‘Is he the closest dukun to Batu Batur?’
‘Nah, there’s a couple of others in town. But Bapak Joni told me they’re frauds. Their ilmu isn’t very strong and the local people will only go to them if they need help to find something they’ve lost, or maybe if they get sick.’
My eyes are fixed on the scrimshaw patterns of ants and earth.
‘Apparently his father was really powerful. People would come to him from as far away as Bandar Lampung. They say he could turn himself into a tiger, disappear. Bapak Joni reckons there’s not many of them who can do that now. He told me a story about one dukun who was locked up during Dutch colonial times. Apparently this dukun could project his body so that he appeared in two places at once – both in the village and the jail. The Dutch were so spooked they let him go.’
‘So has this guy’s knowledge been passed down from his father?’
‘Yeah, as far as I understand it’s generally in the family. Usually it gets passed on to the first son but this guy is the second son. When his dad started teaching his older brother, the kid got really crook. This shit’s dangerous, Penny. You’ve gotta be strong. You’re trafficking energy from fuck knows where and if you’re not strong enough …’
A shadow eclipses the patterns of the ants.
‘Penny, Bapak Dudi.’ Matt stands.
The dukun holds my fingers for a moment longer than polite.
Matt and the dukun speak to each other in Bahasa Lampung. The dukun seems pissed off we’re here unannounced. But when Matt pulls out a wad of fifties his eyes light up like bee stings and he quickly ushers us inside and clears space for us to sit. A ray of wet shimmering light strikes the dukun’s cheekbone. In it swirls mosquito wings and dust motes. The dukun moves around the shack gathering things and I try not to breathe. The air is bitter with pond-grown vegetables.
At last the dukun settles. Marks a circle on the floor of his hut with rice. Inside the circle he places squares of paper patterned with Arabic prayers, tiny hooked bones, wire, rusty nails, chipped mirror and flinders of glass. He gestures for Matt to pass him something. It’s hair. Hair the yellow of nicotine-brushed teeth. It looks like Shane’s. How the hell had Matt managed to get hold of Shane’s hair? The dukun’s lips move but I can’t understand the words. My legs ache and I uncross them. Despite crouching, Matt still doesn’t seem uncomfortable. His eyes are closed, his face motionless.
Then, almost imperceptibly, the temperature changes, like the first stirrings of fever. It gets warmer and warmer. At first I think it’s because there are three of us crammed into a small space, that it’s the poor ventilation, but the heat builds steadily electric until even the dukun is sweating, until I feel a crushing pressure in my head like a tropical hangover no amount of Nurofen will numb.
Then blackness.
Then I’m mumbling goodnight to Matt at Ibu Ayu’s, fatigued beyond belief. I don’t remember what else happened in the shack. I don’t remember the ride home. Think, I say to myself, twisting hot on the bed, think! It must be in there somewhere.
But I can’t think, can’t remember a thing.
39
I wake up nauseous under the beak-like click of the fan, check my phone. There’s still no message from Josh. So I call him. I figure it’s better this way, better to be spontaneous and heartfelt than to think and overthink what I should say.
He doesn’t answer.
So I text: U ok? We need to talk.
Should I sign off with a kiss? Maybe not …
Head whirring, I fall back onto the pillow. What on earth happened yesterday? Did Matt black out as well? He mustn’t have, if he managed to ride me home. Maybe I passed out from the heat. Maybe I’m getting crook, my guts aren’t a hundred percent this morning. But I’ve never passed out like that before, never had hours blanked out in my memory – except after heavy drinking. I’ll drop in on Matt tomorrow, on the way to Shane’s, will try to catch him before he heads up to Lampung for work, ask him what he remembers. I’m pretty sure he’s off tomorrow. At Dennis’ he said he had to go back in a couple of days.
