by Mike Stoner
I sit down on the step and wallow in my epiphany, knowing that to pee free is to be free, until the bus slows a little and the road disappears and becomes something I only thought existed in adventure films: a rickety bridge with great gaps between pieces of old wood and rusting metal. About fifteen metres below it a fast-flowing and shallow river is visible through the holes as we pass over. I lean out of the bus, holding onto the handrail, and look behind. The bus is following carefully placed planks that aren’t much wider than the wheels. They rattle as we go over them. I smile. Life is better when death can nearly reach out and grab you. I almost wish it would. A morning of epiphanies.
We rattle off the other side of the bridge and I watch it disappear as we go around a bend. I sit back on the step and take in every leaf, every tree, every pothole, until the bus slows. We pass by bamboo and wood huts and houses and stop at the end of the road. A sign tells us we’ve arrived at Bukit Lawang, our destination. We blink our gritty eyes, stretch our arms, pick up our little shoulder bags and get off.
‘This way,’ says Kim. We follow him to a path that leads up between wooden shacks and stalls selling all colours of sarongs and batik-patterned shirts. The jungle is green and thick and high behind the buildings. In a few seconds the river is on our left, wide, fast and shallow; it flows back in the direction we have come from and then falls quickly over a weir. There is a restaurant partly on stilts overhanging the river on the other bank, and on this bank wooden-and-bamboo-constructed bars and eating places interrupt the view. Bob Marley posters and Rasta colours decorate the walls of a lot of them and occasional reggae music mixes with the sound of the river. The buildings are nearly all open on at least two sides. Cushions, bamboo chairs and tables furnish them. An occasional owner or barman says hello or tries to get us to come in for a drink or food. My stomach is rumbling, but Kim keeps us going.
After five or ten minutes of following the uneven path past the stalls and buildings it climbs into trees, but still follows the river, which flows a little way below. The jungle is becoming more imposing and trees tower over the river valley on both sides. The green is all-encompassing and surreal after the city and a night in a darkened disco.
We pause to watch half a dozen Indonesians shoot down the river on giant inner tubes, laughing and spinning and bouncing over white frothing rocks as they go.
‘Who’s up for tubing later?’ asks Jussy.
‘Nah, not me,’ answers Julie, who now looks pale. She blinks about six times in quick-fire succession.
‘Maybe tomorrow. I want food and beer and swimming,’ says Kim.
Naomi, who hasn’t said anything since Medan, mutters, ‘Maybe.’
‘Beer,’ says Marty.
I say nothing. I’m happy just to stare at the immense green that looms over and around me. I wonder how far the jungle goes once you’re in it and what’s in it. I’m not even sure if it is officially a jungle or a forest or what. My lack of knowledge astounds me.
We start walking and I’m sweating again. The path dips back down and we’re amongst some more bamboo stalls, shacks and bars. These too lean out over the river on one side of the path and line the jungle on the other. There is mostly only one row of buildings, except for a few add-on constructions behind, and behind them is a slope going up and up, covered in vegetation.
Kim leads us into one of the restaurants on the right. It’s all open and covered only by a wood, bamboo and leaf roof. Everything inside is made from the same. It’s cool in the shade.
‘Hey, hello, my friend,’ says a shirtless guy of about twenty, with dark-skin and lean muscle and long straight hair down to his cutoff trousers. ‘Good to see you again.’ He knocks knuckles with Kim. ‘You want rooms?’
‘Yeah, man. We all want singles?’
We answer in the affirmative.
‘OK.’ The Indonesian goes into a back room and brings out five keys, each hanging off a number carved from wood.
We arrange to meet back in the restaurant in thirty minutes and go off to find our rooms. Mine is up a path that runs behind the bar and then up a few steps. I climb the stone-made steps. An aquamarine-and-black butterfly the size of my hand floats in front of me and lands on a leaf by the path. I kneel to look at her, wings quivering as she rests. She seems too delicate to fly, so delicate that if a raindrop were to land on her it would tear her wing. Suddenly she is afloat again and rises into the jungle foliage. I climb a few more steps to my door, wondering at the fragility of things.
