Fearless Read online

  Annie found herself on the brink of tears, as she often did when describing this epiphany. She’d always had a healthy respect for God’s creatures, especially the dogs and cattle on the ranch. To Kevin’s bewilderment, from the earliest years of their marriage she’d let the working dogs sleep inside and given her favourite cattle names like Captain Red and Sir Steer. She’d even talked to them—and their expressive eyes had convinced her that they’d listened, too. Kevin had indulged her, for the most part, but when he saw her crying at cattle sales he had banned her from attending. His was a far more utilitarian view of life and death and the value of an animal.

  ‘It’s been a tough six months at BAF, to be honest,’ she continued. ‘At first it was a bit of a culture shock. I’m ashamed to admit that before I arrived, I didn’t even know that Bali was part of Indonesia.’

  ‘You’re not alone,’ said the young woman with the hazel eyes. ‘My mother thought Bali was a country near Fiji.’

  The other woman in the group, sitting opposite Annie, snorted derisively. ‘I think a fair few Aussies consider it the ninth state of Australia.’ She was pale and unsmiling, and Annie wasn’t sure if she was joking.

  ‘Well, a lot of people think it’s a paradise on earth,’ Annie continued. ‘Which it is in some ways, but there are real issues here too. I mean, look at the trash. Why do the Balinese keep burning their rubbish or dumping it in rivers? Then there’s all the preventable health problems, like endemic rabies—two hundred people die every year from rabid dog bites in Bali. And the level of human cruelty to animals here is appalling. I’m talking acts of violence and neglect that Americans would be prosecuted for.’ She looked around the group, conscious that her lips had started to quiver. ‘People routinely throw litters of puppies off bridges, or drown them in irrigation channels. For such a gentle culture, many Balinese have very little consideration for the suffering of animals. That’s why I’m doing my small part to help them change their minds and hearts about the defenceless creatures around them.’

  Pak Tony nodded, watching her. ‘And what are you afraid of, Annie? What brings you to the Fearless retreat?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t gotten to that yet, have I?’ She chuckled. ‘We Americans don’t have any problems with public speaking.’ She glanced at Henry, still lying on the floor. ‘Well, it’s kind of a long story. I’ve got a problem with snakes, you see …’ Even now, twenty years on, she found it difficult to tell people about Kevin. ‘That’s one animal in this world I simply can’t love. There are ten different types of rattlesnakes in California; let’s just say there’s a bit of history there, between me and them.’ She fought back the lump in her throat. ‘I used to have terrible nightmares about snakes; I was an insomniac for years. But it didn’t stop me doing something with my life.’ Involuntarily, she looked at Henry again. ‘I kind of thought it was all behind me, but then last month, something awful happened. I was doing the breakfast shift at BAF and I opened one of our cages and almost stepped on a fourteen-foot-long reticulated python. It was sleeping, because it had just eaten one of our dogs.’ She shivered. ‘It triggered a really paranoid response in me. I started having my old nightmares again, and I didn’t come out of my room for a week. Until one of the other BAF volunteers showed me a brochure for this course.’

  She glanced around the group. ‘I realised then that I can’t have my fear of snakes compromising BAF’s work—what we’re doing there is too important. So Fearless seemed like a great chance to tackle my fear, once and for all, before heading back for my final six months of volunteering.’

  Several members of the group spontaneously clapped and Annie nodded in acknowledgement. Remembering suddenly the last time she’d been applauded, at the special assembly marking her retirement from Coalinga High. All the touching student tributes and affectionate farewells from colleagues—the bouquets and chocolates and even a gold paperweight inscribed with the words Happy Retirement, Annie!—that had filled her with a quiet dismay.

  ‘Thank you for sharing, Annie,’ said Pak Tony. ‘That must have been quite a confronting situation for you. Your work at BAF can’t be easy, either. Oh, here’s the doctor now.’ He stood up and greeted an Indonesian man carrying an oversized black satchel, who immediately began tending to Henry.

  Annie resumed her position in the circle, next to the pleasant young woman, and watched the doctor work through his standard checks: taking Henry’s temperature, pulse and blood pressure, then shining a light into his eyes, testing for concussion.

