The Flame Tree (19 page)

Mary inclined her head in acknowledgment of his addressing her. She spoke in her slow but fluent Indonesian. “A proper training program at this altitude should increase the animal’s red blood cell count, yes,” she said. “That should lead to increased stamina. But that does not necessarily translate into extra swiftness. And there must be some drawbacks. Do these bulls acclimatize to the cooler weather, or do they become more susceptible to other illnesses?”

The Tuan Guru stroked the underside of his chin with a long thumbnail. The rasp of the cuticle on tough skin and thick hair was overridden by the whine of a scooter coming down the road. “Some do become sick,” he said. “But those that don’t prove to be superlative racers. Madurese bull racing is, you see, a hobby of mine.”

Mary inclined her head again, the very picture of polite graciousness. “It is good for a busy man like yourself to have a relaxing hobby.”

The Tuan Guru’s white eyebrows wriggled. He laughed, a dry barking sound, “Relaxing!” he exclaimed. “This hobby causes more tense moments and raised blood pressure than any of my work. I speak of the races, of course. I do not gamble, as that is forbidden by Allah, but I still like to win, and that is a pleasure Allah permits.”

“I am sure that is so.”

The Tuan Guru said, “However, it is rude to attend to my hobby when a person of esteem seeks an audience with me. This is your purpose, no? Unless you have come here to admire these fine young bulls for some reason?”

A woman in Islamic garb and green jilbab driving a scooter came into view. She braked to a stop and parked the scooter in front of the Williamses’ car. She hurried along the vehicle rut toward the group of men, boy, woman, and bull, a broad smile on her face.

“It
is
you,” Ibu Halimah said, swooping Isaac up in an embrace and sniffing both cheeks with sharp inhalations. “How are you, child? Are you well?”

“
Inggih
,” Isaac said politely.

But his mother said, “No, my son is not well. He was physically abused and tortured by some of your people.” She said the last directly at the Tuan Guru. Her anger was building again. Everyone present, Ibu Halimah and the Tuan Guru and the trainer and the casual onlookers, tightened into a tense stillness. Even the bull swung its soft liquid eyes to Mary in alarm.

The Tuan Guru spoke. “Ibu Isak, I would be extremely rude to keep an esteemed woman and outraged mother standing here
in the sun and the wind and the smell of the stables.”

The wind was indeed stiffening. What had been seeping over the high volcanic ridges as a breeze was beginning to trickle down in greater volume, the pressure of a building storm behind it. The sunlight was no longer clear and weightless; a faint cataract of nearly invisible mist was filming over the sky and adding a milkiness to the blue.

The Tuan Guru spoke to one of his caftan-robed men, who had pallid skin and nervous eyes, magnified by thick lenses in wire-framed glasses. The Tuan Guru said to Mary, “My librarian will take you to my office. I shall be a moment seeing to the stabling of these bulls.” He spotted something in her eyes, for he added, “You have sought my audience, and I shall grant it.”

The librarian escorted them through the hedges that marked out the various sections of the pesantren. The roofs of the dorms poked over the flat hedge tops. Children played raucously. One boy raised his voice to say, “Beware the hunchback, for he stinks worse than his brethren, the twice-humped camels.”

A familiar voice snorted, “The man who farts conquers the boy scented with cologne.”

The librarian ushered them along a trellised walkway with offshoot paths that led to classrooms, empty at this time of day. He shepherded them to the grand entrance of the main building. A dozen schoolboys swarmed over one of the coffee trees that lined the wide driveway to the left. They were joking as they picked the tree’s beans, but as soon as they spotted the librarian, they quieted and worked in industrious silence.

The librarian tugged open one of two thick doors. Spacious indoor gardens flanked the marble foyer. Two wide halls continued left and right. Four closed office doors with frosted windows fanned out in an arc opposite them. The librarian led them to the far door on the right.

Beyond this door was a secretary’s outer office. The desk was cluttered with phone, computer, and stacks of paperwork and correspondence. The sooty ashtray on the desk and the lack of feminine touches suggested that the secretary was a male chain-smoker. An Islamic calendar with a picture of the sacred Kaaba at Mecca was the only decorative touch on the walls. The door to the inner office had been replaced by a hanging curtain woven in an oriental design with lots of tassels on its edges.

