Death Trance (25 page)
Randolph ate a little beef. Then he asked, 'Will you help me find my family?’
Michael pressed his hands together in front of his face as if he were thoughtfully praying. His eyes stared at Randolph like the eyes of a
sanghyang
dancer seen through the holes in a mask.
The girl called Mungkin Nanti very slowly shook her head. 'He won't do it. He
can't.
You shouldn't ask him. The last time he nearly died.’
'Don't you think he ought to be allowed to answer for himself?’ Randolph suggested.
'He's not well. You can see how sick he has been.’
'Yes,’ Randolph persisted, 'but he's the only person in the world who can do this for me.’
'Michael, you have to say no,’ Mungkin Nanti pleaded, taking his arm.
Michael shrugged. 'I don't have to say anything, yes or no.’ He picked up another sea slug and ate it, washing it down with tea.
Dr Ambara said, 'All your expenses to Memphis would be paid for. This young lady could accompany you if you so wished it. And, believe me, Mr Clare would be most generous in his appreciation.’
'How generous?’ Michael asked.
'How much do you charge?’ Randolph responded.
Michael thought for a moment and then lowered his head. 'No,’ he said, 'I won't do it. I made a promise to Nanti, and that's a promise I have to keep.’
Mungkin Nanti put her arms around him and hugged him. He looked up again and from long experience, Randolph knew that the flicker in his eyes was a little something called indecision.
He said the same words that he had spoken to I.M. Wartawa. 'Fifty thousand dollars in cash. No questions asked. If you continue living here in Bali, you won't ever have to work again for the rest of your life.’
Randolph knew that his offer was outrageous, almost absurd. But he had developed over the past few days the deepest aversion to inheriting any of Marmie's money. He felt that he would prefer to give it away rather than continue to use its interest, especially and most painfully because he no longer had any children to whom he could pass it on. He would far rather use the money to see Marmie again and tell her how much he still loved her.
Michael said, 'How much? Fifty thousand? Are you serious?’
'How much were you paid before?’
'Five, ten thousand dollars. I think the most I ever got was ten.’
That was still quite a respectable fee. How come you're so broke?’
'Mah-jongg,’ put in Mungkin Nanti sharply. 'The last time, after he was almost killed, he gambled away the whole fee in three hours flat. That's one of the reasons I made him promise to stop.’
'Well, you can do whatever you like with your money,’ Randolph said. 'I guess fifty thousand would last longer than ten, even if you lost it all at the gaming tables.’
'You really mean that you'll pay me fifty thousand dollars if I take you into a death trance?’
Randolph nodded.
Mungkin Nanti said with undiluted bitterness, 'I was right to call you a rapist, wasn't I, Mr Clare? Rapists always attack the weak, and rapists always make sure they get what they want.’
'Rapists usually take what they want by force, Miss Nanti. I'm offering money.’
'So much money that it almost amounts to violence,’ Mungkin Nanti protested. 'If you kill Michael, believe me, you'll be just as brutal as those men who killed your family.’
'Michael has a choice. My family didn't.’
'Who can possibly have a choice when he's offered fifty thousand dollars? The money or poverty. What kind of a choice is that?’
Michael raised his hand to silence them. 'Mungkin Nanti's right,’ he said in his quiet, hoarse voice. 'There isn't a choice. I'll do it.’
'You promised!’ Mungkin Nanti breathed at him fiercely. 'Michael, you promised!’
'Nanti, in the face of fifty thousand dollars, not many promises stand much of a chance.’
'So that's the price of your life, is it?’ Mungkin Nanti snapped at him. 'I've always wanted to know what kind of a value you place on yourself, and on me. Well, now I know, don't I? Down to the last cent.’
She got up from the table, knocking her chair over backwards, and marched out of the restaurant. The Balinese waitress came over and picked up the chair. 'Are you finished?’ she asked hesitantly, looking at their dishes of uneaten food.
Michael took out a cigarette and lit it. 'Fa,
terima kasih.’
'Berapa semuayana?’
asked Dr Ambara. He seemed to have appointed himself to the position of Randolph's business manager.
'American dollar?’ the waitress asked.
Dr Ambara took out his wallet.
'Five dollar,’ the waitress told him.
'Terlalu mahal,’
said Dr Ambara flatly.
'Four dollar,’ the waitress suggested. Dr Ambara thought it over and then made an acquiescent face and counted out four dollar bills.
'You people amaze me,’ Michael said. 'One minute you're offering me fifty thousand dollars to take you into a death trance and the next minute you're haggling about one lousy dollar for the price of a meal.’
