Ramadan Sky

by Nichola Hunter

  I arrived on time to the charity exhibition and I knew before I bought the ticket that I would win the door prize. I always do. The artist was ordinary – nice sketches of basically the same image over and over, rows of derelict huts dwarfed by these huge buildings springing up like giant weeds, and the inevitable makeshift washing lines next to motorbikes and more skyscrapers. They made me feel sad and bored at the same time. I couldn’t help thinking that while the people here would pay top dollar for these pictures of everyday poor people’s lives, they would never have any relationship with those people, other than as master to servant or missionary to … what? Victim? If I had tried to bring Fajar in there, we would both have been discreetly shown the door, but someone might hang a sketch of his rickety house above their mantelpiece in the name of art or charity.

  Some ambassador’s wife who was a bit of a wag opened the exhibition. I met the woman who was running the show at the door and she confided in me a few seconds after we had met that she hadn’t had sex for eleven years. (Another one, I thought. All these shipwrecked female ex-pats not getting any.) The exhibition was in a hotel lobby, which was like all the hotel lobbies in Jakarta – high tea and someone at the piano playing bland, tinkly music beneath the tall glass ceilings. My boss was there, being the cultured public servant. So was Ricky, the office Cockney, but I did not acknowledge him, as he had refused to shake hands with Fajar some weeks before. It was when Ricky had come to my house to pick up some papers, and left as Fajar was arriving. I introduced them at the gate. Fajar held out his hand and Ricky walked straight past him. It seemed his love of the breezy London working class did not extend to the Indonesian equivalent, although his own wife was a poor local. I think he thought it different because she was married to him. I took some time later to explain it to Fajar.

  This kind of person is shit, honey. That’s all you really need to know.

  And I also told him:

  My mother used to clean the toilets at a university. Do you know that? We teachers are not special, rich people. We are here because we grew up with a different government, because we speak English and we are white.

  My mother’s toilet-cleaning money had paid for piano and French lessons for me, which I had done very well at, until one surprising day when I made a sudden and irreversible play for freedom. It had been a turn for the better.

  Standing in the lobby in the swarm of international pseudo socialites, I suddenly felt life had taken a terrible turn for the worse. Nevertheless, I actually won both door prizes including, after all that hunting for wine, an eighty-five-dollar bottle of champagne. I planned to take it home and drink it with Fajar, but wouldn’t tell him it cost about the same as his monthly motorbike payment. I also won four bottles of red and refrained from doing the noble thing of letting them be raffled off again.

  These people earn ten times what we earn, I told Noreen, another teacher I had spotted amongst the mining and embassy people.

  Even the scholarship students are getting more than us. I’m keeping the wine.

  1 November

  Well, they say that love is blind but what is this? Blind, deaf and upside down, and most of all a fucking liar. Yesterday I left my phone at home and got back from work to find that I had twenty missed calls from an unknown number, and the following messages:

  PLEASE DON’T TEXT, CALL OR SPEAK TO FAJAR AGAIN.

  AND DON’T CALL HIM HONEY OR BABE. IT’S NOT LIKE HE IS YOUR BOYFRIEND.

  and

  I HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE TAKEN FAJAR FROM ME.

  There were more, but I didn’t read them yet.

  WHO ARE YOU? I asked.

  YOU KNOW WHO I AM.

  NO I DON’T REALLY – WHO ARE YOU???

  I AM FAJAR’S GIRLFRIEND.

  I hesitated before replying.

  SO AM I – HIS GIRLFRIEND.

  NO, VIC, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. HE IS DRIVER FOR YOU.

  HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?

  HE TALKING ABOUT YOU SOMETIMES.

  I decided to call the number. A little girl voice answered. She was crying. We struggled through some questions, in English and Bahasa. As far as I could tell, they had been together for some time, long before I came to Indonesia. They have plans to marry. He left his phone at her house by mistake. That is how she managed to read my messages.

