Chapter 41 Indonesian Stories (40)

"It's not hard to get you," he said, "I just have to beg and beg for a few weeks." "You didn't beg hard." "Did you not notice my pleading?" He told of the first night we met for a dance, how he saw me utterly smitten with that handsome Welsh guy, and how it turned out that made him feel depressed, thinking: "I tried to seduce this woman, and now that little boy is going to get her." Snatched away and causing a lot of trouble in her life - if only she knew how much love I was capable of giving her." He is capable.He was a natural caretaker, and I could feel him stepping into orbit around me, making me the direction his compass set and he became my cavalier.Felipe was the kind of man who desperately needed a woman in his life—not so that he could be taken care of, but someone to take care of, to give to.He hadn't had a relationship of this kind in his life since the end of his marriage, and he'd been leading an adrift life of late, but now he organized himself and surrounded me.It's a good thing to be treated like this, but it also scares me.Sometimes I hear him downstairs making me dinner while I read a book upstairs, listening to him humming a cheerful Brazilian samba and calling upstairs: "Honey—would you like another glass of wine?" And I I thought to myself, do I have the ability to be someone's sun, someone's everything?Am I focused enough at this point to be the center of someone else's life?I finally brought it up to him one night, and he said, "Did I ever ask you to be this, sweetheart? Did I ever ask you to be the center of my life?"

Immediately I felt ashamed of my ego for deciding that he wanted me to be with him forever so that he could pamper me all the way until the end of time. "I'm sorry," I said, "that's a little arrogant, isn't it?" "A little bit," he agreed, before kissing my ear, "but not seriously, really. Of course we have to talk about it, sweetheart, because the truth is—I love you like crazy." I reflexively His face turned pale, so he immediately joked, trying to dispel my doubts: "Of course, this is completely hypothetical." Then he said solemnly: "Look, I am fifty-two years old. Believe me, I have Know how the world works. I can see that you don't love me as much as I love you, but the truth is, I don't care. For some reason, I feel like I was in my children when they were young how you feel about them - they don't have a responsibility to love me, but I have a responsibility to love them. You can decide how you want to feel, but I love you and will always love you. Even if we never see each other again, you will Has brought me back to life, and that's enough. Of course, I'd love to share my life with you. The only problem is, I'm not sure how much life I can offer you in Bali."

That's something I've considered too.I had observed the expatriate social circle in Ubud town and was pretty sure that was not the life for me.The same characters can be seen everywhere in this town—Westerners who have been abused and worn out by life. They have left all their struggles and decided to exile Bali forever; Find a Balinese man or woman for company, drink before noon without reproach, export some furniture to someone for a little money.But basically what they're doing here is noticing that they're no longer being asked to do anything serious.Mind you, these people aren't trash.These people are very high-level, multi-national, talented and intelligent people.Yet it seems to me that everyone I meet here seems to have had some role in the past (usually "married" or "employed"); Something "ambition".Needless to say, he drank a lot of wine.

Of course, the beautiful town of Ubud in Bali is a great place to spend your days relaxing and ignoring the passing of time.I think it's similar to Key West in Florida or Oaxaca in Mexico.Most expatriates in Ubud, when you ask them how long they have lived here, the answer is not very sure.On the one hand, they are not sure how many years have passed since they moved to Bali; on the other hand, they are not sure that they actually live here.They belonged nowhere, adrift.Some people like to imagine that they are just hanging around here for a while, like idling the engine at the traffic light, waiting for the signal to change.Yet seventeen years later, you start to wonder... has anyone ever left?

It was a real treat to have their leisurely company, champagne and no words, during those long Sunday afternoon lunch hours.However, when I was on the scene, I felt more or less like Dorothy among the poppies. "Be careful! Don't fall asleep on this drowsy meadow, or you'll be drowsy all your life!"