Fearless

by Fiona Higgins

  Janelle reached for Remy’s earlobes and tugged at them gently, feeling rather self-conscious.

  After a minute, Pak Tony asked, ‘Remy, how does Janelle’s massage feel?’

  ‘Like being touched by an angel,’ he murmured.

  Janelle felt her cheeks flush, and several members of the group snickered. She was glad the entire group still had their eyes closed.

  ‘Thank you for your feedback, everyone,’ said Pak Tony. ‘Now, it’s time to return the favour for the person behind you. No need to open your eyes. Just turn around and find them with your hands.’

  Janelle spun herself about on her bottom and reached for Lorenzo’s shoulders, accidentally clipping his ear. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, mortified by her clumsiness.

  She touched the Italian cautiously, noticing that his shoulders were devoid of both hair and bulk. Unlike Remy’s brawny back, Lorenzo’s felt loose and supple. Almost like a woman’s shoulders, she thought.

  At that moment, Remy’s hands reached her. He cupped the base of her neck, and instinctively, she leaned back into his hands. He began moving his palms in a languid circular motion, sliding his fingers through her hair. All her life, she’d loved having her head touched; at the hairdresser, during facials, or at any other time she’d been lucky enough to receive a head massage. She felt the muscles in her face slacken and her lips drift apart.

  After a while, Remy’s fingers moved to the front of her neck and slid along her collarbone. He stroked its bony protrusion so tenderly, she could barely stay focused on Lorenzo. Gripping the flesh at the tops of her shoulders, Remy rolled it firmly between his thumb and fingers. She sighed, surrendering to the gentle rocking motion. And then, feeling the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck, she felt an overwhelming desire to turn around.

  ‘Alright, please conclude your massages now.’ Pak Tony’s voice catapulted Janelle back into awareness of the group. ‘Open your eyes and face the centre of the circle.’

  When Janelle turned, timidly glancing in Remy’s direction, he seemed distracted. He kept shifting his weight from side to side, as if his cushion was lumpy.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, holding his gaze. Imagining, for a moment, stroking his jaw with the back of her hand.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, looking towards the door. ‘I’m sorry, I need to … I had too much Balinese feast last night.’

  ‘And that’s too much information, friend,’ said Henry, with a wink.

  ‘I will be back,’ Remy announced brusquely, before stalking out of the room.

  Watching him go, Janelle wondered if he had even been aware of the impact of his touch. Not likely, she concluded, remembering their parasailing experience together. How he’d derided her use of zinc and a sun-safe shirt, telling her that French women would never wear either. Even worse, how he’d cracked a joke on the minibus about her unsavoury smell. Not to mention his cool reaction to her passion talk for Arabella. While the rest of the group had been full of congratulations, Remy had made no comment whatsoever, except to offer to upload it to YouTube.

  I must send that link to Arabella today, she thought.

  Pak Tony stood up and addressed the group. ‘It is time for the second part of our intimacy workshop. Remember when you went on school excursions as a child? After boring history classes, your teacher would take you to the museum and make it all come alive?’ He smiled. ‘Well, we are doing the same for your intimacy learning. We are separating the women from the men for an experiential session.’

  Pak Tony took up his clipboard. ‘Lorenzo and Henry and … Remy has gone to the bathroom, hasn’t he? Your manhood morning is taking place in Pak Ketut’s home village. In the developed world, we often fail to mark important transitions in our lives, including the vital evolution from boy to man. But where this transition is not acknowledged, men can get stuck in the mentality of boyhood—which causes all kinds of problems for intimacy, commitment, and even fatherhood. Here in Bali, the way the locals mark the transition to manhood is with tooth filing.’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Henry.

  ‘Tooth filing,’ repeated Pak Tony. ‘It’s an important rite of passage in Bali.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ muttered Henry.

  ‘It’s symbolic, Henry.’ Pak Tony laughed. ‘It won’t hurt.’

  The door opened and Remy re-entered the room, looking sheepish.

  ‘Feeling any better?’ asked Pak Tony.

  ‘You’d better be,’ Henry piped up. ‘Because you’re about to have some dentistry.’

  Remy looked momentarily alarmed, then resumed his place in the circle without looking at Janelle.

