The Wandering

by Intan Paramaditha

  You can recall your childhood.

  Everything is happening too fast. You need time to stop, to breathe and put your story in order.

  So, let’s pause. Let’s go over why you insisted on leaving, though a justification isn’t really necessary. Travelling is the most ancient human desire. Just ask Odysseus. Just ask your mariner ancestors.

  1990: a black model train set became your favourite plaything. In fourth grade you loved playing with toy cars, miniature buses and trucks, hand-me-downs from your cousins, but trains were the coolest type of transport. Your parents thought you’d turn out to be a tomboy, but you liked dolls too. In your made-up stories, trains and dolls always went together. Your dolls – Barbie knock-offs bought at the morning market – wore nice dresses and nice shoes to board the train; only on rare occasions did you imagine your passenger as a moustachioed gentleman. You called your favourite train the Orient Express. You plucked the name from the title of one of your mother’s books that you read on the sly. When you grew up, you thought, the Orient Express would take you on adventures to uncommon places.

  But, in fact, everything about you is common. You come from a common family that live like the majority of common folk. Your father and mother met in Jogja, while studying at Gadjah Mada University. Your father is a Sumatran migrant from Lahat, whereas your mother is Javanese through and through, raised in Sleman. Although born in Jogja, you speak little Javanese. Your family moved to Jakarta when you were barely a year old. Your father worked for a private company, and your mother dropped out of university to become a housewife. They boasted of their prestigious alma mater, because studying there was their sole achievement. They lived in Jakarta as common people, with two kids who would grow into common people, doing whatever common people do.

  1994: the term ‘abroad’ evoked luxury. At your junior high, only the children of executives could go ‘abroad’. Some of your friends belonged to this bourgeois elite, and had visited Singapore several times. Back then everyone was crazy about brand names, and members of the bourgeois clique dressed from head to toe in what were seen as sophisticated labels: Levi’s, Doc Martens, LA Gear, Baby G, Ocean Pacific. Meanwhile, you felt content enough with an Osella shirt with a frog logo, and unbranded jeans from Cibaduyut purchased at the end of Ramadan, the time for a new outfit. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about some of those brands now, but back then collecting items from abroad with labels in English mattered to that clique. They said that white people were used to holidays. Australians visited Europe, Americans went to Asia, and so on. Your parents didn’t go abroad. Neither did your aunts and uncles, nor your neighbours. Back then, you’d bitch without bothering to reflect: Indonesia, we’re really a pathetic nation.

  Until you graduated from high school you were convinced you could escape the prison of mediocrity. You studied hard, you scrimped and saved. You imagined that every now and then you’d go to Singapore, just like the elite kids. Yes, of course, Singapore. Your imagination got stuck there. Japan? Too expensive. Cambodia? Inconceivable. America only existed on TV.

  You latched on to the illusion that you weren’t common when you became quiz champion of your elementary school and were selected for a capital-wide competition. Your father and mother were so proud. A dozen years later, as your circle of acquaintances expanded, you discovered that your achievement was in no way remarkable. Several of your friends had been champions and attended top Jakarta high schools, just like you. But their lives were entirely common. The older you were, the more obvious it became that you weren’t special. You began to suspect that your failure to transcend mediocrity stemmed from a wrong turn in your life, when you didn’t get into a top state university.

  1998: your final year of high school. Students demonstrated, clamouring for Suharto to step down. Political turmoil set the country aflame, but you faced a different upheaval: your parents were moving back to Jogja. The financial crisis had spawned mass lay-offs, and your father did not escape. You didn’t want to leave with them, so you studied desperately in order to be accepted to the University of Indonesia. Though hardly wealthy, you couldn’t envision a life without the blessing of trips to Plaza Indonesia and Pondok Indah Mall, those monuments that defined the meaning of 1990s modernity. Our high school conceptions of cool really can be pathetic.

