When the World Was Steady

by Claire Messud

  ‘Beaut, innit?’ panted Frank, nodding half to Emmy and half to the statue, slowing his steps.

  ‘Curious place for a Buddha,’ she said. She crossed her arms. ‘Where does he come from?’

  ‘Burma,’ said Buddy, grinning, also still now. ‘Absolutely un-fucking-believable, eh?’

  ‘Is he full of drugs, then?’ Emmy felt a little sick and clasped her sides with her crossed arms. So she had been right: what had seemed too extraordinary to be lurking beneath Ubud’s ordinary surface was true. She had half-thought that simply by imagining that they were drug smugglers—by envisioning the intrigue—she had prevented it from being so. But clearly here, too, she was subject to reality, and not the other way round. Even here she was having bad luck. Her code was not working. She got as far as thinking that perhaps it had not been Max she had encountered in the rice paddies—that it had indeed been an evil spirit—when she realized that all three men were glaring, and that Buddy was speaking in a hushed, deadly tone. He was pointing a finger.

  ‘… a fool? You take me for a complete twat-brained arse-hole? Drugs! Drugs! Do you hear that?’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that—’

  ‘The penalty for smuggling drugs out here is death. Death. And I may not live in your tight-assed Sydney society, but I am not fucking daft. It’s a fucking Buddha, for Chrissakes. Are you blind?’

  ‘I just … It’s a lovely Buddha, it’s just … is it for the house?’

  ‘Maybe it is. I don’t know yet.’ Buddy seemed to be calming down. He dropped his stubby, menacing finger. Frank retreated to his bed in the gloom at the far end of the lounge, where he fidgeted like a scolded child.

  ‘It’s just odd because—’

  ‘Because why?’ asked Kraut, turning towards her and exhaling smoke.

  ‘Because, if it’s for the house, it’s … well, nobody here is a Buddhist, are they? Nobody who lives here. They’re Hindus, aren’t they? Or sort of. But I mean, it’s not a Buddhist island, is it?’

  ‘And?’ Kraut was staring in a tiresome way. ‘It’s not not a Buddhist island. It’s not anti-Buddhist.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem very thought through, that’s all. And I think it’s possibly disrespectful—a religious icon, of that sort, here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why. It’s just a feeling. Look at the flowers—they’re from Jenny’s arrangement, an arrangement that was an act of religious devotion. And you’ve—’

  ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ said Buddy, laughing now. ‘This is all business. Just business. A sideline I have in Far Eastern art and antiques. Buddy here—as I like to call him—is the preview, a taste of a shipment these boys are heading over to Bangkok to pick up. That’s all. He’s what you might call our quality control, sent out early for us to make sure—well, to make sure we’re getting what we pay for. Besides, the religious side, no offence, but it’s all the same really.’

  ‘I see.’ Emmy felt deflated. Was this a relief or another shock? Was this good news or bad? Legal? Illegal? These were, it seemed, questions that could not be asked. The men were looking at her again as if waiting for her to evaporate, so they could return to their queer male ritual, clod-hopping in front of a glamorous god—but a god stripped, here, of his divine power: a displaced divinity. She longed for someone to emerge from the kitchen, or to come downstairs and through the door behind her: Jenny? Suchi? Madé? Aimée, even. She waited a moment, suspended in silence, expecting a theatrical ending to so theatrical a scene. But eventually she simply bade them goodnight and retreated.

  *

  By the time Max limped home, he felt like a sodden sponge. Sitting in the muck of the rice paddies had been wet and uncomfortable, but he hadn’t realized that his bum had been anaesthetized by the mud until he stood up and couldn’t feel it. He put his hands on the seat of his shorts and found it caked with wet slime. As he walked it was hard to tell whether his buttocks were thawing or freezing further.

  At least he had pretty well pulled his head together while his body froze up. He had decided what to do, and felt that even if it was drastic it was the right thing. He would go home, first plane he could get on. He would get a place in Sydney, on his own. He would get a part-time job and go to uni. He hadn’t yet decided in what. He would not take money from his father. He wouldn’t even speak to his father once he was back home, and above all he wouldn’t touch his filthy cash. Max kicked at gravel in the road. His mother was right about his father, all these years. All the things she’d said. It was all about having whatever he wanted, when he wanted. That was all.

