Jalan Jalan

by Mike Stoner

  ‘Going to Toba with the other teachers. Just waiting for them to finish their classes.’

  ‘Cool, man. Lake Toba is cool. Beautiful.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  Johnny is moving from foot to foot. He opens his mouth and then closes it again.

  ‘You OK?’ I ask.

  ‘Uh. Um. Yeah.’ He nods his head and looks around. We’re alone outside the school. Inside, students stand behind steamed-up windows, waiting for the rain to stop before leaving.

  ‘Actually, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  An old man over the street is wading knee-high through the water. Suddenly he drops and disappears up to his chest in the brief river. He swim-splashes two or three feet and then pushes himself up and out of the water as if climbing out of a well. He carries on as though nothing has happened.

  ‘Oh man. He fell in the shit. Under the pavement is shit. What do you call it, where shit and piss goes?’

  ‘Sewers?’

  ‘Yeah, man. Sewers. He fell in sewer. The pavement must be missing there. Ha ha. Shitty toes now.’ Johnny is nodding his head up and down in rapid movements. ‘Ha ha. Shitty.’

  He’s probably right. Shitty toes. The sewers run under concrete slabs which make up the pavement. Every now and then one is missing, leaving a metre-wide hole. You learn to look for them when you’re walking and it’s dry. The holes are easy to see, but under nearly a foot of water, they’re invisible.

  ‘Lucky he did not go under. Drown in shit and piss. Ugh. That’d be shitty. Ha ha.’

  ‘Certainly would be shitty. What did you want to ask, Johnny?’

  ‘Uh. Yeah. So, er, you had girlfriend, yeah?’

  I answer, the words nearly jam behind my teeth but I push them out, ‘Yeah, I did.’

  ‘So, you kiss her many times?’

  ‘Yes, and other girls.’ Even though we’ve had this conversation in class already, I still add the extra information to see his reaction again.

  ‘Other,’ he pauses, smokes, flicks something invisible off his arm, ‘girls.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you do, you know, other stuff too?’

  ‘What other stuff do you mean, Johnny?’ I know exactly want he means but watching him squirm the words out amuses me in a Friday afternoon kind of way.

  ‘You know. Stuff.’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’

  ‘Yeah you do, man. You know. Stuff.’

  ‘What, stuff like pom-pom?’

  ‘Ha, yeah. Pom-pom. You do a lot of pom-pom with other girls?’

  I laugh.

  ‘Some girls, yes.’

  ‘So, er, you ever do it with boys too?’ Johnny looks away and nervously pulls at his quiff.

  ‘No. I haven’t.’ I sense something is about to come from Johnny I don’t really want to hear.

  ‘It’s just that…’ He looks over his shoulder at the misted faces behind the large school window. ‘It’s not fair, you know?’

  I don’t want to ask, but I have to, out of politeness to him and because I like him.

  ‘What’s not fair?’

  ‘I’d, er—I’d, er—well, so many people pom-pom with you, it’s not fair because I’d like to too.’

  There is only the sound of the rain stamping its feet on the roof above us and traffic swashing through the road-river. It is the only sound for long moment, during which an immense awkwardness builds between Johnny and me like a sped-up film of a skyscraper going up. It is over when a blinding flash and simultaneous whip-crack of thunder announce that the block of concrete and steel between us is finished.

  ‘Sorry, Johnny, but, but…’ What to say? ‘You wouldn’t want to see me naked. It’s not pretty.’ What sort of a get-out is that?

  ‘I would,’ he mutters. His usual confidence is washing away with the storm.

  ‘I’m sorry, Johnny, but I’ve got to go and get my bag from inside. The classes have nearly finished.’ I hurry away, leaving him staring at the rain, and go into the steaming entrance of the school, pushing past moist, condensation-covered students. Any words of comfort for Johnny held at bay by a sudden, previously unknown homophobia. I’m shocked both at Johnny’s advance and my inability to deal with it like the liberal-minded bloke I like to think I am.

  I reach to get my bag out from under my desk and a spray of sweat drops from my forehead. The AC must be playing up. I should go back and talk to him. I will. Now. But when I step back outside, I see him duck under the canopy of a bicycle becak and all I can do is watch as it labours off upstream, water sloshing over the footplate, Johnny’s feet getting soaked.

