There Are No Coincidences

There are no Coincidences

Birthstone

I FELT CHEATED IN MY mid-teens when wearing a birthstone for good luck was all the rage. Born in April, I had the dubious honour of having a diamond as my birthstone. In those days everybody knew that the best way to get a diamond was to have it presented by a man on his knees, begging your hand in marriage. And then there was the cost. On my sixteenth birthday, my parents gave me a gold charm with the tiniest of diamond chips in it. With typical adolescent bravado, I proclaimed diamonds colourless and boring, thoroughly convincing myself that moonstones, garnets, and turquoise were far more interesting.

A decade later, in Indonesia, I was struggling to find a way to cover my modest expenses while following a meditation practice, and to that end I was teaching English in Central Java. A tip about a potentially lucrative private job took me one very wet monsoon afternoon to a gold shop near the batik market. I felt distinctly uncomfortable arriving drenched on my clunker of a bicycle at that fancy shop and was extremely embarrassed as I dripped water on the immaculate marble floor in front of gleamingly clean glass cases displaying high-end jewellery and precious stones. I Ping, the owner’s son, wanted to go to the Gemmological Institute of America to increase his skills and get accredited, so he needed classes twice a week to prepare for the TOEFL English competency exam. He was also an April baby, a few years my junior, and we became fast friends, which was good as I wasn’t a gifted grammar teacher, and I needed the income. Inevitably, the conversation practice part of the class took over, and we spoke for hours on end about just about everything, including more and more his passion for his work. Over time, as trust deepened, he began to draw out small white packets of folded paper from tiny pockets sewn into the waistband of his trousers. Carefully, he would open them and show me diamonds of all colours, cuts, and sizes. They were truly dazzling. I learned quite a bit about diamonds and came to recognize and appreciate the very good ones.

Another decade passed, and I was in Bali, involved in the burgeoning fashion industry. I had never married, so there had been no diamond engagement ring, and I still didn’t have a lucky birthstone. I Ping, long back from his studies in America, was a jeweller specializing in diamonds in Jakarta. Rex, a new friend and neighbour, supplied gems and diamonds locally. From time to time, he also pulled out small white packets and opened them carefully for my appreciative eye. They were out of my league and he knew it, but he enjoyed my enthusiasm.

There had been some tough years and difficult lessons as I travelled back and forth to Canada trying to make ends meet while continuing to learn from my beloved meditation guides. My fluency in the local language, Bahasa Indonesia[1], ensured the occasional Canadian Government contract, which went a long way in that third-world economy, and my study of the art of batik[2] took me into the world of textiles.

Five years earlier, when I was in Solo, batik-producer friends had asked me to help out a particularly obnoxious Australian customer of theirs. His Bali agent had quit quite suddenly, and he needed immediate help setting up some production of cutwork embroidered garments. He paid my airfare to Bali and my expenses, but not my time, assuring me instead of future generous remuneration. While in Java, he had travelled alone to Pekalongan on the north coast to place a trial order of 500 batik garments, as prices were much lower there than what he was paying in Solo. He asked me to go to Pekalongan, an uncomfortable six-hour journey, and check the order when it was ready, and I agreed. Usually, checking an order entailed randomly opening five to ten per cent of the garments and ensuring that the specs had been followed, the sizing was correct, and the garments were clean and properly packaged. There was nothing glamorous about this job as the factories were stiflingly hot and your eyes started seeing things after an hour of inspecting cloth. If there were any problems, you kept checking. In Pekalongan I checked all 500 garments and found many problems, the worst of which were oil stains from the sewing machines and small holes in the cloth. I had to reject the entire order. Not only was I not paid for the considerable time expended, but he even failed to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses for my travel and hotel. His attitude was that since he hadn’t received anything, he needn’t pay me. It was small change to him, but significant money in my reality. Then, after a few shipments for which I had to troubleshoot all sorts of problems, and just when things were finally progressing smoothly enough to increase the orders (and thereby increase my earnings), he cut me out of the Bali deal. Afterwards, I had plotted revenge and envisioned justice being served on him, but, since I hoped never to cross paths with him again, he had long since faded from my consciousness.

He resurfaced by way of a telex on a warm tropical morning. I was politely requested to ring him collect in Australia. My curiosity was piqued enough to make the long trek to the telephone office. It turned out he had received some garments with holes in a shipment from Bali and wondered if I would intervene on his behalf. It wouldn’t take long and, he assured me, he would pay me well.

I laughed and demanded one thousand US dollars in advance, and then I hung up. It was an outrageous amount for the job, but I knew that a trip to Bali would cost him at least twice that much, given his style of travel.

The telexes flew fast and furious. We spoke twice more, and I delighted in listening to and then refusing (at his expense) each counter-offer he made. I stood firm. I was a woman focused on revenge and a bit of mad money.

The money arrived a week later. The job was a piece of cake; the producers needed to make good and bent over backwards to accommodate me. We figured out a way to embroider around the holes to contain them and actually add to the look of the garments. They, too, had been instrumental in cutting me out of the job five years earlier and perhaps recognized an opportunity to clean their karma. I never even had to leave the comfort of my veranda as runners brought the work to me. Revenge was sweet.

The day the shipment left for Australia I ran into Rex, and once again those small white packets emerged. A half-carat diamond winked at me, I swear it did. For the first time ever, I asked him the price of a diamond.

