“Ayah bought a used video camera for me. A friend of his had several, and he bought one from him — but not all at once; he had to pay installments for months on end.” Lintang sat down beside Nara on her threadbare sofa. As Nara pushed the pause button on the player, she stared at the image of her mother’s face, frozen on the television screen. “Maman was not pleased with Ayah because their finances were so tight around that time.”
“I’m sure she thought that you were too young,” Nara quickly surmised.
For a moment, Lintang said nothing, then: “Later, of course, after she realized how much I loved film, she stopped complaining. But arguments between my parents always erupted whenever Ayah spent money on things Maman thought to be unnecessary.”
Nara said nothing. And Lintang felt reluctant to talk about how a love as great as the one her parents shared could be riven by seemingly minor domestic issues. She thought of her father. How long had it now been since she had seen him?
As if reading her mind, Nara suggested, “You really should visit your father.”
Perturbed by the thought, Lintang squeezed her eyes shut. “Nara, Nara… Have you forgotten that dinner of ours together — that fucked up meal, the very worst dinner in my entire life?”
Nara laughed. “That was months ago! Besides, Lintang, it’s in a father’s nature to be protective of his daughter when he’s introduced to the man she’s now with.”
Nara had already forgiven Lintang’s father for his behavior the first time they’d met five months previously. It was Lintang who refused to compromise. The night of their first dinner together had been the breaker for her; she had decided then she would never again visit her father unless forced to.
BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 1994
When I first suggested to Nara that he meet my father, he immediately agreed and made arrangements for the three of us to meet over dinner at L’Amour, a favorite place of ours in Brussels where both food and art ruled. The first time we dined there was around the time we first began to date. If I had to list the five most unique restaurants I have ever visited, L’Amour would definitely be on the list. The restaurant resembled a cave, a real cavern, with walls constructed of what appeared to be mammoth stones and whose multi-colored tables and chairs — which had been imported from India and Egypt, we learned — also appeared to be made of stone. The menu was personal, planned and served according to a customer’s wishes. The restaurant’s lighting was minimal with almost no electric lights at all, except for a few small ones in the cave’s recesses. Illumination was provided by candles, hundreds of them affixed to the walls of the cave throughout. Our first time there, I almost grew scared wondering if there was enough oxygen for us to breathe in that windowless place. But once that fear abated, we dissolved in the romantic atmosphere.
That said, and as much as I liked L’Amour, I didn’t think it was the most appropriate place to invite Ayah to dinner or for the two of them to get to know each other — not because the restaurant was incredibly expensive, with a clientele made up primarily of well-heeled people from Brussels and Paris — but because I was sure that Ayah would find the place to be pretentious and a testimony to the class differences that had so marked his life. But Nara had chosen the place because that is where the Lafebvre family liked to celebrate special occasions — wedding anniversaries and birthdays, for instance — and that is where he had first kissed me.
I knew that for a man like my father, Dimas Suryo, who had come to France from a country in upheaval — a place called Indonesia which, for me, existed only in the imagination — L’Amour would come off as being no more than a primping room for members of the nouvelle bourgeoisie with an urgent need to show off their wealth, and pseudo-intellectuals with brains no bigger than peanuts.
I tried to explain all of this to my dearest Narayana as subtly as I could, but being both stubborn and naïve (at least in regard to my father), he resisted my suggestion and went ahead planning that first dinner with my father, full of love and attention. Meanwhile, I nervously wondered what my father’s reaction would be.
The dress code at L’Amour required that male customers wear suit and tie — something my father never did unless absolutely forced to. That, I guessed would be a big problem. Then, too, I couldn’t imagine him feeling comfortable beneath the fawning attention of the restaurant’s beautiful waitresses or the haughty gaze of its handsome maître d’.
Remarkably, Ayah protested very little when I told him that he had to wear a suit. I knew that he was doing it for me.
That night, the two main men in my life looked handsome, a well-matched pair. My fingers were crossed that everything would work out all right. And I watched them intently as they adopted a polite attitude and began to engage each other in civilized conversation. It would be more accurate to say that Nara began the conversation. He began by telling Ayah of his visit to Jakarta the previous year. He spoke of the city’s horrendous traffic conditions and how hot and humid the city felt. He talked about “Abimanyu Fallen,” a dance-drama performance he had seen with his parents at the Jakarta Arts Building, and about developments in Indonesia’s art world in general. More particularly, he talked about painting, whose popularity, he said, far surpassed that of other art forms.
Perhaps it was this talk about Jakarta, but Ayah suddenly seemed disinterested in Nara’s explanation. He listened quietly, but offered almost no comment at all, as if unimpressed.
When the sommelier came to our table with the bottle of Saint-Émilion Bordeaux that Nara had ordered for our meal, Ayah accepted a glass and slowly took a sip.
“Expensive wine for a college student,” he remarked.
Aha! The first of Ekalaya’s arrows, shot straight at the target.
Nara smiled. “That’s all right. This is a special occasion.”
“What makes it special?”
Nara continued to smile and looked at me.
“Lintang is a very special woman.”
Ayah stared at Nara like a tiger ready to pounce on a creature that had entered his domain.
“So, you’re a student,” Ayah said, “but do you also work part-time, like Lintang does at the library to earn enough money to cover her other expenses?”
The second arrow. But Narayana patiently continued to smile.
“No, sir. But during the summer two years ago I worked at my father’s office.”
“Must have been nice.”
The third arrow, this one straight into the heart.
I stared at Ayah. What was he doing? Was it his goal to make the rest of my life miserable? Didn’t he understand that Nara was the man I loved? The person who always put my happiness first?
Ayah grumbled about his tie and how it was strangling him. His eyes, a camera lens, panned the interior of the cave-like restaurant, scanning the reproductions of paintings around the room and the thick hanging plants suspended from the ceiling. What a mistake this was! Why had Nara invited him to Brussels, to this strange and expensive place?
“Why do we have to wear a suit in this cave? Why not costumes like on The Flintstones?”
Apparently thinking this was funny, Ayah chuckled to himself. I wanted to take the tub of butter the waiter had just set on the table and stuff it in my father’s mouth.
Maybe because Nara did not react to his taunts, Ayah finally began to act more polite.
“So, Jakarta is chaotic, you say? I’ve heard all there is now are shopping malls. Is that true?” he asked as he cut his steak and broccoli.
“Yes, sir. But the thing is, there’s no clear style of architecture. And not just the malls, but the toll roads that crisscross the city, which the children of the president own,” Nara answered critically.