Tales of a Female Nomad (24 page)

As I am hugging Tu Biang, not a Balinese gesture but one they have become used to from me, I hear the metal
kulkul
clanging the news of Tu Nini’s death from the center of the village. The sound is an eerie contrast to the hollowed trunk that serves as the wooden
kulkul
that calls people to meetings and rehearsals.

Minutes later our compound is filled with people from the
banjar.
Women gather and begin making offerings. Men climb ladders to decorate the
bale
where Tu Nini will lie in state: they are draping white cloth over the ceiling, wrapping gold-painted strips of red cloth around the columns, placing mats and carpeting on the floor.

While they are working, Tu Nini’s body is laid out, naked, on the wooden platform, and a young cousin and neighbor, with a container of formalin and a hypodermic needle, injects the preserving agent into her still warm body, piercing the skin over and over again until suddenly he calls out in pain. Somehow he has squirted formalin into his own face and he is blinded (temporarily). Two men, their arms supporting him, lead him down the street to the doctor.

A cremation is one of those times when the
banjar
takes over. If you are Balinese, you spend your life helping your neighbors as a member of the
banjar,
so that the
banjar
will be there for you when you need it. You cannot die in Bali without a
banjar.
Banjar
men build the tower in which the body is transported to the cemetery, they decorate the family compound, deliver chairs for the guests to sit on, whittle the
sate
sticks, break open the coconuts, build the structures that are necessary for a proper cremation. And it is the men of the
banjar
who make the meat dishes that are served during the festivities.

Banjar
women make the offerings and cook the meals that all the workers will eat. Each of the approximately 250 families in our
banjar
will contribute three working days to the event. There are work charts, schedules, assignments, and meetings. The
banjar
is like a big public caterer. How many pots, how many chairs, how many gas burners will be needed to cook the food? How many pigs have to be killed? How many
sate
sticks have to be whittled?

One night a procession of men marches into the
puri,
each man carrying two woven palm-leaf “shade tiles” that will be used to construct a roof. Under the roof, the men, chopping and cooking all day long, will be protected from the hot sun. Some of the “tiles” will be used to make a second shaded area so the guests who come to the cremation can eat their meals in the shade.

All day for three days, there are women sitting in groups, weaving the offerings, peeling shallots and garlics, making coconut milk by grating hundreds of coconuts and soaking the bits in water and finally squeezing the “milk” out of the shredded “meat.”

I peel shallots with the shallot peelers and stay far away from the women grating coconuts; every time I try to grate coconuts, I grate my fingers. The women around me peeling shallots are pleased that I am helping. They do not believe me when I tell them I have always done my own cooking. They assume that anyone with enough money to come to Bali must have a staff of servants back home.

Each woman who spends the day helping is given rice and food to take home to her family. More than one hundred people are fed during each of the three preparation days, and more than five hundred, including guests, on the day of the cremation.

On the second night I take my turn keeping Tu Nini’s body company; it can never be left alone. I am sitting there when Tu Man, Tu Aji’s architect son, comes over and says, “Rita, listen.”

A dog is howling like a wolf.
Aaaaaooooo. Aaaaaooooo.

“When dogs howl like that,
leyak
are about. They are attracted by the blood of the newly dead.”

A few minutes later, Tu Aji tells me that a special ceremony is about to begin. Each member of the immediate family will take a turn cutting a string that symbolically holds Tu Nini’s spirit to the earth. It is one way the family says to the spirit that they are ready to let her go. Tu Aji, Tu Biang, and their sons are all called to cut off a piece of the string (divided into six-inch segments by tied-on coins) and throw the snipped segment over their shoulders. I am observing from a distance, moved by the beauty of the ceremony, when I hear my name, and join the immediate family in releasing Tu Nini’s spirit.

By the third night, my eyes can barely stay open. All night long there are neighborhood men sitting all over the compound, including outside my room, playing cards, eating the crackers and snacks, smoking the cigarettes, drinking the coffee and tea that the
puri
supplies, and talking loudly. Evil spirits would not dare to come to a place where there is so much activity.

Exhausted by the sleepless nights, I head for my room, about a hundred feet from Tu Nini. No amount of noise will keep me up tonight.

Tu Aji follows me to my patio. “Rita, there is a
kekawin
tonight at three in the morning. I would like you to come.”

A
kekawin
is a wondrous thing. Four people sit on mats around a table, each with an open book containing the text of the
Mahabharata,
a sacred Hindu epic poem. They choose a portion of the text and one by one they chant in ancient Sanskrit. The first person sings a few lines in Sanskrit. Then he or she stops and someone sitting off to one side of the table chants the same passage in Balinese, so those who are gathered around will understand it. Occasionally, one of the listeners or singers will halt the process and discuss the meaning of the passage or the nuance of a particular word.

A
kekawin
is a beautiful ceremony, but for me, it is tedious because I don’t understand Sanskrit or Balinese, and it can go on and on and on.

I have never said no to Tu Aji. Out of respect, out of curiosity, and because he has a keen sense of what will intrigue and interest me. But I have seen a
kekawin
before; tonight, all I want to do is sleep.

