End of the Ocean Read online

“That good,” Ngyn said. They would speak in English when they were in public; it was good to practice their English, and it kept important conversations private from curious Balinese.

  Djoko agreed. “That very good. Now you take to Australian crazy man, get our money, yes?”

  Ngyn agreed he would, then, nodding to a waiter who walked by, he ordered curry from the menu and a cup of black coffee.

  The waiter asked Djoko if he wanted anything and he said no. When he left, Djoko looked down on the floor at the backpack beside his foot.

  Ngyn saw it and said OK and asked Djoko about his horse.

  “How Grady?”

  “Hungry,” Djoko said. Both men laughed. “He always hungry.”

  “A good horse always eat,” Ngyn said.

  Djoko leaned forward and asked Ngyn about the operation they had coming up.

  “What you want know?”

  “Not amphetamine, no?”

  “No, it diamond,” Ngyn said. “From Myanmar.”

  Djoko, stretching his back, lit a cigarette. “I have Grady for job. He is best horse. I tell him to rest for rest of this month, that in three week I have big job for him.”

  “That good,” Ngyn said. The waiter returned with his curry and his coffee and he thanked him. “Terima kasih.”

  Djoko stood and told Ngyn to enjoy his meal.

  “I see you tomorrow, no?”

  “I send text message,” Ngyn said.

  “Let me know when he pay you.”

  Ngyn said he would, but this was Galungan. No one worked on Galungan.

  “It depend on Wayne Tender, how soon I see him.”

  Djoko left the warung and Ngyn sipped his coffee. It was hot and strong. He finished his curry and sent a message to Wayne Tender, stood and walked to the front. After paying for his meal and his coffee, he left the warung. The sky was soft blue and it looked very close to the tops of the trees. He saw no clouds and felt no breeze. Only heat.

  Strapping the backpack over his shoulders, starting his motorbike, he rode to a small storage building he rented behind a house on the Campuhan Ridge, one he used to store antiques for a shop he hoped to one day own. There was a hole in the floor where he hid money, where he would hide the methamphetamine now.

  He parked his motorbike and checked his phone for a message from Wayne Tender. There was none. Inside the building, he took the methamphetamine from the bag and stashed it in the hole in the floor. When he left the building he locked the door with a padlock, but when he locked it he turned the lock a certain way, at a particular angle, so he would know if it was adjusted.

  Ngyn, stopping beside his motorbike, turning his back to the street, lifted his sarong and pissed in the grass as motorbikes passed behind him with no concern by either party. He finished pissing and started his motorbike and pulled onto the road. It was nine a.m. and the hot air was sweet with incense. It was everywhere. This was Galungan, a holiday when the spirits of the ancestors were celebrated and the streets were lined with penjor—tall bamboo poles, intricately constructed, with offerings that dangled above the road.

  Ngyn would work for a few hours; then his factory would shut down so the workers could go home and prepare for the ceremonies. They would clean their homes and prepare offerings and burn incense. They would bake cakes in their stone ovens and slaughter pigs and butcher turtles. Children would play instruments and march down the street.

  For the next ten days it would be good to be Balinese. Galungan was special. Ngyn and his family would remember their ancestors. Ngyn would pray at the many temples his family would visit. Tomorrow was a big day. The family would make their prayers and offerings at their homes then travel to the temples of their ancestors. After a day spent walking and praying and climbing up and down steep temple stairs they would come together and eat.

  Ngyn weaved through traffic on the streets of Ubud and honked his horn. Not that he was frustrated; he was a tolerant man with a lot on his mind. He was involved in a big transaction and worked to hide his nervousness, not that it mattered. One way or the other, the consequences were the same. They would be found guilty if they were caught. The trial would be short and it would not be fair and every bit of rupiah he had ever earned that was not well hid would be taken.

  Honking his horn he worked the shoulder, passing other motorbikes on the cracked, broken sidewalk, passing a silver bus full of curious tourists looking out windows and taking pictures and talking to the person beside them, saying: look at those flowers and those streets and those people and all of those fucking motorbikes.

  Ngyn, cutting between two cars, passed a woman on a motorbike riding with her right hand on the throttle while her left hand held a red plastic jug she balanced on her head, filled with water. It splashed about, running down her back, as she bounced down the potholed road that lay before her. It was very rough, and he could see her in his mirror; she rode as steady as she could but as steady as she rode water still splashed from the pot and drenched her.

  He dropped into a deep hole and the bottom of his motorbike crashed against the pavement. He rode through it. Straightened his handlebars and held them tight and worked the gas.

  The penjors festooned the cluttered roadsides. They towered above them and the tops drooped over the pavement like primordial street lamps. Toward the base of the pole was a bamboo cage that held offerings from the families. The Balinese would carry flowers and produce and stock the baskets and offer thanks to God for the fruits of the Earth.

  Ngyn turned into the parking lot of the factory where he worked, parked his motorbike, stood, and, lifting the seat, reached into the trunk and grabbed three bananas, enough to tide him over until he got home from work. Then he would have an early dinner and retire.