  But then—Max did not want to think the rest. He thought of Jenny, that afternoon, of how she had let him kiss her and play with her hair only then to say no, she couldn’t choose to be with him here, and she wouldn’t go with him to Australia; that Buddy was going to fix it, that she was counting on Buddy, that Max couldn’t do it properly. He had suggested they marry. She had laughed aloud. The thing about Buddy’s way was that then you never knew why anyone did anything. No motives were pure. You never knew what anybody meant. What did Jenny mean when she laughed and pushed him away, her face open, her teeth sharp and white? He clasped at his filthy, iced backside and went into the house.

  Frank was snoring on his bed, although it was by no means late. Neither Emmy nor Aimée nor Ruby was around, and Jenny had, at least—Max thought—the consideration not to be present. He went to the kitchen and took a beer from the rumbling fridge. On his way back he noticed Buddy and Kraut sitting out on the veranda, and he saw the Buddha.

  He walked over and stood in front of it, staring. Wondering if it were staring back. It was spookier than spirit talk: it was as spooky as the altars in the mist on the mountainside all that time ago, and that’s what it made him think of. Because you could tell just by looking at it—by the flowers in its hands, by its lazy glance, by its golden glimmer—that people, somewhere, believed in it. The way you could tell from the offerings at the shrine. And all that believing gave it power. The beer, cold as it was, seemed to warm him.

  ‘Look at what the cat dragged in,’ he heard his father call, buoyant as ever. He pretended not to notice.

  ‘Hungry, Junior?’ Buddy tried again. Max shook his head, although he was.

  ‘Got your first delivery, then,’ he said instead, his voice as chill as he could manage.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t he? Worth a fortune. A Burmese Buddha, my boy. Aren’t many on the market.’ Buddy came up and put his hand on Max’s shoulder; Max could feel the creepy German lurking in the background.

  ‘From a temple, then?’ asked Max, who wanted to touch the Buddha and did not want, himself, to be touched.

  ‘Reckon so. That’s the place for them.’

  ‘Nicked?’ He turned, halfway, to look at Buddy, who shrugged. ‘Illegal, right?’ Buddy shrugged again.

  ‘Burma shouldn’t be closed,’ he said. ‘Don’t be a bleeding heart. The country’s run by a bunch of murdering thugs—I suppose you support them now?’

  ‘Would you do it here?’

  ‘Not much of a market for mossy stone carvings. And I reckon I’ve already got the batik niche well covered, don’t you?’ Buddy sniggered.

  ‘More of a people place?’

  ‘You said it.’

  Max twitched free. He was looking at the Buddha, out of place, like himself. ‘I’m going home tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Buddy started. ‘Something wrong? Did your mum call? You feeling worse?’

  ‘Just sick of it, I reckon.’

  ‘Out of the blue?’

  ‘Reckon so.’ When he looked at his father, Max could have sworn he saw hurt, real concern. So he looked away.

  ‘What about Komodo? Don’t you want to see the dragons?’

  ‘Let him go home, if he wants,’ said Kraut from the background. His support was almost enough to make Max change his mind.

  ‘Is it something you want to talk about?’ Buddy asked—a question which, Max k
new, cost him: Buddy preferred not to talk. ‘Has something happened?’

  Only then did it occur to Max that Buddy didn’t even know. That he hadn’t the foggiest idea. That if Max had asked about Jenny, Buddy would have offered her up as a gift. He would have traded her in for someone else at once. He loved his son, in his way; he didn’t love Jenny. He just couldn’t see what went on in front of his face. Which of course made it worse.

  ‘I need to get back. Earn some money before I start uni in the new year.’

  ‘That’s miles away. Is there something I can do? You all right?’

  ‘I just need to get back. Really. I’m knackered, Dad. And my arse is all wet. Gonna wash up. We’ll sort it out in the morning, OK?’