“Tu Aji, I am so tired. I don’t know if I can stay awake.”

“Don’t stay awake,” he says. “I will call you when we are ready to begin.”

In the middle of the night one of the servants wakes me up. At the
bale,
Tu Aji motions for me to sit next to him on the mat. We are surrounded by protective spears that surround the
bale
and keep the evil spirits away from Tu Nini. The draped white cloth covering the ceiling adds a touch of purity to a solemn event. From where I am sitting I can see the mat-wrapped bundle that is Tu Nini. Tomorrow she will be cremated. Tonight she will be entertained.

The people who will be chanting are seated on mats around a low wooden table. They have finished their coffee and the books are opened. The chanting begins. It sounds like the chant of Torah scholars. Or the call to prayer from the top of a Muslim mosque. Or a Catholic priest intoning Latin to his congregation. The sound is otherwordly and deeply spiritual.

Then the first singer stops and the same passage is sung in Balinese by a man sitting on the other side of Tu Aji. And then the people at the table turn to Tu Aji. There is a pause as Tu Aji turns to me with a smile . . . and chants in English.

Several months after Tu Nini’s death, I am making offerings with Dayu Biang, trying to figure out which bit of leaf to weave in next, when my friend Ida Bagus walks in the gate. He and his family live more than an hour away. As soon as I see his face, I know something is wrong.

There are no phones in Kerambitan. My family in the States has instructions to call Ida Bagus or his wife if there is ever a family emergency. They have a phone in their house. They speak English. And they have a car.

The phone call came in the middle of the night. First thing in the morning Ida Bagus has driven over with the news that my father has had a heart attack.

My hands are shaking as I toss some underwear and a change of clothes in a bag. Three hours later I am on a plane. And twenty-eight hours after that I am standing over my father in the hospital. He is pasty white and weak, but he smiles when he sees me.

“Where’d you come from?” he asks.

“Around the corner,” I say. “I heard you were sick.”

Later that day he slips into a coma, and a few days after that, it is clear that he is not going to make it through the night.

“Dad,” I tell him aloud, holding his hand. “You’ve been a wonderful father and you’ve lived a good and caring life. If you are ready to leave us, I give you permission. I am certain that your spirit will live on and someday we will meet again. Go in peace. I love you.”

I hear myself speaking the words and I realize that I believe them. Tu Aji, Tu Biang, and Tu Nini have helped me accept my father’s leaving. I hope my words will help him through his transition.

That night, he dies. When the call comes from the hospital, I find myself wishing there were concrete rituals to help me say good-bye to his spirit and wish it well on its journey, the way there are in Bali. But here there is no body washing, no cutting the spirit loose by symbolically snip-ping a string. After comforting my mother and calling my brother, I sit up in bed and meditate, creating my own private ritual.

The funeral home is overflowing into the parking lot; there are hundreds of people. My father was a pharmacist on the same corner on the east side of Bridgeport, Connecticut, for fifty-two years. He was “Doc” to all the people whose splinters he removed and the thousands of customers who came in for medical advice. He and my mother were born and lived in one city all of their lives. They are both known and loved for their years of civic leadership.

My mother takes comfort in the outpouring of sympathy, and so do the rest of us. It is a celebration of a life well lived, a person well loved. After the funeral, for a full week, hundreds of people come to the house to comfort my family. There is no neighborhood organization like the Balinese
banjar,
but there is food and the supportive company of friends, family, and community.

As I sit in my mother’s living room, surrounded by friends and relatives, I think about the fact that I have chosen to live my life without a community. I will not have hundreds of people at my funeral like my father and Tu Nini. I am overwhelmed by a rush of loneliness. I fear that I have given up something significant.

But as I think about it, I realize that I do have communities; I create them wherever I live. They are not communities of people with whom I have shared experiences over time; but rather, they are communities where I have made new and intense connections. Community is important to me; and my kind of travel does not preclude being a part of a group. In Mexico, it was the backpacker community; in Nicaragua, it was Marco and Doña Juana and their family; in Israel, it was Servas. And in Bali, my community is the
puri
. There is more than one kind of community.

I remain in the U.S. for several months. My mother has Parkinson’s; and though she is fully functioning, she cannot live alone. I put a two-by-two-inch ad in three suburban papers, and I post notices in local churches:

I am looking for a gentle, intelligent woman to live in and be a
companion to my mother, someone who will share her interests in
art, classical music, current affairs, and good conversation. Mother
is suffering from Parkinson’s and cannot drive or cook or take care
of her house, but she is still interested in the world, in the community,and in people. If you are interested in meeting and being a
friend to someone very special, please call me.

There are lots of calls and interviews; most of the applicants are all wrong. Then Amparo walks in. She is from Colombia and has five sons and four grandchildren in the area. She is articulate, literary, cultured, and she and my mother click immediately. I stay around for a while, giving support to Amparo and working with my brother, Dick, on taxes, on the house, and on all the bureaucratic paperwork that death carries with it. When I leave, I tell Amparo to keep the place lively. Her children and grandchildren and friends are welcome. Houses need children and healthy people.