Nothing to Declare Page 17

  “You give the boy a scare.” A blond man sitting at the next veranda spoke in a whispery German accent. He was eating rambutan and approached the fruit with knife and fork, paring meat from skin with dexterous attention. More worn than the youthful voice indicated, though; he had the crepey neck of a middle-aged man who’d seen too much sun.

  “You may call me Rama,” he said. “A name given to me on the first time to Bali. I like it better than Dieter. For this country, it is good to take the name of the divinity.”

  Jesse introduced himself and at Rama’s invitation brought his coffee to the German’s table. The children here were scared of Westerners, the man explained, because of movie violence. “White men are the bad guys, and you are so tall. The children learn to be frightened this way. It was not always so.”

  The door behind Rama opened and they were joined by a barefoot woman in her twenties who wore a bright sarong. She appraised Jesse with the air of someone for whom such surprises were not unusual. Her name was Nicola, Rama said. She spoke a few words in German and took a chair in what there was of sunlight to brush her hair. The stud piercing her left nostril contained a flashing diamond.

  Rama asked if pleasure had brought Jesse to Bali and he answered that he was looking for someone. The German sniffed with disapproval. “This is difficult for Bali. Better not to look but to walk and take the beach. At night to visit dances. Who are you thinking to find?” The man looked down his sunglasses toward Jesse in a combination of curiosity and scorn.

  “An old friend of my brother’s. He asked me to look her up while I was here. Of course, she might not even be on the island. I’m sure you’re right and it’s a waste of time.” Rama’s arrogance had drawn the evasion from him—the dodge slid sweetly past his tongue.

  “Bravo. Right from the start you are learning.”

  Rama spoke to Nicola again. She was painting her toenails now and she looked up to laugh, one foot splayed against her chair seat as she applied the polish. In a few paces Rama was at her side and he twisted her foot from its perch with such force she toppled to the ground. She sprang up and cocked her hand into a fist but then marched into the bedroom without taking her payback. Serving it cold, Jesse thought.

  The German attempted to shepherd Jesse back to their pleasant breakfast. “You must understand. Niki makes perhaps the greatest insult—on Bali to display the sole of the feet breaks a strong taboo. In some small places one would be beaten badly or driven away. She must pay attention or she will find only trouble.”

  Jesse parted himself from Rama’s grip. “Seems to me she’s found it already, Dieter. I see you hurting her again, I’ll forget my manners.”

  “Ah, the American sensibility—Harrison Ford. Do not be concerned for Niki. She is not frightened of true feeling.” Rama took a last sip of coffee before following his sweet love inside.

  Back on his own veranda Jesse picked up his map. There were hundreds of small towns upcountry; he would start here in the beach district to see if anyone could narrow the field. From the Germans’ bedroom rang the sounds of an argument and a slap across skin—whose it was impossible to judge. Jesse ate his yogurt and noted likely villages on his writing pad. Somewhere was the Bali of the guidebooks, the fair tropical isle.

  He canvassed as many taxi drivers and merchants as would speak to him about Hanuman Designs. The uniform response was of devoted helpfulness. Everyone nodded excitedly and they caressed the Hanuman T-shirt as though it were a talisman. Yes, they knew the woman and her shop; yes, an American with dark hair; yes, Spanish music. However, everyone was delighted to place her in a different location. The Balinese, it seemed, gave consent out of a sense of charitable obligation—truth bore no part in it. On his second morning, Jesse rented a motor scooter to tour the highlands himself. No wonder Marty had liked it here. Everyone lied as easily as taking a breath.

  Tracking down Isabel was simple after Jesse decided her business would center on the fabric arts. He asked at a sewing machine dealer and there it was, her business card—an address in a village near the former royal water palace. In the local custom, the dealer led Jesse softly by the hand and showed him the road to Mount Batur. “President Sukarno vacation there,” said the man. “Him spying all day long at the river girls on the gold-plated telescope.”

  Hanuman Designs was a bungalow built of wood and stucco, and to Jesse’s startled eye it bore an eerie resemblance to the cottage in Felton, as if Isabel’s life in California had been a rehearsal. The inside was fragrant from freshly dyed cotton. Scores of woven hangings draped the walls and rafters. Their muted colors made Jesse think of the call to prayer.

