Double Happiness

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  Is it worth saying my mother was unconcerned with my fair skin, too? She was quite dark herself, my father must have been albino to make up the difference, and the question only got me a dislocated arm. So temperamental. Betsy said there were other words for it, but I refused to listen. My husband was right, Betsy could be fanciful about people’s ordinary habits. For instance, on our first date, Betsy came along, and he got spectacularly high, stole a car—from a friend so it wasn’t actually stealing—and drove it all the way to the Ginza section, pie-eyed, before hitting a news- stand. Demolishing the intricate fan pattern of the international glossies. Death wish, she called it. And maybe he heard her and took it the wrong way. But she was actually talking to me. I realize that now. She hadn’t really liked my old American. Morose, she called him, in fact, psychotic.

  He’s reflective, I said, you just don’t recognize a thinker when you see one.

  Mustache was a thinker. After all the birthday security moved into our compound, whenever I woke up in the middle of the night—guaranteed with the twins—in the master suite Mustache was always awake. Even curled on the mat at the foot of the vast carved bed, his eyes were wide open as if I might dream myself up the twenty-foot wall and free.

  Mustache, I’d say, stepping over him, feeling my way to the loo, I don’t like you that way. And by then I was only lying slightly. That mat used to be mine. My husband thought it incredibly sexy if I slept there. Up and going to the bathroom for old-guy reasons, he would trip over me and then wow! he’d have fun!

  Why subject yourself to that shit, Betsy asked on the phone, back when I could call her.

  It’s nothing, I said.

  I’ll say.

  Every day Mustache made a big promise to turn the electricity back on, and with it, the central AC, like he was the boss. Which, it turns out, he was! But I’d stopped believing him, even if he did make a mean rice and mango on the propane burner in the servant hut. I wasn’t allowed in there because his wife, mother, sisters, and daughters would all be tainted by me. But every once in a while they’d peek out the slits between the boards to get a look-see.

  Won’t they be tainted by all those guys with the toaster ovens stomping around here day and night? I asked.

  Oh, Mrs. Fawn, sighed Mustache.

  Did I say you could sigh?

  He bowed his head, but we were just goofing around. And it was about a thousand degrees and the marble floors felt like one big hot plate. Who had the energy for dominance talk to put people back in their rightful place?

  It’s all about energy. This is what my old American used to say, though he was thinking globally, and it’s what Stefan said in the letter he wrote to me in Tokyo.

  What a putz, said Betsy, and I would have laughed at the word, so odd from her, but I was crying and just wanted the letter back. My mother didn’t have the energy to fight, that’s what Stefan wrote. Some kid broke into our cottage on the creek, thinking it was abandoned. She never did like to mow the lawn, or fix a single thing. I guess the kid screamed when he saw her and my mother lay down on the floor, just like that. The next minute she was dead. Heart, Stefan said, exploded like a grenade. She didn’t really care for life that much, didn’t have the energy for it. On any level. If you know what I mean.

  Fucking Stefan, said Betsy, but it didn’t help.

  In some ways Mustache really reminds me of Stefan, skinny and bent over and worried all the time. It’s more than just the tainted daughters. He sounded pretty pro forma on that: Your whorish filth, Mrs. Fawn, that’s all it is. Like saying your freckles might be contagious. He smiles, I smile, we know it’s all nonsense, and if the guys in every room and lounging like idiots on the wall tops and by every single door had cracked a smile now and then, too, it would have been a lot more pleasant. I’m not the problem, I’d say to Mustache, and nod, subtly, toward one of the minigoons. Not a single one as tall as I am. Betsy could break them in two with a look.

  Sometimes when I tripped over him in the night, I could tell he’d been crying, or at least sweating very hard. What is it, Mustache? I’d ask, but he never answered me. Go to sleep, Mrs. Fawn. Sleep now.

