The Queen of the Road to Bali

My mother’s whisper from Brasília reached me through the crackling phone line in Jakarta, “You’re doing what?”

“Going to Bali by bus.

“Are you out of money, out of mind, or both?”

“We want to see all of Java, the north coast, and take the ferry, Java Sea! A truly wonderful trip.”

“I see what you mean…” And I knew what she meant. Husband, three kids and I, had acquired a certain reputation because of our adventures. When my parents first visited Indonesia, we rendered the trip from Jakarta to Yogyakarta in five days, stopping here and there, when it was routinely done in twelve easy hours’ driving (these days it’s about eight hours according to Michelin Route Planner). My mother was a dripping witness of the sulphuric delights of the hot spring pools we decided to stop on the way. And hadn’t she, poor thing, on her second night in Java, been terrorized by hundreds of bats coming out of that tiny crack in the ceiling of her hotel room? She said, “Going with the kids?”

“Twenty-seven hours in a bus. We’ll meet you at Denpasar airport.”

“I hope you get there. Have you got your bus tickets?”

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow turned out to be an inconvenient day for bus tickets sale. There were none available in any of the four travel agencies I visited. Or in the six I phoned. Selling bus tickets to Bali was not in any travel agency’s interest. And they would not tell me where to buy them.

My last (oftentimes first) resource in emergency had always been Candy, Husband’s assistant. Candy, bless her heart and infinite patience, was always ready to help me with my Indonesian language, finding doctors, or any other difficulties. Her research of bus companies yielded one whose qualifications topped all the others: comfortable and well-kept buses, reliable drivers. A couple of days later, we were the grinning owners of five pink tickets for the sleeper Jakarta-Denpasar.

With the tickets, Candy delivered an essential map to take us from home to the bus terminal. Parts of Jakarta, then an eight-million (now eleven-million) people metropolis, were still new for us after two years there.

And Candy, ever so thoughtful, cautioned us to pack our food for the twenty- hour ride because “It might be safer”. She meant not quality or quantity of food on the way, but our taste buds.

On the day of the trip I packed cheese sandwiches. Oldest Daughter poured iced orange juice and water in gallon flasks. (We could have bought bottled water on the way, but I thought it would be safer to have water at hand for any eventuality, perhaps washing a small, very small wound.) Son One washed, dried and packed red and green apples, and later arranged small cartons of milk in the large cooler. Son Two, the mechanically inclined one, watched us and declared, “Flashlights, books, and tools ready.”

After an intra-city drive of three hours in crawling traffic, we found the bus terminal, a euphemism for a dilapidated two-story building whose five-bus across and four-bus deep dirt front yard served as the launching puddle for buses. The puddles were formed by continuous dripping from buses’ air conditioners and remnants of rain. Bent under our loads of knapsacks and food supplies, we ambled in a single line down the corridor of buses that had been left with their motors on and spewed black, dense smoke. We skipped the mud as much as we could.

We entered what looked like the main office, but it was the waiting room. Most people dozed atop cardboard boxes, their luggage, or across brown plastic seats. The few people left awake talked and fanned themselves in the bluish haze of kretek, the pungent clove cigarettes of Java. Smoking kretek was endemic, and there were few places in which it was forbidden.

After a swift retreat that caused no greater disturbance than Son One ramming the sandwich cooler into Daughter’s knee, we inquired around and hiked to the office to find out which was our bus, and reconfirm out seats, which was a requirement for boarding. This took longer than we imagined it would, as we entered a room bursting with people as disconsolate as the air blowing from an air conditioner unit shrouded with thick grey fluff. Here, smoking was not allowed, but picking one’s nose, an Indonesian past time, was.

Indonesians, in general, are welcoming people and want to show their extreme politeness to foreigners. Civility means, among other things, that apart from an initial perfunctory greeting, men talk with men, women talk with women. Cheek-pinching of blond, blue-eyed children is part of the elaborate process of admiring a child, and Son Two had undergone four sessions of unwanted cheek-pinching by the time we reached the main and only desk to confirm our tickets. Ticket Man, wispy moustache curving over both lips, and pinkie nails overgrown to look like lethal talons (but really only used to pick his nose), spotted Husband, bellowed some orders in Javanese, and waved his Indonesian customers away. The throng parted, five black plastic chairs materialized, Husband was asked to sit down. The rest of us nodded in greetings. After Husband perched his buttocks on the small seat, wife and children followed suit.

