Dimas looked at his daughter with a mixture of surprise and admiration. Five months of her not talking to him had seemed to give her the time she needed to think about things. Or maybe this was the result of her Sorbonne education? Dimas didn’t really know. And he also didn’t know quite how to react to what seemed to him to be an impulsive desire on Lintang’s part to go off to Indonesia, the homeland he had left so long ago and not set foot in since. He didn’t want to sound discouraging or as if he doubted his daughter’s abilities or intellectual acumen, but at the same time he didn’t want her to be caught up in any kind of danger because of his political status, which the Indonesian government saw as subversive. Still waiting for her father to react to what she had just told him, Lintang continued: “But I still haven’t found a clear focus. It’s only going to be a sixty-minute documentary film, after all. So I have to be very selective in my choice of topic.”
She paused, thinking her father might say something, but he said nothing. “For both practical and economic reasons, I think it would make more sense to make a documentary about the families of Indonesian political exiles who are now scattered about here in France and other countries of Europe…” Lintang glanced at her father. Still no reaction. “At the same time, I’m afraid it might be too personal, and I don’t want to make something that turns out to be overly subjective. I do want to get to know Indonesia, however, even if it’s only for a few weeks or a month. I want to find out what the country is now like, what with its blood-filled history, and whether its people…”
Dimas could only nod silently in response, his thoughts now untethered. He wanted to tell her that he had always wanted to be the one to take her and her mother to Indonesia and to introduce them to Jakarta, Bogor, Solo, Yogyakarta, Semarang, and the other cities he had known prior to 1965. He wanted to explain to her that there was something special about Indonesia, that the country held a special allure, but that even he didn’t know what it was: whether it was the smell of the red clay earth after a tropical rainstorm; the exotic fruit—mangosteens, star fruit, jack fruit, rambutan—with their odd shapes and colors; the women of Central Java, particularly Solo, who spoke so slowly and rhythmically; or the dictatorial manner of pedicab drivers who thrust their index finger in the air when wanting to cross the road, causing all the motor vehicles to stop obediently. But what in fact did he know about his homeland now? His firsthand knowledge of the country had stopped after 1965; and Jakarta and Solo in 1998 were sure to be far different from what they had been thirty-three years previously. There probably weren’t becak anymore dominating the streets of Jakarta and Solo. Elegant women who could sit silently composed for hours on end, with canting in hand, blowing through the hot wax dipper to miraculously change a stretch of plain white cotton cloth into a batik cloth of mind-boggling beauty and design, were probably a rarity. What about the fruit and the traditional cakes—kelepon, nagasari, cucur, getuk lindri, and the like—that were set out for him in the evening with a glass of strong hot tea into which he would drop chunks of rock sugar, after he and his brother Aji came home from Quranic study? Possibly gone too. But even if for most people such things had vanished with the advent of modern-day life, he was sure that he would find them somewhere, in what pockets of traditional life still remained, just to show them to Lintang. Dimas studied his daughter’s face, which was at once so Indonesian and French as well. Her nose was aquiline but didn’t dominate her small face. Her skin was fair but not the white, freckled kind. Hers was white and warm-looking, like a glass of heated milk, a mixture of his light chocolate flesh and Vivienne’s white skin. Her eyes were dark brown, like his own. Her thick wavy black hair was his as well. But overall, her posture and bearing were that of her mother—which is why she was often taken for his former wife’s young sister. Both were tall, slender, and beautiful. The only distinctive difference was Vivienne’s eyes, that amazing color of green. Dimas tried to imagine Lintang in the midst of the busy metropolis that Jakarta had become, but could not get a clear picture. Both CNN and BBC television had begun to air news clips about demonstrations taking place in several Indonesian cities. This was worrisome for him. He was sure that Lintang must have participated in student demonstrations at the Sorbonne; but students in Europe and the situation in Europe were undoubtedly very different from that of Indonesia. Yet if he expressed his fears, Lintang was sure to be offended, and they would wind up in another argument.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Lintang finally asked.