I unlock the wood-slatted entrance. It creaks open. Inside are cool shadows and basic comforts, but better than any hotel room I’ve stayed in; no neatly folded towels, no yelling TV, no smell of fabricated fresh air. Here is real air with a scent of damp timber and earth. Within wooden walls, a double bed with only a sheet and thin blanket, a rotting wooden cupboard and a bamboo chair welcome me. I can hear the sound of running water. I lick around my dry gums. There is no window, but daylight falls through the gaps in the wooden walls. There are two more doors. I open one. It leads onto a balcony.
I catch my breath.
The rickety and gnarled wooden platform has a roof of banana leaves and overlooks a small stream. This tumbles away from a small waterfall which pours out of the forest undergrowth a few metres away. The brook bubbles over rocks and down the hill from the forest where it disappears into darkness under the back wall of the restaurant a little below. Fern leaves and large red flowers bend over the stream, and the trees of the jungle loom above leaving only a small gap of blue sky. The smell of moisture and damp dirt mixes with the scent of flora unknown. I stand there, taking it in, when three more butterflies of different vivid colours—yellows, reds, turquoise—float across my private little valley.
I don’t want to meet the others. I want to stay here. New Me almost lets me, but for the fact that there must be so much more to see, and he wants to see it.
Back inside there is a bathroom which consists of a toilet, a bucket of water, a scoop beside it and a shower. It is all open plan, with no shower curtain, and the floor is concrete. The toilet doesn’t flush and I have to throw water down it from the bucket to clear it, and the shower is icy cold. I stick different parts of me under it one by one until finally all my body is acclimatised and ready to stand under it at once. I stand upright under the flow and gasp. It is so cold that it must be straight from the stream and is probably purer and cleaner than any chemical-enhanced water back home. It is the best shower in the world. I haven’t felt this alive since…
since…
—That time—
—Shut up, Laura.
I spin the taps off. I towel my head so it hurts.
I want to see more of this place. And that’s all I want.
I dry myself. I dress. I go to meet the others.
Since…
That time under the waterfall. I remember it, Laura. Down here, with you, I remember it. We follow the stream up from the lake, climbing over rocks, up and up and away from the road and people. The waterfall drops from about ten feet into a pool of dark, calm water before the stream continues its journey down the hill. You lift your shirt over your head as soon as you see it, unclip your bra, step out of your jeans and underwear. Your body so pale, untouched by sun. Your black hair shining in the spring sunlight which spills through the trees lining this secret little valley. You step into the shallow water, drawing in breath and yelping at the coldness. I watch as you feel your way into deeper water, stumbling and giggling, hobbling over hidden rocks and stones. God, you look gorgeous. You throw cupped handfuls of freezing water over your hair, your nipples hard from the shock of it; your body seeming even whiter against the dark of the pool that surrounds you. You reach the waterfall. Shivering, you stand there, letting the fine spray cover you before you step under its foaming power. You scream and the scream becomes a laugh and the laugh becomes a yell.
‘Come in,’ you shout. ‘Come here.’
I pull my clothes from my body. I trip as I step out of my p
ants. I come to you. The water is numbing to my feet. Goosebumps break out across my body. But I come to you. You still laugh and hold your arms out to me as the torrent runs over you, blurring your face. I must be a blur to you too. I stumble, I stagger, I feel my way over hidden obstacles to be with you under the waterfall. Then I am there and I can’t believe the coldness of it. But it is life-giving; it is invigorating. It beats us, it wallops us, it pushes down on us, but we are alive. So alive. Your arms wrap around me and we kiss, fresh water pouring into our mouths, between our bodies pressed close to each other. I feel your breasts against me, your skin so soft, your nipples press hard against my chest. I am hard against you. Your legs wrap around me and I nearly fall, but we are against the rock under the waterfall. We hold on. You are warm around me. I am warm inside you. Cold outside. Shivering. Making love. Kissing. Swallowing and drinking purest water. My hands trying to hold us up, grasping at slippery rock, then grasping you. Wanting more warmth. Wanting deeper warmth. The water pounds us, massages us, makes us.