  ‘Now for the ladies,’ Pak Tony said.

  Janelle waited anxiously. She didn’t like the sound of tooth filing at all.

  ‘The three of you will be participating in a traditional Balinese vagina spa, assisted by Balinese facilitators.’

  Janelle frowned; she couldn’t have heard Pak Tony properly.

  ‘A … what?’ Cara turned a shade paler than usual.

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said Annie.

  ‘Vagina spas are very common in Indonesia,’ Pak Tony went on lightly, as if he were discussing a manicure and pedicure. ‘The locals call it ratus. Many Balinese women fog their vaginas after menstruation, to reduce stress, or to improve fertility.’

  ‘And how exactly does one … fog one’s vagina?’ Janelle heard herself asking. She glanced sideways, sensing that Remy was stifling laughter, but his eyes remained doggedly focused on Pak Tony.

  ‘The facilitators will explain it all,’ Pak Tony replied. ‘I’ll call them now.’

  ‘Do we have to do it?’ persisted Annie.

  ‘I assume that question is rhetorical.’ Pak Tony went to a corner of the room and struck a small bronze gong.

  Several seconds later, three impeccably groomed Balinese women filed into the room. ‘Om swastiastu,’ said the tallest of the three, pressing her hands together and bowing slightly. ‘I am Ayu. Ladies, please follow us.’

  Janelle’s eyes met Cara’s across the room and, for a moment, Janelle glimpsed mutiny there. Then, with a nod of acquiescence, Cara stood up. Janelle followed suit but almost toppled over in her tight sarong. She held out a hand to help up Annie, whose face had a grim set to it.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Pak Tony, waving them off.

  ‘Enjoy,’ said Henry, with a wicked glint in his eye.

  Falling in behind the three Balinese women, they walked the short distance to the resort’s spa, comprised of four wooden joglo cabins connected by a wide verandah. Ayu gestured to the colourful wooden door of the largest joglo, emblazoned with a giant blue swastika. Janelle stared at the symbol.

  ‘It means “all is well” in Hinduism,’ Cara explained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Janelle. ‘For a moment, I thought …’

  ‘No Nazism here,’ said Cara. ‘Hitler appropriated the swastika and misused it.’

  Inside the darkened joglo, three trays of glowing charcoals were positioned in the centre of the room, each topped with a clay pot. An aromatic scent of herbs filled the air.

  ‘Please change into these,’ Ayu said, passing them each a loose white robe with an elasticised hole in the centre. ‘Your head goes in there.’

  ‘Do we have to get changed?’ asked Annie. ‘We’re already naked under these sarongs.’

  The woman smiled at her. ‘But we need to get into there,’ she said, motioning in the direction of Annie’s pelvis. ‘Without you catching fire.’

  ‘Oh dear God,’ muttered Annie, seizing the white robe, turning her back to the others and letting her sarong drop to the floor.

  Janelle hesitated and then, seeing Cara begin to undress, she took a robe and did the same, careful not to look at anyone else.

  When she turned back, Ayu was sprinkling a fine brown substance over each of the clay pots. ‘This is the ratus powder. Traditional secret of Javanese princesses.’ Her eyes were trained on her task. ‘It is made from jamu-ja
mu, special herbs.’

  The attendants took three wooden stools, each with a circular hole in the centre, and placed them over the pots.

  Janelle had barely managed to get her head through the robe, when Ayu said, ‘Sit down, please. We will keep your robes away from the fire.’

  Annie eyed the stools nervously. ‘How many Javanese princesses have gone up in smoke?’

  ‘The vagina drinks the smoke,’ said Ayu, evidently misunderstanding the question. ‘It returns vitality there. It will feel like virginity again.’

  Cara snorted. ‘After delivering a four-kilo baby, nothing feels like virginity ever again.’

  Janelle giggled, disarmed by Cara’s uncharacteristic candour. But the circumstances were exceptional, she realised: standing half-naked together in the semi-darkness, preparing for a communal vagina spa.

  ‘So, are we going to do this?’ asked Annie doubtfully.

  ‘I guess so.’ Cara pulled a face. ‘But what happens on vagina spa stays on vagina spa.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Annie. ‘I won’t be talking in questions anymore. And you won’t tell Pak Tony, right?’

