The Paradise Guest House (5 page)

Jamie smiles and watches Nyoman’s face soften with the memory.

“We married when I was twenty-four and she was sixteen. We should grow old together, but that will not happen.”

He doesn’t speak for a while, and Jamie wonders if his story is over. She cannot imagine his loss.

“She was pregnant with our first child,” he tells her.

Jamie presses her fist to her stomach. Somehow this is worse than all the rest. She had imagined that Nyoman was much older—perhaps grief has aged him.

“She took my hand,” he says, “and led me into the world. Now I go alone.”

They are silent for the rest of the drive home.

Nyoman parks the car near the Paradise Guest House. Jamie gets out and sees the boy right away.

He’s there at his spot on the curb across the street, the thief and his dog. She glares at him and marches toward the cottage gate.

“I have wallet!” he shouts, waving it in the air.

She spins around.

He’s jubilant, running toward her, the dog at his heels.

“I found it. Man stole it. I got back for you this wallet!”

He’s shouting these words as he leaps in the air, as if borne by his happiness. When he reaches her, still waving the wallet, she grabs it.

“God damn you, you little—”

“No! I found it!”

She looks around—Nyoman has disappeared inside his cottage.

She opens the wallet and looks at the wad of bills, the credit card, the driver’s license. She’ll count the money later; she’s sure that a good percentage is missing. Right now she just wants to escape committing homicide. She’s shaking with fury.

“Twenty dollar! Twenty dollar!”

She glares at him. “Scam artist. You steal the wallet, then produce it and expect me—”

“You said. Twenty dollar!”

She shoves the wallet into her backpack and storms across the street, toward the guest house.

Of course, he’s at her side, as persistent as a mosquito.

“Thief is man who lives in cave. He steal wallet before, many times, always tourists. Especially pretty girl. I go find him and I find wallet. I swear is truth.”

Jamie stops and stares at him. Could he be telling the truth?

“I’ll give you twenty dollars. Then I want to never see you again. I want to come out of my guest house and there’s no one on the curb across the street. There’s not even a dog there. You’re nowhere near me when I walk around town. You don’t exist for me after this.”

“I promise. Twenty dollar.”

She pulls her wallet out of her pack and draws a twenty from her wad of bills. His hand snatches it from her fingers, then he’s gone. Gone. The boy and his dog fly down the street, away from town, the dog yipping with delight.

She’s an idiot.

But she’s an idiot with a wallet and some money, her Visa, her driver’s license. Her lifelines.

Inside her cottage, she drops everything on her bed. She rummages through her pack, takes bills and cards and tucks some in her pocket, some in her toiletry kit, some in her backpack.

Before she puts the wallet back in her pack, she pulls out one photograph. She and Miguel stand on the rocky summit of Fitz Roy in Argentina, their arms wrapped around each other, fierce smiles on their faces. She looks at herself as if looking at a stranger. The woman in the photo is beautiful. She has just climbed one mountain and wants to conquer another. Bring it on.

Jamie runs her finger along the scar on her face. Its edges are smooth. She’s curiously numb around the scar, and she likes the sensation of feeling nothing.

In the photo, Miguel isn’t looking at the camera; he’s gazing at her. He doesn’t care about vistas and summits—he cares about love.

A few months later she would leave him and lose him. That same night she would break into a million parts.

Jamie wanders the chaotic streets of Ubud. She had imagined the city as an artistic center—at least that’s what her guidebook had boasted—but this feels as commercial as Seminyak. The tourists are older here than at the beach resorts an hour away, and the shops advertise healing potions rather than Gucci sunglasses. But there’s noise, lots of noise. Some of the restaurants blast music out into the streets. Drivers honk their horns and gun their engines, scooting around the tourist buses.

She finds a small unpretentious restaurant in the center of Ubud and gazes in the window. It looks quiet and calm. A
wooden Buddha sits on the bar, as if he had too much to drink and can’t get up. Purple pillows cover the benches of the teak tables. Jamie enters through the open door.

A pretty young woman leads her to a table by the window, overlooking the street. She orders a Bintang beer right away.

The diners, mostly late middle age, speak so loudly that their voices bounce off one another. One table holds two couples, their guidebooks sprawled on the tabletop, their cameras hanging from their necks. At another table, three men argue about the election in Australia.

