“You know
sepeda motor?”
Deni asked me, taking a long drag and then exhaling.
“Motor? Like a car?”
“Motorcycle.”
He exhaled again and I coughed. Deni noticed and threw the cigarette to the ground, grinding out the orange ember with his sneaker.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Cigarettes, to my friends,” he said, gesturing toward the gatekeeper, “are like gold.”
“So you bribed him not to tell the ...
bapak
we are leaving the gate?”
With a little wink, Deni led me behind the gatekeeper’s shack. There, parked in the mud, was a bright orange scooter.
“Motor.
They are fast,” he said like he was trying to impress me. “Come.”
“Come?” I asked.
He nodded. “We go. Not as fast as American
laki laki.”
He opened his arms and pantomimed riding a big motorcycle, like a Harley.
“Motor
is fast, but not too fast.”
Faster than the great wave of water.
Deni hopped on the front and motioned for me to sit behind him, handing me a thin black plastic helmet. Oh no! Was this one of Tom’s “head crackers”?
“Um. Deni. Do you have a thicker helmet?”
He scratched his chin. “Thicker? Not thicker. It is okay. Put it on.”
Instead I glanced back through the gate.
I could make up something.
I could change my mind, still go back.
Not risk getting busted by Dad or Team Hope for not showing up to Vera’s art group.
Not risk having my head split open.
But then I looked at Deni’s smile and I was sick of being afraid.
I had my backpack with me already. And my wallet. And my camera. What else did I really need?
My whole body tingled as Deni snapped the helmet strap under my chin. I looked around for something to hold on to.
“Put your arms around me,” he said. “And move closer.”
Happily. I scooted forward and wrapped my arms around Deni’s waist, pushing my chest as tight as I could into the heat of his back.
“Holding on tight?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t stop smiling. “Where are we going?” I asked as he turned the key in the ignition and the engine’s rattle filled the air.
His eyes sparkled over his shoulder. “Today,” he said, “we go everywhere.”
THE
MOTOR
After last night and all the wet, the dry air felt like heaven.
I squeezed my eyes tight as we turned out of the driveway and onto the busy streets. I tried to keep the rest of my body loose to ride out the twists of the congested roads. Cooked meat and spices mixed with the stink of diesel exhaust.
It all smelled divine.
I hung on to Deni’s waist for dear life, squishing my face hard into him, breathing in the salty sweat of his back.
“Are your eyes open?”
“No,” I yelled over the noise.
“
Ayo
—come on.”
“No way.”
“You will like what you see if you are brave enough to look.
Buka mata.
Open up your eyes.” I forced my eyes open just in time to see Deni narrowly avoid hitting a bright orange mini-bus that blared its horn at us.
“Deni!” I cried. “Watch out!”
He laughed as I squeezed him tighter. “Maybe time to close your eyes.”
I couldn’t help laughing too, but then we leaned so far to the left, I thought we were going to tip over. I screamed with exhilaration. Squeezing my thighs around the seat, I leaned into the next turn.
Similar to the rules of body boarding: if my body was tense and I resisted the lucidity of the ocean, I’d wipe out. But if I was loose and fluid and moved with the waves, I’d catch an awesome ride all the way to shore. I used the same logic now, but instead of waves, I was surfing the streets of Yogyakarta.
“Deni! My eyes are open!”
“Good. Now you can truly see.
Do not
let go.”
We rode out of town, deeper into the lush jungle, passing men and women wearing triangular woven hats as they worked in fields of rice paddies. The loose ponytail hanging out of the helmet whipped my face in the hot air.
Small mountains peeked through a mist of ashy clouds. The scooter vibrated between my legs as we drove about thirty miles an hour down the straight country road. Suddenly the silver air thickened and it was like we were cruising through a rain cloud.
“Is that an ox?” I yelled as Deni slowed to pass a man driving a wooden-wheeled cart pulled by a sharp-horned bull. The man whipped the animal with what looked like a willow branch.
“Yes. You will see many of them in the country.”
