The Paradise Guest House (19 page)

They crossed the street and moved toward the door. A few photographers stood in front of the crowd. Gabe was shocked when a light flashed and a camera clicked.

“Stop!” he yelled at the young man with the camera.

“Were you in the bombing?” a woman at his side called out. She held a notebook and pen in her hands. “Will you answer a few questions?”

“Leave us alone,” Gabe said as he snaked an arm around Jamie’s waist, pulling her close to him. “Let’s move fast,” he murmured, hurrying her through the crowd.

Inside the airport, more lights flashed in their eyes.

“Stop!” Gabe shouted.

Jamie buried her face in his arm. He heard her grunt in pain—she must have pressed against her wound. He maneuvered her carefully through the crowd, knocking one photographer out of the way with his elbow.

Beyond the army of journalists was a crowd of travelers, almost all Westerners, and the room buzzed with noise. The chaos was electric—the crowd too tight, the energy too agitated. A loudspeaker barked announcements in Indonesian, and the sound was filled with static. Some people raised their voices over the din, and something crashed to the floor—a camera, perhaps—causing a few people to cry out.

Jamie pushed hard against Gabe and moaned. He let go for a quick second and felt her slip away. When he spun around to catch her, she was gone. He called her name, but the crowd closed in around him and noise filled up all the space in the room.

“Move!” he yelled, pushing through the crowd. He looked toward the doors but didn’t see her. He scrambled toward the front wall, then stood on a chair to get a better view. There were people in every direction, cameras flashing, shouts and cries. Had she already made it out the door?

Then he saw her, farther down along the front wall, huddled on the floor. She looked like a child in hiding. Her good
arm was wrapped around her knees, and her head was tucked into the angle of her cast.

He leapt from the chair and ran toward her.

“Jamie!”

She closed herself into a ball, her body rocking.

“We’re going back,” Gabe said, his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up. Her face was pale and she was shivering.

“To the cottage,” he told her. “Please. Come with me.”

She stood and leaned against him. He wrapped his arm around her, and they made their way to the front door and out of the terminal.

“Are you sleeping?” he whispered.

“No,” she said.

“Can I come sit in here?”

“I’d like that.”

Gabe walked into the bedroom. The room was dark, but he could see the silhouette of his chair by the window in the waxing moonlight. He sat down, barely able to make out the shape of Jamie’s body under the blankets, her head on the pillow. Only the white bandage caught the light and seemed to glow.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked.

“A little bit.”

“I can’t sleep,” Gabe said.

“You said it would get easier,” Jamie told him, her voice soft in the dark. “It’s all getting harder.”

“Maybe we’re not ready yet.”

“You, too?”

“Me, too.”

They were quiet for a moment, and then Jamie whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Gabe said. “It was awful. It was chaos in there.”

“No. The chaos is in my mind. Not in the airport.”

“It’s in my mind, too.”

In the quiet of the room, Gabe heard the rustle of a gecko scampering along a wall.

“Thank you,” she finally said.

“For what?”

“You make me feel a little less crazy.”

“Or we’re both fucking nuts.”

“Probably.”

“Did you call your mother?”

“Yes. I told her I’ll try again in a couple of days.”

“Good.”

“What will you do?” Jamie asked.

“When?”

“When you don’t have me to worry about anymore.”

“I’ll go back to Ubud.”

“It’s all the same?”

“Nothing’s the same.”

“I like this.”

“What?”

“Talking in the dark. I can barely see you sitting there.”

“We need some stillness in our lives right now.”

“When the camera flashes went off—”

“I know.”

“There was an amazing light after the bombs exploded. Everything went white. And then it all changed to black.”

She was quiet, and Gabe let the silence fill the room.

“I was walking toward the club when it happened. It was surreal: I didn’t feel scared—maybe we watch too many violent movies—but for a weird moment or two it didn’t seem dangerous. And then I saw people fleeing the building. They were torn apart, covered in blood. One guy was missing an arm.” She paused, catching her breath. “I ran in there while everyone was running out. I had to find Miguel.”

“The second bomb went off in the street,” Gabe said. “Probably close to where you’d been standing. If you hadn’t run in, you might have been killed.”

Jamie didn’t respond. Gabe fought an urge to move to the bed so he could rest a hand on her foot.

“Then all those people who ran out—” she said, and stopped.

“The second bomb was bigger,” he told her.

“They wanted people to run into the street and get killed?”

“Maybe.”

“Damn them,” Jamie muttered. But she sounded more weary than angry.

Gabe waited.

“I was trying to find Miguel,” she finally said, “but there were people dying everywhere. I couldn’t leave them. I couldn’t just run past them.”

“You saved a lot of lives.”

“Maybe if I got to him sooner—”

“You probably couldn’t have saved him.”

“He was twenty-seven years old. He was beautiful. He wanted to climb Kilimanjaro next year. He wanted—”

“He wanted you.”

“He would have found someone else to love.”

Gabe thought about Jamie’s shoulder, tan and smooth. He
wanted to run his fingers over her skin. When he thought of Miguel, he hated himself for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Until now Finn was the only one in my life who died.”

“Your giant dog.”

“Yes. I still miss her. One grandmother was dead before I was born. Everyone else is still alive. I don’t know anything about death.”

“And now you know too much.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. I have no right to be lying here in this pretty little room.”

“You have every right—”

“Why? Who are you to say that? Why did you save me and not someone else? Someone else died because you ran toward my voice. If you hadn’t carried me out of there and taken me away, you could have saved ten more lives. I’m alive and they’re all dead.”