I have never been so alive. Together we are so alive. So alive.
IN YER FACE
O n the table is a pancake covered in pineapple, mango, papaya and banana, drizzled with condensed milk. The table we sit at is by the river, in an open area in front of one of the restaurants. The sun is gentle on us, still hot but comfortable. I feel fresh after my cold shower. All drug and alcohol after-effects have left me. I’m relaxed, loose. Facing the river, I watch it drop in a white block over a shelf of rock into a calm black pool, where it gathers speed and bubbles off into shallower waters.
‘Dig in, man. These are the best fucking pancakes ever.’ Kim puts a forkful in his mouth. ‘Oh yeah.’
The six of us are there, dressed in a varied array of T-shirts, shorts and sarongs. I have my first taste. The fruit tastes like fruit should, juicy and full of flavour and nothing taken out or added or preserved. ‘So did you have a good night?’ This is the first time Naomi has spoken to me since before we got on the bus. She pulls at a scraggly dreadlock. Kim laughs and raises an eyebrow.
‘Yes. I did, thanks.’ I look to the river where three Indonesians have just jumped in from the far side and are splashing each other.
‘So, was she a prozzie?’ asks Julie.
Kim laughs again.
‘Well, I didn’t sleep with her, so I guess not.’
‘She took your money though, man.’
‘Shut up, Kim. I didn’t sleep with her and it was never on offer. I just paid for her taxi back.’ And why the fuck do I have to explain myself?
‘She went back with you, then,’ says Naomi, separating mango from her pancake and leaving it on the side of her plate. ‘She was very pretty.’
‘Look. Nothing happened. She was a really nice girl.’
‘Seeing her again?’ asks Naomi.
I’m starting to find her questions and designer dreadlocks annoying, dangling down the side of her face like ivy twine.
‘No. Don’t know. Probably not. Maybe. Don’t really care,’ I say. Muscles are tightening in my back.
‘Somebody’s jealous.’ Kim’s smile is so wide I can see mashed fruit roll around the inside of his mouth.
‘Don’t be a prick, Septic.’ Naomi flicks a slice of mango across the table at him.
‘Let’s all just leave it. What I do is up to me, OK?’ Tension is prodding between my shoulder blades. I should have stayed on my balcony with the butterflies.
‘Nothing wrong with an occasional whore,’ says Jussy. ‘Me and Bugs don’t mind admitting it, do we boy?’ He pats Bugs Bunny on his t-shirt.
‘Jesus. Men.’ Naomi’s hand reaches for her beer and she swallows from it as though she’s just escaped the desert. Dreads swing with the sudden movement.
‘Orangs. Look.’ Julie is pointing across the river. Two long-haired orang-utans are on the opposite bank, sitting on a rock outcrop where the swimming men have left their shoes and shirts.
I blink to make sure what I’m seeing is what I’m seeing. It is. They are only about fifteen metres away, but don’t seem nervous of people at all. One of them hunch-walks to the pile of clothes the men have left there and picks up a shoe. Two of the young men in the water laugh as the third realises it’s his shoe. He stands up in the shallow water near the far bank. He shouts and splashes at them. The apes stay where they are. The one with the shoe sniffs it.
‘Idiot people shouldn’t even be on that side. It’s all reserve over there,’ says Julie.
I’m amazed at my first sight of the orang-utans. I haven’t got a camera. Sightseeing and happy memories aren’t my priority in Indonesia. But right now I wish I had one, right now I’m not feeling self-pitying and pathetic, right now I’m feeling awed.
‘How come they’re not scared?’ I ask.
‘They’ve probably not been back in the wild long. Most of the orangs around here have been rescued from somewhere and slowly reintroduced to the jungle,’ Marty answers as he pulls a big Nikon from his bag.
The guy gets out of the river and climbs up onto the rock. The orang-utans slowly move nearer the trees. With each step the man takes forward they take one back. One of them still holds the shoe and starts waving it in the air.
‘Cheeky buggers,’ says Julie, ‘they’re taunting him.’
