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by Leila S. Chudori

  Surti Anandari was a stem of jasmine; she was a bright star in the midnight sky.

  One day I waited for Surti outside her classroom. As usual when she saw me, she opened her hand to receive from me a slip of paper on which was written a romantic verse or scene. I smiled and when she raised her hand towards me, I took it and clasped it tightly. Startled, she instantly stopped walking, and looked at me in question. Lowering my lips to her ear, I whispered, “I want to be with you. Forever.”

  During the first few months of my relationship with Surti, things went along pretty much the way they usually did among young men and women at that time: politely, guilelessly, and chastely. Any time our breaths began to join as one, we’d suddenly hear Risjaf or Tjai cough, causing us to draw apart from each other again. Sometimes, Surti and her friends would come to our boarding house with Rukmini and Ningsih, “just to bring us cookies they had made” or something on that order; but, usually, after the briefest of conversations, they would immediately take their leave. “It’s not proper for an unmarried woman to be seen visiting a man,” Surti reminded me.

  And whenever this trio of young ladies did stop by, all of a sudden our older and more dashing neighbors, Mas Nugroho and Mas Hananto, would also appear, “just to borrow some glasses or a platter” (which I knew they’d never use) or to help me cook up some fried rice. Even though my fried rice was famous among the students who boarded on Jalan Solo, it was obvious that our neighbors were coming not to dine but to feast on the sight of the three young women. Crafty devils that they were, they’d pretend to help by grinding chilies or preparing the seasoning by mixing shrimp paste with oil, but all the while they would be shuttling back and forth between the kitchen and the living room where the three girls were seated, a farce that would end with the batch of them giggling together. Meanwhile, Risjaf and Tjai would find themselves staring, hopelessly frustrated by the sight. The three of us were just college students, whereas Mas Nugroho and Mas Hananto were grown men with mustaches they could shape like that of Clark Gable.

  Through their gambit of borrowing things and “giving Dimas a hand” at our boarding house, Mas Nug and Mas Hananto succeeded in persuading the three women to visit their den of iniquity. Mas Nug, who had a much larger expendable income than we as students had, owned a hi-fidelity player and would play records for the three womem. For that reason, the trio willingly spent what I thought was an inordinate amount of time at the paviliun listening to the songs of Sam Saimun and others. Mas Nug, who couldn’t carry a tune to save his life, would always start singing along, disrupting the glorious sound of Saimun’s voice. Mas Hananto owned a radio and sometimes we’d hear the girls laughing at the comic repartee of Bing Slamet and Adi Karso on their show at Radio Republic Indonesia.

  Initially, I thought that Mas Hananto was attracted to Rukmini with the ruby red lips. I knew that Risjaf was almost epileptic about this but was trying not to show his jealousy. Only later I realized that Mas Hananto was in fact helping to win over Rukmini for Mas Nugroho. As the competition between Risjaf and Mas Nug to capture Rukmini’s affections heated up, I of course stood by Risjaf. As his friend, I was bound to support him.

  One day I found Risjaf rummaging through books on my work table.

  “I want to borrow some of your poetry books,” he said. His eyes emitted a deep light of sincerity.

  What? Here was this tall and very handsome man from Riau with thick wavy hair— a living and breathing testimony to masculinity—looking for books of poetry. A man with his build and temperament didn’t need poetry to conquer a woman’s heart.

  I took Risjaf firmly by the shoulders and turned him around until he was facing me. “Listen to me, Sjaf! Rukmini likes you. She’s always liked you. There’s no need to woo her with poetry. Just ask her for a date.”

  Risjaf stared at me, wide-eyed. “That’s easy for you to say, Dimas. You’re good with words. But whenever I see Rukmini, my heart stops beating, and I don’t know what to say.”

  Oh, Risjaf… I told my friend to sit down and take a deep breath. Obediently he sat down on the edge of the bed. His thick wavy hair was disheveled and big drops of sweat rolled from his forehead and down his cheeks. Risjaf, this Malay man with such a fine heart, was completely unaware of his own charm.

  “Risjaf, just look into Rukmini’s eyes and tell her that you want to ask her out.”

