The Enemy Within

The dog that lay beneath the front step didn't even lift its nose from the dirt as Akbar made his way towards the house. He'd had a dog as a boy. It would follow every handful of tapioca from Akbar's bowl to his mouth. Without fail, Akbar would fling the bowl to the ground and shout, "That look's enough to put you off your food." The dog's thin body would flinch and then his stubby tail would wriggle in pleasure as it worked off the sticky scabs of tapioca from the inside of the bowl. Akbar wondered what had happened to that dog.

The old lady, who lived in the house, listened to him patiently.

"You don't understand," he lapsed into the dialect of the area, "it's a matter of life and death."

He pointed to the poster stuck to the van. A giant mosquito caught within a rifle's crosshairs. Under it in red, "Dengue: the enemy within."

"One million IDRs is not a lot to keep your family healthy," he said, studiously avoiding the gaze of the children with the sticky eyes hanging around her legs.

The official charge was less but so far no-one had objected. It helped that the national radio station ran a continuous tally of the afflicted. You didn't need to read to know that already 300 victims of the fever had been cremated, a thousand suspected cases had been hospitalised and there were now rumours that supplies of the chemicals used to destroy the mosquito nests were running low.

The old woman blinked towards the van. Her wispy hair was scraped back so that the skin stretched tight over her cheekbones. Knotted veins stood in relief around her hairline. One of the children sniffled.

Akbar put his hand into his shirt pocket and took out two pieces of caramel. Sighing, he held the candy out to the children. They looked at the old woman. She blinked with her watery eyes at Akbar.

"OK, I can spray for 80."

The woman nodded to the children. They took the candy. Akbar waved to the two men in the truck and they clambered out of the vehicle looking like extras from a Western - bandanas tied around their faces to protect against the fumes of the chemicals.

As Akbar opened the passenger door, one of them, Jimmy, muttered, "I wouldn't live in a dump like that, even if I was a mosquito."

Akbar stopped and patted Jimmy's partner on the back, "Hey, Tata, you're not looking too hot. Must be the fumes. Why don't you sit this one out."

Jimmy began to unload the gear alone, muttering all the while.

Once they were both back in the van, Tata took out a piece of dried squid from the glove box and began to suck on it. "So what'd you get?" he asked.

Akbar rolled down the window, "I wish you wouldn't eat that stuff. It stinks up the van."

He put his elbow on the window frame and watched Jimmy kick the dog from under the steps.

"So what did you get?" Tata repeated. He had started on a second piece of squid.

"Seventy," replied Akbar.

"Seventy?"

Akbar fished a handful of crumpled notes out of his shirt pocket, took two for himself, handed two to Tata and put the rest into a plastic wallet at his feet. Jimmy got nothing; it was their little secret.

"We got Habibie tomorrow. We'll get plenty there."

He thought of Habibie, where the houses spilled out into bougainvillea-filled gardens. Those houses belonged to people who could afford to run the air conditioning just for their Persian cat. The Philippino maid might offer him an iced coffee while the men sprayed.

The dog had sought shade under one of the pawpaw trees and stood rubbing its back with its nose, pink and black mottled flesh showing through thinning grey hair. If his wife was in a good mood when he got home he'd ask her about getting a dog. He'd tell her that there was a rapist on the loose and he was not leaving her at home without proper security. He'd really play it up.

Jimmy was done.

The old lady and the children stood watching him walk back to the truck. The children waved to Akbar.

Hey, it could be true, Akbar thought.

He waved back.

There were a lot of bad people out there.

When he got home that evening, he found his wife mopping the floor and the contents of the fridge lying on the table.

"I'm going to my brother's," she said as she pushed her feet into her shoes. She winced - her bunions were getting as big as onions.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs she shouted without turning round, "And don't think I'm sharing a bed with a man who couldn't care less if I died of food poisoning."

Akbar kicked the fridge - it usually did the trick - but the rusting heap simply shuddered and fell back into silence.

Akbar changed back into his sandals and ate dinner at the caf round the corner.

