by Nigel Barley
He stole a swift drag. “Tuan Walter is very kind. He takes us with him when he travels. He never beats us. He is teaching us to read and write because the Dutch do not allow us to go to school. He is funny. He makes us laugh.”
I began to shadow the neck, bring out the cartilage of the nose, the provocative, bobbing Adam’s apple. The hair was a tangle of blue highlights and deepest black.
“Does he play with you?”
He paused on the way to another drag and looked cautiously at me. “How do you mean?” Main-main is “to play around”, “to engage in social chit-chat”. Main is “to play a game or instrument” but also “to have sex”. I opened my eyes wide with innocence and coaxed a slight puffiness from under his own in dark red. My hand was shaking.
“Tuan Walter is a friendly man,” I said. “He likes to play in all sorts of ways. Sometimes he plays at night.”
He looked up sharply, then remembered he was not supposed to move and looked down. I raised the cheekbones, curved the upper lip with its hint of a moustache.
“Sometimes,” he said carefully, after a short silence, “he asks if we would like to play any game with him and then we must tell him what game.” He stole a glance at me through lowered lashes. I shaped the tendons in his neck and stroked them into a blur.
“There is no harm in that,” I remarked casually. “In Bali, I have heard that, before they are married, friends often play games together.” I slipped off my glasses and held up the portrait. He cried out in delight, stubbed out the cigarette and stood up to touch it. As the loose sarong dropped, I saw that he had risen in every sense.
I shall not detail further our shameful activities of that late morning except to say that it was then and there that I convincingly entered Bali and it me, that I drank its very essence and I understood Walter’s engagement with the whole island. Resem incarnated for me the whole of that ancient culture. As we bathed together and Resem gently washed my back, it was not a personal act. It was the whole of Bali cleansing me in holy water, a baptism. As Resem curled up soft and warm on my bony lap, the last afterglow of our lust crushed out, and rested his head against my chest, I felt … what? Gratitude, affection, compassion, an urge to protect, the feeling that human kindness and simplicity were raising my estimation of what a person should be, were making me a better man. We agreed at once that what had happened should remain a secret between us. Walter might be angry, would certainly be offended. We ruthlessly expunged all signs of our debauch. I picked up the crushed hibiscus, trodden underfoot in our passion, and refused to see it as a too-obvious painterly symbol. The furniture was rearranged and polished, the floor washed, the tools of my art hidden and when the car finally returned at dusk I was sitting innocently at the table reading Nieuwenkamp’s book as Resem bustled far away in the kitchen.
Walter burst in with his arms full of parcels, like a dog bringing a stick. On his head, he was wearing a navy brown beret edged with leather, perched aslant over one ear. It looked silly, the mark of urban bohemian affectation or a Garbo fan.
“Why,” I asked cattily, “are you dressed as an artist?”
He adjusted it, with fake pride, into a sort of halo and posed in the mirror. “Do you like it? I was at Lee King’s, you know the big shop by the market, and I saw it. It spoke to me.”
I indicated the heap of parcels. “For a man who left here with no money, a lot of things spoke to you. It must have been very noisy in that shop.”
“Yes … well … egg cups, a toast rack. Whenever I have British guests they do so go on about breakfast. Anyway, the boys will love these odds and ends for the morning. Lee King’s does credit.” He came and perched at the end of the table. “So. What did you get up to while I was away?” He stared me in the face and I saw, as in slow motion, how a slightly puzzled expression came into his eyes as he looked around the room and then his jaw dropped in delight and he pointed and laughed. “You had sex with Resem! Ha ha ha. Good isn’t he? A sweet, affectionate lad.”
I blushed. Blood roared in my ears.
“No … yes … how the hell? Aren’t you upset?”
He looked at me in genuine surprise. “Why on earth should I be upset?” He touched my hand, a joke slap.
“I thought you might be – sniff – jealous.”
“Why jealous? I think it is lovely when two people make each other happy. Better a blunt knife than a fork with no prongs.”
“What?”