  As he went upstairs, he could hear his father’s voice, although not what it said. He could hear disbelief, though, and disappointment, and Kraut’s sinister murmuring. And the distant thundering of hooves that was Frank, snoring.

  Emmy held Jenny around the middle and put a hand beneath her collar-bones. ‘Kick,’ she urged. ‘Up and down. Flutter kick. Up and down.’

  Jenny gasped with the effort and as though afraid of drowning, although her chin was clear of the water. She wore Emmy’s spare suit, and it sagged and slithered on her, loose in Emmy’s hand. This was their swimming lesson: between breakfast and lunch, in the lull of the morning’s work, on a festival day. Today marked the temple-naming ceremony, an annual event that involved all temples in Ubud. Later, there would be much to do: the evening would be filled with happenings.

  ‘Is it fun? Do you like it?’

  Jenny laughed. ‘Difficult,’ she said.

  ‘Shall I let go for a second, and see how you do?’ Without waiting for an answer, Emmy did; at once Jenny’s body began to writhe and twist, and she spluttered violently. Emmy caught her up again—so light, and small—and helped her find her feet.

  ‘You can always stand up, you know. We’re in the shallow end. And you mustn’t be afraid of getting your face wet. Being underwater won’t kill you—you just don’t breathe in. Don’t panic.’

  ‘In our culture,’ Jenny said, ‘people do not go swimming like this. There is great respect for water spirits—they are very powerful. To put your head underwater, on purpose—in Balinese culture, we do not do this.’

  ‘If nobody swims here, why do you want to learn?’

  ‘For Sydney,’ said Jenny, as if the answer were wholly evident, and the move imminent. ‘Everyone in Sydney swims.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ said Emmy. ‘My daughter’s boyfriend doesn’t. I mean, maybe he knows how, but he never does.’

  ‘Will you teach me more?’

  ‘Now? Or another day?’

  ‘Another day, perhaps. It makes me so tired. I am not accustomed.’

  Jenny was sitting on the steps, her torso out of the water, the suit drooping and gaping, while Emmy braved a length or two with her even, middle-aged breast-stroke, when Ruby clattered along the path in a frilly white swimsuit, followed by Aimée. Aimée wore a high-cut leopard-print swimsuit, and sunglasses. She carried plump orange water-wings and towels.

  ‘Good morning,’ ventured Emmy, resolved to be polite despite everything. Ruby ran to Jenny’s arms and splashed and screamed. Jenny and Aimée did not acknowledge each other.

  Aimée stood at the water’s edge and made no move to take off her glasses. ‘You’ll be going then, after all,’ she said to Emmy.

  ‘Me? Really, I don’t—’

  ‘Didn’t you know, Mrs Richmond, that your host is leaving?’

  ‘Buddy? For Thailand?’

  ‘Did you not tell me that Christopher was your host? Or perhaps I misunderstood?’

  ‘Max?’

  ‘Tonight. For Sydney.’

  Emmy looked at Jenny who, teasing Ruby, showed no sign of having heard.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Emmy said. ‘Surely not before the festival. He so much wants to see the ceremony. We both do.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s room on the plane.’ Aimée spread out her towel and summoned Ruby to her, festooning the girl’s tiny arms with the water-wings. Jenny looked at Emmy and rolled her eyes and giggled. It was hard to believe, Emmy thought, that these two women were about the same age. Not much older than her Pod.

  Jenny spoke almost in a whisper. ‘Soon I am going to Suchi’s house,’ she said. ‘To make ready the offerings for tonight. If you come with me, I can teach you something also.’

  They both got out of the water and stood, rivulets cascading off their bodies, only a few feet from Aimée and her daughter.

  ‘I’ll be fifteen minutes, at the house,’ whispered Jenny, before going, leaving small crushed grass footprints glistening in her wake.

  Emmy stood dripping in the sun. Aimée ignored her.

  ‘Seen the Buddha?’ asked Emmy after a minute.

  Aimée nodded once, her eyes invisible behind the glasses.

  ‘Are you a Buddhist?’

