Annie looked disconcerted. ‘They seem very … oppressive.’
‘It’s a bit of a shock at first,’ agreed Cara. ‘But you get used to it after a while.’
‘Are they always female?’ Annie whispered to Cara.
‘No, they can be anything,’ she replied. ‘It’s like the shadow side of the Balinese. Everyone’s always smiling here, then once a year, they make these ogoh-ogoh. Maybe it’s a way of relieving tension in a tight-knit community.’
For the past three years, during the eight weeks preceding Nyepi, Cara had watched the young men of Penestanan designing and building their ogoh-ogoh. Chatting and singing and drumming together after dark, constructing monstrous creations of clay and papier-mâché, woodwork and paint, battery-operated lights and moving parts. Their two months of labour culminated on the eve of Nyepi in March, when local priests exorcised the villagers’ sins, driving them into the ogoh-ogoh. The monsters were then carried—much heavier now, due to the weight of the sins sealed inside—to a local field and set alight. There was a carnival atmosphere to the bonfire, with fireworks and cheering, as the villagers watched their sins being expunged.
They returned home then for Nyepi itself, a twenty-four-hour period of silence spent in quiet reflection. The evil spirits awoken the day before had to be convinced that Bali was uninhabited so they would leave the island in peace for another year. No one was permitted to use electricity, talk, have sex, or leave their home. The provincial government turned off the TV channels and closed the airport. With nothing to stir them or to chase, even the street dogs fell silent.
Pak Ketut pointed out another ogoh-ogoh on the roadside, a monstrous lizard man with eight arms, a deformed face and dripping fangs. ‘The young men are going to a lot of effort,’ he observed. ‘But they may be disappointed, if the government bans the parade.’
‘Why would it?’ asked Cara. As far as she was aware, only once had the ogoh-ogoh festival been banned, when it fell during elections.
‘To protect Muslims,’ said Pak Ketut. ‘The government is worried that people might get carried away this year because of the siege, maybe run amok in Muslim villages.’ He shook his head. ‘But I think cancelling the ogoh-ogoh parade is more dangerous than anything else.’
They spent the rest of the trip gawping at the ogoh-ogoh they passed: vampire mothers holding their bitten-dead babies; creepy sallow-faced children with knives protruding from their necks; zombie mutants with three heads, exposed brains and gargantuan genitals.
After an hour’s drive, they pulled up outside Cara’s villa. It was dark and quiet, and Cara felt suddenly reluctant to spend a night there alone. I’ll get used to it again, she told herself.
They climbed out of the car. Cara found the spare key to her front door concealed beneath a terracotta planter and opened it, turning on all the lights. Indra had prepared nothing for her return, she saw; no small basket of fruit or flowers, no special note or other kindness. She’d tried to contact him from Puri Damai but, with her mobile phone destroyed by fire during the siege, she’d been forced to find the number for his office. She’d called numerous times, but he was never there. Cara wasn’t confident that the evasive young woman who took her messages had even conveyed them to Indra.
Pak Ketut carried her bag inside.
‘Thank you, Pak Ketut.’ Cara shook his hand, then touched hers to her heart. ‘It has been a pleasure knowing you. Take care of Annie.’
He grinned. ‘I will.’
‘I don’t need a man to look after me,’ said Annie with mock indignation. ‘I’ve managed a long time without one. But it’ll be nice to have a travelling companion.’
Pak Ketut bowed and returned to the car, leaving the two women alone.
Cara couldn’t help herself from asking again. ‘So, are you and Pak Ketut … ?’
‘We have an arrangement,’ said Annie, looking a little flushed. ‘Now that the Fearless retreats are on hold, Pak Ketut doesn’t have a job anymore. Pak Tony has given him permission to escort me around Bali. I’m paying him; it’s convenient for both of us.’
‘Oh.’ Cara felt a little disappointed. ‘I thought there might have been something more to it.’
Annie began to smile. ‘Well, I’m not saying there isn’t … Who knows? We like each other. But for now, we’re just friends.’
