Dancing Out of Bali

by John Coast

  When she came off at the end of the Legong, Tom was in a state of real agitation and Raka was still sobbing. The three Legongs came to our dressing room, where a frenzied Tom made up his own two eyes, one in the Balinese way, one in the modem way. He wanted to convince them. After the final curtain calls, he ran over to the far side of the stage while the Legongs and most of the cast stared at him from the opposite wings.

  "Which eye looks bigger?" shouted Tom, kneeling down to face them.

  "The left one," they all answered definitely. And this was the eye made up in the Balinese way.

  "In that case," said Tom, "Raka is right and the whole theory of modem American dance is wrong."

  Which perhaps it is.

  By the time we left Los Angeles, serious booking problems faced us, for no clear instructions had yet been given concerning the group's time and route of leaving America for Europe. Indrosugondho telephoned the Indonesian embassy daily, for I told him that if we were forced to be idle, our profits, which were now just beginning to come in nicely, would all be used up paying hotel bills and food.

  In San Francisco we had a week of Barong-protected and unexpected sun for our season, and here, too, the Balinese superstition that the 12th December is a lucky day—it may be remembered that eight out of the first twelve of them, when filling in their American visa forms in Pliatan, had claimed their birthday on that auspicious date—won remarkable confirmation. On this day Raka received her medallion from Mademoiselle magazine, for what the editor termed her superb east-west cultural exchange work. Luce received her British passport which we had applied for in New York two months ago. Suprapto ended the current "strike" in which he was indulging as a protest against being used as a "serf" again by the Balinese. And lastly, on this same day, a preview of The Road to Bali was arranged for us all to see. The movie had nothing of Bali in it, but everybody, and especially the little girls, loved the film. "Itu Bob!" they exclaimed to one another helplessly-"That Bob!" Before the end of the tour the children had stolen off to see it twice more, and Anom said, smiling happily, "And we will see it all over again at the Wisnu Cinema in Denpasar when we get home."

  At last there came definite news of their return through Europe, and speedily Columbia Artists thought out a plan that would save money and earn them some more, and routed them through the South to Miami, where they could board a plane at least two thousand miles nearer to Europe.

  To accustom them all to the idea of being administered by Indrosugondho, of whom they were fond, and by Sutaryo, whom they tolerated, while they all went back on a train to Los Angeles for a Christmas rest, Luce and I drove down to Pebble Beach... for the Flavins were at hand again, and now they were offering us their ranch in the Carmel Valley as a resting place when the tour was over. In those wild, wooded valleys and mountains, we gathered, there were no politicians or officials, only pumas, bobcats, rattlesnakes and intriguing gophers.

  Christmas, though, we spent together with our family in Los Angeles. Luce and I, deep inside, already felt horribly depressed and frustrated, yet against evolutionary racial processes there was nothing we could do. So we tried to make this, their one American Christmas, a time they would remember. On Christmas Eve Vicki Baum gave them a wonderful party in her Hollywood house. But we were very un-Hollywood and sat on the floor and ate with our fingers, stuffing ourselves with rich white rice and spicy curries, and with prawn crackers which were still fresh from the tins in which Vicki had brought them sealed from Bali fifteen years ago. Then lazily from the floor we watched her films of Bali, seeing the ghost of Walter Spies moving before us as he bathed in the pool of his house at Tjampuang, the house which we knew so well.

  On Christmas Day the nine girls came to our room and were given bulging Christmas stockings, each inscribed with their names.

  On the following day we went with Katharane to the Walt Disney studios. After first lunching in the canteen, we went right through the various studios. When we left, Raka and Oka chose to be shy and offered limp hands with inaudible good-byes; but when the limpid-eyed Anom gave Disney her soft smile, she unexpectedly enunciated in her clear little voice: "Good-bye, and thank you very much," at which Disney swept her off her feet in delight and hugged her.

  That same evening, to add to or to alleviate their frustrations, Tom and I took some of the men to a burlesque theatre in Main Street, where they saw Lily St. Cyr and their first "strippers." The resulting groans and writhings in the hotel rooms that night were pitiful to hear. "Tjelaka duabelas!” said old Tjokorda Oka, "Twelvefold calamity!"

  By December 27th we were on the move eastward again, this time on a several-thousand-mile trip to Miami. After two last performances there, the group would board a B.O.A.C. Constellation and fly directly to Brussels. Our time with them was running out sickeningly fast.

  One night we played in Phoenix, and New Year's Eve we spent playing in New Orleans. Sampih, with Tom, Luce and myself, watched 195.9 blowing fatefully at our cardboard trumpets.

  And so through Orlando in the heart of the beautiful orange growing part of Florida to the end of our journey-Miami. The Balinese now felt the weather becoming more and more like home, and as we drove from Orlando to the station, we saw a great alligator (or crocodile to them) lying half out of a lake at the edge of the road. We passed endless and oceanwide miles of orange and grapefruit orchards. There were glorious bougainvilleas straggling over verandahed wooden houses, even a stunted frangipani or two, and all was at last green and luxuriant again and made them homesick. Finally, they saw coconut palms growing; and it was when the Anak Agung looked up to see coconuts high above his head once more, and when Oka had woven her first little basket from the young palm leaf, just as in Bali, that our friend smote his broad thigh and exclaimed aloud: "Beh! Now I admit that this really is a country!"