“It is a saying in the Urals.” As if on cue Resem could be heard singing, with a soaring voice, in the kitchen. “Sex is magic because it conjures up solid happiness out of thin air. The only reason I would be upset would be if you were not nice to him and I know you wouldn’t do that. What did you give him?”
I bristled. “Give him? Nothing. It was not,” I said primly, “a commercial transaction.”
He shook his head sadly. “Oh Bonnetchen. Sometimes you are so stupid. When a man gives his wife a bunch of flowers or a bottle of perfume does that make it a commercial transaction? Quite the reverse.” He dug in the pile on the table and pulled out a flat, brown-wrapped package. “He is a poor young man who has given you everything he had to give, now you must give something back. Here is a nice new sarong. I bought it for myself but one of the good things about a sarong is that it fits anyone. Don’t do it in front of the other boys – who all know by now by the way – he would be embarrassed. When he is alone, give him this, say something nice and – for God’s sake Bonnetchen – smile! Then he will know you genuinely like him and respect him and you will be real friends. There is another advantage to giving Balinese cloth. Though the Balinese are scrupulously clean about their bodies, they never wash their clothes. Those gold-leaf costumes of the dancers for example, prada, can’t ever be got near water, though they get soaked in sweat at every performance. You mustn’t, of course, ever mention it but a new sarong, from time to time, sweetens them up in every way.”
I was touched. Walter was not concerned that others were fishing his pool or that Resem might prefer me to him. He just wanted everyone to be happy and feel good about themselves. There were tears in my eyes.
I said grudgingly, “I like the hat.” I shuffled my feet under the table. “It suits you.”
***
“The Lord giveth,” said Walter, waving a brown official envelope triumphantly over the new toastrack, “and the Lord taketh away.” It had been a special breakfast, fuelled with treats from the city, oranges, cheese, relatively new newspapers, even butter from a tin made irresistible to the customer by images of Dutch milkmaids in clogs. Walter always believed that as long as he had the luxuries, the necessities would take care of themselves. “You did not tell me Smit had called. Perhaps your mind was distracted by other things.”
“Perhaps. But I don’t think he’s any friend of yours.”
My first thought about such an envelope was “bailiffs” but then even Walter would have been less cheery. Mas came in with fresh coffee, displaying in smiles the gold incisor that must be the origin of her name.
“Well, he’s done me a kindness. He sent this across from the resthouse. You are looking at an official state artist of the Dutch East Indies administration.” He poured for both of us.
“You must have known. Psychic. And that, surely, is why you bought the beret. Isn’t that part of the uniform? But you forget, I have still not seen any of your work. You have seen all of mine.” I sounded like a disappointed schoolboy behind the bicycle sheds.
He made his crooked face. “You would not like it. I have told you that I paint to rid myself of bad things inside me, like er, fallthrough …” Fallthrough? He distractedly mimed face and stomach pain, crouched like a man relieving himself, blew a raspberry. Oh, diarrhoea. “… and then I get it out of the house. I have several commissions waiting but I hate to paint for money. That is the difficulty here. The worst is when I have spent the money and still not done the painting, then I am like a man in chains, walking around, hearing them rattle.”
“Walter!” I said. “You’d be crazy not to do this. Think of the money in terms of berets or toastracks. And think of the fun you can have. You could put Smit’s face in it and give it to a monkey or a cannibal. You could make us both kings. Resem,” I said tenderly, “could appear as some great hero.”
He brightened. “I could put the ladies in breastholders and the men in sportsupporters and who is to say the builders of Borodur were not covered in tattoos?” Then a sideways leap, a suddenly serious voice. “I see Badog has a new cloth and I hear you have been sketching him, too. Is everything all right there?” I blushed. It was true. I had been making him a model by slow steps.
“Resem is happy,” I said. “Badog is happy.” It was all he wanted to hear but I could not leave it there. “The problem is Oleg. The others tell me he, too, is eager to be stretched – sketched – but …”
He held up a hand. “I don’t want to know. You must work it out amongst yourselves. Has it occurred to you that you might make fewer moral considerations if Oleg were not short and fat? But I don’t want to know.”
