It was the ninth of November when Jake landed in Dili for the second time, Monday, a working day. It was his birthday. Anne and Nicole had given him presents over breakfast back home and a slab of rainbow cake to take with him.
His birthday was a date to remember, the date of Kristallnacht when the glass was smashed and the Nazis launched their assault on the Jews. On the same date fifty years later the Berlin Wall that divided Germany into East and West came down. The ninth of November was a date with two faces, a rampage of destruction and an assembly of hope. It marked the inexorable turning of the wheel of history for both good and evil, at what cost to human lives.
Jake sensed the relevance of the omen to the situation in Dili, coming just a few days before the anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre. Seven years earlier, on the twelth of November 1991, the Indonesian army had opened fire on East Timorese students as they prayed for their slain comrades in the Santa Cruz cemetery. Hundreds of troops took part and hundreds of innocent people were killed. The footage of the atrocity, smuggled out, showed the world what Indonesia would do to keep its hold over the country. Since then both sides had maintained pressure and any resolution was as far off as ever.
On the eve of the anniversary there were signs of intimidation being stepped up again, rumours, nervous observations and, from pro-independence activists, anticipation of the bloodshed that would turn the tide their way. Journalists and international supporters were descending in large numbers. Jake had seen the reports in Canberra before he left, the intercepts, the chatter. Words on the wind. Military and paramilitary were on the move.
Jake shuddered as he wrote his birthday date on the arrival card. He had to remember that his passport showed a different date of birth for its bearer.
Armed police were on the alert at the airport as the disembarking passengers lined up for checking. This time Jake’s bag was thoroughly searched. They made him unlock his briefcase for inspection and found the birthday cake in its foil wrapping, and nothing else except plumbers’ manuals and empty notebooks, and a camera that the officer picked up and opened. It had no film in it. Jake showed the man a family photo of himself with his wife and daughter.
No one had intercepted him at Darwin airport this time. Even Gavan didn’t know he was coming. Jake knew the word for plumber in Tetun but he didn’t say it to the immigration official for fear of giving too much away. He knew ‘plumber’ in Portuguese from Vince in Canberra and he had learned it in Bahasa. Jake showed the passport page that proved his status as an Australian aid worker. Tukang pipa, he said clumsily, pointing at his chest. But the officer wasn’t budging. It was the nationality he disliked and the evidence of a prior visit. Jake could only repeat that he was a plumber.
The man took the passport behind a frosted glass partition where it could be checked on the computer. Jake wondered what they knew, what they suspected, what was entered on the system.
Then the officer sauntered back, dangling the document as if it were a scenic postcard. Tukang pipa. With a sceptical grin he parroted the word for plumber and indicated that Jake could enter the country.
Rafa was outside again, hanging about in his yellow and black check shirt. Jake acknowledged the man with a nod and walked past. It angered him to be observed. Instead he found a waiting bemo for himself and hopped in. He remembered the name of a guesthouse that Jacinto had mentioned as an out-of-the way place that was less conspicuous than the Mahkota and had fewer Indonesians.
The usual mesh fence surrounded the guesthouse and at night as they drove up it was lit only by the lamppost in the street outside. There was barely a sign. It was a two-storey place built around a courtyard with stairs at each corner to an upper floor. The concrete and render were painted white and the roof was green corrugated iron. It reminded Jake of patrol officer accommodation in Northern Australia. He was given an upstairs room halfway along the east-facing wing.
There was a phone in the lobby where he tried calling Gavan but got no answer. He had a number for Jacinto. He hesitated before trying it. Then when he did call, the young man was there at once.
‘Why have you come back?’ Jacinto asked. He sat on the edge of the bed while Jake unpacked.
‘I need to check things,’ Jake answered. ‘Before the end of the year.’
‘It’s a bad time,’ said Jacinto. ‘There are more soldiers every day. There are more guns for the paramilitaries. We are scared.’
‘What about your people?’
‘We hold back. The orders are for non-violence whatever happens.’ Jacinto’s face was angular in the shadows of the room, his sharp eyes a slice within the mass of his curly black hair. ‘The holiday was quiet,’ he said, referring to All Saints and All Souls, just passed.
‘Thursday is a big anniversary,’ Jake observed.
‘They are waiting,’ Jacinto responded. ‘On this day the world is watching in solidarity with us. That will pass. Then it will happen. They will kill us.’
The young man grinned. It was barely an exaggeration.
Jake nodded slowly. ‘I want to go out with Gavan tomorrow to inspect some of the water installations. There’s no need for you to come. More important to be careful. We can manage by ourselves.’
‘No, are you sure?’
‘We’ll be okay. How is your cousin? Elisa,’ Jake asked.
‘She is in the mountains,’ Jacinto confirmed. ‘She’s worried about…’
‘I brought some Tim Tams for her little boy,’ said Jake, handing over two packets of the chocolate biscuits. ‘An Aussie treat. Can you pass them on?’
Jacinto put them in his backpack. ‘I’ll make sure Leto gets them.’ The twist of his mouth showed how much he would like to eat them himself.
‘Let me know if anything happens,’ Jake concluded. ‘I’m relying on you.’
‘I’ll warn you in advance,’ Jacinto boasted, ‘when something is going to happen.’
Jake accepted that. ‘Thank you. You should go now.’
He had been transported once again from the searchlight clarity of Canberra into the illegible currents of Dili – travel from safety to this dangerous frontline. He felt the force of preordination that was paradoxical when the outcome was so unknown. What would it take for the pieces to find their form? Jacinto’s apprehension was real, informed, grounded. Even a phone call, even a hurried meeting, was risky. Left alone in his room at the end of the long day’s journey, Jake worried. He had got through to Anne in Darwin. That was his last contact with home. He tried the phone at reception once more but this time even the exchange was dead. It was too late to call again anyway to let Anne know where he was.
He paced the room. The heat was oppressive. The fan clunked in its orbit. He unfolded the mosquito net into a white canopy to shield the bed. A mozzie had got inside and he struggled to swat it mid-air. He fought with the clammy bedsheet, then from sheer exhaustion he slept.
The chain-gang of Dili’s crowing roosters told him where he was when he woke to heat and light. He felt better after a shower. Bom dia, a woman greeted him when he went down for breakfast. A few cloth-covered tables were set up under a brush shade in a corner of the courtyard where the aroma of coffee hovered. He glanced at the menu and ordered everything, starting with the tropical fruit salad. The sun was bright and he put on his dark glasses. The coffee came eventually, a small pot, a heavy white cup on a chipped saucer, a jar of sugar. Black, it tasted good. The lacy edges of the omelette when it arrived matched the frill of the embroidery on which the plate sat. The bread was soft and sweet; the papaya was even sweeter.
It felt different this time, as if it all concerned him personally.
A piglet came strutting into the courtyard and faced off with the dog that was lying there in the sun, a chunky chow that looked up and snarled. The piglet’s purple hide was mottled with cream around its snout and over its rump. It bristled a little and wandered away. Atop the wall a scrawny black cat looked on and blinked. A little black and white bird landed among the pink frangipani flowers, pinging its arrival with a repeated cry. Jake smiled to see it all.
