Shaman of Bali

by John Greet

  * * *

  The next morning I padded down to the coffee shop. As I came round the corner, I was set upon by a group of Japanese fishermen, all talking at once and bent on going to sea. Word of yesterday’s success had spread. Three times the number of people we usually had space for on our boats wanted to go fishing.

  Ketut pulled me aside. ‘I got it, Adam. I bring three more boats from local boys. We have enough,’ he whispered. ‘Here, Jimmy leave you this,’ he handed me a rolled paper note tied with a single strand of lady-grass.

  I walked out to the sea wall and untied the knot. It was a perfectly drawn miniature sea chart giving exact coordinates and bearings, with a large X to mark the spot where Jimmy would be waiting. I recognised the place. It was a black protruding rock known to surfers as the Beacon, about half a mile offshore beyond a part of the reef called Airport Left. I crushed the paper map into a ball and stuffed it into my pocket. What had I gotten myself into? I hoped Jimmy had plenty of fish in his basket.

  We set off with the Japanese tourists. No sooner had our fifth boat crossed the reef when I saw the bow-wake of two black Zodiacs hurtling towards us at about thirty knots. Both boatmen were wearing skull caps. As they came into view, I recognised Mahmood Bas’s right-hand man and cock handler. They had a couple of Japanese fishermen in each vessel, rods held high. The black boats remained twenty metres behind us and watched our every move. When our fleet cruised past the Beacon, a fish struck. It was a diamond trevally with trailer fins streaming, caught by Boat No. 2. A blue-striped eel caused havoc by tangling all lines around a couple of boats. Then a brown-spotted shark came thrashing and snapping aboard our boat. How had Jimmy managed that? On it went, with a couple of yellow fin, followed by a dogtooth tuna. A pair of good-sized Spanish mackerel went to Ketut’s boat. Jimmy the Fish was doing us proud.

  The men aboard the Zodiacs had their lines out and were trawling directly behind us. They pointed and shook their heads in disbelief and frustration as they moved in closer, watching us land fish after fish. To give Jimmy a break, I ordered the fleet to the south end of the Beacon. The Zodiacs wound in their lines empty-handed. Our fishermen boasted by holding their fish up, cameras clicking, hurling guttural Japanese expletives between the two boats. Before they left, the Zodiacs circled us at speed, cutting dangerously in front of our bow, their wake rocking our outriggers and soaking us with sea spray, but it didn’t dampen out fishermen’s spirits. They responded with the one-fingered salute.

  We tied the boats together and hoisted a sun shelter. As I sucked on a piece of watermelon and looked around at the faces of satisfied fishing customers, I realised that Anak was right. We had to watch out for Bas.

  * * *

  Sunday’s call from Grace came as a relief. She’d heard nothing more about the search for Adam Milano. She told me that she and Steven had found a flat and moved in together.

  ‘That’s good, sweetheart. I’m glad you’re with someone who cares about you. I’m looking forward to meeting him. Is your mum getting used to the idea?’

  ‘She’s still pissed off, but now that we don’t live at her house I get along better with her. I’m working fulltime now for Pierre at the French Café.’

  ‘Okay, is he paying you well?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I’d known Pierre from the day he’d arrived from France. He worked front of house at Milano’s, and we became friends. Grace was a good manager but I suspected he was looking after her as a favour to me. I quietly thanked him for taking a load off my mind.

  * * *

  Jimmy the Fish never tired or complained about his heavy workload, and of course I saw to it that he was paid well. On account of the tours, and because the roof was nearly finished, the Sandika’s accounts were looking healthy. Once the hotel was back in business, I intended to use that money to instigate my marketing plan, a strategy I’d developed to increase our turnover. Once I’d achieved that, I would ask Anak for a share of the business. I felt positive he’d agree. Once, during a chess game, he’d almost suggested as much.