It had not occurred to me. Now it did. I felt ashamed. Why was I always feeling ashamed? Walter ducked behind a newspaper and lobbed out wisdoms like grenades. The headline read “New planet discovered and named Pluto.”
“You see, Bonnetchen? Life is not about rules. Everything lies in the circumstances. The only thing is that I cannot have rows in my house. No breaking of glasses and banging of saucepans. It was like that when I lived with Murnau. I could not stand it again.”
I gaped. “Murnau, the film director? The man who made Nosferatu? Tell me.”
Walter sighed and laid down the paper.
“His real name was Plumpe and even after he changed it, he was always really Plumpe. He was a Plumpe. It was in Berlin. I was young, knew no one. He was older and, I thought, wiser. But, after a while, he became possessive, aggressive, obsessive, excessive and he drank. I ended up looking after him in a sanatorium and he would not allow me out of the grounds. When I ran away from Europe, I ran away from Plumpe. At that age nothing is really bad for you. You learn. From Plumpe, I learnt about rows and about films. You remember all those shadows in Nosferatu?” I nodded. People always commented on the way that the creature was seen more through its shadow than reality. “That was me. I was already keen on the Indies and had bought a couple of shadow puppets in Rotterdam when I had an exhibition of my paintings. We spent an afternoon playing with them.” He shrugged. “The rest is cinema. And now,” he stood up purposefully, “come with me. We have work to do. Oh. And what I said about not wanting to know. I was lying. You know I love to gossip. The great fault of the Balinese is that they are so terribly discreet.”
We walked out of the house and up the steps to the side of the road, shaded by fruiting trees and turned towards the centre. A panorama of rich ricefields stretched out, with leaves hung out over them like washing to scare away birds. Everywhere was the happy, comforting sound of running water. On either side of the road were deep gutters, each house with its own little bridge, clear water tumbling underneath. A fat child was driving a flock of fat ducks out to the flooded fields. We walked in dappled sunshine and shadow and, of course, everywhere Walter was greeted and waved to with flashing smiles. Shortly, we came to the puri, the palace, a fresh-looking building in stone, completely rebuilt since the great earthquake of 1917.
“You will notice the stonecarving by I Gusti Nyoman Lempad,” he instructed. “He did my doors and I can claim some small credit for his development from simple builder to artist.” Somewhere nearby odd gamelan instruments were practising with drum thuds and occasional crashes. “Children,” said Walter. “As soon as they can walk they sit on their father’s laps as they play so that the music seeps into their bones and soon they are exploring music for themselves.”
A tiny, totally naked tot, guarded by a wizened crone, crouched in the dust outside the puri gate, playing hysterically with a small, sand-coloured puppy that was dancing around the child, occasionally darting in to nip its toes and provoke screams of delighted laughter. To my surprise, Walter, ignored the woman, went down on his knees and spoke lowly to the child that then got up with great dignity and waddled inside. It must have discharged its mission satisfactorily, for a small sharp-eyed man of middle age came out and greeted Walter warmly. I was pointed at, looked up and down, discussed at length and equally lengthily ignored. Finally Walter turned to me.
“The big boss, Cokorda Gede Raka Sukawati, is away so we get to see his little brother Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati.”
The names swum in my head.
“I thought Balinese only used the names of their birth order followed by a nickname?”
He smiled. “Normally they do but some of the nobles have titles long enough to hang a week’s washing on. Agung is actually a better option. He’s much more interested in the visual arts, Raka plays the violin and the flute so goes for music, but you can never be sure how Agung wants you to behave. Being young, sometimes he’s all modern, drinking gin and listening to jazz records. Sometimes, he’s all traditional Balinese and will talk to you in low Balinese and you have to talk back in special high, palace Balinese which is a pain since you have to refer to him as Your Feet.”
“Your Feet?”
“Yes, the idea seems to be that he is so above you that the only part of him you dare to address is his feet.”
“Oh God.”
“Don’t worry, Bonnetchen. Just follow my lead.”
