Closure

Dewi Anggraeni

Martine and I were in Bali four months after the Bali bombing. We were struck by the small number of tourists, especially international visitors.

Shops and restaurants in Kuta were practically empty.

Whenever we were not interviewing people, I gave the same answer -- I'm from Jakarta -- to those who asked. It was not entirely a lie. It was just not the whole truth.

Then one day, Martine and I were sitting at a cafe in Seminyak finishing our lunch, when a young woman at the next table smiled at us. She and her friend had been stealing a look in our direction, and we had been pretending total oblivion.

When she finally made eye contact and smiled, I reciprocated. Martine, her usual cautious self, nodded.

"On holiday?" she asked, casually.

"Sort of," I replied.

"From where?"

"Jakarta," I said without hesitation.

The woman raised her eyebrows. "You feel the heat here more than in Jakarta?" Damn, she had been watching me. Yes, I was feeling the heat. I was drenched in perspiration from the roots of my hair to my toes.

I said tentatively, "No, I feel the heat in Jakarta, too...," and Martine came to my rescue.

"She usually stays indoors, you know, a creature of air- conditioning," she said, unsmiling.

Quickly changing the subject, I asked, "Is there a photo shop nearby? I need to have my film developed."

The woman's friend answered, "There's one just two blocks away from here. They can do it in one hour."

"Oh that's just perfect! Let's go." I slowly stood up and pulled my skirt away from my wet thighs. Martine signaled to the waiter, who ambled unhurriedly toward our table.

When they were out of earshot, Martine laughed. "From Jakarta indeed! Look at you! Constantly looking for a cool place..."

"Precisely," I said, becoming more defensive every minute, "isn't that typical Jakartan behavior?"

Martine rolled her eyes and walked on.

At the photo shop there were four young men squatting outside smoking, and no one to be seen inside. I followed Martine who went to the counter, putting her bag on it. One of the men stood up and went around the counter, facing us. Martine pointed to the sign in front of the shop.

"You can have our film developed in one hour?" she asked.

The man nodded. I took the film out of my handbag and gave it to him.

He wrote out a receipt with the pick-up time on it. "From where, Bu?" he asked.

"Jakarta," replied Martine.

The man then looked at me. "Also from Jakarta," I said, trying to look cool and composed.

Picking the film off the counter, before turning away, he said, "You are not from Jakarta, are you, Bu? You are from overseas."

I was taken aback. "Why d'you say that?"

One of his friends, who had been squatting nearby, stood up and took his cigarette out of his mouth. "He knows, Bu. He's a son of a balian."

"What is that?"

"Somebody who can see what ordinary people cannot," the friend explained, then replaced the cigarette between his lips.

I turned to look at the shop again. The balian's son had disappeared into the back of the shop, behind a black curtain.

"A soothsayer?" I asked.

"Yes, like a soothsayer," the friend replied, the cigarette dangling in his mouth.

Walking away, Martine dismissed the balian thing.

"Bah, you don't have to be a balian's son to tell you're not a Jakartan. I don't know how you think you can get away with that. I'm sure people just pretend they believe you to humor you," she said with a grin.

"But I am a Jakartan!" I almost yelled. "I was born and brought up there."

Martine shrugged. "If you say so!"

We ambled along companionable, looking at shop windows which lined almost the whole street, commenting on various items, eavesdropping on conversations whenever people walked past us, and stepping into shops when we found the heat and humidity too overwhelming.

Yet a hint of tension began to test the emotional link between us.

We were back at the photo shop before the hour was up. The balian's son was cutting a roll of pictures into individual prints.

"Are they ours?" asked Martine. The balian's son nodded. He stacked the sheets of prints neatly on top of a brightly colored patterned paper bag.

Just then a woman of nondescript age, dressed in vaguely traditional Balinese clothes, appeared from behind the curtain. It occurred to me that she looked like she had just finished her shift at a restaurant nearby.

For a moment we locked gaze, then she smiled. Without saying a word, she turned around and disappeared into the back of the shop.

We returned to the hotel for an afternoon rest.

As soon as we closed the door behind us, I rushed to the fridge to get a cool drink for both of us.

"Do you want a melon juice or an orange juice?" I asked, trying to dissolve the tension.

