Going Native by Stephen Wright

Author:Stephen Wright [Wright, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9781400079421
Google: NznKAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 140007942X
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1994-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

Seven

NIGHT OF THE LONG PIGS

They left Sambir at dawn, the only white faces on an overloaded river taxi bound up-country for Tanjung Liang and the timber camps and scattered settlements beyond. The boat had filled quickly, and by the time the Copelands arrived, after a frantic last-minute bemo ride, clutching guardrails, their baggage, one another, through the narrowest, bumpiest, crookedest streets in town, they were lucky to claim a patch of space the size of a throw rug on the padded floor mats near the starboard side. Hung over, dehydrated, uncharacteristically grouchy, they decided not to speak until the urge for recriminations had passed. Around them every inch of deck was occupied, yet room continued to be found for late arrivals, whole families happily wedged into openings barely larger than a telephone booth, dozing babies dangled in beadwork carriers from hooks in the overhead beams. There were chickens in bamboo cages and a pair of ill-humored goats tethered to a red stanchion in the stern. Everyone, of every age and gender, was engaged in intense involvement with a cigarette, as if nicotine were some precious ingredient essential to well-being. The rows of hardwood benches were packed end to end with passengers who, like parishioners in their pews, faced uniformly front, obediently attentive to the muddled light emanating from the broken television set bolted to the forward bulkhead, Pastor Bob and his "World Wonder Hour" broadcasting live-on-tape from the Miracle Room of the Holydome in Corpus Christi, Texas, this morning's message: Dollars of Deliverance. The color on the screen had settled out into broad uneven bands of green, yellow, purple, the national flag of an alien planet superimposed upon the pastor's mesmerizingly piscine features. No one seemed to mind.

The harbor was swaddled in grainy fog, objects near and far standing about in random incongruity like icons in a dream. The bladed orange-streaked bow of a Malaysian freighter. The bulletlike dome of the town mosque, silver and wrinkled as if wrapped in aluminum foil. The red-tiled roof of the Hotel Happiness where brindle cats snoozed on the balconies and, like royalty, roamed through the rooms at will. The ghostly black sails of a passing prahu, sinister as shark fins. And downstream, visible through the murk at even this distance from the coast, the ragged gas flares of the refinery stacks of the Pertamina oil complex. The world in pieces at this uncertain hour.

With a sudden shriek of the boat's horn the deck shuddered to life and the long wooden pier began backing steadily away. They were off -- up the Kutai River into the tangled mythical heart of Borneo.

Drake gave his wife's hand a squeeze.

"I love you," whispered Amanda, glancing over his shoulder to check that this modest exchange of affection had given no offense to a people whose custom permitted only public displays of same-sex tenderness. Pastor Bob continued to enchant his water-borne audience. The Bible is the book of business. God has a personal financial plan for each and every one of you.

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