Empire of the East (14 page)

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘We’ll be there.’

‘This place is goddam quiet,’ Pencastu said. ‘The idea of a party here is to bring in a couple of fellows with guitars. The women go off together and maybe dance around a bit and the men eat goat’s meat with rice. I aim to do better than this, so we’re getting some guys down from Medan to set up a discotheque. They’re using one of those new Yamaha amplifiers.’

‘With independent tone-control?’ Gawaine wanted to know.

‘No, they just blast it out. The volume is terrific. The people in the next village down the river will be able to sit in their houses and listen to it, and if they want they can come here and dance. We’re putting on Springsteen’s latest album. You heard “Born to Run”?’

It was agreed that it all sounded great.

‘We kick off with a buffet supper. After that there’s a firework display. You heard of spring-bombs? We got a few of them from the Chinese. They really tear the place apart. Then comes the discotheque, which we hope will go on most of the night.’ He glanced up at the whiteish noon sky. ‘Some talk of rain,’ he said. ‘We gotta hope it holds off.’

‘I heard something in the village about trance dancers?’ I said.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ll be having those, too. And I can assure you they’re good ones. Those guys chew glass. They give you the day you’re going to die. You want to try the experiment; they make you believe you’re a frog and they have you hopping around all over the place.’

The prospects sounded good. Despite his exposure to the scepticisms of the West, Mr Pencastu showed himself as deeply impressed by the powers of what he called the magical men. They were tribals living in the remote forests of the Leuser Reservation, and they had no contact with village people except through such alarming performances. ‘They stick skewers through their cheeks and no blood comes out. You want to try that? I guess you don’t. Let me tell you, you’re not going to believe what these guys can do.’

Dawn on Pencastu’s great day promised well. The sun, fanning down from a hilltop, lifted the mist from the trees like a flying carpet. The earliest of those who had come to meditate were already in their chairs staring into the arcs of water curved over the polished rocks. Someone was tapping ancient temple music — a sad little tune of five notes — on a gamelan out of sight. The scents of charcoal smoke, and of the braised flesh of chillies, were wafted from the centre of the village where a start had already been made upon the day’s innumerable chores.

Every single villager over the age of seven had been conscripted into Pencastu’s labour battalions, and once again undercover Sumatran protocol showed through — this time in the division of the work. Piles of coconuts had been dumped in the spaces between the houses. These were split exactly in half by experts with the machete, then turned over to young women of no special standing, who were allowed to do no more than grind the flesh. This, as with boiled rice, was delivered to members of the semi-skilled workers in their early middle years who measured and mixed in a number of spices. At the head of the operation were the matriarchs in command of the giant woks, of which the village appeared to possess about a dozen, who added meat from various piles before ladling the final concoction into the sizzling oil. When the cooking time was up (big old-fashioned alarm clocks were used), the food was transferred to large shallow dishes, and then covered with a layer of chillies, to await reheating for the meal.

At the back of the restaurant, next to the serving hatch, three days had been occupied by the erection of a fine, barbaric construction known as the wedding hut. In this three-sided room, lavishly decorated with sheets of gift-wrapping, ribbons, plastic flowers and plaited thatch, the bride and bridegroom would shortly take their seats side-by-side on gilt, mirror-glass-inlaid thrones to receive the congratulations delivered one by one, and often in the form of a short speech, by several hundred guests. The carpenters were still knocking nails into the wooden structure when one of them drew attention to the unusual behaviour of several dragonflies. These had come zigzagging in from the outside, then settled, and having folded their wings appeared to be attempting to camouflage themselves against the strongly coloured plaited straw decoration.

This was taken by the aged wiseacres, who credited such insects with the possession of infallible sensitivities, as a promise of rain to come. They linked the omen with the report by a line-fisherman that the fish had moved out of the rapids where they normally lay in ambush for their prey, into deep pools devoid of shrimps but safe from bad weather.

