I wanted to go and talk to the girls and to find out more about them and their lives but Heri told me that would be an unwise thing to do. He told me that they wouldn’t appreciate that because ‘time is money’ and the guys in the background certainly wouldn’t appreciate it either. However, Heri continued, if I was interested in actually going with a girl then that would be a different matter.
I am sure that I blushed when he said that, but something changed right there at that moment. The men, Heri included, didn’t laugh at me or josh me any more. They looked at me with neutral yet somehow caring expressions, as if they had decided to stop teasing me and to help me out instead.
I still wasn’t really feeling any real sense of lust for these girls, attractive as they were, but I did want to talk to them. I asked Heri what would happen if I went with one of them, where would she take me, how much would it cost, for how long and would I be safe, and he did his best to answer me and put my mind at rest. He said the girl would probably take me to one of the tiny shack-like buildings the far side of the market, that it would cost about Rp 25, 000 for as long as it took, and that I would be perfectly safe because everyone could see I was with him and his friends, and that if I wasn’t back safe and sound within a reasonable amount of time, everyone would know they would come looking for me.
I thought about it for a while: where was the harm, I mused. Just go and have a look and a talk, then come back. No harm done, I thought. Then, I thought again. What’s the point? Although the situation was interesting to a degree, what would I get out of it other than my curiosity salved and a dent in my wallet? No, I decided, I would just stay where I was and let the evening float by.
So, I watched as they made they way across the market square, half wishing I had the bravery to take Heri up on his offer, and half-grateful I hadn’t. There was something captivating about the way all the girls carried themselves; a poise or proud elegance, if you will, that seemed incongruous to say the least considering the circumstances, but it was there nevertheless.
After a few minutes, the procession of nubile young and not-so-young bodies finally left the square and slowly we returned to our card games and drinking. A couple more hours went by and we were beginning to start thinking about calling it a night when my attention was caught by the sound of a commotion coming from the other side of the square.
Where all had been quiet and peaceful enough a minute ago, now a rather large man was cursing loudly and threatening all kinds of retribution on an as yet unseen personage. Although the string of garbled profanities made it difficult to make out exactly what he was complaining about from where we were sitting, the gist of his unhappiness seemed to bear relation to a certain dissatisfaction with a recent business transaction.
‘Pelacur kotor! Dia mencuri jam aku,’ is about the politest utterance of his I can relate here. It literally means, ‘the dirty prostitute has stolen my watch.’ I presumed this meant he had been ripped off by one of the prostitutes we had seen earlier and so I immediately looked to Heri for clarification. Heri confirmed this was most likely the case and we continued to watch the drama unfold.
The man was standing shouting in the square and making quite a scene, and so I asked Heri why the fellow simply didn’t go back to whichever girl had allegedly taken his watch and retrieve it himself.
‘No, dik,’ said Heri. ‘He can’t do that. If he does, the security guards in the area will set about him, instead. Under no circumstances can the girls be touched or hurt in any way. No, he has to do it this way. He has to make a commotion out here in public and then leave it up to the security to take over.’
We watched as two men emerged from the shadows and gently converged on the guy. Politely but firmly, they took an elbow each and led him to a small food stall opposite us and started the process of trying to calm him down. They spoke quietly to him and listened with what appeared to be sympathy as he, no doubt, outlined his tale of woe. After a few minutes, one of the two men slipped away and headed off in the direction the girls had disappeared a couple of hours earlier, while the other security guy continued nodding and talking to the aggrieved customer.
‘Where’s he gone, Ri?’ I asked Heri.
‘To get the girl. The one matey here is accusing of being a thief,’ he explained. ‘This will be interesting, Jack,’ he continued. ‘Watch and learn.’
Within five minutes the first security chap was back with a young lady in tow. She looked to be in her late teens or very early twenties, had a small and somewhat skinny body, short black hair and stood, I guess, no more than 150cm. She was, I presumed, the suspected thief.
Upon studying her more closely, I was taken aback by the way she carried herself. I would have expected someone in her position, being practically paraded as a thief in public, to at least look a little apprehensive, if not downright petrified. I remembered my own experience of public humiliation at the hands of Pak Simon when he’d accused me of being a thief back in my village and how utterly numb and incapable of speech I was at the time, but now saw none of the same
