mother retreating into a world filled with hymns and prayer. Nuci married early, withdrew into a life smothered by domesticity and reconciled herself to life in Benteng Karang village; her childhood dreams now mists from the past.
‘Careful you don’t burn my best shirt,’ her husband, Lauren’s voice jolted Nuci from her brief reverie. Ignoring the interruption, she placed the charcoal-fired iron to one side then placed the white shirt on a homemade wire hanger.
‘I’d best get ready,’ she murmured lethargically, her eyes dropping to the traditional meat dish she had spent the early hours preparing. ‘We can have the patita before leaving.’
‘Think I’ll save my appetite for some more of Grace’s lalampa,’ Lauren said, immediately wishing he could retract the words.
Nuci’s face clouded, piqued from the last visit to Grace Matuanakotta’s home to finalize wedding plans between the two families. Nuci still smarted from Lauren’s overly gracious servings of the steamed rice finger dish that Grace had prepared. Nuci flared, hands on hips, ‘It’s only migrant street-vendor food…and if you prefer that Minahasa woman’s cooking to mine then why not just say so?’ She stormed from the kitchen before her husband could defend himself, mumbling as she bustled down the hallway.
Nuci’s mercurial mood swing had been triggered more by her husband’s wish for their daughter to marry within the pela gandung, a centuries’ old, Moluccan inter-village alliance social-bond structure that was based on an idiom of kinship, than Lauren’s penchant for the banana-leaf-wrapped delicacy. Pela villagers exchanged mutually binding oaths and had been known to drink one another’s blood at the conclusion of a pact. Before Javanese migrants had inundated the province, Moluccan Christians and Muslims had lived in relative harmony, the tranquility of interfaith relations protected by the pela alliance system. Under pela tradition, a village of one faith was “twinned” with a village of the other, with both charged to defend the others interests in the event of conflict.
Intermarriage between members of pela-tied villages was taboo, Nuci’s husband having successfully arranged for an exception arguing that Grace Matuanakotta had migrated into the area from Minahasa in the north, and her son could therefore be considered outside the pela constraints. Although Nuci sympathized with her daughter, accepting that her choices were severely limited due to the increasing number of pela villages listed within their fold, Nuci was obstinately against the match – fearful that Grace’s contumacious son Johanis, whose rebellious pursuits had placed him directly in the local authorities’ sights, was destined for tragedy.
At first, the village elders had been unreceptive to Lauren’s pleas on behalf of Lisa, arguing that it was a person’s village affiliation that determined with whom a person is pela, as reckoned patrilineally. Eventually, because Grace was now widowed and the elders harbored a desire to see the end of her son’s presence in their village the elders acquiesced, and the marriage plans moved forward – the meeting between the two families that day scheduled to finalize the wedding arrangements.
* * * *
Johanis Matuanakotta gazed indifferently at his fiancée’s family. ‘I still want the wedding to be held at the Marantha Church.’
Lisa tensed, her eyes fell from her mother’s, dropping sub-serviently to her lap.
‘We cannot afford such luxury,’ Nuci argued. ‘If you insist, then you will have to meet that expense yourself.’
Johanis smiled insolently. ‘My Coker friends will contribute.’ Then, with a contemptuous look at his in-laws-to-be, ‘and we wouldn’t want to disappoint the Cokers, would we?’
Intimidated by the not-so-masked innuendo, Nuci and Laurens exchanged anxious looks. The Cokers, the street name for the delinquent Ambonese Cowok Kristen, or Christian Boys, used the Marantha Protestant church as their headquarters. Rumor had it that they were closely associated with other Moluccan gangs in Jakarta where they dominated the shopping centers and gambling dens – and had access to the Palace. ‘It’s settled then,’ Johanis announced with youthful arrogance, the decision now a fait accompli. He pushed a plate in Laurens’ direction.
‘Now, why don’t you have some more of my mother’s lalampa?’
Malaysia – Kelantan
Mohamed Aziz Derashid looked out across the verdant sawah, the paddy fields stretching all the way across this northern Malaysian state of Kelantan to the southern Thai border, where towering cumulus clouds stacked the horizon. Sensing that weather conditions would imminently terminate the satellite conversation the Malaysian strained to capture Mohammed Atef ’s drifting words, Derashid’s passive understanding of French exacerbating the problem.
‘Hambali’s visitor… from the Philippines… should be there… by now.’ With the atmospheric interference the al-Qaeda military commander’s voice sounded more strained than usual.
‘Ramzi?’ Mohamed Aziz Derashid was surprised.
‘This is an open line,’ Atef warned. Aware of foreign intelligence agencies’ sophisticated monitoring systems, their conversation was deliberately ambiguous.
‘No,’ Osama’s trusted lieutenant added, ‘from… further south.’ Derashid guessed that Atef was referring to the young Abu Sayyaf leader Abdurajak Janjalani who had recently established dialogue with al-Qaeda via Ramzi Yousef, in Manila.
‘Then they’re about to make their move?’ Derashid was pleased that Atef was keeping him informed.
‘Insha Allah,’ came the reply.
Derashid replaced the receiver and beckoned to his personal assistant standing courteously out of earshot at the far end of the bungalow’s veranda. ‘Get the plane ready,’ was all Derashid said; his PA disappearing as would a ghost in sunlight to ensure that the crew and aircraft were placed on standby. Alone, Derashid leaned back in the heavily cushioned rattan chair and absorbed the natural beauty of the terraced landscape below, the steep hillside contoured to accommodate never-ending fields of rice, shaped to enable the intricate irrigation system to flow harmoniously. The isolated country retreat was seven hours by car north of Kuala Lumpur’s forest-fire-polluted atmosphere and he filled his lungs with country air and lay quietly, thinking, contemplating his relationship with those with whom he shared similar ideologies.
* * * *
Derashid was the son of a wealthy Malay Datuk, his father’s title having been acquired through substantial donations to the local state government officials. The Datuk was a prominent player in developing the Malaysian economy, the entrepreneur’s considerable holdings and wealth continuing to swell over the years, the consequence of the successful completion of a string of major infrastructure projects won through closed-door tenders. Bulan Sabit Holdings Sdn Bhd had then branched out into the resources sector, the group’s subsidiaries growing expo-nentially with Malaysia’s energy development boom.
An only child, Derashid had enjoyed an upbringing surrounded by wealth and envy, his ethnic heritage as a Malay bumi putera or indigene, a point of considerable pride.
Immersed at an early age in the teachings contained in the Koran, Derashid evolved into a devotee of Islam’s more fundamentalist leanings, his commitment to the purist interpretations slowly creating an inner conflict and challenges he could not share with his father. Educated in England where he earned degrees in commerce and engineering, the Malaysian