We then eased into the ritual of getting to know each other before business is even hinted at. Ticket Man talked to Husband, for it would be very impolite for him to give any attention to the children or to me, before talking at length with Bapak, the head of the family. In a low, well-mannered voice, Ticket Man asked The Three Big Questions: Where are you from? How long have you been here? Are these your children? Husband duly answered in fluent Indonesian. Then he was subjected to the inquisition proper.

“How old are your children?”

“Are they going to Indonesian school?”

“Do you like Indonesian food?”

“What brings you to Indonesia?”

At last, a hint of business, “Why do I have the honour of your visit?”

Husband produced our five pink tickets. Ticket Man placed them on the pristine emptiness of his desk, and scrunched his face, as if the tickets marred his domain. We were offered plastic cups of spring water and tiny straws in their clear wrappings, but we did not drink. Etiquette dictated that we should wait for our host’s signal to enjoy his hospitality, and by doing so, Ticket Man would be also signalling that our delightful time together neared an end. We eyed the liquid, the cups collecting condensation droplets, while our thirst escalated. “So, Bapak, what are you going to do in Bali?”

I whispered, “None of your business,” but Husband never knew how to control himself in certain situations. He had not only the Ticket Man’s attention, but while the throng had parted to allow us to sit down, they had also advanced and closely surrounded us to eavesdrop. Husband enjoyed his audience, unveiled our plans, as if we had any, of what he hoped we were going to see and do in Bali. He added that my parents were joining us in Denpasar. There was a murmur in the crowd. Those in the front, nearest to Husband, repeated the information to those behind them, in an endless, repetitious murmur.

“Where are your in-laws from?”

“Brazil,” said Husband.

“Oh, Brussels. They going to Bali by bus?”

“No, it’s too far away. Too much water. It’s Brazil, actually.”

“Oh, football, yes?” Ticket Man now addressed the surrounding audience, “From Brazil, football, like Indonesia.” An admiring humming passed the news on to the back of the room. And then he turned to us, “Oh, but they can use ferry from Brazil. Just like Java-Bali. Where’s the road from Brazil?”

“Not built yet.”

Ticket Man’s shoulders sagged, “I wonder why not.”

I tried to ignore people pressing behind us, encroaching our space, stretching their ears and eyes to take in those western people whose family lived in Brussels or Brazil, played football or not. I smiled, as one does, felt sweat running down my neck, and tried to imagine a road from Brazil to Bali.

I was wondering how long more we would be the entertainment du jour, and if we would ever board our bus, when Ticket Man looked at us, smiled and spread his arm, “Silahkan!” Please, an invitation to drink the water. Mercifully, the meeting was a plastic straw away from its end.

After we finished the water, perhaps too quickly for politeness as teens slurped the last drops (another breach of etiquette – you always leave a little), Ticket Man stood up and declared, “So I wish you a good trip.” He obviously liked this reasonably polite and respectful group of westerners, so he decided to let us have the seats Candy had so kindly found for us. He gave us directions, “Go out, it’s the second row on the left, the first bus close to the street. But not that one there now. Wait until that’s gone, and the next bus to park there is yours.”

When the next bus to park there arrived, we admired its huge, immaculate body painted in the best-omen colours of green and psychedelic pink. We lodged our bags in the luggage compartment, dragged the food containers up and stowed them between or under our well-padded, reclining midnight blue plush seats speckled with green and pink. Son Two sniffed the air and said, “Orange again.” Favourite air fresheners in Indonesia were, by far, orange and lemon scented. The smell was fake, aggressive, and somehow managed to cling to the inside of the nostrils.

Teens counted eighteen seats, of which we had the five nearest to the front. Of the two toilets at the back, one was out of order and locked.

I sat behind and to the left of what looked like an uncomfortable driver’s seat, a plastic support with a thin padding of flecked black. From my seat I had a full view of the bus panel and the road ahead, and I felt life and the world were under my total control. And I did not have to do anything. I was the most recent reincarnation of the Queen of the Road to Bali: the fuel gauge indicated full, the red handbrake light was on, the speedometer oscillated just a little as the motor was running, and sure enough, there were the light switches and right-left indicators. All in good order. All you need to get to Bali after a smooth and restful trip through the beauty of Java.