“Have you spoken about this with your mother?” Dimas took the safe route, hoping that Vivienne had used the “parent card” with her daughter, even though it no longer had much currency in France and especially not for Lintang, who was now twenty-three years old. She was an adult and could go wherever she wanted to go, with or without her parents’ permission. That she talked to them at all about her plans was a sign that she cared for them and respected their opinions. But she wasn’t asking for their blessing, much less their permission.
“I have, but she asked the same thing, whether I had spoken about this with you.” Lintang seemed somewhat miffed.
“OK, then let me say this: first focus on Professor Dupont’s requirements. What is it you want from your final assignment? What must you show in your documentary film? After that, given Indonesia’s history and the events and impact of 1965 on the country, you have to be very judicious and use a macro lens in choosing your subject of focus. You have to be sharp and clear. The subject of 1965, with all its confusion and characters, all its victims and impacts, and the bloodbath that was perpetrated to achieve change in the country’s power structure, is a vast one. And then, beyond that, there is the very sensitive matter that you will also have to face—”
“That I am the daughter of Dimas Suryo,” Lintang cut in.
“That’s right,” her father answered. “You’ve spent your entire life in Paris, far from what happened over there. You were cut off from Indonesia. You don’t know it. You’ve never experienced it, never met its people, never smelled its soil or heard the sound of leaves slapped by showers in the rainy season. You’ve never gotten to know your Indonesian relatives: your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, or your cousins. All that you know is what you’ve heard from me and what you’ve overheard at the restaurant. You still don’t know the country firsthand.”
Dimas took a breath, ignoring the ache he felt in his stomach. “In Indonesia, everything will be different. If you intend to interview the families of political prisoners, you have to know that there will always be someone watching and recording what you do—especially because of the family name you carry.”
Lintang nodded.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to get a visa to go to Indonesia? All the years that I’ve been here, I still haven’t been able—”
Lintang interrupted her father, impatiently: “I met someone at the embassy, a junior diplomat who said that he would help.”
Dimas looked at his daughter in surprise and silently praised her foresightedness. Wherever had she attained her planning skills?
“And you must always remember,” Dimas continued, “that my crime—being part of the ‘political fornication’ engaged in by PKI, LEKRA, and whatever other groups you want to mention—is a permanent one that will extend beyond my generation. Like it or not, you have inherited my political sins and they are now your burden to bear.” He looked at his daughter with affection. “Let us only pray they won’t be a millstone for your future children as well.”
“‘Political fornication…’” Lintang mused. “I’ve never come across that term in any of the books on political theory that I have read. Je dois me rappeler. I must remember that one. You, my father, have a gift for words.”
Dimas laughed and mussed his daughter’s hair. “In the ’60s, before I left Jakarta, the political situation was explosive. You were either on the left or the right. You were red, pink, green, or maybe even greenish. Jargon and catchphrases were an esse
ntial element of any kind of discussion or discourse. There were all kinds of accusations thrown around. Nouns instead of adjectives were used to describe you. You might be a ‘Manipol,’ a person who supported the ‘Political Manifesto’ that Sukarno espoused. Then too, you might be a ‘Nekolim,’ standing for a person bent on ‘Neo-colonialism and Imperialism.’ If not one of those, you might be a ‘Revolusi’ or a ‘Kontra-Revolusi,’ a person who either supported the goals of the revolution or was against them. These are just a few of the terms that were being thrown around, but there were hundreds of other epithets, atrocious acronyms, most of them not worth remembering, much less studied or researched. The point is, in that time, Indonesia had no neutral zone. There was no gray: you were black or white, either with ‘us’ or ‘them.’”
Lintang listened to her father with rapt attention. She had never really discussed Indonesian political history with her father before.
