The Paradise Guest House (7 page)

“He may be good for something,” she tells him.

“Ubud does not want trouble.”

“He’s an orphan?” She puts her napkin on her lap and drops a tea bag into her teacup. Nyoman pours hot water into the cup. We’re like an old married couple, she thinks.

“He came here one year ago. No one knows where he came from, who are his people. Bambang is Javanese name.”

“Maybe he ran away from home.”

Jamie eats her yogurt and fruit while Nyoman stands over her. Usually she waits until he disappears into his cottage, but she is starving this morning.

“This is not America. We do not have children who run away, who live on street, who play tricks on tourists. We have community. Boy does not have community.”

Jamie feels an odd kinship with the outcast kid.

Nyoman walks back to his cottage with the empty tray and the teapot.

Jamie imagines a woman inside Nyoman’s cottage, greeting him with a smile. Nyoman places his hand on his wife’s round belly. She reaches up and straightens the glasses on his nose.

“They will be crooked again in another moment,” he tells her.

“For now, you are perfect,” she says, smoothing his hair on his head.

Jamie stands in front of Isabel’s yoga studio in the center of Ubud, watching class through the window. The roomful of remarkably flexible people move gracefully through pretzel poses. She hopes they’re close to the end of class—she’s hot and impatient. She has walked through town, trying to figure out some way to find Gabe or to miraculously spot him on the street. She’s a Nancy Drew failure. She doesn’t have a plan; she doesn’t have a hope of finding him. Why has she taken on this mission?

It’s as if she has now turned those embers of memory into a raging fire. She can’t put it out. She has to find him.

Finally the yogis settle onto their backs for corpse pose. Jamie is glad she didn’t join the class. Her muscles are too tight from scrambling up mountains; her mind is too frantic for an hour and a half of focused breathing.

The yoga class ends with a series of oms. The yogis file out, many of them hugging one another as they part. Isabel is the last to leave the studio.

“Jamie!” she calls, and she kisses her on both cheeks.

“Looked like a good class,” Jamie tells her.

“Join us next time.”

“I’m curious—did you do this before you moved to Bali?”

“No, I was an accountant in London.”

“Come on.”

“Really. I needed Bali in a big way.”

Jamie can’t imagine this woman behind a desk in an office, a computer in front of her, her legs primly crossed, serious pumps dangling off her feet.

“Listen. I haven’t made any progress finding that guy I told you about. Gabe. I was wondering if you talked to your friend at the international school.”

“I did. I was going to call you.” Isabel shakes her head. “She doesn’t know anyone named Gabe.”

“Damn.”

Isabel puts her hand on Jamie’s arm. “Don’t be discouraged,” she tells her.

They kiss goodbye, and Jamie heads down the street as if she has someplace to go.

She turns down a path between two buildings, and within minutes she’s walking in the middle of a rice paddy. The city disappears and the rich green landscape surrounds her. She breathes more easily. The sun beats down on her, but she’s wearing a broad-brimmed hat she bought earlier this morning.

There’s a dirt path that runs along a ridge between the rice fields. A sea of green spreads before her. The trail leads her to a river and a thicket of trees, the only visible shade. She sits on a rock and takes off her shoes, letting the cool water stream over her feet, then pulls out her cellphone. Amazing—the middle
of nowhere in the middle of Bali, and she’s got full reception. She calls her mother.

“Jamie!” Rose shouts as if she’s been lost for weeks.

“I got my wallet back,” Jamie tells her.

“Really?”

“I was probably scammed, but most of my money was there. The thief is my new best friend.”

“Jamie, don’t get involved with bad characters over there.”

“He’s just a kid,” she says. “And I’m not getting into trouble.”

“How are you, sweetheart?”

“Not so great.” Jamie’s voice breaks. She doesn’t want to cry.

“Oh.” Rose’s voice falters, too.

Jamie stands up and takes a step into the river. The cold water rises up her legs and soaks her shorts.

“I tried to find Gabe,” she says.

“I wondered about that,” Rose murmurs.

“Suddenly it seemed important to me.”

She takes another step into the river. The water covers her stomach, her breasts. It’s almost up to her chin. She feels off balance, and it’s not just the rocky footing. It’s the heat and the cold, the quiet and the noise.

