Island of Demons (16 page)

He held up a hand. “I don't want to know. You must work it out amongst yourselves. Has it occurred to you that you might make fewer moral considerations if Oleg were not short and fat? But I don't want to know.”

It had not occurred to me. Now it did. I felt ashamed. Why was I always feeling ashamed? Walter ducked behind a newspaper and lobbed out wisdoms like grenades. The headline read “New planet discovered and named Pluto.”

“You see, Bonnetchen? Life is not about rules. Everything lies in the circumstances. The only thing is that I cannot have rows in my house. No breaking of glasses and banging of saucepans. It was like that when I lived with Murnau. I could not stand it again.”

I gaped. “Murnau, the film director? The man who made
Nosferatu
? Tell me.”

Walter sighed and laid down the paper.

“His real name was Plumpe and even after he changed it, he was always really Plumpe. He was a Plumpe. It was in Berlin. I was young, knew no one. He was older and, I thought, wiser. But, after a while, he became possessive, aggressive, obsessive, excessive and he drank. I ended up looking after him in a sanatorium and he would not allow me out of the grounds. When I ran away from Europe, I ran away from Plumpe. At that age nothing is really bad for you. You learn. From Plumpe, I learnt about rows and about films. You remember all those shadows in
Nosferatu
?” I nodded. People always commented on the way that the creature was seen more through its shadow than reality. “That was me. I was already keen on the Indies and had bought a couple of shadow puppets in Rotterdam when I had an exhibition of my paintings. We spent an afternoon playing with them.” He shrugged. “The rest is cinema. And now,” he stood up purposefully, “come with me. We have work to do. Oh. And what I said about not wanting to know. I was lying. You know I love to gossip. The great fault of the Balinese is that they are so terribly discreet.”

We walked out of the house and up the steps to the side of the road, shaded by fruiting trees and turned towards the centre. A panorama of rich ricefields stretched out, with leaves hung out over them like washing to scare away birds. Everywhere was the happy, comforting sound of running water. On either side of the road were deep gutters, each house with its own little bridge, clear water tumbling underneath. A fat child was driving a flock of fat ducks out to the flooded fields. We walked in dappled sunshine and shadow and, of course, everywhere Walter was greeted and waved to with flashing smiles. Shortly, we came to the
puri
, the palace, a fresh-looking building in stone, completely rebuilt since the great earthquake of 1917.

“You will notice the stonecarving by I Gusti Nyoman Lempad,” he instructed. “He did my doors and I can claim some small credit for his development from simple builder to artist.” Somewhere nearby odd
gamelan
instruments were practising with drum thuds and occasional crashes. “Children,” said Walter. “As soon as they can walk they sit on their father's laps as they play so that the music seeps into their bones and soon they are exploring music for themselves.”

A tiny, totally naked tot, guarded by a wizened crone, crouched in the dust outside the
puri
gate, playing hysterically with a small, sand-coloured puppy that was dancing around the child, occasionally darting in to nip its toes and provoke screams of delighted laughter. To my surprise, Walter, ignored the woman, went down on his knees and spoke lowly to the child that then got up with great dignity and waddled inside. It must have discharged its mission satisfactorily, for a small sharp-eyed man of middle age came out and greeted Walter warmly. I was pointed at, looked up and down, discussed at length and equally lengthily ignored. Finally Walter turned to me.

“The big boss, Cokorda Gede Raka Sukawati, is away so we get to see his little brother Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati.”

The names swum in my head.

“I thought Balinese only used the names of their birth order followed by a nickname?”

He smiled. “Normally they do but some of the nobles have titles long enough to hang a week's washing on. Agung is actually a better option. He's much more interested in the visual arts, Raka plays the violin and the flute so goes for music, but you can never be sure how Agung wants you to behave. Being young, sometimes he's all modern, drinking gin and listening to jazz records. Sometimes, he's all traditional Balinese and will talk to you in low Balinese and you have to talk back in special high, palace Balinese which is a pain since you have to refer to him as Your Feet.”

“Your Feet?”

“Yes, the idea seems to be that he is so above you that the only part of him you dare to address is his feet.”

