Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  Was like slow motion for me . . . they come, they come . . . three seats to come, then the guy looks in my eyes, I look in his eyes. My heart beat te te te te near to heart attack. I think, ‘Fucking done! Okay, take me.’ He comes close, looking at me, then doof, he passes, goes to the guy in the seat behind. Was the scariest five seconds of my life.

  And then the plane still doesn’t take off. I think, now they are going to come back for me. ‘More wine, please, I need wine.’ I think, ‘Why don’t we take off? Why doesn’t this shit go up?’ Was fucking bad time. I was praying, making promises: ‘God, I promise if I see my kids again, if I reach Bali safe, I’m gonna stop this shit. Please help me, God, I want to see my kids again. Please, please God.’ I didn’t realise they were just taking his bag off . . . We waited one hour.

  I make it to Bali again. Free. But when I come back everything was falling down . . . I quit the business. No money, oh . . . and then I decide I’m going to sell the house, start to do business, but my brilliant wife doesn’t take to losing everything and being normal. She says, ‘No, we’re not going to sell the house. I’m gonna go to Sweden and do by myself.’ I say, ‘No, don’t do.’

  A couple of months before, when I was in Brazil, she tried to kill herself. She was alcoholic – drink every day. Cut her wrists in the tower . . . crazy . . . she think I get a girlfriend and left her, but I was looking to fix our money situation. That’s the price I pay for all the shit.

  – Rafael

  *

  Rafael had had enough. He’d seen too many friends ruin their lives and he wanted to start a normal life. He also desperately wanted to quit using blow, as he knew that it was his addiction that had kept him in the game for so long, as well as destroying his lungs. ‘One day I say, “Fuck, I’m gonna die. I can’t use this shit anymore.’ He’d tried to abstain while away, but failed, especially as every time he packed the coke the stuff leached through his skin or he inhaled the dust in the air. Now, he was trying hard, and it was exacerbating dark emotions.

  In Brazil I try to stop but I get high from touch, packing, you know. And then when I finish the packing I get depression, aggressive, shaking hands, heart beat dedededede, and then I cai do cavalo – fall from the horse. I’m in a party, I get drunk and then somebody comes, ‘You want a line?’ . . . The second I put that shit in my nose I regret it. I feel like shit, paranoid. The day after my nose is totally blocked, bleeding, with asthma for two days. I feel to kill myself. And then I say, ‘Now, I’m not going to take this shit anymore,’ and one week passes, two weeks and then I cai do cavalo again. I say, ‘Today I’m gonna take one small line to relax,’ – and it’s like, I take 2 grams; paranoid, looking out the windows, thinking the police are gonna come and catch me for the bullshit.

  Then I come to Bali, totally broke, I get depression . . . oh my god, I’m going to die . . . they’re going to catch me . . . I can’t do this anymore. Start cry, cry, cry. And fuck, start getting paranoid about everything. They’re going to connect me with this guy Otto.

  I get this kind of depression from abstinence. Feel like crying. I was shaking, I was aggressive over small things. My kids would do something, ‘Ahhh,’ I scream . . . I never do that, I was mellow, nice, but I find some different behaviour. I was not happy about this. I start crying. You know I never cry. What am I gonna do? The world’s going to finish.

  – Rafael

  Rafael sold the land near his house to pay the kids’ school fees and some of their debts. But the house was still mortgaged, as Anna had used it as collateral for a bank loan.

  We start getting trouble trouble trouble, no money, can’t pay kids’ school, no money and she tells me, ‘I prefer to go to jail than live like that.’ I say, ‘What the fuck you talk about? You live in paradise – you have a house, you have kids, you have everything. Let’s stop, let’s stop,’ and my wife was already getting everything ready for a run. She was organising everything with my friend in Brazil, pushing too, call him, call him . . . ‘No, stop this shit. I cannot do it anymore.’

  – Rafael

  Anna decided to do a run to Stockholm. She flew to Brazil, where the cop Claudio supplied her with almost a kilo of blow, which she packed into the legs of a tripod and sent by DHL to Sweden, where someone was paid to collect it. Then she flew to Stockholm to sell it. It was a win.

  *

  Fugitive Andre had also invested and Anna skyped him, asking him to fly in to collect his cash and party with some Swedish girls.

