Of course I told her that what else have we been doing, honey?

This is a dreadful blow. He wants me to call her straight away and tell her that there has been no s.e.x. I will not do it.

First of all it is three o'clock in the morning.

She will not be sleeping.

You may be used to telling these big lies to people, Fajar, but I am not. Get the h.e.l.l off me anyway.

But he doesn't move. He runs his hand down the side of my leg and strokes my foot.

Tell her, Vic. Please.

What about her? Have you been having s.e.x with her?

No. Vic. No she is Muslim woman. Her father is very strict. It is impossible.

Have you kissed her?

Sometimes.

I close my eyes. I don't want to watch him see the hurt in my face and I am suddenly weary and want him gone.

Go home. Turn off your phone for two days. Tell your mother you must not be disturbed by any visitors. After two days you call Aryanti and ask to meet. Tell her I am lying about the s.e.x because I am jealous and I want to make her break with you.

He gathers his things.

I'm sorry, Vic.

It's too late for sorry.

Let me marry her. Give us some time, and then we can be together again. When I am a married man, there is n.o.body who can tell me what to do. I will always come back to you, Vic.

Now you really have gone crazy. Did you tell Aryanti that part of the plan, Fajar?

Of course not.

Then you have no right to marry her.

After he had gone I thought back to him introducing me to his family, the day I went to check on his new business. The one I paid for with the very small savings that I had. It is a little stall where he can sell coffee and fried snacks. I bought him the stove and the shopfront and some starting credit, and gave him money for the bribe to pay the street mafia. It is a very humble affair, but the whole family came out to meet me and say thank you. I had visited just a week ago, just to say h.e.l.lo, and had been introduced to Aryanti, Fajar's fiancee, who had been there, although he had told me she was his sister a pet.i.te young woman with curly hair and no headscarf, wearing pink. I remember shaking her hand, and also that Fajar had been eager to get me out of there. I saw her again a few days later, when I was driving past the warung in a taxi. It was sunset, the time when people venture outside to cool down and gossip. She was with Fajar and many of the family, who were proudly sitting together and looking out from the little wooden shop facing the street, bathed in a soft orange glow, destined for new greatness.

This morning, after receiving another seventy-nine missed calls from Aryanti, I declared war.

STOP CALLING ME YOU STUPID GIRL. GET THE f.u.c.k OFF MY PHONE.

YOU f.u.c.k OFF TOO VIC. I VERY VERY HATE YOU.

We went back and forwards for a while until I switched off my phone. I have no intention of switching it back on until after the weekend.

It isn't too hard being nasty to this girl I know she is the innocent victim of Fajar's lies but I want to hunt her down and slap her as hard as I can. It seems we are more than happy to hate each other instead of him.

7 November The man himself has returned after a week, as agreed. He has spent his time telling lies and making promises and wheedling his way back into Aryanti's heart. The first thing he did was push me down onto the sofa and take off my clothes. I wasn't surprised and did not resist.

22 November The stolen visits have been going on for a few weeks and each time he has asked me the same thing to meet with him and Aryanti and to convince her that we have not had s.e.x. Each time I have refused. He doesn't know that Aryanti and I have already met.

She had asked me to a cafe with the express purpose of warning me off Fajar. I was not going to fight for him, but I didn't plan to tell her that.

I recognised her as soon as I got to the cafe. She was wearing the same pink s.h.i.+rt I had seen her in on the day we had met at the warung. I had chosen the cafe, for privacy, instead of a tea shop, where anybody could see us, but she looked like she wasn't used to being in a place like that. I ordered coffee and, before it arrived, she got straight to the point.

I want you to promise never to see Fajar again, she said.

No, I replied. For some reason I wanted to laugh. If you want promises, get them from Fajar. I don't owe you anything. I don't even know you.

We are getting married soon.

Oh that's wonderful. Congratulations. Can I see the ring?

The dainty little girl's eyes narrowed. I knew Fajar would try to hold off as long as he could. There was no ring.

Dasar pelacur murahan! She spat.

