Читать книгу Jalan Jalan: A Novel of Indonesia - Mike Stoner - Страница 10

HELLO GOODBYE

W hen I awake at some point before dawn, there is a voice nearby, its song undulating, growing stronger with the changing light. From further off another two voices travel across the city to me, melodies added to the main theme. It is a human dawn chorus that rises from nothing to something beautiful. It winds its way around my senses and holds me to my bed. I don’t expect it. I have never considered it and its appearance surprises me. I am just here, without expectations or any real knowledge of this country. I have come only out of the need to be rid of my past and with no thought for where that expulsion has taken me. That is why, when the muezzin starts, and other voices join in and fall across the city with the rising sun’s light, I cry. I cry due to the unexpected and simple beauty of the song.

There again it might not just be the call to prayer that makes me cry; it could partly be due to the close call to vomiting from a few hours ago. Maybe too much beer on spicy noodles in an unsteady stomach, maybe too much grass. That could the reason for my tears—strong, strong grass. This is yesterday:

Pak takes me to my new home. He introduces me to Kim and Kim to me. Kim is a man. A Californian man, mid-thirties, tall, in a brown flower-patterned shirt. Pak leaves as soon as he can. He has to be somewhere else. Kim closes the door behind him. My new house is open-plan and cool, white tiled floor, big-cushioned armchairs with wooden armrests, a muted TV showing a small and chubby Asian-American beating up four men in suits with swift and precise movements of an umbrella. There’s a kitchen along one wall and a dining table in front of a window and door to a concrete garden. Four more doors lead off the main room. This is my home.

‘Fuuuuuuccckk. That man is such a fucking fuck, man.’ Kim sits in a chair and puts his long legs out over the small table in front of him. He hits the volume on the remote. ‘Make yourself at fucking home, man.’

I drag my travel-tired rucksack across the tiles, opening doors until I find a room that isn’t a toilet, a shower or a bedroom with Kim’s dirty underwear sniffing the floor. In my room are two single beds; only one is made up, the other still has a plastic cover on the mattress. I lay my rucksack on the unmade bed. Fumbling deep inside one of its pockets I find the pebble. It is smooth and comfortable in my palm. It’s the only thing I’ve allowed myself. The only memory I’ve brought. No photos, no other souvenirs of her, just this pebble. I turn it in my hand, swallow down hard on the two of them who stir at the feel of it and return it back to the pocket. I give my bag a pat.

‘Sleep well.’

I go back and flop in an armchair next to Kim.

The chubby Asian-American on TV is now giving life-changing advice to a small blond American boy, while Indonesian subtitles translate along the bottom of the screen.

‘Yeah, go Sammo. Tell that white boy how to be good. I fucking love Sammo. Beats the shit out of people with toilet rolls and fucking bananas and things like that and is sooo fucking wise.’

I nod. Sammo does look wise.

‘Do you smoke?’ Kim asks me.

Not much. Not recently. Not since Laura.

How much pain have I been in? Too much to remember I’m an addict. I have never once thought about smoking again. Now I remember I am an addict, I want one.

‘Yes. Are they Marlboro?’

‘No, not these, man.’ He waves his brown cigarette under my nose, and for some reason the pungent smell of it makes me think of apple pie. ‘But you can have one if you want.’

‘Cheers.’ I take one and light it. The return of a forgotten comfort, long-time banished. Too pissed off and demented to remember the deadly old habit. It hits my throat like a saw and I cough. Smoke swirls around us like a mist. The sweet smell of scented tobacco hangs in the stillness of the warm and humid evening.

‘Kretek cigarette, man. Strongest cigs in the world.’

‘Tastes like it.’ I know why the smell reminds me of apple pie. Cloves. The taste is surprisingly strong and it’s suddenly soothing my throat, taking the teeth off the saw. My coughing subsides. ‘But very good.’ The clove coats my tongue while the tar slides into my lungs.

‘Anyway I didn’t mean smoke man, I meant smoooke. Do you smoooke?’

I look blankly at Kim.

‘Smoke smoke. Smo-o-o-ke?’

‘Ah. Yes.’ Comprehension arrives as I look at the roll-ups mixed in with normal butts in the ashtray. ‘Sometimes.’

With this Kim pulls a Frisbee from under his chair. It overflows with dangerous-looking green-brown foliage.