“Oh God.”

“Don't worry, Bonnetchen. Just follow my lead.”

The child crouched down and laid a turd. The puppy rushed up and ate it, then licked the child's behind. A message of hope to Holland's housewives.

We set off in pursuit of our guide, who strode off through a maze of flagged courts at various levels, gateways and dark passages, none very grand but impressive by sheer weight of numbers. We were thus treated to a cross-section survey of palace activities. Women were cracking nuts, folding clothes, picking bugs out of rice and each others' hair while men were caressing fighting cocks, mending shoes and tormenting otherwise tranquil children. People looked up as we passed. Many greeted Walter by name. Finally, we were left on a low verandah, our shoes were pointed at and our guarantor disappeared for a considerable time. On top of a wall, a row of torch batteries were warming in the sun to coax a little more life out of them. We waited in unshod patience, watching a child playing with a bizarre toy, that I took, at first, to be a model aeroplane.

“They trap them, the big red dragonflies, with a sort of resin on the end of a reed. One day, I must do some work on them. I suppose it is cruel but when they tire of them, they eat them. Also bumblebees. Did you know Oleg means bumblebee, by the way? There is even a dance …” We were waved in and I followed closely on Walter's heels.

It was a moderate-sized room, with a floor of cool multi-coloured chequered tiles that would have driven Escher mad, and a raised dais at the far end, covered in carpet, on which perched three heavy chairs of antique form. The walls were much mirrored and a sort of faux fireplace had been constructed to one side as if in emulation of Dutch interior design. Even in the sweaty Indies, the Dutch needed fireplaces so they knew how to arrange a room. On it stood two fussy clocks, swarming with cherubs, that disagreed completely about the time. A large and offensive chandelier hung from the centre boss of the ceiling where lizards slalomed around it and the still air exuded a smell of damp and mould. In the centre chair sat a chubby, dapper figure, short of stature, dark of hue and dressed in floppy shorts and a bush shirt tightly unbuttoned to mid-chest. Unlike most Balinese, when confronted with a chair he sat in it after the Western fashion, not cross-legged
on
it, after the Balinese. Walter strode across the room with me in tow.

“Hi Walter!” Modern, today then, very. No feet. “Come in out of the hot sunnyshine.” He turned to me. “Walter,” he said, “has been learning me English. It is better that we speak English because the palace language is very complicated. If you use the wrong word we can all end up having to be cleansed by the priests and that is expensive and they are such a bore. Of course, there is no problem if a madman or a child does it, so we have agreed that officially Walter is an imbecile child and he does that well. But the whole business is better avoided.”

“Hallo Agung!” Walter bowed low as he
sembahed
high. I emulated. “May I introduce my dear friend, Rudolf Bonnet? Mr Bonnet is one of the foremost painters of Holland.” It was the only compliment on my artistic talents I had ever heard from Walter's lips.

“What brings you to Ubud, Mr Bonnet? I have heard much about you.” What had he heard? He was about twenty years old, sleek black hair, the chest and legs hairless. He looked like a smoother relative of Oleg.

“From afar, I have read strange stories of the richness of your island and the beauty and artistic talent of your people and, come to see them for myself, I find them no exaggeration but rather understated.” Why the hell was I talking like this? Did he even understand me? But as I laid it on good and thick, I realised it was really nothing but the truth. The Cokorda smiled and made a gesture of the dance, parting both hands away and up from the body, as though towards the chairs but Walter perched one buttock, instead, on the edge of the dais, so that we were obliged to engage in an uncomfortable sideways-on, looking-up conversation. The famed, honorific feet, at which we now sat, were, I was obliged to notice, shod in highly polished schoolboy shoes. In the Indies, who you are and where you are, are indicated not by what you tie around your neck but what you put on your feet.

“Understated? I sometimes feel, Mr Bonnet, that you Dutch are rather ashamed of having colonised us, with all our great earth and water, when your own country is hardly bigger than a noodle stall. It is so. I have seen it on a map. Some refreshment, perhaps?” The Cokorda raised a bored eyebrow and an aged servant hitched up his sarong and shuffled effortfully from the door on his knees.