  You applied for programmes in international relations and English literature. Your father and mother had studied engineering and didn’t value the social sciences or humanities, but at your cram school you’d heard that graduates in those fields often found jobs in the Department of Foreign Affairs. You dreamed of becoming a diplomat so you could travel; your father supported the decision because it sounded impressive. International: global, not provincial. English literature, on the other hand … ‘English’ sounded important, just like ‘international’, but ‘literature’ made him uneasy. He didn’t want his daughter to turn into some dreadlocked poet declaiming at Taman Ismail Marzuki. Mother defended you. She was convinced you could become an English teacher, or open your own school.

  ‘It’s a good choice,’ she said. ‘It’ll give you options when you have a kid.’

  In the end, Father agreed. But he also thought that someone with a certificate from the Juliana Jaya Sewing Academy could open a school just as easily.

  Some friends, no smarter than you, passed the entrance exam. When you learned that you hadn’t been successful, your mother held you tight and comforted you. ‘Lots of smart kids don’t get into UI.’ Her sweet words did nothing to make you feel better. Even today when you think about your failure, you obsess over the details in your head: had you been careless in working through the questions? Had your exam sheet become so damp with sweat that your answers were illegible? Were you so overconfident that your responses were reckless? What hurt the most was that your older sister had been accepted to the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology. She was one of a select few women who – to borrow your father’s words – ‘broke into engineering at Bandung’. Unstated, of course, was his assumption that mechanical engineering would prove too difficult for the female brain to grasp.

  Instead, you ended up at an expensive private university and majored in Teaching English as a Second Language. Your father sold off inherited land to cover your tuition.

  No miracle arrived to rescue you. Some of your friends continued their studies abroad, but your family wasn’t rich. You taught at EGW, English for the Global World, a prominent language institute in Jakarta. You didn’t open your own school, as your mother had hoped, but at least you brought home a decent pay cheque. Every year you applied for scholarships; every year you were knocked back. You could only look on enviously when Abidah, a fellow teacher, announced that she’d won a scholarship to Kangaroo Country (or, as you called it, Kylie Minogue Country). You’d never spoken to Abidah, but you couldn’t restrain yourself when you ran into her straightening her hijab in the ladies’ room.

  ‘Hey, do you have any tips on winning a scholarship?’

  She looked at you sympathetically.

  ‘Strive and seek. Yes, sister,’ she said, ‘man jadda wajada. Inshallah.’

  Abidah truly was successful, at least within fixed parameters. When she returned from Australia she wrote a book called Follow Your Dreams, which achieved minor renown. She focused on pesantren students who made their way to overseas universities by repeating the mantra man jadda wajada: the earnest will succeed. The bountiful love of Allah, however, evidently extended only to the earnest, not the envious.

  To add spice to your life you looked for a lover, but the guys you dated were all losers. You wanted a boyfriend like Marcus Werner, an English teacher and manager at EGW. You didn’t get why everyone called him a ‘native speaker’, like the instructors from America and England, given that he was from Germany. All the female teachers angled for his attention, either because of his blue-eyed good looks or because of his expat status, which meant he earned much more than local staff. Later you and your friends learned he was dat
ing a former student. One gossipy colleague couldn’t hold her tongue. ‘Now, that’s one damn lucky chick. She didn’t even pass basic-level English but she managed to rope herself an expat.’

  After failing to snag a handsome expat of your own, you scouted other available options. From a trash heap composed of men in professions ranging from civil servant to Internet cafe proprietor, you eventually found one whose eccentricities set him apart. Yudi, a philosopher, or rather a wannabe philosopher, read books and name-dropped thinkers and artists unknown to you. At first you found this appealing, but before long you realised that his only ambition was having time to read and write. He was a little younger than you and, despite seven years of study, he hadn’t graduated from university. After a quarrel with his parents, he refused to accept any more money from them and began to borrow from you instead. In time, he ended up staying with you in your boarding house, polishing off your bread and milk, and slipping packs of kretek into your shopping basket even though you didn’t smoke. He quoted Marx, and in his company you felt exploited enough to have discovered your own personal form of Marxist alienation. You had to rise up and revolt.