The driver arrived, looking middle-aged and experienced. His short hair announced his respectability, and his long thumb nails proved his status as a non-labourer. He approached each passenger to shake hands and bow slightly, and all passengers responded doing the same. Except Son Two, whose cheeks driver pinched. It did not matter that we had said, “No pinching.”

Before taking his seat of command, the driver made himself comfortable for the trip ahead: he shook his arms, stretched his neck right and left, released the top three buttons of his shirt, and pulled the shirt out of his trousers. Once seated, he transformed his black shoes into slippers by flipping the back in and nudging it under his heel.

A man in overalls entered the bus carrying a few spanners, a large screwdriver and a rusty hammer. He wedged them between panel and windscreen, and left. I whispered, “What are those for?”

Husband said, “At least they’re prepared. Road trips need the safety of tools. Anyway, you have me here. I know a lot about cars.” He grinned.

The mechanic returned balancing a pile of white cardboard boxes. Smiling and bowing slightly, he awarded one box to each passenger, and we marvelled at this Indonesian idea of serving food in boxes, wherever you were, whatever the reason. I opened mine and fingered one limp spring roll leaching oil, a wedge of lime green cake, a bright pink agar-agar sweet. Their food matched the company colours. I closed the lid.

A few moments later, Son One tapped my shoulder, “Don’t you want yours? The green cake is great!” I passed my box to him.

We made our grand exit from the bus station on time, and joined the long queue of cars and buses snaking their way out of Jakarta. The bus driver stopped on the outskirts of the city to pick a youngish man who turned out to be the second bus driver. His arm nestled three glass bottles, originally used for teh botol, a local sweet tea, now filled with a dark liquid I decided to call coffee. The bottles were gagged with makeshift stoppers: green paper folded and twisted several times. As Husband had mentioned, they were prepared. For what, I didn’t know.

Second Driver settled himself on and let his legs dangle from the left side of the front panel, his back against the windshield. Staring at the road wasn’t as interesting as staring at the passengers’ faces, especially that curious western-looking family sat right there at the front.

We left Jakarta’s cramming traffic and its last fumes to the screeches of a black-and-white Kung-fu film from a tiny TV set hanging from the bus ceiling. Its wondrous sound effects in – Mandarin? – blared from a single loudspeaker right opposite my seat.

We sped through a motorway, the toll road, and reached the two-way, perilous Puncak Pass, our weekend’s respite from Jakarta’s heat, noise and pollution. Houses and villas dotted the hills cloaked by tea plantations and magnificent valley views. And the bluest sky we had seen in a good while.

First Driver, fortunately, did not watch the view, but the road. He didn’t become the conductor of a high-powered, large, clean, air-conditioned bus by taking his eyes off the road. Or his hand off the klaxon. He had acquired, and was entitled to, high priority among minor traffic elements that obviously did not deserve to be on the road, such as bicycles, motorcycles, mule carts, bajajs, microlets, and cars, whether on the right or left side of the pass. He ignored precipices, bridges, fruit sellers, and traffic signs.

When the Puncak Pass-cum-Kung-fu ordeal was over, I relaxed in the view of a green carpet of rice paddies flecked with fluttering white and black plastic bags, whose purpose was to scare birds. Here and there a coconut tree, symbol of male strength, loomed above a tiny hut. With such a calming view in an apparently safe road, I fell asleep.

I woke up when First Driver Klaxon King used his klaxon for a while too long. Still sleepy, I stared into nothing until it dawned on me that I was focusing on the bus instrument panel. Awareness insinuated into my consciousness that the hand break light was still on, even though the bus was definitely speeding toward Bali.

Well. That had happened to me once, when I owned an earth-brown VW Beetle. As far as I could remember, driving from my house to the kids’ school with the hand break on had meant no big mechanical failure. There was just a little smoke, sort of. Surely, that can happen to anyone.

Then my focus shifted slowly to the fuel gauge. The needle was still on full.

I asked Husband, “How long did I sleep for?”

