The Fifth Season (42 page)

‘Why don't we go onto Surabaya, Mary Jo,' Anne suggested. ‘It's getting late and we could drive down tomorrow in three to four hours, taking our time.' Mary Jo glanced at her assistant, considering this option. It made sense, she thought, her concern being that the flotilla might leave before she had a chance to return. Traveling through East Java at night would be foolhardy, as the area was one of high risk, even to foreigners.

The past weeks had seen Abdul Muis's position grow stronger, his followers swelling in numbers as the
Mufti Muharam
militants scoured the countryside, burning homes and shops belonging to Christians and even Buddhists. Mary Jo decided to follow Anne's advice.

‘Okay, tell the pilot to take us back to Surabaya,' she ordered, a smile crossing her face when she observed the look of relief on Anne's. The pilot nodded, then he too turned to Mary Jo and raised his thumb in approval, not wishing to remain on the deck in Probolinggo overnight. He increased speed, then increased their altitude until the Cessna was back on its original course, leaving the floating mass of refugees behind.

* * * *

The soft ocean swells lifted the deck slowly, then lowered it again. Lily raised her body into a sitting position, hoping this might avoid the unpleasant, queasy sensation she felt as the ship's unfamiliar, and monotonous motion continued to concern her. She watched the other boats tied to hers bob around like huge corks as some distant ship's wake finally arrived, the small, almost undetectable surge passing through the floating village, spilling red, glowing charcoal from clay cookers.

Across from where she sat in her cramped space, Lily watched an elderly, toothless woman feed freshly cooked, barbecued grasshoppers to several very young children, dropping these into a porcelain bowl half-filled with steamed rice. Lily guessed, correctly, that this would be their only meal for the day. Usually, there would be sun-dried fish or even prawns to spare but as the fishing boats were all tied up here together, seafood had suddenly become as scarce as chicken, or even cat-meat, which local traders dressed and sold, disguised as fowl. Lily had no appetite. The suggestion of nausea had seen to that. She turned away from the children as they squabbled over the remaining grasshopper pieces, and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the hot, glaring sun.

* * * *

Lily had been aboard this twenty-meter wooden fishing-boat for less than two days, waiting as others continued to arrive and take their places amongst the thousands who had paid for their passage to Australia. Soon, they would leave Java's shores forever, risking their lives as they sailed to the south-east and freedom. The brokers who had demanded what was left of her mother's remaining gold trinkets had ordered Lily into their filthy, foul-smelling truck to hide under the canvas tarpaulin, along with thirty other Chinese who wished to flee Java. Under cover of darkness, they had then been taken from Situbondo the short distance to Asembagus and down to the coast some twenty kilometers north of Banjuwangi where their possessions were checked, before they were permitted to board the wooden vessels.

After paying for her mother's funeral, there had been little left of any real value that she could trade or sell, only the precious stash that had been set aside to pay for her escape. In the days leading up to her mother's final moments, more than half the houses and shops along their street had been burned by roaming Moslem gangs. She had waited in terror, fearful that their building would be next, her mother urging Lily to leave while she still had the chance. Then, the morning her mother died, Lily hurried down to the coffin-maker and paid the men there to take her mother to the cemetery. She dared not go herself; to do so would have only invited peril. Instead, when darkness fell, Lily slipped through the shadows, leaving her home of broken dreams to make her way to the broker's run-down garage. There, she paid for her passage to Australia and waited for her turn to climb into the filthy transport arranged for her and some others.

The truck had bounced along with its precious cargo until reaching the isolated departure point, across from Tanjung Island. When she discovered that thousands of her race had gathered for the ocean voyage, Lily had greeted this with mixed emotions, fearing that such numbers would surely attract the attention of the ubiquitous
Mufti Muharam
whose haunting message had been in evidence throughout all of East Java. She was shown which boat to board and had done so, not realizing that it might still be days before they would sail.

It had not taken long for Lily to become bored just sitting around in the debilitating heat. She had climbed across the closer boats, soon becoming familiar with others within this congested community, not at all surprised to discover that the majority of those present were of Chinese extraction.

During her first night, she could not sleep as the boat rocked continuously, uncomfortable with her surrounds. With first light, Lily had gone ashore and wandered along the beach, impressed by the immense numbers who had gathered along the shore, hopeful of being granted passage to escape.

As Lily strolled amongst the thousands crowded together along the narrow beach, she was saddened by the number of abandoned children evident amongst the refugees, their empty eyes and expressionless faces tearing at her heart as they held their hands out to her, begging for food.

She wished she could scoop them all up in her arms and take them away with her, away from the cruel fate with which they had been smitten, and the danger which lurked not far behind. But she knew that this was pure fantasy, and wandered back to her own group of fishing boats, miserable with what she had witnessed, pangs of guilt denying her any appetite for the rest of the day.

As she sat, protecting her head from the late-afternoon sun, she heard the aircraft and turned with the others, in time to observe the Cessna change course, then dip low over the ocean as it approached.

‘It's the air force!'
someone cried out loudly, sending panic through the fleet. Lily stared at the small, twin-engine aircraft, certain that their presence would now be made known to the roaming Moslem gangs, within hours. She watched the Cessna circle for a few minutes, then turn and fly away. As the small aircraft slowly disappeared from view, a shout went up, followed by a thunderous cheer as the lead fishing-vessel's diesel-engines coughed into life, signaling that the flotilla would soon be under way. The experienced captain assumed that the pilot would reveal their position to the navy. They would expect him to sail directly south through the Bali Strait, and this is where the military aircraft would strike to prevent their departure and appease the Australians. Without hesitation he changed course, deciding to go around the northern coastline of Bali, then turn south into the Lombok Straits where their transit was more likely to proceed undetected.