  When the shit arrived in Sweden, she calls me, ‘Hey, Andre, can you come here to pick up your money?’ I say, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna go to Europe now.’ Then she puts three blonde girls on skype. ‘Oh, these are my friends. They’re dying to know you, Brazilian boy . . . oh yeah, Andre, come here to party.’ ‘Oh, why not?’ I was in Bali almost one year and a little bit bored, needed civilisation . . . I think, okay, I go to Europe, get my money, do some parties and come back with euros. Not a big deal.

  But you were still being hunted?

  Yes, stupid, you know.

  – Andre

  Rafael asked Andre, ‘You sure you can go?’

  ‘No problem, my passport’s so good, no worries.’

  But Andre didn’t make it to Sweden. En route, he was busted in Amsterdam for flying on a false passport and slammed back in a cell. Bali beaches and sunsets were again a beautiful memory, but he expected to be back soon. He’d ostensibly confessed his real name to authorities – Luke Shakira Martins. It was another alias he’d set up with passport and ID papers. His lawyer sent them from Brazil and ‘Luke’ was sentenced to one month’s jail.

  The day of his release, the police told him he was being sent back to Bali. They took him to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, walked him into a room and took off his handcuffs, saying, ‘Right, now you’re free.’

  ‘I turn my back to go and two guys come and say, “You are arrested under Interpol, Andre.” ’ Another pair of bracelets was snapped around his wrists. It was a bitter blow.

  Andre had checked Interpol’s website in Bali, so he knew it had issued a Red Notice for him, but thought he’d outsmarted the Dutch cops with his second false ID. He now guessed they’d taken fingerprints off a prison glass or plate and, through Interpol, discovered he was a Brazilian fugitive. It was in fact his nemesis who’d suspected his real identity. Chief Caieron had sent documents, fingerprints and photographs to the Netherlands’ embassy and Interpol to confirm it was Andre. ‘They confirmed that he was our guy – and we brought him back. I did all the papers to assure his coming back to Brazil and chain.’ It took another three months of legal red tape to fly him back home to serve out the rest of his sentence. Of course, Andre had other plans.

  *

  Back in Bali, Anna’s Stockholm win was a brief respite, but things were getting worse again. Rafael sold his jewellery to help pay the bills, but the bank was threatening to take the house.

  Because when I was in Brazil she make so many bills, she borrow money, she borrow money from the bank and give the house paper to guarantee. And then she knows we’re going to lose the house, the bank’s gonna take, we have two months, and then she was in a hurry to make the money. I say, ‘I cannot do this anymore. Let’s sell the house, stop this shit. Start a normal life; I’m going to get a job.’ She says, ‘No, we cannot. Let’s do one more to cash in.’ I say, ‘No, don’t do it,’ but I don’t have any power over her. She says, ‘I’m going to do this, you pussy, I don’t care what you say.’ She organises everything. Then she says, ‘I’m gonna do this last one, easy, I go myself.’ I say, ‘When are you going?’ She says, ‘Tomorrow.’ ‘What? Tomorrow?’

  – Rafael

  Rafael warned her at least not to collect the couriered package – that was a job for a mule.

  She was crazy, you know . . . she wanted to do it herself, she wanted to be a mule. I hired the people there to do this job and, after the thing arrives, everything’s clear, I fly and get the money. I say, ‘Fuck, you are a boss, yo
u cannot do this job. This job is for a mule – you wanna be a mule?’ She says, ‘Yeah . . . you cannot do anything.’

  So she went from Bali to Stockholm, and they send the coke from Peru. And she was calling me because it was delayed one day. I say, ‘Abort, abort. Don’t take it. Run. Run.’ I feel something’s wrong. I say, ‘Don’t ring me, just in case,’ and then she start to call me all the time to talk, ‘Oh, it’s delayed again, they send to Finland.’ I say, ‘Stop calling. Fuck . . .’

  – Rafael

  Five days later, it was Rafael’s 45th birthday, and he was having a low-key celebration in his Bali house with half a dozen friends, their kids, some beers and a small cake. His phone rang. It was Anna, so he took it outside. ‘Happy birthday, your present’s come,’ she whooped. It was the news Rafael so desperately wanted to hear. ‘I was like, “Thank you, the shit arrived. I can pay my loan, we’re not going to lose the house. We’re rich again. Goal.” ’

  Rafael went back to his friends, keeping his good news quiet but feeling great relief. It didn’t last. His phone rang ten minutes later. It was Anna again. ‘What the fuck, it’s baking powder,’ she yelled down the phone. ‘Fuck, you asshole, your friend sent us baking powder.’

