In the boat, drifting down the Sekonyer River toward the Java Sea, Juminten held Arif close. The jungle on either side was silent. The fires behind them crackled like a closing fist.
She grabbed Arif. “We go. Now.”
The roads were chaos. Dayak men, their bodies painted with mud and motifs of hornbills, dragged Madurese families from their homes. The smoke from burning houses painted the sunset the color of a fresh wound. Juminten ran toward the port, her sandals slapping the cracked asphalt. She saw the head of Burhan the carpenter resting on a fence post, his scarred eyebrow raised in eternal surprise. She vomited into a bush and kept running.
“No, Nak,” she said softly. “Sampit is not a place you return to. It’s a place you survive.”
Juminten rushed out, wiping her hands on her stained sarong. “Stop. This is my warung. Respect the rice.”
Juminten covered Arif’s eyes. But she did not close her own. She watched as the boy brought the blade down, not on the girl, but on the mooring rope of a nearby raft, pushing her toward the current. “Go!” he shouted at her. Then he turned and ran into the smoke.
The trouble started with a card game.