by Heidi Kling
Small mountains peeked through a mist of ashy clouds. The scooter vibrated between my legs as we drove about thirty miles an hour down the straight country road. Suddenly the silver air thickened and it was like we were cruising through a rain cloud.
“Is that an ox?” I yelled as Deni slowed to pass a man driving a wooden-wheeled cart pulled by a sharp-horned bull. The man whipped the animal with what looked like a willow branch.
“Yes. You will see many of them in the country.”
Then I saw it.
An ancient temple loomed in the distance on top of a short hill. Like something out of The Jungle Book or Indiana Jones, the temple was built of stone into the shape of a pyramid.
“Here is Borobudur,” Deni said, pulling the motor into a parking lot.
“Borobudur? My dad has talked about this place forever; how did you know I wanted to see it?”
“Bule always come here while they are visiting the pesantren.”
“What’s bule?”
“Foreigners. Tourists. Like you,” he said.
Even though we were stopped, I still hugged his waist. “Have you been here before?”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am not bule.”
I laughed. “Good point.”
“Now we must get off,” he teased.
I peeled my arms from his body.
When I hopped off and tried to stand, I felt like I’d just gotten off a horse. Wobbling, I rose up on my tippy toes to stretch out my legs as he laughed.
“You aren’t used to it yet, the motor,” he said.
“No. But at least I didn’t fall off!”
“I wouldn’t let you fall,” he said.
I pulled my digital camera out of my backpack to take a shot of the monument.
Deni eyed the camera appreciatively. “Those cameras are much money. Even here.”
“I got it for Christmas last year from my oma, my grandmother. I really like it.”
“You like taking pictures?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes I worry my memories will fade without them.”
“My memories never go away.”
I stopped. “Really? Because no matter how hard I try to keep them in my mind, some images slip away.”
“Like what does slip away?”
He seemed to really want to know. “Well. Like my ... like my mom. Sometimes I can’t remember her the way I used to. I still remember her, but it’s like her face in my mind is disappearing or something. It’s hard to explain.”
He looked like he understood but then asked, “Your mom is in America, no? You will see her soon?”
I bit my lip. “No ... she’s not.... She’s gone.”
He looked at me sadly, but didn’t ask me what happened to my mom, probably because he didn’t want to talk about what happened to his. We were both quiet for a second before he said, “Take a picture of me?”
“Sure!”
Deni leaned against the motor and flashed me a sly look. Just the little image of him on my digital screen sent goose bumps to places I didn’t know goose bumps could grow.
I seized the day and took several, just in case I didn’t get the chance again.
“Let me look.”
I tilted the image toward him. His face lit up when he saw the shots. “Ahhh, not bad. Perhaps I should be one of your American Hollywood-style actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Tom Cruise?” He struck a pose on his motorcycle that cracked me up. “America is ready for Indonesian celebrity, no?”
“I don’t think America could handle you, Deni. You’re way too real for that scene. Besides, you’re much cuter than either of those guys.”
“Cute?” He wrinkled his nose. “Like a baby goat?”
He leaned in close to me, his dimple deepening in his smooth cheek.
“Um. No. Not like a baby goat at all.” I stumbled over my words.
Looking into his eyes, I saw he knew exactly what I meant.
“So.” Shivers ran down my spine. “Ready to go in?”
THE TEMPLE
Vendors cruised up and down the main dirt road leading to the temple selling touristy things like Borobudur T-shirts, statues of the monument and postcards. They flashed their wares in our faces and used cheesy car salesmen voices to persuade us to buy. One young boy wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I bought a couple of T-shirts, a bunch of postcards and two miniature statues of the temple and stuck the loot in my backpack.
“So how much does it cost to go in?” I asked Deni when we were standing under the entrance sign.
“Tourist price one hundred thousand rupiah. For Indonesians only five thousand rupiah. About ten dollars of American money for you. About fifty cents for me.”
“You translate the money really well.”
“If I’m going to be a big star of movies one day, I must know all about America,” he joked.
“That’s true,” I said, handing the man sitting in the ticket booth some pink paper money. Deni ordered the tickets, and I was happy he let me treat without the money thing becoming an issue.
I followed him as we wound our way up a set of steep stone stairs into the ancient Buddhist temple. I remembered Dad talking about this place a long time ago, that each level told the story of the Buddha—as you curved around, you read more of the picture story carved into the stones.
I told Deni what Dad had told me. “I always wanted to see this in real life; now here I am,” I said.
“What is the story of the Buddha?” Deni asked.
“You don’t know it?”
“Why would I know it? We are Muslim. We study Islam. I’d like to hear it, this story,” he said.
My face flushed. I wasn’t a natural storyteller like Mom or like Spider....
“Um. I’ll give it my best shot. Just for you.” I walked up a few stairs to an elaborately carved piece of stone. “This must be baby Buddha being born out of his mother’s side. Kind of weird, right? The story is that Buddha was a virgin birth, like Christ’s.”