  ‘Eh, Newbie.’ The slap on my back is too hard.

  ‘Kim.’

  ‘Whassup, man? You looking drugged already.’ He pushes me away from the school doors as students start to pile out.

  ‘You know Johnny?’

  ‘Mr Cool with the leather?’

  ‘Yes, well, he just made a move…’ I stop. No, don’t. No big mouth. Not me. Johnny doesn’t deserve gossip.

  ‘On you? He made a move on you. Cool Johnny? No fucking way.’

  Too late. Cocked-up again.

  ‘No, not a move, he just asked about my sexual leanings.’

  ‘Cool Johnny is gay. Fuck. Wait ‘til the girls in school hear this one.’

  ‘Kim. No.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘No. He’s a good kid. Don’t.’

  ‘Really? Why not?’

  ‘Because it’ll make me look a shit and he doesn’t deserve it.’

  Kim contemplates the thinning rain.

  ‘Guess he is a kinda good guy.’

  ‘You hate racism, Septic, remember. It’s the same thing.’

  He nods, looks at me, punches my arm.

  ‘You’re no fucking fun, you fucking Limey. OK. Let’s get the others and get to fucking Toba, man. Need some ‘shroooooms.’ The school door swings behind him as he goes back in. The pre-ordered and modern eight-seater taxi pulls in through the subsiding flow of water on the road and stops just in front of me.

  Toba: out of the city. Countryside. Green. Fresh air. Space.

  Kim, Marty, Jussy and Julie come out of the school door in a silent line. Kim slides the minivan door and lets the others in first, then me, and as I climb in he says, ‘Gay. Ugh. Not normal, man.’

  I stop, half-in and half-out. There’s a glint in his eye and he pats my bum.

  ‘Just kidding. His secret’s safe with me.’

  The door slides shut. Julie is double-checking the price with the driver.

  ‘Bagus bagus,’ she says and pats the driver on the shoulder. ‘For once it’s as per the quote.’

  ‘Are we picking Naomi up?’

  ‘She said she’s not coming if you’re going to be there, Newbie.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Don’t worry, man. We’d rather have you and your schizo ways than her and her dreads.’

  Four hours later, after a stop at a roadside shack to buy a case of beer, talking the very easygoing driver into letting us smoke grass, sharing it with him, discussing the Ten Commandments and getting it down to five, then singing the wrong words to Dylan songs while the jungle and villages pass by unnoticed in the dark, we arrive at the already sleeping town of Parapat, on the edge of Lake Toba, somewhat dazed and very stoned.

  ‘This picture isn’t her.’ Jane is sitting in the armchair. She looks like a small child who has aged too quickly. The chair towers over her like the jaws of some monster that is about to close its mouth. Her fingers stroke the edges of the photo frame. She is a small woman, but now she is even smaller. The weight of loss has pushed her down and compressed her into herself. Her red-rimmed eyes search the photo as though trying to find her place on a map, but not understanding why she can’t even find a landmark.

  ‘I have more recent photos,’ I say, ‘I’ll send you some.’

  ‘That would be kind. This is too old. Why don’t I have any of her as she is now? Was, is, was
, now?’

  I have the answer, but I don’t give it. Children become adults; they aren’t under the care of their parents anymore. They aren’t sweet and cute, they are problems, and worry, and sometimes only distant acquaintances. There is no time to photograph them when there is so much adult discussion to be made, so much disagreement and tongue-biting. The parents don’t understand their children and children don’t understand their parents. Everyone is too embarrassed to ask for a photo. If a photo is taken it isn’t a smiling, relaxed face that is captured, it is one which is full of age and concern and vanity. It’s easier and safer to look at the old photos, from a time when each was needed by the other.

  Laura: vain, independent, beautiful, with a phobia of cameras.

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like from me?’ I ask.

  Jane’s eyes squint, then glance around the room as if it is alien to her.

