Ruslan didn’t sleep well that night on the farmer’s hill. The evening’s meal of coconut was sour in his stomach. By God, he was getting sick of the stuff. He didn’t want to eat another coconut in his whole life.
But that wasn’t what was really bothering him. Sarah had asked him to go with her and Peter into Calang. He didn’t want to. He should start heading into the green hills to Ie Mameh. Bapak and Aisyah could help Sarah and Peter.
Sometime in the morning he would say his good-byes and veer off to the north, making his way on his own. He had his father to find. Surely Sarah would understand.
When the band descended the hillock at dawn, Ruslan led the way. He was eager to get to Ie Mameh. He was certain that by the end of the afternoon he’d be hugging his father, kissing his cheeks. The thought of it cheered him so much that he started whistling. As he jumped a small ditch, he noticed Sarah staring at him, and he fell silent, feeling guilty.
“No, no, don’t stop,” she said. “It’s so good to hear somebody whistling.”
He bowed to her and finished the tune.
“My dad could whistle,” Sarah said. “He couldn’t sing, though. It was torture to be with him in the car, him and Mom singing stupid love songs. Wasn’t it, Peter?”
The twins had fashioned a stretcher from some scavenged bamboo and burlap and were carrying him. Surf Cat, too, was hitching a ride, snoozing by Peter’s side. Peter smiled weakly. “Awful,” he agreed.
Ruslan had no idea what Sarah’s parents were like, but the image of them singing duets in a car made him grin. “Love songs?”
“Yeah, like this one.” Sarah began to sing a song about feelings, feelings of love.
Ruslan winced exaggeratedly, pressing his hands to his ears. Sarah laughed and hit him lightly on the arm. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh. It was a nice sound, a normal sound, a sound from Ruslan’s previous life, when the sea had still been steady. The small happiness of hearing it was like the sweet juice that broke each day of the Ramadan fast.
An hour later they came to a shallow place where they could ford the estuary and then backtrack to a road that led into Calang. Several miles to the right stretched the first of the green foothills. Ruslan stepped to the side, letting others pass, and stared at the valleys. Ie Mameh was on the slopes of one, but he couldn’t remember which one. Well, there’d be other villages. He’d find out.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, startling him. He hadn’t noticed her approach.
He pointed to the hills. “That’s where my mother’s village is. My father’s there.”
She frowned. He had to look away as she said, “You’re not leaving us, are you? You promised me, Ruslan, you promised me you’d help me find the doctor.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t promise you.”
“But you have to help us. Please. Peter’s sicker this morning than last night.”
“Sarah, I have to go find my father. Bapak and Aisyah will help you.”
“We need you, Ruslan. We’re foreigners here, nobody else speaks English, and Peter is sick, you have to help us. Please. Your father is okay, he’ll be okay for a couple more days—”
Ruslan whirled on her. All the fear that he’d kept way down at the bottom of his heart broke to the surface. “How do you know he is okay? He is up there with the rebels. You are right. You are a foreigner. You don’t know anything about this country. You don’t know how dangerous that is. I have to go find him. I am his son.”
He was aware of how his voice shook. He was aware too of how tears filled Sarah’s eyes. They tore at him, but some duties were higher than all others. What did his father say? A man’s duty is first to God, and then to family, and then to those who ask for help.
Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but before she said anything, the buzzing of a helicopter broke through the morning’s silence. Her gaze snapped away as she stared over his shoulder. Ruslan turned to see a red helicopter zooming toward them. It banked around the hillock that the band had left earlier and headed toward them, slowing down to hover above a patch of broken road a hundred feet away. Ruslan’s head throbbed with the roar of its blades and the piercing whine of its engine. Through the whirlwind of dust and dirt, he saw a white man in the passenger cabin point at Sarah.
The helicopter settled to the ground on its skids. Apart from some numbers and letters on the tail, the helicopter bore no markings. The man got out, scurrying over to Sarah in a crouch. A bigger man followed, his round belly jiggling.
“We come to get you,” the first man shouted to Sarah over the helicopter’s noise. His gaunt jaws held a dark shadow of beard.
“Your brother?” the fat man asked, with an even heavier accent, pointing at Peter in the stretcher. The man’s small eyes peered out from underneath a thick brow scalded by sun.
“Who are you?” Sarah said suspiciously.
“United Nations,” the second man said.
Ruslan frowned. United Nations? The man was lying. The government would never let the United Nations fly around Aceh so freely like this. He caught Sarah’s eye and shook his head.
She asked, “Do you have any ID?”
The fat man grunted and turned to the other. They spoke briefly in a guttural language. “I am Hans and he is Iverson,” the fat man said. “This is the emergency situation, we don’t have our papers. Come now, the helicopter is waiting.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know you.”
“You must come with us,” the first man said. “The rebels, they are here and they shall kidnap you.”
The helicopter pilot made hurry-up gestures.
The fat man grabbed Peter from the stretcher.
“Let him go!” Sarah shrieked. She flew at the man and sank her teeth into his elbow. He roared with pain. Aisyah snatched Peter away and hugged him to her side.
Bapak raised the machete in a menacing gesture.
The skinny white man took a precautionary step backward. “There are rebels!” he shouted at Sarah. “It is dangerous! You shall come!”
The mute girl picked up a stone and threw it at the helicopter. The stone fell far short, but Ruslan and the others also picked up rocks and cocked their arms. The skinny man cursed, and he and his companion rushed back to the helicopter, which took off in a shrieking blast of air.
In the silence that backfilled the chopper’s racket, Ruslan could see how Sarah trembled. She took several deep breaths and then gave the mute girl a hug. “The way you scared off the helicopter, that was something. Thank you.”
The girl gravely nodded.
Ruslan chucked his rock aside and touched Sarah’s arm. She glanced up at him. “Oh. Thanks for helping. Bye, hope you find your dad.”
Ruslan smiled. “If we’re going to Calang, we’d better not just stand here.”
Her face was blank for a moment, and then joy rose into her blue eyes. “You’re coming?”
“You’re right. My father will be okay.” Beneath his smile, Ruslan hoped so. But sometimes one’s duty to God is exactly the same as one’s duty to others. Especially, perhaps, to foreigners in one’s country.