‘I don’t usually share, man, but as you’re new.’

Kim rolls, no tobacco added, and we smoke.

And now I lie in my bed crying, listening to men singing out across the rooftops, welcoming me to the first full day of my new life. Men who may never have met, yet their voices interweave with the others to harmonise as though members of the same choir; which I guess they are. The voices stop and the silence is sudden.

I am lying with my head to the mosquito-netted open window. There must be a hole in it somewhere as a small lump on my thigh asks to be scratched. From where I lie I can see the top of a wall and a thin strip of sky. Day arrives quickly. The room changes from dark to light as the night is edged out. When the arrival of day is complete, I’m surrounded by varying off-white shades of the walls and floor tiles. I look at my watch: quarter past six. I’ve had maybe six hours’ sleep. I try to recall the conversation with Kim, but nothing comes. A moment of life lost to magical foliage.

I wonder why Laura hasn’t made an appearance yet and then push the thought aside. I get off the bed and busy myself with finding my pants. My bed cover is in a ball on the floor. The sheet I was lying on is damp with my sweat. Something small and bloodthirsty buzzes by my ear, close enough to make my spine shiver. This place is hot. And I want a cigarette. That is a morning need I haven’t had for a while. I must have smoked everything to hand last night. The nicotine needs topping up. Re-infected already. Easier to catch than a cold.

I pull on dirty clothes that stick to my body like gritty cling film and leave the room.

The lounge stinks of overflowing ashtray and a sweet smell of burnt exotic plants. Kim has left a packet of Indonesian cigarettes on the table. I accept my re-addiction and take one. There’s a lighter down the back of the chair. I go out the front door. A small tiled garden, hemmed in by a white wall and black metal gate, separates the house from the small and traffic-free road. The sun has risen quickly and the sky is white-blue. Lines of silver sunlight pour between the leaves and branches of a tree that holds yellow-green fruit. Mango, maybe. I pick one, roll it over in my hands and take a bite. Whatever it is, it isn’t ripe. I spit it out, put the cigarette in my mouth and light it. The taste of clove and bonfires. I’m not keen on clove, it ruins apple pies, but the bonfire is OK. It sets fire to my lungs and the coughing rattles the dope hangover out of my head.

‘Keep it fucking down, man. Fuuck.’

The voice comes from the window behind me. Kim must be in there somewhere behind the mosquito mesh. There’s still more coughing to come so I open the gate and step onto the street where I let it out. I look at the cigarette.

‘You evil bastard.’

Putting it back in my mouth, the cloves do their job. The back of my throat is numbing and the cough rolls over and goes to sleep.

Noise is still dormant in this street of white walls and small houses and trees. It is a cul-de-sac that stops at a wall to my right. The sun is already blanching my face and the air is stuffy. Sweat bubbles up on my forehead. I’m going to like this heat. It’s going to bake me into something new. I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun. New Me is going to be brown and sun-bleached and blond-haired and careless. He’s going to smoke and drink and argue and live and Laura will not have anything to say on the matter. Nothing.

—Nothing?

—Nothing.

—Well that’s not nice, she says, ignoring the fact that she’s dead.

—Sorry, but me and you were one. We were one and you’ve gone. What does that leave? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to be?

—I don’t know.

—Exactly. So be quiet. Please.

I open my eyes before she can say more, go back in the house, pull a towel and bag of toiletries from my backpack, take a pee, shower under cold water, dry myself, put on a pair of pants, smoke another of Kim’s cigarettes, go back to my bed, lie down, watch a pale-green lizard no bigger than my little finger crawl across the ceiling. I sweat, sleep, wake up, sweat some more, sleep some more, wake up, tell Laura to be quiet and go back to sleep, sweat, go back to sleep.

She dies. Nothing is linear, everything is flat. Nothing continues in perfect expectation and succession; there is no beginning, middle or end.