  Risjaf’s mouth dropped open. “Where?”

  Good God! How could such a handsome face exhibit a mien of such stupidity?

  “Out! On a date!” I almost yelled. “Take her to see Solo by Night at the Metropole; invite her to dinner at Tan Goei; treat her to a milkshake at Baltic Ice Cream; or, if you really want to save your money, go for a walk with her at Zandvoort.”

  “Zandvoort…Zandvoort…” With his mouth still agape, Risjaf repeated the word over and over.

  “In Cilincing, stupid!” I half shouted at him.

  “You talk to her first, will you, please?” Now he was pleading with me.

  My God.

  For two long and painful hours I mentored this man who was so handsome but so naïve about women. Risjaf nodded at my instructions and wrote down all the places he might take Rukmini. After that, he quickly bathed and then changed into a blue dress shirt. He glossed his hair with pomade and combed it neatly. He folded the notes he had made during my primer course and put them in his trouser pocket—as if they were some kind of amulet that would help him to speak fluently.

  With Surti spending the weekend at her parents’ home in Bogor, I myself was “on vacation” that night, so I gave my blessings to Risjaf, wished him the best, and made ready for a night of reading. Risjaf strode from the house with an almost confident air.

  No more than a half hour later, I heard a weak knock on my door. Who could that be, I wondered. Opening the door, I found Risjaf, who came into my room with his head drooping like a limp dish rag. He let his body fall onto my bed. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling overhead.

  I looked down at him. “What is it, Sjaf?”

  “I went to her place…”

  “And so?”

  “So she wasn’t there.”

  “Then you can go back another time.”

  “She’d gone out with another man!” Risjaf cried.

  I was silent, not knowing what to say. My heart poured out for him.

  Risjaf stared at me, his eyes reddened with anger or perhaps pain.

  He spoke slowly and in a low voice, but the sound in my ears was like the ticking of a bomb.

  “The lady at the boarding house told me that Rukmini had gone out with a man named Nugroho.”

  That night I let Risjaf sprawl on my bed as he played the same song repeatedly on his harmonica, the Dutch tune “Als de Orchideeën Bloeien.” After about the fifth time, I was ready to wrest the harmonica from his hand and throttle him with it, but the tears welling in his eyes made me feel sorry for him. And after midnight, when the orchid still hadn’t bloomed, Risjaf, in his now-crumpled blue shirt, finally fell asleep and began to snore. I stretched out on the floor and stared at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. There were still many things about women that I, too, did not understand.

  In the weeks that followed, I was Risjaf’s shadow, going with him wherever he went: to campus, the library, Senen Market, Metropole Cinema, most everywhere, just to make sure he didn’t wind up standing atop a tall bridge or on the edge of a deep well. His demeanor and manner were those of a man without hope. I also shadowed him when he walked across the street to stand motionless on the sidewalk outside Mas Nugroho’s paviliun. He had held the phlegm in his throat for so long, I knew he was now ready, that he had to spit it out. Splat! At least he had spat on the walk and not into Mas Nugroho’s face, I thought. But that would not have been my friend Risjaf, who was not the kind of man given to open displays of anger. I knew he realized that he had no claim on Rukmini. Therefore, what right did he have to be angry? Even so, I could not allow the situation to continue indefinitely.


  From my point of view, the problem rested with Mas Nugroho, who was completely insensitive to Risjaf’s feelings. He didn’t seem to realize that Risjaf was suffering from a broken heart—even though I thought it was apparent to everyone else. Whenever we saw Rukmini stop by at the paviliun across the road, even if it was only for a moment, Risjaf would immediately scurry into his room, hide behind a pile of homework, and not come out again.

  One Sunday, I finally spoke about the situation with Surti, who gave me a look of complete surprise. “What? Risjaf likes Rukmini?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you know?” In the mortar, I used my pestle to attack the sliced shallots and garlic and chunk of peeled turmeric root, as if they were to blame for keeping Rukmini and Risjaf apart.