Dr Ambara said, 'I wanted to emphasize, Mr Hunter, that we expect to have our money's worth. We expect to get as much value from every single one of those fifty thousand dollars as we did from every one of those four dollars we just spent on lunch.’
'I understand,’ Michael said. He glanced from Randolph to Wanda to Dr Ambara and back again, his face veiled in cigarette smoke.
'What about your friend?’ asked Randolph.
'Oh, she'll be back. She always is.’
'She seemed pretty annoyed with you this time.’
Michael said, 'She saved my life. She's been keeping me together, in one reasonably cohesive piece, and I don't appreciate her half as much as I should. But sometimes, you know, you don't need people like that. Sometimes you have to throw yourself headfirst off the precipice, and it's better for everybody concerned, including yourself, if there's nobody there to grab your ankles. All of life is centered around commitments. My father was so committed to the Hindu ideal that he burned himself alive. When your father has done something like that, how can you spend the rest of your life sweeping floors and polishing windows? The leyaks are waiting for me. Rangda is waiting for me. I knew that right from the beginning. There are times when you can't rewrite your own destiny, no matter how much you may want to.’
Randolph drummed his fingertips on the table and then said quietly, 'How would you describe yourself if I asked you?’
Michael smiled. 'Mystic. Idiot. Religious zealot. Potential suicide.’
'But you've achieved what your father failed to achieve. You
are
Hindu. You understand the Trisakti from the inside… spiritually, not just intellectually.’
'Mr Clare,’ Michael said. The circles under his eyes were as dark as plums. 'My suicide would be quite different from my father's. My father was trying to find total understanding. I
had
that understanding, right from the very moment I could understand anything. It is not the understanding I seek. It is the confrontation with the forces of evil. It is the challenge to Rangda. Sooner or later I am going to have to test myself against her. In one way or another, at one time or another, every man has to do it. Very few, of course, have the privilege of meeting her face-to-face. Few have the competence to be able to fight her, or the nerve. But… well, I think I've known all along that I'm going to have to come to grips with her sooner or later. Your money really hasn't made that much difference. It wasn't the deciding factor. It has simply helped me to make up my mind.’
Dr Ambara said soberly, 'If you challenge Rangda, you will die.’
'Probably,’ Michael said, drawing tightly at his cigarette.
I.M. Wartawa was locking the door of his office when a tall man came quickly and quietly behind him, seized his left arm and touched the razor-sharp blade of a Bowie knife against his naked neck.
'Where did they go?’ the man demanded hoarsely.
'Where did who go? I don't understand you,’ Wartawa protested.
'Mr Randolph Clare, that's who. And his secretary. And that nigger doctor.’
'I don't know what you're talking about,’ I.M. Wartawa winced. 'I never heard of such people in my life.’
'How would you like a free on-the-spot tracheotomy?’ the man asked.
I.M. Wartawa licked his lips. 'All right. I've heard of Mr Randolph Clare.’
'Where is he now?’
'How should I know? He came to talk to me about import-export. Then he went away.’
'You're lying,’ the man told him, pressing the blade of the knife even more viciously against his Adam's apple. I.M. Wartawa felt blood slide warmly down the front of his neck and into his collar. Although he was frightened, he did not lose his self-control. He had been working for too long among the heavyweight gangsters who dominated Djakarta's crime; he had escaped too many times from sawed-off shotguns and Molotov cocktails and splashes of concentrated sulphuric acid. There was always a get-out. There was always a deal to be made. Everybody wanted something; everybody had his price. This man, whoever he might be, would be no exception.
'Let's talk about this reasonably,’ he said.
'Let's talk about this now,’ the man retorted.
'All right, you want to talk about it now. Mr Clare left Djakarta this morning on Garuda Airlines.’
'Where was he headed?’
'How should I know? We talked a little business, that's all.’
'If that's all you talked about, buddy, then believe me, I don't need you anymore and I'm going to cut your throat. Here and now, from ear to ear. Look around. You see this hallway? This is where you're going to die.’
I.M. Wartawa said, 'He flew to Bali.’
'Bali? Why'd he go there?’
'He went there because I suggested it.’
'Oh, yes?’ the man asked caustically. 'And why did you suggest that?’
'Listen,’ said I.M. Wartawa, 'I can pay you twenty thousand dollars. That's how much Mr Clare gave me.’
'Now why would you want to do a thing like that?’ the man asked with a sudden grin.
To let me go. To take that knife away from my throat. All of it, twenty thousand in cash. Right here and now.’