She dies, and the moment that lies nearest to this amongst the countless moments laid out like photos on a bed is the bus stop, the farewell. I pick the photo up and turn it so the whole moment is made clear. Studying it, I see that a little gathering of hair has come out from behind her ear and hangs against her cheek. The scent of the sea and fish and chips is being blown from the seafront down through the streets to here. A little white speck of cotton is caught on an eyelash. I remove it with my thumb. She smiles, but there is awkwardness between us that feels alien. She turns away and checks the timetable on the post again. Around us people walk by, unaware of the importance of this moment. Cars carrying families with picnics and buckets and spades roll up and down the street sniffing out parking spaces. At her feet is a suitcase with a shoulder bag sat on its top. In the top of the bag a passport, tissues and her camera taunt me. She is wearing cut-off jeans with straggly white threads hanging over the tops of her calves. A thin ivory cotton top shows a half-moon of her back with lightly tanned skin pulled tight over vertebrae and delicate shoulder blades. My hand goes there. The backs of my fingers stroke gently down between them. She turns and throws her arms around me. Like a fly-trap I close around her.

‘Tell me not to go,’ she says into my ear.

‘Don’t go,’ I say into her hair, breathing in the scent of fruit and bottled freshness.

‘I have to.’ She puts her nose to my neck and I hear her breathe in.

‘You smell like shit. I’ll miss it.’

Through wispy hairs that tickle my face I see the white National Express coach waiting at a set of lights down the road, waiting to come and destroy me.

‘Don’t go,’ I say again. ‘I mean it.’

‘I’ll be back. It’s not exactly far. And you go enjoy yourself too. Go find yourself somewhere.’

‘I don’t need to. I’m happy with me. I’m happy here, with you.’

‘Well, no doubt you’ll sneak a visit out to see me, even if I say you can’t. You lovesick puppy.’ She holds me tight to her, arms reaching far around my back.

This will probably happen. I can’t believe I’m letting her go. I will have to see her somehow. I will have to. After more than three years together, I can’t understand how I’ll go for so long without seeing her, listening to her, watching her.

The lights have changed to green and the bus is moving towards us. My hands pull at the base of her back, pull her nearer.

‘I guess that means you can see my bus.’

‘No. It means I’ve got a boner.’

‘Sicko.’ Her hands grab my buttocks and her nails dig in. She grabs a piece of my neck with her teeth and pulls.

‘Ow. Hurts.’

She releases.

‘Don’t forget me.’ She leans back in my arms and locks my eyes with hers. ‘Do not forget me. I’m doing this for me, but I love you. And I am not leaving you. You’re just a yappy puppy going into kennels and I’ll be back for you soon.’

I howl at the approaching bus.

‘Calm down, Rover.’

‘Nine months isn’t soon.’

‘Nine months is this,’ and she snaps her fingers at the end of my nose. ‘And anyway, I know damn well you’re going to come and find me, because you’ll miss me too much and you won’t be able to resist it.’

‘We’ll see.’ I do see. I see me pacing around the flat sipping malt whiskey, sniffing her old cushions and the one pair of knickers she leaves on the bed as a farewell present, looking from the phone to the clock to the phone to see if I can call her yet. I see this as a nightly routine until I finally break, get on a plane, a bus will be too slow, and go and grab her by every bit of her I can.

‘I can’t just leave. You know I can’t. I can’t pack in the teaching already.’ I kid myself and am not really sure why I say it or why I’m doing it. Of course I’ll leave. ‘You’ve made it clear you don’t really want me there. Not really.’

‘Yes, but you need me, numbnuts. You won’t cope. Don’t deny.’

I read VICTORIA COACH STATION on the front of the bus as it pulls up beside us. It stops and lets out the airy fart noise buses make when they stop.

‘I deny. I don’t need a woman, for god’s sake. You’re never any good at cooking, or cleaning. So be gone.’

The door opens and suddenly everything is going at hyper-speed. How have we come to be here already? Why is she lifting her shoulder bag up and sliding it over her arm and looking at me like that? And her eyes are sparkling with wet. Her eyes never do that. And she becomes blurry because mine are doing the same and I’m a man and I don’t do that. Then as the driver is putting her suitcase in the luggage compartment under the bus we’re hugging and then kissing and then she strokes my face and says something and I nod and she climbs on the bus and my insides fall out and splash across the road and the bus pulls off, squashing them under its wheels.

And she is waving from the back window and I stand there with my hand in the air unable to move it, shocked by the speed of everything. The bus flashes an orange light at me and it turns. And it’s gone.

And I throw the photo of this moment back amongst the others; a lifetime of snapshots mixed up and in no order, demanding that I look at them, from here, in this place he’s shoved me, with his life, hoping I’ll be forgotten.