Trade between Asia and Europe was dominated by spice for centuries. The oriental lore of processing roots, seeds, and bark into food enhancers inspired travelers to seek various paths to detour the layers of middlemen profiting from the lucrative east-west trade route. Successful voyagers stood to make fortunes from their discoveries. Christo Colon failed to reach Japan in 1992, but seven years later Vasco de Gama rounded the Horn of Good Hope. The Arab monopoly on the Spice Trade was broken for good.

Ferdinand Magellan sailed west from Spain in 1521. His destination were the spice islands of the Moluccas. Crossing the Pacific seemed simple. His plan was disaster for the sailors attached to his fleet. Their commander was killed in proselytizing battle on the Philippines. Only 15 of the 237 men who set out on five ships set foot on Spanish soil. Death had captured the rest, yet this disastrous circumnavigation of the globe resulted in great wealth for the survivors and investors, because the remaining two ships stopped at the famed spice isle, Tidore, as well as Ambon in the Moluccas.

The Dutch, French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish fought numerous wars on several continents for control of these islands. Manhattan was traded to the Dutch for a small island in the archipelago. The Dutch had acquired that foothold on North America for 60 guilders or the price of several thousand tankards of beer. It seemed like a good deal for the two parties at the time.

In 1991 I sold a big diamond. My commission bought a round-the-world ticket from PanExpress on 39th Street. I had survived a head-on motorcycle accident in Thailand and freedove to sunken Japanese destroyers off Biak. Both events were memorable and I planned a different westward journey.

JFK-LAX-HONOLULU-BIAK-AMBON-BALI-JAKARTA-SINGAPORE-BANGKOK-PARIS-LONDON-JFK.

Six months.

I had $6000.

More than enough.

My friends and family were worried about this voyage. America was going to war. Kuwait had been slant-drilling into Iraq’s Rumaila oil field. Saddam had claimed his neighbor belonged to Iraq. He had massed 30,000 troops on the border. The US ambassador had said, “We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.”

Green light for invasion.

The Saudis felt insecure. Israel was threatened by Saddam. George Bush was a WWII hero.

Green light to war. America’s sense of geography had been ruined by the IT’S A SMALL WORLD ride in Disneyworld. The distances of Asia were blurred by the various cuisines. None of my friends could finger Indonesia on a map. Kuwait was 8000 kilometers from Jakarta. Even farther from Biak. I told everyone not to worry.

“I was out there in World War 2. Fought off Biak in the Battle of the Sump.” My Uncle Dave had been in the Navy. Two years on a battleship. Kamikazis off Okinawa. “Ain’t nothing there. You be careful. Those people don’t value life the same way we do.”

Uncle Dave had never been to IT’S A SMALL WORLD. He was seeing doctors for a chronic cough. A lifelong cigarette smoker. Pall Mall.

“Don’t worry about me.” I had been a peacenik in the 60s. 70s, 80s, and 90s too. No one really wanted a piece of me. I brought postcards of New York. Photos of my family. Their images would revealed my humanity to the natives. I included a photo of an ex-love. Two years after the end I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

No other tourists offloaded the Garuda flights from LA. I got a room in the Dutch hotel across from the airport. I was the only guest. US troops and their coalition allies massing on the border of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi invaders. The outcome was in doubt. My Sony World radio had good reception. I listened to the news on the BBC World Service. I was betting on the West. We had better tanks.

Biak was a backwater. The war was on another planet. I had committed desertion in the face of the enemy. I didn’t have a dog in that fight.

Scarred Japanese war veterans wandered through the graveyards of their fallen dead. They avoided everyone but their memories. They stayed one day. None of them spoke English. I nodded to them with respect. 5000 of their comrades had died in a cave. Only five survived the carnage.

My days were lazy. The big bottles of Bintang beer were cold and kretek cigarettes were laced with cloves. The aroma lingered on my fingers. The cough hung out a little longer. I had my own diving mask and flippers. The coral cliffs began twenty feet beyond the shore. Fish fed on the current. Sea turtles and large parrot fish. I stayed in Biak two weeks.

Ambon was next on the list. A spice island. Capitol of the Moluccas. A diplomat attached to the Indonesian consulate in New York had suggested a lay-over with his uncle. I gave him a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. No one in Asia drank Johnny Walker Red, unless there was no Black.

