The Last Paradise, page 25
The matter is being looked into and some owners are being investigated, along with said investigator. I’m not making any assertions, but you may wish to add your name to the list of parties wanting to know more details. Just FYI.
Regards
Howard Jamison
‘Good grief! Mum, listen to this.’ Grace read the email to Tina.
‘Heavens. What are you going to do about it? Is it a class action suit?’ Tina said. ‘Will you tell Lawrence?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll take advice on that. If I add my name, it’s as much as accusing Lawrence.’
‘Maybe the investigator will sing and spill the names of people who paid him off?’
‘I’ll sit tight for the moment. But it’s a case I’ll watch with interest.’
‘Well, you never got a red cent, so you’re not going to get caught up in it unless you choose to, at least,’ said Tina.
Grace worked in silence for a while till Sri brought in bowls of nasi goreng for them all.
‘Tell me more about last night, after I left,’ said Grace, closing the laptop and pushing it aside.
‘It was fun. Andy is good company – he’s an interesting character. He misses his son, and his late wife, of course. Loves it here, has put down roots, but wonders what he might have done with his life if he’d gone back and settled down in Australia, like most of the other fellows did. He said his mates back then all seemed to be drifters, hash-smoking surfers, with no real ambition. Yet they’ve turned into bankers, salesmen, executives. It makes him laugh, but I think he’s kinda lonely. He’s in his sixties but acts like a forty-year-old.’
‘I don’t think Andy is lonely for female company,’ said Grace dryly.
‘Just not those in his own age bracket, eh?’ Tina smiled. ‘Maybe that’s why we had such fun and a lot of laughs. We can speak in shorthand. No games. No big act, just be ourselves. I can’t say the same for Lawrence. Everything seems like an act with him. He monopolised conversation with Johnny all night.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Grace. ‘But Johnny’s smart, no one puts anything over him.’ She thought for a minute. ‘Hey, I wonder if that’s the real reason Lawrence has come here. He’s heard, or figured out, who I’m working for, and he knows Johnny’s a big fish.’
‘Yes, you may be right. Listen, Gracie, stop worrying about wretched Lawrence. Go do your job. That’s more important. He’s like the bad smell from the drains here . . . hangs around all the time. Ignore him.’
‘I wish I could. I just hope this isn’t going to be the pattern of my life. I don’t feel I can ever threaten him or successfully get my lawyer to force him to butt out. Daisy is in the middle, so she’ll always tie me to him.’
‘He can have his time with her, and the rest of the time he should stay away. That needs to be a binding legal arrangement,’ said Tina firmly.
‘Y’know what, Mum? What I’m learning is that Lawrence will never make a clean break and move on. His mission in life is to make mine as miserable as possible. And I think it’s inevitable that Daisy will get caught in the crossfire.’
‘You don’t think he’ll find a girlfriend? Maybe one with kids? That might change things,’ said Tina.
‘Maybe.’ Grace tried to smile. She knew her mother was trying to soothe her. ‘Okay. I’m going to get dressed and meet Steve to plan today’s shoot. I might try to get some info out of Johnny, too. He sent a text to say he wants us to go to Ubud for some big art auction.’
‘Are the boys going to film it?’
‘I have to find out what it’s about. I have a meeting with Johnny later this morning. Are you okay with going to Daisy’s school?’
‘Yes, no problem. And if Lawrence shows up, I’ll just take him with us.’
‘Oh, Mum, you’re an angel. Let’s hope he steers clear, but if he does come, try not to let him interfere, or make any changes to what I’ve arranged.’
‘He’s entitled to see her school, I guess. He said something yesterday about wanting to take her somewhere this afternoon, too. Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on them.’
Grace headed to her bedroom to dress, but the conversation stayed with her. The freedom she’d felt in her first few weeks in Bali was gone. She felt like she was suffocating, the walls closing in on her.
‘Damn you, Lawrence,’ she muttered.
