I know that the New Order government has more power than ever before, but the ban of those magazines and newspaper indicates a level of arrogance that is beyond belief. They did it because they knew they could do it and get away with it without there being any impact whatsoever on their continuation in power. The students and activists can protest all they want, but the noise they make is little more than the buzzing of a mosquito waiting to be slapped. The (Western) world may grumble, but the Indonesian government could care
the less; their ears are plugged and sealed. It’s all so easy. Life goes on, “aman sentosa,” as our Javanese president is prone to say, in a situation of safety and security.
What is the news of Lintang? She must be a high school senior now. Is her plan to go to the Sorbonne working out? I always pray for her success.
Andini is preparing for her final high school examinations and is experiencing a bit of stress. She hopes to get into the Faculty of Letters at the University of Indonesia. Rama meanwhile has just done something both startling and worrisome: he applied to and was accepted for employment at PT Cita Karya, one of the state-owned construction companies in Jakarta. Obviously, he didn’t use the Suryo name on his application form. Ever since his acceptance into the firm, he’s rarely been home to visit except at the time of the Idul Fitri holidays.
Retno sends her warm regards. If you know anyone coming to Jakarta, let me know and I’ll find the cloves and other spices you want. And, of course, if there are any new books you want, tell me and I’ll pick them up as well.
In closing, give my love to Vivienne, Mas Nug, Bung Risjaf, and Bung Tjai. And a big hug for Lintang!
Yours in Peace,
Aji Suryo
Lintang leaned back against the chair and thought of her uncle’s family. She had never met her two first cousins, only seen their pictures. What she knew of them she had learned first from her father, when he would tell stories about his brother, and then, when she was older, from her own correspondence with Andini. She had met her uncle Aji just once, when he came to Europe for office-related work and took some extra days off to come to Paris to see his brother, whom he hadn’t seen in the flesh in more than a couple decades. Even though she was only in primary school at the time, she would never forget how long the two brothers had embraced and how they had talked as they smoked and drank coffee through the night and into the morning. That was the only time her mother hadn’t grumbled about the ashtray full of butts and the ashes scattered everywhere.
That visit was when Lintang learned a bit more about her two cousins, Rama and Andini, enough to make them more real for her. Rama was in senior high school; Andini was still in primary school, just like herself. Om Aji told her that Andini liked to read, just like her; so that same evening she begged her mother to take her to Shakespeare & Co. to buy some English-language children’s books. Lintang willingly sacrificed her small allowance so that her cousin could read the books that she was then reading: Little Women; an English translation of Le Petit Prince; and an abridged English-language edition of Les Misérables.
Sometime after Om Aji returned to Jakarta, Lintang received a thank-you letter from Andini for the gift of books she’d sent. Thereafter, the two of them soon became pen pals. Lintang was especially pleased to have a cousin like Andini who, like herself, was a fanatic reader. Over time, and with the advent of the Internet and their subscription to e-mail accounts two years previously, the traditional snail-mail exchange of letters between the cousins had changed into a rapid exchange of ideas through the virtual world.
Lintang imagined meeting her cousin for the first time and how happy she would be. Having grown up as an only child, she had often wished for a sister or brother. She had some distant cousins from her mother’s side of the family; but since her mother’s brother, her Uncle Jean, had never married, she had no close cousins in France. She was excited and looking forward to meeting this sister-like cousin with whom she had corresponded for so many years.
Lintang’s thoughts returned to her father’s cache of correspondence. Looking through the stack, she found several more from Aji but then, when she saw one with a completely different kind of penmanship, her fingers stopped searching. She removed the letter from the pile. Surti Anandari. Her fingers trembled. The stationery had yellowed and the ink was somewhat faded, but she could still read the words clearly.
Jakarta, December 1968
Dear Dimas,
I don’t know whether you will receive this letter or not. After having been detained for several months at the Budi Kemuliaan detention center, I am now home.
In the many times I was interrogated, I didn’t know what to say and didn’t know how to answer their questions whenever they asked me about Hananto, because I really didn’t know where he was. I wasn’t lying then and I never will lie. I never knew what Hananto was up to — either in matters of love or politics. But they didn’t believe me. Or simply didn’t want to believe me.
Since they captured Hananto last June, we’ve heard nothing from him directly. After he disappeared in October 1965, I only heard about — but didn’t actually know — how he was able to move about, like a shadow in the mist, from one
village to another, from one city to another. I only heard of his peregrinations through the wind. And more than that, through silence.
For the last three years, I have faced calamity, which was a risk I took on when I married Hananto. In each session, the interrogators threw at me the same set of questions from morning till night, with breaks of only a few minutes in duration. Sometimes the interrogators were polite. More often they shouted the same questions over and over like a cracked LP. Did I know about Hananto’s activities, and what kind of activities his friends were engaged in? Did I know about the meetings that Hananto attended?
But if I had to choose between the two kinds of interrogators who questioned me, I would choose the one who shouted and screamed at me rather than the soft-spoken one, who asked in a mild-mannered tone what I and Hananto did in bed. One interrogator, a middle-aged man, was truly vile. The day it was his turn to find out where Hananto was hiding — Was he with some family member? Was he at their home? — he asked his questions with his left hand in his pants pocket all the while. As he slipped in questions about our marital relations, he slowly masturbated. I was so disgusted, I refused to answer his questions. But then he began to ask about Kenanga — how old she was and whether she had begun to menstruate. That, I tell you, Dimas, was the worst kind of mental terror that I experienced! I wasn’t as concerned with Bulan and Alam, as they were still so young. Being just six, Bulan looked on everything happening as a kind of game. In fact some of the guards and interrogators even gave her and Alam toys to play with. Alam was still of the age that he liked to be cuddled by almost anyone. Alam is such a
good-looking boy, and with his fair skin and curly hair, many of the inhabitants and detainees of Budi Kemuliaan took pity on him and gave him rice water as a substitute for milk.