Jalan Jalan (6 page)

VISAS AND VINYL

W
e're
sitting in Mei's bar. Seven of us around pushed-together tables. It's Thursday evening and the first week is over. Mei is perched on a stool behind the counter, smiling at no one. She's Chinese and doesn't say much. She only comes out from her smiling place to clear bottles away and to deliver a full one to a Canadian with big glasses at the table next to ours. He stares at Mei almost without pause. The rest of us help ourselves to bottles of Bintang beer from the fridge when we like. She makes a little note on the piles of paper in front of her every time we do it. In front of me is a Bintang and my newest addiction:
kopi susu
. It's thick dark coffee in a glass mug with an inch of condensed milk in the bottom. I slide my spoon down the side of the glass and scoop some of it up through the coffee, trying hard not to mix the two together. It's the best coffee and the best thing to happen to coffee in my lifetime.

Mei's is open on three sides to the warm night air, allowing the noise of crickets to play background music to conversation. It's at the end of a small parade of shops in the housing estate where most of Medan's expats and well-off seem to live. The housing estate is more like a guarded ghetto for the wealthier of the city. It is full of detached and semi-detached white-painted houses, all with little front gardens and fences and placed in quiet roads and cul-de-sacs. There are security guards as you enter the estate on the main entrance, but there are plenty of little cut-through alleyways that take you out into the real mad Medan, which is deceptively close.

Here in Mei's where the traffic can't be heard and Europeans, Antipodeans and North Americans sit and chat, the relentless noise and fumes and overcrowded city seem a continent away. I'm not sure I like it. I feel naked, open to questions, open to reality. I've been New Me for over a week now, on and off, but Old Me and Laura still like to poke their heads up every now and then, wanting some attention.

‘So, what d'ya reckon? Staying?' Marty is sat opposite me in a tattered and stained grey T-shirt, swigging the last froth out of his bottle.

‘Yep. It's all OK so far. Takes some getting used to though.' I stir the remaining centimetre of condensed milk into my coffee and take a mouthful.

‘You never get used to it. Always something weird and bizarre every day.' This is Julie, the English teacher with big breasts and wide eyes from my first day in the staffroom.

‘Good. That's what I want.'

‘It wears thin sometimes,' she says as her fingers dance on the table, doing some sort of twitchy can-can. Her eyes dart around looking for agreement from the others in our group. She doesn't get any so she nods in self-agreement.

‘I fucking love it here,' says Kim, who's sat next to me. ‘We'll take you out and show you the night life later, man. Fucking unbelievable. Ain't that right, Jussy-boy?'

Jussy-boy is sat on the end of the table in a white shirt done up to the collar and a Donald Duck tie. He's another teacher, in his early twenties. He's from Montana or Virginia or somewhere.

‘Oh yeah,' says Jussy-boy, ‘just the way Kim tells it.'

I'm not sure I'm ready for a night out yet. Daytime Medan has already given me enough to think about. It almost completely lacks personal space and is rich with poverty. It bears no resemblance to anything English whatsoever. But I'm going to go with them. I've got to let New Me be free before Old Me gets control of things and turns the pair of us into a self-pitying blob. I wish I could hold Laura's hand under the table.

—Well, I can't do that because of these odd-jobs sitting either side of you, but how about this?

Laura puts her arms around my neck from behind and nuzzles behind my ear.

—You're not real. Get off.

I twist my head.

—Well, I feel real and I'd like a cuddle.

I try to shake her off again.

—You're just my sick mind messing with me, now OFF.

A sudden head jerk. She lets go.

‘You OK, man?' asks Kim.

‘Yeah. Stiff neck is all.'

‘Just wait ‘til you get out to the jungle. We're planning on going in a couple of weeks. Go and see some real monkeys instead of drinking with these ones, eh?' This is Naomi. She is sat next to me. Naomi is twenty-three, Canadian, beautiful, blue-eyed with light-brown dreads. She works at another school somewhere in the city. Her knee keeps knocking mine.