  Isabel sat in the back of the store behind a wooden loom as large as a grand piano. She hummed along with a merengue playing on a boombox, whipping her shuttle through the warp—her whole body rippled as a narrow band of material crept along the threads. Age had rounded her once-sharp cheekbones but her liveliness remained beautifully untouched.

  Jesse called her name and waited to see what she would do. She stared at him and shot up from her bench and sat down again and turned off her music. “I heard someone was looking for me. They said tall. I should’ve guessed.”

  “I didn’t know how else to do this but show up.” He wondered if he should squeeze in beside her, then held back, standing awkwardly. “God, you look exactly the same,” he told her. “We could be at Lulu’s waiting for Jimmy to set up another round of shooters.”

  She stared at him tight-lipped and unrelenting. The afternoon rains had launched a downpour, and Isabel got up to close her shutters. “It’s monsoon, Jesse. Nobody visits Bali now except for druggies and idiots who refuse to believe the travel books. You were never so foolish.”

  “I came here to see you. I wasn’t worried about getting wet.”

  She said nothing. Some customers entered the store—ten or so well-fed Americans who were equally offended by the weather and Isabel’s refusal to bargain. Jesse loved watching how she made them laugh and open their wallets before she shooed the group back toward their tour bus. What a champ she was—put her in a cocktail dress and she could rule front of house at Copain.

  Isabel remained behind her sales counter. “You haven’t changed either,” she said. “Not in any way that matters. Look how you’ve got your eye on me, as if you know everything there is to know and we’ve barely said hello. You were always in a big rush, Jesse, but you never really got too far in the end.”

  “That was me—always waiting for the world to ease my way. Not that it often did. I hope I’m different now.”

  Isabel held him firmly in her gaze. “I’m not going to wander through old times with you, or anything else you have in mind. Whatever you’re planning, I’m not there for it. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not anytime you name.”

  “Who says I’m planning anything?”

  “Because you can’t hide it. You want to ask forgiveness for Santa Cruz or you want me to or some horrible combination of the two.”

  “And if I did? Wouldn’t it be good to let that go?”

  “Some doors you open at your peril. Haven’t you learned that by now? I have.” She unfolded a short piece of cloth that was part of her counter display. “This is double ikat weaving, the most painstaking kind I do, each one tells a story. Take it as a keepsake and give me a kiss on the cheek, and then you go home to wherever home is now. If you have any feeling for me that’s what you’ll do.”

  Her face lacked a spirit of generosity, Jesse thought, and he left the weaving where it lay. “Marty was killed in a car accident, and I’m not sure it wasn’t suicide. For all I know it stretches back all the way to Santa Cruz.”

  “That changes nothing. I can’t let it.” Her hands were shaking. “Want me to push you out the door? Because I will.”

  Age had altered her, trimmed away her reliable confidence. Isabel’s face was trembling. One or two more words and he could make her cry. If Jesse picked the right ones, maybe she’d let him stay as long as he wanted. They could
fix the trouble between them—or not, but they could try. She stood waiting for him, leaning weakly on her counter edge, an inch away from losing her composure.

  Jesse drew himself up as tall as he could. “OK. I guess you’re right and I should take my leave. I thought we were better friends than this, but I can handle being wrong. I’ve been making a career out of it lately.” He found in his wallet a card from Copain and set it on her counter. “In case you ever change your mind.”

  Jesse opened the front door and walked outside. The rain slanted at him as though taking aim. In the middle of the road, a pair of mud-soaked dogs tussled over a corncob. They flopped through puddles and howled with unconstrained joy. Jesse stood there blinking away the wet and seeing mostly blur. The dogs chased him out of the village. They were thrilled to do their duty.

  The rain had stopped and after a bath and a visit with a travel agent to plan his ticket home, as evening settled, Jesse walked to a shore-side edition of the Hard Rock Café. His last night on Bali and he craved a drink that came with an umbrella and music loud enough to pummel his brain to mush. Of course, hunting down the past had been a fool’s errand. He hadn’t imagined, though, how it would sting to be the fool.