He had a bottle of wine as a gift for Gavan which he decided to deliver on foot. It was necessary to orientate himself in this different part of town. He headed first to the waterfront where he located himself with respect to the church and the university, then he turned back towards the mountains in the direction of Gavan’s place. He had marked it on his map but it was still tricky with the curving roads, dead-end laneways and a general confusion of scale. He stopped to ask directions as a way of exchanging words with people. Mostly they couldn’t understand what he wanted. He was walking along a dusty, rubble-strewn road that led out of town when he recognised the raintrees, the shrubbery and the mesh fence surrounding Gavan’s house. The familiar truck was parked inside. He knew Gavan was at home when he heard his friend’s fingering of the ivories in joyous hit-and-miss fashion. Where sheep may safely graze… The usual Johann Sebastian Bach. DAH, da-da DA, duh-duh-duh! And the same again, louder. DAH! Da-da DA, duh-duh-duh! The dogs barked their greeting.
‘Surprise surprise,’ said Gavan, turning on the piano stool as Jake wandered in with a soft knock. ‘I heard you were back.’
‘Sorry to barge in.’
‘I had a message from head office yes’dee morning. Good to see you, mate.’
Jake was apologetic. ‘It all happened pretty fast. I didn’t know I was coming back myself.’
‘That’s unusual,’ commented Gavan. ‘So what’s the news?’
Jake thrust the bottle of wine forward in its brown paper bag. It was a big Barossa shiraz. ‘This is for you.’
‘Only the best,’ quipped Gavan, moving to a more comfortable chair while remaining slack-mouthed as he waited for Jake’s explanation. ‘I suppose you’re here to check up on things again,’ he queried ironically.
‘I just need to have another look around,’ said Jake.
‘Right. Of course. That’s fine. No need to blow your cover. Whatever you want to do it’s fine with me. No more said.’
‘Thanks mate.’ Jake echoed their compact. ‘So what’s been happening here?’
‘Not good. Not good at all.’ Gavan sighed. ‘Nothing has happened. That’s what’s bad. It’s ominous. It’s what’s going to happen when something does happen that’s the problem. You can feel it building up, like the start of the Wet coming in.’
‘Have you told Jakarta?’
‘The Australian embassy? They’re a waste of time. They don’t want to hear and I’m sick of getting myself into trouble.’
‘Fair enough. Can we go out for a drive then? Can you show me what you’re seeing? How is the system we put in for Sister Mina holding up?’
‘You want to go up there? Now? Let’s go then.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘No mail to deliver this time?’
—
There was an official checkpoint on the main route out of town with armed Indonesian soldiers who asked for Gavan’s service pass before waving the two white foreigners through. The soldiers were searching vehicles carrying locals and stopping people coming into Dili. Further along, as the road wound uphill, there was another more amateurish roadblock where Gavan’s truck was waved down again. The fellows wanted cigarettes and one of them in plain clothes, unarmed, insisted on hitching a ride to a village at the top of the rise where there was another inspection point. This time the guards checked inside the truck and the mood was not so friendly. Calls were made further up the line for instructions before the vehicle was allowed to pass. These men were looking for something.
Gavan was nervous as they pressed on. The country was dense with coffee, clove and teak under the stands of madrecacao whose shimmering canopy filtered the light. In between were patches of garden where vegetables grew among banana and mango trees. Along the narrow road the people stared blankly as the truck passed. Kids chased after them, waving and calling out. The sky was a pale dusty blue, with smoke on the horizon.
Further up the eucalyptus took over and the ground was the familiar-seeming red and stony of Australia. They stopped for lunch in the pungent, high-altitude air, at the same roadside stall as on Jake’s first trip up to Aileu with Gavan. The proprietor didn’t remember them or she didn’t want to. Her menu was unchanged – corn, balls of rice and yellow skinned chicken that tasted old. There was tepid coffee and a flask of water. She was still fetching water by hand. As soon as she could the woman took their things from the table and packed up. She wanted the interlopers gone. She disappeared into the flimsy shack and they drove off.
‘We’ll see what Uncle Nuno knows,’ said Gavan, ‘up the track.’
The road was demarcated by bougainvillea that exploded in purple contrast with the red earth and the casuarina trees that screened the tender coffee bushes at this greater height. There were landslides where the road just fell away.
‘The Indos are keeping the roads passable,’ quipped Gavan, so they can get from A to B in a hurry when the time comes.’
Soldiers were stationed at Uncle Nuno’s depot. The smoke of their clove cigarettes hung in the air. The veteran fighter moved about morosely as he attended to the needs of the Indonesians who treated him like their slave. He was grim-faced with the Australians too. Gavan treated it as a performance and explained that he and Jake were there to inspect the waterworks. He surprised the Indonesians by greeting them in Bahasa.
Uncle Nuno led Gavan and Jake to a place where a pipe ran down the hill to a tank, pump and filtration plant, out of sight of the road. When he was sure they could not be seen or overheard, the old man made the sign of a throat being cut.
‘Falintil,’ he mouthed. He held up three fingers. ‘TNI dead.’
Gavan raised his eyebrows.
‘Very bad,’ said Nuno. He nodded his head up the hill to where the soldiers were and put his hand to his mouth to indicate no more talk.
Before they could get back in the truck Gavan and Jake were summoned to sit on white chairs at a folding white table under an awning in the shade. The Indonesian officer in charge came over. He declined to shake the hand that Jake offered. A wound-up young man, a Sumatran, he didn’t like these foreign people. He flicked through their passports with disdain. He wanted to know their destination.
Gavan had a story about a plumbing problem in a government building on the south coast at Same. They were heading out on an urgent call. Luckily the phone line was down and no one could check. The officer let them pass. They would be watched along the route and questioned on the way back.
‘We need some intelligence,’ Jake said when they were moving again.
‘Isn’t that your job? Use your eyes and ears,’ retorted Gavan. ‘I take it that Falintil – the hot bloods hiding out in the hills – have killed three TNI soldiers and the Indonesians are on the warpath.’
‘Is it linked to the anniversary?’
‘The atmosphere’s already bad enough. The paramilitaries are Timorese too, from East or West, and there are feuds. There’s revenge. There are rewards.’
‘Are you saying it’s civil war?’
‘The Indonesians want it to look like a civil war. That keeps the international community out. When the reality is it’s a bloody occupation, and I mean bloody – literally.’
The truck wobbled as they pushed on up the rough track, in low gear for the hair-pin bends but at high speed. ‘We need to be back in daylight,’ Gavan warned. He started to hum over the engine’s roar. ‘We can’t be out here overnight.’
‘Can we get to Sister Mina’s?’
‘I’m not sure it’s safe for us or them anymore, mate. Sorry.’
‘Can we get close?’
‘It’s Falintil that protects Mina’s set-up. They’re all through the mountains. What’s left of the resistance. One of them is actually an Aussie. True. A bloke on the run from something back home. A freedom fighter up here. They call him White Bat. There’s hope for all of us, isn’t there?’
The truck slowed to a crawl as they passed a file of people going in the opposite direction down the road. Young women, children, old men who waved without cheer, walking intently. Further on was another group, the same. A population was on the move, seeking shelter.
‘There’s safety in numbers,’ said Jake.
Gavan put his head out the window and asked where they were heading.
‘Dili,’ replied one young woman. ‘By bus.’
‘Okay,’ Gavan nodded, wondering how many buses came along out there. There was a waiting place further down the hill at the crossroads. The woman smiled at the deception – or the determination – she was sharing. This was an exodus. The women were mobilising.
Higher up still the visibility reduced. Wisps of fog drifted among the trees and thickened over the unpredictable track. Gavan turned the headlights on. They were driving through cloud which concealed the village in the clearing until they were right upon it. The dark houses were barely apparent in the greyness. Those last few white-haired women who had greeted them warily last time were gone. The house doors were boarded up. The pens were empty, the animals nowhere in sight.
