Oliver Benjamin
the human body itself, Indonesia was sixty-five percent water. In
some way he did not understand, Parangtritis was similarly
enchanted.
The majority of Javanese believed that Loro Kidul was in fact the
ruler of the South Javan Sea, and that her power could steer their
fates. They believed this in spite of the fact that Indonesia was a
Muslim country and Islam was wholly intolerant of the worship of
other gods. Loro Kidul was so popular that even Java’s most powerful
rulers, academics, and religious leaders openly paid her their
respects.
Suharto, the former president of Indonesia was known to visit
Parangtritis frequently as his reign began crashing down around
him. Yet the same goddess he once credited for helping him to
overthrow his predecessor Sukarno would no longer heed his tearful
pleas. It seemed the fickle deity no longer found the broken old man
alluring.
As Suharto was summarily dumped from power, great rioting
tore the country apart. The economy had collapsed and the burden of
blame fell upon the elite. Rioting had been particularly violent where
Yak lived in Solo. There, the normally peace-loving and tolerant
Javanese beat and raped the ethnic Chinese who lived among them,
faulting them for their problems just as European Jews were once
excoriated by unhappy Germans. Mobs burned down shopping malls
and upscale homes and anything that underscored their anguish.
Yak’s own little house was destroyed after his Chinese neighbor’s
estate was set afire by mobs drunk on Molotov cocktails.
He took this as a cue to travel around the island again. He had
grown too complacent. The haiku of an old Zen scribe guided his
steps:
Since my house burned down
I now have a better view
Of the rising moon.
It was good to move. Solo could not have been more aptly named for
him: In that city where the Java Man skeleton was discovered near a
bend in the river, in a place cut off from the principal pathways and
currents of the modern world, Yak had unearthed his own alternate
paleontology. But he had lain too long alone against that edge.
He looked out over the waves and tried to see what it was they
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