  But one night, after about a month of this, much too long for anything by Indonesian standards—and when, I wanted to know, would I see the American ob-gyn who lived at the Hilton?— there was a big crash from the salon, followed by louder crashes and howls, as if tiny ones were tossing around all the carved furniture. Mustache was already at the doors, sliding in various bolts, so that now we were locked in and the air was thick with our sleep breath and sweat. Oh, Mustache, I said, and felt a jerk of the babies under my heart. Bile rippled in my throat and I thought I might pee in my nightie. Please, Mustache, unbolt the loo, now, please.

  One minute, Mrs. Fawn, and he listened closely through one thick embellished door, and even in the half-light of a new moon I could see he was trembling and most certainly crying.

  I think the news for your husband not positive.

  I shook my head, almost not understanding. Mustache and I never talked about my husband anymore, except to listen to that old recording and plod through the photo albums, but we hadn’t even done that in forever.

  Oh, they’re just goofing around.

  No, said Mustache. Not goofing, Mrs. Fawn. Where would we like to hide you now.

  I need a toilet, Mustache.

  And that seemed to give him an idea, but one that caused him some distress.

  When we first moved to Jakarta, my old American used to say he didn’t like the design of this compound. He thought, he insisted, and not in a happy, life-is-wild-and-unpredictable way, that the servants watched us in the night. Well, he was absolutely right! And that’s something that people would say about him later on at the strange memorial service in baggage claim at Kuala Lumpur. That he was always one step ahead of the game. In fact, he was ahead of his time. He was history in the making. He was a national treasure. Obviously a national tragedy. He was the lesson that could never be learned well enough. But he was also a state secret. He would be missed more than anyone would ever be free to say.

  He also had another wife, and only one, who, though devastated, couldn’t make it to Kuala Lumpur. There were documents to prove we were never actually married. And if I ever intended to leave the sour smelling, ill-lit annex to the baggage Quonset hut, only my own country could help me now. The Americans were finished with me. But this was far down the road, and in the moment I like to remember as tender in its way, Mustache was struggling to release the heavy center panel of the twenty-foot-long carved wooden screen depicting the many-headed goddesses of desire. The spectacular backdrop for my husband’s king-sized marital fib and my rustic floor mat.

  It turned out I wasn’t the only one my old American hadn’t been strictly truthful with. Poor Mustache had received many promises: about his daughters being educated at Harvard, and the strong likelihood of ponies for everyone on a farm in Connecticut. For such a smart man, I’m surprised Mustache believed him, but look at me. And Mustache did look at me, and what he saw, apparently, was some merger of all those women who would naturally be corroded to the very pip of their beings by the sight of me. They see you all the time, he admitted. His wife knew some good herbs to keep the twins from punching my lungs.

  The floors in the compound always seemed to have more gravity than other floors I’d encountered and in my idle hours I had time to consider why. It was the weight of the marble slabs. It was the heavy burdens of the day laborers that had seeped into the porous layers. It was my imagination, maybe. But I don’t think so. Betsy always said I had a fatality imagination. Not that I foresaw the worst, the opposite: I saw love and opportunity in every future, and that was fatal. So Mustache’s daughters— huddled that final night around the Bunsen burner in the servant hut—struck me as graceful and potential model material wherever mottle-skinned emaciated models were in demand. And his wife, though her face was stricken on one side, had delighted eyes, even cast down, even shooing me into
a corner to wait for the gunfire to die down so we could all crawl out a dirt tunnel to the relative safety of the airport.

  I was accustomed to downcast eyes, they followed me everywhere in Indonesia. When my husband’s assistant, Kartini, arrived one day out of the blue—this was the day before my birthday party—she gave Mustache, who was seated by the front door, guarding me, which had always been his main job, some elaborate instructions.

  What is it, Kartini? I called out. But she smiled and bowed and continued to speak very quickly before handing a thick envelope to Mustache. She bowed again, eyes sideways and staring as usual. What time is my husband coming home? I asked.

  So busy, Mrs. Fawn. Terrible busy. Very sorry. Have a nice day! And my husband’s work chauffeur drove her back to the office.

  It turned out I was going to Borobudur in Yogyakarta that very afternoon as a special prebirthday treat. Good sights! said Mustache with averted eyes. We would leave for the airport as soon as I could pack my bag.

