Red Dot Irreal (9 page)

Kopi Luwak

It took two hours from the resort in Nusa Dua, two hours in a cramped minivan—Troy couldn’t believe how uncomfortable, he’d paid enough money for this fucking trip, they couldn’t have brought a town car?—listening to the expressive Balinese tour guide go on and on about the cultural heritage of his island and all of the things tourists could do, blah blah blah, Troy only grunting acknowledgment as Sudra pointed out the carved stone statues at each traffic junction or roundabout, garuda birds or demonic warriors or gentle buddhas, their stone waists wrapped in the plaid sarongs of red and white and black that represented the trinity of Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva, protectors against car crashes or motobike collisions, talismans that incredibly seemed to work as the selfsame motobikes zipped between cars and weaved around vehicles and never slowed down. Troy only half-noticed Sudra’s observation of the many roadside stalls selling jackfruits or mangosteens or snakeskin fruits, or off-label fizzy drinks, or glass bottles filled with petrol mixed with kerosene, or of the packs of roving stray dogs that owned the sidewalks.

The minivan slowed in the heavy traffic of the two-lane highway, and gangs of itinerant newspaper sellers pressed their wares against the vehicle’s windows. “These bad men,” Sudra said. “Do not buy from them, Mr Troy. Very sneaky. Paste dates from new editions onto old papers. These men not native Balinese like me, but from Java, Sumatra, like that. You want newspaper, best to buy from supermarket, yeah?”

Sudra made notice of the roosters that occasionally wandered onto the road, and explained how lucrative cockfighting was in Bali. His brother, Sudra claimed, owned a prize rooster, imported from the Philippines and trained up as the quickest and most lethal of its kind in all of Denpassar, an expert at the manipulation of its leg blades; it was thus far undefeated, and the money made from betting on the fights (minus the fee to the local authorities to look the other way) had made his brother a tidy sum.

“Where are all the cats?” Troy asked, regretting instantly any engagement with the tour guide. He greatly preferred to avoid the chit-chat and proceed to his destination in peace.

But Sudra grinned his flawless smile and said, “Some cats in Bali, but we take care of them, keep them inside and safe. Cats very special here.” To Troy’s surprise, this was all Sudra had to say on the subject.

A period of relative quiet as the traffic eased and the landscape rolled by, then, “Lots of temples in Bali, yeah?” Sudra said. “Majority of people Hindu like me, ninety-five percent, but also believe in magic. Rocks have magic, trees have magic, water have magic. Must make offerings to the gods and spirits for good luck, long life.”

“Is that so.” Troy stared out the window as Sudra turned in his seat to face him. Why couldn’t this guy just shut the fuck up already?

“Must make offering from your heart. Can make at home shrine or public temple or both. Hope the gods hear you. I am not that superstitious, but still I offer flowers and incense before any journey, like today. So Mr Troy, you have children?”

“No.”

“I see, I see. You not married, yeah?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Where you from? Australia, is it?”

Troy reached in his pocket for his inhaler, brought it to his mouth, and took two quick puffs, knowing it wouldn’t last, that any relief he gained from his stressed alveoli would be short-lived. Wasn’t this why he was making this hellish journey in the first place?

“Look, I appreciate you wanting to fill the time, but I’d rather like some quiet, okay? The flight here was exhausting, and I’d like to just do what I came here to do and then go back home. Okay?”

“Yes, yes, sure, Mr Troy, is okay. Whatever you want.” Sudra turned back around in the front seat and mumbled some words in Bahasa Bali to the driver on his right, who responded and shook his head.

They passed through Ubud, and all the small workshops there that specialized in goldsmithing, silversmithing, stone-carving, wood-carving, painted art, metal sculpture, and batik. All this creativity and artistic expression aimed solely at the tourism industry.

“I should say, Mr Troy,” Sudra said, “Bali be nothing without tourists come here for holiday and buy souvenirs. Is very important you are here.”

At the halfway point, Sudra had the driver slow down and pull into a gravel car park in front of a chain link fence. On the other side of the fence: a profusion of plant life, a miniature jungle teeming with green.

“Why are we stopping?”

“This a nice coffee plantation, can sample different kinds of coffee grown right here in Bali, for free, wake you up a bit. If you like, can buy some home. Also got toilet, yeah, and can stretch your legs. Nice place.”

