Filsuf

“Oh my goodness, look at those statues!”

Standing behind her I smirked to myself. Throughout our trip in Bali, it has been Alejandro’s favourite phrase to exclaim with each new statue we saw. She first uttered it on the taxi ride from the airport, in reference to a forty-foot statue that made the central island of a roundabout. The second time she said it, on that same ride, actually cheered me up enough to forget about the taxi-driver who gleefully bolstered our fare mid-trip.

To defend her, these pair of statues deserved the praise. It was the first one we encountered just outside the Ubud Monkey Sanctuary. It displayed two figures, one standing and the other kneeling to the other. The figure standing was, I guessed, a goddess or queen, arms stretched out at an angle staring down at her subject in placid recognition. The figure kneeling was a man with simian qualities; tufted fur, a looping tail, and a protruding savage face.

“I’m not sure who she is,” I started, “But I think the one kneeling is meant to be Sun Wukong, the Monkey King”

“Very good sir” said our guide, a squat little man with a painted smile. “He was cheeky one. Like all of them here”

The Sanctuary was famously littered with monkeys, crab-eating macaques. Short, grey-haired little guys with sagacious white moustaches. Our first encounter with them was at the food stalls near the parking lot. A junior un-moustached macaque had approached Alejandro and held out it’s hand for food. Our guide, at the time looking for patrons, ran to us immediately and shooed the creature away.

“No, no, no. It’s best not to feed them here. The cheeky little thieves will keep coming,” he smiled and pointed to a scene behind us. Along the row of food stalls all the macaques were trying to run up to collect fruit. The store owners would pelt at them with slings and they quickly scrambled away.

While remembering this I started to feel a gentle pat on my leg. A junior monkey was playing at an object bulging in my pocket.

“Shoo! Shoo!” yelled our guide, threatening the monkey with his stick. The thief ran away and into the forest trees.

“It looks like a proposal, doesn’t it Alan?” spoke up Alejandro, still admiring the statues. She gave a suggestive look and started to follow the guide into the forest. Alejandro and I had been together for a little over six years. In that time we, like is true for most relationships, started communicating in two ways. The first was direct and stated clearly, the second was silent except for a few suggestive phrases that other was meant to apprehend completely. In the beginning she lectured me on my behaviour in this latter mode of conversing, which I was ignorant of. The latest topic was the idea of marriage. She had become restless about the topic and always tried to intimate to me about her frustration. To calm her, I had bought us tickets to her hometown in Spain scheduled in three months. I hoped that this would communicate to her: “Yes, we are going to get married. I have planned to do it surrounded by your family” She seemed to have received this message and has been mostly quiet about it, except for the occasional remark like the one she made now. I looked up at the statues and self-consciously inspected the object the monkey was trying to steal. The case for the ring was still resting snuggly. I watched her walk along the pathway. The best part about this second conversation is that I’ve gotten quite good at tricking her. “Yeah, I’m going to sneak-attack marry you, bitch”

The tour through the forest was stupendous. Along with the throngs of tourists and furred residents, the pathways were littered with statues of various monkeys. I Our guide took plenty of pictures for us. Along the way I couldn’t help noticing how aggressive each of these simulacrums were. Always wide-mouthed and snarling. I tried to find a moment to get Alejandro alone, but wherever she stood her attention was immediately arrested by some other thing and she charged immediately there. Bless her heart.

She walked over to a pile of fruit that macaques were gathering around to eat from. The larger ones would eat calmly while their smaller kin would stand anxiously away. Eventually one of the little monkeys was brave enough to make a quick scramble, but the larger would take a break from his food and strike at them.

“They’re very aggressive, aren’t they?” I said to our guide.

“They are. They do it for their women. The bigger one’s grab everything they can for their women. It causes the biggest fights amongst them”

“Our cousins indeed”

Further on the tour, I saw Alenjandro had stopped walking along the pathway and planted herself over the wooden fence, admiring the waterfall pouring down the river below. Our guide was busy talking to a colleague. I took a deep breath and approached Alejandro from the side.

She stared at the waterfall for a moment and turned to me, moving her hair out of her eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“What’s ‘what’?”

“What’s what’s whats what? Ha!”

“You’re happy, right? With how things are between us?”

She made of show of thinking deeply about it. “Happy? Meh, I could do better”

I put my hand in pocket and started to bend down. Her eyes widened. Suddenly our guide clapped me on the shoulder. “Over here! Come! Come!”

Alejandro followed the guide past me. I stood straight again and followed her and the cockblock.

“Over here, meet Filsuf!”

The guide pointed over the fence to a pool of water. A single tree branch stretched over the pool of water and terminated just over the centre. Sitting at the edge of this branch, staring down at its own reflection, was a lone monkey.

“He look’s sad,” said Alejandro.

