The minivan slowed in the heavy traffic of the two-lane highway, and gangs of itinerant newspaper sellers pressed their wares against the vehicle’s windows. “These bad men,” Sudra said. “Do not buy from them, Mr Troy. Very sneaky. Paste dates from new editions onto old papers. These men not native Balinese like me, but from Java, Sumatra, like that. You want newspaper, best to buy from supermarket, yeah?”
Sudra made notice of the roosters that occasionally wandered onto the road, and explained how lucrative cockfighting was in Bali. His brother, Sudra claimed, owned a prize rooster, imported from the Philippines and trained up as the quickest and most lethal of its kind in all of Denpassar, an expert at the manipulation of its leg blades; it was thus far undefeated, and the money made from betting on the fights (minus the fee to the local authorities to look the other way) had made his brother a tidy sum.
“Where are all the cats?” Troy asked, regretting instantly any engagement with the tour guide. He greatly preferred to avoid the chit-chat and proceed to his destination in peace.
But Sudra grinned his flawless smile and said, “Some cats in Bali, but we take care of them, keep them inside and safe. Cats very special here.” To Troy’s surprise, this was all Sudra had to say on the subject.
A period of relative quiet as the traffic eased and the landscape rolled by, then, “Lots of temples in Bali, yeah?” Sudra said. “Majority of people Hindu like me, ninety-five percent, but also believe in magic. Rocks have magic, trees have magic, water have magic. Must make offerings to the gods and spirits for good luck, long life.”
“Is that so.” Troy stared out the window as Sudra turned in his seat to face him. Why couldn’t this guy just shut the fuck up already?
“Must make offering from your heart. Can make at home shrine or public temple or both. Hope the gods hear you. I am not that superstitious, but still I offer flowers and incense before any journey, like today. So Mr Troy, you have children?”
“No.”
“I see, I see. You not married, yeah?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Where you from? Australia, is it?”
Troy reached in his pocket for his inhaler, brought it to his mouth, and took two quick puffs, knowing it wouldn’t last, that any relief he gained from his stressed alveoli would be short-lived. Wasn’t this why he was making this hellish journey in the first place?
“Look, I appreciate you wanting to fill the time, but I’d rather like some quiet, okay? The flight here was exhausting, and I’d like to just do what I came here to do and then go back home. Okay?”
“Yes, yes, sure, Mr Troy, is okay. Whatever you want.” Sudra turned back around in the front seat and mumbled some words in Bahasa Bali to the driver on his right, who responded and shook his head.
They passed through Ubud, and all the small workshops there that specialized in goldsmithing, silversmithing, stone-carving, wood-carving, painted art, metal sculpture, and batik. All this creativity and artistic expression aimed solely at the tourism industry.
“I should say, Mr Troy,” Sudra said, “Bali be nothing without tourists come here for holiday and buy souvenirs. Is very important you are here.”
At the halfway point, Sudra had the driver slow down and pull into a gravel car park in front of a chain link fence. On the other side of the fence: a profusion of plant life, a miniature jungle teeming with green.
“Why are we stopping?”
“This a nice coffee plantation, can sample different kinds of coffee grown right here in Bali, for free, wake you up a bit. If you like, can buy some home. Also got toilet, yeah, and can stretch your legs. Nice place.”
“Fine.” Troy opened the door and stepped out, his legs and back complaining, goddamn cramped vehicle, and then he followed Sudra through the gap in the fence and down a labyrinthine pathway, barely noticing as the guide pointed out banana and mangosteen trees, cinnamon as big around as his waist, cocoa pods the size of his head, coffee trees with clumps of immature green berries. In a mesh cage paced a ferret-looking creature, fur sleek and brown, snout pointed.
“This a civet cat,” Sudra said. “You have heard of, yes?”
“No. Why? Should I have?”
“Oh, Mr Troy, civet cat very important in Balinese coffee trade. Eats the coffee berries up in the trees along with the coffee beans inside. Partially digests the beans and then expels them. Clean the beans and roast them, gives you strong fruity-flavored coffee. We call kopi luwak. Luxury item, brings in much money.”
“You mean to say that you drink coffee brewed from beans that’ve been shat out of a cat?”