The light in the bungalow shifts from a sun-kissed wood colour to glazed ceramic greens. Outside, a bouquet of fresh rain. Shane’s tomorrow. I’m ready to start work, ready for rhythm and routine and a challenge. I wonder what he’ll get me doing, if I’ll be on the books as well as running the staff. That Kristi is gunna be a tough one to manage, saucy and haughty. Then the blokes who made me pay for parking – there’ll be no more of that from tomorrow. And he’s sure to have cleaning and kitchen staff, gardeners. I don’t think I’m out of my depth: the budgets don’t scare me, the management aspect doesn’t scare me, Shane doesn’t scare me, the stalking thing is uncomfortable but should ease off once I get set up with a bike. The only thing that has got me really worried is this talk about Shane being targeted, by Matt and maybe by other blokes, or young religious fanatics. Can I risk it? Is a good wage and five grand enough? Should I head to the Kiwi’s and spend a day trawling for jobs, find something else, maybe in Java? I’m not going back to Perth. Not yet. Risk always makes things sharper, throws into contrast the highs and lows, gives clarity. As a surfer, I know this, I’ve lived this. Living in Perth, like a sleepwalker, I’ve missed this.
Shane’s tomorrow.
40
That evening, I wait with a drink on the balcony while Ibu cooks for the Frenchman and me. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in days. He turns the beer-curled pages of an old Tracks magazine. A mozzie coil poisons the cuts on our ankles.
‘How much longer you here for, Emile?’
‘How much?’
‘When do you leave?’
Ibu Ayu shuffles out slowly with our cutlery.
‘Ah. Tomorrow I think. I get the bus to mountains and then Padang.’
‘You leaving already? Where you go?’ Ibu Ayu asks.
‘Padang. Then fly to Jakarta, Bali.’
‘Oh yeah. What have you got planned in Bali?’ I take a swing on my beer.
‘Surfing, of course. But also yoga. There is one very famous yogi in Ubud next week. I go to him.’
‘Have you got any more work lined up in the new year, any more photo stories?’
He looks at me. He’s so self-contained, gives so little away. Plenty of travellers who’ve been on the road alone for months or years can’t shut up about their experiences. The Frenchman is the exact opposite. He drops his criminally dark eyes. Turns another page.
‘Maybe Burma,’ he says. ‘You have email?’
‘Sure.’
He tears a corner from Tracks, scraps around for a pen.
I jot down my email address and slide it back to him, just as Ibu reappears with towers of nasi goreng ayam. You can’t get any simpler than chicken fried rice but somehow it just never tastes the same when you try to cook it at home. Probably the MSG. I tally up another beer. Ibu hovers over the table. ‘Penny, when you leave?’
‘Tomorrow,’ I say through a mouthful of rice. ‘I’m pretty keen to see Matt on the way but still don’t know where he lives. Could you draw me a map?’
‘What do you want, going to Matt’s village?’ Ibu asks bluntly.
I don’t want to tell her about the dukun.
‘Just because,’ I say with a shrug.
She grumbles for a bit then accepts the Frenchman’s offer of Tracks and a pen. While she’s drawing over an advertisement for wetsuits I ask about Cahyati.
‘Is she here, Bu? I’d love to see her before I head off.’
‘She busy at the moment,’ Ibu says shortly. ‘Nah, already finish.’ She pushes the map toward me and explains how to get to Matt’s. Then she stands. ‘Okay. I get the bills ready now so you don’t forget.’
Emile and I share a smile then go back to our rice.
41
I click through the gears in a pair of heels. No helmet. Hair snarled and wild over my shoulders. I rented the motorbike from Ibu this morning to get out to Shane’s. My heart is full, racing; there’r
e snatches of song on my lips. I’m stoked to be catching Matt, stoked to be starting work, stoked that the sun is out, that it’s still cool.
Matt’s village consists of a few streets of wooden houses on stilts. The houses have wide sagging balconies and roofs like upturned boats. His house is the furthest out toward the mountains. Through the jade shimmer of morning the mountains look as though they could dissolve.
Matt’s working in the front yard, his sexy sun-trashed body naked to the waist. He’s planting something, turning the earth in his hands. A woman appears at the door. I pull up in the shade of a banana plant. Neither of them has noticed me. He’s stretching to stand, is turning to her.