  Late one night, I pulled a chair onto the back balcony and gazed out over the grounds of the Bali Haj. The underwater lights cast the heart-shaped swimming pool in a turquoise glow. Oil lamps lit a coral sand pathway that led to an outside bar. I heard shouts of ‘kanpai’ followed by laughter; the fishermen who had been on our boats that day were celebrating. I looked back at the Sandika’s grounds. I understood why Bas had made that mad wager at the cockfights. If the two hotels worked together, they could create one of the most unique and profitable hospitality centres in Bali. With the Sandika’s sandy beach and local aesthetics, and its grounds large enough to accommodate not only fishing tours but perhaps car rentals, bus tours, poolside smorgasbord dinners and much more. I thought of the many business possibilities that a joint venture could create, and I resolved to myself that if ever a chance presented itself where I could bring these two hotel owners together, I would take it. Furthermore, I would proffer my services as manager, and I would grow the business and put enough money in both their pockets that they would eventually have to consider me their business partner.

  The Zodiacs appeared daily and always went home empty-handed. The following day we found that the same tourist fishermen from Bas’s tours had signed on with us. The Bali Haj Hotel were giving us a continuous supply of Japanese tourists. Word of our fishing tours reached Tokyo, and they arrived in even larger groups. Jimmy always managed to supply our tours with a good number of fish. Some days, when the tuna weren’t running, he speared parrot fish and sand sharks. Both species were not known to take a lure. Thankfully, our fishermen appeared none the wiser.

  * * *

  Weeks earlier, Satchimoto, a Japanese guest had arrived. Being a keen fisherman, he knew of our tours and booked directly into the Sandika. Satchimoto was a stubby little man with bow legs and bad teeth. He had a contagious laugh. It started with a shaking in his belly, rose up and erupted from his florid round face like a burst of machine-gun fire. In the short time he lived at the hotel, together with the heron’s cry, the squealing of rat monkeys, the hiss of waves against the sea wall and the chime of temple bells, Satchimoto’s laughter became part of the Sandika’s morning sounds. He’d soon made the hotel his home and appeared comfortable. He was respectful of the staff and took a sincere interest in their families and affairs. Wayan believed he must have been Balinese in a previous life. But his most endearing quality was his consistent eruptions of laughter.

  Since living in Bali, he’d changed his wardrobe. Gone were the standard Lacoste T-shirts, fishing jackets and cloth hats. Instead he’d bought himself a collection of colourful oversized board shorts, which he wore with the waist band pulled halfway up over his round belly, his hairless bow legs sticking out at odd angles. He’d acquired a deep suntan because he liked to leave his Hawaiian shirts off as much as he could. To the Japanese tourists arriving weekly, Satchimoto was already an authority on the island, a role he relished. He spent his mornings in the Sandika coffee shop, dispensing advice to fresh groups of tourists about where to get the best buys, who were the honest traders and so forth.

  One morning, while sipping his coffee, Satchimoto told us about why he had moved to Bali. He had spent most of his working life running a successful travel agency in Tokyo, hence his connection to Bali. Some time ago, he returned home from a work trip to find his apartment empty and his wife of thirty years gone. There was a note on the table that began with, ‘I’m leaving because I don’t love you anymore …’ Satchimoto accepted this. In fact, he told us he was almost relieved since the feeling was mutual, but it was the last part of the note that set him on a course of action. His wife had fallen in love with his best friend and business partner, Hiro. They now lived together in Tokyo and were asking for half of Satchimoto’s considerable estate. Satchimoto was the principal shareholder of his travel agency, and years ago he had brought his friend Hiro in as partner with no capital. Legally, the business and its assets belong
ed to Satchimoto. He owned one-hundred percent of the shares but under Japanese matrimonial law, his wife stood a chance of receiving half of the estate through the courts. After an exchange of lawyers’ correspondence, it became clear there would be a court battle that could drag on for years. Satchimoto acted swiftly. No official papers had yet been served contesting his estate, so he sold the business and transferred the bulk of his cash and stocks offshore. Some stocks and bonds went to a Japanese bank based in the Philippines and most of his cash to an Indonesian bank. He gifted his wife a large property, and then within forty-eight hours he had boarded a flight to Bali.

  His story, punctuated by short bursts of machine-gun laughter, ended with Satchimoto stating emphatically that he would never return to live in Tokyo. Naturally, I could sympathise with him, although I noticed a hardness in his eyes that didn’t match his bursts of laughter. I felt that what he chose to tell us was far less revealing than what he kept to himself.

  * * *

  Early one morning, Jimmy knocked on my door. He looked beat-up, with coral cuts and gashes on his legs and arms. His wet matted hair dripped salt water, and his troubled eyes darted from side to side. ‘Adam, I catch a big one.’

