Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (28 page)

I am inclined to believe these matters.

I was fascinated by a wayang kulit hanging in Gwyneth Jones’ house in 1986 and so jumped at the chance to see a shadow-puppet show in Bali three years later. This is an attempt at a monochromes story.

1.

She closed the door gently and was gone, and her leaving made
little difference to the ambience of the room.

I lay on the rough-hewn bed, with its carved end posts, for another hour, just staring at the ceiling. Then I got up and went out onto the balcony. It was five-thirty in the evening and the sun was setting on the Balinese rice terraces. A beautiful, light-green landscape surrounded the hut, the tiers dropping away to the front and rising above behind. The hut seemed to be floating like some forgotten gazebo in an emperor’s garden. Beyond the fields, in the far distance, was Gunung Agung, one of the many dominating active volcanoes.

The duck herders were calling in their flocks on the rice terraces. The herders carried bamboo staves, twice the height of a man, which slimmed out to whip thin at the top and were arched, weighted by coloured rags. They stuck these in the ground and their ducks gathered around them. When they finally left, the ducks following, the tall crooks made the herders appear stately, like princes in the midst of a gabbling rabble.

I sat in the rickety bamboo chair and drank some cold tea.

It was the forest at the back of the town that had frightened her. The mosquitoes, even the cockroaches and snakes didn’t bother her as much as they did me, but the forest had troubled her. We had been out walking and I insisted we follow a path through the undergrowth. She would have none of it, saying she didn’t like the shafts of light, lancing the lacework canopy. They worried her, especially when there was a breeze, stirring the branches, causing the patterns on the ground to change.

What are you afraid of? I had asked her.

Of getting lost, she replied.

But there’s a path through to the other side, I said.

Not that kind of lost, she had answered—
lost forever
.

This answer was incomprehensible to me and I gave way to my temper, shouting at her, calling her an idiot. It was, I saw now, inexcusable of me, but the damage had been done. I was not forgiven. Later she told me she was leaving.

We had been thrown together in a vernacular hut in the middle of rice fields and I guess it had put a strain on the relationship. Maybe it wasn’t the forest? Maybe it was
us—or just me
? Maybe she’d discovered, after seven days together, seven nights together, she just didn’t like me?
Or that our cultures were too different?
Hell, I didn’t know.

Anyway, I sure as heck wasn’t going to stay on Bali now and thought I might go to the coast tomorrow, to find a ferry.

I went indoors again and had an all-over wash in the mandi at the back. A kind of concrete bath with a saucepan for splashing water over oneself, the mandi substituted for a shower in the cheaper accommodation. I was on a backpacking holiday, using the
Lonely Planet Guide
. It meant I was free to do as I wished, go anywhere I pleased, and pick up whatever accommodation was available. Nyoman, a local woman, had attached herself to me several weeks ago, and I had begun to think we were in love with each other, but those feelings had evaporated.

I dressed in shirt and slacks, and remembering the mosquitoes, thick socks. Then with torch in pocket I took the raised narrow paths down to the town, which happened to be Ubud, the place of the artists and carvers. Everywhere there were paintings for sale, and textiles, and
wood carvings
. I had already bought a root carving of a lizard emerging from its hole, and a painting of Garuda surrounded by villagers. Nyoman had persuaded me to buy both the carving and the picture.

Nyoman was fashioned in the fey mould of the Balinese. She had dainty limbs and a light step. She had the shy smile and quiet demeanour. I was beginning to miss her already.

As I walked down the main street,
pieces of paper were thrust into my hands by hopeful touts
. There was one inviting me to
an ‘old
ritual dance—
sanghyang
—a trance dance in which Rama sets out to rescue Sita from the clutches of the Demon King assisted by a huge army of monkeys’. The pamphlet wasn’t clear whether the monkeys were with Rama, or with the Demon King, but knowing the local monkeys it was probably the latter. One had bitten Nyoman on the ankle when I wasn’t looking.

There were the usual Barong and Kris dances, a dedari dance and a jaran dance, but the one that took my attention immediately was an invitation to a
wayang kulit
.

I had read a good deal about the shadow puppet plays and I knew that tourists did not often get invited. The
wayang kulit
had religious significance and was actually performed mostly in temples during the day: was for some reason necessary to the temple rituals. The
dalang
, or puppet master, was a consecrated priest, a mystic, and was regarded with some awe.

I went back to the man who had given me the
wayang kulit
invitation.

‘I can go to this?’ I asked.

‘Yes mister.’

‘How much?’

He named me a figure in rupees, which seemed reasonable. One might bargain for a bemo taxi, or a carving, but not for a ticket to a shadow play.

‘I’ll take one,’ I said.

‘Two?’ he asked, seemingly puzzled

He had obviously seen me with Nyoman.

‘No,
one
,’ I replied, firmly.

He nodded and then looked me in the eyes. ‘You want for someone to come with you?’

I stared at him for a moment, then said, ‘You mean
you
?’

He smiled disarmingly. ‘I can tell you about the shadow puppets. It will mean nothing otherwise.’

