The next morning, Nancy was over early. They drove in the Suzuki out through Klaten and out to Susu Senang to pick up the truck. Ab was relieved that the truck was still parked off to one side, and no one seemed to be around. They drove tandem, with Nancy in the Jimny, back to the Klaten police station. They were given sweet jasmine tea, and then had to sign several forms, and finally had to wait forty-five minutes for the police chief to arrive. He insisted on another cup of tea, and a couple of cigarettes for himself. He seemed in good spirits. At last he stood up, straightened his jacket, and led them around behind the building, where they found a solid teak, six-foot coffin, resting on two saw-horses. It was bound around with metal straps, and there were several official looking seals.
The chief placed his hand on the coffin lid. “This must remain closed, and sealed, until it arrives in Canada.”
Ab combed his fingers down through his beard in a gesture he had once used to get rid of sunflower seeds. “And how do we know the body is in there?”
The police chief stared at him, and then turned to Nancy, saying something in Javanese. She laid her hand on Ab’s arm. “I think we’d better just go now. I’ll tell you later.”
The chief dropped his cigarette and ground it into the dirt. “I will get some men to load it into the truck for you.”
***
Ab pulled the truck around behind the station and watched as two men struggled to lift the coffin and push it into the back. Nancy was standing by his side, leaning against him. He paused before climbing into the cab. “I don’t mean to be intrusive, but what of my friend Soesanto? I don’t know if he had family, and I would like to be able to do something. I don’t know who I should talk to.” The police chief glared at Nancy and said something in Javanese again.
She stepped away from Ab, walked around to the front of the station, and climbed into the Suzuki without saying a word. As Ab pulled the truck up beside her, she rolled down the window. “I’ll lead. I know where to go at the airport,” she said curtly. She rolled up the window and drove away quickly, so that Ab had to scramble to get into gear and stay behind her.
***
That afternoon, they stood at the fence at the Yogyakarta Adisocipto airport and watched as the coffin was loaded into the luggage compartment of the plane. Sarah, in a black, lacy Balinese dress, her thin blond hair brushed flat, looked both forlorn, and, thought Ab, strikingly beautiful. Frieda and Nettie clung to her, one on each side. Little Nettie was trying to pull away and run back to the terminal. Even from this distance, across the tarmac, Ab could hear her persistent voice, asking, as she had all the way to the airport, “Where’s Daddy? When is Daddy coming? I don’t want to go!” Sarah picked her up and carried her. Frieda, holding to her mother’s dress, was playing the older sister: terrified but dignified.
They entered the plane from the rear. Sarah seemed oblivious to the screech of the engines blasting around her, and exhaust fuming at her face. She did not turn to wave.
Ab stood next to Nancy at the fence. He gripped the metal posts with both hands until his knuckles blanched. “Maybe I’ll see you in a week!” he shouted above the din of the engines. He put his arm around Nancy. “Maybe we’ll see you.” But he could feel her body pull away from him.
The plane roared down the short runway and banked up quickly over the river valley and up over the rim of volcanoes. When it had disappeared, Ab turned to Nancy, took her in his arms, and kissed her aggressively, fully, on the mouth. They walked back to the car, ignoring the astonished stares of the other people in the waiting lounge.
***
In the car, Nancy said quietly, “That was stupid. You shouldn’t have done that. I don’t appreciate being used in anger to spite my countrymen.”
“Your countrymen!” He clamped his mouth shut and put his hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little out of control right now.”
She yanked her hand away. “Yes you are,” she hissed. “Watch it.”
On the way back from the airport, they stopped at the big Ambarukmo Palace Hotel, where many of the expatriates spent their spare time sunning or swimming. Claudia Hernandez was there, sunbathing, and Nancy sat and talked with her while Ab swam. He swam twenty laps of the Olympic-sized pool, trying not to think about Soesanto, or George, or Claudia, or John, the possibilities of espionage or jealousy. As he swam, the image of all the schoolchildren he and Soesanto had seen outside the car window came into his head. Where was their future now?
They went back to Ab’s house, where they sat on the couch without speaking, without touching, drinking gin and tonic, watching a video. He had picked out the video a week ago, hoping for an opportunity to educate Nancy about North American Mennonites. It was “The Witness,” a murder mystery, in which a small Old Order Mennonite boy witnesses a murder, and how a police officer is drawn to investigate his own superiors. He has to hide out on a Mennonite farm, disguised in traditional black garb, to save his life, and falls in love with a Mennonite woman. But her religious, rural culture is so different from his secular, urban one that, despite their strong attraction for each other, they must, in the end, part ways. Ab did not want to think about that ending. It was not the ending, now, that he wanted.
The television now silent, he rested his hand on her leg. “Thanks for all you’ve done. I appreciate it. Having one person around I can trust.” He could feel his voice breaking, and stopped.
She lifted his hand away. “Now they might connect me with all of this. I can’t leave in a week like you. I have to live here.”
He took a deep breath. “You could come with me.” He was going to add, but didn’t, “Isn’t that what you wanted out of me anyway?”
She looked pensively at the blank television screen. “It would take more than a week to get all the paperwork done.”
He reached over and played with the back of her hair. “You could come with me as far as Singapore, and we could get married there.”
She turned to look at him. Tears appeared at the corners of her eyes, and she brushed them away. “I’m in this place for life, Ab. There was a time when I thought I could come with you. But that time is past. I know now that I can’t.” She took a deep, uncertain breath, and looked again at the screen, as if expecting some new message to be written there. “Oh well, I can get out to Singapore on buying trips for the computer shop.
“What the policeman in Klaten said to me was, ‘Don’t ask questions. This is bigger than you want to be involved in. Bigger than I want to be involved in. Just go home.’ He meant both of us, you and me.”
Outside, the mobile food vendors made their rounds, knocking on wooden sticks, ringing bells, making distinctive cries. Each sound signified a different food: chicken with rice soup, beef and noodles, fried fish, rice and saté. The night guards and servants often bought their suppers from these vendors. The vendor had one, maybe two bowls, which he would rinse out with a little dirty water between customers.
Ab felt distanced, suddenly, from his life, as if his own life were a video he was watching. He felt as if he were a man without a country. Where was home now? Southern Manitoba? Central Java? He’d have to leave here soon. He wondered if he was doomed to wander the globe for the rest of his life. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t a doom at all. Maybe he was blessed to feel a little bit at home everywhere. Is this how his parents felt, coming from Russia to Canada? Is this how Nancy felt, alienated from her own culture? He wondered about her. What did he know about her? Nothing. Was she trying to scare him out of the country to save his life? It wasn’t working very well. He felt a sense of panic.
“We can make our own home, a new home, away from all this,” he wanted to say. “I don’t want to lose you. You are all I have left in this mess.” His hand was sliding up her leg. She stood up and took his hand, then put the tips of his fingers into her mouth.
“I want to. I want to. But not tonight.”