The Scottish Banker of Surabaya

( 18 )

Ava hadn’t known what to expect in Fay Masterson, certainly not a near double to Amanda Yee. She was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, not quite five feet tall in her Puma runners, and rail-thin in a pair of tight jeans and a T-shirt with DIOR stitched in beadwork across the front. Her hair was cut into a bob, making her fine-featured face look slightly gaunt. Her dark brown eyes had thick lashes heavy with mascara, and her lips were generously glossed in bright red. She looked, Ava thought, at least partially Chinese.

Fay saw Ava first and waved to her as she came down the stairs. Masterson had obviously given his wife a description. The two women shook hands, gauging each other. Ava was in her training pants and a black T-shirt and wore no makeup. She must have passed initial inspection, because Fay gave her a quick, bright smile and said, “My car is outside.” Then she began to chat as if they were lifelong friends — another Amanda trait.

“Have you been to Surabaya before?” she asked as they walked out of the hotel.

“No.”

“Then forgive me for doing my tour-guide thing,” Fay said. “I took history in college and I’m proud of our city. It’s the second-largest city in Indonesia, with a metropolitan population that has to be six or seven million now, but it’s manageable, don’t you think? Not like Jakarta, with its horrible traffic and pollution. The name is more interesting too. Suro means ‘shark’ and baya means ‘crocodile.’ According to legend, the two animals battled here to see who would have dominance.”

“And who won?” Ava asked as they reached the car, an Audi TT.

“I have no idea,” Fay laughed.

“I have an Audi at home,” Ava said, lowering her head to climb into the sports car.

“What model?”

“An A6.”

“Ah,” Fay said, acknowledging a peer. “So today I thought we’d visit some museums, maybe lunch near Kalimas Harbour, and then go to the Arab quarter and see some of our beautiful mosques.”

“I’m completely in your hands.”

“About a month ago John had some visitors here from Boston and I took them on a tour. One of the sites was the Majapahit Hotel, but you don’t need to see that, do you.”

“It’s a great hotel.”

“Better than Raffles.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

Fay pulled away from the hotel and into light traffic. “The city was founded in the thirteenth century,” she said. “It was a sultanate originally, but then the Dutch came in the mid-1770s and stayed until the Japanese occupied it in 1942. Do you know much about colonial Asia?”

“My family is from Hong Kong.”

“There are big differences between the British and the Dutch. The British actually built institutions and infrastructure that were meant to last long after they were gone. The Dutch didn’t care about anything other than money. Everything they built in our country was designed for a single purpose: to maximize the outflow of goods and profits to Holland. I mean, when the British left India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, they also left behind legal, bureaucratic, and educational systems and some concept of parliamentary tradition. The Dutch were here for more than two hundred years and didn’t leave anything other than bad memories.”

Ava’s family had its own views on the British regime in Hong Kong, and they weren’t quite so rosy. She didn’t know enough about it, though, to start a debate. Instead she was struck by how much Fay reminded her of Amanda. “I’m sorry, I don’t meant to be rude, but I can’t help thinking that you have some Chinese blood in you,” she said.

“I do. My family has been in Java for more than three hundred years — the family name was Ho. There’s been a lot of intermarriage, but even until about fifty years ago Ho was a family name.”

“What happened then?”

“Suharto passed a law that forced all the Indo-Chinese to change their names to Indonesian ones. My family’s name became Supomo. When Sukarno replaced Suharto, the law was revoked but the name stuck, except for my older sister, who reclaimed our original family name. She’s a doctor here, Vivian Ho. She tried to talk me into changing mine back as well, except I had met John, and I liked the idea of being Fay Masterson,” she said. “Ava, are you married?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“And you’re such a pretty woman.”

“I’m fussy.”

Fay nodded. “Me too. I waited for John, and then I made John wait as well. He’d been spoiled by too many women too willing to sleep with him. I made him chase me.”

She stopped the car in front of what looked like a colonial mansion. “This is the House of Sampoerna. The building was originally an orphanage, built in the 1800s. It was bought in the 1930s by Liem Seeng Tee and he turned it into a cigarette factory.”

“Chinese?”

