Harry Loewen doesn’t whack the rabbit hard enough on the back of the head, so that when he goes to skin it, the animal twitches and screams like chalk screeching down a blackboard. I shudder and Harry drops the jerking body. Pete Patterson, the oldest of the three Patterson boys, grabs it in a flash and hits it firmly and quickly behind the head, so that it falls immediately still.
He hands the carcass back to Harry, whose face is ashen, his long curls clinging, wet with perspiration, to his temples. His hand shakes as he takes the slender warm body by the long hind legs. “Listen, you either do it, or you don’t. There’s no in between,” says Peter gently. “And there ain’t nothin’ bad about it either way. You just have to make up your mind.”
The Pattersons, Paddy and Claire and their three boys, live in a double-wide trailer set up on cinder blocks in the bush. They make their living doing odd jobs for the oil drillers, and by having a small, custom-kill abattoir, where local farmers like Harry Loewen, this back-to-the-land former Toronto philosophy student, can bring their animals to be killed and inspected by a government-certified veterinarian.
I am the veterinary inspector, fresh out of school. I am here to ensure that the kill is proper and the animals fit for human consumption. I stand in the background, whetting my knife, getting ready to check the offal for infection. In the twinkling of an eye, that’s what the apostle Paul had said. That was the divine way to die. Like a rabbit at the Pattersons’.
“Yeah, city boy, look at this.” Billy-the-Bear, who once killed a bear that fell through their trailer roof onto the kitchen table, pulls a rabbit from the crate by the hind legs and whacks it once, quickly, decisively. He holds it up and slits the skin. There is no child-like cry. No struggle. Just life, and then a brief terror, and then death. But you have to decide what you are going to do, and then you have to go for the head. Anything other than that will just increase the suffering.
Harry looks at the body in his hands, lays it down on the concrete floor, and goes outside. We can hear him retching.
***
It took a few moments for Ab to remember where he was. He was in bed. He turned to look over to where Nancy was. Gone. Something was ringing. The phone. He walked into the living room and steadied himself against the couch. He sat down next to the phone as he picked up the receiver.
It was Sarah, her voice crackling through a mist, far away. “Ab. Thank God. I’ve been trying to get you for hours. The phone lines are so bad.”
“Sarah, where are you calling from? Plumstein? Listen, I haven’t been able…what? Yes. Yes.”
“The coffin had rocks in it.” Sarah’s voice seemed to be coming through from another planet. He felt a darkness close around him. “Ab, are you there? Ab, George’s body wasn’t there. The coffin was full of rocks. Can you find out what happened?”
“Sarah, I’ve only got a few days here myself. I’ll try.”
They were both silent for a moment. “Ab, you’re not in danger, are you? I…I care about you.”
“Thanks, Sarah.” He took a deep breath and found himself thinking the words of St. Paul about prayer, that through our inarticulate moans the Spirit speaks for us, and God knows what we mean. The darkness seemed to ease away a little. “No, Sarah, I don’t think I’m in danger. I’ll do what I can. See you soon. Take care.” Why would they kill him if they could just ship him out of the country?
He hung up the phone and leaned back on the couch, pulling at his beard. Then went back to the bedroom and looked at his bedside clock. Five A.M. Had Nancy said goodbye? He looked into the garage where she usually parked her bike. Gone to work? A bit early. Budi was slouched over in sleep at the gate.
Time to act decisively. But what to do? He considered going past Nancy’s shop, but recalled how she had felt about being dragged into this mess earlier. He was on his own. Against his better judgment, he drove by her shop anyway. It was all dark and the door and windows had metal shutters pulled over them. So where was she? He had somehow assumed that she lived above the shop, but the truth was, he now realized, they had never actually talked about where she actually lived.
***
The Klaten police station was not officially open yet, but there was a car out front and Ab could see a light on inside. He skidded to a halt in the dust, walked into the station, straight through the empty front room and into the chief’s office. “I need some answers. Two of my good friends have been killed in Balinese kris execution style, and I want to know why.”
The chief was sitting behind his desk, rose as Ab entered the room, saw who it was, then slumped back down. He lifted his hat, ran his fingers over his hair, and put the hat back down. Then, as if terribly weary, he stood up and turned to look out the window. “You are a very brave man, Mr. Ab, to come into my office like this. I could accuse you of murder.” He was silent, as if pondering this option, then turned around. “If I question you, will I find motive? I think so. Will I find a weapon? What veterinarian does not carry a knife? You do not understand, Mr. Ab, what is happening.”
“You are damn right I don’t. So tell me. I’ve got a few hours.” Ab lowered himself into a chair, remembered the kris in his car, dug his hand into his empty pocket. He should take up gum, like ex-smokers. He ran his hand back over his head. What had happened to his baseball cap?
The policeman sighed. “Unfortunately, Mr. Ab, I also do not know what is happening.” He reached into a box at the left side of his desk. “There were more cattle that died at the mother farm. We asked Dr. Arsentina from the Livestock Office to come look. She will replace Dr. Soesanto.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“She did not need you. We did not know where you were. These are the reports Dr. Arsentina did.” He handed Ab some pathology reports, which he scanned, rushing to the bottom line. “Anthrax,” he read out loud. “Well, that’s no surprise. Question is, why didn’t the vaccine or the antibiotic protect those cattle? Who has been sabotaging the project? Who killed George and Soesanto?”
