End of the Ocean Read online

  “One time I not see my ibu for two years.”

  “You didn’t see your mom for two years?”

  “Yes. Then she come home for two month. Then she leave again for another two year.”

  “Really?”

  She almost cried. He saw she could have.

  “It’s OK,” he said, whether it was or it wasn’t. What else could he say?

  She laughed. “I sorry, I cannot believe I want to cry. It just hard here some time.”

  He wanted to hold her, but felt like he did not know her well enough to try.

  “She always tell me story about mermaids and the sea. She make them up I know but I was young. I thought they were real.”

  “You thought mermaids were real?”

  Wiping away tears, she laughed. “I always want to be a mermaid when I grow up. I want to live in the ocean and drink the sea.”

  Stopping, she said, “Look at the ocean, it so beautiful, Sage. I love it. Don’t you?”

  “It is amazing. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “When I was little girl I want to taste the ocean because it look like water. You ever want to taste the ocean?”

  “I’d never seen the ocean until I met you.”

  She stopped walking and looked at him. “Oh my God. This first time you see ocean?”

  “I saw it my first day here, but,” he shrugged. “…I got drunk and...”

  She laughed.

  “…well, I don’t really remember it. I think I was drunk when I got off the plane.”

  She said, “Well I hope you not forget this night you see the ocean with me.”

  Sage asked how could he.

  They walked until it was too dark to see then they sat in the sand, listening to each other talk about their childhood memories, and the more she talked the more he was drawn to her. Much like he was drawn to Wayne. These two new figures in his life he was suddenly close to after not feeling close to anyone for so long.

  ***

  For the next week it rained. Each day storms came that brought wind and rain and sometimes floods. Water rushed down steep hills and spilled into the streets, overflowing deep ditches that lined narrow potholed roads. Sage would meet Wayne for lunch in the afternoon, or drinks in the evening, and, after dark, once Ratri had finished her work, he would spend his nights with her, until it was late and she had to go home.

  The next day he would do it again. It was a comfortable pattern they fell into.

  He spent as much time with Ratri as he could: walking in the rain, riding motorbikes, going to Sanur and Uluwatu. It was a mistake and he knew it, spending so much time with her. She knew it, too. Because sooner or later he would go away. That’s what tourists did. They came and spent their money: ate at the cafés and tanned on the beaches and swam in the ocean, and then they went away. Back to wherever it was they had come from. To their important lives and their beautiful homes and their luxury cars. Back to a life most Indonesians could only imagine.

  Sage met Wayne in late morning. His thirty-day deadline was approaching. He would have to leave the country on a visa run unless he found an agent who could stamp his passport; he’d heard there was a man who could do that. Stamp his passport. They said a lot of tourists went to see him. Sage asked Wayne about him.

  “His name’s Ade,” Wayne said; they would find him in Kuta or Denpasar. But it was under the table, so to speak. Kind of shady. Though the stamp itself was perfectly official—Wayne said he’d used the man himself—you just had to give him your passport for a few days to hang on to. He collected them by the handful from other travelers then went to the airport to have them stamped with thirty-day extensions.

  “You just have to trust him with your passport for a couple of days; he’ll get it stamped for you. Then he gives it back. Pretty easy.”

  Wayne sent him a text message to set something up and he replied immediately.

  “See, he’s on the ball,” Wayne said. “Said he could meet in one hour.”

  “Today?”

  “Yep.”

  “That was fast.”

  “He usually is.”

  Wayne said whenever Sage got his passport back it would say, Extended, and that one word would allow him to stay for another thirty days. Not having to buy a plane ticket to leave the country only to return the next day would save Sage money, which he seemed to be running out of. More important, it would buy him another month in Bali. Another month with Ratri. That was the only thing he could think of.

  Stranding beside his motorbike, Wayne asked Sage if he was ready. “Let’s go meet this bloke.”

  “And you’re sure about this?”

  “I do it all the time.”