Gavan kept on driving as the road forked, left to Alas, right down to Same and on to the coast.
‘Are we going to Alas or Same?’ asked Jake.
‘It’s Sam-ay,’ corrected Gavan. ‘That’s where we’re going to fix the plumbing.’
‘What about Alas?’
‘The road will be blocked there. We won’t get through. It’s off-limits anyway. Pro-integration. The territory is controlled by Prabowo’s army.’
‘Before Alas – isn’t that the turn-off to Sister Mina – the gate – the way in?’
‘So that’s it?’
‘Can’t we check on them?’
‘Not today, mate. Not good for them, not good for us. Like I said.’
‘Can’t we just have a look? We can say we got lost.’
So Gavan nosed the truck to the left, into the mist, in the direction of Alas. ‘Yessir.’
Jake craned his neck to look up at the mountaintops as Gavan reflected. ‘Just look at this terrain. It’s all impenetrable gorges and secret valleys. The Indos are determined to stamp out the resistance but they keep being outsmarted. The fighters are hiding out there, always on the move, they just can’t be found, and then they spring an ambush.’
They were inching along in the low visibility, lights on, wipers slapping. Gavan knew the road but he was unsure. It wasn’t far before the point where tracks in the mud on the roadside disclosed the entry point to Sister Mina’s compound. Even before the truck stopped Jake had opened the door. His feet were on the ground while the engine was still running. Then a man came forward, masked, in a bandana, with a rifle and bayonet in his hands. ‘Para!’ he said, gesturing with the upright weapon as a barrier in front of his taut body. Stop! He was a Falintil fighter. Jake started to speak but the man was not interested in conversation. He wanted these foreigners and their vehicle to turn around and go. It did not need words.
‘Come and talk to him,’ Jake called to Gavan. ‘Tell him why we’re here.’
‘Para!’ repeated the man. It was non-negotiable.
But Jake was prepared to persist. He thought of the women in Sister Mina’s refuge, the children, the girls. He thought of Rita, and Elisa. They were at risk. Even now, even with this tough gate guard, they might be in trouble.
Gavan slipped out of the truck leaving the engine on and hugged Jake from behind with both arms. It was a clumsy, sudden move and Jake’s chest puffed out. ‘No mate,’ Gavan said, stumbling as he dragged Jake backwards, losing his balance on the slippery slope. He got Jake to the open door of the truck and toppled him sideways into the seat. Jake shoved Gavan away and shook himself free. He wasn’t finished. But he yielded and stayed where he was.
Gavan called back to the guard in Tetun. ‘Excuse us. We lost our way. My friend is confused. We need to get to Same.’
The sentry smiled reluctantly, accepting the apology, pointing with his gun the way back.
Gavan climbed into the driver’s seat and reached across Jake to close the passenger door. He reversed the truck into the road.
‘Sorry mate,’ said Gavan, out of breath. ‘I didn’t like the look of that.’
Jake was angry – angry at himself. He thought he knew the drill. ‘You moved fast.’
‘As long as you don’t hold it against me.’
‘I’m worried about those girls,’ Jake said, straining to control his emotion. ‘They’re in there. They may be trapped. We can help them.’
‘We can make it worse for them too. They’re not the only ones. We can upset the balance by barging in.’
They carried the atmosphere the guard had created away with them into the mist and the trees – apprehension, suspicion, implacability. Something serious was happening and it was out of their reach.
‘I’ll behave,’ Jake promised Gavan. ‘Now let’s get to Same and find something to fix.’
‘This is the plan,’ Gavan said. ‘We head as far as Same and when we get there we turn around, and when we meet our friends on the way back we tell them that the clever Indonesians managed to fix their own plumbing problem with a coathanger. We’ll keep our eyes open all the way until we find out what’s going on up here.’
As they came back down the mountains through Aileu on the return trip they no longer saw the procession of people walking along the roadside. They overtook a packed bus on a straight passage of road that was too narrow for comfort. Perhaps some of those people were on board. Where had the others gone? At the same roadblock they were made to show their documents again. All movements along the road were being recorded.
Teresa told them when they got back to Gavan’s house what everyone in Dili knew by then. Falintil guerrillas had ambushed an Indonesian patrol near Mount Kablake, killed three and taken more hostage. In retaliation the Indonesian military were searching out anyone with a direct connection to the pro-independence forces up there. The local population was fleeing the area and coming into Dili. People were saying that the soldiers killed had been involved in the Santa Cruz massacre seven years before. Those who killed them were families of the dead, exacting their revenge, and now they were being hunted down in their turn.
It was a time of waiting as night fell. Jake lay on his bed inside the spectral chamber of the mosquito net. He remonstrated with himself for losing control with the guard. What had caused his feelings to surge in that instant? He was not used to being blocked. But it was more. Was he imagining himself as another Aussie guerrilla? They were on the same side but how could the Falintil fighter trust that? Jake wanted to see Elisa. He was desperate to see her, to know that she was safe. Why did he think he had a right to that?
He remembered her from outside the church, more than a month ago now, when she was there with her son and had looked at him and looked away. Jake wanted to know what was going on. There was a sense of confrontation everywhere, and his desire, stubborn and overwhelming, to be part of it. He wanted to question Jacinto, who would surely know more.
—
The young man was waiting at the guesthouse when Jake came down for breakfast, reporting early for work. He was skinny and looked tired. His hand shook as he lifted the coffee cup from its saucer. Jake ordered rice with a fried egg and sweet buns for him and made him eat.
Jacinto explained that the liurai in Alas had changed sides. He had been pro-integration to the extent of flying the Indonesian flag over the community of which he was head man. That was his way of protecting his people. He was a good man, said Jacinto, and it was hard for him because so many of the most feared Falintil fighters came from that town. The TNI who garrisoned it were brutal if they sniffed out any support for the guerrillas in the remnant population. The Indonesian officers in charge were hardliners, veterans of Santa Cruz, perpetrators with blood on their hands. The headman’s change of allegiance, a tactical move ahead of the anniversary of the massacre, gave licence to the local Falintil men to come down from the mountains and take revenge. On Monday, the day Jake landed, the ambush happened. The following day, when Jake and Gavan were heading to Same, the hostages were released, humiliating the enemy in another kind of provocation. The TNI and paramilitaries were coordinating their counter moves starting with an invisible cordon around the area. People were disappearing. Those remaining were trapped. That made Sister Mina’s community especially vulnerable. One of the old men in Alas was Rita’s grandfather, Jacinto added.
‘What about Elisa?’ asked Jake.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jacinto. ‘Her son is with family in Dili. I don’t know where Elisa is.’
‘Are you telling me everything?’ pressed Jake, alarmed.
‘I was scared when I heard you went up there,’ the young man replied.
‘We didn’t go that far.’ Jake knew he had acted impulsively. It was out of character for him.
‘That’s lucky for you. You were seen on the road. You were identified.’
The guard at the gate. Para! Not as strung out as he seemed. Jake regretted his behaviour.
‘What will happen today?’
‘It will get worse. But it will be hidden. There are so many international observers in Dili for the anniversary tomorrow. The international solidarity is strong. That makes the TNI hide itself. I have work to do today, organising with the students. With your permission. Is that okay?’
Jake looked at his watch and saw the date. November the eleventh. Eleven eleven. The anniversary of another war. An armistice. An end to war. A minute’s silence later in the morning, at eleven a.m., if he was home. Individuals standing slackly in the supermarket or the car park for their observance. Or the government office in Canberra. Lest we forget.