On his return he found his wife already asleep. He pulled a futon from a cupboard in the front room and lay down without changing out of his clothes. But sleep was not restful. In his dreams giant mosquitoes hovered over a paddy field. Suddenly a voice from the dark shouted, 'Quick, spray the bastards now!'

There was a rattle of gunfire and mosquitoes began to drop amongst the rice plants.

"We'll never be safe until we kill them all," called another voice.

There was more gunfire and then silence. In his dream, Akbar waited for a long time and then crept out from his hiding place. He felt the icy water creep around his ankles and then up around his calves. The dead mosquitoes lay face down in the stagnant water. He picked up a planting stick, which was floating nearby, and prodded one. The mosquito body bobbed right side up. It had the face of his father. Akbar woke himself with a shout.

"Is it not enough that I can't eat in my own house, but now you shout the place down," his wife had snapped on the light and stood at the door.

Akbar sat blinking. "I was dreaming," he murmured.

His wife peered at him through puffy eyes. "Dreams are for those with a guilty conscience," she said and flicked off the electricity.

Unable to sleep, Akbar got up. In the kitchen he made some barley tea and stood drinking it as he looked out through the mesh door. Outside a few people moved about like spectres in the grey light of early morning. Draining the last of the warm liquid between his teeth, he glanced back towards the dark interior of the house and slid his feet into his sandals.

His work unit was a 15-minute walk from the house and lay beside a river, which came up from the sea. Sometimes salt-water crocodiles or even basking sharks could be seen floating along amongst the tall weeds. Akbar was halfway across the bridge when he saw something sitting at the far end, just where the walkway split into two, one following the bank towards the main mosque and the other leading up to the back gate of his work place - the City Health and Cleansing Department. As he got closer, he realised that it was a large cardboard box. People were always dumping garbage here. He slid one of his hands into a slot in the side of the box, aiming to fling it into the nearest skip, and felt the contents move with a surprising weight. Laying the box back down, he opened it slowly. Tata had once found a boa constrictor asleep in a bucket under a house they had sprayed. Inside the box lay three puppies. At first glance all three seemed dead, but as Akbar stared down at them, one stuck out a little pink tongue and began to make a sucking movement. Akbar quickly folded down the flaps of the box again and carried it through the gates and into the yard of the Health and Cleansing Department. Only the man who worked the furnace was around at this time so Akbar knew he wasn't likely to meet anyone.

He left the box in a small storeroom behind the toilet block and went to look for some gloves. After disposing of the two dead puppies, he thoroughly checked the remaining one for ticks and fleas. It seemed remarkably clean. He took off the gloves and ran his fingers over the black fur. The puppy opened its eyes and peered at him. Its little mouth began to move again.

"We need to get you some food, little man."

In the canteen he found the remains of a carton of soya milk. He dripped this into the tiny mouth.

By the time he had finished feeding the puppy and had fashioned it a bed of torn newspaper, it was six o'clock. He ran his hand over the soft fur one more time and then shut the door to the storeroom behind him.

"You look like shit." Tata stood slurping rice porridge in the canteen. "Sleeping alone again?"

Akbar poured a glass of coffee and sat down at a table.

"Not eating?"

Akbar shook his head.

"After Habibie you'll be able to get the old lady her fridge, eh?"

Akbar quickly looked around to see if there was anyone else about and threw Tata a look.

"Talking of marital strife," continued Tata between mouthfuls of porridge. "Did you hear about the man who strangled his 16-stone wife and then tried to commit suicide by cutting off his penis? Front page of the Daily."

Akbar sat nursing his coffee as Tata went back up for more porridge. He wondered why the man had chosen to strangle his wife. Surely there were easier ways to kill a woman - with insecticide for one.

Tata returned with more porridge and a plate of pickles. "Can you imagine cutting off your penis?"

Akbar could not.

"The Daily said it was obviously a protest at the emasculation of men today."

Akbar would have smiled, but he felt suddenly weary. He laid his head on his folded arms. His brother-in-law worked for one of the big pharmaceutical companies - in sales - that supplied chemicals to the Health and Cleansing Department. He had used his contacts to get Akbar a job nearly ten years ago. Before that Akbar had sweated from one manual job to the next. On a building site no-one was interested in where you had come from.

