The Timor Man. Kerry B Collison

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      Crockwell was visibly disappointed and sat silently for the rest of the ride to the hotel. Coleman decided he really didn’t need the other man’s company but would insist just out of bloody-mindedness. Crockwell waited impatiently in the lobby while Coleman slowly showered and changed. Visibly annoyed with having to wait, Crockwell displayed a show of childish temper by snapping at the driver as they left the hotel.

      Coleman managed to restrain himself until later in the evening. He remembered enjoying himself in the bar with the women hanging around his neck, when Crockwell again made some comment as to the lateness of the hour.

      “Hey!” Coleman had snapped. “Why don’t you just piss off then and leave me here?” There had been an argument and, although the temptation was there, Coleman had resisted smacking the other man around the head as he rightfully deserved.

      Stephen groaned. Damn! He hadn’t even set foot in the office and already there would be at least one person gunning for him!

      Slowly he towelled and waited for his body to adjust to the room temperature after the bath. He selected the pin-striped suit with a maroon tie. Conservative enough, he decided.

      Venturing down to the expansive lobby Stephen immediately remembered the lingering smell he had identified when first alighting from the aircraft. It hung heavily in the air like the aroma of ageing fruit which was about to turn, and yet there was something about its scent, something exotic, which made one feel that it was a permanent part of the general ambiance.

      Coleman viewed the traffic confusion from the hotel foyer. No briefing could have prepared him for the awesome spectacle of Jakarta’s traffic crawling around the Selamat Datang column located directly outside the Intercontinental Hotel Indonesia. Bedlam would be an appropriate description, Coleman mused.

      Thousands of becaks, the Indonesian trishaw, congregated at the entrance. He knew that the drivers often lived in these contraptions, earning barely enough each day to purchase a meal of nasi putih before collapsing exhausted. They would curl up in the passenger seat, breathing the foul diesel fumes as they slept. Undernourished and prematurely aged, these men would be lucky to live longer than thirty-five years. When they departed, a hundred others would scramble for the opportunity to pump their legs, strain their hearts and finally die, maybe even to die harnessed to their iron monsters, as had so many before them.

      Competition was fierce. The city boasted one hundred thousand of these car-scraping, traffic-congesting, back-to-front pedicabs. He would take a ride in one of these becak at the weekend, Stephen Coleman decided. Until then, the Embassy had provided him with a light blue air-conditioned Holden, complete with driver.

      Driving! Coleman shuddered at the thought. Part of his briefing had been an information sheet describing action to be taken in the event of an incident when driving oneself. The instructions were basic. In the event of involvement in an accident, regardless of the condition of any third parties, the foreign driver was to return immediately to the embassy grounds and report directly to the Consul. To stop and render assistance could result in the driver’s immediate departure to a more heavenly highway at the hands of the violent crowds which, within moments, inevitably appeared at the scene of any altercation in the Far East.

      Facing him across the roundabout lay the freshly gutted remains of the British Embassy. To his left, the Press Club stood as a reminder of the Asian Games held a few years earlier. The large vacant block adjacent was the site for the new Australian Embassy. A few tanks were still positioned nearby to the new city centre. Troops in battle-dress paraded around stopping vehicles, demanding cigarettes, and generally terrorizing the pedestrian traffic. Billboards once displaying socialistic slogans now featured garish artists’ impressions of cowboy and James Bond movies. The government’s Police Command had the territorial zones renumbered so that the Jakarta area could be allocated zero zero seven. Jakarta’s finest now sported belt buckles, Texas size, with the three numbers blazoned across the front.

      Coleman found this desire for Western identification totally in conflict with the paranoia towards imported customs which, he had read, still persisted at senior government levels. Indonesia had severed all diplomatic ties with mainland China, accusing them of precipitating the abortive coup d’etat . Hundreds of thousands of Chinese fled the country taking with them the very funds the economy so desperately needed to continue to operate.

      The Post Report and other economic data made available prior to his departure were all very negative. Inflation was out of control. The rupiah was devaluing on the black market at a rate of twenty percent each week. American dollars were in great demand. Communications were practically non-existent. The country was on the verge of economic collapse.

      Coleman pondered these things. In his capacity as a Second Secretary, Australian News and Information Bureau, his effectiveness would be reduced considerably due to the absence of modern communication facilities. Urgent messages were dispatched by telegram through the PTT which often required several days before delivery could be effected. These difficulties were further exacerbated by the government’s inability to provide a constant supply of electricity. The PLN, Perusahaan Listrik Negara, often had major power failures for days on end severing communications domestically and internationally. The Embassy provided each of its staff with diesel generator backup systems -essential to the preservation of meat and occasional dairy supplies which managed to survive shipment via the harbour of Tanjung Priok.

      Living under these conditions was a demanding task for foreigners. To operate effectively one required patience, cunning and stamina supported by almost unlimited financial reserves to survive the corruption, disease and frustration of day-to-day existence. The older expatriates would caution newcomers with regards to their health.

      Disease was rife, ranging from the plague, cholera and all forms of hepatitis, to the more common ‘revenge’series of disorders such as the bug, Soekarno’s revenge; the bug had successfully permeated Jakarta’s drinking supplies. The Koki, or cooks’ revenge, was a similar bug caused by the unsanitary habits of the domestic staff and it was often the more devastating of the two. And then, of course, there was the frightening venereal wart which expatriate wives claimed was their revenge on unfaithful husbands. These excrescences grew to a huge size and were common amongst Jakarta’s one hundred and twenty thousand prostitutes or kupu-kupu malam, the night butterflies, as they called themselves.

      Coleman had suffered the discomforting after effects from the mandatory series of injections prior to his departure. The gamma-globulin was painful and, disappointingly, had proven ineffective to many who had suffered the long needles. His cholera and typhoid cocktail shots had caused light fevers and swelling during his final weeks in Melbourne.

      Albert had been sympathetic but insisted that, even with the added protection of these injections, Coleman should never drink un-boiled water in Indonesia. Asians are often shy and avoid describing ablutionary problems to Westerners. Coleman could now understand Albert’s reluctance to describe the filth he now observed before him. The open storm drain which ran east to west under the roundabout towards the hotel was crowded with Java’s itinerants. What the foreigners’ minds did not wish to comprehend, their senses were obliged to perceive as the sight of becak drivers squatting on the edge of the kali , defecating alongside women washing their clothes while others bathed, was all too real.

      There were no public ablution blocks in Indonesia, this former Dutch and temporary British colony, yet it contained the world’s largest Moslem population, which required its followers to clean before each of the five daily prayer periods. Coleman was reminded of his error in using a Moslem supplication during his early days with Albert. The Timorese were Christian and despised the Islamic teachings. He acknowledged his debt to the guru. СКАЧАТЬ