Love, Lies and Indomee

by Nuril Basri

  “She sold off your wedding ring!”

  I hide my finger on reflex. Inu is already looking at my hand.

  “Where’s your ring?” he asks. Growling.

  “I’ve got it,” I say, so afraid. I don’t realise how weak my voice is. My knees are buckling under my weight.

  “Where is it?” Inu yells.

  I cannot show it to him. “You told me the rings weren’t important, you told me we were married, even without the rings,” I say to him, feebly. “Right?”

  Inu looks at me. Just that. I want to drown myself in a river somewhere. My world is washing away. I need to win his trust again, but I don’t know how.

  “She sold her ring. Gave the money to her lover,” Nilam says. A sneer.

  Inu glares at me. It is a terrible thing. His breathing is quick and hard. I feel it on my face. He turns and goes over to the sofa, he picks up his jacket and his helmet, starts to put on his shoes.

  “Ms Ratu. You can go if you want to!” he says, turning to me a last time before leaving the house and starting his bike.

  “Thank God,” Nilam spits in my face. Then she leaves too. Ferlita follows her, victory on her face.

  And when they are all gone, I can only collapse and weep.

  That night I do not sleep at all. I am not hungry. I don’t bathe, I don’t do anything. I only sit on the sofa with the television on, waiting for Inu to come home. I hope he comes home. I really do. I want to sit down with him, just the two of us, and talk over steaming cups of tea, like in those ads. I want to tell him about the decision I made. Explain things. Be straight with him. But even though I wait until the next morning, he does not come home. At last I give up. The dawn azan crows on the TV and shocks me out of my zombie state. I switch it off and slide weakly into the bedroom.

  I take all my clothes from the cupboard, fold them and stuff them into a big suitcase. Ya, there was a time I wanted us separated. That was before I admitted to myself that I love him. And before I decided I’d forget about Hans. I should be happy. Now there’s nothing in the way of my original plan. But I no longer want my original plan, I decided that yesterday. And my new plan, to leave Hans to build a life with Inu? Argh, it is all so stupid. My new plan is gone too.

  Breathing out a long, long sigh, I accept at last that my marriage has ended. So long. That’s it. The end. Wassalam. But I cannot let it go, I keep thinking: Is my marriage over? Why is my marriage over? It is over? It is really over? How can my marriage be over? Why is it over? Is my marriage over?

  Inu probably hates me now. He wouldn’t want to be my husband. He wouldn’t even want to see my face. He probably thinks I’m a cheap, lying slut, a hypocritical adulteress, a fat bitch-witch. I don’t want him to think that way about me. But of course he does. He trusts Nilam and Ferlita more.

  After struggling to squeeze all my clothes into the luggage bag, a Marks & Spencer paper bag and an extra-large Indomaret plastic bag, I look around the house. I will miss it. I will miss the colour of its walls, the bathroom, all wet after Inu has taken a shower, the kitchen with its stacks of dirty bowls, the pink garbage bin, the bedroom. Even the little diary Nilam gave us, the one with the chicken feathers, that’s been left on the table untouched. I will miss it all. Will I be leaving this place, forever? Yes, I will.

  That was what Inu said. “Ms Ratu. You can go.” It wasn’t: “Get out of my house, you cheating fat bitch slut!” He didn’t say that, but I know he wanted to. He restrained himself. Was polite. And, honestly, that’s just as bad. You can go, you can go, as if it was what I wanted, from the very beginning. True, it was what I wanted, but, ah. Whatever. Enough.

  There’s nothing left to do, so I drag all my things out of the house. I lock the door and toss the key back into the living room through one of the windows. I take an ojek, then a van, then a bus, then I walk to my rental in Thamrin, central Jakarta. Once there, I go directly to my room and let go of everything. I lock the door, turn the lights off and fall onto the bed, asleep.