“No, I no drink, too expensive for simple Balinese like me. But others drink, in Europe, in US, in your home Australia. Can try if you want.”
“I’m not from—look, that’s disgusting. I do not want to try that. Just point me to the toilets and let’s get back on the road again.”
“Very well, Mr Troy. Down that way, just follow the signs.”
Troy found the toilets, barely more than outhouses, no plumbing, not even toilet paper, just a bucket of water and a dipper, and he was glad he didn’t have to do more than piss, what the fuck was wrong with these people anyway? Shook off, zipped up, slammed the door open then closed, followed the pathway back to where Sudra was chatting with one of the plantation’s workers, an attractive young local woman maybe only five feet tall. Back out of the labyrinth, exit in sight, the way blocked by more hassle, aggressive touters of representational wooden sculptures and paper kites, so Troy pushed through them as if they weren’t even there, ignoring their calls in fractured English, looking straight ahead until he reached the minivan and crammed himself back inside.
Back on the road again, and Troy could tell Sudra was getting annoyed with him. He wasn’t buying into all of the Balinese mysticism bullshit, not spending money like a good little tourist consumer, and why should he? Troy was here for one reason. Fuck the rest. He pulled on his inhaler again.
Gradually the journey became an uphill climb, and the shops and stalls and internet cafés and Yamaha dealerships soon gave way to breathtaking scenery. Greenery as far as Troy could see, mountains and ravines covered with palms and banyans and bamboo and dozens of other kinds of trees, unmarred by electrical lines or buildings or mobile phone towers, capped at the very top by Mount Batur, an active volcano at the heart of Kintamani. The driver pulled into the car park of a gigantic restaurant called Maharaja and applied the parking brake.
“Are we here?” Troy asked. “Have we finally arrived?”
“Not quite yet, Mr Troy.” Sudra turned in his seat, raised a squirt bottle, and sprayed Troy in the face with a fine yellow mist. Immediately, Troy’s vision blurred, his eyes heavy. Before completely losing consciousness, he heard Sudra say, “Last part of the journey is known only to Balinese. This more kind than a blindfold.”
When Troy awoke, he was lying flat on his back in a beach chair, but on no beach. He seemed to be in some subterranean cavern that stretched far up above him into the darkness. A damp salty smell permeated the air of the cave, as if the ocean were nearby, though no waves could be heard. Troy could detect no light source, though the cave glowed with an eerie blue luminescence.
Sudra and an older Balinese woman stepped into view. The woman wore a simple white sarong and a high-collared blouse, dressed like an air hostess or one of the hotel staff back at the resort on Nusa Dua, her hair pulled back severely into a bun. She was slim and petite, back stiff and straight, and she stared at Troy with crazy intensity. Her eyes glowed the same blue of the cave, either reflection or their own glow, and Troy felt tingles crawling up and down his spine. He was acutely aware of his present vulnerability; although she was the sort of woman he’d normally be attracted to, if she weren’t scaring him out of his wits.
“Where have you brought me? What the fuck is this?”
From behind her back the woman produced a lit cigarette, then took a long pull and blew a plume of smoke in Troy’s face, a not entirely unpleas
ant combination of tobacco and cloves and something else he couldn’t quite place. Sage? Marijuana? And why was he so focused on the cigarette smoke, now dispersed, rather than trying to appear tough, or flee, or otherwise take charge of the situation?
Sudra said, “My friend’s name is Nyoman. She has what you need.”
The woman snapped her fingers without averting her gaze, and a flock of small birds descended en masse from the darkness, swooping and diving and passing only inches from Troy’s face, starlings or swallows or some other type of bird starting with S, completely silent but for the flapping of wings and the whoosh of displaced air. Faster and faster in their chaotic flight, and now Troy could feel wingtips brush his cheeks, quick pit-pit-pits that rose in frequency and intensity until it felt as if the tiny birds were slapping him silly, over and over and over again, and he was only vaguely aware that he was making a high keening sound in the back of his throat, barely surprised at all when Nyoman closed the distance between them, bent down without a single bird touching her, and kissed Troy hard on the lips. Her tongue forced his mouth open, and she expelled the smoke mixture deep into his lungs, exhaling and exhaling until Troy felt as if his chest might burst, and then she abruptly pulled away. He let the magical breath out slowly, and as if on cue, the birds erupted upwards, returning to their roosts above.