Then I saw it.
An ancient temple loomed in the distance on top of a short hill. Like something out of
The Jungle Book
or
Indiana Jones,
the temple was built of stone into the shape of a pyramid.
“Here is Borobudur,” Deni said, pulling the
motor
into a parking lot.
“Borobudur? My dad has talked about this place forever; how did you know I wanted to see it?”
“Bule
always come here while they are visiting the
pesantren.”
“What’s
bule
?”
“Foreigners. Tourists. Like you,” he said.
Even though we were stopped, I still hugged his waist. “Have
you
been here before?”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am not
bule.
”
I laughed. “Good point.”
“Now we must get off,” he teased.
I peeled my arms from his body.
When I hopped off and tried to stand, I felt like I’d just gotten off a horse. Wobbling, I rose up on my tippy toes to stretch out my legs as he laughed.
“You aren’t used to it yet, the
motor,”
he said.
“No. But at least I didn’t fall off!”
“I wouldn’t let you fall,” he said.
I pulled my digital camera out of my backpack to take a shot of the monument.
Deni eyed the camera appreciatively. “Those cameras are much money. Even here.”
“I got it for Christmas last year from my
oma,
my grandmother. I really like it.”
“You like taking pictures?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes I worry my memories will fade without them.”
“My memories never go away.”
I stopped. “Really? Because no matter how hard I try to keep them in my mind, some images slip away.”
“Like what does slip away?”
He seemed to really want to know. “Well. Like my ... like my mom. Sometimes I can’t remember her the way I used to. I still remember her, but it’s like her face in my mind is disappearing or something. It’s hard to explain.”
He looked like he understood but then asked, “Your mom is in America, no? You will see her soon?”
I bit my lip. “No ... she’s not.... She’s gone.”
He looked at me sadly, but didn’t ask me what happened to my mom, probably because he didn’t want to talk about what happened to his. We were both quiet for a second before he said, “Take a picture of me?”
“Sure!”
Deni leaned against the
motor
and flashed me a sly look. Just the little image of him on my digital screen sent goose bumps to places I didn’t know goose bumps could grow.
I seized the day and took several, just in case I didn’t get the chance again.
“Let me look.”
I tilted the image toward him. His face lit up when he saw the shots. “Ahhh, not bad. Perhaps I should be one of your American Hollywood-style actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Tom Cruise?” He struck a pose on his motorcycle that cracked me up. “America is ready for Indonesian celebrity, no?”
“I don’t think America could handle you, Deni. You’re way too real for that scene. Besides, you’re
much
cuter than either of those guys.”
“Cute?” He wrinkled his nose. “Like a baby goat?”
He leaned in close to me, his dimple deepening in his smooth cheek.
“Um. No. Not like a baby goat at all.” I stumbled over my words.
Looking into his eyes, I saw he knew exactly what I meant.
“So.” Shivers ran down my spine. “Ready to go in?”
THE TEMPLE
Vendors cruised up and down the main dirt road leading to the temple selling touristy things like Borobudur T-shirts, statues of the monument and postcards. They flashed their wares in our faces and used cheesy car salesmen voices to persuade us to buy. One young boy wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I bought a couple of T-shirts, a bunch of postcards and two miniature statues of the temple and stuck the loot in my backpack.
“So how much does it cost to go in?” I asked Deni when we were standing under the entrance sign.
“Tourist price one hundred thousand rupiah. For Indonesians only five thousand rupiah. About ten dollars of American money for you. About fifty cents for me.”
“You translate the money really well.”
“If I’m going to be a big star of movies one day, I must know all about America,” he joked.
“That’s true,” I said, handing the man sitting in the ticket booth some pink paper money. Deni ordered the tickets, and I was happy he let me treat without the money thing becoming an issue.
I followed him as we wound our way up a set of steep stone stairs into the ancient Buddhist temple. I remembered Dad talking about this place a long time ago, that each level told the story of the Buddha—as you curved around, you read more of the picture story carved into the stones.
