Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser Read Free Book Online

Balinese people, our Western egotism erodes. Have you remarked their faces? So full of joy!” Then she asked how much Laura was paying for her room. Laura named the sum—a few Australian dollars. Corinne was dismayed. “But it is bourgeois to pay what they ask! That I can tell you without error. To respect their culture, you must not give more than half.”
    On Laura’s last evening on the island, Wayan, the owner of the losmen, inserted a tape of gamelan music into a cassette recorder and placed lanterns around the yard. His barefoot daughters began dancing, costumed in sarongs tucked up under their arms. Nimble as fish, their hands darted and curved. The smallest child wearied of the performance, broke off midstep and went away; she reappeared from the shadows later to pick up the dance. On a woven mat beside Laura and Corinne, the children’s grandmother had nodded off. When the tape came to an end, only the two visitors applauded.
    The next morning, when the last strap on her backpack was fastened, Laura looked around her room. Quite soon, it would be swept clean. Someone else, pillowed on fresh linen, would dream in her bed. The clouds would still press on the hilltops, the children’s voices would sound like rain. But the quilted green view would keep no trace of her gaze. The life of the place would flow on as if it had never known Laura Fraser. She dismissed the thought—it was plainly nonsense.
    When she had settled her bill, Laura followed Wayan into the family’s living quarters for farewells. A patch of color sang in the dimness there. It was a cardboard box, decorated with purple and yellow tulips, that had once held Kleenex. Laura had thrown it away the previous day. Now it displayed its pretty pattern on a shelf.
    Laura made a to-do of getting out her notebook and speaking to the children. In a flurry of shame, she wrote down their names and the family’s address. Corinne appeared, yawning in a white cotton nightie. She had already explained that she wouldn’t be staying in touch: “To travel is to say goodbye.”
    The rest of the day, vexatious with fumes and delays, barely registered with Laura. She was light-headed with schemes: she would write to every guidebook and tourist office recommending the losmen, she would pay for the education of the youngest girl. She would send the family…something marvelous and transforming, a new motorbike or an electric jug. She had taken photos of everyone: she would post them copies, for a start.
    But in India, Laura’s canisters of film disappeared from her pack while it was strapped to the roof of a bus. Months later, in London, the losmen children rose from an address in her notebook; it wasn’t too late, she could still send them little gifts. While hesitating over what to buy, she decided to enclose a letter, explaining the absence of photos, describing her adventures. So much had receded that loomed large when she was staying with the family: the old lady’s cataracts, Wayan’s plans for expanding the business, the children’s progress at school. The letter would inquire about all these things. She embarked on it at once and covered three pages with barely a pause. Then came a knock at her door or some other distraction. Laura had every intention of finishing the letter, buying the presents, posting the package. But she never did.

Laura, 1980 s
    SHE CLIMBED INTO AN autorickshaw outside the bus station in Pondicherry and gave the driver the name of the guesthouse she had chosen.
    “Oh yes, madam. Number eleven.”
    Thinking he had misunderstood, Laura repeated the name.
    “Yes, madam,” he said over his shoulder. “Number eleven, Lonely Planet.”
    Laura consulted the map in the travelers’ bible. The guesthouse was the eleventh item in the key.
      
    In a gloomy coffeehouse in Thanjavur, she ordered prudently milkless tea. Courting couples had sought refuge in the adjoining booths, where they nestled with decorum.
    A waiter making passes at