Crossing Allenby Bridge

by Michael Looft

  “I’m sorry, Fr. Jack. Theology is lost on me, but I think I get your meaning.”

  “You do? How so?” I detected a slight, bothered tone to his voice, as though he were challenging me. He must have read something on my face that betrayed my words. I hesitated a moment, wondering if I should let it go, but perhaps it was the sweltering heat or the bottle of wine he, Fr. Michael, and I had just finished, but I grew more curious about his aims.

  “I think it’s true that some poor you can help. Sometimes I wonder which ones you should help and which ones you shouldn’t. Who are we to decide who gets help and who doesn’t? I mean, are we not then interrupting their path and assuming we know better than God? That sounds a bit warped, I know.”

  “Well… this was precisely Nietzsche’s argument against Christianity–that we are imposing ourselves on others by helping them.” As he said these words, I saw a dark wave wash over Fr. Michael’s face, deep fear, as though the fate of his own existence and everything he stood for lay in the path of a giant wrecking ball. Fr. Jack started up again. “I’ll take that risk, though. I’d rather be overly officious and help someone than second-guessing the ways of God and passing by a sick man lying in the ditch, reaching out for my help. If Nietzsche’s right, I’ll find out soon enough when I’m six feet under and have to answer for all the sins I’ve committed–spoiling people’s lives and such. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with the devil several times already and anyone else who messes with me can go and fuck off with the devil, too.”

  Fr. Michael raised his glass in admiration, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as well, though Fr. Jack was all at once stirred into a passion, face boiling red and eyes popping out of his skull. He didn’t seem to understand why I found his remarks humorous, and I knew I’d inadvertently crossed a line with him. Up until then I couldn’t tell if he was out for glory and recognition to satisfy himself, but his face revealed he was knee deep in a war against complacency. One of the few lines I recall from the Bible was Jesus remarking that he did not come to bring peace, but rather the sword–a line that never quite squared with everything else I heard about the guy. This was until I met Fr. Jack. If ever there were a dark angel out there, he had stiff competition from this man. Fr. Jack was up there in years and by the looks of Fr. Michael, who did his best to follow in his hulking master’s footsteps, he would never be able to strap on those boots. Even Fr. Jack knew this, as I saw the way he teased the other Father without a shred of mercy.

  The room lay in an eerie quiet save the humming of an overhead fan. After a few moments Fr. Jack faded back into the room and in a softened voice offered me a glass of Irish whiskey. I nodded and the three of us stood up and I was led out a door onto a balcony overlooking a large courtyard bathed in overhead lights that highlighted five of the large mustard colored trucks he had talked about earlier. Fr. Jack followed us out with a bottle and two large shot glasses, pouring a hefty amount in each and offering me one from the tray. I waited until Fr. Jack took his, and we chinked, and he bellowed out the Irish word for cheers, sláinte, before downing his, placing the empty glass on the rail and proceeding to the other end of the balcony to a cage that I hadn’t noticed before. He messed about with a few locks and at first, I couldn’t make out what was in the cage, but something was moving around and screeching like a large beast. It was black and hairy, and jumped into his arms. When Fr. Jack turned around, I realized it was a kind of monkey, all black with white fur surrounding its face. It looked at me and gave an alarming howl.

  “This is Magda, my gibbon.” He wore her in his arms like a sling, and I could sense protectiveness emanating from her as I inched closer, hesitated, then stopped. “You’re wise to keep back a bit. She takes me for her mate, yeah. I found her out in the bush when she was just a wee one, her mother had died and there was no one to look after her. So, now I belong to her forever.”

  I thought the scene sweet and a welcome change after such an awkward moment back at the table, with Fr. Jack holding his gibbon, stern face looking out over the courtyard, and Fr. Michael still standing there holding the tray like a patient servant. A wave of tingling energy passed through my body, and I felt the long day catching up to me. I still wasn’t quite over the redeye flight either, and I felt an itchy heat rash around my hips. So, I asked Fr. Jack if he could ring a taxi for me. Fr. Michael shrugged the suggestion aside and insisted he drive me home himself. It wasn’t more than ten minutes to my hotel, so I acquiesced, too tired to argue with him. My head was swimming with wine, whiskey, and such an infernal fire of heat and humidity that I longed for a cold shower, crying out in joy as I stood under its cool drops back at the hotel.

  CHAPTER 4 | the orchid

  A long night of vivid dreams, some of them quite scary, and I woke up soaked in sweat. My head throbbed, torso pinned to the bed. Shouldn’t have had that last whiskey, I thought. It felt more like the flu than a hangover with my body quivering and flashing hot and cold. The rash on my hips had spread to my lower back and felt like it was on fire. It was all mild enough though and I didn’t want to miss out on the one day Fr. Jack was planning to visit the prison. Before I left the parsonage, he mentioned he was going there in a way that sounded like he didn’t want me to join him, which I wrote off as him being sore from our conversation that ended with such unease. “They call it the Alcatraz of Indonesia… a very grim affair, yeah.” But his clever remark couldn’t dissuade me, and instead I inserted myself into his plans. I hadn’t come all the way to Adipala to go visit a few schools and then call it a day–even if I’d somehow insulted him.

