Moon Orchids
I step out from my homestay in Jalan Jembawan, cut through a lane decorated with stones shaped into frangipanis and head along Jalan Monkey Forest. It’s early but already hot, so I chase the shade. In front of each house and shop canang sari — daily offerings of rice and flowers — have been placed; each a poetic evocation to appease the invisible gods, ancestor spirits and demons that coexist here with human lives.
Inside Ubud Market I navigate through the warren of stalls managing to avoid multiple temptations for things I don’t need, but get waylaid by a sweet craving and buy rice flour dumplings dipped in palm sugar. Glimpsed ahead, in a cloud of incense, a woman dips a frangipani into water, sprinkles her canang sari and, with palm down, waves above the incense and prays. My father’s hand brushes against my arm and he says, ‘Her offering is on the way to the gods.’ His eyes watch the incense curling upwards, but my eyes hold on a stem of cascading white orchids.
When my father died a friend gave me such a stem. Known for their longevity, her gift was a celebration of his eighty-nine years, but it filled me with trepidation. As each flower died it would feel like I was losing him all over again. I tended the orchids every day determined to keep them alive, knowing that this was a futile task. My father’s orchids lasted seven months and four days.
Dad’s step falls in with mine. We emerge from the market into the lively beat of Raya Ubud. Traffic dodges a small rooster pecking at rice grains scattered from a roadside offering. ‘He’s game,’ Dad chuckles. We stand there for a while, fretting about his chances.
Dad, you led me out of a small rectangular life, walled off and ceilinged, across borders and oceans … your curiosity turned my gaze from the centre to see the world from the margins, and your love of life in all its surprising richness showed me not to be afraid.
Wandering towards Ganesha Bookshop, we joke about a street dog who is sitting crossed-pawed and statuesque beside a stone dog outside the animal welfare office. Dad says, ‘Remember Sandy?’ We both think of the dog he rescued in Penang, sunken-ribbed, flesh ragged and bloody.
He offers me his hanky to wipe the sweat dripping from my face. I’m surprised to hear him say, ‘I hope I was a good father.’
I think on this a moment. Not because I’m hesitating but because I‘m not sure where to start. I slip my hand into his as we walk.
Dad, this is what I know:
You built the house I was born into, from ground up to starry sky. White weatherboard with red roses. When you were done, you opened the door, checked the direction of the breeze, turned to Mum and, with an easy smile, said ‘Let’s go’.
By ship we carved glistening waves through the Coral Sea, crossed the equator, saw Neptune feasting attended by mermaids. Sailing up the Strait of Malacca we reeled in delight at the sticky pungent heat of Malaysia; a world so different, so thrilling, filled with screeching Marque monkeys, elephants huge and slow like grey clouds drifting in mist; snake charmers and feverish men shouldering kavadis, strung with marigolds, tongues pierced, walking on fire. At monsoon we thought the world was drowning. And after the rains, you bought a paper umbrella painted with begonias to shade me from the sun.
You taught me how to float and then threw me into the deep end; you taught me to ride a bike, how to measure and make things; you taught me to speak my mind though it meant we would argue. When the cyclone came, we lay head to toe on a mattress under the door lintel. You said it was the strongest part of the house. Listening to the wind snapping trees, the lintel I saw was your hand in Mum’s, arched over us.
Dad, you led me out of a small rectangular life, walled off and ceilinged, across borders and oceans into the great expanse of possibility; your curiosity turned my gaze from the centre to see the world from the margins, and your love of life in all its surprising richness showed me not to be afraid.
In your time of dying, we crowded with Mum into your marriage bed, lounged and teased, held each other, gossiped, shared notes from childhood, funny banal things and some confessions blurted out. When words were gone, I felt your thumb rubbing against my thumb, tapping out a silent Morse code, ‘I would like to be remembered’.
I wipe my forehead and give Dad back his hanky. He folds it into a neat square and puts it in his pocket.
The heat closes in. I head into my favourite warung and order iced-lemon tea. The counter is decorated with a cluster of white orchids. I count nine on the stem, half-folded butterfly wings with pale yellow calli.
My Hindu friend arrives and joins me. He gestures towards the orchids, ‘Anggrek bulan… moon orchids,’ he says. I learn they are one of Indonesia’s national flowers, recognised for their charm by Presidential decree.
Caught by a momentary breeze, they flutter on the stem. My friend stills his hands and, without taking his eyes from the orchids, he tells me that the movement of the flowers signifies the invisible world revealing itself.
Sipping the cooling tea, I feel vibrations of my father all around. His thumb rubs against mine, ‘I am here. I am here.’
