Willem guessed her age at between forty and fifty. Papua’s transfer from a Dutch protectorate to an Indonesian province would have been a done deal by the time she was born. So, yes, her schoolteachers might have been fluent in Dutch, but using the language wouldn’t have been a great career move.
“We’ll speak English,” Idil announced in a tone making it clear this was not subject to debate. Willem had been warned to expect bluntness. “This is scheduled for one hour, and we’re already ten minutes in; do you have a hard stop at the hour, Dr. Castelein?”
“I’m afraid I do. The weather.”
“Time and tide wait for no man,” Sister Catherine said.
Idil nodded and looked on the verge of delivering a statement but had to suppress frustration as they were interrupted by the waiter. While Willem ordered, she nodded at Sister Catherine, who began producing documents from a tote bag of impressive
size. Willem guessed from its look that it had been produced by artisans in Papua.
“Look, there’s no point dancing around,” Idil said, as soon as the waiter was out of earshot. “It’s obvious something is going on around T.R. Schmidt. Geoengineering.”
“Where?” Willem asked. Not wanting to volunteer anything.
“Sneeuwberg. The highest mountain in Papua. Getting sulfur from there into the stratosphere.”
Knocked me for a loop! was one of those down-home expressions that Willem had heard from the likes of the Boskeys during the sojourn in Texas. For a Somalian-Dutch woman to confidently announce that T.R. was pursuing additional geoengineering schemes on New Guinea’s highest mountain knocked Willem for a loop. He somewhat prided himself on being ahead of the curve. An insider who knew such things before anyone else.
Idil must have read his stunned expression as I can’t believe you know about that! instead of Holy shit, first I’ve heard of it! “I don’t care,” she said. “I’m not an environmentalist except insofar as it bears on those issues I do care about. Once we’ve gotten to the point where girls in developing countries are getting decent educations and being given control over their own bodies, then I’ll concern myself with T.R. McHooligan’s sulfur veil and its projected side effects. Maybe.”
“Some would say—” Willem began.
Idil ran him off the road. “That climate affects prosperity, and prosperity helps me achieve my goals. Of course. But climate’s not getting better, is it? If some billionaire in Texas has a plan to make it less bad, fine.”
“All right, well, glad we got that out of the way!” Willem said.
“Now, did your niece—”
“Cousin, technically.”
“Did Beatrix talk to you about what she’s been working on with my firm?”
For where there were courts, there were lawyers; and where there was an international court of human rights, there were law firms that specialized in that. Idil wasn’t trained as a lawyer, but
one such firm had set her up with a fellowship, endowed by a Bay Area tech zillionaire.
“No, she did not,” Willem said. “But it’s obvious. That branch of our family moved to Tuaba in the early days of the mine project and established a logistics business.”
“Import of mining-related equipment from Australia, Singapore, Taiwan,” Idil said, “as well as German equipment transshipped through Rotterdam.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
Sister Catherine was nodding sympathetically. “That is the way to survive, for people like the Kuoks. Become useful to a project that makes money for the powers that be.”
Willem nodded. “Pre-war, it was oil installations in Java. Now it’s the big mine in your homeland. The business has done well, but the political climate—well, I don’t have to tell you about that.”
Sister Catherine grimaced and nodded.
Willem continued, “Smart young people like Beatrix know that they have to get out before they get enmeshed in it.”
“Or worse,” Sister Catherine said. She was referring to the fact that people simply got murdered there, by Papuan freedom fighters, Indonesian secret police, or the latter pretending to be the former. “It speaks well of Beatrix that once she got out, and got a foothold in America, she’s chosen to do some work on behalf of the people back home.”
“I don’t know much about the nature of that work,” Willem admitted. “I know that the Papuans have been seeking independence for a long time. Which is complicated by the existence of the mine. By the wealth that it represents. Which is not something that the powers that be in Indonesia are in any hurry to relinquish.”