  No, it was dawning on me that all this travel, however haphazard it seemed, was beginning to paint a picture to me. Some divine hand was guiding me. Perhaps Fr. Jack’s own passion, however self-promoting he was, touched my heart in a way that linked his motives and actions with Edwin back in the Philippines, and everyone else over the previous year. My life was shifting for sure. I had a hand in it as well. A tiny bell in my head seemed to ring louder, even above the swimming headache, to tell me that it was time to wake up from a fifty-year slumber. I stood up in a fervor, unsure if the sickness was a good sign or a bad one, but nonetheless determined to make the most of the day. Life had snapped crystal clear, if only for a brief time.

  Fr. Jack did not pick me up. In fact, Fr. Michael came to tell me that a parishioner had died and that they were both on their way to visit the family. He could have telephoned or left a message with the hotel, and I was touched at the gesture given that he was dressed in his vestments. He told me Fr. Jack had already gone out to the family, and Fr. Michael was on his way to pick up a few other people and my hotel was on the way. While he was courteous, I could tell he was in a hurry, so I shook his hand and told him I’d catch up with them in a day or two. He told me to stop by the head office as Zach wanted to meet with me and discuss his programs. Fr. Jack had already told me a little about the financial services he provided to the communities where he served, and I was intrigued to learn more. At that moment standing in the drive of the hotel, after I saw Fr. Michael off, I noticed the stand across the street, with its pyramid of coconuts. It wasn’t quite 9:00 a.m., and already sticky hot. So, I walked over to the stand.

  The old woman gave me a curious, but warm smile. A half-dozen teeth remained in her wide mouth. I motioned to one of the coconuts, and she held up five fingers, which I took for five thousand Rupiah (about fifty cents around that time). I nodded and handed her a battered old note and she immediately went to work hacking at the coconut with an old rusty machete. She may have been a short, old woman who looked weak, but she could wield that thing with great ease. I was mesmerized at how she spun the coconut to carve its hat off, then bashing it again and again to cut out the inner layer. She plucked a straw from a plastic bag and absent ceremony plopped it in the exposed hole, not realizing that for me it was still a novelty to watch. She’d probably performed this act thousands of times. I nodded and smiled and took a drink, which to my weakening body felt like nourish
ment flowing to every part of me that needed it.

  With the hot sun on my face, she motioned for me to sit down on an empty white plastic chair beside her, beneath the shade of a tattered striped umbrella. I looked around, trying to come up with a reason to say no, but I was too tired and the cool shadow on the chair invited me. So, I sat down, straw still in my mouth. That coconut went down in a few gulps, and I let out a long slow exhale, feeling its elixir going to work on me, but also knowing that this was no hangover and might not pass as soon as I’d suspected. Without missing a beat, she reached over and took the coconut from my hand and in one rapid movement, brought the machete down on it and split it in two. I laughed. I’m not sure why, but the whole scene tickled me.

  I sensed a maternal kindness about the old woman, along with a no-nonsense approach to life. Just get it done, her facial expression seemed to say. She handed the halves to me with a low grunt, along with a thin flat metal spoon. When she caught me hesitating, she grabbed one of the halves and dragged the spoon through it, curling up a bit of white fruit, grinning and offering it back to me. I laughed at this too. How come I’d never seen this done before? So natural, it was like I’d just been born, and everything was fascinating and new. I scraped every bit of whiteness away from that coconut, and when I’d chewed it up she unceremoniously chucked the nuts over her shoulder onto a heap of other discarded ones mixed with garbage. I handed her another five thousand and we repeated the process again, only this time much slower.

  I felt my body pinned to the chair, the same as in the bed earlier, and I sat with her for what seemed like hours. For some reason, just resting and looking out from her stand at cars and bicycles and rickshaws and people passing by on foot, some of which she sold coconuts and other fruit to, I felt almost local. Many of them noticed me and said something to her. Other women her age flung a lot of jokes her way, and she gave it right back to them. She and I didn’t talk at all, and I appreciated not having to say anything, yet still feeling her appreciating my company. She seemed to know many of the people who came around, and a few looked like family members, kissing her and then moving on with their day. I sensed she was a happy person, and at one point, I caught her profile gazing along with pride at a little girl in a school uniform who had stopped by, given her a hug, and then trotted off again. Maybe her granddaughter. It was a sweet scene and I lay back in the chair taking deep breaths and letting cool drops of sweat trickle down my spine and sooth the rash that still prickled at me.