  I took Jimmy into my room, sat him down and tended to his cuts. He told me he’d been fishing last night as usual and hooked onto the largest yellow fin tuna he’d ever seen.

  ‘His eyes like this.’ Jimmy made a circle with forefingers and thumbs the size of a plate.

  ‘Where’s this fish now?’

  ‘In the basket, Adam. I fight him long time,’ Jimmy grimaced as I dabbed iodine into a graze on his right arm.

  ‘Why didn’t you let him go? Cut the line?’

  ‘No,’ he looked offended by my suggestion. After a reflective short pause he said, ‘Fish and me fight. I win.’

  I poured the last of the iodine into a deep gash in his left leg. ‘How did you stop him?’

  ‘Ah. Fish make big mistake. He swim past anchor line from my canoe, Adam. I catch it and tie two line together. And the fish turn away to sea, but now he pull a canoe with me on it. He go long time and next time he stop, he all finished, no more fight. He stop by the basket. I put anchor and swim for basket … I pass the fish, and I see his big black eye watching me.’ Jimmy paused as if he wanted to be sure he remembered exactly what he had seen underwater.

  ‘Fish eye follow me … He quiet in water, the hook in good, line tight, not moving, but big eye following me.’ Jimmy’s voice dropped to a disturbed whisper, ‘I take basket and swim to him. Then I put him in the basket. I come from behind, and he just fit inside, with tail out. I tie basket to rock with big anchor rope, and come here to you.’ Jimmy slumped forward, holding his head. I walked out to the balcony. A heron rose from its nest in a palm tree, squawked and flapped its wings. I heard voices from below and looked over to see three Japanese tourists coming along the path, kitted out in their fishing regalia, heading towards the coffee shop. Back in the room I said, ‘I can cancel the tour today, Jimmy.’

  He looked up. ‘No! We bring them like always, go very slow, very slow, give me plenty time and plenty line, and I hook that fish. Him big, so you make Japanese use big line with the big hook. We bring that fish up.’

  ‘Okay, Jimmy, we’ll take the boats out now. You okay?’

  ‘Me okay, Adam. You no worry.’

  I told the fishermen gathered in the coffee shop, ‘An enormous yellow-fin tuna was sighted off the reef at daybreak and was still in our fishing grounds.’ This set off a round of excited murmurs and anxious mumblings. ‘And use your heaviest gauge fishing line this morning,’ I added.

  Satchimoto raced back to his room and returned with a heavy-duty big-game fishing rod complete with harness and reel wound with a thick gauge-braided line. He would be coming on our boat. The boats took to the water. Including Satchimoto, Ketut and I had three fishermen aboard our vessel, fewer than usual. I wanted to keep it simple. We took the lead and powered over the reef. I knew where Jimmy and his fish lay: fifty metres to starboard on a bearing we’d used on an earlier trip. I needed to get it exactly right, then make sure that Satchimoto let his line run so Jimmy had time to hook up the fish.

  Satchimoto selected a silver imitation fish lure with a hook the size of my hand. He held it up for my approval. I nodded. Over the side it went, and the braided line paid out. Once Satchimoto had his rod in the harness and his feet well-placed and his body braced on a cross beam, I asked the two remaining fishermen to hold off with their rods and took the helm from Ketut. The strong rip of a receding tide caused eddies and swirls and bursts of churning white caps. A flock of seabirds hovered above.

  I heard the roar of the engine before I saw it. A Zodiac came speeding towards us, rising until it was almost airborne, thumping into a trough, spraying foam like wings. Mahmood Bas stood in it, holding the guy-ropes while his man helmed the boat. No fishermen were on board. He circled us then cut the motor a short distance away. As the boat dipped out of sight, Mahmood Bas appeared to stand on water like some biblical character, his white kaftan whipping in the wind. Then the boat reappeared and dispelled the illusion.

  Satchimoto’s rod bent like a whip. The line paid out, and his ratchet screeched like a high-pitched electric drill. I cut the outboard and scrambled the length of the boat. As I reached Satchimoto, I flicked the ratchet lever off his rod and pushed the tip down. His line ran silent.

  ‘Let it run! Let it run!’ I told him, raising my hand.

