Eat, Pray, Love (34 page)

77

I
n the morning, Mario helps me buy a bicycle. Like a proper almost-Italian, he says, “I know a guy,” and he takes me to his cousin’s shop, where I get a nice mountain bike, a helmet, a lock and a basket for slightly less than fifty American dollars. Now I’m mobile in my new town of Ubud, or at least as mobile as I can safely feel on these roads, which are narrow and winding and badly maintained and crowded with motorcycles, trucks and tourist buses.

In the afternoon, I ride my bike down into Ketut’s village, to hang out with my medicine man for our first day of . . . whatever it is we’re going to be doing together. I’m not sure, to be honest. English lessons? Meditation lessons? Good old-fashioned porch-sitting? I don’t know what Ketut has in mind for me, but I’m just happy to be invited into his life.

He’s got guests when I arrive. It’s a small family of rural Balinese who have brought their one-year-old daughter to Ketut for help. The poor little baby is teething and has been crying for several nights. Dad is a handsome young man in a sarong; he has the muscular calves of a Soviet war hero’s statue. Mom is pretty and shy, looking at me from way below her timidly lowered eyelids. They have brought a tiny offering to Ketut for his services—2,000 rupiah, which is about 25 cents, placed in a handmade basket of palm fronds, slightly bigger than a hotel bar’s ashtray. There is one flower blossom in the basket, along with the money and a few grains of rice. (Their poverty puts them in stark opposition to the richer family from the capital city of Denpesar who will come to see Ketut later in the afternoon, the mother balancing on her head a three-tiered basket filled with fruit and flowers and a roasted duck—a headgear so magnificent and impressive that Carmen Miranda would have bowed down in humility before it.)

Ketut is relaxed and gracious with his company. He listens to the parents explain their baby’s troubles. Then he digs through a small trunk on his porch and pulls out an ancient ledger filled with tiny writing in Balinese Sanskrit. He consults this book like a scholar, looking for some combination of words that will suit him, talking and laughing with the parents the whole time. Then he takes a blank page from a notebook with a picture of Kermit the Frog on it, and writes what he tells me is “a prescription” for the little girl. The child is being tormented by a minor demon, he diagnoses, in addition to the physical discomforts of teething. For the teething, he advises the parents to simply rub the baby’s gums with pressed red onion juice. To appease the demon, they must make an offering of a small killed chicken and a small pig, along with a little bit of cake, mixed with special herbs which their grandmother should definitely have access to from her own medicine garden. (This food won’t be wasted; after the offering ceremony, Balinese families are always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to God—the gesture—while man takes what belongs to man—the food itself.)

After writing the prescription, Ketut turns his back to us, fills a bowl with water, and keens a spectacular, quietly chilling mantra above it. Then Ketut blesses the baby with the water he has just infused with sacred power. Even at one year old, the child already knows how to receive a holy blessing in the traditional Balinese manner. Her mother holds her, and the baby puts out her little plummy paws to receive the water, sips it once, sips it again and splashes the rest on top of her head—a perfectly executed ritual. She could not be less frightened of this toothless old man who is chanting at her. Then Ketut takes the rest of the holy water and pours it into a small plastic sandwich bag, ties the bag at the top and gives it to the family to use later. The mother carries this plastic bag of water away with her as she leaves; it looks like she has just won a goldfish at the state fair, only she forgot to take the goldfish with her.

Ketut Liyer has given this family about forty minutes of his undivided attention, for the fee of about twenty-five cents. If they hadn’t any money at all, he would have done the same; this is his duty as a healer. He may turn nobody away, or the gods will remove his talent for healing. Ketut gets about ten visitors a day like this, Balinese who need his help or advice on some holy or medical matter. On highly auspicious days, when everyone wants a special blessing, he might have over one hundred visitors.

“Don’t you get tired?”

“But this is my profession,” he tells me. “This is my hobby—medicine man.”

A few more patients come throughout the afternoon, but Ketut and I get some time alone together on the porch, too. I’m so comfortable with this medicine man, as relaxed as with my own grandfather. He gives me my first lesson in Balinese meditation. He tells me that there are many ways to find God but most are too complicated for Westerners, so he will teach me an easy meditation. Which goes, essentially, like this: sit in silence and smile. I love it. He’s laughing even as he’s teaching it to me. Sit and smile. Perfect.

“You study Yoga in India, Liss?” he asks.

“Yes, Ketut.”