“There, Mr Troy,” Sudra said, “your asthma now cured.” He spritzed Troy in the face once again before Troy could protest.
When he awoke this time, he was in his bed at the Melia Bali resort, the ceiling fan lazily spinning above him. His muscles groaned as he sat up. On the counter next to the television was a small basket of local fruit and a note that read: “We hope you have enjoyed your experience, and that you will recommend us to others. Very important: every morning you must offer flowers and incense to the gods as thanks for this gift. Fail and you risk their wrath. Best wishes for a safe flight home, Sudra.”
That last part sent a shiver up Troy’s legs and into his buttocks, but then he took a deep breath, inhaling deeper than he’d ever been able to before, and instead of hitting that wall which led to a coughing fit and a sore throat, he kept going, filling his lungs with gorgeous cleansing Balinese air until he felt as if he might float away from the lightness of his being. The world filled with brightness, colors intensified, the buttery deepness of the hotel room’s teak furniture, the soft blues of the wall paint, the aching greenness of the flora outside his window. A moment of transcendence, as if viewing the world through a wide-angle lens encompassing the connections to the life all around him, and then he exhaled, slowly, through his nostrils.
After his return to Seattle, Troy set up a small shrine on his bedroom dresser, and every morning filled a small woven basket the size of an ashtray with blossoms of frangipani, bougainvillea, and marigolds, the same flowers he’d seen offered in the doorways and shop entrances he’d passed by in Bali, bought from the exotic florist’s down the street from his condo. He lit a stick of sweet-smelling incense and said some generic words of thanks under his breath. He kept this up for a month, his employees at the payday lending business remarking at Troy’s youthful vitality, asking if he’d lost weight, or was taking new vitamins, or had gotten laid in the tropics. Even Sheila, his assistant manager, who’d never before taken a non-professional interest in him, made some suggestive comments that led to nights of what Troy could only think of as rough sex. More confident, more relaxed, more happy.
But then life got in the way. He spent more time at work, expanding his business to more locations, and more time with Sheila, and he forgot about his morning offerings. He caught himself the first few times, making sure to assemble his blossoms and petals at night, but then the prices of exotic flowers rose, and he just got tired of doing it. Fuck it, he thought, was he expected to give thanks every day for the rest of his life? He’d done it solidly for a month, that was good enough, and he had more important things to do.
One night, after a week of spending his money on other things, like fancy dinners and sweets and little gifts for Sheila, as he lay in his bed next to her, worn out once again from a bout of strenuous fucking, he began to cough. It started as a tickle in the back of his throat, just an irritant really, then progressed down his esophagus and deep into his lungs. Troy hacked and sputtered, frightened by the wet splattery thwacking sound in his chest, astonished that Sheila had not woken to his struggle, wishing she could pound him on the back, his stomach muscles clenching painfully, his throat scraped with ground glass, until a wisp of bluish smoke emerged from between his lips, trickling out at first, then gushing forth in a torrent, filling the room with the smell of tobacco and cloves and possibly sage or marijuana, drifting up to the ceiling like storm clouds and even producing static electricity like miniature heat lightning, before dissipating and leaving behind the tinge of ozone.
And still Troy could not stop coughing, each forced exhalation sounding more like a high squeaky bark, caught by a rush of nausea as the world expanded and loomed all around him, rushing away in all directions. The bed was huge now, no longer queen size but a vast platform, and Sheila, now the immensity of a giant, finally came awake and shrieked.
“A rat!” she cried, leaping off the bed. “A fucking big rat, Troy!” She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.
Troy had stopped coughing, but he felt very strange. His body was smaller, but slinkier, stretched. He could smell Sheila’s fear in the air, like sour tar. His small heart pounded, and he involuntarily sprayed urine onto the sheets.