Martine sat on the bed and took the stack of prints out of its paper bag.

"I'll have a melon juice, then," she said absently.

I opened a can and handed it to her, then took another one for myself, watching her face. She was intently looking at a photo, slightly frowning. I quietly sat next to her.

She looked up and examined my face, as if she had just realized what I looked like.

"What?" I asked.

"Who is this?" she enquired, tilting the photo for me to see.

A Caucasian man, probably about thirty, wearing a garish short-sleeve shirt and a pair of light-colored board shorts, was standing amid the ruins next to the site where Sari Club had been. I blinked, and blinked again. He was still there, staring at me.

"I don't know. In fact, I don't remember him being there. Do you?" I finally said.

Martine had another look. "Didn't you take the photo?"

I thought for a while, then shook my head. "Come to think of it, I don't remember taking a photo of that place with this roll of film. Did you?"

Martine was already pulling the negative out of the paper bag, and walking toward the window. She checked the film, strip by strip. I had lost my thirst. I watched her, not knowing what to expect.

Martine turned around, holding aloft a strip of film. "Here! The last exposure. The twenty-fifth."

"It's a twenty-four exposure film," I whispered to myself.

"Yeah, but they sometimes fit in more. It's not so unusual. The thing is, I don't remember us going there again yesterday, just before dark. It was before dark, see?" Martine looked at the photo again, before handing it to me.

We looked at each other, then at the photo. I was eager to dilute the tension, so I said, "Maybe we should just forget about it. Whoever he is, he probably walked in just as you or I clicked the camera."

Martine slowly gathered the film and the prints and put them back into the paper bag. We did not look at the rest of the photos together like we had with the previous batches, where we had passed emotional or irreverent comments followed by short or length discussions. I quietly put them together with the other bags of photos on the table.

We were leaving Bali the following evening. During the day we went to Ubud, both forgetting to bring our cameras. We talked a lot about our observation during our stay, and made copious notes filling each other's gaps. Martine and I always managed to write different stories even after seeing the same things and witnessing the same events together.

Throughout that day we did not once mention the man in the photo, yet each knew that he had sneaked into our consciousness like an unwelcome relative arriving unannounced then staying forever.

At the airport we parted because Martine was going back to Jakarta and I to Melbourne. It was then she said, "I have the feeling we're going to hear more from our man. If you do, please keep me posted."

The tension snapped. I felt tears welling in my eyes. "Yes, I have that feeling too. And if it's you who hears from him, keep me posted, too."

As I walked away from the domestic terminal, I felt slightly creepy, as if someone was following me.

Several months have now passed. Some of my stories have appeared in newspapers in Australia. This morning I received a call from a woman who said she had read my feature stories on Bali, and would like to meet and talk to me. We agreed to meet in town.

I arrive early so I choose a seat toward the back of the cafe, facing the door, and order a black coffee. Perusing a newspaper someone left on the seat next to me, I still look up frequently to check the entrance.

Three women walk through the door, yet I know the one I am meeting, though we haven't told each other what we each look like. And she too, shows no hesitation and comes straight to my table. I stand up and we go through the motion of introducing each other.

She takes the seat facing me and puts her hands on the table, palms down, showing healing scars on the back of her hands. "I escaped with minor burns on my hands and arms. But my husband... He was never found. Not identifiable, anyway."

I slowly slip my hand into my handbag and pull out an envelope. Her eyes fill up with so much hope that I begin to tremble. I would hate to disappoint her. The envelope falls from my hand onto the table, and she picks it up.

She tries three times to open it, but the flap seems to stick, so I help her. She pulls the photo out and closes her eyes before opening them and fixing her gaze at what she is holding.

The general noise in the cafe seems to stop, and time tapers off into a narrow and long tunnel. I can't breathe. I wait.

A gasp from her propels me abruptly to the end of the tunnel. I burst into uncontrollable sobs. She grabs me on both hands and we cry together, in complete disregard of the other patrons, who try to avert their eyes in incomprehension and confused embarrassment.

As we part outside, I turn around the last time to see her walking unsteadily toward a tram stop. I punch Martine's number on my cellphone. When her voice comes on I tell her, tears running down my cheeks, that I finally have closure.

"And I hope she will soon, too," I say.