Jake had the cat and a black-and-white Timor sparrow for company in the courtyard that morning after Jacinto left. Neither the purple piglet nor the chow facing off over territorial dominance were in evidence. The weather had clouded over. Jake knew he should try to call Anne but the time was wrong. Instead it seemed like a good moment to pay a call on the internet café cum travel agency cum business centre that Jimmy Chin had set up downtown. See how he was getting on. The ex-Comms bloke. Maybe he could get a message to his family that way.
‘Your timing’s good,’ said Jimmy when Jake appeared in the doorway. He was red in the face, as if he had shaving rash, and looked bothered when he emerged from the cubicle where he kept his best equipment.
‘G’day, brother,’ grinned Jake. ‘Are you getting enough sleep?’
‘Lines are running hot,’ Jimmy acknowledged. ‘Shall we go outside? Get some fresh air?’
‘The cone of silence, eh?’ That was Comms speak.
‘Nah, just need a break.’ Jimmy hung a ‘back in 5 minutes’ sign on the door and led Jake a few steps along the shopping street to a place where they could sit over a coke and talk. ‘You’ve gone and come back. I haven’t been anywhere,’ he said. ‘Working weekends. So much traffic. Busy busy busy.’
‘Why’s that?’ Jake asked.
Jimmy looked at him wryly. ‘You asking me?’
‘Is it because of the anniversary? Is something going to happen?’
‘Everyone’s acting as though it will. There are more people in town than there have been in months.’
‘Which people?’
‘Everyone except the UN.’
Jake frowned. ‘Aren’t peacekeepers what we need here?’
‘That’s what Canberra is most worried about. They don’t want the peacekeepers. Not on our patch.’ Jimmy’s head dropped. His voice was low as the words came from his half cracked-open mouth. ‘You didn’t hear it from me. I’m just the travel agent. My job today is to pass on the paperwork for an Australian helicopter to fly in a group of Defence observers at very short notice.’
Jake raised his eyebrows.
‘It’s the usual clearance procedure. It’s not going to be a secret for long when the chopper flies in.’
Jake laughed. ‘You’re making it up.’
‘It’d be easier if they took a regular flight. They’re only coming from Bali.’
‘Hey mate,’ Jake asked, ‘can you send a message through to my family? They’re back in Adelaide now.’
‘Ah, the old home town, is it? You can call them on the phone if you like. I can get you a line. As long as you don’t talk too long.’
‘Fantastic.’
Jake liked Jimmy’s dryness. He presumed that Jimmy knew more about what he was doing in Dili than he let on. That explained his directness, his half-hidden smirk. Whether by guesswork or eavesdropping Jake couldn’t say. Jimmy was sympathetic. Simpatico.
‘Better get back and see what’s come in,’ Jimmy said, pressing back on his upper vertebrae until there was a click. He cracked his finger joints. ‘Are you going up country? Checking the water tanks and all that? The good life. Take it easy out there, won’t you?’
Back at the internet café Jimmy got Jake a line by going direct to the Telkom switch.
‘Hello,’ Jake said. ‘Hello. Anne? Hello, darling. The phones are hopeless at the guesthouse. I’m calling from somewhere else. I’m sorry. It’s fine. Yes it’s all fine.’
—
Jake tried to gauge the mood as he walked back. He passed the aid project compound which was locked with a guard at the gate, even as people were coming and going. Gavan wasn’t there although it was after nine a.m. local time. He detoured along the waterfront, enjoying a slow saunter on the grey sand. There were individuals standing under the trees, or at street stalls, or sitting on the seawall, no more than two or three, not speaking to each other, watching. As people were drawn quietly together, they were shadowed everywhere by uniforms, weapons, street patrols. Some boys – young and old – were playing football barefoot on the beach.
The island of Atauro lay across the water like a mirage, cloud rising like smoke from its dim silhouette. A placid sea shimmered with lilac light.
Seaweed, cuttlefish, driftwood, the orange and blue of frayed plastic rope and bottles on the sand, tangled white netting, dead puffer fish, broken shells, a faded cigarette packet with a grim health warning, and playing cards strewn among the brown kelp. Jake saw what the tide had washed in. He imagined a party from any of the factions gambling on the shore late into the night, high on betel, playing for their lives. It was bad luck to use the deck too many times so the cards were thrown away in the end.
He bent to turn a card face up. It was the Two of Clubs. He flung it aside in disgust, as an evil omen, and smiled at himself. What did he want it to be? The Ace of Hearts?
He clambered up from the beach to the main road and crossed over into a side street where the neighbourhood dogs stirred to take notice of him. From inside the houses he could hear television sets screaming with the Bollywood soap operas that people loved. He wended his way to the market where he had bought the tais for Anne on the previous trip. The stall was still there, selling things supplied by Sister Mina’s community in the mountains. Perhaps he could ask the stallholder about Elisa. But the woman did not allow her eyes to meet Jake’s this time. A soldier was interviewing her, loudly, insistently, his face smooth as clay as she shook her head at him in denial.
Jake walked away and found a bemo to take him to Gavan’s house. There was still a jobs list after all. Gavan might need him on hand.
‘Xanana will speak tomorrow,’ Gavan announced when Jake arrived. ‘That’s the word. That’s what people are waiting for.’
—
The weight of significance carried by the twelth of November was palpable under the heavy sky. Ten days earlier the cemeteries in the city had been crowded for All Souls and the commemoration of the dead as women and girls filed among the graves with baskets of flower petals and bunches of candles, and men and boys crammed in beside them with heads bowed or watched from their motorbikes. At the central cross of Santa Cruz those whose dead did not have graves made a mountain of red bougainvillea and white jasmine through which rivers of black wax ran from the burning candles. A supervisor raked the ashes but still the pile was smouldering as it began again, as mourners drifted to the cemetery once more for this anniversary day.
The requiem mass at the nearby church was packed with the faithful, many in black for the twelve months’ grieving, many students grieving their slain comrades. Then afterwards, slow and surging, watched anxiously by onlookers, a procession formed, making its way to Santa Cruz. It was a humid morning. By eight a.m. the streets in all directions to the cemetery were blocked as people gathered in their hundreds, with more from the National Resistance Council and yet more students, defying their occupiers and waiting for the shooting to begin.
Jake stood in the crowd, observing as the numbers grew. He was not the only foreigner, the only outsider. This was a ceremony of coming together in which all could participate. They brought baskets of flower petals – red, white and yellow in the colours of their country – and photos of the student martyrs killed in 1991 to be placed on the central cross. There was no space for new graves in this cemetery and not much space for the jostling mourners as they pushed forward.
A priest standing high on a plinth spread his arms in blessing. An old nun came forward calling for prayer and respect. Other nuns at the front of the crowd began singing. Some of them had guitars. That stilled the dense throng. People fell to their knees, screwing up their eyes in prayer. Others joined hands or joined the singing, waving their arms in the air.
Foho Ramelau, they sang:
Awake! The foot of the mountain is white
Awake! A new sun has risen
Then, as spontaneously as people had gathered, the clouds looming on the mountain peaks came down and the heavens opened. The rain poured down and the anniversary was washed by that rain. The cemetery was washed. The graves were washed. The petals, the burning debris, the ash, washed into runnels between the painted sepulchral masonry as people ran for cover, keeping themselves dry as best they could, splashing through mud as they moved away, thankful there had been no provocation and no blood spilled. As if there were some sort of accommodation, or perhaps unpreparedness, or so it seemed.