“No thank you,” Walter replied. Agung waved the servant away and he sighed and shuffled all the way back, still kneeling.

“Do you have an automobile, Mr Bonnet?”

“No, I'm afraid not.”

“A pity. I should like to have an automobile but my brother is in dispute with the
controleur
. He will only allow what he considers the main rajahs to have an automobile with a golden parasol on the engine-cooler lid.” The what? Ah, a Walterism for the radiator cap. “My brother considers any automobile without such a parasol an affront.” He lapsed into silence and brooded.

“The Cokorda,” Walter said to me waggishly, “is my boss.”

Agung giggled. “It is true, Mr Bonnet, though he was actually engaged by my elder brother. I have many brothers.” He made a face to show that each and every one of them was a burden to him. “My father had forty-six wives and thirty-five concubines but I only have one. That is the modern way. As a member of the nobility, I was permitted by your countrymen to go to school in Denpasar. I lodged opposite the gates of the Bali Hotel which was good for my English. Every day, I would hear these white people talking about art, art, art and where they could buy it and the high prices they would pay. I had no idea what art was. I looked it up in the Dutch dictionary but had no idea what
kunst
was either. The more people tried to explain, the less I grasped it, but since there was so much money in it we knew we must find out. My brother and I were on a visit to our dear cousin in Yogya, in Java, where Walter directed the Sultan's orchestra and at dinner, one night, we were seated side by side and he talked much about art. It seemed that Java had already got it so we knew that Bali must have it too, so we hired him to teach our young people to have it. Our cousin was very angry that we took him away. Only Walter had been able to teach the palace musicians the foxtrot and the Dutch national anthem and the difference between the two, which pleased the Resident very much.” A frown crossed his serene features. “That was some years ago now and still I ask Walter, ‘Where is the art? Do we have it yet? When is it coming?'”

Walter, glowing with confidence, was not in the least put out.

“Agung, as I keep explaining, art is not just a thing, it is above all a state of mind. Already we have made great progress and soon there will be more. That is why I have brought Mr Bonnet here to help me with this matter. I have been requested by the government to produce a series of official paintings showing the history of the Indies in which Bali, I shall insist, must have its place. This will take much of my time but, of course, for government, I cannot refuse. As Holland's greatest living painter, it is our huge privilege to have Mr Bonnet here to teach the young artists in my place. Success will surely follow.” I stared at him in horror. He winked. “It is extraordinary that he should be here at this moment. I see in it the nothing less than the work of destiny.”

The idea dropped into my mind like a stone down a well. So there it was, the work of destiny, an act of Bali itself. I was hopelessly seduced by the idea. that Bali had somehow chosen me. I felt myself, astonished, surrendering to the conceit. There is nothing worse than to be free. The Cokorda expressed delight and clapped his little hands together. By now, I suspected, he must have despaired of ever turning Walter into a mere employee.

“Wonderful! Wonderful! You know that in order to attract Walter here we had to promise him a place in the palace with food, free canvas and paint – oh – and he was most insistent that all the men he might want to paint should be willing to pose for him.” No fool then. He knew. “We might be able to offer you to share the same inducements.” He studied me with an excessive and deliberate – as it seemed to me – very Balinese innocence. “Do you like to paint Balinese men, Mr Bonnet, or women, or do you like mountains and fields? But then, perhaps, it was just the free paint that attracted Walter to us and he didn't find any of us pretty at all.” He giggled, I blushed. What was he really saying? What did he know? What had he heard? Had the boys gossiped? Had Smit mentioned my naked breasts? I left with a sense of having met someone who was either infinitely simple or profoundly subtle but then, that was the way I was beginning to feel about Walter too. On our way to the palace, he had pointed out to me the little zig-zag gates that Balinese build at the entrance to their compounds. It seems that demons and other hostile beings are so stupid that they can only move in straight lines and so are totally flummoxed by them. Walter, then, on present evidence, was no demon. We walked back towards the door and turned to bow before going through it. “A very good bye,” called the Cokorda. Walter bowed,
sembahed
and whispered. “They also promised me a small salary that never quite turns up. Good luck with that Bonnetchen.”