Tea and salak and bubur ayam

Tourists maraud his island like clattering macaques, demanding but oblivious. He is used to them and steeled for the season. Each morning he works with mops and brooms, washing in graceful arcs, shining floors, flooding a tide across tiles and wood, not looking up to see the quick ascent of the sun as it hurls off the night.

At evening, light slants through green palm shadows – and he peels mangoes, pounds chilli and turmeric for sambal, steams rice, fish and snake beans – making platters fit for greedy princelings. Sometimes, he is garrulous and shows teeth and pink gums in a laugh as white as a crescent moon as he talks of his mother and sisters, working in a timber shack on a muddied road in the tea mountains of Bandung, where they make soto ayam and nasi goreng and lumpiah for neighbours, handing orders through a window to the rutted street, for workers, toughs and school boys, who wait, drinking sweet red tea and smoking clove cigarettes, their smoke drifting up into the night from half-lit, stick-legged tables. But, alone at Pantai Saba, under a sky as blue-deep as a Bedegul lake, Agus watches stars crash whiter than waterfalls. Tomorrow, he must prepare food for guests: tea and salak and bubur ayam. After prayers, he stretches for bed, fluent as a wild cat.

Salak – snake fruit (named for its snake-like skin). Most popular fruit in Bali. Bubur ayam – chicken, rice porridge (like Chinese congee). Sambal – spicy (usually) hot condiment, served in small portions with food. Soto ayam – Indonesian chicken noodle soup. Nasi goreng – fried rice. Lumpia – fried pastries (like spring rolls).