“Take off your shoes,” the librarian said. He neatly lined the three pairs beside the curtained doorway. He held the curtain to the side for the two guests. They padded into a large, inner office whose trappings of desk, chairs, cabinets, and shelves had been shoved up against the far wall. Rugs had been placed in the cleared space. In the center was a plain teak coffee table surrounded by large, hard cushions. Two Moorish arched windows were set in the wall to the right. The light outside was rapidly becoming tarnished.

The librarian went to one window and opened it. A breeze gusted through and chased out the stuffy warmth piled up in the corners of the room. “Please sit,” he said.

Mary and Isaac sat on one the rugs. Isaac crossed his legs. His mother tucked hers to the side underneath her skirt. The librarian sat down with them. Before long the hanging curtain stirred,
pushed aside by the Tuan Guru’s skeletal and freshly washed hand. The librarian rose. Isaac began to stand as well, but Mary held him down. This was deliberate rudeness.

The Tuan Guru appeared not to notice. He said to the librarian, “Did you offer our guests some chairs? They may not be accustomed to sitting on the floor in this manner.”

The librarian looked crestfallen. The Tuan Guru sighed. He said to Mary, “Would you prefer to sit on those chairs?”

“I am already seated.”

The Tuan Guru inclined his head. He sat down on the red cushion opposite the Williamses, with the low coffee table between them. He motioned the librarian to his side with a crook of his finger. The librarian bent low, and the Tuan Guru whispered an instruction into his ear. The librarian left the room.

The Tuan Guru said, “I trust you are not too uncomfortable. I myself do not like chairs. A lifetime of study and prayer on cushions and rugs and floors has seen to that. I find chairs too tempting. An old man like me could soon succumb to the easy convenience of chairs. My bones and muscles would sing praises to Allah for chairs and would protest at having to lower themselves to hard floors.”

“Are chairs a sin, then?” Mary Williams asked.

“Only if one sits upon them in the presence of Allah. The Blessed Prophet taught us the proper positions of prayer, those of humbleness and submission. Other than that, chairs are merely a habit, and at my age I don’t have the time or the inclination to change habits.”

The curtain stirred. Ibu Halimah entered and placed a silver tray on the coffee table. She unloaded its contents of small cups, a long-necked copper pot that looked like Aladdin’s genie lamp, and a filigreed silver bowl mounded with sugar. She poured the steaming coffee, as thick and black as printer’s ink. Its rich aroma filled the room. She withdrew from the room, not having met anyone’s eye or having said a word.

“Arabica coffee,” the Tuan Guru said. “From our own trees here. Did you see the children picking the beans? That is part of their chores. They also help tend the gardens and the vegetable beds. Please, drink.”

Mary Williams took a polite sip. Isaac, curious, tasted his. The hot liquid had an exotic richness to it, as though it had been brewed in a Bedouin tent. An Islamic coffee.

The Tuan Guru held his cup by its lip, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. He slurped a mouthful, looking at Mary Williams as he did so. He lowered the cup and said, “So, Ibu. You have sought an audience with me.”

She nodded. “Someone must be held accountable for the deeds that were done in the name of the Nahdlatul Umat Islam, but I am not here for that. I am here with a mother’s heart, to hold
you
accountable for what was done to my son by men of your organization.”

The Tuan Guru put his cup down on the table. “There is a saying: The man seeking vengeance does not disturb my sleep; the woman seeking vengeance puts me on guard throughout the night; the mother seeking vengeance sends me running to
hide in the tiger’s den. So. You seek vengeance.”

“I seek justice. For my son’s abuse and torture.”

The Tuan Guru nodded. He said something in Arabic, which he then translated into Indonesian. “Allah desires not any injustice to living beings. To Allah belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth, and unto Him all matters are returned.” The Tuan Guru stared at Mary, who had fallen into a dangerous calm across the coffee table from him. He said, “Allah is Allah, whether He is the God of Muslims or of Christians or of Jews. You are my honored guest and offered my full hospitality without malice and deceit, but you are not and cannot be my friend. We, Christians and Muslims, are a family, but it is within families that the deepest schisms run. Yet as family, we are most alike in many ways, and foremost is the same Supreme Lord who reigns with His will over you and me. The Allah that these ayat refer to is the same Tuhan of the Bible and the same Jehovah of the Torah. You are a daughter of the Book. You say you honor Him. Tell me, Ibu Isak, are you submitted to Almighty Allah?”