“About three hours.”

I bolted upright, checked the speedometer. Even though the bus sprinted through a straight patch, the speed needle was flat on 0 km.

I elbowed Husband and told him about my discovery. Husband smiled beatifically, “No problem. The bus is going well. This driver knows what he’s doing, just watch him!”

I would have watched him anyway, because the klaxon was on again. We were on the wrong side of the road, darting towards a motorbike fully loaded with a man in black helmet, a child between his legs, and a woman sitting sideways in the back, holding a toddler. The biker had no option but to get off the road onto the improvised shoulder, from where he shook his fist in a vain threat as the bus hissed past him.

“He knows what he’s doing?” I said to Husband.

“He knows everybody else will get out of the way.”

“We might run out of fuel.”

“He’s the first person here to wish this bus not to run out of diesel.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“There are hundreds, thousands of fuel stations on the road,” said Husband.

“We’re stopping at one now.”

“What did I say?”

We did not stop for fuel, but for a twenty-minute break for dinner and prayers. The heat outside had abated, the sun cast ragged, long shadows from the loaded coconut trees. The loudspeaker of a masjid called people for prayers.

Dinner, vegetarian-delight style, was included in the ticket price: rice, boiled egg, fried tahu, deep-fried prawn crackers, and fried noodles with a few twisted, mushy green leaves curled around them. At the buffet table, a young woman, armed with a menacing straw fan frayed at the edges, fought a losing air battle against iridescent flies. Lady of the Flies, with her round and flattish face pocked by spells of short-lived determination, gave the overall sense that she had lost that air battle many, many times before, and would not spend much energy in trying to eliminate a minor species. Not even Son One, owner of the family’s deepest and most adventurous stomach, dared try the stuff.

Revitalized, First Driver leapt into his seat again. He had changed into first gear when he looked at Second Driver and said, “Wanna drive?”

Second Driver, epitome of courtesy, twisted his lips as if he weren’t too keen on the idea, and retorted that First Driver was doing such a good job of it, he didn’t really think he should interfere. First Driver, on his gracious turn, said Second Driver was welcome to drive.

Second Driver rooted his buttocks in the seat of authority, drank gulps of coffee from his bottle, and pressed the klaxon knob twice to herald to the surrounding world that he had now taken the wheel of power. From afar he announced his menacing approach to other drivers, who were given the chance to evaluate the situation and get the hell out of the way.

Coming from the opposite direction, the following abandoned the road in a short time: tree rickshaws, overturned and their hauls of rice sacks spilled; five motorbikes, countless cars of assorted sizes, shapes and colours; countless microlets; three lesser buses; one medium-sized lorry loaded with water bottles.

Going with the flow of the klaxon, on the same direction as our bus, the following had the prescience to prevent minor and major disasters: two mid-size passenger cars; countless rickshaws, microlets, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians.

To Second Driver’s exultation, he identified another bus from the same company dashing ahead. He whipped the accelerator into a chase. For Second Driver’s even greater exultation, the driver of the other bus was a buddy. They entered into a most harmonious dialogue of klaxons. For passengers’ total glee and entertainment, the two buses ran side-by-side for a good stretch, sweeping both sides of the road and sending everybody and everything else scampering into rice fields.

It was, I perceived after a while, a brilliant race and I did not have the finesse to appreciate or enjoy our win of the Formula Bus in Java. But was our win legitimate? Had Devil Klaxon King really won? Perhaps our competitor realized, like the Lady of the Flies, that he was a loser from the beginning.

Between oncoming and ongoing vehicles, Devil Klaxon King took swigs from his coffee bottle, which he kept lodged between his thighs. Whenever a car, or something, or someone shot out of his way, he nodded sharply as if saying, “You know what is good for you,” then pressed his foot on the accelerator and asserted his superiority by blowing the klaxon four or five times.

My hands were balled, my legs tense, and my feet pressed an imaginary break pedal. My heart rate had increased. I pleaded with Husband, “Ask him to slow down,” knowing how useless it would be for a woman to say so.

Husband glared at me, “What?” I glared at him and he said, “Why don’t you read?” As I didn’t reply, he added, “Don’t say you, of all people, didn’t bring a book? A magazine? Notebook?”