An hour later, when the sun settled behind Java's towering volcanoes, its fading rays turning distant, purpling thunderheads the color of mer-curochrome, Lily had offered a silent prayer of thanks as her group, the last of two hundred boats, finally sailed past the Tanjung islands into the approaching darkness, turning south, towards the promise of a new life.

* * * *

The tall, handsome, titled Balinese accepted the binoculars, the distant scene confirming his worst fears.

‘We can not permit them to land!'
Anak Agung Ngurah Mudita announced angrily, turning to the group of elders. ‘
Once they're ashore, they'll
remain forever.'
His statement was greeted with knowing nods. They had all seen it before.

Over the past months wave after wave of refugees had flooded across from Indonesia's eastern provinces. At first, their numbers had been but a trickle and the Balinese people, albeit reluctantly, provided sanctuary to the few thousands who had succeeded in fleeing East Timor. Although the
Udayana
Military Command was based in Bali, there were very few non-Javanese amongst the senior officers whose territory covered an area from Java across the thousand kilometers to Timor. To the locals' dismay, the military leadership had done nothing to stem the growing tide of refugees and, suspicious of their motives, the elders had decided to take matters into their own hands. It was one thing to accommodate the Timorese but a massive flood of Javanese into Bali would meet with the fiercest resistance.

Ever since the nation's first President had passed away, the Balinese had watched bitterly as their culture had been contaminated by the steady flow of Javanese Moslems.
Bapak Soekarno,
the nation's founding President, had been half-Balinese and would never have permitted the small, Hindu paradise to be subjected to such dilution. Now, as their people were transported to distant islands under guise of the national transmigration scheme, Jakarta encouraged the Javanese to occupy the over-populated province.

They had all witnessed the results of this Javanese colonization as large tracts of land were arbitrarily appropriated, the farmers poorly compensated, and Suhapto's family and friends slowly but surely, took control of the Island of the Gods. Religious and cultural customs were denied, cock-fighting was banned, and sacred ground around Tanah Lot was desecrated to give way to condominiums owned by the First Family's cronies and relatives.

The normally soft-spoken man glanced at the others and felt saddened that it had come to this. Their ancestors had established their kingdoms here, more than a millennium before, bringing with them the culture of
Ramayana
and the architects who had built such wonders as Borobudur and Mendut in Java and, later, the city of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They had sailed as far as Madagascar to the west, and fought against the Chinese in Nha Trang for control of the rich, delta lands to the south in Vietnam.

Then, when the first fair-haired foreigners had appeared and threatened the Balinese, their ancestors had fought against these Dutch colonists. In the north, entire kingdoms had disappeared as wave upon wave of brave Balinese men were slaughtered as they fought to protect their land, refusing dominance by others over their spiritual domain. Now the time had come to fight again - this time against their distant cousins, the Javanese.

‘Their boats must be destroyed before they have the opportunity to land!'
All present turned to listen as Ida Bagus Ketut Alit spoke. They respected his opinion. He had acquired tactical experience serving under their unwelcome landlords.

‘Do we have enough boats?'
Mudita asked, determination written across his face. Time was running out. He knew they should move quickly.

‘We have enough,'
Ketut replied. They had but few weapons - the Javanese had seen to that. Any Balinese found in possession of a revolver or other firearm was now subject to the charge of subversion, and these men knew the offense carried the maximum penalty. They were counting on the intruders fleeing before they discovered just how poorly-armed the Balinese raiding party might be.

‘Why do you think they have stopped?'
Their coastal watch had tracked the three separate flotillas as they had sailed across the northern coastline, hugging the coast as if searching for a place to land. The Balinese believed that this suspicious behavior only confirmed the fleet captain's intentions to land in one of the lesser populated areas.

‘Probably waiting for nightfall,'
one of the other men answered. The others thought about this and agreed.

‘How long will it take to get everything ready?'

‘We can get out there within the hour. The vessels are all tied together, and
they won't be expecting a hostile reception.'
The men looked to their leader, anxious to get under way. He handed the binoculars to one of the younger men, then forced a smile.

‘Well, let's get started,'
Mudita ordered, leading the others down the track to where their mini-bus waited. The men followed silently, each deep in thought as they considered the risks they were about to take, ambivalent that their actions might attract the wrath of their Javanese landlords.

* * * *

‘They're gone?' she asked, her faced clouded with an incredulous look.

They had departed from Surabaya well before sunrise, expecting to find the ships still anchored along the coast.

‘He says they left late yesterday,' Anne relayed, inclining her head towards the roadside peddler.

‘Which direction did they take?' Mary Jo demanded, her disappointment evident. Anne asked the question but the woman feigned ignorance, holding her palm open, knowing that the foreigner would pay for the information. Anne identified the gesture and, with an exasperated sigh, fished into her jeans for the equivalent of one dollar to give the woman.

‘They went that way, to the east,' Anne said, nodding as the old peasant suddenly gushed with detail, now only too pleased to tell them all. Mary Jo squinted into the morning sun. She could just make out the volcano's silhouette in the distance, the customary haze yet to distort images as these familiar conditions would, when midday temperatures climbed towards their zenith.

‘They went to the north of Bali?' she asked, confused by this path.

‘Why would they sail that way?'

‘They could have gone this way,' Anne said, pointing more or less south.

‘The currents through here are very strong, Mary Jo,' she explained, ‘and they might want to take advantage of the string of islands running towards the east before setting off for Australia.' Mary Jo looked at her assistant inquiringly, surprised that she was so conversant with the shipping routes.

‘Indonesian fishing boats have been sailing down to the Australian coast for more years than any of us really know. I was with one of the Indonesian journalists who interviewed fishermen sent back from Darwin after their boats had been seized and burnt by the authorities.'