said “Bykes Rental.”
“Are you and Randall sharing a bike?” I asked innocently. I didn’t like being appropriated. If I wanted to sit behind him, my boobs pressed against his back, my arms around his waist, my hand in his lap, I would say so.
Looking flustered, Seth said, “No, I thought that you could ride with me.”
“Three motorbikes,” I said to the man.
He pointed at two of the larger bikes and one slightly lower horsepower.
“I’ll take that one.” I pointed at one of the more powerful ones. At least it would propel me uphill at something greater than a snail’s pace.
I gave the man my deposit and grabbed a red helmet. A girl had to think of fashion at all times. Seth headed for the other fast bike, and Randall stood hesitantly to one side. “I haven’t driven a motorcycle before.”
Ah, the reason for his objections. He should have said that in the lobby. There, we might have relented. Now, with the promise of speed, Seth and I weren’t going to change our minds.
Seth said, “It’s easy. You’ll learn quickly. These are so small that it won’t be much different from riding a bike.”
Randall still looked uncertain and I added, “But you could always ride on the back of Seth’s.”
“Or . . .” he said, looking longingly at my motorbike. But before he could say more, I climbed on and started it.
Pleased to be renting three motorbikes, the man shoved a helmet at Randall, taking the decision out of his hands. He backed the motorbike out of the small stall and proceeded to give Randall unintelligible instructions in poor English. “Easy,” he said.
Uh-oh, I thought, and called out over the sound of the bikes, “Seth, do you know the way?”
“I looked at a map, and I have directions on my phone,” he said, struggling with the clasp on his helmet.
“It’s okay,” said the man. “Do not fasten.” Though quite a few motorcyclists in Bali wore helmets, many didn’t bother to fasten them.
Seth finally took it off and took another one. “It’s not okay. But this one is.” The fastener clicked in place.
“I’ll see you there.” I revved the engine and, without looking back, turned onto the road, easing into the traffic. I wondered if Flip’s killer had ridden a motorbike to his murder. If he’d carried the spear as he rode. An image of Piero della Francesca’s battle scene in San Francesco Cathedral in Arezzo, Italy, came to mind, horses cheek to jowl, spears piercing the sky.
9
Sightseeing had been fun, the motorbikes challenging in the uncertain traffic. Now I needed to use my muscles, to wear myself out, so that exhaustion would vanquish the bloody scenes of last night’s dreams and today’s imaginings. I said good-bye to Seth and Randall and traded in motorbike for bicycle. I wasn’t due for dinner for another hour, so I took a roundabout route to Wayan Tyo’s mother’s house. I pedaled hard. The setting sun vanished as I flew down one hill, then reappeared, playing peek-a-boo, as I topped the next.
The Balinese orient themselves mountain to sea, with the mountains the more auspicious direction. No island of sailors, the Balinese. Whether their antipathy to the sea is because their shoreline has few natural harbors or out of fear of the water is difficult to say. On the other hand, I thought as I tried to catch my breath, the mountains may be the reason few people in Bali ride bicycles.
Wayan Tyo had left Ani’s address and directions at my hotel. He’d also left his mobile number in case I wanted a ride. Once in her neighborhood, I had to ask a couple of people directions, as the Balinese seem disinclined to number their homes.
Arriving, I was surprised to discover I didn’t recognize the house. I thought that I had remembered it, but maybe I was recalling the bungalow where my family had stayed that summer years before. I zigzagged through the entrance into the compound, as there was the usual wall blocking direct access, a deterrent to malevolent forces. Demons only walk in straight lines.
As I came through the gate, children ran up to greet me yelling, Mimpi, Mimpi. Puzzled, I wondered if they mistook me for someone else, maybe another guest who was supposed to come to dinner tonight. The children waited for me to lock the bike by the central gate, and as soon as I took off my helmet, a small boy grabbed it and put it on his head. They screamed with glee.
A girl about seven grasped my right hand, and when her younger sister, a tiny clone of the older girl, saw her hand in mine, she clung to my left. When she looked up, her perfect face shimmered, the mouth slightly parted, the eyes wide and eager. I picked her up and planted her on my hip. My one-year-old nephew weighed more than this three-year-old girl.
A woman grasping a large handful of green leafy vegetables came around the side of the house toward me. “They are very excited to meet you,” she said.
“Bu,” I said.
“Ani, you always called me Ani,” said Wayan Tyo’s mother, grasping both my upper arms in greeting, the greens resting on my shoulder. She looked at my auburn hair with its lock of pink and gazed into my eyes for an instant before she smiled. “Come over here to the kitchen, then we will join the others.”
“You look different than I remember.”
“You look different too.”
I laughed. “Twenty years will do that.” The summer we’d stayed in Ubud, she had probably been about my age. Very beautiful, her long hair draped around her shoulders, her attention on young children, full of pleasure at their exuberance. Now, standing before me, the vague, idealized person of my imaginings slipped away. She had thickened and her hair was bound. Her slight limp when she walked and her gesture a moment before, grasping my arms, gave rise to a little burst of memory. No, not memory, a feeling of contentment difficult to correlate with the gesture, a contentment I’d felt when she’d looked into my eyes.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“The same. I believe you are the same.”
“And what is that?” I laughed.
“Mischievous, quick in your mind and your actions, hurrying from this to that. Impulsive.”
“That’s how you remember me?” I smiled at the pleasure of being known.
She laughed. “That’s how you were.”
The kitchen was just to the right of the doorway, just as bade, pavilions for preparing offerings, stood just inside the entrance to temples. I assumed there was a correlation. It was a small kitchen, with a grill outside, and I waited while she put the greens on a table and said something in Balinese to a woman working at a burner. Then she led me to the main house, which lay at the back of the compound. Smaller buildings had blocked my view of it, and I wondered what each of them held as we walked across the tamped earth to a large, sheltering tree and the family who sat chatting or running around, depending on their ages. “I remember the tree,” I blurted out.
“Why didn’t you come to us as soon as you arrived? You and your family were our first guests in our bungalow. Our longest and happiest guests. You are welcome with us.”