Sheila emerged from the bathroom, holding a pipe wrench in both hands, a leftover from when the contractors had renovated his condo earlier in the year. She lunged forward and swung the wrench, clipping Troy on his right haunch. He barked in pain and leapt off the bed. Sheila chased him around the room, yelling, “Troy! Troy! Where the fuck are you? Help me kill this thing!” From his vantage, all the furniture stretched up like skyscrapers, and he frantically searched on all fours for a nook or a hidden corner in which he could hide. He raced under the bed and curled into a ball. Sheila swiped at him for several minutes with the pipe wrench, then withdrew. Troy heard movement and the rustling of clothes, and then saw Sheila’s feet hurry out the bedroom door, which closed quickly behind her.
Troy breathed deeply, trying to calm down his adrenaline-spiked heart. His right hip ached where she’d hit him with the wrench, and he licked at the fur there; this made him feel only slightly better. Exhausted and hurt, he soon fell asleep.
And woke suddenly as he was being lifted up by two strong dark hands. He looked up into the calm eyes and smiling face of Sudra. Next to him, the cave witch Nyoman, smaller out of her element, but still freaky scary. No no no, it’s not fair, why is this happening to me, what did I ever do? Troy despaired in that moment, his cries coming out as barely audible squeaks. Sudra’s hands were smooth and soft, comfortable even, and he placed Troy gently inside a pet carrier, and closed the barred door with a click.
“Ah, Mr Troy,” Sudra said, looking inside, a face you could trust completely. “I am very sorry had to come to this, yeah? But no worry, we take care of you, keep you safe. Make sure you enough water and food. All the coffee berries you can eat.”
Paper Cow
X had never considered the possibility that his origami constructions might spring to life. Through all his years of paper-folding, his early fascination with the Asian craft blooming into obsession, the endless competitions, the early arthritis, the impassable barrier between his talent and his imagination, through all of this his miniature creatures remained inert, frozen in the act of running, or slithering, or pecking. But tonight, his most recent fauna, birthed from printer bond, stirred.
“We know what you have done,” said the paper cow, its hide revealing the left eye and nostril of a 13-year-old boy from Kuala Lumpur. The corner of the boy's eye was raised, suggesting a big smile. His skin was dark and rough, as if he had spent every waking moment in the scorching Malaysian sun.
&n
bsp; “We know,” said the paper crane, its creases half-obscuring the face of a seven-year-old girl from Semarang. Though X could not see her face, he knew it in his mind, could remember the gap made by the missing front teeth as she had grinned up at him, taking his hand and trusting him as if her own kin.
“We know,” said the lumbering paper gorilla, made from the obituary notice of two ten-year-old twin boys from Penang. Their screams, too, had been identical.
More and more of the dead-tree atrocities, the collected evidence of X's crimes, printed from internet news stories and charity sites and then shaped into bats and elephants and frogs and tigers and pandas and a hundred other animals, rustled toward X, slow as the undead, each whispering, “We know.” An army of his perversities, his many sins, each folded animal a reminder of a life held, touched, taken.
“Stop,” X said. “I am sorry. Please stop.”
“We cannot stop,” said the paper cow, commander of this zoological army, edging ever closer to its creator. “You have made us so very thin and so very sharp.”
And then all of the origami animals moved as one.
Taxi Ride
The taxi driver was made of stone. Or so it seemed, for as he ferried Jules from his housing estate in Aljunied toward his morning destination, the man spoke not a word, not even an acknowledgment of where they were going, not even a grunt to show that he was alive. Perfectly still he sat, nigh immobile, with only the turning of the steering wheel to preclude any observation that he was, in fact, a statue rather than a human being.
Jules appreciated the silence. The modus operandi of the majority of Singaporean taxi drivers, at least in his experience, was boisterous loquaciousness, the activity of eager sponges willing to chat on almost any subject imaginable. The government, the road taxes, the building of the new casino (euphemistically labeled the Integrated Resort), their upbringing, their schooling (especially once they sussed out that Jules was a teacher), the water fights with Malaysia, the charismatic and calm new president of the United States (once they discovered he was American). All these topics and many more: was he married, was his wife Singaporean, was she ethnically Chinese, how much did he pay for his flat, why is he living in an HDB estate rather than a condo, did he have children, was he disappointed he had a daughter rather than a son, when would he be trying for his next child, in which primary school did he plan to enroll the aforementioned daughter, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. Jules found it difficult to deny the answers to these questions, so affable were these taximen, but the process drained him, bled him of his internal strength, transforming him into an utterer of monosyllabic affirmations.
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