Hotel Bali

1.-2

Dóra headed towards the main entrance first, then changed her mind and chose the steps leading towards the garden instead. She still couldn’t get over the fact that she was here, in this lush, tropical environment. Tall, leafy palm trees swayed in the garden; birds of paradise and other colorful, exotic plants sprung from their bases; verdant, dense shrubs lined the path; and the grass was pale green and thick, showing no sign that this was the middle of the dry season. Thanks to the irrigation system, of course, and perpetual maintenance gardening. When she first arrived here, she didn’t understand why the hotel required so many gardeners. Even now, she knew that there were at least twice as many than they actually needed, but that’s just how things were, and it was the same for all the jobs at the hotel. Initially, she’d tried to reform things. She tried to be tough. Later, she changed her mind, understanding that she had to try some other tactic, because the methods she had used in Europe or Australia hadn’t gotten her very far in this neck of the woods. Indeed, this was Indonesia, more precisely, the island of Bali, where things didn’t quite work the way she imagined they would.

Even now it was strange to her. She’d barely stepped off the paved path leading towards the pool, headed towards the bungalows, when the gardeners greeted her. When Dóra saw them for the first time after her arrival, sprawled out on the grass, talking and laughing, or watching the colorful, twittering birds gliding from bush to bush – all during working hours – well, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She had a very hard time accepting that this was the pace of work around here. The official explanation was that the stifling, humid air made you sluggish. Dóra had talked to a Chinese colleague of hers about this, and to Ian, an Australian hotel manager, who, before he’d taken on the management of the latest luxury resort at Nusa Dua, had been in charge of the Hard Rock Hotel on Kuta Beach. Both the Chinese colleague and Ian had been on Bali for a while, and did the best they could to pacify Dóra and talking her out of her reformation plans. There was no point in starting a revolution. She couldn’t fire her staff; it just wasn’t done on Bali. She would have to get used to the pace here.

But she didn’t take their advice, of course. She gave her employees an ultimatum, formulated precise job descriptions, and designated lengths for a “trial period.” At first, her staff smiled. Then, they laughed. But in the end, they became disgruntled. And they didn’t start working either faster or more effectively. One morning, Dóra woke up sensing that something wasn’t right. She didn’t hear the usual hubbub outside, but did hear a sort of chanting from a distance. The first place she checked was the restaurant. She saw that breakfast had not been prepared. There was no one behind the reception desk. Even the gardeners hadn’t begun their tasks. Leaves drifted on the pool’s surface. The cleaning carts were standing idle while the public areas should have been tidied hours ago. Every member of her staff was sitting on the steps of the main entrance, in between the two statues of deities dressed up in checkered attire. As it turned out, her employees were on strike and demonstrating against her. Miss Dora, Go Home! These were the words on their picket signs in English. Dóra stood at the top of the steps and stared at them. She could pretend to act tough, but Ian had been right. She would lose. Sure, she could hire another team, but could never change the Balinese mentality. It would be like trying to make a flexible reed out of a hard cliff. Even money wouldn’t motivate them. Dóra stood there at the top of the steps and gazed down at these people on strike against her, and it occurred to her that she’d never faced such an obstacle before. They never taught her how to deal with such a scenario at the training courses, the coaches never mentioned this, and even the group leaders never referred to it. And it needed to be dealt with immediately, here and now. It was seven-thirty on a January morning during peak season, and early rising hotel guests might appear at any moment, stomachs rumbling, asking for breakfast. They would wander into the restaurant and demand smoked salmon on a bed of ice, warm, crispy rolls, crab salad, cold cuts, and tropical fruits… Then they’d head out to the beach, where they’d want beach towels, clean lounge chairs, rice brandy, cocktails, and other beverages from the pool bar… And what about the new arrivals who would ask admittance to their rooms as soon as possible?

So Dóra made a choice. She spoke to her team in English, asking one of the receptionists to translate for those who didn’t understand.

“Alright. It looks like I have to give in. And I will. For now,” she said, falling silent for a moment. “That means I won’t change anything if things continue to function as I expect them to. I won’t lay anyone off, and I won’t lecture you for taking extra breaks. In return, I expect everyone to get to work right this minute, because if the guests start complaining about the services, we can all look for new jobs.”