  This was not standard fishing procedure and Satchimoto knew it, but he followed my instructions. I sat by him while his reel ran free. Minutes passed. A seabird keened from above. I glanced at Bas. His wet kaftan stuck to his lean frame, he held his skull cap in hand. His eyes were fixed on the line. Satchimoto’s hand went towards his drag control. I laid my hand over his. I visualised Jimmy underwater with the lure caught on his boat hook, swimming towards the basket. Satchimoto desperately wanted to raise the rod and set the hook. With his reel nearly empty, I felt the line slacken. I released my hand. Satchimoto flicked on the drag lever. The fish struck! The power of the strike almost pulled Satchimoto off his perch. The boat shuddered as if it had hit a rock; Jimmy had made the hook up and released the fish.

  With bow legs braced, Satchimoto raised his rod, set his ratchet and applied more drag. With the line on his reel dangerously low, he needed to gain it back. He leaned into his harness and using his legs hauled the rod up then lowered it, winding fast, picking up line. He settled into a steady rhythm. Up went the rod while sweat rolled down his face. The ratchet whined when he lowered the tip, then groaned machine-like as he wound it in.

  The fish made a sudden burst and ran. The hard-won line quickly lost as it sliced through water. Bare metal showed on the spool of the reel. We were only seconds away from the line snapping and losing the fish. In that instant, the yellow fin tuna jumped. Its huge body rose out of the sea, thirty metres from our boat, streaming diamond water. It thrashed and arched in a majestic display of vertical power. Colours flashed, yellow, blue, silver, the tuna’s head twisting in an effort to throw the hook. With an eruption of white water, it landed sideways and disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  Silenced by what we’d just seen, by the sheer size of the fish, we looked at each other. One of the fishermen had tried to take a photograph, but he’d missed the shot by a second. As he passed the camera around, on the digital screen we saw the tail of the fish, its body obscured by the splash. The width of the tail confirmed that the fish was indeed enormous. From the Zodiac, Bas stared at the spot where the fish had jumped.

  Satchimoto raised his rod. The fish was still on. As he gained line. The rod rose and fell. The muscles on his face and forearms were taunt, his knuckles blue, his breathing heavy, and his fishing jacket soaked in sweat. Another fisherman squirted water into his mouth and mopped his brow with a damp rag. There was no sign of the fish, only the slap of waves against our hull, and the incessant groan of the reel as the Japanese worked
the rod. But the fish was close. With nearly all line retrieved, we knew it lay below us. With three gaff hooks and a net kept ready, we craned over the side, peering into water. Just as I turned to hand a gaff hook to Ketut, one of the Japanese fishermen near the rail screamed – a long shrill ‘Aaaiii!’ I looked into the water, and in that moment Satchimoto gave the final pull on his rod.

  With ginger hair streaming behind and ghoulish yellow eyes opened wide, Jimmy the Fish emerged from the water, attached to the line. A macabre grin was spread across his face, an unnatural, hideous expression: his lips stretched from ear to ear; his eyes stared straight ahead, unfocused; blood streamed from his mouth, colouring the water red around his limp body. I couldn’t move, think or speak. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  Satchimoto, further back in the boat, unaware of what we’d seen, lowered his rod. With the release of the line, Jimmy slid underwater. His body rolled, and I saw what had happened: Satchimoto’s hook was lodged under Jimmy’s chin. It had pulled his jaw bone out of its sockets, spreading his jowls, forcing his face into that gruesome grin. I jerked into action. With knife in hand, I reached down and cut the line, releasing Jimmy. Only the top of his head was visible in the blue depths. He was sinking fast, his ginger hair trailing free, waving like tentacles. Then it came to me. Jimmy the Fish was dead.

  Ketut dived into the water. He wrapped his arms around Jimmy’s body and pushed him to the surface. The boatmen helped bring him towards a boat, then we pulled him aboard together and lay him on a platform.

  I knelt beside him and mumbled his name. I put my cheek against his mouth. No breath. I took his limp arm in my hand and felt for a pulse. I pushed a damp wad of hair away from his neck and searched for his jugular, pressing with a forefinger. There was no pulse. I looked up at the Balinese faces and moved my head from side to side. On its jump, the tuna must have thrown the hook. Travelling underwater at a quick speed, it had struck Jimmy under the chin. Clearly he couldn’t dislodge it or cut the line and had drowned in Satchimoto’s relentless pull.