The man said, 'You still haven't told me why Mr Randolph Clare and his friends flew off to Bali.’
'I don't know. They wouldn't discuss it.’
'But you suggested it.’
'Just for the scenery, that's all.’
"The scenery? That's rich. You have twenty seconds left, hairball, and then you're going to die.’
'They were looking for somebody,’ I.M. Wartawa managed to choke out.
'Oh, yes? They were looking for somebody, were they? Well, I hope you don't mind if I'm impertinent enough to ask you who that somebody might be. I mean, that somebody must've been somebody pretty special for a man like Mr Randolph Clare to fly all the way from Memphis, Tennessee, to find him and, in addition, to pay off a scumbag like you.’
'Mr Clare was looking for a death-trance adept.’
'Mr Clare was looking for
whut?
’ A death-trance adept. Somebody who can take you right through the spiritual barrier of death so you can meet friends and relatives who might have recently passed away.’
'Are you putting me on?’ The knife cut even more viciously into I.M. Wartawa's skin.
'It's true. That's the whole reason Mr Clare came to Indonesia. He told me his family was recently killed. He wanted to talk to his wife and children again. The only way he can possibly do that is through
apedanda,
a special high priest, somebody trained to go into a death trance and guide other people into the trance with him. That way Mr Clare can go beyond death, into the world of the dead; don't you understand me? He can meet his family again, their spirits. He can talk to them, touch them as if they were real, as if they were still alive. It sounds crazy, I know, but it can be done; it
has
been done. It's all in a trance.’
The man said, 'He goes into this trance and he meets his family again? He meets them for real?’ His voice crawled with suspicion.
'Do you think I would say such a thing with a knife at my throat if it wasn't the absolute truth?’
There was a long pause. The man kept the blade pressed hard against I. M. Wartawa's larynx. Although the blood had stopped flowing now, I.M. Wartawa could feel the stickiness around the collar of his shirt.
"They went to Bali, huh?’ the man asked at last. 'What part of Bali? To Denpasar?’
That's right. To Denpasar.’
'You got a name? Who was it they went to see? One of these death-trance guys? One of these addicts?’
'Adepts,’ I.M. Wartawa corrected him with a painful swallow.
'Well, who was it?’
'One of the best. Michael Hunter. He's half-American but he was trained in Hindu mysticism from childhood. He has a special talent for the death trance.’
'How about a location?’ the man wanted to know.
'I was given an address on Jalan Pudak. Number 12a.’
'You're not trying to fool me, are you?’
'Fool you? Why should I try to fool you?’ I.M. Wartawa gasped.
Without another word, the man sliced the Bowie knife from one side of I.M. Wartawa's throat to the other, cutting through to his windpipe. I.M. Wartawa knew instantly that he had been killed, but as the blood fountained out of his neck, he found it impossible to speak, impossible to cry out. His legs buckled under him and he found himself staring at the linoleum on the floor, his body shivering and shaking as if he were cold. The man stood over him, watching him die. The dark blood formed a wide oval pool on the landing, with the glossiest and most reflective of surfaces. I.M. Wartawa suddenly thought of something his father had told him, something he had never understood. It seemed clear now, crystal clear, and he wondered why it had taken death to bring him realization.
His father had said one morning, close to the end of his life, 'The good is one thing, the pleasant is another. It is well with him who clings to the good; he who chooses the pleasant misses his end.’
I.M. Wartawa tried to turn his head, to explain to the man who was standing over him what he had at last understood. But there was nothing except darkness; the man seemed to have vanished. The world had turned into a black, hollow, echoing tunnel.
He died, feeling that he was falling.
The moment he died, Michael Hunter was arriving at Randolph's
lostnen
on Jalan Diponegoro and paying off the taxi driver with some of the fifty
rupiahs
Dr Ambara had given him. It was a brilliant, hot morning and the air was bright with dust and fragrant with the sweet aroma of flowers. Michael wore the same Ever-Ready T-shirt he had been wearing the day before and a pair of ragged shorts that had once been jeans. He was smoking a cigarette. His hair was wet, just washed, and combed straight back from his narrow forehead. When he asked the pretty, plump girl behind the desk for Mr Clare, she pointed upstairs and said, 'Number Five.’
Michael knocked briskly at Randolph's door. 'It's me,’ he called, and for some reason, he felt more American than he had in years, although he had never been to America. He pinched his cigarette out between his fingers and tucked it behind his ear.
Randolph opened the door. He was dressed in light-grey summer slacks and a white shirt, and he looked tired. Michael said, 'Here I am, as promised.’