“Yes, that’s why I brought you here. Sampoerna is now the name the family uses, but I prefer to think of it as ‘the House of Tee.’ It’s a great story.”

The house was part museum, part art gallery, and still functioning as a cigarette factory. Ava’s initial interest was the amazing story of Liem Seeng Tee. After his mother died in China, his father took their three young children to Indonesia, only to die soon after their arrival. Tee was adopted, given a rudimentary education, and then sent out to work. With a bicycle as his only asset, he proceeded to parlay that into a cigarette empire that was now, having passed from the family’s hands to Philip Morris, the fifth largest in the world. Smarts, sacrifice, hard work, long-term vision, total commitment, maybe a bit of luck. Those were the reasons for his success, and the reasons why nearly every economy in Southeast Asia — Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand included — was controlled by the Chinese. The house was portrayed as a living, working monument to the company he had built, but to Ava’s mind it was all about Tee.

“Have you ever smoked?” Fay asked when they got to the factory and looked out on several hundred people, mainly women, hand-rolling cigarettes.

“No.”

“Me neither, but I find this interesting all the same. They make Dji Sam Soe cigarettes here. They’re the most expensive and prestigious of all the kretek cigarettes. As you can see, they’re handmade. We can actually make one here. Want to give it a go?”

“Sure, why not,” she said.

The woman who instructed them was more than just hands-on. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the blends that Tee had developed decades ago and still existed. Ava found the information she imparted on cloves particularly interesting. Who would have known that Zanzibar had the world’s best?

Ava dropped her crudely rolled attempt into a garbage can as they left the building. “That was fun. I just can’t help feeling a bit sorry that he felt he had to change his family name.”

“Well, at least he chose a good one. Sampoerna is the Indonesian word for ‘perfect.’”

“The House of Perfect . . . the Perfect House. How clever.”

They walked to the car. It was just past noon and the sun bore down on them. It had to be close to thirty degrees. Fay rolled down the windows while they waited for the air conditioning to kick in. “Is it always this hot?” Ava asked.

“Every day. I don’t think the temperature varies more than three or four degrees all year round. And we’re on the coast — it’s even warmer inland. The only variety we get in weather is rain. We’re still in the dry season, at the tail end of it actually. In the next few weeks the rains will kick in and then we’ll have the monsoons to contend with. I have to tell you, when John and I got married in Toronto, it was also September, and evidently fine weather for that time of year, but I almost froze to death. I can’t imagine how thin my blood is.”

Fay pulled out of the parking lot. “We’ll go down to the harbour. There’s a seafood restaurant there I really like.” She turned onto a road that was flanked on the right by a river. “The Kalimas — it runs down to the harbour and feeds into the Madura Strait. We’re still a major seaport, as you’ll see.”

Ava was quite taken with ports and thought she had seen just about every type, but Kalimas Harbour was spectacularly original. It was filled with pinisis — two-masted wooden sailing ships — and praus — double-hulled ships — their big, colourful sails rippling in the light breeze. These weren’t museum pieces; they were real, working ships that filled every berth and lined up three-deep waiting to load or unload an eclectic array of goods.

“This is wonderful,” Ava said as they drove past one with Kia sedans on its deck, another with boxes marked HEWLETT PACKARD, and yet more, holding cages stuffed with chickens, live cows, bags of cement, bags of rice.

Fay turned down a side street, drove the car halfway onto the sidewalk, and turned off the engine. They were directly in front of a restaurant that opened onto the street. “We’d better move fast if we want to get a table,” she said, leaping from the car.

They sat no more than a yard from the sidewalk, just inside the shade. “John said we’re going to X.O Suki tonight, so I thought it might be different for you to eat something local.”

“I’m easy,” said Ava.

“You want a beer?”

“White wine?”

“They won’t have it.”

“Then just a sparkling water.”

“Bintang, the local beer, is good.”

“No, thanks. Beer gives me headaches.”

“How about food — any allergies or anything?”

“Order what you want.”

Fay spoke in Indonesian to the waiter, then turned to Ava when he left. “John told me you’re an accountant.”

“I am,” Ava said, and repeated the story about the Hong Kong client.