  Snakes aside, the past six months had been difficult, Annie reflected. Many of her Balinese ‘adventures’—as she often called them in cheery emails to her children and church—involved the most prosaic aspects of life. Like the hazards of navigating the squat latrine in the volunteer living quarters at BAF. The first time she’d entered the bathroom, she’d been forced to seek out a staff member to translate the handwritten sign stuck to the door: Jangan buang air besar di lantai.

  The woman she’d consulted, an office secretary, had blushed a deep shade of red. ‘Er … please do not do your … poo-poo on the floor,’ she explained.

  ‘On the floor?’ Annie replied, goggle-eyed.

  Is that what Indonesians do? Annie wondered, as the woman began backing away.

  ‘Wait,’ said Annie, and pointed to a large tiled tub filled with water in the corner of the bathroom. ‘Is that where I take my bath?’ It looked as though it might accommodate a petite Balinese person, but certainly not Annie.

  The woman repressed a smile. ‘No. That is for the toilet.’

  Annie stared. ‘Do people … go in there?’

  The woman shook her head and picked up a small bucket floating in the tub. She scooped up a pail of water and pointed at the latrine. ‘After you go to toilet …’ she threw the bucket of water into it, ‘wash it away.’

  ‘Oh!’ Annie smiled, understanding. ‘It’s the flush. And where is the toilet paper?’

  The woman looked confused. ‘Use the water only.’ She motioned at the bucket, then pointed at her bottom with her left hand.

  Annie grimaced. I signed up for this?

  ‘Use it for shower too,’ continued the woman. ‘Stand here and …’ She mimed tipping water from the bucket over her head.

  ‘I see,’ said Annie. ‘There’s no hot water, then?’

  ‘Maybe next month,’ said the woman.

  Annie doubted she could survive four weeks without a hot shower. ‘Will there definitely be hot water next month?’

  ‘After Galungan holiday,’ the woman replied, backing away again.

  Only recently had Annie come to realise that this was her first experience of a cultural specificity she better understood now: the Balinese habit of never saying ‘no’ outright. Instead, the locals used circuitous or abstract rebuffs, avoiding confrontation at all costs.

  Can you take me to the supermarket? It’s raining.

  Are you able to work this weekend? I have a ceremony.

  Would you like to come over? The traffic is terrible.

  But in her first week in Bali, Annie had yet to understand this. So she’d waved the woman off, heartened by the promise of hot water in the not-too-distant future. With her stomach cramping, she’d closed the bathroom door, desperate to use the toilet.

  It was a disastrous first ablution. After dealing with the diarrhoea, Annie somehow managed to saturate her pants with the water scooper. Then, having squatted down to relieve herself, she had trouble standing up again. Lacking the strength in her thighs to push herself up, Annie spent several excruciating seconds suspended in a half-squat, before, finally, sinking forwards and landing heavily on her knees. She crawled across the wet floor towards a towel rail affixed to the wall, then used that to lever herself up.

  It wasn’t just toileting that proved challenging in Bali, Annie soon discovered. Simply walking down the sidewalk—when there was, in fact, a sidewalk—involved a minefield of high steps, sudden holes and open drains. Not to mention trays of ric
e drying in the sun, rancid dog vomit and slippery, half-rotten banana leaves just waiting for a foreign foot. It was astounding to Annie to see how the dainty Balinese women seemed to move effortlessly around the chaos, laying out their offerings with infinite poise, often in the most treacherous places—on rickety bridges, at the intersections of busy roads, near precipitous edges of plunging gorges. Offerings were made wherever human beings were at risk of meeting an untimely death: to appease evil spirits, gratify good spirits, and maintain the cosmic equilibrium of tri hita karana.

  It was an elusive equilibrium, Annie had concluded after her first six months at BAF. For every good she encountered, there seemed to be twice as much evil. She’d started out working long days—and often nights—for the animals rescued and rehabilitated at BAF, but the operating conditions had slowly eroded her enthusiasm. For starters, the two paid veterinary staff—a young, slightly chubby vet named Putu, and his giggly vet assistant, Kadek—were unreliable at the best of times. On the days they did show up, the pair spent most of their time chatting and flirting and doing little more than the bare minimum required to keep BAF’s doors open.

