by Dan Smith
‘No.’
Helena twisted her glass with one hand, spreading the condensation mark across the tabletop. ‘We didn’t get a chance to talk about what happened. That night. I know you said to forget it, but I can’t. I like you, Alex.’
‘Because I pulled you out of the water.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘How about you? You like Domino just because she helped you?’
‘Probably. Now I think about it, yeah, probably.’
I looked at her hand on the table and we were quiet for a while before Helena spoke again.
‘Alex? Can I ask you something?’
‘Mm-hm.’
‘If things don’t work out with you and Domino, I mean, if you really don’t want to go back up there—’
‘I already told you I’m not going back. I mean it.’
‘Do you think we could go someplace together, then?’
I looked at her.
‘As friends, I mean. We could travel together.’
I said nothing.
‘I need to leave too, Alex, but I don’t know if I can do it alone. I’ve been there so long.’
‘How long?’
‘A year? More? I don’t know; that place gets in your head. You know that. You lose time.’
‘Yeah.’ I leaned back in my chair and stretched my feet under the table, thinking how everybody said that. Whenever I asked anyone how long they’d been there, none of them was able to give me a straight answer.
Early evening and the sun was bleeding in the sky. Everything carried a scarlet tint. As the colour faded, so the old woman put on the lights, bringing the bugs to the tables.
‘I should go back,’ Helena said at last. ‘Freia doesn’t know I’m here; she’ll have to go back alone. They’ll wonder where I am.’
‘What will they do? Send a search party?’
‘Not tonight. Maybe in the morning.’
‘Really? They’d actually come looking for you?’
‘I came to sell. There’s more than just Kurt interested in what I bring back.’
‘Alim?’
‘And Danuri.’
‘Yeah, well, I could make life difficult for Kurt,’ I said, drawing a questioning look from Helena. ‘Oh, never mind,’ I told her, thinking about what I’d seen in the forest; what I’d seen Domino do with her brother and Michael. It hardly seemed real now. A bad dream. Drugs and death. I could tell someone, the police maybe, but I knew Kurt had protection – I’d heard it said more than once. Besides, I wasn’t sure it was the kind of adventure I was looking for. You can’t just drop information like that and run.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ I asked her. ‘Have something to eat, talk. You can sleep in my room. Screw their search party.’
Helena stopped with her glass at her mouth. She watched me over the rim before lowering it and wiping her lips. ‘Really?’
‘Why not? We’re supposed to be travellers. Free spirits. We don’t have to keep Kurt happy; we can do whatever we want.’
Again, an almost imperceptible glance in the direction of the hillside. Then a hesitant nod and a rebellious smile. ‘Free spirits?’
‘Free spirits,’ I said.
We ordered food from the old woman and ate like we’d been on a desert island for a year. We talked like we hadn’t talked to another soul for all that time, too.
‘Last person I really talked to like this was Sully,’ she said, taking my mind back to the marker I’d seen among the trees. ‘Since then, Michael has always been there.’
‘You didn’t try talking to him?’
‘Michael? God, no. He’s not the understanding type.’
‘And you never thought of leaving?’
‘At first I didn’t – not when Sully was there. And after that, it felt like I was part of the family, but it’s not like that any more. I’m not like the others any more.’
‘What changed?’
‘I don’t know. I think maybe it was you. Because I could see you weren’t part of it. Because you questioned what we did.’
‘So why didn’t you just leave?’
‘I have nowhere else to go.’
‘Sweden?’
Helena shook her head. ‘That would be too close to him,’ she said. ‘My father. That’s why I came here. I suppose I was running away. He was a “hands-on” dad. Only the hands were always fists and fingers.’
‘And you ran here?’
‘Kuta,’ she reminded me. ‘Bali. It looked like a good place. When I needed to get out of the house, I used to sit in this café on the corner, browsing websites and wondering where I could go. It was the best way for me to lose myself and forget. I used to look at pictures of places and imagine myself going there – getting away. And one day I saw pictures of Kuta and it looked like so much fun. Bars, beaches, people having a good time. It seemed like it would be a good place to run away to, so that’s what I did. Just like that and, God, I felt so brave. And then I met Sully and Michael and …’ She shrugged.
‘What about your mother? You couldn’t have—’
‘She died when I was six years old.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry.’
She gave a humourless laugh. ‘Seems like there’s always someone leaving me behind.’ Then she shook the thought away. ‘So is it the same for you, Alex? Is there something you’re running away from?’
I remembered a similar conversation with Domino, that night when we had sat on the hospital steps. ‘He might not be there any more,’ I said. ‘Your dad, I mean.’
Helena sighed. ‘I can only hope.’
‘So you ended up coming here. With a guy called Sully you met in a bar in Kuta.’
‘Sounds a little slutty, doesn’t it?’
‘Not really. Not much different from how I got here.’ I watched her, remembering the last time I had seen her, outside the longhouse, confronted by Kurt. She was so much more simple than Domino. So much more like me. ‘I was worried about you.’
‘But you left me alone.’
‘I thought it was safer that way. Better for all of us.’
