The bamboo ladder sways. It feels as if the wooden staircase wants to knock Ketut away from her task when a light rain squall blows through the tree tops. Instinct makes her cling to the ladder till it settles. Then she continues to gather the clove bunches into a gunny sack. The scent is intoxicating, and brings her back to childhood. She spent many years as a young girl battling wind and gravity and swaying branches. One cheek still bears a white scar from a lost fight with a branch whip, just before the weather turned.

This feeling of being drunk on clove scent. It is almost welcome again.


***


She is named Ketut because she was fourth in birth order. Also, because her mother had borne nine children and thus there was a second fourth child, she is now known as Ketut Santi, Peaceful Ketut, so there would not be two Ketuts in the family.

Ten days after she returned to her village from the resort town of Kuta, she was already picking clove buds. She had traveled as far away as she could to leave this brittle ladder and the tall trees and poverty that once clung to her like a second skin of oily sweat.

She found her place in the exclusive Rumah Bali resort. Working in the kitchen. First as a dishwasher, then eventually as an assistant to the head chef. She was proud of her speed and her prep work. Last year, she even won the resort's carving contest. She sculpted a melon into an elaborate boat that held gifts for the gods. She brought the ribbon home with her, "FIRST PLACE" embroidered in tinsel. It now hung above the bed she shared with the second Ketut.

The young villagers were all returning from resorts and cities on bikes and buses and on foot. Planes were no longer full. Two cooks at her resort died of the virus, and another chef tested positive. The resort sent her home.

Parents had lost their children to modern life. They were used to being alone and struggled to keep their farms going. Now during homecomings, they wore great smiles that left deep rivets in sun-darkened faces. More land was cleared, more cloves picked at greater speed. More nicknames needed as siblings with the same name lived together once again.

"What is the resort like?" the second Ketut whispers, the five words making soft puffs in the first Ketut's ear.

"Hummm. People dress better, eat better. The tourists' beds are hung with curtains and the bathrooms are as big as our house. White people give orders and don't look you in the eye." Ketut Santi looks at their faded, torn coverlet. "But my bedsheets are clean and don't have holes. My belly can be full, if I want it to be. That's the best part."

"Will you go back?"

"Of course," she replies. The second Ketut sighs, sounding like their mother, and places a thin arm over the first Ketut's chest, as if to keep her older sister from fleeing in the night.


***


Gripping the ladder, Ketut descends with her laden sack. The showers evaporate and now the sun warms her hair. She joins her family in the grass. They separate leaves from buds. The coral buds will be dried on large mats in the sun, browning them for the world.

The virus feels far away. Yet she knows she might have brought it back to her village. That others will soon do so, if she hasn't.

They are used to disasters. To the earth moving, to its inner core erupting and clouding everything. But the earth moves and shakes. It warns you. Then you see smoke and lava. This new threat, they cannot hear, feel, or see it. Ketut has to remind herself that part of her name means "peaceful." There is little peace with constant worry.

Her older brother came back yesterday from Kubu, after losing his job as a porter. Wayan is now out gathering crabs and clams for dinner. He left in the early morning after the village cocks crowed him awake, wearing his bright striped work shirt. Their mother had tried to cheer him, offering her first born his favorite breakfast, black rice pudding. But still Wayan left sullen to the sea, on a motorbike he doesn't fully own. He will also bring back instant noodles and rice, maybe some sugar. The staples are being handed out to those who lost jobs.

Now that almost all the children are back home, there is barely enough to feed everyone. Soon, even the food aid will run out. They do not speak of this. The knowledge just hangs heavy in the tree tops and lies like a boulder under the rusty tin roof in the dark house.

Her finger touches her scar, runs down the raised length of it to her chin. She does this when she needs to remind herself that she has a life, that scars heal, that wounds become something other than what they were, attempts to destroy the bearer.

.