Wild Man still looking our way.
“See someone you know?” I asked.
“No.” He picked up his drink and, without meeting my eyes, took a sip.
I was beginning to realize that murder made a person skittish and suspicious. Being in a Balinese nightclub also made one a bit edgy. This bar was a bad idea, but the thought of walking home alone continued to spook me.
“At the bar they’re talking about a murder,” Randall said.
“Here? In Ubud?” Seth asked.
“Yep. A tourist, in his rented house.”
“An expat,” I said.
“How was he killed?” Seth watched me.
“No one seems to be sure. Probably shot, was the consensus.” Randall wiped his wet hands on his pants.
“Spear,” I said, having cleared a space between the pineapple, the kiwi, and an apple. I took a sip while they stared at me. “I found the body.”
Randall’s mouth dropped open, but it was Seth who asked, “You found a murdered body and you didn’t say anything to us?”
“It’s not exactly a great opener for someone you’ve just met. Oh, hi, I’m Jenna and I’ve just come from a murder scene. Or maybe I could have brought up Indonesian weaponry, or how blood congeals in the patterning on a damascened blade.” I shivered.
“Would have been a rush for Seth. He studied criminal law.” Randall sipped his beer.
“‘Rush’ might not be the right word, but I’m sure you would have caught my interest. Guess that’s what you meant when you said you had a rough day.” He leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
I took another sip so he wouldn’t see the tears that welled up at his concern, and got ice on the tip of my nose. I wiped it away. “It’s also the reason that that man over there, the one in the red shirt, is making me nervous staring at me.”
Before I could say anything, Seth was halfway across the room, headed toward the Wild Man. The man’s expression went from startled to smiling in an instant. He raised both hands palms forward in a gesture of pacification. Seth’s back told me little.
“Was it awful?” Randall asked.
I thought for a moment, trying to condense the experience into words. “It was so unlikely. I’d gone to have lunch with him.” I paused, searching. “Then finding him, seeing him like that. Disconcerting. Sad. Horrifying. Bloody. Awful, yeah, awful sums it up.”
“You haven’t processed it,” he said matter-of-factly as he leaned forward and set down his glass.
“I’m avoiding processing it. Processing isn’t really my thing. Pressing forward is more my modus operandi.”
“Ah,” Randall said.
We watched Seth and Wild Man chatting. Seth leaned on the bar. The man appeared to offer him a drink. Seth shook his head, motioning toward our table and his full glass.
As he slid back into his chair, he said, “He says you look like an old girlfriend.”
I waited for more, but when it didn’t come, I asked, “And?”
He took a sip of his drink. “Not much else. He’s Australian. Friendly enough guy.”
I should have confronted the man myself. Maybe Seth already knew him. Maybe it was the Wild Man he’d been nodding to a few minutes earlier. I tried to quell my suspicious brain. From Randall’s reaction when I asked him about the man, it seemed clear that they hadn’t met before. And since Randall and Seth were traveling together, you would assume if one knew him, the other would, too.
“Do you want to tell us about the murder?” Seth asked.
“Give her a break,” Randall said protectively. “She’s tired. She doesn’t want to think about it.”
“He’s right. I’m tired. I need to finish this and get home to bed.” I looked at the size of the drink in my hand. I thought I discerned rum, but I’d told Randall no alcohol. Maybe he’d ignored me.
Seth frowned at Randall before saying to me, “From your coming with us to the performance tonight, then here, I’d say you’re avoiding thinking about it. It might do you good to talk.”
He was right. It might be good. “I can give you an abbreviated version of what happened.” And I did.
7
The French couple who had been at the pool the previous afternoon sat on the other side of the hotel’s dining pavilion. They nodded at me as I entered. I considered speaking to them, but it was hard enough struggling with my minimal Bahasa Indonesia; digging up the French I knew was more than I could face.
The waitress came out of the kitchen and walked my way. “Selamat pagi.”
“Selamat pagi,” I answered.
“What would you like to drink?”
“Tea, please.”
Pointing at the empty seat at the table, she asked, “One more?”
“No, I’m alone.” I didn’t add that I didn’t have to be alone. That the night before Seth had made it clear that he would be happy to join me in my room. He’d been attentive in the bar, but still, I sensed he was a lady’s man and a bad boy, which was why he drew me. Always the bad boy—one reason that I was inclined to hold Alam, the good boy, at bay.
As she cleared away the other place setting, I asked her her name.
“Ketut,” she said.
In the garden an enormous mango tree arched over the exotic plantings. “Is that a shrine on the other side of the tree, Ketut?”
“Yes, madam,” she said over her shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen. A tiny bird hung upside down from the orange bougainvillea that climbed the pink plumeria, their blossoms intermingled. The colorful bird, its long nectar-sucking beak piercing a flower, fit vividly with the pink and orange.
It was a peaceful scene overlaid by the sound of the activity beyond—cars, motorbikes, voices. A group of children walked by on their way to school. A vehicle hurtled down the road, its speed marked by the sound of gamelan music blasting from its radio. I could distinguish the conversation of some Italians, laughing and joking, one of them letting out a sudden whoop of fear. Then the ching-ching of bicycle bells merged with children’s laughter, and I pictured a group of kids on bikes swerving to scare the tourists.
The garden and its border contained the hotel’s sounds, including the clanking of dishes as the waitress put my teapot and cup on a tray. From the foliage of the mango tree a bird squawked, and as the abrasive sound died away, I saw a small white cat perched on a stone wall, hunting its prey.
My tea arrived. “Do you have madu?” I asked.
The