  I woke in a delirium. A strange-looking man with glasses on a large head and a stethoscope stuck in his ears stood over me. The room was dark, but I could tell from the décor that I was back in my hotel bed. He was wearing a gold watch, gazing at it with the end of the scope to my chest. Why was he examining me? I took him for a phantom at first, just part of the crazy dreams I had been experiencing those days, their intensity at once surreal and disturbing. When he noticed my eyes open, he considered them as if trying to see through me. He had kind eyes with gentle and deliberate movements to go along with them. He said something to me, asked me a question in English. It sounded like gibberish as I was having trouble connecting my brain and my mouth, struggling to understand what was happening. I slipped under again, unconscious.

  Next time I woke up, I was a bit more coherent, scanning the room and seeing Lia standing near the door with a tray and what looked like another welcome drink. I was so thirsty, and the slender glass made me wonder if she had more than one of them–I could have used a bucket full of the stuff. She moved closer and cast an awkward smile in my direction.

  “Pak Harry, you awake?”

  “Yes, Lia.” She held the drink out for me and I lifted my head up to a straw she had placed in it to make sipping it easier.

  “The doctor was here. He give you a shot to help you feel better. You feel better, Pak Harry?”

  “A little bit. What did the doctor say?”

  “He say you take rest. You need to take rest.”

  “Yes, but did he say what’s wrong with me? Last I remember I was sitting across the street?”

  “He say he don’t know, but could be demam berdarah, but not sure unless you get a test. Too difficult for you here in Adipala. It’s OK, we take care of you here at the Orchid.”

  “Dema-who? What is that?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know in English. You need take rest. We bring you food and what you need.”

  I finished the drink and lay my head back. It ached like I’d been knocked around by a linebacker. “Great, I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere Java with a disease I can’t even pronounce.” I muttered this to myself in desperate resignation, but loud enough for Lia to hear. She grew anxious as though she was failing at her job.

  “You no need to worry, sir. We will take care of everything. You in good hands here at the Orchid. You are our number one guest.”

  “Thank you, Lia. I’ve not seen anyone else in the lobby or the breakfast buffet. So, I think I might be the only guest.”

  “Well, lucky for you, right?” She said this with a mischievous edge, and it made me feel better that she wasn’t taking too much responsibility for my condition.

  “Terima kasih, Lia.” I placed my hand on her arm and gave her the most serious look I could muster. “You are doing a wonderful job taking care of me. Better than any hotel in America.”

  She seemed quite pleased by this remark, and with a nod asked me if I needed anything else. I requested another one of those drinks, a few bottles of water, and some soup. I was hungry, though feeling lightheaded and weak with my stomach struggling just to keep the welcome drink down. She said she would do her best to bring something nourishing. I also asked her about the Internet, and she gave me the guilty frown that I had grown used to over the past few days, so I let it go. The world would just have to wait for me to come back to it.

  As it turned out, the world had to wait over two weeks. The fever rose so high that first night I considered the possibility of my head exploding, imagining the walls sprayed with brains and blood. At times I wished this would happen. Lia, the boy porter from the first day, and another woman transitioned into nurses who routinely checked on me, supplying water and whatever food I could get down. I refused the maid service until the bed started to smell as if it were growing black mold from my sweat. I’m sure they had to chuck the mattress after my stay. The woman from the coconut stand began delivering coconuts a few times a day, and I would slip the porter purple 10,000 Rupiah notes each time, twice her going rate. She first tried to give them to me for free, and though she herself never came to my room, I wondered if she did it out of guilt or just plain kindness. I resolved to believe the latter. In looking back, I think it was those coconuts that saved me–not just keeping me hydrated, but keeping me from going mad.

  The doctor returned each afternoon to check on me and to give me a shot here and there. When I was coherent I would ask him questions, which started occurring around the third day when I gained semi-consciousness. While his bedside manner far surpassed any care I’d received back home, it seemed like he failed to identify my condition at first. That unnerved me because without a solid opinion I soon lost confidence in his ability to treat anything beyond the symptoms. About five days into it when the rash had spread to my entire body he nodded emphatically, touching the itchy sores on my legs, back, and even my groin.

  “Ah, yes, it looks like demam berdarah,” he muttered.

  “What is that? Lia said the same thing the other day, but I don’t know what that is.” I asked, by this time hanging on his every word.

  “I believe in English they call it the dengue.”

  “Dengue fever!” I shouted, my heart sinking. “Isn’t that deadly?”

  “Perhaps, but only in some rare cases,” he said in flawless English, and I could tell that he was well educated. “We can’t be sure that you have it without a test. Like most tropical illnesses, it should pass through you without incident.”

  “This seems
like a pretty big incident to me, doc!”

  A quick grin passed over his face and he patted my arm, “You should rest and continue to drink fluids and eat as much as you can.”

  “Don’t you think I should be in the hospital?”

  “Perhaps, but actually this place is much more comfortable. So, I think it better for you to stay here. For the sores, I recommend an oil massage.”

  When I turned my head to stretch my neck, throbbing with a pain that traced its way down my spine, I noticed a blue tinted picture of a laughing man propped against the lamp on my nightstand. The man had long hair and flowing robes, radiating joy like he didn’t have a care in the world.