  The two other foreign volunteers at BAF weren’t much better. One was Nathan, a young Australian taking a gap year before commencing his veterinary studies. He was gregarious and laid-back and lived only a short distance from BAF in the village of Kumbuh, but was almost entirely preoccupied with the state of the surf break at Keramas, or with the demands of his insecure Balinese girlfriend.

  Then there was Gabriela, an older Spanish woman, one of the facility’s founding donors. She seemed to spend much of her day holed up in the volunteer bedroom next to Annie’s, writing a memoir. Gabriela spoke only Spanish, which delighted the Balinese staffers, who’d adopted phrases including hola!, adiós and no comprendo. Gabriela’s lack of fluency in both English and Indonesian seemed to create an impenetrable linguistic bubble around her and she simply glided through the day, unbothered by many of the things that kept Annie galvanised.

  Such as the soiled litter trays, or animals being kept—even temporarily—in cages too small for them. Or the neonates that needed handfeeding first thing in the morning—a task that simply couldn’t wait until someone wandered in late. Or the necessity for quarantined animals to be kept in their quarters with the door closed—no exceptions!—and that dogs be walked twice daily. Not to mention that the floors be swept and mopped, the soap dispensers filled, the towels washed daily and the dogs fed quickly at mealtimes to minimise the brain-shattering barking.

  Within weeks of her arrival at BAF, Annie had drawn up a comprehensive daily timetable that divided responsibilities between paid staff and volunteers—a timetable that was subsequently ignored by everyone at BAF. The junior staff would only take orders from ‘Doctor Putu’, as they called him, and a roster was difficult to enforce with Nathan mostly absent (even when he was physically present) and Gabriela unreachable. The Spaniard cared little for tasks and lists; she spent most of her irregular shifts lifting animals from their cages, greeting them with an effusive embrace, then cooing at them in Spanish.

  In her first month of volunteering, Annie spoke tactfully to Doctor Putu about the desirability of maintaining a Western-style facility, if for no other reason than that BAF derived most of its funding from Western sources. He’d nodded and smiled and warmly concurred with her position, but his actions didn’t follow. He failed to observe even the simplest preventative measures for maintaining animal health—like basic hand-washing and autoclaving—while continuing to overprescribe the donated medicines sent in Styrofoam boxes from overseas. He was particularly zealous with a superseded pentobarbital product—branded ‘the green dream’ by Nathan—supplied by an anonymous pharmaceuticals company in Australia.

  In Annie’s second month on the job, a distressed German tourist had walked into BAF carrying a squirming hessian bag that she’d found in a stream behind her hotel. The tourist set down the bag, her eyes moist, then blurted, ‘I have a massage booked,’ before walking out again. With some trepidation, Annie opened the bag. A sable-coloured puppy looked up at her, curled on top of a pile of others. It didn’t growl, despite the fact that its leg was obviously broken. From behind her shoulder, Doctor Putu murmured, ‘Kasihan. Give them the green dream.’

  ‘Why?’ Annie demanded. ‘Some are alive.’

  ‘The ones underneath look unconscious.’ Doctor Putu shook his head. ‘The one on top has a broken leg. It will be hard to recover from that.’

  ‘I’ll nurse her then,’ said Annie, taking the puppy from the bag and cradling her protectively.

  Doctor Putu shrugged. ‘She is untung. I’ll take the others through. Kadek!’ He called for the vet nurse, then lifted the bag and carried it into the procedures room.

  As Annie nuzzled the puppy, a single tear slid down her cheek. The dog whimpered and licked it up, then managed to wag its crazy little sickle tail. Annie laughed to see it move, like a trembling handle attached to its furry bottom. The puppy would need surgery, a plaster cast, possibly eight to ten weeks in recovery. It would be a miracle if she made it through at all, Annie knew, in such substandard conditions.

  Several minutes later, the vet nurse returned, holding the empty bag. ‘They feel no pain now,’ she murmured.

  Annie’s heart heaved. ‘Kadek?’ she asked. ‘What does untung mean in English?’

  ‘Lucky,’ replied Kadek, carrying the sack towards the door.

  Annie hugged the puppy to her. ‘Untung,’ she breathed, inhaling the scent of the damp fur. ‘I’ll look after you.’

