Читать книгу On the Edge of a Dream - Michael Wiese - Страница 14

Chapter 7

FEVER OF DREAMS

I am reading the Ramayana, the great Hindu classic about Rama and Sita. The fever hits me when Rama shoots his magic arrow into the demon’s head. My whole body aches. My head is pounding. I can hear my heart pushing blood through my body. Ke-thump, ke-thump, ke-thump, ke-thump.

Everything goes fuzzy. I can’t hold the book anymore. I only make it to the toilet hole in the ground with Eddie’s help. I open my eyes as Eddie wipes my forehead. Sometimes he talks to me softly, but I can’t understand him. Other times, there are people I don’t know in the room. I try to talk but my throat is dry. I can’t hold my eyes open. I drift. Dreams and reality mix.

I am lost in a dark, earthy temple. Corridors stretch out in all directions. Flying a few feet off the ground, I touch the walls to steady myself. They are wet. I leave my handprint in the muddy wall as I pull myself forward floating. Behind me, my handprints turn into ancient texts and illustrated manuscripts thousands of years old.

My feet brush the ground, emitting sparks. I enter a bright courtyard. A large, fleshy man sits eating fruit. I sit in front of him. But as I look more closely, I see that he is filled with holes. The holes go right through him. Inside there is gold. I look up and see that he’s part puppet. He starts singing this wondrous melody in a woman’s voice. He stretches out his hand and opens it.

In it is a brick-size chunk of mud. He wipes it clean with his other hand revealing a beautiful silver box. Then all these chorus voices start reverberating. They are a gamelan made up of silvery voices. It’s very beautiful, and I want to stay and listen. A single voice becomes clearer and clearer. It’s Eddie, and I awake. He puts a glass of tea to my lips and helps me as I drink.

The tea revives me. I lay back down. “Man, I ache everywhere.”

Eddie rubs my shoulders, back, arms, and legs.

“That feels great.”

I ask what day it is. Eddie tells me I’ve been delirious for three days. I haven’t eaten anything and have been sweating like crazy. He makes me drink some more. It’s good.

We talk for a while. I tell him that we need to leave here. We’ve been on Kuta Beach too long. Maybe the black magic beach made me sick. After all, it is kelod here; we’re near the demons. Maybe it’s the rock and rollers next door. Whatever it is, the vacation is over.

“We have to leave. We’re still just tourists. We’ve hardly scratched the surface. I might as well be back in San Francisco.”

“Yeah, or in jail. Or did you forget? Hey, we’ve got the beach almost to ourselves. The food is cheap. Come on. It’s paradise here.”

“But it’s not Bali. Banana pancakes every morning just ain’t it. I’m looking for the real Bali, authentic Bali, not a hippie hotel.”

He starts to resist again.

“I’ll do it with or without you, Eddie, really I will.”

Too tired to argue, I try to sleep. The stuffy night air is like a heavy wool blanket. I sleep without a sarong. There is no breeze. I have a disturbing dream.

I am standing on a beautiful beach. Eddie and I are here for some kind of celebration. Balinese women line the beach dressed in magnificent golden headdresses and transparent sarongs.

The tide comes in and lifts me up. I look down. I‘m standing on the water. This is so amazing, I can’t believe it. I’m afraid if I move that my feet will break the surface and I’ll fall in. Below are large electric eels. I know they are electric because they have Eveready batteries built into their backs.

On the shore, Eddie has erected a bamboo tower. He’s just finished folding some palm leafs into a star design, which he is putting at the top of the tower like a Christmas-tree ornament. He begins to climb.

The bamboo tower is rotting before my eyes and cannot possibly support his weight. I am too far away for him to hear me yell. To warn him, I must move but risk falling through the surface of the water onto the electric eels.

In the morning, I feel a little better. Eddie sleeps in. He looks exhausted. He obviously was up all night. When he wakes he won’t say what he’s been doing. He goes out and doesn’t return until it’s almost dark.

Night. The Barong, the mythical, lionlike creature, will visit our homestay tonight as part of a ritual cleansing. I squat down and wash myself with several buckets of cold water, then put on a clean sarong. A fat lizard darts across the ceiling overhead, stops and stares down at me.

“Hey, Bubba.”

The house lizard brings good luck, according to Ketut. I just hope he doesn’t fall on me tonight.

I feel much better but am still weak. I rest in the doorway and wait for the Barong. Where did all these people come from? The dusty road behind our losmen is lined with our Balinese neighbors. Big Swede strides up and joins me and Eddie.

A walking gamelan of drums and gongs comes near. The repetitious, syncopated beat becomes louder and louder. It makes you want to move, groove, and trance out.

“I never miss a Barong performance,” says Big Swede over the music. “And if it’s not a good one, neither will the gods.”

“The gods?” shouts Eddie, becoming more and more curious.

“Like anyone else, they won’t come unless the entertainment is good.”