Very early, a pounding on the door jolted me out of my sleep. Dazed and frightened, I called out, ‘Who is there?’
‘Open the door,’ shouted a man’s impatient voice. ‘The Kempetai.’
The Kempetai! My spine froze. Jumping up, I dropped my night sarong and started to pull my dress over my head. Then I ran to the door, on which the pounding had risen to a crescendo.
Two Japanese officers stepped quickly out of the shadows. They marched in, holding themselves stiffly erect, and without a word of explanation began to search the living room. I scurried into the bedroom to finish dressing.
‘Come on outside and get in the car.’
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, my voice quivering with fear.
‘For a ride. You’ll find out soon enough.’
We drove away. After an eternity of two, three, perhaps four hours, the car slowed. We stopped beside a grim, gray structure – a prison, I knew, by the look and feel of it. A guard led me into a cell – a cage, really, closed on three sides, with the fourth side an iron grille looking onto a narrow hall where Japanese sentries paraded back and forth. On the floor of my cell was a filthy mat of palm and another mat rolled around a handful of straw. The only other feature to be seen was a hole in the earthen floor – the toilet, I discovered later.
For five or six days or maybe a week – it was hard to keep count – nothing much happened. Twice a day a banana leaf of rice was handed to me through the bars; little better than a starvation diet.
At daylight each morning the guard came down the corridor, down the line of tiny cells just like mine, each with its occupant. We had orders always in the daytime to kneel, with hands clasped in front of us. The guard carried a long pole, with which he prodded us like beasts if we were not already on our knees. All day long we were required to remain on our knees, never allowed to sit no matter how sharply our muscles pained.
There had been no charge against me. But a day came when I was called out of my cell and taken to an interrogation room around which were seated several Japanese officers. For some minutes, questions were put to me, based obviously on my papers which they had seized.
My replies gave them no satisfaction. ‘Of what am I accused?’ I cried. ‘Why are you holding me here?’
‘You are an American spy! You must give us your FBI number.’
I almost laughed. ‘That is ridiculous, and quite untrue.’
The seated Japanese officer showed impatience at my responses. My chief questioner scowled fiercely.
‘Take off your clothes,’ he ordered. I stiffened, paralyzed with shame, and a young lieutenant tore off my one garment.
‘Stand on one leg!’ the interrogator barked. ‘Now raise the other with the knee bent.’
Sobbing with humiliation, I complied. Later, much later, I grew so hardened that I began to undress automatically as soon as the door of the examination room was closed behind me, but on this first morning the emotional torture was worse than that of any burn or blow.
I was returned to my cell for another day of filth and lice and waiting. Each morning I was brought back to the room, and again stripped, grilled, and subjected to beatings and indignities.
My failure to confess to knowing anything stung my inquisitors. They decided to try a new refinement of torture. ‘If you will not tell the truth, you shall walk the streets of Kediri naked,’ they said. ‘Everyone shall see your shame.’
They ripped off the last pitiful bit of covering I had. And with bayonets they forced me to walk down the very centre of the street.
But the Japanese had not reckoned with the Indonesian mentality. The Javanese are frank about the facts of life, but modest. One glimpse of what the Japanese were doing to me and they were horrified. They fled in every direction. Doors and windows were slammed shut. My tormentors hurried me back to the prison for another severe beating, and then tossed me into my cell. But they knew that they had, somehow, lost face.
After three weeks of almost daily interrogation, the commandant, for some inscrutable reason, set me free.
I found my next confinement quarters to be a cell underneath the Surabaya Kempetai Headquarters. I was quickly informed that what I had suffered at the hands of the Japanese in Kediri had been as nothing compared with what I would go through in the Surabaya Kempetai.
At first they were reasonably gentle, trying to make me talk. I insisted that of all the Japanese I had associated with not one discussed anything with me except art and literature. The grilling became sharper. Before long I had been battered into semiconsciousness.
