by John Greet
‘They called it lady-grass. Before, every building in Bali had them. Now they too expensive to build. We lucky we have ours.’ Bougainvillea, hibiscus, frangipani and mango trees lined the pathway. A tropical wilderness of a garden lay to our right, and on our left was an overflowing swimming pool, which threw dancing patterns of light onto the leaves of the giant banyan tree. At the base of the tree’s trunk, in a cavity framed by aerial roots, stood a small temple. An offering tray of fruit and incense was placed before it.
‘For Anak’s father,’ said Wayan. She made coffee while I sat with Ketut. A plate of tropical fruit lay on the table: mangosteen, rambutan, plantain and red mango, pineapple and jackfruit.
‘Eat, eat,’ said Ketut, pushing the platter towards me. ‘We have plenty fruit from our garden, and soon I will go to sea. We have fish for lunch.’
The coffee shop was decorated with batik-covered cushions and comfortable rattan chairs. Chess sets sat on tables, ornaments and painted carvings hung from the walls, and a faded, gold-framed, black-and-white photograph of a dignified Balinese man dressed in white turban and robes hung over the bar. An incense holder and a lit candle were placed beneath it. From the man’s resemblance to Anak, I guessed it was his father. The blinds facing the beach were rolled up. In the shallows of the lagoon, fishermen stood waist deep in the water, casting circular hand nets, which blossomed out before them then sank. Slivers of silver caught the sunlight as they retrieved the nets. The reef hummed in the distance. I could see clusters of black rock, visible one minute, submerged by rolling foam the next.
‘This Kuta Reef. World famous for surfing,’ said Ketut, pointing to the wave-break two hundred metres beyond the lagoon. ‘But you come in here with your boat,’ he pointed. ‘Airport left. They call it big waves, and only big surfer do that one.’
We could see the airport runway. It jutted out to sea, and while we ate, a Boeing 707 landed. It arrived from the left, appeared suspended in the air briefly and then made its noiseless dash down the runway. Wayan refilled my cup and replenished the fruit platter. I thanked them for their kindness, the food and the clothes.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked.
‘Yes, can you tell us your name?’
‘I’m sorry. My name is Adam. Adam Milano.’
Wayan smiled. ‘Welcome to Bali, Mr. Adam.’
* * *
I took my coffee and walked to the sea wall. Beyond the reef, a thin blue line separated sea from sky. Seagulls cawed above. I took a deep breath, and a flood of questions washed through me like a wave. What had become of Duncan? What was I going to tell Grace? Where was I going to go from here? And with no money, passport or means of identifying myself? I briefly considered calling a couple of friends for help, but then imagined what I would say to them: ‘I have been left washed up and broke in Bali.’ No, I couldn’t do that. I thought of calling the New Zealand Embassy, then realised that I’d entered Indonesia illegally and would be arrested. I looked out to the spot in the lagoon where I’d stood days earlier, so sure I was going to drown. I had survived. I closed my eyes and thought of Duncan, hoping beyond reason that somehow he’d survived too.
I heard the roar of motorbikes. A couple of surfers pulled into the carpark, their surfboards and bags strapped to their bikes. Ketut and Wayan rushed out to meet them and pulled them into the coffee shop. After a while, a blond guy came over to speak to me.
‘Hey, man, you the guy eh? They tell me what happen. Big surf, man, you crazy in a little boat? I’m Geno. There, my brother Paolo.’ He pointed to the darker of the two with his thumb.
‘We from Brazil,’ he said, pumping my hand. He asked me to join them and share a bottle of arrack. Wayan brought us shot glasses and iced water. I welcomed the distraction offered by the soothing liquor, the company and the conversation. The brothers told me they came here to surf and had lived at the Sandika off and on for the best part of a decade.
‘Wayan and Ketut, they like family to us, man,’ said Geno, after knocking back a couple more shots. ‘Anak, he’s a good man too, but watch out for that one. He got big magic.’
‘Magic?’
