Wearing his slippers and his tourist t-shirt, he carried his little old leather briefcase over by the couple and stood there for a moment looking out at the waves. They were a little uncomfortable at first, afraid to look at him until he spoke to them.

"It is a beautiful day today. One can see all kinds of animals in the clouds. Not too hot with the wind blowing so early."

"Yes, it is wonderful today" the young woman said.

The man said nothing nor did he look at the man with the suitcase.

"Ah, you speak English, where are you from" he asked them.

The women told them "We're American. We've come from the U.S. on Holiday."

"What part of the U.S. are you from" he then asked them.

"New York" she said.

Then he asked them if they would like to see his nice souvenirs and jewelry. He told them he had very special things that couldn't be found in any stores. He opened up his briefcase and the girl looked surprised by all the fancy things inside.

At first she was suspicious, disbelieving that they were authentic. But as she studied them and held them, she began to recognize the qualities of real gems and gold and silver. It was an odd assortment, and they were held in place with raffia ties on a purple and pink velvet backing that was already worn and soiled and torn from years of use.

They had come for a holiday for a couple of weeks and were at the end of their stay. Beside the hotel that was part of their initial budget, they hadn't spent anything much at all, and she wanted to take some souvenirs and gifts back to the states.

At first the man didn't appear very interested, but when he saw his mate become so excited over the contents of the briefcase he decided it might be worthwhile to look it over more seriously. The girl was holding the golden necklace with the turtle pendant. Of all the jewelry in the case, it was by far the most beautiful and eye-catching. She had never seen anything like it before and she knew that it must have been a very valuable piece of jewelry.

She showed it to the young man and asked him if he liked it. He became more enthusiastic when he thought she really liked it. He was wanting to get her something to make amends to her, to make it up to her, but he had so far seen nothing adequate to the task. Everything else had seemed so cheap or overpriced or commonplace.

The confidence trickster knew he could get more for it on the market, but he also feared it might be stolen. He already carried it for a week and wanted to recoup the thousand he had paid for it. He told the girl when she asked him how much he wanted for it that normally it was priced at $2000 dollars, but for her he would ask only $1,500 dollars. He liked to deal with the Europeans and knew not to ask too much from them. He hated to deal with Chinese or other locals, or with people from the Middle East who counted and quibbled over every penny. But the best customers were the Japanese, who paid in cash almost any price he asked of them.

The girl didn't say anything but looked at the man for a moment. The man had about $6000 U.S. leftover from the original $7,500 he had saved for expenses for the trip. He was keen to bring some of it back with them, but at the same time he wanted to get something while they were there, especially something that might make both of them more happy together. They were leaving on the plane the next morning and he was growing desperate to try to patch things back up with his wife.

They hadn't any children yet, though they had both been trying for several years. There marriage seemed to be falling apart, especially when she had found out that he was taking a woman he worked with at his office out to lunch almost everyday. He told her that the other woman was just a good friend whom he liked to talk to about things, but this didn't matter much to his wife. His wife hadn't spoken to him for a week after that and was threatening to leave him and move back in with her sister.

They had arranged the vacation as a way of giving their marriage a second chance. It was supposed to be like a second Honeymoon, although it hadn't yet quite worked out that way.

He had changed two thousand five hundred dollars in traveler's checks the day before and had the cash in his wallet. They were planning to go downtown to buy some gold in the gold shops that afternoon, and to buy back some batik cloth and some other souvenirs.

The young man asked his wife if she liked the necklace. He could easily see that it was a very valuable piece of jewelry and that the $1500 dollars was not too much to pay for it. Plus he didn't like spending too much time shopping around with his wife and it would save them a couple of errands that last day. They talked for a couple of minutes like that between themselves, forgetting the man standing quietly and politely waiting in the sand. They knew that there would be no receipt and no possibility of returning the item if they found it defective or fake.

