At the cremation grounds all the carefully wrapped bundles of bones were removed from the tower and placed, each in its own wooden coffin, beneath a long shed. The offerings were piled, as if for lavish display, upon a low platform covered with mats, nearby, and then the whole was set ablaze.
Only one development marred our enjoyment of this happy island. This was an illness which laid Jessica low for several days. On the night after the cremation—which had been a swelteringly hot day filled with excitement and topped off by a meal of strange and exotic foods—Jessica complained that she “didn’t feel good.” I wasn’t too surprised, but we decided to spare her the long bus ride back to Benoa and arranged for Barbara and Jessica to take a room at Minnetta’s hotel for the night.
Gradually Jessica’s vague symptoms seemed to localize in a stiff neck and I set off for Benoa with Ted, sure that all she needed was a good night’s sleep to put her back on her feet.
Early the next morning, however, Barbara turned up at the boat, having left Jessica with her grandmother and caught the first bus from Den Pasar.
“She must be running a high fever,” she told me, with a slightly wild look in her eye. “It was like sleeping with a hot pad, but I didn’t have my thermometer or even aspirin with me!”
She dived below to consult her medical bible, The Ship’s Medicine Chest at Sea, which she had not, so far, been called upon to use. Now, however, she was in no way reassured to discover that both polio and meningitis may start with the symptoms of “stiff neck and fever.” Armed with thermometer, textbook, and an overnight case stuffed with every medication she thought she might need, Barbara set off again for the hotel.
By the time she got back Jessica’s fever had turned into a chill and Minnetta, finding no blankets available at the hotel, had commandeered every coat and sweater she could lay hands on and piled them all on top of her shivering charge. Jessica insisted that she had no headache, so Barbara gratefully scratched meningitis as a possibility but the dread of polio still lingered. Rai, as deeply concerned as the family, had been hovering around anxiously and Barbara now dispatched him on his bicycle to look for a qualified physician who could speak English.
Jessica, meanwhile, slept fitfully. Occasionally she woke up to report a new symptom or a change in one of her old ones, whereupon Barbara flew back to her “do-it-yourself” medical text and started her diagnosis all over. The stiff neck turned out to be “more of a sore throat, really” and the “buzzing in the head” was tracked down to a vagrant bluebottle fly.
The climax came when Jessica, her temperature soaring again, began to toss off sweaters and shawls and disclosed a stomach covered with bright red spots! “Sore throat ... fever ... and a rash!” At last Barbara felt that she had it pinned down. “Scarlet fever!”
She began the indicated medication. It was getting dark now, and Jessica, in delirium, began to talk wildly. Barbara’s nerve was just about to break when Rai returned to report that he had “heard of a doctor” who could speak English. The women bundled Jessica up, summoned a doh-ka, and off they started across town, escorted by Rai on his bicycle.