Jalan Jalan (3 page)

‘It's OK. Very hungry,' I say, and instead of my chest, I pat my gut. ‘Very, very hungry.'

‘Oh, gooood.' The big toothy smile is back. ‘Good food here.' And he brings over the bag and plonks it on the desk in front of me.

‘Noodles.'

‘Thank you Epool.'

‘No. Not Epool. Epool.'

‘Epool?' I can hear no difference.

‘Wait, please.' He takes a pen from the desk next to mine and pushes it down hard on a piece of paper. He starts moving the nib slowly and carefully across it.

I look at the finished piece, a little scratchy and wobbly but a word, a name, has made it out of the pen.

‘Ah, Iqpal.'

‘Yes, yes.' He slaps me on the back and then double slaps his chest. ‘Iqpal.'

‘Nice to meet you, Iqpal.' I offer him my hand. He looks at it as if he's being given a present and then shakes it like it's made of porcelain.

‘Iqpal.' Pak, sod the respect, is back talking Indonesian to my new friend. Iqpal smiles and nods at me, then runs off to do whatever it is Pak has just told him to do.

I wonder what time they finish working here. The clock on the wall clicks to nine fifty-one, which is two fifty-one in the afternoon back home. I yawn. I haven't slept in over a day and a half.

‘Come. I will take you to your house.'

House? That sounds promising. I pick up my bag of noodles and the folder off my desk and follow Pak back to his car.

‘Where are the other teachers?' I ask as I climb back in, placing the food between my feet.

‘The driver has already taken them home. They left directly after class.'

‘A driver? What time does he pick up in the mornings?'

‘No pickup. Only take home. You must take a bus or taxi to work in the mornings. Taxi is safer.'

We slide off the forecourt into the slow-moving traffic. Pak starts beeping his horn and steers the car in any direction he sees an opening. Multicoloured cycle-rickshaws are steered out of the way at full leg-power by skinny men in dirty shorts, T-shirts, and sweat-stained caps. They ring their bells and shout while taking hands off handlebars to shake fists.

‘How will I find the bus?'

‘You are sharing with Kim, another teacher. Kim will tell you how to get to work. Don't worry.'

Don't worry? I put my head back against the rest and pretend I'm not worried. I look sideways at Pak, something dark and ugly is just under his skin, almost invisible. My gritty, weary mind slips sideways for a moment and anxiety soaks into the marrow of my bones like blood through a bandage.

We go to sleep.

His is surprisingly long and deep and dark. Nothing flashes behind his eyelids, no beautiful woman dances across his retinas, shedding clothes as she moves. Just sleep, like a taster of death.

And I sleep too, down in the snugness of his chest. But my sleep is fitful, broken and full of images, because that is what I am: a record of a life like an old cine film in a can, curled in on itself so frame lies upon frame upon frame, image doubled over image, from the outer edge of the spool to the tightest curl in the centre. A whole life stored away, but always available for late-night showings. Always ready for curtains to open on one of the countless moments of now.

Swoosh, almost silent, the curtains part to keep me from sound sleep. A short, but a classic, keeping me occupied while he snores.

I watch the scratchy lines move up and down and across the screen, the black-and-white numbers flash in countdown, focus the lens and there it is…

Her apartment: she stands with her back against the open door, one hand on the handle and the other ushering me in, as if she is showing me a portal to a magical land.

‘Here we are,' she says.

I am gently spinning from alcohol and the closeness of her. I walk past as she holds the door open, aware of the sparks that jump from her to me and me to her. We are a Van de Graaff generator on heat.

There is a smell of patchouli and coffee in her apartment. A sofa, a rocking chair and small portable TV occupy the room. A rug keeps the wooden floor warm, and off to the right I see a kitchen hiding behind a wall and off to the left a bedroom winks.

‘Take a seat. That seat.' She points to the sofa with its pair of big red cushions and caress-me fabric. I do as I'm told.