  My first instinct was to apologise. She was happy with that, sensing that I recognised her prior claim. I could feel the depth of Fajar’s betrayal of her and I was shocked when she told me her age.

  Twenty-one.

  How can you think to get married at twenty-one?

  Actually, twenty-one isn’t young for an Indonesian woman. At twenty-six you are virtually an old maid.

  I am very sorry, I told her again.

  Alright, Vic – and you must promise not talking to him ever again.

  No, I have to talk to him tonight.

  Vic you must never tell Fajar that I know about this. We will keep it a secret.

  No, I said. We will not.

  She wanted me to just walk away, after everything. She wanted me to simply disappear. We argued back and forth until one of us hung up. Then something else occurred to me – the scratches on Fajar that led to our big argument. Was it her, or was it another woman? I texted back – we were better at reading than speaking each other’s languages anyway.

  HAVE YOU HAD SEX WITH HIM?

  WHAT?

  SEX. DO YOU HAVE SEX WITH FAJAR?

  WHAT ARE YOU ASKING ME?

  I DO – ALMOST EVERY DAY.

  ARE YOU SAYING YOU HAVE LAIN WITH HIM AS MAN AND WIFE?

  I turned off the phone then, unable to give an answer to such an innocent question. It obviously wasn’t her. I called Fajar immediately.

  I’ve been talking on the phone to your girlfriend.

  The whole year fell down around us with one small exclamation: Oh.

  An hour later he was sitting on the end of my bed crying. We had been hugging and crying since he burst through the door.

  I’m sorry, Vic. I’m sorry, Vic, but I LOVE YOU.

  Then why are you going to marry her?

  Vic, you have already told me that we cannot be together. And it is true. My mother also would not allow me to be with you.

  I know that he is telling the truth. I can’t imagine bringing Fajar back to Australia. I have seen the way that people look at mismatched couples from South-East Asia – the fat old men with their child brides. I couldn’t do it to him. Besides, apart from having this affair with me, Fajar is a conventional Muslim. He will break the rules, but only in the way they are allowed to be broken.

  What is her name?

  He doesn’t answer for a minute.

  Fajar, what is her name?

  Aryanti.

  Why are you going to marry Aryanti?

  Vic, she is Muslim girl. She loves me.

  Do you love her?

  A little bit.

  And you have promised to marry her.

  He doesn’t deny this and doesn’t look at me. I should be furious, I shouldn’t let him near me, but we have not stopped touching each other since he arrived. He leans back on my legs and starts to read my phone messages. He is suddenly terrified.

  Vic, have you told her we are having sex?

  Of course I told her that – what else have we been doing, honey?

  This is a dreadful blow. He wants me to call her straight away and tell her that there has been no sex. I will not do it.

  First of all it is three o’clock in the morning.

  She will not be sleeping.

  You may be used to telling these big lies to people, Fajar, but I am not. Get the hell off me anyway.

  But he doesn’t move. He runs his hand down the side of my leg and strokes my foot.

  Tell her, Vic. Please.

  What about her? Have you been having sex with her?

  No. Vic. No – she is Muslim woman. Her father is very strict. It is impossible.

  Have you kissed her?

&
nbsp; Sometimes.

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to watch him see the hurt in my face and I am suddenly weary and want him gone.

  Go home. Turn off your phone for two days. Tell your mother you must not be disturbed by any visitors. After two days you call Aryanti and ask to meet. Tell her I am lying about the sex because I am jealous and I want to make her break with you.

  He gathers his things.

  I’m sorry, Vic.

  It’s too late for sorry.

  Let me marry her. Give us some time, and then we can be together again. When I am a married man, there is nobody who can tell me what to do. I will always come back to you, Vic.

  Now you really have gone crazy. Did you tell Aryanti that part of the plan, Fajar?

  Of course not.

  Then you have no right to marry her.