“You might be disappointed if you find him,” Rose says. “Sometimes you turn men into heroes when they’re mere mortals.”

Jamie knows that her mother’s referring to her dad. Has she done the same thing with Gabe?

“Hang on,” Jamie says.

She slogs her way out of the river. Water pours from her clothing.

“Where are you?” Rose asks.

“I have no idea,” Jamie says. She walks back out from under the trees and stands at the edge of the rice field. The heat of the sun envelops her.

“Thanks, Mom,” Jamie says.

“For what?” Rose asks.

I need to find him in order to let him go, Jamie thinks. But she doesn’t say a thing.

Bambang is waiting for her in front of the Paradise Guest House. He leaps up from the curb and runs to meet her in the street.

She feels a momentary panic. What if he’s found Gabe? What if she sees him again? Why has she failed to imagine the rest?

“I have name! I have name!” Bambang yells.

The dog leaps on Jamie and almost knocks her over. He licks her legs, her hands, her feet.

“Easy, TukTuk,” Jamie says, petting his velvety fur.

“Mr. Gabe Winters!”

“Gabe Winters,” she says, trying out the name. The words fit in her mouth as if they had been there, waiting for her. “Where is he?”

“Twenty dollar,” Bambang says.

“You didn’t find him,” Jamie argues.

“I found name! Twenty dollar!”

“Where is he?”

“Twenty dollar.”

“Damn you,” she says, digging into her wallet. She pulls out a twenty. Bambang takes it and whoops with joy.

“I go to tattoo girl,” Bambang says. “She paint bird on Mr. Gabe Winters three years ago. She remember every tattoo.”

“Does she have an address for him?”

He shakes his head.

“How do I find him?”

“Twenty more dollar.”

“You ever do anything out of the goodness of your heart?” Jamie asks.

“No understand.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“You no happy? Have name now.”

“Yes, I have his name. Find his address,” she says. She pulls out another twenty and tucks it into his hand.

Jamie goes to an Internet café in the center of town. Almost everyone in the café looks like a first-generation hippie—she’s in a Woodstock time warp. The waiter wears a ponytail and a Grateful Dead T-shirt; he’s got a flying-high smile on his face. She orders an iced mint tea and hides behind a computer at a corner table.

She Googles
Gabe Winters
and finds nothing that relates to the man she met in Bali. Next she tries
international schools in Bali
and copies the list in her notepad. She finds phone numbers and starts calling. “No, there’s no one here by that name,” she’s told, over and over again. The harder it is to find him, the more driven she becomes.

Gabe had a sister in Boston, she remembers, but when she Googles
Winters Boston
she gets reports on the weather. She tries
Gabe Winters Boston
and finds one article:

Boston Couple Creates Foundation in Memory of Their Son

Gabe Winters and Heather Duckhorn have created the Ethan Winters Foundation to support research on childhood meningitis. Ethan Winters died of meningitis at the age of four.

Jamie remembers sitting with Gabe on the patio one morning. The pale-pink hue of the sunrise colored the mist over the lily pads. “When I woke up this morning,” he told her, his eyes focused on the water, “I realized that I had dreamed about Ethan. That’s the first time I saw him in a dream.”

Jamie types
Ethan Winters Foundation
on the computer. She finds the website devoted to the foundation and scans the home page. It’s a mess—there’s too much info, all of it screaming for her attention. She races past words:
meningitis, donate, events, survivors’ stories
. None of it leads her to Gabe.

“Will you be done soon?”

She looks up, completely disoriented. A skinny teenage boy stands at her side, impatiently hopping on his toes. He’s amped up on something, or maybe it’s the music blasting through his headphones.

“No,” she snaps. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Chill, sister,” the kid says, and moves on to the next occupied computer.

Jamie sets her eyes on the screen and tries to slow her thoughts.
Find him. He’s here, somewhere
.

She clicks on the link for the board of directors. Gabe’s name
is last on the list. His short bio reads: “Gabe Winters lives in Bali and teaches at the Ubud Community School of Bali.”

Jamie signs off the computer and races out of the café.

