous. She felt the urge to get back in the taxi but was afraid that any movement might make the guards react. As they came closer, she saw that they were dressed in black like the special forces she had seen training at Ujung Pandang. She was intrigued to
know why a private home should be guarded by Utun's own Kopasanda commandos. The gate began to open inward. The guard stopped ten metres from it and barked something in Indonesian at the taxi driver. He reversed his vehicle forty metres.

‘Interview with Tien Van der Holland,' Rhonda said feebly. She repeated herself. The guard eyed her with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. He stared at her briefcase and waved his gun at it. Rhonda began to hand it to him.

‘Open,' he said.

She obeyed.

He poked at the contents with the tip of his weapon and then pointed towards the front entrance.

He followed her along the drive. The gates clanged behind them.

Rhonda flinched and turned around.

The guard motioned her on.

Rhonda felt a prickling sensation down her spine as she looked up at the glass-fronted construction on three levels, the highest of which protruded as a semi-circular balcony. A lift, which ran up the side of the mountain, was the only access to the house.

The guard ordered her to raise her arms and ran his hands all over her. Satisfied, he opened the door to the lift and pushed the button. He stayed where he was and watched her go up.

Rhonda, never one for heights, caught her breath as the lift ascended slowly. It stopped with a bump at a steel door.

No one could break into this place, she thought as she heard three bolts being slid free.

A wizened Javanese servant greeted her with a silent nod. He ushered her to a sweeping staircase to the third level. He left her in a lounge room leading to a glassed-in balcony and a clear view of Mount Gulunggang.

Rhonda moved around the room examining artifacts,
many of which were made of aluminium. There was a wall clock with its inside mechanism exposed. A mesmerising contraption made up of miniature girders, springs and ballbearings sat on a hexagonal aluminium table. These and paintings of planets and stars gave the white room a feeling of coolness. Rhonda sat on a sofa on the balcony admiring the view.

‘Miss Mills,' a soft voice said. She turned to see a tall, fine-boned and handsome woman in her late fifties. Her black hair was sprinkled with grey and she wore a short batik dress. The elegance of her bearing made it look like haute couture.

They shook hands, and Rhonda felt that her face reflected as much Chinese as Javanese ancestry. Rhonda accepted an offer of coffee.

‘I'm here for the Australian-Indonesian trade conference in Jakarta,' Rhonda began. ‘It begins next week. I was hoping you might consider a TV interview . . .'

Tien listened expressionless until some steaming Javanese coffee was placed in front of them. She picked up a cup and walked to the door of the balcony.

‘I hope you like our volcano,' Tien said. Her English was smooth.

‘Magnificent,' Rhonda said. ‘Is it still very active?'

Tien nodded. ‘It is predicted it will destroy even this home one day.' She smiled fleetingly.

‘One day I may be forced to move. My husband blasted the rock into which he built this home. I had planned to die here. But with his recent death . . .' She bowed her head. ‘I have lost my love for the place. It is empty without him.'

Rhonda took out her tape recorder and asked questions about Tien's aluminium business and her husband's oil concern, and then, when she was opening up more, said, ‘General Utun seems under great pressure these days. He seems to be making desperate moves. Do you feel your organisation could be threatened?'

Tien glanced at the tape recorder.

‘Turn it off,' she ordered. Rhonda obeyed at once.

‘If that is the style of question you intend to pose in an interview, it will not happen,' Tien said.

‘I would be interested to hear your views,' Rhonda said, ‘off the record.'

‘It's impossible to predict our short or long-term future,' Tien began, ‘except that survival is a tradition in my family. The Dutch once wanted to take over my family's business when it began to thrive, but my husband married me and prevented it. During the war, when the Japanese wanted to take control of my husband's oil interests, my family's connections thwarted them. My husband was imprisoned. Our factories were burnt down. But we got him out of prison and built again.'

‘How are your family's relations with Utun?'

Tien looked startled. ‘There was enmity between my husband and Utun. My husband opposed his rise to power. Retribution has been apparent, and steady.'