  The biggest shock, when I first arrived in Jakarta from Tokyo, was the contrasting airports. In Tokyo, no matter who drives you to the airport, you are guaranteed a new lace doily for your headrest. And probably some artfully packaged snacks and beverages, and the airport was equally tidy and efficient. In Jakarta, arriving and departing passengers mill through chain fences and pens with padlocks and razor wire. Anyone can carry a machine gun if they feel like it. So if someone motions you over with a gun snout it could be customs, it could be a holdup. They are very disorganized. And even though the airport in Tokyo is a million miles from the city, the highways, like everything else, are immaculate and gorgeously lit. In Jakarta, the airport is practically next door, and you have to be inside it to see it’s not another shack selling scary fruit water off a pitted dirt road. Only in the end, with Mustache, did I understand how good a system that was.

  But the day we traveled to Borobudur I was still appalled by the disorganization. Some thug in a luggage-handling basement patted my belly and said something foul—I could tell from his eyes, and the screwy shape of his mouth, and the aroma of sour melon. What did he say? I asked Mustache.

  He says we pay extra for the little passengers. No mind, Mrs. Fawn. And Mustache withdrew a document from the thick envelope, which quickly had this baggage handler looking anxious. Right away we were led out a side door, past the overflowing trash bins, old oil barrels filled with fish heads and sewage. I thought I might be very sick, and the twins were outraged, but Mustache fanned my face with the envelope then raced ahead. Please, Mrs. Fawn. We hurry now.

  Soon we were standing on the tarmac before a small plane decorated with palm-tree camouflage. Mustache called up to the pilot, who was leaning out the window of the cockpit smoking a clove cigarette. He looked at me, swerved away his eyes, then a steward lowered a snaky looking gangplank. First class, please, he announced in English. We were the only passengers. I sat in a padded bucket behind the pilot, and Mustache sat on the floor at the rear of the plane next to several metal trunks and my Burberry overnight tote.

  It was a very short trip, which was fortunate. The pilot smoked the entire way, and told jokes that made him heehaw and cough to whoever sat on the other end of his radio. The plane bobbed and dipped and finally made an abrupt landing in the middle of a rice terrace. There were no handlers or even a hut to receive us, but Mustache barked out something to the pilot, and the steward appeared again— where had he ridden?—to lower the gangplank. Once outside the plane, I could clear my eyes of smoke and look around me. So beautiful, greens that were almost turquoise. Water falling through wooden trellises more lavender than the Hilton swimming pool, and a smell beyond the cloud of clove cigarettes as soft and kind as a mother’s love. That gentle, that embracing. What mother are you referring to, that’s what Betsy would horn in with, if she’d been there. But this is how I’ll be to the twins, like this air, I remember thinking. Blue and beautiful and puffy with love.

  Mustache said we would come back for my tote, first we must see Borobudur. He apologized for leading the way then bid me follow him down the path. We stopped by a small carved altar in the rock; three stone women looked into our faces. Mustache scrambled off the path and returned with a white flower. Ask for guidance, Mrs. Fawn, all will come. He gave me something sweeter smelling than the wax Betsy used on my inner thighs. There now, I said, and placed the white flower near their splayed stone toes and waited for thoughts I might recognize as more interesting than my own. I closed my eyes and stood still.

  Maybe later, Mrs. Fawn, said Mustache. Please, Mrs. Fawn.

  I didn’t realize we were in a rush, but now Mustache moved faster. At the end of the path, at the bottom of the lowest rice terrace, a group of men stood waiting. The same group, by the way, that would completely spoil my party. They seemed to know Mustache, in fact seemed a tiny bit intimidated, which was very strange. Mustache spoke in the fast loud style he never used with me, and showed them some papers from the fat envelope. Most of the men scurried up the path we’d just left, but two followed us, now at a respectful distance, to the car waiting in the dirt track. It was a taxi. Or had once been a taxi. Private car now, explained Mustache. And opened the back door on a loose hinge. Please use seat belt for safety, Mrs. Fawn. Mustache rode beside the driver. And the two men who’d joined us stood on the back fender and held onto the roof. Their brown wire fingers wrapped around the tops of the open back windows. We were going to Borobudur.

