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by Leila S. Chudori

  I closed my eyes—damn them—which were still streaming with tears. I heard the door open. Alam came into the room with a cup of tea for me, but I was too tired to even sit up. He stroked my head softly then disappeared into the bathroom. I don’t know how long I’d been asleep, but all of a sudden I found him there again, lying on his back beside me. I rolled over and buried my head in his armpit. He stretched out his left arm and held me to him tightly.

  “I’ve got you.” He kissed the crown of my head.

  “You know, I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  He turned his body toward mine and stared into my eyes. “But I don’t want you ever to be free from me again. I mean it.”

  And I fell back asleep, a deep sleep.

  It felt like I had been asleep for only five minutes, but suddenly the day was bright. I looked at the Titoni wristwatch on the small bedside table. Ten o’clock. The spot where Alam had slept was cold. Apparently, he’d already been up for quite some time. Where was he? My head started to spin. What was happening? I got out of bed with difficulty, my head pounding ever harder. No one in the living room. The blinds were open. I opened the front door slowly. The street outside was empty. But there was Alam, talking to someone on his cell phone. He waved his hand at me and continued his conversation. Om Aji’s van was also there, still parked safely on the street. That’s right. I had to call Om Aji and Maman, and Ayah as well, before they started to go crazy watching whatever news was showing on CNN and BBC.

  Om Aji and Tante Retno were fine, it turned out. Bimo had brought Andini home safely. (I intended to interrogate her when the situation was calmer.) Maman had called during the night, but Om Aji had managed to calm her worries. That meant I could put off calling France at least for a little while, until things were more settled.

  Alam came into the house, plopped down in a chair, and immediately pulled me down onto his lap. He kissed me long, as if he never wanted to let me go.

  “I haven’t bathed or brushed my teeth.”

  “I haven’t either. Let’s take a bath together!”

  I laughed. “No wonder Bimo is always telling me to be careful around you. No matter the situation, your hormones are always talking.”

  Alam smiled but continued to stare at me intensely. “It’s exactly in times like these that hormones act up.”

  “Was that Bimo or Gilang on the phone? What do they have to say?”

  Alam took a breath and then exhaled. “It was Bimo. He said that on SCTV they reported that at a meeting with Indonesian people living in Cairo, Soeharto said that he would be willing to step down if that’s what the people wanted.” He seemed to be thinking of something. “I suspect that he’ll still try to hang on.”

  My head was still pounding.

  “What about on the streets? What’s happening there?” I asked.

  “There’s still disorder, everywhere, even near our office… But we can talk about that later,” he said. “Right now, you have to eat. Have a headache?”

  I nodded. “A little.”

  “Too little sleep, too much stress,” Doctor Alam suggested. “Did you call Om Aji?”

  “Yes, everything’s OK there. But I do have to go home so that they can stop worrying. Plus, I need to rest.” I felt Alam’s chin with my fingers, which tingled from the touch of his prickly beard.

  “Maybe we should stay put for a while. Might be best not to go out until it’s safe, don’t you think?”

  Alam slipped his hand beneath the loose T-shirt I was wearing. He knew my body too well and what would happen to me as soon as his fingertip touched my nipples. This was wrong. This should be a time of mourning. We needed to grieve for the chaos this country was in. I got up and off his lap, but Alam pulled me back down again—firmly, without hesitation. And the awful thing was, his action made me all the more excited. His hand succeeded in finding my breast. With only the soft touch of his index finger, I had almost surrendered.

  “Alam… We should be in mourning.”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled me to my feet, then removed his shorts, and then mine as well.

  “And making love is only permitted in happy and prosperous times?” He smiled. “If that were the case, the population of Indonesia would shrink to a mere percentage of what it is!” He sat down again and pulled me down, facing him, on the center of his lap. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “Just enjoy. Don’t move…”

  “But I want to move…”

  “Don’t, baby… Wait…”

  That morning, all the evil in the world was slowly chased away by tender loving I never wanted to end. That morning, all misfortune and catastrophe was cast aside by endless love.

  JAKARTA, MAY 16, 1998

  Yesterday, when they heard the news that President Soeharto had returned to Jakarta from Cairo, Alam and his friends seemed to become possessed—not because the President wasn’t going to be able solve the crisis at hand but because “the time had come for Indonesia to figure out what to do with him.”

  Gilang and Alam were acting like two generals ready to raise arms even if their weapons were only the toothbrushes they always carried with them. Regardless, there was now hope in the air. According to Gilang, since the previous day numerous important public figures had been calling meetings to discuss the crisis and what to do about it. Several of his sources mentioned that Nurcholish Madjid, the respected Muslim intellectual Gilang referred to as “Cak” Nur—don’t ask me what the term of address “Cak” means—had met with several other influential figures at the invitation of one of the senior military leaders at the Indonesian Armed Forces Headquarters. He said that Cak Nur had put together on the spot a concept for the transition of power that was to be delivered to President Soeharto. The plan included several key points, but the most important one, and the one that made Gilang and Alam feel as if they’d won the war, was that Soeharto would not stand as a candidate at the next general election, which was to be held at the soonest possible time.