Even with my terrible Indonesian, I could tell that she spoke roughly, and did not enjoy the same educated status as my students. She sat gracefully enough, but her accent was strong and flat and there was a hunted, defensive look on her pretty face. I had never read this roughness in Fajar, but they were obviously from the same cla.s.s, the same patch of urban village. Perhaps the difference was from his brief sojourn at boarding school, and his quaint English. Aryanti's English was poor but functional.

I don't know why you would call me a wh.o.r.e. Which one of us has been having s.e.x and taking money? Me or your handsome virgin' Fajar?

You didn't do s.e.x with him, Vic. He said that is just a lie, for you to try to make us finished.

I told him to tell you that. He is not clever enough to think of that by himself!

Vic, I don't believe you you are a liar.

Why do you want to marry a man who does not love you?

But she wouldn't consider this. I was the problem in her eyes, not Fajar.

Just promise that you will never see Fajar again, she said.

I could find it in my heart to be very sorry for this young woman, but in the face of her intense hatred, it was hard to show it. Still, I did want her to realise that it would be just the beginning for her with Fajar. I know for sure he will betray her and hurt her again and again, maybe even more than he has hurt me.

Aryanti I have already told you there will be no promises from me. There are many more women in the world. Are you going to get them all to promise to keep away from Fajar?

I could see our interview would quickly be coming to a close, and had not gone according to Aryanti's script.

You will be very sorry, Vic, if I have to see dukun to put a spell on you!

Your magic doesn't work on bules, I replied scornfully, and I am not afraid of it. You can get his family to make him marry you, but you can't make him love you, not by any magic.

Do you mean the way he loves you, Vic? she replied. He loves you so much he going to marry me.

She got up, turned on her heel and left me to pay the bill. The one thing you could always count on in this place. They would always leave you to pay the bill.

28 November Early this morning he knocked on the door. He had come to take me to work and I was surprised and pleased because I had missed him. He had coffee while I got ready. He was quieter than usual and I asked him what was wrong, but he just shook his head and said: No. Nothing.

We drove the back way to work, like fugitives, across the chalky vacant lot and then through very narrow streets past people I had not seen before, who stared without smiling as we brushed past them. The sun was striking the tin roofs and traffic was already heaving and spitting out poison. At the end of the back entrance he dropped me off still troubled and not meeting my gaze. I was preparing to shake it out of him, but then had the feeling that whatever he had to tell me would make it too hard to go to work. Instead, I asked him if he needed any money. He almost took what I held out to him, but then caught himself and refused.

Goodbye, Vic.

12 December I had arranged to call him on the weekend. But the weekend came and he didn't answer one call. For two weeks he has not picked up the phone or returned any messages.

My teaching contract will be finished in a few weeks, and I have decided not to renew to spend next year somewhere far away from this maddening treacherous city, with its eyes that follow you everywhere, its suffocating skies and its stifling ideas. Yesterday I was waiting for the lift when three of my colleagues arrived in a cloud of stale cigarette smoke. The teacher with the acne scars greeted me with: Have you caught a dose of the clap from your ojek driver yet?

I kept my face completely still.

No. He doesn't have the clap. He is a mighty fine root though.

Ah ha ha ha.

Back in the cool, damp house I am not so tough. The nights are miserable and beyond lonely. I can't even tell him that I am leaving. And although I am furious, I am still worried because at least I have the freedom to leave. Not him he will have a child one day, before he is ready, and then another one, and he will be stuck here, scratching in the dust for the chance to be somebody's servant. I do not have enough money to make sure that he will not sink back into the crippling, humiliating poverty that effaces and blames the self. Where less than mediocre men will not shake hands with him. I do not have enough to protect him. I do not even really have enough to protect myself. And then why should I care? I remind myself. Why should I care about this man who has left me still shocked and bleeding to be with another woman on the money I have given him?

12 January Over the last few weeks I have been walking in the late afternoons in one or another of the dowdy long skirts I have bought, with someone else's idea of modesty and decency in mind. On today's walk, I receive a text message from Aryanti.

HOW ARE YOU, YOU PEREK PROSt.i.tUTE? WHEN YOU GOING BACK TO YOU COUNTRY? ARE YOU MISSING FAJAR? HE IS MY HUSBAND NOW WE HAVE DONE RING CEREMONY TOGETHER.

