We pass a cluster of daft dancing children: they flick purple tongues and blind eyes after us. Then, as we near a pile of durians on the side of the road, Matt swings off onto a dirt track. The track leads to a house ringed with wooden balconies and lit with kerosene lamps. He cuts the engine and we both sit for a moment, staring at the lights. The walls of the house are made of glass and from here all we can see are the silhouettes of hips and chins. Matt suddenly seems reluctant. Then someone on the balcony notices him.
‘Matthew!’ comes a feminine squeal.
He groans, just audibly, just loud enough for me to hear.
‘Let’s do it,’ he says.
‘Right.’
We walk up the pathway together, arm hairs touching.
‘Matthew!’ A suntanned Kiwi chick flicks away a half-smoked cigarette and throws herself at him. I stand back, look into the house. There are about twenty people all up, not few enough to be intimate, but not quite enough to be raucous. They’re spread through the main living area and spill across the balcony. At one end of the balcony two Indonesian men flip fish and squid. There are only a couple of other Indonesians among the guests.
A man nearby steps forward, introduces himself as Dennis. At first glance he looks as though he should be attending an IT function in Perth. He wears thick-rimmed glasses, his hair is thinning black, and flakes of dandruff chase his neckline. But subverting the nine-to-five nerd image are the telltale signs of tropical wear: deltas of sun lines from the corners of his eyes, skinny protein-deprived wrists and an earth-coloured sarong that falls from his hips. I learn Dennis is in his forties and that he worked as an English teacher in Bandar Lampung where he met Meri, a local girl from Batu Batur. He’s been here for seven years and teaches English a couple of days a week at one of the primary schools. For three months each year he goes back to Melbourne to work and save up enough money to support his family for the next year.
‘That’s my wife over there.’ He points to a middle-aged woman in bulging jeans, chatting to another Indonesian woman.
‘Do you reckon you’ll stay here for a long time?’ I ask. ‘Don’t you miss home?’
‘Home? God no, Australia’s not home! I can’t get back here quick enough. When I first return to Aus after eight months here, I smile at people on the streets and chat to people on the train to work. It takes me a couple of weeks to readjust. Some of the looks I get, Jesus, you’d think I was a convicted paedophile or something.’
Without the tan and sarong, in a winter-subdued city at home, perhaps Dennis would seem like a man too eager for friendship, acceptance, belonging.
‘No, this is my home now.’
I understand him; understand the discord of dual belonging. Sometimes I wish Mum had never let me move over to Bali to live with Dad when I was fifteen. Not that it was her fault, she didn’t have much choice. It was either that or lose me completely. I was bored shitless at school and wagged every second day to go surfing or hang out at the skatepark. But fifteen is a terrible, impressionable age and that time with Dad shifted something within me. Friends who went on high school exchange, to Canada, to France, to Japan, say the same. They too are still pulled to these places, still feel like they have some kind of unfinished business, difficult to define.
Behind me, Matt’s brushing off the Kiwi’s giggles.
I’m curious as to how Dennis experiences Batu Batur, especially given the tensions. ‘Matt said things have been a bit unsettled – that the locals haven’t been that friendly toward the expats. Do you find that, given that your wife’s from here?’
He looks at me keenly. ‘It’s interesting you ask. I think when you’re a foreigner here, there’s always some level of resentment. Because at the end of the day you’re privileged. You’ve got money. It’s as simple as that. But then just recently, I had four students pull out of my primary class and so I’m beginning to think there’s something more to it.’
‘What happened?’
‘Many of the kids here don’t get to high school, so it’s not unusual to lose some early. But my wife thinks the kids’ parents aren’t happy their children are being taught by a bule. Probably Shane has a bit to answer for; he hasn’t made us popular. Have you heard the latest?’
The man addresses his question to Matt and I turn so he can be included in our conversation. Matt’s aftershave smells like lacquer and sandalwood.
‘I haven’t heard anything,’ says Matt.
‘This morning one of the mosques couldn’t broadcast dawn prayer. They say Shane crept over to the mosque on his belly and cut off the electricity.’
Surely not, surely the rumour is too absurd, too dangerous to be true.