I nodded. He was right. Although I knew a good deal already the
wayang kulit
was immensely complicated and complex, full of heroes and heroines, demons and ogres, and a cast of hundreds. I might enjoy the spectacle, but I would have only a vague idea what was going on. The stories were from sacred classical literature, written originally on palm-leaf manuscripts, and brought to life mythic beings from both the natural and supernatural worlds. It would help to have someone with an inherent knowledge of the art.

‘You’re hired,’ I said. ‘How much?’

He shook his head, smiling. ‘You pay my ticket.’

All he wanted was to get to see the show himself. That was fair enough. He knew I would probably tip him too, but that wasn’t an essential, only a possible extra.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Ketut,’ he replied, and I remembered that Balinese have only four first names—Wayan, Made, Nyoman and Ketut—which they give to their children in that order. After Ketut, the sequence is begun again. My companion was his parent’s fourth, or eighth, or twelfth child.

I left Ketut, promising to meet him outside the Frog Pond Inn at seven. The shadow puppet show was in a village just outside Klungkung, the centre of an old Balinese kingdom. It was some thirty kilometres away and would take us at least an hour on the poor back roads, past endless Hindu temples and lily ponds, banana plantations and wayside shrines.

Walking towards the Frog Pond Inn, where I intended to eat, I strolled past the open shops and looked round suddenly, half-expecting to see Nyoman behind me. She had followed me around in life for so long I now took her presence for granted. A very quiet woman with little to say, happy to be with someone without imposing her personality upon
them
, much of the time you almost forgot she was there. It was only when you noticed some change, perhaps in the light, that you remembered she was accompanying you. These were not conditions I would have wished on her, or anyone, but were a fact of her existence. I used to tease her, saying she must be a closet Carmelite nun, and had taken a vow of silence.

It was not just me who saw her in this way. In a crowd, at a party, she was hardly noticed. Even if someone took the trouble to speak to her, they did so self-consciously, as if they were afraid they might be accused of talking to themselves.

The street was empty behind me and I continued my stroll.

Ketut met me at the arranged time and we boarded a rickety bus full of German tourists bound for Klungkung. Just over an hour later I was sitting with a bottle of Fanta in my hand, in a palm-leafed long hut, lit only by a single 25 watt bulb which dangled, bare of any shade, from the central rafter. Around me were several Germans, one or two Australians and New Zealanders, and half a dozen British tourists.

The rest of the room was jam-packed with locals, children and adults. The Balinese are a small, dusky, ethereal people—self-effacing and diffident— with a lightness of
form which made me
feel like a pantomime oaf. They seemed so much closer to the living earth on their volcanic island, a garden land of blooms and lush greenery, volatile yet with a deep, delicate beauty.

In front of me was a
make-shift
raised booth. I had already walked around this object. There was a white cotton screen illuminated by a coconut oil lamp, whose light was soft and evocative. Under the lamp, cross-legged, inside the booth, sat the
dalang
, the puppet master. He was meditating when I passed by him: preparing himself for the performance during which he would exceed the bounds of reality, for himself and his audience, if not in actuality.

The
pusaka
, or puppet chest, passed down through families as an heirloom, stood at the end of the booth.

Within arm’s reach, down either side of the booth, were the shadow puppets, made of buffalo hide. They were flat, intricate
cut-outs
of gods, heroes and heroines, painted and chiselled according to precise traditional requirements.

‘First tonight is a Hindu myth,’ whispered Ketut.
‘
Kala Purana
.
In this the demon-god Kala wishes to devour twin brothers born in the week of Tumpek Wayang. The
dalang
Empu Lègèr conquers him by shadow play and purifying...’

‘You mean ritual exorcism? A shadow play within a shadow play, eh?’ I wanted to show that I had taken the trouble to read some of the background myths. ‘Is this the one where Kresna smashes the demon king’s head to pieces?’

‘No,’ replied Ketut. ‘That is
Bomantaka
.’

I could hear by the reverent tone he used that he regarded the shadow theatre with intense seriousness.

‘You believe this is very holy?’ I asked him.

He nodded, slowly. ‘The wayang has hidden secret wisdom concerning the meaning of life.’

‘You said
first
—are there two shows tonight?’

‘Yes. Second comes
Bima Suci
, where the Pandawa brother Prince Bima is sent into the forest by a false priest to fetch holy water. Bima is attacked by an ogre but he slits its throat with his long fingernail,
waspenek...
’ Ketut showed me one of his own long nails and drew it across his neck. ‘The ogre’s soul becomes the god, Indra. Bima takes the head of the ogre back to the Brahmana priest who sent him into the forest and the priest then confesses the holy water is in the middle of the ocean.

‘Bima meets large snakes there and cuts off their heads, but he dies in the water. When he is dead he asks the god Tunggal three questions: why does man have to die?
why
does man dream?
what
is the purest thing on earth? Tunggal says man dies when the gods leave his body, man dreams to let his soul out to wander and nothing on the earth is flawless, even flowers, though the god of love, Semara, is the purest in heaven.