Where I Found You

by Heidi R. Kling

  This time I reserved commentary on public health laws. An empty cab finally pulled up, and an enthusiastic driver hopped out, a lit Camel hanging from his mouth. He spoke to my dad in what must have been Bahasa Indonesian, and Dad answered back. I was impressed as I was with Tom at McDonald’s in Taipei. Clearly this wasn’t their first rodeo.

  When we squeezed into the backseat of the guy’s cab, I was immediately engulfed in the stink of melting plastic and BO. Dad, who apparently lacked olfactory senses, rode shotgun. Though I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying, I listened to them chat as the driver lit up another cigarette and blasted off into traffic.

  At first I didn’t think about the immediate danger as I rolled down my window to avoid the secondhand smoke. The hot air felt good on my face. I could have called it wind, but the air wasn’t moving enough to earn that definition. Then I realized how fast we were zipping through traffic. And the fact that there was nothing strapping me into my seat.

  “Remember that scene in original Star Wars where Luke is zigzagging his ship through the asteroid field? This is just like that.” It was my best attempt at being cool and breezy like Tom, and trying not to think about our heads splitting open on hot black asphalt.

  “Arrrr.” Tom pounded on his chest, a terrible Chewbacca imitation. Everyone did it except me and the driver. Until the driver, cigarette dangling, joined in.

  Super.

  Tom waggled his eyebrows and elbowed me. “Live a little, kid.”

  Live a little. What would that be like?

  To stop worrying for two seconds and live even a little?

  The driver jerked the cab to the right and then sharply to the left to avoid crashing into rows of outdoor market stalls. I imagined the baskets of fish and fruit splattered all over the streets like brains.

  “I’ll give him some credit,” I grumbled. “He must be good at video games.”

  “GTA, yes! I love!” the driver said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  Tom pointed past me. “Hey, check that out.”

  We whizzed past a booth selling funky wooden clocks in every shape and size you could think of, veiled by a kaleidoscope of blankets blowing in the breeze. “I’m going Christmas shopping while we’re here for sure. Check those bamboo cooking supplies!” Tom said.

  While I worried about our body parts ending up all over the road, Tom was thinking about Santa.

  Welcome to Indonesia, Sea.

  Chapter Seven

  A short, shoeless man stood beside a booth at the top of a long driveway, a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

  I stepped cautiously out of the cab, noticing the thick air had turned into drizzle.

  Through a gate, I could see a large, bright pink building and a series of outbuildings surrounding it. Cats lurked everywhere: skinny, feral-looking cats.

  The man said something to Dad in Indonesian, flicked the ash off his cigarette, and then held open a decrepit white gate for us as the taxi driver unloaded our bags.

  Boisterous yelling rang through the silence. Some younger teen boys were messing around on the other side of the slimy riverbed behind us. Dressed in grungy T-shirts that looked more like dishrags than clothes, they pulled aluminum cans out of a filthy river.

  “Are those the, uh, orphans?” I asked, wincing a little as I said the O word.

  I hated the word orphan. Hated saying it or thinking it, so I tried hard not to.

  “Street kids, probably. Collecting cans to sell,” Tom said. “Our orphans will likely wear uniforms.”

  “‘Street kids,’ meaning they don’t have parents either? Why don’t they live at the orphanage?”

  “Because this isn’t actually an orphanage—it’s a school. A pesantren. It can only accommodate so many kids,” Dad explained. “In fact, the owner was only able to take one-third of the tsunami orphans who wanted to come here from the refugee camps in Aceh.”

  I cringed as another black cat, this one carrying a dried-up bone in his teeth, rubbed against my leg. His body was so thin and scrawny. Didn’t anyone feed him?

  Dumb question that I didn’t bother asking out loud.

  If nobody was feeding the street kids, why wouldn’t the cats be on their own, too?

  A man about Dad’s age, but shorter and wearing a black cap on the crown of his head, walked down the path to greet us.