“You have wife?”

“No.” I was used to this line of questioning.

“You have baby?” Asian thought bachelorhood a curse. My mother thought the same.

“No.” I wished the answer could have been yes.

“Maybe one day.”

James was a government official. A Christian. Indonesia was 95% Muslim. Ambon ran against the grain. Christians were the majority, but everyone was a mixture of Malay and Papuan on the tropical island, except for the Javanese deported from their overpopulated island. They worked as pedicab drivers. A few jeered at me. I was the only white person within a thousand miles.

“Saddam # 1. Bush no good.”

I agreed with the 2nd sentiment. I considered myself in exile. Simon’s uncle lent his car and driver for a tour of the island. An old fort, giant eels in a river, a beach on the north side of Ambon. The sea was murky. Fish were scarce. Fishing boats bombed the corals with dynamite. The driver pointed to mountains across a broad channel.

“Seram. Have big magic. Men fly in sky. Bad magic.”

The people followed animism. Magic was their sole export. No tourist went there.

“I not go there.” I spoke a little Bahasan Indonesian after my last trip to the archipelago. It was an easy language. No articles. No tenses. Bagus was good. Bagus-bagus was very good. “Go Tidore.”

“Tidore. No mistah go Tidore. Banyak Muslim. Go to Bali.” The driver was dumbfounded by my choice. The young wanted off this island. Jakarta was their dream. Not an island more forgotten by time.

“Saya ke Tidore.” I dropped the verb to go. It was a common trait in Bahasa.

“Tidak apa-apa.” No problem.

We returned to the city to drink Johnny Walker with honey. No ice. James took me to the chicken farm. Young girls served older men beer. This scene was played out everywhere in Asia. Europe and the USA. We drank to Rambo. No one toasted Saddam or Bush. Religion and politics were off-limits in brothels. I showed the girls pictures of Manhattan. None of them believed the pictures were real.

I returned to my hotel on the harbor around midnight. The Bugis sailors were preparing for a morning departure. Ropes creaked on the masts. The design of their prahu dated back centuries. Indonesia had thousands of islands. The prahu were the connection. For some reason I was overcome with deja vu. I blamed the honey and then the whiskey.

The hotel staff was watching the TV. Soldiers loading bombs onto jets. Saddam had been our ally. Iraq had fought Iran. The war of the I-nations. The dictator was hoping for a reprieve. He should have been packing his bags for exile in Switzerland. Saddam had been I tried to call my parents in Boston from the Ambon PO.

Collect.

The telephone operators were Christian. They gave me the sign for victory. Pro-USA.

No one answered the phone.

I gave the operators the thumbs-up. It wasn’t my fight, but Saddam had massacred thousands. He deserved a bad ending.

I got on the morning flight to Ternate. James and the driver waved good-bye.

“Kembali.” Return.

“Rambo.”

I was the only ‘mistah’ on the plane. The flight stopped briefly at Bata, the old prison island, before flying over the Molucca Sea. Small boats dotted the surface. Wakes of white vee. The stewardesses served sandwiches. A beer too. I had two. I showed photos of my family. The stewardess asked if I had a wife. I was embarrassed to say no. The pilot announced our approach. There were no delays. This was the day’s only arrival.

I picked up my bag from the carousel and walked outside. Volcanoes dominated the horizon. The air was fragrant with spice. The taxi drivers were surprised to see me. Their faces were Javanese. More deportees.

Hostility. This island was 100% Muslim.

Several words were said under their breath. I couldn’t decipher their exact meaning, but the tone was unmistakably crude. The polisi seemed to share their antipathy. I pulled out a $10. It was a lot of money in 1991 on a remote island. Enough to buy a smile from one driver.

He took me to the best hotel on the island.

“Here safe. No problem for mistah.”

“Tidak apa-apa.”

He was happy to hear a ‘orang asing’ speak his national language. None spoke the tongue of the Moluccas. I was the only westerner in the hotel. The room was clean. The manager said that it was safe. Only one condition.

“Please do not leave the room.”

“Why not?” I had a good idea why.

“Ternate people like Saddam. He is Muslim. No one like Dutch people.” Mohammad had been to Mecca. He had seen the world. His belief was for the good of man, but his neighbors remembered the rule of the Netherlands. The Dutch had impossiblized independence for the Moluccas. Europe loved divide and conquer. Most of the nations of the Middle East had straight line borders. A recipe for conflict.