I told Deni what Dad had told me. “I always wanted to see this in real life; now here I am,” I said.
“What is the story of the Buddha?” Deni asked.
“You don’t know it?”
“Why would I know it? We are Muslim. We study Islam. I’d like to hear it, this story,” he said.
My face flushed. I wasn’t a natural storyteller like Mom or like Spider....
“Um. I’ll give it my best shot. Just for you.” I walked up a few stairs to an elaborately carved piece of stone. “This must be baby Buddha being born out of his mother’s side. Kind of weird, right? The story is that Buddha was a virgin birth, like Christ’s.”
Deni shrugged, like
I’ve heard weirder,
encouraging me to keep talking. “So ... the Buddha was a prince, bound to be the next Hindu king. They were Indian and lived at the base of the Himalaya mountains. The Buddha’s parents wanted to keep him sheltered, so he stayed in the palace and was pampered. His parents didn’t want him to see any of the bad things in life like poverty, pain or ... death. Hold on a second, I want to take a picture of this one,” I said, snapping a few shots. “You get in there too, if you want?” I said, hoping he would, which he did.
He posed, a serious look on his face, which made me laugh. Then we moved on. “When he was older, about our age, the Buddha wanted to go outside. His parents forced him to stay in, though. Then one night his curiosity got the best of him and he snuck out of the palace.” I leaned in closer to Deni. “When he snuck out, he took a few servants with him. But what Buddha didn’t know was that they were really angels in disguise.”
I walked a few steps to the next imprint, the next story. “As he rode his horse out of the palace gates, the angels held their hands under the horses’ hooves so that Buddha could sneak out in silence. Cool, right?”
“Like we did today,” he said, with a sly look. “Only it was the gatekeeper who held our hooves, no?”
“Uh, yeah, sort of.” I nicked into him with my elbow playfully, not wanting to think about how busted I was going to be when Dad realized I was gone. “Anyway, once he got outside the palace walls into the real world, the angels pointed out three things Buddha had never seen before: an old person, a sick person and a dead person being prepared for a funeral. He had no experience with death before.” I lowered my voice, knowing a tough part in the story was coming up. “In fact, he didn’t know people died at all. He thought everyone lived forever.”
Deni and I were standing so close our shoulders touched. Our eyes met as he prodded me on. I swallowed and kept talking.
“Which, of course, we know isn’t true. So finally Buddha figured out he must transcend mortals’ fate—pain, et cetera—through enlightenment.”
I watched Deni as he examined the relief. “Enlightenment?”
“It means, like, reason over blind faith, the ability to think for yourself.”
“I like that.”
“Yeah, me too. So Buddha set off on his own path, deciding he should suffer because others did.”
“Do you think he was right?” he asked me seriously.
“I don’t know. I guess the human experience is to suffer at least some.”
His face shadowed. “It has been my experience, yes.”
We stood there staring at each other. Other tourists passed by us, but we didn’t move.
He cocked his head, looked down at his feet. Then he met my eye. “I think you are a good storyteller, Sienna. No one has told me a story in a very long time. And it is interesting about the boy named Buddha. He has not seen what I have seen, but he wants to. He wants to live and see the bad things instead of to not know.”
“Right.” I hoped Deni would tell me a story too—his story—how he ended up at the
pesantren,
how he got his scar, his limp. Something about his life before. But Deni didn’t offer anything else, and I didn’t want to pry. Something about the way we were together told me when he was ready, he would. And it was okay. I could wait.
The sun broke through the clouds and beat straight down on us. I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.
“I wonder what is up here?” Deni said, suddenly taking the lead.
I followed him up another flight of stairs. At the top, I pulled out a new bottle of water, which we shared.
As I tucked the empty bottle back into my pack, I watched Deni as he peered inside a gray-stone cutout shaped like a diamond. “Look.” He pointed. A beautiful stone Buddha sat in the lotus position and stared back at us. I reached my camera through the cutout and took some pictures. “Sienna ... ?” Deni said suddenly, his voice throaty like it was last night in the rain.