The space was too confined for an argument. We needed unity, not fragmentation of our sparse forces against Mighty Crazed Second Driver. So I talked with the kids.

Daughter: “I’m reading, mom, can’t you see?”

Son One: “Wow, this guy is great! Did you see him swerving from the fuel truck? A millimetre away!”

Son Two: “There’s a loose screw on the driver’s panel. Maybe we’ll get to Bali before the screw falls off.”

Bali? Is there life after this bus ride? Whatever and wherever Bali was—

Klaaxon

A white sand beach, undulating palm trees, the ocean blue-green and–

Klaxon Klaxon

-warm, in—

Klaaaaaaxon

-Queen of the Road to Bali—

Klaxon

-great adventure I yearned for when I started—

Klaxon Klaaaxon

-my mother was right we should have flown how could I bring my beloved children into this what if there is an accident—

Klaxon Klaxon

“Husband, I don’t care what you think about this driver, if you get beaten up or whatever, but I want you to tell him to slow down and keep his hands off that fucking klaxon.”

“Yes dear.” Husband slid off his seat and had a long word with Second Driver Devil Klaxon King. I have no idea what he said, but I imagined he was talking about a slightly deranged wife who was getting more deranged by the minute. Devil Klaxon King chuckled. Husband smiled. Devil Klaxon King chuckled again. Husband returned to seat.

“So?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“He’ll slow down.”

“When?”

“By judgment day. Got any cheese and tomato sandwich left?”

The kids helped deplete our supplies and when stomachs were full and eyes still bulged at incoming headlights, I decided to read a little. I pressed the light switch twice, right, left, up and down. I asked for Husband’s help. He said, “I tried mine, doesn’t work.”

“What are we going to do until sunup?”

“Watch the road?”

“Sleep to the sound of klaxons?” I turned, half-lying on my side and faced Husband. I placed my hand against the side of my face, in a useless shield against incoming headlights. Husband held my free hand and pulled my face toward his chest, which I embraced. His other hand stroked my back. He kissed my forehead, I kissed him where his heart was.

Our feeling of closeness would have persisted for the rest of the trip if Husband had not said, “We’re together. That’s what matters. Whatever the outcome of this.”

Much later, I woke up to the klaxon slicing through the midnight darkness. I couldn’t see what the driver was overtaking or undertaking. But I was wide awake, and so was Husband.

I scanned the rest of the bus. All passengers were sleeping. First Driver slept curled up on the floor of the aisle. Husband and I held hands and stroked each other’s arms. It felt calming and romantic.

The bus dived into a big hole, shook and convulsed. The driver deftly swerved the bus into the inexistent shoulder and the bus let out a last sputter before all went silent.

Husband listened to the drivers talking, “Out of fuel.”

Most passengers woke up, yawned, stretched out of their seats and wobbled outside, where the males urinated noisily. “Do we all get out?” Asked Son One.

I said, “Wait until everybody’s stopped urinating outside.”

Flashlights in hand, we stepped into a spiky, dry, harvested rice field. Daughter swept her arms toward the sky, “Look at that!”

Son Two said, “It’s like a gigantic mosque dome over my head.”

“That’s the real stuff,” said Son One.

We gaped at a deep, rich, clear equatorial night in a splendour that we never saw in Jakarta, always shrouded in air and light pollution. My first thought was of other equatorial nights spent ten years ago in the Amazon. We stood like pilgrims witnessing the generosity of the universe with millions of stars and a full moon. We quaffed that ethereal perfection and tried to make it ours for ever.

I said, “This is the best place in Java to run out of fuel.”

Then we heard insistent banging and a few shouts from inside the bus. A circle of concerned passengers engulfed First and Second Drivers, who had engaged in grave discussions of an ethical quandary, as to what they should do first: Should we sort out the fuel situation, or should we get out the man who’s locked himself in the only toilet we have? The poor man kept banging on the toilet door, as if that would resolve the situation in his favour. But nobody was allowed back in the bus until the drivers had argued for or against and presented to each other different angles of the situation. Yeas and nays rose from the audience that should have known better than to verbalize their opinions on a topic they had no authority to solve.

