He thought of their wedding three years ago. It was just after the Dutch had recognized Indonesia’s independence. He had come to Jakarta from Yogya as a partisan of the Republic. He had met Dahlia in her office. She worked with NICA, the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration, which the Dutch had established to run the country as they tried to wrest it back from the Republican forces. Her father worked there, too. He was immediately attracted to Dahlia, and when he proposed marriage to her she had accepted at once. So had her parents, who were pleased to have him as son-in-law.
During the first years he was happy with Dahlia. It was only in these last months that a distance and a sort of emptiness seemed to have come between them. He had known for a long time that his salary could not co