—I can see what she's doing down there. Watch it, mister.

—Not there.

—Am.

‘Yeah. Get out to Bukit and see the orang-utans. Eh?' Kim walks over to the beer fridge.

‘Yeah, eh?' says Jussy-boy.

‘Fucking eh, eh?' says Julie.

‘Eh?' says Marty.

‘Leave the girl alone, you racist twats,' says Geoff, the worried-looking Mancunian, sat at the other end of the table.

‘Who wants a Bintaaang?' Kim yells from the fridge.

We all examine our bottles and answer ‘Yes.'

‘What is it with the “eh” anyway?' I ask Naomi.

She twists towards me in her chair and smiles.

‘It's a Canadian thing. Have you never heard it before? We have this habit of finishing sentences with an “eh.” Eh?' She smiles, all thick lips and straight white teeth.

—God, those teeth. Bleaches her bloody teeth. Get over yourself, girl.

‘Didn't know that.' I gulp down half my bottle of beer, willing Laura to shut up. My head swims a little.

‘Yeah, same as septics say “fuck”, we Canadians say “eh?”' She looks at Kim when she says this.

‘Fuck. Now who's being racist? I fucking hate being called a septic.' Kim slides into his chair and slams two fistfuls of bottles on the table. White froth erupts out of their necks.

‘You started it, Kimbo.'

‘Alright you lot,' says Geoff, ‘let's change the subject.'

‘Septic?' I whisper to Naomi.

‘Septic tank.'

‘Fucking Yank, man,' says Kim. ‘Geoff's right, let's leave it.'

Silence follows for a few seconds and I wonder if, and what, the rest of the people around this table have run away from. I can feel some sort of tension from nearly all of them: Julie with her twitching fingers, Geoff with the worry lines of a bomb-disposal expert, Kim with his overuse of sexual adjectives, Marty seeming almost over-relaxed, Jussy-boy with his dodgy taste in clothes and even Naomi with her starting-to-get-annoying overzealous knee-knocking.

—And shiny bright teeth, don't forget her shiny bright teeth. They're annoying too.

—Yes, and those.

If she insists on being here, I might as well let her for the moment. I quite like her little show of jealousy.

‘Anyway, has Pak asked you to teach his mate's kids yet?' asks Marty.

‘He has mentioned it. Sounds alright.' I answer.

‘Don't trust him.' Julie's fingers pause in their dance. ‘I've said it before and I'll say it again: Pak's a cunt.'

Geoff sighs. ‘Julie, do you have to swear so much?'

She ignores him.

‘He asked me and I went ‘round this guy's house and there's armed guards and dogs and cameras as soon as you get through the gate,' explains Julie. ‘I walked straight back out. If Pak's got friends with places like that, he's a cunt.'

‘I taught them for a week,' says Geoff, ‘and it's true about the guards but the kids are lovely. Fitri and Benny, lovely kids. Pak paid me cash for it too.'

‘Pak pays cash for everything, man. That wasn't anything special,' says Kim.

‘It was extra. Paid my beers for a week.'

‘Yeah, but the kids hated you.' Julie swallows a mouthful and coughs half of it across the table. ‘Said you were a boring tosser or something similar, I heard.' She wipes her mouth with her sleeve.

‘It is true, Geoff. That's why Pak asked Julie to go.' Jussy-boy dabs his brow with Donald's beak.

‘Anyway,' I say, suddenly wanting peace and quiet, ‘I'll give it a go.'

‘It's bad news. Any friend of Pak's is bad news.'

‘Let the newbie fucking find out for himself.' Kim sticks a cigarette in my mouth. ‘Welcome to Mei's and welcome to the Friday night gang. Bunch of freaks that we be. Anyone who ain't here ain't worthy of our company.'

—Oh, I am honoured.

—But you aren't here.

