“Don’t be afraid!”
“How can I not be when you disappear like that?”
Now he really did smile. “I didn’t disappear. I was just talking to Mas Willy.”
We walked back to where Gilang, Mita, Agam, Bimo, and Odi were waiting.
Bimo grinned broadly when he saw us holding hands. Reflexively, I released Alam’s grip. This was embarrassing. In Paris, there would be nothing out of the ordinary in such a display. But here, in Jakarta, I was turning into a shamefaced shrinking violet.
We went to our vehicles. Alam called out instructions before we started to go: “The crowd outside the gates has begun to disperse. We’ll drive slowly and make our way through. If there are too many of them, don’t do anything; just be patient and drive very slowly. But when you get to clear road, step on the gas. Got it?”
Agam and Odi, who were on Mita’s cycle, were the first to leave and the first to break free from the crazy mass of people on the street. Now it was our two vehicles that had to pass through the sea of people. It was totally crazy out there. As we made our way towards the intersection, we could see that Tomang Plaza was closed and now surrounded by a huge crowd. I couldn’t stand it not being able to record what was happening and I tried to shoot the scene through the van’s rear window. God, a crowd of people was breaking into an ATM.
“Are they looting?” I asked, surprised.
“Be careful,” Mita said to Alam, pointing to a group of long-haired men. Some were carrying thick wooden clubs which they used to rap the hoods of cards.
“Lintang, put that damn thing away!” she barked at me.
I immediately obeyed her and then was terrified to see that three men from that same group were now approaching our car.
Alam rolled down the window with feigned calm.
“Where are you going?” one of the men immediately asked.
“I’m trying to get home. My wife here is pregnant and I need to get her home,” he said as he stroked my cheek.
What!?
The three men stuck their right thumbs in the air.
Across the street, I caught sight of a few soldiers with rifles, sitting idly, watching the scene, and not doing anything at all.
When the men grinned at him and stepped aside for us to pass, Alam slowly stepped on the gas. But then, suddenly Mita screamed, “Watch out, Alam!”
Six or seven men came running towards us from the opposite direction. But their target wasn’t us; it was the car behind us, a Mercedes. Why they had chosen to stop the car and prevent it from passing, I could only guess.
“The people in that Mercedes, Alam, what’s going to happen to them?” I stupidly asked. Instead of doing nothing, Alam opened the door and got out of the car. Oh my God. He was calling out to the men. Two of the men broke away and came up to Alam. I didn’t know what Alam said, but I saw the brutes nod. They then called the other men, who had formed a circle around the Mercedes behind us. Alam got back into the car shaking his head.
“What happened out there?” I asked.
“When I looked inside the car and saw the driver was about the same age as Om Aji, I told the men he was my uncle and they believed me.”
He shook his head half hopelessly. Through the rear window we watched as the thugs allowed the Mercedes to pass. Mita tapped Alam on the shoulder and told him to speed up. Alam muttered that it was impossible for us to save everyone and that we couldn’t expect any help from security authorities.
On Kyai Tapa we gained a distance from the crowd, and all breathed a sigh of relief. When the van was in the clear, Alam stepped hard on the accelerator, making the vehicle lurch forward.
“So, I’m pregnant am I?”
Alam glanced towards me with a smile. “What did you want me to say? That you were in a hurry to edit your film footage?”
“Who were those men?” I asked. “They definitely weren’t students and they didn’t look to be people from around here.”
Alam shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s weird. All the men were about the same age. Some had crew cuts, others had long hair, but all of them looked physically fit and well trained — not like ordinary people. You saw how those soldiers just sat there watching even as those guys were picking and choosing which cars to stop.”
“So, who were they then?”
Again, Alam shook his head. I’m sure he had a hunch but didn’t want to say.
Mita, who generally had the coolest head and was the most rational-minded person among us, had just gotten off the phone with her mother and now looked worried as she reported their conversation.
“My mother told me that a group of men in a public transport van came and attacked Bintaro Plaza this morning. She’d gone there to shop at Hero Supermarket. Luckily, she managed to get out of the mall before they started to do anything. Even so, she was still afraid and there was real panic in her voice.”
O, mon Dieu.
Mita clutched Alam’s shoulder. Mita rented a small house in the Setiabudi area to be close to the office, but on weekends she — like Alam — usually went to see her parents, who lived in the suburb of Bintaro Jaya.
“Is your mother at home now?” Alam asked.
“Yes, but she’s in a panic. My father and their neighbors are coordinating efforts to blockade the roads into the area.”
“You should go home,” Alam advised. “Agam can take you there on your bike.”
“That’s all right.”
“This isn’t an offer. It’s an order. Hold on tight. I’m going to go fast!”—Alam drove Om Aji’s van with the speed of a plane. I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid we were going to crash into an electric pole or ram into the curb. But in the end we arrived safely at Satu Bangsa just around dark. Gilang and Bimo still hadn’t arrived in the jeep, but Alam felt sure they were safe. I had forgotten to eat all day and immediately stretched out on the sofa. I don’t know how long I’d closed my eyes, but suddenly I was awoken by the feel of Alam’s hand stroking my cheek. He was seated next to me, on the edge of the sofa. Alone.
“We have to go, Lintang.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“They’ve all gone home to their families, because they’re worried about those crowds breaking into the areas where they live. I think this place will be safe. Plus, there are a couple local watch-men outside.” I sat up straightaway.
“While you were asleep in here, there were bands of people burning cars and vandalizing stores out there. Agam took Mita to Bintaro. In times of danger like these, it’s usually neighborhood associations and their members who come together to prevent anything from happening to their homes and families.”
I was perplexed. What kind of mentality was this? What did the people have to protect themselves from?
“What, you mean to protect themselves against the kind of people we saw outside Trisakti?”
“That’s right,” Alam nodded.
“But why would they attack a neighborhood? What would they do?”
“Almost anything. Rob, steal, vandalize, or worse. Anything that an evil person would do, especially when he finds himself in a crowd of similar-minded people. With any luck, nothing will happen,” Alam said as if to calm me, though I felt sure he was trying to calm himself.
“There’s something weird about the group psychology in this country. When people are in a group, as soon as one of them screams ‘Thief!’ or ‘Communist!’ there’s no stopping the rest of the group from attacking the target, whether the target is an individual or a family and regardless if the accusation is right or wrong.”
I found this kind of behavior completely outside the norm of rational human behavior. Who could explain this aspect of Indonesia? I came here to study history and hear the stories of the victims of 1965 and now I’d found myself in another mad situation.