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the following Sunday, out of respect for the mourning period. When the hunters jumped off their truck, with two squealing pigs in a cage, and dozens of hounds bound to each other by leather leashes, Margio showed up. He waved at them, jaunty despite the fact of his father waited to be buried.
    Not long after the funeral, Margio came to Sadrah’s house. He patted the hounds in the backyard with affection. He squatted there, cuddling the beasts one by one, scrubbing wax from their ears, and letting the animals bite the hem of his pants and his flip-flops. His face showed not a trace of grief. Instead he looked incredibly happy, as if he had unexpectedly won a big bet.
    Major Sadrah had long known that the boy didn’t get along with his father, and even suspected he wanted the old man dead. He had known the family since they first came to the village, and Margio was just a snotty child with a bag of marbles with which he enticed the other children into playing with him. Sadrah also got to know the father, and had seen the brutal man beat the child for the smallest of offenses. Now his father was gone, the ingenuous kid couldn’t hide his joy, Sadrah thought, and when Margio saw him approaching, without hesitation he asked whether there would be a hunt the next week. He wanted to join in, even if he had to bring his own lunch and give up his place as herder.
    But of course Sadrah gave him back his position.
    Well, it was now clear he wouldn’t be there next Sunday to herd the boars. Wretched kid, Sadrah thought. Earlier, when he was carrying the sword home, propping it on his shoulder with his legs wrapped in a sarong, feeling as if he were living in the war-torn era of the caliphs, it never occurred to him that Margio would join in if there were a fight. The boys fought a lot, drunk or sober. They were always eager to start throwing punches at the slightest provocation: an inadvertent collision at a dangdut show, a head blocking the view of a movie screen, or the sight of a girl they liked walking with another man. Living in a generally more peaceful period in the Republic’s history, in which the business of war was left to soldiers, made these boys reckless. During the years when Sadrah commanded the town’s soldiers, stopping these fights occupied him more than anything else. But as far as he knew, Margio was never a figure in this violence, despite everyone knowing his strength.
    He was a kid who didn’t like staying at home, but he was well behaved. He wasn’t stupid enough to waste his time brawling, and during the day he would do odd jobs and spend the money he made on cigarettes and beer. He was moody, but sweet nonetheless. Everyone knew he hated his father and thought he was capable of finishing him off, but he never tried anything like that. He was absolutely not a troublemaker. When Sadrah heard Margio had killed a man, he could not believe it.
    He was so convinced the kid was harmless he had soon forgotten that Margio had said he wanted to kill someone. When evening approached, after he had fed the hounds with fried giblets from the slaughterhouse, he took the Honda 70 out. He had gotten the motorbike years ago from a local police chief and didn’t have any papers or a license plate, but luckily he had never once got a ticket. The police chief had probably confiscated the bike from a crook, and for months no one claimed it, and then it became Sadrah’s. There were a lot of appropriated motorbikes, and the police chief had since offered Sadrah newer models, but he stayed faithful to his old favorite. Maybe it was the old-fashioned look that he liked, even though it often broke down and was louder than a rice mill.
    Without a helmet and wearing only flip-flops, he would roar about the township and head out for the shore and the paddy fields, taking the path through the plantation. He liked the evening breeze, admired the landscape, and greeted the people he passed along the road.