"Come on, sleeping beauty." Tata slammed the table with his open palm and made Akbar jump. "We got to go get those bloodsuckers - before they get us."

On the way back to the department from Habibie, Akbar asked Tata to make a quick detour. They pulled up outside a well-known discount warehouse and Akbar spent 15 minutes looking at fridges.

Jimmy who always carried a transistor with him sat in the back shaking his fist in time to the beat.

"Going to keep that down," Akbar nodded as he clambered back in to the van. "I got a real bad head." He laid his cheek against the window. The glass was hot and he could feel the boom, boom, boom of the blood coursing through his brain. He wondered when he'd get a chance to check on the dog. The metal louvres were open in the storeroom but the heat was stifling today.

TATA AND JIMMY IMMEDIATELY PRE- pared lunch on return to the office; great bowls of cold noodles in a broth with a thick skin of fat and fine sliced green onions. Akbar felt sick and went to sit in the toilet. The old ceramic bowl was cool against his skin. He flicked through a newspaper that someone had left on the floor. It was mostly about the fever. There was also coverage of the upcoming elections. He was scanning the list of candidates when his eye caught an article about the return of the Communists to the political fray.

The ghost of '65 still haunts many, but Indonesians must accept all its brothers if they are to enjoy a democratic and pluralistic society.

Akbar heard the flap of rubber slippers in the corridor and then recognised the legs of Tata from under the door. Tata rocked to and fro creating little pockets of air between his meaty soles and the rubber. Now and then these escaped in tiny gasps. There was then the sound of a steady stream against porcelain.

Suddenly Akbar felt as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water over his head and let out a groan.

"You in there, Akbar?"

With effort Akbar managed to reply, "Stomach cramp."

"What you need is good home cooking," Tata answered. "The sooner you get that new fridge the better."

After ten minutes the cramp had eased off. His hair was damp around his temples and he doused his face with cool water from the sink. When he left the toilets he turned towards the storeroom. Most of the men were having lunch and he might not have another chance to check on the puppy before it was time to head home.

The puppy began to make a gentle kind of whistling noise when it heard the door.

"Do you want to get us into trouble?" Akbar whispered.

He lifted the puppy out of the box and sat down on the floor. Beneath him the cement was cold and he shivered.

"We're going to have to find you a better home than this." The tiny dog buried its nose into Akbar's lap. Perhaps he could get an allotment and keep the dog there. There were places you could rent further along the river. He knew his wife would never allow a dog into the house and there was no garden in which to put a kennel.

Maybe he'd think about it later; his head had begun to pound again. He flicked his tongue over his top lip. Akbar had never really been ill in his life but he had cheated death.

As a boy his family, like most peasants, were members of the Communist Party. After the failed coup of 1965, Su Harto's army had swiftly retaliated. As a regional party representative, Akbar's father had been taken away immediately. When news emerged that one of the daughters of one of the kidnapped generals had been killed during the dbcle, the army came back looking for younger blood. Akbar had hidden amongst the thin plants and ice water of the paddy. As the soldiers approached the house the dog had begun a ferocious barking. In Bali, a barking dog warned of the presence of evil spirits and, perhaps superstitious, the soldiers backed off and left. Shortly afterwards, Akbar had left too and for the past 40 years, the truth had been hidden so deep within him that it was like an enemy banished to the most secure dungeon.

Beads of sweat were beginning to gather in the folds around his nose and around the creases of his mouth. The dog had wriggled along Akbar's legs and was nearly at his ankles. Akbar leant forward to retrieve the dog and suddenly felt himself falling into a faint.

Tiny as the little dog's whine was, it was enough to lead Tata to him when Akbar failed to return from the toilet. It was two o'clock and they were due to head out on another job. Akbar lay delirious from the dengue fever, muttering about giant mosquitoes and "killing the bastards before they got you".

When he opened his eyes he found Tata sitting beside the bed.

"It's just as well I can keep a secret."

Akbar tried to speak but his tongue hung loose against his lips.

"What do you think your wife would say if she knew?"

"His wife knew what?" Akbar's wife materialised beside them.