Deni shrugged, like I’ve heard weirder, encouraging me to keep talking. “So ... the Buddha was a prince, bound to be the next Hindu king. They were Indian and lived at the base of the Himalaya mountains. The Buddha’s parents wanted to keep him sheltered, so he stayed in the palace and was pampered. His parents didn’t want him to see any of the bad things in life like poverty, pain or ... death. Hold on a second, I want to take a picture of this one,” I said, snapping a few shots. “You get in there too, if you want?” I said, hoping he would, which he did.
He posed, a serious look on his face, which made me laugh. Then we moved on. “When he was older, about our age, the Buddha wanted to go outside. His parents forced him to stay in, though. Then one night his curiosity got the best of him and he snuck out of the palace.” I leaned in closer to Deni. “When he snuck out, he took a few servants with him. But what Buddha didn’t know was that they were really angels in disguise.”
I walked a few steps to the next imprint, the next story. “As he rode his horse out of the palace gates, the angels held their hands under the horses’ hooves so that Buddha could sneak out in silence. Cool, right?”
“Like we did today,” he said, with a sly look. “Only it was the gatekeeper who held our hooves, no?”
“Uh, yeah, sort of.” I nicked into him with my elbow playfully, not wanting to think about how busted I was going to be when Dad realized I was gone. “Anyway, once he got outside the palace walls into the real world, the angels pointed out three things Buddha had never seen before: an old person, a sick person and a dead person being prepared for a funeral. He had no experience with death before.” I lowered my voice, knowing a tough part in the story was coming up. “In fact, he didn’t know people died at all. He thought everyone lived forever.”
Deni and I were standing so close our shoulders touched. Our eyes met as he prodded me on. I swallowed and kept talking.
“Which, of course, we know isn’t true. So finally Buddha figured ou
t he must transcend mortals’ fate—pain, et cetera—through enlightenment.”
I watched Deni as he examined the relief. “Enlightenment?”
“It means, like, reason over blind faith, the ability to think for yourself.”
“I like that.”
“Yeah, me too. So Buddha set off on his own path, deciding he should suffer because others did.”
“Do you think he was right?” he asked me seriously.
“I don’t know. I guess the human experience is to suffer at least some.”
His face shadowed. “It has been my experience, yes.”
We stood there staring at each other. Other tourists passed by us, but we didn’t move.
He cocked his head, looked down at his feet. Then he met my eye. “I think you are a good storyteller, Sienna. No one has told me a story in a very long time. And it is interesting about the boy named Buddha. He has not seen what I have seen, but he wants to. He wants to live and see the bad things instead of to not know.”
“Right.” I hoped Deni would tell me a story too—his story—how he ended up at the pesantren, how he got his scar, his limp. Something about his life before. But Deni didn’t offer anything else, and I didn’t want to pry. Something about the way we were together told me when he was ready, he would. And it was okay. I could wait.
The sun broke through the clouds and beat straight down on us. I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.
“I wonder what is up here?” Deni said, suddenly taking the lead.
I followed him up another flight of stairs. At the top, I pulled out a new bottle of water, which we shared.
As I tucked the empty bottle back into my pack, I watched Deni as he peered inside a gray-stone cutout shaped like a diamond. “Look.” He pointed. A beautiful stone Buddha sat in the lotus position and stared back at us. I reached my camera through the cutout and took some pictures. “Sienna ... ?” Deni said suddenly, his voice throaty like it was last night in the rain.
“Yeah?” I asked, meeting his eyes.
Our chests inches apart, he licked his lips as my heart pounded.
Suddenly a group of loud, chatting Indonesian girls approached us, pointing to their cameras. They spoke to Deni in speedy Indonesian, I assumed. I heard them say “America” a couple of times.
“They wish to take their picture with the beautiful American girl,” Deni said mischievously, like he found it very entertaining.
“What? Really?”
“Yes. They are from the countryside and have rarely seen girls with SpongeBob yellow hair. That’s what they said.”
“They did not say ‘SpongeBob,’ did they?”
“No.” He smiled, touching my elbow quickly. “Just beautiful rambut kuning, yellow-haired girl.”
“But how could they? I’m so sweaty and gross.”
“Gross? Apa? What is gross? Another word for ‘beautiful’?”
He was serious. Seriously adorable.
So I stood in the middle of the group of excited girls, who put their long-sleeved arms around me. They must have been so hot in their jilbabs and long dresses, but they weren’t even breaking a sweat. We all smiled at Deni, who took our picture with the girls’ cameras and then with mine.
“Thank you. Thank you,” the girls said as they moved away.
Deni leaned over and said quietly into my ear, “They asked if you were married.”
“Married? What did you say?”
“I said belum”—he grinned slyly—“which in English is ‘not yet.’”
My eyes flew open. Did the girls ask if we were married?
Deni and me to each other?
“In Indonesia we don’t say no,” he explained. “We say ‘not yet.’ Everyone hopes to be married one day.” His face clouded over when he said that. I wasn’t sure why.
“Isn’t that a good thing? Getting married?”
He looked like he might tell me a secret. “Another day,” he said finally. “I can tell you a story of that another day.”
But I did get one story then.
As we silently weaved our way back down the curved stairwell, the shadow lifted from his face, and his eyes lit up. “You know the story of Islam, Sienna? The story of Muhammad?”