This was the first defeat she suffered on Bali; nevertheless, the hotel functioned rather well from then on. And while the Balinese staff didn’t work any faster, the hotel guests got everything they expected from a five-star luxury resort in this Garden of Eden. They were extra patient with the dreamy-eyed local staff who seemed to move in slo-mo, perhaps because they felt like they had landed in the middle of an earthly paradise. After all, this was Bali, the Island of the Gods, and the charmed image of the island that had once existed in the minds of the general public slowly began to reinstate itself. Dóra had arrived on Bali well after 2002, which was the year a terrorist bombing on the main street of Kuta, the middle of the tourist area, had resulted in the death of several hundred tourists (mostly Australians) at the highly fashionable Sari Club. After this staggering act of violence, the number of visitors to Bali plummeted. Foreigners no longer believed that there could be any paradise on Earth where they could safely enjoy themselves – the precise goal the terrorists set out to achieve. But people are optimists, Dóra thought to herself with a smile, and they wanted to believe in Bali again. Tourism picked up, and locals once more began making their living from this field of business in great numbers. The various hotels and restaurants somehow survived the difficult years. Dóra remembered when she’d first arrived to the village of Canggu, on the shore of the Indian Ocean. The hotel next door had been nearly deserted. By now, it too was usually half-full. Under her management, the Dewata Resort, comprised of bungalows and a main building of rooms, had been yielding a modest profit for the proprietors for nearly six months.

“Hello, boss!” several gardeners called to her.

She waved to them with a smile and suddenly realized that she was no longer angered by their leisurely work pace. It seemed that slowly, after more than a year, she was starting to accept the fact that Bali was a different world.

Dóra continued her supervision round in the garden, and then headed down to the pool to make sure everything was running smoothly there too. At first, it had been strange that everything needed to be supervised personally; she couldn’t relay these small tasks to her inspectors. She’d realized that her employees accepted only her as their superior, especially if they saw that she kept her eye on everything.

After the rounds, she returned to her office and sat down in front of her computer. There was a crick in her neck. She must have slept the wrong position and cramped it. Her email inbox contained a message from Ian: “See you tonight? We could watch the sunset in Sanur… or Kuta. I hear last night’s lobster haul was especially good. How about a taste test?”

Dóra smiled. Since she’d moved to Bali, lobster was like fried chicken had been to her as a child. She was up for a lobster dinner anytime. Plus, Ian was a nice guy, and he didn’t speak that harsh Australian English. After she’d first moved to Sydney, she’d needed weeks to get used to it before she understood a single word.

Ian could have been a prospective love interest for Dóra, and she was working on, maybe, seeing him as one: the promise of something that might work out on a longer term. Not just longer. Long term. Period. But Dóra knew herself too well. At thirty-five, she had enough experience to know that her flighty spirit would take the reins and carry her off, just when she thought she could finally commit. This was part of the reason why she’d come to Bali, and why she’d accepted this job. Slowly over the years, she had moved further and further away from Hungary. Her first stop was Prague, followed by London and Brisbane, then by Sydney, until she landed in Indonesia. Bali seemed ideally suited to her flighty spirit. She was sure she could avoid the commitment trap here and wouldn’t need to fight off temptation. She knew even before she’d arrived that she – tall, fair-skinned, honey-blonde, bold and self-confident – wasn’t attracted to Balinese men. And she hadn’t been wrong. But then she met Ian. He was yet another man on the horizon. If the dreams plaguing her for the past seventeen years hadn’t started again, Ian might truly have been a promising love interest in her life.

But he never could be, because Péter’s face always appeared before her. Péter had been her true love interest, the promise of long term… which never came true. They never even had a chance. She’d looked up to him and wanted a future with him. It didn’t matter that she was only in her late teens and perhaps still very immature. If there was something she was sure of, it was the love she felt for Péter. She believed, imagined and hoped; she was positive that they would indeed have a future together. They would construct a life and a history together. But after the dream became a nightmare, they never ended up finding out what life might have been like together. Would they have been happy? Would their first night of passion hold out for a lifetime? Could the flare of love after a year-long platonic relationship really last? Dóra would never know. But she did know that Péter and this dream-turned-nightmare determined her relationships. They were the factors that made her unable to bond with anyone: as soon as her sensitive, female side emerged and showed any deeper interest in a man, her flighty spirit reared its head and doubted she would be happy with him on a long term basis, causing her to back out of the relationship. Dóra sometimes wondered if she should get professional help, but she didn’t really see the point. She already knew the root of her troubles without anyone having to tell her.

A new message flashed on her computer screen. It was from the travel agent sending her the e-tickets. Dóra opened the attachment and checked the arrival time. She would be arriving to Budapest on the evening of June 29th. She hadn’t been home for years. Her parents had recently visited her on Bali because she claimed to lack enough vacation time to get away. Of course, this was not true. She had plenty of vacation days at her disposal, but she only went to Budapest if there was no other way out. Each time she arrived to the Franz Liszt Airport, her stomach tightened up into a painful little ball. And when she wandered around the old neighborhood… she felt tense just thinking about it. She didn’t want to relive the pain again, the feelings of guilt, that heart-wrenching hopelessness she experienced each time she visited Hungary. She felt guilty about leaving her parents back when she was hardly more than a child, defiant and fearful, but staying was not an option.