They stood me on the table, tied my hands behind my back, fastened my elbows together, and then – twisting my arms backward in their sockets – looped my hands over the hook that dangled from the ceiling. Inch by inch they moved the table away, demanding with each pull that I tell them what information I had received, and from whom. With a last pull the table slid from under my feet. I was hanging. I screamed in unbearable agony. When my mind cleared I was on the floor. Then the guards carried me back to my cell.
The tortures went on.
The Japanese officers came to my cell late at night, and talked to me in very quiet and serious voices. ‘We have decided that there is no use going on with this,’ they said. ‘We know that you are guilty of espionage. Therefore, tomorrow at daybreak you will be shot.’
I knew that if I confessed to my dealings with my friends I would not save my own neck, and would certainly bring them to torture and death. So if one had to die, better to die alone, saying nothing.
The Japanese officers came very early the following morning. They bound my hands behind my back, and tied me against a banyan tree with branches that hung down to the ground like the tentacles of an octopus. ‘You still have time to confess. I will count to three. If you say nothing, on the third count you will be dead.’
I heard the count in Malay. ‘Satu.’ I braced myself. ‘Duah.’ Now, now it will come. ‘Tiga.’ The shattering roar of the rifle staggered me. I felt something hot and sharp hit my chest. I fell to the ground.
Several days later I awoke in an Indonesian hospital. The Indonesian doctor and nurse said the Japanese had fired their rifles into the air, and at the same moment had hit me with a stone from a catapult. The intent had been to make me think I had been shot. It succeeded only too well.
And then came August, 1945, and the final defeat of the Japanese all down the chain of islands they had won so easily. All we knew at the hospital was that the war was over. Shouting Indonesians stormed the hospital and also the camp at Ambarawa, disarming the Japanese. All of us cheered and wept, and threw our arms around each other. It was a wonderful time.
The Indonesian soldiers who took the hospital by force quickly learned my story, and that I was still in a critical condition. I was taken to the mountains to the chalet of a highly respected Indonesian doctor. I weighed less than half my normal weight. I regained health rapidly.
And what of Anak Agung Nura? I would have no news of him until communications with Bali were restored. I was sure that this would not take long and that I myself might soon travel back to the puri that had for so many years been my home.
9
Grace walked along the beach in the fresh, early morning air. It was a lovely way to start the day. The tide was out and the wet sand shone like gleaming glass. This part of the beach was deserted, though once guests were in residence at the Kamasan, Grace knew this pristine strip would be ‘claimed’ for them, with beach lounges, deckchairs, sun umbrellas and staff in attendance.
As Grace turned into the hotel grounds she caught a glimpse of Nyoman collecting fallen palm fronds from the immaculate lawns. The gardens were flourishing; she noticed some plants had grown even in the short time she had been here. Artfully trained bougainvillea spilled in controlled clumps, while frangipani, white jasmine, hibiscus and trailing orchids looked as if they’d always been there. The huge hibiscus, heliconia and, in the shady spots, exotic anthuriums all made for a dramatic backdrop.
She picked a sweet blossom and, waving to Nyoman, turned off the path and went through the bamboo and pandanus grove to the hidden back garden and the remains of K’tut’s hotel. A startled bird screeched at being disturbed and darted away into the greenery.
Passing the crumbling, lichen-covered remains of a carved stone gateway, Grace spotted a simple shrine with the sculpture of the Hindu deity, Vishnu, on top. A flower offering had already been placed on the pedestal. Grace tucked her blossom in her hair, its perfume trailing behind her.
She recalled reading about K’tut’s despair – coming back here to see her beloved hotel in this peaceful setting ruined by the Japanese invaders. It was almost unfathomable to Grace that K’tut had suffered torture and solitary confinement for many months on another island, only to return to further hardship and disappointment – and yet she had survived it all, and gone on to make a positive difference to the world around her in spite of it. Grace thought about K’tut’s strength, perseverance and fortitude. It didn’t seem right to her that K’tut Tantri had been forgotten. She sighed and turned away, taking the short cut through Nyoman’s kitchen gardens to the back of the hotel.
