The Fifth Season (34 page)

Fighting first broke out near the western city of Pontianak, and then spread to Banjarmasin in the south. Everywhere, the story seemed the same. Small diamond concession holders had been murdered near their diggings; imported labor working the open-cut coal concessions had mysteriously disappeared, and the homes of Javanese officials had been razed.

Mary Jo had visited both these isolated provincial towns, the scenes reminiscent of what she had witnessed elsewhere. Buildings had been gutted, schools destroyed, farmers murdered and, not surprisingly, a mass exodus by sea had occurred wherever violence had threatened. Further inland, where the former President's cronies had stripped the great forests, fires continued to burn, fueled by huge coal outcrops previously hidden by the thick, jungle growth. Even endangered species were not spared as the fires raced through the thick, dry timbers, destroying their natural habitat.

Smoke spewed into the skies, covering the once-dense tropical forests, blanketing an area twice that of Texas, and for the third year in a row, both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur's inhabitants were obliged to wear masks across their faces to reduce health risks.

Mary Jo then flew up to the western port of Balikpapan where even the army's substantial presence failed to prevent the city's destruction. And so the story continued. Further to the north where Pertamina, the state owned oil and gas company, had invested billions of dollars, the fields were threatened as subversive elements attempted to destroy facilities along the rich coastal concession areas and foreign expertise vacated their essential posts, leaving the less-experienced engineers to fend for themselves. With its substantial oil and gas reserves then under threat, the Indonesian Government was obliged to send ships and amphibious forces to the area. At last it would appear the Hababli's acquisition of the former East German fleet would bear fruit.

As Mary Jo flew from Samarinda in the north, she flew over the small armada, noting that the navy had sent two of its Yugoslav
Fatahillah
class frigates. She remembered reading that these were armed with Exocet surface-to-surface missiles. Mary Jo also managed an aerial photograph of the former East German
Parchim
class corvettes moving slowly through the Makasar Straits, and wondered immediately if the Indonesian Navy had drawn upon its Eastern Fleet at a time when these warships were essential to controlling the Timor exodus.

Here in Kalimantan, Mary Jo noted that the Chinese had again suffered the brunt of the violence. Their shops and homes had been destroyed first, only then were these followed by those belonging to the Javanese.

And, as Borneo burned, nations which shared the northern part of this great island prepared for the worst. In the towns of Kuching and Kota Kinabalu Chinese locked their doors, fearing an outbreak of racial unrest similar to that which had struck the country twenty years before. And in Brunei one of the world's wealthiest men prepared to leave for Europe as his people considered their own racial mix, with half of the small nation's three hundred thousand of Chinese descent, and unable to obtain passports or a higher education. As Mary Jo continued to document the archipelago's decolonization in process, the rest of Asia waited, apprehensively, anticipating the worst.

Then, when it appeared that conditions could not possibly deteriorate further due to the refugee crisis, Thailand threatened to withdraw from the Association of South-East Asian Nations, throwing regional politics into another tailspin. Neither Thailand nor Malaysia's coastal patrols could stem the flood of illegal immigrants flowing across the narrow Malacca Straits, and both nations appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for assistance. Mary Jo had climbed aboard a charter flight, and headed for Kuala Lumpur to cover the discussions.

Memories of those few days brought her back to the present, and Mary Jo looked critically at the freshly-lit cigarette she held between nicotine-stained fingers, wondering why she had elected to remain in this godforsaken place called Indonesia.

* * * *

Lily waited until the unruly mob had passed before dashing across the road to the small general store. Inside, her heart still pumping excessively, she nodded at the shopkeeper then went about filling her mother's order as quickly as possible, not wishing to remain away from her own building longer than was necessary.

Her eyes ran down the short shopping-list, bitter that her family's meager possessions were all but gone, sold to pay for food, sold to buy protection from the marauding gangs and their increasingly frequent attacks.

Their harvest of hate, raised in the shadows, continued unabated, even in the light of day. Without money, their lives would be worthless.

‘This one?'
the woman asked, indicating the poorer quality rice with the scoop in her hand. Lily nodded affirmatively, no longer embarrassed that her family purchased the lower-graded beras. There was a time, she remembered, when the shopkeeper would hurry out to greet Lily's mother should she enter this store. Now, everything had changed; and for the Chinese the effects had been calamitous.

‘Sugar?'
the woman inquired, her tone more than insolent. Lily watched as a kilo of the sweet, unrefined crystals was weighed out and poured into a brown, paper bag.

‘What else?'
the voice was insincere, its owner pleased how the table had turned for the once wealthier family from across the street. Lily checked the list again, gently chewing at the inside of her lip. Her mother had asked for flour, but Lily could see from the open jute bag against the wall that weevils had taken up residence inside.

‘Do you want flour today?'
the shopkeeper asked impatiently. She moved towards the open bag expecting this would be so. Lily's order rarely varied.

She bent to scoop the flour into another bag while her customer remained silent, deciding that it would be more sensible to separate the weevils later than enter into a war of words with the Javanese woman. Their role reversals over the past year had been most humiliating. Lily carefully placed her purchases in the string bag she carried and waited for her change. She did not complete her mother's order as she hadn't sufficient funds. Even the poorest quality rice had risen by more than twenty percent that week and, she noted, the weevil-infested flour was now selling for double that of a month before.

‘Terima kasih,'
Lily thanked the shopkeeper, politely, almost subserviently, moving to the store's doorway to check the street. She could feel the woman's eyes burning into the back of her neck as she left, and ran back across the road to where her mother waited, peering through the concer-tina-styled sliding steel security gate she had partly opened in preparation for her daughter's return. As she raced across the pot-holed narrow street, Lily glanced nervously in both directions, praying that she not be seen by any who might wish to do them harm. Safely across, she squeezed through the steel gate quickly, catching her dress on one of the protruding rusty screws which held the mechanism together. Ignoring the scratch Lily placed her shopping down, then dragged the heavy gate together, locking the two sides with practiced hands. Then, she lifted the string bag and followed her mother as she shuffled towards the rear of their two-story concrete dwelling, the home which had become their jail.

