She smiled in recognition of their light-hearted exchange on the first day of the Fearless program.
‘I believe it, too,’ she said, gazing down at him. ‘And … I love you, Remy.’
He felt as if he could leap off the tower and fly.
Standing up again, he smiled at her and pushed back the hood of her jacket. He brushed her hair away from her cheeks. ‘What do you say, Janelle? Do you agree not to marry me—yet?’
‘I do,’ she breathed.
As their lips touched, Remy felt a vortex of vertigo seizing him.
Only this time, it was pure joy.
Cara had been home for five nights and now it was Nyepi Eve. The ogoh-ogoh parade had not been banned, much to the villagers’ delight, but she was averse to venturing out. The gruesome creatures lining the roads were unsettling, with their bulbous eyes and bloody mouths and silent screams. Cara couldn’t look at them without recalling the siege: the contorted faces and misshapen bodies of the dead, a world out of control.
She sat alone on her balcony instead, watching the villagers gather at sunset and the arrival of the white-clad holy men to pray over the ogoh-ogoh. It was a beguiling idea, Cara mused, this magic formula of contrition and combustion. That all human error might be remedied on one cathartic night, with a communal exorcism and purification by fire. But she knew that the ritual only applied to people whose transgressions were inconsequential. Her own failure had been too grievous, the result too horrific, to be absorbed by any ogoh-ogoh, no matter how large or repulsive.
The warbling of an ancient Sanskrit hymn rose from the road below, marking the commencement of the ceremony. It was a haunting sound, a recitation sung across continents and centuries. Cara could hear the villagers, too, murmuring their ritual greetings: For my wrongdoings against you, intentional or unintentional, please forgive me.
A million failings the world over, Cara reflected, humanity awash in a sea of suffering, trying to make sense of it through rituals and faith. Or, in the world from which she’d fled four years ago, by suppressing it with more—more food, more money, more things—so that failure and suffering were barely discernible beneath the shiny surface of consumerism and excess.
She watched the villagers shaking hands in the shadows, tacitly acknowledging and accepting each other’s fallibility and the imperfection of the world around them. Perhaps theirs was a wiser culture than her own, Cara thought. In the face of human suffering, it was futile—conceited, even—to continue to demand answers. Why me? Why now? Why my baby? Or even: Why you? Why did you do that to me? Perhaps, like the Balinese, one could only merely accept that this suffering was so, and attempt to forgive oneself and others for contributing to it.
Cara turned her face to the night sky, towards the diamond pinpricks glinting in the inky darkness. Echoing the villagers, she murmured, ‘For my wrongdoings, Astrid, intentional and unintentional, please forgive me.’
As the Sanskrit incantation grew louder, Cara’s quiet weeping joined with the ceremonial crescendo until finally, it petered out into silence.
At the priest’s bidding, groups of young boys moved forward to hoist the ogoh-ogoh onto bamboo racks. Drummers gathered alongside them, shouting encouragement, as the boys heaved their burdens onto their shoulders. Cara found herself holding her breath. Was it safe for children to do this? Would they hurt themselves, by dropping an ogoh-ogoh or going too close to the flames? The maternal instinct remained, she knew, even when the child was gone.
She watched the boys move down the road with their ogoh-ogoh. When she could no longer see them from her seat, she wrapped her hands around a bamboo pillar and pulled herself up onto the balustrade. Her feet wobbled as she balanced precariously on the balcony rail two storeys above the ground, watching the boys’ progress all the way to the bonfire.
At the end of the road, she could see lanterns burning. Reaching their destination, the boys began moving their ogoh-ogoh into position on the oval. A firefly flew into Cara’s line of vision, and for a whimsical moment she fancied it drew Astrid’s name against the sky. She craned her neck to watch it, when suddenly a loud cracking noise made her jump with fright. Her left foot slipped off the balustrade and dangled, for a split second, in nothingness. It was a moment of suspension, an invitation to erasure.
She gasped and scrambled back up onto the rail, clinging to the post. Frightened by the part of herself that was tempted to let go and, in one swift second, eradicate four years of pain. It would be harder to stay and live life without her daughter, she knew. But for the first time ever, she wanted to try.