  He had to pray and prepare for Galungan. It was going to be a long couple of days.

  ***

  Sage watched the sky from the patio of his villa. It did not look like rain but it was hard to judge. They said it rained every day. Some days it rained for minutes and some days for hours and some days it rained all day and into the night and into the next day.

  There was no sign of rain at that moment so now was as good a time to go to the laundry as he could hope for. He walked into his villa and brushed his teeth. Looking in the mirror, he thought about shaving but decided not to. He had to go. His map was destroyed but he thought he could find his way back to the laundry without it. He stopped in the lobby to look for a new map and saw the restaurant and smelled the food and thought about some breakfast. When he walked inside it was much busier than before; he was surprised to see a crowd of people.

  He stopped to take them in, and while he took them in they stopped talking to each other and took him in. Everything was quiet and Sage felt his face redden. His waitress from the day before said, “Hey, it American writer, everyone! He publish book!”

  Sage stood slack-jawed; he could not believe she had said that. He could not believe he had told that lie to begin with and that it had come back on him the way it had. The hostess had told the waitress and who knows who else. Lowering his face, turning redder still, he put his head down and waited for someone else to speak.

  His waitress said, “Sit down, sit there,” pointing to a table against the wall. It was beside another table with two Japanese men and a woman.

  Sage was mortified. He sat down: nervous and red-faced. Everyone looked at him inquisitively. When his waitress approached him she asked how he was and what he wanted and he told her he was fine and that he wanted the same thing he had the day before.

  “I not remember.”

  “You remembered I was a writer.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Science fiction. You famous writer, you big shot round here.”

  Sage sucked in a deep breath and grunted and hid the shock in his face as well as he could hide it but he knew could not hide it well.

  “What you want? You want menu?”
<
br />   “I’ll have bacon.”

  “OK you want bacon yeah, how much?”

  “Just about four pieces, I guess.”

  “You want four piece of bacon?” She said. Empat? She held up four fingers. “Is anything else you want?”

  He said he’d take a bottle of water and a bottle of orange juice and two pieces of burnt toast.

  “You what?” She said. “You want toast burn?”

  “Just a little.”

  She wrote down his order and, turning to leave, the Japanese man at the table beside him touched her arm and asked her a question and she answered his question by pointing to Sage. “He write book about Bali.”

  The man’s eyebrows arched up. He leaned forward and spoke to Sage. “You’re writing a book about Bali?”

  Sage looked down at his hands on the table. He did not know what to say. He cleared his throat and told the truth. “Not really, no.”

  The man looked relieved somehow, as if the thought of a science fiction novel set in Bali would have been a bad idea.

  “You from New York?” the Japanese man said.

  Sage shook his head no. “What about you?”

  “We’re from Tennessee.”

  “Really?”

  “Shit yes, we live in Memphis. What are you doing in Bali?”

  “Just vacation, I guess. I dunno, really.” Sage, looking down at his hands on the table again, knew he did not want any more questions about science fiction. He looked up. “What about you guys?”

  “Oh we’re on holiday, too. Here for three weeks. What about you, how long you staying?”

  “I might stay a week or two. A month. Who knows?”

  He knew a month would be stretching it because his money would run out by then but a month sounded like a good thing to say.

  “Oh yeah, if you stay more than one month you must do visa run. You know that, right?”

  Sage shook his head. “Not really, what’s that?”

  “You serious?” he said. “You don’t know about the visa run?”

  “Something about you’ve gotta leave the country every month, I think, but then you can come back—right?”

  “Yes,” he nodded, “you can come back the same day, but then you only can stay for thirty days, then must leave again.”

  “Right,” Sage said.

  “Yes, that is why we stay only three weeks.”

  Sage knew about visa runs but he had not paid much attention because he did not expect to stay that long. How long he stayed would depend on his budget and how far it stretched. Moving out of the villa would help. He had a month or two before his unemployment ran out, and thanks to their internet reporting system he could take care of his pretend job searches from anywhere. Something he almost felt bad about, but after years of working and paying in but never drawing, part of him thought he had that money coming.

  “In fact,” the man went on, “now they’re supposed to ask at the airport when your return flight date is before they let you in the country. That way you don’t overstay.”

  Sage began to nod. That he did understand, after what he’d experienced himself when he left San Francisco. He’d bought a one-way ticket to Indonesia but they would not let him on the plane, not without a return date. So, after much arguing, all of it unsuccessful, he’d been forced to buy a return ticket from his phone, while he was standing in line. Then, once the airline sent him his confirmation email, he showed his phone to the woman at the booth, who nodded and printed out his boarding pass then let Sage on the plane.

  As soon as he was seated he cancelled the ticket and they refunded his money.

  “Well OK,” Sage said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Thank you for the good conversation. It’s nice to meet a writer.”

  Sage removed his phone from his pocket he unlocked it and started scrolling through his messages. He had not bought a sim card and had no signal of any kind, but he could use the hotel wifi to check his messages. His phone had gotten wet in the monsoon he rode through and he’d dried it out as well as he could but the damage had been done, and while it did seem to work, there were a dozen water spots behind the screen that rendered it ineffective.

