The Paradise Guest House Read Free Page B

show them our country. It has been a very bad time for my business. Since the bombing. But soon the tourists return.”
    “Uncle has no work for a year,” Dewi says.
    “And now my business begins to grow,” he insists.
    “I’m in tourism, too. I work for an adventure-travel company,” Jamie says. “Since 9/11 we’ve had to develop a lot of trips in the United States and Canada. People don’t want to leave the country.”
    “What does this mean—adventure travel?” he asks.
    “Our clients want to be active while they travel. So we set up hikes and bike rides and river-rafting trips. They get to see the country in a more intimate way instead of driving through it on a tour bus.”
    “Is that reason you were here one year ago?” Nyoman asks. “With adventure travel tour?”
    “I was setting up a new tour. I had been here only a couple of days.”
    “Which club were you in?” he asks.
    “I was heading into Paddy’s Pub.”
    “My wife, she was in Sari Club.”
    Jamie puts her fork down. The sound it makes against her plate reverberates in the quiet garden.
    Dewi retreats a few steps, then turns and walks away.
    A blackbird perches on the edge of the table, and Nyoman swats at it. It flies away, squawking.
    “I am so sorry,” Jamie says finally. Of course, that’s why he’s a host. There are so many of them. Widows. Widowers. Survivors.
    She closes her eyes and sees the face of a blond Australian girl, her mouth open in an unending scream that still pierces Jamie’s sleep. The girl’s dress caught a lick of fire from a burning wall, and in an instant she was consumed by angry flames. Jamie pushes the image from her mind.
    “My wife will come back to me another time,” Nyoman says, his voice cheery. “Perhaps as my child.”
    “The Balinese believe in reincarnation?” Jamie asks. She should know. She should have learned about Bali. But she has kept herself busy, trekking in Chile, in Morocco, in Bhutan.
    And then she remembers an evening on the beach when Gabe explained the Balinese belief in reincarnation. His voicewas soft in her ear, and all around them candles flickered in the dark night. The moment fades as quickly as it appeared. Maybe that’s why she can’t trust her memory of Gabe. It’s as hard to catch as a lightning bug. And yet she feels the weight of it, pressing on her.
    Nyoman clears his throat. “Yes. Children are the reincarnation of their ancestors,” he tells her.
    “And that helps you in your loss?” Jamie asks.
    “Yes,” he says. “But there is still a small hole inside me that reminds me I am alone when once I was a man with a beautiful wife.”
    Jamie stands under the shower for a long time. Sleep will not come, and yet it’s already two A.M. When the hot water runs out, she lets the cold water sting her skin. Then she towels off and lies naked on the bed.
    There’s a fan overhead and it clicks as it circles, as if it catches on something. Jamie’s mind keeps getting caught on something, too. How did she escape memory for so long? She’s an expert at her job, Queen of Constant Motion. Her tour guests ask for longer hikes, higher mountains, more-challenging rivers, and she says: yes, yes, yes . They’re adrenaline junkies, and the minute the high wears off there’s another adventure that beckons.
    Now she lies still, like a dead woman. No, if she were dead, her mind wouldn’t race like this. Her heart wouldn’t drum in her chest.
    Her skin is slick with sweat. Why doesn’t the damn fan create a breeze in this room?
    Miguel pushes his way into her consciousness. She can almost see that petulant scowl on his face. Remember me .
    She had come to Bali with him a year ago, crazy in lust with the Chilean guide she had met in Torres del Paine six months before. She had convinced him to come along on her business trip—all the hotel rooms were paid for, and she had enough frequent-flier miles to get him a free flight.
    She remembers sex in the large white bed in the