‘Yeah, man, he a shaman. White magic, spirits, healing with hands, he can see what you gonna do before you do it, all that shit man. We have those guys in Brazil too. Scary stuff, watch out for that. They can fuck you up big time. We Catholic.’ His hand reached up to a gold crucifix around his neck. ‘But I tell you something,’ he continued, ‘he’s the best cock fighter on the island. The hotel here stay mostly empty. Sometime he make money with cockfighting, sometime he lose big time.’
We drank and ate fish and fruit. Our talk lulled as Geno took out a guitar and sang in Portuguese to samba and bossa-nova rhythms, and after each song the arrack was passed around.
They didn’t look like brothers. Geno was blond, and Paolo dark. Geno had green, calculating eyes that looked out from an untidy shock of sun-streaked hair. He was edgy and wired, except when he sang. Paolo had a gentle demeanour.
The sunset that evening was softer, with streaks of pastel blues and turquoise that stretched across the length of the horizon. The sun, blotted out by a single grey cloud, was outlined by an aura of gold.
Anak arrived and called me over to his table. He inspected my legs and approved.
Then he sat with folded arms and looked at me with an expression that was austere yet warm.
‘You were lucky the moon was full when you arrived. The bloodstone’s power is strongest at that time.’ I wanted to ask about the bloodstone but Geno’s earlier warnings had made me wary.
It was hard to put an age on Anak. His hair showed no sign of grey, his eyes held a youthful sparkle and his smooth skin was the same tone as the earth. Later, Wayan told me he was fifty-two. Anak was a direct descendant of the royal family of Bali.
‘We Balinese are the only island nation to regard the sea with a sense of dread,’ he told me, unfolding his arms. ‘We believe that demons and evil spirits dwell beneath the waters, and we are constantly trying to appease them by leaving offerings at the shoreline. So, you, my friend, to have survived these waters and to be tossed up by the sea, and to arrive on our shores in such a spectacular manner, we should really treat you as a god.’ There was a hint of mockery in his tone when he added, ‘You are blessed.’ As he poured tea I told him what had happened aboard the Sea Rover.
‘Ah, there you have it. You see, your captain was possessed by sea demons, and you did right to leave. You took the best course of action under the circumstances, because unless you have a remedy for a man possessed, they can cause you great harm.’
‘Anak, my passport and credit card were in the shorts I lost,’ I said, feeling a little uncomfortable with the talk of sea demons. ‘I have no money to pay you for the room and food. And no means to get any just yet, because I can’t identify myself.’
Fruit bats swooped and squealed. A cluster of moths swarmed, hissing and crackling against a bare light bulb. Wayan’s pans clattered on a gas hob.
‘So you were a restaurant man?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You could stay here, work with Ketut and Wayan. They need help, particularly with our coffee shop, and I’m sure that you will find your way. Your destiny has brought you good fortune so far, and I’m sure it will continue to do so.’
‘Good fortune?’
‘Of course, it has brought you to the Island of the Gods,’ he said as he rose to leave.
It was late. The coffee shop was empty. Fruit bats swooped out of their perches in the banyan tree. Rat monkeys chattered and squealed, and the croaking of tree frogs rose above the hum of the surf. I climbed the stairway to my room and from the rear balcony, by the moon’s light, I saw the manicured gardens and pristine lawns of a luxury hotel that lay directly behind us. Only a stone’s throw from where I stood, a handful of tourists bathed in a backlit swimming pool while sipping cocktails from a floating bar. Further on, through the glass windows of the main building, guests in evening wea
r were being served by uniformed waiters under a sign that read ‘The Bali Haj Hotel’. I glanced back at the overgrown wilderness of the Sandika’s gardens. The coffee shop was now closed for lack of guests. Fireflies flickered in dark recesses, and honeysuckle vines dangled from palm trees. Then, as if it had something to tell me, a rat monkey jumped onto the balcony, stared at me with its beady red eyes, and scampered off.
3
In the morning, a grey sky shrouded the sun. The air was still and sticky. The coconut palms drooped. The fruit bats were out early, swooping and fluttering. The chattering of rat monkeys couldn’t be heard, and the tree frogs had stopped their croaking. I recognised the signs of an approaching storm. Anak arrived and ordered Ketut to the airport to get a weather report. He soon returned with the news that all flights in and out of Ngurah Rai Airport were cancelled due to a cyclone that was forecast to hit the southern tip of the island soon. Within minutes, several Balinese men arrived. Geno, Paolo and I offered to help.