She’s stunning. In a finely woven sarong with high to-die-for cheekbones and an uncovered sweep of hair; hair that would delight Indian hair thieves and black American weave artists. Matt enfolds her – she’s tiny in his arms – and he spreads his hands over her belly. She’s obviously, glowingly pregnant.
I clench the handlebars of my motorbike until my knuckles turn a wishbone white. I want to burn straight to Shane’s. Obliterate myself with Bintangs. Obliterate the shock opening black in my chest. A blackness, blankness far worse than even yesterday’s forgetting. But I can’t move. I’m spellbound, watching Matt’s woman.
The sun has just come out. It catches in her hair. Sends copper shimmers through it. Her perfect chin is lifted to Matt and her face glows. How could I compete with such an effortlessly trim and submissively soft-eyed village girl? I can’t – don’t want to. Looking at the way she gazes at him, I regret ever meeting him.
He looks up. And sees me.
‘Penny.’ A steel-hard drawl.
I give the motorbike handle a Chinese burn and jump from the shade of the banana tree.
Slide to a stop on the other side of the fence.
‘Matt.’
There’s a vicious smell of rotting bananas and water spinach.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I …’ I can’t bear to meet his eyes. ‘I was just on the way to Shane’s.’
‘You shouldn’t be here.’
You shouldn’t have fucked me when you’ve got a pregnant partner.
The girl looks at me curiously, lingeringly, her head cocked to one side.
Matt says something to her in Bahasa Lampung and she turns and sways back toward the house.
‘So?’ His mouth has a firm, sour set. A Javanese sarong hangs from his hips, an intricate print in earthy browns.
I can’t remember why I’m here. I’ve made an unforgivable trespass and we’ll never be lovers again.
‘You’ve got some fucken cheek,’ he moves hard up against the fence and I finally raise my eyes to his. There’s nothing in them that’s recognisable, nothing to hold on to.
And then she’s back, slipping out through the sarong-covered door. Matt turns. She’s carrying a tray toward us, loaded up with two cups of black tea.
‘Teh dulu.’
‘No,’ I say quickly, kicking the bike into first. ‘No thank you.’
42
Goats flee. Children scream. The sky aches with rain. I flog the bike. Overtake a truck and speed headlong toward a 4WD with a hundred surfboards strapped to the roof. Pink and black and army-patterned board bags. A Sumatran at the wheel. Impassive. Smoking a kretek. He probably accelerates. There’s a bule in the passenger seat next to him. Probably Australian. Probably whitening under smudges of skin cancer. I swerve in front of the truck at the last minute. The palms snap shut. Clouds lock out the sun. And then the rain comes. Rain that falls so hard the rice paddies smoke. Rain that churns the road giardial. I twist the throttle until I can’t twist it any further. Make Shane’s in record time.
There’s no-one lingering in the car park, no-one guarding the bikes or filching rupiahs. Through a trough in the trees, along the river, I can hear the ocean, unseasonably loud. I knock on the door. There’s no answer. I knock again. When there’s still no answer I open it and walk through.
Kristi meets me on the deck. Her eyes are small and hard as papaya seeds. ‘Terlambat.’ You’re late. She looks me up and down. ‘And wet. Shane tell me to show you the room.’
She leads me to a room with six single beds in it, obviously the dorm Shane mentioned the other night and no doubt their windowless worst. I’m surprised he even offers a dorm. Probably just covering all bases.
‘Shared kamar mandi.’
‘No way.’ I distinctly remember Shane saying I could have my pick of the rooms, just not one of the bungalows. ‘I want to see the lot.’
She sizes me up for a moment, probably wondering if she’ll be able to push me over. But she must find something unsympathetic in my face, some hint of the rage in my heart, because she scowls and pulls the door shut.
I choose a room further along the wooden corridor and around a corner. It’s spacious, with air-con, a television, a double bed and big windows full of palm shadows. In the bathroom there’s a Western-style toilet and a shower that smells strongly of disinfectant. On the whitewashed walls are two cheaply framed photos of the right-hand wave out the front. It doesn’t have the same romance as Ibu Ayu’s bungalows. In fact, it’s completely soulless.
