“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 Cendana 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.