Mountain of Fire (10 page)

Ibu shook her head. “The tribe is isolated and I hear from Pak Eko that your grandmother is now a priestess. That is a very important position in the tribe and it is a great honour for a woman to get it. I would love to see her again but I don't think we ever will.”

Agus ran and gave his mother a big hug. She affectionately tugged his hair.

Fitri said, “Pak Eko knew about all of this, Ibu. He knew I've been having these dreams. He asked Agus and I if we wanted to be the Guardians of the Merapi.”

“Guardians of the Merapi, good gracious!”

But before Ibu could say anything else, Ayah walked into the hut with Pak Andersen and another man. It turned out that this man was the
bule's
surgeon friend from Jakarta and had come to have a look at Agus' lip.

They had a long conversation about Agus. Fitri was not in the room, but she could see from the open window that her mother was crying. But her face looked happy. She soon found out why.

Agus was grinning and came leaping out of the room. “Fitri, my lip can be fixed! Then I will be able to talk properly.” He continued softly, “I think even Ayah is crying a little, but he is trying not to show it.”

Fitri jumped up and down, clapping her hands gleefully. “That's awesome, Agus!
Dokters
can do that? That's really amazing!”

“Yes! And now they are talking about the money. Something about a reward from the museum.”

“Really? What are they saying?”

Agus shrugged. “I don't know but it looks like the village might get something – something called
kompensasi,”
he pronounced the word with difficulty. “Then they sent me out of the room, so I don't know what's being said.”

He paused. “Fitri, things are not okay with the Merapi. I think that's what they are talking about.”

“Doesn't matter, Agus. Don't think about it now. Ibu and Ayah will figure it out. The important thing is that your lip will be fixed!” Fitri said.

“That is true,” said Agus, grinning.

The day ended wonderfully with a small celebration about Agus' lip and the kompensasi as news spread across the refugee camp. The village was going to get a reward! A compensation for finding the lost kingdom!

But the best day for Fitri and her family turned into the worst for the village. That night, the Merapi finally erupted.

TWELVE : THE ERUPTION

WHEN the news first came in, it was late and people were just about settling down on their mattresses for the night. But a volcano erupting is not a silent event. Everyone for miles around heard it before the news came on the radio.

Agus' new friends yelled outside his hut, “Come on, Agus. We are going to climb the trees and see!”

Not one person slept that night. The children watched in horror, hypnotised by the crater of the volcano, growing red in the distance. Every time the volcano rumbled and belched out smoke, the kids screamed in excitement. The grown-ups, huddled around the radio trying to listen in, yelled at them to be quiet.

Smoke could be seen for miles around. But the worst effect was the awful smell. The smell of sulphur – of rotten eggs – was everywhere and some of the older people in the refugee camp could barely breathe. All night long, trucks and motorcycles raced around carrying people wearing masks.

The mountain threw out ash and smoke, but there was no news of lahars. But the ash from an eruption was devastating enough, and the news was that some of the adjoining villages had been destroyed. Machuchak too had suffered some damage, but there was no way of knowing how much till people went back to their homes.

Pak Eko had not been seen since the eruption. When the children asked their father, he said he was probably helping people out in the villages. “He is, after all, the Guardian of the Merapi. He thinks this is his responsibility,” said Ayah.

When Pak Eko still wasn't seen in the refugee camp a week after the eruption, Fitri and Agus grew impatient. They were eager to ask him more about being Spirit Keepers of the Merapi. But with everything that had happened, there had not been a chance to talk to him.

The Merapi spewed ash and smoke for another two weeks. Thick clouds of woolly smoke hung in the air. Streams of people came into the refugee camp, till every hut was bursting with people. As more refugees came in, they brought with them stories of death and destruction. People who could not be evacuated in time, people who got caught in an avalanche of rocks, stragglers who got suffocated by the ashfall. The camp was a sad place and the children could not wait to get out of there.

Agus was sick with worry. “What happens if the cave gets buried, if the kingdom is gone forever?”

Ayah tried his best to console him. “It's fine Agus. Fitri and you know the location. We will find it again. Calm down.”

But there was no calming Agus, who continued to fret and fume. Fitri too was eager to get back to the village but for an entirely different reason. There was a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that something had happened. Something that was not supposed to happen. But she figured it had to do with the volcano erupting. What else could it be?

Exactly a month and ten days passed before Fitri and her family were allowed to return to their village. After it spent its fury, the mountain had started to calm down. But they could not go back till the
bule
said the danger had finally passed.

Agus was beside himself with joy when he heard the news. Finally it was time to go home! He could show off the cave and the kingdom at last! Fitri was excited too but still apprehensive. She could not shake off the feeling that something was wrong. She had not had a single dream after the last one. Perhaps they had stopped.