Cara beamed, encouraged by this. ‘How long will you be away?’ ‘I’m not sure. A few months, maybe. I’m staying deliberately unfocused and seeing how the spirit moves us.’
Cara laughed. ‘Sounds wonderful. And you’re really not going back to BAF?’
Annie shook her head. ‘Call it an admission of failure. Or maybe it’s self-preservation. Either way, sometimes you just have to admit defeat and get out.’
Touché, Cara thought. For the past four years, Bali had been right for her. But now, since surviving a terrorist attack, it was starting to feel all wrong. She’d not stopped thinking about her family in Australia.
They walked back out to the car together, their arms intertwined. ‘I don’t know where any of this is going, actually,’ Annie whispered, nodding at Ketut. ‘I’ve never felt so adrift in my life. But I’ve decided to follow my heart, for a change.’
Cara pulled Annie into a hug. ‘Good on you,’ she said. ‘Make sure you take lots of photos and and tell me all about it. Actually …’ She reconsidered. ‘Just relax and enjoy yourself, Annie.’
Annie turned towards Ketut, who opened the car door for her.
‘Selamat jalan!’ Cara called out. ‘Enjoy your trip.’
‘Selamat tinggal, Ibu Cara,’ Pak Ketut called back. ‘Goodbye.’
It was a polite, formulaic response literally translated as enjoy staying behind—but for Cara, it jarred. She didn’t want to stay behind anymore, she thought, waving until the car’s tail lights faded into the darkness. It was starting to feel as though life itself was leaving her behind.
With a heavy sigh, she turned back to her empty villa.
Remy was surprised by how emotional he felt, walking into the arrivals lounge at Charles de Gaulle airport. Usually a composed, reserved woman, Remy’s mother almost deafened him—and the watching crowd—with her weeping. His father simply stood there, tall and dignified, with silent tears coursing down his cheeks. Camille threw herself at Remy, almost knocking him over, before whispering fiercely, I love you, little brother. Remy found himself crying and laughing, both thrilled and perplexed by this unprecedented demonstration of familial emotion.
Yet almost as soon as he stepped into the rear of his parents’ car and they began the drive back to his former life, a hollow feeling rose within his chest.
And there it remained, despite the dozens of relatives and friends who telephoned and visited him. Not to mention the unsolicited overtures from strangers—prompted by ongoing media coverage of his actions—who felt moved to contact him via social media. It was flattering, but all rather overwhelming. Remy couldn’t shake the sense that it should have been happening to someone else; a stronger, more extroverted person who could savour the attention in ways he couldn’t.
A week after his return, Remy received an email from Henry:
Hi Remy,
How are you settling back into life in Paris? You’re a bit of a media superstar, I see. Hope it’s not too crazy.
I’m feeling a lot better—fewer headaches and not so photosensitive anymore. But my parents want me to get checked out by doctors in England before I do anything else (and they’re probably right). So Jim and I are flying back tomorrow—and guess what? We’re planning a birdwatching weekend in Paris! Don’t worry, we won’t land on your doorstep, we’ll just take an apartment.
Jim’s dead keen to do the Eiffel Tower, though—he’s booked us in already (tickets are attached). If the time and date suit you, will you meet us at the top? It’ll be just like a Fear Safari!
Best,
Henry
P.S. I’ve got something for you from Janelle.
Remy was reliev
ed to read of Henry’s rapid recovery, but his stomach clenched at the reference to Janelle. Not to mention the idea of going up the Eiffel Tower, which had always seemed to him the stuff of nightmares. But he’d just survived a real-life nightmare, and there’d be a reward at the top—something from Janelle.
He checked the tickets, then quickly typed a reply:
Hi Henry,
Great news! So glad you’re feeling better now, but it’s a good idea to get a second opinion in England.
I’ll meet you at the top of La Tour Eiffel at 5pm that Saturday—you have given me a reason to push through the fear!
My number is at the bottom of this email. But don’t call me or I might change my mind! See you then.
Cheers,
Remy
He pressed send and, for the first time since leaving Bali, felt marginally more satisfied with life.
