Monday, June 02, 2008

An old flame in Bali

I saw an old flame this week. I hesitated to stay in that section of Lovina, because I didn’t know if I wanted to run into him. But as I was moving to a different bungalow (one where the water actually worked) at the small family-run establishment where I usually stay. I heard him call to me, lounging on the porch of the bungalow next door, hidden by the lush foliage.

“Do I know you?” I said. Often people know who I am in Bali, though I don’t know them. Not that I’m that interesting – it’s just people in the village generally know everything going on.

“I don’t know, do you?” he said.

Smart ass answer. Could only be one person. Was he on that porch by chance? No, he would have heard I was here. I called his name as a question as I stepped away from the greenery in order to see him. He had cut his hair.

“I knew your voice,” he said.

I thought running into him would be awkward, but instead it was good to see an old friend. “I heard you got married.” I said.

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“Oh, we know everything in America,” I joked. He knew the lines of communication, who had told me.

“Any children?”

“A boy, two and a half,” he said.

I was glad for him. He had been having a lot of bitter family issues in the compound where his volatile older brother dominated. So when he married, he moved to a rented house with his new wife. He had met her at the Kalukbukbuk Hotel where she started working. I remember I used to call him there, and his friend would run down the beach to find him to take my call, years ago.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Four years. A long time,” he said.

Yes, he was right. It was three years since I had been to Bali, but four since I saw him. It was about six years ago I met him, about the same time I met ‘Tut. It could have gone either way, but due to a miscommunication, a misunderstanding, a chance of fate, I left him in Padang Bai, the eastern beach town where ferries leave for Lombok. He returned to Lovina. And I returned to ‘Tut. As I face him in the bright sun, it all washes over me. Fleetingly I wonder if I had made the wrong choice. But it is only wistfulness at the creak of a door swinging shut.

“Can I still talk to you?” he asks.

“Of course,” I smile. “I want to meet your son.”

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