by Erin Mattingly
All I saw was grey. My hands gripped the sandy volcanic rock. My feet slid backward. My butt was sticking up in the air. It should have been funny– this distorted version of downward dog– but it wasn’t. I lost you in the sea of desperate hikers. The air was heavy with silence.
Occasionally, someone around me would move, taking a few steps, sliding back a couple steps, then standing motionless, defeated. Occasionally, I would do the same. I did not have the energy to search for you.
It took ninety minutes to climb the impossible angle of that first hill. I wished someone could take a picture of me from far away. I would have looked like an ant walking up a vertical wall, defying gravity.
We didn’t talk when you caught up to me. We just kept grasping at the earth, watching it fail and crumble beneath our fingertips each time. My shoelace was untied. I kept crawling.
Our bodies fought the volcano. The volcano fought our bodies, disciplining our every movement, making us feel powerless. Mount Rinjani is a woman, a local Indonesian said to me. Yes, Mount Rinjani is a bitch. Each step made me more mad. Your silence told me you felt it too. I slipped, tripped over my shoelace, watched hikers with hiking sticks pass us. The end was never near. Until it was, and we stood at the top of the volcano. My eyes watered, my nose tingling, as I pulled you into a warm, familiar embrace. We held onto each other, watching the white clouds surround us.
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We had only known each other for ten days when I turned twenty. When our classmates began singing happy birthday, I shushed them, laughed, and fidgeted with my grey sarong. Until you came around the corner, a pink cake in your hands with candles in the shape of two and zero. It was strawberry. My favorite.
We went to the spa in Canggu, a touristy town, to celebrate. In a tiny room, surrounded by yellow batik curtains, we stripped down to our underwear and laid down on the two massage tables set up for us. We got facials and a massage. I fell asleep on the table.
At a beach club, we melted in liquor and laughter. Our friends joined, and we all ran to the ocean. Sloppily slashing in the salt water, I held onto your arm like a child. You tripped, pulling me down into the Bali Sea.
We walked to a club in downtown Canggu called Old Man’s. Shirtless men from all over the world swarmed the dance floor. We laughed as some of the girls in our study abroad program swooned in awe.
I met an Australian man that night. It was his birthday too. You walked us out to his motorbike and made sure I had a helmet. You reminded him to bring me back safely– no later than eleven.
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Every evening, when the sun was less oppressive, we walked in the sawah, the rice fields. I stared at the grey concrete, intently navigating around the canang, Hindu offerings that lined the streets, on my way to your homestay. I looked up from the concrete when I heard your voice to see your soft smile and earthly brown hair.
My daily therapy session happened in the sawah with you. The sun would turn red, low in the sky, and we processed. After being motionless all day, sitting in front of a fan in our outdoor classroom, ignoring the lectures, movement was liberation.
You worried you were too kind to our classmate– maybe she would think we wanted to hang out with her. We did not want to. I laughed at your kindness. I worried that my ibu, my homestay mother, did not like me. You reassured me over and over that she did. You reminded me of how she rubbed eucalyptus oil on my stomach when I was sick. How her face lit up every night when I got home.
We would pass local people and have the same conversation with them each time. Dari mana? Dari Amerika. Kenapa di sini? Karena kami mahasiswa. Di mana? Di Puri. Tinggal di mana? Dengan keluarga Kerambitan. You rarely talked. You always thought my Indonesian was better than yours.
Dogs lined the streets of the village. On our usual walking route, their threatening barks pierced the air. Sometimes they would chase us. Our feet pounded desperately against the concrete. I hated the dogs. I strained my eyes from a distance to see if they had green collars, an indication of having vaccines. Most did not.
When we passed dogs, you lunged at them. They backed off. They shut up. I could never work up the courage to move towards those small motherfuckers. It would completely ruin my evening if I had to pay four hundred dollars to fly to Thailand and get a rabies shot.
Our walk always ended at the gate outside my homestay. We would part ways, knowing the only thing between seeing each other again was a night’s sleep and breakfast.
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I stared at the rapidly spinning grey arms of a fan that did not succeed at cooling me off. It moved the hot, humid air around me as Kazu, our twenty-four-year-old program director rambled on about our upcoming reverse culture shock experience.
Do you want to go to the beach? Our code language. What I really asked was do you want to go to Lily by the Sea, a beachside resort, to lounge at the pool and drink bright red watermelon juices.
It was our little secret. Nobody else on the program had discovered this oasis. We had to speak in code in case our classmates discovered our sanctuary and wanted to destroy our peace with their whiny voices and lesbian dramas.
We called a Gojek, an Uber-like motorbike service. When our driver showed up in his neon green Gojek jacket, we passed him an extra twenty thousand rupiah so we could be on the same bike. I always sandwiched in the middle, between you and our driver.
Over the months in Bali, we memorized that drive. The way that sharp curve after the warung, a street stand that never had any customers, opened up to layered rice terraces. How lonely that white mosque looked surrounded by Hindu temples.
When we reached our destination, we would lie down on the beach loungers and order two jus semangka. We would soak up the time away from talking to locals confused by our presence, stepping over dog shit, and getting pointed to and laughed at by children.
We sat there for hours those afternoons. I would doze off and journal. You would read an entire novel. The only thing that divided us was an umbrella-shaped shadow. You baked in the sun. I hid in the shade, slathering sunscreen on my tattoos.
We always headed back to be on time for dinner. We ordered a Gojek, and then got into our usual motorbike sandwich assemblage. I held onto your hands that rested on my shoulders, making sure you did not fall off.
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In the basement of my grandparents’ house in Wisconsin, I look out the small window at the blinding snow that reflects the winter sun. I close my eyes as I listen to the audio recording you sent me. Your stories flood my mind with the lush green landscapes of New Zealand. You talk about how your dad visited you last week. How you miss me and think about Indonesia every day.
Hearing your voice feels like grasping at volcanic rock. Your recording comes to an end, and I open my eyes. The neutral grey walls of my grandparents’ guest room surround me, drained of color, neither black nor white. I sit in the grey space, neither here nor there, wishing you were here to ground me.
