Banging the Monkey

by Tod A

  “Mr Mark, it’s pretty sure you have breakbone fever.”

  .What the fuck is that?”

  “Mayat call it dengue. You get from mosquito bite. It is very, very painful. But probably you will not die.”

  “Probably?”

  She looked at the thermometer again.

  “Yes, but you need a treatment.”

  “Okay.”

  “Unfortunately, our clinic nurse is gone to Joro.”

  “What? Why?”

  “For treatment herself. She also has dengue.”

  I had to laugh. It really hurt to laugh.

  “What’s my temperature?”

  “Forty degrees.”

  “Celsius? Means nothing to me.”

  “A very high number,” she continued. “It is much better that you go to Joro. But there is no boat anymore. Too much rain.”

  “Fantastic,” I croaked. It felt like my brain was trying to escape from my skull by kicking its way out through my eye sockets.

  “Don’t worry, Mr Mark. Wulan will take care. The nurse showed me once the treatment. I have borrowed medication from the clinic.”

  She began filling my palm with a colorful assortment of pills. “This tablet vitamin C. This one Codeine, for pain. This one Valium, for sleeping.”

  “Drugs. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Drink the tablets with this.” She held out a plastic bottle of foul-smelling yellow-green liquid.

  “Get that shit away from me. I’m going to puke.”

  “This is temu kunci, local medicine. You must drink.”

  “Alright, I’ll try,” I said. “But I can’t sit up.”

  “Wulan will help you.” She leaned over and pulled me up by my shoulders. I winced at the pain in my lower back. I could smell her lavender-scented perspiration. She stuffed a pillow behind my neck and handed me the bottle. I dumped the handful of pills into my mouth, and took a big swallow from the bottle, trying not to retch at the stench.

  “Ugh, what’s in this stuff?”

  “Made from papaya and pegaga leaf.”

  “It tastes like cow piss.”

  “No more jokes, Mr Mark. Just rest.”

  She placed the pill bottles on the nightstand.

  “When you have discomfort, you can swallow more tablets. But never too much Valium.”

  “God forbid. How long will this dengue thing take?”

  “The most bad part is always three, four days.”

  “Three or four days!” I didn’t know if I could take three or four more hours of this torture.

  Her expression was serious.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You are strong, Mr Mark,” she said. “Probably you will be okay. I will return to look at you.”

  She got up and opened the door. The rain was still hammering down. I could hear distant shouting.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Too much rain. The guest house is flooding.”

  “Oh,” I said weakly. “Good luck.”

  She was already gone.

  In desperate need of sleep, I sank down in bed, trying to find a way to lie that didn’t hurt. But every new position brought only new pain.

  Finally the drugs kicked in and, for a few hours, I sank into a troubled semi-consciousness.

  I woke with the desperate need to purge my guts from both ends. Getting to the bathroom was agony. Yet I was spurred on by the mental image of the alternative.

  I made it to the toilet and voided myself, leaning over from the toilet to the sink to vomit. Heaves racked my abdomen, causing excruciating pain in my lower back. The spasms kept coming long after my body had anything left to expel. By the time it was over, I was too drained to stand and collapsed onto the blood-spattered floor.

  Welcome to Madu—Paradise in the Tropics.

  The tiles cooled my burning skin. I lay on my side and watched a red centipede creep along the baseboard six inches from my face. I remembered Cooney telling me their sting was deadly.

  “Go ahead, you ugly fucker. Do me a favor.”

  But it wasn’t my lucky day.

  I’m not sure how long I lay sprawled there. I may have blacked out again. Eventually I summoned the strength to crawl back into the bedroom. It took a superhuman act of will to reach the mattress. Even then, it was impossible to sleep.

  If I kept perfectly still, I could find fleeting respite from the stabbing pains in my joints and spine, before my body involuntarily shifted, jerking me back to painful reality. I tried to read, but even moving my eyes was torture.

  Wulan had left a bowl of plain rice on the bedside table. I had no appetite and couldn’t see the point in eating when I would probably only hold it down for an hour or so. I thought about calling Raj and telling him what had happened, but my phone battery had died when it fell into the flood.

  There was blackness, followed by pain, then more blackness, interrupted only by a desperate need for the toilet.

  I was like some Hollywood Jesus trapped in a film loop. My journey from bed to bathroom was the long march to Golgotha. The fourteen steps to the toilet were my stations of the cross. In my delirium, the world around me moved in fast motion, as I moved at half-speed. The only thing missing from my biblical epic was a crowd of Israelites hurling insults and stones.

  Every few hours Wulan would appear from out of the monsoon spray to take my temperature, force some boiled rice down my throat, and shove the bottle of cow piss into my mouth, before dashing back out into the deluge.

  The way it kept raining, I feared the whole village would be washed down the valley and out to sea. Soon I didn’t know whether it was day or night. The line between consciousness and dreams had dissolved.

  It all happens in slow motion.

  My body lies immobile on the bed.

  At first, I am still myself, and still within myself.