  The next stage of development after that Marxist’s exploitation was, naturally, socialising. You hung out with friends and went about life without a boyfriend. But you were soon complaining once more about the monotony of your boarding-house existence. A tedious story, and it was yours.

  You didn’t know what you wanted, apart from not wanting to be yourself. You didn’t want to live like your friends, your boss or your sister. Especially your sister. Immediately after finishing her degree she married a fellow graduate and became involved in a Muslimah fashion business (bye-bye, mechanical engineering!). Maybe there was nothing wrong with your sister. Her husband held a good job with a multinational automobile corporation, and they had a mortgage, a car and a pair of sweet kids. The older, a girl, is named Nazwa Salsabila Azzahra. You keep forgetting her son’s name. Naufal? Or is it Raihan? But you always remember the name Nazwa, at any rate. Maybe it should have been Nazwa Fatima Zakiyya. Or Nazwa Syifa Arrahma. Whatever. Such are kids’ names in contemporary Indonesia.

  Your sister looked happy, but you didn’t want her life. There was no one you knew whose life you aspired to. You had lost interest in becoming a diplomat.

  You wanted adventure.

  ‘We’re here.’

  You gawk.

  ‘Here’s the terminal, ma’am.’

  Ma’am? Why does he call you ma’am? Do you look old or something? You’re not even twenty-eight yet.

  The taxi driver pulls over without turning off the engine and hurries to open the door. His agile movements make you realise that you have no time to dawdle and daydream. Your past is too cumbersome to schlep around. Bye-bye, past, you say quietly. Happy rotting in hell.

  You tip the driver. You don’t know if two dollars is too little or too much, but you hope it’s enough to show your gratitude for being shuttled to the airport in time. The driver says curtly: ‘OK, thanks, have a good trip.’

  As you drag your suitcase towards the doors of the terminal, you sense something odd, something amiss. You glance down. You’re wearing black stockings and a red shoe given to you by Demon Lover. A single red shoe.

  Shit. Did you leave the other one in the taxi? Impossible. It couldn’t come off that easily.

  Please don’t let it be back in Indonesia.

  You feel weak as you struggle to recall where you left the shoe.

  Do you want to find out where you left it and what happened to you in New York? You might have to cancel your ticket and go back to the city (New York, not Jakarta). Maybe you should go to the police station and report the loss first, because who knows? Your shoe could be in the cab and the driver may be kind enough to turn it in. Or maybe you need to accept that Demon Lover was telling the truth. Sometimes we forget how we came to be where we are. Maybe you just need to keep walking with the one remaining shoe. No need to feel too regretful. You can always pick up a new pair in duty-free.

  If you want to cancel your trip and return to your home (wherever that may be) in New York, turn to the next page.

  If you want to report your loss to the police, turn to page 25.

  If you want to continue your journey to Berlin, turn to page 29.

  You’re waiting at Sutphin Boulevard Station, which you’ve finally located after asking umpteen people and passing several shops. You took the opportunity to stop in at one for a pair of shoes. The store looked tacky and sold cheap merchandise. No big deal. Once you get downtown, you can shop till you drop.

  The station, cold and gloomy, is packed with commuters waiting for trains. Some who are toting suitcases or large backpacks may well be like you, recent escapees from JFK. Everything rushes past in a blur, and you realise that you’re staring. Standing there feeling drained, beside your own suitcase, you notice muddy subway tracks and walls tiled in a dull white, splotched with brown. A rat darts along the rails and disappears into the darkness. There’s another one. It sniffs intently at the garbage, damp from a filthy puddle, then dashes after its companion. The pair of rats may be playing a little game of rodent tag. You observe with disgust. You try to turn in the other direction, but as far as the eye can see, there is only filth. Sticky black stains coat the platform. On closer inspection they turn out to be wads of chewing gum encrusted with layers of grime.

  Your legs are exhausted but you can’t sit: a homeless man, bundled in a thick jacket and sound asleep, has laid sole claim to the nearest bench.