"New fridge," he managed to mumble.

Akbar's wife looked at Tata.

"He's ordered you a new fridge," said Tata.

Akbar's wife almost smiled. She leant against the wall taking the weight off her swollen feet and began to suck contentedly on the can of iced coffee she had taken from her bag.

Akbar groped at the cotton sheet and pulled it further up around his neck.

Tata bent his head to say goodbye and whispered, "I'll take care of the little matter till you're fighting fit and ready to take on the enemy again."

He pointed his fingers towards a poster on the wall warning about the dengue and discharged two imaginary pistols.

DAVID ROBINSON meets competition winner Kirstin Zhang

KIRSTIN ZHANG IS IN A HOTEL room in Oxford when she picks up the phone to find out that she's won Britain's biggest short story prize. She has a job interview to attend within the hour at the Ashmolean museum. And if you were in charge of a world-famous museum looking for someone to co-ordinate fund-raising, you'd look for someone just like her too: intelligent, cultured, cosmopolitan. But this news ... well, it changes so many things. She's excited, delighted, but she needs time to let it sink in.

When we next talk, the 35-year-old has thought more about what it means. She'll stay in Scotland, she has decided. And she'll write. "This is a major thing for me," she explains. "But I really feel that I'd like to do a creative writing course or work part-time somewhere and make creative writing the focus of things. I don't want to regret not having followed it through."

The inspiration for her story came from something she read in a newspaper last year. Alongside a picture of men spraying against dengue fever in Indonesia was a report on the run-up to elections there, which mentioned the fact that Communists would be eligible to stand as candidates for the first time since the army coup that brought Suharto to power in 1965.

The blood-letting that accompanied Suharto's coup - during which one million people were killed - is largely forgotten about in the West. But at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where Zhang took a post-graduate degree, one of her best friends was an ethnic Chinese Indonesian who told her all about the bloody consequences of Suharto's rise to power.

Zhang's winning story, The Enemy Within, uses this history to provide the main character, Akbar, with a secret past. The secret present is neatly framed in the story of the corruption implicit in his work as a sprayer against dengue fever. Indeed, so endemic is the corruption that Akbar's health depends upon it: only if he rakes off enough from overcharging will he be able to buy his wife a fridge. "There was and is a huge amount of corruption," says Zhang. "Dengue is something that should be quite easily controlled, yet only last year there was another outbreak around the time of the election. Thousands of people lost their lives just because funds weren't getting through to the right places."

While to many writers such a subject might seem rather esoteric, Zhang's own background makes it seem almost normal. Although born in Britain, ten years of her childhood was spent in Papua New Guinea, where her father worked for the Australian administration. After taking a degree in drama, film and TV from Glasgow University she worked in Japan, where she studied Japanese at the country's most prestigious private university. Back in Britain, she took a masters in Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

By now, however, she had met her husband, who was in his final year as a PhD student at Strathclyde university but who belonged to one of China's most aristocratic families. Under the last Emperor, his family had effectively ruled Manchuria. It was there that, on Christmas Eve 11 years ago, they married.

Now divorced, she returned to Scotland to bring up her son, Laurens. She has recently worked as a co-ordinator for independent film and TV producers and the Celtic Film and Television Festival, but is currently looking for a job that makes more use of her many qualifications - hence the interview at Oxford.

In the last three years, however, she has started writing. So far, she has only entered one other nationwide competition - on travel writing for Radio 4's Excess Baggage. She won it with a story about visiting her husband's family in Manchuria - first on a midwinter honeymoon and later, during the collapse of her marriage.

She has, she says, no shortage of ideas for subjects to write novels about, although they all tend to be far removed from traditional ideas of what a "Scottish novel" might be about.

"I seek out situations that are a bit different. I didn't grow up in Scotland, and don't have all the common reference points, so that's perhaps no surprise.

"My life has been so unpredictable and my career has been here, there and everywhere, so my fiction tends to reflect that, looking at the random and the unexpected." Like marrying a Chinese aristocrat in Glasgow? Like winning a glittering prize at the first attempt? Like becoming a best-selling writer?

One thing is for sure. You wouldn't bet against it.