Jake was moving away too, relieved without quite believing it was over. Then in the middle of the retreating crowd he saw Elisa, standing proud with her son on a ledge near the big iron cross where the pile of flower petals smoked in the rain. The expression of devotion on her face was impersonal. Jake pushed towards her, straining to catch her attention. Even in that mass of people she would surely notice the foreign man. But if she saw him, she did not acknowledge him amidst the dispersing stream of bodies that flowed and ebbed between them.
He was elated. She looked as beautiful as ever, and more powerful. In her face, rising above the throng, he sensed her commitment and her conviction. She was the centre of the scene for him, as if the rain-soaked people, the flowers, the songs, the cemetery and the streets, the heavy sky and all the history that pressed on this moment could be embodied in her. He saw nothing else. His emotion surged. She was a golden vision, showing him faith and love. Yet he was invisible to her.
When he got closer to where she had been she disappeared again, gone with the boy in the pelting rain that made it hard to see anything.
Hooded in his rain jacket he let himself be carried along one of the roads that led away from the cemetery, he didn’t know where. He zipped up his shell against the wet. The streets were emptying quickly. He felt an acute disappointment now, as the tumult in his heart subsided. Where had it come from, that sudden rush of feeling? He needed to see Elisa again and he was relieved. Yet he was unprepared for the intensity with which her appearance touched him. The vision was for him, he felt. He loved her. And she was gone.
With the rain easing, people emerged tentatively, aware of the danger they faced. All assembly was still forbidden. Small impromptu gatherings with songs and prayers were taking place around the city and more baskets of petals were brought and photographs displayed. Throughout this heavy-laden day the trickle of people coming in from the country persisted, creating a sense of occasion – hesitant, momentous, brave – against the odds, as if today would overcome tomorrow.
A message of solidarity arrived from compatriots in exile, sent from a church in Manila, which the priests in Dili circulated in their confessionals. The message referred to the missing ones. Their relatives and friends could read it or hear it read in the curtained box, memorising the words to pass on, even as the priest hid the piece of paper in his robes ready to recite to the next person.
The route Jake followed from the cemetery took him past the Hotel Turismo which was crawling with activists from all over the world – NGOs, solidarity groups and alternative media, pro-independence campaigners from Portugal, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, from Indonesia too – stringers, travellers, hippies and conflict junkies sniffing for blood. He decided it was better to head back to his guesthouse. There were new arrivals there too. He should move out, he thought. Throw himself on Gavan’s mercy. For now, though, he retreated to his room where he changed into dry clothes and wrote up his notes.
He had yesterday to catch up on, including the intelligence from Jimmy that Defence – his own department in Canberra – was sending in an investigation group routed via Jakarta and Bali that was still secret at this stage. Jimmy assumed that Jake’s surprise return to Dili was coordinated with this visit when the opposite was true. The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. Since he was flying under the radar Jake would need to avoid those Defence visitors. How petty such manoeuvres seemed in any case compared to what was going on here, the concerted action all around.
As he wrote the details in his notebook he yawned and his pen faltered. He moved under the mosquito net and stretched out on the bed. He closed his eyes, as if that were the best way to take in the vision of those hundreds of mourners at the cemetery, with Elisa and her son at the centre giving it a human face for him. He needed to scrutinise what he felt. Was it a test, or a trap? Emotion had broken over him in a tumult. He was witness to a turning point in history, when people’s faith took charge. He had the professional experience to analyse the situation with hope and a degree of scepticism. But he did not have the personal experience to find words for his inward sensations, his wish to be part of Elisa’s cause unconditionally and his longing for recognition from her. She trusted him. She had sent Jacinto as mediator and he responded in kind. He hoped her son Leto knew who had sent the Tim Tams.
When he woke up, having slept longer than intended, the tropic afternoon had darkened with more cloud cover. A dull silvery glow came in through the closed curtains. He resumed his seat at the desk to continue working on his notes, switching on the light to see better. He wrote and wrote.
Then with a stutter the light went out and the room was dark. Jake checked from the window and saw that the power was out all through the guesthouse. He went to the stairwell and looked down. Power was out everywhere as far as he could tell. It was eight p.m. and as night came down the city had been plunged into blackout. Voices were calling, moving about, directing things uncertainly. Who had done this? Jake groped his way back to the room where he found the candle in the desk drawer and lit it with a match. Then he locked his notebook in the briefcase, put his shoes on and was ready to go. He would head for Gavan’s if he could find his way in the dark.
There was a knock on the door and someone called his name. He opened up and was blinded for a moment by a torch that shone in his eyes before it turned to identify Jacinto. The young man pushed his way into the room, showing with a sweep of his torchlight that he was alone.
‘You have the key?’ he asked Jake. ‘Let’s go. Lock your door.’
Jake took the candle and followed Jacinto’s strafing light to the stairs. They felt their way down to the courtyard where more people were walking about with candles. Candles were flickering in the restaurant area and more candles were being brought. People were heading out to the road where many others were already moving through the darkness by the light of their candles. Word had spread fast in response to a blackout which might have been intended as curfew or sabotage on this fateful day.
‘Come,’ urged Jacinto, ushering Jake into the courtyard. There at the table under the frangipani tree was Elisa. She cupped a candle in her hands, her face illuminated by its darting flame.
‘Boasnoite,’ she said to Jake. She was solemn. She did not smile at him as he smiled at her. ‘Jacinto told me where you were. He told me you were at Santa Cruz this morning.’
‘I saw you there,’ Jake said. ‘I’m so pleased to see you.’
‘We did not want you to miss the candles,’ she said. ‘I told Jacinto to find you.’ She offered this graciously, as a gift. ‘Come with us now. Come and see.’
Jake teared up with gratitude. It was what he wanted, a recognition from her of what she might mean to him, and he to her. He assumed that she had seen through his cover and knew his usefulness.
They joined the procession of people outside the guesthouse. Lighted candles were placed all along the road, in gardens, in doors and windows, beneath trees, under awnings, in porches that, displaying names and photos, became shrines to the dead and disappeared. Along all the roads to Santa Cruz candles marked the way. No electricity, only lines of flickering candlelight and people moving steadily in one direction, stopping at the cemetery gates to kneel, holding their candles in their hands in the dark, damp air.
And then with sheet lightning and a rumble of rolling thunder through the cloud overhead drops of rain started to splash down and within moments the storm broke again. Rain drumming on rooftops and shelters and gardens and grottos where the candles burned, one drop enough to extinguish each flame. Tree canopies heaving, umbrellas flying in the wind, lights disappearing like fireflies, drowned as the streets darkened again.
In the middle of the downpour two women came running up to Elisa to deliver a message. Somehow in the midst of the crowd pressing into the cemetery they found her. They gave their information sharply and she took it in at once. Jake could barely see her face, shadowed, changing.
‘I must go,’ she said to Jacinto in alarm, ‘to help Rita.’
They were huddled by a wall. Jake struggled to relight a candle.
‘Can I do anything? he pleaded. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No,’ she said decisively. ‘Thank you. God will help us.’
The candle sputtered in the wind. Elisa was gone with the women.
Jacinto took Jake back to the guesthouse as the blackout persisted in the rain. The kitchen managed to produce a rice meal in a box which they ate on their knees in the reception area. The women had come from Sister Mina to tell Elisa that Rita was with her grandfather and the others from Alas who were taken by the militia. Elisa was hurrying back to the mountains to see if they could be saved. Jake understood the priority. Jacinto was in a hurry to go too.