  The E train finally arrives. You drag your suitcase into a carriage and take a seat. This carriage, in contrast to the others, is quiet. Crumbs of food and newspapers are strewn across the floor. Your fellow passengers consist of a lone young woman, and a man who is snoozing away. Strange city. In the morning, most people are rushing about, but one or two resist the tide of activity and slumber on. You sit by the door. Before five minutes pass, the young woman gets up and strides quickly to another carriage, covering her nose with a tissue. A pungent stench wafts from the dozing man. You want to switch cars as well, but moving your suitcase would be too much hassle.

  New York City is not as glamorous as you’d believed.

  You exit at Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue Station in Queens and are met by milling throngs of people. Their faces suggest East and South Asia, as well as Latin America, though nobody you’ve seen so far would be mistaken for Antonio Banderas. Street vendors sell shawls and wallets, reminding you of the maze that is Jakarta’s Tanah Abang market. A truck emblazoned with the word ‘tacos’ is parked next to a loud middle-aged woman hawking her wares: ‘Tamales, tamales!’

  How is it that New York resembles a Third World city? You walk by small shops with signboards in various fonts: Ecuador Notaria, Foto y Video Digital, Compro Oro. You can only guess at what they mean. At a corner, you turn and pass a grocery store, a vendor selling colourful saris, and an Indian restaurant. You revise your earlier thought: New York is a mini-version of the world. After your long walk, perfumed by a chaotic jumble of smells, from meat and onions to burning incense, you end up in front of an old brownstone apartment building – yours.

  You give the sturdy glass door a push and find a faded, white-lit lobby, its floor carpeted in tones of dull brown. On your left, a man smiles and offers a good morning greeting. He appears to be the building’s doorman. Not far from him, a woman sits on a fraying beige sofa, dull as the carpet. She wears sunglasses and a long red coat, and seems to be staring straight at you. You pretend not to notice. You walk, a little hesitantly, towards the elevator. Suddenly she calls after you.

  ‘Hello, Cinderella. Lose this?’

  Her voice is soft but in the quiet of the lobby it rings out like the clang of a bell. You turn to her. She rises from the sofa and walks towards you. Her right hand clutches a chihuahua; her left holds a sparkly red shoe.

  ‘Very nice.’ She surveys the shoe with something akin to awe before giving it to you.
<
br />   You nervously thank her.

  ‘How did –’

  ‘I found it in the lobby this morning,’ she says. ‘Take good care of it. You might not get it back if you lose it again.’

  She pats your shoulder, smiles, then turns and heads for the door. All sorts of questions leap up in your mind. How did your shoe come loose? How did the woman find it? Does she live here?

  You enter the elevator and press the button for the eighth floor. Your apartment is a one-bedroom, complete with a tidy cooking area, a small dining table with two chairs, and a futon facing a television. Not bad. You peer in at the bathroom with its matching orange carpet and curtains.

  Not bad at all.

  You open the door to your bedroom. The mid-sized bed, covered with a crumpled blanket, looks a mess. You open the wardrobe, and find some jackets and dresses hanging there. This is your home. How strange to think of a home. You can’t remember living here, but the apartment is filled with items that you assume are yours.

  You fling yourself onto the bed. It’s ten in the morning, but you feel drowsy. Your eyelids are heavy, and there is nothing to hold you back from sleep. You are tempted to imagine that, as has happened in the past, you will open your eyes elsewhere.

  Turn to page 35.

  The Wizard of Oz

  The main character in The Wizard of Oz, as we know so well, is not in fact the wizard, who is actually from Omaha, but a sweet girl who wishes to escape her tiny Kansas town. Aside from its occasional tornadoes, Kansas really isn’t such a bad place; you can be content to farm, to raise livestock, to keep house there. In your spare time, you can visit your neighbours or sing with the local fellas. As long as your pup doesn’t nip the meanest old maid in the neighbourhood, you can live in peace. But the girl, Dorothy, isn’t happy. Our Dorothy is played by a pigtailed Judy Garland. She gazes longingly at a point off-camera, past us, the audience, to a place far away, somewhere over the rainbow.