It was a crisp spring day in the off-peak period, and the ticket queue for the Eiffel Tower was short. By arriving at 4.30 pm exactly, the time when Jim and Henry would be starting their own ascent in the lift, Remy left himself no room for procrastination. He had just thirty minutes to get to the top, mostly on foot.
‘You know this entry is for the stairs?’ asked the woman in the ticket booth.
‘Yes,’ replied Remy, placing his money on the varnished wooden counter. He preferred the honest, steady work of his own legs over the mechanical moving parts of the hydraulic lift. ‘How long does it take to climb?’
‘Depends how fit you are,’ said the woman, her eyes roving over him. ‘By the looks of you, not too long.’
Embarrassed, Remy thanked her and hurried over to the entrance to the stairs.
The base of the tower was almost empty, except for burly-looking soliders in combat fatigues and green berets carrying Famas assault rifles. There was a dozen of them at least, and their weapons looked like bazookas compared to the thin rifles Remy had seen during the Bali siege. Suddenly, tsunami-mind sprang into combat mode: he imagined the guards opening fire, spraying the tower’s steel-grey lattice with scarlet arterial spurts from his own bullet-ridden body.
Remy closed his eyes, attempting to shut down the mental showreel. The strange thing was that tsunami-mind had disappeared entirely during the siege, when the danger was real. But now that he was back on French soil, and there was no obvious threat to his personal safety, the mental scourge had returned. I can choose to ignore it, he told himself.
He started climbing the first flight of stairs, striding up them purposefully, counting the steps in his head. His breathing soon quickened, with both the exertion and the sense of increasing distance between himself and the ground. Mercifully, the treads and risers beneath his feet were solid metal, with no gaps he could see through. But the grilles on either side allowed for a view of the tower’s surrounds. Remy tried to focus on the stairs and the reassuring rhythm of his breath. But finally, unable to ignore the glint of gold-topped roofs in his peripheral vision, he stopped on a landing and looked out.
The city’s iconic structures lay spread out before him—Palais Garnier, Notre-Dame, the Arc de Triomphe—amid the orderly grandeur of Haussmann’s boulevards. But to linger too long gazing out was to invite fear into his heart; he pushed on, soon arriving on the first floor. Tourists milled around an exhibition explaining the tower’s engineering. Remy removed his anorak but didn’t stop. It was 4.55 pm; Henry and Jim were probably already at the top.
He began the trek to the second floor, swinging his arms and increasing his pace. The higher he climbed, the more conscious he became of the tower’s inevitable tapering. He could see out the other side of the structure more easily now, and he noticed his body mounting its predictable response; his stomach tightened and he began to gasp for air. He paused for a moment, closing his eyes and deliberately taking longer, deeper breaths. Repeating to himself Pak Tony’s advice: Fear is just excitement without breath.
He set off again, synchronising his breathing with every step. Deploying another of the Fearless strategies, he focused on the rhythmic alternation from right to left foot, and the rolling sensation from heel to toe. He refused to look beyond the side grilles now, studying instead the metallic nodules embedded in the treads. Just as his calves began to object to the hike, he arrived on the second floor.
It was 5.10 pm and he had climbed as high as any visitor was allowed to reach on foot. Now came the toughest part of the challenge: to reach the very top of the tower, he had to take a glass lift. Avoiding the souvenir shops and cafés thrumming with visitors, he bought a ticket and took his place in the queue for the elevator.
A group of excitable tourists had already gathered outside it. When the doors opened, an attendant ushered the group forward, then motioned to Remy to follow. He obeyed grudgingly, feeling mildly claustrophobic as he pressed himself into a corner of the lift. The doors closed with a hiss and the elevator began moving skyward on a slight diagonal trajectory. The tourists talked eagerly and Remy squeezed his eyes shut, clinging onto a guide rail.
Tsunami-mind delivered its brain-bomb: Remy imagined the elevator’s steel cables snapping, the tourists’ terrified screams as the glass cube plummeted towards the earth, and the fiery explosion on impact. A surge of nervous perspiration soaked through his shirt. To distract himself, he tried to focus on the Edith Piaf tune being piped through the elevator’s speakers, ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’.