“Fine.” Troy opened the door and stepped out, his legs and back complaining, goddamn cramped vehicle, and then he followed Sudra through the gap in the fence and down a labyrinthine pathway, barely noticing as the guide pointed out banana and mangosteen trees, cinnamon as big around as his waist, cocoa pods the size of his head, coffee trees with clumps of immature green berries. In a mesh cage paced a ferret-looking creature, fur sleek and brown, snout pointed.

“This a civet cat,” Sudra said. “You have heard of, yes?”

“No. Why? Should I have?”

“Oh, Mr Troy, civet cat very important in Balinese coffee trade. Eats the coffee berries up in the trees along with the coffee beans inside. Partially digests the beans and then expels them. Clean the beans and roast them, gives you strong fruity-flavored coffee. We call
kopi luwak
. Luxury item, brings in much money.”

“You mean to say that you drink coffee brewed from beans that’ve been
shat
out of a cat?”

“No, I no drink, too expensive for simple Balinese like me. But others drink, in Europe, in US, in your home Australia. Can try if you want.”

“I’m
not
from—look, that’s disgusting. I do
not
want to try that. Just point me to the toilets and let’s get back on the road again.”

“Very well, Mr Troy. Down that way, just follow the signs.”

Troy found the toilets, barely more than outhouses, no plumbing, not even toilet paper, just a bucket of water and a dipper, and he was glad he didn’t have to do more than piss, what the fuck was wrong with these people anyway? Shook off, zipped up, slammed the door open then closed, followed the pathway back to where Sudra was chatting with one of the plantation’s workers, an attractive young local woman maybe only five feet tall. Back out of the labyrinth, exit in sight, the way blocked by more hassle, aggressive touters of representational wooden sculptures and paper kites, so Troy pushed through them as if they weren’t even there, ignoring their calls in fractured English, looking straight ahead until he reached the minivan and crammed himself back inside.

Back on the road again, and Troy could tell Sudra was getting annoyed with him. He wasn’t buying into all of the Balinese mysticism bullshit, not spending money like a good little tourist consumer, and why should he? Troy was here for one reason. Fuck the rest. He pulled on his inhaler again.

Gradually the journey became an uphill climb, and the shops and stalls and internet cafés and Yamaha dealerships soon gave way to breathtaking scenery. Greenery as far as Troy could see, mountains and ravines covered with palms and banyans and bamboo and dozens of other kinds of trees, unmarred by electrical lines or buildings or mobile phone towers, capped at the very top by Mount Batur, an active volcano at the heart of Kintamani. The driver pulled into the car park of a gigantic restaurant called Maharaja and applied the parking brake.

“Are we here?” Troy asked. “Have we finally arrived?”

“Not quite yet, Mr Troy.” Sudra turned in his seat, raised a squirt bottle, and sprayed Troy in the face with a fine yellow mist. Immediately, Troy’s vision blurred, his eyes heavy. Before completely losing consciousness, he heard Sudra say, “Last part of the journey is known only to Balinese. This more kind than a blindfold.”

When Troy awoke, he was lying flat on his back in a beach chair, but on no beach. He seemed to be in some subterranean cavern that stretched far up above him into the darkness. A damp salty smell permeated the air of the cave, as if the ocean were nearby, though no waves could be heard. Troy could detect no light source, though the cave glowed with an eerie blue luminescence.

Sudra and an older Balinese woman stepped into view. The woman wore a simple white sarong and a high-collared blouse, dressed like an air hostess or one of the hotel staff back at the resort on Nusa Dua, her hair pulled back severely into a bun. She was slim and petite, back stiff and straight, and she stared at Troy with crazy intensity. Her eyes glowed the same blue of the cave, either reflection or their own glow, and Troy felt tingles crawling up and down his spine. He was acutely aware of his present vulnerability; although she was the sort of woman he’d normally be attracted to, if she weren’t scaring him out of his wits.

“Where have you brought me? What the fuck is this?”

From behind her back the woman produced a lit cigarette, then took a long pull and blew a plume of smoke in Troy’s face, a not entirely unpleasant combination of tobacco and cloves and something else he couldn’t quite place. Sage? Marijuana? And why was he so focused on the cigarette smoke, now dispersed, rather than trying to appear tough, or flee, or otherwise take charge of the situation?

