I thanked Tante Surti for her willingness to speak to me and apologized for having had her reveal for me the sad times of her past. I hugged her close and long.
“So, how did it go? What was it like?” Alam asked in the back of the taxi. I turned towards him, breathed in his clean, soapy smell, and studied his features, changing with the reflection of light from oncoming cars. “Depressing. You must have guessed that.”
I didn’t quite know what else to say. The subject of our conversation was not some distant respondent or source. He was asking me to talk about his mother and her family’s difficult life story, one whose only silver lining is that it had made them strong and resistant. Unfortunately, it had also instilled in them, or at least in Alam, an anger for forever having to suppress any thought of revenge and any hope of justice.
“I can’t imagine the pain my questions must have caused her,” I said. “And I can’t measure the fortitude your mother must have to be able to revisit that time in her life when her worth as a human had been so degraded. Where did she find the strength? Several times, I offered to stop because I didn’t know if I had the strength to continue.”
Alam made my heart leap when he took my hand and held it tightly in his own. “Ibu would have refused to stop.”
“Yes,” I answered while staring at my hand he was holding.
“You must be hungry,” he said.
“You’re the one who must be hungry,” I said. “Your mother told me you can eat anything and everything at any time of the day. What I feel right now is just the need for a bath.”
Alam inhaled and said, “You smell just fine!” He then spoke to the driver: “Driver, take us to Kampung Melayu, to the seafood food stalls, the ones near the hospital.”
Without even consulting me, Alam had made a decision for the both of us, just like that. And for once, I didn’t object, even though I would have preferred to take a bath and refresh myself after another hot and muggy Jakarta day and the interview I had conducted with his mother.
Alam took a notebook from his knapsack and flipped it open. “I don’t have much on tomorrow; just a planning session at the office. If you like, I can take you to a book discussion on Jalan Proklamasi where they’ll be discussing the books that Pramoedya wrote when he was imprisoned on Buru Island. Pram is supposed to be there. If he is, you might be able to talk to him and get an appointment for a longer interview at his home. Would you like to do that?”
“Of course I would!” One of my goals was to interview Pramoedya and I was so happy I kissed Alam on the cheek. “This is the best news I’ve had since arriving here. Merci, merci.”
Alam’s eyes were on the street rushing past the car’s side window, but he raised and kissed the back of my hand. Again, I didn’t object. At that moment Andini’s cell phone rang. What song is that, I wondered, and why had she replaced the normal ringtone with it? No number appeared on the phone screen.
I pushed the answer button and spoke tentatively, “Hello…?”
“Salut, ma chérie …”
“Nara!” I looked at Alam and slowly released my hand from his grasp. He continued to stare out of the window, unaffected by my move.
“Tu me manques, Nara.” Even to my ear, I sounded overly enthusiastic in expressing my longing for him.
He laughed and said, “I miss you too. Ça va?”
“A bit tired, actually. Lots going on here.”
“How are your interviews going?”
“I just finished one.” I glanced at Alam, whose unblinking eyes remained trained on the Jakarta street. Though he showed no outward reaction to my conversation, I sensed that he was listening carefully.
“Have you interviewed Pramoedya or any other writers?”
“Not yet,” I told him. “My interview today was with Surti Anandari.”
“Ah, Hananto’s wife, the friend of your father… Speaking of whom, you’ve heard about your father, right?”
“Yes, Maman called yesterday to tell me that she would be taking Ayah to the doctor today. I don’t know what kind of threat she used, but at least she got him to obey,” I laughed.
“I miss your voice so much, and your laughter too,” Nara said. “At least now, we might find out what’s wrong with your father. I just wanted to call, but now I have to go, Lintang. Be careful, my love.”
“Salut.”
“Salut.”
I shut off the thin cell phone as I tried to think of a way to restart my conversation with Alam and break the uncomfortable silence that had suddenly suffused the taxi. My mind went blank. I didn’t know what to say. And Alam continued to torture me with his own silence and by continuing to stare at the passing storefronts as if they were exotic tourist sites.
Suddenly, he turned and looked at me. “So Nara is…?”
“My boyfriend…”
“And this boyfriend of yours is telepathic or has the power to project himself to Jakarta just to remove your hand from mine?”
God, this was confusing. How was I to answer such a question? To talk with my boyfriend on the phone when my hand was being held by another man… How could I do that? Was it even ethical? But hadn’t I gone past ethical bounds ever since…ever since le coup de foudre?
Alam now gave me a sharp glance. “Don’t bother to answer,” he said in English. “Do you know why my mother dotes on ikan pindang serani, the spicy and sour milkfish soup? And turmeric? And jasmine flowers?”
I nodded my head, unsurely.
He looked at me intensely. “Those three things are symbols of a past love — an intense and deeply felt affection that could never be fulfilled.”
“…which is why my father always has a stock of turmeric in his apothecary jars,” I replied as if finally inserting the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle.
“I don’t want such an ending: to love someone and then to lose that love and only be able to remember from a distance and wonder what might have happened.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Them. Your father and my mother. I don’t doubt that my mother loved my father, and I am sure that your father loved your mother, too; but I am also just as sure that they loved each other. Their names, Dimas and Surti, are a symbol of lost hope and a broken love story.”
Alam bowed his head, bringing his face very close to my own, but then stopped, not touching me, directly in front of my nose. I could feel his breath, which smelled of menthol and made my blood course faster through my veins.
“I don’t want to be like them. I know what I want and now, after thirty-three years, I I’ve finally found it.”
Now it was I who had to look out the window.
Jakarta, May 6, 1998
Ayah Dearest,
I was so happy to hear that you finally let Maman take you to see the doctor. Please ask her to call. I’d like to hear from her what the doctor said, because I know that you don’t like talking about your health.
One more request is for you to do whatever the doctor tells you to do. Please do this for me, and for everyone.
Jakarta is not the way I thought it would be. It’s so packed and crowded and so hot and humid and so different from how you yourself must imagine it to be. It’s a megalopolis now with huge bedroom communities like Bekasi to the east, Tangerang to the west, and Bintaro and Pamulang to the south. The numerous toll roads and flyovers, arranged in pell-mell fashion as they are, make me feel sorry for any cartographer who had to make a map of the city.