  ‘I have her clothes, I have her…’ What do I have? Now it is me who is lost. My mind goes through my apartment, through the bedside cabinet, pulling open drawers, flinging open the wardrobe and finding a winter coat and an over-sized nightshirt. It searches under the bed, slippers with holes where her big toe used to poke out. Into the kitchen, mugs, glasses, my mind pulls the kitchen drawers onto the floor. From the bottom one spills out all the detritus accumulated from broken things, spare things, things that are too good to be thrown out but too useless to be used. I kick it all across the floor. There is something, it is shining. What is it? It is broken, but it is her…

  ‘Necklace. I have her necklace.’

  ‘Necklace? Which necklace?’ Jane looks at me now. Her fingers still stroke the frame.

  ‘It’s silver. The chain’s broken. It’s got Minnie Mouse on it.’

  ‘Minnie Mouse?’

  ‘She said she used to love Minnie Mouse.’

  (I used to love Minnie Mouse. My mother used to buy me Minnie Mouse stuff…)

  ‘I used to buy her Minnie Mouse stuff all the time.’

  (But then I threw most of it away, when I started secondary school)

  ‘She threw it all away.’

  (It hurt her)

  ‘It hurt me.’

  (I kept this though)

  ‘She kept a piece?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll send it to you.’

  (I keep meaning to tell my mum I’ve still got a bit)

  ‘She kept it because of you.’

  Her eyes search mine.

  ‘I’d like it. Please.’

  ‘OK.’ But I want it. I want it all. I want to hold it all and feel it in my hands and against my face. I want to sleep in her nightshirt and under her coat, I want her slippers to put my hands in, to smell, I want her necklace, to feel its weight in my palm. She is my Laura. They are my things.

  ‘My little Minnie Mouse,’ whispers her mother.

  ‘I’ll bring it tomorrow.’

  IN THE MOUTH

  OF THE VOLCANO

  B eing alone is a precious thing. It gives you time to be you. No outside influences can blur your personality into one of the mishmash of personas that you subconsciously create for the people you’re with; the personality you make to please the person of the moment.

  I don’t know who I am with these who sleep around me in this hostel room. Is it the real me, or is the real me someone who is in all those other moments, in that spinning world of moments with Laura that are sometimes so hard to grasp and which, at other times, appear without summons or desire? Or am I, the pure and base me, here only inside my head when I am alone?

  As I stare at the grey ceiling of this hostel, just awake, I wish that all of today could be mine and mine alone. I want to be me without using exhausting self-control in order to smile and laugh and even just talk to these others. Others who all have issues of their own, whether they realise it or not.

  Here, alone, and so grateful to be alone, the one thing I do that contradicts my need for solitude is to examine Laura’s face. I pull it out of its hiding place and piece it all back together. The curl of her hair over her brow; the small, near-invisible mole above her lip, on the right side. I know it’s the right side. I’ve heard say that when someone is no longer, it’s hard to remember how they looked, or even the colour of their eyes. But I know her face. When I have these moments alone, I can put her back together and know that is exactly how she is. The light-brown flecks in her green eyes. The soft downy feel of her ear against my lips. The smell of her cheek against my nose. The hardening of her nipples against my palm. The taste of her mouth in the morning when we kiss. It is all there.

  I shouldn’t be thinking of her; it should be Eka I think of, with her warm and giving body and her thick dark hair and lips that are soft and violent at the same time. Perhaps I should be thinking of the nights together when our bodies blur into each other’s in a ritual of forgetting all but that current sensual moment. As much as I try to move my thoughts to Eka and the sensations we feel as we melt into each other, it is still Laura who I give my mind to in these rare snippets of solitude. I know Laura knows this; that is why she isn’t tormenting me with my broken promise of no pom-pom. She knows I think of her and not Eka. Infidelity of the mind is so much more damaging than infidelity of the body.

  So now who am I? Is this what I have become when I am alone? A shrine to Laura. A soul desperate to be alone in order to be with my soulmate. I want me back. Not Old Me, not New Me, just me. I want me, so I can think empty thoughts that mean nothing or deep thoughts that mean so much.

  I expect someone will wake soon, so I sit up and push the thin clammy sheet off me. We’re all in one room together, on low-to-the-ground beds, except Jussy, who is curled up under a couple of Julie’s sarongs on the floor. Not enough beds to go around.