  “OK,” Sage said. “Let’s go.”

  They pulled out of Wayne’s driveway and Sage followed Wayne. He had come to trust him. He was his only real friend and in Bali he was a friend worth having. Despite that exploit with the mushrooms. But the truth was Sage had enjoyed it. He had. After it was all said and done, and since no one died, he was glad he had experienced it. Maybe Wayne was right. Maybe Sage just needed to relax and walk on the wild side. Maybe he should trust him. One day he would have to trust someone.

  There was much traffic, but they arrived an hour after they’d set out, which seemed to be the standard length of time it took to travel anywhere in Bali. Once in Kuta, Wayne stopped on the side of the road and Sage parked beside him.

  A man, standing under a pink umbrella bolted to a short metal cart that was, itself, mounted to a wooden base set above small rubber tires, bowed and Wayne bowed back, telling him two bakso, holding up two fingers, saying, “Dua.”

  The man bowed again and Wayne asked Sage if he liked bakso.

  “Never had it.”

  Wayne looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “You trust me?”

  Sage said obviously not. Not after last time.

  Wayne, smiling wide as he accepted his bakso, handed it to Sage. “Don’t worry, mate, it doesn’t have any mushrooms in it.” Wayne laughed genuinely, remembering what a fool Sage had been. What fools they had both been.

  Sage took the soup and smelled it. Then, using the short, wide-bottomed spoon the man had given him, plucked a small round ball of dough from the soup and plopped it in his mouth.

  It was very tasty. The flavor agreed with him.

  “Told ya,” Wayne said, taking a bite from his own bowl. “Pretty good.”

  Sage agreed it was bagus.

  Wayne said bagus would work, but it was proper to say enak when it came to food.

  Sage nodded and said he’d make a mental note, but doubted he would remember. There was so much to retain. New words to learn, new phrases to use. All of it so foreign.

  They finished eating and waited, standing beside their motorbikes, until a man pulled up and bowed at Wayne and Wayne returned his bow. “There he is,” looking down at his watch. “Half-hour late,” Wayne said. “Right on time for the Balinese.”

  The man got off his motorbike and greeted Wayne and Sage. Wayne spoke to him and nodded at Sage, motioning for him to produce his passport.

  “Here,” Wayne said, meaning to take it from him, opening his hand.

  Sage, about to hand it over but withdrawing, thinking twice, cleared his throat and reached around Wayne, handing it to Ade himself, feeling awkward in the open, like a man who had just done something he shouldn’t have.

  The man Wayne had called Ade took it and opened it and asked Wayne a question.

  Wayne, one eyebrow raised, responded with words Sage could not understand and both men laughed offhandedly.

  Wayne asked, “Got the money?”

  Sage, removing his wallet from his back pocket, opened it and withdrew a wad of crisp pink bills. These he handed to Wayne, who held them in his hand until Ade finished talking.

  Wayne paid him and bowed and Ade climbed on his
motorbike and left.

  “Now see, mate. Wasn’t that easy?”

  “It was, thank you—terima kasih—just as long as I get it back.”

  “No worries, he’s probably got a trunk full of ‘em. But he’s good, so there’s nothing to worry about. Just think of all the rupiah you’ll save.”

  Sage had thought about that. It was a lot cheaper than flying to Singapore or Malaysia.

  “Thanks again.”

  “Next time you’ll probably have to leave the island and come back.”

  Sage said OK, that he would remember that. But he tried not to think that far ahead. Part of the appeal of island life was taking it day by day, one day at a time, and some days he even forgot what day it was. He smiled as he rode, continent with this new life and his new friends; he followed Wayne to a bar on the beach where they parked their motorbikes among a hundred other motorbikes, walked inside and sat at a long wooden bar, ordered drinks and drank them and ordered more drinks as they talked about the things they had done in their previous lives before their new lives brought them to this place.

  A dog walked by and barked. Someone kicked it away.

  “So,” Wayne began, “you were a salesman, that right? I believe that’s what you said.”