In the end, reason prevailed for the higher good: get fuel first. First Driver climbed the bus steps and advised the Man in the Toilet he’d have to be patient and stay in the toilet until he had sorted out other, more urgent things.

By then a few local youngsters had gathered around the bus to find out what had happened to such a glossy, beautifully painted bus stopped in the edge of a rice field, at such strange hour. Socialising of male locals and travellers ensued, with two mixed groups, each following First or Second Driver around.

It turned out that a boy who lived just beyond the rice field would get a large can, borrow his neighbour’s rickshaw and pedal to the gas station. The gas station, First Driver explained at length to the boy, wasn’t just any gas station. It had to be the gas station that provided fuel for the bus company, which, if Second Driver remembered correctly, was the third or fourth station down the road. If the boy in his borrowed can and rickshaw got diesel from the wrong gas station, we, passengers, would have to chip in to pay for it. And that was not good manners, since we had already paid for our fares. He was a fair and polite driver.

That assigned, it took a few moments for the drivers to unstuck the toilet door with some of the tools they had brought over, and let out a man who suffered no embarrassment when he alighted at the bus door to grand applause and cheers. He waved at the crowd and shook hands with those closest to him. I wondered if he was a politician.

Half an hour later, spotting twinkling stars had given us neck aches. Kids made small talk with other passengers. All passengers asked the Big Three Questions of Husband and kids: Where from/How long/Your kids. Wife? Gratefully ignored.

When the rickshaw boy returned, most passengers congregated around the two drivers to observe them spilling precious diesel into the gas tank and on the rice field. Husband, who knows what cars are all about, announced, “Time to bleed the motor. They need the spanner they brought over.”

First Driver wiped his hand on a filthy rag and asked Second Driver to pass the spanner. Second Driver checked his pockets and shuffled to the bus to get the spanner. “Told you, they are prepared,” said Husband. Second driver returned empty handed and asked First Driver, “Don’t you have it?”

First Driver checked his pockets but found no spanner. He ordered a bus search with our flashlights. The search produced several spanners, but none was the right size to fit the motor screw.

First Driver ordered a rice field search. All passengers, with or without a flashlight, fanned out to find the right spanner, whatever it was, separating thickets of rice straw and fingering clumps of earth in search of the mystic spanner.

I happened upon a mass of rice spikes which I dutifully palmed and inspected. Then I felt something strange and smelled my hands: shit. I used many, many wet tissues – soap, antibacterial, and fresh orange scent – on both hands.

Son One asked, “Where was it, mom? Which side?”

“Somewhere over there.”

Son One searched for the patch. He found it, inspected some rice spikes, and shouted back, “It’s real pooh, mom.”

“Human?” Asked Son Two.

Someone shouted, “Another bus’s stopping!”

Buses from our august bus company travelled in staggered batches, which made the trip safer in many ways. And it was even safer in our case, because we were the first of a batch of five buses that had left Jakarta to Bali. Each bus and their drivers provided moral, technical, and histrionic relief to each other.

The right spanner materialised and our motor underwent bleeding under the curious eyes of most travellers. Everyone applauded as First Driver climbed the bus steps and accommodated himself in his rightful seat. Expectantly, we held our hands up, ready for more clapping when the bus started again.

But the bus sputtered and gasped and wouldn’t start. The battery was flat.

“No problem,” said First Driver of Second Bus. “We’ll get the battery of our bus to give you a boost.”

His generosity fell flat, as to say, because his battery wasn’t charged enough to start our bus. It was then a simple matter of waiting for the next bus, which might be just round the corner, and might just have a fully charged battery.

Fortune graced us with a twenty-minute wait. First Driver of Bus Three declared, amid pride and relish, that his bus had an almost new battery.

Applause and cheers from the occupants of three buses and residents echoed in the rice field when our bus coughed and started. We boarded hastily, afraid that the motor would halt again at any moment. We took off first, as was our right, to a joyful symphony of klaxons. A little way ahead we stopped at the gas station. When the other buses overtook us, their drivers blew their klaxons in greeting, to which our driver responded with long blasts of thanks. Bless them all.

The air conditioner was turned on full blast, people went to sleep again. Until about four in the morning, when I woke up coughing my lungs out.

