Pemuteran

   Traditional Balinese fishing boats bore the faces of animals. The bow was split like a mouth, with wide eyes above to help the fisherman spot and catch his prey. I am currently in the midst of many Balinese boats, but the only faces I see are human. The sand is black, like the skin of the mountains above us. Pillars of eruptions past, they are robed in jungle and crowned with clouds. I take deliberate steps, over stones and coral pieces, over bow lines and stern lines, sometimes entering the surf and other times the dry sand at the top of the beach, as I work my way into the nest of boats drawn up on the shore.
   I am beginning to wonder if I should even be here. Most of the boats are unattended, at rest for the night. A field to my right reveals soft-skinned cows nuzzling the grass and mingling under the palms. Fishnets hang from the limbs of nearby trees, and men talk or linger by their boats. The houses that the vessels and men belong to are emerging from the trees, along with women's and children's voices and thick blue smoke from one fire. Still I pick my way along.
   In the distance I see a pair of pale skinned people in swimsuits, pulling the same high-kneed maneuvers as I. If these gawky people can cross the line between resort-beachfront-unreality and subsistence village life, I can too. Besides, in situations like this I think of myself as Dad, who often will walk anywhere he's not clearly prohibited, in search of a specific view, his chin upturned as if to say "Are you really going to stop my curiosity?"
   The tide of boats abates as I cross the front of a resort. I jump over a few streams as they enter the sea. They are reminders of what lies inland, carrying water from the tops of those mountains. Also brought with the water are the wrappers and lids and potato chip bags that, in the sunset, scatter the beach with colors.
   Again I submerge myself in a maze of prows. I am at the place between sea and land, the fish and the cows, what the men do on the waves and the women do in their home. These things are knit together by the worn lines, taut and then lax in the rolling waves, by the beached and faceless keels, by the children crouched at the water's edge. It is these kids, whose curiosity is carried through in their wide brown eyes, at whom I grin unabashedly, and the mothers who smile after them.
   One man is standing knee deep in the water, coiling a fresh blue line by his boat. He asks me where I am going. I gesture to a point of land on my right and say, "Over there." He asks where I am staying and I gesture back across the bay, saying "Over there." We stand near two large boats which look like pirate ships to me, complete with masts and ladders and proud attitudes. Initially they were my destination, where I intended to practice my observational skills with an upturned chin. But, the point beckons.
   Last night around the same time I had an entirely different conversation. I had walked the other direction, toward the setting sun, and sat near a tree on the sand while sparrows danced sporadically around me. While I waited to get hit in the face by a bird, two figures walking down the beach came up to me- Balinese girls, teenagers, the bolder of whom asked if they could sit. Of course. I wondered what they liked about this spot- maybe I had occupied their hangout.
   We asked the usual questions- names, age, how long have you been here, where are you from, if I am traveling with a "boyfriend?" Complete with giggles. What a novel concept- an unattended white woman. Hence the curiosity and sit-down. A good thing, since I was as curious about them as they were about me. We stalled and started again several times. I told them how beautiful and messy it is here and that I enjoy it.
   "I think," she said, "that America is beautiful," both a question and an opinion, an opinion of something distant and unattainable, an opinion on the Elysian Fields. I ask if she's seen it in pictures and movies. She likes the Twilight movies, and Harry Potter. She asks what movies I like, and I again stall, unable to think of anything but Pulp Fiction. We talk some more about the States and religion and appearances. The sunset is burning at our shoulders.
   "Now, I have to go," she said. Time for the six o'clock ceremony.
   As I stood I looked after them. The sky bled gold from a point not far away, where the line of the sea and the brunt of the sky ran into the shore. Leaning trees and the slope of the sand were silhouetted, and two girls running side by side, slowing down to look back, and then skipping again toward the sun.
   Now, I am at the point to the east of our rendezvous tree and the pirate ships, looking at the next sunset. The sand is soft, and the clouds too, shrouding the roof of the sky and a far mountain where it emerges from the sea. The pink light and the dark bulky land diffuse across the humid air. A desert wail rises from the village-a mosque calling to prayer the many Muslims who have moved here from Java. I begin my trek back across the boats, past the children and wives and sun-darkened men. The water is becoming pink and purple. Village sounds fade to the clink of silverware and the quiet beach, punctuated with lamps and lounge chairs.
   I learned several words from the two Balinese girls, but now I only remember one. Chanti. It means beautiful.