  In ten minutes, Rafael’s world had gone from bright to very dark. He called his friend in Peru, who instantly took the blame, saying his packer had done this once before – stolen the coke and sent baking powder. ‘Sorry, Rafael,’ he said.

  There was nothing Rafael could do. Anna phoned back and he relayed the Peruvian’s response. ‘Okay, fuck you, fuck you,’ she screamed, then hung up. Rafael went back inside to his guests, hiding his emotions until his not-so-happy birthday finished.

  Everybody goes home, I try to sleep, and then I start to think, ‘Fuck, what’s happened?’ I try to call Anna. She doesn’t answer. And then I fall to sleep. Wake up the next day, try to call, no answer. I don’t know what’s happened.

  For ten days I don’t know. I was thinking she fuck up, she start taking coke, get crazy, high like hell inside some apartment, paranoid to call, maybe dead from overdose. I think many things. Maybe somebody killed her to take the stuff. I keep trying to call, nobody answer, nobody answer, nobody answer.

  I call all the friends. They go to the apartment where she was – it was locked, nobody there – and then they find the key with friends, go there and the police come: ‘What are you doing here?’ Then I suspect she’s busted.

  I contacted my friend – a Swedish buyer, he’s supposed to buy the shit – and say, ‘Please help me, Anna is there.’ After ten days, he calls and says, ‘She’s inside,’ because he has some police connection who tells him. He says, ‘Be careful, they’re gonna come to you. Be careful with all the evidence.’

  *

  When I know she’s inside, I panic much more. I say, ‘Fuck, they come for me now. She’s bust.’ Panic, crying, depression, you know . . . the kids by myself. What am I going to do with all these kids? I had no money. I have to clean the house, take my computer out of here. I think Interpol is going to come here and take me too. Cry, cry, depression . . . was the worst time. I cannot go out to eat – I call for the pizza. I don’t shave. I don’t shower. I don’t even go to the first floor. I stay in the second floor, lay down, sleep, you know . . . and cry. Three days. I was in bad shape. Just waiting for somebody to break my door and catch me too.

  And then Emily, the mother of my daughter’s best friend, comes to pick up her daughter. She asks my son, ‘Where’s papa?’ He says, ‘Papa’s upstairs.’ And then I was there, like . . . not crying, but bad shape. And she was, ‘Hey, Rafael, hello, how are you? Are you all right?’ ‘No.’ ‘What’s happened?’

  And then I say, ‘I’m in deep shit. Anna’s in jail.’ She goes, ‘What?’ Then we started have a better conversation and then she says, ‘Why do you look like this? I’ve never seen you like this with a beard. Why don’t you shave anymore?’ I was like, ‘I don’t give a shit.’ I think I’m gonna go to jail, get a problem too.

  Did she know you were a drug dealer?

  She knew, because her husband was an addict. He bought a lot with me. Certain times she hated me, because I give coke to him.

  – Rafael

  Rafael found out the details of the bust. The 1.3 kilos of coke had been discovered in the DHL parcel in Leipzig, Germany, despite being well hidden in a transformer for an electric guitar. The cops switched the cocaine for baking powder, lined the transformer with a fluorescent agent, then sent it on to Anna in Stockholm, where she’d used her real name. Undercover cops watched her accept the parcel, then spied on the apartment for five hours, before bursting in and arresting Anna and her friend, who both had the fluorescent agent all over their hands.

  She’s stupid . . . she told me she had somebody to take it. It was bull­shit, it was her. Very dangerous . . . you pay somebody to receive, like a horse.

  Interpol was involved in the case. They hack all the phones. They have eyes on her since she stepped in the airport, follow her, record her phone calls. She was hot because we’d been doing there for the last two years before this happened. I was Bali-Stockholm-Amsterdam, Stockholm-Amsterdam, Stockholm-Bali . . . she was too. They record everything on the phones. That’s why I’ve never been there after she got caught. Because I’m 100 per cent sure they’re going to catch me.