  Sage said he was, had been, though he could not remember telling Wayne that.

  “And that’s all you’ve ever done?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Sorry mate, but that sounds a trifle bit boring you don’t mind me saying.”

  “I don’t.” Sage suppressed a laugh. “It was a boring life, man. I sold car insurance, flood insurance. Earthquake insurance. Hell, for a while I sold tractor parts. Used cars.” He sighed. “I could go on…”

  “Please don’t. Holy hell, sounds like imprisonment to me. It does—but I’m glad you broke free. Aren’t you? Surely a man smart as yourself must feel like he was meant for something more than tractor parts.” Wayne, laughing, putting on a ridiculous though effective accent, deeply southern, said, “S’cuse me sir, y’all got any duct tape? I just blew a head gasket on my John Deere.”

  “Fantastic,” Sage said, smirking. “That’s pretty good, actually.”

  Wayne lifted one shoulder in a shrug and took a drink.

  “Guess I didn’t think of it as boring while I lived it.” Now Sage took a drink. “Anyway, not too exciting, nothing like yours. I never did any boxing.”

  Wayne cocked his head to the side and looked at Sage. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to change the subject, mate. Don’t like to talk about yourself?”

  “You said it yourself, my life’s a joke. Not much to say really.”

  “What about that sweet young thing you’ve been seeing?”

  “Ratri.”

  “Yes, that’s it. Ratri. Pretty name,” he said. “Pretty girl, too.”

  “She is.”

  “You’re thinking about her right now. Am I correct?”

  Sage said only because Wayne brought her up.

  “Well, perhaps we’ll go out one night. Or, what say, fancy a weekend? A romantic little holiday with our Indonesian women.”

  Sage said that would be great. That Ratri would love it.

  “A weekend in Amed. You keen for it?”

  “Well,” Sage said, immediately considering his finances. “Sounds fun. What’s Amed?”

  “My God, man, have you done no research?”

  “Very little,” Sage said, almost shamefully.

  “You Americans and your lack of bloody preparation. Amed is only the best scuba diving in the world.” He asked Sage what he thought about that.

  “Never been.”

  “Diving? No kidding? You’re pulling my leg—isn’t that what you chaps would say at a time like this?”

  “It is, but I’m not—kidding, that is. I’m serious. Just wanted outta my small town and Bali was about as far away as a man could get, you know. I needed it. Now I’m here.”

  He raised his glass to Wayne and said, “No regrets.”

  Wayne touched his glass and said not yet. They laughed and drank. Wayne changed the topic of conversation and asked Sage what he thought about firearms.

  “You Americans are so gun crazy. Ever shoot one, Sage?”

  Sage said sure, here and there. “I’ve done a little squirrel hunting.”

  Wayne eyed him smartly then shrugged. Bought another round. Told Sage he hadn’t fancied him for a hunter. “Done a bit of squirrel hunting, have we?” he said, tapping the key to his motorbike on the counter, not giving Sage a chance to reply. Going back to their previous conversation, he said they should go next weekend.

  “I’ll reserve my usual villa, and I’ll get an extra one for the two of you.” He winked at Sage. “That work for you, old sport?”

  Wayne calling Sage old sport made him feel like he was in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Sage looked at him funny, feeling buzzed already, feeling like a lightweight compared to Wayne.

  “Amed, next weekend. On me. That work for you?”

  Sage cleared his throat, said sure. But told Wayne he did not have to do that.

  “It’s not a problem, friend. Be happy to do it. B’sides, Ogi’d love to get away.”

  “I’ll see if Ratri can go,” Sage said. Thinking how she, too, would enjoy it.

  They finished their drinks and Wayne told Sage he would call him tomorrow and Sage thanked him for the drinks. He imagined the upcoming weekend as he rode off, thinking of Ratri, hoping she would go. Hoping she could go—it would be an idyllic weekend, nothing short of heavenly, but if she wasn’t there than he did not want to go without her; he did not want to leave her behind.