‘Shane’s a dickhead but I don’t think he would be that stupid,’ Matt says. ‘It was probably just a power cut.’
‘I tend to agree. But Meri heard that the cord to the loudspeaker had been severed.’
‘It could’ve been backpackers. Or maybe rats.’
‘Yes, that’s possible.’
There’s a pause, then Dennis asks, ‘What brings you to Batu Batur? Are you travelling, on holiday?’
‘Work.’
Matt’s eyes have been prowling the crowd; now they snap back to me. I didn’t think he heard me the other night at the bakso stand when I told him I’d just moved here. ‘Oh yeah? What kind of work?’
I hesitate. ‘I’ve got a job working for Shane.’
‘Shane?’ Dennis asks incredulously. ‘Shane Shane?’
‘Yeah, well, good luck with that,’ Matt adds, but his cynicism is tempered with concern. ‘I reckon we should go inside and get a drink, eh? There’s some stuff about Shane you probably should know. Will you excuse us, mate?’
He puts a firm hand on my shoulder blade and moves me inside to the drinks table. But there we become separated and the next couple of hours are a blur of conversations. My limbs liquefy, tongue loosens, heart rises to a giddy gorgeous state of drunk. I sweep around, meeting and mingling and feeling mad. An old German anthropologist and a fiery Dutchwoman own the house and have filled it with an eclectic range of artefacts: moth-wing lanterns, rare Indonesian textiles, gossiping Javanese puppets, skulls of monkeys and people. It’s the kind of house I want one day, textured, a feast for the senses. And the guests are worldly, well read, entirely more thoughtful than the German and English backpackers I meet at work. Everyone seems to have a touch of the misfit about them, is searching for (or have found) a lifestyle, a belonging, they can’t find at home.
At some point the Kiwi appears. ‘So where did you meet Matthew?’
Not hi, what’s your name, nice to meet you. The gin rises in me like a thin white whip.
‘Actually I met him a couple of days ago. At a bakso stand. Have you guys known each other long?’
‘What,’ she rasps, blowing smoke over my shoulder, ‘you eat that shit?’
‘Yeah, I don’t mind bakso.’
Someone once told me it was goats’ balls in soup.
‘Do you even know what’s in the bakso here?’
‘Goats’ balls?’
‘You’re eating rats!’ She’s furious with my nonchalance. ‘I bet Matt didn’t eat any, bet he just watched!’
A few years ago in Bali a bunch of people got crook from rat poison. No-one could figure out how. Perhaps it was from the bakso. Inwardly I shudder. ‘Oh well, it tasted okay to me,’ I say.
Just as the Kiwi begins to respond, there’s the rev and roar of motorbikes outside. It’d have to be close to midnight. I half turn my face toward one of the windows.
Gunshots.
The glass webs fast with cracks.
‘Shit!’ screams the Kiwi, diving to her belly.
I do the same. Outside, over the sound of engines, voices jeer, ‘Bule! Eh bule!’
There’s a hail of glass, another crack. I hold my breath, feel my lips against the grain of the wood, feel the grain of the wood against the pulse in my thumbs, think: play dead and keep your eyes shut, play dead and keep
still. I send my mind to every part of my body, sure I’ve been shot, certain I’m in shock and just can’t feel it yet. The sound of motorbikes recedes and is replaced by music, something Franz and Adalie chose for the party. Papuan, drums. No-one’s speaking, no-one’s screaming. I open an eye. The Kiwi opens an eye-shadowed eye. She meets my look of terror then slowly raises her head. When she doesn’t get shot, I follow. The others stir, whisper, stir to their feet. I shuffle my legs. I haven’t been hit, but there’s a lake of glass on the inside of the window frames.
I scramble to my feet. Several large rocks rest among the broken glass. The gunshots were rocks, weighed in hands, hurled with hate.
Outside, there are the fresh track marks of motorbikes in the loamy earth, the skin-prickling presence of the jungle.
On the way home, Matt doesn’t say a word.
