Troppo (5 page)

What kind of reception would his children receive if they ever made it to Australia? If they walked into the local at Armadale or Bunbury I wonder if they'd be told to go home, to stop stealing our jobs?

It's funny, you always think of the other as being in relation to yourself. You never imagine that
you
could be that other.

Matt comes after the rain. It's taken me an hour to get ready. I've fixed my hair with the straightener so it hangs blond and neat down my back and found a lipstick that matches my dress. The dress is strapless and dark red, totally fine for Bali, but hopefully not too dressy for this party, too indiscreet for the motorbike ride.

Matt whistles when he sees me, then bends down and kisses my cheek.

‘Fuck, you look smokin' hot!'

I tingle with pleasure.

‘So, ah, where's Penny then?'

I laugh and appraise him quickly, not bold enough to give him the same lecherous once-over.

‘I like your shirt.' It's patterned with an unusual green and white latticework.

‘Yeah?' He twists his arm and inspects the sleeve, pleased. ‘I got it made when I was in China. Just picked the fabric and gave it to a tailor.'

‘Oh yeah! When were you in China?'

We wander through the garden and out the front gate, chatting. About the Chinese, Indos and travel. I jump on the motorbike behind him. His hair is pulled into a sun-bleached ponytail. It smells washed.

‘Hold on,' he says.

I rest my fingers lightly on his stomach.

‘Nah,' he says, ‘hold on!'

We head for the mountains. As we climb, I lift my face to the sky. There's something blissful about letting someone else be in control, especially when they're a good rider. I've had some horrific experiences as a passenger in Bali. I slid under a car on Jalan Legian with my mad Japanese schoolmate Haruki. The side of my knee and shoulder were left sticking to the asphalt. But nothing close to this ever happened with Josh. He refused to even get on a motorbike, insisted on hiring a car and driver whenever we went anywhere.

I rest my cheek on Matt's back.

The air becomes cooler. Vines and trees with flat, dark leaves make a tunnel over the road. Every now and then the vegetation breaks, revealing blue, twilit valleys, kilometres wide. My imagination goes wild; the last Sumatran tigers are in there, moving silky and dangerous through the undergrowth. There are remote villages hidden among the trees; dukuns murmuring magic in lightless shacks; the fabled and feared hairy people, goat people.

Matt says something over his shoulder.

‘What!?'

‘There's a waterfall near here. And some hot springs. We should check 'em after the party.'

We pass a cluster of daft dancing children: they flick purple tongues and blind eyes after us. Then, as we near a pile of durians on the side of the road, Matt swings off onto a dirt track. The track leads to a house ringed with wooden balconies and lit with kerosene lamps. He cuts the engine and we both sit for a moment, staring at the lights. The walls of the house are made of glass and from here all we can see are the silhouettes of hips
and chins. Matt suddenly seems reluctant. Then someone on the balcony notices him.

‘Matthew!' comes a feminine squeal.

He groans, just audibly, just loud enough for me to hear.

‘Let's do it,' he says.

‘Right.'

We walk up the pathway together, arm hairs touching.

‘Matthew!' A suntanned Kiwi chick flicks away a half-smoked cigarette and throws herself at him. I stand back, look into the house. There are about twenty people all up, not few enough to be intimate, but not quite enough to be raucous. They're spread through the main living area and spill across the balcony. At one end of the balcony two Indonesian men flip fish and squid. There are only a couple of other Indonesians among the guests.

A man nearby steps forward, introduces himself as Dennis. At first glance he looks as though he should be attending an IT function in Perth. He wears thick-rimmed glasses, his hair is thinning black, and flakes of dandruff chase his neckline. But subverting the nine-to-five nerd image are the telltale signs of tropical wear: deltas of sun lines from the corners of his eyes, skinny protein-deprived wrists and an earth-coloured sarong that falls from his hips. I learn Dennis is in his forties and that he worked as an English teacher in Bandar Lampung where he met Meri, a local girl from Batu Batur. He's been here for seven years and teaches English a couple of days a week at one of the primary schools. For three months each year he goes back to Melbourne to work and save up enough money to support his family for the next year.

‘That's my wife over there.' He points to a middle-aged woman in bulging jeans, chatting to another Indonesian woman.

‘Do you reckon you'll stay here for a long time?' I ask. ‘Don't you miss home?'

‘Home? God no, Australia's not home! I can't get back here quick enough. When I first return to Aus after eight months here, I smile at people on the streets and chat to people on the train to work. It takes me a couple of weeks to readjust. Some of the looks I get, Jesus, you'd think I was a convicted paedophile or something.'

