I tried to explain the meaning of this force for Nara. “The problem is, if I were to make such a documentary film, the subject could only be the testimony of Indonesian political exiles. I wouldn’t be able to go to Indonesia to interview government officials. I wouldn’t even be able to set foot in the Indonesian embassy to record their official stance on political exiles like my father, Om Nug, Om Tjai, and Om Risjaf. And…
“Why can’t you go to the embassy?” Nara interrupted. “If you really want to, I can introduce you to people there.”
“No…”
“Why not? The embassy is always hosting one event or another. Almost anyone can attend and they’re always a good excuse for getting a good Indonesian meal. In fact, I have an invitation from the embassy to celebrate Kartini Day. What a brilliant idea!” Nara announced. “You really do have to see another side of Indonesian society — on the opposite side of the spectrum from the one at Tanah Air Restaurant.”
I scratched my chin.
“Come on, what do you say?”
“But they might…”
“As you yourself implied, if you really want to be an observer or, in your case, a student with a research assignment, then you have to get to know the other side of things, the people who stand opposite your father and his friends. There’s no need to be afraid. They’re not going to chuck you out the door.”
“But they might say something bad about my father in front of me.”
“It’s a celebration. Nobody’s going to do anything to ruin the party. You can be my date. We can go there to study the enemy’s movements.”
“They’re my enemies, not yours. Your family is on good terms with all of them.”
“Whatever… But let’s go. If you find yourself growing uncomfortable, we’ll just leave and go home.”
“T’es fou! You’re crazy,” I said.
“And you can wear a kebaya! It’s Kartini Day, after all. All the women will be dressed up in beautiful kebaya and there will be lots of good food.”
Hmmm, a kebaya… My heart began to waver. To waver because of kebaya… I had fallen in love with kebaya not because of Kartini Day — an annual celebration where Nara said women were expected to dress like Kartini, Indonesia’s proto-feminist whose every image shows her dressed in a sarong and kebaya with her hair in a low chignon — but because of its sensuous shape which serves to accentuate a woman’s beauty. The kebaya obeyed, did not oppose, the shape of a woman’s body. And always complementing the kebaya was a selendang, a simple but elegant long scarf which became an extension of a woman hands, slicing the air when she danced.
Nara slowly rubbed his lips against mine. A second reason for me to waver. I loved his kisses. He was always able to excite me.
“Kartini Day? You know, I’ve never read her book of letters. Do you think I should…”
“Good lord. You can research Kartini later. I bet you could count on one hand the number of Indonesians who have actually read From Darkness to Light. This is a ceremonial event, OK?”
“Do you think I should wear a kebaya?”
“Oui. A kebaya, a selendang, and all the other garb.”
Nara kissed me again. This time for a much longer time.
I first knew of kebaya from the photographs of my parents’ wedding. The pictures held a promise of something for me in the future. In them, Maman looked beautiful. Ayah, too, looked dashing in his suit, and the two of them were full of smiles. Now they were divorced, but the image of my mother’s beautiful white kebaya, a gift to her from my father’s family, remained clear in my memory.
Earlier today, I rushed to the Beaubourg library to find a copy of From Darkness to Light, the English translation of Door Duisternis tot Licht, a collection of letters from the aristocratic young woman Kartini dating from the end of the nineteenth century to her early death in childbirth at the age of twenty-four in 1904.
When I was in high school, Ayah had told me about Kartini and her struggle against Javanese feudalism for the advancement of women’s rights, but I had never read her letters. Fortunately, the Beaubourg library had a copy of the English translation and I was able to read about half of the book before I was forced to return home. Not too bad, I thought. At the very least, I wouldn’t appear to be completely stupid if anyone asked me about Kartini at the embassy celebration. But more important for me was that the celebration gave me the opportunity to wear a kebaya. I chose to wear an Encim kebaya, a pink one my mother owned. From Nara’s reaction, who said nothing except with his eyes, I knew I was right in my choice of this warm and cheerful color.
But Wisma Indonesia — the official Indonesian ambassador’s residence — was, for me, far from warm. This was my first time to the ambassador’s home, an immense, ostentatious building in Neully sur Seine, an elite area of Paris. Was Indonesia really a “developing country,” I wondered when seeing the place.
Upon entering the gate to the residence, I could hear the lively sound of gamelan music playing somewhere in the distance. Balinese gamelan music, for sure, with its rapidly paced notes punctuated by a hammering sound. I was trying to remember where I had first heard Balinese gamelan music — was it from a cassette of my father’s or one that Uncle Nug owned? — when a nudge of Nara’s hand on my elbow signaled me to enter the outer grounds, an area already full of attractive and well-dressed guests.
Most of the Indonesian women wore their hair in a high bouffant style, ratted underneath and sleekly smoothed over. Each must have used an entire can of hairspray to make their hair stand so stiffly high and in place. Weren’t they worried about being caught by a gust of wind? Or maybe they had birds resting inside their chignons, which resembled swallows’ nests.
The men were inconsistent in their apparel. Some wore suits and ties, but many others wore long-sleeved batik shirts. I favored the batik, which I thought was Indonesia’s most brilliant discovery. Ayah told me that his mother, my late grandmother, had been a skilled batik maker. To this day I am amazed at how a person with the use of just two fingers is able to create a painting so absolutely feminine on a stretch of cloth. When I was a little girl, Om Tjai once invited a batik artist to demonstrate her work at Tanah Air Restaurant. Every day after school, for the duration she was there, I would sit staring wide-eyed at the woman as she demonstrated her skills.
When Nara and I stepped into the portico of the residence where the ambassador and his wife were standing, we greeted the couple with a salaam, a quick rise of the hands, palms pressed together, our fingertips touching theirs. Because there were so many guests, I figured our hosts would not remember each and every one of the people they’d greeted. Inside the residence, we were greeted by a woman with a high bouffant who was dressed in a red kebaya and whose perfume was almost overpowering.
She motioned for us to proceed to the garden. “Go right in,” the woman said to Nara. “You know your way to the buffet. But first tell me, who is this young woman with you? She’s very lovely.”