mother, hoisted me up into the air, and told us to follow a small, wiry man who was carrying our luggage straight past
the long line at customs and into an awaiting car. The man smiled cheerfully as he lifted the bags into the trunk, and my
mother tried to say something to him but the man just laughed and nodded his head. People swirled around us, speaking
rapidly in a language I didn't know, smelling unfamiliar. For a long time we watched Lolo talk to a group of brownuniformed
soldiers. The soldiers had guns in their holsters, but they appeared to be in a jovial mood, laughing at
something that Lolo had said. When Lolo finally joined us, my mother asked if the soldiers needed to check through
our bags.
"Don't worry...that's been all taken care of," Lolo said, climbing into the driver's seat. "Those are friends of mine."
The car was borrowed, he told us, but he had bought a brand-new motorcycle-a Japanese make, but good enough for
now. The new house was finished; just a few touch-ups remained to be done. I was already enrolled in a nearby school,
and the relatives were anxious to meet us. As he and my mother talked, I stuck my head out the backseat window and
stared at the passing landscape, brown and green uninterrupted, villages falling back into forest, the smell of diesel oil
and wood smoke. Men and women stepped like cranes through the rice paddies, their faces hidden by their wide straw
hats. A boy, wet and slick as an otter, sat on the back of a dumb-faced water buffalo, whipping its haunch with a stick
of bamboo. The streets became more congested, small stores and markets and men pulling carts loaded with gravel and
timber, then the buildings grew taller, like buildings in Hawaii-Hotel Indonesia, very modern, Lolo said, and the new
shopping center, white and gleaming-but only a few were higher than the trees that now cooled the road. When we
passed a row of big houses with high hedges and sentry posts, my mother said something I couldn't entirely make out,
something about the government and a man named Sukarno.
the long line at customs and into an awaiting car. The man smiled cheerfully as he lifted the bags into the trunk, and my
mother tried to say something to him but the man just laughed and nodded his head. People swirled around us, speaking
rapidly in a language I didn't know, smelling unfamiliar. For a long time we watched Lolo talk to a group of brownuniformed
soldiers. The soldiers had guns in their holsters, but they appeared to be in a jovial mood, laughing at
something that Lolo had said. When Lolo finally joined us, my mother asked if the soldiers needed to check through
our bags.
"Don't worry...that's been all taken care of," Lolo said, climbing into the driver's seat. "Those are friends of mine."
The car was borrowed, he told us, but he had bought a brand-new motorcycle-a Japanese make, but good enough for
now. The new house was finished; just a few touch-ups remained to be done. I was already enrolled in a nearby school,
and the relatives were anxious to meet us. As he and my mother talked, I stuck my head out the backseat window and
stared at the passing landscape, brown and green uninterrupted, villages falling back into forest, the smell of diesel oil
and wood smoke. Men and women stepped like cranes through the rice paddies, their faces hidden by their wide straw
hats. A boy, wet and slick as an otter, sat on the back of a dumb-faced water buffalo, whipping its haunch with a stick
of bamboo. The streets became more congested, small stores and markets and men pulling carts loaded with gravel and
timber, then the buildings grew taller, like buildings in Hawaii-Hotel Indonesia, very modern, Lolo said, and the new
shopping center, white and gleaming-but only a few were higher than the trees that now cooled the road. When we
passed a row of big houses with high hedges and sentry posts, my mother said something I couldn't entirely make out,
something about the government and a man named Sukarno.