Without the tan and sarong, in a winter-subdued city at home, perhaps Dennis would seem like a man too eager for friendship, acceptance, belonging.

‘No, this is my home now.'

I understand him; understand the discord of dual belonging. Sometimes I wish Mum had never let me move over to Bali to live with Dad when I was fifteen. Not that it was her fault, she didn't have much choice. It was either that or lose me completely. I was bored shitless at school and wagged every second day to go surfing or hang out at the skatepark. But fifteen is a terrible, impressionable age and that time with Dad shifted something within me. Friends who went on high school exchange, to Canada, to France, to Japan, say the same. They too are still pulled to these places, still feel like they have some kind of unfinished business, difficult to define.

Behind me, Matt's brushing off the Kiwi's giggles.

I'm curious as to how Dennis experiences Batu Batur, especially given the tensions. ‘Matt said things have been a bit unsettled – that the locals haven't been that friendly toward the expats. Do you find that, given that your wife's from here?'

He looks at me keenly. ‘It's interesting you ask. I think when you're a foreigner here, there's always some level of resentment. Because at the end of the day you're privileged. You've got money. It's as simple as that. But then just recently, I had four students pull out of my primary class and so I'm beginning to think there's something more to it.'

‘What happened?'

‘Many of the kids here don't get to high school, so it's not unusual to lose some early. But my wife thinks the kids' parents aren't happy their children are being taught by a bule. Probably Shane has a bit to answer for; he hasn't made us popular. Have you heard the latest?'

The man addresses his question to Matt and I turn so he can be included in our conversation. Matt's aftershave smells like lacquer and sandalwood.

‘I haven't heard anything,' says Matt.

‘This morning one of the mosques couldn't broadcast dawn prayer. They say Shane crept over to the mosque on his belly and cut off the electricity.'

Surely not, surely the rumour is too absurd, too dangerous to be true.

‘Shane's a dickhead but I don't think he would be
that
stupid,' Matt says. ‘It was probably just a power cut.'

‘I tend to agree. But Meri heard that the cord to the loudspeaker had been severed.'

‘It could've been backpackers. Or maybe rats.'

‘Yes, that's possible.'

There's a pause, then Dennis asks, ‘What brings you to Batu Batur? Are you travelling, on holiday?'

‘Work.'

Matt's eyes have been prowling the crowd; now they snap back to me. I didn't
think
he heard me the other night at the bakso stand when I told him I'd just moved here. ‘Oh yeah? What kind of work?'

I hesitate. ‘I've got a job working for Shane.'

‘Shane?' Dennis asks incredulously. ‘
Shane
Shane?'

‘Yeah, well, good luck with that,' Matt adds, but his cynicism is tempered with concern. ‘I reckon we should go inside and get
a drink, eh? There's some stuff about Shane you probably should know. Will you excuse us, mate?'

He puts a firm hand on my shoulder blade and moves me inside to the drinks table. But there we become separated and the next couple of hours are a blur of conversations. My limbs liquefy, tongue loosens, heart rises to a giddy gorgeous state of drunk. I sweep around, meeting and mingling and feeling mad. An old German anthropologist and a fiery Dutchwoman own the house and have filled it with an eclectic range of artefacts: moth-wing lanterns, rare Indonesian textiles, gossiping Javanese puppets, skulls of monkeys and people. It's the kind of house I want one day, textured, a feast for the senses. And the guests are worldly, well read, entirely more thoughtful than the German and English backpackers I meet at work. Everyone seems to have a touch of the misfit about them, is searching for (or have found) a lifestyle, a belonging, they can't find at home.

At some point the Kiwi appears. ‘So where did you meet Matthew?'

Not hi, what's your name, nice to meet you. The gin rises in me like a thin white whip.

‘Actually I met him a couple of days ago. At a bakso stand. Have you guys known each other long?'

‘What,' she rasps, blowing smoke over my shoulder, ‘you eat that shit?'

‘Yeah, I don't mind bakso.'

Someone once told me it was goats' balls in soup.

‘Do you even know what's in the bakso here?'

‘Goats' balls?'

‘You're eating rats!' She's furious with my nonchalance. ‘I bet Matt didn't eat any, bet he just watched!'

A few years ago in Bali a bunch of people got crook from rat poison. No-one could figure out how. Perhaps it was from the
bakso. Inwardly I shudder. ‘Oh well, it tasted okay to me,' I say.