Soon the cyclone hit us. Palm fronds rustled furiously as the winds rose beyond gale force. The reef, no longer visible through a darkened sky, and the sea, now a mess of foaming white caps, surged forward. The wind became an incessant howl. Waves exploded at the sea wall, surging onto land.
We hunkered down in the cinder block office with its sturdy tiled roof. The coconut palms were bent almost horizontal, their fronds trashing about, reaching out like furious hands. Spumes of sea spray drenched the seaward window. With an ear-splitting crack, the coffee shop disintegrated. Pieces of thatch and furniture flew past us, smashing against the office walls and hurtling into the garden and beyond. Coconut palms split, shrieking above the howl, toppling across the garden like Chinese sticks.
Then came a break in the storm. We looked around us at the devastation. All that remained of the coffee shop was the tiled floor and Wayan’s cast-iron stove. The garden, with its vegetation ripped away, had been reduced to half its size, and we could see through to the Bali Haj grounds and its tiled roof, swimming pool and white deck chairs. Then a sudden gust of wind hit us with such force that we stumbled back into the office. Another onslaught. From the rear window we saw the lady-grass-roof’s front bindings break. It lifted up, like a gigantic mouth opening. The whole structure rose up like the sail of a mythical craft, held only by its rear bindings; it was balanced vertically on the hotel. As the gust eased, it began to reset itself, in fits and starts like an arm-wrestling match. When it was almost in place, another powerful gust hit it. The roof rose up again, screeching and groaning, then its rear bindings broke. The roof fell. It turned three-sixty and landed with a ground-shaking thud on the lawn of the Bali Haj Hotel.
The storm left as quickly as it had arrived. I guessed it was only the perimeter that had hit us. The centre of the cyclone must have passed further seaward. We wandered towards the decapitated building, silenced by the havoc the storm had wrought. Tears streamed down Wayan’s face. She held out her hands towards the scant remains of her kitchen. I heard the sound of a person wailing and then the baying of a dog. Behind the Sandika, occupying almost the width of Bali Haj’s lawn, lay the lady-grass roof, the right way up, like a giant tomb. The Sandika had taken the brunt of the storm while the Bali Haj had sustained little damage; there was debris scattered across the hotel’s property, and its poolside furniture had been blown into the pool, but its buildings were intact.
A man strode out from behind the roof. He was tall and wore a white, flowing, full-length kaftan and a black skull cap that identified him as Muslim. His skin was a polished brown, and he sported a pencil-thin moustache as manicured as the hotel’s gardens. Greying hair at his temples suggested he was older than Anak.
‘Mahmood Bas,’ whispered Ketut. ‘He own the Bali Haj Hotel.’
He came closer, stopping ten metres before us. His teeth flashed, his jaw muscles and throat working, and his coal black eyes zeroed in on Anak. Mahmood Bas’s words came in short staggered bursts.
‘Get this monstrosity off my property. You have until … in the name of Allah I will show compassion … until tomorrow night. If this thing is not gone by tomorrow’s sunset, I will torch it. I’ll burn it to the ground. I give you my word.’ Mahmood Bas then strode away.
* * *
The brothers and I moved into a downstairs room.
‘My board, man. My best fucking surfboard’s gone,’ said Geno as we were sorting out our beds. ‘I gonna look for it tomorrow, and if that Bas asshole try to stop me, I gonna …’
‘Geno, there’s a board by the Bali Haj pool. Green stripe down the middle.’ I suddenly remembered seeing the thing.
‘That’s it, man!’ he said, rushing out the door.
‘Take care, brother,’ Paolo called after him. ‘Don’t let Bas stick a flaming torch up your sorry ass.’ Geno slipped over the border and into the Bali Haj. Paolo and I sat listening to the night noises. The rat monkeys had lost their home and were jostling for perches in the banyan tree, their chatter upsetting the fruit bats. One swooped close to where we sat, its wings beating a muffled rhythm. ‘Geno, he okay. It’s just sometimes … It’s like his life catches up with him and it’s stronger than him, know what I mean?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Yeah, I know, you have to know him to understand, but he lost a lot, you know … I gonna tell you about it one day.’
