After we got into Gilang’s jeep, I asked Alam, “Why are we going to your place?” I was surprised to see the street was quiet — probably the only street in Jakarta that was quiet that early morning.
“You said you wanted to borrow a computer, didn’t you? You can use my laptop at home. Besides, I want to show you something,” he said with a grin.
I glanced back at my own laptop, resting beaten and forlorn on the back seat. I had to stop myself from swearing. I could only hope the screen wasn’t broken. That would be expensive to fix or replace.
Alam rented a very small house on a side street in the South Jakarta area of Pondok Pinang. The house was painted white and looked to be well maintained. It was covered with green climbing plants. As the house had no garage, Alam parked Gilang’s jeep on the street outside.
When Alam opened the door to his house, I felt like I was entering a large reading room, one both clean and comfortable. Every wall of the large front room was covered with books, from floor to ceiling. I walked around the room, saying nothing but feeling thrilled to be surrounded by such a large repository of knowledge. At the back of the room were two doorways, one open, one closed. Through the open doorway I could see a small kitchen whose walls and cabinetry were painted entirely red. I guessed that the only thing it was used for was making coffee and instant noodles. The other doorway, whose door was closed, I assumed led to Alam’s bedroom.
“You need to rest,” Alam said to me. “Why don’t you lie down on the sofa there or in my room. My room is also where I work. There’s a laptop on the desk. The password is SegaraAlam65 but I change it every week. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll put on some water to boil,” he said, leaving me.
I entered Alam’s bedroom-workroom and was amazed to see how it neat it was: almost too neat for a man living on his own, I thought. He must have a maid coming in regularly to clean up after him…or a girlfriend, I thought. Nara was fairly neat, but I would never have guessed Alam to be as obsessive about orderliness as he apparently was. Beside the closed laptop on Alam’s desk were three 2-B pencils and three ballpoint pens, lined up neatly beside one another, like a military defile.
A number of books and piles of stationery were stacked so straight that I hesitated to touch them. There was a door in the wall next to the night table, a closet I guessed. I looked at the bed and the bedside table next to it. The Titoni watch his father had owned was there now. Beside it was a wooden framed photograph. Looking closer, I saw the photograph was of Om Hananto, the same one that my father had in his photo album. The photograph was dated 1965.
I inhaled, wondering if I might catch a scent of perfume, the indication of a woman’s presence in the room. I looked around the room: at the bookshelf, the clothes tree, the rack on the back of the door, and the open-sided armoire as well. No photographs of a woman to be seen. No women’s T-shirt or a forgotten bra that might have revealed the inhabitant’s nocturnal activity. I often left articles of clothing and other items at Nara’s apartment — markers of possession, I suppose — but there was nothing like that here, in this room. I suddenly slapped my cheek to stop myself from pondering this issue any longer and sat down at the desk.
Just as I opened the laptop, Alam came into the room carrying two mugs of hot tea and handed one to me. I carefully placed the mug on the desk, far from the laptop, afraid that it might spill. Again I thought the room was too orderly.
“You know, Lintang, this wasn’t my first time being terrorized and not the first time for the staff of Satu Bangsa either. Whenever something like this has happened, we’ve lodged protests through both official and non-official channels and held a press conference; but the news is almost never picked up by the Indonesian media, It’s too sycophantic to support an organization like our own.”
“I was overly emotional earlier. Forgive me for that,” I said. “I was insensitive, thinking only of myself and my own work.”
“Listen to me, Lintang,” he said as he took my hand. “Mita and Gilang suggested I bring you here for a reason, but first let me tell you that we cannot let ourselves be defeated by terror, can’t let ourselves be defeated by evil. And also that because we’re now accustomed to being terrorized, we are now always prepared.”
I said nothing, waiting for further explanation. To my complete surprise, Alam then opened a door in the wall and motioned for me to look in. What was it? A storeroom? A panic room? A closet for shoes and clothing? Alam switched a knob and a light came on inside. Now my mouth dropped open. The small room, this closet or storeroom or whatever it was, was lined with shelves filled with manila folders and video cassettes.
“What is this?”
“What you see here are copies of documents from Satu Bangsa, our archive, which we move every six months: six months at Gilang’s, then to Mita’s, and then to my place.”
I was astounded. No wonder they appeared to be calm. Too calm, I remember thinking. Obviously they had been angry for the material loss caused by the destruction of their electronic equipment; but they knew at least that their most important documents had been saved.
“Some of the documents we duplicate in the traditional way, in print form; others we save on diskettes. But everything is here. Even all our video recordings.”
My eyes opened wide and my heart skipped a beat.
“Alam, are you telling me …”
He smiled and then bent down to pick up a stack of video cassettes all neatly labeled: “Lintang-Pram,” “Lintang-Mrs. D,” “Lintang-Surti,” “Lintang-Djoko,” “Lintang-Aji Suryo” …
“Oh my God!” I shrieked. “Is it, it really …?”
“Yes, it really is,” he said, placing the stack on the desk. “Mita makes copies of all our visual records and our files.”
I don’t know how to describe my emotions, but it felt like my heart was ready to jump from my throat. Excited, relieved, happy, and glad, I suddenly threw my arms around Alam and hugged him as tightly as I could. Looking up, my lips searched hungrily for his and, finding them, I pushed him backwards against the wall. He responded in kind, showering my face and neck with kisses as his hands ripped open my blouse, scattering its buttons on the floor. Whirling our bodies around, he now pressed my bare back against the wall. We didn’t even remove the rest of our clothes, so fierce was the desire we had suppressed for reasons of politeness and etiquette.
Just as I had imagined — actually even more than I had imagined every night since our first meeting — Alam possessed an immense and indescribably delicious power. How he so easily pinpointed the sensitive spots of my body, I didn’t know and certainly didn’t care, but that dark and overcast Jakarta morning was suddenly like the Parisian sky on the fourteenth of July, alight with bursts of fireworks.
Sunlight slipping through the window shades highlighted Alam’s features, who was fast asleep beside me. I studied the bridge of his nose and his thick black eyebrows. Pulling my knees up and then hoisting my body into a sitting position, I sat on the bed. Looking down at the buttons of my blouse on the floor, I smiled, remembering the heat of Alam’s body as he stripped me of my clothing. Alam’s once orderly bedroom now looked like it had been struck by a storm, or lightning, perhaps — by un coup de foudre. I had no idea what my next step would be, what I should do, or where I would go. Nara, Alam; Nara, Alam … Such a mad situation this was for me.
I would begin with small steps. First I would tidy Alam’s room. It was obvious that Alam was obsessively neat and orderly. Then I would dress, go home, and see about getting my laptop repaired. I would also make sure that my video camera was working properly and then review the work I still had to do to complete my final assignment. That was more important. The question of Nara versus Alam was one that I would put in a drawer in the back of my brain for now.