A moment later, the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened onto the top floor. Remy found himself being bustled out by the tourists, some of whom rushed forward immediately and began squealing at the view. He lingered on the landing, staying close to the tower’s central pillar. It was much, much higher than even he had imagined.
He began to work his way around the pillar, scanning the faces of passing tourists for those of his friends. Despite the sturdy floor-to-ceiling enclosure, he was loath to approach the edge. But knowing Henry, the Englishman would be standing on the outermost point with his binoculars poised.
Trying to ignore the weak feeling in his knees, Remy noticed a small window set into the tower’s central column. Inside were lifelike wax models of Gustave Eiffel and Thomas Edison sitting beside a gramophone. As he paused to read the plaque beneath the window, he fancied he felt a slight vibration pass through the tower. He closed his eyes, fighting off a swamping wave of vertigo.
Paralysed, Remy felt his heart thumping crazily at his chest wall. Where were Henry and Jim? Could they not come and find him? He kept his eyes clamped shut, conjuring his go-to relaxation vision of Bordeaux vineyards in the summer. Slowly, he began to count backwards from ten to one, just as Pak Tony had taught him. When he began to feel better, he opened his eyes once more and turned around.
And there she was, standing not a metre in front of him, in a pink coat with a fur-trimmed hood.
‘Janelle?’ He gaped at her, wondering if this was another product of tsunami-mind. A final, fantastical vision before he fainted on the floor.
The vision stepped forward. ‘Henry gave me your note on the day you left Bali,’ she said, smiling hopefully at him. ‘So here I am.’
Astonished, Remy looked down at the piece of paper in her hand. Glimpsing the words Dear Janelle and Love, Remy in handwriting other than his own, he stared, confused.
‘I wasn’t very receptive, after the siege,’ Janelle continued, her cheeks flushing. ‘But I wanted to show you that I’m open to …’
Unable to speak, Remy took the note, his eyes darting over the words, the unfamiliar handwriting. All at once, he understood what Henry had done. It was a blatant, audacious attempt to engineer a happy ending. And—even more astoundingly—Janelle had actually come all the way to Paris, despite her fear of flying.
‘You flew …’ he said weakly.
‘Twenty-two hours from Melbourne.’ She beamed at him. ‘And I didn’t even have to drink vodka. I used Pak Tony’s magic bottle of love, instead.’
He passed the note back to Janelle and closed his eyes, tr
ying to think.
‘What’s … wrong?’ she asked.
Should he reveal that the romantic invitation—to meet in Paris, at the top of the Eiffel Tower—was actually penned by Henry, and that they had both been taken in by the Englishman’s plot? Should he tell her that the real note had contained a glum apology and a goodbye?
‘I can’t believe you’re in Paris,’ he said at last, keeping his eyes clamped shut. ‘Right up here. With me.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He felt her arms slip around him, her head resting against his chest. He became conscious of her scent, a fragrance burned in his memory from when they’d sat together on the minivan after their parasailing adventure. ‘I’m so proud of you, Remy,’ she said. ‘When we first met, you said you could never do this. And look, here you are.’
He opened his eyes and gazed down at her. In that moment, all the failures of the past receded. The future was what mattered now.
‘Remy, there’s something I want to say to you.’
She took his hands and tears started into her eyes.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to say to you first.’
Slowly, he bent down on one knee.
A tourist squealed nearby, but was quickly hushed by her friends.
‘Janelle, will you not marry me?’
Her eyes widened.
‘Not yet, I mean,’ said Remy. ‘Stay here with me in Paris. Get to know me better. We can buy croissants and café au lait in the mornings. On the weekends I will take you hiking. We can explore some of Europe. We can just … hang out together?’
She nodded, still looking a little uncertain.
‘You were right to reject me in Bali,’ he continued. ‘It was too soon, too rushed, too intense. We’d just been through the most life-changing experience. But … I still believe we belong together, despite our differences. Like the sun and the moon, remember?’
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