One day I asked the doctor the reason for his kindness and consideration. Why had he nursed me, a stranger, back to a semblance of life?

‘You are not a stranger to me, K’tut Tantri,’ he replied. ‘It is important to me that you get well.’

The news of Indonesian freedom had filled my heart with gladness. How happy Nura must feel. But as I thought of him, something told me that he was in danger. I could not shake off this presentiment, although I told myself it was foolish. But was it foolish? The radio said that the Dutch had reinstated themselves in Bali. Guerilla warfare in Bali against the Dutch was rampant. Nura was bound to be in the middle of it.

One morning the doctor came to my room with a bigger smile than usual, and said, ‘K’tut, make yourself pretty. You have company.’

I replied, ‘What company could I have? No one knows that I am here.’

I was astonished when the doctor ushered in four Indonesian men in their early twenties. I gazed at them blankly for a moment, and then recognized one.

‘Pito, darling little Pito,’ I sobbed.

He came over to my bed, bent down and rubbed my nose with his, drew in his breath. Such is the custom of the Indonesians when embracing.

Pito was dressed, as were the others, in khaki shorts and a khaki tunic on which was sewn the rank of a first lieutenant. He introduced me to the other young men. I smiled at their titles, but then remembered that these young men were in the midst of a revolution.

‘How did you know I was here?’ I asked.

‘I am in the intelligence department. In any case, the doctor sent word that you were here.’

‘The doctor!’ I exclaimed. ‘How would he know where the guerilla headquarters were?’

‘He is one of our most important guerillas.’

I sat up in amazement. The doctor! A member of Bung Tomo’s ragged bamboo army of freedom fighters. What next!

After the pleasantries were over the doctor joined us, and his pretty wife brought native coffee – kopi tubruk – and rice cakes. We sat around talking about the revolution. One story led to another until Pito suddenly broke into the general discussion.

‘K’tut,’ he said, very serious. ‘We came here to find out how you were getting along, and to see if you were getting the proper care. But we also came to ask you to consider two propositions. We hope you will find one of them agreeable.’

He drew a paper from his pocket and began to read in his soft, musical voice.

‘K’tut Tantri: We, the guerilla fighters of Java Timor, know only too well the suffering and torture that you have been subjected to by the Japanese, just as we know how the Dutch persecuted you for so many years in Bali.