  *

  When I wake up the sun is setting. It is nearly maghrib. There are mosquitoes buzzing all around my room. Wordlessly, I turn the lights on, and realise that I didn’t go into work all day. I check my phone in a panic. There are several missed calls from the boss. Argh, why didn’t I try to explain things to Inu over the phone? But that’s stupid because we’re not teenagers anymore and only teenagers apologise by text. We need to talk things over, face to face. Why am I still thinking about Inu? I need to think of an excuse for the boss tomorrow morning. And now I’m starving.

  I open my bedroom door carefully, quietly, hoping I won’t see anybody. Of course, with my luck, as my door opens, a few heads turn to face me. I go out to the balcony. I sit on the sofa where Lala and I used to talk. I see her room, still locked. She’s usually back by now. So I sit there alone, for some time, and I pick at my fingernails. Not long after somebody shouts: “Ratu, you fatso!”

  I turn and see Lala in the doorway.

  “Hey,” I say. My voice is like gravel.

  She comes over. She has a big white box in her hands.

  “What’s up? Why are you here?” she asks loudly and fussily, setting her box down carefully.

  “What’s that?” I ask her, nodding at it.

  “Ah, it’s my birthday today. Mummy’s birthday! How could you forget? Bad girl!” she says, laughing. She likes to play mother with me. Her portrayal is more accurate than she knows.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I didn’t even know when her birthday was.

  Lala sits next to me, opens the box, looks inside. It’s a chocolate cake with a wedge missing. Looks good.

  “Want some?” she offers.

  I nod. I’m really, really hungry.

  We spend the next few hours eating cake and talking.

  “You know, this cake is from my boyfriend. He said, ‘Babe, I want to surprise you. But I want to surprise you in front of your family.’ So then I said, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back. Just bring the surprise to my office, ya.’ And of course I’m feeling good, heart all beating, bump-bump. I thought it was going to be a real special surprise, you know, because he said he wanted to do it in front of family. But then? It was just cake. Huh.”

  “You thought his surprise was a ring?”

  “Ya,” Lala says, sad.

  I try not to laugh at her. “You must’ve been so excited, right? Thinking he was going to propose?”

  “Oh, shut up,” she tells me. “I know you’re married, no need to rub it in.”

  “I’m divorced,” I say, stuffing down an extra-large mouthful of chocolate.

  “What? What? Divorced? Really?” She is agog.

  “Well, I don’t know, he asked me to leave. Drove me out,” I say, evenly, even though I really want to cry. But I don’t want to get carried away. Enough already. Treat it like a small thing. It’s a situation that gets worse the more I think about it, so I won’t.

  “How did it happen?” Lala asks.

  I don’t have a lot of friends, no one to open up to, so I decide to open up to Lala. I tell her everything. But before I can even start, she cuts me off.

  “It’s Hans, isn’t it? It must be Hans, don’t think I haven’t noticed how you two love to fool around in your room together.”

  “Ya, because of Hans. But it’s not what you think.”

  As long as someone knows the truth—the whole story and how much I regret everything, that’s enough. No, of course it’s not enough, but it has to be.

  *

  The next day when I arrive at the office the boss glares at me. I tell him my husband and I fought, and that we’d never fought before so I was so distraught. I apologise. He refuses to understand. He says I should’ve at least called or informed him somehow that I wasn’t coming in. “So many new cases, ya? The Bali police called us directly, ya? I need to go to Bali, ya. How could you do this, ya? Ish!”

  Koreans hate unprofessionalism. That’s what I’ve learnt. And I have been very unprofessio
nal. I even think I might lose my job today. I don’t. I lose it a few days later.

  I lose focus at work, I’m forgetful, I overlook things. The boss scolds me many times, his hands on his hips.

  And that day finally arrives. There is a Korean who has gone snorkelling in Bali and he never returns to the surface. It throws the boss into a panic. Cases involving death are very difficult to process; you need on-site investigation and so on. And it’ll be an underwater investigation.

  And just then the Bali police call, asking for a gesture of thanks, some form of gift, from the Korean embassy for their help in a case a few weeks ago. Okay, that’s normal. I’ll write them an official thank-you letter in English, embossed and everything, and I’ll send it by post. That should be enough.

