Free Troppo by Madelaine Dickie

you let on, but then how with other things, things that are common sense to most people, you’re completely oblivious to.’
    â€˜And what won’t you miss?’ I asked, turning, so my back was to him.
    His arms locked around my chest. My lips touched one of his slender fingers. He didn’t answer.

19
    Twenty minutes later I’m flat on my back with my pants around my ankles. The bed looks like a hospital stretcher from WW2. The girls haven’t bothered to put down a clean towel and it’s glossy with filth. As soon as they roll out a dirty, bubbling wax pot on pram wheels, I sense trouble.
    I should leave. But beauty salons are great places for gossip.
    â€˜Hello Missus! Where you from? Are you married? How long you in Batu Batur?’
    I answer as best I can, feeling a blistering lick of wax across my pelvis.
    â€˜Mister Shane? You’re going to be working for Mister Shane?’ one of them asks incredulously.
    A bandage rips. The girls quickly press their fingers against my skin to ease the pain.
    â€˜You’re not scared?’ asks the first girl, switching to Indonesian.
    â€˜Should I be?’ At the moment, I think I’m more scared about getting third-degree burns.
    â€˜It’s just a rumour,’ says the second girl.
    â€˜Oh ya?’ challenges the first.
    â€˜What’s just a rumour?’ I ask.
    â€˜About Shane chopping the fingers off one of his maids. I know the truth.’
    Another slap of wax.
    â€˜My cousin knows Yuliana. She told me Yuliana worked inSaudi Arabia as a maid for two years. That’s where it happened. Her boss cut off her fingers because he thought she’d been stealing. It happens all the time.’
    She whips off the bandage.
    No soothing fingers this time.
    â€˜So why are people saying Shane did it?’
    â€˜Ya, people don’t like Shane. They’ll say anything to get rid of him.’
    I hobble out forty minutes later after declining the offer of a ‘crackwax’, nearly hairless, with burns boxing in my vagina. Relieved as I am by this counter-rumour, there’s no way I’ll be going back to find out more.

20
    At the bungalows Cahyati passes me a folded square of paper.
    It reads:
Seeya at 6
.
    â€˜Matt?’
    Cahyati nods.
    I sit next to her on the top step leading up to the dining deck and follow her gaze. She’s watching the Frenchman. He’s set up a couple of speakers on his balcony and is positioned on a sarong in an ambitious, physics-defying yoga posture. His legs are around his neck. And he has an audience. On the other side of the fence several men straddle motorbikes. One of the men has perched a toddler between the handlebars. The toddler is wailing in alarm – the Frenchman’s probably the first bule it’s seen. The men chat and pass around a cigarette and no-one shows any signs of moving.
    I haven’t spoken to Emile since that afternoon on his balcony when he told me he had just come from snapping photos in Côte d’Ivoire. I wonder if his reticence, his inwardness, is because of something he saw.
    â€˜Have you been here for long?’ I ask Cahyati in Indonesian.
    â€˜Maybe a month. My family are still in the village.’
    â€˜Do you like it?’
    â€˜Yeah …’ she says unconvincingly. Then after a moment she asks, ‘Have you ever been to Bali?’
    â€˜I used to live there.’
    Above us a rat disturbs the rafters, looses a faint rain of dust and dead insects.
    She lifts her face, but her shoulders remain hunched over. ‘Is there much work there? Like cleaning work, restaurant work?’
    â€˜Sure. I mean usually it gets busy around May through until August. It’s pretty quiet at the moment, especially after the bombings in Jakarta. But Christmas isn’t too far away, and so a fair few tourists will start to come through after that. Why, are you thinking you might head over?’
    â€˜Maybe. Maybe if I