  I don’t like the word hostage, it sounds very passive, like nothing is going on inside to the person involved. Although the Americans in Kuala Lumpur use that word a lot. They insist this prebirthday sightseeing was an essential link to what occurred later at my party, that in effect I was prekidnapped. But I feel certain that’s not what happened to me. I was always alive to my surroundings. Awake! Aware! Alive! That’s what my old American used to say, something to do with good posture. It’s almost impossible to believe he is none of those things anymore.

  Borobudur was in terrible disrepair, and the snack bar had been set on fire not so long ago. The charred-wood smell still wafted from black sooty puddles. Snipped coils of razor wire blew around in the hot wind like tumbleweed. Nothing was left to protect. Vandals, said Mustache, shaking his head. Disrespect, Mrs. Fawn. He bowed his head. Then he said the most important thing to do immediately was to climb the temple walk, counterclockwise, until I reached the top, then go inside a big Buddha head and look around. I’ll wait here, said Mustache.

  I frowned.

  Thank you, Mrs. Fawn, he said.

  I sighed. All right. But I was beginning to be hungry. After this, lunch, Mustache, and right away, I said in my harshest tone. He handed me a leaf-wrapped ball from a hidden vest pocket. This was the first time I tasted the mango rice that was to become my steady diet.

  Someday they would clean all this up. Money was pouring into Indonesia and there was lots of talk about the ancient culture and the importance of art and respect for religion, but for the moment sludge and weeds choked the counterclockwise walkway, bits and pieces of the temple lay shattered everywhere. I stepped over shards in my inappropriate platform sandals, determined to show Mustache that my legs were more than just decoration. Did he ever think about my legs? Apparently he did. But not the way Betsy would have suspected. He wanted his daughters to live and grow to have long strong legs like mine, that’s what he said in the end. Maybe still, Mrs. Fawn, you can help us.

  And I keep telling the Americans that the only reason I’m able to help them at all is because Mustache and his family saved me. They’re deaf to this idea; they’ve never heard of Mustache, they say. And besides, how exactly do I think I’ve been helpful? I want to see an ob-gyn? Maybe I’ll give birth to the information they’re looking for, hmm? Maybe a little unassisted labor will shake my memory loose.

  But what I’m really trying to remember, what I want to get right, is the moment I finally reached the top of Borobudur. It was early afternoon but already the sun had dipped be
hind a nearby mountain so the light on the littered flattop was filtered green through the swaying trees. A mist in the air landed on my skin like a cool astringent, something Betsy might pull out of our picnic-basket-sized refrigerator to put on our cheeks on August nights on our tatami mat. This air and the sad shape of the vast Buddha heads with their beaded hairdos made me long to go home, just that. But not to Denmark; I’d already told Stefan he could have the cottage by the creek. He’d probably trimmed the wild overgrown hedges into topiary by now waiting for me to return and take my rightful place. No, I wanted to be with Betsy in Tokyo, and inside the only Buddha head that hadn’t been toppled or riddled with gunshot, I looked out through the slit of the eyes and imagined our future. I would call her on my birthday. I would come home, with the twins of course, and together we would rethink our whole plan, start over. I knew what she’d say, Your geezer will never let you escape! And I’d say, He has no hold on me. And she would be impressed by my new maturity. And chances are we’d be very conservative with our appearance for a while, just while the glue dried on our new life. That’s what I saw, and then I looked down and spotted Mustache by the burned-out snackbar waving madly, his new friends slipping in and out beneath the palm trees. They had all seen me and soon they would reunite at my birthday party. Now they could drift out into the forests if they felt like it. That fluid, unpredictable style of friendship really irked my old American. No word for loyalty, he said, on more than one occasion. But later I found out he was wrong about that, something my new Americans refuse to understand. Hey, hey! I could see the shape of Mustache’s mouth calling, and it looked sweet with affection for me. But at the top of Borobudur the only sound I could hear inside the Buddha head and inside my very pip was the tiny, swirling, shifting breeze of certainty and peace.