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by Leila S. Chudori

  In 1982, after graduation from high school, I was accepted for admission to the Faculty of Social Science and Politics at the University of Indonesia. Alam got into the Faculty of Law. This was when I finally was able to say goodbye to the hell of living in my stepfather’s home. Alam and I moved into a crappy boarding house near the campus in Rawamangun. Money was tight and food was whatever we could manage. Sometimes we ended up eating instant noodles for weeks on end. But that was OK. If we got too hungry or wanted some variation in our diet, we weren’t at all embarrassed to go to Tante Surti’s place, on Jalan Percetakan Negara. Alam’s family home always felt more comfortable and pleasant than my own home ever had; and Tante Surti was always generous, ever ready to give us a simple but comforting meal. On weekend nights, when Alam was teaching karate to his students, I’d lounge about in his room drawing by myself. Sometimes I’d draw faces: my mother; my father as a young man with a thin mustache, just as he appeared in an old photograph; Andini; and others. Sometimes I’d just scribble, producing images in shapes and forms as unclear and uncertain as my future.

  On nights that he taught, Alam would usually come back around ten, always sweating but never tired of trying to persuade me to study the art of self-defense so that we could “beat the shit out of sons-of-bitches like Denny and all other species like him,”

  Alam was like a brother to me, and I knew he felt the same. He wanted me to be as butch and masculine as he was, ready to face any challenge. But I wasn’t born with his body of steel or sarcastic wit. He was always telling me that I had to build my own future, that I had to do something, anything at all, to make our country a better place. He sounded so heroic and full of fire, which I admired; but I knew I would never be like him. Even so, I truly did want to do something to make this country a better place, even if it was only through my drawings, because I had no idea whether the knowledge I gained in my studies at the university would ever help to make this country better.

  And now here I am, back again at my childhood home, standing outside with the same feelings of tension and disappointment that plagued my childhood. Why had did I so readily agreed when Alam asked me to meet him here? I suppose it was because when he finally returned to the office at around sundown yesterday, he had in tow with him Om Dimas’s daughter, Lintang. Sight for sore eyes that she was, I couldn’t cuss him out in front of her. The demonstration to protest the rise in fuel prices and the corruption, collusion, and nepotism that were underming this country hadn’t broken up until around the time for evening prayer, and all that ass could do when he finally appeared was to grin and smile. Gilang didn’t seem at all put out, and gave Lintang an enthusiastic welcome.

  So we didn’t get much of a chance to speak. We just snapped at each other under our breath. The demonstration had gone off smoothly, I have to confess, without any untoward incidents and all pretty much according to plan. But Alam was gone the whole day! And the thing is, I’m sorry to admit, when Alam isn’t around, I’m reluctant to act on my own. Gilang has hectored me about this, my “dependence” on Alam, saying that it’s reached a “worrisome stage.” Which is why, I suppose, he’d been very happy to see me flying solo that day.

  “Where have you been?” I asked Alam.

  “Long story.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Hey, how about if we meet at your mother’s house tomorrow?”

  “What for?”

  “Don’t argue. Let’s meet there tomorrow, OK? Call it a history exercise.”

  Sometimes, Alam could be brilliant. He was always bubbling over with new and interesting ideas. But just as often, they seemed crazy to me. Why were we meeting at this hell house?

  Eleven o’clock on the dot, the shithead appeared with Ms. Beautiful beside him. Hmm, with Lintang around, maybe Alam was going to be careful about bathing and start shaving regularly?

  “Wow! Clean as a dolphin’s backside!” I said in jest, because Alam often neglected to shave, even though he was a guy with a constant five o’clock shadow. Alam just smiled at the remark. No way! This was going to be trouble! Whenever Alam started seeing a girl, he’d usually be all hot and bothered about her for about two weeks max. If he passed the one-month mark in a relationship, it was an exception. And in such cases it was usually I who had to lend a shoulder to the woman whose heart he’d broken for her to cry on. …Which happened not too long ago when Andini and I were forced to console Rianti, who cried so much her eyes were swollen and puffy. She was just the latest in a string of girlfriends Alam had broken it off with because she had asked for assurances about their future. I felt sorry for Om Dimas’s pretty daughter if Alam was going to take her for a ride.