One thousand US dollars, he replied.

I bought it on the spot. When I took the diamond to Jakarta, I Ping was impressed as I had paid what he, a dealer, would have paid for that particular stone. He arranged for a ring to be made. I wear that special diamond to this day. It still winks at me from time to time. Has it brought me luck? Well, as the years go by, I feel more and more that I am one of the luckiest people in the world, but that’s another story.

Border Crossings

I APPROACH BORDER CROSSINGS with some trepidation. It’s always been like this. Perhaps my extremely law-abiding father set the scene on early road trips to New York. Dad, a lawyer and, later in life, a judge, took customs limits seriously. He tried to ignore our various subterfuges, such as dog-earing new books, or wearing new clothes, sometimes layers of new clothes, when we approached the border. We could not ignore the heightened sense of tension as he prepared us for the crossing.

Don’t say anything unless you’re asked directly. Let me do the talking, Dad would say, and we put sisterly squabbles on hold and sat mutely in the back seat.

I don’t actually remember us encountering any real difficulties, other than having to eat an entire bag of forbidden oranges once, but the initial seeds of trepidation were sown.

Then, at age nineteen, I was almost refused entry into the US while travelling by air with my sixteen-year-old sister. We were separated and questioned because we had one-way tickets and next to no money. The attitude was rough and unfriendly, the process prolonged. Of course, our explanations jived that we were joining our parents at our maternal aunt’s funeral and driving back home with them. We showed our student cards and our satchels with homework. Finally, convinced that we were not runaways and perhaps tired of watching us sweat, they relented at the last minute, and we were able to run and breathlessly catch our plane.

How scary it felt! What power they wielded!

I TASTED THAT POWER in a wild and terrifying way in 1974 as I hitchhiked with a male companion from Mexico to Panama. We had left San Salvador at the crack of dawn and made our way through no man’s land, a remnant of the 1969 Soccer War, into and straight through Honduras, arriving at the Nicaraguan border late in the afternoon. Business was at a standstill at the cluster of simple buildings that comprised customs and immigration. A soccer match was in progress, and everyone was crowded around the sole radio. The border would reopen when the match finished.

We retired to the shade of the only other structure in that barren border area: a simple hut with a table and a few hammocks out front. A young couple served us refreshments of tea, rice, beans, and tortillas while their two children, a boy and a girl, watched our every move. In the ensuing hours, as dusk came and went, I befriended the little girl, engaging her in silly games and telling her stories in my rudimentary Spanish. When the border finally opened I bade her goodbye and, as a parting gift, gave her my pretty beaded bracelet.

But the atmosphere was unpleasant when we presented our passports; perhaps the favoured team had lost. I don’t know. In any case, our passports were put aside and we waited helplessly as all the other passports were stamped without delay. We watched as everyone else left, realizing that we were effectively stranded for the night in that wasteland.

There was a tension (or was it excitement?) palpably emanating from the official who finally gave us our stamped passports. He was deaf to my queries about the possibility of reaching the next town and just shrugged when I asked what we were supposed to do given the late hour. He didn’t look me in the eyes. The border was gearing down, and things were feeling creepy.

It was a moonless night, and, after leaving my pack with my companion, I sought out a bush behind which I could pee in privacy. Two guards exited the shed, lit up cigarettes, and stood under the bare bulb like actors on the stage of a darkened theatre.

"El jefe se vaya con la chica primera," one of them said.

"Bueno," the other replied with a lewd gesture and a smirk.

The boss will go first with the girl? What girl? That can only be me! I screamed internally.

The formerly unthinkable, but now obvious, plan revealed itself and I was filled with terror. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do.

As I fastened my pants, I drank in the beauty of the star-filled sky, then closed my eyes and prayed for protection. I was deep inside that sacred space when I felt a small hand take hold of mine and tug me towards the hut. Once there, I found my companion, who had been similarly guided by the little boy. Wordlessly, the father indicated that we should hide ourselves and our packs inside the windowless hut with the two females while he and his son climbed into the hammocks outside. The mother released a blanket from the nail, which had held it back, covering the door and plunging us into complete darkness. Nobody said a word, and somehow I don’t think anyone even breathed.

Before long, there was the muffled sound of commotion at the customs shed. We heard voices approaching and indecipherable shouted questions, which were answered by the seemingly sleepy voice of the father. The sounds faded back into the night and after a while, all was quiet. I spent a sleepless, terror-filled night in that hut. I think we all did. Just before dawn, the mother roused us and sent us on our way, in the dark, towards the town. Although no words were spoken, I know she understood the heartfelt thanks in my eyes. Better than I could ever imagine, she knew from what I had been saved.

CROSSING FRONTIERS provided many unusual adventures as I travelled with three friends overland from Greece to India in 1975. We were pretty clueless about Asia; everyday brought new experiences, and each border crossing was unique, often in the most unexpected way.

Our passage from Greece to Turkey by boat had to be delayed a day because skirmishes broke out between the Cypriots. As we tried to sleep in the boat’s cramped cabin, we were disconcerted to hear gunfire in the distance. It was coming from the direction we were headed. We were seven passengers, the other three being a bejeweled European woman and her two burly male companions of indeterminate provenance. All, we learned, were armed.

"You need ‘personal protection’ if you’re planning