Konfrontasi was drearily familiar, after the real war with the Japanese and the false war of the Emergency; they were once again in an unreliable world. Bubbling through the murk of Indonesia’s foreign policy came the idea that the new Malayan Federation would be dangerous, that it was a contrived creation of neo-colonial forces, the nekolim.

Sukarno was in charge, having reclaimed his country from the Dutch. He filled his country with a giddy unreality, a sense that there were no boundaries for them. He proclaimed Tahun vivere pericoloso, the year of living dangerously. At a public rally he shouted, “To hell with your aid,” his voice resonating with justified anger, his audience roaring with him. It was just before monsoon season, the air chokingly hot. The crowd heaved, gilded with sunburn, cheering when Sukarno proclaimed he was tired of busybodies telling him how to run the country. Where had it got them? Their money was hardly worth anything, he shouted, flinging fistfuls of rupiah over the crowd.

They’d burnt their bridges now. Having seen off the white men, they turned their attention to their Asian neighbours. Some said Sukarno simply wanted to distract his citizens from their own problems, their hunger, their children not in school. Others thought it was the Federation who induced it, needing this external threat to shore up a shaky alliance. It was a time for grand adventures. No one could afford a proper war, it was far too soon after the last one. The small skirmishes and localised terror kept everyone on their toes.

In the end everything fell apart anyway. The alliance failed, and Singapore was ejected from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, and was admitted into the UN a month later—Indonesia having resigned at the start of the year in a fit of pique. Konfrontasi ended six months after that when General Suharto seized power from Sukarno in a bloodless coup. There were no more bombs for a long time after that, and soon no one remembered the excitements of those years except the families of the dead. (Mollie. Oh, Mollie.)

•

Madam Ngoh dies sometime in his sixth week of hospitalisation, or perhaps the seventh. He has stopped keeping track. If he leaves, there will be plenty of time to find out where in the year he is. If not, it won’t matter. Although he hardly spoke to Madam Ngoh, he finds himself missing her intensely. She was here when he arrived, and they have devised little rituals. A nod first thing in the morning, a private smile when lunch is particularly inedible. He knew she was gone halfway through the night, when her breathing stopped, without warning, no slowing down. One minute she was rattling in and wheezing out, just like always, and the next a terrible silence.