“I was friends with everyone,” he added, “with Om Hananto, Om Nug, and so on… Well, I wasn’t completely of one mind with the editor-in-chief of Nusantara News Agency, where I worked at the time, but I was friends with Amir, or ‘Bang Amir,’ as I called him. Even so, I was seen to be in bed with leftists and had committed acts of political fornication with them. As such I was a Red, a Communist Party supporter. I won’t dwell on this. That was the risk for anyone who did not want to choose. Not to choose was seen as the same thing as making a choice.”
“Who’s Bang Amir?” Lintang asked.
“Bang Amir was a member of the Masyumi Party. There were two political parties that Sukarno banned: the Socialist Party and Masyumi. …You’ll have to read up on Indonesian political party history to keep all the characters and factions straight.” His eyes studied his shelves of books.
“Later, Ayah. I can look myself. But I’m curious about this Bang Amir.”
“Amir is my friend, Mohamad Amir Jayadi. I don’t know how it happened really, but for whatever reason, we were close and saw eye to eye on many things. A lot of the things he said seemed logical to me. Maybe I couldn’t always grasp Natsir’s reasoning—that’s Mohammad Natsir, chairman of the Masyumi political party and one of the country’s leading Muslim thinkers at the time—but Bang Amir was able to make me think about spirituality without having to link it to organized religion.” Dimas looked enlivened and leaned towards Lintang. She followed suit, leaning closer towards him. “Spirituality was something older and deeper than religion, something that was honorable and integral to the essence of mankind. When I talked to Bang Amir, it was like two normal people talking, without all the trappings of color, symbols, parties, ideologies, or groups. We spoke together as friends, as two reporters curious about the relationship between man—that small and finite creature—and the greatness of nature.”
Lintang felt that her father was entering an area completely foreign to her, but she savored it.
“Did he—Bang Amir, that is—share the view that you had committed political fornication?”
Dimas shook his head slowly. “No, he didn’t.”
Lintang could see that her father thought highly and fondly of this man, that he had not been her father’s political enemy.
“He wasn’t the kind of person given to sticking political labels on everyone. By the way, that term is one that I came up with after years of trying to figure out why I was never able to obtain permission to go back to Indonesia.” Dimas took another breath, then exhaled. “And that’s what you have to be ready for: that you too will be seen in the same light. They see it as an inherited sin. Will you be able to deal with that kind of small-minded prejudice? With having people shun you for the blood you carry in your veins?”
“I think I can. What with all the documentaries I’ve watched and with all the books I’ve read…”
Dimas raised his hand. “Watching and reading are very different from experiencing, my sweet.” He then took her face in his hands. “It’s a terrible thing to experience, one that could haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Lintang knew her father was right. Ever since childhood, she had a capacious mind and a gift for detail. Past events were as clear for her today as when she had experienced them: the feel of the grass and the smoothness of gravestones at the Père Lachaise cemetery when she visited as a child; the pungent scent of spices in her parents’ kitchen when her father prepared Indonesian food; the gaiety of discovering a secondhand book at Antoine Martin’s bookstall; the titles of books that lined the shelves at Shakespeare & Co. She remembered everything very clearly. Not only could she remember all the events that had happened in her life, but she was able to remember their sensations and smells. Yes, indeed, her father was right. If anything bad were to happen to her, she would not be who she is if she could expunge that experience from her memory.
“I want you to be prepared,” her father went on. “Your decision to make a documentary film will not be easy to carry out. Will you need permits? I cannot imagine the trouble you’d have if you were to seek official permission, especially with my name on the back of yours. You know, don’t you, that most former political prisoners use pseudonyms when they write for the mass media and that their children don’t use their father’s name?”
Lintang nodded. “I know that, Ayah. I read about that; but, still, I’ve never felt more prepared than I do now.”
“One more thing,” Dimas added. “I know that you know—from articles in the paper and news on the television—that Indonesia is going through a very unstable period at this time.”
