‘Yes?’
‘A pickup for a Mister Wilson. At the Amandari Hotel. If you please.’
The man stared at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke, reached underneath the counter and removed a small package fastened with string. Hands trembling, Ranon took the package from the man’s hands and ignored the pitying look he gave Ranon’s twisted finger stumps.
And Ranon remembered.
Weeks ago, at the small mosque that served his village, just north of Ubud, a stranger had come to him. A tall Sudanese who had called him by name, and led him away to a cafe where they had shared small glasses of sweetened tea, and where the Sudanese had peppered him with questions. About his young life. His struggle with his crippled fingers. His devotion to God. His thoughts for the future, even on an island such as Bali, polluted with so much corruption and with strange religions like Christianity or Hinduism. And had Ranon ever made the hajj, to the holy place of Mecca? And Ranon had said, no, he had not — though, of course, like any good Muslim, he hoped to make the hajj before he died. The Sudanese, his eyes bright with certainty and strength, had said that, indeed, Mecca was a holy place, and except during those times when he had been in the Sudan and Afghanistan, he himself had made the hajj many times.
Other questions had followed in the cool interior of the cafe. The Sudanese had nodded at Ranon’s answers, and had said, ‘Ranon, would you be willing to do a holy task for me, a task that will strike fear in the infidels?’
And Ranon had hesitated, only for a moment, and the Sudanese, smart and holy man that he was, had said, ‘You are reluctant.’
Ranon had nodded and had said, I am willing to do whatever you ask, but… would it take place here, in Bali?
The Sudanese had smiled. ‘You are concerned, perhaps, with the well-being of your family? Of your aunt and uncle?’
They are not very devout, Ranon had said, but they are good-hearted people. What happened at the Sari had hurt them terribly, and so many others. The tourists had left and the jobs were lost, and the money dried up, and children went hungry, and—
The Sudanese had interrupted him. ‘But what about the Palestinian children, who are shot and bulldozed by the Zionists? And what of the Iraqi children, poisoned by the uranium-tipped weapons of the Americans and the British? And what of the Chechen children, burned in their homes by the thrice-damned Russians? The children here, they may go hungry and they may go thirsty, but at least they live.’
Ranon had been embarrassed. The righteous Sudanese had set him straight, had made him look at things more clearly. He had nodded and said, I will do whatever you require.
The Sudanese had smiled again, had gently tapped Ranon on his shoulder. ‘Not to worry, my young warrior. What I will have you do, it will take place here, in Bali. But no one will die. No Hindu. No Christian. And especially no Muslim. No, the task I have for you, it will be simple, but in what it shall accomplish, it shall be deadly indeed.’
The Sudanese had looked around the cafe, seen that they were alone in this part of the building, and had leaned forward and spoken softly. ‘It will be something so deadly that years from now, what happened at the whorehouse, the place where the men and the women danced together, that will be forgotten.’
The memory made Ranon shiver. He walked a while until he was sure that he wasn’t being watched, or being followed, for the Sudanese had been quite specific in his directions. He sat on the wet concrete steps of a shuttered clothing store -whorish clothes for Europeans to display their bodies in on the sands of Bali — and clumsily unwrapped the package that he had received. The small plastic bag he had carried was now at his side. Unwrapping the rough paper revealed a carving of a kangaroo. A souvenir for some Australian. But what Australian would ever come here again after seeing what had happened to his or her countrymen? He put it aside and smoothed out the paper across his lap. There. A string of numbers and a collection of words.
His heart thumped harder as he looked at the simple scrawl. Something so simple, yet so simple a weapon would do so much harm.
The light rain had stopped. Ranon looked around him again, saw the empty taxicabs trundle by, the drivers looking bored and angry. He picked up the cheap plastic bag, took out the object. A bright green cellphone. He had bought it last week with one hundred Australian dollars that the Sudanese had given him. Again, the Sudanese had been specific on where to buy the phone, and how to buy it. Purchase it just before the store closes, so that the clerk is hurried and pays little attention to who you are or how you look. Pay with cash. Leave no record of who you are.
Which was what Ranon had done. Now he picked up the phone and switched it on, and then punched in the number scrawled on the packaging, being slow and careful, knowing how hard it was to do this with his injured hands. A man’s voice answered.
‘Yes?’
Ranon read off the first phrase. ‘I am calling for our mother.’
The voice replied. ‘Go on.’
‘She is well.’
‘Yes.’
‘But her ankles still hurt her.’
‘Yes.’
‘She would like a visit from you soon.’
‘Yes.’
‘The south end of her roof is leaking.’
‘Yes.’
‘She sends her love, very much.’
‘Yes.’
There. The last phrase. The Sudanese had been clear. Hang up immediately after the last phrase. Do not hesitate. Do not say anything more. But the man on the other end of the phone… who knew where he was. Perhaps he was in Bali. Perhaps he was in Hamburg or Paris. Perhaps even New York City itself! Ranon felt the shiver of excitement, sensing that this man was a part of something greater, a wonderful web of connections and phone messages and planners, all working towards jihad. This man… he could not just hang up.
‘Sir?’
‘Eh?’
‘God is great.’
The man exhaled softly and said, ‘Yes. He is.’
And there was a faint click as the man from far away, his comrade and friend, broke the connection. Ranon held the phone tightly in his hands, closed his eyes, thinking of what had just happened. Something easy, something simple, the Sudanese had said. And Ranon knew what he had just done. An important message had been transmitted, something important indeed, and when the news came out over the next days or weeks or months he would wave the newspaper at his aunt and uncle and proudly tell them of what he had done. For he had no doubt that something enormous was in the works, for that was what the Sudanese had said. What had happened at the nightclub would soon be forgotten. Let his aunt and uncle cry and worry about the infidels then.
Ranon got up and put the phone back in the bag, and then he took the piece of paper. From another pocket he took out a small book of matches, and under the overhang from the shuttered store he lit the paper and watched it quickly burn down to ashes. Then he started walking away again until he came to a bridge arching over a narrow brown stream. Again, to make sure that no one was observing him, he stood on the bridge for a while, not moving even as a bus came by and sprayed him when the fat wheels went through a puddle. He heard laughter from inside the bus but didn’t care. He was doing God’s work, and when the bridge was empty, just for a moment, he turned the plastic bag upside down and let the cellphone tumble into the stream.
A pity, really, that such an expensive device had to be thrown away like that. But the Sudanese had been adamant. No trace, no evidence. Nothing.
Ranon looked down at his other hand. The silly wooden kangaroo had a carved smile on its face and seemed to be mocking him. He thought of tossing the carving into the stream, but no, that wouldn’t destroy it. The wood would only float and it would still survive, perhaps, by washing up on a bank somewhere or on a sandbar.