‘I want to help,’ Jake said. ‘Is there nothing I can do?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Jacinto. For now Jake should go to Gavan’s where there was a generator and the lights would be on. ‘Give this to Gavan,’ he said. It was a fax copy of the message of solidarity that the priests had distributed, an English version. ‘Send it out.’
The worst thing is that we do not know where their bodies are, their remains, their graves, their souls. Until today there is no justice for them at all… Today again as we commemorate this atrocity we call for a full recognition of the fundamental rights of the Maubere people to determine their own political status through a just, comprehensive and peaceful self-determination. We call upon the United Nations to find a peaceful, just and comprehensive solution for the people of East Timor. We urge you to live the truth of love for freedom and equality and a better life where peace and justice reign. Grant peace to our hearts, peace to our homes and families, peace to the church, peace to all nations this day forever.
—
Gavan was just back from driving around the transformed city, beholding the magic lines of candlelight along the roads before the rain came down. ‘Can peace win out, my friend?’ he proclaimed, welcoming Jake with a bearhug. The vision was real. ‘Let it be!’
They opened a bottle of wine and sat up late drinking as their elation subsided. The people had shown where they stood. That had a sobering implication. It showed the enemy the scale of the opposition.
For Jake the sea of candles made apparent where he stood too. Gavan fixed him a bed on the futon mattress in the spare room where he curled up low to the ground, his head spinning, to await the clear light of day. Elisa was present in his mind, golden in the candle’s glow, a living icon, a guide. She had gone straight back to the mountains to look for Rita, her younger friend, her cousin, her sister. She knew what the aroused and vengeful militia could do to a girl like that. It was terrible to contemplate. The headman of Alas was Rita’s grandfather. Could Sister Mina’s community hide her? Or would they all be destroyed if they tried? No wonder Elisa answered the call without a second thought. Yet she had come for him so he would not miss the hundreds of candles lighting the way through the dark night. She had given him that vision too. They had a pact, or was he imagining it?
In the morning Jake asked Gavan if he could borrow the truck for the day. He wanted to drive up to the mountains again.
‘You can’t go by yourself,’ said Gavan.
‘Yes I can,’ said Jake, pushing back.
‘I know you can,’ responded Gavan more dogmatically. ‘But in this case you can’t. It’s my truck. I won’t let you. It’s not safe.’
‘Can I get another vehicle then?
‘Tell me why you want to go. What’s your mission? Do you need to travel solo?’
‘You don’t need to be involved. That’s all.’
‘Oh. It’s personal. Look, Jake, nothing is personal here.’
‘You know that Rita has gone missing, and her grandfather from up there.’
‘Victor.’
‘Elisa is worried about them. She told me last night. I want to see if I can help.’
‘Elisa, eh?’ Gavan was sympathetic. ‘I worry about you, Jake. You’re my responsibility. I’ll lend you the truck if you let me come with you. As a non-participant,’ he smiled slyly. ‘I won’t interfere.’
Jake paused for a long moment, taking in what his friend said. Gavan didn’t trust him on his own. He was on the same side and wanted to support him. He was exercising his authority. Jake took the point that it could not be only a personal matter and was surprised that he ever thought it could be. Personal. That was unrealistic, a dream. But he could not discount the torrent of his feelings, rushing like the water that channelled off the mountains after the storm.
Gavan was volunteering to come as an extra pair of hands, another pair of eyes to bear witness. Jake could only acquiesce.
‘Makes sense,’ Jake said. ‘What would I do without you?’
Then Teresa appeared in the doorway looking stricken. She was back from the market where she had gone to buy fruit. She blurted out the news. ‘Bad thing at Alas. Killing at Alas. Killing liurai. Killing Victor.’
Gavan put his arms around her. ‘Is this true? Teresa?’
‘True. True,’ she said, shaking her head in horror. Tears were streaming down.
‘When?’
‘This morning.’
Gavan groaned. The illusion of peace was broken again. He held Teresa. ‘Doben. Oh my love.’
Jake called Jacinto on the phone and got no answer. He called Jimmy on the pretext that plumbing work was scheduled in that area to see if he could confirm the news. Jimmy said there were reports that men from Alas had been taken to another place and executed. The body of one man had been returned. He had been tortured to find out why he changed sides.
‘Anyone else?’ asked Jake.
‘It’s all unconfirmed,’ Jimmy said. ‘Rumours are flying around.’ Then softly, ‘A woman was raped. A relative of the man. For the same information.’
Jake turned to Gavan. ‘Are you coming?’
Once more they were driving the truck into the mountains, negotiating roadblocks along the way that were guarded by more than the usual number of gun-toting men.
—
The meeting hall at Alas was smashed up and the church ransacked. The water tanks were empty and the power was out. The Indonesian army had wrought its vengeance. Women were hiding inside their houses with the children. The men had mostly gone.
Victor’s body lay on the floor of the church with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. The woman who sat beside the body pulled back the sheet for Gavan and Jake to see. There were wounds, burns and wire cuts. Flowers and a wooden cross had been placed above his head, creating some ceremony in the wreckage. The woman, the dead man’s sister-in-law, screwed up her face with grief. Another old woman, carrying a child, passed by without expression, her mouth red from betel. A dog followed them out.
Gavan checked the equipment to see what would be needed to get the water supply running again. The damage was senseless. Jake wandered aimlessly through the square, hoping to find someone to explain what had happened. The soldiers or militia had come and gone at daybreak and done their work. The Indonesian flag was flying again above the government office.
Jake knocked on the door of the clinic, expecting it to be deserted, and went inside. Elisa was there, with Rita wrapped in a blanket in her arms. The terrified girl stared at Jake without recognition, shuddering. Her hands were bandaged. Elisa nodded at him almost as if she had been waiting for him to come.
‘She must leave,’ said Elisa. ‘She can walk. She will bear the pain.’
Rita closed her eyes, burrowing into her cousin like a frightened animal.
‘They brought her here with her grandfather,’ Elisa said. ‘They will come back for her. It’s not safe.’
Jake’s heart was knocking in his chest. He felt giddy with the nearness of so much suffering.
‘We have a truck,’ he said. ‘Can we take her somewhere? To Dili? To hospital?’
‘No,’ said Elisa. ‘There is a better way. We can take her to Sister Mina.’
‘Now?’
‘There is time.’
Jake got Gavan and the dead man’s sister-in-law, Elisa’s aunt, came with them in the truck, directing them to a place where they could pull off the road and wait out of sight. When Elisa and Rita appeared, the aunt helped conceal them in the back of the truck and waved them off. Gavan followed the road to the entrance to the track that led to Sister Mina’s community. This time the Falintil guard let them through. They kept on, deep into the forest to a clearing where they were stopped again and the women got out. Another young fighter helped Rita down from the truck, shrouded in her blanket, and escorted her away. Elisa gave Jake and Gavan a nod of thanks. There was no time to waste on talk. Jake looked into her eyes as they parted.
‘Send me a message,’ he said, reaching out to touch her hand. ‘If you need anything.’ He could not utter what he felt for her.
She returned his gaze, looking him in the eyes before she turned away and followed the others into the forest. His heart was pounding. He could only imagine what she felt.
—
It was Friday the thirteenth and the start of a period of violence in which supporters of independence were attacked, including senior men and women, and civilians suffered in the extreme. Falintil fought back, threatening and killing too, against instructions, which became the excuse for the TNI to send in reinforcements in large numbers, intent on wiping out the resistance by sheer force.