My room was on the 2nd floor. I stood on the balcony. Minarets silhouetted against the early evening sky. Moonlight bathed the volcanic cones. Magellan’s successor, Juan Sebastián Elcano, had admired the same vista in 1521. Joseph Conrad had written about these islands in VICTORY. Jack London haunted his books with blackbirds, pearlers, and beachcombers. My uncle Dave might have smoked a cigarette on the deck of a battleship off these two islands. The BBC was broadcasting a quiz show. I was hungry.

The manager was surprised to see me.

“Mistah no go.”

“Makan-makan.” Eat was an easy word to remember in Bahasa. Mohammad arranged a motorcycle ride to the harbor. The driver was fat. He knew a good place to eat. Warungs lined the beachfront. Men walked with men. Women walked with women. Music blared from tinny speakers. Pop mixed with traditional. I sat at a food stall. Dozens of plates spread across a table. I picked my dinner according to appearance.

One offering was better than others. A little tough, but very tasty. I ordered seconds. A murmuring swelled at my back. People were gathering behind me. I ate the second plate with some dispatch and ordered the bill. “Rekening.”

“Saddam # 1.” The chant was loud on the first try. Louder on the second. I figured the crowd numbered about 40. Amok comes from the Malay language. One man mad. Another twenty men joined the anti-western mantra. The waiter delivered my bill and moved aside with speed. I stood slowly, as if nothing was wrong. Magellan had been killed by such a mob in the Philippines. I turned around to face the odds.

100 to one.

An old man with one arm was screaming in my face. His eyes were red. He had been waiting to hate a white man for decades. I was the target for his spittle. It was time to go.

My hand went to my wallet and I picked up the rekening.

One word stuck out.

Angin. Two plates

I had seen it before.

Hati-hati angin.

‘Beware of the dog.” I held up the bill to the old man.

“Saya makan angin?”

“Angin.” His eyes focused on the bill. “Dua angin.”

“No, I did not eat ‘angin’.” I would have ordered 3rd if the crowd had not interrupted my dinner.

“Mistah makan angin.” The old man with one arm announced to his followers. They laughed with mirth. No mistahs ate dog. “Kamu makan angin.”

The mob was on edge. Blood was running hot. The temperature was in the high 80s. only magic could save me and I cast a spell with my next word.

“Lezat.”

The crowd of men had not expected a compliment for the cuisine of the island. A mistah liking dog. They laughed and I exited from the harbor through a gauntlet of hands clapping my back. They followed me back to the hotel singing the chorus, “Saddam # 1.”

I said nothing about Rambo. The hotel manager asked the mob to disperse. They shouted ‘angin, angin’, as they disappeared into the night. Mohammad was happy nothing bad happned to me. It had been a close call. That night the US hit Iraq position. Allied Air superiority was countered by missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia. I took my breakfast at the hotel in the morning.

I wrote a few more chapters of NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD. My female protagonist was sculpted from old memories of my ex-girlfriend. I couldn’t remember her phone number, but the hotel managed to secure a connection to the USA. My mother and father were relieved to hear my voice. Uncle Dave was in the hospital. His lungs were shot. I asked if I should come home.

“Uncle Dave will be happy that you asked for him.” My mother was close to him. They had been friends for over 40 years.

“Tell him I’m staying out of trouble.”

My forays from the hotel were few. Two trips around the island. Once to Tidore. Its hills were blanketed by clove trees. The people on that island seemed to be ignorant of the war. Only a few houses sported TV antennae. I swam at a beach at the end of the road. The current was too strong to snorkel. The Moluccas stretched north into terra incognita. Across the sea lay Manudo. Rough Guide said the diving off the nearby atolls was exceptional. A ferry was crossing the strait in two days. I booked passage. It was the end of January.

The war was going badly for Saddam. The Battle of Khafji pushed back his troops. F-16s pounded his positions. The men in Ternate no longer chanted his name. No one likes a loser. Only the old man carried the flag for Saddam. I called him the anti-Rambo. We ate dog together. He drank beer with ice. His real name was Baab. He was the first mate of the ferry across the Molucca Straits.

