The Little Boat

At sunrise, the water off Sanur Beach changed so slowly from blue to gold that Asha could not decide when it had happened. A traditional outrigger boat rested beyond the shallows, its narrow hull and slender supports dark against the brightening sea. Along the sand, someone was drawing a fishing boat toward the water; farther behind her, cups clinked at a stall opening for the day. She had slipped out before her brother's family woke, grateful for a morning that belonged entirely to her. Then a man walked past carrying another boat, small enough to fit beneath his arm.

It was a wooden model, perhaps two feet long, with blue outriggers and a little red prow. The man put it on a folded towel above the wet sand, stepped back, and compared it with the boat offshore. He shifted it a few inches, considered the arrangement, then shook his head. Asha stopped beside the pedestrian path, trying to decide whether curiosity justified interrupting him. He noticed her before she reached a conclusion and asked whether it looked crooked.

The model was level. The boat beyond it was turning slightly on its mooring, which made the comparison difficult. Asha explained this and watched his expression clear. He had been adjusting the wrong one. She laughed when he looked out to sea with a suggestion that the larger boat might cooperate for a minute. He was about forty, with closely cut hair, an old cotton shirt, and a faint stripe of blue paint beside his wrist.

His name was Wayan. He was an electrical engineer working in Surabaya, back in Bali for a family visit. The model belonged to his father, although the paint on Wayan's wrist suggested he had been improving it. When Asha asked whether he intended to sail it, he looked almost alarmed. It had never been in the sea, he said, and he was not going to be responsible for changing that. He placed it farther from the incoming water before asking her opinion of the red prow.

Asha was thirty-eight and managed a bookshop in Melbourne. Her brother had lived in Bali for several years, and she came often enough to know that a family holiday could leave very little time for seeing the place. She loved her nieces. She also loved the hour before they began asking what everyone was going to do next. Wayan understood. His relatives had filled his visit with meals, errands, and affectionate inquiries about a personal life that remained inconveniently unremarkable.

“I came out here to spend time with someone who wouldn't ask when I'm getting married,” he said, looking at the model. “So far, it's been excellent company.”

Asha liked his grin, and the fact that he allowed the joke to rest there. He did not turn the conversation into an inquiry about her own status. They stood watching the larger boat come around again. This time the outlines nearly matched, although the little red prow still looked too high. Wayan knelt beside the towel, and Asha crouched with him to see it from the same angle. Their shoulders touched. The contact lasted only a moment, but it made her suddenly aware of how close his face was to hers.

He told her the model had been in his family for longer than he had been alive. His father kept it on a shelf and resisted suggestions that it might need dusting. Wayan had offered to repair a damaged outrigger during this visit, and had become increasingly absorbed in getting it right. He had brought it here to compare it with his uncle's boat, which had apparently inspired it. The puzzling detail was a loose seat with two little grooves in it. He could not see anything similar on the real boat, and he was reluctant to glue down something his father might have made that way on purpose.

Asha examined it without touching. On the inside of the narrow hull, beneath a removable seat, she could see a small patch of color. She pointed it out. Wayan lifted the seat and found a folded piece of cloth wrapped around two tiny carved figures. One wore a faded blue shirt; the other had a green skirt. They were simple and slightly awkward, their painted faces almost worn away, but their hands fitted together when he placed them side by side.

He sat back on his heels, suddenly smiling. He remembered his mother showing them to him when he was small, before he had become too interested in the boat to pay attention to its passengers. The model had been his father's present to her when they were engaged. His uncle's real boat was merely the convenient subject. The grooves held the figures upright, and the space beneath the seat kept them safe. What Wayan had almost repaired was the place his father had made for the two of them.

Asha watched him put the two figures carefully on the seat. His parents were still together, still disagreeing over the position of that shelf. He wanted to take a picture of the boat with its passengers restored and bring the whole thing home before his mother noticed it missing. Nothing was lost, then, except a little paint and a son's recollection of being told something lovely. Asha found the relief unexpectedly tender.

Wayan took the photograph and packed the model securely into its canvas carrier. They returned to the path, where a silver-haired man with amber eyes and a cobalt-blue scarf passed close by, carrying his sandals and looking toward the sea. The morning had brightened enough for the water to show turquoise beneath the gold. Asha could feel the warmth arriving on her forearms. She and Wayan walked slowly, making room for a cyclist and then falling into step again.

He asked which books she most enjoyed putting into someone's hands. She asked what he had loved about leaving home and what he still missed. Their answers wandered, acquiring small detours neither tried to correct. When she admitted that she had noticed him before noticing the model's crooked prow, he stopped beside a low wall and looked at her with such open pleasure that she was glad she had said it.

“I'm very glad you stopped,” he said.

Asha set her hand against his arm. She told him she would like to see him again while they were both here, and they chose that afternoon for a walk along the beach. Then she rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek. He turned toward her slowly, giving her time to move away. She stayed, and their next kiss was a quiet, mutual decision. His free hand rested at her waist; hers found the back of his shoulder. When they parted, his smile was less composed than before, and she liked it even better.

They exchanged numbers, then walked toward the lane that led to her brother's house. At the turning, Wayan shifted the canvas carrier so he could take her hand. Through its open top she could still see the two little passengers sitting together. Asha touched his fingers once more before letting go, already looking forward to the hour when he would come back without the boat.