Finally they agreed and he took out is fat wallet and paid the man the full amount in fifty-dollar bills. The man was beside himself that he made a sale, but hid his feelings well.

The American woman put the necklace into her purse and it was not very long before they decided to go back to their room to get ready to go shopping downtown.

The hotel room was dark and quiet. They clicked on the overhead fan and she pulled the curtains back to the window. It was the second floor and it had a small balcony that overlooked the beach front with the Casuarina trees. It was an older hotel and the furniture was old and wobbly, but the room was spacious and the wind blew into the room and made it cool enough that they didn't require the air-conditioner.

They got a couple of cold beers out of the small refrigerator and sat in the chairs on the back balcony. She bought the necklace out of their purse and they both admired what they had bought. It was a silly, impulsive thing to do, but it was their last day and they felt like being a bit silly about things. The entire time they had watched their money and now they were leaving and they still had most of the money they had worked so hard to save just for the vacation.

Neither of them had ever traveled abroad before. It was their first time to the orient, and they found it strange and in many ways disappointing to their expectations. Everything was dirtier and less friendly than they realized. The local people would courteous, but reserved and even unfriendly. For almost the entire two weeks the only other people they were able to really talk with were a young German couple that had met the third day but who soon left.

The two weeks together seemed to have had a warming effect on their marriage. They were at least talking with one another more without arguing, although a couple of times they went for a whole day without speaking to one another. They talked of small and trivial things. They talked about the experiences they had, and things they remembered about their life back in the U.S. Both had their own careers that took them away from one another quite often, all it seemed they ever did anymore was just work and pay bills in a non stop daily round. They were usually too tired by the end of the day to do much with each other when they were both home.

They were talking with each other again, about little things, and they didn't once bring up or discuss the woman or their marriage or the virtues of having children. Last night they even had a great time in bed together, and it was the closest thing to being like their honeymoon that they had yet experienced on their vacation. It seemed like the wounds were slowly healing over, but they were leaving tomorrow and all this peace would soon come to an end and in a couple of days they would be back in their routines in their lives in the States.

Both of them felt like it was over too quickly. They hadn't enough time to work everything out yet. And even now there was no more time to worry about it or to just sit and relax, as they needed to catch the early afternoon taxi service from the Hotel to downtown so that they could take care of all their last minute shopping.

He went to take a shower and get dressed and she sat on the balcony looking at the gold chain. The monkey was sitting in a curious position, cross-legged like a human, and it had a funny expression on its face--not quite a smile upon its lips and human like eyes. Perhaps there was hope for their marriage after all. He had been really good to her the entire vacation, and she thought that maybe he could actually be trusted and he was telling the truth about the other woman after all. She thought that maybe they should go to a counselor or something like that when they got back, or to a doctor to see if there might be a problem why they were not able to conceive a child. She was already in her mid-thirties and she was becoming a little worried about it. She always wanted just a couple of kids--a boy and a girl would be best. It would be good for him too, making him think less about himself and becoming more responsible for their relationship. Not that he was never responsible, but he just liked to enjoy himself sometimes and have fun with his friends and the people at his work, none of whom she knew very well.

She admired the chain and the intricacy of its design. She held the chain in her hands and thought that it was very heavy. She wandered how pure it was. The pendant was unusually large too. She didn't really know that much about jade or gold or such things, but she had priced the jade and gold at the shops downtown a couple of times and realized how expensive even a small piece could be.

Yes, there might be a chance to patch things up and get started on a new footing in the relationship. She cherished the last few days together and was quite sad that now it was coming to a close so quickly. She didn't want to go back so soon to her old routine. She had grown tired of the drudgery and the same old faces. She didn't really care for the people whom she worked with and secretly envied her husband who seemed to make friends so easily with all his coworkers. He was basically a nice person. She had never known him to ever be mean to her or to deliberately hurt her in any way.

Perhaps she was being unfair to him in making more out of the incident than was actually there. She had felt confused and didn't know who or what to believe anymore. She often felt like she was being pulled in a hundred different directions and didn't have enough of her self left over.