  Our hotel was near the sea and the auditorium was new and well designed for our performance, and it was good that our tour should end with a bang and no hint of a whimper. We played to two absolutely packed houses, while in front of the box office a milling mass of people struggled to buy returned tickets. As the curtains went up and down for the last times on the tableau of Freddie Schang and our entire company, he having just presented us with a great souvenir plaque with all our names inscribed, it was the end for Luce and me. The packers poured in, old Leo Dupont, our chief carpenter, moodily knocked the scenery down, while the tour wardrobe mistress grudgingly folded away the costumes in wicker baskets that had once again been measured to fit a plane door. We had three days to go.

  On one of these days we were invited out to Miami Beach to lunch at the Surf Club. As we drove back to our hotel, I asked the Anak Agung curiously why so many gamelan members were suddenly refusing to sleep in the same room with one of the metallophone players. He replied enigmatically,"Because his clothes are still alive." After much unravelling I eventually discovered that right here in Miami they had unearthed a leyak in the gamelan club! They had detected the demon-in-the-man by the way the fellow snored at night —it was a rhythmic soft whistle, followed by an angry grunting, which the Anak Agung promptly demonstrated to the anxiety of our driver. This snoring had convinced his neighbours that a leyak's spirit Was escaping nightly from the sleeper's body. This man had long studied black magic, and secret formulae and unholy texts were written down on strips of cloth worn always around his navel. Before leaving Bali the man had sworn that these clothes, or strips of potent cloth, were dead—that he'd given it all up. Now it was clear he had lied. The cloth was still potent.

  I said to the Anak Agung,"But you're not afraid of this leyak?"

  "No!" he scoffed. "He has indeed studied long, but he is a very stupid creature. He could never make a dangerous demon.”

  When an official came down from the embassy to see the group off, we went to the income tax authorities and obtained the necessary clearances and sailing permits. And at last I knew financially whe
re we were. After having paid about 20 per cent of our profits back to the Indonesian Government, the rest I divided quickly among the forty-four of us; but since the group was being ordered to leave at the very stage when our share of the profits were due to roll in—and before we had had a chance to make a film—the Government, in effect, was throwing the benefits of our contract away.

  Then came a telegram from Belgium. It was said to give the "protocol" instructions concerning the correct official order in which the members of the group were to descend from the plane on arriving at the Brussels airport....

  As soon as this money was in their hands, they went out shopping for the last time. Luce took the three children to buy rubbers and extra clothes against the snow and cold—already they had bought together boxes of panties marked from Sunday to Saturday, some summer frocks and pale green nylon nightdresses—but the other girls would not waste their money on such utilitarian things. With Sampih and the Anak Agung, Tom and I walked round and round the shopping heart of the town, buying airguns, radios, photographs, a film projector and some more copies of our own Columbia Masterworks record. It was at a Miami Bank that the Anak Agung purchased a cashier's cheque on behalf of his family and dependents in the group, to buy for all of them, with the embassy's help, his darling station wagon. Came the last thirty-six hours. Amid the potted ferns of the Hotel Patricia I called together the men of the Pliatan club for the last time.

  In very quiet voices Luce and I took our leave of them, wishing them good luck and a safe journey home. Afterward we spoke again to our oldest friends—to the Anak Agung, to Sampih, to Made Lebah and to Gusti Kompiang. They were quite resigned to going back via Brussels, Bonn, Paris and Rome—but, ever practical, they wanted to know what advice we could give them.

  We reassured them, confidently. I told them of the full reports which Pesik, in the Consulate General, and I had sent to Europe, in which we had detailed their every requirement—the food, the clothing, the hotel rooms, the warmth, the theatres, the guides to assist them. I told them, too, that the embassies would certainly not work under the financial limitations or the timing restrictions which had so hampered us in America. They would be well looked after and Government money squandered if only to prove my fears groundless. Luce and I were also resigned, I said. My old dream had already achieved a success greater than I had ever dared to hope—by their dancing they had built a bridge from the Orient that stood as a lesson to the West in these modem times. Why, only that morning the papers were carrying the news that the National Arts Foundation had voted the Dancers of Bali one of the four outstanding artistic achievements of 1952. like Indonesia, only three years independent, should have had the vision to allow our plan through at all.

  And lastly to the Anak Agung, whose submissive soul we had known so well in Pliatan, I said, "Agung Adji, you may be called upon to dance to a very different tune in Europe, and it may help you to keep silent about our personal friendship. I just want to tell you in advance that you, Sampih, the three children, Luce and myself, will be of one family always. You are no politician, we know. So dance and play where the piper bids you: we shall understand."

