When I started to build a house on this little piece of Bali, my contractor stood at the edge of the precipitous riverbank and said, “It’s a long way down.” It was impossible to see the river through the jungle and I could only hear it, faintly, after a heavy rain. When they began to build the house, the tukangs needed to drop 40 metres of pipe down the cliff face to reach the water.
Wayan has told me about the Orang Sungei, the ghostly River People who live near fast-flowing streams. The Balinese sometimes see them when they go to bathe, and strike up conversations with what seems to be a perfectly ordinary person… until he shimmers into smoke and disappears. The River People are generally friendly and sociable, but have been known to become angry when people throw rubbish down the riverbanks. Then they will drag the polluter down, sometimes to his death.
According to Wayan, the River People live parallel lives to the Balinese. They wear the same clothes, bathe in the river and keep chickens and dogs. Sometimes they visit nearby compounds where certain people can see them. They’re not fearsome, says Wayan, but she would rather not see one herself. You never know.
Oblivious of our unseen neighbours, the four dogs happily occupied themselves with chasing chickens and digging up rare vegetables, but never ventured down the riverbank. Then in the middle of September, Kasey began to visit the River People. Never one to miss a meal, he failed to turn up with the others at feeding time one night. After dark he bounced excitedly into my office, his short legs thick with mud that could only have come from the river. As I scrubbed him clean, I warned him of the dangers of the undercliff. But Kasey was a young dog of considerable character, charm and willfulness. Very much like a teenage boy, in fact. He brushed my advice aside with a flick of his silky ears.
A few evenings later, he disappeared down the riverbank just before dark. Between his excited yelps I could hear the furious shriek of a raseh, a mongoose-like creature that lived in the undercliff. Kasey loved a chase and had evidently followed his prey down the bank. When it was time for bed the other dogs filed into the house and settled on their cushions around the bedroom wall, but Kasey’s remained empty. I could hear him making unhappy noises in the distance.
It was beginning to rain a little as I set out for the end of the garden with a torch. The cliff edge was treacherous with fallen bamboo leaves and I couldn’t approach too closely. Even in daylight it’s impossible to see very far down, and the futile torch beam revealed only shadows of denser shadows. There was nothing to be done but go to bed and organize a search party in themorning. I slept fitfully, though, disturbed by dreams of broken legs and snake bite and the long drop to the river.
For five months Kasey had lived in that garden and had never shown any interest in the steep riverbank. It was as if the River People had enchanted him, luring him away from safety like unseen Pied Pipers to the dangerous phantom world of the undercliff.
At first light I was back at the cliff top. I could hear Kasey’s plaintive yelps now, far below. He sounded frightened. Pacing the edge of the bank, I called down to him, which only made him cry harder.
I phoned my trusty staff.
“
Kasey has been down in the river all night,” I reported, not knowing the word for cliff.
“
Aduh! Did he fall?”
”
Maybe. He can’t get back.”
“
Just wait, Ibu, we’re coming.”
They roared up on their motorcycle half an hour later. Nyoman donned his Wellington boots and cast about the edge for a suitable point of descent. Wayan made her special Missing Dog offering, then hung over the cliff edge clinging to a bamboo and calling out at intervals. Suddenly there was an answering shout from the river and a rapid exchange of Balinese. A bather had spotted 15 kilograms of wet, traumatized dog on a small outcrop high above the river.
I don’t know how Nyoman reached him. It was quite awhile before he staggered back into our garden with Kasey collapsed around his neck. While Wayan revived Nyoman with a cup of tea, I ministered to the dog. He wasn’t physically hurt, but very wet, shocked and dirty. He slumbered close to me all day, whimpering a little with bad dreams and only moving when I did.
He was a smart guy, so I figured he’d learned his lesson. But the next day I heard all four dogs baying down a different part of the bank. This time we could see the vegetation waving at the very edge of the 20-metre drop to the river.
Nyoman and I went down after them. It was horribly steep and there was very little to hang on to. Tapioca stems snapped off in my hand as I skidded down to land on one narrow ledge after another, then inch along them clinging to whatever vegetation was there. Finally I made my way to where I could see the dogs, scrambling and leaping perilously close to the edge.
They were on the hunt, and they flushed their prey as I watched. A young monitor lizard lumbered toward me in a panic through the brush. At first I thought it hadn’t seen me, then realized it had nowhere else to flee but practically across my feet, which it did, followed by four baying dogs who paid no attention to me whatever. It was as if they were bewitched. They didn’t return home for hours, then dropped down to sleep as if drugged.
The next morning was a radiant Sunday. I was working in the garden when Daisy went down the bank again after some unseen creature with Kasey in hot pursuit. Almost immediately I heard the unmistakable sound of his heavy form crashing through the undergrowth at the cliff edge. I knew at once that he had gone over. Except for Daisy’s excited barking, there was ominous silence.
It was like déjà vu to watch Nyoman stagger into the garden again under Kasey’s weight — but this time the dear golden head swung loosely from a broken neck.
We buried him in the garden, under flowering shrubs and climbing roses. Nyoman dug a deep grave while Wayan made offerings and I sat weeping on the grass.
“
He’s gone to the River People,” Wayan comforted me later as she brought a cup of tea. “He was special. They wanted him.”
But he hasn’t really left. I can still see him sprawled on the patio gazing out over the jungle with his intelligent brown eyes, or under my desk with his head pillowed on his paws. I sense him near my bed at night in his usual place. Wayan reports dreams of seeing us together in the garden. Perhaps he did visit the River People when he lived with me. And now that he’s gone to them, he comes back to keep me company.