Sudra said, “My friend’s name is Nyoman. She has what you need.”

The woman snapped her fingers without averting her gaze, and a flock of small birds descended en masse from the darkness, swooping and diving and passing only inches from Troy’s face, starlings or swallows or some other type of bird starting with S, completely silent but for the flapping of wings and the whoosh of displaced air. Faster and faster in their chaotic flight, and now Troy could feel wingtips brush his cheeks, quick pit-pit-pits that rose in frequency and intensity until it felt as if the tiny birds were slapping him silly, over and over and over again, and he was only vaguely aware that he was making a high keening sound in the back of his throat, barely surprised at all when Nyoman closed the distance between them, bent down without a single bird touching her, and kissed Troy hard on the lips. Her tongue forced his mouth open, and she expelled the smoke mixture deep into his lungs, exhaling and exhaling until Troy felt as if his chest might burst, and then she abruptly pulled away. He let the magical breath out slowly, and as if on cue, the birds erupted upwards, returning to their roosts above.

“There, Mr Troy,” Sudra said, “your asthma now cured.” He spritzed Troy in the face once again before Troy could protest.

When he awoke this time, he was in his bed at the Melia Bali resort, the ceiling fan lazily spinning above him. His muscles groaned as he sat up. On the counter next to the television was a small basket of local fruit and a note that read: “We hope you have enjoyed your experience, and that you will recommend us to others. Very important: every morning you must offer flowers and incense to the gods as thanks for this gift. Fail and you risk their wrath. Best wishes for a safe flight home, Sudra.”

That last part sent a shiver up Troy’s legs and into his buttocks, but then he took a deep breath, inhaling deeper than he’d ever been able to before, and instead of hitting that wall which led to a coughing fit and a sore throat, he kept going, filling his lungs with gorgeous cleansing Balinese air until he felt as if he might float away from the lightness of his being. The world filled with brightness, colors intensified, the buttery deepness of the hotel room’s teak furniture, the soft blues of the wall paint, the aching greenness of the flora outside his window. A moment of transcendence, as if viewing the world through a wide-angle lens encompassing the connections to the life all around him, and then he exhaled, slowly, through his nostrils.

After his return to Seattle, Troy set up a small shrine on his bedroom dresser, and every morning filled a small woven basket the size of an ashtray with blossoms of frangipani, bougainvillea, and marigolds, the same flowers he’d seen offered in the doorways and shop entrances he’d passed by in Bali, bought from the exotic florist’s down the street from his condo. He lit a stick of sweet-smelling incense and said some generic words of thanks under his breath. He kept this up for a month, his employees at the payday lending business remarking at Troy’s youthful vitality, asking if he’d lost weight, or was taking new vitamins, or had gotten laid in the tropics. Even Sheila, his assistant manager, who’d never before taken a non-professional interest in him, made some suggestive comments that led to nights of what Troy could only think of as rough sex. More confident, more relaxed, more happy.

But then life got in the way. He spent more time at work, expanding his business to more locations, and more time with Sheila, and he forgot about his morning offerings. He caught himself the first few times, making sure to assemble his blossoms and petals at night, but then the prices of exotic flowers rose, and he just got tired of doing it. Fuck it, he thought, was he expected to give thanks every day for the rest of his life? He’d done it solidly for a month, that was good enough, and he had more important things to do.

One night, after a week of spending his money on other things, like fancy dinners and sweets and little gifts for Sheila, as he lay in his bed next to her, worn out once again from a bout of strenuous fucking, he began to cough. It started as a tickle in the back of his throat, just an irritant really, then progressed down his esophagus and deep into his lungs. Troy hacked and sputtered, frightened by the wet splattery thwacking sound in his chest, astonished that Sheila had not woken to his struggle, wishing she could pound him on the back, his stomach muscles clenching painfully, his throat scraped with ground glass, until a wisp of bluish smoke emerged from between his lips, trickling out at first, then gushing forth in a torrent, filling the room with the smell of tobacco and cloves and possibly sage or marijuana, drifting up to the ceiling like storm clouds and even producing static electricity like miniature heat lightning, before dissipating and leaving behind the tinge of ozone.