“Sort of. We studied it in my social studies class, but I’d like to hear you tell it.”
“Then I will. Muhammad was an orphan boy, a prophet, but he does not know at the first. Then an angel visits to him. He receives the word that there is one God and that God is Allah. That is what we say when we say our prayers. The angels tell him to spread the word and he does. Then many, many tribes are spread out across the desert. They’re fighting. Muhammad unites them together. Allah tells the words of the Koran to Muhammad. Muhammad writes them down, even though he could not read. He says to the people, ‘This is our book. This is our religion.’”
“I like that. Especially how he unites the tribes together.”
“Yes. Apart we are nothing, together we are whole. And you are Christian.”
I shrugged. “I guess. Sort of.”
He looked surprised. “But you are from America? What do you believe, then?”
What do I believe?
“Good question.” I shrugged again. “I used to believe in God, but now ... I don’t know.”
He looked at me strangely, and I remembered what Dad told me on the plane: Indonesians assume everyone has a proper religion; if they don’t, then there is something wrong with them.
I didn’t want him to think there was something wrong with me, so I quickly changed the subject.
“Do you speak Arabic too?” I asked. I was already so impressed that Deni spoke three languages: Indonesian, Acehnese and English.
I knew English and two bits of conversational Spanish.
“Our prayers you hear at the pesantren are Arabic,” Deni explained. “We study Arabic at school, but most children do not know it to speak other than their prayers and the Koran.”
Then, as if on cue, we heard the faint chanting of the call to prayer. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“You see the mosque?” Deni said, pointing out into the far distance.
I squinted into the sun. Sure enough, there was a mosque peeking out of the thick green vines miles away.
His forearm glistened with sweat next to mine as we leaned over the railing to watch, to listen. “When the wave came to Aceh and took everything away from us, it did not take the great mosque. Great and proud. Flooded but not destroyed.”
We stood silently for a moment, moist air melting into my skin.
“So Muhammad lost his parents too?” I asked softly.
“Yes.” Deni nodded, staring out at the white tip of the mosque floating above the trees. “He did.”
MAGIC
Outside the temple, we stopped at a food booth and Deni asked the clerk for a minte nasi bungkus, a packed meal to go. I followed him to an emerald patch of grass, Borobudur our picnic’s backdrop.
Deni carried plastic bags filled with liquid tied with rubber bands in one hand and something wrapped in brown paper in the other. As he juggled everything, he explained what we would eat: ayam goring (fried chicken), gulai (coconut curry) and layers of green banana leaves that held small servings of sticky white rice.
He made two plates of banana leaves, one for me, one for him.
“And tempe,” he said, handing me some sort of soybean cake. “You like sambal?”
It looked like salsa, which I didn’t like, but when in Rome. I said yes, and he poured it on my tempe.
On the grass, we ate the meal silently, using our right-hand fingers as spoons. For dessert, Deni held a fresh coconut to my lips, its dark green top sliced off with a straw sticking out. “Drink,” he said. “It’s very sweet.”
I wrapped my hands around the coconut, thinking he would let go once I took it, but he didn’t, and so my hands were on top of his as I drank; milky water dripping down my chin like sugary rain.
Deni wipe
d the smear of liquid off my skin. “It tastes like candy, no?”
“Yeah,” I said. I sighed and lay back on the grass, feeling spinny and dizzy, full and happy.
Deni did the same, resting his head back on entwined hands like his arms were wings.
I watched birds fly over us, heard oxen-driven carts roll slowly by, and the palm fronds that rustled over us in the breeze.
Then I felt his eyes burning into my skin, so I tilted my face toward him. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said, a slow smile crawling up his lips.
My stomach flipped.
Then his smile faded; he blinked, sat up quickly. Raked his fingers through his hair.
I sat up too, wondering what had spooked him.
“Do you know sate kuda?” he said.
“Um. No. What is sate kuda?”
“Horse meat.”
My nose crinkled. “Horse?! Seriously?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t a real laugh. “I knew not to order it for you.”
“Thanks.” I fingered moist blades and soil, still curious as to why he sat up so suddenly.
“More to drink?” he asked. “Es jeruk. Ice orange. It is my favorite.”
“Orange is my favorite flavor too.”
The bubbly soda tasted like a Popsicle, which reminded me of Spider, which reminded me of home. Then I felt weird in too many ways at once.
“Can you take a picture of me, Deni? So I can show my friends later?” I asked. I suddenly felt guilty for not thinking about them more.
I handed him the camera and took another long swig of the sweet orange drink. “Try to get the motor in the background, okay? Oh, and the temple! And some of the food!”
My enthusiasm cheered me right back up. Deni too.
He smiled and the weirdness from the moment before vanished.
Click.
Outside the pesantren gate Deni flipped off the ignition. The high-pitched rattle stopped, but my ears kept ringing.
“You enjoy the motor ride?”
I hugged his waist tight. This time I wasn’t letting go so easily. “It was just like body boarding back home,” I said, pressing my cheek into his back.
“Body boarding is what?”