From Xanana Gusmão’s prison cell in Jakarta came a desperate message calling on the United Nations to send peacekeepers at once. Indonesia would never agree. They would negotiate in New York and stall. Australia would prevaricate too, sending in its own observers to confirm that the situation on the ground was improving and that the Indonesian armed forces were doing everything in their power to stem the violence, describing it as civil war between East Timorese factions.
The atrocity at Alas ushered in the final phase. With Xanana’s call the die was cast. When it was too late, after massive loss of life, UN peacekeepers would finally arrive, by then under Australian command. The Australian Prime Minister did not want anyone else’s boots to be the saviours on the ground.
For Gavan and Jake there was work to do up there next day – piecemeal digging, assembly, glueing and concreting. It was midday before they reached Alas. Things were tidied up. Soon the water was filling the tanks again in a semblance of normality.
Elisa’s aunt, Mrs Santos, brought coffee and snacks to the men for their smoko. She sat with them at an outdoor table in the shade of a tamarind tree. Strands of white hair escaped from her scarf and her bones protruded through her skin. This woman was indomitable.
She put her little cigar down and took a silver chain from around her neck. ‘Australian. Like you,’ she said slowly in English, handing the medallion across to Jake. Hanging from the chain was an old silver coin with a hole drilled through it. George VI’s head was on one side and on the other a ram with curling horns and the year. It was a 1942 shilling. The old woman grinned, showing her few teeth, and murmured as if to herself. ‘Australia.’ She said a name. ‘Larry.’
Jake fondled the coin and passed it to Gavan. ‘Larry,’ he repeated. ‘My father’s name. Larry Treweek. He was in Timor during the war. Sparrow Force.’
‘Could be,’ replied Gavan, examining the coin. ‘It’s a nice story. How many Larrys were there in Sparrow Force?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jake. ‘An Australian man gave it to his Timorese helper as a keepsake. It has survived.’
‘Happy as Larry, eh?’ Gavan returned the coin to Jake who closed his palm over it, wishing for the power of its endurance to be transmitted to him. The old woman had kept it all those years. Not Elisa’s aunt as it turned out, but her mother’s aunt, her great-auntie.
‘Do you remember the Australian man?’ asked Jake.
Mrs Santos crinkled her eyes. ‘Good man,’ she said. ‘Young man.’ Dreamily she put the silver chain over her neck again and the coin disappeared. The showing was done.
If it had been gold, the chain would have been sold or stolen or melted down long ago. Because it was silver, it had lasted. After she took away the tray of coffee things the old woman returned to bring the men into the church. Here too the rampage of yesterday had been cleaned up to an extent. The pieces of the shattered statue of the Holy Mother had been removed. Instead of a body on the floor under a sheet there was now a box on a stand before the altar where the splintered cross of wood lay. There was no priest though. He had been shot and wounded and was in hospital in Dili. It was the women who managed things.
‘Victor,’ said Mrs Santos sorrowfully, indicating the coffin. Jake and Gavan stood with their hands clasped in respect. ‘Sit,’ she ordered. Then she went behind the altar to the door to the sacristy. It was Elisa who returned in her place. Again as if it had been planned, Jake thought as his emotion surged.
Elisa came and sat with the men. She had come from Sister Mina’s community to find them. She said that some Dutch nuns were taking Rita across the border to Kupang in West Timor. The girl would be there by now, in the nuns’ house and care. When she was well enough to travel she would go by boat to Darwin. The Dutch women would arrange that, but they could not accompany Rita themselves.
Elisa wanted a letter for Rita to give the authorities when she reached Australia. She needed a letter to explain her case. Could Jake do that? That’s what she had come to ask. Jake could give it to Jacinto. An official letter to enable her entry into Australia. There were East Timorese refugees in Darwin. Friends, relatives. They would look after Rita. She was young. She was suffering. But she was strong.
Jake would do whatever Elisa asked. He made a promise to which Gavan was witness.
But why did Elisa not go herself with Rita to Darwin, Jake demanded to know. For her own safety. He could arrange that too.
She looked at him as if the idea had never occurred to her. It was an impossibility in her world, in her life. The man didn’t understand.
‘No,’ Elisa replied. ‘My son Leto. My son’s father. My people. My country. All here!’
Jake wanted to insist. But he stayed silent. He could only accept what she said.
‘Thank you, mister,’ she said. She didn’t know his name. ‘I know this one. Mister Mills.’
Jake was embarrassed. ‘My name is Jake,’ he said, telling her his true name. ‘Your auntie showed me the silver coin. One of the coins the Australians gave to your people as a token of thanks. My father was one of those men. Can I ask you one thing – for a photograph of Mrs Santos and the coin, and you, if you don’t mind.’
Elisa frowned. There was no time for this. It was dangerous. But she agreed and they went out through the back of the church into the light. The white-washed wall was pocked with bullet holes. Elisa called loudly twice before the old woman came. Jake unbuttoned the pocket of his cargo pants and took out his camera. He took photos of the two women, Elisa and her great-aunt, who held the silver coin between thumb and forefinger, sheep side facing out. Then he passed the camera to Gavan, who took some shots of Jake standing between the two women with his arms on their shoulders. Elisa was trembling. Jake wanted to pull her closer but he could feel her resistance. She was strong too.
Then there was the roar of a truck coming to a halt in the square at the front of the church. Elisa was gone in an instant between the buildings and down the hill with the old woman following. Gavan and Jake went inside the church, blinking from light to dark. Through the doors at the front they could see the Indonesian army vehicle disgorge its passengers in the rubble outside the meeting hall. Among them were three white men in civilian clothes, creased chinos, pale shirts, jackets. They talked confidently as they strode about, stretching their legs while never straying far from the vehicle. Jake heard their Australian accents. They were Canberra types. The Defence team from the Embassy in Jakarta, he guessed. Incognito.
‘No sign of trouble here,’ Jake heard one of them say. ‘All quiet by the look of it.’
‘Misinformation possibly,’ considered his colleague. ‘Can’t believe everything that comes in on the intercept.’
‘Bloody stirrers,’ said the third, taking out a cigarette and lighting up. Jake recognised the packet. Winfield Blue. He didn’t recognise the individuals. But they might recognise him. They might have worked together in Canberra, passed each other in the same corridors. They hadn’t wasted any time, Jake noted. Their helicopter had landed and they had come with the Indonesians who would make sure they didn’t see anything to alarm them. It was a most cursory tour of inspection that would prove most satisfactory. On the ground.
Jake and Gavan retreated through the back of the church and, like plumbers following a course of water, found the way to their truck. It was parked down the hill on the other side of the town square – a standard issue Australian aid contractors’ vehicle that the visitors could have spotted if they tried.
‘Don’t like the look of that,’ Jake said to Gavan as they drove off unnoticed. ‘The investigators from Canberra with their Indonesian friends. Wouldn’t want these photos falling into the wrong hands.’ In his sentimental desire for a souvenir he had selfishly put the women at risk.
‘You’re in deep, mate,’ was all Gavan said in reply. ‘Jesus wept.’
—
November the fourteenth came and went. It was Sunday now, the fifteenth, and Jake’s last day. It was the weekend. Gavan had been working hard and needed some time to himself. He wanted to play the piano undisturbed.
Jake needed time to think too. He was moving in a daze. He used Gavan’s computer to write the letters for Rita and went to Jimmy’s to print them out, using Gavan’s AusAID letterhead to make them look official. His false name was typed at the bottom. He put a line through it and wrote ‘Jake’ by hand. Then he gave the letters to Gavan for Jacinto to collect later and Gavan put them safely away in a drawer.
