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by Leila S. Chudori

  Many of the envelopes that Om Aji gave to Ibu came from those unknown uncles of mine in Paris—Om Dimas, Om Nug, Om Tjai, and Om Risjaf—who took turns sending funds her way; but it was Om Aji who gave Ibu the most assistance. Om Aji, with his degree in industrial technology from the Bandung Institute of Technology, was obviously very bright, but he was also highly practiced in the skill of not drawing attention to himself. The name on his identification card was simply “Samiaji S.”—with “Suryo” having been shortened to just an initial. As head of the laboratory for material processing in the research and development division of one of the country’s biggest tire manufacturers, Om Aji didn’t have much need to come in contact with the nitty-gritty of the world outside. He didn’t have to deal with the government, for instance, which, beginning in the 1980s, had been doing its best to implement its policy of “Environmental Cleanliness” and “Personal Hygiene.” He had no occasion to deal with the mass media either. He was able to keep himself busy in his laboratory, and didn’t have to mix so much with others, which helped guarantee for himself a safe if not stellar career. There had been no fast career track for him, but his had not been obstructed either.

  I don’t know why Om Aji felt so responsible for my family; but every time there was any kind of emergency—whether financial, political, or domestic—he’d fly in like a mother hawk to take her chicks under her wide wings. Once, when I was in junior high school, I was called to the principal’s office for an infraction, and I probably would have been expelled for at least a week if Om Aji hadn’t suddenly showed up at school to speak to the principal. I’ll never forget that…

  At my school there was a kid named Denny Hardianto, and it was he and his gang who controlled the school. But it wasn’t because they themselves were naturally strong, not like a banyan tree with its roots spreading in every direction. That’s not where their power came from. They were just rich kids whose hobby it was to heckle and harass anyone who would allow themselves to be stepped on. Maybe their target was a skinny little girl or a boy with acne covering his face. Or maybe a guy like me, who didn’t like to talk much and whose only close friend was Bimo, who shared my enthusiasm for books and karate.

  One day, when Bimo and I were together, Denny and his five flunkies surrounded us and started calling us the sons of traitors. That’s when I lost it and completely forgot what Sempai Daniel, my karate teacher, had taught me: that karate is to be used only as a means of self-defense. But what was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to keep myself from punching Denny in the face when he kept calling my father a traitor? A traitor? What was that? I don’t suppose Denny knew that I’d never really known my father and that he had been executed when I was five years old, yet he had the gall to call me the son of a coward and a traitor. That information could only have come to him from his parents, whispered in his ear when they told him the New Order government’s version of Indonesian history. He was just repeating their words, shouting them just to rankle me.

  What do I actually remember about my father except for those fleeting images? Ibu has always said that I have a good memory, a photographic memory. I know it’s not the kind depicted in Hollywood films, where savant-like characters are able to conjure up an amazingly detailed picture of past events and places; but, even so, I can remember most everything I’ve read; most every picture I’ve ever seen; most every road and every place I’ve passed; and, for damn certain, any person who has ever rapped my knuckles. They’re all recorded indelibly in my mind.

  Maybe that gift, if that’s what it is, is what diverted my teachers’ attention from all the whispers about my father, the bloody events of 1965, my father’s execution, and his position at Nusantara News Agency at the time of the September 30 Movement. Instead, what impressed them about me was my memory which, throughout my years in grade school, junior-high, and high school, served me and my schools well, yielding trophies from the events I participated in: inter-school quiz contests, forensic contests, speaking debates in English and Indonesian, and the like. The principals of my schools chose not to make an issue of my father’s history because they were happier to acquire the gleaming trophies I helped to put in their schools’ display cases. The only times I fell from their good graces were when my temper got the best of me—which is what happened whenever kids like Denny and his ilk, in all their myriad shapes and forms, made me lose control of my will not to get angry and lash out. And whenever that happened, it usually ended with a lecture from Om Aji and a bowl of my mother’s kidney-bean soup.

  Brenebon soup was my special comfort food, capable of soothing my soul, which Ibu always served whenever I got into a fight at school. This is how the scene played out: after one of my bouts, first Om Aji and Kenanga would lecture me on how “violence is never a solution” and then Tante Retno would chime in with stories of the prophets who were patient in the face of trials and travails. (Insolent kid that I was, I’d retort that I was no prophet and that was not the best way to encourage me to be patient.) Bulan, who made it her task to clean my wounds and put ointment on my bruises, offered a more realistic route: a true champion always waits for the best and most appropriate time to exact his revenge. Now isn’t the time; you have to learn to wait. Such advice sounded much more reasonable to me. And then, after this hour of advice and healing had passed, Ibu would come out with a pot of steaming brenebon soup, the final element in my clan’s push to calm me down. And, for a time it would work, or at least I would pretend to be calm and that all was right with the world—even as my brain was ticking with anticipation for the next outburst. No one had to tell me that after a certain amount of time had passed—maybe just a matter of weeks or months—when Denny and his gang started heckling me again, I was going to try to turn their pusses into pudding. The only thing that ever really stopped me from smashing them to a pulp was the threat of expulsion from school.