The child crouched down and laid a turd. The puppy rushed up and ate it, then licked the child’s behind. A message of hope to Holland’s housewives.
We set off in pursuit of our guide, who strode off through a maze of flagged courts at various levels, gateways and dark passages, none very grand but impressive by sheer weight of numbers. We were thus treated to a cross-section survey of palace activities. Women were cracking nuts, folding clothes, picking bugs out of rice and each others’ hair while men were caressing fighting cocks, mending shoes and tormenting otherwise tranquil children. People looked up as we passed. Many greeted Walter by name. Finally, we were left on a low verandah, our shoes were pointed at and our guarantor disappeared for a considerable time. On top of a wall, a row of torch batteries were warming in the sun to coax a little more life out of them. We waited in unshod patience, watching a child playing with a bizarre toy, that I took, at first, to be a model aeroplane.
“They trap them, the big red dragonflies, with a sort of resin on the end of a reed. One day, I must do some work on them. I suppose it is cruel but when they tire of them, they eat them. Also bumblebees. Did you know Oleg means bumblebee, by the way? There is even a dance …” We were waved in and I followed closely on Walter’s heels.
It was a moderate-sized room, with a floor of cool multi-coloured chequered tiles that would have driven Escher mad, and a raised dais at the far end, covered in carpet, on which perched three heavy chairs of antique form. The walls were much mirrored and a sort of faux fireplace had been constructed to one side as if in emulation of Dutch interior design. Even in the sweaty Indies, the Dutch needed fireplaces so they knew how to arrange a room. On it stood two fussy clocks, swarming with cherubs, that disagreed completely about the time. A large and offensive chandelier hung from the centre boss of the ceiling where lizards slalomed around it and the still air exuded a smell of damp and mould. In the centre chair sat a chubby, dapper figure, short of stature, dark of hue and dressed in floppy shorts and a bush shirt tightly unbuttoned to mid-chest. Unlike most Balinese, when confronted with a chair he sat in it after the Western fashion, not cross-legged on it, after the Ba
linese. Walter strode across the room with me in tow.
“Hi Walter!” Modern, today then, very. No feet. “Come in out of the hot sunnyshine.” He turned to me. “Walter,” he said, “has been learning me English. It is better that we speak English because the palace language is very complicated. If you use the wrong word we can all end up having to be cleansed by the priests and that is expensive and they are such a bore. Of course, there is no problem if a madman or a child does it, so we have agreed that officially Walter is an imbecile child and he does that well. But the whole business is better avoided.”
“Hallo Agung!” Walter bowed low as he sembahed high. I emulated. “May I introduce my dear friend, Rudolf Bonnet? Mr Bonnet is one of the foremost painters of Holland.” It was the only compliment on my artistic talents I had ever heard from Walter’s lips.
“What brings you to Ubud, Mr Bonnet? I have heard much about you.” What had he heard? He was about twenty years old, sleek black hair, the chest and legs hairless. He looked like a smoother relative of Oleg.
“From afar, I have read strange stories of the richness of your island and the beauty and artistic talent of your people and, come to see them for myself, I find them no exaggeration but rather understated.” Why the hell was I talking like this? Did he even understand me? But as I laid it on good and thick, I realised it was really nothing but the truth. The Cokorda smiled and made a gesture of the dance, parting both hands away and up from the body, as though towards the chairs but Walter perched one buttock, instead, on the edge of the dais, so that we were obliged to engage in an uncomfortable sideways-on, looking-up conversation. The famed, honorific feet, at which we now sat, were, I was obliged to notice, shod in highly polished schoolboy shoes. In the Indies, who you are and where you are, are indicated not by what you tie around your neck but what you put on your feet.
“Understated? I sometimes feel, Mr Bonnet, that you Dutch are rather ashamed of having colonised us, with all our great earth and water, when your own country is hardly bigger than a noodle stall. It is so. I have seen it on a map. Some refreshment, perhaps?” The Cokorda raised a bored eyebrow and an aged servant hitched up his sarong and shuffled effortfully from the door on his knees.