  My body is an appendage, a dead weight.

  My limbs weigh me down like logs embedded in mud.

  I am a flickering spark imprisoned in my head.

  Consciousness kindles inside my skull,

  a firefly in a jar, fluttering.

  Seeking freedom, I see a way out through my eye-sockets.

  I take a breath, summon my courage, and make my escape.

  I rise up, up, floating over myself.

  Now, looking down, I can see into myself.

  I lie dead on the bed, yet I am still above, watching.

  This is how it is at first.

  Then I begin to change.

  My floating mind takes shape, and finds new form.

  My spirit inhabits a new body, a woman.

  Now I am Wulan, a Healer.

  My hands have great strength. My touch brings peace.

  I carry comfort with me. I am earthly and kind.

  My smile is sunlit like the paddy.

  My heart grows wide with silence.

  The morning is in my eyes. My laughter flows like a spring.

  Every bird and flower knows my name.

  I am a protector-angel. Sadness flees from me.

  I am the caretaker of souls.

  I bring sustenance to the spirit.

  I hold warmth and tenderness in my hands.

  I am the bringer of offerings. And I am the offering itself.

  I give of myself freely.

  I come bearing blessings. And I am the blessing itself.

  I am the singer of songs. And I am the song within the singer.

  I am beauty, simplicity and calm.

  I restore balance. I dispel darkness like the dawn.

  But I am mortal, fleeting.

  Floating high above the bed, I change again.

  I become a creeping shadow,

  roaming the circumfe
rence of the room.

  This is the second part.

  Now I am Malang, the Demon Queen.

  Dark and liminal, I stand upon the threshold of sorrow.

  I am ancient and my memory is long.

  I come from inside my mother, the Mountain,

  wearing a pointed hat like my mother.

  My breath is a chill wind, my skin as pallid as the dead.

  My eyes are as yolkless eggs.

  My claws are black and sharp.

  My barren breasts swing low to the ground.

  I bring illness, misfortune, and tears.

  I am the Widow, and the maker of widows.

  I am the mistress of dark magic, the vessel of all cruelty.

  I take the form of a woman, yet in anger I am like a man.

  My fangs drip blood. My tongue spits fire.

  I sleep in graveyards. I feast on corpses.

  I thirst for the blood of children.

  I wear a necklace of skulls.

  The temple of Death is my home.

  For I am the Goddess of Death, and I am Death itself.

  I rob the graves of the Good.

  For, I am the Enemy of Good.

  On my ankles ring bells of warning,

  smelted from the loot of graves.

  Listen well! For, one day you may hear me coming.

  I regained consciousness on the floor. My legs were tangled in a sweat-soaked sheet, my brain powerless from panic, my limbs paralyzed with pain. I was certain I was dying, that my body was disintegrating—ripped apart at the joints like overcooked meat.

  I started crawling for the door and collapsed halfway. The hand searching for the door handle seemed to belong to someone else—miles away, down the wrong end of a telescope. My body shook with sobs. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks.

  The door blew open and I felt her small strong arms around me, lifting me up.

  I wanted to tell her I was dying. But I couldn’t speak for my sobbing.

  Finally I got some words out. “Help me, Wulan—my body is falling apart.”

  She told me I was only dreaming.

  I didn’t believe her. She was lying to shield me from the truth.

  “Hold me,” I kept saying. “Hold me together.”

  “No worries, Mr Mark,” she kept repeating. “Wulan is here. Wulan is here.”

  We stayed huddled there on the floor for a long time, Wulan cradling my head in her hands.

  After many hours I emerged from darkness into sunlight. I was alone.

  My body felt as if it had survived a gang beating. But I had a little energy now, and my head was somewhat clearer. I grabbed the thermometer from the table and took my temperature: thirty-seven. I felt almost human again. I sat up in bed and exchanged the thermometer in my mouth for a cigarette. The rain had tapered off to a low drizzle. I struggled to my feet and went outside to see what ill the storm had wrought.

  The flood waters had receded, leaving a great muddy mess. The ground was covered in fallen branches, leaves, and garbage.

  Over by the restaurant Wulan was nodding patiently as a group of angry guests berated her about there being no boats. The tourists stalked off in a huff as I came staggering up. The floor of the restaurant was covered in a layer of wet silt.

  “Hi,” I said, weakly. “What day is it?”

  “Wednesday. Why are you not in your bed?”

  “I think I’m a bit better.”

  She laid a hand across my forehead. “No, you are not better. Your temperature is smaller now. But it will be big soon again. You are halfway only. Three more days, four more days before the dengue is finished.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not joking.”

  “Fuck,” I said. It was not what I’d wanted to hear.

  “You are hungry?” she asked.

  “I’m fucking starving.”

  “Good. You go to the bed. Wulan will bring food.”

  “Okay.”

  She looked up at the gathering clouds. “It will rain again,” she said, “Too much rain.”

  I staggered back through the debris to my room. When the food came I wolfed it down and felt the satisfying discomfort of a full belly for the first time in seventy-two hours. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading, smoking, and waiting for the inevitable.

