A British couple sits in one of the fine dining establishments at the Berjaya resort on Palau Tioman, an island in the South China Sea, just off the east coast of Malaysia. It was used in the Film South Pacific, playing the role of the mythical Bali Hai.
The British woman looks up from her plate and frowns. She sees a young woman dining alone, legs crossed in wedged high heels, bright red lipstick leaving a mark on the stemmed water glass. The gush of pity reaches this young woman from across the room and she smiles. For she has played that role on so many occasions: the girlfriend at the island resort. Flowing dress, shelled necklace, cutting strange vegetables carefully on her plate, smiling affectionately at the boyfriend who remains unburnt by the sun due to her attentive reapplications of SPF30. Now, she's neither happy nor sad to be alone, but quietly content.
In the mornings, she slathers orange marmalade on her toast, so thickly that it slides off and down her fingers. When the waitress is not looking, she feeds butter to the wild minx cats off the dull blade of her knife. They are pleased to let her scratch their chins and intrigued by the bikini strings that hang invitingly behind her chair.
She boards a boat, tank on, to dive the reef surrounding Tioman, protected by environmentalists and a tax of $2 US that everyone pays upon arrival. Before plunging backwards into the seawater, she says a small prayer for her left ear that still hears at 80 percent. She descends slowly out of respect for this ear.
The bottom is clear and decorated with electrically-colored fish. The divers immediately see a black-tipped-fin shark and she eagerly swims towards it when it shies away. There are squid, octopus, sea slugs galore. A small silvery fish nips at her knee and she bats it away. When it returns for a second bite, she laughs out loud into her regulator, a cascade of bubbles erupting behind her. A green sea turtle, motivated by these strange pale creatures with goggled eyes and long limbs, decides to swim along with the divers a while. She wishes she had an underwater camera.
On shore, she borrows a kayak--choosing the hot pink one--and drags it into the sea. She paddles around small uninhabited islands that orbit Tioman. Behind one, hidden from the shore, she stops paddling and lies back in the Malaysian sun. There is graffiti written on this island's rocks in an alphabet she cannot read.
Upon returning to her room, beneath which lives a six-foot monitor lizard, she catches a waiter leaving a birthday cake in the mini-fridge. Delighted, she hugs him making him take an uncomfortable step back. She has told no one it's her birthday, but the resort has seen her passport. Later, she'll eat cake with a spoon straight from the box, sitting cross-legged on the bed, while watching BBC World. She'll learn of the rising numbers of nazis in Serbia and recognize the streets of Belgrade in the background, streets she walked down just over a year ago. She will eat cake and feel nothing.
She lies by the pool, wet hair matted to her forehead. She is drowsy from taking Loratadine for the mosquito Anopheles has launched her bloody attack at Tioman. Though medical school teaches Loratidine does not cross the CNS border, she can assert that it does--at least in quadruple doses. To her right, sleep a Spanish couple. To her left, Russian, Swiss, German and British couples carry on a jovial conversation in English. Bhangra Knights blares at half-volume on her ipod and she reads a novel by Lahiri. The unforgivably bold curves of her body turn a rosy gold. She has to apologize when she misses a question addressed to her. Flipped onto her stomach, the other sun-bathers do not see the earphone in her left her.
"Is it true in America you cannot drink until the age of 21?" the Swiss man asks. "Yes," she says gravely. "Even at the discotechs?" asks the German woman. And when she asserts this is true as well, they all shake their heads in disbelief.
A cabana boy sits on the edge of her lounge chair and asks whether she'll be at the beach bar tonight. She replies "I don't think so" flatly and gathers her things. A purple sarong and pair of havaianas lie abandoned on the beach while she swims the shore's length through the metallic grey-blue South China sea.
Her evenings are spent on the porch--bottle of deet close at hand--sipping chardonnay and reading. She is her mother's daughter.
Today, she goes on a snorkeling trip. Realizing it is only dads and kids on the boats, she keeps a t-shirt on modestly. She takes out her camera and a little red-haired girl comes over to give picture-taking advice. She hands her camera to the little girl who takes several crooked pictures of the shore. The young woman compliments the girl on her artistic eye--both share a distaste for symmetry. In the water, the fish are plentiful but she makes a note to go snorkeling first next time, diving second. Just then, a magnificent thick leopard-printed eel slithers by. This is her life at this moment: weightless, gliding through warm and cool currents, ever-so careful not to scrape the coral reef, for this is its home, and she is merely a guest.