  The boss appears at the door. “Look for the address of that missing person case, ya, and the contact of the investigating officer too,” he says. “I want it on my desk immediately. I’m leaving for Bali this evening.”

  I mutter: “Okay.”

  I’m still thinking of Inu. I write down an address, a few police contacts and I pass them to the boss. The boss leaves. I leave for my rental room. My phone battery is low and I don’t have the will to charge it. It is Friday after all. So I spend the next two days crying my eyes out.

  On Monday, I find the boss like a charging lion.

  “Write up your resignation letter, now,” he says, loudly, barely suppressing his rage.

  “Why?”

  “You gave me the wrong address, the wrong phone numbers, too. I was like a headless chicken in Bali!”

  I don’t say anything. Did I make a mistake?

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I was calling and calling you on your phone, but your phone was off?”

  I didn’t say anything to that, either. Because, ya, my phone was off.

  “I was wandering all over, can you imagine? I was like a crazy person, ya.” He slams his hand on my desk, then leaves. My colleagues whisper among themselves—it seems like they all know about it. None of them speak up. My mistake is fatal. I admit it. Giving the boss the wrong address for a case as important as that isn’t a small mistake, especially for a foreigner like him. It’s true, he would’ve been running around the island like an insane person. But at least he wasn’t bitten by a rabid dog. A small blessing.

  So I pack up my things without a word. I don’t have the will to ask for mercy.

  *

  My brain floods with regret. (Not regret for the mistakes I’ve made at work.) I begin to sob, uncontrollably. I have been so stupid—I let go of a life that was so good, so complete, just to return to this little box, skulking about with nobody to love and nobody to lean on. I miss cooking instant noodles in that little green-walled kitchen. I miss Inu and his soft snore.

  Luckily I have Lala, even though she tries to cheer me up by teasing me: “Aw, a divorcée and now a bum, too?” Lala brings me food and hugs me if I’m crying, and I don’t know what to do with myself. She knows how much I’m suffering.

  *

  The fourth day of my unemployment, I decide to go out. I leave my room. The next thing I know I’m walking towards Tanah Abang, where the row of little kiosks are, and soon I find myself in front of the one that Hans runs. I walked so far? What am I doing here?

  And, since I’m here already, I decide to go over to his counter. I don’t find Hans there, only Astrid. I cannot walk away and escape because she sees me.

  “Hi,” she says, peering. “Ratu, right?”

  “Y-ya,” I reply.

  “Why are you standing there? Come on, come in.” She is friendly. Maybe she noticed me wandering up to the kiosk. I go in, into the shade. I sit on a plastic stool, and place my hands on the display cases full of second-hand phones.

  “How’ve you been?” she asks. Astrid doesn’t look happy to see me, but she doesn’t look displeased either. Maybe that’s how she always looks—snooty. She looks really pretty. Glowing, even; it’s probably because of her baby. Her belly is very, very big. In her belly is Hans’ baby.

  “Okay,” I say. I’ve never been so physically close to her. I used to hate her. Pregnant bitch who broke Hans and I apart.

  “How’s the husband?” she asks.

  “Mmm, okay,” I say, wavering.

  “You wanted to see Fuad?” she asks. So she calls him Fuad.

  “Not really. Where is he? Actually, I wanted to sell my phone,” I say. A lie.

  She is quiet for a moment. Then she lowers her voice and leans into me.

  “Eh, listen here, Fuad’s married to me. He’s mine. You’re married, too. You have a husband of your own. Take care of your own husband. Don’t you dare disturb our relationship anymore,” she says, hissing, spitting. “You think I don’t know about you two? I’m not that stupid, okay? If you don’t know already, just look at me. Look at how I am. I’m the winner, here!”

  I don’t know what to say. So she knows. Ya, of course she does; this whore stole my boyfriend!

  “Stop chasing after Fuad, all right? You better stop. From now on, you and him are nothing,” she says.

  Who the hell does she think she is? Especially since I’m not chasing after some Fuad, I don’t know who the hell he is, I only know Hans!