  But what was I supposed to do? I could remember everything, the bad as well as the good, in vivid detail—which, I suppose, is the curse and not the blessing of a photographic memory.

  One day, during lunch break, I found Bimo in the schoolyard tied to a pole and being pissed on by Denny and his friends. Of course, I had to do something. Denny, that fucker, had no right to feel that he could do anything he pleased just because he could get away with it. So I took on him and his five friends and thrashed them. I forgot my karate oath and Sempai Daniel’s instructions and beat them all. For that, I was suspended from school for two weeks and then made to apologize to Denny and his lackeys. (I suppose I should mention that Denny suffered a brain concussion and had to be taken to the hospital after I slammed his head into a wall. And that Anton, one of the other guys, had to have a cast put on his arm from where I kicked him, and that Fred, the one who was pissing on Bimo’s head when I found him, ended up with a very painful and bloodied penis.) But shit, to this day I don’t feel bad for having beaten Denny and his friends. What kind of person would piss on another person’s head?

  I can picture that day when I was made to apologize to Denny and his gang in front of the principal and their parents. I can see them smiling victoriously. For the entire two weeks that I was suspended, Bimo didn’t go to school. And Ibu, whom I’d never seen so angry before, railed at me for almost the entire time. But again, it was Om Aji and Tante Retno who came to spend time with me and Bimo and try to comfort us with their soothing advice.

  I see Kenanga coming into my room with her hands on her hips. “Satisfied now?” she shouts at me. “Do you think you can settle everything with violence? Are you proud of your black belt now? Do you think your sempai is proud of you?”

  Bimo, who is at my desk drawing something, wisely keeps his head down and doesn’t say anything.

  “It’s history that’s made me this way,” I say, trying to sound philosophical so that Kenanga will turn down the volume of her voice. “And it’s history that will determine what I do and how I will act in the future.”

  “Alam!” she screams back and th
en sticks her thumb and index finger at me with a tiny space between the two: “There’s this much distance between you and permanent expulsion from school. One more fight and you are going to be expelled, permanently. Not those other kids. And it won’t matter if you’re the overall champion in quizzes or contests or whatever it is that makes your school proud. Those kids’ daddies are big-shots. They’re in government. They’re in the military. They’re in power. Not us, little brother! Not us by a long shot. We are at the other end, the far end. We can’t afford to pretend to be rebels!” Still standing there with her hands on her hips, she stares at me, her eyeballs almost rolling in their sockets.

  “So…?”

  “So if you get expelled, the only thing you’ll achieve is to make things more difficult for Ibu because she’s not going to be able to find another school that will take you!”

  That’s what made me give in. For me, giving my mother a hard time was the greatest sin of all. Kenanga left my room, still grumbling. She was incredible; there was never an end to her complaints about me. I went over to Bimo, who was still drawing at my desk. On a white sheet of paper, his fingers moving with a skill only God could have given him, he had drawn a clenched fist plowing into two capitalized words—“HISTORICAL MALPRACTICE”—their shape distorted by the force of the blow.

  When I got to university, I tried to look at history more objectively, not just as the son of my father, but there was a scant amount of available literature and the official history presented one side only. I truly did want to study the subject from a non-defensive point of view. From informal discussions with historians who quietly admitted that it was in the interests of the New Order government to entrench its hold on power, I came to conclude that the real source of the problem in 1965 was rivalry among the power elite. But what I couldn’t figure out, and what no one could tell me, was whether my father and his friends had been highly placed enough to know the maneuvers that were taking place on both sides. The darkness surrounding September 30, 1965 ,had yet to be illuminated; the details of what really happened had yet to be revealed.

  The impression I got from my study of that period in Indonesian history is that my father and his friends were, first and foremost, a group of young people enamored by leftist ideology. When I heard the stories that Ibu and Om Aji told me about Om Dimas—who seemed to hold a quite different opinion from that of my father—I could only conclude that they were little more than pawns on the chess board or, to say it differently, fans on the edge of the playing field who didn’t quite know the rules of the game that was being played. If history can be likened to a puzzle, these pawns were not the ones putting the puzzle together. I wasn’t sure if the puzzle that was Indonesian history could ever be put together completely, with every piece of it matched and put in the proper place. But that was the job of historians, at least those with any moral or academic integrity.

  I enrolled in the Faculty of Law, which is somewhat ironic, because I couldn’t help but laugh about the gaping chasm in Indonesia between the code of law and its implementation. Had I not kept my mind focused on Ibu, whose irritation with me and my obstinate behavior easily brought her to tears, I most likely would have chosen to drop out of school and spend my time in bed with the gorgeous assistant lecturer instead.

  Not surprisingly, when I did finally graduate, Ibu looked to be the happiest person in the world. Om Aji, Tante Retno, and my two sisters joined her in shedding tears of happiness for my success. Good lord…

  Ibu didn’t particularly care how I was going to put my degree to use; she just wanted to see me graduate and was happy that I did. So it was that after interning at various places, from corporate law firms to institutions like the Center for Legal Aid, Ibu seemed to understand why it was I chose to establish Satu Bangsa or “One Nation,” whose primary activity was advocacy for minority groups being treated unjustly. Even though the idea for the organization was mine, its “front man” is Gilang Suryana, who is only a couple years older than me but, more importantly, has nothing at all “suspicious” in his background.