He made a call to Anne on Gavan’s satellite phone. She had not heard from him for three nights and was worried. She had tried the guesthouse time and again without success. Jake said that he and Gavan had been upcountry out of range. He would be on the flight home next morning. He sent his love. He couldn’t speak, really, with Gavan in earshot, who had noticed that Jake was a man who didn’t speak much on the phone, not even to his wife.
Jake said his goodbyes to Gavan. It would be dangerous for his friend if Australians became the enemy, either of the Indonesians or, through complicity with the Indonesians, of the East Timorese, no matter where the individual’s commitment lay. It was time for Gavan to leave too, but he wouldn’t, not until he was ordered to evacuate. He was thankful for this life, Jake realised, thankful to some divine mercy for the life he was living even in these days that put him at risk. He was solid, heavy, with a layer of loose flesh that was his armour against the world. Gavan smiled through his defences at Jake, his blue eyes twinkling in the pink cake of his face. He would continue sending his reports via Jakarta against his will, full of passionate detail, unedited, uncensored, the unpalatable truth as he saw it. Canberra could go to hell.
‘You’ll be back, I expect.’ Those were Gavan’s parting words as he shook his friend’s hand.
Jake spent a couple of hours back in his room writing up his notes and sorting things ready for the early morning departure. The plane would arrive late from Bali, spend the night on the tarmac at Dili airport and take off first thing, the weekly flight to Canberra via Denpasar and Darwin.
Before trying to sleep Jake went out to get some air. He walked around the city visiting familiar places. The church was open, resplendently white, though its Sunday activities were over by now. A few people hung about outside, waiting impassively for whatever might happen next. The administrative buildings were fortified and manned. Workers were moving sandbags into place outside the former Portuguese government house as Jake passed. He wondered if Senhor Vasco’s establishment was getting the same treatment. At the Mahkota Hotel there was bustling activity as cars ferried VIP guests in and out.
Jake went inside to the bar area where he caught sight of the trio of Australian Defence officials drinking beer with their Indonesian minders. He turned round at once and left, hoping they were waiting for their chartered helicopter rather than sharing his flight in the morning.
On the way out he nodded to the Australian backpacker he had met weeks earlier at Gavan’s get together, still here and enlisted in the cause evidently. He was deep in conversation with a doctor from Sydney who flew in and out regularly to tend the sick and wounded – the staunchest supporter of the resistance, who somehow got away with it, treating everyone as required.
Jake walked all the way to the white sand beach below the headland where Cristo Rey stretched his arms out over the ocean. A Trojan horse if ever there was. Buffeted by the salty breeze, he felt his mind as an empty shell. The dark surf churned with the tide. There was no further to go.
He returned along the waterfront to the dock where the water was deepest. Shafts of light from the lamps overhead opened up corridors into those depths. A suspension of green and blue shifted tremulously as he peered down. Then the shark came, moving in a swoosh of grey from the darkness towards the light. The two sets of eyes met, separated only by the membrane that divides water from air. Jake scarcely knew what he saw or what was seeing him. Then the shark was gone again into the black: a visitation on the eve of his departure, granting him safe passage.
His last call was on Jimmy Chin. Jimmy was always in his internet café slash travel agency slash communications hub nowadays. He slept there when he wasn’t sleeping over at Gavan’s office. Jimmy could get a line through to Anne for Jake to confirm his return. Jake owed Jimmy one, as always.
He hauled Jimmy out of the cubicle and brought him back to the guesthouse for a meal. It was generally quiet on Sunday night but Jimmy didn’t like to be out of range for more than forty-five minutes at a time in case of emergency. The kitchen there did good quick Chinese. Jimmy went for the pineapple fried rice which took him back to his days in Medang as a boy before he was sent down from PNG to boarding school with the Christian brothers in Australia. There was a goat meat dish on the menu, stewed in chili and soy, that Jimmy liked too. That was another one from the old days, when there were goats everywhere.
‘If I wasn’t working I’d have the Medang special to go with it,’ Jimmy laughed. ‘That’s crushed mango and whisky on the rocks. Bewdyful!’
Together they ran through the news. The Defence team had reported that the situation was under control. They had visited the epicentre of the violence and found nothing untoward. All quiet on the western front. Just the death of an old man from natural causes. No need for peacekeepers. Canberra was satisfied that the Indonesian foreign minister could be believed.
‘I was there on Friday, up at Alas,’ Jake said. ‘That old man was shot through the chest after being tortured and dragged through the public square. They raped his granddaughter. Because he showed his true colours. If they can do that and get away with it, there will be more. There is no support left for integration. It can only be imposed by brutal occupation.’
‘No comment, buddy,’ said Jimmy.
‘Be careful, won’t you?’
Jimmy laughed. ‘Don’t know whether I’d rather be hated as an Australian or hated as a Chinese.’
‘How could anyone hate you, Jimmy?’ Jake grinned. ‘I love you anyway.’
‘Go on!’
Then Jimmy had gone back to base and Jake was left nursing his beer as night took over. He breathed deeply to release tension. The scent of the frangipani was in his nostrils. He was in no hurry to move. No hurry to leave, he realised. He was expecting something, someone. Another visitation.
He knew what he hoped would happen. He wanted Elisa to appear again as mysteriously as she had on the previous occasions. To sit with him, him alone this time. Her gravity, her steadfastness of purpose, born of sorrow and commitment, her life, her love for her son, her cause – all of it, he believed, gave her the capacity to respond to him. She exposed his need for something absolute, beyond what he knew, existing apart from the checks and compromises of his settled life. His idealism demanded the truth, which was a force for change of a barely imaginable kind, like a seedpod bursting or a snake shedding its skin. He wanted the direct experience of that. As the bar closed up for the night, he wanted to feel her there.
When he went up to his room, he set the alarm for early next morning. He remembered to take the film out of the camera and hide it in his dirty socks. He washed his face and brushed his teeth. He fiddled with the mosquito net then turned out the light. He lay on the lumpy mattress in his t-shirt and shorts. The air, stirred by the fan, was hot and listless. The bed sheets felt as damp and sticky as his skin. He tried to doze, his mind moving between the dream that aroused him and the dark that was tugging at him with its spirits and ghosts. He could not name what he felt for Elisa. He was committed to her, infatuated with her, compelled by her. He rolled onto his side and onto his belly and onto his back again, trying to banish the longing in his body. He screwed up his eyes to avoid seeing anything but his dream of her. He groaned from deep in his chest.
The net was a catafalque, luminous in the dark, but it no longer protected him. His thrashing messed it up, opening its folds, and let mosquitoes in. He heard their whining and slapped at his ears. He felt clumsier and more confused than ever, wrestling with desire and the conviction that he could change his life. He was too big for the skimpy bed. In the end he heaved himself upright and hung his head.
He was still sleepless when his trusty travelling clock sounded its alarm. He showered quickly, scrubbing himself down, and put on his travelling clothes. The manager was there at reception to take his money. He offered to get the guest a taxi. Just then Jacinto strode in. It was five a.m. Jacinto had the time right and a friendly bemo was waiting.
On their way through the unlit streets Jake checked that Jacinto had the letters for Rita.
‘We’ll get them to her in Kupang,’ Jacinto confirmed. ‘Elisa thanks you. She gives you this.’
Jacinto handed him a little bundle of paper. Jake felt for what was inside, something flat and hard, a coin on a chain. That was her message.