A Death in Bali. Nancy Tingley
would be nice, don’t you think?” He insisted, breaking the spell.
Alam’s face flashed through my mind. His gentle smile. I edged myself from Seth, mentally chanting, enough of men, enough of men. I moved away, reconstructing my posture into my own, placing my feet so that they held me up—me, not us. My phone rang.
“Excuse me,” I said, stopping. “I’ll catch up.”
He walked toward reception as I listened to what was most certainly a marketing call. An advertisement for what? I couldn’t understand the Balinese. But I’d been saved by the bell. I let the foreign words roll over me as I thought of his arm, my shoulder.
They were waiting in reception.
“I’m sorry, but something’s come up. I can’t go today. We’ll have to go another day to a different site, perhaps.” I heard the stiffness in my voice.
Seth frowned. “Work?”
“Yes, afraid so. I’ll see you both later. Have fun.” With a wave, I turned away from them.
“We could go later today,” Randall offered. “I was looking forward to you giving us a tour. I mean, since you know these temples and all.”
I glanced back at them. Seth looked irritated, Randall disappointed. “No, no, that’s okay. I have a couple of weeks to take it in. Your time is short. Better get there while the getting is good.”
I gave a little wave and continued my chant all the way back to the bungalow, no men, no men. Still, I could feel the gentleness of his hand, the weight of his shoulder. I’d fit so snugly. I was drawn to him. There’d been safety in that arm. But then again, there hadn’t been. I unlocked the door, looking back toward the lobby, empty now. Of course I didn’t know if I could trust him. First of all, he’d nodded at someone at the bar, maybe that Wild Man who’d been watching me. Second of all, he was a man.
12
“What are you doing here?” Randall asked at the entrance to Besakih. “Thought you had to work.”
“I did, finished early and thought an afternoon would be enough time to get up here and spend a few hours. You’ve been here a long time.”
Seth looked at me darkly.
I realized what I had said suggested I’d hoped they would be finished and gone. I said weakly, “But I took my chances that you might still be here.”
Seth looked skeptical.
Randall accepted what I said, and explained, “Motorbike trouble. It took hours to get it fixed in a village where everyone was a motorbike mechanic with an opinion. Then we got here and thought we’d have something to eat, and that took longer than we expected. Well, great you’re here. We can walk through together.”
“Yes,” I said, kicking myself. I’d expected them to be gone, yet I’d looked for them once I’d arrived. I was like a magnet to the bad boy, or rather, the bad boy was a magnet to me.
Flustered under Seth’s steady gaze, I pulled my phone out of my bag. Randall fell behind, snapping pictures. “The guidebooks give you so little information. You’d think for a large temple as important as Besakih, there would be a map of the site. Luckily I found a map online.”
Seth finally spoke. “Much bigger than any other temple I’ve seen on the island.” Our mutual discomfort, along with his anger, filled the space between us. He wanted to seduce, and I wanted to resist seduction.
I tried to defuse the moment. “As foreigners, we can’t walk into sections of the temple compound, but we can view it from the outside as we climb Mount Agung.”
“I see foreigners in there,” Seth said, pointing.
“They paid. And I don’t want to negotiate hawkers and payoffs. We can see from outside the wall. Or feel free to pay and go in, if you want.”
“I’m content looking over the wall,” Seth said.
“It’s difficult to find useful information about the temple, beyond the fact it’s the Mother Temple of the island, established by the fifteenth century, maybe as early as the tenth. The guidebooks focus on the 1963 hundred-year festival, during which Mount Agung erupted.”
“You’re joking,” said Randall, who had caught up with us.
“The lava flow didn’t reach the temple, but it threatened it. And it killed over a thousand people in nearby villages. Priests overseeing the festival argued whether to stop their rituals and get out of the way of the lava or to continue. Afterwards they argued over whether the eruption signaled the gods’ approval or their displeasure.”
“Wow,” said Randall.
The exquisite siting of Besakih, with the volcanic Mount Agung rising above it, made the climb a pleasant one. “See those two smaller complexes off to either side?” I pointed to the other side of the compound, where we could see a tower rising above the others. “They’re dedicated to Brahma and Vishnu. Along with Shiva they form the triad of Hindu gods that create, protect, and destroy mankind.”
They both nodded.
As we approached the upper end of the wall surrounding the Shiva compound, a group of buildings came into view.
“Look at that painting,” said Randall, pointing up at one of the temple towers. “That’s different.”
“Sure is,” I answered. “The style of those figures is based on wayang puppets. That’s the traditional style of painting. See how they’re flat—in silhouette like the puppets.”
“They’re very cool,” Randall said.
“According to what I’ve read, the Pande clan—the blacksmiths’ clan—built this corner temple,” I said.
“Isn’t this the most sacred section of the compound?” Seth asked. “Why would blacksmiths build here? Be allowed to build here, I mean. I would think there would be prohibitions against certain castes within the temple. It’s a Hindu caste society, isn’t it? Like India.”
“It is a caste society, but without the constraints of India. All castes are allowed in the temple. Plus in Indonesia blacksmiths traditionally were very powerful, magical.” I peered over the wall, trying to photograph details of the paintings. “I met a blacksmith yesterday. At my friends’ house.”
“Let’s go look at that one,” Randall said. “The Brahma temple. Or is it Vishnu?”
After we’d taken a quick look around the Brahma temple, Randall, looked toward the Vishnu temple and said, “That one looks like more of the same. I think I’ll pass.” Seth nodded in agreement.
“Okay, then. I’m going to walk up to Pura Gelap. I’ll catch up with you back at the hotel.”
“What’s Gelap?” asked Seth.
“A temple higher up the slope—it marks the eastern form of Shiva.”
“Can we join you? It must have a good view, and it’s a clear day,” said Randall.
“Up to you.”
The view was fantastic. A soft-spoken priest invited us into the grounds, where we spent some time listening to his explanations. He made our time there special, he and the fact we were the only visitors.
On the way down, we took the path along the compound wall opposite the one we had walked up, passing many smaller temples parallel to the main complex.
“What’s this one?” Seth asked. A festival was taking place. Gold-and-white textiles were draped around the many small structures within the compound.
I flipped through the pages in my hand. “Maybe Ratu Pasek. I’ve lost track of the number of temples we’ve passed. There are eighty-four of them in the compound.” I stepped in to watch the women assembling