by Nick M. Aarons

Few people open their doors to strangers in Innsbruck in the winter. Warmth is cultivated indoors, traditionally through wood fires and these days through modern applications like central heating. It is a precious commodity – not something to be released lightly only to be devoured by the icy void lying in wait outside. So it was in the winter that their duties were harshest. For not only did they have to trudge through the bone-chilling cold and snow, but they faced the greatest rejection at this time. Most doors remained shut fast or, at most, opened a slit’s worth and then hastily slammed. In the winter while couples cloistered, snug within their homes, and foreigners huddled in cozy ski cottages, their faces incandescent with spirits and laughter, they walked. House to house. Door to door.

Abdul blew the smoke hard and straight into his young wife’s face. They sat square in front of each other, both of them on low stools separated by a small table with a few items atop it. “Julia. Keep still please.”

“I’m trying but the smoke is making me want to sneeze.”

“But can you smell anything?”

“Yes. A little.”

“A little is too much.” Abdul was slightly worried that their neighbors would get a whiff. They were living in a cheap Jakarta boarding house with thin walls. He took a few pinches of tobacco from a plastic sachet on the table and began mixing it with a pile of tobacco already lying on the table. “Pak, do you mind if I read my book while you’re doing that?” Julia often referred to her husband as Pak, the abbreviated version of Bapak, or Father.

“Of course. Go. Go. But I will need your nose again soon.”

“My nose will come back whenever you call it. But it needs a rest for now.”

The thumping and screaming went on and on all through the day and much of the night. Sometimes it grew loud and desperate as the man locked inside seemed in a state of panic. The noise was relentless at these times. Occasionally, a heavy thud of the chain falling could be heard as the captive made a vain attempt to rush the door and force it open. All the while, his jailer sat outside the room staring impassively at the door, paying no attention to whatever ghastly noises were emitted from within; ignoring the shaking and banging and crying and moaning. At other times, the room would fall silent, the captive’s energy sapped by his exertions and his fear. Occasionally the jailer would stir. He would stand, pick up a sheet of paper from a pile on a nearby table and push it through the gap beneath the door. “Read this. Keep reading.” These were the only words he spoke.

The younger of Abdul’s two sons had been swept away by the huge tsunami that demolished his home town of Banda Aceh in 2004. Although he mourned his son’s loss and missed him acutely, he accepted it – embraced it even. The way Abdul saw it, this was the will of God. Allah had seen fit to take his precious son from him in this way, and for that to happen there must have been a reason. It was the loss of his older son, Fadil, that rankled most – that still kept Abdul awake some nights, unable to suppress his resentment. During these sleepless nights, he would curse himself over and over for having sent Fadil to study abroad in Europe thereby, he felt, exposing him to vices and influences he would otherwise never have encountered. Abdul, in general, harbored little malice toward anybody, but those responsible for the loss of his son were exempt from his benign disposition. Fadil, his first son and the family’s patriarch-in-waiting, had not been taken by the will of God, but rather by the persuasions of fallible human beings. This thought consumed Abdul no end. Abdul still had his wife, Julia, a daughter, and several young grandchildren whom he held close to his heart. “Everything belongs to them. The land, the houses,” he would tell his guests. “What use are these things for an old man who will die soon? You need to plant seeds, have many children, and later these seeds will become trees and give you fruit.” Then his eyes would narrow and glower. “But it is a great pity, a great injustice, that these children will grow up without ever knowing their uncle Fadil.”

Stefan was the only boy among five children. He sometimes wondered if this had set him on the course he ended up taking. His sisters all chose to follow the family’s conventions. None of them ever strayed from the fold, or had even seemed to consider doing so. It was if they enjoyed some form of tacit pact; a sisterhood to which he, of course, was denied membership. Perhaps it was this that kept them together as part of the flock – a constricting but comforting adhesive. Stefan was seventeen when he confronted his father with his feelings about their faith and his desire to live life his own way. It was a meeting that did not go well.

“To become the finest hashish oil producer in Aceh is no accident. It is an intricate skill I have acquired. I learned and practiced for many years, and of course I had to make some good friends along the way. Police, Army, Politicians. You know how it is.” Abdul was rightly proud. The oil of which he boasted was widely acknowledged to be the best in the area. Many people knew him and had sampled his wares, even if only a few would admit to it. Abdul was also a pious man and adhered to all the tenets and demands of his religion. He prayed five times a day, abstained from alcohol, provided alms and had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He saw no conflict between his religion and his narcotic-producing activities. “My religion does not prohibit this. You cannot find a single verse in the Qur’an that says we cannot smoke. Ah! It is the state and the police that prohibit this. But they do not need to know. This is just between me and Allah.” A slightly disorienting, childlike giggle escaped Abdul’s lips when he said this. This was largely due to all the hash he’d been smoking, but the old man also seemed sure that his contravention of state law was done with the full blessing of God – as if the two of them were sharing a joke.

