I'm all tearful now, but trying not to show it. The depth of my relief—it's hard to explain. It takes even me by surprise. It's like this—it's like I was in a car accident, and my car went over a bridge and sank to the bottom of a river and I'd somehow managed to free myself from the sunken car by swimming through an open window and then I'd been frog-kicking and struggling to swim all the way up to the daylight through the cold, green water and I was almost out of oxygen and the arteries were bursting out of my neck and my cheeks were puffed with my last breath and then—GASP!—I broke through to the surface and took in huge gulps of air. And I survived. That gasp, that breaking through—this is what it feels like when I hear the Indonesian medicine man say, "You came back!" My relief is exactly that big.
I can't believe it worked.
"Yes, I came back," I say. "Of course I came back."
"I so happy!" he says. We're holding hands and he's wildly excited now. "I do not remember you at first! So long ago we meet! You look different now! So different from two years! Last time, you very sad-looking woman. Now—so happy! Like different person!"
The idea of this—the idea of a person looking so different after a mere two years have passed—seems to incite in him a shiver of giggles.
I give up trying to hide my tearfulness and just let it all spill over. "Yes, Ketut. I was very sad before. But life is better now."
"Last time you in bad divorce. No good." "No good," I confirm.
"Last time you have too much worry, too much sorrow. Last time, you look like sad old woman. Now you look like young girl. Last time you ugly! Now you pretty!"