《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 103 (247):買房

Still, Wayan needs to buy a house, and I'm getting worried that it's not happening. I don't understand why it's not happening, but it absolutely needs to happen. Felipe and I have stepped in now. We found a realtor who could take us around and show us properties, but Wayan hasn't liked anything we've shown her. I keep telling her, "Wayan, it's important that we buy something. I'm leaving here in September, and I need to let my friends know before I leave that their money actually went into a home for you. And you need to get a roof over your head before you get evicted."

"Not so simple to buy land in Bali," she keeps telling me. "Not like to walk into a bar and buy a beer. Can take long time."

"We don't have a long time, Wayan."

She just shrugs, and I remember again about the Balinese concept of "rubber time," meaning that time is a very relative and bouncy idea. "Four weeks" doesn't really mean to Wayan what it means to me. One day to Wayan isn't necessarily composed of twenty-four hours, either; sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter, depending upon the spiritual and emotional nature of that day. As with my medicine man and his mysterious age, sometimes you count the days, sometimes you weigh them.

Meanwhile, it also turns out that I have completely underestimated how expensive it is to buy property in Bali. Because everything is so cheap here, you would assume that land is also undervalued, but that's a mistaken assumption. To buy land in Bali—especially in Ubud—can get almost as expensive as buying land in Westchester County, in Tokyo, or on Rodeo Drive. Which is completely illogical because once you own the property you can't make back your money on it in any traditionally logical way. You may pay approximately $25,000 for an aro of land (an aro is a land measurement roughly translating into English as: "Slightly bigger than the parking spot for an SUV"), and then you can build a little shop there where you will sell one batik sarong a day to one tourist a day for the rest of your life, for a profit of about seventy-five cents a hit. It's senseless.

But the Balinese value their land with a passion that extends beyond the reaches of eco-nomic sense. Since land ownership is traditionally the only wealth that Balinese recognize as legitimate, property is valued in the same way as the Masai value cattle or as my five-year-old niece values lip gloss: namely, that you cannot have enough of it, that once you have claimed it you must never let it go, and that all of it in the world should rightfully belong to you.

Moreover—as I discover throughout the month of August, during my Narnia-like voyage into the intricacies of Indonesian real estate—it's almost impossible to find out when land is actually for sale around here. Balinese who are selling land typically don't like other people to know that their land is up for sale. Now, you would think it might be advantageous to advertise this fact, but the Balinese don't see it that way. If you're a Balinese farmer and you're selling your land, it means you are desperate for cash, and this is humiliating. Also, if your neighbors and family find out that you actually sold some land, then they'll assume you came into some money, and everyone will be asking if they can borrow that money. So land becomes avail-able for sale only by . . . rumor. And all these land deals are executed under strange veils of secrecy and deception.

The Western expatriates around here—hearing that I'm trying to buy land for Wayan—start gathering around me, offering cautionary tales based on their own nightmarish experiences. They warn me that you can never really be certain what's going on when it comes to real estate around here. The land you are "buying" may not actually "belong" to the person who is "selling" it. The guy who showed you the property might not even be the owner, but only the disgruntled nephew of the owner, trying to get one over on his uncle because of some old family dispute. Don't expect that the boundaries of your property will ever be clear. The land you buy for your dream house may later be declared "too close to a temple" to allow a building permit (and it's difficult, in this small country with an estimated 20,000 temples, to find any land that is not too close to a temple).

可是大姐還是必須買房子，而我開始擔心這不會發生。我不清楚爲何未發生，但是非發生不可。斐利貝和我如今已插手干預。我們找到一名房地產經紀人，帶我們四處看地產，但大姐都不喜歡。我不斷告訴她："大姐，你非買不可。我九月離開這裏。在我離開前，必須讓我的朋友們知道他們的錢確實爲你買了家。而你也必須在店面被收回之前，有個棲身之地。"

"在巴厘島買地不太簡單，"她不斷告訴我，"可不像走進酒吧買杯啤酒。這有可能花上很長一段時間。"

"我們沒有很長一段時間，大姐。"

她只是聳聳肩，我再次想起巴釐人的"彈性時間"觀，亦即時間是相對性且彈性化的概念。"四個禮拜"對大姐的意義不見得和我相同。一天對大姐來說也不見得由二十四小時所組成；有時較長，有時較短，視當天的心情與情緒特性而定。就像我的藥師和他謎樣的年紀，有時計算日子，有時秤日子的重量。

同時，我也終於完全瞭解在巴厘島買地產相當花錢。由於這兒所有的東西都很便宜，使你以爲地價也很低，然而這卻是個錯誤的假設。在巴厘島——尤其在烏布鎮——買地幾乎可能像在威斯特郡、在東京，或在比佛利山莊名店街（RodeoDrive）買地一樣貴。這完全不合邏輯，因爲一旦擁有一塊地，你卻無法以任何傳統邏輯可想象的方式回收你的錢。你可能花了兩萬五千塊錢左右買一"阿羅"（aro）的地（"阿羅"是一種土地度量衡，大略"比休旅車停車位稍大一點"），而後你在那兒蓋一家小店面，每天賣一條蠟染紗龍裙給一位遊客，如此持續一生，每次獲利七角五分不到，毫無道理可言。

可是巴厘島人對其土地的熱愛，遠遠超越經濟邏輯可以理解的範圍。由於土地擁有權在傳統上是巴厘島人唯一認可的合法財富，如同馬塞族人對牛的看重或我的五歲外甥女對脣蜜的重視：也就是說，怎麼樣都不嫌多，一旦擁有，必然永遠不會放手，一切都名正言順歸你所有。

此外——我在八月期間深入研究錯綜複雜的印尼房地產後才發現——想搞清楚土地究竟何時出售，幾乎不可能。巴釐人出售土地通常不喜歡別人知道他們有地要賣。你認爲發佈這項消息不無好處，但巴釐人不做如是想。假如一位巴釐農民想賣地，意謂他急需現金，這是件羞恥的事。而且如果鄰居和家人發現你賣了地，他們會以爲你手頭寬裕，於是人人都想問你借錢。因此出售土地僅靠……口耳相傳。這些土地交易都祕密進行。

此地的西方海外人士聽說我想爲大姐買地，開始圍在我身邊告誡我，提供他們本身的不愉快經驗。他們警告我，關於此地的房地產事務，你永遠無法真實確知怎麼回事。你購買的土地可能不是賣方擁有的地。帶你看地的人甚至可能不是地主，而是地主憤憤不平的侄兒，只因爲昔日某件家庭糾紛而想報復伯父。不要期待你的地產界線一清二楚。你爲自己夢想中的家園所買來的土地，可能後來被宣佈爲"太接近寺廟"，因而無法取得建築許可（在這個寺廟估計多達兩萬間的小國家中，想找到一塊不太靠近寺廟的土地可不容易）。