  The nightmare returned soon enough.

  To distract myself, I took notes in my diary, as if I were describing the symptoms of someone else.

  ‘4:45 PM: High fever, red spots on arms and legs. Palms and soles of feet painful, swollen crimson.

  5:14 PM: Rash spread over entire body. Reflection in mirror like caricature of man with tropical disease—comical but too painful to laugh.

  6 PM: Skin itches like a motherfucker. Calamine lotion no help. Sleep impossible. Fearing return of hallucinations.’

  When the hallucinations came again it was as though I had stumbled off a summer boardwalk into a dark Coney Island sideshow.

  I am the dog and it is night.

  I wait for my friend at our meeting place,

  where the jungle reaches the sea.

  But he does not come.

  I limp up the beach toward the restaurant, to see if he is there.

  It is a long way. I am tired and hungry.

  My friend has not come for days.

  The waves are big today, and it grows dark early.

  And there is some new scent in the air. My ears prick up.

  My friend is not at the restaurant, so I wait.

  The other men throw me some food.

  It is not much, but it dulls the pangs in my belly.

  The wind is strong and candles blow out.

  Soon the men go home. The restaurant is empty.

  I head back down the beach, still looking for my friend.

  The waves are bigger now.

  The stars don’t shine tonight.

  The sea spray blows salt into my eyes.

  The wind washes all scent away.

  The rain begins again. The drops are big and cold.

  I reach the jungle and crawl into my sleeping place,

  below the Spirit House.

  Lightning flashes in the sky. Thunder shakes my body.

  I curl up for sleep, but I am wide awake and shivering.

  The smoke-sticks glow like red eyes in the Spirit House.

  I sense I am not alone.

  The rain and wind and smoke confuse my nose.

  But my hairs stand on end.

  In a flash of light I think I see a human shape, far up the path.

  The shape moves toward me: a man, all in black.

  I can’t see his face.

  The small light in his hand waves wildly from side to side,

  as he slips in the mud.

  Another shape moves swiftly along behind,

  tall and pointed like the mountain, slick with rain.

  The moving mountain closes in silently upon the man,

  like a cat stalking a gecko.

  I see what happens next in lightning flashes,

  through the rain.

  The man has almost reached the Spirit House.

  He slips in the mud and falls to his knees, his chest heaving.

  He doesn’t see the mountain fall upon him from behind.

  I see the thin arm raised, the glint of metal.

  I try to warn the man, but all I speak is wind.

  The weapon comes down fast.

  The man’s body jolts, shudders, collapses into the mud.

  I bolt from my hiding place.

  I run blindly up the stormy beach,

  sounding a silent alarm to the wild wind and angry sea.

  It was two more days until the se
cond fever finally broke. I willed myself out of bed and stumbled to the door. The rain had tapered to a light drizzle, and a slash of sunlight penetrated the clouds at the horizon.

  I had come out the other side.

  I fell back onto the bed and slept.

  It wasn’t until the following day that there was a real break in the weather and the first boat was allowed to head downriver. I’d been stuck to the bed like a dish rag to a barroom floor for over a hundred and fifty hours. Rising from the toilet to gaze upon my first solid bowel movement in nearly a week, I had experienced emotions I didn’t think I would come to know until fatherhood.

  I wasn’t fit to travel: I still felt physically and emotionally weak. But I needed to get back to work. I paid my bill and said goodbye to Wulan, thanking her for her kindness. Our parting was awkwardly formal. I was embarrassed that I’d been too drunk to defend her honor in the bar-fight, and ashamed she’d seen me in such a pitiable state during the fever. I dreaded to think what might have slipped from my mouth in my delirium. And now, more than ever, I was uncertain of my true feelings for her.

  I lay slumped in the bow, the sole passenger on the boat from Dimana. The river was high. KDV had already begun extracting their spoils from the forest. The cackling boatman steered our tiny craft between huge rafts of hardwood logs. Reaching the lowlands, we stopped at little villages to pick up passengers and cargo. By the time we reached Mino the boat was riding low in the water.

  I bought a ticket on the old Dutch passenger ferry that made the daily run between Mino and Joro. It was packed with back-islanders on their way to the city with goods to sell. Fighting cocks paced nervously in wicker cages as the boat pitched dolefully in the massive swells. As I collapsed against a stack of woven prayer mats, I wanted nothing more than to sleep until we reached Joro.

  The next thing I remember is being roused by one of the crew. He told me that the weather had turned foul and the ship diverted to the nearest safe harbor.

  When I came to my senses I realized I wasn’t in Joro at all.

  { 12 }

  Bangla Road Redux

  Hello, Boss! Bangla? Bangla?” The boat has dumped me on the dock in the pissing rain. Maybe I am still weak from the fever. Or maybe that’s just how I justified it to myself later. But I am back on Longa, and the touts are upon me. There is no time to think.

  “Bangla, Boss? Plenty pretty girl. You come, Boss!”