The waitress serves her an icy bottle of beer. “Your order?” she asks.

Jamie hasn’t even glanced at the menu. She orders nasi goreng—the name of the dish she ate at Nyoman’s house last night.

The waitress nods and disappears.

She sees another table in the corner of the restaurant. A white man and a Balinese woman, with two young kids, an obvious mix of races prettily displayed on their faces. The man must be an expat.

She thinks of Gabe, an expat in Ubud. Could he walk into this restaurant? She has pushed every memory of him far away from her, as if they’re white-hot embers—touch them for too long and she’d burn.

She has no right to see him again.

The waitress brings her a steaming plate of vegetables and rice, and Jamie digs in.

A young couple enters the restaurant, and Jamie looks up from her food. The woman is white; the man looks Balinese, with his dark skin and his broad handsome features. The woman has long blond hair and a dancer’s willowy body. The
man is dressed in jeans and a pressed white shirt—his hair swoops down over his forehead and makes him look like a Balinese Elvis Presley. They sit at the table next to Jamie’s.

The woman immediately smiles at her. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” She has a clipped British accent.

“It is,” Jamie says. “If I get over jet lag, I might even stay up long enough to enjoy the night.”

“You just arrived?” the woman asks.

She’s probably Jamie’s age, but the man looks younger.

“Yesterday,” Jamie says. “Have you been here long?”

“Three years,” the woman says, laughing. “Be careful. The Balinese men have a remarkable power to keep you here.”

The man looks up from his menu and gazes at the woman.

“I’ll remember that,” Jamie says.

“Your first time here?” the woman asks.

“No.”

The woman reaches out her hand across the space between the two tables. “I’m Isabel.”

Jamie shakes her hand. “Jamie.”

“You want to join us?”

“Please,” the man says, smiling shyly.

She takes her plate and beer and slides over to a seat at their table.

“My name is Made,” the man says. He pronounces it
Mahday
.

“Do you know many Americans who live in Bali?” Jamie asks. The question is out of her mouth before she can stop herself.

The woman wrinkles her brow. “Some. Why?”

“I met a guy here a year ago. An expat.”

“Sounds romantic,” Isabel says.

“It’s complicated,” Jamie tells her.

“Did he live in Ubud?”

“He taught school here. I assume he lived here, but I’m not sure.”

“Well, most of the expats are here in town,” Isabel says. “Ubud attracts the folks who come for more than a spiritual retreat or a weeklong drunk. What’s his name?”

“His first name is Gabe. I don’t know his last name. He’s around forty, I think.”

“I’ll ask around,” Isabel says.

The waitress brings two beers and the couple orders their food. Then Isabel reaches out and touches Jamie’s arm.

“Were you here during the bombing?” she asks quietly. Her eyes trace the long scar on Jamie’s face. Made lowers his eyes.

Jamie nods.

“You came back.”

“There’s an anniversary ceremony—I was invited back. It’s harder than I thought. To be back in Bali.”

“Were you badly injured?” Isabel asks. Her voice is quieter now.

“A broken arm. Some cuts.”

“Made lost a cousin,” Isabel says.

“He was a cook at Sari Club,” Made tells her. “He lived for a couple of months. Very bad. Good that he passed.”

The waitress sets plates on the table.

“I have a girlfriend who teaches at the international school in Denpasar,” Isabel says. “I’ll ask her about your teacher. Give me your cell number.”

“What do you do here?” Jamie asks once they’ve exchanged phone numbers.

“I teach yoga,” Isabel says. “I have a studio in town. I came
here to take a workshop and fell in love with my tour guide on a one-day trip to Mount Agung.” She leans over and kisses Made on the cheek. He blushes.

“Maybe I’ll come take a class,” Jamie says. She stands and riffles through her wallet for some bills.

“It’s my pleasure,” Isabel says, pushing the money back toward her. Jamie notices a tattoo that circles Isabel’s thin wrist. It’s a vine of red and yellow flowers.

“Gabe had a tattoo on his forearm,” Jamie says, suddenly remembering. “Of a bird.”

She was lying on her side in the green bed. She opened her eyes and saw the bird, taking flight. She reached out and traced its wings with her finger. He stirred, waking up beside her. He kept his eyes on her.