  His waitress returned with a bottle of water and a bottle of orange juice and four pieces of bacon and two pieces of dark black toast that looked like they had been used as charcoal.

  “Hope everything fine for you,” she said. “I have him burn toast like you say.”

  “Wonderful,” he said. “The toast looks great.”

  “Maybe toast too burn?”

  “I’ll eat the crust.”

  “OK,” she said.

  She bowed and returned to the kitchen. Sage chewed his bacon. It was tough.

  Today was a holiday from what he gathered, from what he overheard the American man beside him tell the Australian man beside him, something about spirits and ancestors and praying at temples.

  Sage did his best to listen while doing everything he could to appear uninterested.

  He finished his bacon and his orange juice and took the bottle of water with him as he stood from the table and walked to the front. A woman he had not seen before, sitting in a chair behind the counter, stood, and, smiling pleasantly, asked him would he like his bill.

  “Yes.”

  She bowed and walked to the kitchen and talked to someone, then walked out and smiled at Sage and handed him his bill.

  He took it and saw the small amount and handed her fifty-thousand rupiah, which was more than the bill, and nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Terima kasih.”

  “Sama-sama.”

  Sage, leaving the restaurant, mumbled the words she’d said over and over again. He wanted to learn their language. When he stepped outside it was still bright and hot and the sky was still as blue as it had been when he went in. He walked to his motorbike and, sitting down, put on his helmet and removed his key from his pocket.

  He left the restaurant without getting a map. He would do his best to remember the way but it seemed like it was one long straight stretch and three rights and a left. Or two rights and three lefts. Maybe it was one left.

  He came to the end of the road and gritted his teeth and merged with traffic. It was very hectic. Sage rode by the curbs and the gutters, dodging people and penjors and other motorbikes, trying not to get lost or killed. The horns were maddening. They blared by him at various speeds and proximities of closeness.

  They came to a traffic light and the other motorbikes slowed to brake so he slowed to brake but the light changed and everyone goosed their throttles and opened up their machines so Sage goosed his throttle and opened up his. The longer he rode the more comfortable he got and the more comfortable he got the more he felt the need to go faster. This seemed too slow, and despite the fact he had only ridden the motorbike three times in two days he felt he had it mastered.

  He switched lanes and came to a stop and turned. Rode to the laundry and found it without trouble. Parked and, removing his helmet, hung it on the handlebars, pulling the key from the ignition before he walked inside.

  Kadek held a pile of clothes in his arms and a cigarette between his teeth and told Sage, “Hang on wait one second, boss.”

  Two women and a teenaged boy carried baskets of clothes from the dryers to the folding tables. It was searing in the laundry and the air felt like steamed mist when he breathed it. There was a wooden board to his left with five hooks on it and each hook held a key for a different motorbike. There was one key left. It hung from the hook by a pink string.

  Kadek walked to the counter and bowed at Sage and asked him how he was.

  “You ready see room?”

  Sage said he was.

  “OK one minute first, please.”

  Sage told him to take his time, to take as much time as he needed.

  Kadek thanked
him for his patience and walked to the back of the laundry.

  Sage, walked to the doorway and looked at the motorbikes and the road and the green terraced rice fields behind them as a man passed by riding an antique motorbike. Holding a large birdcage in his left hand, he weaved through traffic one-handed while honking his horn and smoking.

  It was preposterous in the world Sage came from, but in Bali it was common.

  “Halo,” Kadek said. “Sorry you wait.”

  “That’s fine,” Sage said. “I was just watching traffic.”

  “Yeah,” Kadek said. “Bad traffic some time but very bad today, this Galungan.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. Gal-en-gung, is that how you say it? What’s that about?”

  Kadek stopped walking and turned to Sage. “Galungan? It holiday, two time this year,” he held up two fingers. “Dua,” he said. “That mean two in Indonesian.”

  Kadek started walking again and Sage followed him. They walked to their motorbikes and Sage asked Kadek how far away it was to the room he’d be renting and Kadek told him it was far.

  “It is?”

  “It not close. Like forty-five minute.”

  Sage was stunned. “Oh, I didn’t realize that.”

  “Ah, sorry,” he said. “I thought you know. Is that too far way? That only place I know where cheap-cheap.”

  It sounded far away but what difference did it make? And far away from where? From who? It was a small island and he had no one to answer to. Either way it would be a nice ride.

  “That’s OK; I’d still like to see it.”

  “Good,” Kadek said. “It nice, you will like.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “It clean.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Sage said. “Where we goin’?”

  Kadek, pulling up to the edge of traffic, turned and said, “Ubud.”

  ***

  Wayne Tender, relaxing in a handmade Balinese chair, rested his feet on a teakwood table made from an old fishing boat. His home, outside the bustling heart of Ubud, was tastefully decorated with modern and traditional furnishings. The art on the walls and sculptures that adorned his abode were done by local artists.