  ‘Your secret is safe with us,’ said Janelle, as Ayu motioned at them to sit down.

  The three women carefully lowered themselves onto the stools, helped by the attendants who tucked their robes around their shins, then stoked the coals beneath them with hand-held fans.

  Janelle wasn’t sure which was more perturbing: the sensation of hot smoke wafting across her privates, or the proximity of a stranger fanning the coals. Feigning nonchalance, she counted the number of bronze bobbles adorning the head of a nearby Buddha statue. Finally, she couldn’t ignore the discomfort any longer.

  ‘It’s getting a bit … warm, isn’t it?’ She winced and shifted on the stool.

  Ayu instantly moved to Janelle’s side. ‘Too hot?’

  ‘A little,’ she replied, through gritted teeth.

  ‘I fix.’ Ayu lifted Janelle’s robe and began adjusting the pot and coals below. ‘Very good!’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘Already you have the mucus coming out. That is fighting infection.’

  Janelle died a thousand deaths.

  ‘Oh, my!’ Annie guffawed. ‘And why aren’t the men of Fearless off on a penis cleanse together?’

  ‘Who says vaginas are dirty, anyway?’ Cara sniffed. ‘And how exactly is vagina fogging supposed to help with so-called intimacy issues?’

  ‘Well, as the social scientist in the room,’ said Janelle, repressing a smile, ‘the only way we could properly test the benefits of vagina fogging would be to have sex beforehand as the control, then afterwards, to test for changes. We’d also have to repeat the experiment multiple times, for statistically significant results.’

  ‘Oooh!’ Annie hooted. ‘Where can I sign up for the trial?’

  ‘Your Miss V is important,’ chimed in Ayu, from her position near Janelle’s feet. ‘She deserves special attention. You sit here for fifteen minutes, I will bring herbal tea. Good for cleansing inside.’ She stood up and spoke to her colleagues in hushed tones, then left the room.

  Turning to the others, Janelle whispered, ‘Did Ayu just call our vaginas “Miss V”?’

  ‘Why, yes. Doesn’t your vagina have a name?’ asked Cara, sniggering.

  Janelle giggled. ‘Actually, I struggle with the word vagina. It sounds like an angry queen … Her Royal Highness Vagina the Third is indisposed this evening.’

  They all laughed.

  ‘But isn’t vagina better than some of the other names for it?’ observed Annie.

  ‘You mean like muff or box or beaver?’ asked Cara.

  The American flinched.

  ‘My brother’s a tradesman,’ said Janelle. ‘So I grew up with cock pocket, stench trench and beef curtains.’

  Annie’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘But not all Australian men use those terms,’ Cara explained hurriedly. ‘In fact, I’ve never heard an Australian woman use them, besides Janelle.’

  Annie stared at them both goggle-eyed. ‘I guess I’m just an old-timer country gal, but why do we even need a name for it?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ said Janelle. ‘Think about it—there isn’t a casual word for it, like “dick” for men. Vagina is really anatomical. The c-word is taboo. My mum used to call it “your flower”. I mean, really.’ She turned to Annie. ‘What did your mum call it?’

  Annie hesitated, her face flushing red. ‘A foo-foo.’

  The Australians looked at one another, their mouths curling upwards. Then all three of the women burst into laughter; it was a raucous, tension-relieving cackle.

  When their laughter faded, Janelle said, ‘Seriously, it’s like the great unmentionable body part. Little boys talk about their pee-pees or wee-wees or dickie-birds, but with girls it’s often … nothing.’ She looked at Cara. ‘What word did you use with your daughter?’

  Cara stayed silent, and Janelle felt instant remorse. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Cara shook her head. ‘I guess I need to learn to talk about her. Astrid was only one when she died, so genitals weren’t on the agenda. She’d just started saying words like du-du for ducks, or bicca for biscuit.’

  Janelle felt awkward. ‘You don’t have to—’

  ‘I want to,’ said Cara, rather forcefully.

  The rhythmic fluttering of the attendants’ fans punctuated the quiet.