We had planned our congratulatory visit to the wedding hut for the late afternoon, in the belief that by then the queue of well-wishers would have shortened or even come to an end. Now, with half the residents and visitors snatching restorative naps before the entertainments of the evening began, a single sound dominated all others in the thickening silence. This was the deep, unearthly purr of the yard-across principal gong of the village gamelan, struck at measured intervals by a seven-year-old boy, whom I had already seen in action. He would strike the gong, count to five, then stifle the flood of vibrations with a touch of his hand. This tiger’s breathing resonance represented the voice of a watchful demon, and its warning to any intruder pervaded the village.

There was some delay when we finally presented ourselves at the hut. A curtain had been drawn across its front, but was swept back for a full view of the happy couple, embowered in roses, and reminding me of painted wooden dolls in a shrine. They sat bolt upright, a foot apart, hands on knees, absolutely motionless, unblinking. Pencastu wore a grey, pin-striped suit with a cravat, diamond tiepin and pinkish gloves. His bride had been tightly wound in nuptial silks so as to suppress excessive evidence of femininity. A tiny face carved from chalk was supported on the slender pedestal of a neck encased in brocade. As we came in a servant dived past us to snatch up and empty a bowl placed on the floor to catch insects and the occasional gecko incinerated by an electrical device fixed to the ceiling. We advanced to take each limp hand in turn and mutter a brief minimum of appropriate phrases learned for the occasion in Indonesian. As custom required, Pencastu’s gaze was directed elsewhere so that our eyes should not meet. A layer of powder pulsating slightly at the corners of his mouth suggested a furtive smile. ‘I have a stiff neck,’ he whispered. It was all he said.

He had chosen a local feast day for the wedding, and those who had come here to take a curative dip or simply to meditate in congenial surroundings had settled in rows along the river bank — a few in classic yoga poses on the ground, but the majority in folding chairs brought in their cars. Some had guitars on which they strummed in an amateur fashion. They played chess, smeared insect repellent on exposed skin, and took flash-assisted photographs of each other in the declining light filtered through a screening of riverside trees.

Sunset was proclaimed by the tremendous detonation of the spring-bombs in the darkening sky overhead and the yowling that followed among the terrified village dogs. With that the guests got into line for the buffet supper. Most of the foreigners at the guesthouse had assumed that the interminable preparation of the food that had gone on throughout the day would now culminate in an exotic banquet. Pencastu, released from his throne, had other plans for them. To those in the line-up who voiced surprise at the Big Macs and Kentucky Fried Chicken rushed down from Medan, he explained that the traditional foods they had seen sizzling in the woks over charcoal fires were to be distributed among local households, whose culture although showing signs of some progress still remained at a primitive level.

‘You’ll be joining us in the Kentucky Fried Chicken, Mr Pencastu?’ I asked.

‘I sure will. I was hoping some of the heads of households would have showed up too, but they haven’t. They’re nice guys, but I guess they haven’t lived. We’re going to try to persuade some of them to dance with their wives later on, but that may not happen either.’

‘So you’re not a traditionalist?’

‘No, sir. That I’m not. I go along with the state philosophy. Part of our responsibility is to educate these people. Take a short walk with them into the future.’

‘How about the old-style wedding? Does that fit in?’

‘It’s part of the deal. “I get a cramp in the ass sitting on a throne all day,” I say. “So you gotta do something for me, by which I mean dance once in a while in a civilized style.” ’

Pencastu had made a start with the discotheque while the foreigners were still picking among the bones of the chicken. The intelligent choice for the heads of households was Country and Western. He had rushed away to bully, and finally persuade, three couples dressed in the style of the last century to climb the restaurant steps and present themselves at the back of the dancing area. Holding each other by the finger tips, with Pencastu running from one couple to the next pouring out instructions, they executed a few shuffling steps before being allowed to escape. He came back, sighing. ‘I guess that’s enough for one day,’ he said. With that, Country and Western was at an end, and now it was time for the new Springsteen album; the rock thundered, and the foreigners took to the floor. It was a scene of unpremeditated poetry, for spotlights had turned the river below into milk coursing through alabaster banks, and the dancers wore haloes of moths. They had been invaded by innumerable lean dogs, drawn to this spot by the many Kentucky bones awaiting disposal. No one appeared to have noticed their presence, for it appeared that these long-distance travellers had already acquired the beginnings of oriental indifference.