  Pulling on my shorts and T-shirt I can hear the sounds of engines and chatter coming from outside. The light coming through the thin curtains feels adolescent, as though it isn’t early morning, but it’s not late either. It feels about eight. I shake my sandals and put them on, then walk quietly to the door.

  I like being up when others sleep; I don’t have to play the interacting game.

  Down the concrete stairs I go. The wall feels surprisingly cool as I run my hand along it on my descent. The light that comes in when I open the door is alive. It almost burns Laura’s image off of my retinas. It is a day untouched by the heavy hand of pollution. It is crisp, clear and revitalising. The sun shines down from where it hangs on the sky and warms me. I wait in the doorway and breathe in the morning. In front of me a market is coming to life. Blue tarpaulins provide roofed cover to arrays of stands of fruit, spices and vegetables, tended by mostly older women, who sit on the ground wearing colourful rectangle-shaped headgear and vivid sarongs. Some of the women are shaking and sifting large trays of seeds, others just sit and wave flies and the growing heat away. Around them locals walk and look and weigh and smell the goods. Beyond the market the blue of Lake Toba shimmers in the sunlight. I step out of my doorway and join the scene.

  I feel less conspicuous here. For once people seem more interested in the colours and buzz of the market than the plain white man. I guess it’s because we’re on the backpack route and whites aren’t so unusual. Parapat is the port where the boat leaves for the Tuktuk Peninsula on Samosir Island, where travellers apparently relax, watch the lake, and probably smoke a lot of grass.

  I wander around the market and pick up fruit I’ve never seen before and some I know well, but have never seen looking so mouthwatering: yellow bananas, green bananas, mangosteens, rambutans, apples, limes, tomatoes are laid out in piles on the floor, fighting for space with chillies, beans, herbs, and mushrooms. There are buckets of small dead silver fish and larger buckets with huge, live goldfish fighting for space within. I watch as one is bought and killed on the spot. There are so many stalls I don’t see how people decide from which vendor they should buy. Everything looks perfect, like a living impressionist painting. Every small piece of fruit or vegetable or bean is placed precisel
y to make a scene to look at again and again, full of vivid colour and life.

  The smell of the spices grows with the rising temperature and mingles with the sweet scent of the fruit. A day has never smelt so edible. I could bite chunks out of the air. It makes me hungry. I ask for a bag of mangosteens from a woman who smiles through red-stained teeth and head up a side street. The stalls have spilled up the narrow lane, but here are clothes and sarongs for sale, decorated with un-faded colours taken from every part of the spectrum. I sit on a wall and watch as people wander around. Dangdut plays from a radio somewhere. In another part of the market someone is singing and playing a guitar.

  I dig my thumbnails into a mangosteen and twist it in half. The colour within the fruit bursts out at me. Purple juice splatters on my t-shirt, my fingers are stained by one of nature’s most resilient dyes. I pull the fleshy white fruit from its pulpy purple cocoon and it slides into my mouth like an oyster. Sweeter than lychee. My eyes close. The sun’s warmth is on my face. The day is beautiful.

  ‘Fucking mangosteens, man. My favourite.’ Kim’s fingers tear out a segment of my fruit. It sits in my hand bleeding purple over my fingers.

  ‘You’re up pretty fucking early. Why didn’t you wake us?’ he asks while licking juice from his fingers.

  There I go, born-again true me is pushed back up into the womb of pretence. Here comes the act, here comes the finest performer in the art of socialising and getting on. Here comes the character actor, the gently offensive one best suited to Kim.

  ‘You all looked so peaceful I didn’t want to disturb you. Thought I’d leave you to your morning glories and dirty dreams.’ I drop the fruit on the ground.

  ‘Fuck, did you.’ Kim rubs his eyes and blinks. ‘You just wanted some alone time. I don’t fucking blame you. We’re hard fucking going, us lot.’ He pats me on the shoulder. ‘Enjoy your fruit, man. It’s too fucking bright for me out here. Got to shower.’ He runs his hands through his hair. ‘Fuck, it’s going to be hot. Come find us when you done being alone, the others are just getting up. Boat’s in an hour. Don’t be late, lonesome boy.’