  “But the students, all of them, want him to resign right now,” Bimo stated firmly. “No election! No nothing! Just his resignation!”

  Hmmm… Ever since he and Andini had gotten closer, Bimo seemed to glow.

  “The students are right,” Alam agreed. “Soeharto is just trying to buy more time.”

  While Alam, Gilang, and Bimo were debating and making predictions in overly loud voices, I was reviewing all the footage that Mita and I had collected from May 12 up to this morning. I don’t know how to describe my feelings when I saw the series of images we’d shot. Even scenes on streets leading to Jalan Diponegoro—which we shot between yesterday and this morning—showed us to be in the middle of a war zone, on a tour of a slain city that would be difficult to resurrect. A preview of Doomsday. Along the streets, I saw through my eyes and lens storefronts and even large malls now reduced to their basic structures; sidewalks whose brickwork was now piles of rubble; twisted and misshapen fences; traffic signs hanging limply from their poles, some of them even melted; lofty and formerly awe-inspiring buildings now nothing but blackened skeletons. ATM machines that had been broken into and plundered. Supermarkets, banks, and stores devastated. The country’s economic and business pulse had been mortally maimed and severed. Even today, several days after the firestorm, there were no other words for it: Jakarta in the morning light was a hell, completely distressed from torture. Television news programs constantly aired horrific images of burned victims—stacked in piles and put into black bags like so much rubbish. And I can’t even make myself talk about the attacks on and the rapes of women of ethnic Chinese descent. The stories of perversion were so utterly grotesque they made my head want to explode.

  Alam was anxiously waiting for news from his friends in ILUNI, the University of Indonesia Alumni Association. He said that the university’s professorial senate, headed by the university rector, had met with President Soeharto earlier that morning at the president’s private residence on Jalan Cen
dana to convey the results of the emergency symposium the university had called on the question of governmental reform. They included a request for the president to resign.

  “I want to know Soeharto’s answer to that one,” Alam said, pacing the floor, phone in hand, grumbling because no one could tell him the president’s response.

  “Be patient. We’ll find out soon enough,” Bimo said. “How about getting us some lunch,” he then said to Ujang.

  As Ujang was writing down our orders, a loud ring was heard. Alam almost jumped from his seat to grab his cell phone on his desk but then suddenly frowned.

  “Not mine. Same ring tone.”

  “Oh, that must be mine…” I said, picking up my phone. I had finally gotten around to changing the irritating ringtone on the cell phone that Andini had lent to me; but the stupid thing was that I had set it with the same ring tone as Alam’s. I looked at the screen but saw no number. Was it Maman? Or Ayah?

  “Salut,” came the sound of a familiar voice.

  “Oh, Nara… Salut!” I glanced at Alam whose hands were now on his hips. I didn’t know if he was irritated because the call wasn’t the one he’d been waiting for, because our ring tones were the same, or because he heard me say Nara’s name.

  “Are you all right, ma chérie?” Nara asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “And you?” My voice sounded stilted even to me. Even though Alam had turned his body away from me and was now busy at the laptop on his desk, I could tell that he and all the other people in the room had suddenly pricked up their ears, even Ujang, who should have been going out to buy our lunches. I heard Mita tell him to get a move on.

  “I’m lonely. I miss you. There’s only men around here.”

  “Umm, here too …”

  What a stupid answer that was. “Here too?” In a normal situation I would have snapped at such a sexist statement. But I was feeling witless. And in an emergency situation such as this one, the safest thing to do is to repeat or agree to whatever the other person was saying, even if the answer sounds stupid.

  “How about your interviews? All finished?”

  “Yes, I’ve finished almost all my interviews. Maybe just one or two more people to do. But you know what’s been happening here, don’t you?”

  “Of course. There’s been news of it in Le Figaro and Le Monde—even though it was on the inside pages. You really must come home, ma chérie. As soon as you finish your interviews, come home. I’m worried about you.”

  “My deadline is still some time away. I’ve sent a report to Professor Dupont on what I’ve done,” I answered in somewhat of a panic. “And the airport isn’t back in full operation yet. Only part of it. The expatriates and some of the diplomatic staff here are preparing to move.”

  “Well then, I am just going to have to come to see you!”

  “Oh …”

  Silence.

  “Don’t you want me to come?”

  I could hear the disappointment in Nara’s voice. “Of course, Nara.”

  I felt all eyes looking at me. Alam stepped away from his desk but didn’t leave the room.

  “It’s just that the situation is so bad here. People are trying to leave this place and you want to come?”

  “Are you forgetting that I am Indonesian too?!” Nara sounded offended.

  “D’accord … Of course you are. That’s not what I meant.”

  It was beginning to feel as if I couldn’t say anything right.

  “Listen, Lintang…” Nara’s voice sounded like he wanted to change the subject. “I was actually calling not just to ask about you, but also to tell you the news that I finally got an answer from Cambridge. I’ve been accepted and will be moving to England at the end of August, because the program starts in September.”