  “Welcome!” he said, arms outstretched. “Thank you for coming, doctors.” He spoke in thick-accented English. “How were the logistics of your trip?”

  “Excellent, thank you,” Dad said, extending his hand for a shake. Excellent was a bit of an exaggeration, I thought as they exchanged pleasantries and introductions. And then the owner said, “Now we go meet the orphans. They have prepared a special evening ceremony to greet our welcomed guests.”

  The O word strikes again.

  “What time is it?” I asked Dad.

  “We landed around 1 p.m. It’s about 2 p.m.,” he said. “That reminds me.” He fiddled with his watch, resetting it to Indonesian time.

  I followed Team Hope and the owner down a muddy path past dozens of white, paint-chipped outbuildings decorated with blue accents. Peeking through the open windows, I saw mostly empty rooms with kids’ clothes draped over scrappy-looking bunk beds.

  On the overgrown lawn, a lone goat was tied to a palm tree with a fraying rope. The same tree held one end of a ripped volleyball net. Besides the mewls of starving cats, the place was silent. Ghost town silent. Like a summer camp might feel if you stumbled on it years after it was shut down.

  The owner walked with purpose, his feet solidly pounding the ground, speaking to my father in a polite but assertive tone until we came to a long rectangular building, also white with blue trim but with double doors etched in elaborate Indonesian designs.

  It was the center door carvings that caught my attention, like winter flower bulbs waiting to bloom.

  “You ready, kid?” Tom asked quietly.

  I had no idea what I was supposed to be ready for, but when the owner opened the creaky door, it became clear what he meant.

  A sea of faces stared back at us. At me. Dressed in black and white, some of the younger children squirmed on the tile floor until they noticed the owner. Then they sat immediately at attention: backs straight with legs tucked underneath their bottoms.

  I flashed on what a school assembly back home would look like. Principal Sanchez could never get us to shut up for ten seconds. But this short, stern-faced man in wire-rimmed glasses could quiet them with one look? That was power.

  Scanning the crowd more carefully, I noted the boys were wearing white long-sleeved dress shirts tucked into black pants, and small black hats like the one the owner wore on the crowns of their dark heads. The girls were dressed in the same colors, but with flowing hijabs covering their heads, necks, and shoulders. Most of the girls wore skirts instead of pants.

  I was really glad I hadn’t shown up in one of Bev’s T-shirts and shorts.

  “All the orphans are gathered for our honored guests,” the owner explained. “Our other students, too.”

  The room looked split by gender, with the girls on the left and the boys on the right, the younger kids kneeling in front.

  “The two hundred children of the tsunami from Aceh are in the center of the room,” he said in a not-so-subtle voice.

  Two hundred? And that was only one-third of the kids who’d been orphaned?

  My eyes darted to the group he was talking about. I recognized some of the kids from the DVD. When I saw their faces, I heard their voices, heard their stories. Saw the wave rising over.

  The owner addressed them in Indonesian, and the kids started clapping and cheering. A tall, older student, a boy, translated his words to English as we stood in front of the room. “These are visiting doctors from America who have come to meet you,” he said. “Orphans from Aceh, please stand.”

  A huge group, more than half the room, stood up. Some of them stared down at their feet uncomforta
bly. My attention snagged on one of the little girls standing in the front row of tsunami kids, a curtain of black hair falling out of her hijab, veiling an eye.

  She looked so much like the shy girl in the video. The one I wanted to meet. I smiled at her, hoping she’d notice me, but she didn’t.

  “Orphans from Papua, please stand.”

  The Aceh kids sat down and about fifty other kids stood up. Jeez. How many of the kids in the room were orphans? If he introduced many more of them, I wasn’t sure there’d be any regular kids left.

  Tom leaned over and whispered that many of the Papua orphans suffered from PTSD, too, because many witnessed their parents’ deaths in street riots.

  If you bottled up all the trauma in this room… I couldn’t even imagine. And these kids were my age and younger.