  “Hi, Bimo.” Lintang smiled and placed her hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t get a chance yesterday to give you the package your father sent with me.” She took from her knapsack a small package and a white letter-sized envelope which she gave to me. My eyes were fixed on her bag. “He said he was sending some recent photographs so that you’ll know he’s still young and fit-looking,” Lintang said with a laugh.

  I thanked Lintang but put the package aside for opening later and then invited them to take a seat on the front terrace. Even though it was a Saturday and the office is closed that day, I was sure that Gilang would soon be calling everyone for us to gather that night or the next morning, because the government was supposed to announce an increase in fuel prices. There were no days off from the struggle.

  Lintang and Alam sat beside each other on the rattan settee. When Lintang asked where the bathroom was, I pointed inside the house and to the left. Only then, after Alam and I were alone, did I get the chance to swear at him.

  “Where the hell were you yesterday and what the fuck are you up to now?”

  “Calm down, Bro. I took her to see Lubang Buaya yesterday.”

  “What for?”

  “She’s making a documentary on ’65. I wanted to give her some context and to make sure she understands that the history of Indonesia as it is depicted there is the only one the younger generation knows.”

  “And…?”

  “She was mesmerized. She recorded everything: the monuments, the diorama.”

  I said nothing. I was beginning to understand the reason for Alam’s disappearance.

  “And how is she up here?” I asked, with my index finger on my forehead.

  “Very bright. At first I thought she’d be the typical Westerner: all rational-minded and that kind of thing but then bowled over by exoticism and so on. But in fact she’s not. She asks good questions, straight and to the point.”

  Alam smiled. Ngehe! Fucker! He’s the one who’s mesmerized.

  “You watch yourself, buddy. This one isn’t for the bedroom. You’ll be tarred and feathered by all of Paris and Jakarta if you try. God, I can see your mother running after you with a machete and hacking you to pieces!” I chortled, imagining Alam’s elegant mother crazed and with a machete in her hands.

  “Don’t worry. Not my type. The bright ones are always trouble in bed.”

  Alam took a cigarette and offered me one, too.

  “Not now, Alam. My mother,” I glanced inside the house.

  Alam put his cigarette back in its packet and swished his tongue around the inside of his mouth as if to dissipate the urge to smoke.

  “So why did you want to meet up here?”

  Lintang returned to the terrace. She looked at Alam and then at me. “Bimo, I have a huge favor to ask of you.”

  “Name it.”

  “All the names on my list of potential respondents are victims. But I’m thinking…I’m thinking that I really need to interview the other side, too.

  The other side? I shook my head in disbelief. The man with the burning cigarette butts? You must be kidding.

  “I know this might be hard, Bro, but I think it’s a good idea,” Alam said to me. “Yesterday Lintang recorded Lubang Buaya but she needs more…”

  “More context! Right, I got it,” I
cut him off impatiently. “But I don’t think he’ll agree to do it. The military has its own special bureaucracy and procedures. And even though he’s retired, he’d still have to get permission and that could have consequences. Lintang would have to provide an official letter of request and then, even if her request for an interview was granted, which I doubt it would be, they’d probably appoint a public communications officer to talk with her, not my stepfather.”

  Alam looked at Lintang, who was trying to get her head around this bureaucratic tangle.

  “Then how about this, Bimo… How about if I just try speaking to your stepfather and see what he says?”

  I took a breath.

  “OK, Lintang, but only if you can accept the risk in what you’re doing. My stepfather is not the friendliest guy in the world.”

