To promote the release of our special multiethnic issue this June, we are posting little bits of all the stories included in this mega-issue. Last week, we visited a Hmong painter in New England. Today we travel to Indonesia, courtesy of Nadia Bulkin. Nadia is half-Javanese and half-Kansan; old Jakarta introduced her to horror, in every sense of the word. Her fiction has appeared in ChiZine, Fantasy Magazine, and Strange Horizons. “Red Goat Black Goat” follows a babysitter who finds her new job has some troubling details:
Red Goat Black Goat
By Nadia Bulkin
It had been raining for five days. The Gunawan estate, riddled with wool and dung, was rank. Its position on a hill had saved the mountain villa from the floods wracking West Java, but the moon orchids were drowning, and the Mercedes was sinking in the mud. Twenty-some feral goats watched the driveway roll down the slope. Then they started to bleat, because a little human figure was slogging up the hill.
Ina Krisniati was covered in mud by the time she conquered the hill, but by then she was no longer feeling her aches. She had walked two miles, in rising waters and darkness. The small and the weak – frogs, stones, flowering weeds – had succumbed. And Kris had nearly given up too, halfway up the hill. She’d nearly decided to go home to Cililin and marry some fisherman on Saguling Lake. But her grandfather had fought in the war, partaken in the 1946 Sea of Fire – Kris came from strong stock. The goats followed her as she fought her way to the house. They watched with sad, beady eyes as she rinsed her hands in rain and wiped her flip-flops on the mat. When she rang the doorbell, they resumed bleating.
A woman came to the door. She was, to Kris’s surprise, not a maid. She had bags under her eyes but she was dressed like a soap star. Behind her, the house was glowing with spun glass and gold. The warung-keeper in Bandung who told her about the job did say that the Gunawans were born lucky. The woman cleared her throat.
Kris mustered a smile and bent her head. “Asalaam ‘Alaykum,” she said.
It took the woman half a minute to answer in kind. “Wa ‘Alaykum as-Salaam,” she muttered. “Are you the new babysitter?”
Kris nodded.
“Ya Allah.” Mrs. Gunawan rolled her eyes and stepped back from the door. “What a mess. Don’t move.” She threw towels at her until she stopped dripping. “You know you’re late. And you’ll have to wash those, of course.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The bus I was on broke down. Then I took a wrong turn, back on Tunjukmanis…”
Mrs. Gunawan rolled her eyes. “Right. Well, you’re here to watch the children and they’re already in bed. I expect you to watch them constantly. My husband took off, my son fell off a horse last week and… ” She took a deep breath and flexed her jeweled fingers. “You have experience with childcare, yes?”
“Four little brothers and sisters. It’s been tough for my parents; my father was ill… ”
Mrs. Gunawan gave her a long look. “Don’t even think about sneaking a little extra. I’ll make you regret it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You didn’t touch the goats, did you? The ones roaming around?”
They had seemed to want her to. They’d been nudging her, blocking her path, making needful little grunts. “No, ma’am.”
“Good. Don’t. Only the children and I can touch them. Oh!” She cocked her chin up and pointed. Whispers trickled from the second floor. Soon, little footsteps came down the staircase and little heads popped out of the shadows. “There they are. Number one and number two.”
The children looked like a pair of big-eyed malu-malu. Two of those shy little primates had once climbed into a power switch center on Saguling Lake and fried themselves as well as the hydroelectric plant. Kris smiled at the children. They did not smile back.
Mrs. Gunawan made no introductions. “Take them to bed,” she said, with a flip of her wrist.
The bedroom was so cold that Kris thought there had to be some kind of draft. She checked the windows in vain while the children sat side-by-side on the bed, eating chocolate goo out of plastic tubes. On the wall, over their heads, hung a protective charm made of wild goat hair.
“I guess it’s just cold in here.” Kris plastered on a smile and walked back to the children. The little girl was the older of the two. She looked like her mother, especially when she had her chin up so she could look down her nose. The little boy was cradling his arm, which was wrapped in a cast and a sling. “I’m Kris. I’m going to watch you from now on, okay?”
“I’m Putri,” said the little girl. “This is Agus. And you’re not going to be watching us, because we already have someone who does that.” She poked her little brother in the shoulder. “Don’t we.”
He nodded vigorously, but only after a pause, and when he looked at his petrified arm, he frowned.
“Really? And who’s that?”
“The Goat-Nurse. She’s taken care of us since we were born.” She sniffed. “We’ve never had a babysitter.”
“Well, that’s fine if the Goat-Nurse wants to watch you, too. But your mother wanted someone to come and make sure that you don’t hurt yourselves falling off horses anymore.” She smiled at Agus, who made a quivering attempt to smile back.
“We can’t trust people from outside the family,” Putri said. “The Goat-Nurse says so.”
Kris had wondered such a rich family had no servants. “Well, you don’t need to worry about me.” She wiped the chocolate off their mouths, the little malu-malu. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The Multiethnic issue will be online June 1, 2010. Mark your calendars!