14
I’m more expressive in Indonesian. My face comes alive in a way it doesn’t need to when I’m rustling through the bored, lazy vowels of Aussie English. It’s because I don’t have the vocabulary to express everything I want and so my eyes and hands give colour and nuance to the things I can’t properly explain. And because it’s such a perfect bubbling language for gossip, it invites a layering of tones and gesture, expressions of complicity, mockery, incredulity. When I’m talking with Indonesians I don’t mind being over the top to get my point across, but the presence of other bules always makes me feel uncomfortable, exaggerated.
‘Did anyone see who did it?’ Ibu Ayu asks.
‘Nggak!’
The English guy throws me a look. The German girls ignore me, engrossed in a guidebook. The three of them are sprawled with relaxed indifference.
I lower my voice, say again no, no I don’t think anyone saw who did it. Ibu Ayu’s face glumly sweats.
‘Hopefully it’s not like the bombing in Jakarta,’ she says finally. ‘You see what it’s like here. Almost empty. Barely any tourist. Especially not Australian. They go Thailand, Vietnam. Somewhere else. They think Indonesia too dangerous. It will be no good for my business if news gets out.’
‘It was probably just kids.’
‘But not kid from Batu Batur,’ Ibu’s tone is short. ‘Definitely not kid from here.’ She pushes back her chair. ‘Lagi?’ she asks, gesturing to my coffee.
‘Sure.’
Ibu gets to her feet, takes an order for tea from the backpackers, and barks at Cahyati as she passes the kitchen.
I tilt my coffee glass on its side, watch the slide of sludge. I crashed as soon as Matt dropped me home, but my dreams were turbulent. Matt chased me with a gun. Josh cooked up a pan of gourmet ears, ‘For bakso,’ he said. Again and again through the night I woke sweaty and sick-mouthed and frantic. I steady the glass. It’s going to be one of those days when even coffee can’t shift the exhaustion.
I wonder what the rock throwing was about, whether it was deliberately linked to whoever sabotaged dawn prayer. Perhaps it was about a general dislike of the bules here, tourists included. We blow in, start our own businesses, pay the locals a pittance and then seal ourselves off in air-conditioned capsules, living above and beyond anything the average fisherman could ever hope for. It’s pretty easy to see how this could be a cause of conflict. On top of this, most young Aussies who head to Bali for a holiday cut loose: end up doing things they wouldn’t dare do at home. Just two weeks ago I was in a police chase for not wearing a helmet or shoes. The police waved me down but I’d had a few beers – okay, eight beers – and was feeling impulsive. Headphones on, rental bike throbbing between my thighs, throttle wrist taut, no, there was no way I was going to stop. They didn’t catch me. All these factors could be a cause of conflict. Then again, perhaps there are bigger issues at play. The Bali bombings were only a couple of years ago. There was a bombing outside the Marriott Hotel last year. And in September, less than three months ago, a car bomb exploded outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. That’s a pretty clear indication of animosity toward Westerners. Are the tensions spin-offs from this? Does Jemaah Islamiya, the Islamic militant group claiming responsibility for these bombings, have inroads, connections or influence in Batu Batur? Surely if they do they’d be more militant – would have homemade bombs or guns instead of rocks. I can’t help but feel ashamed. To be stoned. To be told to fuck off with rocks!
This is not what I imagined in the month leading up to my flight. It was supposed to be a chance to run away – no, not to run away, but to take a breather from Josh, create a bit of distance. Instead, the sense of claustrophobia has followed me here. I’ve landed a job with a bloke who’s gone troppo, who’s loathed by locals and expats alike and apparently cuts the fingers off his staff. I probably should take off. I’m not bound by any contract, don’t owe anything to Shane. It’s ten days until I’m due to start and as far as I know, he’s not aware I’m here. I can get on a bus and leave tomorrow, head back to Kuta, maybe find some work, spend my weekends shooting arak and dancing with a bunch of people I’ve met a hundred times before and never met, because along those narrow debauched lanes everything is always the same and always changed and the only thing that’s certain is that it’s easy.
But I don’t want easy, don’t want to go back to WA – I’m more open here, I laugh more, I feel more dangerously, boldly alive. And what if it’s all just rumour, the stories about Shane? Before I make any decisions, I need to find out for myself. I’ll head to his surf camp tomorrow.