  Annie and Untung had been inseparable ever since. Not only had the puppy survived her operation, she’d recuperated more rapidly than anyone could have anticipated. Within weeks, Annie moved Untung into her bedroom, where she slept on a flat rattan basket and was handfed milk from a bottle. Then the puppy started eating strips of chicken and, after regaining some movement in her hind legs, began skidding playfully around BAF in her cast. When the cast finally came off, Annie instructed all BAF staff that under no circumstances was this dog to be placed in the ‘For Adoption’ cages in the front window.

  Untung was, Annie had often reflected since, the best thing that had happened to her in Bali. Whenever the humidity and pollution and general mayhem of life in the tropics became intolerable—and whenever she lay alone under the mosquito net in her room, missing her children, and especially Natalie—Annie would take Untung in her arms and remind herself that this was why she’d come to Bali. Her God-given mission was to protect the defenceless and speak for the voiceless. She’d become so attached to Untung that it had been a wrench to leave her in the care of Nathan for the Fearless retreat. Already Annie felt like stealing back to BAF to check on her.

  ‘Could we go and visit it?’ A female voice penetrated Annie’s thoughts. ‘During Fearless?’

  Annie turned, confused; it was the young woman who’d been smiling at her earlier.

  ‘Your animal shelter,’ the woman continued. ‘BAF, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’ Annie laughed. ‘That’s my early-onset dementia, sorry. I’d be thrilled if you’d visit.’

  Pak Tony saw the doctor off at the door and walked back towards the group. Annie noticed that Henry was sitting up now, with more colour in his cheeks.

  ‘That’s a great idea, Janelle,’ said Pak Tony, rejoining the group. ‘But Annie, I’ve just noticed something else that we might explore in your personal pow-wow.’

  ‘Oh?’ Annie felt vaguely concerned.

  ‘Did anyone hear how Annie mentioned her age three times while she was talking?’ Pak Tony didn’t wait for an answer. ‘First, she said that she was much older than everyone else. Then she complained about how her body feels as she ages. Now she’s just made a joke about dementia. None of this is very positive self-talk, is it? Do you think perhaps Annie is afraid of getting older?’

  Annie laughed dismissively.

  ‘Or maybe,’ he said, looking directly at Annie, ‘s
he’s afraid of what happens after getting old. Death is a very common fear. It’s the ultimate human conundrum. Why do we have to die, and what happens when we do? Does consciousness exist outside the body? Or does everything we’ve worked for, experienced and achieved in our life simply disappear when we do? These are questions we all need to answer for ourselves, or the fear of death may constrain our life.’

  Annie frowned, mildly offended. She was a person of faith: she didn’t fear dying. She knew exactly where she was going in the afterlife. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘but that’s not—’

  ‘Your fear of snakes could be masking a deeper fear of dying, Annie—which is what might happen if you get bitten by a snake.’

  Annie felt her ire building. How dare he put words in her mouth?

  ‘Consider it, anyway,’ Pak Tony said. ‘We’ll revisit it in your pow-wow.’

  Annie was indignant. Pak Tony was canvassing territory well beyond his remit. Did this self-styled guru really believe he had answers about eternity?

  Pak Tony turned his attention to the woman sitting next to Annie. ‘We have some downtime built into our schedule, Janelle. I’m sure we can manage an excursion to BAF.’ He smiled at her. ‘Now, why don’t you introduce yourself?’

  The hazel-eyed woman stood up. She had a symmetrical face framed by long, light-brown hair, and a smattering of sweet-looking beauty spots across her cheeks. Annie guessed she was in her late twenties.

  ‘I’m Janelle, from Moorabbin, in Melbourne, Australia,’ she started. ‘I’ve worked in consumer and business research since university, but I’m not really … fulfilling my potential, I suppose.’ She spoke clearly and deliberately, which was a welcome departure from the sibilant mumblings of Henry earlier.

  ‘And if I’m honest with myself,’ Janelle went on, ‘I’m not very happy a lot of the time. So I came on this retreat to find out why.’ As she spoke, the colour deepened in her cheeks.

  ‘There are many methods of change-making, Janelle,’ said Pak Tony. ‘Why Fearless?’