The British woman looks up from her plate and frowns. She sees a young woman dining alone, legs crossed in wedged high heels, bright red lipstick leaving a mark on the stemmed water glass. The gush of pity reaches this young woman from across the room and she smiles. For she has played that role on so many occasions: the girlfriend at the island resort. Flowing dress, shelled necklace, cutting strange vegetables carefully on her plate, smiling affectionately at the boyfriend who remains unburnt by the sun due to her attentive reapplications of SPF30. Now, she's neither happy nor sad to be alone, but quietly content.
In the mornings, she slathers orange marmalade on her toast, so thickly that it slides off and down her fingers. When the waitress is not looking, she feeds butter to the wild minx cats off the dull blade of her knife. They are pleased to let her scratch their chins and intrigued by the bikini strings that hang invitingly behind her chair.
She boards a boat, tank on, to dive the reef surrounding Tioman, protected by environmentalists and a tax of $2 US that everyone pays upon arrival. Before plunging backwards into the seawater, she says a small prayer for her left ear that still hears at 80 percent. She descends slowly out of respect for this ear.
The bottom is clear and decorated with electrically-colored fish. The divers immediately see a black-tipped-fin shark and she eagerly swims towards it when it shies away. There are squid, octopus, sea slugs galore. A small silvery fish nips at her knee and she bats it away. When it returns for a second bite, she laughs out loud into her regulator, a cascade of bubbles erupting behind her. A green sea turtle, motivated by these strange pale creatures with goggled eyes and long limbs, decides to swim along with the divers a while. She wishes she had an underwater camera.
On shore, she borrows a kayak--choosing the hot pink one--and drags it into the sea. She paddles around small uninhabited islands that orbit Tioman. Behind one, hidden from the shore, she stops paddling and lies back in the Malaysian sun. There is graffiti written on this island's rocks in an alphabet she cannot read.
Upon returning to her room, beneath which lives a six-foot monitor lizard, she catches a waiter leaving a birthday cake in the mini-fridge. Delighted, she hugs him making him take an uncomfortable step back. She has told no one it's her birthday, but the resort has seen her passport. Later, she'll eat cake with a spoon straight from the box, sitting cross-legged on the bed, while watching BBC World. She'll learn of the rising numbers of nazis in Serbia and recognize the streets of Belgrade in the background, streets she walked down just over a year ago. She will eat cake and feel nothing.
She lies by the pool, wet hair matted to her forehead. She is drowsy from taking Loratadine for the mosquito Anopheles has launched her bloody attack at Tioman. Though medical school teaches Loratidine does not cross the CNS border, she can assert that it does--at least in quadruple doses. To her right, sleep a Spanish couple. To her left, Russian, Swiss, German and British couples carry on a jovial conversation in English. Bhangra Knights blares at half-volume on her ipod and she reads a novel by Lahiri. The unforgivably bold curves of her body turn a rosy gold. She has to apologize when she misses a question addressed to her. Flipped onto her stomach, the other sun-bathers do not see the earphone in her left her.
"Is it true in America you cannot drink until the age of 21?" the Swiss man asks. "Yes," she says gravely. "Even at the discotechs?" asks the German woman. And when she asserts this is true as well, they all shake their heads in disbelief.
A cabana boy sits on the edge of her lounge chair and asks whether she'll be at the beach bar tonight. She replies "I don't think so" flatly and gathers her things. A purple sarong and pair of havaianas lie abandoned on the beach while she swims the shore's length through the metallic grey-blue South China sea.
Her evenings are spent on the porch--bottle of deet close at hand--sipping chardonnay and reading. She is her mother's daughter.
Today, she goes on a snorkeling trip. Realizing it is only dads and kids on the boats, she keeps a t-shirt on modestly. She takes out her camera and a little red-haired girl comes over to give picture-taking advice. She hands her camera to the little girl who takes several crooked pictures of the shore. The young woman compliments the girl on her artistic eye--both share a distaste for symmetry. In the water, the fish are plentiful but she makes a note to go snorkeling first next time, diving second. Just then, a magnificent thick leopard-printed eel slithers by. This is her life at this moment: weightless, gliding through warm and cool currents, ever-so careful not to scrape the coral reef, for this is its home, and she is merely a guest.
No comments:
Post a Comment