Chapter One - Richard Lewis

Chapter 18
It was a fine morning for a drive to the Temple of Crater Lake in the Kintamani
hills. Suti and Dian rushed around getting ready with the baskets of offerings while Nol
read the Bali Post, the news reporting that an unknown tourist had been reported getting a
tattoo of the sacred OM syllable upon the buttocks. Balinese community leaders urged
restraint, but Nol could help but tsk with indignation, which was interrupted by the
appearance of the Zoo girl at the front gate, deposited there by a taxi.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she said breathlessly.
Late? For what? And what was she doing here?
Suti rushed forward to welcome her, whispering to Nol, "Don't you dare say
anything. I invited her."
To the temple? Dressed like that in those low-slung shorts and that T-shirt? And if
there was one tattoo upon her leg, could there be more? Nol squinted suspiciously at her
buttocks.
Suti noticed and pinched him hard, hissing in shock. "Nol!"
"It's not that," he hissed back, and shoved the newspaper at her, but she was
whisking the girl to Dian's room. She emerged a good twenty minutes later dressed in one
of Dian's sarongs and Suti's kebaya blouses.
Nol eyed her sourly as Putu emerged from his room, finally dressed himself. Putu
took one gawk-eyed look at his girlfriend and said, in English, "Wow!"
As if he were marveling at a creature in a zoo, Nol thought.
With everyone wedged in the car, Nol drove off. Beside him in the front seat was
Suti. Nol's mother Arini, Mak, and Tina took the middle seat. Dian, Putu, and the Zoo
girl sat in the back, Putu's girlfriend practically on his lap. The air was thick with the
minty smell of Mak's tiny bottle of cajaput oil, which she sniffed every once in awhile to
keep away car sickness.
Tina asked Arini how different the island was now than when she was a girl.
"Oh my," Arini said. "See all these art shops and antique stores? Back then,
between villages, this was all rice-fields. That's how people lived."
"And we'd be going about ten kilometers an hour around potholes," Nol said.
"Be careful of the brigands," Mak said suddenly. "We don't want to be robbed."
"Mak, that was fifty years ago," Nol said.
"I have my pistol," she said, rummaging in her big purse.
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