  On their last evening in America Freddie Schang gave a party at the Shangri La Chinese Restaurant. The food was excellent, but the party was brought to life by a Schang who made little speeches and gave gold bracelets to Raka and the other children, and a silver cigarette case to Sampih and a silver jug of ample proportions to the Anak Agung. Then Freddie danced. He imitated the movements of the Legong dancers. He leapt to take a photograph of Mrs. Volpe, our Miami manager, with a water-squirting camera, and gave the camera to Sangayu; he ran over to put some spectacles on Oka, who could not focus her eyes or eat from her plate with her spoon when she wore them; he slid rubber snakes over the floor, wooden spiders appeared on the wall, glass ice floated and wouldn't melt in hot coffee and the restaurant became bedlam.

  January 8th was the day of their departure. To make things worse, rain poured down in torrents. The plane was the same that had just brought Mr. Churchill across the Atlantic, and it was several hours late. Thus the agony of our farewell was spread over eight hours of waiting in a grey and gloom-filled vestibule. Not only Luce and I were wretched, but Tom, too, was joking in Indonesian to cheer himself up. To the Anak Agung he said, "Now I shall no longer be able to sing in the Barong chorus each night as the curtain goes up on the finale." And to Raka, trying to smile, he said, "You will see me in Bali in five years time, Raka. I'm coming out to kidnap you in true Balinese style.” And then Tom and I went out on to the field in the drenching rain to watch the loading of the plane with Gusti Kompiang. Always we were afraid of damage to the gamelan.

  Slowly the group weighed in at the B.O.A.C. counter. Commander Dodds had laughed at me when I had suggested weighing the personal baggage. "Couldn't possibly exceed six and a half tons total weight, old boy—they couldn't carry it.” But he was wrong. He hadn't met any Balinese. They entered America weighing 4,200 kilos, but they left weighing 6,700-without the station-wagon and electric generator. Each child had gained three or four kilos, and some of the older girls and men had gained more. So much were they carrying with them, that five hundred gallons of gasoline had to be siphoned out before the plane could take off in safety.

  Finally, all was ready. We splashed through murky rain across the asphalt and saw them all seated in their places.

  "Best of luck to you, friend Indrosugondho. The Balinese are lucky to have you with them. Happy landings, Suprapto-may your patience as their invaluable 'serf' survive just two months more."

  And then down the plane Luce and I walked, shaking each Balinese hand. The three little girls were in tears, and our staunch Sampih was speechless with distress. Luce was weeping unashamed, and I, like a coward, clung to my dark glasses. The politics of this parting I cared not a fig for—but with those little girls and Sampih, and with the Anak Agung and that magnificent, life-giving gamelan, part of our hearts were being torn away from us.

  "Come quickly again to Bali," whispered our little three. "But very quickly.”

  And so we were standing under our umbrellas out in the grey rain of parting, soaked, dejected, aching, oblivious. This was the bitter price of our success.

  "Good-bye little Raka, Oka, Anom," our hearts said silently, as the plane moved over to the runway. "Good-bye Sampih, best of young brothers. Good-bye old Agung Adji and your, our glittering gamelan and its perfect music. Take care of them, oh magical Barong-bring them good weather in Europe. Peace on your going! Peace on your journey home!"

  LETTER TO THE COASTS FROM THE THREE LEGONGS

  A POSTSCRIPT

  PARIS, 16-2-1953.

  1.

  Safe News

  The letter of Jonh and Luse the three of us received with ten fingers spread wide open and with a happy heart, because we had heard news from Jonh and Luse and know how they are now. I feel very unhappy because we have not met for a very long time. Although this is so, my heart will always remember Jonh and Luse.

  I ask pardon because I did not carry out my promise that I would send one letter every week. That was not because of my laziness, but because Pa'Ambassador in Roma told us children that Jonh and Luse were now in Paris. Because of that I did not send a letter to America.

  2. Now, concerning our journey from Roma to Bon it was in safety and not lacking in anything. It was very lucky that Luse invited the three of us to buy those thick shoes because in Bon there was much snow. I say thank you very much to Jonh and Luse because they brought me up like a child of their own.

  On leaving Bon we went straight to Paris. There also we children are well, none of us are sick. Let us hope that Jonh and Luse will come back to Bali as quickly as possible.

  Thus it is.

  Oka, Anom, Raka.

  Information

  ON THE LANGUAGE, PRONUNCIATION AND CURRENCY, IN BALI AND INDONE
SIA

  Language and Pronunciation

  The lingua franca of all territories comprising the Republic of Indonesia is INDONESIAN, which is a dialect of Malay, influenced by Javanese and Dutch, and which is still in the beginning of its evolution into a modern, unifying tongue.

  In Bali, apart from Indonesia, Balinese is spoken, which is not only a language apart, but consists of a high and a low language. High caste men talking to their "inferiors" use the low language; low caste men talking to their "superiors" use the high language.

  PRONUNCIATION:

  TJ in Bali is pronounced like CH in Charles in English, but it contains a stronger, deeper dental tone that is more accurately represented by TJ.

  DJ in Bali is pronounced like J in James in English, but again has a deeper dental tone that would more accurately be written DJ.

  A is generally pronounced short, like U in HUT in English.

  E is generally pronounced very short unless accented.

  J is generally pronounced Y.

  TITLES, ETC.

  Pedanda,

  Brahmana High Priest.

  IdaBagus,

  Brahmana man's title.

  Tjokorda,

  Ksatriya caste title.