“He’s a bit confused as to why you want to meet with Bank Linno. They’re not exactly first-class, you know.”

“My client gave me the name and asked me to check up on them. It isn’t my choice.”

Their drinks arrived in bottles with two frosted empty glasses and a plate of lime wedges. “John says you’re a friend of a friend.”

“That’s true — Johnny Yan.”

“He lives in Toronto, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re in Hong Kong?”

Ava saw that Fay was trying to connect the dots. She was bright, this one, and more alert than her husband. “I live in Toronto, but I have a client base that’s mainly Asian and I’m affiliated with a company in Hong Kong, so I travel there quite often.”

“I see.”

The waiter brought a plate of plain white long-grain rice piled high in the shape of a cone. “We can spice that up with the sauces that come with our meal,” Fay said. “I ordered fried fish, sardines with a tomato sambal, and shrimp in a hot coconut sauce.”

“Sambal means ‘sauce,’ doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, basically it does. And nearly all our sauces have some amount of coconut milk in them.”

“I’m not up to speed on Indonesian cooking.”

“Why would you be?”

“Exactly.”

The dishes came together, and talk ended as Fay spooned rice onto both of their plates, then placed the tiny whole, cleaned sardines right in the middle and coated them with tomato sambal.

Fay ate the way Ava did, quickly and efficiently, as if afraid to let the food get cold or the flavours dissipate. Halfway through the meal they finished their drinks and ordered another round.

When they were done, Ava sighed. “Those were brilliant choices.”

“Did you like your food?”

“Loved it.”

“How do you keep so thin?”

“Exercise and genes.”

“I’m just genes.” The sun had crept sideways and was now starting to encroach on their table. “Time to leave,” Fay said.

They hadn’t driven far before the streets began to narrow. Fay parked the car on the sidewalk again. “We’ll have to walk from here.”

“You’re not afraid of getting a ticket or being towed?”

Fay looked at her as if she had made a joke. “No, that won’t be a problem,” she said, opening her glove compartment. She pulled out a plastic sign and placed it on the dash. “That says, Don’t dare give this car a ticket.” And then she took out two scarves. “Let’s walk.”

Whatever breeze there was in the narrow street was blowing in their direction, and Ava began to pick up faint aromas. She looked around and couldn’t see their origin. Then Fay took a hard right and they were on a street lined on either side with shops and stalls. “The Arab quarter,” she said.

Fay led Ava through the warren, past shops selling fruit, pistachios, dates, sultanas, rugs, prayer beads, an array of spices, roast lamb, skewered chicken sizzling on hotplates, jewellery. Ava wanted to loiter, maybe shop a little. Fay kept walking. After two more turns they entered a narrow alley and the sky disappeared. The passageway was covered, like a souk in Marrakech, hung about with bright cloths, batiks, and beads in a hundred brilliant colours. Fay handed Ava a scarf. “Here we need to cover our heads so as not to draw attention.”

Ava followed her example and tucked in behind her as the crowd began to thicken, forcing them to walk in single file. They shuffled along until Fay moved to one side. Ava found herself in an open courtyard, a mosque in front of them.

“This is the Ampel Mosque. It’s the oldest and most sacred mosque in Java.”

To Ava’s eye it didn’t look any different from most of the other mosques she had seen, but she bit her tongue. What was different were the gardens to the side, filled with low frangipani trees and several knots of worshippers prostrate on the ground outside the mosque.

“Those are pilgrims who come to worship Sunan Ampel,” Fay said, noting Ava’s interest. “He was one of the nine founders of Islam in Java, and he built this mosque. When he died in 1481, he was buried here. They’re praying at his grave.”

“Most religion is lost on me,” said Ava.

Fay glanced quickly in her direction. “Don’t say that too loudly here.”

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”

“Do you want to go into the mosque?”

“I’d rather not.”

Fay turned. “Then let’s walk back to the car. I have some shopping to do on the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

As they walked away, Ava said, “I hope I didn’t offend you. You’re Muslim, correct?”

“Notionally.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that my family is in business and that one of my many dead relatives decided decades ago that it was easier to do business as a Muslim. None of us actually practise the religion.”

