The Timor Man by Kerry B. Collison Read Free Book Online Page A

indifference.
    The students continued to warm to Albert. They sensed a sincerity that was not evident with other instructors. He gave his leisure hours to assist them and often ventured into their individual worlds to nourish relationships which soon developed beyond that of teacher and student. Often he would recount his student days in Timor, earning their admiration for his stand against the authorities. He never discussed his internment. This was part of his earlier life’s horrors which he attempted to purge from his mind.
    The memory could never be completely erased. He resisted the temptation to solicit their sympathy. No, these past nightmares were his, and his alone. Often, when the day’s stress prevented Seda from sleeping soundly, the nightmares would recur and he would awaken, screaming, to find himself drenched with perspiration. His nightmares were real; they filled his dreams with the terror of his incarceration in that stinking hell hole in Kupang, the detention centre for subversives.
    Â 
    Albert was already in his fifth year at the institution. It had grown considerably as a result of Australia’s commitment in Vietnam. He taught Malay and Indonesian which, although basically the same languages, were just different enough to warrant separate courses. The 1965 course had commenced two months before, soon after the new year. Twenty students had been accepted from over one thousand applicants. Three were Foreign Affairs officers, and the remainder a mixture from the armed forces and government bodies such as AID and information agencies.
    Albert was part of a five member teaching team responsible to the Director of Studies. The director coordinated the language courses and, in turn, reported to the college head, a Defence Department appointee. The courses were designed to produce graduates fluent in the target languages. Very few of the new intake had any previous exposure to the Asian languages as these were not taught in Australian schools.
    The Malay Emergency , followed by the Indonesian ‘ Konfrontasi ’ movement finally convinced the government of the need to develop an Asian language institution. Premises were located within an existing defence establishment and lecturers were scrounged from wherever they could be found. The need for extensive security inquiries reduced the pool of potential instructors to a small but talented group of men and women who were expected to produce linguists in the incredibly short period of just one year!
    Father Douglas had provided the information required to fill in the blanks in Albert Seda’s past. Security had been impressed with his anti-Soekarno stand and the priest’s recommendations. He was cleared for the low-level security position almost without reservation. There had been some concern that this young man was anti-military; however lengthy discussions with Albert convinced the department that this was not so. It was understood that his animosity was directed at the Indonesian military machine and not the Australian armed forces. Had they persisted, Albert would have admitted that, in fact, he had a deep rooted hatred for all military groups but was realistic enough to realise that he had to say what they wanted to hear.
    The Indonesian community in Melbourne was relatively small. Albert avoided his former countrymen and had it not been for an occasional visit to Radio Australia and the presence of two other Indonesian instructors, he would have had no contact at all. Occasionally a letter would arrive from his village. Father Douglas had been sent to Sumatra and his replacement refused to assist to forward correspondence from his family. He felt the sadness the migrant experienced on foreign soil once contact with family is broken. A few requests for funds had managed to survive the inadequacies of the postal system, and these always arrived months after the originator had put pen to paper. It was impractical to send money directly