Final Winter

But he kept his face still. Even now, it was still not seen as right in some quarters on this island to gloat over what had happened, even though a blow had been struck for righteousness. For ever since the bombing, the tourists had not returned in the numbers that Bali had become accustomed to. The Australians and the New Zealanders and the backpackers from Europe had stayed away from Bali, and those who lived from the tourists, including Ranon’s own uncle and aunt, who had served as a houseboy and a chambermaid for one of the beach hotels had suffered. Seeing his aunt and uncle depart each day, clothed in some Western dress for the hotel, had caused resentment to bum inside him, as they scraped and bowed to the infidels. And he had mentioned that one night to his uncle, who had surprised him by standing up and striking him on the face. ‘These “infidels” as you call them,’ his uncle had cried out, ‘these infidels pay good money, money that pays for your clothes and your food and this home. So shut up about the infidels, unless you wish to live someplace else.’

And living someplace else was not possible, for Ranon was a cripple, and he was dependent on the charity of his aunt and uncle. Years earlier, soldiers had camped near their village, soldiers fighting bandits in the hills, and he had snuck into their campsite one night, to watch, to observe, and, well, of course, to steal. Even though it humiliated him to think about it, he recalled stealing a slumbering soldier’s belt, hoping that there was a wallet or something valuable hanging from it, and going home, the belt in his hands, a branch tugged at something hanging there, a small metal object that exploded in a flash and ruined his hands forever.

Ranon looked down at the pink stumps of his fingers that always made the young girls turn away, that made everything so hard to do, and the thought came to him that his own land of Bali was now a cripple, crippled by the foreigners. For Bali had long ago lost its own native way, of living off the land and the sea, and now she was nothing more than a whore for the foreigners, opening her legs for the chance of getting dollars or euros or yen.

Which was why the bombing had to happen. The infidels had to be expelled, from here and all other holy lands, and if sometimes people lost their jobs and innocents had to die, well, that was God’s will. For had not God Himself said that there would be struggles and difficulties before going to Paradise?

Ranon wiped at his face with one hand, the other hand barely holding on to a small plastic bag with a firm object inside. The warm drizzle still fell from the gray skies, and in the wreckage of the nightclub there were those faded plastic flowers, left behind by relatives or friends, he imagined. He looked around, saw that nobody was gazing at his direction, and he placed his hand up to his face to hide the wide smile that he allowed himself. For here was a monument to what could happen when holy warriors did their work for God, and very soon, in a very simple way, he was sure that he would be allowed to join those holy ranks.

Ranon turned and started walking away, his feet splashing through the puddles.

~ * ~

Some blocks away, Ranon came to a store — really not much more than a shack tacked onto the end of a narrow alley — that sold wood carvings. A sullen-faced man in a soiled tank-top T-shirt sat inside, smoking a cigarette. Ranon went in, nodded in his direction, and said, ‘I am here for a pickup.’

‘Yes?’

‘A pickup for a Mister Wilson. At the Amandari Hotel. If you please.’

The man stared at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke, reached underneath the counter and removed a small package fastened with string. Hands trembling, Ranon took the package from the man’s hands and ignored the pitying look he gave Ranon’s twisted finger stumps.

And Ranon remembered.

Weeks ago, at the small mosque that served his village, just north of Ubud, a stranger had come to him. A tall Sudanese who had called him by name, and led him away to a cafe where they had shared small glasses of sweetened tea, and where the Sudanese had peppered him with questions. About his young life. His struggle with his crippled fingers. His devotion to God. His thoughts for the future, even on an island such as Bali, polluted with so much corruption and with strange religions like Christianity or Hinduism. And had Ranon ever made the hajj, to the holy place of Mecca? And Ranon had said, no, he had not — though, of course, like any good Muslim, he hoped to make the hajj before he died. The Sudanese, his eyes bright with certainty and strength, had said that, indeed, Mecca was a holy place, and except during those times when he had been in the Sudan and Afghanistan, he himself had made the hajj many times.