The ring ceremony is not the same thing as the wedding, but it is the next best thing. She must have made him do it straight away to be sure he wouldn't wander off again. I think a while before answering, remembering the words of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh whose bible I read one winter, holed up in a caravan in the bush visiting my hippy friends: When someone hits you, you should not turn the other cheek you should hit them back twice as hard.

To hit back twice as hard is probably not going to be possible in this case. In the end I come up with this: CONGRATULATIONS. I HOPE YOU ENJOY HIS BODY AS MUCH AS I HAVE.

After this, I half expect the male members of both clans battering down my door, but as Fajar had told her I had moved out of those apartments, I am probably safe. Besides, I am too angry to be really afraid. I have come to understand that for Fajar I no longer exist. I have been floating around like a ghost looking for answers. But there are no answers. I have simply been erased.

13 January It seems I underestimated the power of a d.a.m.n good insult. She must have broken down and shown him the message because he is on the phone, screaming with rage.

Where are you, Vic? I want to strike you now!

Why don't you come over and try to touch me? I'll have the street security carry you off like an ant!

Alright, Vic, if you come to my area ever again my brothers will beat you!

I'm trying to think of the worst thing I can say to a Muslim.

You pig-faced dog! Are you crazy? Why would I come and walk around in your s.h.i.+tty street!?

We do bit more screaming at each other until one of us hangs up.

He'll be all worked up into kicking a wall, I think with satisfaction. I hope he breaks his d.a.m.n foot!

16 January The last two days before leaving have been maddeningly slow. I had things to tie up, so I took a few trips to various places in the suburb I was living in. I was happy to walk, rather than negotiate with any person in broken Indonesian or English. A young man followed me on a motorbike and gestured to me to get on. I shook my head and said no' but he followed me to the bank anyway. When I came back out of the building he was still waiting there.

No I said. No thank you. In English and Bahasa.

But he followed me back to my house at a couple of lengths behind, looking hopeful and speeding up every time I looked around. He was there again twenty minutes later when I emerged to go to the restaurant. This time I said no' and looked him right in the eye and held my hand straight out like a stop sign. He scratched his head and then drove up closer and after a moment's consideration beeped his horn in my face. The short high screech pierced straight through my eardrums and mentally I curled up into a ball and clenched my fists. The street turned quiet and I looked at him for a second before erupting into white rage.

You motherf.u.c.king ... Get out of my ... you G.o.ddanmed ... get the ... I'm gonna ... You wouldn't ...

I couldn't stop. He scooted across the street in dismay to his friends who were doubled up laughing and screeching like parrots. I walked on to the restaurant and returned home glaring all the way and holding onto my plastic bag of soup.

At four o'clock this morning, on the way to the airport, I sent a text message to Fajar and he actually called back.

Come and say good bye, I asked him. But he refused.

Just forget about me, his voice was hoa.r.s.e. I am a bad man, Vic. Just forget about me.

When I got on the plane, I thought about what the beautiful Hollywood movie star that I am not might do at this point in time. She would take her seat and gaze tearfully out the window, only to see her crazed lover, wearing a crushed suit and with tousled hair and a five o'clock shadow, sprinting along the runway, trying to stop the plane from taking off. Or she might fasten her seatbelt with a depressing, final click and then a deep, familiar voice would interrupt her reverie with: Excuse me. Is this seat taken?

Instead, nothing happened. A rush of loneliness came slicing at me as I watched people packing their bags and boxes away and strapping in. I tried not to correct the airline steward's English in my head as we started moving slowly and then faster and faster, and finally the ground dropped away. We rose like a glorious phoenix out of the brown stink, leaving all those little people on the ground to their battle against the twin brother jinn of corruption and poverty. For a moment I could almost see them reclining in the clouds, clad in rose-pink pantaloons with silver daggers at their belts, calling to each other in big, deep voices that rolled like thunder across the sky.

Footnotes.

Chapter 2.

1 balap = illegal street racing 2 biji = b.a.l.l.s/t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, slang 3 telinga = ears

Chapter 3.

1 Proverb. Loosely, throwing a stone but hiding the hand' pa.s.sing the blame onto someone or something else 2 warung = stall 3 kretek = clove cigarettes

Chapter 4.