Map of the Invisible World. Tash Aw

went to find the librarian. The reception desk was empty, cleared completely of papers and books. ‘Hello,’ Margaret called, but no one answered. The swiftlets that nested in the eaves of the roof were coming alive in the gathering dusk, fluttering from their nests in search of insects. Margaret left the building and began the long walk home. Her head no longer hurt and she felt ready to face the city.

      She walked through the narrow alleys of Glodok, the air filled with the aroma of incense and cooking and blocked drains: a powerful, even heady combination. Never go there at night, foreigners cautioned, but Margaret always found it pleasant here, especially in the evenings. The ceaseless sounds of human industry – the clatter of pans and dishes, the dull thud of sacks unloading from lorries, the indistinct clinking of hardware – comforted her, for in the half-darkness it was easy to imagine that here, in this warren of streets, the city had not changed in two hundred years. Trapped in the maze of dead-ends and unnamed streets, she could not see tower blocks or concrete monuments or glass statues; and under the cover of night the decay of the buildings around her became less noticeable, making the city seem gentler, more human.

      Further north the old square was quiet and empty now, the colonnades of the great buildings filled with a deep gloom. The soldiers she had seen earlier were gone, replaced by people trying to find a place to sleep. Suddenly she was eager to get home, and glad she was not far. She longed for a cold shower, a proper modern American one with powerful jets of water that would strip the dust and grime from her hair and face and make her skin tingle when she stepped into it, but instead she knew that she would have to stand under the dribble of her makeshift shower that consisted of a hose and a watering can. The water would be tepid, heated in its thin pipe by the sun, but still, it would be good enough. And then she would have a whisky, a strong one, and then she would fall asleep and forget about today, about everything.

      She hurried along the final stretch until she reached the low wooden gate in front of her house. She could hear the distant ringing of her telephone as she fumbled in the dark for her keys, running across the yard. It was not until she was almost at the front door that she realised there was someone there, a body slumped on the steps. It was a boy, a teenager, crouched over in an almost foetal position. Margaret came up close and saw that he was asleep. Disturbed by the insistent ring of the telephone, he began to stir. He shifted uncomfortably; across his white T-shirt the word BERKELEY was emblazoned in large letters. Though closed, his eyelids trembled lightly, rapidly, as if troubled by dreams.

       6

      One day, not long after he turned thirteen, Adam ran away from home. He woke up that morning and decided he would look for his mother.

      For some weeks before this he had been feeling strange, not at all himself. He would be agitated by the smallest thing: the mewing of the fat white cat outside his window, or the squeaking of his bed-frame every time he turned over on the too-thin mattress, or his cupboard door that never closed properly – things he would not normally have noticed. He was irritated by Karl, too – by his uneven club-footed gait, by the pinky-whiteness of his skin which seemed obtrusive against the dull green landscape and, above all, by the way Karl sometimes mumbled to himself: indistinct words in an indistinct language under his breath without even realising he was doing it. ‘Was I talking to myself again?’ Karl would say, clearing his throat and attempting to laugh whenever he noticed Adam glaring at him. ‘Just a silly poem I remember from a long time ago.’ But it did not matter what he said, for Adam would try to ignore this, but as soon as the dreadful half-whisper started, Adam felt a curious sensation in his head, a pinprick that welled up quickly into a hot, almost burning feeling that filled his skull, pressing especially insistently behind his eye sockets. He would no longer be able to read or concentrate on what he was doing and would be so overcome by this pressure in his head that he would have to retreat to his bedroom. There, on his bed with his pillow over his face, he would still be able to hear Karl’s voice.

      As if guilty by association, Karl’s music soon began to annoy Adam too. It made no difference what it was: the moment Karl moved towards the record player, Adam’s back would stiffen. Violins that had previously thrilled him now sounded harsh and screeching; operatic voices, amusing before, were suddenly ridiculous. Adam took to leaving the house altogether. Heading for the sea, he would clamber over the rocks and make his way as far up the shoreline as possible until even the faintest strains of Karl’s dying heroines were drowned out by the hush of the waves. One or two outrigger canoes would be floating on the steel-blue sea, their sails trembling gently in the breeze; small nets would be flung from the boats, the fishermen hauling in meagre catches of mackerel and skipjack and anchovies. Adam would sit watching until his head felt clear and calm once more, the anger draining from his body.

      ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you so angry?’ Karl called out after him the first time he got up and left the room, mid-aria, and ran down to the sea. That was what it was, this thing that filled his head: anger. Until this moment, since beginning his New Life with Karl, Adam had never truly known what it was to feel angry. He wondered whether this anger meant that he was somehow changing, and if so, how. He would lie awake in bed thinking, Why am I angry? and, finding no answer, would become angrier still.

      At school he suddenly became conscious of what he was: an orphan. He had never been aware of this status, for many of his classmates seemed to be orphans too. Every so often someone would drop out of school to work in the ricefields or help with the nets, and Adam would learn that their father had drowned at sea or their mother had died in childbirth; now they were an orphan. On this island it seemed entirely normal to have lost at least one parent. But one day they had a new teacher, a young Sasak who had studied at the Universiteit van Indonesie. He taught them the difference between orphans who had lost one parent and those who had lost both. There was a word that distinguished the two: piatu. It was important to be precise with our Indonesian language, the teacher said; we have to use it carefully and with pride. This revelation troubled Adam greatly. Had he been orphaned once or twice? Was he a true orphan, more pitiful than the others? He went home and consulted Karl’s dictionary, kept on the highest, dustiest shelves like some forgotten, forbidden relic. Perhaps he would be less of an orphan in Dutch. He would discover that in every language but his own he would be an ordinary, unremarkable orphan. He remembered the Dutch for ‘orphan’ and found it quickly, but the definition was full of words he did not understand and left him more frustrated than ever.

      One evening, just before dinner, Karl put on some music – a Keroncong song’s repetitive stringy notes. They sat down to their meal: over-cooked mutton curry and rice.

      ‘Not hungry, son?’

      Adam did not answer; he did not even bother to shake his head. With his spoon he built mounds of rice on his plate and then mashed them into the shallow pool of curry before rebuilding and remashing them. The edge of his plate was decorated with faded purple flowers whose stems disappeared into the brown swamp that Adam had created.

      ‘Adam,’ Karl said, ‘please don’t play with your food. A lot of people on this island are surviving on one meal every three days, and I mean one meal of rice mixed with tapioca.’

      Adam dabbed at the curry. He found a morsel of meat and tried to cut it using the side of his spoon, but the mutton was tough, full of tendons.

      ‘Use a knife, Adam, you’re making a mess.’

      Adam went to the kitchen and returned with a blunt butter knife. He began to saw at the piece of mutton listlessly, as if he had already given up.

      ‘Please,’ Karl said, ‘don’t hold your knife like that. Put it between your thumb and forefinger – you’re not holding a pencil.’

      Adam looked straight ahead, avoiding Karl’s gaze and glaring instead at the piano. Then he smacked the knife down on the table, catching the side of his plate and upending a thick glob of curry onto the linoleum tablecloth. He felt his eyes well up with hot tears, his head prickling with that burning sensation that he now knew to be anger; and this time the anger seeped downwards too, filling his chest and belly.

      ‘Don’t