  – Rafael

  In Bali, Rafael quickly organised a buyer for his house, selling it much more cheaply than its real value, because the bank was calling in its loan. He was sure he’d feel better when he had the cash and could pay his bills, the kids’ school fees, their Bali visas. Weeks after Anna’s bust, he got the $30,000 deposit and put it in his safe. He thought it would be a good feeling. It wasn’t. He collapsed on the floor in front of the safe with the door open, just looking at the stash that once seemed so important.

  I think, when I sell the house, I get the money, everything is going to be good. But it was not. I get worse paranoia, worse frustration. I realise, fuck, I sold my property. I’m never going to buy something like this again. I don’t have a house. Where am I going to live? Shit. I want it back. I feel like shit. Depression. Once the money looked like it was never going to finish. Now that looks like a dream. How did I lose everything? Before I have a house, land, motorbike, everything. Then I realise, I don’t have anything, not even the house. I sold everything. The house was the last thing I had. I thought, ah, at least I have a house. I don’t need to pay rent. And then it’s gone.

  I look at the money in the safety deposit box and start to cry. I think, ‘Fuck, what am I going to do with this money? Fuck, poor Anna’s in the jail.’ I was really crying. Tears. Cry cry cry cry. Sobbing. Very uncontrolled. I lost my wife. I was scared, I think they’re gonna catch me. I was worried what’s gonna happen with my kids. Who they gonna live with? Where I’m going to send them? In my mind, I was very sure that soon somebody was going to come and catch me, Interpol or some special police.

  Did you take cocaine?

  No, no. I don’t take. If I take, I feel good.

  – Rafael

  Anna was sentenced to five years jail after using the defence that she’d expected a delivery of marijuana, not cocaine, from a South American man, Pedro, whom she’d met in Bali. She claimed Pedro had promised her €5000 to collect and hold the package. She denied Rafael had any involvement.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SLEEPING LIKE AN ANGEL

  At a New Year’s Eve party in Bali, almost two months after Anna’s arrest, Rafael took his last line of cocaine. He’d just begun a new relationship and a new life as a surf coach.

  ‘I don’t have anything. I have to sell lunch to buy dinner.’ He was broke but felt happier than he could remember, free from a sense of constant paranoia and foreboding, no longer looking over his shoulder. He’d quit the game and his wild ways, and even if the police still sometimes watched him, he had nothing to fear. A dark cloud had lifted. He was back to surfing every day, living the life he’d com
e to the island for all those years ago.

  When his son won a surf competition, he instinctively felt like ducking out of the shot, then realised that, actually, now he could be photographed.

  I was in the podium with him, my son – very happy. And when I look to the public there was like 100 cameras shooting us, and I have this kind of drug dealer feeling . . . But at the same time I was proud, I am not a drug dealer, I can show my face, come, take a picture. Then when I go down, two guys come, ‘Hey, Rafael, remember me?’ I look. ‘Sorry, no.’ ‘I bought something from you.’ I say, ‘Shush, I have my son.’ My son says, ‘Papa, what did the guy buy from you?’

  – Rafael

  No longer using coke also opened his eyes to the fact that it had been the glue that kept him and Anna together in a fraught relationship. Being free of it also meant he was content to have sex with one woman – his new girlfriend, Emily.

  Even when she’d found him that night at his lowest ebb there’d been sexual chemistry – ‘I remember I touch her hand. We started to have feeling with each other. But we say “Cannot, no, cannot.” ’ Their feelings were conflicted by the fact that Emily was Anna’s friend and her estranged husband, Julio, was Rafael’s friend and customer. The two couples had socialised together, but for the past six months Julio had been in a clinic in Brazil for coke addiction. It was complicated, so breaking the news of his new relationship to Anna in jail wasn’t easy for Rafael. It went as badly as he’d expected – ‘Fuck, she wanted to kill me.’

  *

  Late one night about a year later, Rafael got a surprise phone call. It was Andre, who’d just flown back to Bali after his third jailbreak, asking to stay at the beach house. Rafael told him he’d sold it but he’d be waiting outside the Canggu Club. Andre arrived looking like an unlikely escapee, dapper in a buttoned shirt, long pants and leather shoes, with his gap-toothed smile. When they got into the car, Andre ripped from behind his ears the glue which had kept them pinned back to look more like the photo in his false passport.