  ***

  They left Ubud on a Thursday evening. Ratri was off work until Sunday. When Sage asked her to go to Amed she had never been more excited. It would be her first vacation. She had never missed a day of work before and Sage promised her money to make up for what she lost. He wanted to help her, but she refused to take it.

  “For three day I just want to be free,” she said. And Sage told her she would be, that they would both be. But even as good as it felt to be going there; he knew they would eventually leave, and after a weekend like this was sure to be he did not think he could.

  Gunning the throttle, leaning into the curves, he followed Wayne Tender as Ratri leaned into him, squeezing him, her hands touching, fingers interlocked around his waist. She felt safe with him. His shoulders were wide and hard, and she would rest her chin on one or the other and talk to him. Whisper to him. Sometimes he’d look back at her and his eyes were so blue, like the ocean. She loved that about him. The deep blue of his eyes.

  I would swim in your eyes she said, her voice so low he could not hear it. She sighed. Closing her own eyes, she smelled him. Wanted to bite his neck, but couldn’t. What would that tell him? More than she wanted him to know.

  She kissed his neck instead, gently, just barely, which was almost as bad, but not quite. She’d done it before she could stop herself. It felt good to let herself go.

  Sage felt her lips against his skin and it gave him an immediate chill he tried to ignore.

  “Wayne’s driving like a madman,” he said, almost awkwardly. “Look at him go.”

  Ratri laughed and said, “Yes, he drive crazy.”

  Up ahead, and after several cocktails, Wayne felt good, Ogi behind him, holding him tight in much the same way Ratri held Sage. Weaving through traffic, they made their way to Amed, his thoughts on the upcoming job. It was quickly approaching and he needed time to think. A three-hour journey by motorbike would allow him that.

  A three-hour crossing was also fine with Sage. It was everything he wanted. To feel her behind him for that long. And, as if she had also felt whatever it was he was feeling, something extraordinary happened along the way. After riding sidesaddle on their previous excursions, for reasons unknown to Sage, without any
warning or hint of intention, she’d swung her leg over the seat, directly behind him, riding proper for the first time, sitting close, pushing her breasts against his back in a moment of vast importance disguised as a small gesture which let him know it was real. That she was real. This was a moment to share for the rest of their lives that no one could take away.

  As they drew close to Amed it rained. Wayne cursed and yelled at Sage they were close, so close; they should just ride through it. But after a few minutes Ogi complained and they pulled to the shoulder and parked beneath a rust coated lean-to that did all it could to stand on its own without crumbling.

  Sage pulled up behind them and parked. They were soaked, though no one was surprised, least of all their female counterparts who had experienced this weather all their lives.

  “Bloody rain,” Wayne said, standing beside his motorbike now, bending. Stretching.

  “A three-hour ride,” he said. “Guess it was bound to happen.”

  Ratri climbed off their motorbike and Wayne took notice of how she’d been sitting. He raised an eyebrow at Sage, who climbed off behind her; looking the happiest Wayne had ever seen him.

  Rain battered the roof in deafening succession. Water dripped through the holes and ran off the side. The traffic slow, but steady; the ground hot and wet as steam rose from the pavement in a mist of thin transparent waves.

  They were cold, but they were in good spirits. Looking forward to three days of paradise. Then, as Ratri stood against Sage, without warning or permission, he kissed her. Knelt down and took her chin in his hands and kissed her. Rain pounding down all around them. She reached to touch his face, caught up in the beauty of this moment: lips against lips; mouths opening and closing until their tongues touch in long slow silence, like hands on a clock that paused: no wind or rain or tin being hammered above them.

  No one else in the world existed. The only first kiss there could ever be.

  What she had wanted him to do since the night he bought her pizza.

  A gravel truck drove by and its driver smashed the brakes, smashing the horn as well, yelling at a taxi driver who had cut him off.

  Wayne started yelling obscenities at the both of them.