  After a moment, Cara sighed. ‘I loved being a mum. Nothing prepares you for the passion you feel. It’s fierce and intoxicating and no one else ever comes close, not even your partner. That’s the big unspoken truth between parents: you were the most important thing to me, until …’ She shrugged. ‘Suddenly there’s someone else on earth for whom you’d willingly lay down your life. They enslave you and you embrace it, because you suddenly see how little your life actually meant before.’

  Janelle tried to imagine loving someone so fiercely.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ ventured Annie. ‘Before I had kids, I used to worry about ridiculous things like whether teaching was the right career for me, or if I could lose ten pounds by Christmas. After children, those sorts of worries became trivial. So much energy spent on absolutely nothing. No offence, Janelle.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Janelle, but on some level, she felt like a novitiate among the sisterhood. Would there ever come a time when she, too, would experience such an all-consuming passion? She loved her niece, but how much more strongly would she feel about her own child?

  ‘Before I had Astrid,’ continued Cara, ‘I had this crazy life as a social justice reporter. I worked in the toughest places on earth. Liberia, the Sudan, Congo—I ended up managing the South African headquarters. I was fluent in French and Afrikaans and doing something really useful with my life. I spent a decade convinced I wasn’t ready to have children, that I loved my job too much. I waited until my mid-thirties to even start thinking about babies. But when Astrid was born, my career finally met its match.’

  Annie nodded vigorously. ‘I was almost fluent in French, too. I had this big dream of teaching in Paris. But after kids, I decided les enfants sont la priorité. I didn’t begrudge giving up years of teaching to look after them either. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done.’

  ‘C’est vrai,’ agreed Cara.

  Janelle’s grasp of high school French was sufficient to understand this exchange, but she still felt grossly inadequate. She was fluent only in her mother tongue, she hadn’t travelled the world, and she didn’t have a clear vision for her career. In fact, in some of her darker moments, Janelle wondered if her hopes and dreams of family life—of a husband, children, a pet and a picket fence—were actually a result of her lack of ambition. If her life didn’t feel so aimless, would children really seem so appealing?

  ‘I don’t even have a career to give up for children,’ she confessed. ‘I tossed in my job before I enrolled in Fearless and I’ve got no idea what I’ll do when I get back.�
� What had seemed like an act of courage in Melbourne just a few weeks earlier now kept her awake at night in Bali.

  ‘You’re a clever girl,’ soothed Annie. ‘Look at your passion talk—funny, sassy, contemporary. Leaving the wrong job will open doors to the right one. And if it doesn’t, you can always retrain.’

  Janelle nodded.

  ‘At least a job’s replaceable,’ said Cara. ‘Some things are irreversible.’

  Tears filled Janelle’s eyes and she reached for Cara’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to your daughter.’

  ‘It’s remarkable you survived at all,’ said Annie.

  ‘Well, I didn’t, really, for the first couple of years.’ Cara shrugged. ‘I was taking antidepressants, alcohol and anything else I could get my hands on. It stopped the sadness, and every other feeling too. Then one day I wandered past a yoga studio in Pengosekan and I just went in and did a vinyasa class. It was the first time in my life I’d done yoga.’

  She smiled. ‘Suddenly I was in my body again, and it helped calm my mind too. I started doing yoga every day, then twice daily. There’s this pose called savasana—the corpse pose—where you have to slow down your body and mind, but not go to sleep. It’s quite difficult to achieve, even though it looks easy; there’s no thinking or hoping or wishing or striving for anything except stillness. In savasana, I can accept Astrid’s absence somehow.’

  Cara said nothing for a while. ‘Of course, when savasana is over and I stand up from my yoga mat, my mind goes back to all the usual places. The grief, the loneliness, the anger. But yoga gives me a break. Every day, just for a little while, I’ve got no history and no future. I am who I am: Cara, right now, in the breath. And that’s how I’ve survived in Bali these past few years.’

  She glanced at the others. ‘Fortunately, my husband just accepted this as part of my grieving process. He keeps my bank balance topped up with what my freelance writing doesn’t, no questions asked.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Obviously I try to live frugally. But I realise how generous Richard has been. I also know I can’t keep doing this forever. I’ll have to start doing something more than just surviving. But it’s so hard to move on.’