The fish dream in rows, their scales blinking like crushed glass. A fly grovels into the sheen film of one’s eye. This market is full of dead and dying, wearing the balmy daydream of life. You hear a goat meet a blade, its bleat abrupted by a sudden trickle. But you’re watching Ibu. Rousing the yellow back into a fan of browned bananas by squeezing their severed stems. Mid-morning, sun sporing spice from baskets of curled chili claws. You wonder who is hungry, who is full-bellied. Aja ngelirik. Ibu’s starless stare warns you. No one likes when a young girl sees too much. She reflects danger no man wants to claim. But when a body is in purgatory, observation becomes its only defense. Light, crisping the straw piled on thin tin roofs. Underneath, a murder of Dutch soldiers. A neighbor boy no older than you is demonstrating the fragrance of turmeric root.

***

One baby-faced soldier skins it like a bloated finger with his pocket knife. Gnaws on the peel, sneering. He hawks. Spit a broken yolk on dirt. He catches you watching before he catches Ibu. It’s not foreign to you, how she walks with an invisible net, crowding men. You wonder if this is why Bapak takes revenge. The soldier’s hand rests near a pistol cribbed in his leather holster. You stand still, astonished that there exists a place so cold, it turns human lids into snake bellies.

***

Both you and Ibu bow heads. She speaks in native tongue to greet him. When he cocks his head, she performs the stolen language enforced across your village. Pa-gi. You mouth the sound. It feels like a metal sphere turning in your cheek. What he says next, you can only interpret as a trespass. Ibu will never tell you. She will only explain to you what to do when a man skins you with his eyes.

***

Her hand, a slender swan neck, reaches through the mound of fruit in her basket. Pulls out the carton of kretek for Bapak. The soldier takes the tan pack from her, fingers brushing her knuckles. He shakes it, the rolled tobacco crackling like horsewhip inside. You don’t recognize it yet, but this is the look of a man who is pleased with taking something that doesn’t belong to him. Matur nuwun. His accent mocks Ibu. One by one, the soldiers shimmy out a match to strike. Light the kretek in ceremony. Watching the parchment pupae burning, they laugh out Bapak’s smoke. Your neighbor watches. The merchants watch. Everyone understands but you.