She wiped away a tear drop that had fallen onto her father’s plate. Vivienne said nothing.
Lintang looked at Nara. Only now, after all these years, did she finally realize what it was that was missing in her life: it was her father’s past life, the part of his life she had never known.
The telephone rang and then rang again. Lintang was reluctant to pick up the receiver but finally did. Her mother.
“Oui, Maman …”
Nara noted the look of seriousness that suddenly appeared on Lintang’s face. She talked to her mother for quite some time. Finally, after she had replaced the receiver, he asked, “What happened?”
“Ayah collapsed at the Metro station a few days ago. He was taken to the hospital and put through a series of tests.”
“And what were the results?”
Lintang shook her head. “Ayah has yet to pick them up. That’s why the hospital called Maman.”
Lintang knew the time had come for her to put differences aside and go to see her father
EKALAYA
THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT MY FATHER and his relationship with Indonesia I had always wanted to know. It wasn’t about the country’s blood-filled history or the problems affecting the lives of Indonesian political exiles as they roamed the world in search of a country willing to receive them. There was something that made my father extra sensitive to rejection, which I became aware of, little by little, because of his obsession with the story of Ekalaya he often told to me.
Up until when I was ten years old, my parents and I had a ritual we always went through as summer approached. The sun in late May is a friendly creature, not the angry monster it can become in June or the months that follow. And every year, at that time, we would fall in love once more with the Parisian sky, which seemed close enough for us to touch.
Ayah and Maman would take me to Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, the large park on the outskirts of Paris. For our personal comfort, as we waited to watch the films shown there—un cinéma en plein air—we’d bring with us knapsacks filled with blankets and books and a hamper of food and canned refreshments. As Ayah and Maman had begun this tradition when I was just a baby, these outings became something I looked forward to each year. It wasn’t until years later I came to realize that this custom hadn’t evolved simply from the pleasure we found in watching film retrospectives in the open air, but also because this form of entertainment cost my parents almost nothing.
On the blanket that Maman spread out on the park lawn, we’d lie on our backs, staring at the sky above. Another hour to go before the film began. Would the film tonight be one by Federico Fellini or Akira Kurosawa? Or maybe Woody Allen? Even when I was in primary school, my parents had me watching the classics of cinema — which until today remain clearly in my head. But the most pleasurable time of those evenings was when we, the three of us, would let our imaginations fly. I can see our hands raised upward, our grasping fingers trying to clutch the sky as we imagined a throne room and other such things up there. And I can hear Ayah relating stories that he plucked from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the two sources of almost all stories in the shadow puppet theater. Looking back, I guess that had been his way of trying to familiarize me with all things Indonesian — though he did explain that most of the stories had originally come to Indonesia from India. Through his repeated tellings, a number of wayang characters came to hold a special place in my heart. Two of them were Srikandi from the Mahabharata and Candra Kirana from the story of Panji Semirang. My choice of favorite characters seemed to surprise my father.
“Why Srikandi?” he asked.
“It’s like, in the story, she’s searching for the right body for herself.”
“And what about Panji Semirang?”
“He is looking for his identity.”
I noted the surprised look my parents gave each other.
“It’s interesting that you’ve chosen characters who change their gender,” Ayah said, not judgmentally. He seemed curious as to why I had chosen those two figures.
I was only ten years old at that time, and maybe my answers sounded too precocious, but it truly was because Srikandi and Panji Semirang were able to change their gender that they attracted me.
For me, the rules of the game in the world of wayang were as complex as they were baffling: imagine being able to switch genders back and forth! Ayah said my choices might be an indication of the kind of person I would become.
That night, after we were home and as I was beginning to fall asleep, I overheard my parents talking about our conversation in the park. My father said that he felt guilty, that I had probably chosen characters who were in search of their identity because he himself suffered from an identity crisis. She must be asking: who am I, an Indonesian who has never been to Indonesia, or a French person who happens to be half Indonesian?
Maman placated Ayah by telling him that she was sure I liked those two female characters because they were strong and their stories were action-filled, something that children always liked.
I found Ayah’s hunch to be the more interesting. He himself always said that his favorite wayang characters were Bima and Ekalaya from the Mahabharata. At first, I guessed that he liked Bima because the character was the epitome of masculinity: big and tall, strong and protective. But the fact was, he was attracted to Bima because of his faithfulness to Drupadi, the woman who — in the Indian version of the Mahabharata, at least — became the wife of all five Pandawa brothers. Bima’s devotion to Drupadi was even greater than that of Yudhistira, the eldest of the five brothers. It was Bima who defended Drupadi’s dignity when she was insulted by the Kurawa cousins at the time the Pandawa brothers had lost a bet with their cousins at a game of dice.
“It was Bima who protected Drupadi the many times that other men tried to force themselves on her during the twelve years the Pandawa brothers were forced to live in the forest,” said Ayah, with his lively interpretation.
“So why Ekalaya?” I asked.
“Because only he was able to match Arjuna’s skill with the bow — even without having studied under Resi Dorna.
According to Ayah, the lesson we find in the tale of Ekalaya is that a person is able to attain perfection of knowledge on his own accord, without having to study under someone. Ekalaya achieved his goal because of the strength of his commitment and will. Of course, the story actually begins with Ekalaya wanting to master the use of the bow and arrow beneath the tutorship of Resi Dorna. The arrow… What a unique and extraordinary weapon. So simple: just a rod, straight and thin, but with a sharpened tip capable of piercing the heart of its target. Arrows appear in some of my favorite stories; those from the Mahabharata and in films by Akira Kurosawa. But Ayah was frugal in sharing the story of Ekalaya with me. He waited for the right time.
I remember when I was little, Ayah received a package from his brother, my uncle Aji. In it were the two shadow puppets: Bima and Ekalaya. Ayah’s eyes glistened with joy as he removed them from their box and found a place for them to hang them on the wall in the living room. He kept saying how difficult it was to find an Ekalaya puppet, because he was not one of the main characters in the Indonesian Mahabharata. Ayah guessed that Om Aji could only have found the puppet in some out-of-the-way and forgotten corner of Solo.