‘Whisky?' She pulls off her hat and scarf and coat in a motion that is so quick it baffles me. Am I that wasted that time is playing its tricks with me?

‘It's all I have, so it's all you're getting.' And she is sucked into a flashing white light in the kitchen.

I watch my fingers play an invisible miniature set of drums on the arm of the sofa. Then a glass is pushed into my hand. An inch of light-golden liquid sloshes drunkenly around its base while a fat and half-melted candle on the coffee table is lit. A body falls onto the sofa next to me and my shoulder is touching hers. Static builds. I run a hand through my hair to make sure it's not standing on end. The warmth from the whisky runs down my neck and through my stomach.

‘So?' she says, curling her legs up under her.

‘So?' say I.

‘It was a good day.'

‘It was.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Thank you.'

I swirl my whisky around the glass and then my mouth and then my head.

I look at her and she is staring at her knees and the teacup of scotch which she holds there. Her eyes are glazed and flicker in the candlelight and she is smiling.

‘A very good day,' she says and looks at me and my heart detaches itself from its veins and arteries and tumbles down into my stomach, where it lies stunned, before jumping back and reattaching all its life support.

She looks like she saw it happen.

‘Kiss me,' she says.

I kiss her.

She dances across my eyes, shedding clothes as she moves.

HELLO GOODBYE

W
hen
I awake at some point before dawn, there is a voice nearby, its song undulating, growing stronger with the changing light. From further off another two voices travel across the city to me, melodies added to the main theme. It is a human dawn chorus that rises from nothing to something beautiful. It winds its way around my senses and holds me to my bed. I don't expect it. I have never considered it and its appearance surprises me. I am just here, without expectations or any real knowledge of this country. I have come only out of the need to be rid of my past and with no thought for where that expulsion has taken me. That is why, when the muezzin starts, and other voices join in and fall across the city with the rising sun's light, I cry. I cry due to the unexpected and simple beauty of the song.

There again it might not just be the call to prayer that makes me cry; it could partly be due to the close call to vomiting from a few hours ago. Maybe too much beer on spicy noodles in an unsteady stomach, maybe too much grass. That could the reason for my tears—strong, strong grass. This is yesterday:

Pak takes me to my new home. He introduces me to Kim and Kim to me. Kim is a man. A Californian man, mid-thirties, tall, in a brown flower-patterned shirt. Pak leaves as soon as he can. He has to be somewhere else. Kim closes the door behind him. My new house is open-plan and cool, white tiled floor, big-cushioned armchairs with wooden armrests, a muted TV showing a small and chubby Asian-American beating up four men in suits with swift and precise movements of an umbrella. There's a kitchen along one wall and a dining table in front of a window and door to a concrete garden. Four more doors lead off the main room. This is my home.

‘Fuuuuuuccckk. That man is such a fucking fuck, man.' Kim sits in a chair and puts his long legs out over the small table in front of him. He hits the volume on the remote. ‘Make yourself at fucking home, man.'

I drag my travel-tired rucksack across the tiles, opening doors until I find a room that isn't a toilet, a shower or a bedroom with Kim's dirty underwear sniffing the floor. In my room are two single beds; only one is made up, the other still has a plastic cover on the mattress. I lay my rucksack on the unmade bed. Fumbling deep inside one of its pockets I find the pebble. It is smooth and comfortable in my palm. It's the only thing I've allowed myself. The only memory I've brought. No photos, no other souvenirs of her, just this pebble. I turn it in my hand, swallow down hard on the two of them who stir at the feel of it and return it back to the pocket. I give my bag a pat.

‘Sleep well.'

I go back and flop in an armchair next to Kim.

The chubby Asian-American on TV is now giving life-changing advice to a small blond American boy, while Indonesian subtitles translate along the bottom of the screen.

‘Yeah, go Sammo. Tell that white boy how to be good. I fucking love Sammo. Beats the shit out of people with toilet rolls and fucking bananas and things like that and is sooo fucking wise.'