  The restaurant delivered as required—the cheap-jack American culture he normally avoided and a host of beet-red Australians whose purpose seemed to be drinking themselves into a month-long stupor. Pushing through the jouncing bodies, Jesse heard somebody call his name—the German woman, Nicola, who sat by herself at the bar. She motioned him to the empty seat next to her while shouting an order over the counter.

  “I’m glad I saw you,” she said. “You were brave to take my side with Rama the other morning. I think maybe you frightened him.”

  “You’ve been hiding your talents. Your English is first-class.”

  She accepted his praise with a nod. “Sometimes it’s simpler to wear the mask. With Rama’s friends, I like to wait and see.”

  The waiter appeared with their cocktails, and Niki offered a toast to her departed boyfriend. “Rama thinks Bali has been spoiled, too many of the wrong kind of people, too many places like this. He traveled to Lombok to find solitude.” She clinked Jesse’s glass. “I prefer crowded. Prefer new. Anyhow, the true Bali can be found if you search. Rama’s lazy.”

  “To the wrong kind of people, then. Long may we wave.”

  Niki’s gaze, which in daytime had been forbidding, in the murk of the bar, shone on him benevolently. “Something has hurt you, I think. This was not a brother’s friend you were visiting, but a sweetheart. She was not kind to you, I think. I’m sorry, your face shows everything.”

  Jesse imagined he blushed. “That’s what she accused me of. I appear to be an open book.” Sunburn colored Niki’s throat and he wondered how far down it stretched. “Take me out of here and show me what you love about the island,” he said. “The true Bali, whatever turns you on.”

  They finished their drinks and strolled into the humid evening. “I’m glad we’re together,” Niki said. She was laughing and she took his hand. “You have an obligation. You came to my defense with Rama. In the old days here, we would be betrothed by now or our families at war.”

  “Why don’t we just start with supper,” Jesse said.

  They had saté and mushroom omelets from a food stall, Niki watching Jesse clean his plate as though she had a stake in his enjoyment. Their time together would be short and that would make it thrilling, she promised. With the right sequence, they could catch a cockfight and a monkey dance and still have time to walk into the rice paddies and hear the frogs and enjoy the fireflies. Her eyes were glittering. “I like this idea extremely—everything at once, as much as possible.”

  “You’ll wear me out.”

  “I don’t think so. I think you can take a lot. Which first, the cockfight or the dance?”

  The image of fighting birds gripped the back of Jesse’s neck. Cruelty and bloodshed were difficult to jibe with the docile, pleasant-faced Balinese, yet the fights were the national obsession. “Cockfight,” he answered.

  Niki leaned over the table and kissed him. Apparently, he had passed a test.

  They raced their Vespas into the mountains, and Niki barely touched her brakes, the whine of her engine pulling Jesse along the moonlit road faster than he considered possible. He was panting when they finally halted in a small village. Sex with her, if he got that far, was going to be amazing.

  The fights were conducted in a courtyard packed with men and were mercifully brief—jagged movement and shouting bettors and bloody feather-down. The handlers fussed over the cocks, breathing life and hope into their beaks as they tightened knife blades to their legs. Jesse found his attention floating above the birds, as though he were watching a formal enactment, something gaudy out of Las Vegas. After two deaths, he was prepared to leave. What could be learned here? The roosters expired with barely a sigh.

  Niki’s fingers dug into his thigh—they were close to the action and her white T-shirt was faintly spattered with red. It seemed to Jesse the blood stains could be seen as words. The stud in Niki’s nostril caught a secret light he couldn’t identify, jiggling from silvery to turquoise to ruby, and with every change, a different hum chimed down his spine. Jesse groaned. “Jesus, Niki. What did you do to me?”

  Her smile peeled away from her lips. “The mushrooms are coming on already? You must be very sensitive. This is my special surprise—the food stall puts them in your omelet if you ask.”

  Jesse grunted to his feet and struggled to remember the procedure, fight or flow? Too many years. It was Marty who was maestro of the bummer—talking down a tripper’s panic was his stock and trade. Marty was dead.