  Lintang nodded. The three of us then went into the house and walked through it to emerge at a rear terrace that faced a small garden. After my stepfather retired from the military with the rank of brigadier-general, he was appointed to serve on the board of commissioners of PT Maharani, the state-owned tin mining company. The job was neither pressing nor time-consuming and most weekends, Ibu told me, my stepfather usually spent at home, sitting there on the back terrace, viewing the garden as she prepared their midday meal. Afterwards, she said, they usually went to visit friends or, if they were in the mood for spending money, maybe go to one of the malls where Pak Prakosa might buy a new golf club and my mother a tube of expensive lipstick. I didn’t know whether they had plans to go somewhere today or not. When I called my mother the night before, she didn’t say if they had plans today but told me that she would tell my stepfather that I was coming to see him. “Pak…” My stepfather closed the newspaper he was reading and turned his head toward me. No change of face. No difference in expression. “Yes?”

  “I want you to meet Lintang, a friend of mine. She’s a student at the Sorbonne and would like to ask your help.”

  My stepfather looked at Lintang and nodded. Lintang extended her hand to him, which he shook, and then asked us all to sit down on the chairs facing him. My stepfather had never much liked Alam, whom he thought was a trouble-maker but also because his father was Hananto Prawiro. He scarcely acknowledged Alam’s presence.

  “So, Lintang, how can I be of assistance?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, this being a weekend and all, but I came to Jakarta to finish my final assignment for my undergraduate degree.”

  “Good. Good for you,” he nodded, without evident emotion. “What’s it about? What’s your field?”

  “Cinematography. I’m hoping to make a documentary film.”

  My stepfather nodded again, his face still expressionless. He didn’t seem to know who Lintang was, but I was sure that he was trying to guess right now.

  “I want to make a one-hour documentary about Indonesian history.”

  “Well, that’s awfully broad. What part of Indonesian history do you have in mind?”

  “September 1965 and its impact on the families of victims.”

  Pak Prakosa straightened up and looked at Lintang more closely.

  “What do you mean by ‘victims’?”

  “I mean the families of political prisoners, the ones who didn’t know anything or weren’t involved but then had to suffer for years afterwards, even up to this day.”

  The general’s features immediately hardened. At that same moment, my mother came out of the house and onto the back terrace, no doubt to announce that lunch was ready to be served. Ibu didn’t know that I was bringing others along to talk to her husband.

  “Ibu, this is Lintang, a friend from Paris. From the Sorbonne.”

  “Oh…” Ibu shook Lintang’s hand and nodded towards Alam. “Paris?”

  “That’s right, Bu Prakosa,” Lintang answered in a polite tone of voice. Ibu studied Lintang’s face, as if searching her memory for something she knew about the younger woman.

  “Lintang, is it?”

  “Yes, Lintang Utara Suryo.”

  Lintang seemed to be testing the waters. My mother’s face immediately paled and she released Lintang’s hand. “Oh…”

  My stepfather immediately stood up and looked at her. “You’re Dimas Suryo’s daughter?” I could feel the tension in the air and stood, I don’t know why.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Lintang answered calmly, “but the documentary film is for my final assignment as a student at the Sorbonne.”

  Ibu quickly took control of the uncomfortable situation by doing what she always did: changing the subject and ignoring the matter at hand.

  “Lunch is ready, Mas,” she said to my stepfather. “Bimo, do your friends want to eat lunch here?”

  Offering lunch was, of course, the only civil thing to do, but it was also a sign for us to go. I knew very well the look on my mother’s face, which meant that I was to get out of the house now and to take with me these “friends” who were likely to give her husband a migraine.

  “That’s kind of you, Tante, but we have an invitation for lunch at a friend’s house,” Alam smoothly lied.

  “Yes, thank you, but we must be going,” Lintang interjected, no less politely. “I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed your weekend, Bapak and Ibu Prakosa.”

  “Lintang…” Pak Prakosa’s voice caused Lintang to stop in her tracks.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Even though I’m retired, I am not allowed to give any kind of interview without permission. If you would like one, you’ll have to go to the military headquarters with an official request from your university.”