The reaction of Stefan’s father was predictable. This was a man who’d been brought up in a strict Austrian family of adherents. He was unwilling to brook any dissent, any challenge to the family’s faith, nurtured as it had been over generations. If his son wanted to leave the faith, so be it. But he would also have to leave the house. This was not an easy thing for his father to do. Stefan was his only son and he loved him deeply, more than any of his daughters if the truth be told. Physically, they resembled each other strongly and they mirrored each other’s personalities in many other ways too. Stefan, however, had found many of the things his faith forbade not only accessible but also very enjoyable. Drinking, smoking, and girls had become of particular interest to him when he entered his teens. He simply didn’t believe in the faith he’d been brought up to, nor could he abide the austerities it demanded. So he left home, worked in bars and restaurants in Vienna for a while, and saved enough money to put himself through a technical college. This enabled him to become a skilled and successful electrician. He kept in contact with his sisters. They had been more accepting of his decision. All of them had gone on to marry husbands from the faith, a Japanese and Brazilian amongst them. The faith knew no national boundaries. Occasionally one of his sisters would surreptitiously put his mother on the line. She missed her son terribly but knew that her husband would not tolerate any contact between them. She remembered clearly the sermon she’d received from him as Stefan was packing his bags to leave their home. “That boy is rejecting all that is good for him. Here he is offered protection from the outside world and the love of his family and the Lord. Out there he will leave himself at the mercy of things he knows nothing about. The heathens won’t leave him alone for long. You can be sure of that.”

Abdul had honed his talents in his youth, perfecting a method of producing the thick, sticky oil from the cannabis plants that, quite literally, grew like weeds in his province. Many an unsuspecting guest was initially put in an awkward situation upon arriving at Abdul’s home. “Do you smoke?” he would ask.

“Cigarettes Sir? No, I gave up five years ago.”

“How about something stronger then?” This was a tricky question to answer. Abdul was a seventy year old man, in a strict Muslim home, inquiring about something not only illegal, but also subject to severe punishment. “Um, well, maybe, yes, sometimes.” Was this the right approach to take in answering the question? There would be a few nervous seconds as the visitor waited, wondering if he had said the wrong thing “Ok. Later, we smoke,” Abdul would declare, grinning. Later they would smoke and talk. The conversation flowed easily. Abdul was an insightful and engaging raconteur. It was only when the subject turned to his older son that he grew sullen and sounded bitter. The atmosphere at these times became uncomfortable, even a little tense. Abdul would draw a parallel between the weed he grew and processed and the loss of his sons. “It seems like my sons are like the male plant. The male plant dies early. It produces no seeds. Just like my sons. This is usually a natural process, but sometimes these plants are ravaged by disease or destroyed by men. Like my older son, Fadil. One day I intend to avenge his loss.”

Julia loved and respected her husband. She saw no ethical problem in his endeavors and worried little about his being caught. Her husband had the right friends in the right places. She had served as a willing guinea pig in the early days. She would tell her husband if the smoke he blew at her had any scent at all. Abdul’s rhyming mantra was ‘No smell. No alarm bell’. “If there is no smell, then nobody knows. You can smoke in public. Even in the police station if you want. Just smoke the cigarette by yourself. Don’t pass it to anyone. If you pass it then people become suspicious. All by yourself, and enjoy!” Eventually, Abdul perfected the precise formula. The oil produced no odor whatsoever. He had gone on to make a small fortune from his business. Enough to buy land, build homes and see to it that his children received proper educations. Still Julia, now and again, saw a glint of anger in her husband’s eyes. Anger brought about by the loss of their first son; anger as much with himself for providing Fadil with the chance of a good education abroad as with the people who had exploited his naivete and loneliness. She worried that this anger would one day manifest itself in an unfortunate act, and wondered whether the oil he not only produced but smoked copiously was a way of quelling his fury, of anesthetizing his pain.

Four months in Thailand were enough for Stefan. He’d had a great time and he reasoned that

he could always go back. The first time Stefan visited the country, it had been with a girlfriend. Their relationship was in its terminal stages – although neither had been willing to admit it at the time – and he felt shackled. It had almost felt to him like his upbringing; constantly being upbraided and emotionally punished for stepping out of line. Living in Vienna, so near to his hometown in a landlocked country, he had always felt slightly claustrophobic and never completely free of his father and his former faith’s disquieting presence. So he had wound up his electrical business and decided to take a year off to travel the world. He had moved on from Thailand, into the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. It was his first visit there. The area was wild and Stefan felt unleashed and at peace as he made his way through the jungle up to Aceh, at the northern tip of the island. For the first time, he felt that the shackles had been truly removed.