I heard voices behind me and turned to see Bas and his crew coming in our direction.
‘Time to go,’ I said, pushing back my seat. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
We went to the lakeside, sat on the stone bank and watched the lights on the water. Somewhere over the highlands thunder sounded, low and long.
And sitting there, with the cool breeze and the darkness, and Helena beside me, everything felt calm and right. ‘Just now you asked me if I was running away from something,’ I said.
I sensed her turn to look at me.
‘Well, I suppose I am, in a way. I mean, I never really thought about it like that – running away – but …’
She said nothing while I collected my thoughts.
‘My mother died. Just before I came out here. She was ill and I looked after her for a long time. Then all I ever saw was hospitals and medicines and … she wasn’t in any pain, but she was … just lying there. She could hardly even speak in the end.’
‘It must’ve been hard.’
‘The thing is, I felt like my whole life stopped. And sometimes I hate myself for feeling like that; like she ruined my life. She didn’t ask for it to happen.’ I met Helena’s gaze for a moment, then looked away. ‘She asked me to help her.’
‘Help her? You mean—’
‘Yeah.’
‘And that’s what you’re running away from? Because you helped her to die?’
I shook my head and stared out at the lake again. ‘No. I didn’t help her, Helena, that’s the thing. I wonder if I should’ve done – sometimes can’t get it out of my head – but part of me thinks she wanted it for my sake more than hers. Because she thought she was ruining my life. But I always hoped that she’d get better. I mean, the doctors told me she wouldn’t, but I couldn’t help hoping.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Can you? Domino said she couldn’t let that happen to someo
ne she loved, that she’d have to do something.’
Helena made a dismissive sound. ‘What does she know? Why wouldn’t you hope for your mother to get better? My mother died when I was almost too young to remember her, but if I could have done something to keep her alive, I would’ve done it. I would’ve done the same thing as you did, Alex.’
I glanced down at her hand resting on the pale stone bank and I thought about reaching out to take it. Instead, I folded my fingers together and watched her as she looked out at the lights glistening on the surface of the water. Helena had made me feel better about my decision. She hadn’t rid me of my guilt, but she had dulled it a little, and I wanted to do something for her. She thought that everybody abandoned her: her mother, her father. She even believed Sully had left her. ‘Your friend Sully,’ I said. ‘You really don’t know what happened to him, do you?’
She shifted to face me but her attention was caught by something flitting across the surface of the lake: a bat, flickering as it pursued an insect over the water. She shook her head. ‘One day he was there, and the next he was gone. Just took his stuff and left. I guess I’ll never know why he left.’
‘You were close, though?’
‘That’s what I thought. I mean, we were never really together, not like that, but I thought maybe … Well, I guess I was wrong.’ She looked at me. ‘Am I wrong about you, too?’
If she had any idea Sully was buried out there in the forest, she hid it well. ‘There’s something I think you should know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Sully left you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Helena was quiet when I told her about the shrine I’d seen. She stared out at the lights from Parapat on the other side of the lake and said nothing for a long time. Eventually I spoke her name, ‘Helena,’ and she put her head on my shoulder. She buried her face and I felt the dampness of her tears on my neck.
‘Michael,’ she said. ‘Michael?’ I stared at the lake, feeling the cool breeze coming across the water. It wasn’t cold, but I shivered. If anybody was capable of such a thing, it was Michael. I’d heard what he had done to Hidayat.
‘He was always so jealous.’
‘You really think he could do something like that?’ But I was sure he could. He had beaten me, leaving me only when Kurt had called him off like a dog. If Kurt hadn’t been there, Michael might have crushed the life out of me with his bare hands. I’d heard stories of him doing such a thing and I hadn’t believed them at the time, but perhaps it was true. Perhaps he had done it to Sully. The thought of it brought memories of Matt’s injuries, of my night in the forest, of the secret burial. I wondered if I should tell Helena what I had seen, but she’d heard enough already today.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think he could. I saw what he did to you. What would he have done if the two of you had been alone?’
I struggled with the idea, didn’t say anything for a while because my mind was numb. Then I lifted one hand to stroke her hair. ‘I think Domino knows. I asked her about it before I left.’
Helena sniffed and raised her head to look at me. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said she didn’t know, and I really wanted to believe her. Maybe that’s why I came here, agreed to wait.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘But I don’t think I do believe her. Not really. I’m not even sure Matt OD’d.’
‘What, then?’
‘I don’t know, but you shouldn’t go back. There’s things going on up there you don’t want to know about.’
‘What things?’
‘There are other shrines up there.’ The first drops of rain broke the surface of the lake. Thunder sounded, this time much closer, followed by a brilliant flash that lit Danau Toba. ‘I didn’t look at all of them. D’you think … Did you ever hear of anyone else going missing? Just leaving?’
‘Not since I’ve been there.’ She lifted a hand and wiped a raindrop from her face. ‘There was only Sully.’
‘Christ, I thought it was supposed to be a peaceful place.’
‘We should go in,’ she said. ‘Storm’s coming.’
‘Let’s stay here a while.’
‘We’ll get soaked.’