  Lintang nodded. “All right, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “But…” My stepfather was never satisfied until he had driven a thorn into the flesh. “Even if you are granted permission, I won’t say anything to you.”

  He smiled. Coldly. As if he had won.

  “We got to go,” I said to my mother while taking Lintang’s hand. “Goodbye, ma’am, sir.”

  “Bye…”

  The three of us left the house, not breathing again it seemed until we had reached the front terrace. The nervous tension that Alam and Lintang felt was, I knew, very different from what I was feeling.

  What I had felt during that brief time with my stepfather and mother was the endless torture of my childhood years, which suddenly returned to grip me.

  “Are you all right?” Alam asked when he saw that my body was suddenly wet from sweat.

  I nodded. Alam hailed a taxi. Lintang held my shoulders. In the taxi, none of us said anything.

  In just twenty minutes we arrived at Jalan Diponegoro. Even though it was Saturday, our office was full of people. One could hardly see the office signboard, “Satu Bangsa,” because of the many banners with protest slogans about the increase in the price of fuel, the need for reform, the abusive practices of corruption, collusion, and nepotism. People were lounging about the place, on floors and benches.

  Lintang got out of the taxi with her large knapsack and the laptop she seemed to carry everywhere. The girl was a mobile library with everything on board she might possibly need. Even so, she refused my offer to help lighten her load.

  Gilang, who seemed to have just bathed because his hair was still wet, was on the terrace smoking a cigarette. He smiled when he saw the three of us.

  “Hi, Lintang. Where have you been? Have you eaten?”

  Then, in front of us, Ujang appeared and asked, “Lintang, would you like to order something to eat?”

  Alam shook his head to see the attention being paid to Lintang.

  “Thank you, but not now. Maybe later, OK?”

  “Come on, let’s order something,” Alam suggested. “If you don’t, you’re going to get hungry and then start to cry,” he wisecracked. “Nasi Padang for all of us,” he said to Ujang. “Would you like rendang or chicken?” he then asked Lintang, very attentively. Whenever Alam went into such a supercilious mode, it usually meant he liked the woman he was with. If he wasn’t interested in Lintang, he wo
uldn’t be so fawning or showing her so much attention.

  “Do they have grilled chicken?”

  “Sure they do. Breast or thigh?” Ujang piped in. “And how about a cold fruit cocktail for desert?” Now he was going close to going overboard in showing off his hospitality skills.

  Lintang laughed and nodded, then opened her wallet.

  “Put that away!” Gilang said, shaking his finger to stop Lintang from giving money to Ujang. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll treat you to a meal here and you can treat me in Paris!”

  “Why don’t you introduce Ms. Sorbonne to our other friends here,” he said to me. “I need to talk to you,” he said to Alam.

  Alam looked at Lintang and pointed at his desk. “You can put your things over there, on my desk.”

  Lintang followed Alam’s suggestion and then went with me as I began to show her around, but I could see that she was keeping a watch out of the corner of her eyes on Alam, who was now off with Gilang in a corner of the room discussing something.

  “We have several advocacy divisions,” I said to Lintang as I began to introduce her to other staff members. “This is Odi. He handles cases of discrimination towards the ethnic Chinese. Odi, this is Lintang. And that’s Agam. He’s in charge of land rights issues.”

  Lintang greeted our fellow activists, one by one, who were busy working at their desks. Then I led her into what we called our audio-visual room, a very simple affair. Lintang looked at the computer and our set of editing equipment, which was old and out of date.

  “These antiques… I’m sure you don’t have anything like them at the Sorbonne,” I remarked.

  Lintang looked with wonder at Mita, who was operating the editing equipment. “What’s important is the result, not the equipment itself,” she said with a smile.

  “This is Mita. She rules this room. Mita handles the documentation of all our advocacy activities, both audio-visual and print material. Mita, this is Lintang. Lintang is making a documentary about September 30, 1965, and its impact on the families of victims. She might want to use this beautiful set of equipment one day.”