Mountain of Fire Page 6

  “Pak Eko has returned from the Tapak Bisu.”

  But no one was prepared for the sight of the old man coming down the mountain and entering the town square along with two very dirty children in tow, close to 3am in the morning. Ibu, who was waiting with Ayah in the town square, yelped in shock when she saw her two children.

  Pak Eko walked in and presented the children. “They have something to tell you.”

  They told their parents and the villagers everything. How Agus had found the secret kingdom and how Fitri had put two and two together from the pamphlet. But she left out everything about the dreams, the bit about being Spirit Keepers, and what Taufan had said about their grandmother. That was a private conversation for her parents.

  When they got to the part where Taufan had threatened the children, Ibu gave out a loud cry and hid her face in her hands, crying softly. Ayah, ashen-faced, reached out and clutched someone’s shoulder as if he suddenly needed help standing.

  “Where is this man now? This Taufan,” asked one of the villagers.

  “The polisi is looking for him. He can’t go far. He has been hurt in the avalanche,” Pak Eko spoke up. “The village is safe from him... but not from the Merapi.”

  Instant chatter broke out from the group. The old man lifted his hands, asking for silence. He still had an important announcement to make. “We have paid our respects to the Merapi but it is time to listen to the government. We must evacuate the village and let the Merapi calm down.”

  Pak Irlandy got into such a tizzy when he heard that they had to leave the village that he had a coughing fit and had to be carried home.

  “But what about the kingdom? And the treasure?” asked another villager.

  “There is nothing we can do about that now. These children know the location and it will still be there when we return – we can hope. We leave in the morning.” Pak Eko dismissed the group.

  As the people slowly scattered and went back to their homes, an exhausted Fitri managed to catch a stray comment from a passing villager. “It is that Petuluk blood. I knew there would be trouble one day. Attracting all kinds of thugs into our village.”

  “Yes, and the old man insisted on going up alone. I mean, had we been there, maybe we could have helped out with this Taufan fellow. I wonder why he did that?” responded another man.

  As she walked back to her house, bone-weary, Fitri realised suddenly why Pak Eko had not allowed the group to go up to the mountain with him. He had known about the cave and had known that the villagers would see it. That smell of menthol cigarettes that day in the mountain had been Pak Eko after all. He had put himself in danger just to prevent Agus’ cave from being discovered.

  Agus had been right. He was an amazing man.

  ELEVEN : THE EVACUATION

  LINES of buses waited at the village entrance the next morning. Every home had been asked to pack just a few necessary belongings to take along to the camp. It was sad and heart-wrenching to leave their homes. But there was no choice in the matter. Pak Andersen had returned to the village with the news that the Merapi’s danger was now at level four – the highest volcano alert level in Indonesia.

  Families that had domestic animals, goats and cows turned them loose in the forest, hoping that they would not starve – and survive whatever was coming.

  Fitri and Agus had reluctantly boarded a bus. Together with their parents and other villagers, they arrived at makeshift shelters provided by the government.

  And so for over a month, the village folks lived in these large structures made out of bamboo, shared by more than one family. Everyone hated it. People longed to go back to their homes. Sometimes a few men would go back to the village to check whether their rice crops were okay and whether their animals were still alive.

  But the discomfort of being in a strange place was partly overcome by the big news about the secret kingdom. A strange kingdom, destroyed by the Merapi’s eruption thousands of years ago, had been found near their village! A team arrived from the National Museum and spoke to the children. The two had to repeat the story again and again.

  “So you just saw the crack in the earth and went in?” asked one of the archaeologists from the museum.

  “Yes, I could see the steps leading down,” replied Agus.

  “Did you use any tools to scrape the Ganesha statue’s head?” asked another person worriedly. “You could have damaged it.”

  “No, we just used our bare hands to uncover enough to make out the long trunk. The entire body is still buried in the ground,” answered Agus, watching the crowd – desperately trying to listen in from the window – from the corner of his eye.

  “Do you have ANY idea, kid, the importance of what you have discovered? People have been looking for this civilisation for years!”

  Agus grinned gleefully.

  He was a hero. People who had never spoken to him now called out to him and patted him on the back.

  One day, he was sitting around watching some boys make a human pyramid outside his hut, feeling left out as usual.

  Suddenly one of the older boys called out to him, “Hey, Agus! Do you want to help? You are small enough to climb to the top.”

  Agus stared at the boy, shocked, excited and pleased beyond words. They had never included him in their games before.

  They had never called him by his name before.

  He nodded excitedly.

  “Go, Agus, go!” yelled out Reza, the boy who had terrorised Fitri at the watchtower not long ago.

  Fitri and her mother watched from the steps of the makeshift hut. They clapped and laughed as Agus clambered to the top.

  Fitri looked at her mother’s relaxed face and decided she would bring up the conversation about her grandmother. She had never discussed it with her. The children and Pak Eko, in some sort of silent agreement, had left out all references to Priestess Aini in their story about Taufan that night. The villagers knew that Taufan was Petuluk, but they had not heard a word about how their grandmother was now an important priestess in the tribe.