“Filsuf is always sad. Smartest monkey here. Always alone though, never comes to visitors or family”

"You named him?” I asked.

“Yes, Filsuf- how do you say-wiseman? Like Socrates or Plato”

“Philosopher?”

“Yes! He is our philosopher. Always sitting over the pool and thinking”

Alejandro approached closer to the base of the tree and started calling to Filsuf.

“He’s not going to come, sweetie”. She ignored me and kept cooing to the monkey. Eventually the monkey did looks sideways at her. When he saw her his hunched body shot upright. While the tree branch was swinging, he started climbing to the base of the tree.

“He’s coming! Ahh!” she held out hand for the guide to give her some food. The guide, bewildered, gave her a banana. While she peeled the fruit and breaking it into pieces, I watched as Filsuf jumped onto the wooden fence and calmly waited for her. Her work done, she approached Filsuf and held up her palms with the banana. Filsuf ignored the food and stared up into her face with his big brown eyes.

“Come on little guy. Yum-yum” Alejandro said in her baby-voice, pretending to take a bite of the food. Filsuf meekly began taking the fruit and eating it. I took a picture of the interaction with my phone. After a while I took some fruit from our guide. I walked up next to the two and waited for Filsuf to finish. I held out my hands and waited patiently. Filsuf ignored me and kept staring up at Alejandro.

“I think he prefers you sweetie” I said and put the food in her hands. Immediately after offering him new portions, Filsuf again resumed eating meekly, never focusing away too long from Alejandro’s face.

I looked behind us. Several of the guides had stopped their groups to stare at the interaction. It started to make feel unnerved for some reason. I took another photo of Alejandro and Filsuf. While looking through the gallery, I saw the picture I took of the statues. I looked up from the image to the two of them, one kneeling before other. Filsuf leaned over and gently placed his hand in her palm and let it rest. I walked up behind her and rested my hand over her shoulder. Filsuf snapped his attention to my face. He stared at me intensely and started hissing.

“Oi! Away with you!” shouted our guide and threatened Kilsuf with his stick. Kilsuf leaped from the fence and bolted into the forest.

“Oh, poor little guy. He seemed nice”

The tour of the temple lasted another half-hour. I didn’t see any more signs of Filsuf, knowingly anyway. While searching for him I forgot that I was meant to propose and scolded myself. Before leaving the templ our guide took us to his office the process the photos he had taken for us.. Three other workers were sitting around glumly drinking their coffee. While our guide sat at his desk, I looked over his shoulder at the computer monitor. An image of Filsuf placing his hand in Alejandra’s was on screen.

“Hey may I ask, what’s so special about Filsuf?”

The guide turned to me with a mildly-panicked expression and swivelled in his chair to face the boss behind him. This elder gentleman sitting behind his desk had a bushy beard and glaring eyes. He seemed a little simian himself.

“You wish to know about Filsuf?” His eyes were watery and didn’t blink.

“Why do you consider him smart?”

The elder man stroked his beard for a moment pondering. After stroking he held out his hand.

“100, 000 rupiah. Insider tip”

I glared at him in disbelief and eventually handed him the money.

He pocketed the pink money. “Now let me see. Filsuf, he isn’t the same as the other ones” He leaned over the table and began thinking. “A couple of years ago, we kept our fruit behind a locked cage, combination-lock. One day we found the door opened”

“And you assumed it was Filsuf?”

The other guide standing behind me spoke up: “We kept the code written in our office. He likes to come in here and read the notices sometimes”

“He reads now?”

“So we changed the lock to a padlock and key. At the end of the day, I took the key home with me. Next morning, it’s gone” he clapped his hands together “Straight from my dresser. I found it later here, in the padlock to the cage”

I nodded sarcastically. “Wow”. I looked over to Alejandra to gage her reaction. She was listening attentively.

“Another time” the elder started, agitated, “A few years ago, we sold Filsuf. Some scientists from Malaysia took him. I went with them to the airport and saw the plane fly off. A few weeks later there was Filsuf, sitting over his favourite pool of water” The elder slumped into his chair.

“that’s not a bad story,” I started, “Do most visitors tip for it?”

The elder laughed. “Okay. Sir, how old do I look?”

I guessed in my head around late sixties.

“Early forties”

“I am seventy-three years old. When I started working here, I was a teenager. Even then, everyone knew about Filsuf”

                                                                                   ***

Alejandro and I had lunch at the resort. Near the entrance we patted the owner’s dog, a black Labrador. We went into our villa and while Alejandro was in the shower I quickly put the engagement ring in my luggage bag. The rest of the day consisted of nothing except going out to dance and retiring to our room.

“Hey Alan”

“What?”

And she kissed me. I quickly shut our blinds while she got undressed.