  “Thank you, children,” the owner said, and then he turned to Team Hope. “The Acehnese orphans have prepared a special welcome ceremony for you. Children?” He nodded to the crowd and led us against the wall, where we were apparently supposed to watch.

  A dozen mixed-age boys stood up off the floor and carried gold and red drums entwined with dark leather straps to the front of the room.

  One of the boys stood out immediately.

  He and his drum were the tallest, broadest, and most… I don’t know. Striking? The other boys’ eyes stayed on him, silently asking him where to sit, what to do next. He told them with gestures of his head, his hands. His lanky body moved with a sort of shrug, like he was almost annoyed to be there but had committed to going through the motions anyway.

  I totally got that.

  Once situated in a circle on the floor, the instruments splayed across their laps, the boys began lightly slapping both ends of the drums with their palms. The tone was soft at first, then elevated until the beat came harder and faster, their music creating a rich sound that vibrated through the flat-roofed room so frenetically that my pulse raced along with it.

  I couldn’t stop staring at the tall boy, the one pounding his drum like he was out for vengeance. I didn’t know how he did it, but his music throttled its way through me, straight to my core. He glanced up. Caught me staring. His gaze was electric, but steady. I didn’t break eye contact. Instead I sucked in a breath. Blinked. Took in the sight of him. The sweat trickling down his temple, his square-boned jaw, his rippling arm muscles as he beat the crap out of that drum.

  When his strong hands slowed to a quiet rhythm, when the thumping finally faded to a slow, easy pulse, applause erupted around me, and he looked away. Almost as an afterthought, I clapped, too, but couldn’t stop staring. Couldn’t unlock my eyes from the drummer wiping his forehead with his sleeve.

  I hadn’t expected to find anything like him behind those carved doors.

  “The Aceh orphans are talented,” the owner said to my dad. Then he lowered his voice. “Talented, but problematic.”

  Something in his tone scraped across my skin. Did he mean their nightmares and anxiety were problematic? Did they scream out in the night like I did? Was he not sure how to help them?

  I had a feeling he meant something else. Something less kind than all of that.

  As the applause died down, as the boys packed up their drums and wandered back to their seats, I realized the owner had only referred to the kids as “the Aceh orphans.”

  They survived the tsunami, yes, but why should they be defined by it?

  I’d be beating the hell out of a drum, too, if someone kept referring to me that way. What if Dad had been with Mom on that small plane? What if I had lost both of them to the sea?

  Plane-crash orphan, please stand.

  A chorus of little girls approached the front, taking the place of the drum circle. They stood side by side, facing their peers and four American strangers.

  “The song is about a fragrant jeumpa flower that grows only in Aceh,” the translating boy explained in a throaty voice.

  Of course, I didn’t understand a word of what I assumed was Acehnese, but I could tell by the far-off looks on their faces that the girls were singing about their home.

  When the song ended, the girls bowed and we all clapped.

  I was already glancing at the back door, ready to bolt. Not only was the whole orphan thing starting to get to me, the hot, stale air was suffocating, and my shirt and pants were stuck to my skin with glue-like sweat.

  Just when I was about to slip out, a line of older boys began to form, winding their way toward us.

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’re coming to meet us,” Dad said. “The boys first, then the girls.”

  He had to be kidding. “All five hundred?” I eyed the door.

  “I think so. Are you okay? I know this is an awful long time to stand.”

  I fanned my face and considered blaming my need to escape on the heat.

  Too late.

  One by one, the boys approached us like we were a receiving line at a wedding reception. When I realized the leader of the drum circle was first, my heart sped up. I stopped worrying about the heat. Wished I was wearing something clean. Something nice.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the drummer take Tom’s right hand, hold it to his forehead, and then let it fall as he touched his own heart, bowing as he did.

  “What is that?” I whispered to Dad, suddenly wishing like heck I’d read that handbook.

  “It’s their welcoming handshake,” Dad whispered back.

  Closer now, I noticed the boy’s full, serious lips, and the stubble of goatee peppered across his chin like it wasn’t sure if it should keep growing or fade away.