Bambang sits on the curb across from the Paradise Guest House. He waves cheerfully when Jamie walks toward him.

“You need me?” he calls.

“You know where the Ubud Community School is?”

“Yes,” Bambang says proudly.

“Can you take me there?”

“Yes, yes,” he says merrily. “Only two dollar.”

“You’re a taxi service now?”

“Bambang tourist guide.”

Jamie pulls out two dollars and places it in his open palm.

“Right now?” he asks.

“Right now.”

Bambang and TukTuk lead her up the road, away from the center of town.

Jamie remembers how one tourist she guided on a mountain hike in Chamonix described her fear of descending a knife-edged ridge that was exposed on both sides: thirst, a cold sweat, tingly arms. Jamie’s got it all right now. And she’s just walking on a street in Bali.

“Mr. Gabe there? He teach at school?” Bambang asks.

“I think so,” she says.

“You fall in love with Mr. Gabe?”

“A tourist guide learns not to ask questions.”

“You tourist guide?”

“Too many questions,” Jamie says. “Let the tourist tell
you what she wants. You’d be surprised how much she’ll tell you.”

“You too quiet. You tell nothing.”

“Give me time,” she says.

They walk up the long road out of town. It’s the end of the day—there’s no reason Gabe would still be at school at this hour. But Jamie feels compelled to see the place, to know where he works.

“There is school.” Bambang points to a small building set back from the street. Unlike the many stone structures in the area, this one’s made of bamboo—it looks a little bit like a tree house. Jamie stops where she is, across the street, and Bam-bang comes to a quick halt.

“We go in?” he asks.

“No, I’ll wait here. Your job is done.”

“I wait with you.”

“No. I’m good. Go on, Bambang. Go spend your money somewhere.”

The boy looks disappointed; even TukTuk hangs his head.

Two women open the front door of the school and pass through. As they approach the street, Jamie hears one say, “I’d rather be home grading papers than sit through that again.”

The other woman laughs and they kiss each other goodbye.

Jamie fishes two dollars out of her pocket. She hands it to Bambang. “Get lost,” she says.

He and TukTuk race down the street, back toward the center of town.

Jamie leans against a tree. A man walks out of the front door of the school. He’s Balinese. Not Gabe. She takes a deep breath.

She remembers a day, a year ago, in the beach cottage. She lay in bed, two days after the bombing, trying to push ugly images of the burning nightclubs out of her mind. Think of Miguel, not the bombing, she told herself. Remember how he sang Spanish ballads to you from the top of the mountain. Remember his wild roar when he jumped from a cliff into the Pacific. Remember his sweet breath on you as he slept with his face on the back of your neck. All of the memories collided with the last image, of his broken body in her arms. She felt a rising panic. She pulled herself out of bed and walked, groggy and unsettled, out of the house and into the garden.

Gabe sat on the patio, reading a book. He looked up and saw that her face was wet with tears. He stood and moved toward her.

“Miguel’s gone,” she said quietly.

She stepped into his arms. And then, before she let her body press against his, she wrenched herself away from him.

Even now, a year later, she feels the pull of that moment. Toward Gabe. Away from Miguel. She feels herself stepping back, away from the school, as if she can change what she did then and what she is about to do now.

Then the door of the Ubud Community School opens again and a small group walks out. One is an old man, hobbling with a cane. Not Gabe. One is a woman with a child in hand. And then, finally, a man stands alone in the doorway. He looks around and his eyes fall on Jamie.

Gabe.

In that moment it’s as if her tough exterior falls away—skin and muscle and bone—and all that’s left is her pulsing heart. Now she remembers each complicated day after the bombing.
All of it was absolutely true. So, too, are her unsteady legs and the sound of her heart filling all the space inside her.

He is tall, with black hair peppered with gray. His face is clean shaven; the beard is gone. He runs his hand through his hair, and she remembers the gesture just as she remembers what happens next—a lock of hair falls onto his forehead, untamed. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans and carries a messenger bag over one shoulder. She watches and waits: He doesn’t smile, but he begins to walk toward her.

Breathe, she reminds herself. And, without thinking, she’s counting backward, as if counting the steps between him and her. She takes a long deep breath between each number as he approaches.