Of course, he thought. That man has just named someone. Now it is clear who is friend and who is foe. Well, it’s far from clear in fact, but if you want to be a friend, you have to name a foe. Neutrality is not an option. When the militiamen turn up at your door at night, eight or ten of them, in their black clothing with their sickle-shaped machetes, fleeing is not an option — you have what, four or five children? Even if you climb out of the back window and even if the leader of the group hasn’t already stationed a man there to cut you down — a swift chop to the legs, usually below the knee — then you won’t get far before they hunt you down through the rice fields. So, as you cower in the far corner of your home, watching your door shake against the blows, knowing it will hold for a few seconds more, your choice is this: you can wait until the door flies open. You can wait until the men burst into the hut and drag you and your wife and your screaming, terrified children out into the open. Or you can stand, and you can approach the door and call out, ‘Brothers!’
You call out, loud enough to make them pause for a second. ‘Brothers!’ Then, you speak to them urgently. You give them a name.
Tanu. It is your neighbour’s name. He lives in a house just down the hill — a larger house than yours, a bit better than your one-room shack. And now comes the really difficult bit. You have to open the door. You have to smile at the men, greet them. You have to act as though you are pleased they have arrived in your village — if you are afraid of them, they will assume you have something to hide. So, summoning every shred of courage in your bones, you slide back the block. You gesture into the hut with your hand, then turn and bark over your shoulder at your wife to stop crying like an idiot, because these men are friends and might want something to eat and drink, and you smile out into the dark and say, ‘Tanu, my friends. It’s true what I say. I hear his wife is in Gerwani.’ And it is true, now you come to think of it. His wife has always been talking to your wife about the importance of educating the girls, of them being productive workers for the good of the whole village, and she may not have tried to recruit her to the PKI but it’s a bit odd, isn’t it, if she isn’t a Communist, that she’s so keen on the girls going to school?
The men don’t come into the hut. You can’t even see them clearly because the flare from the burning torches is so bright — they are just dark shapes lit by an orange glow. They talk amongst themselves and leave. You bar the door again and return to the corner with your wife and children.
And, after a while, you hear the screaming down the hill. It is the kind of screaming you have never heard before: the kind that pierces your ears. Your neighbour Tanu and his family are being dragged out of their beds. You stay huddled in the corner, your arms around your whimpering children, while the screaming goes on and on, and you know that when you see the charred bodies strung up in the village square in the dawn light you will feel horror and revulsion but what you feel right now, as the screams continue, is relief that they came to your house first, for it is only thanks to that good fortune that you had the chance to name Tanu before he named you.
The three men turned and walked off together, away from the shops. The road curved and they were soon out of sight. It could be that the two aggressors were simply taking the third man somewhere to kill him, or it could be that they were now all plotting together, the best of friends. Harper looked back down the street and saw that an elderly woman had come out of her shop with a broom and was sweeping her step, looking around, but other than her, the street remained empty.
After a while, Wayan appeared at the far end, beyond the shops, carrying two banana-leaf-wrapped food parcels. He rose.
It took longer than he had anticipated to reach the village up in the hills where Komang lived. The rain had been heavy enough to turn the tracks soggy and the route became muddy and impassable. When they dismounted to turn the bike, fat droplets of water fell from the trees above.
It was late afternoon by the time they reached their destination and he was already thinking they might end up stuck there for the night, not ideal but safer than travelling after dark. Following Abang’s instructions, he told Wayan to park the moped just off the village square. They stood by the motorbike for a few minutes, drinking from a water bottle, while Harper orientated himself. Komang’s farm was close to the village up a steep rise that led north.
As he walked up the rise, three boys began following him, calling out, ‘Hallo! Hallo!’ Soon, they were joined by four or five others, like yappy dogs, grinning and jumping, keen to announce his arrival. They fell away as he approached the house and ran shrieking back down the rise.
The house was a grand construction for a rice farmer, long and low. Three dogs ran out to greet him, snarling half-heartedly. A cockerel in the front yard lifted its head, stretched its neck upwards and flapped its wings. A girl of about twelve rounded the corner of the house, saw him, stopped dead, then turned and ran back the way she had come.
Harper waited in front of the house. He wondered if it would be impolite to light a cigarette.
A man in a shirt and sarong came round the corner of the house. He stopped a few feet away, so that they could appraise each other: from his bearing, Harper had no doubt that this was the man of the household, Komang. He was a thin man, in his thirties Harper guessed, with the dense build of someone who had worked the land since childhood: at first glance rather small but then, on closer examination, with taut calf muscles and shoulders hard as steeclass="underline" not a weakling, certainly. If you needed to lift a tree trunk, you would want him to help.
Komang gave him a slow look. There was no aggression in it, no challenge, but instead, a kind of knowledge, devoid of apprehension it seemed, as if Komang had been expecting him. Harper watched Komang looking at him, taking in his open-necked shirt and his slacks, acknowledging that this stranger had come for a reason.
Harper called out, ‘How close to harvest time?’
Komang replied, ‘As usual, brother.’ It was called an identifier, in the trade.
‘Abang says hello,’ Harper added.
Komang bowed his head. ‘Welcome,’ he said, and came forward.
Komang’s wife appeared on the veranda. She was thin too, older-looking than her husband, more wary. Her face was open but strained. She and her husband exchanged a few words. He guessed she was being given instructions about hospitality.
Komang lifted a hand towards the fields and said, ‘While the light is good, shall we walk?’
Harper nodded. The light had that particular quality that came in late afternoon after a heavy rain, a dewiness still in the air, lit by gold.
They walked and, first of all, Harper asked questions. What was the latest on PKI activity in the area? How was land reform proceeding? What did the locals think? How much news of what was happening on Java had reached them here? The answers were as he had expected. On Java, both the Muslim and Christian generals portrayed the Communists as atheist barbarians; here on Hindu Bali, the anti-PKI groups said the Communists were not only against God but would destroy all the local customs, the delicate balances that had been built up over centuries, the ceremonies and worship so integral to Balinese village life. People were worried, Komang said, the omens were bad. Gunung Agung had shown anger, lava had flowed, although the gods had spared the Mother Temple.
And a teacher earns enough money in a month to buy two weeks’ supply of rice, Harper thought. No wonder people were angry; no wonder they wanted someone to blame.