* * *
In the morning, the Sandika’s grounds teemed with local people; workers were refitting the thatched walls and roof to the coffee shop, and men sawed at the fallen coconut trees. I saw Anak on the beach. The seashore was covered in debris, with coral sand banked high against the sea wall. Men were shovelling it away. I looked back at the hotel and saw that the beams of a temporary roof were being laid and sheets of corrugated iron nailed in place.
‘Anak, the roof?’ I asked.
‘Impossible, we can’t dismantle it in the timeframe Bas allows. He knew that before he opened his mouth.’ We looked back at the half-finished corrugated iron roof.
‘We’ll cover the iron with palm fronds and hang batik cloth for the ceiling. At least the hotel won’t be ruined in the rains.’ By late afternoon the roof was on. A truckload of new coffee shop furniture arrived, and the last palm fronds were attached to the roof. Wayan’s stove had worked all day, feeding the workers.
As sunset approached, the joking and laughter stopped. Workers laid down their tools. We filed up to the rear balcony of the Sandika. Below, the grounds of the Bali Haj were deserted. Minutes passed. So complete was the lady-grass roof, it looked as if it had been purposely built on the ground it now occupied. People shuffled about anxiously. I heard Paolo whisper, ‘He only bluffing, man.’
Then Mahmood Bas appeared from behind the roof. He walked with long strides, holding a flaming fire torch in one hand. He stopped before the roof and looked up at Anak. ‘I warned you!’ he shouted, waving his blazing torch.
Bas lit each corner of the roof. The fire reddened his face as he went about his task methodically. Yellow flames licked up the sides of the roof, turning orange, and then red. Within minutes the whole structure was alight. Enormous flames flared skyward, throwing up hot embers, and the air filled with tiny black fibres. The heat was intense. Soon, wads of burning lady-grass fell inwards, exposing the timber frame. The fire burned out rapidly, leaving behind a smouldering mass of grass and timber. A funnel of black smoke rose and twisted into the night. The stench of burning grass was overpowering. Bas came back into view. He tossed his torch into the embers, threw a chilling look at Anak and left.
* * *
At breakfast, we heard that the airport was open, and only the teardrop peninsular of southern Bali had been affected by the cyclone. Anak pulled into the carpark with a copy of the morning’s Herald Tribune. He opened the paper to page three and placed it on the table before me. There were photographs of the damage the cyclone had caused to the islands south of Bali, and mention of serious damage to Timor and Darwin, but what caused my throat to tighten were th
e few sentences at the end of the article: ‘The search was called off last night for the two New Zealand sailors. They are believed to have drowned in the waters. The wreckage of their sailing vessel, the Sea Rover, was discovered on a reef off the coast of southern Java. The names of the sailors will be released once their next of kin have been notified.’
I turned cold. Duncan must have been sailing in circles after he’d ordered me off the boat. He must have been caught by the full force of the cyclone. And what about Grace? They would be receiving a telephone call in New Zealand soon, if they hadn’t already. Elisabeth would be telling her that I was presumed drowned, dead. Perhaps I could reach her first. I checked the time: New Zealand was four hours behind Bali. Grace would be on her way home from school.
Wayan took me to the phone in the office. I dialled Grace’s cellphone but heard hollow rings. There was no answer. I hung up and ran her number through my mind again: yes, I was sure it was right. I dialled, but again there was no answer. I paced the pathway. Ten minutes later, I tried again. The phone clicked on, and I heard Grace’s soft sobbing. She blew her nose then answered with a tentative, ‘Hello’.
‘Grace, it’s me,’ I said in the calmest tone I could muster. I knew she was about to scream. Then she composed herself, spoke in a muffled voice. ‘What’s going on? Are you safe? Oh my god, Dad! I, like, thought you were dead … And there’s a room full of people at Mum’s place, and they think you’re dead.’ She blew her nose.