  ‘I was brought up that way. Why?’ Aimée waved at invisible flies. Her face was scrunched up.

  ‘What’s your connection to the Buddha, then? To the “shipment”—to all the antiques?’

  ‘You ask personal questions. I am Buddy’s connection. Without me there wouldn’t be any.’

  ‘But what,’ asked Emmy, pausing to pull her sundress over her head, ‘what can you possibly get out of it?’

  Aimée turned her face downwards, away from the sun. ‘Ruby,’ she called to the little girl, who balanced at the water’s edge, preparing to jump. ‘Ruby, wait for Mummy. Mummy is coming.’

  When Max was woken by the morning sun and he saw the splendour of the gorge outside his window, he felt better than he had since the monkey bite. As if an evil spirit’s curse had been lifted and he was ready to get on with his life.

  When he remembered that he was now committed to going home, the realization crushed this sense of well-being. He sat on his bed in his shorts for some time, his fingers playing, out of habit, at the place on his neck where the bite mark had all but disappeared. He contemplated grovelling to his father, saying he had changed his mind. He even toyed with the idea of trying to explain the whole Jenny thing to Buddy—before he acknowledged that to do so would only ruin Jenny’s already slim chances for Sydney. He thought of bartering on the Komodo trip, saying he had done an about-face for the treat of going with Buddy to see the dragons.

  But Max knew it was probably too late. The sun had climbed well above the rim of the gorge, and although there were no clear sounds, Max could sense activity—activity bent, he knew, on sending him back to Sydney.

  Aimée was in the sitting-room, in her leopard-spotted bathing-suit, smoking one of her extremely long cigarettes, when Max came in. Ruby, also dressed for swimming, was playing on the floor in front of the Buddha. The Buddha held fresh flowers. On the table, for the first time since he arrived in Ubud, lay a prepared breakfast: a sliced papaya on a plate, with a lime wedge; a glass of juice; some cold toast and a dish of murky guava jam.

  ‘Good morning, Christopher.’ Aimée waved at the breakfast with her cigarette, sending a billow of smoke over the toast and fruit. ‘That’s for you. Your father made it.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘I understand you’re leaving us,’ she said, as if she were closer to Buddy than Max was. It was particularly annoying because she was not much older than Max, and he did not consider her to be family. She was just another in a long line of his father’s ex-girlfriends, only still around because she’d had a baby, because Buddy was a sucker for kids.

  Max didn’t say any of this. He tackled the papaya and said, ‘I guess so,’ loathing her for making it a final decision in such an offhand way. She was one person he definitely couldn’t lose face in front of. He hated being called Christopher.

  ‘Your father sorted out your ticket this morning. He got through to Garuda on the phone—imagine!’

  ‘Yeah. Imagine.’ The papaya was very slippery, and the slices kept sliming off Max’s spoon.
/>   ‘He sorted out his own ticket at the same time,’ she said, with a small smile, patting absently at Ruby’s head.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes. He’s decided, since you won’t be here, to come with me and Ruby and Kraut to Bangkok.’

  ‘For the shipment, then?’ Max said this because he knew it would bug her; she would want to believe that Buddy was chasing after her. Like he could care less.

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘What about Komodo?’

  ‘What about it? He’s gone into town with K’tut to cancel Komodo. For the time being. That’s all I know.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When what?’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘My ticket is for a couple of days from now,’ said Aimée. ‘But as far as I know, Buddy’s hoping to fly out tonight. This afternoon, maybe.’

  Max knew that he must have upset his father a great deal for him to take off in such a rush. Either that, or there was some question of sweetening the Burmese antiques deal if he went to Bangkok. The cold toast tasted like sawdust; the guava jam was sickeningly sugary. He ate half a slice and put it down.

  ‘You haven’t seen Jenny this morning, have you?’

  ‘The servant girl? No.’ Aimée picked up a pile of things from the sofa, which was mottled by sunlight: towels, sunglasses, shiny water-wings. ‘We’re going for a swim,’ she said. She hauled her daughter to her feet with her free hand. ‘Come along, Ruby, my treasure. Swims. Swims.’