‘Where are all the other teachers?' I cut across her before she has a chance to reply. I've met the rest of them at work, but not everyone is here.

‘Scared,' Kim answers. ‘At home watching TV and talking long-distance to the people they miss. Or, in the case of some, spending their money on pretty girls or ladyboys. They keep themselves to themselves.'

‘Scared?'

‘Of this country. Realised they made a mistake. Wanna be home watching whatever shit it is they watch on TV back home.'

‘So why don't they go home?'

A glance is passed around the table. Julie sniggers, Marty scratches his beard and Geoff's lines deepen.

‘You haven't checked your fucking passport, man?' Kim takes my nearly finished cigarette from my hand, lights another with it and sticks the newly lit one in my mouth. ‘You need to check your fucking passport, man.'

‘Why?' I draw on the cigarette. It goes well with the beer.

‘Single-entry visa,' says Julie. ‘Methinks you haven't noticed.'

I'm silent. I smoke. I swig.

‘Pak only gets everyone single-entry visas. Check the small print on the visa you got. Means you need his permission to leave, and you need about a million rupiah to pay the exit. And if you leave early he doesn't pay your flights.' Kim laughs. ‘That's why half the people aren't here drinking, they're saving or crying. They didn't realise they'd been screwed over ‘til they got here. Bit like you.'

‘I said it before, I'll say it again, Pak's a cunt.'

—Ha ha. Stuck here then, numbnuts.

‘Oh well,' I say, ‘fine with me.' I take a deep drag on my kretek and smile. I'm here for the year. A long time baking in the oven.

—You'll be well-baked.

—Shut it and leave.

—OK, OK. I'm going.
She leans over me to give me a kiss but I turn away.

—Bye.

‘So who's coming on tonight?' asks Kim.

‘Me and Donald. Donald wants to dance, don't you, Donald?' Jussy-boy holds the end of his tie up to his face so he can ask the upside-down duck.

‘Not tonight,' says Geoff, ‘I'm getting up to go camera shopping tomorrow.'

‘I'm up for it,' Julie.

‘Me too,' a knock to my knee.

‘Yeah, why not?' says Marty.

‘I'd better try out this night life,' say I.

So we finish our beers and queue up to pay Mei.

‘Where are you faggots off to then?' The Canadian with the big glasses shouts across from his table. There is no humour in his use of the noun.

‘That's nice, Barry. Nice turn of phrase.' Kim shoves his roll of notes into his front pocket, having paid for his beers. ‘Why? You hoping to come, man?'

‘Not with you faggots.'

‘That's good, ‘cos we didn't fucking ask you.' Kim heads off to the street. ‘Thanks Mei. Take care.' He throws Mei a smile and a wave over his shoulder.

‘Have good night, Mr Utah,' Mei replies.

I throw a glance at Barry the Canadian and he stares back without smiling.

‘Enjoy your night, new faggot.'

I say nothing, but immediately wish I had as I walk away. The confidence of the late thinker is always a gallant yet futile thing. Even New Me can't think quick enough. But now a choice of responses flows into my mind as I step into the sticky night air; ‘Will do, arsehole,' or ‘Better than staying here with you, dick-wad.' Anything similar would have been better than nothing.

Geoff waves us goodnight and walks off in the other direction. We head toward the main gate to flag down a taxi.

‘Why'd she call you Mr Utah? I ask Kim.

‘Thinks I look like Keanu in Point Break. Johnny Utah.'

‘You look nothing like Keanu.'

‘I know, but I still take it as a compliment.'

‘And what is it with that guy back there?' I ask.

‘He's a wife-beating dick.' Julie pulls a lipstick out of her jeans and applies it quickly as she walks. ‘He's here to escape jail back home. Broke her arms, allegedly.'

‘He's been hiding out here a few years. Thinks us teachers are just passing tourists and that he's the real expat. He does some wheeling and dealing dodgy business and is sniffing after Mei.' Kim nods at the security guards who are almost asleep at the gate.