They had reached the end of the field: the rice plants were a flowing expanse, rippling in the breeze like the surface of a green sea. On the far side of the field was a dense wall of palm trees. If you ran across the field, it would take you a good ten minutes to reach the row of trees, he reckoned: the field was not a solid thing. The plants stood in water. If you were light-footed, barefoot, a child perhaps, you might be quicker, but if you were normal weight and wearing shoes, your feet would stick. The mud would cling to your feet. Your only chance would be if the people pursuing you were slowed by it too. He wondered how long it was until dark.
They were standing next to each other, facing out across the fields. ‘Komang,’ Harper said, ‘Abang has told me, you must know, your brother’s political activities, you must know what they could mean for you, your family. Everything that has been happening on Java could happen here. .’ He paused, to let Komang fill in the gaps.
They stood looking out over the field, the low sun still lighting it with green and gold. At moments like this, you could believe that it was worth dying on this spot, Harper thought, because heaven was here, in this soil, in the green rice plants, the light. How would a man like Komang leave all this, give up a lifetime of work?
They walked back up to the compound. Komang’s wife emerged as they approached, holding a tray with two glasses on it. She stared at her husband.
While they sat on the back porch and drank tea, children ran in and out of the house. There seemed to be at least eight of them. Komang’s wife brought out some chopped fruit, banana and salak in a china bowl with a curled blue pattern, the glaze a little cracked, kept only for guests, probably. She smiled shyly, bowed to Harper and her husband, then retreated into the kitchen to continue the preparations for the evening meal, shooing the children in front of her. A few minutes later, an elderly woman poked her head out of the back door, looked at them and then immediately disappeared. Harper wondered how many people lived in the compound in total. As well as Komang’s family there might be a younger sibling or two around, his family, elderly relatives — some of the children were probably nieces and nephews. Too large a group to flee in a hurry; too many who couldn’t run all that fast.
Komang leaned forward in his seat, keeping his voice low. ‘I’ve been fortunate, Mr Harper, blessed, you might say. Tell me, how does a man like me stay fortunate?’
The madness would come to this village. It was only a matter of time. He knew it, and Komang knew it, but did he know how bad it would be?
He looked at Komang, then said, quietly, ‘What will they say in the village, about my visit?’
Komang said, ‘I am a farmer but, you see. .’ He glanced over Harper’s shoulder to the house. ‘It is a bigger house than most farmers’. There is talk, yes, of course.’
Harper could imagine the scenario all too clearly: the envy and resentment in the village, the whispers. Komang was probably using part of what he earned by giving information to the Institute to pay protection money to a local militia of some sort, but if that arrangement collapsed there would be nobody to protect him.
‘My brother is not a bad man,’ Komang said. ‘He wants to give people who have nothing their own piece of land, so that the hours they work feed their families and are not given to a landowner who does nothing for them. The PKI are going too far, I don’t agree with Communism, but the people themselves, they are not all bad people.’
‘I know that. Not everybody else sees things that way.’
Komang kept his face very still. Harper admired the man’s composure, considering that the rapid calculations he must be making would have such consequences for his family.
He was silent for a while then and Harper thought, he is adding up all he has to lose. His family will have farmed this land for generations: it is almost inconceivable that he could leave. Should he stay in the hope that he will be able to protect it, or pack a few things and take his wife and his children to Denpasar? What will he be in the city? A street cleaner? He has friends in this village. How could he imagine, as he sat here on his own veranda, with the golden light in the fields that his friends and neighbours down the road might advance up the rise with sickles and machetes in their hands?
He looked at Komang and could see the struggle going on behind the man’s quiet face. When you belonged to a community, you felt at home, you felt safe. If he was Komang, he would hide at night at least. He would have a place out in the rice fields, a culvert of some sort, overgrown, somewhere that looked like a disused store perhaps, and as soon as it got dark each night, he would take his wife and children out there and tell them to stay there until well after daybreak. They would have to be sworn to secrecy — but the children might gab to their friends. What then? And he wasn’t Komang, of course. Komang would never leave his home empty and unprotected.
Eventually, all Komang said was, ‘My house. . this village. .’ He fell silent again.
‘I know,’ Harper replied quietly, after a while. ‘I am sorry. Komang, you must not talk to anyone, even your family members, and especially not your brother. You must make your own decision and then act. Do it soon.’
‘How soon, in your opinion?’
‘Days, not weeks. I don’t like the feel of things round here. If it was me, I’d leave immediately.’
Komang looked at him then; stared.
He walked back down the rise and turned into the lane that led to the village square. Two elderly women were in front of him carrying long bundles of branches on their heads, swaying in unison. Wayan was waiting at the end of the lane, next to the motorbike, squatting on his heels. A couple of local men were standing over him. ‘Where are you from?’ — the questions would be light enough. A few bats flitted in the trees. The gold light had diminished to grey: dusk was falling swiftly. Harper considered attempting the roads in the dark but it would make more sense to stay local — the other villages he needed to visit were north of here. Komang had offered him his home for the night but Harper knew it was best to leave the man to make the necessary decision and preparations.
As the local men saw Harper approach, they smiled but didn’t stay to speak to him, turning and wandering off. Wayan got to his feet, brushed at his trousers.
They took lodgings in the home of a local elderly woman: Wayan had asked around and found them a house with some food in it. They ate with the family, cross-legged on the floor, the children rendered silent by their presence. They drank sweet tea, then retired. Harper and Wayan were sharing the day bed in the open area of the compound, partially screened by a large cloth hanging from a line while a black pig snuffled around their feet. The elderly lady handed them each a sarong and doused the single paraffin lamp hanging from the line. It was pitch dark.
He was woken by a short shout — and was instantly, fully awake, the kind of sharp awakening a person has when something inside them has apprehended threat even though the conscious part of the brain is slow to catch up. It was completely black. He sat upright and then moved into a crouching position on the bed. Next to him, Wayan was awake too. He whispered the question, ‘Sir?’
Harper held up his hand for Wayan to be silent even though it was too dark for him to see. He blinked a couple of times and, as his eyes adjusted, saw there was an orange gleam to the left of his vision, through the stone entranceway that led out of the compound and onto the street. ‘Stay here,’ he whispered, then rose from the day bed — he had slept fully dressed this time and with his money belt still strapped inside his shirt — and crept to the doorway.
There was a large group of men in the street. Some of them had flaming torches, a couple were holding paraffin lamps aloft. Here and there, he could glimpse a disembodied face looming in the dark, appearing out of nowhere and disappearing again as the light swung away. Then the group was gone, melting into the dark. Harper stood for a minute, listening in the direction in which the group had departed: north, up the rise. There was the sudden, brief barking of dogs from a compound further up the hill, a whimper, then silence.