Jalan Jalan (5 page)

A
becak
pulls up next to us and the rider points to his empty seats. Kim waves it on.

‘And you'll hear, “Hey mister, where you go?” so many fucking times a day you'll wanna buy a gun and kill yourself or them or both. But you get used to it, man.' Kim throws his head back and stretches his arms out to the sides, as if worshipping the sky. ‘Fuuuck it's fucking hot, man.'

‘It is. Fucking hot.' I look up to the sun burning a hole in the cloudless sky. I close my eyes to it.

Bake me new. Bake me new. I can feel the ingredients starting to cook, standing here on this street corner where no one knows me and I know no one and a thousand different people travel past me in little yellow buses and on motorbikes and
becaks
and in the occasional black-windowed four-by-four.

‘So why you here, man?' Kim asks.

I look at him. He's also turned his face to the sun with eyes closed.

‘
Jalan jalan
,' I say. ‘That's what I'm doing. Just strolling, minding my own business, trying to get on with nothing. Going nowhere in particu-fucking-lar.'

‘Good fucking answer, man.'

‘And you?'

‘Me? Fuck, I dunno.' He opens his eyes. ‘I don't seem to fit in back home. I may be American, but all those flags flying outside every fucking house. Too much nationalism. All that “‘American People”' shit the government has started using. Brainwashing us into believing we're in a great nation together. Leave me out of your generalisations, fuckers. I'm just me and great on my own, thanks. And it's only gonna get worse if Bush gets in.' With that he steps off the pavement with his hand in the air. ‘Here's ours, the 65.'

It pulls in at a diagonal, wobbling stop, ignoring anything else on the road. We climb in. This bus is quieter but the other passengers still steal glances at us. A couple of young guys give us big white smiles.

‘Why do you say that about Bush?' I'm not even sure who he is, but I'm guessing a candidate for Presidency.

‘Fucking nationalist loon, man. Scares me what he'll do to keep the “‘American People”' happy. Probably declare some sort of war to boost the economy.'

‘And he's the reason you're here?'

‘Nah, not just him. It just wasn't my country, man. I feel more at home here. Different sets of values here. That's all.'

We all hold on as the bus lurches to a quick stop and two more men get on. They squeeze in as close to us as they can and nod at us in greeting.

‘Where you go, mister?' asks one.

Kim looks at me and smiles.

‘
Jalan jalan
, my friend.
Jalan jalan
.'

Fifteen minutes later we're at the school and I'm being introduced to the other staff. Their names are told, they enter my ears and are lost in the melee of muck that swishes around between them. I forget everyone's in admin as soon as Pak says them, although I remember fat Albert from two nights ago. I also forget everyone's in the teaching department a second after being introduced. Considering there are only four of them here this morning including Kim, my mind is being extra feeble.

I've got two classes this morning and then I'm back in for a six p.m. class. Split shifts are the newbies' tough shit, according to Kim. ‘And you're the fucking newbie.'

It's eight thirty and my first class is at nine. I'm feeling uncertain of myself and anxious about the parasites in my gut. I've had a day of relaxing, sleeping, looking at my teaching file and settling into the house and the heat, but things still stir within me. I will them to stay sunk while I sit at my desk and look at the array of weird names on my first class's register. The teachers in the room throw random questions and bits of information at me.

‘Where you from?' Australian accent with a beard.

‘Why the hell did you choose this shithole?' English thirty-something with big breasts, frenetic fingers and wide eyes.

‘The little kids are fun. Don't bother teaching them anything, just fucking play games with them.' Kim.

‘How's your jet-lag?' Manchester with deep worry lines etched around his eyes and across his forehead.

‘Pak's a cunt. Tell him to fuck off if you don't want to do something.' Big breasts again.

A second warning about Pak. I force optimism; from previous job experience, slagging off your boss isn't that unusual.

‘Where's my class exactly?' I ask the room in general as a way of ignoring more questions.

‘Which one you got?' asks bearded Australian.

‘Dickens.'

‘That's on third, next to Austen. Come on, I'll show you.'

As I follow Australian up the stairs, course book and pens in my hand, Iqpal is coming down with a mop and bucket in his. He shows us his wide toothy smile.

‘
Apa kabar
?' asks Australian.

‘
Baik-baik
. How are you, Marty?'

‘
Baik-baik
.'

‘How you doing, Iqpal?' I say.

‘
Baik-baik
. You? Good sleep?'

‘Very. Thanks.'

He smiles and rests his bucket on the step as we walk past him.

‘Have good day with students.'

‘Thanks. I will.'

We trudge up the next flight of blue-tiled stairs and away from the air-conditioning, footsteps echoing as we go.

‘He's a happy little bloke, young Iqpal,' says Marty. ‘Pak treats him like shit, but he keeps smiling,'

We're on the top floor and the air-conditioning is a long way behind. I wipe a bead of sweat from my temple.

‘Here we are. You're in that one and I'm next door. Come give me a knock if you have any problems. Not that you will. These little kids are bonzer.'

‘Thanks, Marty.' One memorised. Laura always says I'm rubbish with names; she'll be impressed.

No she won't. Quit it, you, and learn to shut up.

I open the class door and flip on the lights. They flicker and buzz and finally light up my green-and-white windowless room. Chairs sit on top of tables like swimmers lined up on the edge of a pool. On my desk is a remote control for the AC. I press buttons on it until at last the machine on the wall starts moving up and down and blowing cool air across the muggy room.