As fireworks whizzed aloft and erupted with further loud cracks, she climbed carefully down onto the balcony, her legs shaking. In the distance, the first ogoh-ogoh exploded. A cacophony of whistles, plastic trumpets and beating drums sent the evil spirits skyward with the bonfire’s sparks. A cheer rose from the crowd of villagers, celebrating the victory of forgiveness over fear.
Cara’s eyes followed the sparks heavenward, as they rose like luminous souls fleeing the earth.
On the day she finished packing the final box for freight, a month after Nyepi, there was a subdued tap at her front door. It was Indra, with his blinding smile.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, hugging him. ‘Where have you been?’
He held her tightly, without speaking, before pulling away. ‘I’m so sorry, Cara. I didn’t realise where you were until I saw it on the news. I went straight to the hospital, but they would not let me in. Next of kin only, they said.’ He shook his head with frustration. ‘The day after that, the … unrest started and I had to get out before seeing you. I tried again and again to call your phone—’
‘It was destroyed in the siege,’ she said.
He groaned. ‘You have been through much. Are you alright?’
‘I am now.’ She exhaled. ‘Come in, Indra.’
He followed her inside.
‘But where did you go?’ she asked, leading him through to the lounge. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’
‘Java. People like me are not wanted here,’ said Indra, lowering his voice. ‘I left ten days before Nyepi. People were getting hurt in Muslim villages. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.’
‘I know.’ Cara grimaced. ‘It’s awful.’
The siege had pushed even the Balinese beyond their limits of interfaith tolerance. Anti-Muslim sentiment had been exacerbated by the dwindling number of international visitors to the island. Most incoming tourists had cancelled their travel plans, and many expatriate residents had fled to their home countries. The Balinese economy, so dependent on foreign income, was now in the grip of a steady downturn.
‘Would you … like some teh jahe?’ Cara asked feebly. Indra shook his head.
‘I’m having some anyway,’ she persisted, moving to the kitchen and switching on the kettle.
‘Terima kasih.’
‘Does that mean yes or no?’ She smiled at him. ‘I always get confused with that kind of thank you.’
‘Yes, please,’ he said, smiling back.
She pottered around, setting out cups and saucers and steeping slices of fresh ginger in hot water. Spooning six teaspoons of sugar into Indra’s mug, just the way he liked it. When the tea was ready, she returned to the lounge.
‘I came back to tell you, I have a new job.’ Indra sipped from his mug, watching Cara over its rim. ‘At a five-star hotel in Yogyakarta. The money is good, and I get a room in the staff quarters. I will be away for a year. Unless you …’ he paused, picking at the long thumbnail he used for plucking his guitar, ‘would like to come with me?’ He smiled. ‘We could drink ginger tea—we call it ronde—in the town square at full moon. It is very romantic.’ He looked at her shyly.
In that moment, Cara could imagine a life with him. Of lazy weekend mornings browsing in markets and drinking strong Javanese coffee, and sipping ronde in the moonlight. Of endless jalan-jalan circuits on the back of his motorbike in Yogyakarta. Of afternoons in bed during the wet season, waitin
g out the tropical downpours, and cool morning swims in the dry season. But she knew it couldn’t happen now.
‘I’m sorry, but I have to go away too,’ she said.
Indra’s face fell. Then, almost instantaneously, he smiled. Cara had never really understood this quirk of Indonesian culture, the sudden smile to conceal pain, fear or sadness.
‘So you hate Muslims too, now?’ he asked. ‘You think extremists are here in Penestanan?’
Cara frowned, disoriented by Indra’s uncharacteristically sarcastic tone. She’d seen the sign in the village—Tolaklah adanya fundamentalisme Islam di Penestanan—exhorting locals to defend their neighbourhood against Islamic extremists. But she was no more fearful of extremism than she had been before the siege. A terrorist attack was like any other low-likelihood, high-consequence event—akin to a shark attack, or a lightning strike. It rarely happened, but when it did, it was devastating.
‘Of course not,’ she said softly. ‘Many of the victims at the animal sanctuary were Muslims, Indra. We both know that. I just have to go back to Australia and deal with my past.’
Indra considered her. ‘But you are separated from your husband.’