There was a telephone call with bad news from the Weather Centre in Medan. Rain was on its way, and was to be expected in Bukit Lawang within the hour. But it came sooner. The rockets were sent up, but too late, and their tails were twisted off, and the scintillating explosion at the top of their climb reduced to a few random sparks chased through grey festooning of rain. For the half hour that followed we were prisoners of water and silence, then the flood passed, and Pencastu was with us under a scarlet umbrella. ‘Someone let the dogs up to the restaurant,’ he said, ‘and they went over the place. The mountain men just got here.’

They were standing at the bottom of the steps in water-sodden capes, with a little blood from chewed glass — offered in evidence of serious intentions — trickling down into their thin Mongolian beards. One carried a black cockerel with red wattles and comb. Pencastu said he was going to bite its head off and sew it back but the rain had fouled everything up. ‘Something went wrong with the magic. They say if we can fix up some sort of a sacrifice, maybe a couple of hens, they can stick skewers through their cheeks. I might find myself in trouble if I allowed that. The sacrifice, I mean. I’m a little worried as it is. Some of the guys up there are smoking joints.’

A small group of villagers had gathered with water past their ankles, but now they began to wander away, holding mats over their heads. ‘Is there anything they can do without a sacrifice?’ I asked.

‘They can make people believe they’re frogs,’ Pencastu said. ‘If you want they can read your mind. It’s not much of a scene. If you cut a cock’s head off and sew it on again, that’s something else, otherwise it’s a disappointment. Hell, this could be falling apart.’

The rain had slackened off. An outburst of cheering overhead greeted ‘Out of time’ as the music thundered into action again, and there were loud groans as it petered out. The loud crackling indicated that someone was fiddling with the wiring. Rain had diluted the blood on the magical men’s chins. They chewed disconsolately, and a fresh trickling appeared at the corners of their mouths. A big, wide-eyed American came tumbling down the steps. He threw away a half-smoked joint. ‘Holy shit! What’s going on?’

Pencastu explained. ‘These are mountain men, Mr Boone. They’re down here to amuse the party with their tricks, but the rain spoilt the act.’

‘What can they do?’ Boone asked.

‘Read your mind; for example. Maybe tell you what you got in your pocket.’

‘That all, for Chrissake?’

‘They make people behave like they’re frogs.’

‘And how does a frog behave?’

‘It hops about in the water. It croaks. If it can find any it eats flies.’

‘And these people you see around here do that?’

‘They sure do, Mr Boone. When our foreign visitors leave us this is a quiet place. It’s anything for a laugh. It’s a matter of prestige, too. If you can do the frog thing well, your standing goes up.’

‘Do they know what they’re doing?’

‘I haven’t tried it personally, but I don’t think so.’

‘Know what we call that? We call it hypnotism. You heard of hypnotism?’

‘I’ve heard of hypnotism, Mr Boone, but I’m not sure you’re right. These guys can cut a chicken’s head off and put it back again, and it just gets up and runs about.’

‘You never saw anything like that, Mr Pencastu, because it’s impossible. You just thought you did. That’s what hypnotism is about. Many people are hypnotizable. I happen to be someone who isn’t. I’d like to show you what I mean. Would you mind asking this guy what he has to do to get me hopping about like a frog?’

Pencastu spoke to the man, who was smiling shyly through the blood. ‘He needs you to put out your tongue,’ he said.

‘Well, OK. I don’t want that guy to touch me, that’s all.’

‘Don’t worry, Mr Boone, I seen this before, many times. He won’t touch you. It’s all in the ethereal waves. You quite sure you want to mess with this thing?’

‘Yeah, of course. I already told you. Hell, I’ve seen it before and I know how it works too. Tell him I’m sorry to spoil his act.’

‘He’s to go ahead, then?’

‘Sure he’s to go ahead.’ The tip of Boone’s tongue showed through his lips. ‘That’s fine,’ Pencastu said. ‘Now take a deep breath and hold it.’ The magical man, who was much shorter than Boone, reached up and wagged a blood-smeared forefinger an inch or two from Boone’s tongue.

‘OK, what goes next?’ Boone said. His voice seemed to have thickened.