  She waited till Agus got back, took a deep breath, and told her mother everything.

  “What does your Ibu have to do with all of this?” asked Fitri.

  Ibu sighed. She knew she would have to tell her children one day. Perhaps the time had come. Ibu went to her tiny bundle of things she had taken with her when leaving the house, and took out a diary.

  The pages were faded, worn with age, but the writing was clear, written in a strong hand.

  “This was written by your grandmother. My father gave it to me when I was much older. She wrote everything in this diary during the time she was in our village, after leaving her tribe.”

  “How old were you, Ibu, when she left and went back?” asked Agus.

  “Six,” Ibu said. “I barely remember her.”

  Agus tried to picture what it would be like if his mother left them. He decided he did not want to think about that at all.

  Ibu continued, “She wrote about why she left her people and why she went back. She could not stay away. She missed her people too much. She could not adjust to the way of life here. The Petuluk, you know, don’t even have electricity. Besides, she felt... different. Like she had to do something back home. Something she was needed for.”

  Ibu paused, staring at the pages.

  “The last few entries are about the two of you,” Ibu said. “She talks of two grandchildren. The girl would be like her, would have her ability to connect with nature, to understand things. The boy would have something wrong with him but be gifted with a special connection with the Merapi and be ‘quick-footed’ on its slopes. Then she writes that one day, the two of you would find something ‘valuable’ and bring good fortune to the village.”

  “How could she possibly know that, Ibu?” Fitri asked.

  “Well... she had a strange gift, my father said. She always seemed to know things. The Petuluk people are often like that. That’s why people think they are strange. I think people in ou
r village must have thought that too. Maybe that’s why she could not fit in and didn’t like it.”

  Fitri was quiet. She still hadn’t told her mother about the dreams, but now was the time. The old woman she had seen sitting under the tree in her dream – that must have been her grandmother. She told her mother everything from the beginning, the twirling under the tree, the “monster” chasing her and the eruption.

  Ibu listened quietly, but did not seem very surprised. “Yes, the tree fits,” she said thoughtfully.

  “What do you mean?” Fitri asked. “Is it a particular tree I was dreaming about?” “I’m not sure. But the banyan is a sacred tree for our people. I think it is special for the Petuluk also. I have heard some stories about a special place in the mountains where the priests go to understand things. But no one is sure, because no one has actually been there.”

  Fitri asked the question she had been waiting to ask, “Will we ever meet her?”

  Ibu shook her head. “The tribe is isolated and I hear from Pak Eko that your grandmother is now a priestess. That is a very important position in the tribe and it is a great honour for a woman to get it. I would love to see her again but I don’t think we ever will.”

  Agus ran and gave his mother a big hug. She affectionately tugged his hair.

  Fitri said, “Pak Eko knew about all of this, Ibu. He knew I’ve been having these dreams. He asked Agus and I if we wanted to be the Guardians of the Merapi.”

  “Guardians of the Merapi, good gracious!”

  But before Ibu could say anything else, Ayah walked into the hut with Pak Andersen and another man. It turned out that this man was the bule’s surgeon friend from Jakarta and had come to have a look at Agus’ lip.

  They had a long conversation about Agus. Fitri was not in the room, but she could see from the open window that her mother was crying. But her face looked happy. She soon found out why.

  Agus was grinning and came leaping out of the room. “Fitri, my lip can be fixed! Then I will be able to talk properly.” He continued softly, “I think even Ayah is crying a little, but he is trying not to show it.”

  Fitri jumped up and down, clapping her hands gleefully. “That’s awesome, Agus! Dokters can do that? That’s really amazing!”

  “Yes! And now they are talking about the money. Something about a reward from the museum.”

  “Really? What are they saying?”

  Agus shrugged. “I don’t know but it looks like the village might get something – something called kompensasi,” he pronounced the word with difficulty. “Then they sent me out of the room, so I don’t know what’s being said.”

  He paused. “Fitri, things are not okay with the Merapi. I think that’s what they are talking about.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Agus. Don’t think about it now. Ibu and Ayah will figure it out. The important thing is that your lip will be fixed!” Fitri said.

  “That is true,” said Agus, grinning.

  The day ended wonderfully with a small celebration about Agus’ lip and the kompensasi as news spread across the refugee camp. The village was going to get a reward! A compensation for finding the lost kingdom!

  But the best day for Fitri and her family turned into the worst for the village. That night, the Merapi finally erupted.

  TWELVE : THE ERUPTION

  WHEN the news first came in, it was late and people were just about settling down on their mattresses for the night. But a volcano erupting is not a silent event. Everyone for miles around heard it before the news came on the radio.

  Agus’ new friends yelled outside his hut, “Come on, Agus. We are going to climb the trees and see!”

  Not one person slept that night. The children watched in horror, hypnotised by the crater of the volcano, growing red in the distance. Every time the volcano rumbled and belched out smoke, the kids screamed in excitement. The grown-ups, huddled around the radio trying to listen in, yelled at them to be quiet.