‘Yes.’ Cara sighed, remembering the email, still in her drafts folder, asking for a divorce. ‘It’s not finalised. We still have contact on financial matters.’
Indra’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you going to finalise it?’
Cara reached out and took his hand. ‘You’re my best friend in Bali, Indra. Maybe more than that. But I have to go back and see my husband and my family.’
He let go of her hand and stared into his mug of tea. The expression on his face pained her and she felt she owed him more. ‘I … also had a daughter, back in Australia,’ she explained. ‘Four years ago she died in an accident. I have to go back to where it happened.’
Indra looked up at her, astonished, and then his eyes flashed with hurt. ‘You never told me.’
‘I didn’t know how to, Indra,’ she said. ‘For years I was numb. It’s only now, after everything that’s happened, that I’ve actually started feeling things properly again. I think the siege jolted me out of limbo and … I’ve realised I have to go back.’
The idea had been percolating ever since Nyepi. After that night, she’d detected a subtle shift within herself. Nothing as radical as forgiveness, but a slight distancing from the abhorrence with which she’d regarded herself for so long. A newfound recognition, perhaps, that hers was just a single episode in a vast continuum of human suffering.
‘So now that you are feeling things again, you think this is a good time to go away?’ Indra still looked wounded. ‘Maybe you have never shown me who you really are, Cara.’
‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe I didn’t even know it myself. I’m sorry, Indra.’
He stood up and tossed a small bundle of postal items onto the lounge. ‘Your mail.’
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
He did not look at her directly. ‘When are you going back to Australia?’
‘Early June, at the end of the lease.’ It was still six weeks away. ‘I’m sending off some things by sea freight tomorrow.’
He walked to the door. ‘I’ll be in Java by June. You have my email, if you need anything.’
‘Indra …’ she began. The wooden door clapped shut behind him. She hadn’t even given him her new mobile number.
Cara stared at the slight indentation on the cushion where Indra had sat. The thought that she had lost him, after four years of friendship, alarmed her. She harboured no illusions that returning to Australia would be easy. Indeed, it was entirely possible that when exposed once more to the life that she had left behind, she might turn around and fly straight back to Bali. Then where would she be, without Indra?
She sighed again, and reached for the bundle of mail Indra had delivered. Shuffling through the envelopes, she noticed that the front page of today’s Bali Post carried yet another siege-related headline—Staffer accuses Paradise boss. Cara scanned the article:
An unnamed staff member of Paradise Animal Sanctuary has told police officers that two months before the terrorist attack, an argument broke out between workers and their boss, Diego Schneider.
‘The three brothers were not happy with their wage, with no increase for three years,’ the source told police. ‘They asked for more, but Mister Diego said no. He told them they could only have two days holiday for Ramadan because of tourist high season. The workers were already angry. This made it worse.’
Schneider, a Portuguese property developer with multiple business interests in Bali, co-owns 49 per cent of Paradise Animal Sanctuary with his wife, Dewi Ayusari.
Neither of the owners were available for comment.
Cara tossed the newspaper aside. Even if he was a terrible boss, it didn’t justify what happened. A global network of Islamic extremists had already claimed responsibility for the attack, so why were local media fuelling such hearsay? It could only bolster conspiracy theorists. Today, it was the animal sanctuary boss; who would be accused tomorrow?
A hand-addressed silver envelope caught Cara’s eye, postmarked Paris. She turned it over and saw the names Remy and Janelle embossed on the back. Letting out a little squeal of delight, she tore it open to find an invitation to the commitment ceremony of Janelle Porter and Remy de Brive, to take place in Seminyak, Bali, on 13 June.
Thrilled, Cara seized her mobile phone and messaged Janelle: I received the invitation—what wonderful news! So happy for you both. In Bali! Where are you now?
Within seconds, Janelle responded: Paris … I went straight back to Oz after the siege to see my family. Bella was doing better, so after about a week I decided to take a risk … like Annie told me at our crazy vagina spa. Remember that?!?
Cara laughed out loud and typed: How can I forget?