  Risjaf was still in the throes of misery, and I had promised myself that on Sunday I would cook up a pot of ikan pindang serani as a means to soothe his heart. Originally an Indo-Portuguese dish, the recipe for this spicy and sour milkfish soup was from my mother, and the taste of the fish which had been simmered slowly in turmeric sauce never failed to cheer me or my brother Aji when my father, who often had to travel for work, was not at home. I hoped that the dish would turn its magic on Risjaf, permitting him to recover and cast his attention on another woman.

  As it was now Tjai’s turn to shadow Risjaf, who had gone to borrow lecture notes from a friend, I had some time to spend alone with Surti, even if I was cooking.

  The cuts of milkfish, sliced shallots, green tomatoes, and citrus leaves were in their respective piles on the countertop and I was now grinding the turmeric with red chilies and garlic. The skin on my hands had turned yellow from the turmeric, and the paste of spice mixture began to splatter as I ground.

  Surti, who was standing next to me, placed her right hand on mine, causing me to stop what I was doing.

  “How was Rukmini supposed to know?” she asked, now stroking my hand. “Whenever Risjaf is around her, he’s as stiff as a statue, like he’s in electric shock.” She smiled gently and looked me in the eye. “I’m very sure that Rukmini is unaware of Risjaf’s feelings towards her.”

  I stopped torturing the spice mixture and wiped my forehead with the back of my arm.

  She was probably right. “Does Rukmini like Mas Nug?” I asked.

  “It would appear so,” she said evenly. Adding another slice of turmeric to the paste, she began to move the pestle. By the way she crushed the root—gently, wordlessly—she seemed to be coaxing the spices to surrender themselves to their individual destruction in order to create a more perfect union of taste, one more pleasing to the tongue. I stared, fixating on her as she slowly turned the wooden pestle in the mortar as if massaging the spicy mixture. I swallowed. My body tensed. I hardly knew what was happening and I was unable to comprehend why her actions excited me so.

  “What’s clear,” Surti said as she continued to grind the spices (which in turn made me more tense and less able to speak), “Mas Nug is willing to express his feelings. As is Mas Hananto. They are men who know what they want.”

  She was right, of course. Damn the two of them, both of them older and more mature! Both had good jobs, though neither held a college degree. After graduation from high school, Mas Nug had enrolled in Chinese studies at the University of Indonesia but had never completed his degree. For several years, Mas Hananto had been a student in the Faculty of Law, but hadn’t finished his studies either. Even so, regardless of their educational deficit, the two of them were definitely more experienced in dealing with women. I felt chagrin. It wasn’t fair that we—Risjaf and I—were being compared to the two of them. And, for that matter, it wasn’t right that those two guys were going after college co-eds.

  But wait a minute, I then thought. “You said Mas Hananto. He’s going after Rukmini, too?” I asked.

  Surti looked at me clear-eyed, not bothering to offer an answer. A speck of the spice mixture—turmeric and chilies—was on her cheek. She looked away and then busied herself grinding the spices again. My God!

  “Mas Hananto asked you out!?”

  Surti squeezed my hand. “I turned him down. Doesn’t my heart belong to you?”

  “Surti…”

  “Don’t worry, Dimas, and don’t ask again about Mas Hananto. I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

  I nestled my body close to hers. Her body emitted a scent of turmeric. I wiped the yellow speck from her cheek.

  “I want you to be the father of my children,” she said in a voice of certainty.

  My God. She had never spoken with such assuredness before. I tried to follow suit and said lightly, “If you have a girl, we’ll give her the name Kenanga.”

  “And if the child’s a boy?” she responded in kind.

  “Then we’ll call him Alam.”

  There was still a bit of yellow color on her cheek and I licked it to wipe it away. Almost unable to resist my growing excitement, I held her chin in my hand and pressed my lips to hers, which were soft, velvety, and luscious, like the taste of Baltic Ice Cream. I used my tongue to explore her bodily curves: the nape of her neck, the cavity between her breasts, her erect nipples. When Surti released a suppressed moan, I knew that I would not, that I could not stop myself from further exploration. If Risjaf came back and demanded his promised dish of milkfish soup, I would cite force majeure: an earthquake had destroyed the kitchen. I lifted Surti and set her down on the kitchen table. As my body entered hers, I knew the feeling that I experienced would last forever. Forever and always.