  Gilang, the son of an editor at Harian Massa, holds a dual master’s degree in history and political science from Leiden University in the Netherlands and bears none of the burden of the past or that cargo of revenge that Bimo and I do. Our small office is in the annex of a house owned by a friend of Gilang’s father, a man who prefers to keep his name anonymous. He is businessman and a member of the old rich class who admires our goals but can only help us on the sly. Though Gilang uses a light hand in running the office, he is a master of authority and planning—the very traits one needs in a leader.

  JAKARTA, MAY 2, 1998

  My watch said eleven and my cell phone was yelping at me. The call was sure to be from Bimo, who was out of patience with me for my courtesy in waiting at the office for our “special visitor” to arrive. Ever since the day before, when Bimo’s father called from France to ask that we give a hand to Om Dimas’s daughter and watch over her while she was here, Bimo had been grumbling half to death. The situation in Jakarta was heating up; it was the wrong time and the wrong place for anyone to come here to play tourist.

  “She’s not playing tourist,” I reminded Bimo. “She’s here to finish her final assignment.”

  “Yeah, yeah…”

  Despite Bimo’s grumbling, he couldn’t ignore his father’s wishes. Bimo was always polite and respectful towards this man he hadn’t even met until he was an adult and had gone abroad to meet him, once in Singapore and another time in Europe. That was because Om Nugroho, like Om Dimas and my father’s other friends in Paris and Amsterdam, had never been able to come back to Indonesia. At any rate, when Om Nug called to say that Om Dimas’s daughter was coming to Jakarta to undetake her final assignment, the real message was that he expected our help, which is why I was waiting there in the office while Bimo was out on the streets. And now he was calling for the umpteenth time.

  When I punched the accept-call button, he started barking in my ear: “Where are you, fuckwit?”

  “Take it easy. Gilang is out there now.”

  I immediately punched the off button, tired of hearing him complain. I knew that many of our fellow activists were already out there in the streets, showing their support for the Allied Student Movement. Salemba Boulevard and the streets leading to it in Central Jakarta were sure to be filled with a sea of people and protest banners, whose common theme was economic issues: the rise in the price of staple foods, electricity, and fuel. Even though the atmosphere was like a powder keg ready to explode, we’d heard that the government—President Soeharto, that is—was still intent on raising fuel prices. He probably thought the situation now, in 1998, was the same as it was in 1967 and 1968 when, after taking power, he had increased the price of fuel with no overt protest. I for one felt sure that this issue would lead to a change in cabinet and a special session of parliament. This waiting was frustrating, but because I’d already promised to meet this girl, I couldn’t leave the office.

  I was just about ready to leave the room when Ujang came in, bringing with him… Wow! What the…?

  “Alam, this is Lintang,” Ujang said with a huge grin on his face. “She said she has an appointment to see you,” and then in undertone: “Sheesh, I thought she was a movie star.”

  So this is Lintang? Hot damn!

  “Hello…Mas Alam? I’m Lintang, Dimas’s daughter.”

  “Dimas Suryo… Oh, yeah, yeah, of course!” I said quickly, interrupting her to hide my sudden goofiness, and immediately shook her hand. From all accounts, I knew that Om Dimas was a good-looking man but, my God, what must her mother look like!?

  Ujang was still standing at the side, looking left and right as if waiting for instructions.

  “What’s with you?” I asked him.

  “Maybe she’s thirsty…? She came here by motor-taxi. That’s awfully gutsy,” Ujang tittered as if something were funny. “Would you like a cup of coffee or tea, or maybe a bottle of cold tea?” he asked Li
ntang, eager to help. Usually by this time he would have forgotten the visitor and plopped himself in his chair outside and started to snore. Hmm…

  “Oh, water will do, thank you.”

  So polite.

  Ujang turned and walked toward the kitchen, giving a thumbsup sign as he left. Asshole.

  “Please, have a seat. Did you just come from Om Aji’s? When did you get in?”

  “Last night. Yes, I’m staying at Om Aji’s house.”

  “And how is Om Nug? And your father? Is he in good shape?”

  “Om Nug is fine. He misses Bimo and gave me a letter and package to give to him. My father, well, he’s fine too. Om Tjai and Om Risjaf are also in good shape.”

  Ujang returned with a glass of water in his hand and a shit-eating grin on his face. Ujang was always the first to act up whenever I received a female visitor in our chaotic office. He pitied me because I was still single and was always giving me advice—and more attention than any woman would—about the importance of tying the knot of intention with a good and honorable woman, or some kind of bullshit like that.

  Though Ujang could see that I had begun to lose my patience with him, he just stood there, rolling his eyes.

  “So, how can I help you?” I asked Lintang while peeking at my watch. At that moment my cell phone started to ring and this time I was forced to answer because Bimo is one person who does not understand the emphatic use of the word “no.”