'Good,’ Randolph said. 'Do you want to come in?’
'We shouldn't be too long,’ Michael told him. 'We have to start your studies right away. You didn't eat any breakfast, did you?’
'No, I didn't eat any breakfast.’
Michael prowled around the room, prodding the bed, picking up the book Randolph was reading,
lacocca,
peering out the window, running his fingertips down the bamboo blinds.
'This isn't much of a place, is it?’ he asked. 'A man like you, with fifty thousand dollars to spend, why doesn't he have a suite at the Hotel Denpasar?’
'I prefer someplace modest,’ Randolph said. 'Maybe you could call it a fetish of mine.’
'Well, this is modest all right,’ Michael agreed.
'Is the temple far?’ Randolph asked.
'It's just beyond the market on Jalan Mahabharata. We can walk if you prefer. It's more calming to walk.’
Michael had recommended that Randolph begin his training first, before Dr Ambara, since the doctor was already acquainted with the Trisakti, and with the demons and gods who influenced the natural world. Michael had also insisted that the first week of training be undertaken here in Denpasar, the navel of the world, where the spiritual forces were strongest. In Memphis it would be far more difficult for Randolph to sense the subtle changes of atmosphere that preceded the death trance; it would be even more difficult for him to sense the closeness of the spirits, both benign and malevolent.
They walked together along Jalan Diponegoro. Michael seemed more settled than when Randolph had first met him, although he talked quite busily, waved in a friendly way to several stall-keepers he knew and kept his eyes flickering around as if he were always alert, always looking for the tiniest indication that the forces of the spiritual world might be making themselves felt in the everyday bustle of the streets.
'Did you make up with your girlfriend?’ Randolph asked.
'We're still a little on edge,’ Michael confessed.
'What happened the last time you went into a death trance? Was it really as dangerous as she claims?’
Michael reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. 'I was trying to trace the dead husband of a woman who lives in Sanur. She was pretty wealthy. Her husband had been a merchant and when he died, he left everything to her. At least he
said
he had. All of a sudden his former secretary started driving around in a new Mercedes. The woman wanted me to find her dead husband for her and straighten things out, to find out just how much he had given his secretary. I guess her actual intention was to challenge his will.’
'That seems like a very mundane, materialistic reason for doing something incredibly spiritual,’ Randolph suggested.
That's what people pay for,’ Michael said, shrugging. 'You don't often see much in the way of sentiment, not in this business. If people have enough money to pay for a death trance, they're usually the kind of people who are looking for more money. You know what I mean? Their greed goes even beyond the grave.’
He guided Randolph across Puputan Square. 'Mind you,’ he said, 'I was approached by a man once who wanted to see his dead mistress just so he could insult her.
I refused to take him. You can't go into a death trance when you're angry or upset. Well, you
can,
but it's too dangerous. The leyaks have terrific sensitivity for negative emotions. They can pick up your anger almost instantly, and then they're on to you.’
He led the way across Jalan Durian and between a host of jangling bicycles. 'That's what happened the last time. The woman confronted her dead husband and he admitted that he had given his secretary something like two hundred thousand dollars. Before we went into the death trance, the woman had promised me faithfully that she would keep her cool no matter what her husband said to her. But when she heard him say that, she went crazy. She was absolutely hysterical. I couldn't get her out of the trance, she was so furious, and I couldn't very well leave her there. The leyaks were after us like wild dogs. I managed to keep them off, and in the end I managed to bring the stupid woman around, but it was pretty damned hair-raising at the time.’ He opened his shirt and showed Randolph an ugly tear-shaped scar that looked as if some vicious animal had tried to bite a lump of flesh from his chest. 'One of them got me just as I was coming through. I was lucky they didn't follow me; I would have been dead meat for sure.’
He took a deep drag at his cigarette and said, 'That's when Nanti made me promise not to do it again. Well, I don't blame her. She had to nurse me for nearly two months. I couldn't go to a doctor because he would have asked me how I got hurt, and the death trance is against the law. The bite went septic, septic like you wouldn't believe.’
They walked together along the narrow, shabby street where the Pura Dalem still stood, the Temple of the Dead. Randolph stood back, staring in silent apprehension at the carved effigies of Rangda and Barong Keket, thick with moss and wound around with creeper.
'That's Rangda, the Witch Widow,’ Michael explained. 'Take a look at that statue and pray you never meet her in the flesh.’
Randolph turned to Michael and attempted a smile, but Michael was not smiling.