I look into the street. More people are gathering. The only other foreigner is an intellectual-looking woman in neatly pressed khaki shorts and a shirt. A large amber necklace is around her neck. She writes shorthand in a notebook, concentrating on one of the priests. She pushes her hair from her face.

The gamelan sends out waves and waves of intoxicating repetitions. Eddie looks spaced out. I feel a little light-headed myself.

Suddenly, the creatures rush out. Swede points out the ‘good guy,’ the Barong, a lion-like creature with a magnificent golden coat of glittery, swirling ornaments and a high-arching tail who stomps up clouds of dust. Then Rangda, a female monster, rushes from the shadows.

Big Swede, keeping his eyes on the performance, says, “This is the quintessential Balinese ritual where they observe the balance between life and death. Rangda represents death and decay and Barong, the life force. Everything must be kept in balance, that’s why there is no winner in this confrontation.”

Swede and I step closer to get a better view.

Suddenly Barong, the protector, and Rangda—the destroyer of rice fields, bringer of sickness and death—spring into a life-and-death battle. Gas lanterns cast a golden light across Rangda’s long fingernails, saggy breasts, and hairy body.

Surprisingly, Barong is overpowered by Rangda. From the side of the road, the half-naked, fully tranced-out warriors wave kris (magic swords) and attack Rangda.

Swede stumbles and falls somewhere behind me. A dozen men charge repeatedly, but each time Rangda’s power turns them back. Someone is going to get killed! The khaki woman is pushed into me. Her notebook bounces off my head. We are caught between the trance warriors and the beasts. Charging, then retreating.

It’s not a performance! The ritual play is clearly out of control. They’ve gone too far. At Rangda’s command, the trance dancers fling themselves onto the blades, turning and twisting, trying to kill themselves. The woman grabs my arm and screams, “My god!”

I think I see Eddie rush into the frey.

The warriors’ eyes roll back in their heads. Mass hysteria?!! Suicide? The men lean hard into their swords, but their skin is not punctured. Somehow the power of the Barong protects them.

Barong charges again. Rangda is chased away and retreats into the cemetery behind the temple. A gang of children chase after the creatures; Eddie follows in hot pursuit.

As suddenly as it started, it’s over. The woman clings to me. We stand on the road dazed, a dozen trance dancers lying around us semiconscious in the dust. It looks like Custer’s Last Stand. Should I help? A priest walks among them and sprinkles holy water on the warrior-dancers. Jerkily they open their eyes, find their way out of trance, stand and walk unsteadily away. Swede is nowhere in sight.

The woman slowly releases her grip, her breast brushing my hand.

“I am sorry. I was scared,” she apologizes.

“It’s okay. You all right?” I ask.

She nods. “I didn’t expect this.”

I pick up her notebook and hand it to her. She’s dazed and confused.

The lanterns are carried off to the family compounds, as the crowd disperses. We leave the dark street and return to my room in the losmen. We are brought some tea.

“I guess balance has been restored,” I joke, as I light the oil lamp.

Her name is Anna. She just arrived from Sydney. Her first trip. She’s a grad student in anthropology and doing her thesis on rites of passage. Although very young and brave, she’s definitely over her head.

“I should go,” she says putting down her tea, not knowing that her bemo ride back to the Bali Hai Hotel is long gone.

I explain she has no chance of getting a ride from anyone this late. “The Balinese are afraid of the dark.”

“So am I,” she says, still shaken from the trance dance. Gradually, the adrenaline wears off and we lay back on the lumpy mattress and talk. The night breeze is cool. The palm fronds rustle above. A gekko snaps at moth, catching it in its jaws.

Anna pulls closer. Before long we are in an embrace and our bodies begin a dance of their own. She surprises me. Her lovemaking betrays her demure appearance. She strains, twists and turns, releasing her deepest feelings.

Eddie wakes me up in the middle of the night. He barely notices the naked woman in my bed. He’s all excited about something.

“Nick, I followed Rangda and watched. This old guy took off the mask,” Eddie says. “He gave it to a priest who hung it in a wooden closet in the temple. It was surrounded by offerings.”

Anna wakes up startled. “Who’s there?!”

“Just Eddie.

“Come on, Eddie, let us sleep.”

“No, listen, Nick,” Eddie persists, “when they left I waited for awhile and then snuck into the temple.”

I sit up. “You what?”

“I want to go,” says Anna afraid, looking around and grabbing her clothes.

“To get a better look at it,” Eddie explains. “It had a necklace of entrails. Nick, I put it on. It stank. Then I could feel it breathing! The mask was breathing, and I started breathing with it. I could see into the darkness. Then my blood got hotter and hotter. So I took it off.” Eddie is shaking. Shadows from the oil lamp lick the wall.

“Jesus, Eddie, are you nuts?”

“No, listen,” he says. “I know where it is. You’ve got to try it.”

“I’m going,” says Anna.

I tell Eddie that I have no intention of breaking into their temple.

Anna screams for attention, “I want to go back to the hotel, now!” It takes me a hour to calm her down. She’s really losing it. In a strange land, with a strange man, who has a strange friend.