I woke up that night in a cold sweat. The dog barking had woken me up. I wearily looked ahead at the window to the front porch, suddenly I jolted upright.

“What is it, sweetie?” Alejandro asked tiredly.

“We’re not alone”

Through the curtain, shaded by the night outside I saw the outline of a body. Where it was standing it must’ve been near the porch fence, resting over it. I stared at its motionless frame. Without moving my head I scanned the room for my pants. When I located it on the floor near the bed I looked back up at the figure. I waited a moment and jumped out of the bed. I scrambled for my pants, put them on and ran outside. The figure near the porch fence was gone, but I saw the black dog chasing something across the garden. I zipped up and chased it through the villa.

The dog ran around a corner into the parking lot. I heard it yelp and he ran back whimpering past me. I went around and searched the area. No one was in the parking lot. I heard a rustle above me. In the garden bordering the fence were a few trees. I looked up at the branches and saw the wind rustling the leaves in the night-air.

                                                                              ***

Alejandro and I fought in the morning. She was complaining that I had become moody for some reason and wouldn’t tell her why. I couldn’t tell her that I thought one of the staff had stolen the ring from our luggage during breakfast. I complained privately to them but they insisted no one had gone into our rooms. I gave up on the idea of calling the police, knowing it probably wouldn’t achieve anything. Anyway, Alejandro and I fought and we decided to spend our last day in Bali privately for a couple of hours. I decided to go into town and have a massage.

I found a place hidden around a burger-shop. I went in and the lady brought me to a curtained-off area. She asked me to undress and went away to prepare. I denuded, wrapped the towel around me and laid on the table.

While laying there I kept fuming about the ring. I speculated on the idea that it wasn’t the staff who had taken it. I tried to think how someone could’ve broken in. The front door was locked, but the door to the bathroom was left wide open. It was an open area; a tall wooden fence kept our privacy. I couldn’t imagine a thief jumping over it, unless they were able to squeeze through the trees bordering the fence. Also, nothing else was stolen. My wallet was open and ID thrown across the floor. I have heard something about people learning your addresses for scams later, but couldn’t think of what.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard the masseuse squeal behind the curtain. I started to sit up when a body planted on my shoulders and pushed me down.

“Hey!” I protested when I felt a sharp bite into my ear. The masseuse ran in with a broom and swung at the body on top of me. I felt it jump off and she chased it outside. I sat up and pressed my hand across my aching ear. I felt the blood pouring down the side of my face.

She came back in and swore. “Bad monkey”

                                                                              ***

Alejandro and I were still indifferent to each other on the way home. The aching of my bandaged ear still throbbed at the airport. I was even more miffed when our flight was delayed. The lady only explained that the plane before ours couldn’t leave due to trouble with local wildlife. On the flight home I kept rubbing my ear.

 Alejandro and I were still silent on the taxi-ride home. I kept staring out of the window and thinking about what happened at the massage parlour. “Bad monkey” the lady had said. I wish I had gone back to the monkey sanctuary and asked more about Filsuf. I looked at my phone and stared at the photo of him and Alejandro. How looked up at her with his eyes. I felt there was more the elder worker had to say about Filsuf, but we left immediately after our photos were processed. Now that I thought about it, the guides all seemed a little anxious discussing the intelligent macaque. I wondered what other stories they might have shared.

“What?” Alejandro asked.

“Pardon?”

“You keep muttering something. Like ‘Feel-sooth’, ‘feel-sooth’. What is feel-sooth?”

“Nothing” I said bluntly. She rolled her eyes and returned to staring out the window.

We arrived home and went inside. “I got it” she said dryly and took our luggage upstairs. “Whatever” I muttered and went into the loungeroom. I started calling to our cat. “Come here Lady! Your parents are home!” I couldn’t find her. I decided she must’ve been in her regular hiding spot.

There was a space above the fridge behind the cabinets. When she discovered it, she liked to run up behind it and hide there. I reached over the fridge and stretched my hand out, I reeled back when I pressed my bandaged ear against the cabinet and switched sides. “Come here puss, puss”

I wiggled my hand and patted lightly coarse fur.

“Dammit, Blake”

Our neighbour was meant to be looking after her. I assumed she had gotten dirty and he couldn’t bother to wash her. I still tried to pat her behind the cabinet. I only felt the body start away. She usually licked my fingers when I did this.

I heard Alejandro scream upstairs. I took my hand away and ran upstairs into our bedroom. Alejandro launched at me and started kissing my face all over.

“Watch the bandage. What is it?” She continued kissing me.

“Oh sweetie. Yes, yes, yes! When did you leave it here?”

I pushed her away slightly. I looked at our bed and my blood froze. The throbbing in my ear reached intensity. The empty case was laying on our bed. Alejandro held up her hand and I saw the missing ring on her finger.