Eat, Pray, Love

porch property with my most passionate assurances that I would be careful with his grand-
father’s wisdom. I rode into town to the shop with the Internet computers and photocopiers
and I gingerly duplicated every page, then had the new, clean photocopies bound in a nice
plastic folder. I brought the old and the new versions of the book back the next day before
noon. Ketut was astonished and delighted, so happy because he’s had that notebook, he
said, for fifty years. Which might literally mean “fifty years,” or might just mean “a really long
time.”
I asked if I could copy the rest of his notebooks, to keep that information safe, too. He held
out another limp, broken, shredded, gasping document filled with Balinese Sanskrit and com-
plicated sketches.
“Another patient!” he said.
“Let me heal it!” I replied.
This was another grand success. By the end of the week, I’d photocopied several of the
old manuscripts. Every day, Ketut called his wife over and showed her the new copies and he
was overjoyed. Her facial expression didn’t change at all, but she studied the evidence thor-
oughly.
And the next Monday when I came to visit, Nyomo brought me hot coffee, served in a jelly
jar. I watched her carry the drink across the courtyard on a china saucer, limping slowly on
the long journey from her kitchen to Ketut’s porch. I assumed the coffee was intended for Ke-
tut, but, no—he’d already had his coffee. This was for me. She’d prepared it for me. I tried to
thank her but she looked annoyed at my thanks, kind of swatted me away the way she swats
away the rooster who always tries to stand on her outdoor kitchen table when she’s preparing
lunch. But the next day she brought me a glass of coffee and a bowl of sugar on the side. And
the next day it was a glass of coffee, a bowl of sugar and a cold boiled potato. Every day that
week, she added a new treat. This was starting to feel like that childhood car trip alpha-
bet-memory game: “I’m going to Grandma’s house, and I’m bringing an apple... I’m going to
Grandma’s house and I’m bringing an apple and a balloon... I’m going to Grandma’s house
and I’m bringing an apple, a balloon, a cup of coffee in a jelly glass, a bowl of sugar and a
cold potato.. .”
Then, yesterday, I was standing in the courtyard, saying my good-byes to Ketut, and
Nyomo came shuffling past with her broom, sweeping and pretending not to be paying atten-
tion to everything that happens in her empire. I had my hands clasped behind my back as I
was standing there, and she came up behind me and took one of my hands in hers. She
fumbled through my hand like she was trying to untumble the combination on a lock and she
found my index finger. Then she wrapped her whole big, hard fist around that finger and gave
me this deep, long squeeze. I could feel her love pulsing through her power grip, right up into