  The crowd pressed in—sweat and kretak cigarettes, the clove smoke everywhere, and Jesse broke to the outermost ring. Niki’s voice calling, but how to pluck one note from the chicken-squawk and singsong Balinese? The road, yes, and the red Vespa, the engine barking with a push on the starter. A curve and another, the moon leading him or falling behind, the ride stitched together a single bend at a time. He fell against Isabel’s door like a sprinter bursting through the tape. The touch of her fingers. Help me, he said.

  I love that about traveling—the random intersection of strangers, the roll of the dice whether today’s your day for god or victim, the uncertainty is why you fly six thousand miles. Too bad you couldn’t hang in there with Niki, she’s a keeper, I can tell. That sleek Euro body, the German thrust of her stare—the kind that used to look ahead a thousand years. OK, her manners need improvement, but I’m sure she meant no harm. Mushrooms fade before you know it, don’t they, three or four hours—that’s not so long to grit your teeth. And who’s to say it wouldn’t be all kinds of fun—some pretty pictures, your defenses drizzled away, physics and geometry a matter of conjecture. A little ego death, not the worst thing that could happen. The month you’ve had, you should have said, “Ooh boy,” and kicked back for the ride.

  Instead you hiked it home, or the closest version you could find, and lucky for you, Isabel gathered you in. I wasn’t sure she would, deep as a dark pool, you saw that for yourself. Besides, what little tenderness the lady has is booked. She’ll be your nursemaid for the bye and bye, but futures—it’s a bear market, you better take your business elsewhere. Morning’s hauling like a freight train, and when it comes, fly back to the home you have for real. Life with Bel’s same as with the roosters—strong wins, weak fails, each side born to it.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  HE SAW THE GIRL AT EARLY LIGHT. She was in her mid-teens and dark like Isabel, her feet planted in the family style—a devotion to the straight-ahead. She scrabbled for something on the dresser. This was her bedroom: the narrow bed Jesse sprawled across, its lavender sheets and the smell of chewing gum on the pillow, the three pairs of flip-flops on the sisal rug. A daughter’s room.

  He hadn’t seen her the night before, while Isabel treated him with orange juice and Xanax and dressed him in batik pajamas, talked him to a so
ft landing. The night’s residue clouded Jesse’s calculation—was it within reason that the girl belonged to him? She might be old enough, and her coltish body promised size, though her wide cheekbones and well-shaped nose were more in the Armenian line. She was watching him in her dresser mirror, arranging the scalloped collar of her school uniform, folding it twice before she was satisfied.

  He swung his legs over the bed and sat up, clasping his hands on his thighs to conceal the shake. “Hey there. Good morning.”

  The girl put a finger to her lips. “I’m not supposed to bother you, Mom’ll have a fit. I needed my earrings. The old king died in Klungkung and the whole school is going to the funeral. We’re supposed to dress up, like you could with these stupid uniforms.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun. A funeral.”

  “Oh, they’re really great. All the mourners are in white and there’s gamelan, a Barong maybe—that’s a kind of puppet lion god. And before the cremation, they spin the body on their shoulders to confuse the soul. That’s how it won’t find its way back home.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ghosts make mischief and they love revenge. Everybody knows.”

  “Fascinating,” Jesse said. “I’d like to hear more about it when you have a chance. If you tell me your name, I can ask you nicely.”

  “Aster. And you’re Jesse. You were Mom’s friend a long time ago.”

  “When I met her, I wasn’t too much older than you.”

  Her face softened—the look he guessed she saved for holy men and beggars. “Mom said you’re going away before I get home from school.”

  “I don’t know. I may loiter around the house.”

  “Like a ghost?” The girl had a musical laugh. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Jesse said. He watched from his window as she left for school. Aster Lantana. Two flowers.

  Jesse went hunting for Isabel. He shuffled from room to room, glancing at the few pieces of furniture and nosing into the kitchen cabinets and tiny refrigerator. For a while, he stood in the center of the living room to see if he could parse the life that passed between its walls. Whatever he looked at, picture frame, footstool, his own pajamas, for that matter, was made by hand and with the Balinese impulse for color and design. A stylish life but one of modest requirements. If Isabel was happy, it was in a minor key.