“I’m the same kind of Catholic.”

“In name only?”

“Exactly.”

It was a long, slow journey back to the car. Fay was at the market for fruit and pepper, and every third vendor seemed to be selling one or the other. While Fay haggled, Ava slipped into some clothing and jewellery shops. By the time they got back to the car, Fay had two bags filled with oranges, papayas, and mangos. Ava had twenty-two-karat gold hoop earrings for her mother and Maria, and sarongs in various colours and sizes for Mimi, Marian, and her nieces.

Fay looked at her watch. “We need to get you back to the hotel soon if we’re to have time to shower and get dressed for dinner.”

“I’m ready to go if you are.”

“Just one more stop, I think.”

They drove through more of old Surabaya, Ava sensing the river’s presence the entire way, to what was obviously the city’s Chinatown. “My grandfather used to bring me here when I was a little girl,” Fay said as she parked the car, this time almost completely on the sidewalk.

They walked past noodle shops, herbal stores with their baskets of dried twigs, restaurants with barbecued pigs hanging in the window. Ava could have been in Hong Kong, or in downtown Toronto. Fay turned into a narrow alleyway. Ava followed, right into a cloud of incense.

At the end of the alley stood a traditional Chinese temple, fronted by bronze statues and altars meant for worship. There were as many people there as had been at the mosque. They kneeled and bowed in front of the statues and placed fruit on the altars, the joss sticks held between their palms leaching thin coils of sweet smoke. There was a line of candles on either side of the alleyway, each candle about three metres high. “They light those at night,” Fay said. “It lends even more of an aura to the place.”

“What is this temple called?”

“Kong Co Kong Tik Cun Ong.”

Ava looked at the separate groups of worshippers. “Why are there so many altars?”

“My grandfather used to pray at the one on the left — it’s Confucian. The one in the middle is Buddhist and the one on the right is for Taoists. I guess it’s a multi-denominational temple,” Fay said.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Well, here it is.”

“Do you ever pray here?”

“Yes. I can’t help myself; it’s like I’m reconnecting with my grandfather.”

There were stands to the left of the temple selling various fruits and joss sticks. Ava left Fay and walked over to them. She bought an orange and four joss sticks, which she had the vendor light. When she returned, Fay had moved to the Confucian altar, her head bowed in prayer.

Ava went to the Taoist one and placed the orange at the base of the statue. She slipped the sticks between her palms, the smoke from the incense rising towards her face. Head bowed, rocking ever so slightly, she began to pray. She prayed for her mother and her father. She prayed for her sister and her nieces. She prayed for Mimi and Derek and their unborn child. She prayed for Maria. She prayed for all of her half-siblings. And then she prayed for Uncle. As she did, tears began to roll down her cheeks. If there is a god, any god — Taoist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu — please look after Uncle, she prayed.

She wasn’t sure how long she had stood in front of the altar, but if it weren’t for the gentle tap on her shoulder from Fay, the joss sticks might have burned their way into her flesh. They walked in silence back to the car, each lost in her own thoughts.

Fay was the first to speak on the way back to the hotel. “We don’t overdress for dinner here, but you’ll need to change.”

Ava smiled, relieved that Fay had not asked about her tears. “I have some linen slacks and a dress shirt.”

“Perfect.”

“What time?”

“We’ll pick you up at the hotel around six.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Ava felt Fay looking sideways at her. “Is anything wrong?”

“No,” Fay said. “There’s just something I need to say.”

“And what’s that?”

“Andy Cameron . . . he’s a bit of a pig.”

“So John told me last night,” Ava said, wondering why it was so important to tell her.

“He’s going to hit on you for sure. He can’t help himself.”

“I can handle it.”

Fay gave her a double take. “I had to tell you anyway. I’ve heard things that I don’t like. He can get out of hand, it seems.”

“He won’t get close enough to try.”

“I’m not trying to put a damper on the evening. I’m sure we’ll have a good time, and he can be fun. It’s just that I don’t want to see you put in an awkward position.”

“Enough said, Fay. I do understand.”

“Just be careful.”