"I thought yetis were... hogwash."
Happy-go-lucky Danian is surfing in Bali during term break when he finds himself smitten with Indira, a fervent climate activist. Eager to impress her and learn the true purpose of his life, he agrees to help find...
The two boys and their kidnapped monkey strolled through the iron gate. Tammy and Indira awaited them with a small, older man. His grey, curly hair touched his shoulders; white face painting gave him a shamanic look. He wore a brown sarong—the traditional garment was wrapped around his waist and stopped just above his worn-down Marvel-branded flip-flops. Plenty of necklaces were draped around his thin neck, veins popping out of the wrinkled, brown skin. He smiled from ear to ear. Both girls, however, looked perplexed at their friends' appearance as a trio.
Tammy introduced her uncle as Ida Bagus Putu Budi, which quite literally stood for the holy man, who was first born to his parents and full of wisdom. A name you probably had to earn yourself, thought Danian, and also quite hard to remember.
"You can call him Budi," Tammy said.
The older man welcomed them to his home in an Indonesian dialect, which Tammy translated. Unsure about local customs, Danian awkwardly handed over the cord and lured Barbarossa with yet more chocolate up onto the shoulder of an astonished looking Uncle Budi.
"Ubud. Monkey." Danian pointed at Barbarossa, who investigated Uncle Budi's necklaces with childlike curiosity.
Tammy's uncle nodded suspiciously and gestured for them to follow as he walked to his house with Tammy at his side and Barbarossa sitting on his shoulder.
Indira stood steadfast in her tracks.
Danian fantasised for a moment that she would lay her arms around his neck and plant a kiss on his cheek for courageously catching a wild monkey. Instead, she gave him a scathing look. If she were to lay her arms around his neck now, it would surely be not for a kiss but to strangle him.
"Why a monkey?" Indira hissed.
It felt like the low point in their still fragile, emerging relationship. Danian was now more confused than this morning when he'd received Indira's message asking him to bring a monkey from Ubud as a gift for Tammy's uncle.
"Cuz you said so."
He delved into his pocket to retrieve his phone and showed Indira her last message.
"I meant mooncake," she stumbled. "They sell them for all the Chinese tourists..." Her voice trailed off.
Naoto clapped his hands. "AI-powered word prediction still sucks at times."
To make up for the monkey blunder and always keen to show off his barista skills, Danian repeatedly insisted on making the coffee. Upon entering the small cave-like kitchen, he immediately regretted his persistence. The place was quite literally a black hole gravitating around a giant pre-historic stove. The only coffee equipment he could find in the candlelight was a pack of beans, a mortar with a pestle, and condensed milk. That presumably posed an insurmountable hurdle to his pursuit of outstanding latte art.
Luckily, he proved himself wrong. When Danian walked back into the living room, he balanced five coffee cups on a piece of wood, each sporting a quirky but distinguishable milk foam heart. It earned him a round of smiles and two thumbs up from Tammy's uncle. He sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, seemingly in a jolly mood, especially after Tammy explained to him the confusion around the little monkey.
"What do we do with Barbarossa?" Naoto asked.
Tammy translated, listened to her uncle, then cleared her throat. "People up here love their bush meat."
Danian almost dropped his cup. Naoto coughed. Only Indira kept her composure. She knew Tammy too well to fall for her joke.
"He's going to get a big family reunion, of course."
When they finished the coffee, Tammy's uncle pulled all the cups together in a circle, turned them over one by one and studied the sludge-like coffee grounds. He spent a brief moment reading his niece's and Indira's coffee sediments, apparently no surprises there. After he examined Naoto's, he scrutinised Danian's and raised a bushy eyebrow. Ostensibly content with his tasseography assessment, Uncle Budi turned to his niece for a bit of a monologue.
Tammy nodded when he'd finished and turned to her friends. "Uncle Budi says there is indeed a way he could help us. But it involves some sacred ancient knowledge which usually gets passed on to an initiated few only. He would like to know why you want to help us, guys?"
Ancient knowledge didn't sound like a private jet to Danian. Coincidentally, on the way up here, he'd contemplated that very question. And the answer turned out to be surprisingly simple: He wanted to find Kenzo to help him figure out his purpose in life and, by doing so, win Indira's heart. Two birds with one stone. Danian glanced at Naoto, who drummed nervously at the headphones around his neck, lips sealed. It seemed like Danian was in the lead on this one.
He took a deep breath. The cushion he was sitting on suddenly felt a lot less comfortable. Should he bend the truth a bit? To look less self-centred in the eyes of the wise old man? He decided that was a smart move and paraphrased his thoughts.
"I, um, we want to reunite Indira with her long-time mentor. His disappearance comes as a great shock to her and.... well, us, too."
Tammy gave him a funny look, then translated. Her uncle nodded and said something in return which Tammy related to the boys as what they will learn has to be kept a secret. She pretended to cut her throat with the fingers of her right hand, which shot shockwaves down Danian's spine.
"No Facebook," Uncle Budi said and made an unmistakable no-no sign with his left index finger.
Danian and Naoto nodded. Facebook was a bit old-school for them, but they got the point. Everyone stood up from their seating cushions, and Tammy's uncle saw them out.
Danian jokingly pointed at his flip-flops and asked, "Which superhero is your favourite?"
Without the need for a translation, Uncle Budi laughed. "Wonder Woman," he said and pointed at Indira and Tammy.
A young guy walked up to them, hugged Tammy and introduced himself in slightly accented English as Alit. Yet another cousin, thought Danian and began to suspect that cousin here was as broadly used as mate back home. After a brief dialogue with his grandfather, as Alit would later explain, he led the four friends onto the family temple. It occupied the lot between the main gate and the building that held the communal black hole of a kitchen. It boasted numerous shrines in varying sizes, each dedicated to a different god or goddess. Alit took his duties as nominated tour guide seriously, but Danian quickly surrendered to the sheer number of deities.
After a while, Uncle Budi reappeared with a plastic bag in one hand. His grey locks now peaked from under a shiny white headcloth, and he said something like, "Let go."
Before wishing them farewell, Alit promised to reunite little Barbarossa with his kin in the monkey forest first thing in the morning. Then the boys got into the Jeep, and Tammy's uncle climbed into the tiny pink car together with the girls.
Danian chuckled. "Do you think Uncle Budi knows what he's letting himself in for?"
Tammy gunned the engine.
"You mean, with helping us?" Naoto asked.
"No. Getting into the car with Lewis Hamilton's wanna-be sister!"
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