He came out of the shower dripping wet with a towel around his waist. He finished off his now warm beer and tossed the can into the waste-basket by the small television set. He got his clothes and began to put them on.

She still loved him but only felt angry at him because he didn't seem to be paying any attention to her anymore. Either he was too busy with is job or he was talking and having a good time with his friends. Somehow things hadn't seemed to be going in the way that she used to think they should be. She wanted a family sitting around the dinner table in a comfortable house, like she remembered when she grew up. All it seemed to be anymore was one unexpected problem or headache or phone call or dinner date after another.

The hotel van drove them down to the shopping complex in the center of the town. He had worn the gold chain around his neck and tucked it under his shirt, because they thought that would be the safest place for it, short of putting it in the hotel safe. But they were hesitant to do this because they thought it may have been stolen or that people might start asking questions about where they had gotten such an expensive piece of jewelry. The van was air-conditioned and was comfortable to ride in. There was only an older Japanese couple riding with them.

They went down a few streets and bought some beautiful batik cloth and she bought herself a pretty dress. They picked up a few things for gifts and stopped at a nice Indian restaurant to have an early dinner. They liked the Indian food the best, and found the Chinese food strange. They didn't try much of the Chinese food, because they didn't know what it was or how to order it.

They decided to go back to the Hotel early and spend the evening on the beach. They thought they might try walking down to one of the bigger hotels and having a drink there. They waited for the bus at the bus depot by the shopping complex, and got on a crowded bus.

The sun was beginning to set by the time they got back to their room. They hurriedly packed the things they had bought into their suitcases along with the clothes they had neatly folded there, and they changed into their swim suits and put T-shirts on. They didn't know what to do with the necklace but she put it into her purse to carry by her side while they walked.

The usual feelings and distance had given way that evening. They were close together once again. They didn't know how long it would last, but at the moment they didn't really care. They walked up the beach for about half a mile, the surf and coarse white sand feeling cool beneath their bare feet. The sun was just going down against the distant horizon of the Indian ocean and the high clouds blazed red and orange. It had rained for almost the entire first week they were there, and the heavy surf had cut heavily into the sand of the beach. A few fishing boats were making their way back in the distance, otherwise the sea was quite calm and serene and the beach wide and flat at low tide. A horse with a young white girl on top trotted past them, kicking up sand in its tracks.

Darkness fell quickly. They turned and made their way back down the beach. They came to the fancy hotel that had a small garden with tables by the beach. They stopped there and ordered some drinks. The girl slung her purse over the back of her chair.

She got up to go to the restroom, forgetting her purse behind her chair. While she was gone her husband, also forgetting the purse, walked up to the bartender to pay the bill. When he returned to the table to wait for her, he noticed that the purse was missing. It was too dark to see beyond the lights of the circumference of the garden.

When she got back and discovered what had happened she began to cry. They reported the theft to the bartender who called the hotel management and security. Luckily for her all she had of any value in the bag was the gold chain. She kept her spending cash in a little change purse she wore around her neck and he kept their documents and airline tickets in his wallet. There was little else they could do except to go back. They had to get up early the next morning to catch their plane flight out and they decided not to make a big fuss over it.

They walked back to their hotel room, somewhat frightened by the dark shadows of the night. He was feeling angry at himself for being so stupid. They got back to there room and locked the door. The maid had been in and cleaned the place for them. They put in an early wake up call and ordered for a taxi to pick them up the next morning and take them to the airport.

They packed their things without saying too much to each other. They turned on the TV but there was not much on, so they both sat out on the balcony in the dark and drank a beer while they listened to the crash and thunder of the waves as they pounded the beach beneath the Casuarina trees. She told him to forget about the necklace. What was more important was that they were both talking to each other again and nothing else mattered at the moment.

Other than the loss of the necklace, the rest of their return journey went without a hitch.

Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.