‘Shane wants to see you as soon as you’re ready,’ she says. Then she sniffs and saunters off.
I tear my clothes from my bag and swear. Everything is soaked after the motorbike ride. I tie up a line from the bed frame to a hook in the wall, string up my wet clothes and crank the AC. My clothes smell, not just of damp but of sweat, sharp as vinegar. Then I tidy my hair, my running makeup, and go and find Shane.
His massive forearms rest against the railing on the deck.
‘Penny,’ he says without turning.
‘Hey Shane, how are ya?’
‘You’re late. By morning I didn’t mean ten.’
‘Sorry.’
He turns. I wonder if it’s part of the dukun’s spell or if he always looks this bad in the mornings. ‘What the fuck happened to you? You look like a drowned rat,’ he says.
My arms fold across my chest self-consciously.
‘Righto then. Room’s all sorted? Good. Follow me.’
He takes me to the kitchen first. ‘We’ve only got two staff on at the moment but I’ll get you training up a team before the dry kicks in. This is Tengku and Umar.’
The boys shuffle forward and shake my hand limply.
‘We do a Western buffet breakfast for our guests every morning – cereals, toast, banana pancakes, omelettes, bacon.’
No way, not bacon. There’s no way Shane would be that culturally insensitive. Then again, Pak Wu probably wouldn’t mind supplying it for a price …
‘You’ll make sure all this is set up, along with tea, coffee, water,’ Shane’s making a list on his fingers, ‘and a couple of jugs of fresh juice. As the guests arrive, take their orders, give the orders to the boys, then go and mingle, make small talk, deal with any complaints. If you need to throw in some extra Vegemite or something to keep a guest happy, whatever. Okay?’
‘Don’t you, I mean, don’t you think it would be better, more authentic, if a local was bringing out local food?’
‘Are you saying there’s something wrong with my food? That you’re not prepared to waitress?’
‘I’m just saying maybe people have come to Indo to experience Indo.’
‘They can get Indo out there,’ Shane stabs a finger toward Batu Batur. ‘Here, I want to create a haven, a place where people feel safe. Ideally, the kind of traveller I want staying here is someone who’ll eat with us, rent motorbikes from us, use us as their transport to Bandar Lampung and back. Who needs packages. Who is on limited time. And so,’ he scoops a hand around my elbow, leads me out of the kitchen and turns a corner into an air-conditioned office, ‘after breakfast is wound up I want you to start working on giving me some figures. How much for a website? How much for an ad on Magicseaweed? On Coastalwatch? In Tracks? How do we start marketing to this kind of traveller? So far
it’s been word-of-mouth and a write-up in the Lonely Planet. Last season I was at about sixty percent capacity. It’s time to step it up. You’ve got the internet here, it’s slow, but it works, and so in two weeks time I want you to deliver me a budget and a marketing plan.’
‘Got it.’
‘In the arvo you can have a break for a few hours. Go surfing, to town, whatever. Your business. Then, from six pm until late, you’re on the bar. I want you to make sure the beer fridge is always stocked and that the beers are icy. And I want you to try any spirits you’re unfamiliar with. There is nothing worse than having staff who don’t drink serving alcohol. A constant problem here. How the fuck can you know if a drink is good if you’ve never tasted it?’
‘Agreed.’
‘Any questions?’
There’s no pretense of chumminess, no hint of flirtation: he’s brusque, businesslike, and it suits me fine.
‘What about Kristi, what’s her job?’
‘We’ve just lost the girl from housekeeping, so she’s back on cleaning duties.’
Shit. She was on the bar last time I was here. There’ll be trouble for sure.
‘Does she answer to me?’ I ask.
‘No. Kristi answers to me. And you’ll answer to me too. I’ll be roping you in to all sorts of jobs. Tour-guiding, translating, organising onward tickets for guests. But most importantly, like I said before, you need to be bringing in customers, essentially paying your own wage with the business you bring in. Now, any other questions?’
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