“That’s you,” he said, his voice as gentle as a blessing. “You’ll fly away soon. And I’ll be left here.”

Nyoman smiles. He smiles and smiles and Jamie chases his smile. He keeps a few strides ahead of her, and she moves as quickly as she can to keep up. But the heat of the midday sun and the heavy humidity make it feel as if she’s pushing through sludge. She just can’t walk fast enough.

“This way, this way,” he says, endlessly cheery.

When she turns a corner, she sees an enormous parking lot on the edge of Kuta where hundreds of people are gathered.

“Nyoman!” she calls out, her voice ragged.

He spins around and waits for her. He’s still smiling.

“We are here. No more running. I was told to be on time. I am never on time. And so I race too fast.”

Jamie can hear herself panting, as if she has never walked a
city street much less climbed a few mountains in the past weeks. “Why are there so many people?”

Nyoman turns and looks at the mass of people across the street.

“This is gathering for all survivors and widows,” he says, confused. “Children will give wonderful performance of dance and song for us.”

“There are hundreds of us?” Jamie asks.

She hasn’t bothered to imagine this. Yes, she had said. I’ll go to Bali. She remembers the list of reasons she gave her mother: I’ll support the country, help build back tourism, show the world that terrorism doesn’t win. But she never let a picture come into focus in her mind: a ceremony for people who were injured in the bombing. Her bombing. People she might have pulled from under the rubble. People she might have stepped over on the way out.

“Survivors. Widows. Widowers. There are many of us,” Nyoman says gently. “There is an organization that has been helping us all year. The activities of this week are very important to us.”

“I’m having a little trouble breathing. I don’t know why,” Jamie tells him. Her heart races as if it needs to escape her chest.

“I will be with you,” Nyoman says. “At your side.”

Jamie feels as if she might cry. She swallows.

They cross the street. There are many young people in the crowd—both Westerners and Balinese. A man on crutches stops and high-fives another guy, then they embrace. A redheaded girl with terrible burn scars on her face shouts, “Hey, Charlie!” and Charlie lifts her in the air and spins her around. Survivors.

A small group of Balinese stands to one side, watching a toddler with an oversize beach ball. Their smiles look strained. Widows. Widowers.

“We must check in,” Nyoman says, his voice close to her ear. “We look for Miss Dolly. She is very fat.”

So Jamie squints into the crowd, searching for the fat lady.

“Over there?” she asks.

“Yes.”

They make their way to a middle-aged woman with very short hair and a Humpty Dumpty body.

“Miss Dolly,” Nyoman says.

The woman throws up her arms. “Oh, Nyoman. I am so very glad to see you.”

They hug, and Nyoman looks a little afraid.

“This is my American,” he says.

She puts out her hand. “Jamie Hyde.”

“Dolly Thompson. You’re our only American.”

“There were no other Americans?”

“Seven who died. The families could not come.”

Dolly Thompson sounds Australian. The air is full of loud Australian voices.

“Thank you for coming,” she says. “Many people didn’t want to return so soon. We offered to pair the families of victims and the survivors with a host—like Nyoman—to make the stay a little easier.”

“I’m very glad to be in Nyoman’s home,” Jamie tells her.

“Where do we go?” he asks.

“You’re over there with the families of the deceased,” Dolly says, pointing toward the bleachers at the far end of the parking lot. “And Miss Hyde is at this end. With the survivors.”

Jamie looks at Nyoman. She clamps her mouth shut.

“I stay with her,” he says.

“You can’t,” Dolly says. She’s bossy, as if she’s used to herding kindergarten kids.

“I can. It is children’s performance. At ceremony I stand with widows.”

Dolly shakes her head. “Everyone has to make this more difficult than it should be,” and she walks away, pushing her large body through the crowd.

“Thank you,” Jamie says to Nyoman.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice booms over a loudspeaker. “Welcome. We would like to thank you for coming to Bali for this very important occasion.” Jamie closes her eyes while the same voice speaks in rapid-fire Indonesian.

The show, performed on a stage in the middle of the parking lot, is chaotic and long. One group of Balinese teenagers, dressed in elaborate costume, performs a traditional dance. A choir of young Australian children sings their national anthem. Jamie tries to focus on the entertainment, but she feels fidgety and unsettled.