He thought she was about to tell him some pointless bit of gossip: that you hate Aldemar because he earns more than you (untrue, there were lots of reasons to hate Aldemar), or you slept with Lotte in European Accounts and she took pills when you refused to marry her (true). That sort of gossip was daily currency when a group of people worked together on one floor of a building, in their case given a twist by the fact that they couldn’t tell their friends about the sort of company they worked for. He was only half-listening.
‘They say you were terribly tortured.’
Her fingers became still. He raised his head and looked at her face. She was smiling. She shuffled down the pillow a little and propped her head up on one hand, the arm bent at the elbow. Her fine dark hair fell down, a waterfall that flowed over her bare shoulder and upper arm. The expression on her face suggested she was not only amused by this rumour but expected him to be amused as well.
‘They say when you were captured in the jungle in the Indies. .’
‘It’s called Indonesia now.’
‘Indonesia. They say when you were captured when you were out in the jungle that you had your back slashed to ribbons with sickles. That’s why you don’t speak much round the office and keep yourself to yourself. That’s why you left the firm for four years. You cracked up and were in a loony bin for a bit and then tried to be a farmer, they set you up, but it didn’t work out and so you came back to the firm.’ That bit was true, at least. The firm had looked after him well. It was in their interests, after all. The last thing the company needed was a mentally ill ex-operative raving about his experiences to anyone who would listen. She lifted a finger and traced his shoulder. ‘They say your back is covered with terrible scars.’
So that was why she had been stroking his back, only to discover it was as smooth and flawless as hers. How disappointed she must have been.
‘Well,’ he said, looking back at her, ‘as you can see, it isn’t.’
On the third day, he rose late — thanks to the booze and the cigarettes he had returned to sleeping badly — and decided he would not drink or smoke that day. It was disgusting, actually, what he had been doing, it was weak; time to get a grip. He would go to town and track down Rita.
Kadek took him into town again, silent on the journey. Kadek had grown a lot quieter during the last couple of days and Harper wondered if he was obliged to report back to the firm. Was Kadek’s job to bring him breakfast or to spy on him? Probably both. But in truth, despite his doubts about the organisation, the thought of finding Rita was distracting enough for him to think that, maybe, his nighttime fears were born of simple exhaustion. Maybe Amsterdam was right — this was a new thought — maybe what he needed was rest and recreation. He was even beginning to feel a little foolish. He would not be the first operative to see shadows where none existed, along with people lurking in those shadows who were looking at him, meaning harm. Some habits became a way of life. Is it possible that what happened before is clouding your judgement? Amsterdam had asked him, just before he submitted his final report from Jakarta. How vehemently he had denied it.
He waited until late afternoon, changing into one of the shirts he had bought on his previous visit to town just before Kadek arrived with the moped. Rita would be working earlier in the day, he guessed, and his best chance of finding her would be around the same time as their previous encounter.
He got Kadek to drop him at the corner of Jalan Bisma and walked up to the guesthouse but the bar was completely empty, not even any staff around. He went back to the main road and took up watch in the cafe again. When that vigil proved fruitless, he walked up and down the main street, stopping off in one or two shops, where it was easy to linger by the door and watch who passed along the road. There was no point at which he despaired of seeing her. It was only a matter of persistence. Where would someone like her go if she wasn’t getting some work done in a bar or cafe? Where would he himself go if he didn’t want to hang out with tourists? The night market, probably.
At the entrance to the market, there were the food stalls. The first was serving yellowish chicken; a heap of them, each tied with string, sat on the counter-top. A young woman behind the counter was shredding one into a bowl, her hands flicking to and fro. In other bowls on the counter were roasted peanuts and tea-stained eggs with cracked shells, rice and sambal. Would Rita eat at a place like this, or did she normally eat with the family she stayed with? A gold maneki-neko sat upright on the end of the counter, beckoning with its lucky paw.
Although it was still early, the market was crowded. He was careful to act like any other customer, in case Rita saw him before he saw her. He moved on from the food stalls to those selling plastic plates and bowls heaped high in bright green, pink, red, orange. Then the clothing stalls with hundreds of different pairs of flip-flops. He hated flip-flops — why walk around in something that left your feet so exposed? Ugly, as well. No foot, male or female, was ever flattered by a flip-flop. The only shoppers were locals. The occasional tourist was taking photos, thrilled by how the retail goods bought by poor people were so cheap and charming and colourful. Darkness had not lifted the smothering heat and the market was lit by white arc lights that hurt his eyes when he glanced up. Stallholders shouted to each other. Children pushed insolently against his legs. The noise and the crowds were beginning to oppress him. He wouldn’t find her here.
The market took a dogleg and here the crowds thinned a little. He stopped in front of a small fruit stall selling the huge apples that he liked to eat in the evenings. He bought a bag of them and, as he paid, looked to his right and saw her, two stalls down. She was leaning over at a spice stall and pointing to a bamboo basket containing pieces of twisted turmeric root. The man behind the stall was leaning forward too, with a small wooden shovel in one hand. They were in intense conversation. As he approached, he guessed that she was pretending to be annoyed at the price the stallholder wanted to charge her. She was speaking Balinese but he couldn’t tell whether she was using the formal or colloquial form. The stallholder was pretending to be annoyed back but then a price was all at once agreed and they both broke into smiles.
He stood quite close to her, waiting for her to finish, so that when she turned from the stall, she gave a small start at his proximity.
He held up both hands. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘Nyoman and I are old friends.’ She threw a smile at the stallholder and he smiled and inclined his head in return. ‘What are you after?’
He was about to apologise and back off, then he realised what she meant and held up his bag of apples.
‘Have you had the food here?’ she asked. ‘It’s great, there’s a great stall at the entrance.’
‘I saw it.’
They walked back through the market together, slowly, with her pausing at every other stall to look over what was there. She stopped at the plastic plates and bought six green ones in the shape of leaves. ‘My tutor group,’ she said, by way of explanation, slipping the plates into the large cloth bag she was carrying. As they turned from the stall, he reached out, hooked a finger beneath the strap of her bag and pulled it gently from her shoulder. She stopped. He took the bag, dropped his apples in it, put it on his own shoulder. They stood facing each other. Her expression was a query. She was wearing a short-sleeved cardigan over a vest top and it had slipped when he had taken the bag, exposing a soft, freckled shoulder. He reached out a hand and pulled the edge of the cardigan back into place. She dropped her gaze. They turned and continued walking.