A door slammed. Voices could be heard. A man and a woman. The conversation was animated. He couldn’t understand the language. She seemed to be pleading. Stefan stood up, lifted the heavy chain that bound him to the steel bed and dragged it across to the door. He banged and screamed as hard as he could, “Let me out. Please. Please. I beg you.”

“Why are you doing this Pak? We have already lost so much. Our first son, and then our second. Now, you too will be lost if you carry on this madness. Your connections turn a blind eye to your special business, but they will not if you harm a visitor, especially a foreigner.” Abdul looked at Julia indignantly. “The tsunami destroyed our land, took our friends and family, but it was God’s punishment for our sins. For not obeying him closely enough. Fadil was different. He was taken by infidels. I won’t harm this man. I only want to do to him what the infidels did to Fadil.”

“Infidels? These are the same people you take into your home as guests, the same people who helped to rebuild our homeland after the tsunami. They gave our people money, food, protection. And now they are just infidels? Please Pak. Stop now before it is too late. Make your peace with him. Let him go. I have gone away for a few days to visit my sister and I come back to this. I don’t understand at all. You usually enjoy the company of our foreign guests. You respect them as they respect us. Why is he different? What did he do to cause you to do this?” Abdul replied slowly and calmly, looking his wife in the eyes. “He is one of them!”

Stefan had eaten no food and hardly had any sleep for two days. He drank dirty water from the tap in the small sink he could just about reach. The only things given to him were sheets of paper, thrust under the door at hourly intervals. The room’s light still worked so he was able to see what was written on the paper. It appeared to be verses of the Qur’an translated into English. “Read it,” his captor instructed him every time a new sheet appeared. He couldn’t understand the point of all this. His captor, Abdul, had been friendly at first. They had got along well, chatting about all kinds of things while smoking up a storm. He’d been having a great time in fact. Stefan eschewed big hotels for small, intimate guesthouses and family homestays. This was about as authentic as it got. He was staying in a local Acehnese home, enjoying the homemade hashish oil of the father of the house. Things had turned strange only when the subject of religion came up. As is the custom in Indonesia, Abdul had asked Stefan his religion. “I have none. I’m an atheist.” Abdul was used to this response. He had heard it from countless foreign guests. He never let them off that easily though. “Ok, ok. But what religion did you grow up with? What religion were your parents?” Stefan didn’t like going into this, dredging up old, hurtful history, but he felt he should oblige out of courtesy. “Well, perhaps you have not heard of this religion. It is small and a bit strange. My parents, my whole family in fact, are Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Abdul slammed his cup of coffee hard on the table.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. This concept is one of the central principles of Islamic law. Stefan thought about this as he sat in the restaurant overlooking the transparent blue ocean of Weh Island, just north of Banda Aceh. Brilliantly-colored fish darted amongst coral in the water below him. A giant monitor lizard slinked its way over some rocks and into the sea, taking to it like a natural-born swimmer. All the beauty surrounding him was so at odds with the pervasive religion of the area. Religion was the real intruder here. In this bucolic land of unspoiled rain forests, mountains and ocean, where thousands of rare species of mammals, reptiles, insects and fish spoke of a diversity to be held in awe, men still found reasons to be savage. Public canings took place of those caught engaging in drinking, gambling or pre-marital sex. Tolerance of differences and individual rights seemed to be in short supply. This reminded him in many ways of the home he grew up in. His father spoke of heathens, while here they spoke of infidels. Stefan thought that the man-made construct of religion held nothing when compared to the law of nature. Just as houses, bridges and mosques had been washed away by the tsunami with absolute indifference. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Stefan for Fadil.

A sharp pain pierced his eyes as rays of light streamed through the door. After a few moments he was able to make out a small, tidy woman standing in the doorway. Julia moved forward and took his hand. Instictively he pulled it away. “Come now, my husband has left. I sent him out. He won’t be back until much later.” Julia spoke slowly and gently. Stefan followed her cautiously out of the room, terrified that this was just a ruse of his captor. She sat on the sofa and patted the space next to her. Stefan sat. “Please forgive my husband. Let me explain, but first you must eat.” Stefan shook his head. He hadn’t eaten for several days, but wasn’t about to accept any food. “Fine my dear, your appetite will return soon enough. It’s like this. Our eldest son Fadil changed his religion many years ago. Actually, he was converted to a different religion – your religion. This has made Abdul lose his senses. Well, that and all the stuff he smokes!” Stefan stared at her. “Actually, Fadil wanted to visit us in Banda Aceh after the tsunami. He wanted to pay his respects to his younger brother, and to many other people he knew who were taken by the water. He also wanted to help us. He is quite successful there you know. But his father would not have it. ‘He is lost to Islam. He is lost to me. I have no more sons,’ he said. When he was speaking to you the other night, all these painful feelings of his were stirred up again. Somehow he thought he could convert you to his religion as Fadil was converted to yours. Forgive him. He is an old and muddled man, but his heart is good.”