As if to prove Julie right, the ape with the shoe lollops forward holding it out to the dripping-wet man. As he reaches for it the orang-utan moves back, still holding the shoe. The two in the water are laughing and yelling at their friend, who makes a sudden dash forward. The shoe thief shoots halfway up a tree and looks back over his shoulder, while the other orang-utan ambles to the farthest point on the rock and sits down on his haunches to watch the show. He’s probably as amused as we are.
The man stands at the bottom of the tree, reaching up and waving his hands, begging the orang-utan to give the shoe back. The ape leans down and waves the shoe within a few inches of the man’s reach. He jumps up to snatch it but the orang-utan swings its arm back up and holds the shoe above his head.
‘Fucking great show, man,’ says Kim.
I wish Laura was here. I push the thought back down and shove it in Old Me’s lap.
—You’re not ruining this moment.
He says nothing.
The man is now putting his arms around the tree and trying to pull himself up. The orang-utan climbs a little higher and dangles the shoe again. The man reaches and the orang-utan raises it high again in one long swooping arc, the look on his face non-committal and unreadable, just pouting mouth and calm eyes.
The two in the water are pointing and shouting at their friend to go higher. He looks uncertain but pulls himself up until he is about six feet up the tree and three feet from the thief’s long toes. He looks awkward, clumsy and stupid compared to the primate, who dangles the shoe yet again. The Indonesian reaches up with one hand while holding on with the other.
—I hope the idiot falls. Laura is here.
—Me too. I am actually happy she’s here for this one, sharing this moment with me.
But he doesn’t. His fingers are just touching the end of the shoe and he stretches to get it while the ape leans down to him, almost helpful. He’s grabbing and he’s going to get it, but just as his hand opens to take it the orang-utan flicks his wrist and the shoe flies off through the air in a long slow arc. It plops into the water, floats for a second, then sinks.
We’re laughing, the two in the river are laughing, a group of teenagers who have gathered just behind us are laughing, Laura laughs and strokes my cheek and then leaves, knowing conversation is about to start. The orang-utan on the rock turns and ambles off into the trees. The other turns and climbs up to the branches and then is lost in a rustle of leaves and shaking boughs. Gone without so much as a titter or a bow.
The man climbs-slides down the tree, scraping his chest as he goes, and says something rude and angry-sounding to his friends, picks up the remaining clothes and shoe and clambers off along the rocks.
> ‘Beats the shit out of TV,’ says Kim, who realises he hasn’t smoked for a few minutes and puts a cigarette in his mouth.
‘I never knew we could get so close to them.’
‘Hey, man, you can take a trip up to the feeding platform in the jungle and get even closer. They’re so tame here,’ says Jussy.
‘Feeding platform?’ I ask.
‘God, you really know nothing about this place,’ says Naomi. ‘Most of the orang-utans around here aren’t completely wild, they still need looking after until they find their feet. The reserve guys take them food everyday in case they can’t find any.’ The condescension in her voice grates.
‘I’d like to see that.’
‘Yeah, but not today, Newbie. It’s beer o’clock and then I want a swim,’ says Kim.
There’s a general agreement with the plan, so three minutes later the table is decorated with Bintangs. The group of teenagers approaches us. They push a pretty but podgy-faced girl in a hijab forward.
‘Excuse me please. Can we make a photo with you?’ she asks.
‘Here we go,’ says Julie, ‘celebrity time.’
‘Of course you can,’ says Jussy, smiling at the girl.
The group gather around us at the table and we all smile at each of their cameras, then they thank us and go.
‘What was that all about?’ I ask.
‘Always happens,’ answers Naomi. ‘They can show their friends and family that they met the lesser-spotted white person. Probably frame the photos and put them on the wall like we’re presidents or something.’
‘You’re joking,’ I say.
‘Nope. It gets a bit tedious after two months. Get it enough in Medan without having it ruin my weekend.’ Naomi puts her sunglasses back over her eyes.
‘I think it’s nice. It’s adding to my weekend rather than ruining it.’ I watch the group walk away. They’re giggling and waving goodbye to us.
‘Me too,’ says Kim.