“Yes, I know. President Soeharto installed his daughter as Minister for Social Affairs and packed the cabinet with his cronies! That stuff has been widely covered by the media.”
“I know,” Dimas agreed. “Ever since the Asian economic crisis at the end of last year, problems have been growing: economic, political, and social. Indonesia appears to be on the brink of chaos. In this situation, not only will it be difficult for you to focus on your work, but you yourself might be put in danger’s way. You must be very careful.”
“I will be,” she promised.
“If your mind is made up and you are going to do this, Om Nug and I will send messages to friends and family members who will be able to help you locate sources. But before we can do this, you must clearly define what your film is to be about. Once you’ve done that, we will do everything we can to help.”
Lintang leaned against her father’s shoulder and smiled. “Oui … Merci, Ayah.”
Dimas smiled. Beginning to feel the effect of the medicine he had taken and the drowsiness it induced, he yawned.
Lintang felt it was time to speak of something she had been avoiding for months. “About that argument of ours, Ayah, I…”
Dimas waved his hand, a sign that he’d already forgotten about it. He closed his eyes as he leaned against the arm of the sofa. “I’ll just lie down. I’m not sleepy yet.”
Lintang rose to give her father more room to rest. No sooner had he stretched out on the sofa than he fell asleep. Lintang covered her father with a blanket. He looked pale and tired. Lintang leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.
Because the sound of the vacuum cleaner would surely disturb her father’s sleep, Lintang decided to put off cleaning the floors of the apartment. Instead, she concentrated on straightening the books on the shelf. After a half hour doing this, she then moved to her father’s desk in his bedroom, the only territory that was in relatively good order. Apparently, during this time of recovery, her father had been unable to do much work. She pulled out the rolling office chair and sat down. Her eyes fell on a manuscript, one that her father had been working on for some time now, apparently with the view of having it published one day as a book. On the first page of the manuscript was its working title: “Testimony.” She turned the first page to scan the table of contents. Chapter headings denoted that the manuscript contained life histories of people from various regions of Indonesia who had been hunted down by the military in the period 1965–1968. Subc
hapters were devoted to the fate of their families, their children, and the parents of the targets who were hunted down.
Lintang glanced at her father who was breathing slowly, his chest rising and falling like that of a baby. Near the desk were several large wooden chests apparently serving as file cabinets for her father’s work. Opening the lid of one of the chests, she saw that it contained clippings from newspapers and magazines, as well as scholarly books by Western political analysts with various views and theories about the September 30 Movement—whether the Indonesian Communist Party had been behind the attempted coup or whether the alleged coup had been the result of fractures in the military that pitted leftist officers against the military elite. Based on her research into materials available at the Beaubourg library, Lintang could see that her father’s collection was fairly comprehensive. It was also in neat order.
Closing the lid of the chest, Lintang’s eyes moved to the next one. When she opened the cover, the sight of its contents made her heart beat faster. The letters inside were her father’s personal domain, which could very well be out of bounds for her. She recalled a letter she’d come across years before, when she was thirteen years old. The letter was from Surti Anandari, the wife of Hananto Prawiro, her father’s good friend. Lintang shivered to remember that night. The letter had led to an explosive argument between her parents, and that same night her father had left the family’s apartment.
The letters in the second chest, it seems, were there because they related to her father’s work. Lintang went through the stack, careful not to disturb their order. One that was dated August 1968 was from her uncle Aji, her father’s younger brother. She perused its contents. In the letter Aji informed her father that his friend, Hananto Prawiro, had been arrested and that no one knew where he had been taken. He also mentioned that during the time Hananto was on the run, his wife Surti and their children, Kenanga, Bulan, and Alam, had been detained twice, first for a time at the detention center on Jalan Guntur and later, for a longer period, at the one on Budi Kemuliaan. The intelligence agents knew that it was Hananto who was supposed to have gone to Santiago. Why then, they asked, had Dimas Suryo had gone instead?
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