  I stand up. I fix Astrid with a terrible stare. She stares back at me, defiant. I want to overturn the displays or push over the stuff on the counter to show her she can’t mess with me. (But there’s nothing on the counter except a small, worn exercise book.) I don’t want to argue with her even though my chest is filled with terrible white-hot fury. I do not say one single word. I do not want to make things worse.

  I take a step away. And then I feel damn stupid because I’m giving her all the satisfaction. I’m not fighting back at all. So I spin around. And I spit out a word I’ve wanted to say to her from the very beginning:

  “Whore!”

  Without work, I spend my time eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating. Soon I start running out of money, so I am forced to drag myself to one of the shops near my place and sell off my phone. Then I go back to the rental house and laze around, waiting for Lala to come home. When she does, we’ll walk up and down, and she’ll smoke like an incense burner. There are many new tenants. Most are boys—the rental house is unisex, anybody can rent a room. And the new boys are all quite handsome. But I’m not looking, I’m in love with Inu.

  Every day I wander the alleys around the area, looking for new and delicious foods. I watch the office workers out on their lunch hour, knowing I’m no longer one of them. I don’t really miss my old job. I worked at the embassy for three years. Maybe I got bored? My colleagues weren’t really friends. None of them bother to call or ask about me. Maybe the boss has found a replacement for me. Whatever.

  One day, before noon, I take a walk to kill time. I stop at a restaurant serving Padang cuisine. It’s a big place with lots of people. I eat, then I sit and stare. I feel so alone. I don’t have a phone. If I did, I’d call Hans for a date. Then I think about Astrid and hate rises in me like vomit. Everything that happened to me is that bitch’s fault. Damn boyfriend-thief! I regret not clawing her eyes out the other day.

  A waitress comes over.

  “Any more orders, miss?” she asks. Maybe she’s wondering why I’ve just been sitting and staring for the last twenty minutes.

  Suddenly I ask her: “Are there any job openings here?”

  “Oh, you’re looking for a job? I’ll go ask the boss, ya? Give me a minute.” She disappears into the kitchen area. Not long after a middle-aged woman with caked-on make-up walks over, plump and frowning. Maybe that’s just the way her face is.

  “You want to work here?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “Well, we are actually looking for help. But the work is all kinds, washing dishes, taking orders, cleaning tables, helping out in the kitchen. You want it?”

  I nod again.

  “Pay is 600,000 a month. You get two meals a day. Well?”

  I nod
and nod.

  “When can you start? Now? Do you have a photocopy of your identity card? If you don’t, don’t worry, we’ll get the photocopy from you later.”

  I nod and nod and nod.

  So I start work straight away. I don’t mind the low pay or the hard work. At least I have something to do. A week ago I was a secretary at some big-time embassy. Now I’m doing odd jobs at a restaurant. My look and my figure fit this better, I think.

  *

  Honestly, I like it. Every day I show up at the restaurant at ten in the morning. My tasks are sweeping, mopping and cleaning the tables, stuff I’m used to doing. It’s a decent job. I don’t have to worry about dealing with criminal activity, there’s no boss shouting at me, no police and bureaucracy. When the restaurant gets busy, I wash dishes, wipe them down and arrange them in stacks. Simple.

  When the restaurant is quiet, I like to watch the cooks. I stand behind them, out of the way, and I study the way they handle the food. When it is my turn to help in the kitchen, even though I’m only cutting carrots and vegetables, I feel very happy and it’s as if they know how I feel. They start teaching me some techniques, some skills like how much salt for a pan of vegetables, how to cook mutton rendang and so on. I love the work. Really! When I get to the restaurant every day I feel energised and I forget everything else. The people there are good to me. Most of the cooks are guys; maybe restaurant-cooking is too heavy a job for women. The girls are mostly wait staff.

  Not that I’ve forgotten Inu and all that’s happened. Of course I remember. But I don’t slide further into sadness. I’m just super busy, learning how to cook.

  One day, when assigned to wait tables, I serve a group of young laughing men. Not looking, I set the dishes down.

  “Ratu?” one of them says.

  Startled, I look up. I know that voice.