Cahyati emerges from the kitchen, balancing a tall glass of coffee and three glasses of tea on a tray. She places the coffee in front of me (it’s my fourth) then sets the teas down for the backpackers. The English guy snorts.
‘What’s this then? I asked for tea with milk.’
The girl stands there, tray trembling against her thighs and throws me a look of panic.
‘Ada susu?’ I ask the girl.
She nods and dashes back into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a punctured can of condensed milk. She brushes a few ants from the side of the can and places it on the table. One of the German girls lifts the tin and turns it over in her hand, lower lip buckled in disgust.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ says the English guy.
‘Ja, stop complaining. At least is cheap to stay here,’ says the German girl, placing the tin down.
‘But I think Shane’s Sumatran Oasis is a little bit cheaper maybe.’ The other girl is poised over a Lonely Planet with a highlighter. ‘It’s a surf resort but it says there are dorms. We should go this afternoon.’
The English guy shrugs, sniffs his tea, then tosses it over the pond of waterlilies.
15
That afternoon I’m feeling nervous, edgy, bored. I can’t focus on my book, can’t think about anything much except the party last night. Even the memory of the bloke on the beach pales in comparison. I head off on another walk, not up the beach this time, no way, but into town.
The police station is about halfway in. Did Franz and Adalie report the incident? Have the police found out who was throwing rocks at the house? There’s probably no harm in asking. The police are gathered in a damp courtyard sipping coffee from small plastic cups and smoking kreteks. When I call out a hello, one of them springs to his feet and leads me back to the reception desk inside. I tell him exactly what happened, then ask if they know who did it, if it was just kids mucking around, if this kind of thing happened often. The sides of his mouth drag down, as if by fishhooks. Idiot! It would’ve been better to soften the query with a permisi, a maaf, with some tactful circular conversation. So I slip fifty thousand rupiah across the counter, and say, ‘Sorry Pak, perhaps this might help?’ The officer looks at the fifty. Looks at me. Takes the fifty. Then tells me they don’t know for sure but are investigating the incident.
I end up back at the bungalows with my feet up and en passant propped on a knee. After a while, the Frenchman ducks through the blue door. He places his board under a tree then waves for me to join him on his balcony. He doesn’t look at me bu
t stares at the ocean: it’s insipid, the ribbed grey of old shells. There are no silhouettes.
It begins to rain.
After a while I say, ‘Emile, have you been here in Indonesia for long?’
He looks startled as if from sleep. There are rockets of darkness in his eyes.
‘I, no, not so long.’
‘Where were you before Indo, have you been travelling for a while?’
‘Oui. In a way. I’ve just come from Côte d’Ivoire. I am a photographer, a photojournalist. A few weeks ago nine French soldiers were killed by airplane. Now the situation is very –’ he flicks his wrist, ‘– instable?’
‘Unstable, yeah.’
The rain makes coral-like clicks on the roof.
‘So will you work here?’
‘No, here is for surf, maybe do some yoga, relax. Some horrible things I saw in that country.’
We fall back into silence.
16
It’s one of those sweeping and sublime Indonesian dusks that presage disaster. The sky has the dark cracked texture of snake fruit except for just ahead, where it smoulders lava-like through the palm fronds. Men drag wooden carts over their shoulders, heads down, dusty as dokar horses. An old woman pedals a bicycle; her tiny granddaughter is tucked into a basket on the front. Eventually the buildings give way to rice fields; they run from the mountains all the way to the palm-fringed edge of the coast. Streams of wet light run in the folds between rice paddies.
Shane’s is a long ride out of town. I didn’t intend to arrive so late in the day but on the way I checked out several side roads leading to the coast to scope out the surf – one black-sand beachie had some form. Then I stopped for coffee alongside a waterfall foaming with detergent. Now at last, the turn-off to Shane’s. The track’s riddled with tree roots and runs for about fifty metres before opening on to a clearing. In the clearing, there are two men sitting on a log. One jumps to his feet.
‘You looking for Mister Shane?’
Troppo Page 4