Although they had not actually been incarcerated by the authorities, Lily and her mother literally felt imprisoned in these surrounds. Since her father had passed away within months of her return from Jakarta, Lily's mother's own health had deteriorated and, unaided, she could no longer climb the stairs to the bedrooms. Now, with only the two of them to consider, Lily had taken charge of their lives while waiting for some ray of hope to deliver them from their ethnic hell. At night, they slept downstairs, huddled together on the kitchen floor where Lily had placed a mattress for them both. Their electricity had been cut off months before and, had it not been for their well with its tiresome hand-pump, they would have abandoned these accommodations and sought refuge with others.

Lily knew that they could no longer turn to their church for comfort.

Rumor had it that even the missionaries had abandoned many parts of rural Java, and very few churches had escaped the torches of the angry Moslem mobs. Like so many others she was confused by the racial and sectarian violence. It mattered not that many Chinese were practicing Buddhists; either way she felt that they were doomed.

Lily's gaze moved slowly around the narrow room, coming to rest on the well-worn family bible. On the wall above, and between fading photographs of her father and grandparents, there was a wooden cross. They prayed each evening, but it made little difference apart from some temporary solace her mother derived from the ritual. None came to save them from their plight and Lily worried what they had done to deserve this fate, wishing she could put a real face on her god.

Evenings were spent talking, sometimes reading under the bright kerosene light, but as her mother's will to live grew weaker by the day, Lily now spent most of her time watching over the prematurely aging woman, sensing that she had very little time. At night, when sleep finally came, Lily's mind was repeatedly subjected to the torture she had suffered during the savage attack in her uncle's home. Lily's nightmares were so vivid, her screams would often waken their neighbors. She would thrash around, her arms flailing wildly in the dark whenever her mother moved to comfort her stricken daughter.

It had taken months before Lily had been able to discuss what had happened with her parents. By then, she learned that her uncle had left the country, undertaking never to return. He had sent some money, but this had not been enough to provide for their escape. When her father died, her mother's jewelry became their only means of survival. Each week Lily would venture out in search of someone who might wish to purchase the small golden trinkets her father had bought over the many years of marriage. In years past, it would not have been so dangerous to trade such items as all of the gold shops had belonged to fellow Chinese. With their shops in ruins and their wealth looted by rioting mobs, these traders had either vanished or fled, leaving empty dwellings as evidence of the racial unrest. Now, Lily was obliged to trade mostly with the pribumi, the indigenous and mainly Javanese people who had so despised her race. And it was extremely hazardous for her to be seen on the streets of Situbondo, the scene of some of the worst racial riots the country had witnessed during the past months.

There was growing evidence that the two major Muslim political groups, although at loggerheads with each other since the elections, were collectively inciting their followers against the Christians and Buddhists.

Either way, the Chinese were being specifically targeted by marauding gangs which roamed the greater part of Java, burning property belonging to these groups and the homes of Moslems who dared oppose this racial and religious cleansing.

Lily had remained in Situbondo only to care for her ailing mother.

When the time arrived, she would flee aboard one of the small coastal fishing-boats which offered safe passage to other islands, where the Chinese could live without fear. Bali, she knew, was one such destination, as the two cultures had assimilated well over the centuries. After her father's death, Lily's mother, continuously depressed by the absence of her life-partner, had stubbornly refused to leave when the opportunity arose. Lily believed that her mother had now lost the will to live. Now even if she relented, their remaining reserves would barely cover the passage for one.

Their greatest fear now was not that they might starve, but their safety as they could no longer afford to pay for the protection without which, they would remain in danger.

As each day passed, Lily waited with growing apprehension for her mother to die, while one by one, others of their ethnic minority within this small East Javanese community managed to flee, before they too were found lying butchered in their own beds.

* * * *

‘Get out!'
Hani screamed. Her seventeen-year old brother had entered her room without warning, while she was dressing. She threw the hair-brush at the door, but he had already escaped her wrath.

The atmosphere in the Purwadira household had remained tense, since the family returned from Jakarta in disgrace. Her father's inadequate pension was insufficient to support his family. Inflation had taken care of that.

In less than a year, their savings had all but disappeared and, as they no longer enjoyed the benefits accorded senior officers and their dependents, the former general had been reduced to seeking assistance from those he once commanded. Unable to understand the calamity that had befallen them, this dramatic, and sudden turnaround in their fortunes had affected her mother most. These days Ibu Purwadira would rarely leave the confines of their small home. The embarrassment of their abrupt change in lifestyle had struck her hard, and she had never forgiven her husband's fellow officers for their betrayal.

Hani had been unable to continue her studies in Sukabumi. Her younger brother was expected to complete high school within the next months and Hani thought about this, shrugging as she sat facing the oval-shaped mirror, not really concerned about her brother's future. She believed that he would most likely join the ranks of the unemployed just as the others in this family had done.

‘Hani!'
she heard her father's voice and sighed. She knew he would want her to do some chore or other; he always did. Her mother would pretend not to hear, or even feign sleep. If ignored, her father would become angry and lash out, his tongue sharper than any she had heard. Hani slammed the partly-opened drawer shut, wishing she could move in with her sister, at least for awhile.

‘Hani!'
her father roared, and she responded, rising slowly to see what he wanted. She was wearing a faded light-blue tank-top, which hung loosely over her breasts and half-way to her jeans. She checked her hair one more time, retrieved her hair-brush from the floor then strolled out to where she knew her father would be.