  I often use the word “forever.” “Always” is a favorite of mine as well—especially when I’m naked. One should always remember not to say anything when making love, because ecstasy makes us forget the ground we’re standing on and even our ideals. People who know me well tend to portray me as the antithesis of all that is certain and constant. There was some truth in Mas Hananto’s accusation—that I wasn’t willing to take sides, either in politics or in love. I was a ship never tethered to one port for long. Soon after calling into one harbor, I would be anxious to raise the anchor again.

  After that love-making session, which raised havoc with the kitchen, I knew for certain what Surti would expect from me: one day, and sooner rather than later, I would have to fasten the knot of my love to something certain. But did that mean I had to stop my voyage now, I asked myself. Were there not more voyages to undertake, more ports to explore, more books to read? The ocean is vast. Even on such a long journey as ours, was it necessary to stop or take a break? When writing, I didn’t like to use periods. I preferred to use commas instead. Don’t tell me to stop. I would drown in stagnation. Don’t.

  I sensed that Surti was aware of my anxiety. At the very least, she knew that with the end of my formal education ahead of me, I was preoccupied with my review of lecture notes and literary texts as I prepared for final examinations.

  Many of the books I used, I borrowed from Mas Hananto’s personal library. I remember him once lending me works of Leo Tolstoy—books which the wife of a Dutch friend had given him. The wife had been crazy about him, he told me. And he was still friends with the both of them, he said; but then, with a glint in his eye, he added, “and their daughter, who is going to college in Amsterdam, is a real knockout.” Why I had suddenly thought of that incident, I didn’t know. There was no reason for me to get worked up thinking about Mas Hananto’s fecklessness or his amorous adventures with his friend’s wife or daughter.

  At any rate, even though I had buried myself in books and notes, I shouldn’t have been surprised when one day Surti stopped by my boarding house to see me.

  “Dimas …” she began, with a serious look on her face and a bright glow in her eyes. “My parents are hosting a dinner for some relatives, a few of my aunts and uncles. And there will be a friend of the family from the Netherlands as well, Dr. Bram Janssen, who is in the country at the moment. I want you to meet them.”

  What?

  What was this?

  Why?

  Was this necessary?
Now? Her parents? At their home in Bogor? Her aunts and uncles? Dr. Bram Janssen? My throat suddenly felt scratchy. I understood the implication of her invitation, but there were still so many books, so many ideas, and oceans and continents to explore. Did I have to meet her parents now? Did I have to set anchor?

  I looked at Surti. In my heart, I spoke out in protest, but my lips were sealed. Surti, Surti… Who was I to be introduced to your family with all its doctors and degrees? I could see myself, squeezed in among them in their elegant living room, with a glass of wine in my hand, as they chatted about the state of the nation and how it was never going to advance. What was I to say to her father and mother and to her aunts and uncles? All of these questions whirled around in my heart. Surti now knew me well enough to read my thoughts. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She turned away from me and left my boarding house.

  After that unspoken conversation and the dinner invitation I didn’t accept, it became ever more difficult for me to see Surti. Not only was I very busy preparing for my final examinations, she herself seemed to be doing her best to avoid running into me on campus. Frankly, I didn’t try extra hard to meet up with her either. I had decided that, for the time being at least, I needed to concentrate on my studies. After final examinations and graduation, I would go to see her.

  One day I went to Mas Hananto’s paviliun across the road to borrow a dictionary. As was usual, the door to the paviliun was open. I stuck my head in and called out to Mas Hananto and Mas Nug. No answer. The door to Mas Hananto’s bedroom was closed. A surprise. I knocked. No answer. I opened it. I didn’t know why, but my heart was beating wildly. And there I saw Mas Hananto standing with his arms around a woman who was seated with her back to him at his desk. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, shielded as it was by Mas Hananto’s form, but I could smell the scent of jasmine. I quickly pulled the door shut, causing it to slam. My heart pounded faster and faster. My breathing came in spurts. I fled the paviliun with its louse-infested couch.