month-old baby not crying or fussing or sleeping for four straight hours in the hot sun, but just watching someone with curiosity?
Ketut did his job well, and the baby did her job well, too. She was fully present for her transformation ceremony from god-status to human-status. She was handling the responsibilities marvelously, like a good Balinese girl already-steeped in ritual, confident of her beliefs, obedient to the requirements of her culture.
At the end of all the chanting, the baby was wrapped in a long, clean white sheet that hung far below her little legs, making her look tall and regal-a veritable debutante. Ketut made a drawing on the bottom of a pottery bowl of the four directions of the universe, filled the bowl with holy water and set it on the ground. This hand-drawn compass marked the holy spot on earth where the baby's feet would first touch.
Then the whole family gathered by the baby, everyone seeming to hold her at the same time, and-oop! there goes!-they lightly dipped the baby's feet in this pottery bowl full of holy water, right above the magic drawing which encompassed the whole universe, and then they touched her soles to the earth for the first time. When they lifted her back up into the air, tiny damp footprints remained on the ground below her, orienting this child at last onto the great Balinese grid, establishing who she was by establishing where she was. Everyone clapped their hands, delighted. The little girl was one of us now. A human being-with all the risks and thrills which that perplexing incarnation entails.
The baby looked up, looked around, smiled. She wasn't a god anymore. She didn't seem to mind. She wasn't fearful at all. She seemed thoroughly satisfied with every decision she had ever made.
106
The deal fell through with Wayan. That property Felipe had found for her somehow didn't happen. When I ask Wayan what went wrong, I get some fuzzy reply about a lost deed; I don't think I was ever told the real story. What matters is only that it's a dead deal. I'm starting to get kind of panicked about this whole Wayan house situation. I try to explain my urgency to her, saying, 'Wayan-I have to leave Bali in less than two weeks and go back to America. I can't face my friends who gave me all this money and tell them that you still don't have a home.'
'But Liz, if a place has no good taksu…'
Everybody has a different sense of urgency in this life.
But a few days later Wayan calls over at Felipe's house, giddy. She's found a different piece of land, and this one she really loves. An emerald expanse of rice field on a quiet road, close to town. It has good taksu written all over it. Wayan tells us that the land belongs to a farmer, a friend of her father's, who is desperate for cash. He has seven aro total to sell, but (needing fast money) would be willing to give her only the two aro she can afford. She loves this land. I love this land. Felipe loves this land. Tutti-spinning across the grass in circles, arms extended, a little Balinese Julie Andrews-loves it, too.
'Buy it,' I tell Wayan.
But a few days pass, and she keeps stalling. 'Do you want to live there or not?' I keep asking.
She stalls some more, then changes her story again. This morning, she says, the farmer called to tell her he isn't certain anymore whether he can sell only the two-aro parcel to her; instead, he might want to sell the whole seven- aro lot intact… it's his wife that's the problem… The farmer needs to talk to his wife, see if it's OK with her to break up the land…
Wayan says, 'Maybe if I had more money…'
Dear God, she wants me to come up with the cash to buy the whole chunk of land. Even as I'm trying to figure out how to raise a staggering 22,000 extra American dollars, I'm telling her, 'Wayan, I can't do it, I don't have the money. Can't you make a deal with the farmer?'
Then Wayan, whose eyes are not exactly meeting mine anymore, crochets a complicated story. She tells me that she visited a mystic the other day and the mystic went into a trance and said that Wayan absolutely needs to buy this entire seven-aro package in order to make a good healing center… that this is destiny… and, anyway, the mystic also said that if Wayan could have the entire package of land, then maybe she could someday build a nice fancy hotel there…
A nice fancy hotel?
Ah.
That's when suddenly I go deaf and the birds stop singing and I can see Wayan's mouth moving but I'm not listening to her anymore because a thought has just come, scrawled blatantly across my mind: SHE'S FUCKING WITH YOU, GROCERIES.
I stand up, say good-bye to Wayan, walk home slowly and ask Felipe point-blank for his opinion: 'Is she fucking with me?'
He has not ever commented upon my business with Wayan, not once.
'Darling,' he says kindly. 'Of course she's fucking with you.'
My heart drops into my guts with a splat.
'But not intentionally,' he adds quickly. 'You need to understand the thinking in Bali. It's a way of life here for people to try to get the most money they can out of visitors. It's how everyone survives. So she's making up some stories now about the farmer. Darling, since when does a Balinese man need to talk to his wife before he can make a business deal? Listen-the guy is desperate to sell her a small parcel; he already said he would. But she wants the whole thing now. And she wants you to buy it for her.'
I cringe at this for two reasons. First of all, I hate to think this could be true of Wayan. Second, I hate the cultural implications under his speech, the whiff of colonial White Man's Burden stuff, the patronizing 'this-is- what-all-these-people-are-like' argument.
But Felipe isn't a colonialist; he's a Brazilian. He explains, 'Listen, I grew up poor in South America. You think I don't understand the culture of this kind of poverty? You've given Wayan more money than she's ever seen in her life and now she's thinking crazy. As far as she's concerned, you're her miracle benefactor and this might be her last chance to ever get a break. So she wants to get all she can before you go. For God's sake-four months ago the poor woman didn't have enough money to buy lunch for her child and now she wants a hotel?'
'What should I do?'
'Don't get angry about it, whatever happens. If you get angry, you'll lose her, and that would be a pity because she's a marvelous person and she loves you. This is her survival tactic, just accept that. You must not think that she's not a good person, or that she and the kids don't honestly need your help. But you cannot let her take advantage of you. Darling, I've seen it repeated so many times. What happens with Westerners who live here for a long time is that they usually end up falling into one of two camps. Half of them keep playing the tourist, saying, 'Oh, those lovely Balinese, so sweet, so gracious…,' and getting ripped off like crazy. The other half get so frustrated with being ripped off all the time, they start to hate the Balinese. And that's a shame, because then you've lost all these wonderful friends.'
'But what should I do?'
'You need to get back some control of the situation. Play some kind of game with her, like the games she's playing with you. Threaten her with something that motivates her to act. You'll be doing her a favor; she needs a home.'
'I don't want to play games, Felipe.'
He kisses my head. 'Then you can't live in Bali, darling.'
The next morning, I hatch my plan. I can't believe it-here I am, after a year of studying virtues and struggling to find an honest life for myself, about to spin a big fat lie. I'm about to lie to my favorite person in Bali, to someone who is like a sister to me, someone who has cleaned my kidneys. For heaven's sake, I'm going to lie to Tutti's mommy!
I walk into town, into Wayan's shop. Wayan goes to hug me. I pull away, pretending to be upset.
'Wayan,' I say. 'We need to talk. I have a serious problem.'
'With Felipe?'