  After he had gone I thought back to him introducing me to his family, the day I went to check on his new business. The one I paid for with the very small savings that I had. It is a little stall where he can sell coffee and fried snacks. I bought him the stove and the shopfront and some starting credit, and gave him money for the bribe to pay the street mafia. It is a very humble affair, but the whole family came out to meet me and say thank you. I had visited just a week ago, just to say hello, and had been introduced to Aryanti, Fajar’s fiancée, who had been there, although he had told me she was his sister – a petite young woman with curly hair and no headscarf, wearing pink. I remember shaking her hand, and also that Fajar had been eager to get me out of there. I saw her again a few days later, when I was driving past the warung in a taxi. It was sunset, the time when people venture outside to cool down and gossip. She was with Fajar and many of the family, who were proudly sitting together and looking out from the little wooden shop facing the street, bathed in a soft orange glow, destined for new greatness.

  This morning, after receiving another seventy-nine missed calls from Aryanti, I declared war.

  STOP CALLING ME YOU STUPID GIRL. GET THE FUCK OFF MY PHONE.

  YOU FUCK OFF TOO VIC. I VERY VERY HATE YOU.

  We went back and forwards for a while until I switched off my phone. I have no intention of switching it back on until after the weekend.

  It isn’t too hard being nasty to this girl – I know she is the innocent victim of Fajar’s lies but I want to hunt her down and slap her as hard as I can. It seems we are more than happy to hate each other instead of him.

  7 November

  The man himself has returned after a week, as agreed. He has spent his time telling lies and making promises and wheedling his way back into Aryanti’s heart. The first thing he did was push me down onto the sofa and take off my clothes. I wasn’t surprised and did not resist.

  22 November

  The stolen visits have been going on for a few weeks and each time he has asked me the same thing – to meet with him and Aryanti and to convince her that we have not had sex. Each time I have refused. He doesn’t know that Aryanti and I have already met.

  She had asked me to a café with the express purpose of warning me off Fajar. I was not going to fight for him, but I didn’t plan to tell her that.

  I recognised her as soon as I got to the café. She was wearing the same pink shirt I had seen her in on the day we had met at the warung. I had chosen the café, for privacy, instead of a tea shop, where anybody could see us, but she looked like she wasn’t used to being in a place like that. I ordered coffee and, before it arrived, she got straight to the point.

  I want you to promise never to see Fajar again, she said.

  No, I replied. For some reason I wanted to laugh. If you want promises, get them from Fajar. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t even know you.

  We are getting married soon.

  Oh that’s wonderful. Congratulations. Can I see the ring?

  The dainty little girl’s eyes narrowed. I knew Fajar would try to hold off as long as he could. There was no ring.

  Dasar pelacur murahan! She spat.

  Even with my terrible Indonesian, I could tell that she spoke roughly, and did not enjoy the same educated status as my students. She sat gracefully enough, but her accent was strong and flat and there was a hunted, defensive look on her pretty face. I had never read this roughness in Fajar, but they were obviously from the same class, the same patch of urban village. Perhaps the difference was from his brief sojourn at boarding school, and his quaint English. Aryanti’s English was poor but functional.

  I don’t know why you would call me a whore. Which one of us has been having sex and taking money? Me or your handsome ‘virgin’ Fajar?

  You didn’t do sex with him, Vic. He said that is just a lie, for you to try to make us finished.

  I told him to tell you that. He is not clever enough to think of that by himself!

  Vic, I don’t believe you – you are a liar.

  Why do you want to marry a man who does not love you?

  But she wouldn’t consider this. I was the problem in her eyes, not Fajar.

  Just promise that you will never see Fajar again, she said.

  I could find it in my heart to be very sorry for this young woman, but in the face of her intense hatred, it was hard to show it. Still, I did want her to realise that it would be just the beginning for her with Fajar. I know for sure he will betray her and hurt her again and again, maybe even more than he has hurt me.

  Aryanti I have already told you there will be no promises from me. There are many more women in the world. Are you going to get them all to promise to keep away from Fajar?