“Jamie …”

Gabe sat for a long time in the dark. He listened to her breath ease, and soon she was sleeping. Still he sat there. When he looked out the window at one point, sometime in the middle of the night, he saw an animal perched on the table in the balé. Was it a cat? It had its nose in the bowl of leftover food from lunch, and it was happily feasting. Gabe imagined a dinner party of animals, filling the balé with their grunts and snorts. In the morning the food would be gone. The place would be a mess. And when Gabe and Jamie woke up, they would begin again.

“You are still here,” the woman in the pharmacy said.

“I live here,” Gabe told her again. “I’m not leaving.”

“Is your friend better?” the woman asked.

“She’s having a hard time,” he said. “I need more gauze and tape for her.”

The woman turned and walked into a back room. Gabe could see her reaching for a box on a nearly empty shelf.

“Our children are scared,” the woman said when she returned. “I have a little girl who cries every night. A boy in her class lost his father in the bombing. She thinks I will not come home from work one day, that everyone will die from a bomb.”

“My son,” Gabe said, and the sound of the words reverberated in the air. “My son saw a car accident once, and a man was lying in the street. He was probably dead. My wife was in the car—I was at work. My son asked me every night for almost a year if I would die.”

“What did you tell him?”

Gabe remembered the lemony smell of Ethan’s hair as he bent over to kiss him good night. The memory jolted him; it was as real as if he had buried his nose in the tangle of his son’s blond hair just moments before.

“I told him, ‘I’m here. I’m with you. I’m alive.’ ”

“Did that work?”

“Until the next day.”

“My husband thinks we are to blame for the terrorists’ actions. I think we did nothing wrong.”

“We didn’t,” he told her.

“So why do we suffer?”

Gabe pulled out his cash and handed some bills to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I talk too much.”

“It’s all right,” he told her. “I used to be a very private man. Suddenly I feel the need to talk to everyone, too.”

The woman smiled. Her smile revealed two dimples, and she looked like a shy schoolgirl.

“Come back and talk to me again sometime.”

“I will.”

Out on the street, Gabe gazed around. It was almost noon—Jamie had not yet come out of her room this morning. He would pick up food for lunch and then head back to the cottage. He would hope for an easier day.

He walked down the main street of Sanur and found a restaurant that was open. Tables were set up on the sidewalk, but they were all empty. He walked through the door and up to the bar.

“Can I order a couple of sandwiches to go?” he asked the bartender.

The young man with long blond dreads was downing a shot of something—tequila? He looked as if he’d been up all night and was nursing a hangover.

“We’re closing. Nobody’s here, man.”

“I’m here.”

“What are you doing here?” the kid asked, meeting Gabe’s eyes for the first time.

“I’d like two sandwiches. Whatever you’ve got.”

“I’m going back to a party I never should have left. Shit, man. This place is dead.”

The kid pulled a bottle of tequila from under the bar. He poured a shot for Gabe and another for himself.

“Bottoms up, brother,” he said, and pushed the shot glass across the bar to Gabe. Then he turned and walked unsteadily toward the kitchen.

Gabe surveyed the empty restaurant, then picked up the glass and drank the tequila in one quick swallow.

He felt a wave of fury at the bartender—for being drunk? For partying when the rest of Bali was suffering? He reached for the tequila bottle and poured another shot.

On the street, a Balinese woman walked by, her arms covered in sarongs. She must have given up on selling them at the beach. She walked slowly and heavily, her head low. Gabe imagined the hot sun beating on her back, the yards of fabric weighing her down.

“Groovy,” the bartender said.

Gabe turned toward the bar. His eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness after staring into the light—he couldn’t see the boy in front of him.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“Ham sandwiches. The cook said they’re on the house. It’s your lucky day.”

“It’s no one’s lucky day,” Gabe said. His eyes focused, and he could see the kid smirking in front of him.

“Bummer about that bombing thing, huh,” the boy said.

Gabe took a deep breath. “Why are you in Bali?”

“To surf, dude. What else?”

“You going surfing today?”

“Hell, yes.”

“You didn’t know anyone caught in the bombing, did you?”

“Nah. My buddies don’t hang at places like that. Skanks go there. Not the greatest loss to society, if you know what I mean.”

Gabe punched him. He did it before he even thought about it. His fist connected with the guy’s nose, and the kid stumbled back until he hit the wall. “What the fuck?”

Gabe walked out of the restaurant, leaving the sandwiches behind.

He found Jamie sitting on the patio. She looked at him, smiling, as he walked up the path.

“I made you a peace offering,” she said, pointing to the table in front of her. She had spread out an array of crackers, tapenade, and cheese. “I raided your friend’s pantry.”

“Nice,” Gabe said, smiling back at her.

“I even stole some wine,” she said.

“It will go well with my tequila,” he replied, sitting down in the wicker chair next to her.

“You had a morning tequila?”

“And then I punched a guy.”

“The mild-mannered reporter from Boston?”

“I need some food to go with my alcohol breakfast,” Gabe said as he dug in to the spread on the table. He could feel Jamie’s eyes on him as he ate. She handed him a glass of rosé. He sipped it and sighed.

“A better way to start the day,” he said.

“You accept my apology?”

“You have no reason to apologize.”

“Why’d you punch the guy?”

“Because he was going surfing.”

Jamie nodded. “I think I’m going to be careful what I say today.”

“You’re safe, I think,” he told her.

“But you’re not sure.”

“I’m sure. I could never hit a woman with a broken arm.”

They clinked glasses.

“You feel better today?” Gabe asked.

“I’m not going to the airport today. So I thought I’d save all my craziness for tomorrow. I booked my new flight.”

Gabe nodded. They had today, then. A gift.

“I walked out on the beach,” she said. “While you were gone.”