‘You’ll be surprised how good it feels,’ I told her as the rain reached us, gentle at first, then growing heavier.
We pulled closer together and waited for it to come.
‘I think I always knew,’ she said after a while. ‘Inside. Somewhere deep. I think I knew what Michael had done.’ The tone of both sorrow and relief. At last she knew. And she hadn’t been abandoned.
We watched the storm advance across the lake until it was on us with all its cleansing violence. We let ourselves be drenched, Helena wincing at the force of the drops on her skin, turning her face to mine, her eyelashes and nose dripping, raising her voice over the sound of the storm. ‘This is amazing,’ she said. ‘I’ve never felt this before.’
‘We should remember it,’ I shouted over the sound of the torment on the water. ‘Whatever else has happened, we should always remember this.’
‘Our Toba,’ she said.
‘Our Toba,’ I replied.
Back at my room I showered and changed into clean shorts and a T-shirt, telling Helena she should do the same, asking, ‘How long since you’ve had a hot shower?’
‘A while,’ she said, closing the bathroom door.
I lay on the bed and shut my eyes, waiting, listening to the last of the storm as it passed over. The sound of the rain merged with that of the shower, and I thought about Helena standing beneath it. I remembered what she had done that night when I had taken Kurt’s pill, how she had looked, and how confused I had been to see her face, not Domino’s. And I felt it now, with great clarity, that I had experienced no disappointment. Even when she told me what had happened, I felt no anger, no betrayal. Helena was not Domino and I was glad of it. She had some of Domino’s strength, but she had more of her vulnerability. And those were the moments I had come to long for in Domino – the moments when I truly felt that she was mine. But I understood that it would never be so. She would always belong to Kurt, and she would always be that other person. Now, with my eyes open and nothing to blur my vision, I knew what I really wanted.
When Helena came out, she was dressed in a pair of my shorts and a T-shirt, her towel held close to her chest. Her hair was damp and hung in tails around her face.
‘I’ll take the floor,’ she said. ‘I’m used to it. I just need a sheet or something.’
‘There’s room here.’ I moved along, pulling down the cover.
Helena held the towel tighter to her.
‘Really,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
She put the towel on the floor by the bathroom door and came over, climbing onto the bed beside me and lying flat, facing the ceiling. I pulled the sheet over us and lay beside her so that just our shoulders were touching.
‘You OK?’ I asked, not looking at her.
‘Yeah,’ she said.
I reached over and switched off the light. ‘Should we tell someone?’
‘Who? Who would we tell?’
I turned my head on the pillow, looked at her silhouette. She sniffed once and I turned away again. ‘We should go,’ I said to her. ‘Tomorrow. We should leave.’
‘Together?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like we were going to before?’
‘No. This is different.’ This time I wanted her to be with me.
‘Where shall we go?’
‘Anywhere.’ I could sense her relief and it gave me a good feeling. ‘It doesn’t matter. Somewhere quiet.’
‘I need to go back,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I have a few things. Some money, my passport. If I’d known, I would have brought them with me.’
‘Leave them,’ I told her. ‘I have money and we can go to your consulate, get another passport.’
‘You think it’ll be that easy? No, I need to go up there and get what’s min
e. It’s all I have left.’
‘I know what that’s like.’
‘Anyway, I want to say goodbye to Sully.’
I tried to imagine how she would be feeling. ‘You’re not going looking for Michael? Do something stupid, I mean.’
‘Maybe if I was braver.’
I smiled in the darkness. ‘It’s not a good idea. We should just go.’
‘I have to, Alex. Sully was my friend. Someone has to say goodbye to him. It’s not right to leave without doing that.’
‘I think I can understand that, but they’ll want to know where you’ve been. How will you get away again?’
‘They won’t even know I’m there. I can go through the trees. I know my way around that place.’
‘And if they see you?’
‘They won’t.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘No. It’s not safe for you. They’ll make you stay.’
‘I thought you said they won’t see you.’
‘Well, if they do, it won’t matter so much – I’ll make an excuse – but if they see you, they’ll make you stay. Please, Alex, just wait for me to come back.’
‘I’ve heard that before.’
‘I know, but I mean it.’
I turned my head towards hers again and she did the same, our breath meeting.
‘I’ll go first thing in the morning,’ she said. ‘If I’m not back by twelve, you should leave without me.’
38
At first light we left the room together, walking further along the shore, where we found a boat to take her across the water. I gave her money, told her that Richard would bring her back if she told him about me, and stood on the bank as the boat moved out of sight beyond the headland, then I turned and made my way back to the losmen.
I waited until noon but Helena did not return.
I sat in my room, I paced the shore, I watched, but there was no sign of her. When the hands on my cheap watch reached one o’clock, the air felt colder despite the bright sun. An uneasy feeling crept into me. I shouldn’t have let her go back up there. I shouldn’t have let her persuade me. There was too much waiting for her in that clearing.
I went to the shore and squinted out at the lake, looking for any sign, even a glint on the surface of the lake that might be a distant boat. I strained my ears for the sound of an outboard, but every time I caught a hint of an engine, the boat was far off-shore and moving slowly in the water.