  I could see our interview would quickly be coming to a close, and had not gone according to Aryanti’s script.

  You will be very sorry, Vic, if I have to see dukun to put a spell on you!

  Your magic doesn’t work on bules, I replied scornfully, and I am not afraid of it. You can get his family to make him marry you, but you can’t make him love you, not by any magic.

  Do you mean the way he loves you, Vic? she replied. He loves you so much he going to marry me.

  She got up, turned on her heel and left me to pay the bill. The one thing you could always count on in this place. They would always leave you to pay the bill.

  28 November

  Early this morning he knocked on the door. He had come to take me to work and I was surprised and pleased because I had missed him. He had coffee while I got ready. He was quieter than usual and I asked him what was wrong, but he just shook his head and said: No. Nothing.

  We drove the back way to work, like fugitives, across the chalky vacant lot and then through very narrow streets past people I had not seen before, who stared without smiling as we brushed past them. The sun was striking the tin roofs and traffic was already heaving and spitting out poison. At the end of the back entrance he dropped me off – still troubled and not meeting my gaze. I was preparing to shake it out of him, but then had the feeling that whatever he had to tell me would make it too hard to go to work. Instead, I asked him if he needed any money. He almost took what I held out to him, but then caught himself and refused.

  Goodbye, Vic.

  12 December

  I had arranged to call him on the weekend. But the weekend came and he didn’t answer one call. For two weeks he has not picked up the phone or returned any messages.

  My teaching contract will be finished in a few weeks, and I have decided not to renew – to spend next year somewhere far away from this maddening treacherous city, with its eyes that follow you everywhere, its suffocating skies and its stifling ideas. Yesterday I was waiting for the lift when three of my colleagues arrived in a cloud of stale cigarette smoke. The teacher with the acne scars greeted me with:

  Have you caught a dose of the clap from your ojek driver yet?

  I kept my face completely still.

  No. He doesn’t have the clap. He is a mighty fine root though.

  Ah ha ha ha.

  Back in the cool, damp house I am not so tough. The nights are miserable and beyond lonely. I can’t
even tell him that I am leaving. And although I am furious, I am still worried – because at least I have the freedom to leave. Not him – he will have a child one day, before he is ready, and then another one, and he will be stuck here, scratching in the dust for the chance to be somebody’s servant. I do not have enough money to make sure that he will not sink back into the crippling, humiliating poverty that effaces and blames the self. Where less than mediocre men will not shake hands with him. I do not have enough to protect him. I do not even really have enough to protect myself. And then why should I care? I remind myself. Why should I care about this man who has left me still shocked and bleeding to be with another woman on the money I have given him?

  12 January

  Over the last few weeks I have been walking in the late afternoons in one or another of the dowdy long skirts I have bought, with someone else’s idea of modesty and decency in mind. On today’s walk, I receive a text message from Aryanti.

  HOW ARE YOU, YOU PEREK PROSTITUTE? WHEN YOU GOING BACK TO YOU COUNTRY? ARE YOU MISSING FAJAR? HE IS MY HUSBAND NOW – WE HAVE DONE RING CEREMONY TOGETHER.

  The ring ceremony is not the same thing as the wedding, but it is the next best thing. She must have made him do it straight away to be sure he wouldn’t wander off again. I think a while before answering, remembering the words of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh – whose bible I read one winter, holed up in a caravan in the bush visiting my hippy friends:

  When someone hits you, you should not turn the other cheek – you should hit them back – twice as hard.

  To hit back twice as hard is probably not going to be possible in this case. In the end I come up with this:

  CONGRATULATIONS. I HOPE YOU ENJOY HIS BODY AS MUCH AS I HAVE.

  After this, I half expect the male members of both clans battering down my door, but as Fajar had told her I had moved out of those apartments, I am probably safe. Besides, I am too angry to be really afraid. I have come to understand that for Fajar I no longer exist. I have been floating around like a ghost looking for answers. But there are no answers. I have simply been erased.