Our bus had stopped behind another. Our front fender was glued to the exhaust pipe of the bus ahead, and the black smoke spewed into the air conditioning system.

I shook Husband and each kid for signs of life. They moved a little, annoyed at being awakened. “Get out,” I said between bouts of coughing. Other passengers were getting up, too.

Outside, we did not see a starry dome, but several tall tree branches delineated against the sky. We had stopped in a long line of vehicles, at the edge of a forest.

First and Second Drivers squatted by the bus door, smoked clove cigarettes and shared a bottle of coffee. They ignored me and said to Husband, “Accident way ahead.”

“How far?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. More or less.”

News from the bus ahead reached us that an oil truck had turned over in a curve. Second Driver spat, “Truck drivers! They don’t know how to drive!”

First Driver nodded and added, “Orang gila! Crazy people! They drive very dangerously. Not careful, like us. We make a good team.” He slapped his companion’s shoulder.

Husband asked, “How long have you been here?”

“Oh, not long.”

“How long will it take?”

“Oh, let me see,” said First Driver as he pulled the coffee bottle out of his co-driver’s hand, took a swig, smacked his lips and smiled. “No, not long, Pak. The line is already very long, so the police has been taking care of it for a while already. The driver in front told me they’re going to spread sand on the road. It’s covered with oil. Dangerous to go there now.”

Second Driver added his two rupiahs, “The whole thing can blow up anytime, if it hasn’t already. Someone in front said there was fire.”

First Driver said, “No, we’re not going to be here for too long now. Maybe.”

Second Driver added, “And if we do, we can catch up on time later on the straight road. No problem, yes, Pak?”

Son Two and I played with our flashlights beaming on the canopy of apparently unidentifiable, tangled trees. Daughter and Son One stretched out on the stony ground and snoozed.

Much later, news came through another driver that the fire had been controlled, the road sanded, and it was only a matter of time (When wasn’t it?) before the road opened again.

Finally, the bus sneaked in the shadows, still too close to the bus ahead, until it reached the accident site. Police, fire engines and one ambulance still lingered.

From then on, we whizzed toward the next stop, another roadside restaurant for breakfast, ablutions, and prayers. Bellows from a nearby mosque announced morning prayers.

First Driver announced in the loudspeaker, “Due to our late schedule, this will be a ten-minute stop only.”

We got up and wobbled like zombies into the dazzling white tiled restaurant and made our way through the display of hard boiled eggs floating in a yellow sauce, heaps of chili paste, and bowls full of rice. Back at the bus, we dug into our supplies.

We had not left Java yet. If we were positioned on a rubber timeline, as some things are in Indonesia, we would be on an elastic stretch between nineteen hours from Jakarta and eight hours from Bali. Sort of, maybe. Bali seemed like a special order dream which should have never been dreamed, perhaps never to be lived.

First Driver kindly announced that due to our late schedule, the other stop planned for 11 a.m. was cancelled. (They knew how to give bad news drip by drip.) If anybody wanted to do anything else at this stop, he added, go and do it now or hold on to it until Denpasar. Two men left the bus in a hurry, and we spent a few more minutes awaiting their return.

From then on, we were awarded a replay of the previous day and night’s exemplary coordination of hand on the driving wheel, another on the klaxon knob, a foot on the accelerator, and a coffee bottle at the crotch. Klaxon King wooed the Queen of the Road to Bali.

I began to have palpitations. I controlled them by holding my breath in for several seconds, exhaling, taking air in and holding it in again. I did it so many times that Husband asked, “Indigestion?”

“Can’t take this,” I pointed to the driver.

“Look at it this way, he doesn’t want to be the first to die.”

“He won’t die alone, will he?” And I screamed. It wasn’t a small scream, delicate and feminine. It was a full blown scream, rival to the klaxon, as the bus took a last, split-second swerve from an incoming truck.

Klaxon King forgot the road for a few moments and looked back at me. He laughed. Second Driver joined in the laughter, holding his belly and adjusting his belt. Ever so discreet fellow passengers ignored me. Except two kids.

Daughter, “Oh, mom, what happened?”

“The driving. The truck.”

“You don’t need to scream, some people are asleep.”

“Do they do anything else here?”

Son One said, “You’re not at my football match, mom.”

