Page 38 of The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

Oh god. I raise my hand meekly. “What do you mean by war?”

“Tch, Meddy, you don’t malu-maluin Mama dong,” Ma says. “Is obvious, war is mean fight. We fight them.” She gets that glint in her eyes again, like Gordon Ramsay when he’s just cut into an overcooked piece of steak.

“Fight them?” I wish my voice didn’t come out so squeaky.

“Yes,” Big Aunt intones in the Voice of God, crossing her thick arms in front of her massive chest. “We fight. We cannot allow our sister to be kidnap like this. We teach them lesson.”

“What the—whoa, whoa,” I cry. “What the hell happened to ‘law-abiding businesspeople’?” I’m stuck in a nightmare. I know it. Maybe I should smack myself to wake myself up. “Why don’t we just go to the police?”

At this, Abi and Julia Child both jump up as though I’ve just tapped them with an electric prod. “No police!” they both shout.

I gape at them. They exchange glances with each other, as though surprised that they’ve reacted so quickly and decisively.

“Let me explain,” Julia Child says with a practiced smile. “Indonesia is very different from America. Here, we try not to get the police involved as much as we can. We prefer to... solve our own problems.”

“Yes, yes,” Abi says, nodding vigorously. “Solve our own problems.”

“Wha—” I close my mouth. Open it again. “But this involves literal kidnapping. Surely that’s gone well beyond the scope of peaceful conflict resolution. It’s an actualcrime. That should be handled by the police.”

Neither one speaks. Their faces are both painfully resolute, cold and unmoving as stones.

“This is because you twoaretriad leaders, aren’t you? All that stuff you said about being legit businesspeople, that was all bullshit.” Next to me, Nathan shifts warily and Ma and the aunties wince at how harshly I’m speaking to my elders, but I can’t help it. There have been so many lies, and they’ve all culminated in this. In Second Aunt being literally kidnapped. There’s a shocking protective instinct that’s caught me by surprise,rearing up from deep inside me and striking with claws unsheathed, teeth out. I don’t care whom I offend, I need my family intact.

“You don’t understand what the police are like in countries outside of America,” Julia Child says simply. “You’re looking at this through an American lens. Did you never read that god-awful story about Amanda Knox?”

Ma shakes her head while Fourth Aunt’s head bobs back and forth. “Foxy Knoxy,” Fourth Aunt says.

“Hanh?” Ma says.

“That was the unfortunate name that the Italian police came up with for Amanda Knox after her roommate was found murdered in Italy,” Julia Child says. “The Italian police immediately pinned Amanda as a suspect, and all of their investigation seemed geared to proving she was guilty instead of finding out the actual truth. And you know what? Her case wasn’t at all unique. It only went viral because she’s a beautiful Caucasian woman, but every day, all over the world, tourists find themselves in bad situations, and when the local cops get involved, guess who they’re going to blame?”

My stomach sours. This is completely not the way I saw this conversation going, but as much as I want to refute Julia Child’s logic, it makes perfect sense. Tourists make for a convenient scapegoat.

“You are visitors in this country,” Julia Child continues. “Your aunts renounced their Indonesian citizenship, didn’t they?”

Ma and the aunties nod hesitantly, and Julia Child sniffs. “Right, so you’re American citizens. You’re tourists. You’re in a foreign country, and you’re suggesting we go to the police and tell them that the most powerful and respectedbusinessman in Indonesia has had your auntie kidnapped while she’s doing Tai Chi?”

I gape at her for a second, realizing how utterly ridiculous it all sounds. But I forge ahead. “Well,yes!” I sputter. “I mean, that is literally what happened. Or maybe we could go to the US Embassy—”

“They will only make things worse. Americans, always marching everywhere, claiming power where they have no right to. If you get the US Embassy involved, it’ll likely make the local authorities more defensive and less likely to help you.”

I grit my teeth, and Nathan squeezes my hand. “She’s right,” he murmurs. “I travel a lot for business and I hear a lot of things—incidents that involve tourists in foreign countries. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the local authorities would take advantage of the fact that tourists rarely know the laws of the country and they’ll pin the blame on the tourist. Before they know it, they’re imprisoned for years for breaking a law that they didn’t even know existed.”

“But we haven’t broken any laws!” I cry. Then I stop myself. Because that’s not strictly true, is it? We’ve broken plenty of laws, including the biggest of them all: murder. And maybe if the Indonesian police were to look into our backgrounds, they might discover incriminating evidence about our old crimes. It’s a horrible realization, slamming down with the force of an anvil. I feel as though my very bones have been crushed and flattened. I can barely keep myself on my feet. I just want to lie down and weep.

“Okay, so no polisi,” Big Aunt says. Her face is still sickly pale with worry, but she looks resolute, far stronger than I’m feeling. Shame burns in my veins. Big Aunt, who is in her sixties, is holding up better than I am even though it’s her sister who’sgone missing. I need to be stronger. I take a deep breath, willing the air to fortify me. “What we do now to get Enjelin back?”

“War!” Abi roars again. Now that the discussion about calling the cops has been thoroughly dismissed, he’s fully embraced his rage once again. “Julia Child, you need to round up all of your men. We need to gather our forces and storm his house and—”

Julia Child scoffs at the same time as my mouth drops open. “I think not,” she says with finality.

“What?” Abi shouts.

“I want nothing to do with Kristofer.” Her nose wrinkles with obvious distaste. “No, if I never speak to the man again, it’s too soon.”

I want to scream. I can’t believe that even someone as powerful as Julia Child is still concerned with “What might people say?” And we’re in such dire straits that it’s ridiculous that anyone could be hung up on something so trivial. We’re talking about literally saving someone from a kidnapper. But then again, I’m not convinced by Abi’s idea of “war,” whatever that means. Surely it can’t mean a literal battle, but I have no idea what passes for normal with these people anymore.

Ma and the aunties are gaping at her. “Are you saying you won’t help get my sister back because you’re scared it’ll make you look bad?” Fourth Aunt says.

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