  I swallowed. I was next.

  Quickly, I wiped my sweaty hands on the sides of my pants.

  And then he was standing in front of me.

  He looked older than me, maybe by a year or two. And his eyes… They were so intense and dark. Bottom-of-the ocean dark, the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. Up close, his gaze was even more piercing, like he was trying to see right into my soul.

  Before I had the chance to say anything, he reached out, took my hand in his, and lifted my fingers gently to his forehead. His skin, the color of driftwood, was soft, smooth, hot to the touch. He let go, let my fingers fall gently by my side, and his penetrating look dove even deeper. When he touched his heart with his palm and bowed his head, then, only then, did he lower his gaze.

  Whoa.

  My brain was swimming, and I had to focus to remember the one Indonesian phrase I overheard Dad say to the taxi driver.

  “Terima kasih,” I whispered. Thank you.

  At that, the boy raised his eyebrows. He looked…amused.

  What? Had I pronounced it wrong?

  I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart pound. I tried to calm down. Failed miserably. When he finally walked away, I watched the hard muscles in his back ripple under his white shirt. He walked with a slight limp, I noted, which only added to his allure. It’s like I had to know what happened.

  When he opened the back door and slipped into the daylight, I had to fight the urge to run after him.

  “Sienna?” Dad’s voice slowly pulled me back to reality. “This young man is trying to get your attention,” he said.

  “What? Oh. Sorry.”

  Standing in front of me waiting to greet me was another boy. A new boy. I gave him my hand, but I knew his welcome would feel nothing like the one that came before him.

  By the two-hundredth greeting, I was starting to eye the door again. Then the little girl from the DVD wound her way through the line to greet me. I smiled at her and held my breath, not sure if she would try to hide like she’d done in the video. She grinned right back, though, tiny pearls budding from her gums in the spaces where her two front teeth should be.

  Adorable.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello!” she mimicked, her voice sweet as syrup.

  Seriously adorable.

  She repeated the traditional gesture, my hand to her forehead, and gave another shy grin lik
e she was inviting me into a game only she knew how to play. Her energy dazzled me. Both of her parents were dead? How could she seem so alive?

  At the end of the greeting, she didn’t let go. Instead she tugged on my hand, led me out of the crowded room and into the drizzle. I glanced back at Team Hope, who were standing around chatting. The little girl was the end of the line, so it probably didn’t matter if I took off. I almost called out, letting Dad know that I was going, but instead I held on tight to her hand because it was obvious that she knew more about life at the pesantren than I did.

  “Hello!” she said again once we were outside.

  “Hello!” I said back, trying to match her enthusiasm.

  “Nama saya Elli,” she said, touching her chest. My name is Elli.

  “Nama saya Sienna.”

  “Sienna!” she said. “Sienna!”

  She dragged me by the hand down the same muddy path we walked to the meeting room, past the decrepit dorms and into one of the white buildings with open blue-trimmed windows that I had peeked into before.

  The room was in worse shape than I had imagined.

  The air smelled like moldy bread and stagnant pond water. Metal bunk beds lined the floor. Articles of clothing flopped awkwardly over rusted frames. Two small rattan dressers on the far wall held overstuffed drawers. The open window had no glass and no screen, just chipped blue folding shutters that I doubted could even keep big bugs out. I glanced up. A ceiling fan sat broken and still. Two of the four blades had been snapped in half, leaving splintered edges.

  I focused on keeping my expression neutral so Elli didn’t feel my honest reaction to the place that was now her home.

  “You,” she said happily, pointing to the top bunk by the window. “Me.”

  She pointed to the bottom bunk under the one she said would be mine. My reaction probably wasn’t what she wanted, so she repeated louder and clearer, “Sienna.” Point. “Elli.” Point. She tilted her face expectantly.

  I got that she wanted me to sleep above her; I just didn’t want to imagine sleeping on that stained mattress. I forced a grin. “Okay.” I pointed to the top bunk. “Sienna. Thank you, Elli. Terima kasih.”