“I’m deaf,” said Husband.

“Good,” I said.

The sky had worked itself into patches of deep blue, streaked with murky-looking clouds. I buried my face in a book whose title, plot, or characters, I immediately forgot. In the following hours, I must have daydreamed about many wonderful things, especially when I stared into the endless, mature green or young chartreuse rice paddies cleaved by the road.

My heart beat erratically until the moment when the bus emerged from a hilltop bend and the road took a dive to reveal the Bali Straight of legends and pirates. The ferry waited at the bottom of the hill. Our bus slid into the bowels of the gigantic black and blue iron float.

The ferry top platform had been painted with thick splotches of glossy black paint. It absorbed all the heat and slapped it back onto us. Heat insinuated itself through the soles of our sneakers, and we hopped from one foot to another as we felt barefoot on a lighted coal pit. The ferry detached itself from Java and see-sawed toward Bali, the Island of the Gods. The gods seemed to be slumbering in the depths of a peacefully shimmering sapphire blue sea.

Husband’s arm slid through my waist, his other arm hugged Daughter. “Any room for me?” said Son One, as he circled my shoulders. While I hugged him, Son Two pulled my free arm towards his shoulder and we stayed like that, one hugging family, hopping in unison in the middle of a heat gale in the Bali Straight. We scanned the sea as if that vision would cool us a little and give us hope to reach our destination in one piece. Or as one whole, live family.

Arrival at the Island of the Gods was a let down for Husband, “Where are the rice blessings?”

“At the bus station, I think,” I said.

“No,” he said. “When the bus touches the island, everybody gets down and they place rice blessings on your forehead, a frangipani behind your ear. Whatever happened to the women giving the blessings?”

“You mean, all those bare-breasted temple priestesses?”

“They were covered!

“Do you want me to believe that? And no Moslem driver worth his klaxon would stop for Hindu rituals.”

“But Bali is… Bali.”

I said, “And time’s time.”

“Bali has all the time in the world.”

“The Devil Klaxon King hasn’t.”

“But the blessings…”

“Here, have a cheese sandwich. Forehead or cheek?”

I concentrated on the canopy of strange leaves, thousands of rice paddies hanging onto carved hills, and more rice paddies. We had arrived, but not quite. Our spirits had soared, or at least my spirits had, knowing that from now on we jiggled through a road blessed by hidden temples, family shrines, and sacred trees draped with black and white checkered cloth. If the tree trunk was wide enough to be encircled by an adult’s arms, that tree became automatically sacred, and nobody was allowed to chop it. The gods smiled upon us and two and a half hours later (or something like that) we arrived at an apparently properly built bus station in Denpasar with no puddles in sight. Everybody in the bus clapped and cheered.

After parking, First Driver made a speech. “We stopped for a total of exactly, approximately almost five hours. We arrived here not on time! We arrived here five minutes before we were supposed to arrive!” Whistles and shouts roared amid more applause. Drivers and passengers shook hands and bowed slightly at each other.

I got off the bus stiff and slowly – Was the odyssey over?

“I’ll get a microlet,” said Husband.

“A taxi,” I said.

“We won’t fit in a taxi.”

Son One said, “Microlet is fun!”

After arranging and bargaining for the price, our luggage was piled on the microlet floor and, once inside, we accommodated our behinds on narrow wooden benches stuck against the body. We stretched our legs over the luggage. Husband, with the longest legs, perched on the bench nearest to the opening where a door would have been. “Put your feet in,” I said.

“It’s cool and comfortable.”

“It’s unsafe.”

He let out a loud laugh, “After that trip?”

I laughed, and thought of my mother. The microlet swerved off the road to let a bus overtake an incoming lorry and the driver pressed the horn. While I expected a full blown klaxon, for I was now hooked to the stuff, all I got was something like a cat´s unhappy meow. The Queen of the Road to Bali had lost her klaxon and its protective power. As I lost my balance and rolled over the luggage, I started to laugh. But I was soon laughing out hysterical tears.

Postscript

I first wrote this in 1994.
It was one of the old files I found in my current study.
Today, it takes only 18 hours to
drive from Jakarta to Bali.
I’ve been to Bali four times since then.
In two of those trips I wished I had taken a bus.