Just as the Kiwi begins to respond, there's the rev and roar of motorbikes outside. It'd have to be close to midnight. I half turn my face toward one of the windows.

Gunshots.

The glass webs fast with cracks.

‘Shit!' screams the Kiwi, diving to her belly.

I do the same. Outside, over the sound of engines, voices jeer, ‘Bule! Eh bule!'

There's a hail of glass, another crack. I hold my breath, feel my lips against the grain of the wood, feel the grain of the wood against the pulse in my thumbs, think: play dead and keep your eyes shut, play dead and keep still. I send my mind to every part of my body, sure I've been shot, certain I'm in shock and just can't feel it yet. The sound of motorbikes recedes and is replaced by music, something Franz and Adalie chose for the party. Papuan, drums. No-one's speaking, no-one's screaming. I open an eye. The Kiwi opens an eye-shadowed eye. She meets my look of terror then slowly raises her head. When she doesn't get shot, I follow. The others stir, whisper, stir to their feet. I shuffle my legs. I haven't been hit, but there's a lake of glass on the inside of the window frames.

I scramble to my feet. Several large rocks rest among the broken glass. The gunshots were rocks, weighed in hands, hurled with hate.

Outside, there are the fresh track marks of motorbikes in the loamy earth, the skin-prickling presence of the jungle.

On the way home, Matt doesn't say a word.

I'm more expressive in Indonesian. My face comes alive in a way it doesn't need to when I'm rustling through the bored, lazy vowels of Aussie English. It's because I don't have the vocabulary to express everything I want and so my eyes and hands give colour and nuance to the things I can't properly explain. And because it's such a perfect bubbling language for gossip, it invites a layering of tones and gesture, expressions of complicity, mockery, incredulity. When I'm talking with Indonesians I don't mind being over the top to get my point across, but the presence of other bules always makes me feel uncomfortable, exaggerated.

‘Did anyone see who did it?' Ibu Ayu asks.

‘Nggak!'

The English guy throws me a look. The German girls ignore me, engrossed in a guidebook. The three of them are sprawled with relaxed indifference.

I lower my voice, say again no, no I don't think anyone saw who did it. Ibu Ayu's face glumly sweats.

‘Hopefully it's not like the bombing in Jakarta,' she says finally. ‘You see what it's like here. Almost empty. Barely any tourist. Especially not Australian. They go Thailand, Vietnam. Somewhere else. They think Indonesia too dangerous. It will be no good for my business if news gets out.'

‘It was probably just kids.'

‘But not kid from Batu Batur,' Ibu's tone is short. ‘Definitely not kid from here.' She pushes back her chair. ‘Lagi?' she asks, gesturing to my coffee.

‘Sure.'

Ibu gets to her feet, takes an order for tea from the backpackers, and barks at Cahyati as she passes the kitchen.

I tilt my coffee glass on its side, watch the slide of sludge. I crashed as soon as Matt dropped me home, but my dreams were turbulent. Matt chased me with a gun. Josh cooked up a pan of gourmet ears, ‘For bakso,' he said. Again and again through the night I woke sweaty and sick-mouthed and frantic. I steady the glass. It's going to be one of those days when even coffee can't shift the exhaustion.

I wonder what the rock throwing was about, whether it was deliberately linked to whoever sabotaged dawn prayer. Perhaps it was about a general dislike of the bules here, tourists included. We blow in, start our own businesses, pay the locals a pittance and then seal ourselves off in air-conditioned capsules, living above and beyond anything the average fisherman could ever hope for. It's pretty easy to see how this could be a cause of conflict. On top of this, most young Aussies who head to Bali for a holiday cut loose: end up doing things they wouldn't dare do at home. Just two weeks ago I was in a police chase for not wearing a helmet or shoes. The police waved me down but I'd had a few beers – okay, eight beers – and was feeling impulsive. Headphones on, rental bike throbbing between my thighs, throttle wrist taut, no, there was no way I was going to stop. They didn't catch me. All these factors could be a cause of conflict. Then again, perhaps there are bigger issues at play. The Bali bombings were only a couple of years ago. There was a bombing outside the Marriott Hotel last year. And in September, less than three months ago, a car bomb exploded
outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. That's a pretty clear indication of animosity toward Westerners. Are the tensions spin-offs from this? Does Jemaah Islamiya, the Islamic militant group claiming responsibility for these bombings, have inroads, connections or influence in Batu Batur? Surely if they do they'd be more militant – would have homemade bombs or guns instead of rocks. I can't help but feel ashamed. To be stoned. To be told to fuck off with
rocks
!