The blunt and powerful question was of the kind that old and wise shepherds who brook no shilly-shally evasions ask of their flock. Mary blinked. “Yes, I am submitted to my God.”

The Tuan Guru said, “Even though we believe differently, your God is my God. Can you not leave this matter of justice in Allah’s hands? For these ayat are as validly addressed to you as they are to me.”

Mary smiled without warmth. “Indeed, I can leave this in God’s hands. Or in those of the authorities He has ordained to
act on His behalf. Men like Lieutenant Nugroho.”

“Ah. And the lieutenant’s punishment—perhaps a jail sentence of a year or two—that would suffice as justice?”

“Yes.”

The Tuan Guru’s reply was swift, delivered as incisively as a scalpel cut. “You lie.”

The coffee cup trembled in her right hand. She cupped it with her left.

The Tuan Guru continued, “You are full of anger. Not just anger against me. Not just against those who harmed your son. You are full of anger against Allah, who would allow harm to come to Isak.”

The fragile handle of Mary’s cup snapped off. Coffee jostled onto her blouse. She gave a small cry of alarm. The Tuan Guru slipped a hand into the depths of his caftan and withdrew a plain handkerchief that he handed to her. She dabbed at the spill.

“You are angry at our God,” the Tuan Guru repeated. “The one and only God, neither begotten nor begetting.” He sipped his coffee again. “Tell me, Ibu Isak, if you blame God for what happened to your son, then who gets the praise for saving his life during that terrible helicopter crash?”

Mary’s hand ceased moving. Her lowered eyes glanced left toward the curtained door, as though seeking for a way of escape.

The curtain moved and the librarian entered. He nodded at the Tuan Guru, who returned the nod. The librarian held aside the curtain. Tanto shuffled into the room, followed by a nervous Udin. Behind these two came Imam Ali, whose steps were stiff and
indignant. The Tuan Guru did not invite them to sit. They stood in a row at the side of the room.

Tanto wore shorts and a singlet dirty from interrupted gardening. Udin and Imam Ali wore sarongs and shirts. A white haji’s cap perched on Imam Ali’s narrow head. A black cap was crammed onto Udin’s head, which slipped an inch as he bowed toward the Tuan Guru. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. Tanto had pulled himself within his shell, an impervious and impassive mask locked into place on his face. Imam Ali glanced at Isaac and Mary Williams, and his lip curled. He did not look at them again and stared somewhere beyond the window opposite him. Isaac tried not to look at the Imam. The oxygen in the air seemed to thin. It was harder to take a breath.

The Tuan Guru said to Mary, “Allah ordains as He wills, and it is clear that He has decreed this moment and has called you to it from your Christian castle in Wonobo. He has directed us all to be here, and what I only moments ago assumed to be coincidence of presence and schedule I now see is His doing.” He lifted a hand, indicating the three men. “These are the men who forcibly circumcised your son Isak. This I did not condone.” The Tuan Guru spoke as offhandedly as though he were mentioning the naughty antics of his racing bulls. Under his bristling eyebrows, though, his eyes were keenly gauging Mary’s reaction.

Mary shifted and turned toward her son with a questioning look that asked him to confirm these identities. But Isaac was now looking fully and helplessly at Imam Ali, his breath coming in quiet, agitated pants. A color rose in Mary’s face that was far more
than the rosy heat of blood, and her own breathing seemed to cease altogether. She turned her gaze to the men, her blue eyes having become vacant holes of violet, her anger growing and raising the temperature of the room a degree.

Udin’s throat convulsed. Imam Ali’s small eyes flickered her way. Tanto bent his head and stared at his feet.

Mary exhaled. It was a terrible sound, all mercy being expelled from her soul. She rose from her cushion.

“You wish to destroy these men,” the Tuan Guru said, also rising to his feet. He came around the coffee table and stood to the side, between her and them. But he was not there to protect these disciples of his. “I give you leave to slaughter them, if you wish, to satisfy the lust of your vengeance. I will not lift a finger to save them.”

Imam Ali snarled. “By Allah! I can save myself from this stinking Christian bitch.”

“Silence!” The Tuan Guru did not raise his voice, but it had a shattering power to it. Imam Ali fell silent.