  Smoke could be seen for miles around. But the worst effect was the awful smell. The smell of sulphur – of rotten eggs – was everywhere and some of the older people in the refugee camp could barely breathe. All night long, trucks and motorcycles raced around carrying people wearing masks.

  The mountain threw out ash and smoke, but there was no news of lahars. But the ash from an eruption was devastating enough, and the news was that some of the adjoining villages had been destroyed. Machuchak too had suffered some damage, but there was no way of knowing how much till people went back to their homes.

  Pak Eko had not been seen since the eruption. When the children asked their father, he said he was probably helping people out in the villages. “He is, after all, the Guardian of the Merapi. He thinks this is his responsibility,” said Ayah.

  When Pak Eko still wasn’t seen in the refugee camp a week after the eruption, Fitri and Agus grew impatient. They were eager to ask him more about being Spirit Keepers of the Merapi. But with everything that had happened, there had not been a chance to talk to him.

  The Merapi spewed ash and smoke for another two weeks. Thick clouds of woolly smoke hung in the air. Streams of people came into the refugee camp, till every hut was bursting with people. As more refugees came in, they brought with them stories of death and destruction. People who could not be evacuated in time, people who got caught in an avalanche of rocks, stragglers who got suffocated by the ashfall. The camp was a sad place and the children could not wait to get out of there.

  Agus was sick with worry. “What happens if the cave gets buried, if the kingdom is gone forever?”

  Ayah tried his best to console him. “It’s fine Agus. Fitri and you know the location. We will find it again. Calm down.”

  But there was no calming Agus, who continued to fret and fume. Fitri too was eager to get back to the village but for an entirely different reason. There was a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that something had happened. Something that was not supposed to happen. But she figured it had to do with the volcano erupting. What else could it be?

  Exactly a month and ten days passed before Fitri and her family were allowed to return to their village. After it spent its fury, the mountain had started to calm down. But they could not go back till the bule said the danger had finally passed.

  Agus was beside himself with joy when he heard the news. Finally it was time to go home! He could show off the cave and the kingdom at last! Fitri was excited too but still apprehensive. She could not shake off the feeling that something was wrong. She had not had a single dream after the last one. Perhaps they had stopped.

  The people gathered their meagre belongings and left the camp the way they had come, in buses. With one difference: everyone now had a mask. The ash from the eruption still hung in the air.

  Agus nudged Fitri, nodding towards some strangers that had boarded the bus. Two Indonesians and one bule, a lady with golden blond hair falling down her back. These were the people from the museum who had interviewed Agus. She smiled at him. He turned red and promptly slumped in his seat.

  When the buses finally stopped at the welcome board that read “Welcome to Machuchak”, the sun was high in the sky and it was late in the afternoon.

  People slowly started getting off the bus, afraid of what they would find. Would their houses be filled with ash? Their crops destroyed? Their animals dead?

  Fitri looked at the forest around her. Parts of it had been destroyed and grey ash covered the trees. Further up the mountain she could see that trees had been snapped like matchsticks. Just as in her dream. She could see people walking around, clearing bits of rock and some dead animals. Three men walked past her carrying a dead cow, its face grotesquely twisted and its body bloated.

  Agus had got over his initial shyness and made friends with the archaeologists. Just as soon as the bus stopped he wanted to race off to the cave.

  “Come on, Fitri! Let’s go. Let’s go and check out the cave.”

  “Hang on, Agus. Wait. Let’s see if the mountain path is
safe,” she said, hesitating. She couldn’t shake off that nagging feeling. But there was no restraining Agus.

  The three archaeologists wanted the children to show them the entrance to the cave right away. They wanted to build a fence around it to protect it, so that inquisitive people and wild animals could not get in. The villagers were keen to see the much-talked-about cave too.

  So Ayah, Agus and Fitri, along with the archaeologists and a troop of villagers, started up the mountain road. Ibu, along with the other women, started moving from house to house to check on the condition of the houses, clean the mess, and organise food. Thankfully, most homes had escaped major damage and were covered with a thin layer of ash.

  The village was all a big mess, but at least the basic structures had not been completely destroyed.

  Fitri followed her brother and his new friends slowly – walking behind the group, listening to Agus brag about the dangerous avalanche when “a rock as big as a house” had rolled over the hole.

  “And then Pak Eko lifted it!’ Agus exclaimed to the group. Fitri rolled her eyes and snorted but her eyes were searching for her favourite spot. Let it be okay, she thought.

  From a distance Fitri saw the watchtower. It was intact! Dusty, dirty and grey instead of blue, but at least it was there. Fitri heaved a sigh of relief. That watchtower was her favourite place to hide away and think.

  Straggling along right behind her was Aditya.

  Fitri and Agus had not mentioned to the villagers and their parents their escapade with Aditya and the tree sap. Aditya was the only boy in the village that still kept a distance from Agus and Fitri, refusing to be drawn in by the excitement of the secret kingdom. But getting to see gold treasure with his own eyes? This was too much to resist.

  Fitri watched him warily. His hand was back to normal and she felt a twinge of regret at what she had done with the anthill. Perhaps she had overreacted. He didn’t seem to have too many real friends. Even that Reza had deserted him.