The people gathered their meagre belongings and left the camp the way they had come, in buses. With one difference: everyone now had a mask. The ash from the eruption still hung in the air.

Agus nudged Fitri, nodding towards some strangers that had boarded the bus. Two Indonesians and one
bule,
a lady with golden blond hair falling down her back. These were the people from the museum who had interviewed Agus. She smiled at him. He turned red and promptly slumped in his seat.

When the buses finally stopped at the welcome board that read “Welcome to Machuchak”, the sun was high in the sky and it was late in the afternoon.

People slowly started getting off the bus, afraid of what they would find. Would their houses be filled with ash? Their crops destroyed? Their animals dead?

Fitri looked at the forest around her. Parts of it had been destroyed and grey ash covered the trees. Further up the mountain she could see that trees had been snapped like matchsticks. Just as in her dream. She could see people walking around, clearing bits of rock and some dead animals. Three men walked past her carrying a dead cow, its face grotesquely twisted and its body bloated.

Agus had got over his initial shyness and made friends with the archaeologists. Just as soon as the bus stopped he wanted to race off to the cave.

“Come on, Fitri! Let's go. Let's go and check out the cave.”

“Hang on, Agus. Wait. Let's see if the mountain path is safe,” she said, hesitating. She couldn't shake off that nagging feeling. But there was no restraining Agus.

The three archaeologists wanted the children to show them the entrance to the cave right away. They wanted to build a fence around it to protect it, so that inquisitive people and wild animals could not get in. The villagers were keen to see the much-talked-about cave too.

So Ayah, Agus and Fitri, along with the archaeologists and a troop of villagers, started up the mountain road. Ibu, along with the other women, started moving from house to house to check on the condition of the houses, clean the mess, and organise food. Thankfully, most homes had escaped major damage and were covered with a thin layer of ash.

The village was all a big mess, but at least the basic structures had not been completely destroyed.

Fitri followed her brother and his new friends slowly – walking behind the group, listening to Agus brag about the dangerous avalanche when “a rock as big as a house” had rolled over the hole.

“And then Pak Eko lifted it!' Agus exclaimed to the group. Fitri rolled her eyes and snorted but her eyes were searching for her favourite spot.
Let it be okay,
she thought.

From a distance Fitri saw the watchtower. It was intact! Dusty, dirty and grey instead of blue, but at least it was there. Fitri heaved a sigh of relief. That watchtower was her favourite place to hide away and think.

Straggling along right behind her was Aditya.

Fitri and Agus had not mentioned to the villagers and their parents their escapade with Aditya and the tree sap. Aditya was the only boy in the village that still kept a distance from Agus and Fitri, refusing to be drawn in by the excitement of the secret kingdom. But getting to see gold treasure with his own eyes? This was too much to resist.

Fitri watched him warily. His hand was back to normal and she felt a twinge of regret at what she had done with the anthill. Perhaps she had overreacted. He didn't seem to have too many real friends. Even that Reza had deserted him.

She turned around and called out, “So are you coming to see the cave?”

Aditya stopped short, looking around nervously.

“It's okaaaaay, Aditya. I'm not going to do anything to you.”

He nodded, still not saying anything. He sped up to walk beside Fitri.

Suddenly, he spoke up in a loud burst, “So I just wanted to tell you thanks!”

“For what?”

“For not telling anyone that I followed you in the forest that day. And about what I said that day in the watchtower.”

Fitri shrugged. She saw that her father had stopped walking ahead with the others and was coming back towards them. He stopped, looking from one child to the other.

“What's going on?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing, Ayah, we are just talking.”

“Hmmmm, not planning to put his head in the ash or something, are you?” her father said softly, his eyes smiling slightly.

Fitri laughed and shook her head.

“Okay then. Aditya, are you coming along with us? Come on then. Fitri?”

“You go along, Ayah, with Aditya. I'll follow you soon. I just need to check on something.”

Ayah nodded and went on ahead with Aditya, who walked many steps behind Fitri's father.

Fitri followed them till the watchtower and then took the turn to go back down the mountain road, to Pak Eko's hut.

The tree over Pak Eko's home was almost untouched by the eruption. The dry season had passed and there was a hint of rain in the air. The leaves on the tree were now golden, brown and orange. Fitri continued to walk back down the road, to the clearing where Pak Eko's hut stood. She could see the door open – he never closed or locked it. She hesitated for a second and then stepped in.

She saw a broken coffee cup lying on the floor, some cigarettes and maps everywhere. Fitri went to the maps lying on the table and opened one of them. She saw the Merapi clearly marked, and her village. But Pak Eko, or someone, had drawn a line with a red pen from the dome of the Merapi to another spot on the map. It looked like a place far away from the village. There were no markings next to that place, just a bunch of squiggly lines, which made no sense to her. She folded the map and put it back carefully, just as she had found it.