I'm expecting thirteen kids any moment. All I know is they range from eight to fourteen. Should be interesting. Probably be embarrassing. Probably be painful. Probably be horrible.

Turn and run.

Get to the airport.

Go home.

Pull a duvet over my head. Cuddle pillows. Sniff them, try to get a hint of her. ‘Shut the FUCK up.' I whack my chest with a balled fist.

‘Sorry sir. This Dickens?'

The boy is about three feet tall, ethnic Chinese, in a red, blue and yellow stripy T-shirt and trousers that reach just below his knees, where they meet pulled-up white socks with red stripes around the top. I'm guessing he's the eight year-old. He looks more uncertain than I feel.

‘Hello. Yes it is. And you are?'

‘Sorry, sir?'

‘Your name? What is your name?'

‘Dennis, sir.'

‘OK Dennis. Come in and take a seat.'

He pulls one of the swimmers into the pool, just as a procession of little people comes through the door. I stand back and wait for them to choose their seats. Once they've sat, put their pads and pencil cases on the tables I start.

‘Good morning. I'm your new teacher.'

‘Good morning, sir.'

‘Does anyone want to ask me any questions?'

Dennis puts his hand up. I nod for him to go ahead.

‘What does “fuck” mean, sir?'

‘Time isn't successive.'

‘Explain, please.' I place a little pebble in her navel. It fits almost perfectly.

‘I mean this moment doesn't follow the previous and doesn't precede the next.' She lifts her head up and holds her sunglasses above her eyes for a moment, inspecting the jewel in her tummy button. ‘You want me to belly dance?'

‘Later maybe. So how does time work in your highly superior mind then?'

She replaces her sunglasses and rests her head back on the pillow made of her clothes.

‘Everything is side by side. Now is next to my birth and your birth and Napoleon's birth and Hiroshima and Christopher Columbus taking his first poo in the New World and the moment I said time isn't successive.'

I suck the pebble out of her and spit it onto the beach. It bounces off a stone and then another and settles into its own little crevice. I dig a little hole in the beach next to us and find a smaller one. This drops neatly into the oval dip in her stomach.

‘Humans have created the concept of time moving forward, but it's never really been seen or proved. We could have taken another concept on board just as easily.'

‘Perhaps we haven't, because other concepts are wrong.' My finger traces a circle around the grey gem in its pink setting and her stomach quivers.

‘Einstein didn't believe it.'

‘Doesn't mean he's right.'

‘Doesn't mean he's wrong, but all right.' She sits up and my pebble disappears in the fold of her stomach, ‘Look at this beach.'

I look. It's packed. Little children run in and out of the waves where the sand is just making an appearance at low tide. Groups of foreign students show off their continental tans and husbands stare from behind sunglasses at breasts of Scandinavian-looking girls who light cigarettes and glance sideways at Italian boys. The pier is cooling its front legs in the water, skin peeling and old frame creaking.

‘How many pebbles?' she asks, using her sunglasses to hold her hair back.

‘Seventy-two billion, three hundred and twenty-three thousand and four.' My eyes scan the length of the beach again. ‘Maybe five.'

‘Exactly. And they all sit next to each other going off in every direction. Now imagine that each pebble is a moment in time.'

I realise this is going to be an explanation that requires attention. I sit up and adjust my position so I'm sitting comfortably.

‘Right, now watch.' She picks up a stone and drops it. ‘This is now.' She picks up the stone next to it, it drops. ‘This is now.' She does it again.' This is now.' She does it again. ‘This is now.'

I consider not interrupting just to see how many times she's going to do it, but my question wants to be heard.

‘So where is yesterday?'

She picks up the stone next to the one she's just dropped.

‘Napoleon's birth?'

She picks up the next, drops it.

‘Or maybe,' she turns around, crawls up the sloping beach two feet and picks up a stone from there, ‘maybe this one.'

I look at her bottom raised in the air towards me. One half of her bikini is being eaten by it, exposing a pale half-moon of flesh. It contrasts to the golden brown of the rest of her. I think about biting the over-exposed backside. As a small boy with ice cream dripping off his mouth and hands is watching us, I decide it's probably best not to.

‘The point,' she says, as she slides back down onto her towel, her feet prodding my chest as she moves, making me back away, ‘is that I could move the pebbles around, or maybe they get kicked about or the sea jostles them about, and all those little moments get jumbled up and suddenly this moment isn't next to the moment it preceded or succeeded and suddenly, whoosh.' Her hand slices the air.

‘Whoosh?'

‘One moment we're on the beach and the next moment we're watching Napoleon pop out of his mum's cannon, and the next we're back on the beach. Time gets jumbled.'

‘Don't you think if that was possible, more people would have experienced it? More people would be having glimpses of the past and the future?' I grab her red-painted toes and want them between my teeth, ice-cream-covered boy watching or not. I suddenly have a hunger. She yanks her foot away.

‘Perhaps they have or perhaps the moment is so quick we don't notice it. How long is a moment, how long is now?'

‘You're a head fuck.'

‘I'm going for a swim. I need to think about if what I just said makes sense.'

She stands and pulls her bikini out of her cheeks, lays her shades on her towel, leans down and kisses me.

‘I love you,' she says and tiptoes across the little hard and uncomfortable moments of time to the water.

I hold a stone in each hand and decide the one in my left is now and the one in my right is next month, when she plans to pack up and move to Prague for nine months. I put now in my bag, hidden under my jeans, and weigh up next month. It's heavy and misshapen and feels wrong, so I throw it and just miss a dog chasing a Frisbee.