For years I’ve driven an elderly green Katana, unprepossessing
in appearance and not very comfortable. It’s very
difficult to get into the back seat and practically impossible
to get out again. The air conditioner doesn’t
work. It leaks in heavy rain. The petrol gauge is unreliable.
Over the years it has had some spectacular breakdowns, stranding
me on volcano rims, in isolated rice terraces and beside deserted
roads in the dark. But I forgive it, because help is
always nearby and the old car isn’t expensive to fix.
And it forgives me when I drive it into deep, camouflaged
holes or forget to fill up its leaky radiator. We have
a relationship.
These ubiquitous little cars are all over Bali. Economical
to run, they have a high wheel base that navigates potholes
well and a short turning radius that allows one to change
one’s mind between heartbeats. Marginally
amphibious, they can be driven through floods up to half a
metre deep. (Of course the brakes don’t work very
well after that.) Once I was driving along and the car
began to lose power. I kept gearing down but finally it ground
to a halt. I got out and saw that smoke was issuing from the
rear wheels; evidently something very dramatic had happened
to the axel. In the west this would have meant a heart-stoppingly
large bill at the mechanic. This particular repair cost
about $10.
They are very easy to break into which is excellent if, like
me, you are constantly locking yourself out of the car (but
less so if you’ve left the car for two minutes to take
a photo with all your worldly goods inside). I once
managed to lock myself out in a pouring rainstorm and called
Wayan to come and rescue me. A few minutes later she
roared up on her motorcycle, Niagara Falls rain cape flying
behind her. To my astonishment she walked over to the
car door and instantly opened it with her motorcycle key.
After all, she observed logically, they were both Suzukis.
I stopped leaving anything valuable in the car after that.
My first year in Bali, I didn’t understand the importance
of the Offerings to Metal Objects Day. I hardly spoke
any Indonesian and had no idea what Wayan was trying to explain
to me one afternoon before she went home. I nodded agreeably
to everything she said (don’t try this at home, it can
get you into a lot of trouble) and went out to meet a friend
for dinner. Quite soon my handphone rang.
“Ibu, where is the car?” demanded Wayan in very
slow Indonesian.
“At Indus, with me.”
There followed a long explanation I didn’t get,
concluding with, “The car should be here, I need to
make offerings.”
“Can’t you come and do it here?” I suggested.
There was a disapproving silence. Then, “When
are you coming home?”
My chicken curry had just been served, and I admitted through
its savoury fumes that it couldn’t be for at least an
hour. Wayan made a thoughtful noise and rang off.
Wayan never gets cross with me, but she always gets her way.
When I drove guiltily home quite a bit later, I found that
she had laid out a series of complicated offerings on a tray
in the house. Under each was a numbered scrap of paper
with written instructions about where it should go and in
what order. A few minutes later and only slightly the
worse for a couple of glasses of wine, I was out in the parking
lot in the pitch dark in sarong and sash with a flashlight
between my teeth, a pocket dictionary in one hand and Offering
Number One in the other. With some difficulty I deciphered
the notes, praying earnestly for an accident-free future as
I placed various little trays of flowers and incense on top
of and inside the car and attached others to the mirror, the
front fender and the door handle. The next day Wayan
happily informed me that I had done it perfectly. Ever
since then I’ve left this important job to the experts,
but I still occasionally arrive home late to find a tray with
an offering, a stick of incense and a note, ‘untuk mobil’.
I now perform this task with panache.
On the subject of offerings, whoever designs cars for the
Balinese market should include a wider shelf below the wind
shield. It is not quite large enough to accommodate
the round offering tray that’s periodically required
to ensure safe journeys. When driving up a steep hill,
it’s not uncommon to be blessed with a lapful of blossoms,
fruit and fragrant pandan leaves.
The old green car has hauled some strange cargoes including
dogs, geese, ducks, baby pigs and parrots. Of these,
only the ducks proved to be socially unreliable but fortunately
Nyoman had bedded them down in newspaper. Sundry children,
a washing machine and several jungles of potted and purloined
plants have been ferried around the island over the years.
It carries up to four slender Balinese ladies in the back
on the way to distant gamelan performances, or two large Australians
on the way to the pub.
My car gets around more than I do. Friends borrow it
to run errands. My staff takes it on high holidays to
visit distant relatives. It can be hard to explain
to visitors that no, I can’t pick them up this evening
because my car has to go back to its village for a ceremony.
When the car ran out of gas near Ibah one night I walked home
and left it there. Even before my staff arrived the
next morning, I’d had two phone calls and a knock at
the gate from Balinese acquaintances who wanted to know why
my car had spent the night in Campuan. Life in a small
town is indeed a goldfish bowl. But that’s reassuring,
in its way.
So we roll along together, the old car and I. A modest
vehicle, but loaded with character.