“So how did you convince him that I should be let go?” Stefan asked. “I reminded him of our story.”

Abdul was a good-looking boy. And he had an eye for the girls. Too much so! He was caught having an affair with the wife of a local policeman, Udin. She was ten years older than him. That was before we had this nonsense with Syariah law, but the scandal was still very big. All the neighbors talk. Soon the whole town knew of the affair. The woman went into hiding in shame, while her husband, of course, wanted to kill Abdul. After all, his honor had been offended by a young boy. Udin knew however that killing Abdul would land him in jail, so he decided on another strategy. Everybody in town, including all the police, knew that Abdul and his friends smoked packets of weed. They didn’t really care though. There wasn’t much money to be squeezed out of a group of unemployed local lads. It’s still a bit like that now. All these strict laws and things are only enforced if there’s something in it for the cops. Everyone pretends to be pious here, but they’re as bent as anywhere else. Anyway, Udin figured he would catch Abdul smoking – or set him up – and have him locked up for a good while. That would be sufficient revenge – and in the meantime he’d find himself an honest new wife. Abdul got wind of this from a friend and fled the area. He moved south to the Lake Toba area. Abdul was a cunning boy, and still is. You found this out when he put you to sleep by giving you a bit too much of his special oil. That’s how he managed to get you all chained up and locked in that room. He was also proud. He was determined that this vindictive little police officer, who treated his wife awfully anyway, would not win this battle of wits. That is why he set out on producing this scentless, almost undetectable oil. So he could go back and resume his former way of life in his hometown. He spent many months trying to find the best method. And he had a partner. Me. We met in the Lake Toba area, my homeland, and were soon inseparable. We wanted to marry but there was one problem. A big one. I am from a Batak Christian family and Abdul, of course, was Muslim. With my consent, he approached my father about the possibility of our marrying. My father said he would only give his blessing if Abdul converted to Christianity. Abdul refused point blank. I was left with a dilemma. Go against my father and change religion or lose the man I loved. I chose the former. I converted to Islam and we married in secret. When my father found out, he swore he would beat Abdul to a pulp, and so he had to flee again. This time with me in tow. We spent some time in Jakarta, where we got the formula just right, and then moved back to Banda Aceh to set up business. In the meantime, Udin, the slighted police officer, had remarried – this time the daughter of a well-known local politician. This had helped his career greatly as you can imagine. He was hoping to be appointed Banda Aceh’s Chief of Police. The only other potential candidate was Muchtar, who was the Deputy at the time. Abdul was resourceful. He met with Muchtar and explained about his new product – they worked out an agreement that would be to everyone’s benefit should Muchtar become chief. Muchtar, in turn, went to the Governor, who was responsible for the appointment. He explained Abdul’s proposal and how, naturally, the Governor would be due a share of any gains made. Muchtar was duly promoted to Chief of Police and Abdul’s nemesis, Udin, effectively sidelined. Abdul was now, shall we say, on good terms with the Police, the Governor and all the other lackeys and sycophants in their pay. Business boomed and everone was happy except for one person. Me. I had broken my father’s heart in converting to Islam and marrying Abdul. In all the excitement of those early years I hadn’t thought about it so much, but once we were settled I began to think of it more and more. I decided to go back to visit my family at Lake Toba. I went alone of course. As far as we knew, my father’s threat against Abdul was still in effect, and Batak men are known to stick to their word. When I arrived, however, I found a family in mourning. My father had died only months before. According to my mother and sisters, he was murmuring my name as he drew his last breath.

Stefan spent the next few days moving from his hammock to the restaurant and back. Julia was right. His appetite had come back. He ate voraciously and had an occasional dip in the ocean. For the most part though, he was happy just to peer down from above, his mind lost in meandering waves of thought. He hadn’t left Abdul’s house uncompensated for the two days he spent in captivity. When she bade him farewell, Julia slipped a plastic bag the size of a small fist into his bag. It contained some of Abdul’s finest. “Be careful with that,” she whispered. “And if you get caught, just say it’s from Abdul,” she said, winking. Stefan had decided he didn’t need any rolling paper for the oil he’d been given. Instead he collected the sheets of paper that had been shoved under the door by Abdul and used these. They made him cough a lot, but the way Stefan saw it, this was his little act of revenge.