Louise Doughty - Black Water

In the lobby, two German businessmen were smoking and talking loudly — from their gestures he guessed they were arguing about whether or not it was safe to leave the hotel that evening.

As he walked down the corridor to his room, where, he knew, the air that was waiting for him would taste as though it had been breathed in and out again by a hundred previous occupants, he thought of Parno’s wife and wondered, briefly, if he should try ordering up a working girl, like so many of the journalists and businessmen did. In the bar downstairs, they bragged about which antibiotics they preferred. But then he thought of the glassy, stuffed-tiger look in those girls’ eyes, looks that were undisguised by their toothy smiles and chatter, and what was the point of having something that was handed to you on a plate? The whole point was the chase, wasn’t it? The act was fifteen minutes, tops. Prostitutes were for middle-aged men, fat men, men who couldn’t get a woman any other way. Surely it was demeaning to pay? He’d rather sort himself out: at least you didn’t have to worry about making stilted conversation with the handkerchief.

He could go down to the bar, perhaps, but at this time of the evening it would be rammed with journalists. They had become unbearable recently, full of self-congratulation: they were the right men in the right place at the right time, war heroes for just being in Jakarta even though they had spent the days of the coup stuck in the hotel like Harper and the worst hardship that had befallen them was the temporary failure of the air conditioning. Luckily for them, the hotel had its own generator and things had been fixed in a jiffy. Crisis over. Now it looked like the situation might stabilise here, they were all desperate to get to Vietnam, talked gleamingly of how dangerous it was, as if there weren’t enough danger in Jakarta still, as if the Indonesians being rounded up on the streets and loaded into trucks weren’t newsworthy in comparison with the next large political event elsewhere. He pitied their wives when they got back home. He would rather spend an evening with Parno than with the hacks, any day. For all his vanities and prejudices, Parno was at least a man living in his own country and making his decisions, good or bad, within that context. Parno would rise or fall by those decisions. While Parno was facing the consequences of his chosen allegiances, one way or another, the hacks would be in another bar somewhere in another international hotel, visiting another country’s tragedy. In fact, weren’t all men repellent, really? That was why they went to prostitutes. It wasn’t just physical relief they were after — it was relief from the company of their own kind, from themselves.

He stood in the corridor and felt around the doorframe to his room, checking that the small piece of paper he always left in different positions between the door and the frame was still in place. So, he thought, as he located it, after all these months, I’m actually getting something done, maybe even meeting a General.

Inside the room, he went over to the dial and turned on the air conditioning, then did what he always did, went to the bed, flopped on his back and closed his eyes; breathing, waiting for the clinking, clunking air-conditioning box to stir the air and quell his claustrophobia.

It was Johnson who gave him the list, the last time he would see that strange blank of a man. The handover took place in a cemetery.

Harper had his canvas holdall with him. He had checked out of Hotel Indonesia and bought a moped so small he had to bend his long legs high like a cricket. In the shimmering air, the stink of gas was intensified — whenever he kicked down on the ignition, he did so gingerly, as if the hot metal he was perched on might burst into flames. Considering how much danger there was on the streets, it would be damn stupid to be immolated by your own motorcycle.

After delivering the list to Parno’s house, he was going straight to the airport — they were posting him to Bali so that he could take over from the operative there, who was being sent to check out the smaller islands. He would have to make a phone call before he left to ensure the road was safe — he might need to ditch the moped and go in an army jeep: an Indo in Western clothes on his own on a moped would be a little too intriguing for the militiamen who had set up checkpoints all the way along the road. Officially, the airport was still closed but there was rumoured to be a flight some time in the afternoon and he had enough dollars on him to bribe his way onto it if he ever got there. His instructions were clear. The Americans wanted him off Java when this job was done — that was the whole point of the embassy using a middleman. The next list would be someone else’s problem. He was just one of many middlemen.

His holdall was slung diagonally across his chest and the strap was rubbing his shoulder where he was sweating through his thin shirt. He drove down the lane that ran alongside the cemetery wall — scrubby fields with bushes and trees on the other side. The lane was deserted at this hour. As he turned the corner along the path to the cemetery entrance, he saw a battered Borgward van parked at the far end, close to the junction with the main road. That would be Johnson’s minders.

Harper bumped the moped into the cemetery, a little way down the path, so he could park it where he could keep an eye on it. On the far side, there was a small family group around a grave, some women with covered heads, but they took no notice of him. He dismounted and sat on a nearby bench, lit a cigarette and waited. The cemetery was walled on all sides — there was a gate in the middle of each side and the wall was no more than head height. The wall gave the illusion of seclusion from the rest of the city and here, amongst the graves and the palm trees lining the wide paths, he experienced a moment of calm, a chance to draw breath from the tension of journeying the streets.

Johnson appeared in the gateway before Harper had finished his cigarette: he had a canvas bag slung over his shoulder and his bald head gleamed in the heat. He glanced around, saw the moped first, then Harper, acknowledged him with a brief nod as he walked towards him and sat down next to him on the bench. Harper offered his cigarette packet. Johnson declined by pulling a face. Harper wondered what Johnson’s vices were. He was suspicious of men who made a show of not drinking or smoking or womanising — the ones who wanted everyone to observe how clean-cut they were. What secret desires was Johnson suppressing beneath that shiny skull? What sort of heart beat beneath that shirt, cleaner and less crumpled than any shirt should be in this heat (apart from his bald head, the man didn’t even break a sweat)? Boys, perhaps? Maybe he liked to be whipped while wearing women’s underwear. Whatever it is, Harper thought, I bet he prays afterwards.

Johnson reached into his bag and brought out a small leather case, like a satchel without a strap, and handed it over. ‘Don’t look inside.’ It was said genially enough. ‘You’re getting out this afternoon?’ Johnson added.

‘Yes,’ Harper said, ‘that’s the plan, depends on how long the handover takes, maybe tomorrow or the day after, it’ll be tight. You?’

‘They’re keeping me here till things are stabilised.’ Johnson sighed. ‘It’s bad out there.’ He was looking towards the cemetery gate but he meant out there in the world, in the backstreets of Jakarta, out in the towns and the villages in Central and East Java where people were being rounded up, anyone who was or who had ever been a Communist, anyone connected with anyone who was or who had ever been. Harper didn’t think about it. It wasn’t his job to think about it.

It occurred to him that Johnson and Parno had a great deal in common. He wondered if Johnson was about to launch into a man-to-man chat with him in the same way Parno had, if the thought of the men and women kneeling next to ditches by the sides of the roads with their hands tied behind their backs was bothering his conscience in the same way the thought of them bothered Parno.