Short Walks in Sumatra / 6

(sixth in a series of ten)

Aya was specifically banned from the hotel and yet, when she arrived that evening, the proprietress let her in.

Every great hotel requires drama, as the proprietress no doubt understood. An Aya is essential now and then.

I was chatting with an Australian saxophonist at a table by the river. He was a genuine big lug, a lumberjack of a musician. Also irrevocably heterosexual, as I’d sadly ascertained. I got so tired of delicate musicians, of tenuous flautists and febrile cellists.

Aya sat down at our table. She apologized, though the saxophonist was obviously delighted. She seemed older at night; her extraordinary hair merged into the black sky and left her with a slightly too small head.

She said she was glad to see me again. “You’ve got good shoulders. I looked at the salon.”

We sat and drank our beer. Aya asked a few times if she was disturbing us. She got up to leave and sat down again. The saxophonist assured her she was welcome.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and when Aya said, “I like bad boys”, I said, “Yes, so do I.”

She was confused.

On a napkin, we did our best to draw her a chart. (The saxophonist was also keen that she figure it out.)

“You’re a bad girl who likes bad boys. And I’m a bad boy who likes bad boys. Whereas, this gentleman here is a bad boy who likes bad girls. Therefore. . .”

“You like bad boys,” Aya said.

“Absolutely.”

“So you’re a bad girl.”

“No, I’m a bad boy.” I tugged on my beard.

“You’re a bad girl!”

“Maybe sometimes,” I allowed.

She explained that she was from one of the most conservative parts of Sumatra and she was a good Moslem woman, though she did have a webcam at home and was actually engaged to an American man she’d not yet met in person.

“Is that conservative?” asked the saxophonist.

“He’ll convert.”

She was worried, however. He was a plumber.

We assured her that plumbers in America made good money.

She was also worried because he lived with his mother.

“You’ll be one happy family,” I said.

“She’s tried to kill herself three times.”

“I’m sure that’s no reflection on him,” the saxophonist said helpfully. Aya was definitely warming to him. Meanwhile his interest was so obvious he might as well have had a cock sprouting from his forehead.

I was just jealous. I excused myself and went upstairs to my room.

Aya was much more grand as an Evil Queen than a supplicant of tourists. To be a whore is commendable; it did not suit her to beg. At the thought of pleasing how we are reduced!

She’d been banished from the hotel for having sex for 700,000 rupiyah. It only sounds like a lot. There are more than 9,000 rupiyah to the dollar.