  “Félicitations, Nara!” This time I was speaking honestly. I truly was happy that he was going to realize his ambition of pursuing a higher degree at Cambridge. He had always dreamed of going there.

  “Merci … But, Lintang, I also wanted to ask you if your mother ever told you what is wrong with your father?”

  “Some kind of infection of the liver, she said. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.” He seemed to be holding back something. “OK then, finish your work and come home as soon as you can. We all miss you. Not just me, but your parents as well.”

  I said nothing for a moment, then, “D’accord.”

  “Salut, Lintang.”

  “Salut.”

  When I clicked off my cell phone, all the eyes and ears that had been opened extra wide just a second before suddenly turned their attention back to whatever it was they were supposed to be working on. Alam took the keys to Gilang’s jeep and then yelled to Gilang that he was going to take the vehicle.

  “But here’s the meal you ordered,” said Ujang, who was coming towards us with a tray full of our luncheon orders. There was a look of irritation on his face as he watched his “big brother” leave the office with the keys to Gilang’s jeep jangling in his hand.

  Gilang scurried after Alam, but returned quickly with a confused look on his face. “Earlier he said we’d go to Salemba together after lunch. What got into him?”

  Mita, Bimo, and Odi looked at me, as if I could provide the answer. I busied myself with my documentary footage, silently hoping that Alam would sulk for only a few hours.

  MAY 18, 1998

  For two days now Alam hasn’t spoken to me. Hasn’t called or stopped by, much less touched me. After the “Nara incident,” he’s been so busy it seems that I’ve barely caught sight of him at Satu Bangsa. There’s been so much news in the air and rumors flying about meetings of various power holders and interest groups, but their common thread seems to be the same: a request for President Soeharto to resign.

  I was sure that Alam was avoiding me so, finally, I decided to interview the last two people on my list of respondents on my own. But while I was conducting the interviews, talk about the hardships of 1965 invariably turned to the recent unrest and ongoing student demonstrations. I had to constantly remind myself of Professor Dupont’s message to me: focus. Don’t be swayed by news of today. It was fine for me to record the historical events of today out of personal interest, but I had to be able to separate my emotions from the theme of my final assignment.

  Then suddenly, after all my interviews were over, I felt relieved. For the first time since my arrival in Jakarta, I really wanted to go home to Paris in order to edit and finish my assignment and turn it in to Professor Dupont. Even more important for me, I wanted to go home to see Ayah and Maman. But just a second. I had just referred to Paris as the place I was “going home to.”

  Was Paris really my home?

  My cell phone rang. Mita. She ordered me to meet her at Parliament where the rest of the staff was heading. The students were on the march and heading to Parliament to occupy the building.

  On the way there in a taxi, between urging the driver to get me to Parliament as fast as he could, I kept asking myself why Alam was persisting in his silent treatment towards me. Was it only because of Nara’s call?

  When I finally made it to the building, its grounds were full of students and public figures—almost a repeat of the scene at Trisakti several days previously. Every speaker was saying the same thing: a demand for reformasi and Soeharto’s resignation. I wandered the area with a light feeling. It was so odd, the atmosphere that afternoon outside the clam-shaped parliament building seemed almost festive. It was hard to believe that such despicable and widespread horrors had taken place in this country just a few days before.

  Free box meals were being handed out. Women in food vans appeared from out of nowhere to give food and beverages to the student orators and their crowd, who were clapping and singing songs I didn’t know but whose most oft-repeated phrase was “down with the government.” Young couples held hands and hugged each other, as if they were on a date. I thought of my parents’ first meeting and imagined the atmosphere here in Jakarta at the moment to be much lik
e it was in Paris at the time of the May Revolution in 1968. There was a heady mixture of politics and arts along with a celebration in the freedom of hormonal urges.

  I caught sight of Mita waving her arm in the distance, standing in a group with Alam, Gilang, Andini, and Bimo on the low sloping series of stairs leading to the main entrance of the building. I smiled when I saw Andini.

  “Hi …”

  Bimo gave me a big hug. “How are you? It’s been days since I’ve seen you.” He shot a glance at Alam. “And somebody else has been missing you too.”

  Alam smiled faintly but didn’t greet me. After just a momentary glance at me, he returned his attention to the speakers’ stage.

  “You owe me a story,” I whispered to Andini. As usual, she started laughing. Then she pinched Alam’s arm. “Here she is! You’ve been telling Mita to call her all morning and now that she is here you don’t say anything.”

  Alam looked at Andini with raised eyebrows then turned his gaze back to the students, who were growing ever more wild in their enthusiasm: clapping loudly and shouting “Reform!” time and again. I felt like tinder had set fire to my heart. My blood rushed to my brain. This was terrible. I wasn’t a teenager whose emotional state is expected to fluctuate with the temperature of love in the relationship she’s in. But the fact was I felt so sad and disappointed whenever Alam kept a distance from me.