a long dark-brown fringe that hangs over his eyes.
Eepooo stands in front of Pak with his head slightly bowed through either respect or fear. Pak doles out some foreign words which have the clipped tone of instruction, and a couple of notes from his back pocket. Eepooo, if that is his name, shoves the money in his shirt pocket, looks at me from under his fringe and flashes a set of impressively white large teeth in such a way that I can’t help but smile back. I think of Mowgli: Mowgli ripped out of The Jungle Book and put in the uniform of an errand boy, no doubt Baloo having been captured for his dancing skills and placed in a cage somewhere to amuse simple and mindless tourists.
I must be getting tired. My mind is going all over the place.
Still smiling, Mowgli goes out of the front door and boogies across the road, probably singing to himself, ‘Be doop doop do, I wanna be like you-oo.’
Knackered. I want a bed.
‘Food is coming. Come. I’ll show you the staffroom and give you your timetable. You will start at nine tomorrow morning.’ Pak walks off down the corridor.
Nine? Tomorrow morning? I look at the clock hanging behind the counter to make sure I haven’t crossed fewer time lines than I think I have. Fat boy behind the counter smiles in such a way that I don’t return it.
I follow Pak down the corridor and into a room on the left. A very tired New Me is about to take control of the situation and tell Pak there is no way he’s working tomorrow. As Old Me would say, there are moments different to this. Moments when he thinks very strongly about saying no to things he doesn’t want to do, but never actually does. Probably because he’s a gutless wimp of a piece of shit. So I am impressed and proud when New Me, being the opposite of his nemesis, opens his mouth and says, ‘No. Sorry. I’m not working tomorrow.’
Pak is standing next to a desk against the wall, one of about ten lining the room.
‘You will sit here.’
‘OK. But I’m not working tomorrow. Sorry, Pak, but I’m jetlagged and need to sleep.’
‘But I have you on the timetable for tomorrow. There are students.’
Old Me almost surfaces, but I swallow him down.
‘Sorry. Wednesday alright, but not tomorrow.’
‘I will have to ask another teacher to cover. He won’t like it, but…you are tired. I am always being told you Westerners are different, not used to work, and I need to understand. OK. You can start Wednesday. Class J1. Here is all the information you need.’ Red-faced, he picks up a folder on my desk, waves it at me and drops it again.
‘Thanks.’
‘And please, do not call me Pak. It is Pak Andy, like you say Mr Andy in English or Andy-san in Japan. Please show respect.’
‘Oh. OK, Pak Andy. Sorry.’ I guess I’ve pissed him off. Never mind.
‘Wait here. I have some work to do in my office. Epool will bring you food in a minute.’ He is gone from the staffroom. I look at the green folder and think about opening it. I can’t be arsed. I sit in my new chair and hope I can stay awake long enough for the food to arrive.
So Eepooo isn’t Eepooo but Epool. I prefer Mowgli.
Looking around, the room feels like an academic Mary Celeste. Papers and open textbooks lie arrayed on most desks, some pinned down by coffee mugs.
What has happened to the teachers? They must have made a rapid exit if the classes have only just finished. Perhaps there are no teachers. I am The Replacement. The Teacher.
I’m too tired to consider the god-almighty cock-up I might have made in coming here. What sort of idiot takes a job after a five-minute phone interview, in a country he knows nothing much about and on the other side of the world, in a school he’s never heard of? Me idiot. That’s who. But that’s what I’m about. I don’t care anymore. Or at least I try not to. I’m supposed to just do it. New Me just does it.
I lean my head on the desk, turned a little so I can feel the desk’s smooth cold on my cheek. Sleep. Need sleep. Sleep tonight. Relax tomorrow. I’ll be fine.
The air conditioning hums a lullaby on the wall above me, wafting cool air across my aching neck. My eyes close, open, close. Soothing on my neck. Laura gently runs her fingers over my nape and up into my hair; she rests her hand on the back of my head, fingers softly massaging my scalp while she gently whispers,
—Don’t worry, baby. Don’t worry.
Her breath sways the minuscule hairs in my ear back and forth like meadow grass, meadow grass that I’m lying in, the sweet smell of it in my nose. Her hands on my cheeks, she kisses my eyelids, my nose, my lips…
BANG.
I open my eyes, my hand clasps my mouth trying to hold her there but she is gone. I look around, not sure of where I am. Epool stands in the doorway, a bag of something in his hand, the smell of chilli swirling around him.
‘Food for you, mister.’ He makes a rotating hand movement in front of his mouth.
‘Thanks.’ I blink away any fragments of Laura and the meadow and hit my chest to silence the dead. Epool eyes me with the caution of a small, nervous child.
‘It’s OK. Very hungry,’ I say, and instead of my chest, I pat my gut. ‘Very, very hungry.’
‘Oh, gooood.’ The big toothy smile is back. ‘Good food here.’ And he brings over the bag and plonks it on the desk in front of me.
‘Noodles.’
‘Thank you Epool.’
‘No. Not Epool. Epool.’
‘Epool?’ I can hear no difference.
‘Wait, please.’ He takes a pen from the desk next to mine and pushes it down hard on a piece of paper. He starts moving the nib slowly and carefully across it.
I look at the finished piece, a little scratchy and wobbly but a word, a name, has made it out of the pen.
‘Ah, Iqpal.’
‘Yes, yes.’ He slaps me on the back and then double slaps his chest. ‘Iqpal.’
‘Nice to meet you, Iqpal.’ I offer him my hand. He looks at it as if he’s being given a present and then shakes it like it’s made of porcelain.
‘Iqpal.’ Pak, sod the respect, is back talking Indonesian to my new friend. Iqpal smiles and nods at me, then runs off to do whatever it is Pak has just told him to do.
I wonder what time they finish working here. The clock on the wall clicks to nine fifty-one, which is two fifty-one in the afternoon back home. I yawn. I haven’t slept in over a day and a half.
‘Come. I will take you to your house.’
House? That sounds promising. I pick up my bag of noodles and the folder off my desk and follow Pak back to his car.
‘Where are the other teachers?’ I ask as I climb back in, placing the food between my feet.
‘The driver has already taken them home. They left directly after class.’
‘A driver? What time does he pick up in the mornings?’
‘No pickup. Only take home. You must take a bus or taxi to work in the mornings. Taxi is safer.’
We slide off the forecourt into the slow-moving traffic. Pak starts beeping his horn and steers the car in any direction he sees an opening. Multicoloured cycle-rickshaws are steered out of the way at full leg-power by skinny men in dirty shorts, T-shirts, and sweat-stained caps. They ring their bells and shout while taking hands off handlebars to shake fists.
‘How will I find the bus?’
‘You are sharing with Kim, another teacher. Kim will tell you how to get to work. Don’t worry.’
Don’t