She followed the smell of pungent Balinese coffee and the murmur of voices and found Johnny, his father and, to her surprise, Madame Pearl, seated at a table on the terrace.
Johnny waved her over. ‘Grace, hello. Have you had breakfast?’
Grace grinned and walked towards them. ‘Not yet. Good morning, Pak Pangisar . . .’
‘Harold, Harold,’ the older man said, smiling.
Johnny pulled out a chair for her and Grace sat down. ‘Thanks, Johnny. How are you, Madame Pearl?’
‘I am doing quite well,’ the elegant older woman replied. ‘Very much looking forward to this evening.’
Grace wondered if Madame Pearl was spending the day at the hotel, as she was already dressed formally enough to be ready to go to the evening’s art auction in a silk dress with multiple strands of fat pearls and large diamond and jade earrings. She was wearing a narrow Cartier Tank watch. Daywear, thought Grace, rather bemused.
‘Oh yes, please tell me about this evening.’
‘Breakfast first. Have anything you like,’ said Johnny.
A waiter who’d been standing nearby came over and smiled at Grace, ready to take her order.
‘I’ll have creamy eggs with smoked salmon,’ she said, ‘and sourdough toast, please.’
After they had given their orders for tea and coffee, the waiter bowed and left, having not taken a single note. Johnny gave a nod of approval. ‘He’s going to be good. They have to keep every detail of every order in their head.’
‘So what’s happening tonight, exactly?’ asked Grace again.
Johnny leaned forward. ‘Auctions like this one are for serious collectors. A lot of money will be spent and a percentage will go to charity,’ he said. ‘There’s significant Balinese art going under the hammer tonight. Some of the works are culturally very important; I’d hate to see them leave the island.’
‘We are only interested in the pieces from Kamasan village,’ Harold reminded his son.
‘Naturally,’ added Madame Pearl. ‘Make sure they are well insured, Johnny, before you put anything you buy up on public display in the hotel.’
Johnny nodded, seemingly unconcerned that he was planning to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of valuable art to hang around the family’s hotel.
‘Do you know about Kamasan village?’ Johnny asked Grace.
Grace nodded. ‘I’ve heard it’s an important centre for Balinese art, but I don’t know much more than that.’
‘Very old classical art was produced there, based on the wayang puppet stories – stories that come from the heart of Bali. They bridge two worlds, the spirits’ and ours,’ Johnny explained.
‘It’s always been a collaborative effort. To this day, the whole village paints and creates the artworks,’ said Madame Pearl. ‘You should go there sometime, Grace, to Klungkung, to see the village.’
Johnny grinned at Grace. ‘More to film!’
‘I’m going to end up with a full-length feature film about the Kamasan.’ Grace laughed. ‘Though we do need a lot of online material. MGI have started releasing the TVC teasers on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook – the online ads and infomercials, that is – leading up to the hotel’s opening,’ she said, turning to Harold. ‘The ads and teaser will be released in Australia and on iflix across South East Asia. They expect a viewership of forty million plus. The travel tourism magazine editors and travel bloggers will start coming in soon too.’
‘Excellent. What great show are you planning for the opening?’ Harold asked his son.
‘You’ll know soon enough.’ Johnny smiled. ‘We’re tying up a few loose ends, locking in the last big name.’ He winked at Grace.
‘We need to fill this place,’ said Harold.
‘Well, just don’t overspend on art tonight, Johnny. I know you consider yourself quite the collector,’ said Madame Pearl.
‘Oh good, here’s breakfast,’ said Johnny cheerfully, perhaps happy to change the subject.
*
Grace was working at her computer when she heard Daisy and her mother return after Daisy’s second day at school.
Daisy ran to her, waving a few sheets of paper. ‘I have to get some books and things, Mumma.’
