Batam, Indonesia

Forty-five minute ferry ride and a world away. Nothing like the architecturally playful towers opposite Sentosa on the other shore. In fact no towers at all on Batam. For housing two or three storeys is about the limit. Having seen India Marko was less shocked.

         We stayed on the fringe of Nagoya central. Large sci-fi inspired mosque one corner of the intersection and opposite the hotel a more modest senior college. The Golden Virgo like all the other hotels carried English names, while the staff battled apologetically with the language. The Virgo was reminiscent of the ghastly Yugoslav hotels built in the same era of the long forgotten Non-Aligned Movement—down to the couches, doilies and large ashtrays on the coffee tables in the lobby. The gushing fountain in the open lobby echoed through the night on the second storey. 

         Foot-long rats scampered in the better garden eatery of the first night, as they did in the street beside the hawker stalls and in the canals. The street kiosks looked something like the Western wagons from old American cowboy films. In the cramped space within a vendor near the hotel watched a tiny black and white screen mounted in a corner among the wares. The woman within a little shack opposite the street stalls near Nagoya mall slept in back in some kind of annexe that she promptly showed the curious bule—the Westerners. Sliding the door back behind her she revealed a little table holding an over-sized TV, couch-bed and bar fridge which altogether left a tight turning circle, cheeky old gal smoothing over the awkwardness by offering a share of her abode. A developer who was no doubt responsible for the Mall and the adjoining tilt-up concrete shops on Nagoya Hill apparently saw correspondences with the Japanese city.

         After dinner on the first night we stumbled on an open air concert. The young musicians had seen the video hits even on Batam. Approving Westerners gave them reassurance. We sat with the young hipsters in baseball caps smoking. Low coffee tables on green matting over a large concrete area—a dozen or more. Suratmi managed our drinks order, helped by a keen middle-aged woman at the next table, whose English was surprisingly good. The woman sat with her three early-teen daughters. It seems she had misinterpreted some of Marko's smiles. After her warm farewell she stopped beside Suratmi to explain her position frankly: she was a widow with three young girls to raise. The task was hard. Sister, she called her compatriot in appeal. In the brief visit to the island we didn't happen on her again.

         As well as the official and unofficial taxis that ceaselessly touted for service on every outing, there were motor-bikes too. Many of them scoffed at the rebuff of jalan-jalan—walking, walking. Girls were often on offer from both bikes and taxis. One of the initial hand signals to aid the communication was incomprehensible—a rocking open hand, palm down. When the chap put his fore-finger into the slot between thumb and fore-finger of the other hand he knew he had conveyed his message. Rejection seemed to surprise the man. Two or three times further down the road he came back to it, on the last round with a car-full of young lasses picked up between times.

         Effendi, a nice thin boy in mid-teens, provided escort for a short while on the second day, finally getting out his wish for makan—we had eaten earlier)—had he the money. Ready smiles were offered to any greeting along the streets, at the stalls and markets. Naturally hearing a word or two of their own language brought immediate delight to the locals. Children as young as five pestered for money. Caught in traffic one even experienced the filmic moment of the child pressing her face against the tinted glass of the cab. Somehow she had spotted the bule within.

         On the walks other Westerners were unsighted. In the bule bars—as young Rianti called them, using the common reference—there were many being entertained by the local girls, as well as others from Sumatra, Flores and Java.

         With Ramadan still having a week to run, lunch on the second day took some searching. Eventually we found a likely place beside an oddly fashioned church. A giant cross which provided a beacon at night when illuminated was mounted on a bell-tower that took the form of a fire look-out. The church proper had a half-pagoda aspect and stood in the middle of wide waste ground. A Chinese woman with her young daughters ran the adjacent eatery. The food and the interior were familiar from the Sing example. A white piece of cloth stretched over poles at the entry had somehow been missed when we entered. Screening off the dust and traffic noise, Marko guessed.

         It was only at the ferry terminal for the return that we learned better. We found an eatery on the second level of the terminal. Half dozen at the tables. The concourse outside in front of the shop seemed to offer better air. With the menus from inside we headed for the tables. This brought the owner scurrying in a flap. The confusion was impossible to read. A chap at one of the tables on the concourse added his two bob's worth. Once back inside an embarrassed Suratmi translated the man's aside. 

         — Girl, not where people are fasting. 

         No doubt Suratmi removed some of the sharpness.

         It was only then we noticed the butcher's paper plastered on the window and door of the shop. Somehow Suratmi had been caught on the hop. For a number of years she had "bluffed" her parents over her Ramadan observance.

         On the last morning Suratmi had asked to hear one more time why she was thought to be nice. 

         Having listened she replied, — You lucky. You travel where you like. You meet people. Everyone is nice. The night before she had been made sad when the age difference was put as an insuperable obstacle. 

         — I am from a small people. To me it is nothing. Not important, she said.

         A lovely speech had come from Suratmi through the course of the night. The room was windowless, morning and night were undifferentiated within. Considering the hopes of life and the realities, Suratmi spoke about accepting what one was given, what Allah had provided. Being perfectly resolved to that, without complaint or discontent; better may come from what one had than from the wishing. Suratmi spoke in the sealed darkness without any undue emphasis. One would often come to see the truth of these matters, Suratmi held.

         Suratmi seemed to speak with the authority of experience. She was the mother of a nine year old boy living with her former husband to whom she had firmly resolved never to return. The man himself would readily reunite, she said, even after four years of separation. For four years Suratmi had not seen her son. Every day she spoke to him on the telephone. The husband was not willing to let the boy live with her parents. This she ruefully accepted. You are the father. The son follows you, she reported her words to the former husband.

         Once she was better settled in Batam and the Maid Agency which she has helped found on the island was fully established, Suratmi hoped to bring her boy to live with her. What one was dealt was sufficient, Suratmi said. I am not sure you will come visit me again, she said later too in the darkness, repeating what she had previously said in the light.