I nod. Sammo does look wise.

‘Do you smoke?' Kim asks me.

Not much. Not recently. Not since Laura.

How much pain have I been in? Too much to remember I'm an addict. I have never once thought about smoking again. Now I remember I am an addict, I want one.

‘Yes. Are they Marlboro?'

‘No, not these, man.' He waves his brown cigarette under my nose, and for some reason the pungent smell of it makes me think of apple pie. ‘But you can have one if you want.'

‘Cheers.' I take one and light it. The return of a forgotten comfort, long-time banished. Too pissed off and demented to remember the deadly old habit. It hits my throat like a saw and I cough. Smoke swirls around us like a mist. The sweet smell of scented tobacco hangs in the stillness of the warm and humid evening.

‘Kretek cigarette, man. Strongest cigs in the world.'

‘Tastes like it.' I know why the smell reminds me of apple pie. Cloves. The taste is surprisingly strong and it's suddenly soothing my throat, taking the teeth off the saw. My coughing subsides. ‘But very good.' The clove coats my tongue while the tar slides into my lungs.

‘Anyway I didn't mean smoke man, I meant smoooke. Do you smoooke?'

I look blankly at Kim.

‘Smoke smoke. Smo-o-o-ke?'

‘Ah. Yes.' Comprehension arrives as I look at the roll-ups mixed in with normal butts in the ashtray. ‘Sometimes.'

With this Kim pulls a Frisbee from under his chair. It overflows with dangerous-looking green-brown foliage.

‘I don't usually share, man, but as you're new.'

Kim rolls, no tobacco added, and we smoke.

And now I lie in my bed crying, listening to men singing out across the rooftops, welcoming me to the first full day of my new life. Men who may never have met, yet their voices interweave with the others to harmonise as though members of the same choir; which I guess they are. The voices stop and the silence is sudden.

I am lying with my head to the mosquito-netted open window. There must be a hole in it somewhere as a small lump on my thigh asks to be scratched. From where I lie I can see the top of a wall and a thin strip of sky. Day arrives quickly. The room changes from dark to light as the night is edged out. When the arrival of day is complete, I'm surrounded by varying off-white shades of the walls and floor tiles. I look at my watch: quarter past six. I've had maybe six hours' sleep. I try to recall the conversation with Kim, but nothing comes. A moment of life lost to magical foliage.

I wonder why Laura hasn't made an appearance yet and then push the thought aside. I get off the bed and busy myself with finding my pants. My bed cover is in a ball on the floor. The sheet I was lying on is damp with my sweat. Something small and bloodthirsty buzzes by my ear, close enough to make my spine shiver. This place is hot. And I want a cigarette. That is a morning need I haven't had for a while. I must have smoked everything to hand last night. The nicotine needs topping up. Re-infected already. Easier to catch than a cold.

I pull on dirty clothes that stick to my body like gritty cling film and leave the room.

The lounge stinks of overflowing ashtray and a sweet smell of burnt exotic plants. Kim has left a packet of Indonesian cigarettes on the table. I accept my re-addiction and take one. There's a lighter down the back of the chair. I go out the front door. A small tiled garden, hemmed in by a white wall and black metal gate, separates the house from the small and traffic-free road. The sun has risen quickly and the sky is white-blue. Lines of silver sunlight pour between the leaves and branches of a tree that holds yellow-green fruit. Mango, maybe. I pick one, roll it over in my hands and take a bite. Whatever it is, it isn't ripe. I spit it out, put the cigarette in my mouth and light it. The taste of clove and bonfires. I'm not keen on clove, it ruins apple pies, but the bonfire is OK. It sets fire to my lungs and the coughing rattles the dope hangover out of my head.

‘Keep it fucking down, man. Fuuck.'

The voice comes from the window behind me. Kim must be in there somewhere behind the mosquito mesh. There's still more coughing to come so I open the gate and step onto the street where I let it out. I look at the cigarette.