The Land of Gold

The Land of Gold

If an island paradise existed anywhere, it was surely in the Indonesian island of Mapura, where Peter Henshall joins the first Europeans to enter a country abandoned by the Dutch some thirty years before.

Henshall has no time for his fellow explorers, but the alluring figure of Hartini Sujono, a local nightclub singer, is sufficient to draw him on into the web of danger and deceit. Mapura is not the land of gold, she tells him, but the land of shadows, and gradually the consequences of past horrors begin to emerge: the brutal Japanese invasion, and the blood-letting of the 1965 abortive communist coup, in which thousands perished throughout the archipelago. Deep in the interior lies the forbidding mine of Tambang Surga, where a large gold consignment lies buried in underground workings. His associates help, confuse and hinder Henshall in his attempts to mount a proper search for the lost millions. Even Hartini, he comes to realize, is no less a shadow puppet controlled by outside forces than Henshall himself becomes.

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CHAPTER ONE (Excerpt)

'Just a thought', he said, watching her carefully.

The look was unnerving. 'All this amateur psychology comes from reading?' she said at last. 'Long hours on your own, Mr Henshall?'

'I try to stay abreast of events. To understand this Suvarnabhumi of yours.'

'This what?'

'So the old Hindu kingdoms called it.'

'We call it the land of shadows, Mr Henshall. Not the land of gold.'

'Do you now?' he said. 'Such a beautiful place, and all you think of is shadow puppets, the other side of life.'

'Is there some agenda we're following?' She put the evening-bag down, and frowned at him.

'I'd like to know how I could be of service to you.'

'To me, Hartini Sujono?' She seemed amused, but clicked the bag shut, as though excluding him. 'Well, if you're going to Australia. You are, aren't you?'

'I might get a job here.'

'You could take a parcel out for me. I can't take it myself, and it's got to be someone I trust. Would you do that?'

'Just a parcel?'

'It won't weigh you down.'

He glanced at her quickly, and caught a sad earnestness as the gaze settled and moved on. 'Not drugs or anything?' he said.

'A manuscript. Just a few hundred pages.'

'Why don't you carry it out yourself?'

'Because I don't have a passport. And anyway they'd search me and take it away.' She shrugged . 'Listen, I'm an undesirable. I did have a passport, with my husband. We travelled a lot: to the States, to Holland, performing. It was a good combination. For a time we were very popular. Are you following me?'

'Yes, your English is much too good to have been learnt here.'

'I went to school in England, but that's not the point. We were in Jakarta the time of the Sukarno plot. Not communists, just socialist sympathizers, but it didn't make any difference. He was a little man, half Chinese, and not strong. He should have run as I did, or asked for their authority, but he didn't. I hid in the garden while they took him away.'

'Someone had to work for his release.'

'They shot him at the station, or on the way. Just lined him up, with all the others. The thousands and thousands of them.'

Henshall's look narrowed. 'So,' he said, half knowing the answer, 'what's the manuscript about?'

'The facts. We want people to know what happened.'

'Who's the we?'

'Will you help us do that?'

He stared into the distance, looked at the woman again, and said calmly, 'No doubt a mistake, but for you, Hartini Sujono, I will.'

'You are a good young man', she said, taking his hand for a moment. 'Now you can ask me to dance.'