“You can do Yoga,” he says, “but Yoga too hard.” Here, he contorts himself in a cramped lotus position and squinches up his face in a comical and constipated-looking effort. Then he breaks free and laughs, asking, “Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. All finish for today. See you later, alligator. Come back tomorrow. I am very happy to see you, Liss. Let your conscience be your guide. If you have Western friends come to visit Bali, bring them to me for palm-reading. I am very empty in my bank since the bomb.”

78

H
ere is Ketut Liyer’s life story pretty much as he tells it:
“It is nine generations that my family is a medicine man. My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, all of them is a medicine man. They all want me to be medicine man because they see I have light. They see I have beautiful and I have intelligent. But I do not want to be medicine man. Too much study! Too much information! And I don’t believe in medicine man! I want to be painter! I want to be artist! I have good talent with this.

“When I was still young man, I meet American man, very rich, maybe even New York City person like you. He like my painting. He wants to buy big painting from me, maybe one meter big, for lot of money. Enough money to be rich. So I start to painting this picture for him. Every day I painting, painting, painting. Even in night I painting. In this day, long time ago, no electric lightbulb like today, so I have lamp. Oil lamp, you understand? Pump lamp, have to pump it to make oil come. And I always make painting every night with oil lamp.

“One night, oil lamp is dark, so I pumping, pumping, pumping and it explode! Makes my arm on fire! I go to hospital for one month with burned arm, it make infection. Infection goes all the way to my heart. The doctor say I must to go to Singapore for cut off my arm, for amputation. This is not my cup of tea. But doctor says I must go to Singapore, have operation to cut arm off. I tell doctor—first I go home to my village.

“That night in village, I got dream. Father, grandfather, great-grandfather—all they come in my dream to my house together and tell me how to heal my burned arm. They tell me make juice from saffron and sandalwood. Put this juice on burn. Then make powder from saffron and sandalwood. Rub this powder on burn. They tell me I must do this, then I not lose my arm. So real this dream, like they in house with me, all of they together.

“I wake up. I don’t know what to do, because sometimes dreams are just joking, you understand? But I make back to my home and I put this saffron and sandalwood juice on my arm. And then I put this saffron and sandalwood powder on my arm. My arm very infected, very ache, made big, very swell. But after juice and powder, become very cool. Became very cold. Start to feel better. In ten days, my arm is good. All heal.

“For that, I start to believe. Now I have dream again, with father, grandfather, great-grandfather. They tell me now I must be medicine man. My soul, I must give it to God. For do this, I must make fast for six days, understand? No food, no water. No drink. No breakfast. Not easy. I so thirsty from fast, I go to rice fields in morning, before sun. I sit in rice field with mouth open and take water from air. How you call this, the water in air in rice field in morning? Dew? Yes. Dew. Only this dew I eat for six days. No other food, only this dew. On number five day, I get unconscious. I see all yellow color everywhere. No, not yellow color—GOLD. I see gold color everywhere, even inside me. Very happy. I understand now. This gold color is God, also inside me. Same thing that is God is same thing inside me. Same-same.

“So now I must be medicine man. Now I have to learn medical books from great-grandfather. These books not made on paper, made on palm leaves. Called
lontars.
This is Balinese medical encyclopedia. I must learn all different plants on Bali. Not easy. One by one, I learn everything. I learn to take care of people with many problem. One problem is when someone is sick from physical. I help this physical sick with herbs. Other problem is when family is sick, when family always fighting. I help this with harmony, with special magic drawing, also with talking for helping. Put magic drawing in house, no more fighting. Sometimes people sick in love, not find right match. For Balinese and Western, too, always a lot of trouble with love, difficult to find right match. I fix love problem with mantra and with magic drawing, bring love to you. Also, I learn black magic, to help people if bad black magic spell on them. My magic drawing, you put in your house, bring you good energy.

“I still like to be artist, I like make painting when I have time, sell to gallery. My painting, always the same painting—when Bali was paradise, maybe one thousand years ago. Painting of jungle, animals, women with—what is word? Breast. Women with breast. Difficult for me to find time to make painting because of medicine man, but I must be medicine man. It is my profession. It is my hobby. Must help people or God is angry with me. Must deliver baby sometimes, do ceremony for dead man, or do ceremony for tooth-filing or wedding. Sometimes I wake up, three in morning, make painting by electric lightbulb—only time I can make painting for me. I like alone this time of day, good for making painting.