“Dr. Ab.” He leaned across the desk. “Why must you persist in reading the darkest motives into everything?”
“Into murder? Executions by kris? I can tell you George’s wife is not too happy about receiving a coffin full of rocks, either. We may have an international incident over this. Do you know what happened to the body?”
The policeman shrugged. “That, perhaps, I know.”
“And?”
“What I can tell you, Dr. Ab, is this. I am bound by decisions that are made,” and here he waved his hand noncommittally, “elsewhere. In any case, it is not permitted, I am told, to ship a body of a person who has died of anthrax across international boundaries. We are sorry. We are deeply sorry that your friend George has died. I can also tell you that Dr. Soesanto was fortunate to have survived as long as he did. His colleagues all disappeared years ago.” He paused. “It is true that he was a good man.”
Ab slouched back into his chair, staring at the man across the desk from him, an ordinary Indonesian police officer, doing a job. Deeply sorry. Right. So he knows. It was no use. There was no getting to the bottom of it. He leaned forward again with a sigh of despair.
“Well then at least tell me this: Is my life in danger, and if so, from whom?” If he could find out from whom he was in danger, then he could find out who murdered George.
The policeman shrugged.
“If you don’t know, who would? Sani Sentosa?”
“Maybe.”
Ab got to his feet. “I want to tell Mr. George’s wife something. Can I tell her that you disposed of the body properly, not in a dump somewhere, but properly buried?”
The police chief stood to see Ab to the door. “You may tell her that,” he said.
As he climbed into his car the police chief came over and pushed the car door shut after him. “Mr. Ab, be careful,” he said quietly.
Ab sat at the wheel without starting the motor, his anger seeping away, the vague fears returning. “Where can I find Pak Sani?”
The policeman looked at him long and hard. He said nothing.
“Two of my good friends have been murdered. I have to leave the country in about four days. You must understand. I need to find out something. I can’t go home empty-handed.” He was pleading now, feeling hopeless. This was his last chance.
“He has a summer home in Bandungan,” the policeman said finally. “You can sometimes find him there.”
Ab started the car and headed back to Yogya. Where the hell was his baseball cap anyway. He turned the gamelan tape back on. It still sounded like a confusion of a million voices, all going their own way. Yet they were held together by something, and they seemed to be moving, if only in circles, or batik-like patterns. But in all the noise, he could not discern that pattern.
It was late morning by the time he got back to Yogya. Shops would still be open for a few hours before closing during the hottest part of the day. He drove by Nancy’s computer shop again. Still dark and shuttered. His stomach tightened another twist. Where was she?
Ab pulled up to his house and honked twice. It was only when he got out of the car and rattled the gate that he realized it was open and unlocked. No Budi. Nancy’s motorbike was not there, as he knew it would not be but hoped it would. He picked up his overnight bag from the back seat and carried it into the house.
The house was dusky, heavy with silence.
“Nancy? Budi? Anyone?!!”
His voice fell like a dead cat to the floor.
He set down his bag, felt for the kris, then gently lifted it out. His baseball cap was there, in the bag. A stupid, small thing to worry about, he thought. He took it out and put it on, backwards. Then he slowly drew the kris out of its sheath, marvelling again at the snake and complex damascene. He took it to the kitchen and found a bottle of cooking oil. Using the thick palm oil, sold as “Genuine Corn Oil,” he polished the blade to a sheen. No flecks. He caressed it, as one would a small kitten, and wondered which other hands had done the same. Unthinkingly, he reached up toward his throat and thought of George and Soesanto. He pushed the blade back into the scabbard and placed it back into his bag. Motive. Opportunity. Weapon. Go home Ab. What had Sarah said was George’s message?
I can’t sleep here tonight. He dug around in his chest of drawers and threw some fresh clothes into his bag on top of the knife, then threw the bag into the back seat of the Suzuki. He walked out to the street to the warung with the poster of Lake Louise where he used to eat and ordered a big bowl of soto ayam. He watched the people and becaks passing, then walked home. He lay on the bed for an hour, staring at the ceiling. What has power for us now that we have overthrown all the old idols and icons? Words? But those too we have undermined and overthrown. Money? Power itself? For what do we kill? Dusk was falling.
Shops opened up after being closed between two and five in the afternoon, and the mobile food vendors were wending their way up and down the alleys making their distinctive noises. Enterprising cooks spread out across the sidewalks with make-shift canvas-covered restaurants that advertised Pak Pujo’s Bakso, or Bu Nona’s Saté. It was a bad time to be driving, as many of the pedestrians spilled out onto the streets, and the becaks, motorcycles, and bicycles which flocked everywhere carried no lights.
He passed Nancy’s shop again. He stopped and rattled the shutters. No one. As he headed out of town, he sensed that he was being followed. But that was silly. How could he, manoeuvring through that sea of vehicles, get any sense of being followed? And yet it was there. He carefully scanned his rear-view mirror, then drove alternately fast and slow, and went around one block three times. It was a thin man on a motorcycle, wearing a dark brown batik shirt and sunglasses. The Waluyo-type. Somebody had seen too many American movies.