A moment later Janelle replied: We can get the band back together at the wedding! I have never been happier in my life. J
Cara smiled, remembering how she’d watched Janelle and Remy flirting in the early days of the retreat. How their attraction had almost been derailed by the Frenchman’s YouTube mistake, and then overshadowed by the siege. Remy and Janelle might well have been Romeo and Juliet, with a modern twist of terrorism overlaying a classic tragedy.
And yet love had prevailed, she thought, as the tears in her eyes blurred the writing on the invitation. In a world tarnished by violence and fear, perhaps fairytale endings were still possible.
A few weeks later, Cara received an email from Pak Tony.
Hello dear friends,
It won’t be long until we’re celebrating Remy and Janelle’s union. What a blessing! It’s also a chance for all of us to get together and reflect again on what we went through in March. I am sure we all have much to share.
So, I’d like to invite you all to breakfast together at Balangan Resort on the day before the ceremony. Lavinia, Lorenzo’s wife, will be in Bali—I thought it would be appropriate for her to come too. I’ll also invite Pak Ketut, who is part of our Fearless family.
Please let me know if you can make it.
Love and light,
Tony
Lavinia. Cara suddenly remembered the letter that Lorenzo had entrusted to her at the animal sanctuary. In the immediate aftermath of the siege, she’d been too preoccupied with Tito, and with helping Henry and Janelle at the hospital, to consider what to do with it. She’d glimpsed Lavinia at the hospital too—surrounded by consular officials assisting with the repatriation of Lorenzo’s body—but before she knew it, she’d flown back to Italy.
Cara had kept tabs on Lavinia from afar, primarily through a Facebook page that she’d set up in Lorenzo’s honour. Week after week, Lavinia appeared on every Italian talk show and current affairs program, in magazines and newspapers, extolling her dead husband’s heroism and sacrifice. She was glamorous even in grief.
With no clear instructions from Lorenzo, and recalling his ambivalence about its contents, Cara vacillated a
bout what to do with the letter. Destroy it, or send it to Lavinia? Or simply relay her last conversation with Lorenzo, and let his widow decide?
Concluding that this was the right course of action, Cara had messaged Lavinia a month after the siege. I’d like to discuss something with you, she wrote, but Lavinia didn’t respond. So she’d slipped the note into the top drawer of her bedside table for safekeeping, where it had lain undisturbed since, beneath a growing pile of newspaper clippings.
But the wedding would be her opportunity to give Lavinia the note, she realised. Cara went to her bedside table now, just to be sure, and found the crumpled, stained sheet of paper buried at the bottom. She unfolded it and gazed at Lorenzo’s elegant, symmetrical handwriting. It mirrored his personality: stylish, yet controlled. She pictured the distressing task of hand-delivering this posthumous letter to Lavinia and began to have second thoughts.
Who was Lorenzo, really? She wondered. From the way his widow described him, a saint. And yet, Cara had seen the hurt in his eyes when she’d sat with Lorenzo, shivering and vulnerable, after he’d pulled her out of the holy pool. She’d witnessed the darkness that had settled on him in the Python Pit, and sensed an unspeakable private pain as he’d sat alongside her in the Birdsong Café, fingering a letter he didn’t care to keep. The very same note in her hands now.
She didn’t read Italian, but as her eyes ran over the neat sentences, they were drawn to a recognisable term: paedophilia. She stared at the lines of unfamiliar words around it. Had Lorenzo been a victim of abuse himself? Was that the reason behind his fear of fatherhood?
Taking the note to her computer now, Cara opened Google Translate and typed the entire letter into the Italian–English function. She hesitated, her cursor hovering above the words ‘Translate Now’.
She pressed the button.
On a tranquil morning in June, the Fearless group gathered on a rugged escarpment overlooking Balangan Beach. In the absence of Indra’s expert escort—and preoccupied by the note she carried in her handbag—Cara got lost en route and arrived twenty minutes late. She felt self-conscious as she jogged towards the group, seated on a large poleng picnic rug near the edge of a cliff. A secluded arc of creamy sand stretched behind them, marked with patches of faint green and rusted brown near the shore. At the beach’s edge, flanked by sloping rock cliffs, palm trees swayed over a cluster of unoccupied beach recliners. Out in the ocean, surfers teabagged near the left-hand break, their small dark forms barely observable against the sparkling expanse that stretched to the horizon.
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