“Pagi ke Manado.” Baab reserved a sleeping berth of the ferry. It was in his cabin. The price of this luxury was $3. I bought beer for everyone. A half-dollar for a big bottle of Bintang.

“You not same mistah.” Baab didn’t like the Dutch, but he hated the Javanese. Jakarta was far away like Amsterdam. Someplace strange. Someplace on the other side of the world. Distances still mattered on Ternate. His two wives lived on opposite sides of the island.

“You eat dog. Dog make strong. Same bull.”

“I like dog.”

“You have wife?”

I was tired of saying no and pulled out a photo of an old girlfriend. She had been the love of my life in 1989. Baab held her photo to the light with his one hand.

“Makali Indah.”

She had been too beautiful for words. Baab thought that I was human. One of the world. We drank until midnight. I walked back to the hotel guided by fireflies. Magic was in the air. The smell of cloves too. Sleep was a maze of dreams centered on me and my children. I woke thinking of diapers. The manager knocked on the door.

“I have phone to America.”

I ran to the desk. It was my mother. She had bad news.

“Uncle Dave is dead.”

“Dead.” The cigarettes had killed him. He would have loved to hear about this trip. the sea her had been part of his youth. A youth gone forever.

I expressed my condolences and told my mother that I was fine. I said nothing about the ferry. The newspapers in the USA frequently published reports of their sinking.

130 dead in the Java Sea.

Better she think I was flying to Bali. Planes made more sense to her western mind. Her mother had crossed the Atlantic in a cattle ship. Boats were bad luck to Nana. Her daughter thought the same.

I spent the day writing. 2/3s through my novel about pornography in North Hollywood. My ex-girlfriend’s character was a virgin. I never fantasized her a whore. I listened to the BBC. The outcome of the war was written by the West. The Iraqis were in retreat.

I gave gifts to the hotel staff. Baseball cap to the manager. Postcards to the waitress staff. A tee-shirt to the fat motorcycle driver. He drove me to the harbor. The ferry was warming up its engine. Baab was hovering over the motor. He was the engineer. Our cabin was next to the wheelhouse. The room smelled of oil and unwashed sheets. It was better than the sleeping quarters below deck.

His friends shouted from the pier.

“Rambo, Rambo.”

Saddam had ceased to be their # 1.

“Tidak suka Rambo.” Baab grasped the railing with one hand, as the ferry pulled away from the port. The sea was calm. The sky clear. The volcanoes of Ternate and Tidore dominated the ocean. The 3rd-class passengers sought a comfortable position on the deck.

“I like Rocky.” Baab excused himself. He had duties.

I walked forward to the prow. The ferry was cutting a swift vee through the waves. The wind was from the east. I pulled off my baseball cap. Uncle Dave had steamed through these waters. His ship a battleship. Mine a ferry. Joseph Conrad was writing prose in my head. A romance about the sea.

The captain studied the clouds in the sky. He shouted orders to the crew. They battened down the cargo. The volcanoes were getting smaller and the waves much larger. Several passengers were getting sick. The sun was dropping in the furrows of the western sea. The sky red. Baab stood by my side.

“Bad sea tonight,” He said these words in English and explained, “I work ships everywhere. Europe. America. Asia. All my life. I lose my arm in a storm. Most men stop the sea after accident. But I love the sea. She is my wife. My real wife. You must think much about your wife.”

“All the time.” My ex- had no idea where I was. We hadn’t spoken in two years. What I told Baab was no lie.

“Good.” He looked over his shoulder at the other passengers. “Seasick. It like plague. Spread fast. Only two cures for seasick.”

“What?” I was feeling queasy.

“Land and death.”

The ferry buried its bow in a keel-shaking wave. Behind us was a horizon of storm. Ahead its twin.

“I hope land come first.”

“Land come first.” Baab patted my shoulder. He was a Muslim. He had hated me a week ago. We were now friends. ROCKY was his favorite movie. His first wife’s name was Bellah. # 2 was Amina.

“Good.” I fought off seasickness. Baab was pleased that I wasn’t like the other passengers. Ee was a man of sea. We were people of the world. A war thousands of miles away was unimportant. The sea was all that mattered and after that land.

It couldn’t come soon enough. Death was for someone else. Like my Uncle Dave. He was not looking for me to join him for a long time.

Until then I was at peace.

Tidak apa apa.