“I do true magic, not joking. Always I tell true, even if bad news. I must do good character always in my life, or I will be in hell. I speak Balinese, Indonesian, little bit Japanese, little bit English, little bit Dutch. During war, many Japanese here. Not so bad for me—I read palms for Japanese, make friendly. Before war, many Dutch here. Now many Western here, all speak English. My Dutch is—how you say? What that word you teach me yesterday? Rusty? Yes—rusty. My Dutch is rusty. Ha!

“I am in fourth caste in Bali, in very low caste like farmer. But I see many people in first caste not so intelligent as me. My name is Ketut Liyer. Liyer is name my grandfather gave me when I was little boy. It means ‘bright light.’ This is me.”

79

I
am so free here in Bali, it’s almost ridiculous. The only thing I have to do every day is visit Ketut Liyer for a few hours in the afternoon, which is far short of a chore. The rest of the day gets taken care of in various nonchalant manners. I meditate for an hour every morning using the Yogic techniques my Guru taught me, and then I meditate for an hour every evening with the practices Ketut has taught me (“sit still and smile”). In between, I walk around and ride my bike and sometimes talk to people and eat lunch. I found a quiet little lending library in this town, got myself a library card, and now great, luscious portions of my life are spent reading in the garden. After the intensity of life in the Ashram, and even after the decadent business of zooming all over Italy and eating everything in sight, this is such a new and radically peaceful episode of my life. I have so much free time, you could measure it in metric tons.

Whenever I leave the hotel, Mario and the other staff members at the front desk ask me where I’m going, and every time I return, they ask me where I have been. I can almost imagine that they keep tiny maps in the desk drawer of all their loved ones, with markings indicating where everyone is at every given moment, just to make sure the entire beehive is accounted for at all times.

In the evenings I spin my bicycle high up into the hills and across the acres of rice terraces north of Ubud, with views so splendid and green. I can see the pink clouds reflected in the standing water of the rice paddies, like there are two skies—one up in heaven for the gods, and one down here in the muddy wet, just for us mortals. The other day, I rode up to the heron sanctuary, with its grudging welcome sign (“OK, you can see herons here”), but there were no herons that day, just ducks, so I watched the ducks for a while, then rode on into the next village. Along the way I passed men and women and children and chickens and dogs who all, in their own way, were busy working, but none so busy that they couldn’t stop to greet me.

A few nights ago, on the top of one lovely rise of forest I saw a sign: “Artist’s House for Rent, with Kitchen.” Because the universe is generous, three days later I am living there. Mario helped me move in, and all his friends at the hotel gave me a tearful farewell.

My new house is on a quiet road, surrounded in all directions by rice fields. It’s a little cottagelike place inside ivy-covered walls. It’s owned by an Englishwoman, but she is in London for the summer, so I slide into her home, replacing her in this miraculous space. There is a bright red kitchen here, a pond full of goldfish, a marble terrace, an outdoor shower tiled in shiny mosaics; while I shampoo I can watch the herons nesting in the palm trees. Little secret paths lead through a truly enchanting garden. The place comes with a gardener, so all I have to do is look at the flowers. I don’t know what any of these extraordinary equatorial flowers are called, so I make up names for them. And why not? It’s my Eden, is it not? Soon I’ve given all the plants around here new monikers—daffodil tree, cabbage-palm, prom-dress weed, spiral show-off, tip-toe blossom, melancholy-vine and a spectacular pink orchid I have christened “Baby’s First Handshake.” The unnecessary and superfluous volume of pure beauty around here is not to be believed. I can pick papayas and bananas right off the trees outside my bedroom window. There’s a cat who lives here who is enormously affectionate to me for the half hour every day before I feed him, then moans crazily the rest of the time like he’s having Vietnam War flashbacks. Oddly, I don’t mind this. I don’t mind anything these days. I can’t imagine or remember discontent.

The sound universe is also spectacular around here. In the evenings there’s a cricket orchestra with frogs providing the bass line. In the dead of night the dogs howl about how misunderstood they are. Before dawn the roosters for miles around announce how freaking cool it is to be roosters.(“We are ROOSTERS!” they holler. “We are the only ones who get to be ROOSTERS!”) Every morning around sunrise there is a tropical birdsong competition, and it’s always a ten-way tie for the championship. When the sun comes out the place quiets down and the butterflies get to work. The whole house is covered with vines; I feel like any day it will disappear into the foliage completely and I will disappear with it and become a jungle flower myself. The rent is less than what I used to pay in New York City for taxi fare every month.

The word
paradise,
by the way, which comes to us from the Persian, means literally “a walled garden.”